Ginger Bread / Parkin

My favourite thing at the moment is Ginger bread, otherwise known as Parkin.  There is something deliciously comforting about a warm slab of it with a cup of tea.  I’m not a big tea drinker, but it does go with this well!  It’s also nice heated in the microwave for about 20 seconds, drizzle a little golden syrup over and serve with ice cream.

I like it very gingery, so I use about 2.5 teaspoons of ground ginger, and sometimes add a teaspoon of cinnamon as well.  When you tip the mixture into the loaf tin, sprinkle some sugar over the top before it goes into the oven.  When you take the tin out of the oven, you need to leave it to cool for ten to fifteen minutes before trying to tip it out.

Edited to add - if you run out of bicarbonate of soda, baking powder will NOT work instead! Lesson learnt this morning!

Curried Parsnip Soup

At my cousin’s wedding back in December, the hotel served us all bacon butties and delicious curried parsnip soup half way through the evening.  Since then I have been trying to perfect the recipe myself and I think I have – well, to my taste buds anyway !

The recipe above is a pretty easy way to do it – it does rely on your own taste for the amount of spiciness though, so make sure you taste as you go.  I used fresh chicken stock that I made after a roast dinner, and kept back the leftover meat, diced it finely, and then added it to the soup once it was ready.  Gives a nice chickeny chewiness to each mouthful.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas and New Year.  We had a good one.  Opened presents at home in the morning, and then down to the in laws in the afternoon, and home the next day.  Hogmanay was spent with friends – just a quiet one as we’ve all got kids, but it was nice.

It’s taken me until now to get the house sorted out after Frazer and Isla went back to work and school.  They are so messy!  It took me 4 hours to do the ironing last week, and I had to do a thorough house clean as well.  This week should be easier thank goodness.  It’s certainly a lot easier to get everything done.

We’ve had a few good outings together over the holidays – we’ve been out exploring areas to move to later this year, and have been out for lunch a couple of times.  We’ve just had a really nice, family orientated holiday.