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What better lunch can there be on a cold day than home made soup? Of course it can take a while but not with my new Vitamix blender.

I bought the blender just before Christmas after watching a demonstration at the Good Food Show. It is big and powerful. It makes light work of making smoothies with as much ice as you like. It’s fab for houmous and makes frozen desserts in minutes but the most amazing thing is watching it make hot soup from raw ingredients in a matter of minutes. There is no heating element, the soup is heated by friction from the blades. Take a look at the soup I made today.

I started by washing the raw ingredients and throwing them into the blender, whole or halved. There was a slice of onion, a garlic clove, a couple of small carrots, a couple of baby plum tomatoes, a stick of celery, a slice of butternut squash, a slice of cabbage and a mushroom. With some water in the bottom of the blender, some powdered bouillon, chilli powder and cumin it was switched on and turned to the highest speed.

After five minutes there was steam coming out of the top of the blender and it was switched to a low speed while I threw in a couple of spoonfuls of red kidney beans and sweetcorn. Ten seconds later I switched off and lunch was ready.

The soup was delicious and healthy too! There was hardly any preparation, no stirring and the Vitamix is cleaned in two minutes by running it with some hot water and washing up liquid.

Time, methinks, for a little review of the year.

2011 has been great in many ways. I have spent time with old friends and made new friends. I have been to Wembley for the first (and second) time. I have seen my beloved Manchester City go from strength to strength, bring home the FA cup and fire goals, seemingly as many as they want, past almost every team they have encountered and be sitting at the top of the Premiership as we go into the new year. There’s a long way to go to the end of the season but I’m certainly enjoying it so far. Memorable highlights were beating Manchester United 1-0 in the FA Cup semi-final at Wembley, beating Manchester United 6-1 at Old Trafford and my first away match for years when we beat Blackburn Rovers 4-0.

I have met up with lots of people I have talked to on Twitter and they have all been lovely, not encountered a single axe-murderer yet so I’ll carry on meeting them I think!

My family continue to grow up and away and it’s lovely to see. My eldest daughter spent time this year as a nanny in Wales, Portugal and Sardinia before moving to Madrid to teach in a primary school there. My youngest daughter spent the summer living and working in Ibiza and my middle daughter got ill on her 6^th, and possibly last, pilgrimage to Lourdes. My son also seems to have got the travel bug and went off to France on an exchange trip. I managed Anglesey and a few days in Ibiza and Dublin but I’m planning a couple of trips to Madrid very soon.

My daughters seem settled into jobs or courses and my son is enjoying school, he also played Julius Caesar in a production in the summer and was excellent, his love of Shakespeare means he is getting very good at being killed!

My course has been hard work but enjoyable and the end is now in sight and anyway how hard can a degree in Facebook and Twitter be?

A good year but I can always hope for better so here’s to a great 2012 for me, my family, friends and all of you!

I recently discovered a great new product. It’s a Graze box. It’s delivered to the house each week full of lovely healthy snacks. So far I’ve had pistachios, olives, seeds,spicy rice cakes and crackers, dark chocolate, nuts and dried fruit such as mango, cherries, blueberries . My daughter and I look forward to it dropping through the letterbox each week. We get to try a few healthy treats and enjoy the surprise element. You can rate the foods on the website so you don’t get anything you hate and get more of what you like.

The first box is free if you use a friend’s code and the friend gets £1 off their next box or can donate it to charity.

If you want to try it you can use my friends code for your free box. The code is K47MM4M
http://www.graze.com/p/K47MM4M

Let me know what you think.

“If I could have ONE whole day to myself, I would…”

This blogging prompt from BritMums caught my imagination today as I actually have a day to myself. Well, not, strictly speaking, an entire day, but from 8.30 till 4 so not bad.

The trouble with a day to myself is that I actually like spending time with my family! So an entire day with one or more of my daughters, my son or my husband would be a real treat but a day on my own, not so much. Today also happens to be my Birthday so really I would prefer to share it with the family! I have some college work to do but I’m going to leave that till tomorrow and have a day off.

My husband gave me a Kindle for my birthday so you can probably guess how the day is going! Firstly, I got it charged up. Then I downloaded a book, just because I could. It was actually some short stories by Michael Connolly just to try out the download process. The first story has been read and I am now thinking about which full length book to buy. I could happily spend the rest of the day choosing and reading a book, accompanied by fresh coffee at intervals. In fact, that is exactly how I will spend the day and, as it is my birthday, I will even put the heating on, plump up the cushions and settle myself down on the sofa. Bliss!

Later, I may do a little baking. Mmm… I can already smell the cake in the oven and the coffee brewing and my Kindle saving my place for me in a good book. The perfect day.

A chilly, damp day in September seemed like the perfect opportunity to try out my new Mermaid pudding sleeve.

The Mermaid website did not contain the promised recipe but a quick google and a look at my recipe books turned up the right combination of ingredients.

I don’t often make puddings, certainly not steamed suet puddings, but this is so simple to make. You need to plan a little in advance as it takes an hour and a half to steam but once it’s made and cooking you can leave it be, maybe topping up the water if needed.

The pastry is a simple mix of 200g SR flour, 100g suet (I used vegetable suet), baking powder and cold water is rolled out, spread with jam, rolled up and placed in the pudding sleeve. Steamed in a few cm of boiling water it cooks beautifully and you have a lovely pudding just crying out for some custard.

Well, Manchester City finally got their first ever Champion’s League campaign going last night with a home game against Napoli. The stadium was buzzing with anticipation, many fans had brought their flags and inflatable bananas and the stadium itself was looking good.
Both teams were making their Champion’s League debut and City got off to a great start. They enjoyed most of the possession and many shots but the Napoli defence looked strong and they looked dangerous on the break and that is where there their eventual goal came from. City fought back and well deserved the point gained by Kolarov’s goal. They kept battling but the elusive second goal was not to be.
I am sure lessons will be learnt and Mancini is confident we will win in Munich. The match was a great one to watch, fast paced and entertaining. The start of what will hopefully be a long and successful spell of European football for Manchester City. Meanwhile I also hope Kolarov thinks scoring City’s first Champion’s League goal was worth the broken nose!

The summer was very long without any football although I watched as much of City’s pre-season as I could on TV and made the trip to Wembley for The Community Shield. Despite losing to Utd I had a great day out and met up with some City Tweeters at The Green Man in Wembley before the match.

The season seemed to have only just begun with a 4-0 home victory over Swansea and two away victories, 3-2 against Bolton and 5-1 against Spurs, before we got an International break. City had made a great start to the season; Dzeko scored 4 goals against Spurs, 1 against Bolton and 1 against Swansea, Aguero gave us 2 against Swansea and 1 against Spurs. Added to Silva’s against Swansea and Bolton and Gareth Barry’s at Bolton we had 12 goals in 3 games with 3 conceded.

On Saturday we had a home match against Wigan and an opportunity to take another look at our summer signings and hopefully add to our goals tally. We were not disappointed. A hat trick from Aguero gave us three Poznan opportunities and we witnessed some beautiful football, not least from the amazing David Silva who seems to be everywhere on the pitch and linked up with Tevez and Aguero for the first goal and again with Nasri and Aguero for the second before setting up Aguero for the third. Despite Tevez failing to score from the penalty spot and Micah Richards and Vinnie Kompany being frustrated by the woodwork City demolished Wigan in style and if they can keep up this beautiful football and keep some clean sheets this is going to be a season to remember, for all the right reasons.

This really is a good time to be a City supporter.

Today is the day it feels as though summer is over. Back to school for my teenage son, back to routine for me. In a few days the first day of the final year of my degree course.

It has been a busy and enjoyable summer. I spent a week in North Wales with my son and we enjoyed beautiful weather to go with the beautiful scenery.

My son and I also went to Ibiza for a few days to see my youngest daughter who was working there over the summer. It was very hot, pretty noisy and generally suited to a younger age group than mine! It was lovely though and old Ibiza Town was beautiful. The flight out was the noisiest I have ever encountered and I think plenty of alcohol was consumed! The flight back was much quieter with mainly families on the plane. Much pleasanter, and a reminder that I don’t really want to revisit my twenties!

A final trip to Dublin completed our travels this summer. A couple of days with friends celebrating a 50th birthday and then a couple of days in the centre of Dublin in a nice hotel. My husband finally got to visit The Guinness Storehouse and we checked the quality in a pub too!

It’s been a lovely summer but I’m glad to have my daughters back from working in Ibiza and Sardinia and I’m ready to get on with my course.

I have been working so hard recently both at work and on my course that reading has taken a back seat. I am now getting into my stockpile of books and thoroughly enjoying myself!

I have been an avid reader for as long as I can remember and still have several dog-eared Enid Blyton’s as a reminder of my early reading habits. From there I progressed to Agatha Christie, mainly because that was what my Mum was reading at the time. As I went through secondary school I devoured the books we read in school as well as many out of school. I remember bringing Alison Uttley’s A Traveller in Time and Jane Eyre home to read in the summer holidays before we read it in class. I gained mediocre exam results in English and didn’t carry my study on into the sixth form. I never stopped reading though. By that stage I was ploughing my way through many classics. My favourite authors include the Bronte sisters, Anthony Trollope, Charles Dickens Jane Austen and Elizabeth Gaskell.

I recently read Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell, this book was unfinished when she died yet that doesn’t really matter when you read it, the ending is fairly clear when the book finishes anyway, even if you didn’t work it out from near the beginning! I was introduced to Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (you have to love that name!) by my Mum who bought me a copy of Cranford when I started my first job in Knutsford at the age of 18. Knutsford is the setting for both Cranford and Wives and Daughters  and Elizabeth Gaskell’s sharp observation of the class system in operation is what really makes her books stand out for me. Another of her novels, Mary Barton, set among the factories of Victorian Manchester, is among my all time favourites and I reread it often. If you havent read any of her books and are interested in novels which explore the various strata of Victorian society in an entertaining and easy to read way then give Elizabeth Gaskell a try, you won’t be disappointed.

I recently had some help in the garden. I now have six lovely raised beds in which to grow my vegetables. So thanks to my friend Mike.

I have planted lots of different vegetables. Potatoes, onions, cabbages, calabrese, beetroot and sprouts look to provide crops for many months. Courgettes and tomatoes are growing well. I have a herb bed with mint, coriander, chives, lemon balm, basil and parsley. I’ve got fruit and salad crops such as radish, spring onions, watercress, rocket and lettuce.

I was fairly late getting my seeds going but today I was finally able to harvest some leaves, herbs and radish for lunch.

It may not be much but it is great to be able to pick fresh salad for lunch and it’s just the start of my adventures in the vegetable garden. I can’t wait to be eating all my vegetables and lots of fruit within minutes of picking them.