Finally did something off Pinterest

So one of my New Year's Resolutions was to do/make 12 things that I had seen on , and I finally did it yesterday. I did the "melting crayons on to a canvas" project that seems to be all over Pinterest.

Rocky road

L and I made rocky road today. She had great fun crushing up biscuits with a potato masher. We just chucked some dried fruit, crushed biscuits and a few marshmallows into some melted chocolate and the results were delicious. Here are a few recipes that you could try, or maybe you could just do what we did and search your cupboards for inspiration. Anything goes with rocky road!

http://m.goodfoodchannel.co.uk/recipe/634877/rocky-road/

http://www.cadbury.co.uk/recipes/biscuitsandcookies/Pages/Rocky-Road-Bites.aspx/?campaign_id=cadcouk_home_mainfeatp_2011rrb

http://anappleadaynutrition.com.au/2011/03/dark-and-fruity-rocky-road/

Pom poms

I like to try and do craft things with L as regularly as possible. We have tried all sorts of things including painting, drawing and play dough. A few weeks a go we were made a collage (she really enjoys using the glue stick) and as well as various scraps of paper, I found a couple of teeny tiny pom poms at the bottom of the craft box for her stick to her picture.

Well, as soon as she saw one pom pom she immediately fell in love and got bored of the collage! She sat there play with this tiny fluff ball for ages, rolling it through her fingers and putting it in various pots and bowls in her play kitchen. So when I saw that Poundland do a massive bag of pom poms, I just had to buy them for her.

She has had a small handful of pom poms out of the bag in the last few days and they have kept her quite busy, but today we decided that we would get all of them out and really have some fun! We collected them in a big bowl and then "served" them at our tea party. They were put in bowls, in sandwiches, in tea cups and scooped from one saucepan to another. She also tried to scoop them from a bowl using a big spoon, I was thrilled as this is something she has struggled with when feeding herself.

Later that day, we gathered the pom poms in a bowl again and spent ages tipping them over our head and all over the floor. L would then kick and rub her feet on them. They also got thrown around a lot, but I wasn't too bothered as they are so light, small and soft that no harm could come. It was like messy play without any real messy.

After L went to bed, I slowly began to discover pom poms everywhere. But this just gave me a great idea; I can hide them around her toys and she can search through to find them. This will be great activity for her to do with M and will train her up ready for Easter Egg hunts!

Carroty orangey snacky biscuits

I have been trying to get L to eat more veggies at snack time. She is brilliant with her fruit, could eat tonnes of it all day. She also eats a good selection of vegetables at main meal times. Obviously both fruit and vegetables are healthy snacks, but veggie win hands down on sugar content.

I have tried giving her crudités to nibble on but she is not too keen, which is a shame as it would probably help with teething. She will tuck into a pot of peas without any fuss and I'm very much looking foward to spring when we will have fresh peas on the allotment.

On my most recent attempt I bought a big bag of carrots thinking L would enjoy to have some grated with her lunch, unfortunately I was wrong and ended up with a bag of carrots that needed using!

I have always loved carrot cake so thought some variation of a carrot based cakey snack would be nice idea for a sort of healthy snack. I decided to try and find a recipe for carrot biscuits/cookies, but they seemed few and far between. I eventually found this simple biscuit recipe to which I could add my own flavouring. As per usual, I didn't have most of the ingredients so decided to adapt it. Now, you can follow the recipe on the Good Food site and just had 4 grated carrots and some orange zest or you can follow my recipe below.

I used soft brown sugar in my recipe for 3 reasons: I didn't have any other sugar, it makes for a softer biscuit with a more caramelly taste and it is also had fractionally less calories in it than other sugars. This recipe makes around 30 regular sized biscuits.

Ingredients

275ml of Flora Cuisine (liquid butter oil) or 200g of softened butter
150g soft brown sugar
Yolk of a medium egg
4 grated carrots
Zest of a whole orange
350g sifted plain flour

Method

1. Pre heat oven to 180.
2. Cream butter and sugar together then add the egg.
3. Sift in the flour and mix well.
4. Add carrot and orange and mix until a dough is formed.
5. The mixture may be quite wet so you may need to add some extra flour in order to be able to work the dough.
6. Roll out of the dough cut into shapes and bake for around 20-25mins.

Something a day...

I have been trying to think up ways in which I can carry through with my New Year's Resolution to blog more and during a trip to the park earlier today, M came up with a great suggestion!

M is currently doing a 366 photo challenge where he aims to take a picture every day that is then loaded on to Flickr. This brings together two of M's passions: one for taking photos and one for his love of local history and wanting to document the ever changing environment. You can see his pictures here.

So M's suggestion is to try and take a photo every day of whatever I happen to be doing. Whether it be crafting, play time with L, cooking etc. I take hundreds of photos so I'm hoping that it wont't be to difficult to stick to this. I don't think I can commit to doing it everyday, but I will certainly give it ago!

So, my first picture is of Lu having fun at the park. I thought it a fitting choice!

Savoury Pancake Muffins

L will usually have a sandwich of some variety or maybe some cheese and crackers for lunch, but today, as part of my effort to get her to eat more vegetables, I thought we could have a vegetable omelette. As it's usually easier to get L to eat if she can feed herself, I tried to think of a way that I could make a sort of omelette bite. That's when it occurred to me that I have seen, and always wanted to try, a sort of frittata that can be cooked in a muffin tin. Here is what I did:

Ingredients (makes about 6 muffins:

1/2 pint of milk

2 medium eggs

3 heaped teaspoons of plain flour

2 large handfuls of torn spinach

1/2 diced onion

About 100g of ham cut into small pieces

About 100g of grated cheese

5 diced mushrooms

Salt and pepper to season or some mixed herbs

Method:

1. Preheat oven to about 180. Put a small drop of oil into each section of your muffin tin and put in the oven to preheart.

2. Gently dry fry the spinach, mushrooms, onion and ham. 

3. Beat eggs, milk and flour in a bowl. Add a splash of water if mixture becomes to thick. Try and get as much air in the batter as possible to help it rise.

4. Add the cooked spinach, mushroom, onion and ham to the batter. Mix batter, add seasoning and cheese.

5. Gently pour the mixture into each section of the muffin tin and cook for about 20 minutes or until risen and golden.

6. Serve warm or cold with a dollop of tomato sauce.

They are similar to a yorkshire pudding when they come out of the oven and taste like a pancake with a savoury filling. Would be great for breakfasts, snacks and eating when out and about. L and I really liked them and have one in the fridge for M to try when he gets in...if it lasts long!

It's all in the presentation

Not sure why but some artistic flair came out while preparing L's breakfast this morning!

I think she has been going through a growth spurt and some other developmental changes but her appetite has been all over the shop as has her sleeping. Anyway, I thought I would make her breakfast look nice to get her interested in it. And it is the weekend after!

So what did I do? Simple, really. Cut a banana into 5 bits, popped a dollop of yogurt on top with a dried cranberry and a cornflake flake. Then I stacked her peanut butter toast in the middle.

Wonder what I can do for lunch???