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Blue has been poorly all week. He fainted at the Remembrance parade on Sunday> He rallied on Sunday afternoon, then felt poorly on Monday morning. I kept him off school initially, but by break time he was looking far too perky so I packed him back up to school. Mistake. When I picked him up at 4.30 after a particularly cold and damp football training, he was shivering and feverish. What a bad mother I am. He has been off ever since, and I think he’s genuinely had the flu – nothing really, really awful, but feverish and the occasional bout of midnight vomiting. He’s definitely better today but still not right. We ventured out at lunchtime to the Co-Op to acquire some salami for lunch and he is now back on the sofa, having declared that he thought he had done too much. (For a moment, when he said he really wanted to have salami for lunch, I was transported back to the days of steroid cravings – not necessarily a good place to be, but at least I felt a certain nostalgia rather than blind panic at the thought of him madly craving something).

It has been a bit of a strange week. Fortunately I have good friends who have helped out enormously with Pink – taking her to school and collecting her for me, and also with Fred, who has been the big loser out of all of this, and despite my best efforts, dragging myself out of bed to take him for a walk before the husband goes to work and, even using precious babysitting points so that I can walk him during the day, he is looking thoroughly depressed at his lack of outings. I have promised him a long, long walk tomorrow.

On the upside though, I have managed to do lots of cooking to get ahead for Christmas. In fact, on a couple of occasions, I have been so busy getting ahead for Christmas that i forgot that we would have to eat that day. In particular, as Pink has been out to tea a couple of times and Blue has (unusually) been off his food, I have been thrown off course, and the husband has been lucky to avoid beans on toast.

I have made a mushroom squash and shallot pie to feed the vegetarian Mother in Law on Boxing Day. The recipe came from a pull out section in an old Christmas Good Food mag (actually, 2010 November edition). I made this on Wednesday and luckily for me that I did as I genuinely completely forgot about food to eat that day. On a Wednesday it’s usually pretty hectic anyway because Blue has Beavers then the husband is off to Scouts, with a very quick turnaround, and this week it was complicated by Blue being poorly and parent’s evening. True, I had chosen the timeslots to see the teachers – carefully engineered to be while Blue was at Beavers, and had worked out a playdate for Pink, but of course Blue being poorly put a total spanner in the works. However after much rushing around, we both got to parent’s evening. But I digress. There I was happily making a pie to put in the freezer for Boxing Day when I realised that there would be nothing to eat that evening. But of course there was – PIE! The recipe was for 6, and as the kids are unlikely to eat a huge amount on Boxing Day (I’ll secretly be feeding them cold turkey in the kitchen anyway while MiL munches away on veggie pie), I made a small one for us that evening. Although the husband commented that something seemed to be missing (i.e. meat in any form) it was a pretty good pie. I think the secret is that it uses dried mushrooms as well as fresh and you use the liquid from soaking the dried mushrooms to make the sauce, so it’s really rich. I might even make it again when MiL is not on the agenda, although I think it would be nice with some leftover chicken added in, or if the mushrooms were cooked with some smoked bacon...

I’ve sung the praises of the braised mince recipe that I got out of another Good Food mag before (you make braised mince then use that braised mince when making chilli, spag bol etc). In a couple of weeks, it is the Husband’s birthday and I will be cooking up a Mexican-ish meal. I took the opportunity of some more time at home to cook up a kilo of braised mince which will be the basis of the chilli. I have also decided to make Nigella’s margarita ice cream, and also a Mexican ‘flan’, both in Express as desserts. I do like getting what I’m going to cook sorted in my head – it’s usually half the battle – although having cooked neither before, I’m holding Nigella to her word that they will be ‘Express’, and hoping that it won’t be another suicidal supper ...

mmmm smell that brandy...

Finally, I have made mincemeat. I managed to cook the Christmas cake a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve done that for a few years now, but somehow never made mincemeat. Anyway, in the same pull out that I got the veggie pie, there was a recipe for fruity mincemeat with almonds, so I thought it was worth a shot. It was sooo easy – don’t know why I thought it would be tricky. A simple matter of dissolving some sugar with lemon and orange zest and juice and grated apple, then stirring in brandy dried fruit and spices then finally suet (I have used vegetable) and almonds. It smells and tastes heavenly – can’t wait to make my mince pies.

And lastly, completely off the subject, because Blue is poorly and can’t face the walk up to school to get Pink this afternoon, I have managed to get Coldplay tickets at the Emirates Stadium next June. How excited am I?? I haven’t been to a proper gig for years and I think the last band I saw in a stadium type gig was U2 at Roundhay Park on the Zooropa tour. It’s been a long time...