Good morning! Some more cooking

Good morning.  It's a grey day here.

It's back to school for the girls.  I think they have done all their homework. We had a slight panic this morning when we couldn't find Chatterbox's blazer.  I've paid for music lessons and school dinners.

Squidge's 'Learning Log' task this holiday was to design a modern sleigh for Father Christmas.

Bit of a shock to the system this morning getting up at 6.20 am. We won't be back into a routine for a few weeks though.  I start a course at a local Bible College this week and we are having the bathroom done.  At the moment we have a delightful (NOT) blue suite and regularly have leaks coming through the kitchen ceiling!  So I'm looking forward to a) having a lovely new bathroom; and, b) having a working shower!  Our shower is currently one of those hose type attached to the taps held on with cable ties.  Classy! :)

My Bible study course doesn't start until Wednesday and the chappie doing the bathroom isn't coming until Wednesday.  So today I'm hoping to get as much cleaning and washing done as possible; I also have some errands to run, like drawing some money out for their dancing lessons and Squidge's gymnastics.

Some more on my Journey into Loving Cooking.  On Saturday I made a beef stew in Guinness.  It wasn't to a recipe, and I couldn't taste the Guinness, but it was pretty tasty.  I think next time I do stew I will attempt dumplings.  I will look up how to cook in ale and still be able to taste it.

Anyway, I had some...stew 'juice'? 'gravy'? 'roue'? left,  I put it into the fridge and used it on Sunday in some homemade mushroom soup.  Again, not from a recipe.  I chopped up the mushrooms very small, added some water, milk and some cream cheese.  It was very nice with bread.  It could have done with being slightly creamier, but as I didn't do it from a recipe I think it went well.

Homemade mushroom soup

Sunday evening I made some pizza dough and then the girls and I made some pizzas.  They were delicious.  Except I used Cheddar cheese which is a bit too greasy for pizza I think.

My pizza dough is doughing...it grew to twice this size

I have since watched a video to see how to make one's pizza circular :)

Presentation could be better, but it was yummy!

I've learned a few lessons:
1. Use recipes more for success!
2. Don't put the dough to rise in the bowl that you used to mix the dough, when I took it out there were dried bits of dough stuck to it.  But it wasn't a big problem.
3. I need to start meal planning.  I do plan meals at the moment, but because I don't do a great deal of cooking from scratch I need to be more thorough to make sure I have all the necessary ingredients.

I think I'm doing well so far.  I've not burned down the kitchen yet. :)

Colour amidst the grey

It's cold, grey and damp today.  But I've managed to get out into the garden and hopefully we'll get some colour here and there.  My winter pansies are fading a bit so we need a bit of colour.  After planting out my narcissi daffodil bulbs that I'd saved in my shed I was itching to get out again and plant some primrose, snowdrops and tulips that I'd bought with my Christmas money.

Unfortunately, this photo is a bit blurred (I took it on my mobile phone camera), but it gives you an idea.

Today is going to be catching up on ironing whilst watching Pretty Woman and taking down the Christmas decorations

The house is fairly peaceful, the girls are busy and G is out at church helping with some sound equipment.

Yesterday's cooking went well (if you don't know I'm doing a journey into loving cooking!).  The fajitas were lovely.  I made my own spice mix with cornflower, cumin, paprika and chilli powder...no cayenne pepper because the girls don't really like food that is too hot and spicy, I also added some garlic, red and green peppers, and mushrooms.  We had guacamole and salsa (not homemade!), cheese and lettuce with it.  Delicious.  I might try my hand at burritos next time, just need to get the right beans, etc.

A journey into learning to love cooking - Day 1, well Day 2 actually

My name is Sarah, and I'm a mum who doesn't like cooking. *Sigh* quite an admission here in blogland. :)

From here

I like nice food.  I want my family to be healthy. I love my family and want the best for them. But me + cooking don't get on.

I have mageirocophobia - haha.  I just love a new word.

I'm not sure why I don't like cooking.  My mum never really seemed to enjoy cooking, she dislikes the fact that everyone is elsewhere chatting and enjoying themselves and she's in the kitchen cooking.  But she always cooks really nice meals.  I kind of feel the same, I like to be with people and it can be rather a lonely job.  My ideal would be to have a kitchen/diner with room for comfy seats so that I can be with the family when I cook...but right now that's not an option.  So I'll just have to suck it up. LOL

My other issue is attention span.  Here is a transcript of a typical conversation:

G:  What's that hissing noise?
ME:  I've no idea
[smoke alarm activates]
ME: Oh poo, I forgot, I was cooking.

I've burned frozen peas, yes frozen peas. I forgot to put water on them.  Forgetting to put water into a pan is a common problem.

My other issue is oven gloves.  I burn them.  I've had to evacuate the house a few times, twice for oven gloves and once for a grill tray handle that I had detached and put under the grill.  I worked for a few years in a school kitchen and I am renowned as the only person to have ever burned a hole in an oven cloth. :)  Amazing that they ever let me loose on the deep fat fryer!  G bought me some fire-proof oven gloves and I have burnt them.  It's a gift.  He's threatened to get me some welders gauntlets as a last resort.

It's the attention span, I'm rather like these dogs from the film Up! SQUIRREL!



I can be cooking away, someone says something to me and I totally forget that I am cooking awakened only by hissing and spitting sounds from the kitchen, or the smoke alarm going off.

Cheese on toast is a great problem.  I have actually sat staring at the grill pan whilst the cheese on toast cooks, I've drifted off into a daydream, and it's set on fire in front of my very eyes.

Anyway, 2014 is the year I'm going to start loving cooking...maybe.  I've set up a couple of cooking programmes to record for some inspiration - one is Jamie's Money Saving Meals and the other is The Taste with Nigella Lawson.

SQUIRREL!

What was I saying?...

Oh yes...

Day 1 - was actually yesterday.  We had homemade vegetable soup for lunch and roast chicken dinner for tea.

Day 2 - we had a quick lunch because we were going out, I just made eggs on potato waffles.  For tea I'm using up the leftover chicken to make some chicken fajitas.

So, have you had a good day? It's been cold, wet and miserable today.  I want to plant out some primroses, tulips and snowdrops.  Hopefully tomorrow will be better for that.  I'm planning to take down our Christmas decorations today or tomorrow too.

Here's to Sarah Super-Chef!