Skip to main content

Monthly Munch: November 2016

Well, we've had sicknesses and successes, soups and stews, sunshine and sn...frost.  I've been doing lots more writing and trying to figure out how to get people to give me money for it. 

And we went mining.  Actually, this photo is us in an old lime kiln, on a suitably atmospheric camera setting.


Toby


- got some glasses!  Unusually for our family, he isn't short-sighted, but has some astigmatism.  Children's glasses have got much more trendy since I had them; he has Star Wars and Minions.

- won first prize in his class for the Children in Need bake off at school.

- has been trying to teach me "ninja" moves, which is quite fun.

- got the sick bug which has been going around, and has been off school for a few days.


- designed a (belated) jack o'lantern and a table centrepiece for Thanksgiving.

Our mini Thanksgiving dinner


Theo

Cafes with Kids out-takes

- decided to go to preschool happily after half term.

- has twice gone to sleep on the landing instead of in his bed.

Toby's just pretending


- loves drawing and decorating things.

playgroup penguin


- did not like fireworks at all - far too noisy!

Thankful for:


- free/cheap food!  I have had bags of free apples to stew, and got two pumpkins for 50p each, which provided pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving.

mmm... pumpkin pie!


- a visit from Auntie Colette, who brought the boys matching Star Wars T-shirts.



Recipe of the Month: Minestrone soup


I've never made minestrone soup before, but it's a good chunky comforting type of soup.  I cut down the original recipe a bit but it still made lots; you could probably get 8 servings out of it.  I froze some in portions, as soup is a nice thing to pull out of the freezer for lunch when it's cold outside.

2 large leeks, sliced
300g carrots, peeled and diced
300g potatoes, peeled and diced
1.5 litres vegetable stock
125g green beans, halved
125g mini pasta shapes
2 cans chopped tomatoes
1 can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
salt and pepper
oregano

Put the leeks, carrots and potatoes into a very large saucepan and add the stock.  Bring to the boil and simmer for 20-25 minutes until the vegetables are tender.  Add the green beans, pasta, tomatoes and tinned beans with the seasoning, and simmer for another 10-15 minutes until the pasta is done.  Serves 6-8.

Comments

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...