Happy Birthday to you, Mumbles

Well, next weekend is the one year Birthday of this little Blog. Happy Birthday to the Mumbles!
I've got house guests coming next weekend so I'm celebrating a bit early! I made Pumpkin Cupcakes with Maple Cream Cheese frosting, the same from last November (but only half the frosting this time...), for dessert.

Then a truly spectacular Donna Hay dish for dinner.  Miss Linda had gone on for a full five minutes about this dish during a phone call a few weeks ago, so I fancied I'd give it a go. It's one of Miss Hay's One Dish Dinners from the 51st issue of her magazine. The gorgeousness is in it's simplicity, which as a lazy person I really appreciate.

All you do is heat your oven to 400 degrees. Peel and chop two sweet potatoes, toss them and four chicken thighs in olive oil with S&P, arrange on a cookie sheet (one with sides!) and roast in the oven for 15 minutes.  Then add two slices of rustic bread torn into bite sized pieces, some halved cherry tomatoes, and 1/3 c pine nuts. Roast for another 10-15 minutes until chicken is fully cooked. Then toss with spinach leaves and 1 tbs red wine vinegar to serve.

Another version is to use carrots and parsnips instead of sweet potatoes, covering them in a sauce of 2 tbs honey, 2 tbs olive oil, S&P, and two crushed cloves of garlic. Roast for 15 minutes. Then add four pork chops and top with 2/3 c parmesan cheese.  Roast for 10-12 more minutes.

Of course, being ornery I decided to mix the two recipes and use carrots, parsnips and chicken, adding the bread and rosemary sprigs.  The rosemary smelled simply divine and the bread sops up the pan juices.  Awesome. I really like this method of preparation for roasts, so many possibilities! Sweet potato and red onion? Acorn squash? And the dark meat of the chicken is so good, but I will be trying the chops for sure.

Other than roasting things in my oven, it's been a lovely quiet weekend. I watched the most recent Jane Eyre, and oh my goodness is it perfect! Watched it twice. Might run off to the moors to wander about in a cape. I forgot how creepy that story can be, and there's so much going on! Ghosts! Madness! All the religious thoughts people were thinking at that time! The role of women! Good heavens. It's about time I re-read that book...

I have to finish Pirate King first though. And a book of Walt Whitman poetry. And the Design Sponge book. And I just put Carl Larsson's Home on hold at the library.  So i'll get around to Jane eventually.

It's been interesting to read over the past year of Mumbles, overall I'm pretty happy with it. I've managed to update pretty regularly, but it's mostly just listing off the things I did that weekend with some photos.  It takes time to make a full proper post! Hmmm. I would like to work on my photos more. Perhaps some with people in them?! And roast a whole chicken. And make doughnuts (I have figured out how to use yeast after all!). And many other little tasties. Which I can then share with you, either in person if you're lucky or though the interwebs.

So here's to another good year, thank you for reading!