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???

Resolution no. 2

I love ! It's always there when you're a bit bored or in need of inspiration or to distract you from things that you should be doing.

I often find myself spending hours on pinterest when I probably should be doing housework or cooking tea or revising for some up and coming work related exams. As a result I have accumulated over a thousand pins. This may not be a great deal in comparison to some members but it is still a lot. Especially as the majority of the pins have been pinned to give me inspiration for new crafty projects.

So this leads me to my second resolution for the year: make at least 12 new items which I have either found on pinterest or have been inspired by pinterest. This, I hope, is more than achievable as it is only one "thing" a month!

Right, I'm now off the search through my pins to find my first make of 2012! Will hopefully be able to get something done by the end of the month to keep on target.

Don't do New Year's Resolutions!

My New Year's Resolutions never last more than about a week, so a few years back I made the resolution to never make another one! I did so well that I have decided that I should consider making one this year!

I will be thinking about resolutions that I can make over the coming weeks, however my first one is ready to be shared with you...blog more! Ok, stop laughing now! I know I have neglected my blog in recent months but I will be making a concerted effort to use my blog more like a diary to record what is generally going on in my life.

One way I will be trying to keep this blog regularly updated is by using the blogger iPhone app which I have also installed on my newly acquired iPad!

I always intended my blog to be a record of the things I do and make so that L can look back when she is older and see all the fun things that used to go on in her life before she could remember things.

Oh lovely cuppa!

A few weeks ago, Grandma R gave me a Twinings Lady Grey tea bag to try. She told me to have it after lunch one day while at work and that it would perk me up a little bit for the long afternoon. I love a good cup of tea but I usually end up buying whatever is cheapest in the supermarket.

Soap Mud

As it was such a horrible wet day outside, L and I decided to try the Sparkle Soap Mud activity from The Imagination Tree. I would definitely recommend trying out some of the idea from their website. I would never have thought in a million years how much you could have by mixing grated soap, tissue paper and glitter!

No tricks, no treats, just pumpkin

We don't do halloween in our house. M and I enjoy the odd scary movie but don't really understand the hype of dressing up children to look really scary and sending them out to collect chocolate. But every year when the halloween stuff comes out in the shops, I always think to myself "what does pumpkin taste like". I like the flavours of

It doesn't have to be pancake day

As I'm having a week of work this week, I wanted to make a nice lunch for me and L to tuck into. We would normally have sandwiches, but it does get to the point that we are both sick of sandwiches!

Pancakes are a big deal in the UK but only on Pancake Day or Shrove Tuesday, as it's also called. I love pancakes and the batter is so simple to whip up that I decided that today would be Pancake Day number 2 for the year and, in a effort to have more vegetables with our midday food, we had them stuff with mushrooms, spinach and ham in a creamy garlic sauce.

Cheesy scones

Doing lots of housework yesterday seems to have put me in domestic goodness mode as I feel to compelled to do lots of baking today. When I woke this morning, I decided I would bake another batch of Christmas Biscuits, make a plum crumble and whip up a batch of cheese scones on top of cooking the usual family roast. My enthusiasm started to wane once I got dressed, so I thought I might just try the cheese scones and see how we go. As the scone recipes doesn't use any eggs, I thought it

Tidy all the things!

Today, M has taken L to Granny and Grandad's to do some work in the garden. This has given me a free day to do some "spring" cleaning in readiness for Christmas. I hate housework, but I do love sitting back and viewing the tidiness. Couple that with a cup of tea and bourbon and I'm in heaven!

My plan is to tackle the kitchen and lounge and these are the two most used rooms in our home. I'm a person who loves a list. In fact I love lists so much that if I have forgotten to write something on a list and have already completed what it was I wanted to write, I will go back and write it on the list only to cross it off seconds later! So here is my list of things to do:

Lounge
Clear out cupboards and shelves
Tidy DVD draw
Sort out behind the sofas
Dust all surfaces and ornaments
Organise Lu's toy's and play pen
Hoover carpet, curtains and sofas
Tie back the annoying bits of string hanging from the top of the curtains

Kitchen
Washing up
Clean and sort cutlery draw
Clean and sort crockery and glasses cupboard
Organise food cupboard
Clean fridge
Organise freezer to make more space
Organise bowls and pans cupboards
Think (that's right only think!) about cleaning the fridge
Clean microwave (bowl of water with a slice of lemon, whack in microwave on full power for about 3 minutes, leave to "steam" for 2 minutes, then wipe round with a clean cloth...one clean and fresh microwave!)
Wipe down cupboards
Clean floor
Clean window sill
Put washing machine on a cleaning cycle (put on hottest wash possible with a load of bicarbonate soda in the draw...one clean and fresh washing machine)

Anyway, there is no point blogging about it, I might as well put my Bryan Adams CD on (always been my favourite for cleaning to, ever since I was a teenager and had to tidy my room) get on and do it.

The Button Pinafore Dress Tutorial

Brrrrr! Winter is definitely on it's way, so I thought I'd better start making some warmer clothes for L. I've had 1/2 meter of pretty pink and white polka dot sitting in my fabric hoard for a few months and didn't know what to do with it. What better item is there for a little girls winter wardrobe than a pinafore dress. Dress it with tights and a polo neck on cold days or on it's own as the weather turns warmer. The dress got it's name from the fact I used the button hole setting on my sewing machine for the first time and I'm pretty chuffed with myself!

Cobblers to your cookie cutters

Ok, I may be slightly obsessed with my bargain cookie cutters. I like to get my money's worth out of things but I may be going too far now!

Last week I decided that L might like to try some plums so I bought a MASSIVE punnet from the shop. She loves grapes, eats nectarines whole so I kind of thought that plums would be a good idea. Anyhow, she didn't like them. In fact, every time I chopped one up for her,

Wonderful tactile play idea

I just absolutely had to share with you this wonderful idea from Anna at Imagination Tree. Anna has some absolutely brilliant suggestions to keep your little one's amused while developing things like language and social skills. Her Snakes in Jelly has really inspired me try it out. I'm sure L will love it. And I know for a fact that if she doesn't enjoy it that I will probably have a great day and hey, who doesn't like jelly!

Freckle Veggie Patch

This week our parish council has given us our very own allotment! We are very excited. Unfortunately our house does not have a garden, but now we are a 5 minute walk away from our very own veggie patch. There has already been talk of growing beans, potatoes and peas. But there is a lot of work to do between now and spring when the planting can begin.

Making use of my new cookie cutters

Following my recent post about my Christmas biscuits and bargain cookie cutters, I thought it might be nice to use the cutters to make some or L's food look a bit more interesting. She is usually a very good eater (a little too good, like me!) but recently she has been a little monkey. So in a Lemsip induced dream, I decided that mini puff pastry pizza's cut into shapes would be a great idea! They went down