Pumpkins Soup & Cats......

With Halloween and pumpkins everywhere I thought I’d share with you our attempt and also a lovely soup to make from the scraping out the pumpkin!

Out stencil which we found on ehow.com. We pinned it to the pumpkin cutting out the cat completely and just scraping the skin out for the moon to glow.......

Try out this pumkpin soup (James Martins) - great for keeping you warm while the fireworks go off or you have a night time picnic! - I tend to leave out the seeds but I think thats more a personal taste. Go with what you like!

Ingredients

·         1 small pumpkin, (about 1 kg)

·         1 white onion, roughly chopped

·         2 cloves garlic

·         2 sprigs rosemary

·         2 tbsp clear honey

·         3 tbsp virgin olive oil

·         500 ml chicken stock

·         1 glasses dry white wine

·         150 ml double cream

·         1 lemon, juice only

To serve

·         double cream, whipped

·         sprigs chervil

·         olive oil

1. Preheat the oven to 220C/gas 7.

2. Peel the pumpkin and scoop out the seeds. Dice the flesh into large cubes and put in a roasting tray. Scatter around the chopped onion and garlic and tuck in the rosemary sprigs.

3. Drizzle over the honey and olive oil and roast in the oven for 30-40 minutes, or until the pumpkin is tender and golden. Baste half way through to stop the honey catching on the bottom of the tray.

4. Meanwhile bring the stock to the boil. When the vegetables are cooked, put in a blender with the hot liquid and white wine. Blend until smooth before adding the cream and lemon juice.

5. Return to the pan and season with salt and pepper.

6. To serve: ladle the soup into bowls and put a spoonful of whipped double cream in the middle of each bowl, topped with a sprig of chervil. Drizzle in a circle of olive oil and double cream if desired.

New Camera - Woods

I was very lucky fo rmy birthday this year and was given a Samsung point and click camera PL121 - it has loads of gadgets on it but the best thing is it slips in my back pocket unlike my bulky heavy SLR. So I thought I'd share some of my first attempts. Taken at the very gorgeous Winkworth - A national trust forest/garden.

Same photo but one was used with a cloudy setting - I think it brings the red alive!

Fluffy Jam Tarts

With half term weather being a bit off why not teach your little one to make easy peasy fluffy jam tarts? I’ve made these with my 1yr old and 4 yr old so great for any age group.

Fluffy Jam Tarts

Approx 18 tarts

Ingredients:

8 oz/250g  self raising flour

Pinch of salt

4oz/ 100g butter, cubed or an equal mix of butter and lard

2-3 tbsp cold water

Strawberry or any fruit jam

A little extra butter for greasing

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C/Gas 4. Lightly grease a 12 hole tart mould with a little butter.
Make the Pastry

Place the flour, butter and salt into a large clean bowl.

Rub the butter into the flour with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs, working as quickly as possible to prevent the dough becoming warm.

Add the water to the mixture and using a cold knife stir until the dough binds together, add more cold water a teaspoon at a time if the mixture is too dry.

Wrap the dough in Saran wrap/Clingfilm and chill for a minimum of 15 minutes, up to 30 minutes.

The dough can also be made in a food processor by mixing the flour, butter and salt in the bowl of the processor on a pulse setting. When the mixture resembles breadcrumbs, add the water, slowly, through the funnel until the dough comes together in a ball. Wrap in Saran wrap/ Clingfilm and chill as above.

Assemble the Pies

Unwrap the pastry onto a lightly floured work surface and roll to a ¼" /0.5cm thickness. Using a tart cutter or cup, cut circles from the pastry just slightly bigger than the holes in the prepared tart mould. Gently press one disc into each hole.

Place a heaped teaspoon of jam or lemon curd into the pastry lined tins. Be careful not to overfill as the jam will spill out when hot and burn.

Repeat until all the pastry is used up - you can squish the pastry trimmings back together and reroll several times, so don't worry, just make sure you rest the pastry circles before cooking.

Bake in the preheated oven for 15 mins or until golden brown. Remove from the oven and leave to cool completely, do not eat while hot or you may burn your your mouth, the jam stays hot for a long time.

Win £500 of Baby Goodies!

When we had both our little boys they both used to guzzle their milk and end up as with most babies with trapped wind. We tried massage, slower feeding and different styles but nothing worked as effectively as Infacol. Thankfully you can use it from day one unlike the old fashioned gripe water and they have a very effective dropper which stops you trying to fumble one handed with a bottle and spoon!

As it’s for newborn they’ve ensured it sugar, alcohol and colourant free and at only £4.20 for 100 doses a pretty good bargain to.

And along with the lovely folks at Blog Match  they are running a competition to win £500 worth of baby goodies!

Win £500 worth of Baby Goodies

Infacol, the UK’s leading colic relief treatment, is offering one lucky person the chance to win a £500 worth of baby goodies and raising awareness of colic in the process. 

Infacol’s new social media pages officially launched on 3^rd October 2011 (Facebook / Twitter / Blog / YouTube) and together, are dedicated to creating the ultimate parenting and baby wellbeing social community where you can learn, share tips and advice and get updated on all things relating to the wellbeing of your new addition - with a focus on colic of course.

To celebrate the launch of this new initiative, Infacol are running a sweepstake competition on their Facebook page (www.facebook.com/infacol), the prize being approximately £500 worth of baby related goods.

COMPETITION DETAILS:

It’s simple – Just ‘Like’ the new Facebook page (www.facebook.com/Infacol) then answer 3 colic related questions correctly and follow the instructions to enter the contest - one lucky winner will be picked to win the prize on 2/11/11.

Competition Start Date: 3/10/11

Competition Finnish Date: 1/11/11

The Prize: The goody bag contains an exciting range of premium brand unisex baby related goods, ideal for a newborn. The actual contents of the goody bag remain secret but the total value is equivalent to £500 of goods (RRP).

For Treatment of Infant Colic / Infacol Contains Simeticone / Always read the label³

For further information: Hayden Allen at OMN        Tel: +44 (0) 203 411 9111 (Ext 901)

E-mail: hayden@orbitalmedianetwork.com

What I'm reading this month....

I know its late but heres a quick glance at what I'm reading this month!

The first pioneer across America. Laura Ingalls Wilders books are amazing, well told and perfect for curling up on teh sofa in autumn weather while you loose yourself to the untamed america of 100 years ago.

Tough going in some place but fascinating to discover exactly what on there!

I think love Julie Walters - she is a fantastic comedian which comes across in her book.  

Ever since I tried her cinnamon buns (which you can find earlier on my blog) I have been hooked by her cooking. Her recipes work well and so easy to follow.

Rebecca - just one of the amazing books Du Maurier wrote. I voted this as one of my top ten books and I think if you havent experienced Daphne this is a great place to start.

I havent got round to reading this yet but since reading MM Kayes Death in Kashmir and finding her writings on the Kashmir I though I'd try some other books about the place. One day maybe I'll visit!

When I Was A Kid Retro Racer Review

We were incredibly lucky last month when Paul at When I Was A Kid offered to send us a ride on toy for the boys to trial. Now all of Paul’s toys are amazing! Mainly wooden but built to last so I knew it was going to be good but I after a month of trialling and yes I have ridden it now hill myself (safety checking of course!) this car is unbelievably well built!

I’m not too sure who was more excited when it arrived, me or the boys, but the first time I was allowed a ride on it I had to wait until they were safely asleep! It is based more for my younger child who’s almost two but my eldest at four adores it. They’re both convinced it is just as good as a proper car and when we’ve come back from taking it to the woods or the river or just for a ride in the big car (not joking) it is lovingly wiped down by them with whatever they can find to keep it shiny and clean.

The lovely people who make it give it a gorgeous finish which is lacquered to prevent chips and scratches and after vigorous use by our two boys (nothing delicate about them) it still looks brand new.  As I mention on the review it does have proper rubber tyres (front controlled by the steering wheel) rather than the cheap solid ones you get, which for little ones makes a much pleasanter ride and also you can take it over most terrains. My eldest sons’ school is up a pot holed road and it gets pushed up by me no problem!

Paul offers you the chance to personalise this so you can choose your own number plates and it comes with even more stickers to add to it if you want to. We were lucky enough to trial the red one but it does come in silver which is more classic but the boys love the red (so do I) and its far more fun!

Anyhow do take a look at the review below – you can see how much the kids enjoyed it even with the sound off!

Introducing.........Tiny Me UK

If like me you have boys in your family you’ll have noticed that quite frankly the range for decorating boys rooms sucks! However it appears help is on hand. Having been invited by Blog-match to the newly launched Tinyme UK event I did a bit of research..... 

Boys wall stickers!!!

Set up in Australia by 3 dads who have 13 kids (under 9 as well!) Tinyme (mooo.au.com in oz) offer to the market an amazing range of unbelievably cute and funky personalised products.  Mike the original brain behind the scheme started off the business in his spare bedroom which also doubled up as nursery to his and Rach (his wife) new baby. His friend Nick started to help him but as the orders came in and the business grew Mike had too many orders too handle so called up Nick and persuaded him to quit his job, mortgage the house and buy in! A series of increasingly larger spare rooms and once again more business then they could handle they convinced Ben (daddy of four at the time) to give up his job at Goldman Sachs and join in as well! Cant you tell they love their business to do this?

So after conquering their home country and shipping throughout the world they made the next obvious move and came to us! Ben & Mike along with Helen & Peter from blog match ran two very lovely blogger events (they’re very very big on bloggers!) at which I got to meet them and hear their passion for their company (they’re very funny to!)



Some of the amazing range



So having just spent a large amount on back to school stickers I was pretty much hooked to hear about theirs. Being dads themselves they’ve gone the extra mile and their products are amazingly high quality. Knowing full well how long it takes to iron in and stick in numerous shoe dots in clothes and shoes they realised the sense of making theirs very high quality and extra protected against the wear and tear we put them through. Having tested the ones we were given they are amazing! The stickers have been stuck all round the house and pulled off and restuck loads of times without losing shape, melting in the dishwasher or tearing!

However they don’t just do cute & funky name labels – nope they stretch to cute and funky everything! Wall stickers to decorate kids rooms, diaries you can personalise for your own family, height charts, very very funky personalised bags (of which Mike is very proud of the stripy linings!) stationary and some rather different personalised books and when you sign up to their newsletters an amazing range of free downloadable’s. I am not exaggerating at all here! For example a kids party you can download all matching theme things from invites, games and cup cake toppers to party bag fillers and you also get a fab 10% off your order to!

Even though we were given a lovely goody bag of things to sample I could sit here and type all day about this company and the lovely guys behind it but I suggest the best thing you do is to pop over to their website and browse and play around. You’ll be hooked in minutes!!!

Free Downloads

National Chocolate Week

"Chocolate is a perfect food, as wholesome as it is delicious, a beneficent restorer of exhausted power.

It is the best friend of those engaged in literary pursuits."

- Baron Justus von Liebig

Well this week is National Chocolate Week. Sounds pretty good to me! I love chocolate! At least good proper high quality chocolate. Apparently I have empathy with pigs, they love healthy eating but have a very weak spot for chocolate!  Sometimes I can mix the two, check out my healthy eating cake - Healthy Chocolate Cake, but most of the time nothing quite compares to sitting down somewhere quiet with ten minutes to yourself and indulging in a good book and chocolate bar!

So here’s a selection of fun facts about chocolate:

The word 'cocoa' was the result of the misspelling of 'cacao'

The amount of caffeine in chocolate is relatively small. There are about 5 to 10 milligrams of caffeine in one ounce of bittersweet chocolate, 5 milligrams in milk chocolate, and 10 milligrams in a six-ounce cup of cocoa.

An eight-ounce cup of coffee has 100 to 150 milligrams of caffeine.

Chocolate has great health benefits. It helps with depression, high blood pressure, Tumours and Pre-menstrual syndromes.

Cocoa and Dark Chocolate contain no cholesterol!

Milk Chocolate is the most preferred type of chocolate; however dark chocolate is especially popular among men.

Chocolate is actually a valuable energy source. One chocolate chip provides enough food energy for an adult to walk 150 feet. Therefore, it takes about 35 chocolate chips to walk a mile or 875,000 to get you around the world.

17,000 people in Belgium - that’s 1 in every 200 workers - are involved in the making, selling and promotion of chocolate.

If the number of Toblerones sold in one year were laid end to end, they would equate to 62,000 Km – equivalent to the circumference of the Earth.

Chocolate is definitely bad news in quantity. It contains high levels of theobromine, a powerful stimulant of the central nervous system. Theobromine poisoning can cause heart failure, seizures, acute kidney damage and dehydration. A lethal dosage of chocolate for a human being is about 22lb (or 40 bars of Dairy Milk). On the other hand, one Smartie would be enough to kill a robin or a blackbird.

The Aztec emperor Montezuma reportedly drank fifty or more portions of chocolate every day!

Heres a healthy or not chocolate recipe:

Chocolate coated strawberries!

500g of medium-sized whole strawberries

150g milk, dark or white chocolate.

Dollop of cream

 

1. Microwave the chocolate in a glass bowl on medium heat for 30 seconds, stir and return to the microwave, then every 10 seconds until almost melted. Stir until smooth and glossy add the cream!)

 

2. Wash strawberries and pat them dry (any moisture from the fruit will spoil the texture of the melted chocolate).

3. Dip each strawberry into the melted chocolate, covering the lower half of the strawberry. Place on a baking sheet lined with wax paper. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

The Gallery: Colour

The Gallery: Colour

To me colour is something stands out. I love this photo for that. The snow was blinding with the sun reflecting off like a million crystals but Rorys red jacket & Jacks yellow jacket dominate this picture perfectly. The colour stood out on the white background all round. Needless to say on the walk they were both covered in white from rolling down the hill! But it was gorgeous to see while it lasted

Books for learning to read

My eldest has just started learning sounds and learning to read at school and while he now loves being read books being a boy he’s not too interested in doing the work for himself. However, today we were at a local book shop and they had “Dear Zoo” by Rod Campbell a lift the flap book which is fun in itself but I hadn’t before realised how good it was for reading aloud. Most of the words in the book are the small words which he’s just started to learn. So with a very small amount of help he started to read the book himself. Big smiles all round and especially when his little brother came and sat next him to see the pictures.

So I would definitely recommend either buying this book or hiring from your local library if yours are just starting to learn to read.  Any other recommendations?