Gluten-free Pizza

This one is for the foodies. A lovely recipe I found from the pages of the free Asda magazine (who would have thought?). I am a collector of all kinds of freebies, that's how it ended up in the house. I hoard them thinking I would be reading them later which could mean days or weeks or even months until John puts them in the pile of recycling for me to sort out (otherwise he will be in trouble for throwing stuff 'I might need').

That's how I ended up making this potato crust pizza in July when it was featured in the May issue. But I did manage to make it and that was the important bit. Because it's a lovely recipe that will surely make a regular appearance in our dining table.

Ingredients:
500g baking potatoes, skin on, cut into cubes [I made half with sweet potatoes just because I like them sweet]
2 tbsp olive oil
1 large egg, beaten
75g cheddar cheese, grated
4 tbsp tomato puree
75g mozzrella
8 baby plum tomatoes
basil leaves, to garnish

Extras:
pineapple chunk leftovers

1. Preheat the oven to 200C/180C fan/Gas 6. Line a baking tray.
2. Put the potatoes in a pan with cold water, bring to boil and simmer for 5mins until tender. Drain and put in a large bowl, leave to cool for 10mins.
3. Add the oil, egg and 50g of cheddar to the potato. Season with pepper and mix together.
4. Put the mixture on the baking tray. Shape into a rectangle, then press lightly with a fork to get a level surface.
5. Bake in the oven for 15mins.
6. Remove from the oven and cover with tomato puree. Add the mozzarella and the rest of the cheddar. Top with halved plum tomatoes.
7. Return to the oven for another 10-15mins. Season and garnish with the basil.

Enjoy!

From our Own Garden: Lavender Cake

Lavender season may be over but I didn't need to find an excuse to make this delicately flavoured cake, subtly scented with lavender and tangy lemon. I just had to get hold of the perfect recipe and find the time to make it, which happened to fall today, on August Bank Holiday when the weather begged us to stay at home.

I used the flowers from our lavender pot in the garden that John planted for my 30th birthday, they have already dried and I've collected them in a tin which I occasionally take out to inhale the sweet aromatic fragrance that's supposed to evoke a feeling of calm and tranquility.

This recipe is from a baking magazine I borrowed from my friend Louise and I followed it to the tee, except that instead of using glaze icing, I topped it with sugar paste, the alternative way to decorate.

Ingredients:
75ml milk
1 tsp dried lavender
175g unsalted butter, softened
finely grated zest of 1 small lemon
3 eggs, beaten
175g self-raising flour
200g white sugar paste icing to decorate
violet tint

Instructions: 

I decorated one of the cakes for John's dad's birthday present and we took it to his place where we had it with a cup of tea this afternoon. It certainly had the smell of lavender and tastes delicious too!

Almond and Raisin Cake

Every other week, mostly on Tuesdays, a male colleague of mine leaves a very succulent raisin cake in the kitchen at work, which as if by spot of luck, happens to be right in my line of vision. It has become quite popular it came to a point where he no longer sends an e-mail around for everyone to know about it but most people can smell sweets from a distance that my prime location means I am always in the know. This wonderful act of sharing, the reason for which I never really knew, has been borne from the unspoken tradition of bringing sweets on our birthdays or when coming back from an exciting holiday. So when it was my turn, I decided it was just fair to bring homemade goodies instead of the usual Sainsbury's packs that is rather favoured by our heavily male-dominated IT workplace. 

This recipe is a spin-off of my favourite Banana and Orange Cake as I didn't have very ripe bananas available and I wasn't sure whether everyone was a fan of the fruit. It turned out moist and was well-liked, not just because it was a freebie I hope! And because someone asked for the recipe so I've decided to make a blog out of it. 

Ingredients:
100g raisins
2 eggs, beaten (preferably free range)
1 tsp vanilla extract
125 ml olive oil (This is a healthier option as this is lower in saturated fat but you can also use 125g butter)
125 g brown sugar (although other recipes call for 150g but this lesser amount works for us)
190 g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
50g ground almond
1 tsp ginger powder
1 tsp mixed spice
60 ml milk
demerara sugar
almond flakes, to decorate

Baking equipment:
1 20cm x 12cm loaf pan
baking paper

Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees Celcius (Fan 150/Gas 3/325 degrees Fahrenheight).
2. Line the base and sides of the loaf pan with baking paper using butter or olive oil.
3. In a bowl, mix raisins, eggs and vanilla. Soak for at least 20 minutes, it makes the raisins plump and juicy.
4. Add olive oil to the mixture.
5. In a separate bowl, sift the dry ingredients and mix well.
6. Make a well in the middle and pour the egg mixture. Add the milk.
7. Pour the cake batter into the loaf pan, sprinkle with a tbsp of demerara sugar to give a crunchy topping if desired.
8. Sprinkle almond flakes on top.
9. Bake for 45 minutes or until skewer comes out clean. Cover with foil at around 20 minutes or when the top starts to darken too quickly.
10. Transfer to a wire rack to cool before removing from the baking pan.

Note: If using butter, use electric mixer to beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy before adding other dry ingredients. 

Black Banana and Orange Cake

Bananas were never my favourite fruits, I'm not sure if it's the texture or whether somewhere in my brains, I was wired to think that it would make my stomach turn, and it usually does. But this curved yellow fruit is a storehouse of essential nutrients whose health benefits are widely known that when I fell pregnant, I made it a resolve to eat one every day, usually around 11am when pangs of hunger start to kick in just before lunchtime. It became a symbol of self-restraint, a sort of sacrifice for the growing life inside me who would benefit from its nutrients rather than the empty calories of the more desirable sweets that I long for (which I occasionally give in to!). Once it became a habit, it stuck.

So we always keep a stock of bananas at home but I always prefer the ones that are just barely ripe and not too soft. As soon as the skin turns black, I refuse to touch them that they would usually end up in the bin. But during a recent awareness drive at Sheffield's Food Festival, I realised how this behaviour is unacceptable and that I was contributing to the 7.2 million tonnes of food and drink being wasted in this country every year. So I decided to be more responsible and creative with unwanted food, turning the black bananas into a cake (a less healthier option this might be). This recipe is just perfect for them and easy to make too!

Ingredients:
130 ml sunflower oil (This is a healthier option as this is lower in saturated fat but you can also use 125g butter)
2 eggs, beaten (preferably free range)
1 tsp vanilla extract
125 g brown sugar (although other recipes call for 150g but this lesser amount works for us)
190 g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 zest of orange
1 tsp ginger powder
1 tsp mixed spice
2 very ripe bananas, mashed
60 ml milk
orange slices, to decorate

Baking equipment:
1 20cm x 12cm loaf pan
baking paper

Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees Celcius (Fan 150/Gas 3/325 degrees Fahrenheight).
2. Line the base and sides of the loaf pan with baking paper using butter or oil.
3. Mix sunflower oil, eggs and vanilla extract in a bowl.
4. Sift the sugar, flour, baking power, orange zest, ginger powder and mixed spice.
5. Stir in the mashed banana and add milk. Mix well.
6. Pour the cake batter into the loaf pan, sprinkle with a tbsp of demerara sugar to give a crunchy topping if liked.
7. Arrange the orange slices on top.
8. Bake for 45 minutes or until skewer comes out clean, cover with foil if the top starts to darken too quickly.
9. Transfer to a wire rack to cool before removing from the baking pan.

Note: If using butter, use electric mixer to beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. 

Because Tomorrow I Turn Thirty

When paying for a bottle of wine at Morrisons over the weekend, I was asked for an ID. Although it is legal in the UK for anyone over 18 to purchase alcohol, many retailers follow the Challenge 25 protocol which requires anyone who looks under 25 to show proof of age. I thought the cashier was having a laugh but her face said otherwise so I brought out my driving licence and commented that I will be 30 in a few days. Not that I felt like it, or what I thought I was supposed to feel like. But given that Isaac's great grandmother who will be 90 this year still drives a car and lives on her own, age is but a number.

Still, it is always good to take stock of your life occasionally and the last day in your twenties seem to be a good chance to celebrate what you have managed to achieve in what could be a third of your lifetime (if you are lucky). I could not boast of what most of my 'Facebook friends' have already accomplished in three decades when it was their time to publicly count their (material) blessings (yes, I have seen this posted in my news feed!): a four-wheel drive, a home ownership and a high-flying career, standards by which my old culture measure success by, for I have none of them. But my substandard existence, as defined by social media, is filled with a lot of ordinary and unexceptional things to cherish.

Like pushing a second hand smart trike in the park on a warm Friday morning when the sun is out and watching the glee in my little boy's face as we approached the glittering pond where a noisy congregation of birds are waiting for our crumbs. Did I imagine, as a 20-year-old University student in a busy fishing town in the southern tip of the Philippines, that ten years later I would be in this other side of the world, trapped in an intoxicating state of domestic bliss?

It's not always bright and cheerful of course, for this simple way of life comes with a price. When I was younger and quite idealistic with an inflated sense of importance (err...purpose), I actually thought I was meant to do great things that would make a big difference to a lot of lives. I have prepared well - with Latin honours and Leadership awards at university, an accountancy qualification and a job at a Big Four audit firm - it looked like I was primed for a successful career in the financial industry. But somewhere along the way, while most of my peers have carried on the path that I too was meant to take, I took a U-turn and could no longer find my way back. This meant that I would have to start from scratch, in a job I have very little experience and in a country suffering badly from the damaging effects of government bailouts and overspending.

But when life gives you lemons, you must learn to make a lemon drizzle cake. They taste sweet and refreshing and smells lovely when freshly taken out of the oven. Without business meetings to prepare for or late hours to meet deadlines, I was able to spend a lot of time doing things that give me childlike pleasure. Cooking up something new and delightful everyday. Taking up photography. Writing blogs. Learning a new language. Things that wouldn't take me far in life but that which makes my everyday existence a rich experience.

I may not be flying the banner for feminism but I am living my life with as much passion and purpose as I could. It didn't take me long to realise that most of us are not likely to do anything remarkable in our lifetime, that we are destined to live a life on a relatively modest scale. But we should not resent the apparent smallness of our lives because they are, in their way, as great and as exciting as the lives of those caught up in great events.

Yet there are times when I have wondered whether this carefree wantoning is good enough, moments when I am gripped with jealousy about the "exciting" lives everyone else seems to be living, especially when I look at Facebook. It would have been nice to visit families living abroad, to afford to buy our own home or to live in a place of seemingly perpetual sunshine. But there are things you couldn't have that you learn to live without and only then will you learn to be grateful for what you have. If not having a bulky bank balance meant I could kiss my child goodnight instead of blowing him kisses in Skype or Facetime, I would choose that any time. Happiness does not have to cost a lot and keeping my family intact mean more to me than the luxuries we couldn't afford.

So by worldly terms, I have not really amounted to much and it would certainly seem like I have nothing tangible to show for my efforts. I have always found the interview question: "Where do you see yourself in 5 years?" a tough one to answer and something you couldn't be perfectly honest about. Five years ago, I was single and working as an accountant in Gibraltar who, aside from the country where I grew up in and where I then lived, have never been anywhere else in the world. Five years later, I have married, set up home in another country, travelled widely, took up a new occupation, obtained a new nationality and started a family in that order. If my life has changed that much in five years, who knows where I will find myself in the next thirty?

The Wonderful World of Weaning

There's been a constant buzz of activity in our tiny kitchen during the last few weeks - pans being stirred, hand blender being whizzed and food containers being filled up with different dishes for a growing baby to feed on. Cooking for your little one can be rather challenging, finding time to do it whilst looking after a mobile baby is not easy, but it can be cheap and rewarding. 

Official Department of Health guidelines recommend starting weaning at around six months old but at around 19 weeks Isaac was showing the classic signs of being ready to take solid food. We took the advice of my mother-in-law, a health visitor, and started him on a mix of baby rice or porridge from the box with a mixed variety of vegetables and fruits bought from the local green grocers and pureed using the hand blender (a Christmas present). 

Our child started off very greedy wanting to try everything and constantly asking for more but after three weeks and after going on two meals a day, he started getting fussy and irritable at meal times. I have read it was normal and just persisted, trying to make each meal time as fun as possible by putting him on his high chair and having meals with him. After a week and with more variety of food choices mixed together he started to open his mouth again and gobble everything like there is no tomorrow. 

Preparing his meals is not at all easy but I have allotted a day to cook them which falls on Thursdays when the library is closed, there are no play dates or swimming classes to go to and food shopping is done in the morning. Picking recipes from baby cook books borrowed from the library (Annabel Karmel and Gina Ford are a good start) and getting a free copy of Cow and Gate 5 Step Weaning Plan pack (which comes with free vouchers) made the job a bit less daunting. And with plenty of space in the freezer to help keep the food for longer, there is no reason why homemade baby cooking is not possible. Occasionally though when we are out and about, we do use ready made emergency packs that are as good and as healthy (albeit more expensive if resorted to every day). 

At six months we have already established three meals a day which includes fish and meat, complimented by breastfeeding four times a day and a bottle feed at night to keep him fuller for longer. The meal planners from the books also helped in creating a mixed and varied diet, a free Heinz meal planner can also be found online. I'm hoping that by helping Isaac develop a taste for healthy food now we will be making meal times a lot easier in the years to come.

Monday Morning Baby Rush

Monday morning has once again found us rushing off from our house on top of the hill to the park at the bottom of our road to make it just in time for the Baby Massage class held at our local children's library.

It's amazing how a 9:30am start of the day can feel too early when you have a young baby in the house, especially after enduring another long and restless night. But meeting up with other mothers is a good enough reason to get out of the house, moan about our night shifts and compare notes about our baby's milestones. 

This four-week class is one of the perks of having a National Health Service, it is paid for by the taxpayers and run by a breastfeeding support worker. It has come very well recommended and the waiting list is long, I've been on it since September and has only been offered a place in December. But it's all worth it, with numerous benefits for both mother and baby including relief from wind, colic and constipation as well as relaxation but most importantly, it's an opportunity to bond with your child. Plus a chance to socialise and get to know other mums in the community too. 

There are seven other mothers pushing their prams to get to class on Monday morning and occasionally dads have dropped in too. I have just started to remember their names but I definitely know what their babies are called, its amazing how quickly you can pick up on those details. After the 30 minute session, we would have tea and coffee with sweets and share experiences, ask about other classes being run in the community and just relax. 

When you have a four-month-old baby screaming the house down during the day, any excuse to go out is a welcome one.

DIY Baby Toys

Some childhood images become engraved in the mind like photographs. My most vivid memory of a baby toy is that of my younger brother's bright red rattle that he was never without from amongst his baby photos. It was a possession so loved with astonishing intensity in spite its simplicity that years later I decided to find one for my own little boy and was disappointed to discover that they do not make them as simple or as cheap in the UK. In fact, they don't make any of them cheap here at all. 

In frustration, I started typing DIY toys in the internet and found a wealth of DIY projects using leftover fabrics and other materials readily available at home. Then by investing in a John Lewis sewing machine which only cost £35 and does the job, my mum (NOT ME!) made these lovely toys that her grandchild can play with and cherish. 

The Sound of Breathing

It was on one of those rare moments of peace and quiet in the house, when the baffling cries have been briefly muffled by the lure of deep sleep, that I came to rest beside the tiny life form that only a few weeks ago I had the joy of breathing out of this world. 

I listened to the sound of his steady breathing, in a way that one listens to the singing of the birds on the tree top or the gushing forth of the flowing river when they hit the rocks; sounds of which one cannot come up with meaning but which evokes a warmth of feeling that goes all the way to the heart. 

I could lie there forever, watching him sleep, listening to him breathe. 

The Room of Organised Mess

I live in a constant state of organised mess, that's according to my husband. And there is a room in the house that best embodies that - where things are stored in boxes, piled up in shelves to give a false impression of order. But that is better than no order at all, I would argue and he concedes (like he has a choice)!

I have a terrible habit of hoarding. I went to Gibraltar with a 20kg box and a suitcase, moved to the UK with two large boxes and two suitcases and five house moves later, we have an entire home with furniture to deal with. Most of these boxes are labelled 'Study', filled with books bought from the charity shop five-at-a-time, thick work-related paperwork and stashes of art materials that's been sitting in the shelves for months waiting for my creative juices to ooze out (and they haven't for the last year).

When we were living in a three bedroom terrace house, storage wasn't a problem but when we downsized to a bedroom and a half, it suddenly became an issue. So a Kindle replaced the big collection of unread novels and the paperwork were all scanned and shredded. What's left are all organised in boxes of different sizes, stacked up in our two year old IKEA Expedit bookcase (one of the few Ikea items I have no regret of buying) and the new Argos Maine bookcase (a more sensible purchase).

My dream study of course would be one where the walls are lined up with shelves and an endless display of books but for now this will do. And now that my sense of order has been restored, all I need to do is switch on the creative juices but why, oh why, is that such a hard thing to do?

Home No. 5: Project Living Room

Like most houses, our living room is the hub of our home, a multifunctional area where we have breakfast, watch television, entertain guests and showcase our creative treasures. 

Ours  have the features of a typical early 1900s Victorian terrace with a large bay window and a converted granite fireplace hearth sans the fireplace. When we moved in, the whole room was a blank canvas painted in neutral colours to make it easier to rent out. But because we are renting it out from a family member, we were allowed to do it up in our own style. 

We were going for a cottage style living room to match the size and the style of the house. Being the fifth home we have lived in, we finally invested in 'proper wood furniture' this time as our previous Ikea items did not really last that long. The oak tall bookcase (something I have long-wished for!) was bought from the discount store Swag in Darnall which came ready assembled and stress-fre. The TV stand was from John's old family home and the white leather sofa came from the flat we are renting out. By the bay window, we placed a couple of printed footstools from Dunelm Mill and to complete the look, we bought an electric fireplace with a wood-burning stove effect, an idea borrowed from last year's holiday cottage in Wales. 

My short obsession with home design led me to a webpage webpage which gave helpful tips in decorating the mantelpiece where travel souvenirs and special presents have found their place. And because I wanted a photo gallery, we've also put up one showcasing the stories of our travels. 

So yes, this is our living room - our travels, our stories, our style. 

Home No. 5: Project Kitchen

Our quaint little kitchen is one of the charming features of our new home with the mediterranean blue cupboards that gives it a cottage feel. The only problem was space, at least for someone whose latest obsession involved plenty of activities in the kitchen. But small spaces meant a lot of opportunities for creativity and there is a wealth of inspiration from the internet, my personal favourite being the Easy Living website. 

So with a few trips to my favourite shops, we managed to fit our ever-increasing collection of kitchenwares in this small space. It meant getting vintage-looking storage jars and bric-a-bracs from the charity shops at the bottom of our road, buying breakfast cereal containers from Wilkinsons and putting up IKEA shelves for the pots and pans. To solve the problem of not having enough shelves, we bought an Argos solid pine shelf and turned it into a pantry with the same look as the rest of the kitchen cupboards.   

The result was a very homely kitchen of our liking with still some space for my new favourite pastime of baking!

A Cupcake for Easter

The Easter celebrations is not an excuse for making an Easter-themed cake but I was hoping that my indulgence will not be unforgivable, after all, any useful pursuit of talent could be a form of worship. So this Saturday, I made some cupcakes and because we incidentally have some chocolate mini eggs in the pantry and some Weetabix breakfast cereals, decorated them into Easter nests!

The recipe is from my reliable cupcake book by Ann Nicol I bought from the now closed The Works discount bookshop at the Sheffield Moor. It is made of a basic chocolate cupcake similar to these Cadbury cupcakes topped with basic buttercream frosting. The egg nest is made as follows: 

Ingredients: 
50g wheat cereal
125g milk chocolate, broken into pieces
25g unsalted butter
chocolate mini eggs

Steps: 
1. Place the chocolate with the butter on a mixing bowl over a simmering pan of water until melted. 
2. Stir the wheat cereal and let cool slightly. Line a plate with cling film. 
3. Mould the mixture into tiny nest shapes using your fingers, then rest them on the lined plate. 
4. Freeze the nests for a few minutes until hardened. 
5. Set the nests on top of each cupcake that's already covered with buttercream frosting. 
6. Fill with mini eggs. 

Home No. 5: Project Bedroom

Over the past few weeks, I have been obsessing over home designs and scouring the internet for inspiration. I can't believe the wealth of information that is now available online for interior decorator wannabes like me: Pinterest, IKEA and Easy Living to name but a few. 

When we moved in to our new home, we were confronted with a blank canvas. We had to buy all the fittings and decorate it as we wanted. This being the fifth house move we've made during the last three years, we have become wiser when it came to buying furniture which meant no more trips to Ikea to buy flat pack furniture that would not last. Instead, for our bedroom we invested in a solid oak chest of drawers from Swag, a discount furniture shop in Sheffield we have discovered from our previous landlord.  We inherited a 20-year-old solid pine set of wardrobes from Dad's cellar and kept our sensible metal Ikea bed frame and bedside tables. 

Once the essentials are down, it was a joy to shop around for furnishings. If I didn't have a sensible husband who kept reminding me about storage issues, I would have bought everything I fancied from all the shops we've visited. He did allow me to pick some ornaments for my dressing table like the vintage glass perfume bottles and jewellery box from Dunelm Mill. The curtains were from Home Bargains, previously bought on our 3rd house move and the nearly matching bedsheets are from Wilkinsons in Hillsborough shopping centre. 

My creative contributions are the styro letters I have picked up from a Pinterest post using up cycled materials from the furniture delivery boxes and painted over with black acrylic paint. The accessories board is a poor version of an Ikea mood board inspiration but it's still a useful one. 

Our bedroom may be smaller than our previous one but it's definitely comfortable and homely!

Home No. 4: Dorothy Road

Dorothy Road in Hillsborough is a street lined up with Victorian terraced houses where workers from the city's steel industry used to live. Decades on and after the soots from the factories have cleared and the houses have changed ownership, this street is now home to professional employees with young families and a handful of pensioners. 

These houses were built to last and last they do. In Britain, and throughout the Old World, buildings such as these endure hundreds and hundreds of years. Only a re-plastering a couple of times or so every century is required to keep these buildings as good as when the first ever occupants arrived here. Solid brick and stone built, they offer a build quality that most modern concrete or glass buildings can only dream of. As they say, if Paris, Rome, Vienna, Madrid, and most of the other great old world cities were built to today's standards we would not have had the opportunity to see them as we do now. It makes you think with a certain degree of melancholy how today's flamboyant cities don't just look very generic and bland but will deteriorate much more rapidly, especially those in the 'flat pack' countries such as China and the United Arab Emirates amongst many others. False economy, a not so efficient use of resources, and not thinking long term springs to mind. 

These houses look deceptively small from the outside but is actually spacious inside usually with three bedrooms including a converted attic, a kitchen with a separate dining room, a living room with a bay window, a large bathroom and a dry cellar. At the back is a good-sized garden that gets a lot of sunlight until late in the summer evening if you have a south-facing one. 

When we came to view No. 74, I fell in love with the place. Oozing with character that most newer builds just simply lack, it ticked all my boxes. John was dubious about its size, we have previously lived in a one bedroom flat and briefly in my mother-in-law's attic but I was very adamant. I loved the space, the furnishings and the garden. So Dorothy Road became House No. 4 in just two years in Britain. 

If we were living anywhere other than this country with no huge heating bills and plenty of sunshine, it would have been a perfect house. But alas, there were those things to consider and suddenly a huge pretty house by the end of summer suddenly felt cold and empty. There was the subject of keeping it clean too, a chore that needed to be done every weekend that usually fall on my husband's shoulders. It became too big for us to manage. 

But there were still no regrets about living there. It has taught us a lot about properties and what to look out for when we would eventually buy our family home.