Daddy Does Dinner...Kinda

Ok, so this was supposed to be fish fingers, chips and peas.

Simple right? Apparently not.

Daddy oven baked the fish fingers fine, it was when he tried to use the microwave that things started going wrong.

First of all he tried to cook the peas in the microwave using a jug of water (just like I always do). He cooked them for 10 mins on medium high then removed them, presuming they were done. Then he remembered he had a bowl of chips left over from lunch, so he tried to reheat them in the microwave, but for too long, something went BANG - and the most horrible burnt metal smell engulfed my entire kitchen. You could smell it upstairs.

Slightly worried now I thought i'd better go check up on him, just in case he needs me. When I got downstairs I found the kitchen door closed.

So I opened it to find Daddy standing in the middle of my kitchen, both windows open wide, desperately trying to fan the smoke outside with a tea towel.

The microwave door was also open wide, and the horrible smell was coming from inside. Needless to say I asked him what happened!

So in the end, the peas were undercooked, still hard inside and the chips were ruined. So Daddy decided to play it safe with bread and butter and a nice salad instead...

Yummay!

Come Dine With Me...

And tonight's host - Baby E.M!

It's Not Big And It's Not Clever

But J.R seems to think it is.

We've been telling her about this for weeks.

Somehow I don't think she's got the message.

You CANNOT take one bite out of an apple or pear and then put it back into the fruit bowl!!

Boost Their Mornings

They say "Breakfast is the most important meal of the day". Essentially because a good breakfast will release energy slowly and keep us from snacking til lunchtime. But children are different, even though they may well finish their breakfast that morning, their stomachs are only small and they normally burn more energy than we do - through all that running around! So, they'll need a little energy boost between brekkie and lunch. This is when they normally reach for snacks. But there are healthier options than crisps and cookies. This is where introducing healthy foods early comes in handy! My girls both love fresh fruit, bananas and berries etc. And these are the best snacks, but if your children aren't that keen on plain old fresh fruits, there's plenty of other healthy options...

• Downsize! Swap full-size chocolate bars for treat size ones, large muffins with mini ones and 4 biscuits for just 2.

• Give dried fruit a try: bags of dried fruit come in many combinations and taste completely different to fresh fruit, and small snack size bags are available too!

• Make a finger buffet: Serve up vegetable sticks (carrot, cucumber, peppers) with plain yogurt as a dip, along with crackers, breadsticks, rice cakes and cubes of cheese.

Making: Peppermint Creams

Recipe:

500g icing sugar

5 tbsp condensed milk

peppermint oil

food colouring (optional)

Mix ingredients together using a spoon (or hands!) until a dough-like consistency is formed, use as much or as little peppermint oil as you like. If you want to colour the mints like we did, seperate the dough into equal amounts depending on how many colours you're using. Knead colour evenly into the mixture. Roll out small balls of mint paste or flatten on a board dusted with icing sugar and cut with a cookie cutter into bitesized rounds. Leave to dry out.

Igloo Cake

Some days I fancy baking something, I just can't help myself.

Today is one of those days. And here it is...Igloo Cake!

All that's missing are the eskimos :)

It's vanilla sponge filled and iced with vanilla buttercream and covered in mini marshmallows. Best served with vanilla ice cream.

Check It Out!

Curvy spaghetti - Don't see that very often do you!

Yummy Organic Milkshake

Light yet surprisingly filling!

You will need:

1 punnet Organic Strawberries

4 glasses semi-skimmed milk

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

Ice cubes

A blender

Chop the tops off the strawberries then slice them in half, add to the blender along with a handful of ice cubes and 1 glass of milk. Blend on pulse until smooth. Then add the rest of the milk and the sugar and blend again. Serve immediately.

Remember, since this recipe uses fresh ingredients it wont keep for very long, so be sure to dispose of any leftovers once everyone is finished.

This Was The Scene At Our House Tonight...

Shocking isn't it.

"How could you neglect your motherly duty of cooking a nice wholesome dinner for your daughters?!" I hear you cry.

One word: Migraine.

Now, I don't get headaches as often as other people. In fact, I barely get them at all. But this morning I had so much pounding pressure on my head I felt like crawling into a dark cupboard and staying there all day.

Alas, this was just not possible, so I went about the day as usual and by 4pm it was so bad there was no way I was going to cook dinner. So I paid for it instead.

And hey, don't think it was easy! I actually had a difficult time reading the menu and ordering online...*light too bright* >.<

Eat Your Greens!

Did you know:

96% of our children don't get enough fruit and veg?

Which is disappointing considering there's sooo much to choose from. But if the kids are really not convinced, here's some tips on smuggling some of the good stuff into their meals.

• Try adding finely chopped carrots, sweet potatoes, parsnips, onions or mushrooms into a spaghetti bolognese sauce.

• Make smoothies. You can use several different fruits in one recipe - so experiment!

• Milkshakes go down well too, simply mash up some ripe bananas/strawberries, pop in a blender, add ice cubes and milk and blend until smooth.

• Mash sweet potatoes, swede, parsnip or carrots into mashed potato.

• And my personal favourite: Make home made pizzas with lots of veg toppings. Sweetcorn, green peppers, cherry tomatoes, mushrooms and onions all work well!

Healthy Start vouchers are now worth £3.10 a week. We've found that they open up a whole new world of healthy eating for us, from simple salads to wholesome meals... So I thought i'd share with you a couple of our favourite recipes. Buy ingredients in green with your vouchers!

Cauliflower Cheese

What You Need:

1. 2 large Potatoes
2. A Cauliflower
3. Grated Cheddar Cheese
4. Cheese Sauce Granules OR to make the sauce yourself:
5. Butter or Marg
6. 1tbsp Plain Flour
7. 450ml Milk
8. 1/2 an Onion
9. Extra Grated Cheddar Cheese

Cut the potatoes into bitesize pieces, add to a large pot of boiling water and start to cook, after 5 mins add the chopped cauliflower.

Once cooked drain the potatoes and cauliflower and put in an ovenproof dish. Make up the cheese sauce, pour over the vegetables, sprinkle cheese over the top and bake for 15-20 minutes at 180c/Gas mark 4.

To make Cheese Sauce: Finely chop and fry the onion in some butter or margarine, add another lump of margarine and add a generous tablespoon of plain flour and mix it in. Add a small amount of milk and mix, add some more and mix again - you should end up using approx 450ml of milk and as it gets hot it will thicken up. Then add a big handful of grated cheddar cheese to make it a cheese sauce.

This recipe is quite filling even on it's own, but if you feel you need a more complete meal, try adding a few chopped pre-cooked sausages to the dish before baking.

Warm Potato Salad

What You Need:

1. Baby New Potatoes
2. 1 Small Onion
3. Mayonaise
4. Fresh Chives or Spring Onions

Chop the potatoes into bitesize pieces and boil them in their skins. Cook until soft but still firm, drain. Finely chop the onion and stir in with the potatoes and mayonnaise while the potatoes are still warm, then add a handful of finely chopped fresh chives (or Spring Onions if using).

Serve immediately.

20% Off At ELC with Müller Little Stars!

This is brilliant, I love ELC anyway :)

But spend £1-something on a pack of yogurts and get 20% off in Early Learning Centre?

Now that I can do...

Find the voucher in the card sleeve of the packaging...snap them up while you can!

Offer covers Müller Little Stars yogurts and fromage frais.

食物!

I'm happy. Daddy's treated me to a Chinese takeaway for dinner. (Obviously with the catch that I do him a nice home-cooked dinner tomorrow night, but ain't that always the way!) Who would've thought that all this would cost just over £21!

• Large Chicken Chow Mein
• Sweet & Sour Pork Balls
• Barbecue Ribs (dry)
• Egg Fried Rice
• Chicken & Vegetables
• Side order of Mushrooms in garlic
• Prawn Crackers

Looks like there'll be leftovers for lunch tomorrow too! O_O

Pancake Day Pics

Yesterday, tuesday 24th was Pancake Day and no i'm not claiming to be head chef here, but these from-scratch pancakes turned out pretty good! We ate ours with golden syrup, strawberries, condensed milk and bananas. Not all at the same time of course.

Oh Cucumber!

Ok, someone help me out here. J.R has taken a very strong liking to vegetables and fruits that contain mostly water.

Lord knows how this strange preference has come about, but one thing's for sure, she's refusing to eat much else! Some examples of what she will eat: banana, cucumber, lettuce, peas...

She's been a picky eater for a long time now, but this is driving me crazy. When the health visitor saw us on christmas eve 2008, she weighed her and J.R has put on NO WEIGHT in 6 months. In fact she'd LOST a few ounces.

I'm not sure about that result, to me that just says "Mummy doesn't feed me." And that's not good. I've tried everything to get her to eat more variety, but she's not having it! Tried the whole chopping-up-small-and-mixing-together trick but to no avail. If there is some sort of green, mostly-water vegetable on her plate, that's all she'll eat. You can forget the meat, can't risk putting on a bit of weight now can we!