JANUARY BLUES BUT ONE BIT OF SUNSHINE

They say this time of year is the gloomiest and this week it does seem to be a bit of a slog.  I have managed to meet all my work deadlines but my home to do list is sadly very much unticked.   I think I am fighting the urge to hibernate now that the snow has come. Whilst staying in every evening Michael and I  have been completely obsessed with the boxset of Breaking Bad, the amazing US series that has everyone  who views it, talks about nothing else  for hours on end. We've been watching it  far too late into the night. I am aware I'm boring people  by incessently yapping on about the relationship between Walt and Jesse.  As well as banging on about Breaking Bad, I have indeed also been baking bread and can easily talk for hours about that instead.

Although I always bake cakes, baking bread always seemed like more effort than it was worth but my mind has been changed by one brilliant Dan Lepard. I have been following his column in the Guardian magazine for a long time. My friend Jo brought me his book, Short and Sweet, and I haven't been able to stop. He is utterly inspirational yet so straightforward. I now realise baking bread is  no great strain on brain or brawn, it's inexpensive and makes the house smell scrummy. I am a convert.

Another good thing about January is Seville Oranges,  mmm, perfect for juicing and marmalade with their sunshine colour and tangy taste. To go with my bread, I made Seville Orange Curd. Delicious. spread on warm, freshly baked bread, eaten whilst looking out of a window onto a snowy landscape.

SEVILLE ORANGE CURD

Zest of 2 Seville Oranges
Juice of 5 Seville Oranges
450g of caster sugar
125g of butter
4 large eggs

What to do
1. Heat the butter, sugar, orange juice and zest in  a bowl over a pan of simmer water until the butter is melted.
2. Pour the beaten eggs into the mixture and keep on watching and stirring until the mixture is thickened. Do remember it will thicken even more once it's been put into the jar so don't panic if it seems to be a little runny. This usually takes 10 - 15 minutes. Believe me the curd is definitely worth standing near the stove, brandishing a wooden spoon, for quarter of an hour. Put the radio on. Time will pass quickly especially if you have some good tunes.
3. Once it's thicker, pour into some warm, sterilised jars.  Once it's cooled down, pop it into the fridge where it will keep for 4 weeks. But you will probably eat it before then.

Apart from the taste bud reviving taste, the other wonderful thing about about Seville Orange Curd is that it's such a marvellous blazing orange colour, it's almost like you've captured some liquid sunshine and kept it in a jar. Could almost be convinced that January  is not such a bad month.

MOULDY! OH D'OH!

Urgghhh. What have I done today? After I had finished writing a piece for a new client and arranging some meetings I decided to tackle the mildew that has appeared on the bathroom ceiling. What fun on a Wednesday morning. Trouble is I can’t reach ceiling and really don’t  fancy using a wonky stepladder on a slippery tiled floor when I’m home alone so made a contraption with a broom handle in cloth which I then doused in bleach. It worked ish, but I feel yucky from the bleach fumes. There has to be some kind of natural remedy for this.  If you know of one please can you pass it on?

Ah what fun! Off to walk Bobdylan now who is glaring at me reproachfully.  I am glad for the opportunity to get some fresh air as the smell of bleach is still burning  my  nostrils. 

AN EPIPHANY

Can't help that feel sad that today was the last day of Christmas holidays. Still have that back to school feeling even though I shall be working from home.
To mark the end of the holidays I roasted a leg of lamb and prepared the roast potatoes, parmesan parsnip, cauliflower and cumin, broccoli and yorkshire puds. T had his friend round to revise for GCSE's. Yep I did have to pinch myself when I realised that they were actually doing that, not watching You Tube videos and R was happily painting, finishing her art homework. Michael and I had taken Bobdylan (he's a cockerpoo, not  the harmonica playing protest singer) for a long walk  before I started cooking so had had some fresh air. As I was stripping leaves from the Thyme, I was listening to Jarvis Cocker on Radio 6 and I had an epiphany of my own.  That these quiet Sundays, when it's us just doing our thing quietly around the home, all together, are the most cherished moments.  Of course, I love it when we are out and about, visiting friends, doing stuff we love, individually enjoying our interests but I do so appreciate all being snug at home on a grey January Sunday.
After the meal we ate the Galette des Rois. A French family friend gave us a little porcelain figure, from  The Golden Compass and told us about the French Tradition on January 6th,  Three Kings Day. You make the cake by putting a sweet almond concoction in a puff pastry case (I use Nigella Lawson's recipe in How To Eat but swap orange flower water for rum). Then pop the ceramic figure or a broad bean if you're out of little figurines, into the paste. When the cake is cooked, you bring to the table with gold paper crown. Actually we didn't have a gold paper crown this year but had to use a paper green one from a cracker. Whatever you have or can make. Or bribe the kids to make. Anyway. The youngest person in the household then sits under the table and directs the cake cutter as to who  they should give each portion of cake to. The person who finds the little figure in their cake is then king or queen for the day, wears the crown and gets out of household duties. I'm not sure if the getting out of household duties is a universal tradition or just what we've made up at our house. R did a fab job from under the table and managed to direct the little figure onto her plate. I think this has happened every year but can't work out how she does it.
Now that we've enjoyed that ceremony and the decorations are all gone it does now feel like a new year.  Which probably means I should start working on my resolutions. One of which is to clear up the kitchen before I go to bed. Ugh. Did I say I am the world's most untidy cook?  Better go and start to tackle it now because one of my other resolutions was to be in bed before 12pm. Hmm. That gives me one hour and 5 minutes. I so wish I had won that crown!

NEW YEAR, NEW BLOG

Yep another new year, another new blog.   I just want to put down my frustrations on paper (well, in old money terms) as being a mother/wife who works from home. Don’t get me wrong I love working from home but I fail big time on the domestic side.   Not with cooking, I love food too much so I am always happy in the kitchen but with the housework side. Honestly, I can spend hours tidying up a room and you honestly couldn’t tell that a duster had been anywhere near.  I would be massively grateful for any tips/hints/cheats to make my life easier on that front. Today though, I am not even attempting anything like housework. It’s the first day of 2013 and my family are all around, lazing in front of the telly and nobody needs school uniform washing, or cares that the dishwasher hasn’t been emptied. It is a lazy day, the last one of the holiday season before real life returns.

I am going to make supper soon. And in our house it’s always a must to have lentils on New Years Day. According to Italian superstition they will bring good fortune in the finance department for the coming year.  I’m not usually very superstitious but if folklore happens to involve food I like, then I really can’t ignore it. All to do with the fact that they go coin shaped when cooked. So I am going to do Puy lentils cooked with onions in vegetable stock, chilli sausages and broccoli. My 16-year-old son has gone vegetarian so of course it will be veggie sausages for him. He only became vegetarian at the end of October and I have to confess that I sometimes forget. Getting better at it though.

Ok, now going to snuggle back down and enjoy Fantastic Mr Fox. Hope everybody has a wonderful 2013 and it brings lots of good stuff.