I am very very very proud to announce that Bluebird (part of Macmillan) will be republishing Cooking On A Bootstrap after Christmas, so if you didn?t grab a copy in the Kickstarter, you?ll soon be able to get it from any good bookshop(!!!)

To my 4,377 backers, I was sitting in the British Library sobbing fat tears on a Rare Books And Manuscripts Desk (from which I hastily moved my 500-year-old cookery tomes before I dissolve them in snot) as I typed this a few days ago. Please know that this would not have happened without you, and what great things your support has done, and how thankful I am for you all getting me back on my feet.

? Backers will receive one of my kickstarter copies, which will be limited editions, six months before general release.

? 1 in 4 of these, thanks to you, are headed for libraries, schools, refuges and people on pensions, benefits and low incomes.

? I HAVE A PROPER BOOK DEAL AND IT?S COZ YOU ALL BELIEVED IN ME AND IT?S REALLY HARD TO CRY QUIETLY IN A LIBRARY.

With thanks to Carole at Bluebird, Charlie and Rosamund for gentle introductions, Rosemary for letting me fly with my batshit ideas, Adrian for everything that?s got me to here, and everyone I sent my proposal to who told me to dust myself off and go for it.

(With no thanks to the publisher who pulled my original book deal after I came out: I guess like I said, I don?t cook with my chromosomes. Or my bra. I cook with my boots on and my motherfucking heart.)

ONWARDS. I GOT A BOOK TO WRITE.

XXXXX

PS here?s the official press release:

?Pan Macmillan has bought world rights for food writer and campaigner Jack Monroe?s third book Cooking on a Bootstrap.

The book comprises 100 ?affordable? recipes and is the sequel to the first cookbook A Girl Called Jack (Michael Joseph). It will include chapters on breads and breakfasts, super soups, beans, pulses and lentils, as well as new additions such as ?eat your greens? and ?don?t throw that away?, encompassing tips on using leftovers.

The title was originally launched on Kickstarter in December, and met its original £8,000 funding target in just one day. Those backers will receive a limited print run of a special edition from Monroe to be released this spring.

At the time Monroe did not explain the decision to self-fund the project after being published by Michael Joseph for the first two cookbooks, but said on the Kickstarter page that ?I?ve stripped it back from the gorgeous gloss that was book two, as beautiful as it was, the glass slipper didn?t quite fit my budget foot, so I?m going back to basics.? However, Monroe said it now ?felt right? to take the book to a wider audience.

Bluebird publisher Carole Tonkinson acquired world rights from Rosemary Scoular at United Agents. Monroe said their Nan would be helping to copy edit the book and a group of people on benefits and large families would be helping to test the recipes.

Monroe said: ?When I first launched the Kickstarter it was intended to be a tiny run; I just wanted a way to deliver Bootstrap to the people who wanted it. That initial target was met in the first 24 hours, and the more people who pledged for it, the more I was able to open it up to people who needed it.

?Backers generously subsidised copies for schools, libraries, and people on low incomes and on benefits, including students and pensioners and by the end 1 in 4 of those sold were subsidised copies. I thought that would be the end of it, and then I got the message from Bluebird.

?I?m overwhelmed by the support for this. It?s still a tiny operation; my nan is my copy editor and I have a bunch of busy people, people on benefits and single parents and large families testing my recipes for me. I?m glad to be doing this my way. Bluebird has been incredibly supportive, and it just feels right to make it available to a wider audience.?

It will be published as a trade paperback and e-book in January 2017.?

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Apparently we don?t bother with pancakes on Pancake Day any more. That?s what a press release that landed in my email inbox this afternoon told me; that we, as country, aren?t all tossers. We don?t flip out. We no longer belong in the gang of whisk-pour-fry-flip-lemon-sugar-munchers. I simply don?t believe it, and I hope you will all prove me wrong. I am a one-person pancake frenzy. I enjoy them with my boy most weekends, and whenever there is a surfeit of either bananas, apples or mushy porridge to use up. If you?re stuck for inspiration for tomorrow, here?s my 9 favourite pancake recipes from the last few years, from vegan to porridge to gramcakes, and everything in between. And the regular kind, too. Enjoy!

Click here for pancake recipes galore! From left to right: 1: No-egg pancakes. 2: Silver dollar pancakes. 3: Porridge pancakes. 4: Rolly-up pancakes. 5: Barley pancakes. 6: Porridge pancakes again. 7: American pancakes. 8: 9: Barley pancakes with peaches and yoghurt. 10: Gramcake (gluten free) (not pictured). 
  

Jack Monroe. I?m on Twitter and Instagram @MxJackMonroe and I wrote a budget recipe book that?s available to buy here. Thanks! 🙂

Stoffel Vandoorne will compete in the Japanese Super Formula championship this year, Honda has confirmed.

Honda have had few victories in Super Formula of lateThe McLaren development driver will race for the Honda-powered Docomo Dandelion team in the series, which features some of the fastest single-seater cars outside Formula One.

Vandoorne dominated last year?s GP2 championship and is considered one of the most promising junior F1 talents. He has 105 superlicence points ? more than any driver bar Andre Lotterer ? and finished runner-up in his first season of GP2 to Jolyon Palmer, who makes his F1 debut this year with Renault.

The Japanese Super Formula championship features eight races held over seven weekends, beginning at Suzuka on April 24th and ending with a double-header event at the same track in October. Honda-powered cars compete against Toyota in the championship but have only won one race in each of the last two seasons.

The Japanese manufacturer also confirmed junior driver Nobuharu Matsushita will spend a second season at GP2 team ART and former Japanese F3 racer Nirei Fukuzumi will be placed in GP3.

Yesterday Mercedes confirmed GP3 champion Esteban Ocon will move to the DTM series.

2016 F1 season

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here in the manual

As you may be aware, we are corner bookmark MAD! We have done so many over the last year or so.. but simply can?t stop! You can see the rest of our corner bookmarks ? monster bookmarks, minion bookmarks, owl bookmarks, heart bookmarks, fox bookmarks, penguin bookmark and of course reindeer boomarks ? pretty soon we will have a corner bookmark for all occasions . Today?s bookmark is all about bunnies! Those who knows us well, know that bunnies are a huge favourite in our house, so it was only a matter of time before we got around to make a cute Bunny bookmark!!! I hope you agree, that they are indeed cute.. and super duper easy to make. They would be a great little Easter craft or maybe a craft for spring. Or why not give you child a book this Easter and add a little bunny bookmark to go with it? A great way to steer away from the excesses of chocolate!

For your bunny bookmark you will need ?

• a plain sheet of photocopier paper (this will make 2 large bunnies and 2 small ones)
• scissors
• pritt stick (simply the BEST glue stick around)
• a pink and black pen (or why not experiment with googly eyes?!)

How to make bunny bookmark:

If you like our videos, don?t forget to SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube channel ? packed with fun and regular videos, you really don?t want to miss out, but see things FIRST! I have a large set of kids who watch the channel and it provides them a safe place to learn about crafts and be more independent? do join the crowd and down miss out on the fun. If you use the YouTube Kids App on mobile devices, your kids will be even safer!

What do you think? Aren?t they simply adorable? I do hope you enjoyed our little bunny craft idea and that you will be making lots and lots of these this Easter!!!

Tags: bunnies, bunny, Easter, easy, gifts kids can make, origami, paper, paper bookmark, spring

Category: Easter, Gifts That Kids Can Make, Kids Craft, Paper Crafts, Spring

here

Today we have a GORGEOUS little DIY Felt Heart Mobile ? these little felt hearts are just too cute (what is it about felt heart with faces, that make them so irresistible? Check out the DIY Felt Heart Brooch too!!!). Please do browse all the remaining and fantastic Valentine?s Day Crafts shared via the 31 Days of Love series. They are all simply stunning and beautiful!

Hello! Christine from Sewyeah.co.uk here. I?m very excited to share with you my little Heart Felt Mobile for Red Ted?s 31 Days of Love. If you like this project theres loads more on my instagram @sewyeah and at my blog sewyeah.co.uk. Enjoy!!

YOU WILL NEED?Felt in 5 colours ? approximately 10 x 20cm ?Scissors?Water soluable pen or tailors chalk?Embroidery threads in black and various other colours?Embroidery needle?Bakers twine?Paper straw

1) Download the heart template here (depending on your printer, you may have to resize it first!), cut out and then pin to a piece of felt folded in two.

2) Cut out the felt heart. Then repeat with the other felt till you have hearts in five different colours (you will have 10 hearts in total)

3) On to one half of each heart pair draw eyes using a water soluable pen or tailors chalk. I?ve given each of my hearts a different expression.

4) Use black embroidery thread and sew the eyes onto each heart.

5) Use a contrasting colour of embroidery thread and stitch two matching felt hearts together. Blanket stitch works well and so does a more simple running stitch or over stitch. Leave a little opening at the top, fill with a small amount of toy stuffing then stitch closed.

6) Add some rosy cheeks by dipping the end of a cotton bud slightly dampened into a blusher compact. Dab the cotton bud onto the heart.

7) Thread a large needle with a longish length of bakers twine, sew through the top of the heart. Tie a bow then trim one end short and leave the other on the needle long to fix to the straw.

8 ? Push the needle through the straw (try not to bend it as you go). Decide where you want the heart to hang then tie a double knot in the twine and trim. Make a hanging loop by threading a piece of twine about 50cm long through the straw at both ends. Knot to secure.

other projects you make like from Sew Yeah!

  

Felt Flower Feathers

Easter Egg Bunny

Flying Heart Origami

LOTS more Valentines Decorations Here:

Tags: 31 Days of Love, diy, felt, heart, heart mobile, hearts, mobile, sewing, sewing for kids, valentine’s day, Valentines, Valentines Decorations

Category: Gifts, Gifts That Kids Can Make, Guest Post, How To’s, Kids Craft, Valentines

here the link

Sahara Group has requested permission from India?s Supreme Court to sell its 42.5% stake in the Force India team.

Sahara bought into Force India in 2011The group?s chairman and founder Subrata Roy was jailed two years ago after the company failed to refund £2.45bn to investors. Appearing before the court today he requested its permission to sell the F1 team along with four aircraft and hotels in an effort to raise £306m towards clearing the company?s debts, according to reports in India.

Sahara purchased its stake in October 2011 and the team is formally entered into the world championship as Sahara Force India F1 Team.

Team principal Vijay Mallya also owns a 42.5% stake and told media last October he was ?very happy? to continue having Sahara Group as partners. ?There is no issue at all,? Mallya added. ?I feel very sorry for Subrata Roy but this unfortunate situation is not affecting the team in anyway.?

Dutch businessman Michiel Mol holds the remaining 15%.

Force India is one of two Formula One teams which has asked the European Union to investigate Formula One?s distribution of revenue. Last year it obtained a payment advance from Bernie Ecclestone to ensure its suppliers were paid on time.

2016 F1 season

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another blog with news

It?s February, so forget the January funk and enjoy some giggles with these fantastically funny posts I have hand-picked from the blogging world for your amusement.  You can thank me later.

Warning: These posts should not be read whilst consuming any liquid refreshments due to the high likelihood of choking on such beverage when you snort it up your nose.  The same rule applies to peanuts.

So here we go. 5 posts that made me giggle and brightened up my January days.  Enjoy.

8 Signs That You Are Suffering From a Parental Disorder by Life As A Rambling Redhead

I definitely have a parental disorder.  I scored 7 out of 8, and to be honest, the only reason I didn?t score 8 out of 8 was that my husband informed me about number 1, two days prior to me reading this post.  He gets to have adult conversations during the day to ascertain such information:

1. ?You are unaware of what ?Netflix and Chill? really means?.

4 Reasons Why Toddlers Are Like Drunks by The DADventurer

My youngest is almost 2 (a fact I am in slight last-baby denial about).  If you were to observe him during the witching hour (that time between tea and bath when all kids turn feral) you are likely to observe him running around in circles, laughing hysterically to himself, head-butting things, falling over and farting a lot.  I could really relate to Dave?s post. 

?Legs appear to be made of jelly and fail to function as a pair. There?s plenty of swaying, staggering and holding on to surrounding objects to support them. Then there?s the inevitable stumble and fall, often with bloody hilarious consequences?.

The Semi pro Diaries of a Fitness Fanatic Extremely Health Mummy by The Confusing Diaries of a puzzled Mummy

I laughed so much reading this post, that quite frankly I considered it my exercise for the day.  Louise details her first trip to the gym, and it?s a perfect antidote for the January blues and waning New Years resolutions.

?Change in to brand new gym gear BEFORE the school run. It?s important for other parents on the playground to know that I?m extremely healthy/fit & spend my days off working out at the gym and NOT lying on the couch eating cheese.?

A David Bowie Tribute: Kids in Cars by Slouching Towards Thatcham

January seemed to be full of such sad news, but Tim really made me smile with his parody of the David Bowie classic Life on Mars.  I mean who doesn?t love a good parody?

?For a while they all played I Spy
Now they?re making each other cry
But no matter how hard we try
All we hear is the constant whine?

Thirty Six, Still Winging It by Five Little Doves

I chose this post because not only did it make me smile, but it took me on a trip down memory lane.  A brilliant and nostalgic read about the things we do that mean we aren?t officially grown-ups yet.

?I can still remember every single word of Do the Bartman, could tell you the play list order of every Bros, Tiffany and Debbie Gibson album and yet, some days, I can?t even remember the reason why I went upstairs.?

I hope you enjoy these posts and they make you laugh.    I?ll be back in march for another LOL Round-up. In the meantime if you write something funny please come and link up to my Friday Frolics linky, or tweet me @lifeloveanddd.  

I?ll leave you with this, simply because I?m still feeling nostalgic.

council

  
This year, I saw in the New Year with just a couple of friends and our young children. I drained my last glass of gin, danced around the living room as the clock struck twelve, sang the wrong words to Auld Lang Syne and cuddled and kissed everyone in sight. I went to bed, knowing that that would be my last gin for a while, my last ham pie, so as hedonism went, it was going to be as wild as it gets for a while.

I woke up on the 1st, resolving to go sober, vegan and take up running. I have been cooking vegan recipes for a long time, long before the release of my first cookbook, as in the rubbish old days of scraping around on mismanaged, delayed and suspended benefits, meat and dairy products were often just too expensive in comparison to their kinder counterparts. I cooked with beans and lentils for protein, always obsessively researching, and got my calcium and iron from bags of frozen spinach and yellow-stickered broccoli.

When I was a child, I once announced to my parents that I wanted to be a vegetarian. I was a sensitive child, quirky, bookish, and was met with ?don?t be silly and finish your roast dinner.? So, out of respect for my parents, who worked hard to put that dinner on the table, I did. I have tried to give up meat several times over the last few years, yet like a junkie, I always caved in. Packets of cooking bacon in the supermarket, cans of sardines, the odd roast chicken. I have written recipes for this very newspaper, songs of praise for blutwurst and a macabre ?bunny bucco? for Easter weekend. I look back, and try not to regret. I am, after all, the sum product of all of my decisions and experiences so far. I am not going to indulge in righteous self-flaggelation for fulfilling the brief of my recipe column; I was doing my job, as it were.

A few weeks ago, I was reading my old copy of ?The 50 Greatest Curries Of India? by Camellia Panjabi, like a novel, as I so often do with cookery books. The introduction on the Indian philosophy of food made for fascinating reading. Regular readers will know that curries are my most favourite thing, and I wanted to go back to the start and really research the history and philosophy of Indian cuisine, rather than just toasting spices, slow-cooking onions, I was hungry to understand this food that I love so much. Ayurveda, the ancient Hindu wisdom on health, is described by Panjabi as the single greatest influence on Indian cuisine. I delved in. ?Flesh has the force of violence in it, and the negative emotions of fear and hatred?it has no place in the Satvic diet.? And there, with no gory videos, no statistics, no shock-jock tactics, Panjabi quietly drew my line in the sand for me. I understood myself, the discomfort, the guilt, the addiction, the naughty thrill of a packet of bacon in the fridge, the promises to myself that it would be the last time. I behaved like an addict, with no thought for those I might have been hurting, just seeking my next high, my next slow-roasted pork belly, chicken skin Caesar salad, slow bone broth. I hung out with friends who would indulge me, encourage me, and I needed to stop.

And I did.

I have found my cooking has taken on a whole new life, a veritable riot of colour and flavour and deliciousness. Deep fried spicy kidney beans sit alongside a mushroom rogan josh, heavy aubergine bhuna, and a black bean tarkari. Mushroom replaces lamb in my samosas, and a sweet potato rosti rolling around in a hot dhansak sauce is a beautiful thing. I am writing my third (and bits of my fourth) cookbook, and although it isn?t strictly vegan as it is half written already, it is an absolute delight. Cans of chickpeas and bags of lentils have been staples of mine for a long time, and I?m genuinely excited to use them as the building blocks for my new adventures in the kitchen.

Scratching meat and dairy products off my shopping list gives me extra in the budget to buy luxury ingredients I haven?t cooked with for years; the odd bag of black rice, or even to tick all of the boxes with red quinoa ? yes, I know, a sentence for the Guardian if ever there was one. I manage to shop in half the time, as I can avoid most of the aisles in the supermarket, yet my cupboards have never been more varied and enticing.

When friends invited me for lunch last week, and lunch was chicken, I realised in my keenness to blog and Instagram my vegan journey, I had forgotten to tell the real-life people who mattered. I prioritised a friendship over a chicken that was already baked in a pie, and I learned my lesson about warning people far in advance about my oral proclivities.

?Where do you get your protein from?? people ask. From chickpeas, lentils, mushrooms, peas, beans. Iron from tinned tomatoes, spring greens, nuts, seeds, and beans and pulses. Calcium from spring greens and kale, among other dark green leafy sources. ?Don?t you miss eggs?? one Twitter user asked. Not really. I replace them with bananas or applesauce when baking, with a dash of vinegar and cornflour in pancakes. Yes, scrambled eggs are lovely, and I?ve eaten them, and enjoyed them, and that was okay. Now I don?t want to any more, and that?s okay too.

Some vegan friends, and online groups, try to stop their friends from eating animal products by sharing gory photographs and videos online. I?ve had aggressive messages on my own instagram feed for reposting a grapefruit curd recipe from before Veganuary, that had a couple of eggs in it. I made those things. I?m not going to pretend I didn?t, nor flail around deleting all of the carnivorous recipes from my blog (though I will eventually have a vegan alternative for most of them, because I cook to live and my blog reflects that.) Unless you live under a rock, you know that geese are force-fed copious amounts of grain to fatten their livers for foie gras. You know that baby male chicks are flung alive into a mincer. But I?m not going to gross you out with more gore and science. In my experience, yelling at people that they are wrong and disgusting rarely wins the argument, nor changes point of view. I?m doing my bit to encourage people to try vegan by making vegan food affordable and accessible and absolutely delicious. No hard-to-find ingredients, no complicated recipes, just doing what I?ve always done, but without the cooking bacon.

I won?t be throwing out my new Doctor Marten boots, or my sexy-as-hell biker jacket, or my tight leather pants that were so 2013 ? but I won?t be buying any more. Not now. I won?t be posting gory videos on my social media, nor unfollowing the lush Bleecker Burger, but you?ll all be seeing a lot more curry from now on. And a world with more curry in, can only be a very good thing.

Jack Monroe. On twitter: @mxjackmonroe

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It wouldn?t be a proper transfer deadline day without either Andy Carroll or Charles N?Zogbia being linked back to the North East, and this time it was the turn of Sunderland to be linked to the French winger without a shred of self-awareness.

After leaving Newcastle under a Joe Kinnear shaped cloud, N?Zogbia has made it clear several times what he thinks of his own talent, and he doesn?t have too many fans among Newcastle fans any more. It would have been somewhat fitting then to see him join Sunderland to complete his transformation into a full pantomime villain.

The Birmingham Mail had suggested that N?Zogbia might be the subject of a very late bid by the Black Cats, who are in need of new recruits after a busy window of shifting deadwood. But the mild panic created for Sunderland fans shouldn?t have lasted long, as Evening Chronicle writer James Hunter has poured water on those rumours:

Lucky escape there, lads.

Would you have liked to see N?Zogbia sign for Sunderland? Share your reactions below in the comments thread.

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