So, what happens in term time?

I had hopes that during term time I'd be able to post both about stress relieving cooking and some of the funny things I come across teaching teenage boys...

But this past term time has swallowed me up whole! I've been leaving for work at 7.45ish and getting back about 12 hours later. It's been bizarrely intense. I'm wondering if the summer holidays had dulled my mind to the actual realities of the winter term with its crazy amounts of planning, marking, chasing pupils for work...

Anyway, more of that later, but here's a roundup of some of the cooking and food that's been happening and I shamefully haven't been sharing with you.

You'll see an autumnal theme starting: pear tarte tatin, pumpkin pancakes with toasted pecans, pumpkin pie, gingerbread and beer cupcakes. And then there's some left-over-from-summer delights: a hunt for a cronut (which is held by my husband in the picture, hence the manly hand!), a trip to Mishkin's, a meringue and sponge birthday cake made for my mother and an attempt at a meringue coated cake made to celebrate a friend's engagement. Oh yes, and all of these are sweet things...I seem to live on sugar in term time!

I'll be posting recipes for these over the next few days and sharing some of the madness of teaching in a London day school. Do let me know what you've been cooking as autumn has come in!

For now though, he's one of the songs that kept me going through the crazy amounts of marking...

A Holiday Breakfast

So, it's a little odd to start a blog that's partially about teaching in the Summer Holidays, but the holidays mean that breakfast can be a bit more exciting than the too-early dash to some cereal. Blueberry pancakes might seem a pretty mundane topic but I promise that these are worth making!

They are a bit of a faff as they involve whisking eggs, but oh, what a result the egg whisking brings! They are super light but also creamy as they include ricotta. I found the recipe in Nigel Slater's 'The Kitchen Diaries' (a brilliant book!) and was a bit dubious, especially when they were really hard to flip, but they were worth it...he suggests raspberries or orange instead of blueberries but I like the way the berries burst and become deliciously juicy!

After making them a few times, this was my preferred recipe...I found they worked better without the addition of melted butter to the recipe.

Serves 2.

Punnet of blueberries
125g ricotta cheese
4 tablespoons sugar
3 separated eggs
50g plain flour

+ A little amount of butter for cooking

Start by mixing together the ricotta, caster sugar and egg yolks, then add the flour and mix.

In a second bowl, using an electric whisk (or by hand if you have the stamina!), beat the egg whites until they hold stiff peaks, then fold this into the mixture in the first bowl.

Heat a non stick pan and melt half a teaspoon of butter in it. Add dollops of the mixture, depositing a handful of blueberries into each pancake-to-be.

Allow the pancakes to cook until they have coloured on the bottom and then very carefully turn them over - for me this means a two spatula arrangement to lift each pancake gingerly away from the hot surface of the pan and upending it!