Easy Lamb Keema

After you have done a hard days work there is nothing better than sitting down to a delicious home cooked meal. Something that is both tasty and nutritious, easy to make, and more importantly, something that the whole family will sit down and eat. There really is nothing worse than faffing around making different meals for each person in the family. I must admit that I have been guilty of this in the past and it really is soul destroying, not to mention really expensive too! This Easy Lamb Keema is one of my favourite mid week go to recipes ~ and the best part about it is that it can be ready on the table in about half an hour.

You will need the following ingredients ::

500g lean lamb mince
1 crushed clove of garlic
1 large potato (diced)
1 teaspoon each of ground coriander, cumin, chilli powder and turmeric
1 tablespoon of garam marsala
100 mls lamb stock
400g tin of chopped tomatoes
150g frozen peas

Firstly dry fry the lamb mince until browned and skim off any of the excess fat ::

Next add the crushed clove of garlic and the spices, stir and then cook for around one minute ::

Add the diced potato ::

Next add in 100mls of lamb stock ~ I just use a lamb stock cube and also add the 400g tin of chopped tomatoes ::

Season with salt and pepper to taste and then cover and simmer for around 15 minutes until the potato is tender ::

Next up add 150g of frozen peas and cook for a further 3 minutes::

Serve with chopped coriander, a large green salad and some warm naan bread ~ and maybe a large glass of wine for the adults ~ delicious!

Most of the time I make this recipe with lamb mince, but I have also used lean steak mince which I find works just as well. You can also add a chopped onion in the early stages of cooking ~ but my daughter refuses to eat anything that contains the slightest trace of onion, so I find it much easier just to leave it out. Anything for a quiet life! Hope you all enjoy :O)xx

Halloween Happenings

This year my children have taken it upon themselves to be very busy little bees and have been getting very crafty making things to decorate the house ready for Halloween. They are now of an age where they don't really need to be supervised all of the time and can be left to their own devices ~ so to speak!

My daughter decided that she would quite like to be in charge of carving the Halloween pumpkin this year. She spent a little while doing some research on the Internet for a bit of inspiration, and finally decided that she would carve an howling wolf ~ which sounded just a little bit too ambitious to me! However, this is her finished pumpkin all lit up with a tea light ~ not bad at all for her very first attempt at it!

We have managed to gather quite a collection of Halloween decorations over the years, most of which have been chosen by the children and bought very cheaply for a few pounds each, but they were still very excited about adding to our spooky collection with some homemade bits and pieces.

A little mousy was made out of black card and has been stuck to the skirting board complete with a little mouse hole::

An old wine bottle has been carefully changed into a bottle of blood (!!) to make a spooky candle holder. Candle wax was very painstakingly dripped down the bottle for added effect. I would like to add that I was actually supervising at this point!

More black and orange card has been cut out into all manner of Halloween shapes, there are bats and cats, pumpkins and witches ready to be stuck onto walls and strung from the ceiling. I love how this bat with his red beady eyes has cast a spooky menacing shadow onto the wall behind.

Tonight we will play the traditional Halloween game of  "dooking" for apples and then afterwards we will be getting cosy on the settee and snuggling up to watch a selection of scary Halloween movies ~ with a little bit of Scooby Doo added in for good measure. You can't beat a bit of Scooby Doo at Halloween! I'm also sure that there will be a fairly substantial supply of rubbishy Halloween sweeties and chocolates for munching on too.

Hope you all have a very Happy and Spooky Halloween :O)xx

Happy Birthday to me!

It was my birthday at the beginning of the week, and I had the most lazy kind of day you could possibly imagine. I was treated to breakfast in bed, which was then followed by some lovely presents from my other half and the not so little people. My presents included some rather colourful spotty dotty new slippers and a selection of lovely smelly goodies from Lush ~ which I absolutely love.

As part of my present my Mum gave me a beautiful bunch of pink carnations ~ which I get every birthday, because that is the kind of flowers my Dad bought my Mum when I was born. I love that a simple gesture from my Dad to my Mum all those years ago is still being made by my Mum to me.

My daughter made me a wonderful birthday cake ~ a lemon Victoria sponge with a lemony mousse filling and decorated with my favourite green and yellow jelly sweeties. She is becoming quite a talented little baker and her cakes always turn out to be light and very moreish. But, then I suppose cake is always kinda moreish!

In the evening we all went out for a family meal to our local Chinese restaurant. The food was absolutely delicious and I have to confess that I ate a bit more than I should have. I could have done with a wheelbarrow to help carry my stomach back up the road!

So that's me another year older but I don't think I would go as far as saying I was another year wiser. I had a wonderful day and was well and truly spoilt by my family:O)xx

Half Term

It was Half Term here for us last week, and the week started off with a visit to the Dental Hospital for my daughter to have two baby teeth removed prior to having major orthodontic work done. As my daughter has a bad needle phobia, we were referred to a wonderful Paediatric dentist who specialises in dealing with children who get very upset about having any dental work done.

                                                             (Photo from Google Images)

To be honest, I didn't really think that we would ever get these teeth out. This was our third attempt at trying to persuade her to get it done. However, on Monday, I witnessed the most amazing piece of dentistry that I had ever seen. This wonderful Paediatric dentist had the most calming demeanour about him, and instead of using a conventional needle to numb the gums he used a special device called a "wand" which along with some gas and air, had my daughter relaxed enough to co-operate! The two baby teeth were successfully removed and we can all now breathe a BIG sigh of relief!

After Monday's ordeal, the rest of the holidays were all about relaxing and taking it easy. Like the rest of the country, the weather here has been very wet and windy, so we decided to spend a couple of days lounging about in our pyjamas, keeping warm and cosy, watching DVDs and eating large amounts of popcorn and chocolate. Which, in my book, certainly beats going to school any day of the week!  And talking of books ~ I have also managed to catch up with some of the lovely crochet books that I had borrowed from work ~ one of the perks of the job!

Later on this morning we are going to catch the train into Edinburgh ~ heading off for a pre-back to school treat to our nearest cinema to go and see the Lego Movie, which looks like it will be a lot of fun. There may even be MORE popcorn!

Tomorrow it will be back to school and our normal routine as usual :O)xx

Enjoying............

Enjoying some "me" time and sitting with my feet up reading the latest issue of Simply Crochet with a chocolate bun and a cup of tea in my new rainbow coloured stripy mug::

Enjoying watching my boy play with his toys, and loving that even though he is nearly twelve, he still loves to get lost in the world of Playmobil. In this very carefully arranged little scene, there has apparently been an "incident" and all the Playmobil police team are being briefed in the briefing room. Words can't describe how much I love small boys and the way they use their wonderful imagination!

Enjoying these pretty little yellow Tete a Tetes which only cost me a pound from the local supermarket ~
giving me a little glimpse of springtime and some much needed floral colour when the garden outside is feeling a bit wintery and bare::

Enjoying my recent delivery of soft and squishy Stylecraft Special DK ~ bringing me a new batch of blues for my Little Boy Blue Granny Stripe, and a selection of  blues, greens and neutrals for my newly started Seaside Squares Blanket, with a couple of extra brighter colours thrown in for good measure :O)xx

This week

In between working extra shifts in the library and trying to catch up with all the household chores, I have been snatching moments here and there, to hook up more blue stripes on my Little Boy Blue blanket. I've been enjoying the repetitive hookiness of it so much, that I have pretty much come to the end of my Stylecraft stash of blues and have just HAD to get online and order some more!

Whilst I am waiting on my order to be delivered I have gathered together all those scruffy, scrappy end bits of yarn that were not long enough to make a complete stripe in my blanket and have hand wound them into neat little balls of yarn ready to be used as part of my next project.

I have been playing about with some blue, green and neutral tones and have made some little seaside coloured granny squares as a kind of hooky swatch for my next project which has been totally inspired by this beautiful blanket HERE.

Keeping with the seaside theme ~ I was so excited to find these Fish and Chips biscuit snacks in the supermarket. I remember that my Mum used to buy these for me years ago and I used to love them. I'm not quite sure that they taste the same as they did when I was younger ~ I'm sure they used to be fish and chip flavour ~ but it was lovely to have them again.

I'm off now to put the kettle on and hook up some more seaside squares :O)xx

Harbour Walking

This week I have been out and about walking again ~ this time past a row of pretty pastel coloured seaside cottages. I do so love these little colourful houses ~ they always make me feel so cheerful when I walk past them::

I am making my way down to the harbour ~ passing this bright orange life buoy, which is looking a bit battered and worn after all the windy and rainy weather we have had lately::

The boats in the harbour were bobbing up and down fairly quickly as the waves were rushing in and out of the harbour mouth ~ there was lots of noise from the jingling and rattling of their tall masts too::

Next I went up some steps and paused to admire the Gannet Gateway ~ which is a newly erected art sculpture depicting three gannets, one taking off, one in full flight and one just starting to dive. You can see North Berwick Law beautifully framed by the gateway too::

Along the pathway and turning left along the East Bay ~ I love this view of the beach from behind the tall beachy grass::

Everywhere seemed so quiet this morning. There were not very many hardy souls about and the weather was just the perfect kind of walking weather.  I really enjoyed my walk this morning and I hope you enjoyed it too :O)x