Yes, it’s December, so I am officially allowed to say that Christmas is coming. What with being on maternity leave, I am quite prepared for the silly season: at least I have bought most of my presents (being in to receive Amazon Prime deliveries has its benefits!) and my Ocado and butcher’s order are in […]
Dinner
Weeks 45 to 48 – bringing up baby
Where oh where does the time go? It’s like Ioan eats it with the same enthusiasm with which he eats his fingers (teething, wow, that’s not exactly a bundle of fun is it?!). Anyway, I have been planning my menus, but each time Sunday pops around I realise I don’t have time to write up […]
GBBO week 8 – chicken and leek pie with hot water crust
I can’t say that Tudor week on the Bake Off was one of my favourites – I cannot stand marzipan so didn’t fancy much that the GBBO crew made for week 8, so my only option really was a pie. That’s not a bad option, to be fair, and to meet the Tudor theme I made […]
Week 44 – Chicken curry and chips, from the Chinese, in Wales
Yes, you read that correctly: chicken curry (what you might expect to be Indian in origin), served with chips (British?), but from a Chinese takeaway, in Wales. This is the food Andrew craves, and what he was delighted to eat during our recent trip to Wales. This is not the kind of curry you would […]
Week 43 – amazing roast beef and Laguiole carving set
Many years ago, Andrew went out shopping to buy me a birthday present in his lunch break, and when he returned to the office his colleagues were eager to know what he had bought me. It was a frying pan. They were horrified, but Andrew explained I would be delighted with it, as it would […]
Week 42 – invasion of the Welsh
As the first grandchild on both sides of our families, Ioan was always going to receive more than his fair share of attention from his grandparents. My mum lives in London so gets to see him regularly, but just for a few hours at a time, and Andrew’s parents live in Wales so see him […]
Week 41 – Asia to Columbia on a plate
Looking back on my week’s photos, I can see between the thousands of pictures of Ioan that most of our food has been Asian inspired this week, with a little pop across to Colombia for lunch with the girls. First up was a prawn stirfry for meat-free Monday – although I normally like to avoid […]
Week 40 – how wonderful life is while you’re in the world
So, with Ioan at 8 weeks old, we had our first night out without him. My brother, who pretends he is not a big softy even though he already dotes on Ioan, babysat for us. We were completely confident that Jason would be fine with Ioan, but would Ioan be fine with Jason? He has […]
Week 39 – a carb-tastic week
Obviously, as any new mum could have told me, I didn’t manage to meet my meal plan every day this week. However, I didn’t do too badly … and I even managed breakfast on Friday (Ioan started crying the second I took this photo!): Obviously I didn’t manage to make my own spinach and ricotta […]
Week 38 – a new normal
Since the birth of our son, life has changed dramatically. Of course that won’t surprise you – whether you have kids or not, you know that a baby in the house means that your life is dictated to by a tiny human who can only communicate through crying (and the odd scream), who you simply […]