It’s still a week until Shrove Tuesday – but we got things off to an early start at the castle this evening because tomorrow Zoë’s leaving for two months in Nepal, and Poppy was determined she shouldn’t miss out on pancakes.

Poppy made up the batter and when she was ready to start cooking, she asked what we should have in them.

This was an invitation for suggestions my tics couldn’t resist, and I managed to scribble down a few while I could remember them:

“Four boiled eggs and rice cake.”
“Hand-made strawberry jam by Nina Simone.”
“Chocolate custard and sweet corn.”
“Cod-liver oil and gold.”
“Tomato ketchup, hundreds-and-thousands, and Quorn mince.”

Funnily enough no one seemed to fancy any of these and since we didn’t want Zoë’s trip to get off to a bad start we stuck to the classics:

Cheese and vegetable
Chocolate and banana
Lemon and sugar

If you’re feeling more adventurous than we were, give my ticced recipes a go (at your own risk) and report back.