Hens, glorious hens

My family are now the proud owner of 14 extra fabulous, glorious ex-battery hens - slightly bald in places (oven ready as some people indelicately describe them), but wonderful none the less! We've had them for almost 2 weeks and they started laying from day 1. At the moment they seem to be taking it in turns so that we're not oversupplied but I know that given a few degrees increase in temperature, some blue skies and more daylight they'll all begin to lay with gusto!

Talking about shopping

In my normal slightly absent minded way, I’ve forgotten to highlight our latest new, exciting development on wots4supper and that’s our new shopping  ideas page. We love it and hope you will too, basically we've pulled together some sites that we love and let’s face it – waste time looking at! We think they're really good and are sure you'll like them with Christmas just around the corner.

Christmas confessions......

Am I the only one who HATES it when the supermarkets change their ‘seasonal aisle’ to Santa’s Christmas Food Grotto? In fact I’ve been a bit late to post this as our supermarket has been all decked out with their Christmas nuts for about 5 weeks....how do they judge when to put things out? Do they wait until they see 75% of the population with a tan and think ‘Ha... can’t have them too happy and relaxed after their summer hols, lets increase the pressure and get more money out of them ....time for the Christmas lines!’

I studiously avoid going down said aisle as it a) makes me feel cross that I’m being manipulated by the supermarkets into thinking about Christmas in September and b) makes me manic as I think I’m going to forget something, and I have too much choice ....'should we have Roses or Quality Street or Heroes' c) I worry that their going to run out of stuff by the time I buy it (which they have on occasion because I’ve purposefully left it late – I can tell you that increased the worry the next year). They obviously have very clever marketing departments that know how to push the buttons of most shoppers, either that or I’m super gullible and their perfect customer!

I always leave it late to buy Advent calendars – I can’t really see the relevance of Bratz dolls and chocolate treats to the nativity but hey I’m sure there’s a connection there somewhere. One year I left it so late we ended up with a ‘Proper’ Advent calendar, that just had pictures of the three kings, lambs and shepherds behind the doors. As parents we thought it was wonderful and it gave us a little flash back to the good old days but we had a job to persuade the kids, even at the ages of 18, 16 and 12!

I have this year broken my cardinal rule and ventured into the Christmas Food vortex in September, but only to buy a couple of boxes of Turkish Delight. A favourite of mine and my youngest. We have however already polished off one of the boxes I bought, so I can see a return visit for some more before they sell out....supermarket Christmas sale 1- Indignant Grumpy shopper 0

Empty Nesters

I know that I'm the last of this current years Empty Nester's, and actually my nest isn't quite empty. I still have one little chick, although being a teenager and having just reached 6 foot I just know he'll cringe if he finds out I've referred to him as a small fluffy cuddly thing....

My 2 eldest are about to disappear for the new term at Uni, and although their particular uni starts very late the time in the lead up has been very well spent preparing for Freshers Week. The curse of the new Student Mum! Our first born is entering her last year at Uni now so we're quite familiar with the whole routine of last minute dashing around to buy those student necessities - I think a new pair of winter boots came high on the list of priorities and I'm not talking sensible thermal wellie-like affairs. These boots will be impossible to walk on in the snow and the ice.....but what do I know? The big difference for us all is that she is very kindly taking her next in line sibling with her.....with strict instructions to keep a subtle eye on him but nor to embarrass him in public.

We've been going through food and meals and what to eat, and what not to eat too much of and hoping that at least some of it has sunk in. He's at an advantage because he's in catered accommodation which means access to breakfast and cooked suppers 5 nights out of 7. He has the express intention of going to his sisters to make sure he has 7 out of 7, but I know she has other ideas. Just wondering how I preside over sibling bickering from 200 miles away....

Anyway, they're both armed with student cook book ,and every kitchen utensil know to man (pizza cutter was high on his list - I use a knife!) and a large stash of vitamin tablets which I hope will see them through to Christmas break!

Happy cooking

We're back!

Huge apologies for not posting on here for such a long time....I'm trying to think of believable excuses but shall we just put it down to lack of creativeness....Actually we've been so busy upgrading the website and making it FREE that I've been completely neglectful of our blog. It has absolutely nothing to do with my holiday of a lifetime (I practically ate my way around Brisbane, Singapore and Phuket) as wots4supper was uppermost in my mind when I was stuffing my face.

This is just going to be a quick blog for now but I have no doubt that I'll have loads to share with all the wonderful, Autumnal fruit and veggies that are about.

I have finally managed to persuade my hubby to watch a cookery show with me, without compaining or wingeing. He doesn't cook and has no interest in learning and is the most uninterested viewer of cookery shows. The Great British Bakeoff has tapped in to his love of puddings (and mine too). If you've missed it, try to catch next weeks - they're in Cornwall with the final 4 competitors. Who knows I might even make a pudding at the weekend!

Mum's away....

At the moment the big topic of conversation around our supper table is what the men in the house are going to eat next week when I'm away...My two sons (18 and 13) had a trial run last week when I went out for the evening and my hubby was away on a business trip. I'd left them all that they needed to make tuna fish and pasta but the 18 year old decided that spaghetti wasn't quite what they needed, so sent his younger brother off to the local shop for...(I'm not sure I can admit to this having come into my house and then been eaten with relish, as only teenagers and students can) okay...they had Pot Noodles. Nothing wrong with Pot Noodles, they have their place but that isn't ordinarily in my kitchen! The thing that really made me laugh was when my eldest son said 'but we didn't have any proper pasta', 'There's spaghetti in the cupboard'. His reply ....' alright it might be proper pasta but it's annoying to cook!' He said it with such conviction that I think I actually laughed my socks off! I love teenagers - no really I do, they can be hilarious and brutally honest but they are also really good fun.
So next week is going to be an interesting challenge for them all, the only thing my husband cooks is pancakes (which he does very well), the eldest son did 3 years of food tech - which apparently means he can cook anything and know it's nutritional value, and the youngest would happily exist on a diet of honey on toast and pot noodles (given a chance). This is where wots4supper comes in to its own - I know that I can't give them anything that needs any last minute preparation or complicated cooking, so I shall put together a special 'mums away' week of meals for them and just keep my fingers crossed the local shop's run out of Pot Noodles!
Don't forget to have a look at our Facebook page - and maybe post us a comment.
Happy cooking!

The growing season is here!

Those of you who are gardeners as well as cooks will share my frustration in the weather I'm sure! I've managed to get out and plant a few seeds in my poly tunnels and the veggie beds are starting to spring into life, but it's so chilly at the moment that the last place I want to be is outside! We are still harvesting vegetables from last year though, by some miracle my chard seems to have come through the winter and the purple sprouting broccoli has been saved again from the pigeons. I bought some patriotic bunting from our local Co-op which is now adorning the brasicca cage!!They're a bit clever our local pigeons, they'd worked out that when the netting was lower they could sit on it and happily tuck in to the delicious young broccoli. I wish my teenagers were quite so keen on it...

I'm also taking advantage of a delicious glut of rhubarb in my veggie plot, and i made a delicious (even though I do say so myself) rhubarb and ginger cheesecake - very simple but really yummy.

4oz ginger-nuts, crushed
4oz digestive biscuits, crushed
4oz melted butter

1lb stewed rhubarb (cooked and cooled in its own juices with a good helping of caster sugar)
250g creamed cheese
8fl oz double cream
2 tbsp sweet ginger sauce
3oz caster sugar

First of all, make the base by melting the butter and mixing in the crushed biscuit crumbs. Press down firmly in to a flan tin and pop in to the fridge to set.

Then whisk the double cream until soft peaks from and beat in the cream cheese (you can keep whisking if you want). Mix in the sugar, ginger sauce and the stewed rhubarb - I always mix in the rhubarb a couple of tablespoons at a time and taste as I go. You want to get a good hit of that rhubarb tanginess but with a hint of ginger and its heat coming through.

If you have any rhubarb left over you can always sieve it and make it into a sauce to serve with the cheesecake or just spoon it over as it is.

Hope you're all enjoying the spring weather and I'm sure like us you can't wait for the summer to arrive!

Happy cooking

The w4s team