Recipe Rifle

A thing that surprised me after I got married is that people treat you differently when you've got a husband. I don't know if it's the same for men and I can't quite put my finger on it, but I suppose the closest word that springs to mind is respect: you get more respect.

I didn't realise that I wasn't being treated with respect until suddenly I was getting some. Even though Giles and I were living together - even after he was my fiance, it wasn't the same as saying "my husband." Once you say to someone "my husband" something in their manner shifts. It is as imperceptible as any kind of prejudice, but it is there.

I had thought that our recent two rounds of building work were so trouble-free because I was better with builders, more honest and upfront and less apologetic. But I think the fact was that I had a husband. Not a boyfriend, not a live-in lover, but a husband. God only knows why it makes a difference, and maybe it doesn't make a difference to everyone, but it made a difference to me. It's so sad and fucked up, it says such awful things about us, as people - but I think it really might be the case that if you are married, everyone just backs off.

And I exploit it, shamelessly. "Oh" I hoot grandly but politely down the phone to anyone who's asking for anything "my husband makes all the decisions like that. I'm afraid I simply couldn't possibly talk to you any more about it or all the cotton wool in my head will catch fire from the friction of my three braincells rubbing together."

It's a terrific laugh.

Having children is more complicated when it comes to respect. Day to day, as A MUM, you get no respect at all. You're just a nuisance with your fucking buggy and whining, pissing, shitting, puking baby/toddler. You're in a shit mood. You very occasionally forget to say thanks when someone holds open a door because you're in the middle of a Technicolor daydream about murdering the bus driver who was a bit mean to you just now, and you then form the basis of that person's lifelong prejudice against mothers. "I once held open a door for this woman with a buggy," they will say at dinner parties, "and she didn't EVEN say thank you. I don't know what's wrong with women once they've had kids. It's like they think they're so special."

It's also tricky between women who do have children and women who don't. You can connect, and get on and laugh at each other's jokes. But there's a gap there. When you are with another mother, you can get out a packet of chocolate buttons and aggressively bribe your child with them. You can stick Peppa Pig on for 2 hours so that you can sit down and bitch hard and in peace about someone else's new kitchen extension. You can shriek "Christ another poo? What the hell is wrong with you?" to your child. You can get ever so slightly tearful because child #2 just nodded off for 20 mins in the buggy on the way home and so won't do it's lunchtime nap today.

You can do all that without suspecting that the child-free woman is sitting there, looking at your walls covered in scribble, or floor studded with Play Doh and ancient peas going: "Fucking hell, get me out of here," or "Fucking hell if I had kids I wouldn't do it like this." Even if she is not thinking that, she might be and that causes the faintest of discomforts, like someone, not far away, playing clusters of wrong notes together on a piano.

Another mother, even if her parenting methods are completely and totally anathema to yours, will rarely, unless she is a total monster, judge you too badly for it. I mean, she will judge you, because that's what we all do - we're either starry-eyed with admiration ("her house is so tidy, she is so organised") or we judge ("I don't know how she can live like that.") But it's done so internally, quietly and subtly that no-one will notice, not even for a millisecond. The most powerful and detectable thought other mothers have is usually: "Whatever works for you, man." And that is, in its own way, a sort of respect.

But society, in general, likes MOTHERS, when they are not in the way, or moaning on about being tired, or expecting anyone to admire their revolting, dim children. If you've got children, somewhere, then that's a good thing. And the more you have the more people defer to you on everything. I mean, up to four children. Five or more children and people assume you have some sort of addiction.

The greatest thrill I get these days is when I am out in town without Kitty, looking extremely pregnant and I come across someone who assumes it is my first child. It might be someone with a baby, or a toddler, or just a random person who wants to acknowledge that I am up the duff (which is fine). "You all ready then?" they'll say. Or the mother will say "you've got all this to look forward to." And then I smile sweetly and say "It's my second". It is the female equivalent of pushing up a shirtsleeve to reveal a tattoo on the forearm that reads "légion étrangère". Maybe it's because I have a horror of being vulnerable, being patronised, of being weak, which could probably do with another six weeks with therapy. Or maybe, deep down, we all just want a bit of respect.

Food needs respect, too. And a thing that rarely gets any is salad. We have started eating in this house for dinner a thing I have named Macho Salad. I may have got this phrase from somewhere else, but I don't know where. But anyway, macho salad is what it is. And what it is is a salad that will do for an entire dinner, that a man would not be ashamed to be seen eating.

It consists of assorted leaves, meat or fish, some sort of thick dressing (probably made partly with mayonnaise, or blue cheese) a good scattering of firm beans - like soya beans, maybe some shards of parmesan? Nuts and seeds (sunflower is good), avocado? Chopped or quartered egg? And of course a scattering over the top of croutons, for crunch.

Last night I made one that consisted of 3 chicken thighs roasted for 45 mins (the fourth was eaten by Kitty for her tea) and chopped, a bag of mixed leaves plus dainty strips of beetroot, cucumber, a dressing of mayonnaise, olive oil, lemon, vinegar and a lot of salt, avocado, soya beans, croutons and sunflower seeds.

We ate it while watching Friday Night Lights, feeling very butch. But then we ruined it by having an alcohol-free beer apiece. Because you've got to draw the line somewhere.

Last night, I came the closest to crying that I have in months. I'm not much of a crier these days - what's to cry about, really? - so I was quite surprised when I felt those little pinpricks behind my eyes.

It was about 6.30pm and was sitting on the stairs just down from the the floor of our house that we share with Kitty. My husband was trying to get Kitty in the bath and she was having a little tantrum. "Neaoooo!!! Neeaaoooo!! WanttogetOUT wanttogetDOWN!" She was red-faced, weeping, voice hesitant and hiccuping from trying to talk while crying. She was exhausted and I felt sorry for her - since dropping her big lunchtime nap and replacing it with ad hoc little morning catnaps, Kitty's mood come bathtime is unpredictable. She can either have slept too much or too little or too late during the day, meaning she is either full of beans and impossible to bathe, or overtired - and impossible to bathe.

It's such a boring story. Scratch the surface of any household with children and they'll have some similar problem. Anyway, I say impossible to bathe, what I mean is that sometimes we all enjoy bathtime and sometimes we do not. She is still always in bed by about 7.15pm - when she actually goes to sleep is up to her and not my problem.

But last night it was hard to be sanguine. Just as I thought that life was tedious enough, fate decided to hand my ass to me by giving me one of those gluey headcolds that means you can't hear, or think, or see for about a week. The day had been long and tedious, with Kitty watching far too much telly and being left to run riot all over the house, dropping food and spilling drinks, while I quietly despaired.

And although it's not forever - soon it will be Spring! Soon I won't be pregnant! - days like that - when I lose my grip completely and Kitty eats junk and watches TV all day - leave me depressed as hell. On top of my general gestational insomnia, I've now also got to deal with my cold keeping me up at night, so the days are sharp-edged, bad and bleak enough, without feeling sad that I have totally neglected my child. It's not her fault I'm ill, or that I'm pregnant. She is 2 and the law of cliches has decided that she is going to be a little jerk for an indeterminate number of coming months (years?) She is just doing what toddlers do. Like cats catch mice.

I considered all this and did what any sensible woman would do and nearly cried for a few seconds. Then I got up and went downstairs to make some spicy Thai crabcakes.

I don't use tinned stuff much, reasoning that it's better to get things fresh, but making fish cakes or crab cakes from tinned produce is a thing that I hear it's okay to do. I got the idea for these crabcakes from a recipe book but I have altered the recipe so much here that I don't think I'll bother crediting the cook.

These must be shallow-fried, so they are not really suitable for entertaining, as I always think frying things in company doesn't work - it makes a smell and creates an unmellow atmosphere - plus you have to be at the stove, tending and poking your batches, rather than gossiping and pouring drinks. These are better done as a treat dinner for you and someone else. Or just you. If you are feeling very organised you can make them in the morning, leave them in the fridge and then fry off in time for dinner.

They were very nice, I think. My sense of smell and taste has done a bunk. My husband said they were delicious, but he may have just been heading off another tantrum.

Thai crab cakes

Makes about eight

2 tins crab meat -- I used John West, from Waitrose

1 small bunch coriander

1 red chilli, sloppily de-seeded

2 spring onions, roughly chopped

1 tsp fish sauce, if you have it

1 large pinch salt

1 stick lemongrass, cut into three (if you have it)

1 thumb-sized piece ginger, peeled and chopped into 3

1 small clove garlic - if you LIKE, I didn't

two large handfuls medium matzoh meal (or the equivalent breadcrumbs)

1 egg

1 Drain the crab meat in a sieve and break up with your fingertips

2 Put everything else except the matzoh and the egg in a whizzer and whizz

3 Combine everything in a bowl, stirring in the egg and the matzoh

4 Shape the mixture into flat patties, about 4-5cm across

5 Fry off in a shallow pool of ground nut oil until golden brown

We ate these wrapped in lettuce leaves and dipped in Encona sweet chilli sauce. My husband said "Just cry, let it all out." And I said "No. No way." Then we watched Friday Night Lights and both blubbed a little bit - because sometimes real life just doesn't deserve your tears.

I have been worrying a bit recently that the book of this blog, The Bad Cook (which is out TODAY, purchasable here)*, is going to be a disappointment.

This hadn't crossed my mind until very recently - until recently I had always flicked through it sniggering to myself and going "This is great!!! Definitely worth £1.99." But now I'm not so sure.

"Does it represent value to my readers?" I think as I sit with a cookbook on my lap, staring out of the window and trying not to pick at my cuticles because it drives my husband nuts.

So I have decided today to alert you to a recipe, which I would pay someone £1.99 to tell me about, which will assuage my feelings of fraudulence.

It is for a turkish eggs thing that Peter Gordon does at his restaurant brasserie cafe thing Les Providores in Marylebone High Street. It is NOT in fusion (sic), which is his cookbook, so I had to source the recipe off a New Zealand website, convert all the measurements, try it out and photograph it.

I'm sure that's worth £1.99.

So these turkish eggs are poached eggs with yoghurt and a chilli butter. I understand if you think that yoghurt and eggs together sounds gross but I promise it isn't. This is an incredibly delicious, almost addictive taste and it is very easy to put together for a light supper for you and someone you love. Or just for you alone.

Do not worry if you aren't brilliant at poaching eggs - I am absolutely hopeless and mine came out just about okay.

So here we go - turkish eggs for 2

2 eggs - the fresher they are, the easier they will be to poach
200g greek yoghurt
1 tbsp olive oil
large pinch of chilli flakes
70g butter
some chopped parsley if you have it

NB - you will notice that there is no salt specified in this recipe. It is not an accident. You can, of course, add as much salt and pepper as you think this needs but personally, I think the lack of salt, the slight blandness, is a really important aspect to this - I don't think the flavours need it. But you must do whatever you like.

1 In a bowl whisk together the yoghurt and olive oil. It is this whisking and whipping of the yoghurt that makes it so delicious, in my view. You CAN add here a small scraping of crushed garlic, but I don't think it's neccessary.

2 In a small pan melt the butter gently until it takes on a very pale brown colour - this takes about 10 mins over a low heat. Don't be tempted to razz it hot otherwise it will burn. Once it looks to you like it has taken on some colour, add the chilli flakes and swirl around in the butter. Put to one side.

3 Now poach your eggs in some simmering water for 3-4 mins. If you add 100ml white vinegar to the water it should in theory help the process.

4 To assemble, divide the yoghurt between two bowls, then drop an egg on top, pour over the chilli butter and scatter with parsley.

We ate this with toasted sourdough, as they do in Les Providores, but I think this would also be terrific with any sort of flatbread or pitta.

* for Amazon refuseniks the book is also available from other sources:

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/book/bad-cook/id580194993?mt=11

Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Cook-ebook/dp/B00ALKTWYY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1363857002&sr=8-1&keywords=esther+walker+bad+cook

Google: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Esther_Walker_Bad_Cook?id=wGTySqj1u-wC&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImJvb2std0dUeVNxajF1LXdDIl0.

THANK you if you bought it. You don't have to read it, I promise I won't corner you and ask you what you thought next time I see you.

I decided to go perfectly nuts about Easter this year. I don't know why. I think maybe it's because this winter was so long and hard - as winter always is when you have small children. I remember asking next-eldest sister what the hell you do in winter with toddlers and she said "You pray for bedtime."

Anyway, so Easter to me has been a sort of beacon of sunshine. Everything would surely, I thought, have cheered up by the beginning of April. And then we had the coldest March since the the last ice age, or whatever. And people kept on saying "Three more weeks of blizzards, three more weeks of arctic winds" and I became more and more grimly determined that my Easter egg hunt and lunch, held today on Bank Holiday Monday, was going to be the Easteriest Easter celebration anyone had ever seen.

So I invited round eight people and three children, giving us 10 adults and four kids in total. Mad. MAD! Then I went on Amazon and Ocado and bought about £1,000 worth of decorations, saved packing straw for my quail's egg display, sent my husband on a scourge of North London for the last available branches of cherry blossom, painted eggs, mass-purchased daffodils and ordered legs of lamb the size of Caribbean non-extradition islands.

And it actually went okay. I mean, it was chaos and the mess and noise was quite, quite indescribable, but the lamb was nice. It was boned, butterflied, stuffed and rolled and I have included the recipe at the bottom, but you will have to wade through my smug series of photographs first. Ha ha!

Easter tree decoration

Quail's eggs with saved packing straw decoration and celery salt. You can make your own celery salt by baking celery leaves for 10 mins in a hot oven and then crushing the dry leaves with sea salt. Or you can just buy it.

The lamb - in the chaos I forgot to take a photo until it was mostly gone :(

I had millions of these foil windmills in the garden and they looked fucking brilliant

Ok guys so everything I find is mine and everything you find is mine and anything left unattended is also mine

For the lamb:

You need a boned and butterflied leg of lamb from a butcher. I got mine from Frank Godfrey in Highbury - don't even ASK me how much it fucking cost I'm still trying to get over it. Okay it was £50!!!!!

Our lamb was 2.5kg.

You also need some string to tie it up.

For the stuffing:

1 tbsp capers
3 garlic cloves
6 anchovies
1 bunch parsley
some olive oil
2 tsp mustard
salt and pepper

Preheat your oven to 220

1 Chop all the stuffing ingredients together, loosen with some olive oil.

2 Spread the lamb with the mixture and then tie it up the best way you can see how.

3 Improvise some kind of roasting rack to lay the lamb on and then pour three large wineglasses of water into the tin. This does two things 1) stops the fat from burning in the pan and turning your kitchen in to a smokehouse and 2) makes a gravy, should you want one.

4 Put the lamb in the oven for 30 mins at 220 and then for 1 hr at 180. It rested for about 30 mins. My husband thinks that this was overdone, but I thought it was great.

To cut down as much as possible on stress, I made alongside this couscous and tzatziki, just so that it didn't really matter when things were ready, it could all hang about for 20 mins this side or that of eating. If you are doing a lot of veg with a roast, this isn't possible and it can all get quite panicky. Not that I didn't have, by the way, a massive freak-out at 9am anyway where I nearly screamed at my husband but managed not to.

So happy Easter! This is all of course no bloody use to you now as it's all over, but you can come back and have a look next year.

I think I may have run out of things to say. This is a bit worrying as I'm supposed to be writing another book. I've actually got to write this one, as well, from beginning to end. All brand new.

Yet as I sit here, watching the delightful April snow falling outside my window, drinking a Frijj chocolate milkshake and luxuriating in the Aeron desk chair I have stolen out of my husband's office next door, I find that I have nothing to say.

There's just nothing on my mind. Actually that's probably not true. I'm thinking about those Philpott children, who, when they were pulled out of the fire, turned out not to wear pyjamas to bed. They wore their underwear, or jeans, or their school uniform. I mean, I'm not thinking about it in some kind of Earth Mother I-love-all-little-kiddies type way, it's just been bothering me.

What else. I'm still pissed off about being pregnant, but I can't possibly go on about that anymore, because even I'm bored with thinking about it. Anyway, the end is in sight - May 8 is my due date - and with any luck the little sucker will be early. so that's getting on for exactly a month. Four weeks. I can do that.

The thing I'm not really thinking about, which I thought might bother me more, is that Kitty's sleeping has gone completely up the wazzoo.

I've never really talked about Kitty's sleeping before, which is unusual in any parent who writes words down for a living because normally all they can think about is how their flipping kids keep them awake all night. But Kitty always slept fine. More than fine. Freakishly fine. She went to bed at 7pm and didn't make a sound until 7am the next morning.

This was not a thing I was going to actually say out loud to anyone, because who the HELL wants to know that someone else's child sleeps okay?!?! (I didn't even want to hear about how well other people's kids sleep when mine was still sleeping.) You only want to hear that everyone else's kids are the spawn of Satan too and that on reflection you don't have it that bad.

Anyway ha ha ha the joke's on me, because since Kitty turned 2 she's basically woken up once or twice a night every night. Sometimes, like right now, she's bunged up and can't breathe, which wakes her up and at others she's just wailing in her sleep (I know because I lumber in like an elephant, hair standing on end, having heard a bloodcurdling wail, only for her to be lying down, the wail subsiding to gentle snores). And sometimes she just sits up and chats loudly "Ooo! It's all dark! Where's my sock? What's that noise? OH! the GRAND old DUKE of YORK...." Sometimes I am already awake with my charming gestational insomnia, sometimes she wakes me afresh. It's always delightful, either way. (It isn't.)

But the interesting thing is how quickly you get used to it. How being slightly under-slept all the time becomes normal. A lack of sleep or broken sleep used to be the thing that frightened me most about having children but now it's happening to me, I find that it really isn't that big a deal, despite a lack of sleep being terrifyingly ageing. But this has only opened up a new and exciting shopping venture for me in the anti-ageing creams aisle of Boots.

The only genuine downer is that now during the week my husband sleeps in the spare room so he's not all broken and baggy when he's trying to work and he then takes over from me at the weekend. And I quite miss him. Even though he snores.

Speaking of my husband, he made the most amazing thing over the weekend, which you must try. It was an anchovy butter, which I know for some of my picky-eater readers is probably about as appealing as eyeball stew or chilled monkey brains, but for anyone willing to give it a crack it is not some yucky fishy horror, it is just incredibly, like, I don't know what the word is - I suppose savoury is it. It's just very savoury and terrific. And I am really not that crazy about anchovies so you can approach this with confidence.

We put it all over a lot of purple sprouting broccoli but you could have it on any leafy green veg to liven it up or it would also be absolutely terrific on steak, a firm white fish like halibut or on french beans.

"the thing to be careful with is not to dollop in onto greens and leave it, because then the butter melts and you are left with an unsightly brown mess sitting atop the veg (as i discovered), so whack it on top of purple sprouting or french beans where it looks all nice, then toss it in," cautions Giles.

It's also very simple and very flexible in terms of amounts.

So take about:

100g butter at room temperature
1 tbsp capers
1 fresh red chilli, no seeds
5-6 anchovies

Then the easiest thing to do is chop everything except the butter up together and then mash the butter into this spicy mix using the side or a knife or a spatula.

I have the most terrible habit of saving things "for best".

I do it with almost everything: clothes, shoes, bags, accessories in general. The nicer and more expensive something is, the more I am inclined to hide it away reverently and just look at it from time to time, rather than use it and risk ruining it.

It stems from my strict protestant upbringing: we rarely had anything new, everything was hand-me-down, except shoes and underwear and I was once bought my own set of new pyjamas when I was about nine. It was a dark blue shorts and t-shirt set with stars on the shorts and a little owl sewn on the t-shirt and I loved it.

My parents never had anything new, either, despite having plenty of money (the whole thing was entirely cultural). Sometimes my mother would order my father a new shirt or some socks from a catalogue called James Meade when his others had literally fallen to rags, (they were then cut up and hemmed to be used for cleaning windows), but that was it.

It's a perfectly honourable way to live one's life and a perfectly responsible way to bring up children. Accumulating loads and loads of shit you don't need, or showering your children with endless new things, is terrible and the general sense that what you've got is fine has left me well-equipped to deal with the financially perilous life of a freelance writer.

I don't want or need that much stuff, which is good because there is no pay day blow-out for me, there is no sense that I work hard so why shouldn't I drop this amount of money on that gewgaw that I like so much just because it is pretty - because although I work hard, I earn practically nothing. So anything that I really, really want that I cannot afford is bought for me by my husband for a birthday or Christmas present.

None of this stops me from coveting luxurious things like mad, like anyone, I'm just less likely to buy them.

If I am allowed to bulk-buy Dove deodorant, toothpaste and Timotei shampoo on my husband's Amex, I am happy. The toothpaste tube in my childhood home had to be absolutely squeezed down to the last tiny scraping before a new tube was purchased from Boots. But it does mean that when I do buy or get given something really special, I don't want to use it. I just want to look at it and marvel that it is mine! All mine!

Aside from the result that I never wear my nicest clothes - and wonder why I look a fright - recently, this attitude has also had the most terrible effect on my face.

My face has always been a bit of a problem. The main complaint being recurring, terrible spots that lingered well into my late 20s and were only finally cured by switching to a Pill called Yasmin and having a baby. Something to do with hormones, don't ask me details - I don't have a full understanding of it.

Anyway, since my spots finally disappeared, I haven't really given the skin on my face a second thought. Having spots is so awful, so all-consuming, painful, embarrassing - causing despair, rage, frustration and ultimately shame at being so shallow - that when you don't have them any more it is tempting to luxuriate in not washing one's face for days, leaving the house without a make-up bag and only having to own one ancient Rimmel concealer for covering up the occasional under-eye shadow.

So despite having a cupboard-full of incredibly expensive skin preparations purchased from newspaper office "beauty cupboard" sales (where big-name lotions and potions are sold off for, like £3) and sourced from goodie bags sent by various magazine features editors who felt sorry for me, I never used any of them. My face looked fine! Now I didn't have zits, my face could basically do no wrong. Why did I need to use an Elemis tri-enzyme facial resurfacing wash? Or an Estee Lauder night repair eye cream?

I slapped Aveeno moisturiser on my face any time after I had remembered to wash it with soap and occasionally scrubbed at my T-Zone with Freederm gel wash, unable to get out of the habit of using something spot-fighting.

For a long time it didn't matter. But in the last 12 months, something terrible has happened. My face has become baggy and blotchy. My nose, once my pride and joy, completely straight, unobtrusive and non-shaming, started to swell. It was sort of permanently red, with angry flares blooming from the corners of the nostrils in the direction of my mouth.

I looked like an ancient alcoholic, or as if I permanently had a bit of a cold. Make-up didn't really conceal it for long and, anyway, with a toddler and then being pregnant again, I really wasn't fucking arsed to mess about with foundation and concealer in the mornings.

What with my pregnancy facial oedema adding to this general car-crash, my face has recently been a cause of really quite a lot of distress for me - for the first time really since my spots disappeared about four years ago.

I had a couple of essential-oil and whale-music facials with therapists who didn't really say anything about the condition of my face and so I just carried on as normal, all the while these expensive products sat in my bathroom cabinet, untouched.

Then I went for a semi-medical facial at !QMS (sic), a very smart skincare place in Chelsea, on a freebie for work. The facialist nearly screamed when I told her that I used Freederm. And she gave me really quite a ticking off when I told her that I had given up washing my face at night because I was too tired.

Stop using that disgusting Freederm shit, she said (I'm paraphrasing). It's for teenagers! You are not a teenager you are nearly 33! And wash your face twice a day with something mild. Then she laid on me a skincare programme from !QMS that looked just too overwhelming and complicated for me to consider buying even one thing.

And I knew - I knew full well - that at home at had drawers and drawers full of beauty-hall grade facial unguents that I had put away, saving "for best".

I went home, threw out my Freederm and - more shaming - Clearasil and have been ploughing through probably about £1,000 worth of products. It's only been 4 days since my facial and already I can see some of the damage subsiding. What the fuck was I thinking?

The same principle often applies to food. So often you think let's just have museli and toast, or let's just have soup and cheese, when actually there's no reason not to have smoked salmon and scrambled eggs.

My husband and I have recently taken to having people round for brunch on the weekend, because we are too exhausted and ratty by 1pm on a Saturday or Sunday to consider having people round for either lunch or dinner.

Giles is dispatched to Panzer, which is a European (i.e. Jewish) deli/grocery place in St Johns Wood to get too much smoked salmon, some cream cheese and bagels. We lavish 90% of the salmon on our guests and then gorge on the 10% at breakfast the next day.

Some restaurants manage to get this very simple breakfast horribly wrong by cooking the salmon, so you have a kind of kedgeree, minus the rice, with the cooked eggs and the cooked salmon. Yuk. Absolutely not. What you must do is just cook your eggs and lay them alongside your premium-grade smoked salmon. Lemon juice and pepper on the salmon is essential.

I even read, somewhere, that salmon is terrific for one's skin - and the Lord knows you can't put that away in a cupboard for best. Well, not for long anyway.

A thing that drives me absolutely wild with rage is when new mothers are made to feel stupid for being neurotic about their childrens' health.

It's almost always only in the first year of the first child's life that mothers slightly lose perspective on health issues anyway; it is in those initial 12 months that you become paralysed with fear, able to talk only in a whisper because your breath has literally left your body with terror when your nine month old has a temperature of 101F.

Any temperature is fucking terrifying the first time it happens. And the first time it goes really high, like 104F or, SHRIEK!, 105F, you can feel quite demented with panic. Because it means your baby or toddler most probably has meningitis. Okay, only in your head. But those long dark nights with a feverish infant are long and they are frightening and you've never done this before.

So when anyone, whether they are a health professional or just any old person, suggests even for a minute that you might be overreacting, it's just not fair. It's NOT FAIR! Okay, I might not know how to react appropriately to a massive midnight nosebleed in a 13 month old, but can you calmly write 600 hilarious, correctly-spelled words about making brioche for a national newspaper in 90 minutes? No, I thought fucking not. Can you write a legal advice for a high street bank wishing to repossess a council property without gibbering with anxiety? Can you think of a brilliant marketing strategy for the "She-Wee" (the portable ladies' loo) with a straight face??? No. And no-one would expect you to be able to. So lose the fucking attitude, yeah, Mr Doctor?

At last, when your child hits about 18 months old, you have more or less seen the full range of horrors, you don't do a vertical take-off at every runny eye or neon snotfest. You have also heard of horrors from others of impetigo, scarlet fever, tonsillitis and kidney infections. You are aware. You have experience. But after that time you do occasionally see something you've never seen before and you're right back there, in that awful place, where you don't know how worried you're supposed to be.

Because if your child's leg drops off, or they go blind or deaf from disease, you will cope. Because it is your child and it doesn't matter what's wrong with them, you will look after them. In fact, if something ghastly happens, they will need you MORE you can be MORE devoted you can sacrifice MORE.

The thing that parents, mostly mothers on the frontline, cannot cope with is the idea that they have in some way been negligent. What keeps us awake at night is the fear that we should, right now, be in hospital, not just lying in bed listening to our baby coughing. What keeps us awake is the idea that we did not go to hospital because we did not want to panic unduly and then in the morning the child is fucking DEAD or irreversibly damaged and it is our fault.

I thought I had seen it all, I thought I had been so out of my mind with panic so often in the last two years, that there were no more panics left to panic. We've done non-blanching rashes, Noro (twice), nuclear fevers, sticky eyes, terrible falls headfirst onto concrete, bizarre nappies, massive nosebleeds and eczema.

But then last week Kitty's hand swelled up like a football and I completely lost my shit. It was a bite - maybe two bites, on her left had, which I am now convinced were contracted in the large sandpit of our local council playground. I can't be sure, though: the biter didn't leave a note.

Anyway she was bitten and her hand went red and swelled up. Then the next day the palm of her hand was covered in disgusting little blisters, which gradually filled with PUS - oh my god... the skin was taught and red and hard.

Disgusting skin infections are my thing, you know? I can deal with shit and puke no trouble - lucky because those are the effluvia you have most exposure to with small children. In fact I have animated discussions with Kitty's nanny about which - shit or puke - we would rather clear up, (shit every time; puke splatters), but anything involving a rash or blisters or swelling, or pus or any sort of... growth... makes me really freak out.

But the worst thing about it was that I'd just never seen it before. And I was transported instantly back to that awful feeling - that feeling of what should I be doing? Making an appointment to see the GP in 8 weeks' time? Go directly to the Royal Free, do not pass Go and sit there for 3 hours in A&E only to be patronised by some bastard 22 year-old doctor?

What happened next is not important, but basically Kitty's hand was really gross for a few days and she absolutely refused to take the antibiotics prescribed for it, so I shoveled a lot of Piriton and Ibuprofen down her and it gradually got better. Meanwhile Kitty shamelessly held her swollen paw out to everyone she met, to see if they wanted to see her "itchy", not that at any point did the bite or infection seem to bother her. Only me. It just bothered me so much.

I had a similar novice-panic experience in the kitchen the other day. My husband has declared that he needed to go off carbs for a while as his weight is teetering on the edge of unacceptable - so I turned for only the second time in my cooking career to a poached chicken breast.

Regular readers of this blog will know that the essential thing with a poached chicken breast is to camouflage it as best one can, because a freshly poached chicken breast is about as appealing visually as a corpse freshly dredged from a canal. So you must smother it with some sort of fragrant sauce.

I didn't feel like doing some sort of vinegary hollandaise thing, so I decided instead, at the last minute, to do a mushroom sauce.

Only I didn't really know what I was doing. And I didn't have any fresh mushrooms. I turned for inspiration to a book called something like How To Be French, or I Love Garlic, by Julia Child, and in there was basically a mushroom sauce that I could just about knock up from the ingredients I had to hand.

And it worked surprisingly well and was terribly easy, although the actual assembly and cooking of it was not relaxing at all because it was slightly unplanned and I'd never done it before. It's just such a shame that there's no emergency service to deal with that.

Mushroom sauce
for 2

this would go well with either pork or chicken

2 tbsp dried mushrooms rinsed and rehydrated in some boiling water
3 tbsp double cream
about 200ml chicken stock - just out of a cube, I use those Knorr jelly concentrate thingies with Marco's face on them. I actually used the stock that I was poaching the chicken in
1 garlic clove
1 strip of lemon peel
1 sprig of sage - only if you have it
salt and pepper
1 glass shitty white wine, vermouth or leftover prosecco or anything like that. not sherry.
50g butter
2 shallots diced into teeny weeny weeny bits

1 Melt the butter in a small saucepan or frying pan and then add your diced shallots and fry over the lowest available heat for 10 minutes - do not let them catch or your sauce will be bitter and gross

2 Chop up your softened mushrooms and add to the shallots, cook gently for a further 4 minutes.

3 Now pour over your glass of shitty white wine and let this bubble away until there is barely any liquid left. Turn the heat down to low-medium and pour in the stock. Allow this to cook for 8-10 minutes before adding the cream, salt and pepper, sage sprig, whole garlic clove and lemon peel.

4 This can sit about and cook over a very low heat sort of indefinitely while you get the rest of your dinner together. If it's looking too low on juice, just add more stock.

5 Fish out the garlic clove, lemon peel and sage sprig before serving.

Eat and TRY NOT TO PANIC.

When my husband and I were first going out, I always used to worry that his female friends with children, or the wives of his male friends with children, wouldn't like me.

I was worried that they wouldn't like me because I was ten or so years younger and I didn't have children. I assumed they would find me annoying and resent my child-free state, my bouncy boobs, my very long, luxury hair that I had 45 minutes spare each morning to blow dry, style and finish with two coats of shellac.

But none of them did. They were all just charming and if I said stupid or ignorant things about children it didn't show in their faces. Not a flicker. Not for a moment. I assumed that if I was them I would find me irritating, but I was wrong.

Then I had a child of my own and I understood why they were all able to be so beatific.They looked at me and saw not a carefree young woman with life at her feet: they saw - consciously or unconsciously - a lamb to the slaughter. And the pity in their hearts for me translated effortlessly into a sunny kindness.

They knew this: either I would have kids and would have my ass handed to me by Mother Nature without them having to lift a finger, or I would not have kids and have my ass handed to me by the whole freaking world asking endless, rude questions about when are you going to and if not why not and don't you want them and shouldn't you get on with it? and can't you have them? and all that shit that people say to the childless like no-one has ever asked them any of those questions before.

They are mostly out the other side of little kids, are Giles's friends - their youngest children are about five and they all just go on holiday all the time and are whippet thin with amazing jobs and beautiful clothes. And they're all still nice to me and sympathetic and generous about the hassles and burdens of new motherhood.

And now it's my turn to be nice. I meet child-free people - both male and female - who, consciously or unconsciously, say blithe, tactless and ridiculous things about children, the freedom of their lives, the things they will or will not be doing in the future, the holidays they have been on and all that. And it's so easy to be nice about it all.

Because although I will soon be starting with a newborn all over again, I can start crossing things off the list: never have to be pregnant again, never have to give birth again, never have to breastfeed again, knicker area more or less in working order, (give or take a few patch-up procedures), back in old clothes, back working, baby sleeping through (ish), baby sitting up... I may have all sorts of unspeakable horrors in front of me but there is light at the end of the tunnel. And it's not a train coming the other way.

But you... I think, looking around at my childless peers approaching the twilight zone of their mid-thirties... you have got to do all of this, from scratch, if you want kids. And the end of fun, the end of your life as you know it when it comes, is so abrupt and feels so much like it's forever, (though it's not), that the pity in my heart allows me to genuinely enjoy, with you, your latest holiday, your skinny bum, your bouyant bosom, that light of blissful, ignorant confidence in your eyes.

I genuinely enjoy it with you as I genuinely enjoy the unfettered delight that my toddler takes in balloons, or seeing a baby rabbit, or receiving an ice cream. I can delight with you because, as with my toddler, I know that quite soon it's all going to be over and you're both, in your own ways, going to have to grow up in the most necessary and horrible way imaginable.

The view from the other side is, I know, delightful. Children are worth it if only because the early years with them can be so very ghastly that it makes you really appreciate life anew (the joys of which, in your late twenties and early thirties, may have become dull and commonplace). When your youngest child hits 18 months it is, I imagine, like being Scrooge and waking up to find that it's Christmas Day and you've got a chance at life all over again.

It is in contemplation of these simple pleasures that I have recently been making madeleines and lemonade for tea.

People coming round for tea is a thing that happens endlessly when you have children. The morning is a time for adventure and activity, but in the afternoon, people slob about and have tea. I, especially, cannot leave the house most afternoons because we are in a phase of Kitty's nap-drop that means that she won't sleep at all during the day but now has a danger zone from 4pm onwards, where if she's in a buggy or a car she will pass out.

Anyway, if you are feeling generous towards your teatime guests you could make them madeleines, which only involves the purchase of a madeleine tray and the making of a very simple cake batter. They are good for tea because there is nothing more delicious than freshly baked sponge batter, but fairy cakes are stupid and you might not want to bake an entire massive cake.

I bought my madeleine tray off Amazon and I'm not that pleased with it, just between you and me. I think the shell shape it gives is unsatisfying and indistinct - even though it came highly recommended. Maybe you will have more luck with yours.

Then you make the following sponge mix - (courtesy of Michel Roux) - it is a very good, very easy mix, with no need to cream the butter and sugar. Mine came out brilliantly and I had Kitty sabotaging the whole thing, yapping at my heels shrieking "Can I have a go?" every two seconds, so YOU can certainly ace it.

Michel claims this mix makes enough for 12, but I had too much for my 12-hole tin. I gave the remainder to Kitty to wipe all over herself, which she found amusing.

100g MELTED butter
100g plain flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
100 sugar
juice and chopped zest of one lemon (this is optional, but is very nice)

1 Preheat your oven to 200C. This is important - the oven needs to be really nice and hot when your madeleines go in

2 Grease your madeleine tray with some extra butter, then sprinkle with some extra flour and shake out the excess - never a precise job, this - just do your best

3 Whisk together the eggs and sugar. You can do this with an electric whisk if you like. We did it with a hand whisk - Kitty started it off and I finished it. Kitty was a bit useless so I gave it (but not her) a good solid beating towards the end, which worked fine.

4 Then add your other ingredients and give a firm, brief whisk to incorporate everything. Beat until just mixed - don't worry about the odd lump.

5 Leave the mix to sit for a few minutes to allow the baking powder to act before spooning into the tray

6 When filling your madeleine tray, fill to just under the top, so that when the sponge rises it just fills the dip, rather than spilling out over the top.

7 Bake for 8-10 minutes

You can dip madeleines into or drizzle with all manner of exciting things - chocolate, rose-water icing, orange icing - anything you like really. If you wanted to add extra flavours, maybe leave out the lemon element of this sponge mix as it might interfere.

For the lemonade

The cocktail mixer known as gomme, or sugar syrup, is what makes lemonade really easy. It is available from Waitrose or, I suspect, any bottle shop like Thresher's (do they still exist?)

Without gomme you have to do a thing where you simmer the lemonade and the sugar together so that the sugar dissolves and then let the mix cool down, which is a bore.

This is more, really, a recipe for citron presse, another French thing, with which I'm sure you're familiar, where you're given a load of lemon juice in the bottom of a glasss, a weeny pitcher of water and a bottle of gomme, with which to mix for yourself a refreshing bev.

What I do is squeeze a lot of lemons and limes (about 2 per person) into a jug, (using my excellent bright yellow openy-closey lemon squeezer, which I really recommend if you haven't got one already), then pour about an inch of lemon juice into glasses filled with ice cubes and a single spoon, top with fizzy water and then let everyone apply and stir in their own gomme from another jug. You could add a sprig of mint if you were feeling really caring.

Then we all sit around while I patronise everyone like mad, and they all take it because I've just made fucking madeleines and lemonade.

There are very few things I feel genuinely guilty about - especially when it comes to parenting. Sometimes I pretend to feel guilty, but actually I don't. There are things that I do with Kitty that I know are not ideal, but I do them mostly knowing why I'm doing them and being okay with the consequences.

For example, Kitty probably watches more TV than she ought to at the moment, because I am so immobile I can't sit on the floor and play Megabloks, or toss her in the air or chase her round and round the garden. But I am okay with the odd bad mood and screamy bedtime brought on by too much telly because I don't really have a choice right now.

But there's one thing I do, that I do endlessly, even though it makes me feel really guilty and I'm not okay with the consequences - and that is fucking about with my iPhone while I am supposed to be looking after Kitty.

I mean I love, LOVE my iPhone. It makes me about 70% more productive because I can do an Ocado order while hanging about waiting for something to boil, or reply to emails in the car while Kitty is kipping in the back.

But it also makes me, I think, a 70% less good parent because when I am supposed to be concentrating on Kitty, I am usually scrolling through Twitter. I also love Twitter, by the way. I think it is a brilliant resource filled with excellent people and endless, helpful information. Without Twitter this blog would have fewer readers and it would have been significantly harder (i.e. impossible) to sell any copies of my book, as most sales have come off the back of tweets and re-tweets.

At times, I think Twitter is the only thing that has stopped me from going mad during this most recent long, dark winter - but in fact I now suspect that it may have made everything harder. Trying to combine childcare with absolutely anything else - making dinner, ironing, working, Tweeting - turns something occasionally boring into a real chore just because you are suddenly trying to do two things at once.

Housework and childcare mostly have to go together but anything else that doesn't absolutely have to be combined with childcare, shouldn't. Especially the childcare of toddlers, who have a witchy sixth sense for when they are not your priority; it makes them incredibly nervous and liable to fling themselves down the stairs, or draw all over your Dune embellished pink suede loafers with green Crayola felt tip. For example.

And Twitter has just become a habit now, for me. In any lull I will automatically have a quick poke about and see what's going on - because there's always something going on on Twitter. But the compulsiveness of it now makes me feel a bit ill - staring into that tiny screen, poke, poke, poke. Not looking up, not looking around me. And Twitter sucks me into other areas of the internet that make my day jagged and stop-start, (mostly online clothes shops), rather than relaxed and linear. Rather than surrendering to childcare, I find myself fighting it. And it's not working.

Added to this, Kitty has just got into the nursery at the top of our road and will start in September. Although I don't feel remotely sad about it - she will love it and it won't come a moment too soon - it does make me realise that we have a limited time left together and I should probably be more mindful of what I do with that time.

I don't say all this to sound martyrish or holy: I am never motivated by anything other than laziness. I don't want anything to be hard that doesn't have to be - the Lord knows that life is full of necessary hardships without creating more for yourself. I want anything that can be, to be easy and convenient. Any fool, as soldiers say, can be uncomfortable. If I thought looking at my iPhone a lot made childcare easier, more relaxed and less onerous, I would do it. But when you've only got half a brain to start with, letting half of that half wander off into the internet is the equivalent of a brisk trepanning.

So last weekend I took Twitter off my phone and have a rule now that I don't look at my phone at all unless I get a text message or a phone call, which is hardly ever. Twitter is reserved for when the nanny is here and I am working at my laptop. It's much better already. When I get to the end of the day I don't feel so twitchy.

I'm also allowed unlimited access to newspapers, magazines and my Kindle as a compensation. I have blamed my failure to do any reading recently on being pregnant, but it's not that. It's that I'm always on bloody Twitter. If Kitty is engaged doing something else, like messing about in the garden or drawing, I reckon it's alright to be reading a book because it's not so blinkering, so tunnel-visioning. And it doesn't set quite such a ghastly example to Kitty that one ought to constantly have one's face lit up by a blue screen, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, endlessly scrolling.... if she wants to grow up with her face in Kindles or newspapers - god rest their souls - that can only be a good thing.

Having Twitter on my iPhone also makes me a shit wife. Any second that my husband is not talking - and sometimes when he is talking, frankly - I've got half a mind on Twitter, which isn't fair because my husband is not boring and doesn't ask for much in return for providing me with a roof over my head and private healthcare, other than my complete attention when he is saying something to me.

Other than taking Twitter off my phone, I'm making amends to my husband by being supportive about the no-carb thing he's doing at the moment. Cooking without carbs is a fucking chore, but I might as well get back into the swing of it as once this kid is out - if it ever comes out (despite my due date still being 5 whole days away) - I plan to diet myself out of existence. I want people to say "Oh my god she's got so THIN!!!!"

Anyway, the other night I made for Giles a baked aubergine, which sounded absolutely disgusting from the recipe, but I was running out of ideas, (if we have another chicken salad I might DIE), and I actually managed, using a bit of store-cupboard cunning, to turn it into a really quite appealing thing.

I have used parmesan to top this, but equally you could use goat's cheese. I, personally, ate this with some pitta bread because let's not get too carried away - but Giles skipped it.

Esther's low-carb baked aubergine of devotion

1 aubergine pp
1 400g can chopped tomatoes
2 heaped tsp capers
2 tbs pitted black olives
1 tbsp tomato puree
1 clove garlic, peeled
4-5 anchovy fillets (non-essential, if you are a hater... but if you are ambivalent, I urge you to give these a try - they will not make everything fishy and disgusting, they will just add a salty, savoury interest)
2 sage leaves (if you have)
1 tbsp vinegar - red wine for preference but any old shit will do
some plain yoghurt (again, if you have)
a few strips of lemon zest
1 small handful chopped parsley
1 handful grated parmesan per aubergine half

preheat your oven to 220C

1 Slice your aubergines lengthways and score through the flesh with a small sharp knife to produce a lattice effect. Then sloop over a lot of olive oil and put in to roast for 35 mins.

2 Meanwhile chop up on a board the anchovies, olives and capers. Gently fry in a small pan with some groundnut or LIGHT olive oil. Tear in the sage leaves and squeeze or grate over the garlic. Let this cook together for a bit until the anchovy fillets have disintegrated.

3 Now plop out the tomatoes into a sieve and shake over the sink to let the tinny tomato juices flow away (but don't rinse). Add to the pan with the tomato puree and leave to cook for a few mins. Throw over six or seven turns of the pepper grinder. Now add a dribble of water - maybe 2 tbsp - just from the kettle and give it all a stir.

4 Now add a dollop of plain yoghurt if you have it, the lemon zest and the vinegar. Stir together and leave to cook very gently without drying out. The composition you are after is spreadable and juicy but not too wet. The consistency, I suppose, of bolognese.

5 Take the aubergines out of the oven - they ought to be a bit collapsed and blackened in places. Spread with the tomato mixture, top with whatever cheese you like then finish off under the grill.

In the last two months of my pregnancy I went quite bonkers about stuff. No wait, not just stuff, but the right stuff, quality stuff. I think this is what some people refer to as "nesting", but my house was already totally nested-out, I didn't need any more muslin squares and a new baby bouncer had been purchased. So my mad, rolling, panting, grasping eye turned to dresses, bags, sandals, jewellery, skincare...

The moment I had Sam, at 4.45am on Bank Holiday Monday, 6th May. I ceased to crave any of it. I'm really, really pleased that I have it all - (I don't think I bought a single new item of clothing after Kitty was born that wasn't just hateful, draggy Mum-Wear) - but I no longer just sit about wanting things. No more this "fiesta" shirt from Anthropologie will change my life, this bright green box bag from Zara will change my life.

It's nice. Peaceful. Like being unchained from a different lunatic.

It coincided, in some kind of cosmic dream, with a lot of companies wanting to send me things to write about.

I don't know why people want to send me things in the post to write about. All I ever talk about is how shit I am, how ugly fat and useless - this is hardly an "aspirational" blog, but nevertheless I have started to be offered some stupendously wicked stuff that I can't turn down.

Anyway it comes attached with a certain moral tricksiness - is it okay to accept things for free and then not write about them if they are no good? Or what about if you're a bit ambivalent about them but you say you like them because, fuck it, why not?

What I have decided to do - and I'm sure you are fascinated - is take everything, with egregious thankings, but only put things on here that I like, that I would spend my own money on. I also feature here some things that I have, actually, spent my own (or my husband's) money on, which I can recommend to you or warn you off accordingly.

We start today with the FACE - i.e. cosmetics and gadgets.

I say gadgetS, I really mean gadGET - the Clarisonic face thing, that my husband bought me for my birthday. I love it: get it. Like a massaging, rotating brush for your face. You only need to use it once a day, keep it in the shower, run it over your visage once you've massaged a bit of cleanser in. It's about 1m% less hassle than cleaning your teeth and it improves skin tone, clarity, colour, all that bullshit. DO IT. If my husband hadn't bought one for me, I would have spent my own money on it. Get the most basic model if money IS an object - you don't need anything more snazzy.

BOUGHT THIS WITH OWN MONEY

Next, please turn your attention to Benefit. They very kindly sent me all sorts of stuff, the best of which was this very pleasing crease-free eyeshadow in Bikini-Tini and, below, a lipgloss in Fauxmance.

The eyeshadow is the sort of thing that you can smear on with a finger in 2 seconds that helps you look less dead, without making you look a bit inappropriate and drag-queeny for a day of gooning around with a two year-old or lying prone under a 3 day-old. On my favourite TV series ever, Friday Night Lights, they coat the lids of their lady stars with something very similar and it looks terrific. It looks a bit orange in the picture below but it's not really, it's a sort of pale gold.

GOT SENT THIS FOR FREE

I don't, generally, like lipgloss because it's a it drying and your hair gets stuck in it. Plus my mouth is massive and I don't need to draw attention to it. This is moisturising with a nice sheen rather than sticky shine and my hair doesn't get stuck in it. The colour really suits ME, but I have got red hair and sort of weird bluey-yellow skin and purplish lips (think Eddie Redmayne) so maybe visit a counter before buying. Unless you are Eddie Redmayne, in which case, this is the colour for you.

GOT SENT THIS FOR FREE

I bought this Garnier BB cream in total despair when still pregnant and my face was simply some eyes and a nose painted on a balloon. Since having Sam, my face has changed beyond belief - I no longer face the morning with weird bloating and blotching, an oil-slicky sheen and terrifying blue-black circles under my eyes.

But when I DID have all that going on, this BB cream helped smooth things out and made me less suicidal. I never really understood BB "beauty balm" or CC "colour correcting" creams before, but they just sort of make you look better, in a way that foundation doesn't and can't. So, I like this as an entry-level BB cream, (I picked slightly the wrong colour, a bit too pale, but this is a constant hazard when you have red hair because your colouring is inconsistent to put it mildly), but I can see myself spending quite a lot on something highly recommended - the one I keep hearing good things about is by YSL - called something like All-In-One BB cream or something.

BOUGHT THIS WITH MY OWN MONEY

I hope you enjoyed that. I did. Next: Recipe Rifle goes shopping for CLOTHES.

I spent so long during my pregnancy longing for it to be over that towards the end I suddenly developed a terrible fear that once I was no longer pregnant I would STILL be fat and miserable with aching feet, reflux and getting up 80 million times in the night to wee.

"What if..." I would fret during the long dark insomniac hours of the night "I have the baby and life is still shit? What if... all those clothes I have bought for myself to celebrate not being this incredibly weird shape never fit?"

But you have a baby - especially your second - and life improves immeasurably. Night feeds are a piece of piss once you can get in and out of bed reasonably easily. And, second time round, a bit of broken sleep is nothing. NOTHING. When you had your first baby you didn't understand what it meant to be tired and it freaked you out. Now, being a little bit tired is normal. Having too much sleep is weird.

Anyway, so although I can't fit into all of my new threads quite yet, I quite often open my cupboard and stroke them lovingly, as I channel daydreams about my future through them.

We'll start with my favourite thing ever, which is actually a handbag. I bought FOUR new handbags in the darkest hours of my pregnancy, because they are a thing you can use no matter how fat you are. This is from Kate Spade and it's the first "expensive" handbag that I've ever had - I say "expensive" because it was not wildly so - it was not £500, it was £178 in a 25% off sale.

Anyway I LOVE IT. If I had been braver, I would have got it in green. I still might. This will be irritating for my readers who are not in London, but you cannot buy this online - only in one of two Kate Spade stores - one in Westfield and one in Sloane Square. I think this is incredibly childish of Kate, but she's from New York and they don't half think they're special over there.

BOUGHT THIS WITH MY OWN MONEY - it is called a "Little Curtis"

Next, my obsession with Hush, a sort of upmarket Gap I suppose. It's a catalogue-based company and they really work that catalogue - it's just really nice, I totally fancy all the models.

I bought a scarf from there, which is really brilliant - called the "Leo" and it's neon pink-and-orange leopard print and even if you're in your pyjamas it makes you look quite "current". A note: it is huge, so when it arrived I cut it in half with the kitchen scissors as it arrives with artfully frayed edges anyway. So now I have TWO and very pleased with them both I am.

Here is a link to the scarf - I'm just waiting for a press image from Hush - I'd take a photo of it for you, but my photo will be bad and won't make you want to buy it.

So scarf here: http://www.hush-uk.com/daywear/weekend/leo-scarf-orange.html

Another thing I have bought from Hush are these "New Vanessa Trousers". I cannot vouch for them as I am still to big to get into them. But I love the look of them and desperately hope they "work" on me.

They are here: http://www.hush-uk.com/new-vanessa-trousers-concrete.html

I love these neon trainers from New Balance. If you feel like doing a sports-chic thing, wear these with ankle-length black leggings (mine are from this darling little place called Hennes) a coral or grey sweatshirt and a jazzy scarf. I saw next-eldest sister work this look a few weeks ago, (though her trainers were not New Balance, they were similar), and it looked AMAZING.

This "Lady Penelope" dress is just so terrific. A lovely girl at a preggy clothes website called Babes With Babies sent it to me. I can't quite wear it now, as it's quite clingy, but I tried it on - manically - during my last three days with a bump and it's very, very good for anyone pregnant up until about 7.5 months I'd say, (if you're doing a thing where you are wearing tight things - "I'M PREGNANT NOT FAT"). It is not cheap, but it is very nice - it has a slit roughly to the knee up one side, which is very chic and not slutty. Excellent 3/4 sleeves, too.

GOT SENT THIS FOR FREE

Babes with Babies is, generally, a very nice website. I don't mean to knock Isabella Oliver or Seraphine, but their websites occasionally feel a bit... draughty and abandoned, if you know what I mean. Anyway, have a look.

THIS denim dress from Mango is just ace - the fabric is really lovely - sort of slithery and flippy. There is probably a name for it that I don't know. A problem with wearing full denim is that it can be a bit stiff and uncomfortable, but this is silky and lovely but doesn't crease especially badly. It works as a kind of throw-over while pregnant and also later as a VERY "now" denim dress with a belt and your new neon Leo scarf (see what I'm doing here?)

BOUGHT THIS WITH MY OWN MONEY FROM MANGO

Ok this is technically not clothes, but I am in love with this nail varnish from Mavala. I won't show it to you on my fingers because I have the ugliest hands in England and it will put you off buying it. And nothing ought to put you off buying it - it's terrific.

BOUGHT THIS WITH MY OWN MONEY

The jury is still out on these lime green asymmetric sandals from Zara because my feet are still a bit fat for them, but I like the IDEA of them very much. Generally-speaking, I like the idea of this "brights" thing a lot, because it means you can accessorize quite boring clothes like mad, meaning that you don't have to freak yourself out buying neon trousers, or yellow dresses.

BOUGHT THESE WITH MY OWN MONEY

And that concludes this post on clothes, bags and shoes. Coming soon: jewellery and baby essentials (not in the same post).

Everyone said "The second baby will be so much easier" and I prayed they were right and I knew they would be. And so far, they are.

I mean, in my experience the fun, (and when I say fun I mean nightmare), doesn't really start with babies until they are 3 weeks old and don't do that thing anymore where they'll just sleep any on any old warm, stable surface for most of the day.

But for now, while Sam is doing this lovely thing that newborns do, I can actually genuinely appreciate it because I know it changes. And, unless I experience a serious rush of blood to the head, Sam will be my last child, which I now - released from the horrors of pregnancy - feel sad about, but in a good way. If that makes sense.

Kitty, (poor, poor Kitty), when she was born, signified the end of my life as I knew it. Sam is the beginning of my future; he is the first day of the rest of my life. Yes, I've got a newborn again, but I have never felt so free. I never left the house with Kitty when she was small because I couldn't quite believe the hassle of it and there were all those what ifs - what if she's sick, or screams, or does a poo? What then?? Easier to stay at home, thanks. Sam and I are out all the time: we take buses, we sit in cafes. Why did I not do this with Kitty? What was my problem?

And it turns out that I have remembered some valuable lessons about babies it took me months to learn first time:

1) if you put a baby down for a sleep and you know it is not hungry or cold or ill, it will eventually nod off, even if it squeaks and grunts and squirms or, even, emits the occasional bloodcurdling yelp.

2) if it's not crying, it's probably ok. Leave it alone.

3) give it a break, it's only a baby. Even if you are a total routine freak like me, deviations here and there - or entire days when absolutely everything goes tits up, don't matter. You have to just write the day off as a fucking disaster and start again tomorrow. Babies and small children respond best to persistence. It has taken an entire year to teach Kitty to say Please. Thank You she had no trouble with, but we've had to hammer Please into her just by saying it over and over and over and over again. Babies and little children are stupid, you need to repeat the things you want them to do, like, a billion times.

4) tiny babies do not get bored.

5) it's probably not meningitis.

Anyway, what OF Kitty? I have been asked over again what she thinks of Sam, how is she taking it? And I reply with what I always say about Kitty, which is that she doesn't give much of a fuck about anything, except the whereabouts of Rabbit, her blanket, Mr Tumble and the availability of biscuits.

She understands Sam is a baby, she gives him kisses, she only tries to jump on his head out of sheer exuberance, rather than malice, and knows that he doesn't like having his nappy changed. Other than that, she's unbothered. I think problems of jealousy and anger come later.

In the meantime, life for Kitty is simply super: her Daddy is around a lot on two weeks' paternity leave and they disappear together, scampering across London all day having an awesome time pointing at animals and eating chips. And most days a present turns up for her at the house, in commiseration for her having this "brudder". So in all, it's pretty nice for Kitty right now.

Me? I got jewellery. I don't understand especially the recent fashion for presenting one's wife with an expensive gift for having a baby. You are only fulfilling a biological imperative and it's not like a pregnancy isn't utterly miserable for fathers, too. (I bought Giles a pair of £140 sunglasses from Zadig & Voltaire to acknowledge this.) But still, I'm not one to pass up an opportunity to direct my husband and his Amex to Selfridges, so I requested this Anina Vogel charm necklace that was quite astoundingly expensive. It did for a birthday, wedding anniversary AND "baby" present, it was that pricey. I love it.

Here it is. You buy a naked necklace and then fill it with charms. Giles chose these - the Star of David is his idea of a joke (he is Jewish). The others are a cat (Kitty) and frying pan (cooking) a pistol (there were no rifles) a moses basket (new baby) and a typewriter (obvious).

GILES BOUGHT THIS FOR ME WITH HIS OWN MONEY

And from lovely Babes With Babies I got THIS little beauty, which I really love. At £158, not as ruinously expensive as the Anina Vogel and if I was on a slightly tighter budget I would have requested this from my husband instead, you can have up to 20 characters engraved on it and Posh Spice has got one.

GOT SENT THIS FOR FREE

My readers get a 10% discount at Babes With Babies by typing RIFLE in at checkout. Don't say I never give you anything.

When it comes to baby kit, especially with your first baby, I say get everything. EVERYTHING. A tummy tub? Why not. An £8,000 buggy? Go for it. Fourteen different kinds of dummy? Great!

Because all babies are different and they like, weirdly, different things. And some things might work for you, others not. Both Kitty and Sam for example like Avent bottles and dummies and immediately spat out any dummy that was not made by Avent.

Avent's anti-colic bottles do, I think, work in reducing what is known in my family as "squirty tummy" in newborns. ALL BABIES have "squirty tummy" to varying degrees, whether you use an anti-colic system or not because they are new and rubbish at everything and their stomachs don't work for ages, resulting in "squirtiness", which is an unspecified gas/digestion problem that makes them screw their faces up and go "meerrggghgh" or even "WWAWAAAHHAHHAHHAHAH!!!" I like to try to avoid this.

So I also use Infacol, which is an orangey-tasting liquid that helps babies bring up their wind. You can give it to babies from birth, but I find that wind problems only emerge at about 3 weeks onwards. You give them a little dropper of it before a feed and then they bring up lovely rich, orangey burps and sleep like logs and are less "squirty". Kitty lived on it for about 3 months.

I also believe, with swivel-eyed evangelism, in swaddling. This, for the uninitiated, is when you wrap a newborn up very tightly in a long strip of cloth to replicate the squashed-in feeling of being in the womb. There are some cloths specially designed for swaddling called Grobag, which are very good

and also the terrific giant muslins from Aden + Anais, which used to be very niche and hippy when I had Kitty, but now everyone uses them. They are absolutely brilliant for all sorts of things, from swaddling to using as a blanket, a sunshade, rolling it up into a sausage to wedge newborn into sleeping on its side if you feel a bit neurotic that the baby is going to puke in its sleep and choke on it, (but are too scared to put it down on its tummy), using as a vomit sheet to stretch over the bottom sheet of a cot belonging to a child with noro - you get the idea. They are quite expensive but they will last you for years.

There are millions of swaddling tutorials on YouTube - I urge you to look them up if you are about to have your first. Just do it before every naptime until they are about... I dunno... six weeks old.

Chloramphenicol antibiotic eye drops.

Available over the counter at any pharmacy. If your baby's umbilical cord is taking its sweet time to come off and is starting to stink, slosh this over it to prevent any infection. It is mild enough to go in your eye, so it's perfectly okay to use on a tummy button.

Lansinoh cracked skin balm

This will rescue your nipples if you are breastfeeding - put it on every time you breastfeed or any time you express, or any time you remember to. Buy one for every room in your house so you are never without it. You can never have too much because it has a million other uses - it mends cracked heels overnight, works as a basic but effective night eye cream and is officially the world's best lip balm (second only to Lanolips - available at Waitrose).

Gap make the only socks that babies will not kick off.

Seraphine make very nice nursing bras. They have one that comes in a small, medium and large and another that comes in traditional bra sizes. I'd say that the one that comes in traditional sizes is better.

I've got this bra in a size 1 million. And also some others that I had specially made... BY NASA

Aptamil formula. I fed Kitty a combination of formula and breastmilk from pretty much day 1 and have done the same with Sam. My personal attitude to breastfeeding is this: I do not like hearing babies cry and if I don't have to, I don't want to. So if my child is crying or unsettled because it is hungry, and I do not have enough breastmilk to sort it out, I give them formula. I partly breastfed Kitty for about six weeks and will probably do the same with Sam, unless with two children in tow breastfeeding and expressing becomes completely impractical, in which case I will stop sooner.

For expressing, I use a Medela Swing, which is about 10 years old, but gets the job done. Muy sexy, no?

I must also give a plug to a company called notsobig.com, which sent me a lot of babygros for Sam. They couldn't possibly have forseen that babygros with slogans on the front are my least favourite thing ever, but it was a kind and thoughtful gift. And one with LOL on the front, did make me smile, although I cannot guarantee that Sam will wear it. Looking at their website, they have all sorts of terrific things on there without hideous slogans, so do give it a go.

Little Clothes Mouse - littleclothesmouse.co.uk - sent me some excellent newborn stuff for Sam, including a Petit Bateau hat that actually fit his weeny head (he was not born small - 7.5lb - but 0-3 month stuff was HUGE on him). In general, the website sells discounted designer childrens' clothes and is a small company run by a very nice lady, so I heartily direct your business to her. She has also kindly and generously offered Rifle Readers a 10% discount at checkout with the code RIFLE. Use it or lose it ladies (and germs).

I know a woman from the playground whose husband has just lost his job. It's not a big deal, he'll get another one. But for the moment he is unemployed, getting under my friend's feet in the house, driving her nuts.

"He just hangs about," she hissed hysterically to me at Babygym the other day. "He doesn't DO anything all day. I mean, I don't really fucking do anything all day either, but I know how to do nothing. Do you know what I mean? That's what kids teach you, how to do nothing and make it look like something."

Oh yes. Yes I know what she means alright. I have been thinking a lot recently about why baby no.2 (unless it does some awful screaming/no-sleeping/reflux thing) is so much easier than no.1 - it's because you know how to do nothing.

When no.1 comes along, you've probably just come off some job, or at the very least, come out of a place when you could do what you liked and basically kept yourself quite occupied, doing meaningful things out of duty, or fun things at the drop of a hat. Then a baby arrives and you are required to be in its constant attendance, but you don't really have to do anything. Feed it occasionally, change it. Some laundry maybe, get an Ocado order in. But you don't seem to be actually doing anything. It's just baffling. You cannot get your head round the idea that you don't actually need to do anything, except sit there. And wait for it to start talking.

I dealt with this doublethink by inventing all sorts of utterly bizarre rituals, mostly based around things being incredibly neat and tidy and a light obsession with germs, which then descended into a full-on neurotic breakdown when Kitty was 10 months old. Doing everything and nothing, holding something faceless, nameless and unidentifiable at bay... sitting around making sure the sky didn't fall in, or warding off some other potent disaster I couldn't describe, sent me crazy.

But slowly, gradually, I learnt that that is not what you are doing. You are just doing nothing. No wait, you are not doing nothing, you are bringing up a child - but it feels an awful lot like nothing most of the time. And now I am an expert at getting busy killing time. I potter like a pro. We go to the bank, we pick up some groceries, we are the go-to people if anything needs to be taken to the dry-cleaners or posted in complicated way. We rule the high street with our Maclaren and jute shopping bags. We are always busy, busy, busy - but busy doing nothing.

As Kitty has become gradually more and more genuinely demanding as she reaches the peak of what she can do at home and at playgroup and starts needing, desperately, to go to nursery five mornings a week, I have learnt how to absolutely 100% savour actual quiet, downtime, relaxed time. I sink into it like a £500 Hungarian goosedown duvet. I do not fidget and twitch and feel like I ought to be doing something. I drink in the quiet like a massive gin and tonic and feel as at peace as a master yogi.

And the acres of downtime with a newborn, (when you manage to palm off your toddler onto someone else), is unbelievably luxurious compared with the 8 second interludes you get with a screeching toddler.

Newborns are just SO undemanding! They don't fucking ask you for things all the time; sometimes a series of bizarre requests in a row you can have no hope of fulfilling. Newborns don't want to do fingerpainting, or want to have a long rambling chat with "Rabbit" (i.e. me holding Rabbit) about whether or not he wants a biscuit, or watch Peppa Pig at 400 db, or flood the downstairs loo. Newborns just sit there and let you get on with gazing at them, or poking about on your iPad, without saying the dreaded: "Can I play Happy Mrs Chicken?" in a shrill little voice and then drinking all your caramel frappucino.

Sam just lies about with his lips in a little "O" of wonder, gazing peacefully around, weeing gently into his nappy, occasionally screwing up his face bravely at a particularly troublesome fart - or he is sound asleep with his mouth hanging open.

And now I am not only used to being confined to the house, I am used to being confined with a fractious toddler, which is only slightly less nice than being in one of those POW bamboo cages where you can't stand up or sit down. So being confined to the house with nothing more tricky than a sleeping newborn is just bliss. And, unless I experience serious rush of blood to the head Sam will be my last child, so in the moments when I am alone with my youngest child, I open my arms wide and embrace the nothing. Then I lean over and give my sleeping son a little lick.

As it happens, I have elected not to do much cooking recently with my downtime, even though I could have done while my husband was on paternity leave looking after Kitty. But the other day someone brought round for me something called Rocky Road, which I have heard many things about, but have never been that interested in.

It's just sugar, isn't it? Put together in a slightly different way and thus not interesting. But I ate some, because I like this woman who brought it round for me. (If I didn't know she was nice, I would have labelled this Rocky Road a hostile gift - i.e. "Eat this, stay fat and I hope all your teeth fall out".)

Anyway it was just mind-blowing. I couldn't really believe what I was eating. It was like sweeties from OUTER SPACE and I ate the entire bag and wanted more. MORE!

I imagine I'm the last person in the world to discover Rocky Road, which is basically broken up biscuit and marshmallows held together with chocolate, but I am including a recipe for it here anyway because I've got some time on my hands at the moment - and the Lord knows I am an expert on finding things to do.

Rocky Road
Makes about 20 bits depending on how small you cut them up

300g milk cooking chocolate - I use the Menier stuff from Waitrose, but their own-brand milk cooking chocolate is really good, too.
2 full-size Crunchie bars
5 plain digestive biscuits
a handful of full-size marshmallows
3 tbs golden syrup

Line a small square or rectangular tin (the actual dimensions don't matter - I'd say roughly 7in by 7in) with a triple layer of clingfilm to make it possible to lift the Rocky Road out later.

1 break up the chocolate into a heatproof bowl (i.e. not metal) and add the golden syrup. If you dabble the spoon in a mug of hot water for a few seconds, it makes getting the syrup out of the tin much easier.

Set this bowl over a pan of cold water, about 2 in deep.The bottom of the bowl should not touch the water. Set the pan and bowl over your smallest burner on the lowest available heat and wait for it to melt - it might take about 20 mins.

A direction in a lot of recipes for melting chocolate that irritates me is "set the bowl of a pan of barely simmering water". This is an insane thing to say as any rational person will then fret and fret about keeping the water "barely simmering". Don't worry about it. The water doesn't need to be "barely simmering" it just needs to be hot so just dump the bowl over the hot water and forget about whether or not it is simmering. The chocolate will probably have melted by the time the water gets to simmering point.

2 Into another bowl break or smash up the Crunchie and digestive biscuits into small pieces.

3 Tip the biscuit pieces into the chocolate and mix to combine. You will worry here that there is not enough chocolate to go round everything, but there is. At the last moment, tip in the marshamallow and give a brief stir. What marshmallows like to do on contact with warm chocolate is melt, which although still gives the Rocky Road a lovely chewy texture, what you're after is actual bits of marshmallow whole.

4 Spoon your unwieldy mixture into your tin and smooth the top with a spatula - it's easiest to do this if the spatula is wet. Chill for 2 hours and then cut into bits.

Toddlers like this.

It is frustrating, I remember, when close friends or relatives have children when you don't. They disappear, for days, weeks, months - years! - on end with no explanation. What can they possibly be doing, you think, that is so incompatible with replying to emails and text messages? Why do I always get the sense that they would rather do anything than come out for dinner, or go for drinks? Don't they care about me, their friend, any more? Don't they understand that they cannot, should not, let their children take over their lives? It's hard not to take it personally, to write them off.

But let me tell you, please, what we are doing, (as I wipe vanilla ice cream off the buggy, the screams of newborn who does not like getting out of the bath ringing in my ears). If you have one child you are in a constant state of semi-anxiety, if not in an actual no-sleeping, neurotic dark, dark, dark meltdown, and if you have two children you are not so much anxious as spread incredibly thin, like the last scraping of butter (where the FUCK is the Ocado man???) on the last slice of toast.

If I am not with one child, I am with the other. Or I am with both. If I am not with either, I am with my husband, trying to make up for completely ignoring him most of the time. If I am on my own I am organising four peoples' lives. I am doing Ocado orders, I am making lists, I am writing cheques, I am writing pieces for newspapers, I am frantically checking that I am on top of upcoming birthdays, thank you notes, RSVPs, two sets of medical appointments, the administration requirements of our summer holidays, the administration requirements of Kitty's nursery, where she starts in September.

And this is all with me having desperately tried to buy my way out of trouble in advance of the birth of Sam. Let me say this: it cannot be done. I've got help coming out my fucking ears, it's like Downton Abbey round my house, and I still feel like I am only just keeping a grip on my life. I feel like I spend all day every day just answering questions. Where's my this, where's my that, should Sam wear this? Or is it too hot today? What do you want Kitty to have for lunch? Is there any more bleach? Where is Sam's passport application? Can I watch Peppa Pig? Can you sign here, love? Where do you want these? Where is dinner tonight? What is dinner tonight? Can I have a biscuit? What's that noise? WAAAAAHHHHH?? Have you seen my keys?

Then there are the hormones. (At least I hope it's hormones and therefore temporary.) Oh my god the hormones. Horrifying, massive zits and I feel like if I dared to start crying I'd never stop. After I had Kitty, there was only Kitty to really see the mess Mother Nature's uppers and downers made on a 30-something woman - but now there are so many more people to be victim of my moods.

This has been made doubly worse by the fact that I've had a troll. Yes an actual internet troll, who wrote me a series of emails saying absolutely unspeakable, unrepeatable things about Kitty - the general tone of which was "if you hate Kitty so much, why don't you kill her?" One email's subject line was "Kitty is such a little bitch."

I felt:

1 Horrified: why have I exposed my family to the grossness of the internet by writing this stupid pointless blog.

2 Baffled: WHY would someone bother to send emails like that?

3 Guilty: do I make out like I hate Kitty? Is that how it comes across? Because if that is the case then that is a disaster.

I mostly assume, when I am crouched down next to Kitty, holding very tightly on to her arm and saying in a not-unthreatening voice "You do NOT throw sand. We do NOT DO THAT. If you do that again we are going home" or praying hard for bedtime, that this is a pretty average experience for a parent of toddlers. Some days are delightful, some days are ghastly, surely?

And when I write about it, I write about it reckoning that no-one needs help having a good time with their children, no-one needs help loving their children, or finding them funny or delightful, or clever, or beautiful. All that is easy.

Where we all need help, where I think I help - if at all - is by describing the shit, difficult bits of life when it comes to cooking, relationships and children, in the hope that you will read it and maybe feel less alone. I just want to help you feel less lonely.

But maybe I'm not right. Maybe most people just have a brilliant time with all their kids, all the time, and never have to bite their hands to stop them from dishing out a fury-smack. Maybe I am just a fucking witch.

Anyway, where was I? Sorry, I'm just all over the place. I don't know what I think about anything anymore. I don't think I actually really have any thoughts about anything at the moment. I used to have all these ideas and theories about parenting but now all I do is plan, organise and make lists and wonder why there is always someone in my house who is miserable. I'm no longer able to deal in ideas, I deal only in plain facts.

I thought I had a recipe for tapenade to give you here - a great, inexpensive dip that can be whizzed up at short notice for an impromptu warm-weather gathering- but I've realised that the magazine feature, which I gave it to as an "exclusive" recipe (snort) keeps being delayed, so I cannot print it here yet either.

I suppose not everyone can be as organised as me.

Someone said to me the other day - it must have been on Twitter - that she was annoyed by suggestions from television or celebrity chefs of what to do with "leftover cheese".

"There is never," she said "leftover cheese in my house."

I know what she means. I know what to do with leftover cheese, or leftover chicken or leftover lamb: you put it in a fucking sandwich. Or you eat it out of the foil, cold, with your tremblingly ravenous fingers, dipped hastily in mayonnaise, or recurrant jelly or mango chutney or whatever.

But - I had cause the other day to have some leftover pork belly. If you do not cook pork belly frantically at any opportunity, then you are a fool, by the way. It costs about 9p to feed 18 people and you just rub it with salt and then put it in the oven at 140C for 4 hours. If you want crackling you turn the oven up to full whack for 20 mins at the end.

Anyway so I had this leftover pork belly and I couldn't put it in a sandwich, because dun dun DUUNN I am on a DIET.

A very serious diet, too. No carbs, no sugar, no drinking during the week. And no sandwiches.

"Oh but you've just had a baby" everyone says. "Give yourself a break."

NO THANKS!!! Don't want to be fat anymore, ta. Bored with it now, bored with my fat arse and my thighs that rub together at the top and my back fat and my beefy shoulders. And if having two children has taught me anything, it's that if you want something, you have to get it your fucking self. I can't just sit around with my fingers crossed eating custard creams hoping that the weight will fall off by itself because it won't. Not at my age.

When you are young and single there is a vague sense that you are the star in the movie that is your life. There is the sense that when you find yourself in a dramatic situation that some dramatic solution will present itself. A handsome man will appear with an umbrella, a handsome man will pay your taxi fare, a handsome man will fix your broken down car. You get the idea.

This feeling can linger on in the early days with your first baby, as you find yourself stuggling with a buggy and a screaming infant, who then vomits and then your trousers fall down or whatever and you can find yourself in a glorious maelstrom of self-pity and sort of feel "look at me! It's like in a movie and I am a hopeless new mother!!"

Then you realise, quite soon, that nobody is coming to rescue you. No-one is coming to help. It's just you. And very quickly getting into scrapes with your child or really scrapes of any sort ceases to be funny.

I realised this one day when I didn't put the brakes on the buggy properly, (Maclaren buggy brakes are bizarrely wobbly and shitty and hard to apply properly), and it rolled down some steps with Kitty in it. Fuck it was so awful. I have never forgiven myself. I squirm around in actual physical distress when I recall it.

Kitty was just screaming and screaming with blood in her mouth and I couldn't get the stupid buggy harness off and the buggy was squashing Kitty and not one person came to help. I mean, I'm not surprised they didn't - a screaming kid on our street is nothing new. But it was at that moment that I realised that this is it, now - this is real, now: so don't fuck it up.

And it brought back to me powerfully that line in The Secret Garden when Mary Lennox is alone in her house in India because everyone else has died of cholera and two British civil servants come to send her back to England. "Why does nobody come?" shrieks Mary. "There's nobody left to come," says one of the men.

So if you want something done - if you want to be thin, if you want to be successful, if you want your kids to say please and thank you, you have to do it yourself. This is why women with children can, if they're not careful, end up being really quite bossy, because there is a strong sense in their lives that if they don't do it, no-one else will.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes leftover pork.

The thing about a fatty piece of pork, like a pork belly (the same applies to bacon) is that to get the best results you have to cook it slowly - this makes the fat render and then crisp up.

So with some leftover pork belly what you do is cut it up into small squares - about 2cm by 2cm if you want me to be exact about it, and then let it all sit in a dry frying pan over a low to moderate heat for about 30 mins. The fat will melt and crisp up the pork.

If you would like your crispy pork also spicy, then add in a teaspoon of dried chilli flakes, some finely-chopped spring onions, some chopped garlic maybe? A fine grating of ginger? A sprinkling of Chinese five spice? Any or all of these things would be simply capital.

Serve with a salad. No sandwiches allowed.

So this diet, then. I know you want to know about it, even if you have no intention of going on one. I have been a journalist for too long, you see: I believe all that anyone truly cares about are diets and Princess Diana.

I waited until we returned from a blow-out all you can eat bucket and spade holiday in Devon before embarking on my regime: while we were on holiday, I didn't want to ruin the atmosphere by going on about how I wasn't eating anything. Then with the cold, dead heart of a Dementor, I imposed a chilling food timetable on myself.

The rules, as mention before, are: no carbs, no sugar, no drinking during the week.

The first three days were simply awful. At one point I was so desperate for sugar (but refused to eat a biscuit) that I strapped Sam into the sling and galloped up to Sainsbury's for some yoghurt-covered cranberries.

But I also realised in those first three days just how much sugar and snacking went on in my life simply because of the number of times I found myself standing in front of the biscuit tin with no recollection of how I got there.

My daily diet went something like this:

Breakfast: 3 pieces toast, 3 cups tea with sugar
mid-morning: 1/2 bagel (sometimes whole thing?) sugary, full fat latte
post-mid morning: more tea, custard cream?
lunch: nothing
1.30pm: tea, custard cream(s)
1.35pm Kitty's lunch leftovers, custard cream (cup of tea?)
2.30pm: "balancing" (possibly "fat burning") diet coke
3pm: some digestive biscuits
5.25pm: Kitty's leftovers, mini cornetto
7.30pm: dinner - something with rice or pasta
7.50pm: telly and 1/2 bar Lindt "Orange Intense" chocolate (AMAZING)

... and I wondered why my weight was stubbornly at 11 stone. I told myself that I was on the Shitty Food Diet, but the thing about the SFD is that you have to be very busy for it to work. If you are sitting about with a newborn all day long, very close to cupboards full of toddler treats, simply replacing lunch with custard creams doesn't really cut it.

So now a typical food day looks like this:

Breakfast: punishment museli with banana (yes I know that's carbs, but barely - and also carbs are free before 8am)
mid-morning: apple
lunch: ham and cheese omelette
teatime snack: diet coke
dinner: 1/2 steak with a soy bean salad

Then after the babies go to bed I go for a 10-min run and do 80 sit-ups.

I know it sounds utterly fucking ghastly, but it's actually not going too badly. My run is very short, I go slowly and I listen to very loud, very bad music. It is a critical 10 mins alone after a day of listening to other people's problems, (YOU have to listen to MINE), I get to leave the house, which I don't do much at the moment and I really think the sit-ups might be doing something.

The thing about diets, the thing you have to do in order to make them work, is to mentally adjust to being okay with feeling quite hungry quite often. A couple of nights of my new regime were spent awake, hungry, with aching legs from the running. I just kept telling myself that hunger is fat leaving the body and the aching legs are just because I haven't done any exercise for 33 years so of course it's going to hurt a bit.

Once you get used to feeling hungry, diets are easy. Once you know that being hungry isn't going to make you faint, or die, you can ignore it. And then your stomach starts shrinking and adjusts to the new amount of food you are eating, and then you're away.

Diets can often seem anti-food, like food is the enemy. And the things you are allowed to eat when you are on a diet just don't seem that appealing when you are existing on Planet of Anything-Goes Pregnancy Food Blow-Out.

But - the simplest of lunches and the most punishment of dinners tastes like the best, most fantastic gourmet plateful when you are really, truly hungry.

Not "starving", you understand. I have become one of those disapproving old biddies who leaps on the use of the word starving as abhorrent and silly when people actually ARE starving in Afghanistan, in Syria - even in parts of this very country.

So if you are actually on a diet, calorie restriction or Atkins or anything, it doesn't matter much what actual things you are allowed to eat - you will fall on them like a ravenous wolf and scream "WOW THIS IS THE MOST DELICIOUS THING EVER" as you sip some scalding miso soup.

Having said that, I do try to make an effort with dinner. My husband has gamely joined with me on this strict diet and the Lord knows he likes a bit of effort when it comes to food.

The most successful dinner I've conjured up recently has been steak and beans. Because I disapprove so massively of eating steak we never have it, but just for the moment I am relaxing and allow us one very expensive organic steak between two of us, accompanied by a soy bean salad and some fried courgettes if I'm feeling really wild.

The secret to the soy bean salad is a dressing made of:

1 handful parsley, finely chopped
5 or so mint leaves, ditto
1 spring onion, chopped
3 tbsp good olive oil
1 tbsp capers, chopped
the juice of one lemon
a sprinkling of chilli flakes (if you like)

You boil the soy beans (available frozen from Waitrose - and many other supermarkets, I'm sure) and then dress them with this sort of salsa thing while still warm.

It really is delicious!! Although I might only be saying that because I am just so hungry.

Fried courgettes, if you are interested, are also nice. Take one courgette, chop it into pieces about 3cm x 1cm long then fry in hot groundnut oil turning occasionally for about 20 mins. They brown up surprisingly nicely. Drain on kitchen roll and sprinkle liberally with sea salt.

Eat all this with an abstemious glass of tap water and remember to work your core muscles while chewing.

After Kitty was born I had been writing quite a lot about the general lifeshock of having a baby, the discombobulation, the adjustment, the anxiety, the occasional moments of despair - you know. My usual thing.

And I had been thundering away on my laptop and capturing, I thought really brilliantly, the whole thing. TRUTH, I said to myself *tappety tappety tappety* It's all about TRUTH. I also thought it was quite funny.

Then separately two people "took me aside" and asked me if I was "alright". Was I, maybe, suffering from a bit of post natal depression?

My first instinct was to laugh. It struck me as hilarious that I was writing fully consciously about the difficulties of new motherhood in an, I thought, totally self-aware and solid, non-mad way and these people took me to be nuts. So I felt like laughing and laughing and then vomiting and bit and crying for a few seconds from sheer mania. Then my second instinct was to yell "Of COURSE I've got post natal depression. Having a baby can be a bit DEPRESSING." And my third and final instinct was to say "I'm just telling the truth! This is how it is! You think I'm a fucked up basket case because you haven't got any kids and don't know what it's like!!"

In the end I think I just said "No honestly I'm fine."

Any idle chatter about post natal depression enrages me, as it is to diminish actual sufferers (I understand what hell it must be) and to diminish the, I don't know, the... noble suffering of motherhood. It can be terrible and God fucking damn it, I can take it. (But not without a lot of moaning.) So it irritates me that absolutely any even slightly negative emotion related to having a small baby and suddenly you've got PND. It's the equivalent of liking to wash your hands before you cook dinner and suddenly you've got OCD.

People also talk about it in a slightly hushed way, as if rather than just feeling a bit tired and claustrophobic you were Bertha fucking Mason charging round your attic in your nightie gibbering and clawing at your eyes with long dirty fingernails.

I wish this sort of caper was referred to as post-natal stress or post-natal trauma or post-natal anxiety - or even drop the post-natal, thanks. Can we all just assume, please, that anyone who's just had a baby - first or second or third or eighth, is not going to find life and the world a constant bellylaugh for a bit? Maybe for quite a long time!

It doesn't need to be fixed or solved. Nobody needs to go and see a flipping doctor (unless you really are charging round the attic in your dirty nightie). All you want, when you've just had a baby, is a bit of discreet sympathy. "Mmm yes it's so hard," is what you want to hear. "It's the same for everyone. It'll get better."

A strange side-effect of post-natal gloom is of course that you are absolutely delightful to your children to compensate. Kitty knows I'm a bit down in the dumps because she gets showered with attention, smiles and an unusual enthusiasm for Play-Doh and drawing. ("Mummy Mummy look at my picture!" "Kitty I love that picture."I usually do, after all.) Sam cannot believe how many weird noises I am capable of making and for how long I can play Where Is Sam? There Is Sam! (Where Is Mummy? She's In the Dark Teatime Of The Soul!)

Anyway here is my very handy guide to Post-Natal Trauma. It sounds, in abbreviation, like PMT. But then so does PND. My message is: it's all different sides of the same coin.

Your schedule, if you have just had a baby, ought to go something like this.

For the first year you will be suddenly, randomly hormonal and cry at strange things and shout at your husband for no reason (or sometimes for perfectly good reasons). If it is your first child you cannot believe how tired you are. You feel like you have been expertly beaten up by secret police. You live on coffee. You cannot remember anything.

On top of this you will experience:

First Weekend as Mother depression when you realise Oh My God there are no days off.

First Fight with Husband over child/childcare/child's routine etc. He says you're uptight and tense about everything. You say Fuck You you've got no idea what this is like. You realise Oh My God we're not a sexy carefree couple anymore. We're not this, like, perfect soul matey match that nothing can tear asunder. We're just a couple of idiots who barely know each other with a child to look after.

Three Months In depression when you realise Oh My God this is going to go on forEVER. If it is your second child, round about now it hits you how little of the way through the first year you are, and how much longer you have to go before Child 1 and Child 2 can interact in any useful way (even if this means fighting). You also suddenly remember: teething!

First Winter depression when you realise Oh My God winters used to be fun! With log fires and spending entire days in bed reading spicy novels! Long red wine lunches with friends! Now winter is about Noro - who's got it? Who's had it? - indoor play, one streaming cold after another and long dark afternoons.

Going on Holiday depression when you realise Oh My God going anywhere with a baby is a flipping hassle and they don't want to sit about all day on a sun lounger reading Life After Life. They want to eat sand and wake up at 0500 due to flimsy holiday rental window treatments. This is combined with First Flight depression where you do 5 hours with a 13 month old and vow never to leave England by air again.

Childcare Depression where you realise Oh My God I cannot buy my way out of trouble. "I'll just get a nanny/send it to daycare if it's annoying," you said breezily when you were pregnant. Then you have the little weasel and realise that nothing is ever that simple. You realise that no bastard can look after this baby properly except you. They will upset it, they will get it wrong, it will feel abandoned. You'd rather do it all yourself. Which leads to...

...Self-Image Depression where you realise Oh My God how did my feet get so disgusting? I cannot remember the last time I got my hair cut. Why is my wardrobe full of clothes from 2007? Why do I only ever wear grey skinny jeans with Converse and a Breton top? Where did it all go? Who am I?

If you don't experience any of the above with your child or children then I salute you and congratulate you and envy you. But, hear this: you are the freak, not me.

Well I don't know about you but all that talk about feeling blue has cheered me up no end and made me feel really quite peckish. So let's turn with appropriate haste to this prawn and spinach curry that has been a big hit with us dieters.

It has been aided by a thing I found in a tube in Waitrose called lemongrass paste.

My basic curry mix, which I turn to in times of stress and confusion (but not depression, you understand), goes like this:

1 chilli, seeds in
2 spring onions
1 tsp fish sauce
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 small bunch coriander if there's any in the garden/I have some hanging about
some grated ginger - about 1 tbsp
1 tbsp tomato paste
1 large clove garlic, peeled
Some lime juice? Lime zest?

Then in it all goes into the little whizzer - whizz whizz. And if I ever come across some exotic thing that might change the flavour and thus our entire dinner, I like to throw it in too just for fun. Because I am that wild. I worked my way through a pot of tamarind paste a few months ago but just between you and me I didn't see what difference it made. And when I have fresh lemongrass I add that. But this paste, in a tube, which you keep in your fridge for curry emergencies is my idea of a good time. There it is: an instant new note to dinner sitting gamely in the fridge.

So what you do with your curry paste/mix once it has been tamed in your whizzer is fry it off gently in some groundnut oil, then add one small can coconut milk, (Waitrose do mini ones, about 170ml, which has enabled me to make curries regularly. Those normal-sized cans of coconut milk are insane - I am not making a curry for 400 people, people!), then add some chicken stock, about a pint (a cube will do) and simmer all this gently for about 30 mins. If you feel your curry is still too liquid at this point, you can simmer further until it reduces to a pleasing consistency.

To this you can add whatever you like. I am into frozen peeled prawns at the moment, also tofu and spinach and fried courgettes (see previous post). AND we recently had this with some Zero Noodles, which you may have read about in MailOnline, (don't pretend you don't), which are those noodley things that are made of some strange seaweed and taste of nothing but add reassuring bulk to an otherwise sparse curry.

Zero Noodles are, disappointingly, not available at Waitrose, only online or from Holland & Barrett (and some other shops I can't remember). They are fiendishly expensive so I use them sparingly, only about once or twice a month. But when I remember that it's time to get them out I'm always pleased and relieved: that's the thing about diets - you just have to try not to let them depress you.

You wouldn't know that I get any negative comments on this blog. Because I delete them.

It's my blog, I reckon, and I am queen of it and if I don't want to read shit about myself, let alone publish it, then I don't have to. Plus sometimes I think there's something a bit tell-tale and needy about publishing mean things - "Look everyone!! Look how MEAN she was to me!" I'd rather just take the bad stuff on the chin - read, delete. Move on.

But, if you are curious as to what the negative comments I get DO say, they say "God stop moaning," and "Why did you have kids then?" or "What did you expect?" or "You sound like a spoilt whinging child."

I absolutely hear all that. I do - I hear you, haters! Loud and clear! I can see why you feel that way. Why DID I have children, then. Or at least, why did I have another one?

So

1) It's not awful, it's fine once you get used to it. It gets you outside. It gives a shape and a movement to your day, to life. Your own children are fascinating. They say idiotic and hilarious things, you get to revisit colouring in and stuff like that. There is a frisson of excitement at the possibility that your child might be useful to society - they might do something about world debt, or discover a cure for cancer, or just sweep the streets very efficiently.

But having very small children is also like being an Olympic athlete. You cannot do it unless there are people around you saying "Go for it, dude.". Writing about it and getting support back keeps a spring in my step. In turn, I say what you might be thinking but cannot articulate because you are too fucking tired. I am your coach, your support boat, the bloke with the ringside towel and the weeny stool - and you mine.

2) All my life I've been the person who stayed behind. If there was a walk to be walked or a hike to be hiked, or shorthand to be learned or a rave to be raved or a game of hockey to be played or a ditch to be dug or a field to be sown, I was the one who opted to stay home and clear up, or make lunch. Or just not go.

As the do-ers set off, I always felt smug. Ha ha, I would think. Suckers.

But after about half an hour I was always bored. And after an hour, going crazy. After two hours, I would think - where ARE they? When are they coming back? I am lonely and fretful, unable to settle to anything, jumping at small noises. And now feel stupid for staying behind. They will be back soon. Any time now.

The do-ers would always be back a good hour after the latest I thought they would be back - and they were never really back. The experience had changed them - they were no longer the same people, they had moved on, especially in relation to me. They had had a joint experience, whether it was good or bad, and I had not been part of that.

I had dodged it out of laziness and fear, out of a desire to keep my life the way that it was (i.e. sitting about in my pyjamas in the warm) rather than offering myself up for a period of discomfort in order to put my comfort into perspective, or in order to learn something, to add something, to experience something. When the do-ers came back as far as they were concerned everything was just as it was - all the comforts, all the joys. The difference was they had enriched their lives and I had not.

I was the sucker, not them.

And so when it came to children, I was not going to be the sucker. I was not going to hang back in my pyjamas while everyone else set off with Kendall mint cake in their pockets and a stiff upper lip. I was not going to sit about twiddling my thumbs while everyone else raged over their shorthand or got their faces splattered with mud or put their feet down rabbit holes and fell in burns. I was not going to wait and wait and wait for everyone else to return, only to realise that the people I was waiting for were never coming back.

It was not the fear of missing out, you understand - I absolutely know what it is to miss out. I spent 30 years missing out. There was no fear involved: it was cold, hard understanding of what happens when you opt out. If I opted out of children I would opt out of a certain kind of family life that I would not like to be without. I would opt out of grandchildren. I would opt out of that shared experience, which is exhausting and traumatising - but not constantly. Not fatally. I would be left at home, in my pyjamas, not enjoying my book or my bath or my free time, but worried about where everyone else was, fretting that I had made a terrible mistake until it was too late to do anything about it.

And dealing with two children under 3 is nothing compared with that sort of existential crisis.

3) I did, in fact, know exactly what I was letting myself in for because not only do I have 5 nieces and nephews, my little sister was born when I was eight. I might not act like it but I think little tiny kids are always delightful and engaging, even when they are being horrible and whiney. And I know, because I watched my little sister grow up, that they are very small and difficult for such a short time, relatively speaking. In the grand scheme of things, the really hard bit is the equivalent of a long-ish Sunday afternoon walk up some hills in the rain when you're a bit hungry.

But then you get back to the house and there are scones and a hot bath and everything's ok. And children get to four years old and they are staggeringly brilliant fun. Nobody's in a nappy, nobody needs a bloody sleep at 1.30pm. Everyone understands bribery etc. They have little friends...

And don't get me started on grandchildren. I am already planning to be No 1 Granny with the campaigning cunning worthy of Napoleon. I feel sorry for the woman whose daughter marries my son. I really do. ("Noooooo!!! I want Granny Coren! I want Granny Coren!" - HA HA HA). I may still be writing this blog, except it will be called Recipe Dribble and include mostly recipes for soup.

Ok how about some food, yah? Not soup. This is a thing I cooked recently that was surprisingly nice and excellent if you're on a diet.

It utilises a thing called Slim Noodles, which are like Zero Noodles mentioned in my previous post but vitally these things are AVAILABLE ON OCADO!!! So from now on until I weigh 9 stone again, (I am 10 stone 5 now), every evening meal will feature these. There are only 7 calories per pack. SEVEN!

This is based on the principle of my Asian Baked Salmon but I have used a different marinade because just between you and me I was getting bored of the Asian-ness of the old one. That's not racist!!

Salmon courgette noodles with basil
for 2

2 salmon fillets
1 handful basil
2 spring onions
1/2 handful mint
some light soy sauce
1 clove garlic, peeled
1 tsp chilli flakes
1 courgette, diced into 2cm (ish) bits
1 packet Slim Noodles, or two if you are feeling wild

Preheat the oven to 200C

1) Put the basil, mint, spring onions, 2 tbsp soy sauce, garlic and chilli into a whizzer and whizz

2) Put the salmon fillets on a strip of foil long enough to make a little parcel and then paint the salmon with your basil paste

3) Put this in the oven for 25 mins

4) Meanwhile fry off your courgette die in some hot groundnut oil over a medium flame. When they are tinged dark brown and starting to collapse (about 15-20 mins) sprinkle with salt. Then drain and rinse your magic noodles and add them to the courgette. Turn in the oil for 3-4 mins and then shake over some more soy sauce.

5) Plonk some noodles in a bowl and then scoop chunks of salmon off its skin and arrange artistically on top.

Eat and try to ignore the nagging feeling that someone, somewhere, is having more fun that you.

Hi how was your summer?

Annoying question. As if we're American high school teenagers returning from 6 week sojourns to Cape Cod, or hilarious hi-jinx stints working at a beach bar in Florida.

How was my summer? I had a toddler and a newborn and my part-time nanny went on holiday for 2 months. HOW DO YOU THINK IT WAS.

Actually I made a stunning discovery as I walked with Sam round and round the deck of a billionaire's yacht in Sardinia in mid-August (long story): successful women wear sportswear during the day and black when they go out in the evening.

I had been observing the billionaire's wife, who wore sportswear during the day and black - and only black - in the evenings. I asked her what she would be wearing this autumn (as I pulled my ancient TopShop orange sundress over my massive sweaty escaping bosom) and she said "mostly black. I seem to have about a hundred black sweaters". And I thought, I bet you do.

So I thought about it more and realised that whenever I admire what some woman or other is wearing, she's almost always wearing head to toe black. I feel like I shouldn't do this because it's too EASY and it's "BORING". I think this because Anna Wintour famously hates black and I loved The September Issue. But she is the editor of Vogue and weighs three stone. She lives to wear colour. As do, say, Kate Middleton or the Queen. They have to wear colour so that people can see them.

I do not have to be seen and I do not live to wear colour. I live to not have a nervous breakdown because not only am I still more than a stone overweight I cannot find anything to wear when I have to go out. Answer: BLAAAAAAAAAAACCKKKK. It has made shopping for clothes, which I find a fascinating but ultimately futile exercise, a total doddle: anything as long as it's black.

And, during the day I will wear sports luxe, i.e. running shoes, nice running capris and a marl sweater. I'm only going to spend the whole day running up and down the stairs, bending over and getting covered in sick and crap anyway. It's a sort of workout!!! Done. Thanks.

O, the irony, then! that my exercise regime has slightly fallen by the wayside, although not totally. After nearly crippling my knees with my ten-minute runs (I did not warm up or down properly, or have any rest days) I have turned instead to doing a lot of plies in dead moments of the day, i.e. when both children are occupied just enough so I don't have to do anything, but not so much that I can sit down with the newspaper (or have a nap).

So if Sam is having a think in his bouncer and Kitty is pulling apart whatever brilliant Marble Run I have constructed, I will stand at the kitchen counter and do plies. Sometimes I will throw in some Tracy Anderson arm exercises. My rationale is that there's not much cardio I can do while gooning about with two kids, but if I can chuck in some leg-and-bum toning, it makes these moments of childcare feel less like a total waste of my time.

Another staggering achievement was that I did not come back from holiday heavier than when I left (though nor am I any lighter). So my morale enables me to continue with my diet, rather than falling into a pit of despair and mini Mars Bars.

I was given a while ago a copy of Marvellous Meals With Mince by Josceline Dimbleby. I promptly lost the book in the black hole of my kitchen but then re-found it the other day and last night made from it a sort of version of her meatloaf.

I have only ever eaten meatloaf once, when I was about seven, and thought it profoundly disgusting. But I have moved on and grown up since then - I have totally and completely decided on what my signature should be, for example - and found this delightful.

It is absolutely up to you what you put in it. The original recipe specified a sort of blue cheese sauce layer running through the meatloaf but I didn't have any blue cheese. There are so many other changes to this recipe that I can, in fact, declare it as my own.

Esther's Meatloaf

Serves 2 very hungry people or 4 less hungry with substantial side dishes

500g beef mince
2 handfuls breadcrumbs or medium matzoh meal
1 egg
5 tablespoons of ketchup
1 handful parsley, chopped. maybe some sage if you have it knocking about. Alternatively 1 heaped tsp dried oregano
1 small onion or 1/2 large onion, chopped
4 rashers streaky bacon, chopped
1 large clove garlic, chopped or grated
1 big pinch of dried mushrooms, rehydrated and chopped (or a large handful of fresh mushrooms - any you like, chopped roughly)
1 tsp of dried chilli flakes (if you like, I thought the slight spiciness was terrific but leave it out if you don't fancy it)
salt and pepper

Set your oven to 180C

1 Put everything except 2 tbsp of the ketchup in a bowl and get in there with your hands to mix it up. I have vinyl surgical gloves I use for this very purpose - or for when I am handling fresh chillies just before bath time. Season very well with salt and pepper. By that I mean a large pinch of salt and a good fifteen turns of the pepper grinder

2 Butter a 1 kg loaf tin. If you do not have a 1kg loaf tin in your life, do consider buying one. They are very useful for all manner of loaf cakes, bread, meatloaf, pates and things. I use mine all the time.

3 Tip in the mixture and smooth the top. Bake for 1hr.

4 Take out the tin and turn your oven up to as high as it will go. Tip the loaf carefully onto an oven tray and spread with the rest of the ketchup. Put it back into the oven for 10 mins, when the ketchup will be a bit blackened and bubbly.

And that's it. I'm terribly excited about this. You can add all sorts of exciting flavours to it - CURRY?? - and I can see it as a super mass-catering solution, just double the quantities and have it cold. You could even hide hard boiled eggs inside! Oh my days!! *fans self* *dies* (I've got a lot of black clothes you can borrow to wear to my funeral).

Macho salad

Spicy Thai crab cakes

Turkish eggs

Easter

Anchovy butter

Smoked salmon and scrambled eggs

Mushroom sauce

Madeleines and lemonade

Baked aubergine

Recipe Rifle goes shopping: FACE

Recipe Rifle goes shopping: CLOTHES BAGS AND SHOES

Recipe Rifle goes shopping: JEWELLERY

Recipe Rifle goes shopping: BABY ESSENTIALS

Rocky road

Tapenade (NOT)

Leftover pork

Steak and beans

Prawn and spinach curry with lemongrass paste

Salmon courgette noodles with basil

Meatloaf