I cooked a chicken (but forgot to take any photos)

Good evening my lovely readers,
Well I am cream crackered! It's been a busy couple of days and (don't tell the pain management ladies) I haven't been pacing at all. I've managed quite a few things that I'm really proud of. I drove on my own for the first time in months yesterday, I went to yoga, I did a shop, I went to pain management and today I cooked a whole chicken!

Mr Lardshow's parents have come down for the weekend for the first time so I am in a house full of Lardshows and meat eaters, the cats are in heaven! So after much debate about what to cook for them we decided on a roast chicken. Up to this point I have got away with just cooking pieces of meat but today I bit the bullet (not the chicken) and had a go. After trawling through my cookery books I found a nice simple recipe from the voluptuous Nigella. Mr Lardshow was dispatched to a good butchers and bought a high quality free range chicken. Hopefully the chicken had a happy, clucky life.

The happy chuck was popped in the oven with lemon, potatoes, shallots and a whole bulb of garlic sliced in half with some olive oil, thyme, salt and pepper. Lots of mathematical doings were done to calculate how long it needed to be in the oven but in the end I opted for going and having a bath and leaving the responsibility of the chicken to Mr Lardshow. As Baldrick sort of used to say 'I had a cunning plan'!

So, by the time I got out of the bath the chicken was done and all we needed to do was put the Yorkshire puddings in, warm through the mash and steam the veggies. Dinner was done! As is now the norm, I spend all of dinnertime staring at people's plates quizzing them on whether the meat is cooked and hoping it tastes ok. Tonight though I had the added bonus of Mr Lardshow senior constantly offering me random bits of chicken to taste for myself...I declined!

Anyway dinner was a success, our bellies are full and we've collapsed onto the sofa to watch the end of the tennis.

It's nearly bedtime now, I'm really tired and I REALLY want to have the energy to go and see the Olympic Flame in Lichfield. I want to be a part of it in my 'Official Team GB' hoodie in spite of the pain. Cross those fingers! Night Night all xBx

Sun Tea for Miss Adele

I was chatting across the ocean to my lovely Canadian friend Miss Adele and she gave me the inspiration for this post. She said all you needed was a teabag, a jar and some sun. Not a problem you might think but that big, glowing ball in the sky has been rather elsuive of late...

This morning the sun came out! I was out in my garden with my Parentals and I found myself shielding my eyes from the sun, such a surprise and finally a chance to try out Miss Adele's idea.

So the idea is you take any teabag of your choce, the fruitier the better and you pop it in a jar with cold water. You then place the jar outside in the sun. As the sun's beams hit the jar they warm the water and help the tea to stew/brew/mash.

My sun tea is still brewing outside, I'm not sure how warm it's going to be as the sun has gone and all we're left with is a cloudy, muggy day. It was fun taking the photos and watching the water gently change colour. I'm really enjoying developing all my photos.

So what sun tea will you make?

Strawberry Cupcake

I did it, I baked, I jammed, I iced, I plopped a strawberry on the top, I got Mr Lardshow's camera and I had a go at taking some fancy, arty photos, I ate the cake, I rubbed my tummy, I went to sleep. It was good it made me happy.