One perfect Iris...

On the last day of February, when the garden still looks to all intent and purposes like a muddy field, i drabness broken only by the the simple whites and yellows, I had to note this plucky little iris braving out the northern winds!

I want to bottle its blueness!

How I wish we grew fields of these. Whats the first sign of colour in your garden, which plants foretell the coming of spring for you?

Snowdrops,snowdrops everywhere...

We've been helping out at our local snowdrop walk at Thorpe Hall this weekend. The beauty of being a helper outer is that you get the walk all to yourself at the start of the day...and it was well worth it!




The snowdrops weren't the only showstoppers, aconites were popping out everywhere; the perfect companion to the simplicity of the white blooms.




I got there first thing on Friday so I got the official first sneak peek.I did my shift on the front gate in my fabbiest flowery wellies then made a dash for it before the rains came - good timing or what!

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An Inspector calls and calls again...

This is me with my feet up. A rare sight, but exactly where I intend them to be this week, no excuses and guilt free. And this is why...

1. we have finally got our roof structure in place - 'topped out' as they say...After sitting under piles of snow for seven weeks these timbers were lifted into place by BH. I was at work when they had their little ceremony and raised the Yorkshire flag - but was mighty glad to see it in place! So its finally in place and was inspected this week and passed muster - of course!

2...and then on Monday when the world was in a heart shaped haze for Valentines day I got the Ofsted phone call. I don't write about work on this blog for obvious reasons but lets just say when the school inspectors phone to say they're coming for a visit its enough to strike fear into the heart of any school leader. Well, they came, they saw and they left, oh and they said they were very pleased with everything we're doing, so that's good! The inspection couldn't have gone better to be honest but by Friday the adrenaline I'd been running on all week sapped out of me and all I was fit for was to be sent to lie down in a darkened room!

But now the clouds are lifting, there are recipes to be sampled, seeds to be planted, blogs to visit and a whole load of tiles to shift. But first, back to the feet up, for just a bit longer...

Disco Biscuits...

 I love these Rainy Day biscuits of Nigellas. Firstly because they are so easy, and secondly because their melt in the mouth simple flavour just hits the spot. I tend to make up a big batch of dough with the intention of freezing and using it in batches but so far none has made it to the freezer - funny that!

The recipe is simple

175g unsalted butter
200g soft brown sugar
2 eggs
1/4 teaspoon of almond extract
350g plain flour
50g ground almonds
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

Cream the butter and sugar, add in the eggs and the extract then work in the rest. The dough sits in cling film in the fridge for at least an hour, then its ready to roll.

The biscuits cook very quickly and should stay quite pale. I like them unadorned, I think their paleness is quite elegant. However, my children think this is pretentious nonsense and insist that a biscuit is not worth looking at unless its suitably decorated, oh dear...

 the glitter pixies have been at it again - I swear my children will glow in the dark at this rate!

Stained Glass Jelly ...

Ive been inspired to new heights since reading the Food Librarian Blog - honestly what that blogger cant do with Jelly isn't worth knowing. Jelly is a big favourite of my minifreerangers and to be honest I don't make it enough for them, so inspired by Stained Glass Jello we gave it a shot.

We mixed up a few flavours of jelly and let them set really hard the night before and then cut them up and tipped into one tray. Then we mixed condensed milk with gelatin, let it cool and then poured it in...hey presto!!!

Who knew that jelly had so many possibilities! The minis are putting there orders in already...does anyone know where I can find blue jelly? They wont be happy until we've made a rainbow, or at least the Spurs colours for dad!

Rainyday Fudge Cake...

Sometimes on a Sunday, when its too windy for walking and too wet for digging, theres nothing for it but to throw caution to the diet plan and fire up the ovens. My tribe's cake of choice is always of the chocolate variety, so today we decided to go for it and bake a chocolate fudge cake of staggering proportions...

My assistant chef was in full agreement of course!

  We followed Nigellas recipe for Fudge Cake from the Nigella Bites book. The recipe called for:

400g plain flour
250g golden caster sugar
100g light muscovado sugar
50g best quality cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
half teaspoon salt
3 eggs
142 small tub sour cream
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
175g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
125ml corn oil
300ml chilled water

For the icing
175 dark chocolate
250g unsalted butter
275g icing sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

The dry ingredients are combined in one bowl, the eggs, sour cream and vanilla are blended in another. Then the butter, oil and water are beat together in yet another bowl. This cake is definitely one to make only if you have space to spread out!
Next the dry ingredients are mixed into the butter and oil mixture and last of all, in goes the eggs and cream. It mixes together satisfyingly well and pours easily into two sandwich tins. These bake for 55 mins until they come out skewer clean!

 I was a little surprised at how big they got!!!

The filling is a simple chocolate butter cream with which we filled the cakes up and then slathered all over! We topped it off with icing sugar and glitter  - which you can't see on the pictures but now coats everything, everywhere in our kitchen. I think we'll be finding edible glitter for months to come...

The results were delicious; a dense, fudgey, chocolaty reason not mind rainy days so much after all!

Beach Boy...

This is what my Freerangeboy gets up when I'm hard at work...

Dog Rustling...

Hard to believe he started life a cityboy through and through...

I am wondering when all this fresh air is going to tire him out though! - still waiting on that one...

Snowdrops and rainbow rice...

At last the garden is waking up, not exactly springing into action but definitely rousing from the long winter...

Its been too miserable to explore the garden much so it was a nice surprise to find these waiting to greet us today!

Meanwhile we've been busying ourselves indoors finding 101 ways to entertain children on rainy days, of which there are many here in Gods Own Country! I found the 'recipe' for Rainbow Rice'  at Homemade Serenity - a way with rice that involves no cooking, or eating but did keep the little freerangers occupied for ages! All it took were some squidges of watercolour paint into freezer bags of uncooked rice and a splash of water. We gave it a good mix and shake and left it to dry. The results were almost too pretty to play with...

 Well okay, not quite too pretty to play with...

 Unbelievable, but some leftover paint and a bag of value rice kept them busy for a couple of hours...

Beat that Nintendo!

We'll definitely do it again, maybe making some Diwali patterns later in the year and by then we'll hopefully have hoovered all the bits that these pictures don't show falling off the table!

To Beef or not to Beef...

We did resolve to buy local and fresh when we moved here, and then life kept getting in the way and there we were in the supermarket. We also resolved to buy in bulk so we could cut out the weekly shop and spend more time doing fun stuff, but we had to rebuild a house and that left little space for storage. But at last, we're getting there... in the space of a week we've bought half a pig and a big box of beef to see us through the spring, oh and a chest freezer to put them in for the pricely sum of £20! (the freezer not the meat!) The tip for buying such a value freezer is to wait until your absolutely desperate for one and them pray that your neighbour moves house and needs to offload one fast!

Our beef came very local, so local that BH picked it up as he dropped our little one off at Toddler group. Manor Farm Beef are Chris and Charlotte Shipley who run a mixed farm quite close to us and have been nominated for a Yorkshire Taste Award. Charlotte ran a tasting session recently at which their steak was devoured. My littlefreerangers wasted no time in tucking in...

I cant tell you the struggles we've had to get this one to touch her dinner, never mind finish it and ask for more! The joint I cooked was a Crop of Beef  and I slow roasted it for most of the day - it was as they say on 'Diners, Drive Ins and Dives'.....Capital T Tender! I would have taken a picture only it was set about too quickly by the hungry herd!

Needless to say I am going to be cooking more beef recipes and going back to Manor Farm. They are having their first go at Driffield Farmers Market on Saturday, so who knows - might see you there. I'll be the blogger taking pictures and loaded down with joints of meat!

Eggs at last...

It's been a long wait as our girls stopped egg production quite a while before Christmas. But at last, after much encouragement and perhaps a few waves of the stuffing mix, they're back on line. At least one of them is....



Our first egg of the season - hurrah!


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Adventures in pastry ...

Okay it might not sound so adventurous, but Ive never really made much pastry before and I set my self a new year goal, forget cutting out carbs and drinking only herbal teas, I am resolved to master, or if not master at least figure out pastry...Ive made cakes, I'm getting better at bread, I'm having fewer disasters with scones but Ive avoided pastry thus far, or I'm ashamed to admit I've bought it frozen, so I figured it was about time to get to grips with it...

 Its not perfect, and probably never will be but I made a chicken pie with the kids (they were on leaf cutting duties)...

It was from Nigellas 'How to Eat' in the children's food section. The filling she recommends is really nice and very child friendly, just stock, milk, butter, cooked chicken and sweetcorn and then topped with pastry. I did double the pastry ingredients as I think her pie dish mush have been tiny, the amounts certainly wouldn't have covered ours.
 I must admit I couldn't quite believe how easy it was - and how well it went down with all the Freerangers, I wouldn't call myself a pastry connoisseur but its definitely homemade from now on for sure!