Moog's meanderings

For days I have been thinking that I must blog about this or that, and that it’s been ages since I managed to post. Now that I have a few minutes I am wondering where to start!!
We had a lovely few weeks over Christmas and the New Year which seemed to disappear and suddenly it’s already mid-January. We hosted two sets of very good friends who came over from the US, we spent some time with my parents at their home, I went off to a meeting in London while my mum-in-law babysat the boys for me (felt very odd going off to do that, not in line with my day job at all these days) and we visited my sister from Canada while she was staying with my parents (that was just a week ago). So many wonderful things but all back to back and up to last weekend – no time to get over anything, just wham bam and suddenly here we are. Today is the first time I have taken the little ones to any of our regular groups and it’s nearly two weeks into the new term!!
Oh dear – pumpkin has decided to cut nap short so better dash. Hopefully continue later…..

Hubby handed in his PhD today!! YAY!!! We can all relax a bit now

Is it just me, or did CBeebies completely forget to play the bedtime song last night???

Typically, it was in the last week when the wibsite transfer was happening that there were a couple of occasions on which I had the time and inclination to blog.  Now I am all set up (hooray – and thanks to you amazing techy people that made it happen) but still figuring it all out so please bear with me.

I have a really nasty cold at the moment so not really in the mood for much at all, but here’s the first post on the flashy new system )

Munchkin is still asleep. Very unusual.

Well – depending on your point of view!

I did a significant amount of surfing the net last night (when I really should have been sleeping – that’s what I most need – but hey ho!) and discovered a couple of things relating to the gluten-free thing.

Buckwheat flour is also known as Sarrasin Flour
Sorghum flour is also known as Juwar flour
Millet flour is also known as Bajri flour
Teff flour is available in the UK (but really expensive).

This will mean that a range of recipes I thought I’d never be able to put together are now feasible (Apparently Juwar flour is available in the Asian aisle of bigger Tesco stores). The Sarrasin thing is quite annoying because I have had buckwheat flour for ages and hardly ever use it but apparently most of my recipes refer to Sarrasin so no wonder!!!!!

Regarding the post below – any self-respecting coeliac knows that soy sauce is not gluten free. I made a couple of modifications to the recipe in the link. They are: I replaced soy sauce with tamari; I used peanut butter rather than black bean paste; I used honey rather than molasses and added about an extra teaspoon of it (the mixture was too salty and didn’t have the proper sweetness of hoisin – I think that’s because of the tamari being stronger than soy sauce and tasting more salty); I lobbed in some sweet chilli sauce because I didn’t have any chinese hot sauce. It worked well but it needed some serious blending!

We’re having crispy duck tonight – hurrah! I haven’t had it for absolutely ages because usually the marinades and sauces are not gluten free so I have to avoid them. We got a pack from the supermarket and I can have the duck (even marinated!) but not pancakes or sauces. So we have made hoisin sauce ourselves using this recipe and I have some ‘blue dragon’ rice flour pancakes. Hubby gets to have the ones from the pack that have wheatflour in them.

This week I feel really tired and my back’s been aching a lot. I suspect it is to do with Munchkin not being well on Tuesday and my having to hold him and cuddle him in and out of sleep all day. Thankfully it was just a one day bug of some sort and he was back to his normal smiling bouncy self (soon after 4.30am) on Wednesday morning. Argh! Tomorrow is our weekly family trip to the swimming pool. Hubby takes Munchkin in to pool while I sit on the side with a flask of coffee and read the Saturday Paper. That will be very welcome! With a bit of luck we’ll have a restful night preceding it and having hubby around for a couple of days will give my back a bit of a rest. I did get some time to myself today but this that was because I had to go to the dentist for a filling. Not really the most relaxing way to spend one’s time!

Tomorrow we’re off to see some family we don’t often see because they’re a bit of a trek up north. They’re down visiting family so we’re going to meet them for a bit in the afternoon. It’ll be really wonderful because it is Munchkin’s Godmother and we’ll be able to meet her new daughter. Well, not so new now – she’s nearly 3 months old! I am very excited )

The allotment is looking ok in spite of getting completely flooded on Saturday (as did half of Birmingham – we had trouble getting to a friend’s son’s 1st birthday party only a couple of miles away – had to find another route three times because of flooding). We’re still picking quite a few runner beans and some courgettes as well as beetroot. The tomatoes have all got blight so that’s that (apparently we didn’t get the spray on soon enough).

Anyway – grub’s up so Bon Appetit!

Well, just a couple!

This one is of one of the cucumbers we grew in our back garden (we needed a greenhouse). It was very tasty. Slightly different flavour to the supermarket variety. You don’t have any point of reference for size in the picture but it was a decent size – around that which you’d get in the supermarket.

Here’s little Munchkin helping hubby plant the leeks out at the allotment a couple of weeks ago. In fairness, I think that he was somewhat less helpful than the picture implies (and the waterproof dungarees were very necessary!). )

Thanks to my neighbour calling over the fence to warn me of the large black cloud looming I have just managed to get all the washing in from the line minutes before the rain came. )