Miyerkules, Hulyo 4, 2018
Lunes, Hulyo 2, 2018
I can't believe we are more than half way through the year - I don't know where the time has gone! My little girl is now 4 months old, it seems a lifetime ago that we brought a brand new baby home from the hospital as she has grown and changed so much. Her latest thing is blowing raspberries and as I started writing this with baby S on her playmat at my feet, where I thought I could leave her while I did my meal plan, I looked down and she'd learnt to shuffle and had moved several inches off the playmat! I love that she is learning new things all the time - even if it means I have even less time to myself! And by 'time to myself' I mean time to stay on top of housework and so on... it's rare that I get any 'me time'!
Last week's meal plan was a bit of a write-off. We planned to barbecue a lot and on the first night, the food burnt and was totally ruined, because our gas barbecue had a build-up of fat that caused huge nearly-take-your-eyebrows-off flames. The next day when it had cooled down my husband took the barbecue apart after he got home from work, and the next day I spent an hour cleaning it while I was napping, but an awful lot of elbow grease and four cleaning cloths going in the bin later, it looked like I'd barely started. So I gave up and booked a professional oven and barbecue cleaning company, who were supposed to come on Friday afternoon - meaning we'd be able to use the barbecue once in the week at least, plus the weekend. On Friday afternoon I got a call saying the guy's van had broken down and he couldn't come! I couldn't help but wonder if he just didn't want to do a final job at 4pm on a blazing hot Friday.. they are now coming back on Monday so hopefully we can barbecue next week. I ended up freezing some of the food we were going to cook last week but also having to throw some of it out, which was a shame!
For lunches this week I will try to mainly have salads!
Monday
Barbecue - pizza and sausages with salad, barbecued new potatoes
Tuesday
Barbecue - burgers, fish kebabs, chicken kebabs ,halloumi
Wednesday
Barbecue - sea bass with this sauce for me, steak for him, halloumi, potato salad/ cous cous
Thursday
Something different for a change...lasagne from my batch cooking for me, chicken nuggets and chips for him
Friday
May as well barbecue again! Pork loin steaks for me with couscous, burger/sausage for him, mozzarella sticks
Saturday
Lunch - ham and cheese toasties
Dinner - Barbecue lamb with salsa verde from this recipe for me, steak for him
Sunday
Lunch- bacon sandwich
Dinner - Whole barbecued chicken with limonata, potato wedges, salad and Weber chocolate fondants
Last week's meal plan was a bit of a write-off. We planned to barbecue a lot and on the first night, the food burnt and was totally ruined, because our gas barbecue had a build-up of fat that caused huge nearly-take-your-eyebrows-off flames. The next day when it had cooled down my husband took the barbecue apart after he got home from work, and the next day I spent an hour cleaning it while I was napping, but an awful lot of elbow grease and four cleaning cloths going in the bin later, it looked like I'd barely started. So I gave up and booked a professional oven and barbecue cleaning company, who were supposed to come on Friday afternoon - meaning we'd be able to use the barbecue once in the week at least, plus the weekend. On Friday afternoon I got a call saying the guy's van had broken down and he couldn't come! I couldn't help but wonder if he just didn't want to do a final job at 4pm on a blazing hot Friday.. they are now coming back on Monday so hopefully we can barbecue next week. I ended up freezing some of the food we were going to cook last week but also having to throw some of it out, which was a shame!
For lunches this week I will try to mainly have salads!
Monday
Barbecue - pizza and sausages with salad, barbecued new potatoes
Tuesday
Barbecue - burgers, fish kebabs, chicken kebabs ,halloumi
Wednesday
Barbecue - sea bass with this sauce for me, steak for him, halloumi, potato salad/ cous cous
Thursday
Something different for a change...lasagne from my batch cooking for me, chicken nuggets and chips for him
Friday
May as well barbecue again! Pork loin steaks for me with couscous, burger/sausage for him, mozzarella sticks
Saturday
Lunch - ham and cheese toasties
Dinner - Barbecue lamb with salsa verde from this recipe for me, steak for him
Sunday
Lunch- bacon sandwich
Dinner - Whole barbecued chicken with limonata, potato wedges, salad and Weber chocolate fondants
Sabado, Hunyo 30, 2018
The set I got included flamingos, birds - and peacocks. I decided to use one of the peacock images to make an anniversary card for my husband for our second anniversary as we'd had peacocks at our wedding.
You can read more about the venue and our day in my post from 2016 on our wedding at the Larmer Tree Gardens.
To make the card, I chose a larger than usual A5 card blank and covered it with a piece of the cardstock that came with the Hunkydory set. It had a strip of a different pattern across part of the card which I positioned along the bottom of my card and added a border from the same set. The peacock and frame are all different elements from the Hunkydory set too.
Finally I added a glittery thick card word saying 'anniversary' which I think I bought from Tesco (though I could be wrong!).
I'm sharing this with:
Daring Cardmakers where the theme is weddings or anniversaries
TGIF challenges has the theme 'all that glitters'
Alphabet Challenge - G is for great outdoors, and the peacock represents our outdoor wedding
and at Tuesday Taggers it's 'things with wings'.
Lunes, Hunyo 25, 2018
It's a scorcher this week! I expect we will be barbecuing a fair bit but these days I don't really have the time to make different recipes and it's more a case of just ordering meat. But I don't really like to eat that much meat and never really eat any veg when we barbecue (I only like salad when I have it as a meal in itself, I somehow can't make myself eat it on the side at a barbecue!). So I need to factor in a couple of other meals when I can eat some veg and try to find some easy healthy barbecue recipes as well!
Monday
Barbecue - including cauliflower with a spice rub, from an Ocado recipe and possibly also chicken fattoush
Tuesday
Spaghetti Bolognese to use up mince from Sunday's tacos
Wednesday
Barbecue
Thursday
Chicken chargrills and mashed potato for him, chicken cacciatore for me
Friday
Barbecue
Saturday
Lunch - my husband is working today so I will have a sandwich or salad
dinner- he will probably want to barbecue again assuming I've been able to restock food!
Sunday
Lunch - fresh pasta
Dinner - chicken tray bake
Monday
Barbecue - including cauliflower with a spice rub, from an Ocado recipe and possibly also chicken fattoush
Tuesday
Spaghetti Bolognese to use up mince from Sunday's tacos
Wednesday
Barbecue
Thursday
Chicken chargrills and mashed potato for him, chicken cacciatore for me
Friday
Barbecue
Saturday
Lunch - my husband is working today so I will have a sandwich or salad
dinner- he will probably want to barbecue again assuming I've been able to restock food!
Sunday
Lunch - fresh pasta
Dinner - chicken tray bake
Biyernes, Hunyo 22, 2018
The company's website suggests it as a breakfast food spread on toast which I think might be a bit sweet - I don't even eat Nutella on toast though I do have it on croissants, but otherwise I use it in desserts. Or eat it straight from the jar with a spoon!
I wanted to make an easy dessert for a barbecue with family and found a recipe for Lotus Biscoff and chocolate mousse on the Ocado app. The recipe had step missing - it didn't tell you what to do with the egg whites that were listed in the ingredients - so I took a punt, and will explain here what I did.
I didn't buy any of the actual Lotus Biscoff biscuits as they are for decoration only and make the recipe quite expensive if you need to buy a whole packet only to use a few, unless you are going to eat the rest of the biscuits later!
The recipe says it serves 8; I did it for 5 and for 8 people the portions would be quite small, so you could use this quantity to serve 6
You need:
200g Lotus Biscoff smooth spread (see link above)
200g dark chocolate
5 eggs
200ml whipping cream - I used double cream as I couldn't get whipping cream and it worked fine
Heat the chocolate and Biscoff spread in the microwave until melted- I did on the 5 setting (medium heat) for 2 minutes.
Separate the egg and in one bowl, beat the egg whites with a whisk until stiff and set both whites and yolks aside. Whip the cream and set aside.
Beat the egg yolks one at a time into the chocolate mixture then fold in the beaten egg whites. Finally fold in the whipped cream.
Spoon into individual serving dishes and chill for a few hours until set; these will also keep overnight in the fridge.
The mousse was very rich but really light in texture, this is definitely something to make again!
I'm sharing this with CookBlogShare hosted by Everyday Healthy Recipes and We Should Cocoa hosted by Tin and Thyme
Linggo, Hunyo 17, 2018
This card has an inspirational sentiment that would be suitable for a birthday or someone who is going travelling - though I actually gave it to my dad for Father's Day.
It's made from free gifts that came with a recent issue of Creative Stamping magazine. I stamped a white card blank with some of the clear stamps that came with this issue - one was a train ticket, one was a passport stamp, one was a postmark that you might get on a postcard and so on. I stamped them in different coloured inks randomly over the card, then cut a circle from a piece of paper that came with the magazine with a map design. I cut a border from the same paper and stuck it around the edge of the card.
I stamped the plane stamp onto brown paper and cut around it, and stamped the sentiment onto white card which I mounted onto brown card and added those to the card as well.
I'm sending this to My Time to Craft where the challenge is a stamped background, Simply Create Too where the theme is 'for a male' and Ellibelle's Craft Wednesday where the theme is 'make it masculine'; Always Fun Challenges - for a male/dad and Stamps and Fun where the theme is travel and holidays.
Biyernes, Hunyo 15, 2018
Lunes, Hunyo 11, 2018
We had a very successful weekend at my parents - I say successful because it was the furthest S had been in a car (she's now 14 weeks old) and we didn't need to stop en route, she slept really well in the travel cot and apart from posseting milk all over the dress my mum bought her, and met her cousin C for the first time.
As it was a busy weekend I hadn't so much as thought about food for this week though we do have plenty in the freezer, and being on maternity leave means I can go and do more food shopping whenever I want - though the little lady does have a schedule of activities I need to fit it around, like baby massage and My Gym!
Monday
Leftovers from the weekend
Tuesday
I'm taking S into work to meet everyone today so want a dinner that won't take me long - I'll do something from the freezer with chips
Wednesday
mackerel fillet with new potatoes and garlic based on this recipe for me; chicken fajitas for him (bit of a faff to cook two totally different things but my husband doesn't eat fish!)
Thursday
Lasagne from my batch cooking in the freezer, and beef grillsteak for him. Or, BBQ if the weather is nice - it's not meant to be that hot this week
Friday
Butter chicken curry (cheat's sauce from a jar) I planned to do last week but didn't
Saturday
Lunch fresh pasta and garlic bread
Dinner tacos
Sunday - Father's Day
Lunch bacon sandwich
Dinner Toad in the hole with the new Richmond chicken sausages
As it was a busy weekend I hadn't so much as thought about food for this week though we do have plenty in the freezer, and being on maternity leave means I can go and do more food shopping whenever I want - though the little lady does have a schedule of activities I need to fit it around, like baby massage and My Gym!
Monday
Leftovers from the weekend
Tuesday
I'm taking S into work to meet everyone today so want a dinner that won't take me long - I'll do something from the freezer with chips
Wednesday
mackerel fillet with new potatoes and garlic based on this recipe for me; chicken fajitas for him (bit of a faff to cook two totally different things but my husband doesn't eat fish!)
Thursday
Lasagne from my batch cooking in the freezer, and beef grillsteak for him. Or, BBQ if the weather is nice - it's not meant to be that hot this week
Friday
Butter chicken curry (cheat's sauce from a jar) I planned to do last week but didn't
Saturday
Lunch fresh pasta and garlic bread
Dinner tacos
Sunday - Father's Day
Lunch bacon sandwich
Dinner Toad in the hole with the new Richmond chicken sausages
Linggo, Mayo 27, 2018
I want to tell you about a salad that I made and also a great product I found that will make taking photos for your blog or Instagram better straight away. But first the salad...
We went to a friend's barbecue yesterday which was lovely - my little girl enjoyed laying on a blanket in the shade and watching everything that was going on and meeting some of my friends for the first time. Here's a little photo of her for no reason other than she's cute!
My friend asked us to bring a salad and I decided to make a sort of Greek salad - it was very simple and doesn't really need a recipe! Simply half some cherry tomatoes, cut some feta cheese into cubes, slice some black olives and remove the stones (I actually used ready sliced ones from a jar) and tear some fresh basil leaves. Toss with a glug of olive oil and some salt and pepper for a simple but tasty salad.
I'm really pleased with this photo which I think is called a flat lay in style (i.e. a birds eye view). It was taken on my kitchen table which is made of glass - so it's a terrible surface for photograph and I usually put a mat or table cloth or something on it when I want to photograph food, but my table cloths always have creases and none of my mats are very big.
I came across a company called Photo Boards that makes backdrops for taking photos against. They use 'texture reproduction technology', whatever that is, so the boards look more three dimensional and not like a photo of a piece of wood - I think they actually look like you are using a piece of wood, rather than a large flat piece of PVC. They are lightweight and wipe clean which is great when you are photographing food, come in two sizes (I bought the 60x60cm one, the larger size) and a variety of designs and shades that look like you are photographing against wood, marble, linen etc. They are not cheap at £30 each so I only bought one, but I already want another!
We went to a friend's barbecue yesterday which was lovely - my little girl enjoyed laying on a blanket in the shade and watching everything that was going on and meeting some of my friends for the first time. Here's a little photo of her for no reason other than she's cute!
My friend asked us to bring a salad and I decided to make a sort of Greek salad - it was very simple and doesn't really need a recipe! Simply half some cherry tomatoes, cut some feta cheese into cubes, slice some black olives and remove the stones (I actually used ready sliced ones from a jar) and tear some fresh basil leaves. Toss with a glug of olive oil and some salt and pepper for a simple but tasty salad.
I'm really pleased with this photo which I think is called a flat lay in style (i.e. a birds eye view). It was taken on my kitchen table which is made of glass - so it's a terrible surface for photograph and I usually put a mat or table cloth or something on it when I want to photograph food, but my table cloths always have creases and none of my mats are very big.
I came across a company called Photo Boards that makes backdrops for taking photos against. They use 'texture reproduction technology', whatever that is, so the boards look more three dimensional and not like a photo of a piece of wood - I think they actually look like you are using a piece of wood, rather than a large flat piece of PVC. They are lightweight and wipe clean which is great when you are photographing food, come in two sizes (I bought the 60x60cm one, the larger size) and a variety of designs and shades that look like you are photographing against wood, marble, linen etc. They are not cheap at £30 each so I only bought one, but I already want another!
Lunes, Mayo 21, 2018
I also bought some die cut balloon shapes - it would be cheaper to buy the die in the long run and cut my own shapes but time is something I don't have a lot of at the moment (I'm writing this while the baby takes a nap but can already hear signs she is waking up!) so I just bought the shapes pre-cut.
I was playing around with shapes and thought the card would look nice with several layered embellishments in different shades of pink - there's quite a lot going on on this card but I really like how it turned out.
To start I covered most of a white square card blank with a piece of pink patterned paper, leaving a small white border clear around the edge. I stamped the flamingo onto a piece of cream card and coloured it pink with a Promarker pen.
I cut a scalloped shape around the edge of a slightly larger rectangle of purple paper (which was actually a recycled birthday card envelope I'd received) and mounted the flamingo card on that. I found a wide glittery pink ribbon in my stash that I'd bought and never used - it is quite wide and very pink and glittery so a bit OTT for most cards but I decided it worked for this one! I stuck that across the middle of the card using double sided sticky tape and mounted the flamingo topper on that.
The final touches were two die cut balloons, one in pink and one in purple, and a stamped 'happy birthday' sentiment from the 'Say it with stamps' set from All Night Media on a piece of the same purple paper as the topper which I cut out with a wavy line. The perfect card for someone who likes a bit of glitz and glamour!
Here are some of the products I used:
I'm sharing this with Stamplorations where the theme is 'things with wings'; Crafty Ribbons challenge, As You Like It where the theme is pink or blue, and Creatalicious Challenges where anything goes with the option of 'all that glitters'.
There's another bank holiday this weekend which doesn't mean as much as it used to now I'm not at work, but it will be nice to have my husband around for three days! We are going to a barbecue on the Saturday with friends and another one with family on Sunday and are also planning to barbecue at home a couple of times this week as my husband loves to use the Weber grill... so that's a lot of barbecue food!
Monday
Pie and mash (pies bought from Waitrose rather than made)
Tuesday
Forecast to be the nicest weather all week so I think we will barbecue - including Ocado recipes for chorizo and pesto flatbreads and barbecued new potatoes and griddled halloumi with herbs
Wednesday
Also supposed to be lovely weather so we might as well finish up the barbecue food!
Thursday
Chicken cacciatore from my batch cooking for me, chicken chargrills and mashed potato for him
Friday
Chicken goujons and chips for him, fishfingers and chips for me
Saturday
Lunch - bacon sandwich
Dinner- at a barbecue
Sunday
Lunch - breakfast burritos
Dinner - roast chicken unless the weather is too hot and I decide to do something else!
Monday
Pie and mash (pies bought from Waitrose rather than made)
Tuesday
Forecast to be the nicest weather all week so I think we will barbecue - including Ocado recipes for chorizo and pesto flatbreads and barbecued new potatoes and griddled halloumi with herbs
Wednesday
Also supposed to be lovely weather so we might as well finish up the barbecue food!
Thursday
Chicken cacciatore from my batch cooking for me, chicken chargrills and mashed potato for him
Friday
Chicken goujons and chips for him, fishfingers and chips for me
Saturday
Lunch - bacon sandwich
Dinner- at a barbecue
Sunday
Lunch - breakfast burritos
Dinner - roast chicken unless the weather is too hot and I decide to do something else!
Huwebes, Mayo 17, 2018
My little girl's first trip to the pub came when she was eight weeks old - my parents were staying for a few days and we went out to lunch. I thought a pub would be a good option as it should be fairly quiet on a week day lunchtime and have enough space for the buggy. I wanted to try somewhere I hadn't been before and some internet research threw up the Woodman in Banstead.It's part of Classic Inns, a chain I'm not familiar with, and the food was very much chain food - lacking finesse and fairly generic in terms of choices, but having said that, we had a pretty good meal. I had scampi and chips - the chips were a bit too crispy for my liking, but my parents enjoyed their food - my dad had a burger and my mum had the scampi as well.
The pub offers certain main courses for just £6 on a weekday lunchtime which is really good value; certain desserts can also be had for £3. It was dessert I was most excited about, when I initially checked out the menu - I had the 'cookie cup explosion' which consisted of a cookie base filled with chocolate brownie, marshmallow pieces, chocolate honeycomb, drizzled with chocolate and served with vanilla ice cream. It tasted as good as it sounds!
I wasn't blown away by the pub but it was nice enough, and I'd go back in the summer or certainly when my daughter is a bit older and wants to play in the garden.
Linggo, Mayo 13, 2018
Last summer I had a few days in Majorca with two friends; while I reviewed the hotel not long after we got back, with one thing and another I never got around to blogging about the other places we ate. As so much time has passed this can't be classed as a review, as for all I know the places have changed since then, but I still want to share with you a couple of things that we did.
We ate mostly in the hotel as it was all inclusive and the food wasn't bad (though not great); there wasn't a lot to do in the evenings if you didn't have kids though as the entertainment was very geared towards small people and the other bar away from the entertainment was a bit lacking in atmosphere. While going to the beach one day we had a drink in the Martinelli beach club which had very cool ecletic décor- one section was shabby chic, another looked like something out of Arabian nights.
Another day we visited Porto Cristo, a pretty little town about 20 km from Calas de Majorca. We were given a bus timetable at reception and it was actually the first place the bus stopped after our hotel so we didn't have to worry about not knowing where to get off, and it only took about 20 minutes (we seemed to be driving pretty fast!). The main draw in Porto Cristo is the Cuevas del Drach - dragon caves. The caves are open to the public and have an underground lake where you can watch a classical music concert being performed, then cross the lake yourself by boat, which is quite an experience and very different to other caves I've visited.
You can only enter the caves on the hour, every hour, apart from 1pm when they close for lunch; the idea is that the tourists all walk together in a group at the same pace, though you can stop and look at the cave walls with their different features in your own time; it took us about 40 minutes then you all arrive at the underground auditorium at roughly the same time. The musicians appear on a boat on the far side of the lake and travel across, giving a ten minute concert, which is really atmospheric. Then you can either walk back to the cave exit or queue to get on a small boat and take a short trip across the lake, which I recommend.
It's a short walk from the caves to the centre of Porto Cristo, via the harbour where there are lots of restaurants and shops as well as boats to look at. We chose a bar and restaurant called Eternal, right on the harbour front; my friends served a tapas dish that was designed for two, while I had salmon with mango vinaigrette and the side dish of the day. The English version of the menu translated 'accompaniment' as 'garrison' (someone used the wrong dictionary definition there!) which was potato wedges. For dessert I had a white chocolate crepe with cream and chocolate ice cream which as delicious, though it was room temperature and I had expected the crepe to be hot so the ice cream would melt. We enjoyed the view from our table and headed back to our hotel as the sun started to go down.
I think this will be my last holiday for a while now I have a newborn baby!
We ate mostly in the hotel as it was all inclusive and the food wasn't bad (though not great); there wasn't a lot to do in the evenings if you didn't have kids though as the entertainment was very geared towards small people and the other bar away from the entertainment was a bit lacking in atmosphere. While going to the beach one day we had a drink in the Martinelli beach club which had very cool ecletic décor- one section was shabby chic, another looked like something out of Arabian nights.
Another day we visited Porto Cristo, a pretty little town about 20 km from Calas de Majorca. We were given a bus timetable at reception and it was actually the first place the bus stopped after our hotel so we didn't have to worry about not knowing where to get off, and it only took about 20 minutes (we seemed to be driving pretty fast!). The main draw in Porto Cristo is the Cuevas del Drach - dragon caves. The caves are open to the public and have an underground lake where you can watch a classical music concert being performed, then cross the lake yourself by boat, which is quite an experience and very different to other caves I've visited.
You can only enter the caves on the hour, every hour, apart from 1pm when they close for lunch; the idea is that the tourists all walk together in a group at the same pace, though you can stop and look at the cave walls with their different features in your own time; it took us about 40 minutes then you all arrive at the underground auditorium at roughly the same time. The musicians appear on a boat on the far side of the lake and travel across, giving a ten minute concert, which is really atmospheric. Then you can either walk back to the cave exit or queue to get on a small boat and take a short trip across the lake, which I recommend.
It's a short walk from the caves to the centre of Porto Cristo, via the harbour where there are lots of restaurants and shops as well as boats to look at. We chose a bar and restaurant called Eternal, right on the harbour front; my friends served a tapas dish that was designed for two, while I had salmon with mango vinaigrette and the side dish of the day. The English version of the menu translated 'accompaniment' as 'garrison' (someone used the wrong dictionary definition there!) which was potato wedges. For dessert I had a white chocolate crepe with cream and chocolate ice cream which as delicious, though it was room temperature and I had expected the crepe to be hot so the ice cream would melt. We enjoyed the view from our table and headed back to our hotel as the sun started to go down.
I think this will be my last holiday for a while now I have a newborn baby!
Lunes, Mayo 7, 2018
Towards the end of my maternity leave - and right after my baby was born - I developed the famous 'nesting instinct' and decided to sort out my kitchen cupboards. It's been really helpful because now I'm short of time I can find everything more easily - I also made a fair bit of space by throwing out packets of food I'd forgotten I'd bought that were long out of date!
I found a packet of poppy seeds - still in date - which I'd bought for a recipe ages ago and never used. I was expecting neighbours around the following afternoon to meet baby S and thought a lemon and poppy seed cake - lemon is commonly paired with poppy seeds for some reason - would be a nice easy one to make if I did it as a loaf cake.
I used this recipe from BBC Good Food which turned out really well - very light and fluffy and surprisingly moist. In the end the neighbours had to cancel and reschedule for the following week so I ended up eating most of this cake myself!
The mixture looks quite odd when you add the poppy seeds:
Much better when the other ingredients are in.
Before baking in the loaf tin:
The baked cake, cooling on a rack.
With the lemon glaze
Perfect with a cup of tea!
.I'm sharing this with CookBlogShare and Love Cake hosted by JibberJabberUK.
Miyerkules, Mayo 2, 2018
I have quite a lot of silver and gold outline stickers, and the sentiments and borders are great but I never really got on with using the shapes, as the fine gold outline often doesn't show up that well and looks a bit bare. That is, until I realised I could colour them in! I used Promarkers pens which are really good for this sort of thing (see link below to purchase on Amazon).
To make the card I matted a square of white paper onto a piece of blue card and coloured in the outline sticker, and used a 'congratulations' outline sticker at the bottom.
I'm sending this to Craftaholics R Us where the theme is baby cards and I Love Promarkers which has an optional theme of clean and simple (CAS).
Mag-subscribe sa:
Mga Post (Atom)
