I've had to stop canning for a while. Partly because of this:

(this is just part of the ongoing tomato harvest)

And partly cause I have no more room to keep it all. It's too hot round here too keep the jars in my garage and I am not fortunate enough to have a pantry in my house. Plus, I am limited to what I can can as I don't have a pressure canner (yet.) So we just have pickles and relishes, jams and syrups. And plenty of them!

But this doesn't stop the fruit and veg from continuing to grow... (especially those damn zucchinis!) So today I did this:

Went to a lovely friend's house the other night and she plied me with peach sangria. It was DEE-vine and before we knew it we'd necked a pitcher of it. Oops. I'll have to get the recipe from her but it was some combination of white wine, peach vodka, sliced peaches, sugar and something else? Funnily enough, I can't remember...

So I was inspired to make this peach voddy...

Put some peaches in a jar, a bit of sugar (I used light brown) and fill up the jar with cheap vodka. I'll maybe strain it in a few days (or when I remember) and put it in a clean jar. 

Yum.

Man am I tired. On the other hand, I do have this to show for it:

I've been canning something every day this month I think. And (nearly) all from the garden. We need to grow more fruit I think - that is what I've had to buy - and who doesn't love a good jam?  I did manage to get one batch of strawberry out of my plants though. But as strawberry is a clear favorite around here I think it will most definitely not be enough.  So on that note, the hubs and I have been thinking about expanding (gasp!) the garden. It's already about 4000 square feet but I swear most of it is various vines! Watermelon, cantaloupe, butternut squash and some crazy (non-edible) birdhouse gourds. Oh, and cucumber... which is the reason I was inspired to post today.

This:

is from the past 3 days.

I only have three plants!

So today I will be pickling them. Do you know I HATE cucumbers? I struggle to eat a lettuce leaf that has come into contact with one. But I LOVE me some pickles. And as I've never made them before this year, I don't have a favorite recipe so I'm trying a few different ones. This is batch three and I'm trying the very clever Alana Chernila's recipe. Well see how it goes!

I just made what I think is a pretty yummy dinner. Just some store bought spinach and cheese ravioli but I made a simple butter and parmesan sauce with some lovely onion sea salt from Brittany (in France.) Simple and yummy. Thought it would be great for the kids - they love pasta. And the adults as it has some actual flavor to it.

And this is where it all went wrong...

I served it to my youngest.

"Ew! I'm not eating THAT! I tried that before and I DIDN'T like it."

"Where did you try it? I've never made this before."

"At Andy's house."

"Well, I don't cook like Andy's mom, do you think you might want to try mine?"

"NO. I know I don't like it."

Sigh... This is the child that inhaled half a grapefruit as his first solid food. (Yeah, interesting choice I know, but it's a funny story. For another time.)  He begged us for everything we were eating. Lamb chops - sucked the bone clean. Beans? Yes please!  This kid ate anything we were eating. Unlike his older brother who lived on grapes, ham, yogurt and... wait, I'm sure there was something else... maybe not... for YEARS and now, out of sheer hunger (he's 13.5) he's finally eating more and trying more. But this little guy? Nope. No way. And he's not that little. He's 8. And he's a freaking GRUMP when he's not eaten.

I buy cookbooks for picky eaters. Then I open them and see they have a spinach and whatever quiche. Seriously? Does this cook even KNOW what a picky eater is? He'll eat meat of nearly any kind. And carbs. And that's about it. Oh, actually he'll eat some fruit but the only veg to pass his lips is the occasional (tops only of) broccoli. I worry about his health, his weight and his missing out on learning about great food at an impressionable age.

I do not want dinner (or any meal for that matter) to be a battleground. And yet here we are. I don't want to be here.

Got the go ahead tonight from the Farm Boy to book our holiday. Woo hoo! So excited. We're going to Hawaii. The BIG island. The boys have never been before - of course - we lived in England. And I think it's really a perfect time to get the homeschooling thing into full swing.

Things have been a little quiet in the homeschooling land of our house. Big kid has been home since Christmas and is still going through his "de-schooling" time. They say a month for every year they've been in school. So that's 8 months - 9 if you count nursery! (Which is like American kindergarten, but they start 2 years earlier.) So hopefully, by the time everyone else is heading back to school, his little brain will be fed up with his iPod, all the rubbish telly he watches, and his general sloth-ness. Of course, I'm not naive enough to believe that some magic switch is going to flip and he will sit at the table, "Mummy, I'm ready for my math lesson now." But even just an occasional visit to Khan Academy would be a plus!

So my plan is this... Use Hawaii as a topic and run with it. Both boys (and the small one will not be returning to school in August, he'll stay home with his brother - oh, and me) are fascinated with volcanoes, hence going to the BIG island and not easy (and lovely) Maui or Oahu where I actually have family. So there's science. There's loads of history; cultural, political and otherwise. Language, food (my favorite, always), heck! we could even learn the hula! I was looking at the state flag earlier today and it should actually be the state flag of my family. It's meant to be a mix of the American stars & stripes and the Union Jack. Fitting, no? So of course, the idea is we do all this work, learn about Hawaii and then the payoff is 10 days there!

Anyway, that's the plan. Of course, the path is not always straight.

But as long as it leads to Hawaii, I'm good.

Right, I just got my new Joy the Baker cookbook so I'm off to make a Cream Cheese Pound Cake.

How can people actually choose to eat cold toast? What is the point of toast if it isn't hot with gobs of melting butter dripping down your fingers as you work your way from one corner to another (because you have cut it on the diagonal of course.)

You may as well just leave your slice of bread out for a few days. You'll get the same result and have used no electricity.

English cooking, eh?

Well Georgia, as you can see, I DID get dragged down into that vast pit that is inertia. Seems like everything is getting a bit slow to start this year... Schools are shut cause of the snow - not ours anymore, but Scotland, Wales and parts of England still seem to be buried. And snow is halting me going back to work through the cancellations of many evenings when I should be out flogging my wares and trying to make some money!

I am (as the one or two people reading this know so it seems a bit silly to say here) a consultant with a direct selling company which I suppose really ought to remain nameless to protect the (not so) innocent. I do love my job but it sometimes means having to convince people that they want to have a party when they are all just acting a bit English and come over all, "Oh nooooo, I couldn't ask my friends to come over and have to buy something!" (My answer is, You don't ask them to buy something, you ask them to come over, have a drink and watch a cooking show!! The idea is to have some fun, people.) So they are all using the snow as an excuse to not have a show. Listen, if I can get out, take the kids to school, do my shopping, and get to the in-laws then surely your guests won't have a problem getting to you. After all, I know SO many people who are just desperate to get out of the house! So, that said, we are rescheduling and people are happy to come when we thaw a bit more. (I meant the snow, not the English...)

Starting a blog just before Christmas is quite possibly a very dumb thing to do. That is, of course, provided you wanted to actually keep it somewhat up to date... I am not so stupid as to apply such a draconian law to ME.

I have been in such a cooking/baking phase lately. Yes, of course it's cause it's the holidays! And I don't hear anyone complaining. I totally believe that during this festive time, you should not be eating proper meals. Unless you have something booked - like tonight M and I are going out to dinner with a group of friends. I should rephrase that. We are going out with a group of parents whose children go to the same school as ours. Looking forward to it though cause some are actually people we like to socialize with.

But, as I was saying before about meals... there should be no proper meals. Last night M and I had Nigella's cocktail sauages for our dinner. And damn they were good. I think it's the toasted sesame oil and soy sauce combo that I love. And if you nearly overcook them, it's heavenly - they go all sticky and gooey. Yum. That's a meal, right?

Then I boiled a ham. This makes me feel so English. (Which I think I have mentioned I'm NOT.) But boiling meat seems so wrong, something only a country that is known for it's bad cooking (but obsessed with celebrity chefs) would do. However, if you boil a supermarket ham (known over here as gammon... whatever) it's just the right thing to do for sandwich meat. I however couldn't put it in bread. It would get lost! I just slather it with Coleman's (if you are a FB friend of mine, you will know that I am slightly taken with Coleman's) which is proper hot English mustard. It's the same kind of hot as horseradish sauce. Not like chillies, which I can't really take the heat of. (Wimp, I hear you say?) But with mustard and horseradish, I love it so hot that my top lip sweats. (I know I haven't painted the prettiest of pictures for you, but it's true. Try it yourself!)

The baking goods I did were: blueberry muffins, chocolate chip cookie bars, brownies, flapjacks (the English sort, I know of no equivalent in the states), and a blueberry pie. For lunch today I finished off the brownies. (Don't look at me like that, there were only four left.) (Okay, five.)