Costco meat shopping and pork vindaloo with Karma's masala

 Our regular weekend trek to Costco for our raw meat / milk etc ends up a trolley full of stuff. As the children grow older, the quantities of food we buy are increasing....
First pic is pork vindaloo with LOTS of potatoes on the top (made by my mum so have to ask her why the copious quantity of potatoes). Karma's vindaloo masala - the one in a jar thingie for Rs100 odd is lovely. From my other post, I am a big fan of Karma's masalas and stock up when we go to Goa. Taste lovely and available readily. Comes a close second to my MIL's homemade ones.

This is a pic of some of our freezer shopping from Costco - pork tenderloin, pork shoulder and chicken thighs, one skinless and one skinned (difference is a couple of pounds between the two). Used to last us almost a month, now hopefully more than 10 days!
The mince is the only thing I find more expensive than elsewhere, at almost £8 a kilo, other than that, its mostly cheaper and nicer to buy a big quantity.

The children are enjoying the chapatis/parathas from their grandma these days though......

Hoburne Torbay review - draft

First things first, spoke to Hoburne Torbay on the phone and got a stupendous (for August) deal for a week for us. Much lower than their internet price.
Chose Hoburne for proximity to the beach, stayed in the Cotswolds one 6-7 years ago and mainly, the cheapest in the category of near £1000 pounds for a caravan for a week Aug holiday prices. Yes, close to £1000 for a week. Self catering. For 6.

Anyway, it was a lovely experience, need to figure
 out where to start.


The Birmingham-Devon journey was awful, took 6 hours instead of the 3, traffic jams, single carriageways etc. Prepared for it fortunately, experienced it last year on the way to Cornwall. The view of the sea rising up in front of your eyes as you go down a slope approaching Hoburne, in fact a few places in South Devon is something else. 
First of all, from the price we paid, expected a dump, the park looked nice and well maintained when we entered. Checkin staff lovely and gave us our keys along with a map and showed us where to look for the entertainment schedule Went to the caravan a bit worried but it turned out to be spotless. Seriously very very clean. It wasn't an apartment/cottage/hotel room/B&B so the tiny spaces were expected. Kids overjoyed at a mini house.
Got to continue this later.....the joys of having 3 tired children on a Sat evening when I'm meant to be going out :)

Roses

Saddled with a large neglected garden........Since we moved, I've focused on the house and sorting it out. Put the garden out of my mind for a while. With the advent of my mum along with the gardener's absence along with buying hedge trimmers, have been forced to sort the neglected overgrown bushes out. The few flowers that have survived are these stunning huge roses that keep popping up at various parts. The largest is the size of my splayed hand....cut one of these as seen below.

These tiny beauties are not from the garden but from Morrisons - the second flowering. They were just a pound and some and very pretty to look at. There's another similar plant upstairs on the landing with lots more roses. I'm now discovering the thing of cutting roses back after they are dead and have new growth leading to flowers happen again.

Edited to add, this is the rose plant on the landing:

This is the cyclamen, again flowering the second time round, from Cofton Nursery (the City Council) where I've found lovely much cheaper plants. This was bought 4-5 months ago, flowered, died, was left in the garage, resurrected, watered and voila!

Seems to be good luck with the flowers and roses in this house which I have always been careful to stay away from. Hopefully it will continue. Happy to receive any tips for rose growing!

Back from Devon

Seems like a long time since I last posted. Have come back refreshed from a week in Devon. Lots of beautiful pictures to post, yet to be uploaded.
Lots to post, will do it bit by bit. Separate review of Hoburne Torbay though - merits one.
Last Aug, we went to Cornwall and stayed at the lovely Esplanade Hotel, Ive written about it on here.
Great time, fantastic hotel and most of all, stunning Cornwall - Fistral Beach and St Ives.
This year, decided on South Devon as a last minute break. Very very expensive, as was obvious for August. After much looking, I found a slightly less expensive priced caravan at Hoburne - will go into details separately :)
Lots to hear from friends about why stay in a caravan, go to a cottage, its nicer, Salcombe is much nicer than Torbay etc etc. Never mind, we'd already booked so went ahead.
First thing, Torbay, which includes Torquay, Paignton and Brixham was not as run down as reviews and friends suggested. Apart from the lovely sea views, each was different. Paignton is probably my best from the three, with a sandy beach (smallish), then a fantastic very big Geopark (?) play area for the children and then the main road leading to the high street with the usual arcades/amusements. If there is a next time, we are going to book one of the seafront hotels with a 1 min walk to the beach and the play area.
Next is Brixham, lovely little town - called a fishing village. No beach - we drove there once and then went by ferry from Torquay.

The ferry Torquay-Brixham is a must do, for £2 return for around a half hour trip each way. Fantastic views.
Torquay itself is better than I expected, not rundown, cheapest place to park is the Fleet Walk Shopping Centre, walking from most things. Bit strange to find a TK Maxx and Debenhams a few minutes from the seaside!

Berry Head off Brixham is stunning, with a clifftop view of Torbay, the Jurassic Coast and the sea on three sides. Its in the middle of nowhere, yet costs a pound and some to park, like all places in the area. There's a small visitor centre with a lovely volunteer who gave the children cannon balls to hold etc (remains of the Napoleonic Fort).

Last of all and the best bit of our week away was the crabbing at Stoke Gabriel - fantastic! H said it reminded him of crabbing at the river in Bardez in his childhood. The difference being in Goa you get to eat the crabs and here they need to be put back in. Its is a must must must do for anyone with children, or without. Much easier than fishing and there's the instant gratification of pulling up one or two little crabs up in the net in a couple of minutes. The equipment - wire, bait, net and bucket costs a few pounds. In my book its one of the best things to do with children ever.

My final observations -
The beaches in South Devon (and we went to a few) arent a patch on those in Cornwall, and do not compare to the long coastlines in Goa.
There is much less sand on the beaches ie they are littler.
More pebbled beaches than sandy ones.
Horrible traffic jams all along after the M5 (thought Cornwall was bad, this is the same)
Still had a good time and South Devon is lovely!

Uncle S's coconut curry

Uncle S and Aunty H came and went a couple of months ago and a lovely time was had by all, they are H's relatives who live in another country and were on a whirlwind trip in Europe. Endeared themselves to our children in 3 days and left behind lots of memories, one of which is Uncle S's coconut curry  - its similar to kaldin, similar to a mild Thai curry, but its very very easy to do and liked by all who I've made it for.

Fry onions, add ginger garlic, turmeric, and coconut milk, sugar and tamarind to taste. Thats it! This picture is with mussels from Costco. I haven't added the mandatory red Kashmiri chillies because of the children but its even better with them. Also missed out the veg (potatoes/broccoli etc)
Must try :)

Babies growing up

So much has happened in the last few weeks for me professionally, have got my act together as a non mummy/cook/friend and been the other side ie work. Its a bit unnerving when you go back to work after a few years and then it comes together and you find your footing. All good, but now a pause until the holidays finish.
This has actually been secondary compared to the children's activities, I come home, and there's this calendar of activities - again, resulting in another piano grade for my daughter and a guard of honour at Edgbaston for my son (not sure of what it means but know what he did).
Its true, what the old ladies at Sainsbury's checkouts would tell me when they were babies - it will all get easier and you will miss this time. They are no longer 'carryable', do their own tasks etc, have conversations with me and play on their own (mostly).
Watching them grow into normal children is what makes parenting worth it - all the sleepless months breastfeeding, and then still sleepless nights, clinginess, toys, exhaustion, doing the same thing over and over again etc is all temporary, and then.........as our friends with teenagers point out, it happens all over again, but in a different way......

Wild strawberries and easy microwave jam

Of all places, in a corner of our front garden, there are hundreds (literally) of wild strawberries growing. The boys are enjoying themselves plucking some daily. Though tiny compared to standard ones, they taste the same and I have made some jam/compote in the microwave.
Its very simple:
Add the same amount of sugar as strawberries or a bit more.
Add some lemon juice for pectin to get it to set. 
Leave overnight in the fridge. ( This is to get the strawberries to keep their shape without becoming a mush)
Microwave for a few minutes.
Put in clean jar.
Thats it.
Its lovely.

Filo pastry / spring roll pastry samosas at home

Had this big pack of spring roll pastry in the freezer, bought on offer. Aforementioned visiting relatives love samosas, so do the children. Leftover mince. Decided to try them on a Sunday afternoon. They were much easier than imagined. A must view is the 30 second folding samosa video on Youtube.
This is folding the pastry bit, quick and easy to do once you get the hang of it. These were done by my 8 year old.

These are the filled samosas.

The end product, wolfed down in a few minutes!

White chocolate blueberry torte, caprese salad and an easy Peppa Pig cake

Its been a long time since I last blogged properly - real life being too busy. It was my youngest's 3rd birthday, this is the easy option I went for, for his much wanted Peppa Pig cake. If I had the time, and not had to focus on the cooking for his party, cleaning etc etc, would have done the figures in icing, but the main thing was that he was happy. Cake toppers from eBay are an easy quick option for a pound.

For another time we had people over for lunch, this is a 'caprese' salad, cherry tomatoes with a bit of mozzarella and mint/basil on the top. My version here used our wild garlic in the garden :)

This is the dessert I made for the 3rd birthday lunch - White Chocolate Torte with blueberries on the top. Its gorgeous and a must try. Cannot do proper chocolate because of H so have to experiment with the white. I've tweaked the BBC Good Food recipe a bit for us and its still divine.
To those who keep asking, its not a cheesecake, there is no cheese, just cream and white chocolate!

The fox in our garden

On its daily afternoon visit - dont know if there are more than one, but this daily appearance has fascinated all our visitors who have seen it, this picture has been emailed to us :)

Our family hotel.....

The past 10 days have been a bit mad.......have had different sets of people over to stay and my life seems to solely consist of taking people shopping or sightseeing and cooking different meals for different appetites.

And I thought moving house and starting work again and the kids were a bit busy.

However it has all been lovely and very nice to catch up with people. When they are living in your house, its a different picture to when you meet them for a meal or coffee. I love sitting at the table after a meal and chatting about the good old days and whatever.

Also have been honing my long unused cooking skills - with the children, its mostly non spicy food or the standard Jeera Meera or Rechad. The past few days I have experimented and enjoyed it. Will post some pictures soon.

Best bit is the children are enjoying the company of close friends and relatives and being pampered - not with gifts but with time, which for me is the biggest bonus of all. They have played Housie, Ludo, Monopoly, Seven Hands, Donkey, made projector movies on a video cam and also just played cricket...... :)

Now life will start to go back to normal, or maybe not, have some more house guests for the next few months now...

After Earth review - what on earth has happened to MN Shyamalan

After weeks of procrastinating and other things coming in the way, H and I finally decided to go for a movie Sunday afternoon. My first choice was the Great Gatsby, read the books many many years ago and liked it. Also, there's meant to be a cameo by Amitabh Bachchan. Unfortunately the timings weren't right. Saw that M. Night Shyamalan had a new movie out, so booked and went.
And what a disappointment! I cannot believe this is the same director who made the Sixth Sense, or even Signs for that matter. Sixth Sense is one of my all time favourites, need him to make a movie like that, not another huge Hollywood studio mass formula production full of cheesy predictable material.
No point going into the story because its too predictable - synopsis is that its based in the future and Will Smith and his son are stranded on a very dangerous Earth, the son has to sort out a beacon 100kms away which will rescue them etc. Too predictable in the way Jaden Smith is saved and kept safe, in the special effects, in the background of what happened to his sister etc.
The one and only one moment in the film I perked up was when his sister appears and yells at him to wake up, turning into a nasty looking ghost(?) I kept thinking its going to turn surreal and unpredictable after that, but, never mind.
I actually looked at H a few times during the movie wondering what we'd paid to watch. Hopefully Shyamalan's next wont be the same and Columbia will let him make his movies without the mass formula.
As an aside, Zoe Kravitz, who plays the sister is extremely pretty. She is Lenny Kravitz's daughter (as is obvious). His song Again is one of my most loved. :)

20 degrees finally - Eating in the Garden

Yesterday, after ages, finally the temperature reached 20 degrees, with it being half term, the children were waiting to have a picnic in the garden. Had lunch outside with their visiting auntie. The garden needs lots of work/cutting back but taking it bit by bit. Its got lots of flowers, fruit etc but we're still discovering most of the plants.
Hopefully the weather will last and at least stay more than the 10 degrees we've been having. Their auntie has gone back to Bombay and 33 degrees or more there now....

Puri Bhaji

Over the weekend/bank holiday, seven children and eight adults over. Lots of fun and madness.
Among the pots of food cooked was my children's latest favourite - puri bhaji. This is their staple at Chennai Dosa for £2 something, and occassionally made at home, when we buy the veg oil to deep fry in and lots of dhania.
I've found the simpler the bhaji is, the better it tastes. Onions fried, some tomatoes (or not), garlic, rai, oil and salt. Dhania makes it all come together.
Demolished by our 3 in a few minutes.....

Communion cake, another packed for giveaways...

Such a long time since I last wrote on here, euphemistically, put too much on my plate and now trying to eat it all.....

This is my oldest's communion cake. She did her name in icing at the bottom. My standard go to is the BBC easy fruit cake recipe which is a doddle, and Sainsbury's icing and marzipan and Dr Oetker's silver balls.....
This is the second cake, cut into pieces for each family.

My IL's were asked to bring the silver boxes from Bombay - Rs4 a box and I put slices of this into the boxes for giveaways.
All in all, it was a lovely day, inspite of the rain. The children, all 13 of them were entertained by SIL upstairs, then came downstairs to play the family games, again all sorted by her.
Yes, there was the mandatory sorpotel, and because of the help with the luch, I had the time to do a tiramisu and mango mousse :)
S's dress was a bit of a blip, ordered online and this confection of lace and satin and puffed sleeves and gathers arrived - Husband and I were a bit zapped but took it to a tailor who made it look a bit better, fortunately. Will post a pic at some stage.
I cannot get the fuss made about changing out of her dress as soon as we get back from church - the dress is meant for today, cannot be used again (probably not), so why change her?
Anyway, thanks to the communion, the house underwent a massive clearout and tidy up of the bits after moving. Still have 7 boxes of books in the garage though, waiting for a bookcase!