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Single Parent Dad

Pies and Soup and Cakes oh my!

Nov 6th, 2009
by Dan.
19 comments

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It seems that the Halloween pumpkin Evan and I carved has somehow contracted Single Parent Dad’s hideous body wasting disease. I think it must have happened when we took it down to his house last week. I think I may even been able to pinpoint the exact moment of infection:

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Thankfully I’m not worried about the health of any of the Hughes family as the disease is only transferred from vegetable to vegetable.

But this pumpkin is certainly rotting at quite an extraordinary rate, far faster than Amy’s one. Even renowned pumpkin expert Professor Beryl Chicken says it’s beyond hope:

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“I’m sorry, but I think this pumpkin’s clucked”

I’ve still got three healthy and uncarved pumpkins sitting out in the front garden however. I did have four but I used one on Monday to make a pie and some soup.

I was particularly pleased with the pie (made from a recipe very kindly sent me by DJ Kirkby). I even made the pastry from scratch and everything. Of course it took me about six hours in total to do it, and when I’d finished the only person who actually liked it was me (Kerry and the kids not being too keen on cinnamon). But I enjoyed myself and that’s the main thing. Plus I got a thrill out of the fact that both the pumpkin and the eggs I used were purely the product of Old McHughes farm. Tom Good has nothing on me.

On the other hand he soup was ok, but nothing special. I think it suffered from the fact that the variety of pumpkin I planted is intended for carving rather than cooking – the bigger ones are less tasty apparently. Again I was the only member of the family who was willing to eat it, but even then I ended up throwing half of it away. Don’t feel too sorry for me though as that’s the outcome of much of my “cooking” efforts so I’m very much used to it.

My next culinary project is going to be a Christmas cake, something else that I’m the only one who’ll eat (my family are both picky and weird). I put a call out on twitter for recipes and got a gratifying number of replies. I think I’m going to go for the one given me by Jane from Nine Long Months; mainly because it’s one handed down to her from her mother and I like the provenance that goes with that.

However, judging by the fact it took me so long to make the pumpkin pie, I think I’m going to have to clear a full week in my calendar for the cake. Maybe it’d be wise to aim for next Christmas rather than this so as to avoid disappointment.

The end of Fat Club and a few pumpkins

Oct 31st, 2009
by Dan.
23 comments

It was both Evan’s and my brother-in-law John’s birthday parties last weekend and my dieting willpower completely deserted me. As a result I put on 6lbs this week. Hey, when I fall off the wagon I like to make sure I do so with a resounding crunch.

I’m back on the celery sticks now, but for the purposes of the Fat Club Competition it’s all irrelevant anyhow as this Wednesday Ian from Single Parent Dad managed to shed his final lb in order to cross the finishing line. Therefore it is my unfortunate duty to crown him the winner of our contest to see who could lose 14lb in weight the quickest.

So commiserations go to my fellow contestants Kerry, Catherine, Erin, and Barbara. I think we can all take consolation in the fact that losing 14lb in just four weeks is probably a symptom of some horrible wasting disease, and no doubt Ian will end up with various bits of his body rotting off by the end of the month.

For the sake of the blogosphere I’m hoping his hands will go first so he can’t type any more.

I would suggest continuing the contest to see who comes second. However I suspect that may well be my wife Kerry and, quite frankly, I don’t need that kind of humiliation in my life at the moment. So I now bring the contest officially to a close. Feel free to continue it on your blog if you wish however.

We were actually down at Ian’s house on Wednesday and I had intended to film some sort of award ceremony where I would present him with his prize (a Ginster’s Steak and Ale Pasty). However once we arrived I remembered how impenetrably thick Ian’s Birmingham accent is and I didn’t really want to lower the tone of my blog by giving it airtime.

We did have a good time down at Ian’s however, one of the highlights of which was carving three of the home grown pumpkins we brought down with us.

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Amy and Evan had their usual fantastic time playing with Max. And Kerry and I were just about able to tolerate Ian’s incessant whittering. So all in all it was a pretty successful trip.

Losers

Oct 1st, 2009
by Dan.
24 comments

While the traditional methods of pistols at dawn has fallen out of favour, the gentlemanly pursuit of duelling is still alive and well in modern society. Just take the infamous Atomic Wing Sauce face-off between myself and Greg this April

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The rutting stags clash

So given that Ian, from Single Parent Dad, and I are both blogging about our attempts to lose weight at the moment it was pretty inevitable that a gauntlet would be thrown down at some point. And sure enough the challenge has been made.

The contest is now on. The first to lose a stone (14lb) will be declared the champion and all time conqueror of the Universe. Unless it’s him of course, and then I’ll say I wasn’t really trying and it was a stupid contest in the first place.

The contest officially started yesterday, and this morning I’d already lost a pound. Oh yeah, read ‘em and weep porky boy. Of course I’ll probably put two back on tomorrow, but still – it’s looking good so far.

Originally I’d set a prize of the winner being able to take over the loser’s blog for a week. But as Ian pointed out, that sounds more like a penance than a reward. Any suggestions about what the winner should get would be gratefully received. Also if anyone else want’s to join in and make this a sort of league thing then they would be more than welcome

But before you commit, you should know that I have a secret weapon in my arsenal. Because this weekend I had two epiphanies, not one. Not only did I resolve to restart my diet, but I also decided to embark on yet another great adventure.

I have been inspired by the delightful, if not a little unhinged, Erin; who recently kicked off her training for the Hadrian’s Walk by doing something that is twenty times harder than the walk itself. Erin did a triathlon, which as far as I’m aware is actually sufficient grounds for her to be sectioned under the Mental Health act over here. Personally I refuse to do anteing that involves me breaking into anything faster than a moderately paced walk; but never-the-less I’m going to push myself to my physical limits.

I’m going to do the Yorkshire Three Peak Challenge. This is a 25 mile long circular walk that visits the summits of three mountains: Whernside, Ingleborough, and Pen-y-ghent. The total ascent and descent of the walk is 5,249ft.

Obviously I’ll need to get very fit for this one. Walking 25 miles along the flat would be hard enough, never mind sticking three bloody great big hills in the middle. You’d be a fool to do this without months of preparation and training.

I’m doing it next Sunday.

You see the challenge dictates that you need to walk the circuit in under twelve hours and I suspect I’ll. need every second of that time. With winter approaching the days are becoming shorter, and leaving it later than next week would mean there wouldn’t be enough daylight to attempt it. As it is I’ll. be pushing it (with dawn to sunset only being 11 hours, plus and additional half an hour of twilight either side of that).

Of course my brother Sam recently did it in 8.5 hours, but then again he is a stupidly overfit man so it doesn’t count.

I have thrown in a few safety factors however. I’m not going alone for a start, my friend Dave is coming too (everyone should have a sidekick called Dave in my opinion). We’re also going to be a bit realistic about our prospects and if at the top of the second hill it looks like we’ll be struggling to finish before it gets dark then we’ll call it a day. But never the less it’s a pretty risky endeavour for a couple of chubby blokes with only a vague understanding of how to read a map.

So you see Ian, there is no way you are going to win this contest now. Because do you know how quickly a corpse of a lost and exhausted walker decomposes on the bleak moorlands of the Yorkshire Dales? Pretty damn quick, that’s how. Throw in a couple of crows and foxes gnawing at the rotting body and the lbs start flying off. And the rules of this little contest make no stipulation about the contestants being alive do they. Ha! In your face!

Let the contest begin.