Celtic Cook Goes Home

One of the positive sides of returning home is being able to spend more time with family and to be around to help out with grandchildren. Sometimes for an hour or so, an overnight or like last week having Daisy and Archie here for a few days over their half term allowing Jill to carry on working. It is very different now we are home. The relationship has changed slightly. No longer do we arrive with suitcases full of gifts and whip the children into a frenzy for a few days before heading off again. I always hated the leaving!  Now we have to have a more balanced relationship and find each other’s boundaries, likes, dislikes and little foibles.😀 Trip to Trampoline Park.  We really are getting to know each other much better. We have to learn where we fit into their lives on a permanent basis. Been ups and downs, but getting there, and we still have a lot of fun together. Daisy loves cooking with me, and I love teaching her, Archie too, but sometimes the draw of iPad...

We have never been a family who must have red meat everyday. We enjoy fish and pasta dishes, salads and chicken of course. I have never been vegetarian, had a daughter who dabbled as a teenager, and don’t ever intend to become one. I do enjoy chicken and fish, and of course bacon would always pull me back into the meat eating camp. Especially the smell of it sizzling in a pan.🥓  I always feel if I deny myself completely then I will fail. So occasionally a bacon sandwich or toad in the hole won’t hurt.  But in this day of conscience eating I do try more and more to mix things up. In the past vegetarian food was pretty boring but now with magazines full of vegetarian and vegan dishes it is so much easier. Delicious bean chillis and pasta dishes have become a more regular additions to our menus. Last week while in Aldi I came across tins of JACKFRUIT.  Now I’d eaten it as a fruit in China but never as a savoury dish. I’d been reading how it works in pork recipes as t...