About Me.

I am a 31 year old Scottish woman and my life revolves around food.

I am a part time GP.  I do this to earn money to buy ingredients and the odd meal out.

I have a husband, Steve, who works full time to earn money to feed me.

I have two amazing chefs-in-training.  They are my two little boys - Adam, 3, and Rufus, 2.  I spend as much time as I can teaching them to cook and bake so that I will be well fed when I am old and unable to cook for myself.

I also have an Irish wolfhound called Bob.  Now he does NOTHING to contribute to my eating so you can see I must love him very much.  I don't share much of my food with him but I do generally buy some cheap meat - liver, lamb's hearts, whatever to ensure he has something tasty in his bowl.

I am a foodie but not in a snobby way.  I love all food.  I can sit daintily through a three Michelin star menu or I can devour a fish supper in a most unladylike way.  I am VERY happy with a meal of some shop-bought fish fingers and some butterscotch Instant Whip.  In fact, I will eat anything you care to give me.  Except ginger.  Ginger is the one thing I won't eat.  It is my nemesis.  And yet, it annoys me that there is something out there that I won't eat so I periodically try to force myself in the hope that I will get used to it. 

I am not a great cook but I am willing to spend time trying to improve.  As such, I have joined a few baking and cooking challenges here in blog world.  I also want my sons to look back on their childhood and remember that Mummy used to make lots of delicious baking.  I want them and their friends to want to come home here because they know there will be something yummy to dig into.  What better way to keep tabs on my children than to pretend I am letting them do what they want but secretly ensuring there are chocolate brownies in the tin so irresistible that they will be drawn back here rather than hanging about outside the local shop getting up to mischief.

We live in Aberdeenshire.  It's a wonderful part of the world and we have lots of great local food. I'll hopefully be able to showcase some of our wonderful food traditions and brilliant suppliers throughout the course of the blog.

Thank you to anyone who comments on my blog.  I love to have conversations with others about food and learn from them so I really appreciate it if you take the time to chat.

Autumn Day.

Well I say Autumn but it was positively wintry today.  It was 6 degrees and has dropped to 4 degrees now and we have had several hail/sleet showers.  Brrrr.  Good day for staying at home and having comfort food.

So, here is just a taste of what we have to eat in a day.

The boys and I started with granola then toast and jam and a few grapes.

We then decided to get on with painting some autumnal leaves (I stole the idea from Brandy - brandyscrafts).  I left them in their pyjamas as it is easier to just throw them in the washing afterwards instead of trying to keep their clothes clean.

After they had helped a bit with the cleaning up and we had left the leaves to dry, we shared a pomegranate for snack.

We then headed outside to play with our dog, Bob, for a while.  We got rain, sleet and hail while were out and I kept expecting the boys to ask to go back in but they were actually pretty stoic.  Hardy Aberdeenshire boys.

So, by the time we came in we needed a hot, comforting lunch.  Generally I don't really cook at lunchtimes - we just have really easy food eg sandwiches, toasties, soup.  Today, I had just the answer - baked tatties, beans and cheese.  Oooh these went down so well!

We had yoghurts afterwards then the boys went for naps.  While they sleep (usually about an hour) is my time for a cup of tea, some chocolate and a chance to get on the computer for a while.

When they woke, we had yogurt coated raisins for snack.

We then stuck the painted leaves to the windows.  The boys were very proud and couldn't wait to show Daddy when he got back from work.  Please excuse the various states of pyjamification.  Their clothes got soaked while we were out in the sleet so when we got back in, I just put them into jammies again.  I know, I'm a slovenly mother, but it's the holidays, and jammies days are good!

So, then I sent the kids to play with their toys and I got the tea made.

A really simple curry.  Cheating as I used a curry paste - just to use up the rest of the jar from the kedgeree the other night.  I fried some onion and garlic with the paste then added diced lamb.  I added a tin of tomatoes and some stock then put in a low oven for nearly 2 hours so that the lamb cooked slowly and became beautifully tender.

Just tangerines for the boys for puddies. And just for completeness, Bob got his usual kibble and some lamb's heart.  Lucky dog.

At bedtime I let the boys have some chocolate drops with their cocoa just because they had been pretty good through the day.

So, thanks for getting this far in my little - "a day in the life...".

It was a fairly heavy calorie day but the weather just made us feel the need for comfort food.

And, of course, important to remember to brush your teeth...

Goodnight. x