We’re almost out of January! 24 more hours and the longest month of the year will be dead to us. It’s also still (sort of) light at 5pm so it seems the year is going in the right direction. February only has 4 weeks and then we’re into the month of clocks going forward. So, by girl maths* standards, it’s April already! Which is good news as I am in need of less cold, grey and rain and more sunshine and light evenings.

It’s been a busy week which is odd considering I’m still in that weird jobless space. I think I may have settled into it too well and can’t quite work out how I ever actually fitted in a full-time job with all the kid and life admin that needs to be done! So far this week I have driven the offspring all over the show, been over to Mainlandshire to watch EEROD in DanceLive and sat through a junior school swimming gala – note, school does not do regular swimming training – which was fairly painful. I’ve also watched way too many episodes of The Good Doctor.

This week saw 3 new recipes and finally making use of a beautiful vintage vogue skirt pattern I bought years ago in a charity shop to make a double layered tulle skirt for an upcoming wedding. There was some roll-hemming that is utterly superb.

Hot cross buns

I made hot cross buns. One of my friends makes them every year and her pics on FB always look amazing. I have no why I decided to try and make them other than I love hot cross buns and realised I could make the dough in the breadmaker! Game. Friggin’. Changer.

So, to find a recipe. I opted to follow Delia’s online recipe although for some reason I totally forgot the egg. I also couldn’t find the ground cinnamon so added an extra 1/5tsp of mixed spice. I also used the proving function on our fancy oven/microwave combo which sped up the second prove no end – the oven has been in situ for 4 years and I’m slowly making use of the functions.

As I’m really the only hot cross bun eater (LOD will have one) in the house I figured 12 might be a bit too many for the wasitline so invited the parents over for buns and tea. They were so good, we had 2 each. Slathered in butter and warm from the oven, these were the best hot cross buns I’ve ever had. I may even make them again (well, dad put in an order so I have to!). COD declared the lack of cinnamon made them more palatable for him and promptly ate 2 himself.

The recipe appears not to need the egg.

Chicken livers peri-peri

Next up this week was chicken livers peri-peri. I have heard via the kids that Nandos no longer does their chicken livers peri-peri which is one of my all time favourite South African dishes which means panic but kids are wrong and apparently it is still on the menu. Good as these weren’t as good……

Shopping in Waitrose this week, they had fresh chicken livers, it was just before lunch and I felt like another experiment. I have made these before and can’t remember which recipe I used but when Butter over bae promised a Nando’s copycat recipe, I went for it. I will say that they were nice but absolutely not Nandos. Way too creamy and if I did this again I would reduce the cream (I used creme fraiche) by at least half. They did make for an easy, tasty lunch though.

Deliciously Ella pasta bake

I saw this on my FB reels and as I am always on a mission to add plants and legumes into the household’s diet, this looked worth trying. I made it on a night when the girls are all over the place with dance so it was easy for COD to pop in the oven when he got back from one of the dance drops. This recipe served 5 of us with some leftovers.

Ingedients:

225g pasta (I used more as this felt too little but I was wrong – stick with this amount)
1 x head of broccoli cut into small forests and stalk chopped
1 x leek thinly sliced
1 x 400g tin of butter beans, drained and rinsed
200g frozen peas, defrosted
1T olive il
200g cashews
1 x veg stock cube
3T wholegrain mustard
4T nutritional yeast / parmesan (I used parmesan as our local Tesco superstore doesn’t have nutritional yeast)
Seasoning

Topping:

100g chunky breadcrumbs
Handful of kale / spinach (I used chard leaves as that’s what I had)
1T olive oil
Pinch of sea salt

Method:

Preheat oven to 160 fan oven

Put the cashews and stock cube into blender and pour in 400ml boiling water. Leave to soak for 5-10mins. Meanwhile put a pan of water on to boil and cook the pasta for 5 mins then add the broccoli and leak to the pasta and bring back to the boil. Drain and put pasta and veg into a oven-proof dish.

Stir in the butter beans, peas and olive oil (I realise typing this out I definitely didn’t add olive oil here). Add the mustard, parmesan and seasoning to the blender and blitz all together until it’s a smooth sauce. Pour over pasta and stir everything together.

Finely shred kale / spinach and add to breadcrumbs and mix with olive oil and seasoning. Scatter on top of pasta bake. Oven bake for 25-30 mins. 

In other news:

• The ankle is not improving which is depressing. No running at all now for a few weeks. Dammit.
• Group ballet dance coming along well. Taking to the stage on 16 March and competing against my mum in her group dance – hilarious and awesome in equal measures. There’s much discussion about dance costumes on the group chat.
• *while girl maths is used for humerous purposes, my use of it in no way reflects my or other girls mathematical abilities.
• Not much else going on really.