A weekend at home..

I was lying in bed on Friday morning in Uni, and had not planned anything for the weekend. so I thought why not go for for the weekend?! It was a very spontaneous decision resulting in me packing like a maniac and hot and bothered-ly (new word) running to catch the next train at Leicester Station. But it was well worth it as I had a lovely few days with the family :) I was also glad to use a washing machine that dosnt charge me £2.50 to use each time i wash my clothes... Uni problems..

Anyway! i pulled my weight and made a lovely roast Lamb dinner for us on Sunday which was very scrummy, and went for a lovely walk with Scott, mum and the dogs.

I love the colourful orange carrot peelings! I roasted carrots and parsnips with butter, olive oil, and honey and they were DELICIOUS! Have I ever said that my favourite vegetable is a parsnip? If not i'm saying it now! Theres is no comparison to a overly roasted parsnip :)

I just drizzled a little olive oil over the lamb, seasoned it and added a few sprigs of rosemary from the garden!

Mum took a few snaps of us on the walk! This never happens.. I'm usually the irritating one that likes to take pictures of EVERYTHING ...
Scott and the dogs were quite excited to be walked ;)...

I really like this photo of Scott, and Ella running on ahead as she does :)

Molly (Seabear) patiently waiting until we turned around so she could carry her lead home ... this happens every time, and she refuses to walk unless we let her carry it :)

The girls and myself! I wasn't expecting to be snapped in my lovely painting coat and farmer wellies but this is the kind of terrible dog walking outfit I usually wear so theres no point kidding anyone I guess!

And lastly Molly basking in the delightful, stinky, Sheep poo ridden pool she manages to always find on any walk we go on....

Christmas, Turkey and family photographs

Christmas Agiain!It's been and gone and it's been so lovely seeing all my family, friends, animals etc! I've eaten way too much as per, but it's all been worth it :)

Here was our delicious Turkey that we had for Christmas day, it's 15lb and is was ridiculously heavy, and had an impressive coloured skin this year which always makes it

look beautiful.

My Christmas dinner :) Turkey and all the trimmings! All home made of ccourse, even the cranberry sauce ! We never make our own Chistmas pudding though, so many thats something to think about for next year.

I had a wonderful new Instax Fuji film camera which I'M IN LOVE WITH.  I already have a Polaroid and Canon camera which are my old faithfuls and I couldn't live without, but I felt it was time to get a newer Polaroid as the price of the old film is ridiculous now Polaroid have stopped making the film.
Here are a few snaps I've taken so far :)

Scott and I in hats playing card games with my family. it's a little blurred as I was just figuring out all the buttons and angles etc.

The Clough's! My mums side of the family always come over just after Christmas as it's my Grandmas Birthday shortly after. It's such a wonderful time full of card games, cheese and a heck of a lot of competitive treasure hunting...

more of my family with the fujifilm camera. I will do a blog post soon about the camera in more detail, as it's an awesome camera to have. And now fuelling my photography hobby!

Lastly my Dads side of the family who all come for bacon butties of Christmas morning :)
I hope you all had a fab Christmas and wish you all a Happy New Year !!!!

Family meal night - Platter

For this week's family meal night I wanted to make something light and summary, as we have had quite sunny weather for the last few days. I started with this platter, consisting of prawns, smoked salami, Thai crispy thin crackers, soft goats cheese, cheddar cheese and chutney. We had had grilled mackerel and salad, with a few a crusty baguette and a few chips. 

I made tiny parcels of prawns (in a Marie rose sauce) in a small Romaine lettuce leaf topped with half a cherry tomato and a few coriander leaves. They were perfect! So simple and really tasty -

Prawn Sauce

2-3 tablespoons Mayonnaise

1 tablespoon tomato sauce

Big squeeze of lemon

A dash of Tabasco

Salt and pepper

Mix all the ingredients together, add the prawns and chill until ready to serve.

It was such a simple tea but full of flavour, and fun for once to mix and match little bits and pieces opposed to having one main dish. I still think it was such a brilliant idea to start family meal night (usually on a Thursday) as it brings the whole family together and encourages me to try all sorts of new foods. I haven't repeated the same dish twice, and always make sure we have home-made dessert of some description :)

We had the Panna Cotta from one of the below posts for pudding, which really finished the meal off perfectly. I recommend if you can find the time, to dedicate one night a week to trying new foods and making a bigger effort to cook a full meal , either for yourself, family or friends, as it is truly satisfying and a fun way of trying new ingredients!

Chocolate and pear pudding

I am fortunate enough to have my Grandparents live next door to us, but although we live so close, we can find that sometimes with all of our lives being so busy, that we don't get to spend much quality time together. So after discussing this with my grandparents, we decided to make Thursday a 'family + grandparnts' night, where I cook the tea and we all eat together.

This was the second week, and we had Beef Stew, followed by Pear and chocolate sponge, and if I do say so myself, it was delicious! 

 Ingredients:

2x tins Pear halves in juice

125g Plain Flour

125g Caster Sugar

30g Cocoa Powder

150g Soft Butter

1tsp Baking Powder

1/4 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda

2 eggs

2 tsp Vanilla Extract

Preheat Oven to Gas mark 6.

 1)Firstly you need to drain the pears from the juice. I find if you blot the pears with kitchen towel, it makes the sponge easier to cook, as otherwise there can be too much moisture.

Now lay the pear halves down in a slightly greased oven proof dish.

 Cream together the butter and sugar, and then add all the other ingredients. You can mix by hand, or in an electric whisker, it's up to you.

 Your batter should be smooth but quite thick.

 Now spread the mixture over the pears, don't worry if it doesn't seem enough, the mixture will loosen and spread as it cooks.

Now Bake for 30 Min's, Gas Mark 6.

Check the sponge is cooked by dipping a skewer into the sponge and if it comes out clear you know it's cooked.

 Finally serve with chocolate sauce, custard, or ice cream! (We had custard and chocolate sauce!)

This is my grandad, he loved the pudding and the stew :), and below is a quick snapshot of the stew, roast potatoes and broccoli dinner.