A Second Year In Photos: Feeding and Watering

As everyone knows, an army marches on its stomach, and I am very much the same (except I image I get slightly better food). I love being in the kitchen, and really value spending time sharing good food and drink with friends and family so it will come as no surprise that food and drink often feature on the blog. Very often this food is in the form of cake (something I don’t imagine this proverbial army get very often), so I’ve decided not to include any of that in this post and instead I have selected two of my favourite creations from this year which will make up day 2 of A Second Year In Photos. Oh, and a cheeky extra one, because I couldn’t decide which one to cut out.

For Mothers’ Day this year my brothers and I decided to drop the traditional box of overly-commercialised chocolates and vomit-inducing cards in favour of making her a Sunday dinner that we could all enjoy together. For dessert I took inspiration from the (then) recently finished series of Masterchief and made a chocolate and mango mousse. It was delicious (her words, not mine) and I thoroughly recommend you give it a go yourself.The summer heralds surely one of Britain’s greatest contributions the world of drinks – Pimm’s. A drink of near-universal popularity with those that have tried it, and one of my personal favourites. Unfortunately we don’t always have the weather for it – it’s definitely best served outside with a hefty dose of sunshine – so this year I opted several times to make something that can be consumed indoors with some excellent local soft fruits: Pimm’s whipped cream. With strawberries and a little chopped mint it’s even better than it sounds.

One lazy summery weekend (we got one or two) a friend and I decided that we’d go for a picnic. Our mid-afternoon trip led us to a nearby cheese shop and then armed with our fromage, glasses and decent bottle of red wine we spent the afternoon in the Botanic Gardens. Whether you are supposed to eat (let a lone drink) in the Botanics is still up for debate, but we had a fantastic afternoon and it’s something I’d love to do again.

Tomorrow for day 3 I’ll be looking at my favourite photos from the Friday round-up of Instagrammers Anonymous.