Skip to main content

Monthly Munch: October 2015

A mixed month.  We enjoyed visits from Graham's sister, Graham's parents, and my parents (not quite all at once!).  We suffered with lots of night-time waking, and sick boys during half-term.  We celebrated Toby's birthday.  I finished work, which made me happy and sad at the same time.  And we put the clocks back, which means it really does feel like winter.


Toby

Look at those cheeky grins!

- learned to ride his bike without stabilisers!

On the Tissington Trail


- is learning phonics with sign language at school.  He regularly gives us demonstrations.

- got a remote control car for his birthday, and got the hang of driving it straight away.


- loves to chat, but sometimes gets a bit stuck while he remembers what to say next: "Well... I mean... well... the thing is..."

Theo



- can sing "E-I-E-I-O" at the right time in "Old MacDonald had a farm".

- dances along to "Gangnam Style" (Oh yes!).

- loves aeroplanes.

Favourite book: 1001 Images of Aircraft
- is gradually starting to produce recognisable words, although "haaa" can mean hot, hand, hair or hole, depending on context.

Thankful for:


- a nice walk along the Tissington Trail


- a good place to work for the summer

- "Thanksgiving dinner" in October with all of our parents

Recipe of the Month - Blueberry Cheesecake Pots


I made these for dessert on Toby's birthday.  The recipe is slightly adapted from a raspberry version in Feelgood Family Food by Dean Edwards.  They're beautifully quick and easy, and because they're so small, you've probably got all the ingredients on hand without having to go and bulk-buy cream cheese.

Base
6 Nice or plain biscuits (1.5 oz)
1/2 oz butter
1/2 oz desiccated coconut

Topping
5 oz cream cheese
3 oz Greek yoghurt
1 1/2 oz honey
blueberries (I used frozen) or other berries

For the base, put the biscuits in a bag and bash them into crumbs.  Melt the butter and stir in the coconut and biscuit crumbs.  Press into the base of four small containers (mine were tealight holders in another life) and put into the fridge to set.

For the topping, whisk together the cream cheese, yoghurt and honey.  Taste to see if it's sweet enough, and add a bit more honey if you want.  Put 8 or 9 blueberries on top of each biscuit base - no need to defrost if they're frozen - then spoon the cream cheese mixture on top.  Finish off with a few more blueberries, and leave in the fridge until you want to eat them.

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...

Erewash Valley Trail: Stapleford

It had been a long wait for this walk. All through the Christmas holidays, and an inset day, and weeks and weeks of appalling weather. Now it was the end of January and there was still a dull grey layer of cloud, but at least it wasn't raining. I set out. If you like a good ex-industrial landscape, the Erewash Valley is the place to be. It is veined with old canals and railways, freckled with former factories and mills, and pitted with coal mines. The M1 and a railway run north to south through it, but parts of it still feel surprisingly rural. I had been drawn in by all that there was to discover, so I'd shelved the Portway for a little while and diverted onto the Erewash Valley Trail. I parked in Bramcote Hills Park again and had a quick look at the walled garden, overlooked by the  Hemlock Stone. Hickings Lane heads towards the centre of Stapleford. It looks like it should be a dual carriageway but it's not; there are two separate roads with a wide grass strip between th...