“Volcano with exploding baked bean and cheese lava” for lunch.

Big kid is getting one of his five a day.

Little kid not interested (despite his love of volcanoes, lava and baked beans).

A baked potato topped with baked beans and melted cheese is served on a plate.

Breathing calmed down so went for a short walk to the corner shop with Kid A where he bought a can of baked beans with his own cash.

Then we walked around the long block talking about how those beans are now his beans, what would happen to the beans if I reimbursed him with a bank transfer, what he could do with a bottomless backpack, the striking similarity between the Chinese lion adorning a neighbour’s drive wall and the Chinese lions outside the Chinese restaurant in Spilsby, and how Lime bikes are taking over the world.

Breathless!

A million housewives every day
Pick up a can of beans and say
“What an amazing example of
Synchronisation!”

Or in my case, “£1.59?! What a rip-off!”

A stone sculpture depicts a traditional guardian lion holding a decorative orb outdoors.A person wearing a bandana and graphic t-shirt is playfully sitting on a stone lion statue.

Love this coffee.

Took a couple of weeks to get used to it after the previous regular one they sent me (which was a Columbian " Milk chocolate").

A cup of coffee with frothy milk sits in front of a package of Pact Coffee labeled "Decaf Muungano."

My first attempt at a very simple recipe my Mum used to make fifty years ago.

Little kid: “I like onion and cheese [crisps]!”

Me: “Cheese and onion pie?”

Little kid: " Eugh!"

Cheese and onion pie going in the ovenCheese and onion pie out of the oven, cookedSlice of cheese and onion pie on a plate

This went down well with the missus!

Chilli salmon on a mound of boiled rice surrounded by egg noodles and stir fried vegetables in a soy and ginger sauce

Yesterday’s Mac* ’n’ Cheese went down well with me and big kid. It’s one of his favourites.

*Penne

A casserole dish filled with creamy baked macaroni and cheese.A baked casserole topped with melted cheese in a rectangular dish.A plate of cheesy penne pasta is garnished with parsley.A handwritten recipe for mac 'n' cheese includes steps for cooking macaroni, making a cheese sauce, and baking it.

Sausages

Lincolnshire sausages are the finest sausages you can get.

I remember as a boy, fifty years ago, my grandmother making sausages at home for the local butcher. Sometimes, she would let me feed the sausage meat into the machine and then turn the handle to push it through into the skins.

A special treat then was boiled sausages for breakfast. The skins would fall off, and we ate them with white bread soaked in the soup or broth they created in the pan along with a dash of English mustard.

In later years, my Mum would travel to Boston in south Lincolnshire from her home in north Lincolnshire specially to buy sausages from the butcher who made the best Lincolnshire sausages.

She would freeze them and pack me off with ten or twelve wrapped in old newspaper whenever I came back to visit from university or when I first moved to Manchester and then London.

I haven’t had a proper Lincolnshire sausage for many years now. The ones we get now are made in Hampshire. They’re nice enough, better than any other variety of supermarket sausage I’ve tried, but you wouldn’t want to boil them.

They’re pretty versatile. They’re great with mashed potatoes and gravy, in a special Valentine’s casserole, in a Yorkshire pudding, with xmas dinner wrapped in bacon, in a bread finger roll with (or without) onions and ketchup, in a sandwich or, as my kids like to eat them, cold on their own in the bath after school.

Six cooked Lincolnshire sausages sizzling on a baking tray

Add vegetables to tea.

Get soup.

A bowl of carrot and coriander soup with bread and butter croutons

Every time someone mentions Croissant (for cross-posting) I hear big kid’s Mum telling him, “You can’t have croissants for breakfast every morning!”

After last week’s early mince pie tasting, I’m road-testing an approximation of xmas dinner.

What’s missing?

Photo of my dinner on a plate - roast chicken, potatoes and cabbage with stuffing balls, mashed potato, Yorkshire pudding, gravy and cranberry sauce