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Butternut squash "cake"
Kitty has started at nursery. Finally!!! It's not just the relief of being able to pack her off every morning to make the most enormous mess that someone else has to clear up, it's the re-plugging back...
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Jam tarts
I often wonder if there might not be a few teeny tiny totally major flaws in the design of human beings. Like a blueprint that someone has dripped coffee on before anyone notices and it goes to be made...
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Rice Krispie treats
So there I was again on a Thursday afternoon doing some baking for the nursery cake sale, so sleep-starved that I actually felt really awake, in the same way that you get incredibly hot and fling off...
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Oat and raisin cookies
I occasionally get emails from people asking me for childcare advice - normally about sleeping and eating (what else is there, after all?) - and sometimes these emails are from people who I assume have...
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Dundee cake
"...by the way," said next eldest sister as we wrapped up our telephone consultation about Kitty's earache, "my friend Sarah says that she reads your blog. So it'll now be spreading like wildfire...
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Passionfruit tartlets
My husband went out the other night and didn't come home until 3.30am. I know because a car alarm woke me up at 3am and instead of thinking "I'll just go back to sleep," I crept downstairs to check if...
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Cupcakes with buttercream icing
I've been complaining a lot recently. I know, I'm sorry. It's just that things have genuinely seemed quite bleak; my whole life has felt like one long irritated thought, or one incredibly long moment...
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Lamb meatballs stuffed with cheese
I am not the sort of mother who feels sorry for people who don't have children. Not even in my most smug moments (literally, only fleeting moments) do I think "People without kids are missing out!" or...
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Chocolate ganache
Esther Walker is unwell. It doesn't have the same ring to it, I know - but it's true. I've had bronchitis. Okay not actually confirmed bronchitis, but that's what I've been saying. In fact it was just...
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Dirty curry
About six months after I started teaching myself how to cook I realised something: in order to be a good cook you have to be organised. And you have to be tidy. The best cooks are always incredibly...
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Pear and cardamom cake for Petra
Excuse my absence. I don't know what I've been doing. Oh yes I do! Potty training Kitty. I won't go into it, but there's been a lot of washing, scrubbing, mopping etc. I'm like Hercules trying to clean...
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Gwyneth Paltrow's lamb tagine
Here I am! Yoo hoo! Sorry, I know I'm late. There was this thing with a thing and then my phone battery died and then I locked myself out and it all just fell on my head.Good New Year? No of course it...
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Goat bucco
Goat! Tastes a lot like beefI've done a thing that I feel bad about. Not bad, but I feel like a quitter. I've done a thing that makes me feel like I've betrayed the sister-motherhood a bit.I've hired a...
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Recipe Rifle goes shopping: Spring fashion
A thing my dad has taught me is that you have to modernise - or die.It's probably the only thing he has taught me by example - everything else i.e. the importance of a neat filing system, up-to-date...
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Kale chips
I am very slightly ashamed of how obsessive I was about weight gain and loss during and after both my pregnancies.When I say obsessive during my pregnancy, I mean I just fretted in my head a lot about...
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Apple Tart Maman Blanc
The other day I wrote a piece for The Daily Mail and as the paper arrived and I saw that I was on the front page (ack!) with some dastardly headline I felt ill and squeezed my eyes shut and clutched at...
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Herbed rack of lamb with courgette gratin
I don't mind hospitals. I always suspect people who say melodramatically "Oh I HATE hospitals!"are angling to tell you a story about how they broke their leg when they were nine and had to go to...
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Lamb sweetbreads with a parsley salad
Sam is on the mend, though still so fragile, poor mite - and so I had 20 minutes to myself this morning while my husband looked after both children downstairs.Surfacing after a baby's illness, (your...
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Steak tartare
A friend of mine has just got pregnant and she was worried that she was feeling suspiciously well. Go and have a viability scan, I said. You can do that from 6 weeks, they stick a wand thingy, like a...
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Chickpea, tomato and cucumber salad
My husband has gone to Canada to make a television programme for the W Network and is away for most of two months. He is back for two weeks in the middle but then away for three, so we're all saying to...
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