Lifestyle - My Week on Instagram #3

This week featured my parents Ruby Wedding and my birthday. There were a lot of food photos! :)

My week looked like this:

1. Madam in her cape.

2. Madam gave her uncle a pretty new hairdo.

3. Waiting for my Parents Evening appointment.

4. Pretty rainbow.

5. Glittery nails.

6. Big girls pouting faces.

7. Pudding from birthday lunch with friends. 

What did you get up to this week? Hope it was as fun as mine!

Love, Pearl.

Lifestyle - Gardening, Ballet and a Crumble

I re-read the very first post I wrote the other day as I was talking about it for something. And I was quite shocked by the way it made me feel and what a horrible memory I have of that point in time. It may have only been just over a year ago, but so much seems to have happened since then.

Then, last night, as I hadn't posted anything yesterday I decided to see if there was a post from last year and, lo and behold, there was one for 15th March 2013 so I shared that instead. And of course, I read that back as well. 

Both the posts mentioned my imminent eviction problems and how stressed I was about it all. This got me talking with my friend M about where the the whole eviction thing stood now. And the answer is - I don't know. I've not been evicted as yet, however I've never been told I can stay either.

They still come round on a regular basis and inspect my property, which I can completely understand (it was awful), but does stress me out still. I hate knowing someone else is in my house and looking at my things. I can't be there whilst they do it, it freaks me out too much. To that end, I have spent the afternoon sorting out my house (again) as the agency is coming tomorrow (Monday).

I know that it's tidy and acceptable and having completely re-done the garden the other week I feel like I deserve a medal! But I'm still freaking out about it! Is it just me being unreasonable? 

A Garden Triptych

Moving on to nicer topics, madam and I went to the ballet yesterday. We went to see the Three Little Pigs which was a special children's ballet by the Northern Ballet company. Their Ugly Duckling ballet was on CBeebies last year and madam had absolutely loved it.

I spent a morning trying to calm my very excited child down and not particularly succeeding, but then it was finally time to set off to the romantic location of Goole to watch the performance. We couldn't get to the Hull one as it was on mid-week and during school hours (stupidly). We had to set off before lunch which meant I took her to McDonald's on the way. This is her idea of the best meal ever. Not particularly flattering to my cooking...

So we parked up in Goole and found the venue. Madam was desperate to sit on the balcony and was thrilled when we were told that our seats were up there. We settled down and waited for the show. The venue is tiny, so even being on the balcony we were almost able to reach out and touch the dancers! However, there were a group of people who arrived who *also* had the same seat numbers as us. 

Madam in her outfit, our first view, our eventual view, madam with the band

There followed a slightly hurried re-arrangement in seating and we ended up on the very front row! We were right next to the band and so close to the stage the Big Bad Wolf nearly sat on my knee at one point! It was all over far too quickly and madam is now counting down until the next time she'll be able to go. As the tickets were only a fiver each, hopefully it won't be too long!

When we got home I made us some roast pork and then one of my crumbles using up the leftover stewed fruit from the other night. It was lovely! I do love a nice crumble :)

Apple, Rhubarb and Blueberry Crumble. Yum!

So, what have you been up to this weekend?

Love, Pearl. 

Pearl's Pantry ~ Recipe 1: Cheesecake

I have been talking to one of my very best friends about doing a tutorial for my cheesecake recipe for the last few days and have decided to use the opportunity to make a little feature for the blog! So, here we are, this is the first entry in to what will be a periodic feature I am calling "Pearl's Pantry" (see what I did there?)

My cheesecake is something I've mentioned before but I shall now give you my photo tutorial! The recipe came from an advert I saw in Heat magazine ages ago and I did not invent it.

To make 1 cheesecake you will need:

100g melted butter

200g crushed biscuits

397g tin condensed milk

300g soft cream cheese (full fat)

2 lemons.

1. First of all you need to crush up your biscuits into crumbs. I used Ginger Nuts this time (which were jolly hard to crush up, I can tell you!), but use whatever you like best. I have done bourbons in the past for a chocolate version...

2. Melt your butter and mix it in with the biscuit crumbs and then tip it in to your tin - mine is a 7" deep sandwich tin with a loose base - and press it down firmly. Then put this in the fridge to set up whilst you make the filling.

3. Put the cream cheese in the bowl and give it a bit of a mix to loosen it up a bit (a). Now add in the condensed milk and stir it all in, I use a fork to give it a bit of a whisk and make sure there are no lumps. It goes really quite runny at this point (b).

(a)

(b)

4. Juice your two lemons (a) and add in to the cheese and milk mixture (b) (it looks like you've curdled it and made a dreadful mistake, you haven't). Then the magic bit, mix it in and watch as it turns glossy and thick and unctuous (c). Good word that, unctuous...

(a)

(b)

(c)

5. Pour this mix over your chilled base and smooth over the top. Then put back in the fridge for at least 2 hours to give it time to set properly.

You can serve it just as it is, but madam and I like to put something fruity on top. We decided to make blueberry compote this time as we had ended up with loads of blueberries that needed eaten up.

We shoved the blueberries in a pan, added some water and sugar and then boiled it down for a bit (kind of like making jam, really.)

And then: dollop of compote on top of your slice of cheesecake = perfection.

And there you have it, one really simple cheesecake to try :) Do let me know if you give it a go, I'd love to hear what you do with yours!

Love, Pearl.

New Year 2014

Happy New Year! I don't know why I bother getting excited by New Year, I mainly just do the same things every year...

I didn't even break open the red wine like I thought I might. I mainly just sat on the sofa with madam and watched Harry Potter 2-5 (we watched 1 the day before). Madam thought I should watch the next 3 but I pointed out I would get no sleep at all if I did that.

Madam made it until the end of the Goblet Of Fire and watched the fireworks the neighbours were setting off. She then almost immediately settled down next to me and fell fast asleep whilst I watched The Order Of The Phoenix. 

I didn't even get all the way through it before I fell asleep myself! We woke up at about 5am and hauled ourselves upstairs and collapsed into my bed. We finally surfaced at about 11am this morning! Really crap parenting, I am good at! (My parents do not approve of allowing a five year old to stay up until midnight!)

We got up, madam put on one of her many posh frocks (this one is from Primark, so not sure you can count it as posh...) and came over to mum and dad's. They were (as they do every year) watching the New Year's Day concert from Vienna. I love family traditions. Madam didn't even bat an eyelid at the random classical music concert and mainly just joined in waltzing to The Blue Danube at the end. 

We have had warm bread rolls and nice cheeses and now mother is preparing the New Year's Day feast for tea. This year it's a sort of boeuff bourginon followed by Christmas pudding. Yes, I know it's New Year, put we never have Christmas pudding on the actual day as it's just too much after everything else you have scoffed!

Now, talking of Christmas, I am enjoying relative peace to type this as madam is playing with the new Wendy house that my mum and dad got her. It is quite a bit bigger than anyone presumed it would be! It is basically an enormous cardboard box that has designs on the outside that she can colour in. With doors and windows too. 

It is so big she can stand up in it (the people who have a concept of how tall madam is are all impressed now!) I shall show you photos...

Massive, huh! It fills up just about all the available floor space in my parents conservatory. I am expected to take it home and find somewhere for it in my house! It will go in her bedroom. *grits teeth* It will!

I'm hoping she will use it as a home for all her dollies and soft toys as these are what she spends most time playing with. She loves playing families with them. They get told off a lot though, it has to be said!

Oh, and madam has cottoned on to a new idea. If I am not going to be married to Daddy any more, then I can get married again. And she could be a bridesmaid. Wearing a blue dress. With a bow at the back... Apparently! 

I officially have the skills

Yesterday was quite good, really. Given that it was a Monday, anyway!

 

I took madam to school in the morning as usual. She did wake up and tell me school is boring which is the first time I've ever heard that from her! Didn't stop her scooting to school like a mad thing though.

 

After dropping her off I headed for my mum and dad's to go grocery shopping (the glamour). We headed to Morrison's and I tried to remember all the things that were on the list I had carefully left at home. I bought madam and I a chocolate apple as this is my new favourite thing to get as a treat for her on a Monday after school.

 

We did start off with toffee apples, but apparently madam doesn't like those :(

 

After shopping we headed for college where I picked up my certificate from the counselling skills course I finished in May. I had been beginning to worry about whether I was ever getting it as it had been so long with no word!

 

When I picked it up I also asked about my portfolio as I hadn't been contacted to collect it and had also been expecting that back. The lady behind the desk said she'd look into it for me and I did get a phonecall letting me know it was in my tutors office and I could collect it whenever.

 

 

 

Obviously, I haven't got it yet as getting up to the college is a bit of a trek and I only went yesterday as I got a lift! So lazy. I shall probably head up tomorrow morning as I get more stuff done when I just get on with them straight after I've dropped madam off!

 

I went home and had lunch, went to the gym and picked madam up. She did her now usual trick of being a monumental pain in the bottom and got sent up to her room to cool off for a few minutes. This cooling off period after school seems to be quite important! She is really tired and cranky at 3.30 having five minutes to herself seems to really help her. But she wouldn't just go up there if I asked her to.

 

For dinner we voted for fish and I decided to do a crumble. I have to say, I think I outdid myself this time! It was so good. I made chocolate, cherry and almond for a bit of a change. I had a tin of cherry pie filling that had been sitting in the cupboard for a while.

 

So, as I was asked for a recipe last night, here is how I made it.

 

First, pour tin of filling into pie dish.

Weigh out 3oz of self raising flour and 1oz of cocoa powder. Add in 2oz of cubed softened butter and rub the ingredients together until it looks like breadcrumbs. Then add 2oz of sugar (this is more than I would normally put in, but I didn't want the cocoa to be bitter). And I chucked in a handful of flaked almonds as I found some in the cupboard! Mixed it up a bit and put it over the top of the fruit.

 

I put it in my oven at about 200 degrees C for 20 minutes, the smell in my kitchen was amazing! And it tasted pretty darn good, too ;) 

 

 

 

  

a viking adventure

I had a slight misunderstanding about what yesterdays school thing was about. There is now a scale model Viking boat in the upper school playing field at madam's school (I only ever really go in the foundation stage area atm, so hadn't *really* noticed it).

 

So, yeah, we got to school and there were a few stalls around making balloon swords and other Viking accoutrements. As I have *no* cash until Tuesday I had to march madam past everything. She has a wooden Viking sword at home and if I'd thought we could have brought that with us.

 

Madam instead went straight for climbing over the boat which is big enough for a whole heap of kids to play out any number of fantasies. She commandeered the prow and made the most of her position to order the surrounding populous around. They mostly just ignored her.

 

 

 

She then met up with a chum of hers from her class and they went careening off into the wooded area at the back of the field and spent the majority of the hour or so we were there collecting conkers and jumping all over the tree stump seats and things that are along the nature trail. She did manage to come back in time to have her photo taken for the local paper (not just her, it was a group shot). I mainly sat on one of the benches and supervised her coat!

 

After I managed to persuade her to leave, which she only agreed to when she realised that we were pretty much the only people there, we headed home for a bit of a chill before dinner. We had decided to make a fruit crumble (plum and strawberry) for dessert. But I had this rush of blood to the head and decided that even though crumble is becoming a bit of a signature dish for me we should have something different.

 

I had already pretty much made the crumble topping when I decided this so had to improvise what I was going to turn it into. I went with shoving a splash of milk in and turning it into a sort of scone dough. I (of course) put too much milk in and ended up desperately adding flour to try and dry my dough out a bit! I made it into little flattened balls and put them all around the top of my fruit. You know, bit like a cobbler.

 

I have no idea if I even vaguely made the right thing, but what we ended up with tasted really great and was a change from the same old, same old. I shall make it again, but perhaps in a small deeper pan. That way the topping might join together better and the fruit won't all stick to the underneath!

 

We did go to the Harvest Festival this morning after all. And it was nice to see the display of food that had been brought in. Madam was particularly taken with the wheat sheaf they had right in the centre of the altar display. All the food collected today is going to the churches newly formed food bank. This is the same for madam's school service on Wednesday.

 

the main table with all the food was off to the side!

 

 

After the service we wandered along to the food festival, but it was so busy and loud that madam wasn't keen. There was a barbecue/grill going that was smoking wildly as well. We didn't stay long and we didn't find any free samples... Boo ;) 

 

We ended up going to mum and dad's a bit earlier than normal and madam has mainly been riding her bike and getting under peoples feet since then! We have taken her for a ride out to the supermarket in the hope of finding her some more school t-shirts as she's ruined some of them already. They had none in, annoyingly, then we took her to the park on the way home. She is now (finally) sitting quietly. I'm hoping she might be tired enough to go to bed to time this evening.     

goodbye to the guides until September

It was the final night of Guides for this term/year last night so we thought we would introduce them to a perennial guiding favourite... Tin can cookery :) That's right, the ancient art of attempting to cook a scotch pancake/drop scone on the base of a tin using only a tea-light as your heat source! It is much more fun than you think and all the guides seemed to enjoy it.

Well, except one, who's candle refused to stay lit and didn't get even a single pancake for her efforts!

an actual cooked pancake!

in progress

it was so nearly ready and then the candle went out!

the many matches of abject failure

who'd have thought they could concentrate so hard!

But it was really funny watching them prod at the pancakes and try and guess when they were *actually* cooked! We had brought a couple of spare tins, which turned out to be the only tins anyone had brought with any holes punched in for airflow...

Now, due to the school that most of the Guides attend inconsiderately having their summer production on last night, most of the Guides were taking part in that. So we had 4! Luckily we also had 4 tins, so they got to all have a go and it set up some competition as to who could get the first pancake made.

We had some jam, sugar, and lemon for them to put on the pancakes (I find added sugar is usually the only way to make them palatable!) and they were let loose with their tea-lights and matches to try and cook as many as possible.

As there were so few of us we managed to have quite a good sort of party atmosphere going, there were juice boxes, some sweets (choc orange eclairs, FTW) and some really bad jokes being shared, example: How do you make a sausage roll?

Push it down a hill... It was quite a nice way to finish off the term. Made sadder with the knowledge that two of our group would not be back in September as they are too old to still be guides :(

Slightly sad to say goodbye to them as they started at the same time as me and it'll be strange not to have them messing about and making everyone laugh anymore.

I shall be glad to have my Friday nights free for the next few weeks, not that I will be doing anything exciting with them. Maybe madam and I should do our own tin can cooking in the back garden!   

A recipe for you

It's proving extraordinarily difficult to concentrate on writing this as the smells emanating from the kitchen are immensely distracting! This is because madam and I are having an experiment and cooking Nutella brownies.

 

The recipe was posted on Facebook by a friend of mine the other day. And it was so simple I had to give it a go. It was originally posted on Pamela G Cook's page and I saved it to mine for the recipe...

 

The recipe is:

280g Nutella

2 eggs

62g flour (she says that's 10tbsp, but not in my experience!)

 

Put it in the bowl. (I'd have been better with a slightly bigger one!)

 

 

 

Mix. (Probably not as close to your laptop, especially if your littlies are helping...)

 

 

 

Pour in prepared tin. (Would also make good buns, reduce cooking time)

 

 

 

Cook for 30mins at 180 Celsius. Et voila!

 

 

 

The smell is incredible and it has managed to keep madam and I occupied for a bit whilst it pours with rain outside. It's always miserable when madam isn't at nursery!

 

So now I am going to eat a sample whilst I cook our actual dinner. I also have to make a fresh cream and strawberry flan for dessert!

 

 



making a house a home

The weather has decided to be a little less obliging. It's not as warm and madam and I have gone for discretion as to weather we'll get soaked (it's gone quite dark and foreboding as well). We have had a wee walk already today. Back to our house to collect chargers and things and then up to the supermarket to get some stuff for lunch.

 

Madam is now complaining of being knackered so I'm not sure she'd enjoy a yomp this afternoon. In truthfulness I'm also fairly exhausted. I didn't sleep that well last night. Kept waking up and having to readjust myself. I do hate sleeping in the wrong bed...

 

Also, in a single bed, there is much less room for madam to wiggle round. She did start in the other bed but migrated into mine in the middle of the night as usual. I really have to get her to give up the habit when we have so little space! Funnily enough I'd dropped off really quickly for a change. Quite annoying to not then get a decent sleep...

 

I have to go into town later as well, so I can top up the electric meter and get myself some magnolia emulsion. The rental agency is coming (again) tomorrow and I'm in need of more touch ups to the walls. I have lost count of how many times I've told madam not to draw on them., But it just doesn't seem to sink in :(

 

So after town we're going in for a quick whip around and tidy up. It's really not that bad atm, I've been trying to keep on top of things as much as possible. And although there is loads of laundry still to do, it'll be fine.

 

We're going to watch the first Harry Potter film before we do anything though, I promised madam we would. It also means you get Richard Harris as Dumbledore :) Madam has watched this before but only a long while ago. She is mostly remembering that Dudley gets given a piggy tale for stealing the food!

 

She's also rather taken with him having a bedroom under the stairs... *plots a new home for madams* No, she wouldn't fit in ours! Lol.

(Disclaimer: I would never actually make my child live under the stairs)

 

I am actually blessed with a rather large understair cupboard, I have mainly just been using it for storage. But if it were actually my house you could convert that corner into a rather good office space.

 

You know, I do this all the time. I live in a rental house for a while and then start planning what I would do with the place if it were mine. I think I wish I lived in this house more than I have in any of the others (though I miss the garden from the last one). It's just the right size for me and madam, but it could do with a bigger kitchen.

 

Though for once it actually comes with enough cupboard space for real people it's just short on work surfaces. I would also quite like to explore the attic, I know it's up there, but I've never been. Lack of a proper set of steps. It would be quite useful for extra storage space!

 

Also, then I could paint it some slightly more interesting colours... The magnolia everywhere is a bit boring. I would at least like to make the kitchen yellow and the bathroom a nice blue. My bedroom would probably be a lilac sort of a shade and pale mint green for madam. Not sure I'd change the dining room and I can't think what would suit the living room... Shades of grey maybe...

 

Also its in a good location for us. Not too far from the schools we want to go to and the rents are only around the corner. Town is easy to get to and we're on a bus route. The only bad thing really is how close to the road we are, it's quite noisy too and I worry about madam and traffic! She's pretty good with roads though.

 

But you can't have everything, can you... I'm just sad they still want me to leave :( I still don't want to...


a jumbly jam of thoughts

Its Friday again. I am being forced to watch CBeebies with madam whilst the sun is out as I promised she could watch whilst I used the rents wifi... It seems a waste of a sunny day though. Mind you, it's rather hot atm and madam would whinge if I took her to the park. Maybe we could go a bit later once I've finished and we've got past 3pm...

I have a dilemma about guides whilst the rents are away. The most obvious being that I have to take madam with me and she's a major distraction. Also, no car... We've had to give up gymnastics whilst the rents are gone as we can't get there and back on foot. 

Well, we can. But madam would be so tired that she would probably never forgive me! She's good at walking as it's our usual method, but not that far! So Guides also slightly comes under that category. Although we can get a bus down to the middle of town and we'd just have to walk to the school. But I don't know if we could get home again. 

I'm going to work on the basis that my Guide leader won't mind throwing us out on the way past our house (which she does drive past anyway).

Oh. Hmm... I was meant to be doing some form of sponsored something over the half term... Ah. I might have completely forgotten about that... I was going to get madam to draw pictures and sell them on FB to raise funds :) I think it could have been quite fun. Oh well, never mind.

We can do it as an ongoing project I suppose. Taking commissions if anyone is interested ;) If you're really lucky she may even sign it for you...

So I've also been trying to decide what to do with madam over the weekend. We quite often go out with the rents somewhere further afield on a Sat afternoon. I might plan a picnic on the Westwood and hope for some nice weather. 

I really wanted to take madam to Burton Bushes to see the bluebells, but I think they'll probably all have gone over by now. We could still go and build a den or something though. I used to love doing that as a kid...

(see, she likes a good den...)

 

I'm more worried about what we'll do if the weather is pants. I guess we'll just do things at home and try and deal with the cabin fever. And we have messy church on Sunday, so that at least will be fun. (We got pizza and cake last time, awesomes!)

I'm thinking we might make another attempt at cheesecake... It worked so well last time and was particularly yummy... Just need to decide what to top it with this time. I do like the idea of lemon curd, but don't know if madam would be so keen. Do you think you could use that choccy philly? And orange juice instead of lemon... Mind you it might not be acidic enough without lemon/lime... 

If you missed the last cheesecake post (where were you?!) then you can find it here, along with the recipe. I recommend you try it at some point, especially if you have small kids. Or I suppose we could experiment with a different cake recipe. Madam is always most helpful when we're cake baking!

I also want to do some kitchen chemistry and try a new a new recipe... I seem to be in a bit of a rut at the moment with my cooking. Although I've also been considering this whole 5:2 diet that everyone has been banging on about. I've downloaded the book onto my Kindle but haven't had a chance to look at it yet.

I think I could just about manage to be good two days a week. After all it's fairly normal for me to be good sporadically. And I seriously need to do something about getting my eating under control. I need to look at the amount of exercise I do at the moment as well. 

So yeah, I walk everywhere, but I don't do anything else... I do have a bike, but I had sort of given up riding it as madam was too big to go in the seat on the back, but as she is now riding her own bike pretty confidently I could get it back out again.

That might be a good thing to do with madam at the weekend...

strawberries on your fingers and on your cake

I have given myself a manicure before writing today. Which means a couple of things. 1. I am typing really strangely, 2. I now have nails that look like strawberries (thanks to the fabulous essbeevee for the tips )3. I can now not get my phone out of my pocket... So, sadly, no photo's to show you how good they look.

 

At least not today anyway!

 

I still have major issues with painting my nails on my right hand. I even managed to develop a tremor when trying to do the polka dots. So some of them are distinctly dodgy!

 

Madam and I had a whale of a time making our cheesecake yesterday afternoon and I promised a photo of the completed article. For those of you who follow me on social media I apologise for spamming you with this pic collage, but I really love it :)

 

 

 

It tasted flaming good too, I have to say! My mother gave me the most humongous slice for my pudding. There was a slice left which we brought home with us and madam did attempt to persuade me that she could have it for breakfast! Nice try... I think she'll find that she can share that with me later.

 

If anyone's interested the recipe is amazingly simple, it was just part of an advert in Heat magazine this week *I didn't buy it* 

 

100g melted butter

200g crushed biscuits

397g tin condensed milk

300g soft cream cheese

2 lemons.

 

That's it! You mix the butter in with the biscuits, spread them into the base of a 7-inch tin and shove it in the fridge to set.

Mix together the condensed milk and cream cheese until smooth (I found I needed to give it a bit of a whisk) and then add the juice of the two lemons and watch as the mixture magically thickens.

Pour over your chilled base and then bung it back in the fridge for a couple of hours. Decorate as you see fit.

 

We used fresh strawberries but I was thinking that, as the mixture is quite nice and lemony, you could top with lemon curd! :) I was also debating using lime juice as the acid, or orange for a sweeter finish.

 

Would be nice to add a bit of zest in to the mix as well, for a more grown up pud.

 

You can see I spend a lot of time thinking about these things, can't you...

 

I've been shopping this morning and I did buy another tin of condensed milk to go into my store cupboard. It'll make a great "crap, unexpected visitors" dessert... Obviously, as long as you get slightly more than half an hour for prep!

 

Ooh, my nails might be dry enough to try reaching my phone... You'll have to excuse the dodgy bits around the edges, I'll tidy them up later.   

 

 

I hate having to hold your hand like that to get a good photo of nails... Could be misconstrued!