Up the owls!!

Woohoo!!! Every time I go and see Sheffield Wednesday they win!! Maybe I should go mroe often, lol.

Birthday weekend

So my birthday was kept secret from me until our arrival at the hotel. I was very confused as you can imagine especially when I was asked what I wanted off a set menu and asked to find a costume!! We we're trying to figure it out at school for a good week before the day. So I packed for multiple options and off we went in the car...to who knows! We end up in Cheltenham at a very fancy hotel. Ooooo, we walked in to afternoon tea where a couple were having a domestic in full volume of everyone there! Turns out they were acting and we were at a murder mystery weekend! Now I'm not normally a fan of murder mystery weekend when you have to be a character and act but this was different as we we're just there as guests trying to solve the murder/s whilst actual actors acted around us. It was fab! People found dead in the stairwell, someone stabbed in the kitchen! Needless to say we got it wrong but we didn't get the award for worst guess so that was good! Cheltenham is a nice place. We had a poke around before leaving and it seems very posh! Great shops too. Will have to revisit. So my birthday weekend was a great surprise. Going to have to think of something as good for Daniel's 30th!

Henry Wellington

I was trying to think of something else to cook with mince other than the usual spag bowl, lasagne, chilli, pie or pot roast so i thought i'd do a take on Beef Wellington - enter Henry Wellington! As it is made with mince and not a piece of beef and it has no mushrooms as we both don't like them we felt that it couldn't be called Beef Wellington so we renamed it!

The inside is a mix of mince, onion, potato, carrot and peas then wrapped in puff pastry in the normal way. It was yummy!! Meet Henry...




So if you are looking for something new to try with mince, have a go at Beef Henry!!

Birthday Surprise

Daniel has planned something for my birthday this weekend. He is keeping it very secret but every now and again lets out some teasers to get me thinking. So far I am aware that I need to wear an evening dress, though that then turned to a super hero costume, thankfully we don't have to wear one so evening wear it is. Also I was asked what I would want to eat from a theoretical menu! I have plumped for the hand dived scallops, duck breast with fondant potatoes in some kind of sauce and I said surprise me for dessert as I would eat both, autumn fruit pudding and clotted cream or creme brulee.

I want to know what is going on!!!! Two days...

The Very Wet Lake District

Yesterday was a very long day, to the Lake District and back in one day! I'm not doing that again it was killer! Don't get me wrong the kids were fine - though very inappropriately dressed considering they were walking 6 miles in the Lakes and had no shelter for the day - and the day was good but you end up so tired it throws you out for the rest of the week. The features we saw support the glaciation topic well - though at times i think the student teacher thought i was confused, i said it was my permanent look!

It also chucked it down constantly for several hours. Sitting outside eating your soggy packed lunch in the peeing rain was not fun!

There was little hanging around which we were thankful of as i think the kids were which meanrt we were back an hour and half early - so home, tea and bed for me it was!

Spicy soup

Here is the recipe for an awesome spicy lentil and carrot soup - warming as it gets colder!

Get together these ingredients:
2tsp cumin seeds
pinch chilli flakes
2tbsp olive oil
600g carrots , washed and coarsely grated
140g split red lentils
1 litre hot vegetable stock
125ml milk

Dry fry the cumin seeds and chilli flakes until they jump around and release their aroma. Add all the rest of the ingredients to the pan, boil and simmer for 15 minutes until the lentils are cooked. Blend, season and serve! Easy as that! Delicious served with some toasted cumin seeds on top and and crusty bread, mmmmm.

Dave Gorman's Powerpoint

As long as the week has been I had enough energy left for Friday night at City Hall in Sheffield to see Dave Gorman's PowerPoint Presentation. It was brilliant. Before that began we enjoyed a delicious Wagamamas, I love that place, the raw salad is yum - I wish I knew what was in the dressing. We also took a bit of a risk leaving the car as we had no change for the meter so fingers were crossed we didn't get clamped, well that was until I shut my finger in the toilet door and could no longer use it! The pain was unbelievable - damn you City Hall and your spring loaded toilet doors!

Once Dave came out I thankfully could forget my finger a little as he was hilarious. It would be pointless trying to repeat some of the jokes now as it wouldn't't be as funny but trust me, it was good, as was his supporting PowerPoint - some would say a little too much animation in places, though that would most likely be irate ICT teachers - haha. It will be interesting to watch it back on DVD when it comes out, but he never fails to please.

The Great British Bakeoff 2

How exciting, I'm getting the Great British Bake Off book for my birthday!! Yay!! Many more baking delights coming your way, consider me a young Mary Berry!

The Great British Bakeoff

In the spirit of the bake off i made some chocolate coffee cupcakes. The cake bake part is fine but for some reason i have issues with my buttercream! Surely that should be the easy bit! Upon discussion at school with some other keen bakers it could be the kitchen is too warm when i make them and so the butter cream splits. Sound plausible. Will have to try again, but even so they still look and taste yummy!

DoE

Back from DoE - a little wet but very early! Awesome. The kids were fab and walked so quickly that we were back to school by 2 - normally they don't get there til at least 5! To be honest we didn't really do much, sit around in the vans waiting for them to walk through the checkpoints. My group were very slow - arriving two hours after everyone else at the camp site but to their credit they refused all lifts as they didn't think they would be worthy of the award if they accepted it - awww bless them.

There was a little complaint though from another camper on the same site as we were, he moaned that they were making too much noise...between 4 and 8 in the afternoon! All they were doing were playing football and doing magic tricks, you can't moan at them for that! Turns out he was on his honey moon - hmmm you could say get a life!

The tent talk in the evening was hilarious, listening to what they were saying - far to inappropriate to post here! But gave us and the sixth formers a giggle!

Though it was good it was quite tiring purely for the early starts and then you are back to a working day again. I think i might pass up taking a group next year as i don't know how much work the assistant head of year post will involve and maybe do it again the year after, we'll see.

Rain, rain go away...

It's raining...still. It needs to stop by the weekend as I'm out in the field in the White Peak all weekend on DoE so really don't want it to be raining heavily! A little drizzle will be fine, it should make them walk quicker!!

The Welbeck

We took a trip to the Welbeck estate today, just for something to do really. This is where i went on the cooking course. It's really nice over there, a garden centre with the works, yeoman's and a couple of other shops in it. We thought they'd have their Christmas stuff up but not yet...seems to be the only place not to have any chritsmassy bits in it yet. The farm shop is fab, though as Daniel is working away there wasn't really anything we needed to get, we'll go back when he is back from London. We did stop at the cafe for a cuppa and a slice of cake, Guinness and chocolate, yummy. Daniel's pate also looked good.

Not to blow my own trumpet but when we got back i cooked an amazing roast dinner, chicken, potatoes, stuffing and a variety of vegetable. It was awesome. As winter draws in i think we'll have to start having more roasts!

The F Word...F=Food!

Tonight i cooked one of Gordon's recipe's from the F Word, spiced pork chops with crushed sweet potatoes and rocket salad. It was delicious. It was a little annoying that for some reason no where around here had any star anise (maybe they cater for the clientele and clearly those who live here don't use such an ingredient! I can't wait to move!) so the marinade was minus that, but it still tasted yummy. I am a big fan of sweet potatoes, much more so than regular potatoes.

Sarah visited Jamie's Italian restaurant this week and reported back that it was great there. I didn't even know it existed! As an owner of practically all of his books she's contacted me to try and find the recipe for what she ate! I think I've found a similar one so I'll have to post it to her and request that she makes it for my next visit!!

The plan tomorrow is to do some baking, in the spirit of the great british bake off! Maybe not macaroons but some biscuits or a cake i think!

Two weeks in...

So being back at school isn't too bad. I'm soooo tired day to day but i'm sure i'll get back into the swing of it soon. Classes aren't too bad and being the assistant head of year is so far going ok. I'm getting used to having a desk in an office - i know it sounds wierd but in a school only a few select people have that! What is not great is that we had the draw for the Iceland trip in the October half term, i didn't get picked out, boooooo, and the person who did also got asked to go on a two week trek to Morocco with the sixth form. Some say it's not fair but what can you do :( At least i get a full half term i guess.

On a positive i've almost moved all of my stuff into Daniel's house. All we need now is someone to buy it so we can move!!!

Here we go again...

Back to school tomorrow, booooooo. Though i hear so many people cry "you've had long enough off"! It will be good to go back and not be the newbie anymore though it will be interesting to see what it will be like being assistant head of year. The night before going back is always a bit bleugh, i don't really know why as you don't mind going back, 6 weeks is plenty really!

The last supper is going to be jambalaya which we love and is really easy to do. Then back to packed lunch making! Last night we had pasta with seared scallops and a Swahili sauce - it worked really well. Back to a little less interesting dinners for a bit while i get back into the routine - 6am get ups are not great :(

Enough of the riverdance!!

The bird is still alive! Doing a full rendition of the riverdance every morning at around 6am. It might be doing it throughout the day but we're not in the room so don't really know. Surely it must give up soon?

On a positive note the plumber is coming tomorrow to sort out the bathroom taps and hot water is now back on fully...fingers crossed it doesn't break again what with the weather turning to autumn.

The piccalilli has turned out awesome - though we can't eat it for a while as it needs to mature but it's going to be yummy. I now need to find a tasty recipe for scallops. I'm thinking risotto - any other suggestions?

Problems problems

It's one of those days, or couple of days, where everything seems to break. The gas meter got replaced last night which meant yesterday we had no hot water to shower. Even though it was a new meter we still had no hot water which implied the boiler was broken, coincidence? At bed time the boiler seemed to be working again so we thought it just needed resetting and this morning all seemed fine, Daniel had a shower and all looked rosy. That was until i went to have a shower and lo and behold not working again! Then thought I'd go online whilst i waited for it to reset again and the Internet wasn't working either! Turns out, after a gas man spent ages trying to find out the problem, that the pump was broken - so yet another day of no hot water for me.

There also seems to be a bird in the chimney - we don't have a fire place! It will just have to flap in there until it gives up hope as we don't know what else to do!

I'm now going to be more productive and start making a batch of piccalilli ready for Christmas!!

American Adventure 2007 - revisited!

I know it's a long time coming but i have finally got round to sorting out photos and other bits and bobs from holidays gone past. I found all the America bits from when i went with Vicki in 2007 - i know a long time ago! But in amongst leaflets and nick knacks i found two sheets of paper where i had written a mini travel diary for a couple of places we visited - this was long before i decided to blog it. So here are the accounts of my travels to Chicago and San Francisco of times gone by:

"Where do i begin? Obviously i look like a criminal as was on a list to be searched at Heathrow and after a long delay arrived at Chicago only to be questioned at passport control! Answered the questions sweating like a pig even though I'd done nothing wrong! Our journey was good, the view from the airplane of the snow capped mountains of Greenland was amazing. The hotel is great - The Hilton Chicago!! We have bell boys! They upgraded us so we've got a great view of the park and Lake Michigan, a double bed and bathroom each. The TV is way bigger than ours at home, and Clinton stay here when he visits Chicago!

Did a lot of sightseeing on our first day. Went up the Sears Tower which had amazing views of the city and the lake. Saw a number of other nice buildings, Chicago Board of Trade, Wrigley's chewing gum home and Tribune Tower. Also went down the pier, got a boat onto Lake Michigan which had excellent views of the skyline and went through one of their big parks - so manic day. Evening was completely random too as started by being chatted up by a bell boy, chased after a car who had left all their drinks on their roof and i was certain i saw a dead body hanging from the roof of a building!! Found out later it was a piece of art but how weird is that! Also accidentally strolled into a dodgy neighbourhood - when we saw a 'men's only hotel', we quick footed it out of there!!

Went shopping down the magnificent mile and went on a bus tour round the city too which was good. Turns out Oprah and Jerry Springer live opposite each other here! The guide also said i was morbid for trying to take a picture of the 'dead body', but it was too high up. We went up the John Hancock centre at night which is the second highest building here which also had great views and watched fireworks on a bridge over the Chicago river which were going off at the harbour - ahhhh.

So our last day here and we'd pretty much seen the entire city so we went to the beach! I'm determined to come back tanned! We stumbled upon a beach volleyball tournament - mmmm :)

So a little bit long winded from 'the windy city' but we have been up to a lot in a short amount of time and all that jazz! Next stop San Francisco!!!"

"After queuing for no reason at Chicago airport just because everyone else was we made it to San Francisco. Not really with it when we got there as let go of my suitcase and watched it roll down the escalator!!

My god how windy and hilly is it compared to Chicago? Thought we'd take a little walk round, knackered after 5 minutes because it's all up hill and down dale! I also announced to everyone that i didn't know what a ferry was in a ferry terminal!! We got the cable car back to the hotel only for it to break down on the top of a hill!

And the Sunday sun shines down on San Francisco bay...not while we were there! Took a long........walk to Golden Gate Bridge only to get there and find we couldn't see the top because of all the fog - apparently typical San Francisco weather! Walked a little way on the bridge then back the the Exploratorium, a hand on type science museum which was cool. While taking the walk through the national recreation area we also saw some kind of sailing competition round Alcatraz! We went on a small pier with all the fisherman which was cool.

The following day with the weather colder and windier we thought we'd see about getting a boat to Alcatraz only to find it was booked up for weeks...booo. So took a walk down Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39 which was lovely and quaint with the sea lions in residence there - had a chat with them, arg arg!! We went to take a tour bus and walking to it a homeless person made us jump out of our skins by hiding behind a branch and shouting boo! I screamed and ran! We made it to the bus and went round all the sites - city hall china town, union square - shopping again!

We came back to Pier 39 for dinner at a cool restaurant overlooking the sea lions at one window and Alcatraz out the other. Got to draw on the table cloth which was fun, most interesting meal yet - left a message on the table cloth for the waiters! On the way home we watched some break dancers on the street - who was outdone by someone in the crowd!

So final day here and no improvement in the weather! We started the day going to Lombard Street, the crookedest street going but had to get up there first - mentally up hill - a wall had one brick on one side and 7 on the other, we were knackered - a concrete Everest! Decided to go on a boat trip down to the Golden Gate bridge and Alcatraz - very cold but could see the entire bridge today. Everyone else is taking pictures of the bridge all excited and there's me saying ooooo nice land taking a picture of the landscape - came out rubbish so it got deleted! Alcatraz looked really cool - hard to imagine it existed as a prison not that long ago. Took a final walk round - not scared by homeless people today. Went over to the Transamerican Pyramid but you are not allowed up it any more so went back down to the wharf.

So did we leave our heart in San Francisco - yes, but won't miss the weather!"

Re reading these i remember some things that i had completely forgotten happened! We had a great time - after San Francisco we went onto Las Vegas, Boston and New York so it was an epic holiday, we did so much even though we were only in each place for 3-4 days! Clearly amazing places so much so i went back to some of them a couple of years later which is all blogged here! Great times!!

Shopping delivered to your door!

The reasons for online shopping when Tesco is just round the corner were two fold:

1. Daniel binned the Tesco vouchers, which i was not best pleased about, but we found that you can still redeem then online
2. He also hates going to Tesco but can happily sit on the computer for hours on end

It actually worked OK, a little tricky at times to find what you are looking for, but that will get easier and it was delivered on time. The only thing that was a little weird was they substitute items if they don't have the one you want and they substituted garlic with chillies! That didn't make sense to me as you would think they would substitute it with another garlic product but hey ho, you don't have to accept it and they refund the cost so it was fine.

Now we have food again post holiday - woohoo!

We're back!!!

We're back from Croatia and had a fab time! The weather was so hot - 36C at times! The people were lovely as was the part of the country we went to.

It was a very early start, having got up at 4am, yes 4am, to get to the airport and due to their check in desks breaking the queues were massive as there were quite a few flights going out that early that we only had time to grab a sandwich then board the plane. Everything went smoothly and we were at the hotel so early we couldn't check in! So sitting still in our England clothes we drank at the pool bar til we could get to our room.

Over the course of the week we had a balance of doing things and laying around pool/sea side - partly you couldn't be on the go all the time as it was far too hot! Our hotel over looked the harbour and international port where many cruise ships docked - and my they were massive. One day there was 4 ships docked in the harbour which meant an additional 10,000 people in the old town. The tiny old streets in the walled city can not cope with that many people so we were lucky to be able to see how many there were at the harbour and then we could judge whether we should go into the old town or not!

Having only saw one ship we ventured into the old town of Dubrovnik on one day to go up the medieval city walls that surround the city - hmmm, i was not brilliant at walking up to these, lets be honest i wasn't great on the Lincoln castle walls! Daniel held onto me until we got to a part of the walls where it was high solid sides and then i was a little better. Great views of the old town with all the hustle and bustle down below but it was incredibly hot! It took a while to do one complete circuit mainly because you need to keep stopping for shade and water.

When we came down we decided to got hunting for the Dubrovnik Festival tickets as we were lucky enough to be staying there whilst this music festival was on - they open up all the historical buildings for concerts and performances so it seemed a good thing to try and go to. We eventually found the ticket office - though it was well hidden - and bought tickets for a guitar trio held in the Rector's Palace which was where the old mayor type person lived in the past. The concert was really good, it was classical guitar pieces, sounded brilliant inside the palace. We did however clap a hell of a lot, when they came on, when they went off, when they came back for another bow, for their encore, our hands hurt, it was insane. They even got flowers at the end like at the opera. They came out for two encores after the crowd clapped so much and ended up being in unison clapping, it was a little strange. They did do a got section where all three of them were playing the same guitar, that was impressive. After coming out of there at 11.30 the old town was still buzzing, but we made our way for the bus as we didn't know when the last one was. Daniel took some great pictures of the old town on his new camera, though you do feel a little bit of a pleb when you are posing and he's taking a load of pictures on different settings!

From the old town we also got a boat to one of the islands Lokrum which is not too far away. It only had on it a botanical garden, fortress, monastery and a cafe. It was a very green island though the botanical garden part was not what you expected it to look like, it was very grayish in colour and had lots of cacti, where as outside the garden was green and colourful. We spent some time on the rocks sunbathing and trying to get into the sea - it was very rocky and slimy on the rocks. There was also fish and shells with legs crawling around in there which you tried to avoid but it was fun. We couldn't access much of the island though as they had threats of forest fires, we tried to get through on some back paths but had no luck. In the end we got the boat back and went for some delicious gelato - apple ice cream was amazing!

Thomson who we booked the holiday through did run excursions to the islands but we decided to visit Lopud ourselves as we didn't want to visit some of the lesser interesting islands and they were built into the trip so we decided to brave the locals mode of travel to Lopud! We got the water taxi (also known as a tiny little boat practically in the water with a crazy driver) to the port, then found the ticket office and got some tickets to Lopud (which was also several hundred kuna cheaper than the Thomson trip) and boarded a ferry. There were no announcements on this ferry, consequently we almost got off at the wrong island as we didn't know if it was Lopud or not! Thankfully i glimpsed a sign on our way off and realised it was the wrong one so we sat back down! Another half an hour later we made it to Lopud, this time the right island! We tried to be a little like Bear Grylls on Lokrum but due to so much of it being shut off we couldn't be at one with nature, so we tried here. We walked across the island to get to the sandy beach and that felt more Bear Grylls like. We were doing well when a massive butterfly flew by, i then screamed when it got to close! Doh. The beach was lovely, quieter than we expected and surrounded by posh yachts anchored out to sea. We stayed for lunch at a beach hut called Charcoal Grill, Daniel had a kebab in honour of the local Charcoal Grill takeaway at home! Lopud's was surely better quality! My fried squid was delicious! After more tasty gelato and pivo - aka beer we got the evening ferry home, which felt like it took forever and the taxi boat back to the hotel.

The only excursion we did book with Thomson was a wine tour. For 315 kuna - £37 - we drank a lot of wine. I thought we'd get given a few small glasses which we'd have to spit into a pot but we had at least 10 glasses and a lot of nibbles. The vineyards were only small but the owners we so generous - they sold you thier wine but not for much money - one bottle we bought was only £3.50. We even tried the world's best dessert wine - that was a little more expensive so our bottle is saved for a special occassion. Needless to say by the time we got back to the hotel we were a little tipsy!

We did the wine tour on our last full day as we were being picked up early Sunday morning for our flight. That is the only thing with package deals, they get you to the airport so early for your flight you end up sitting there for ages.

So now we're back...what to do??? Plan next year's holiday i think :)

Is it possible to travel light?

So I'm trying to pack for Croatia, which we leave for in two days and I'm trying to travel light, however this is easier said than done! Once you've got in a few changes of outfit, swimwear, undies, shoes (and i only mean a pair of flip flops and a pair of going out shoes) not to mention all the toiletries you need, even though they are all in miniature form you are no longer travelling light!

Any advice would be welcomed here!

Awesome slaw!

When we were on holiday a couple of years ago in LA i had this tasty island slaw as a side dish to some burritos and today felt like recreating it. Needless to say finding the recipe was pointless as a restaurant is never going to give away its secrets but i made a version of it that was awesome! This does make loads but great for a barbeque.

Mix together the following ingrediants:
1/4 cup of red wine vinegar
2tbsp of vegetable oil
2tbsp sugar
salt and pepper

Into the mix add shredded carrot, cabbage and red onion, mix together and add more seasoning if necessary, leave for 20 minutes then enjoy! So easy and delicious!

Fine dining

Since Daniel got his new camera he is documenting everything we do/eat! This isn't a bad thing as it makes our tea's look very professional indeed - what am i saying our dinner is always to an excellent standard! As it is now the summer holiday i have been planning some tasty treats. We have had home made tapas that consists of garlic paprika prawns, crushed chickpeas, lentils and chorizo, mini spicy meatballs, patatas bravas, a frittata and pitta breads - this was amazing, though a little tricky to cook as you need every pan in the kitchen and quite a few hands to get it out hot altogether! I also cooked again the meal i had at Bahama Breeze in Vegas, jerk chicken with cinnamon sweet potato mash, pineapple mango salsa and seasonal veg.










Hmmmm any suggestions for what we can have next?

2012...will we make it?

Today i was lucky enough to go on our trip to the 2012 olympic site. It was a very long day having met at school at 6.45, meaning i had to leave home before 6 just in case there was a problem on the motorway, and not returning to school til 7.30. We visited Stratford, the Excel centre and then got a guided tour of the site and visted the view tube just by the main stadium. It was a good day, the kids were fab but we did leave wondering if we'll ever get it all finished by the opening ceremony. Yes we are ahead of schedule accoring to the guide but there still seems so much left to do.











The viewing platform they are building in the middle of the site doesn't look brilliant, bright red industrial looking thing - i understand its meant to be kind of like the Eiffel Tower but that looks a lot better than this will! What they are doing is great and the legacy will benefit a lot of people but i don't think it has as much of an impact architecturally than Beijing did. Wehn we visited there you were in awe of its style and our stadium just feels like an other we have here. Wembley is so much better. I don't know, maybe i'm just bitter as we didn't get any tickets but you have to ask the question...will we make it?

Wannabe F1 star

Today we went to Daniel's Silverstone driving experience. It was really good, don't think i could do it myself but he was great. After driving around the F1 track - not actually on it but on the road that goes around it - we arrived at the track days building which is located inside of the main track. Daniel had a driver's briefing so i went to the shop to buy him a souvenir of his day and then we all went over to the garage. It was a nice day weather wise and the last session of the day which was good as there was no rush. After getting a helmet and posing for some pictures on the 'grid' they were off, at first behind a safety car then when that went in and they could overtake. It was so hard trying to recognise the car he was in and then trying to photograph it as they are whizzing past you! It was a great afternoon and Daniel had a fab time, he was rewarded with a certificate of completion...Lewis watch out!

Tasty pigeon

As it's half term i thought I'd visit the Welbeck farm shop to look for something inspirational for tea - and came back with wood pigeon. Tiny little birds which you would think were fiddly to prepare but actually it was quite easy. The finished meal was delicious, sweet potato rosti, sauteed savoy cabbage with pan fried wood pigeon and a red wine jus. A delicious fully organic meal!