Slow cooking: an autumn/winter 2015 fashion

A few years ago, Gran gave me her slow cooker. You know how much I like kitchenware, yet it sat in our cupboard for a long time.
I recently came across a recipe that used a slow cooker and being able to use it gave me great pleasure. It's rapidly become a star gadget in the kitchen and in the last few weeks I've used it to make Mexican chicken stew, lamb pilaf, Chinese 5-spiced beef and have just this afternoon come back from Waterstones with the DK Slow Cook Cookbook. I'm very much looking forward to an autumn/winter of slow cooking in my delightfully retro 70s slow cooker. Thanks Gran!

A grown up trip to the theatre

Several Christmasses ago, Gran gave Chad and I some theatre tokens, that could be redeemed at pretty much most theatres in the country. Given our very busy schedules, they sat in a desk drawer for an embarrassingly long time (thankfully they don't have an expiry date!).
However, half term giving me time to plan fun things, I have finally used them to book us tickets to see the Book of Mormon in January. It will be a lovely treat to look forward to - we will dress up, go for dinner beforehand and be very thankful to Gran for sponsoring a lovely date night. I'm just sorry we never managed to book anything whilst I could still tell her about it but so glad she passed on a love of theatre to us all.

What would have been

I meant to post this a couple of weeks ago...

I was cuddling Sophie the other day (as you do) and talking with Kelsey who was sat on our black couch for a bit whilst Jake was playing on the floor. He was playing with his lego and went very quiet for around 10 minutes whilst we were talking. He then very proudly showed us the "bus" that he had made and it suddenly made me think of being at Bushmead and the glorious delight that Gran would have taken in that very situation. I can even hear the sound she would have made when he would have shown her the model, and that's good enough for me.

I don't know whether it's the brass fireguard from Gran's house that sits proudly in front of our mantelpiece or the fact that we were sitting in the right configuration that led me to think this. In any case, long may Gran's memory take delight in her great-grandchildren!

An addition

A wonderful addition, we think, to Mochignano is this tablecloth of Mar's. 

A sticky toffee dinner

We definitely think Baba would have liked our dinner tonight.

The main course was made by Aliya who has decided that cooking is good fun. She made guacamole and nachos and Mum helped by frying some chicken for the non vegetarians. Good work, Aliya!

Pudding was made by Max and Mummy and it was...  Sticky toffee deliciousness! Even though Mummy had to translate some of the ingredients into their Canadian equivalent, the puds came out beautifully. We even had Bird's custard with them. Absolute yum. 

We enjoyed talking about Baba as we had our very international dinner.

Lovely all round. 

Wise owl

OK, the kids didn't manage to keep their eyes open, but we loved this multi headed owl near the bridge to cross into America.

She's everywhere, our wise owl.