Thursday 28 March 2013

We are floored


Flawed and floored....

This past weekend Mark had a seroius case of getting the DIY bit between his teeth, and our last bastion of major house chaos was tackled.
The Study.
No lead piping, no Professor Plum, just...
The Study.
Here is a picture of it before we had building work last year....study is this side of the arch, Anna's bedroom on the other side.


This is the 'After' picture showing the same view, but with a new dividing wall and doorway...



And looking from the hall through that new doorway, you get the full impact of what we found under the pink stripey wallpaper....
Lovely, isn't it?  Sadly there is no 'Before' picture showing the accumulated junk that was in there - it took us 1/2 a day to rehouse it all before we started to fill and skim the walls....sand (cough cough), refill, skim and sand again (cough again)...paint, refill the bits we missed....etc.etc. etc.

Then we began flooring with the leftovers from the hall and kitchen. Here is the very last hole to be floored:
after 500 sq m of flooring that gap was very significant to us!!! 
Here is Mark ceremonially placing the final board...(We are left with just 8 boards - not bad efficiency!)

Does he look pleased with himself,?

Here lies Pharoah Crowbar...




It was an exhausting weekend, but we now have a functional study....which I am sitting in to type this. It is serene and clean, and we love it.
Next job is to make endless book shelves so all our boxes of school books etc. can come down from the attic. Ah! The anticipation of being able to find things again after a year of being flummoxed!

Wednesday 27 March 2013

"There'll be snow in August..."

Imelda Staunton in Nanny McPhee. Was that ever a good movie?!
Snow in  August had better be impossible, but snow in April may be on the cards it seems.
For those not living in the UK, the thing that was wrong from the past post was the photo of snow in the garden.....when there should be nice spring sunshine. 
How is a would-be self-sufficiency freak to get self-sufficient if she can't bear to go outside to plant veggie seeds???
 Still, Mark and I took some very nice spring-flowers-in-the-snow pics:


Plum Blossom....not sure there will be many plums this year...



Poor little daffodils - their faces were right on the ground, buried.  

















Not exactly a flower, but it does have a stalk growing out of the ground...

Sunday 24 March 2013

Spot the problem picture...


Thought I would put a few pretty pics on the blog showing some scenes taken in and around our garden.
One of them is not how it should be....any guesses which one?






Saturday 23 March 2013

Taratatataratata!




Here is Anna singing her heart out with her choir, Sine Nomine, during 'Carmen' (Sung version)
They were asked to make a guest appearance by Choir 2000 (Cambridge adult choir), as a bunch of street urchins and raggamuffins. They did so well - only 12 of them against a HUGE adult choir and orchestra. They made themselves heard very well, and sounded lovely to boot!


A friend of Anna's came to hear the performance, and, having read the synopsis earlier, commented:
"Such a heart-warming tale!"
 I suppose even Aesop might have been a little taken aback by its forthright message!



Thursday 21 March 2013

Its all Greek to me, but its Latin to them!

Well, I had to post a quickie to show the strange and contrary nature of my offspring.
Take a look at this picture, and tell me....do these children look bored? miserable? coerced?

Answer: No. They are having fun. Lots of fun.
The eldest daughter of our very good family friends comes to teach J and A Latin every week on a Thursday.
It is outside of our regular school hours, but do they complain?
No! They tell me its their favorite subject!
It is not unusual to hear peels of laughter and dramatized voices during the course of the lesson.
We are very grateful to this special young lady who has contributed much to our family.
Latin rocks.

Lashings of Goulash

Below is my trusty Goulash recipe. 
Actually, that is not true, it is Delia Smith's Goulash recipe, and it works perfectly every time.
Good old Delia. no matter what the other super TV chefs say, I would take her recipes over theirs any day for reliability!

I must preamble this by saying that I have two lovely friends, one of German and one of Hungarian descent who both have fabulous Goulash recipes, and serve their Goulash with traditional Spaetzles. I am usually in too much of a hurry to make them, but they are superbly worth the effort if you have the extra energy and time. V, G (and G's Dad) if you are out there, I am plagiarizing your recipes for them!
I cook the whole of this recipe in one of my much loved Le Creuset lookalikes, which saves having to transfer stuff from one pan to another. But, if you don't have one, just do as it says below, and all will be well.

Prep time: about 20 mins for the meat part, 10mins for the spaetzle.
Cooking time:  2.5 hours at 140oC (275oF)
Serves: 4

Ingredients
1.5 lb stewing steak cut into 4cm (1.5") cubes
2 large onions, roughly chopped
1 large clove garlic chopped or crushed
1 tbsp olive oil
1 rounded tbsp all purpose (plain) flour
1 rounded tbsp Hungarian Paprika (can use regular paprika, but not the hot kind!!)
14oz can chopped tomatoes
1 red pepper cut into strips
5 fl oz sour cream
salt and black pepper.

Method:
(preheat oven to 140oC, 275oF, with dutch oven/deep lidded casserole dish in it to warm)

1.  Brown the beef cubes:  heat up oil in a heavy duty frying pan. Put in a fistful of beef cubes at a time and brown on all sides of each cube. (they should brown almost instantly, but not blacken - med, high heat.)
Avoid putting too many pieces in at a time, because then they produce to much liquid in the pan, and instead of sealing in the meat juices you end up boiling them out.
As each batch has finished browning, place them in a bowl to one side.

2. Now add onion to the pan (You may need a little extra oil if the pan is very dry at this point).
Stir gently until the onions are softened and golden.
Add garlic, turn heat to medium low and stir for 1 minute

3. Return the beef to the pan, mix contents together, then add flour and paprika. Combine thoroughly and let cook gently for 1 minute.
this will look claggy and revolting. But never fear, it is meant to!

4. Now add the can of chopped tomatoes. mix in, bring to a simmer then transfer the whole lot to warmed dutch oven. Put the lid on and place it in the middle of your pre-heated oven.

5. After 2 hours, remove goulash from oven and add the pepper strips. Stir briefly and replace lid, return to oven.  Start getting the stuff ready for making spaetzles.

6. After a further 1/2 hour, remove from the oven. Your Goulash is ready.  Stir in sour cream and serve on noodles or spaetzles.



To make yummy, buttery Spaetlzes:
You will need a large pan of boiling water and a sturdy colander with nice big holes.

 Ingredients:
1 cup flour
1 cup waater
2 eggs
1/2tsp salt
melted butter (to pour over once cooked)

Method:
Combine flour, water, eggs and salt.  Beat to thick batter.
Bring water to boil in pan.
Press batter through colander so that it drips into the pan.
Floating spaetzles are cooked. Remove as they come to the surface, and place in a warm dish.
Cook in batches to avoid over-boiling them.
Once all cooked, drizzles melted butter over them.
Serve immediately.

Apologies - no pictures. WIll try to embellish future recipes!
Enjoy your Goulash. Mine is in the oven smelling very good as I type!

Thursday 14 March 2013

Space Games

Last Wednesday we were crossing the boundaries of our known environment by thinking about the possibility of other habitable planets....it was all rather mind blowing, so Joel and I put our heads together to devise a couple of games that would make learning the facts more fun!


First game was my design:  I called it "Hab Plan" - short for Habitable Planet.
The aim was to find a planet that fit all the criteria for habitation, and then consider a few other variables that might affect its habitability.

Terraform's Game Board, Alpha Test Version!

Hexagonal Board with 6 "Orbits".
Each orbit has a set of "Hab Plan" cards  - which may allow you to move in to the next orbit, or give you a non-hab forfeit, making you move back out one orbit or miss a turn.  Each Hab Plan card has astronomical facts/theories to go with the consequence, which helps the kids (OK, not just the kids - me too!) learn without trying too hard.
Once you reach the Habitable Zone, Orbit 6, there are "System Cards" which add even more variables to the game - and can only be won with a game of chance with the dice.
Sounds complex, but....it worked!

We made counters to look like little planets out of painted air drying clay. very tactile.
Bottom line is that this fed my inner most needs to fiddle with bits of paper, play with my laminator and make cute things frmo clay. Who was benefiting from this experience?  Good question.




 However, learning was occurring!

interestingly, there was an article in the newspaper that very same week talking about the huge variety of planet types there are around other stars in our galaxy. So far, not one of them has more than one criterion for habitability.......

Still, despite this disappointing lack of alien life forms in real life, the next game we played was Joel's "Design an Alien" version of 'Beetle Drive" / Cooties.
the Alien body parts involved a little thinking outside the box to try to come up with ideas of how life might form in a totally different environment...
 
 so we had telepathic detection membranes, fuzzy antennae-type things for absorbing nutrients etc.
 And here were the resulting creations:


We were able to play all these games with our good friends and
partners in science crime, which made it all the more fun.
Why is it that my Alien looks a bit like a human being having a bad day.....Anna's and Joel's are much more sci fi looking!