Skip to main content

Monthly Munch: April

Is that really the end of another month already? Time flies when you're getting no sleep...

Toby
- relates almost everything in life to a Peppa Pig episode.

Peppa Pig Easter egg. (I should have cropped this photo, shouldn't I?)

- loved hunting for small chocolate eggs so much that we had to do it over and over again, until they started melting from so much handling.

Wearing my boots

- will argue about pretty much anything.
Toby: "I don't like curry."
Graham: "You like chicken tikka masala, don't you?   That's curry."
Toby: "Yes, but I don't like all curry.  I don't like... bird poo curry!"
Since this got a laugh, he followed up with dog poo, cat poo, book poo, DVD poo...

- was worried about his baby teeth falling out.
Me: "Don't worry, yours won't fall out for a long time. When they do, it's fun! You put the tooth under the pillow, and in the morning there's a piece of money there instead."
Toby (gives me incredulous look): "What, in my mouth??"

Theo

- weighed 11 lb 14 oz at his 2-month checkup.


- has started sleeping through at nights - although not yet every night, unfortunately!


- loves his monkey mobile

Thankful for:
- a few full nights' sleep, and the promise of more.

- visiting my parents for Easter.  They seem to have an amazingly calming effect on both boys!

- some lovely warm sunny days.

Bluebells!  Toby said they should be called purplebells, really.

Recipe of the Month
I wanted this to be hot cross scones, which my friend Sally linked to and I thought was a brilliant idea.  But I haven't quite got round to making them yet.  This hasn't been a particularly good month for creative cooking.  So here's a recipe I've made a few times.  It's something like a quiche, but with a drier filling.

Rustic Greek Pie


1 large sheet ready-rolled shortcrust pastry, or pastry made with 150g / 6 oz flour
450g / 1 lb frozen spinach, thawed
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
150g / 6 oz haloumi cheese, grated
120g / 4 oz feta cheese, crumbled
1 tbsp fresh oregano, or 1 tsp dried
2 eggs
3 tbsp cream or milk

Preheat oven to 200°C / 400°F.  If you made your own pastry, roll out to a rectangle.  It doesn't have to be too precise, as you can see from the ragged edges on the picture.  Place on a baking sheet.

Squeeze out as much water as you can from the spinach, and spread over the pastry, leaving a 3cm / 1 1/4 inch border.  Scatter over the garlic, cheeses and oregano.  Fold up the edges of the pastry to form a border.

Beat the eggs with the cream or milk.  Carefully pour over the filling.  Bake 30-40 minutes, until the pastry is golden and the filling is set.

Serves 4.

Comments

Sally Eyre said…
Finally got around to reading the blog. Thanks for the honourable mention. True fame!

Popular posts from this blog

Drought

Two days into Stage One water restrictions, and I looked out of the window to see the guy over the road washing his car. Admittedly, the restrictions don't actually forbid you to wash your car.  They limit you to using a hand-held bucket (does it count if you put it down on the driveway?) or hand-held hose "for quick rinses".  But they are pretty much "if you don't mind" rules at this stage anyway, with holes large enough to lose whole buckets of water through (hand-held or otherwise).  For example, we are now limited to watering our lawn twice a week, but this only applies to sprinkler systems.  You can still use a hose as much as you like, presumably on the assumption that you will get bored of standing there holding it very quickly.  And besides, everything you read about good watering technique says it's better to water thoroughly just once a week.  Our garden would think Christmas had come early if it got watered every three days! So hopefully...

Jesus came to earth... to reflect God to us

Do you remember playing with a magnifying glass on a sunny day?   That curved piece of glass you held in your hand captured the scattered rays, narrowing them down to a fluttering patch of brightness.   And all the light’s power was held in that one small circle, shrinking and shrinking… until finally you were rewarded with a sudden curl of smoke, and a neat charred hole. Imagine, then, that God, seeking to reveal himself on earth, condensed his essential being through some kind of celestial magnifying glass.   That wavering point became smaller and smaller, losing none of its power… until it became the exact size of a human baby, growing in a womb. Jesus is the image of the invisible God, says the verse in Colossians, the perfect reflection of God’s glory.   This is the first and greatest reason that Jesus came: to show us what God is really like.   Yet sometimes, reflected and refracted through 2000 years of history, the image that Jesus shows...

Making a mess

My friend Ellie writes a blog which I now shamelessly crib ideas from, when I am stuck for something new to do with Toby.  Some time ago she wrote about a substance with the poetic moniker of cloud dough .  It sounded simple to make and fun to play with, so I tucked it away in the back of my mind. The recipe is childishly simple: 8 cups of plain flour, 1 cup of vegetable oil, and mix.  It comes out kind of sandy, although softer and more powdery. Now, Ellie has two gorgeous girls.  Her blog entries were full of photos of them adding pretty objects and creating cute little landscapes.  I, on the other hand, have a full-on hands-on get-stuck-in-as-far-as-possible boy.  This is what happens when you let him loose on a scatterable substance. We make it and it all starts well.  Notice I have prepared for mess with a large tarpaulin and lack of shorts. A few minutes in, and the mess is spreading up the T-shirt.  It's still mostly in the t...