Skip to main content

Monthly Munch: June

We started the month feeling like a hotel (my parents, some university friends and Graham's family all visiting within ten days!) and ended the month staying in a hotel (our Newcastle trip).  In between we enjoyed the long days and sunshine with bike rides, barbeques, and Graham's new inflatable canoe.

Out for a walk with Graham's family
Toby



- has definitely entered the "Why?" stage.  I thought we'd skipped it, but sadly not.

- can do a scarily good snort (à la Peppa Pig) which entertains Theo no end.

- managed to sweet-talk his way behind the wheels of a Bentley Turbo R and a Massey Ferguson tractor at some recent events.




- announced that when he's five, he wants to drive a Subaru.

Quotes:

"I want to build with the avocado." (Meccano)

To one of the girls next door: "I'm three and you're four."
She: "I'm not four, I'm six."
Toby: "Six?? That's really old!"
Clearly he has a way with the ladies.


Theo

Blowing raspberries is one of his new tricks

- has definitely entered the "things in mouth" stage.

- giggles at Toby's antics, and when you tickle his cheeks.

- regularly sleeps through the night now, and gives you a big smile when you go in in the morning.  Such a sweet baby!

Do I look like a teacup?

Heeeellllppp!!!  I'm sinking!

Thankful for:

- strawberries from my very own plants

That's the canoe, having a trial inflation on the lawn
= several opportunities to do some cake decorating.  No paid gigs yet, but I feel like I'm not entirely forgetting all I once knew.

Recipe of the Month: Fish baked with fennel, red onion and orange


This is adapted from a recipe in the May edition of the Waitrose magazine.  I'm not sure what I think of fennel - raw, it has quite a strong aniseed flavour, but once cooked, it doesn't taste of anything much.  I liked the orange, though.  We ate this with a simple salad and some toast.

1 fennel bulb, finely sliced
1 large red onion, finely sliced
200g potatoes, finely sliced
1 orange, finely sliced (discard the ends)
2 white fish fillets, fresh or frozen
2 tbsp olive oil
dill or thyme

Preheat oven to 200°C.  Place fennel, onion, potatoes and orange in a baking tray.  Squeeze over any juice from the ends of the orange, and toss with 1 1/2 tbsp olive oil.   Roast for 10-15 minutes depending on whether your fish is fresh or frozen.

Give the veg a stir and add the fish (the original recipe used fresh cod; I used frozen pollock).  Drizzle with the remaining  1/2 tbsp olive oil, and season with the dill or thyme and salt and pepper.  Roast for 10-15 minutes longer.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

National Forest Way: The End!

The National Forest Way finishes at Beacon Hill, Leicestershire, with beautiful wide-ranging views in all directions. I'd been hoping for a sunny day, and this one certainly fit the bill. The frosty earth lay under a glorious canopy of shining blue sky. I parked at Swithland Wood, close to where we finished the previous walk. Finding the waymarker on the first gate was bittersweet - this was the last time I would be following these familiar circles.   Swithland Wood had been acquired by the Rotary Club in 1931, and later passed on to Bradgate Park Trust. The lumpy terrain was due to slate quarrying. I skirted a couple of fenced-off pits. As I left the wood, I passed a lake which I assumed was another flooded quarry, but with an odd little tower next to the water. I followed a road up a steady hill towards Woodhouse Eaves. Many of the houses were surrounded by walls of the local slate. Woodhouse Eaves was a prosperous-looking village with some nice old buildings. Crossing the wide ...

Theme: Body

I didn't plan this to be a theme week, but Toby's new refrain has become, "I want to do something else " (how does he know it's the school holidays?)  Something else turned into my digging out my body-themed activities and roll of cheap wallpaper.  So here we go! First thing to do is draw a body, and fortunately I had a handy template.  Lie down, Toby! Just ignore the face.  And lack of neck.  I know it's not a great likeness, but he really is that tall.  How on earth did that happen? He knew pretty much all the body labels already, so I can't really claim it as a learning opportunity.  Still, revision is good, right?  And everyone enjoys colouring on a huge sheet of paper. Another sheet of wallpaper became a blank canvas for hand and foot painting.  Fortunately it's been great weather, as outside is always the best place to do this.  Even with a strategically placed tub of water for washing off in. I've gone gree...

Austin part 2

Well, I wrote about Bats, Bluebonnets and Breakfast Tacos in a previous post, but that only seemed to cover about half of what we actually did in Austin (were we really there only for a weekend?). And we had several more great photos that Graham has been bugging me to post on my blog, so prepare yourselves for an extravaganza of colour, light and image! Austin is known as a great place for live music, which presumably explains the psychadelic guitars left lying around the streets. Here's Graham with a couple of his dream instruments. We visited the Texas State Capitol, built on a grand scale from tons of pink granite and limestone. The state capit o l, you understand, is located in the state capit a l. Don't get confused. Americans definitely tend towards the domes-and-pillars school of architecture for their governmental buildings. I had a feeling this was true, so did a quick search for corroborating evidence and discovered this great site by a ph...