Life around here

Wow, I have been pretty remiss at keeping up the blog this year I must say - the last post before this was in June! I think because it's so easy to send photos via WhatsApp etc. now, that it's taken the place of the blog a little, but seeing as I do enjoy looking back and keeping track of all the things that we get up to via the blog, I'll do my best to keep updating it even if it does continue at such an infrequent and erratic pace...

So, life around here... The big news, which everyone knows in real life but I haven't mentioned here so far, is the imminent arrival of the baby! I'm currently only three days away from my due date (9th Oct) and feeling as big as a house. Thank goodness for stretchy clothes from H&M! I finished work a couple of weeks ago which has been great (sitting for long periods of time was getting pretty uncomfortable) and have been filling the freezer with risottos and pasta (obviously I'm having an Italian phase) and waiting for essential deliveries like the car seat, mattress for the pram, nappy bag etc. It's interesting, I've hardly bought anything "in real life" for the baby actually - I would say at least 75% of what we've bought has been online (either from stores or from things like eBay) - I'm definitely part of the digital generation!

Last day at work - 16 September 2016 (end of week 36)

So, while it's hard to get out and about too much lately, we did have a great gender-neutral baby celebration with our friends at one of our local pubs where we had a surprisingly difficult quiz (highest score was 5/10, sorry guys!) and lots of fun predictions on the baby's sex, name, arrival date etc. Lots of predictions for a girl (69%) and mostly past the due date so we shall see how accurate they are!

But, let's go back in time and work forward from where I last updated... At the beginning of July we spent a weekend on the Pembrokeshire coast with John, Jules and Benjamin which was really relaxing - unfortunately John, Adrian and I all got sick which wasn't great, but it was still a nicer location to lie about in the sunshine than in London!

Going for a walk

Gorgeous coastline

View from where we were staying

Mum and Dad came back from their jaunt around Europe for graduation (I'll make that the subject of a separate post) and one of the things we did was to climb Monument - something I've been wanting to do for absolutely ages. We also had some really nice days walking about the city and people watching, going to market etc., as well as having a quick look around East Dulwich and then visiting Dad's Uncle Albert which was really nice (especially the giant chocolate cake he'd got for us!).

View looking east from Monument

Monument staircase

Adrian fulfilled a long-held ambition which was to have a T-Bone steak at Hawksmoor. Even though I've been eating meat during the pregnancy, there was no way I was going to be able to help him get through it all, so Pam came along and we had a really fun evening.

Getting ready to eat! 

The remnants of the bone marrow and the T-Bone!

One particularly fine weekend day we decided to pop up to our local park, Southwark Park, and have a jaunt on the row boats. Most other people were on the pedalos, but a row around the lake followed by an ice-cream in the sun made for a pretty relaxing afternoon. I also loved the looks from people as they saw a heavily pregnant woman rowing her husband around!

Keeping on an even keel 

We went for a swim at the Olympic-distance swimming pool in Stratford - it's a really fantastic facility: loads of lanes, not too many people and great water temperature. If we lived in the area I'd be down every day!

At the Olympic pool at Stratford

I also went to a very interesting insect day down at our local reserve - Stave Hill Ecological Park. It was all about identifying different types of insects, such as the key differences between bees and flies (antenna length is a key one there) and bush crickets and grasshoppers (leg angles are important in that case). I went with a colleague from work and a current member of LSE Bees - and the funniest thing was that literally a day or so later we had a bush cricket in our bedroom and I could identify not only what it was, but that it was a female because of its ovipositor. Very cool!

My colleague Alex checking out a specimen

One of our local pubs, the Wibby Wobbly, has been closed for a little while now. It was unique in that it was on a boat in the docks, but now it's been taken over by pirates! Love the juxtaposition of the squatters with the bright lights of money-making Canary Wharf in the background...

Pirates at the Wibbly Wobbly

Adrian and I fulfilled another one of those, "I've wanted to do that for ages" London things - a candle-lit visit to the Sir John Soane's Museum. It's a museum dedicated to the artefacts collected by Sir John Soane, a 19th century architect, and is absolutely chocka-block with stuff inside. The first Tuesday of every month they light the entire museum by candlelight and it's extremely popular - check out the queue! It's just around the corner from LSE and so I'd seen these queues for four years and it was great to finally be seeing what all the fuss was about. Not so comfortable to be sitting on the pavement for over an hour in my condition as part of the queue, but an experience to be had nonetheless.

Queue for the museum - can you spot Adrian?

Exterior of the museum - no photos allowed inside unfortunately

We made the most of a very sunny Sunday afternoon to cycle down to one of the pubs on the river in Rotherhithe for a drink - turns out it was my last cycle ride before the baby comes! It was really lovely just soaking up the sun and chilling out.

At the Salt Quay in Rotherhithe

Chilling in the sun (with a non-alcoholic beer...)

And then there's just been lots of other miscellaneous things going on - like brunch with Adrian's sister Emilia at Lima Flora (really interesting Peruvian food), eating mille feuille in St James' Park, strolling around Greenwich, and heading out and about using my "baby on board" badge to catch up with friends at various events around town.

Delicious!

A selection of the dishes at Lima Floral

Walking around a rainy Greenwich

Hanging out in Shoreditch

On the tube

Basil and blackberry cupcake at the Lower Marsh market yesterday

So there you have it - a complete update of things round these here parts. Now we're just hanging out, waiting for baby to arrive! Fingers crossed it won't be too much longer...

Oatmeal raisin cookies

It's been that kind of day - miserable inside and out. It's been pouring outside and I'm inside with a cold feeling rotten. But it just came into my head that I wanted to eat some oatmeal and raisin cookies and I couldn't shake it, so off to the internet I went to find a recipe.

The below is a riff on this recipe, but I've halved and changed up the type of sugar, added another egg and some extra spices and they've come out quite soft and cake-like (rather than crispy) which is perfect because that's exactly what I was looking for.

They came out really well and were delicious! Give it a try and tell me what you think.

Oatmeal and raisin cookies
Makes 34

Ingredients
100-150g sultanas or raisins (or whatever dried fruit mix you prefer)
150ml vegetable/sunflower oil
100g brown sugar
2 medium eggs
2tsp (or more) ground cinnamon
1tsp (or more) ground ginger
1tsp vanilla extract
140g plain flour
1/4tsp bicarbonate of soda
300g oats

Method
1. Heat oven to 180C and line two trays with baking parchment. Pour 50ml boiling water over the raisins and leave to soak for 20 minutes or so until plump. (Note if you add more fruit, add slightly more boiling water to compensate). Drain and reserve the liquid.

2. In a large bowl, mix together the oil and sugar. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then the reserved liquid from the fruit, the cinnamon, ginger and vanilla extract. Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda and a pinch of salt into the bowl and mix. Then add the oats and mix, and then finally the raisins.

3. Using a tablespoon measure, drop flat measures of mixture onto the baking trays. I got 34 cookies out of this mixture but you could make larger cookies (and just increase the baking time). Mine didn't really spread at all during cooking so I placed them reasonably close together (depending on the size of your tray you'll get between 12-16 cookies per tray).

4. Bake for 12-15 minutes until golden (I baked for 13 minutes). Leave to cool on the trays for at least 10 minutes. Will keep in an airtight container for a few days, or will freeze well.

Hope you like them!

Easter in London

After thinking that we might go to Iceland for Easter, and then quickly changing our minds when we saw how much last minute flights and hotels were, we decided to stay in London this Easter and do all those things we've been meaning to do for ages, but never got around to.

To start, I went to the Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park with a friend. The best exhibition was at their Sackler wing by a collective called Das Institut - lots of neon accompanying brightly lit perspex/mineral cut-outs and projections. A very small, but perfectly formed, exhibition. I'll have to get back in the summer to see one of their famous pavilions.

It was a gorgeous Good Friday and so after sitting in the sun eating ice-cream, we wandered past the Royal Albert Hall into South Kensington and then home.

One other interesting thing we saw were these bracelets that were hanging in the trees in the park - apparently it's a Bulgarian tradition to mark spring. The bracelets are called a "Martenitsa" and from the 1st of March, when you see a blossoming tree or a stork or swallow returning from migration, you then take off the Martenitsa and either tie it to a tree or place it under a stone. If you place it under a stone and go back the next day, the type of insect closest to the Martenitsa will determine your luck for the year (larva, worms, ants = good, spiders = bad). How interesting!

Saturday we finally made it to two places we've been meaning to go to for absolutely ages. First stop, Burger and Lobster Soho. Despite having been open for a few years now, this place still regularly has queues down the street (no reservations) so we didn't do too badly only having to wait half an hour (and inside, perfect considering it was raining...).

The drill is that they've got three options: a lobster, a lobster roll, or a burger, all served with french fries and salad, and all for £20. We shared a grilled lobster and a lobster roll (much better value than a £20 burger!) and I have to say, it was pretty delicious. Loved the lobster bibs and everyone was very friendly despite the rapid turnover. We had an early dinner, arriving at 5.45 (hence the short queue), so by the time we left, it was carnage in the waiting area.

Then it was off down the road to go to The Mousetrap! This is the longest running play on the West End and is currently in its 64th year. We were really surprised with how full the theatre was, but I guess people are coming for the exact same reasons as us - to see the phenomenon rather than the show per se. But it was really good, very tightly acted, and of course, we're not going to tell you "who dunnit"!

Easter Sunday started with a breakfast of champions (in bed no less!)...

...followed by the annual hot cross bun baking session. Given the overdose of buns that occurred last year with the bun-off, we decided not to include the competitive angle, but try the Edmond's recipe in the KitchenAid (rather than mixing by hand as Adrian did last year). They look pretty good don't you think?

Adrian spent Sunday afternoon at the Imperial War Museum and I worked on the article that my co-author and I are contributing to the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Climate Science. Between the sudden spring-time showers, the sun was streaming in on our new Persian carpet and it all felt pretty idyllic.

Later that day I made sunbutter, as a friend had given us a big stash of sunflower seeds. While I thought the food processor was going to conk out given how hard it was working, it all came together in the end and is pretty delicious.

Easter Monday was about finishing off my article, clearing up the garden after Storm Katie (lots of branches strewn everywhere), and having a walk in the sun followed by a drink at a local pub (and then running home in the rain!).

So, a happy Easter was had here in London - hope it was the same for you!

Beeeen busy baking

I must be missing my bees because when I found out we were having a charity bake-off at work, this cake was the first thing that came to mind:

What do you think? It's a chocolate honey cake by Nigella Lawson (original recipe in metric here, with some modifications from here (extra ingredients and swapping up a honey glaze for a chocolate ganache) that I also followed). It's rich and delicious - and super easy to make with everything just getting whizzed up all at once in a food processor. Now, while the marzipan bees might take a little longer, they're still pretty simple and look pretty good if I do say so myself!

Sadly I wasn't the bake-off winner - I got pipped by someone who made a Barbie Christmas fairy cake (her skirt is cake and her bodice etc. is all icing). Can't compete with that! But I had a lot of fun making my bee cake and will definitely pull it out again should be occasion arise!

Eyam & Abney - walk #2

Today's walk was one of our "strenuous" category walks - 14km up and down the moorlands and cloughs (anyone know what those are??). [Edit: it's a steep valley - although can't quite work out what the difference is between a clough and a dale now!]

On our way to the start in Eyam (pronounced Eem) we passed Chatsworth House - Pemberley in the most recent Pride & Prejudice movie). It had extensive grounds with loads of deer.

Eyam is known as the "plague village" where 260 people died over 18 months between 1665-1666. But it is most well known for the fact that the rector asked the villagers to quarantine themselves so as to not spread the disease. People were buried in their own gardens and food and medical supplies were left at the points marked by plague stones on the village boundaries.

We started our walk from Eyam up through farmland into Eyam moor. The wind was whistling across the moor and during the walk we saw all sorts of sheep, rabbits and a lovely red fox. I really liked the heather and bracken on the moor as well as the fantastic stone walls everywhere.

There were a lot of ups and downs so it was a good thing we'd decided it classified as a two sandwich walk - and we stopped in at Bakewell on the way home and got both a Bakewell tart and pudding (the first has shortcrust pastry and the latter has flaky pastry). Adrian doesn't like marzipan so neither rated very highly in his book. It looks like it'll be almond desserts for me for the next few days! 

View towards Chatsworth House

Beginning of the walk - looking back towards Eyam

Onwards over the moor

Couldn't be moor excited!

Surveying the landscape

Nearly at the end

Typical autumn colours

Bakewell tart on the left and pudding on the right

Gluttony Friday

While Good Friday was definitely a good day in our house, it was also most definitely a very gluttonous day (irony much? Seven deadly sins and all...). Health warning: do not attempt any of this unless you are actually training for an Ironman.

We started with a delicious panettone for breakfast that we'd been saving from Christmas. It provided vital sustenance for our epic morning of baking that followed. That's right, we had a Great British Hot Cross Bun Off! In the red corner was Adrian who was making the classic Edmonds cookbook recipe, and in the blue corner was me, Amelia, who was making the new-fangled recipe by bake-off judge Paul Hollywood.

Notable recipe differences included Hollywood's one including an egg and not much in the way of spices (which I decided to double, based on other reviewers' suggestions, as well as ignoring the apple and just doubling the regular fruit mix), and the Edmonds one requiring an hour less proving and kneading all the fruit etc. in at once. I also made Hollywood's recipe in our amazing KitchenAid - got to get that price per use down!

Adrian's batch: the classic Edmonds recipe

My batch: new-fangled Paul Hollywood's recipe

Mine on the left, Adrian's on the right

As you can see, they were a lot of fun to make and turned out very differently! Adrian's were much more like scones and mine were puffier, much more like bread rolls. His have a really delicious, dense taste and the kneading with the fruit meant it broke up and was more dispersed around the bun, but he reckons next time they need more kneading and he'll try them in the mixer. I'm really glad I doubled the fruit and spices in mine as without I think they'd be a bit bland. Adrian generously gave me the winner's crown and I like winning too much not to take it, so el champione is me!

But, gorging ourselves on hot cross buns (I think Adrian had at least five or six straight out of the oven) was only the beginning. We then cycled up to Shoreditch to try out Fryhard, a pop-up food stall which was frying (practically) anything and everything. Adrian's long wanted a pie, wrapped in bacon, then deep-fried. Sadly all the pies were sold out so he had to make do with a quiche. Just don't think of the calories!! I decided to have a cream egg which the whipped cream topping really added to surprisingly - very sweet but disappeared in an instant!

Goodies being queued up for the fryer

A batch of deep-fried cream eggs ready to eat!

Mmmmmm... Deep fried cream egg in all its glory.

Deep fried quiche ready to eat!

Finishing there would have been for wimps. (Notice I'm completely disregarding the health warning at the top of this blog myself). The final step on our odyssey was a white chocolate strawberry cronut. Mmmmmmm...

And then, because we were in Shoreditch (the western-most extension of London's hipster paradise) we topped it all off with a tiny bottle of freshly pressed juice goodness for £5. Delicious!

So there you have it. How to put on 5kg and double your cholesterol in a day. Let's also not talk about the Easter egg we ate in its entirety on Easter Sunday shall we... Luckily spring has arrived and it's fresh veges and salads for the rest of the month!