Skip to main content

Monthly Munch: March

Well, you know what it's like: you wait ages for a blog post and then two come along at once!  Time for the regular news slot again.

Graham took this great photo at Rolleston-on-Dove

First, some family portraits:




Toby
Face painting from a birthday party.  He insisted on the blue butterfly.
 - can pick out words which rhyme, and words which start with the same letter.

- likes sticking stickers on everyone.

- loves playing hide and seek, although his idea of hiding is to tuck his head under something and forget that the rest of him is still visible!

- has got very wet helping to wash Dad's car, Mum's car and Mum's bike.


Quotes:
"If I flash my eyes it looks like thunder." (translation:  If I blink my eyes it looks like lightning.)

Describing an encounter with a neighbour's dog: "And she jumped up and she licked me in the face and I got all covered in dog juice!"

Theo
 - still has bright blue eyes - will he keep them?  Unexpected but not impossible.

- is looking at us and smiling, especially at Toby.  He loves his big brother.

- has started swiping at interesting objects within his reach.


 - is still eating as much milk as anyone will give him!


Thankful for:

- a bike ride with Graham in the beautiful spring weather.  (Thanks to Graham's parents for babysitting!)
And a beer stop, of course!
- friends; this has been a very sociable month.

- the clock change, which meant Toby went from waking up at 6am on the Saturday to almost 8am on the Monday.  Yessss!!!

Recipe of the month: Root Vegetable Rösti

This is the kind of thing that's much easier when you have a food processor that will grate for you.  I made lots and cooked some to freeze.  Quantities are fairly approximate.

100g / 4 oz carrots, grated
100g / 4 oz parsnips, grated
150g / 6 oz floury potatoes (eg Maris Piper), grated
1/2 onion, finely chopped
1 egg
2 tbsp flour
salt and pepper
2 tbsp olive oil

Squeeze out the moisture from the grated vegetables in a clean tea towel.  Tip into a bowl and stir in the onion, egg, flour and seasoning.  (If you can think of some more adventurous seasonings, feel free to add them.)

Heat the olive oil in a frying pan. Add the rösti mix and press down very well to form one large patty.  Fry gently for about 10 minutes, then find a plate that fits on top.  Place over the rosti and turn the pan upside down so the vegetable cake is on the plate.  Slide back into the pan and cook the other side.

Poach four eggs.  Cut the rösti into quarters and top each with an egg.  Baked beans are an obligatory accompaniment for this kind of thing in our house, but you may have other ideas.  Serves 2.

Not the best photo, but it tastes better than it looks.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Ten books that shaped my life

Ten books that shaped my life in some way.  Now that wasn't a problem.  I scanned the bookshelves and picked out nine favourites without the slightest difficulty (the tenth took a little longer). The problem was that, on the Facebook challenge, I wasn't supposed to explain why .  Nope.  Having picked out my ten, I couldn't let them go without saying why they were special to me. These books are more than a collection of words by an author.  They are particular editions of those words - taped-up, egg-stained, dust-jacketless and battered - which have come into my life, been carried around to different homes, and become part of who I am. How to Be a Domestic Goddess Well, every woman needs an instruction manual, doesn't she? Nigella's recipes mean lazy Saturday mornings eating pancakes, comforting crumbles on a rainy night, Christmas cakes, savoury onion pies and mounds of bread dough.  If you avoid the occasional extravagance (20 mini Bundt tins...

Erewash Valley Trail: Ilkeston

You could spend a lot of time following old canals and railways in the Erewash Valley. This walk included parts of the Erewash Canal, the Nottingham Canal, the Nutbrook Canal, and the Stanton branch line, and I could have continued further along any one of those, if I'd had the time. I started in Kirk Hallam, which is mostly a post-war housing estate with a distinctive outline on the map: the main road to Ilkeston through the middle, and a loop road encircling the village. It looks like the London Underground logo. I parked at the lake at the top of the loop. There was a sculpture commemorating the nearby Stanton Ironworks - the ground remembers the roar of the blast  read the inscription around the base - and the remains of a lock on the Nutbrook Canal. Heading towards Ilkeston, I crossed a former golf course, now a nature reserve called Pewit Coronation Meadows, passed a large sports centre, and was soon in the town centre. There was a general impression of red-brickiness, with l...

Unto us a son is given...

Did I mention something about life getting back to normal in October? Oh yes, I was just finishing work and looking forward to at least two weeks off to organise the house, stock up the freezer and buy baby stuff. Then little Toby threw a spanner in the works by turning up five weeks early! Which would put his birthday in... let's see... October. So much for normal! For those who would like the gory details, here goes. If you are a mother who had a long and protracted labour, I advise you to skip the next bit - or if you don't, please don't start sending me hate mail. You have been warned. You see, we'd been to all the childbirth classes (yes, just about managed to finish them) and learned all about the different stages of labour, and how many hours each lasted. We learned some relaxation techniques and various things Graham could do to help coach me through long periods of contractions. And then we turned out not to need any of them, because the entire thing...