Summer to me is a big batch of strawberries sitting on my kitchen counter waiting for me to dive into. Whether it be the classic strawberries and cream, strawberry and creme anglaise tart or making jam to be spread on hot buttered toast, I love strawberries.

The one thing that can not be beat is picking them fresh from the field and eating over half the pickings in the car on the way home. Something I have to keep on reminding myself is that I always need to make sure that we pick twice as much as I think that we are going to need to account for the ones that get away in the car.

Tonight for dinner I made Coq Au Vin, with couscous. Whilst the oven was on as I am in thrifty mode with holidays looming I oven roasted some pork chops with carrots, onions and mushrooms and served chassaur style with some stock, wine and a touch of cream with pasta tat was tossed in butter with some fresh herbs from the garden.

I made enough so that we could all eat tonight and there were 4 meals leftover packed into Tupperware boxes ready for lunches over the next couple of days.

My 3 year old son could not eat enough of it, officially coq au vin is his new favorite meal (until tomorrow possibly)

Desert were some strawberries (from tesco as the farm does not open for pick your own until Friday) and they were not the sweetest that I have tasted and so sprinkled a little caster sugar and a teaspoon of balsamic vinegar over them, left them to rest for an hour and then we had them for desert. According to my two children (pictured below) they were Very Very nice!

It cost how much??

A morning out can turn into a very expensive day when having two children in tow who get taken for their routine feet measuring.

Both have grown a full size since the last time we went, resulting in two children getting each a pair of summer sandals, slippers, shoes and trainers. This does not include the school shoes that my daughter will be needing for September.

£180 later and desperate for a coffee, like a ray of sun through the clouds comes Costa Coffee, not Starbucks like I would have preferred after having bacon for breakfast giving me the feeling of a desert in the afternoon sun, a skinny latte certainly hit the gap!

The kids enjoyed our visit to Costa and Babycinos & Marshmallows are always a hit on any visits that we have to coffee shops!

No trip to the shopping centre when the kids have been amazing can be complete without going on the rides that seem to appear from nowhere, alongside a hot food van selling hot roast pork sandwiches, jacket potatoes which looked Divine, but as this was a kids day out the majority vote was won by 'Mr Happy Meal' and so it was hamburger happy meals all round. however no toys in the box today as my two children were quick to point out.                                                                                                         

Tonight we are having some simple sandwiches and soup, and my husband is picking up a few beers, after all the England Match is on and we need to show a little support (by drinking at least!)

Can eating healthy and Comfort cooking work together?

My husband recently got a promotion at work and asked me as a moving in to the new building to make a batch of my triple chocolate brownies.

Being on a diet is hard enough, however when making 18 slices of the greatest smell since fresh bread I knew it was going to be hard.

My brownies turned out a treat

Even my mother who is not really a fan of sweet things, unless they come in the form of a chocolate bar with nuts in found the time to pinch a slice and add some double cream to it for a delicious dessert.

The problem that I found whilst making these was not the fact that I was making Brownies and the house smelt amazing, even the help from my two children in making them added to the fun, but my problem was that being on a strict 1250 calorie diet in order to squeeze into my tankini later on in the year, I found that it made me want to make even more comfort foods that were not at all figure friendly.

I started making Rocky Road with handfuls of marshmallows, dark chocolate, crushed jammy dodgers and bits of crumbled brownie (those edge pieces that are the best!) and once I had made 3 cake tins full of goodness, I was hooked, Macaroni cheese, toad in the hole, Roast chicken with crispy roast potatoes were all calling out to be made by me. It was all I could do to stop myself from cooking into the night.

Finally after looking longingly at the mornings farmers market strawberries, I decided to indulge myself in a much more healthy way and so had a large bowl of strawberries with some fat free Greek yogurt which were Divine. After all that cooking I had some comfort food that did not throw me off my calories, but was very hard indeed to take control of!

Delicious dinner

Tonight's dinner was also part celebration to some good news (more to be revealed later) but Chicken Casserole served on a bed of citrus couscous followed by the most delectable desert.

Let me introduce a new addition to our family dining, perhaps as a reward for every milestone of success as it is just that good and gives me more memories of our family holiday to Croatia than I thought possible, served with Waitrose extra thick single cream poured generously over the top. I know that the calories on this are far more than i would like to guess. However as a reward or treat, or even as a new style birthday cake (hint!) enough of me going on about it, I can not praise this enough.

I need to get more photo time into my weekly schedule.

I love taking photos and capturing what in just a millisecond can be lost forever, even stolen glances. feelings and expressions that I enjoy capturing and so more time is needed to dedicate to taking photos, I find that they give me inspiration for my characters, however currently I am interested in photos of food, people eating and enjoying food, not just in the fancy restaurants, but college guys biting into a sub, grabbing coffee in Starbucks, but what i find more fun is getting pictures of people deciding what they are wanting to order, looking at a menu, reading on the specials board, frowning, staring, calculating what to have in order to satisfy them selves.

More pictures to follow.

It has been a while...

I have been receiving emails lately from kitchen companies offering me pots and pans at a reduced rate. Now I have to admit they are beautiful but my kitchen is not capable of storing all the kitchen paraphernalia that i currently possess and so think that 'Hubbster' may have an issue with more items arriving for kitchen and wife use only.

I could spend hours browsing http://www.lakeland.co.uk/  or perhaps http://www.amazon.co.uk/  for the kitchen and home section, however nothing seems to satisfy my craving for all things food and kitchen related like the seller shops on http://www.ebay.com/ it is THE place to find all the American gadgets that I desire on the food network and displayed on the pages of my Ina Garten, Bobby Flay and Rachel Ray cookbooks.

Today is a busy day, I have the book to work on, my son and daughter have their trampoline lessons and then the dentist this afternoon, all this is to be fitted around the redesigning of their bedroom storage and trying to earn a living as a freelance writer who has more articles stored in her head than time allows to get down on the computer.

I have been back just two weeks from the most amazing holiday in Croatia with the family, however I do not seem to have been able to catch up since getting back, having only had broadband returned to me this week, the practicalities of having to sit in Starbucks to send and receive emails has been testing with a 3 and 4 year old for company.

So today marks the day that I am changing all that, starting here with this long neglected blog I am hereby going to achieve the following list

1. Work on book

2. Articles to write and send out

3. Resume gym training

4. Recipe book to continue working on and developing

5. Set the alarm every morning for 5am to get a couple of hours work done before the rest of the family wake up

The above 5 points are very do able however not if i don't start them straight away, and so as I sigh out of my blog for this morning point 2 is to get my articles out to the editors before the deadline on Friday.

I shall allow myself to return as a treat reward once the articles are written.

TTFN!