Longing for a life more like Just William’s

Now this is all a bit misty-eyed and looking back at the ‘good old days’ through rose-tinted glasses…but I’m totally in love with the recent BBC series of Just William.

I love everything about it.  The beautiful vintage kitchen where Mrs Brown makes the family a decent breakfast every morning.  I love what the boys wear and I love what the adults wear.  I love that the children always look smart even when muddy and grubby.

What I especially love, is Mr and Mrs Brown and the way they ‘deal’ with their children and teenagers emotions.  I aspire to be a mother like that one day.  Ah…to dream…

Homemade Cloudy Lemonade

We have been making refreshing summery drinks to keep us cool in the hot weather we’ve been having.  This recipe is from one of my favourite recipe books, one that I imagine I will still be opening in twenty years from now – Darina Allen’s Forgotten Skills of Cooking.

The most complicated part of this recipe is making the sugar syrup – which involves boiling water and sugar together.  Yes, that’s it. 

Then all you do is mix water, lemon juice and sugar syrup to taste.  The remainder of my sugar syrup is bottled up in the fridge – ready whenever we want to make more.

Sugar syrup

Makes 825ml (20 fl oz)

450g (1lb) caster sugar
600ml (1 pint) water

In a saucepan, dissolve the sugar in the water and bring to the boil.  Boil for 2 minutes then turn off and leave to cool.  Store in the fridge until needed.  In a fridge it will keep for months.

Note: this makes quite a lot of sugar syrup, so we made half this amount – I still have leftovers in the fridge.

Homemade cloudy lemonade

Serves 6

Juice of 3 lemons (I use the best I can find – big fat ones from Italy are my choice, available at Unicorn)
225ml sugar syrup
700ml water (sparkling or still)
Ice cubes

Mix all the ingredients in a large jug and add the ice cubes when you are ready to serve.

Wilted lettuce with broad beans and a ham omelette

Better late than never – some images and a ‘how to’ for making a delicious dinner of wilted lettuce with broad beans and a ham omelette.

You cook the spring onions in a little butter, then add halved Baby Gem Lettuces to the pan before covering with vegetable stock.

To this you add pre-cooked broad beans and freshly podded peas, a little seasoning and let it all simmer together for a few minutes. 

You can stir in a few mint leaves before serving, but basically that’s it!  The full recipe is here.

It was recommended that this was delicious eaten with ‘old fashioned English ham’ so we ate this with a ham omelette.