I went to four birthday parties last week, including my own. It was also my parent’s ruby wedding anniversary. I have managed to eat my own body-weight in cake in the last ten days.
It’s the same story every January – the excesses of the Christmas period seem to drift on for another month. I rarely make New Year’s Resolutions. I’ve learnt from experience that they require will power, something that – when it comes to cake – I just don’t have.
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Posted by Maeve
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It is so cold. There are icicles on the inside of the window and people are dropping like flies with the flu. I got it just before Christmas, which meant we had to cancel the big party. As I’d done most of the cooking in advance, it wasn’t too much of a problem as it was all in the freezer.
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Posted by Maeve
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Is it just me or are the days a lot shorter than they used to be? I don’t mean the lack of daylight. I mean there just doesn’t seem to be enough hours in the day to get everything done. Quite frankly by the time it comes to six o’clock that I just want to collapse onto the sofa and crack open a bottle of plonk. However, the kids don’t get fed unless I stagger into the kitchen, so to make it all easier, I try to plan ahead. That way, at least I don’t have to think about what to cook.
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Posted by Maeve
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Christmas is always expensive. It feels even more expensive this year, thanks to the gloomy economic forecast. BBC Spotlight Devon have made a series of four short films to help fight the Christmas credit crunch, two of which I thought were particularly helpful for shopping and cooking at this time of the year.
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Posted by Maeve
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I must be mad. As if there wasn’t enough else to do, I seem to have invited the whole village to our Christmas party. I get a bit carried away with all that festive cheer and dream that I will miraculously transform into Nigella Lawson the minute the Christmas tree goes up. Somehow, I’ve got to find time to cater for the party, on top of getting ready for Christmas and keeping my tribe fed. The freezer is groaning under the weight of all this advanced cooking and if I see another mince pie, I swear I’m going to scream.
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Posted by Maeve
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The husband laughs at my obsessive list writing, but I have to write lists as my brain is like a sieve. Writing lists gives the illusion of being organised, even though I am apt to loose my notebook. Of course Christmas is the perfect excuse for indulging in lists – especially when it comes to food. Planning christmas meals and writing shopping lists gives me a fighting chance that with a bit of luck I won’t forget the bread sauce, and I’ll only buy what we need.
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Posted by Maeve
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Amy Fleming wrote in the Guardian Online yesterday that “one of the secrets to hassle-free packed luncheoning seems to be to cook stuff for tea that you’ll want to eat again, at work, the next day.” Spot on. Using up last night’s supper means you can pack up your lunch without having to think – always a bonus – just open the fridge, grab and go.
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Posted by Maeve
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I’ve discovered there is such a thing as a free lunch! Anything that’s free – particularly if it’s edible – sees me first in the queue. I am now a dedicated ‘free-luncher’.
The most useful thing I’ve picked up from free-lunching is using up leftovers at lunchtime. Every night I forage through the fridge to make the kids’ lunchboxes. Normally there is something left over from supper, or the weekend’s dinner, that can be transformed into a far more exciting alternative than the usual cheese sandwiches. Lunch is now a bit of an event in our house!
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Posted by Maeve
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Now that we are about to enter a recession, most of us can’t afford to throw away perfectly good food. I had a quick look around the web to see how other people are coping with the rising cost of food bills. Surprisingly, I didn’t find anything that showed me how to transform that bunch of black bananas into a million quid! However, I did find a family who’ve started tackling the problem…
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Posted by Maeve
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