Bonnie Tyler Style

Over the weekend I've had some dodgy throat moments, the worst at 3am on Saturday morning when I was in some real pain and had to take paracetamol that Husband #1 went to fetch for me - he's just bought a few more years of good McCookings.

Friday night's pizza was a pesto triumph with gouda and emmental instead of mozzarella plus I added slightly more tomato puree than I usually would. Saturday was Christmas Tree Day and so a simple tea was all that was allowed: a few weeks ago I'd bought cheeses which hadn't been eaten (amazing in this house) and so I made some bread, cut a pear and we had that with a celery, walnut an parmesan salad, courtesy of Husband #1. 

I have to say the bread was lovely - even if I say so myself and even though I only made half a portion (Nigel Slater recipe and he is of course, generous!) there was still a huge chunk to throw away to the birds on Sunday morning! Of the cheese, we had a stilton, a reblochon and another one which was a Spanish ewe's milk cheese and quite delicious. So busy were we from Christmas Tree decorating and then tidying up, we were even too full for chocolate. Don't know how to move on from there....

That night I put a lovely lamb shoulder joint into the oven on a bed of onion, carrot, garlic and boiling water - covered in a tightly sealed foil tent - on 140'. The smell in the morning was unbelievably good and by 1pm the lamb just fell off the bone - in fact the bone simply fell off. Teamed with home made tzatziki (mint, lemon, yoghurt and garlic), pitta bread and red onion, it was a real treat.

And this all followed a lovely breakfast of banana pancakes. I had to make up the recipe, but 250g flour, 1tsp baking powder, 40g melted butter, 2 eggs and some warm milk (200ml? I forgot to measure - but enough to make a thick batter!) seemed to do nicely. Then I added 2 large mashed bananas and cooked in a non-stick pan. No fat required. Even Baby-Big-Girl ate two and she never eats more than a single pancake.  Biggie ate two and a half! By the way, clearly there was also maple syrup involved.

But I realise why we in this house never eat Sunday roasts; Husband #1 was asleep shortly afterwards and I was dozy enough to allow the girls to strategically place stickers all around the room and glue cut out leaves (I cut them out!) onto doors and worktops around the downstairs in the quest to create a jungle theme. Clearly already bored of Christmas.

And so to tea. Planned to be a jacket potato, it soon turned into a rather excellent treat of yet another block of blue cheese with a glass of wine at 10.30pm. Oh well. I can diet next year.