Pondering Ponteuf

home comforts

I have mentioned before how I miss certain foods from my homeland . Normally every British Mother's day my dear hubby takes me to this fab place for my yearly fix of decent chips .Sadly due to the storm that left us without power for three days

 

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and a babe that was struck with a 24hr stomach bug in the middle of the night of said blackout,my mother's day was postponed. I had been jonesing for these chips for some time but of course,have a plan.......

                          anyhoo,a bag of spuds and an achy wrist from my hand peeler,we had this,

 

and a 1/4 c of olive oil,a teaspoon of sea salt and 45 minutes in an oven at 425.(Thank god that we had a gas oven!)

We had this...

 

Not for long :0) yum,yum

Disaster avoided,Mummy happy and you know what they say,

If Mummy ain't happy.................

xxxx

 

 

What's for dinner in your house?

Tonight we had

:: Spinach,pear and pomegranate salad with blueberry dressing,yum!

Someone distracted me when I was deseeding and raided my stash

 

I have a suspect!

Yes that picture was taken today.A balmy 68 this afternoon!

Anyway,salad was followed by spaghetti and meatballs.

This meal comes with a promise of a whine free dinner.I am tempted to make it EVERY night!

 

As for my 29 days of giving.

It is going well.

Monday :: I purchased the top five items on my shopping list twice and popped the items in the food collection box .

Tuesday :: I gave an old lady tens minutes of my time to help her find the exact (and boy she knew exactly what she wanted!) batteries for her smoke detectors.All ten of them!She had forgotten her glasses and was having trouble.Ollie helped too by throwing in a few extra items in her cart :)

Wednesday :: I fed the meter of the car next to mine when I parked as it was expired and I spotted a traffic officer in the lot.Saved them a ticket:0) That felt great:0)

Anyhoo,that's it for today,talk soon,

xx

Pizza and pants..

Yes,that is all I could come up with for the title!Blame it lack of sleep,lack of caffeine or lack of vocabulary(from many years of talking to my babes!).In fact,let's blame it on all of them today!
Anyway,much fun was had yesterday.Whilst making my weekly loaf stash,I made some extra dough for pizza.The kids had such a blast kneading it,throwing it around and topping it themselves.My husband even declared it better than the pizza in town,which made me a very happy mama:0)

First we practiced with play-dough!

Master 'O' practiced by eating the play-dough! I promised him that mummy's pizza would certainly taste better.

When madam 'I' got home from school we set to work on the real thing.

Master 'G' gave it some welly!!

Even master 'O' gave it a go! Well,actually,after a nano second of kneading,he just ate the dough again!

A quick lick of the flour!yeeuuuuuck!

Time for toppings

'cheese,Gromit!!'

Concentration is the key to a good pizza..

By the time we were done putting them together,blood sugar levels in the house were at an all time low.It took all my energy,patience and coordination to get it on the table without stepping on someone that was hanging off of my leg screaming or without screaming myself!! So,needless to say,I did NOT get pictures of the finished product,but it was mighty tasty:0)
As for the pants part of my title.Here is a sneak peek of what will be in my shop over the next few weeks.
They are not actually pants but pants went better that board shorts,sorry,what can I say?? I like titles to flow!
I have had these in mind since the first mini boden catalog plopped it's tempting little self on my door mat!
I love their board shorts,I just don't like the prices,so I traced the only pair that we have (thanks mum!!) and worked from there.I wanted to jazz them up a little so I added a tuxedo stripe down the side,some knee tucks and a little superbuzzy
from my hoarded stash for the trim.
What do you think?

On a different note.My sister and her boyfriend are coming in from the UK tomorrow.YAY YAY DOUBLE YAY.i cannot wait (if you hadn't already guessed) and they are bring proper easter eggs for the kids.Double yay again.
On that note,toodle-oo.

Mix a pancake,stir a pancake....

pop it in the pan.
Fry a pancake,toss a pancake,catch it if you can...

I think I've got it,

Add it to the growing pile,everyone was so excited.

My master chef was sneaking sugar as I was peeling pancakes off the ceiling!!

While I love a huge stack of American pancakes,dripping in syrup and topped with a mosaic of butter tiles.Some days you just can't beat an all you can eat,British pancake feast.My dear friend brought me a nice tin of Lyle's golden syrup.Oh that gooey liquid gold,mmm,it makes you mouth water as it takes it's time to slowly edge it's way off of the back of the spoon.As a kid I was so eager to slather it on my pancake but it just wasn't speeding up for anything.I remember standing next to my Mum,so desperate to see into the pancake pan that I would nearly singe my eyebrows! My poor mum could not make them as fast as I would eat them.If I would tire of syrup,I would opt for a jolly good squeeze of a lemon (no,the fake stuff WILL not do!!) or an orange plus a sprinkle of sugar to soak up the tartness.Roll it up like a telescope,(this is not the time to be playing ships ahoy with them though as you will end up with a sticky eye!) and eat,eat,EAT!!
Pancakes anyone????

These are so simple
3 cups of flour
2 eggs
enough milk so that it is really quite runny.play with it until you get the right consistency.You can always add more milk but you can take it out!
Heat the pan,nice and hot.Add a nugget of butter,when it's melted and coated the pan,Ladle half a cup of batter into the pan and swirl it around until it thinly covers the whole pan (a 10 - 12" works best)
let it brown underneath,shake the pan to loosen it and give it a good toss.Pile them up on a plate,keep them warm in the oven and serve to a hungry crowd:0)
Oh by the way,the first one is never good,just toss it (no pun intended)in the bin.
I probably made about thirty and they were gone in about ten minutes flat.
On a different note,I cut my hair.A good six inches was loped off last week.I decided to take a photo to show mum and the crew back home as considering that my hair grows faster than an Audi on the autobahn,it will be long and tied back again by the time they see me.Well,who knew that taking your own picture would be such a palava!! seriously,I found it quite frustrating and my smily muscles were aching! So anyway I finally figured out that I needed to look into the lens via the mirror and I just started talking to myself in the mirror!!yes I am as mad as a box of frogs but it worked!!
Anyway do you like it?
Here's me getting very confused by the whole thing..

pouting and stomping my feet

AAaaahhhh,now I get it..

This well groomed me lasted all of maybe two hours..

And last but not least,a bit late I know as over there it is four in the morning but technically I am not late,it's only eleven pm here.Still one hour to be waited on (yeah right!)
All you mummy's over there in Ol' Blighty
HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!!!! I hope it was a good one:0)
I'll be showing my latest sewing adventure tomorrow,
Have a great day,

Baking with my little man..

I think that it is really important to have one on one with the children whenever possible so that you they aren't always vying for attention.I find that if we go too long without doing this then there is a lot of negative attention being given,after all,they get to the point of,attention is attention.This is one of the main factors in my toing and froing between adding to our brood.Not to mention the fact that I might end up as mad as a box of frogs in the progress but I digress. Anyhoo,now that Master G is napping less and Mister O is on somewhat of a schedule of napping whilst the madam is at pm kindy.I find that I get that one on one time with Master G a few times a week.I really enjoy hanging out with him as he is an endearing,amusing,amazing ball of fun.Sometimes we just lay on the floor and play trucks.Trouble is anytime that I am horizontal between the hours of 12pm and 2pm it seems that I fall asleep at the drop of a hat.This results in the truck driver becoming very frustrated and showing it by reversing said trucks into my snoring self until I get off my bum,get some coffee and rejoin the game with a sore head and not so much enthusiasm. So we tend to do more active thing such as football in the new blue room (we also did this when it was the sixties room but it's more fun now as it is nice and bright) or just some kiss chase but our favorite activity together has to be baking.He gets so into it.Anytime I am cooking,he will always pull up a chair and help me. So we made our favorite cookies and had a sing along.Me,into the ice cream scoop,Master G,into the mixing paddle.Hey it gives lots of opportunities for a sneaky lick of the cookie dough.I have him sussed,he just doesn't know it:0)

First of many tastes

and another..

I always put an extra half a cup of chocolate chips in so that by the time Mr little sticky fingers has had his fill of tastes,we generally have the right amount left!!!

Oh the concentration!!!!

"hey Mummy,can we make one big,super big,all for me,cookie"????

Me:: "Err,I don't think so!!"

I find that the ice cream scoop makes perfect sized cookies

All tuckered out from all that mixing,one last lick of the spoon for good measure.

A good wholesome slice of homemade bread before the cookiefest begins...

Sadly,I don't have an after photo as they disappeared before they had even had time to cool off.That's the way it is with these cookies,You snooze,you lose.
I had a great time with my little man and I think he did too,Whether it is two minutes or two hours.Those precious moments make such a difference.To us and them.
Madam is next,Hot cocoa and window shopping.That is her favorite activity with me and I have to say,she had certainly gotten a lot easier to please,well,most of the time:0)
take care

Take care;0)

Rhythm and cooking

There is one sure thing here in our house.If we keep a rhythm then everyone is happier.I know what is going on for the day,the babes know what to expect next and things run a lot smoother,well most of the time.It is very easy to slip out of rhythm.The holidays really throw us off.Just the other day I was feeling like I had all of these things to do but I could not for the life of me figure out where to start.Then it dawned on me,I had to get back into some sort of routine.I love to think that I am a fly by the seat of my pants type of girl.I mean,I have lived in numerous countries, tried lots of new sports,foods etc but the truth is,I am much happier knowing what is coming next.Some would call me anal retentive,some would say that I am slighty batty.I drive my husband to distraction with some of my 'quirks' but he has said many a time that I keep things together on the house end and there is less bouncing off of walls and screaming (from me or the babes)if things are running according to the "plan" for the day. So to jump start this,I figured that I would do some cooking.Now I LOVE to cook but as time has gone on and I have had more babes,I have had less time to slowly meander around my kitchen,perusing cookbooks and trying recipes.Not to mention that the more babes that have come along has added to the amount of PICKY eaters in this house!!!AArghhh. It is not like I don't encourage them to try different food,we don't just have nuggets and noodle soup. But oh my,throw a new vegetable on the table and war breaks out.So I suppose that I have got to the point where I don't do it very often as I am tired.Tired of the whining,tired of being woken ten times a night,tired of my efforts going unappreciated.It is much easier to serve broccoli five nights in a row!! Well 2008 is going to be different,we are getting the rhythm back in this house and I will get a different vegetable down their necks even if I have to genetically change its appearance !! well,maybe I won't go to such extremes but I will hide it in there if I have too.
Zucchini :: All went well with the rice vegetable pilaf~SCORE~Even my picky husband unknowingly ate a zucchini!!!

MMmmmmmm

Then I thought that I was invincible!
I broke out my new cook book,Apples for jam,I have to say that I am using 'falling cloudberries' more.AFJ has fantastic pictures and great recipes but I find myself reaching for FC first. Anyway back to the zucchini.AFJ has a zucchini bread recipe in it.

Tessa Kiros said that you can't even tell there is zucchini in it,so I excitedly set to work....

I followed the recipe to a tea,right down to the black pepper,which I thought was slightly odd..

but alas..,my clan were NOT fooled.hhmmpphhh,back to the drawing board,or should I say,mixing bowl....

As you can see from the picture above,I thoroughly enjoyed every crumb.
Ah well,you can't win them all...
Hope you all have a great week.
Cheerio...