Martha's Marvellous Munchies

After mentioning all those vegetarian options for May in my blog , I figured I should actually do one of them.  So last week (well, Monday to Saturday) was vegetarian week in our house.  I have to confess, it didn't involve as many exciting new recipes as I might like to pretend, but there you go.  Vegetarianism in real life. (Breakfast is basically cereal and toast except Saturday when I made banana pancakes.) Monday Lunch: Barbequed courgette (grilled zucchini), refried bean and cheese quesadilla We'd had a barbeque on Saturday and I cooked some courgette strips.  There were some left over that went rather well in a quesadilla. Dinner: Frozen vegetable bakes, oven chips, baked beans, salad Quick and easy - we were heading out to Toby's preschool parents' evening. Tuesday Lunch: Cottage cheese open-faced roll with cucumber and tomato Dinner: Omelette filled with courgette and mushrooms, mashed potatoes, salsa I hoped to get a photo of this one, but it...

You know those hot cross scones I mentioned in the Monthly Munch ?  Well, I did get around to making them.  They didn't turn out quiiiite as they were meant to.  I guess I put too much liquid in (despite using less than the recipe stated) so the "very sticky" mentioned in the recipe turned into "Aaaggghhh!!!  It's all over my hands and I can't get it off!".  Even adding flour made it barely manageable, so I kind of threw handfuls of the stuff at the baking tray, shoved it in the oven and hoped for the best. They were hot.  They weren't crossed and they definitely weren't scones.  We christened them hot blobby cakes and ate them enthusiastically.  Anything with that much dried fruit in is gonna taste good, no matter what it looks like. Next up was chocolate red wine cupcakes for a friend's birthday.  I posted the recipe for this way back in 2009, and I'm not sure I've made it since.  Which is a great shame, because it...

It was when the donkeys started nibbling my arm that I decided the time had come for action.  Launching myself over the gate, I nervously approached a lady with hot pink hair.  "I'm very sorry," I started, "but could you possibly show me the way out?" In case you think I've started blogging about my dreams, let me assure you that I was wide awake at the time.  The walk had started off innocently enough.  Theo was happily ensconced in the carrier, and we strode cheerfully across a green and growing field under a sunny sky.  A couple of stiles and a little bridge later, we found ourselves in a small wood.  Butterflies flitted by, and hazel trees arched over the path, creating an inviting tunnel. A few steps in, though, I realised it was a rather muddy tunnel.  The wet underfoot was quickly seeping through my battered trainers.  My jeans had been not only clean that morning, but also brand new.  They were now decorated with dirt splashes...

Hey folks!  I learnt a new word today!  I can now proudly proclaim myself to be a flexitarian .  Yes, I wish that meant I'm in training to be a trapeze artist.  Or that I'm a leading world expert on the chemical properties of stretchy materials.  All it actually means is that I don't eat meat that much. Well, big deal.  That lumps me in with a majority of the world's population, many of whom have no choice about the matter.  So why the need for a fancy new word?  Because, it seems, that we in the prosperous West have come to regard having bacon for breakfast, chicken sandwiches for lunch and a steak for dinner as entirely normal.  But also because we in the prosperous West are starting to realise that might not be an entirely good idea. You know about factory farming, of course.  The images of chickens crammed into tiny cages and pigs which never see the sunlight, which we push out of our minds when we reach for our plastic...

It was 1660, and Charles II had just been crowned King of England.  This was no ordinary succession; Charles' father had been executed over a decade earlier, and England had, since then, been not a monarchy but a republic.  And not a particularly cheerful republic, either.  Under the Lord Protectorship of the Puritan Oliver Cromwell, theatres were closed, church music (except psalms) was forbidden, and even Christmas was banned.  The return of the king, however, ushered in a new period of flamboyancy in English art, drama and architecture, known as Restoration Style.  A man named George Vernon, building himself a brand new house southwest of Derby, embraced the new fashion enthusiastically. "We've got to have a cupola!  What's a cupola?  You know, one of those little rounded tower-y things on the roof.  All the best houses have them now." "And carvings!  And paintings!  No I mean real carvings.  Let's see just how many swags ...