Baking for Sunday teatime and a recipe

Hi everyone,

In our house, Sunday is a family day and we end it with a fancy tea in the living room. 

Daisy has always loved baking and this is what we made together for tea...

A Victoria sandwich

A chocolate sandwich cake

Little fairy cakes with white icing and  a glacé cherry on the top.

Chocolate fairy cakes with either chocolate sprinkles or smarties on the top.

These fairy cakes have jelly tots (Daisy's choice!) finally some little coconut and cherry buns. Here's the recipe...

1 cup self-raising flour

Pinch of salt

2dsp marg

2dsp sugar

1 cup coconut

3dsp milk

Glacé cherries or jam

1.  Rub the marg into the flour and salt.

2.  Mix in the sugar, coconut and milk (add a little at a time to make a soft dough but not sticky)

3.  Bring together then divide into 9 balls.

4.  Put on a greased baking tray and make a hole in the top with your thumb.

5.  Fill with jam or leave empty if choosing cherries, then brush with a little milk.

6.  Bake for 10 mins at 230 

7. Leave to cool then add cherries if you want.

Sunday lunch! I'm not that greedy really...it's nearly all veg ;)

One of Daisy's favourites for pudding...raspberry jelly.

I love Sundays! Does anyone else eat a roast on Sunday?

Mandy x

Vintage goodies!

Hi everyone 

As I said before, I'm on a massive declutter now and have rewarded myself with some vintage goodies. My aim is to replace the tat with things that I love and make me happy. I rarely spend money on me and this made a lovely change. 

I collect the woods ware in green (beryl) and found some more cups and saucers to add to it. 

The basket at the back is a sewing basket and I love it! I plan to keep this one in the living room so I can pick up my patchwork whenever I get five minutes spare. 

The sugar shaker is lovely...I make Victoria sandwich cakes regularly and this will come in handy for sprinkling the top.

I've been looking for a butter dish for ages and saw this glass one.

Finally, the cake plate is for our Sunday tea. We make a big point of having Sunday as a family day and Daisy loves helping me prepare for Sunday teatime. We bake together and make everything look pretty. The plate came with a cake slice too. I will share some photos of these items in use soon. 

Does anyone else collect old crockery etc? 

Mandy x

Poorly house :(

Hi everyone

Like many people at the moment, we are poorly here. One cold closely followed another and it's not been pleasant. You get by but it's a struggle to be thrifty when the last thing you want is to cook a meal from scratch.

I did make some vegetable soup...

It was very easy! I melted a little marg and olive oil in a pan and chucked in a pack of soup vegetable mix. It's chopped finely and only 70p so worth every penny. I then added a chicken stock cube (reduced salt) dissolved in boiling water. I let it bubble away then blitzed it with my hand blender. This was perfect for Henry too! I added some of Daisy's lactose free cream to hers and double cream to mine...it makes all the difference. It was very comforting and so easy when you feel ill. The children loved it! 

I've tried to get as much veg into us as possible and even though I didn't feel like cooking a roast, we had pork on Sunday with extra veg!

Yes, and a shop bought chocolate gateau for £1 which did us a few days. 

As I was sitting down more, I decided to be productive and found an easy pattern for baby booties. I've knitted blue for Henry in this wool...

And a pair in lemon for my friend's beautiful newborn. 

Today is a new start for me and I've made big decisions to improve our lives. I'm decluttering properly this time...for good! I'm getting rid of the modern tat and concentrating on the vintage style I love so much. I've treated myself to a few  bits for the house and will show you when they arrive. For new things to come into the house, I have to clear extra so please join me as I transform our home into a better place. We should all do more of what makes us happy!

Thanks for reading.

Mandy x

Daisy's perfect Sunday and a photo catch-up!

Hi everyone, busy as usual but I have taken a few photos for you...

Food!

Knitting and crochet...

A dolly blanket made by the lovely Anne at Button Mooney Designs. It looks beautiful on Daisy's pram.

I've been looking for an old fashioned pram toy for Henry and love these crochet balls, so asked Anne to make them into a pram toy for Henry. He loves it!

She kindly gifted me some of her homemade cards too!

This is my next project :)

Daisy had a lovely day yesterday. There was a trip to the park with Grampy in the morning and baking with me in the afternoon. I made scones and a fruit cake.

Daisy made cheese straws with me...she is so good at the rubbing in method now and she's only 3 years old! 

We also made fairy cakes and Daisy iced and decorated them all by herself! 

We invited Charlotte round for tea...the perfect end to the weekend :)

This week is half-term so no nursery.  We've got lots of crafting and baking planned along with sorting out toys! Hopefully Daisy can get out to play in the garden too. It's so mucky out there but I have been getting one load of washing dry a day.

At the moment, this diary style of writing is working for me, so I hope to share what we've been up to with you as we go along. 

I'm getting back into baking so will be sharing some recipes too. I'm rediscovering old cook books and generally trying harder. 

Thanks for reading.

Mandy x

Spending money on the children's clothes

Hi everyone,

Today I want to share with you my thoughts on spending money because I want to when I don't actually need to.

Some things are worth spending a bit more on and I believe that's the case with children's clothes. Obviously there are times when you want to dress them in their scruffs so I do have those kind of clothes that I pick up at the carboot sale for pennies. Ideally I look for well made good quality clothes at the carboot and that's a good result, because of the huge savings just because people want to clear the clutter. But generally I go to mothercare. Jools Oliver has a range there which I love, particularly for Daisy. Here's a few examples of what I've bought in the past...

Babies do grow quickly so I just have less clothes so they all get well worn. 

I've bought cheap clothes and after a few washes they are out of shape! That's false economy so this is the way I shop for the children's clothes now. I can't wait for the carboot season to start again so I can stock up on scruffs too though!

Mandy x

Chicken and Leek Pie and Sunday supper...

This is what we had for Sunday lunch...

First I cooked some chicken breast strips in a little oil and added a finely chopped leek. Then I made a roux sauce by melting margarine, stirring in plain flour and slowly adding milk to the pan and mixing until I had the right consistency...

Then I dissolved two chicken oxos in a little boiling water and stirred them in to the sauce...

I added a flick of parsley and poured over the chicken and leek...

I left this to simmer until the chicken was cooked through and made the pastry lid...

This is half fat to flour with a pinch of salt. I used 8oz plain flour and 4oz of vitalite do Daisy could eat it too. Roll out and cover the pie filling. I brushed with beaten egg and baked until the pastry was golden brown and crisp...

I had a little pastry left over and dome mincemeat left from Christmas so I made a little mincemeat tart...

I've just started weaning Henry so he had carrot, broccoli and potato...

Homemade is best!!

After bathing the children we had a little supper...

The cake plate! Not much homemade here and we hardly touched it, but it's nice to have choices :) I had a salad.

Let me know if you'd like anymore of my easy recipes.

Mandy X