Top five kitchen gadgets for healthy, thrifty eating

Leave a reply

Breadmaker – while I can’t say I manage to make bread every day or even every week, breadmakers are brilliant for making a loaf without leaving the house. When I visited Panasonics HQ for a day as a blog ambassador, I learnt they can also really help cut costs, as a loaf, including electricity and ingredients can be as little as 40p, that’s nearly a third of a supermarket loaf and so much better for you too.

Handheld liquidiser – perfect for weaning foods, but long after that these gadgets are a quick way to appease fussy easters, by disguising lumps, bumps and vegetables in a meal. Lentil and vegetable bolognaise becomes smooth pasta sauce in seconds. Vegetables in soup are made invisible to the naked eye. Also the perfect tool for a superfast banana milkshake or frozen fruit smoothie.

Juicer – Kids love nothing more than seeing carrots and apples vanish into a juicer and come out the other end as juice. Plus you can sneak in all manner of fruit and vegetables they wouldn’t normally touch with a barge pole. Raw food is so good for you. Ours is a bit dusty and goes through phases of being used and forgotten, but I can’t give it up.

Microwave - I wouldn’t cope without ours, it is such a shortcut, not to ready meals or junk I might add, but to lots of healthy options and thriftyness. I am constantly warming leftovers, throwing a in some frozen veg to pack a few more of their five a day into a meal, warming milk and juice or making healthy porridge for breakfast. There are some cheap microwaves here.

Steamer – I love the bamboo ones, perfect for plonking on top of a pan of boiling pasta or rice. But electric ones can also be a great way to steam lots of things at once.

I have heard good things about soupmakers, but haven’t tasted them yet. I have a slow cooker but I can’t say we get on so well yet, although lots of people rave about them.

What’s your favourite kitchen gadget?

Commissioned post

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Share and Enjoy

How to Celebrate World Book Day with All the Family

Leave a reply

Last week I sent my daughter up to her room to hunt for a character in a book she would like to be for World Book Day. She came down five minutes later with a Barbie book. As an English graduate, feminist and someone who believes in positive role models, I felt like I had pretty much failed her as a mother at that point. But all is not lost, today’s guest post has reminded me of the fun of dressing up for this event…

Unless your child is a natural-born bookworm, it can be really difficult to get them to engage with reading. Some children adore reading more than anything, but I’m sure most other parents can agree that it can sometimes prove difficult to get your child to sit down for long enough to read the first page!

Many children aren’t lucky enough to live in a household with lots of books readily available to them, which is kind of where World Book Day comes in. Every year children are given a book token at school, which they can use to redeem one of eight books on offer from a local bookstore.

This gives less privileged children a chance to engage with fantastic literature, though it’s a great day for all children to get involved with reading! There are different books every year for a variety of age groups, meaning there’s always something for everyone.

Lots of really famous authors get involved with the event, sometimes even writing a brand new, exclusive book for the event. For example, this year there’s a brand new Horrid Henry book included in the books on offer, which is sure to be a big hit with lots of kids!

If you’re not one of the lucky ones whose little ones were born with a love of reading, there are lots of ways to make World Book Day really exciting for them (and you!).

Dressing up is fantastic fun for every occasion, and I found out that fancydressball.co.uk have created a special World Book Day section just for this occasion!

How about dressing up as Alice in Wonderland and re-enacting the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party whilst reading from the book? Or what about dressing up as Aslan from The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe? Perfect for kids who love to roar!

Dressing up is a great way to engage your children with all activities, be it literature or history or current events.

Commissioned Guest Post

Share and Enjoy

Guest Post: Spring is coming, but what to do?

Leave a reply

Gary and Pony by gem66, on Flickr

It looks like winter is finally leaving, and soon a bit of sun will start peeking through the clouds. That means it’s time to get the kids outside and enjoying some fresh air.

But it can be tough thinking of new things to do, especially after a winter of hibernation, when it is so easy to get over-familar with the sofa and television. There are so many ways to get the family spending some quality time together in the great outdoors, here are five ideas:

Treasure hunts

The kids might not be too keen to leave the house and their games console too easily, but with the promise of treasure they’re bound to go leaping out of the door.

In a park or somewhere leafy, think of where you want to hide the treasure. It could be some
chocolate or a little gift. Then draw a treasure map to bring out the little pirate within and help them find it.

Ride on a horse or a pony

Pony trekking is a fun activity for all the family to enjoy. Plodding around the countryside on the back of a pony is fun for the kids and there are great sights for you to see. Why not really get into the spirit of things, and get hold of a pair of riding boots like these to look the part.

Go to the zoo

If you want to get your kids used to the idea of ponies, you can take them to a local zoo. Many zoos have petting areas so kids can stroke and feed baby animals. And they
will be fascinated about some of the more unusual animals, like giraffes and monkeys!

Walk the dog

If you’ve got a dog, it’s a great way to get the kids outside and active. It’s so much fun throwing sticks and balls for a happy canine, and kids will love chasing and running around too! If you don’t have a dog, maybe a friend, neighbour or stray dog’s home would like some help dog walking.

Go camping in the back yard

If you’ve got a grassy garden, help the kids set up a tent. When it gets dark, you can huddle inside and tell each other ghost stories.

Image from flickr by gem66 used under creative commons licence.

Commissioned guest post.

Share and Enjoy

Easy Scones recipe.

Leave a reply

Scones were always a mystery to me, something baked by ladies in an era gone by, something you bought, or had brought to you, with all the trimmings, in a cafe. Until I realised how easy peasy and quick they are to make. Just Flour, butter, milk. For such a simple recipe, they are so easy to transform into something amazing, with a bit of cheese, some cherries or some sultanas.

Here the basic recipe can be adapted into all kinds of scone, perfect treat after school or when there isn’t much left in the cupboards to eat.

Ingredients

50g butter

225g SR flour

120ml milk

25g sugar OR 25g dried fruit (sultanas, raisins, chopped apricots, glace cherries) OR 75g Cheddar cheese.

Method

Set oven to Gas 7/220C/425F

Rub fat and flour together between fingers and thumbs to make breadcrumbs.

Add either sugar, fruit or cheese. For cheese, save a little to decorate the tops before baking.

Pour in the milk. Stir with a knife.

Handling the dough as little as possible, cut out shapes or rounds with a cutter and place on a greased baking tray. If you don’t have the time for this, make a scone round instead, just flatten into a round shape on the baking tray and score across into eighths lightly across the top, ready to rip apart when it is baked.

Brush with milk for a glossy finish. Add some grated cheese for cheese scones.

Bake for 15-20 mins for small scones and 20-25 mins for a large round.

Eat on the day you bake them. Serve with butter, and jam for sweet scones.

Share and Enjoy

How to help your child with maths

Leave a reply

I often say, Maths isn’t my strong point, but that’s so easily said. It would be more accurate to say I’ve realised Maths isn’t my preference. When my GCSE mock result stood out like a sore thumb my parents agreed to a tutor. I soon caught up but I can’t say I’ve ever relished anything mathematical, but I am so glad I have a good basic grounding.

When I became a parent I worried teaching my children about maths wasn’t going to happen naturally, I’d have to make a concious effort. But then Maths is everywhere, you just have to make a game of it. Here are a few tricks I have counted along the way, which I think I can keep making more challenging as they grow:

Weighing and measuring – a cake, a height chart, a new piece of furniture, your feet, your toys…

Counting things, steps, sweets, coins.

Sharing things fairly between different numbers of people, or toys.

Buying things and budgeting for things from 1p sweets to a bedroom makeover or holiday. How much does this cost, how many of these can we buy with…?

Owning a piggy bank, opening a bank account.

Bus/train timetables – When is the next bus coming. How long should the journey take? Are we earlier or later than planned?

TV schedules – how long is your favourite programme and how many of your favourite programmes fit in the hour of TV I said you could watch? How much do you watch in a week, or on average?

Clocks – What time is is, how long until we have lunch, go out, go to bed? Can you be timekeeper, we need to leave the house at 8.30am?

Timing things like getting dressed, walking to school, can you estimate how long it will take?

Guessing which item in the cupboard is the heaviest, lining them up in order or guessing which plastic container will hold the most water in the bath.

Describing the shapes or even angles in a picture, a junk model, or out and about. Sticking shapes, playing guess my shape by asking questions about the shape.

Maths is about solving problems, so encouraging children to discuss their thinking and share how they solved the problem are brilliant things to encourage.

A few tricks that keep me going, do you have any tips to share?

For more on Maths Tuition for older children click here.

Commissioned guest post

Share and Enjoy

Making Time with your Kids Count

Leave a reply

It’s not always easy having kids. Parenthood can be very different to what we might have expected. This quote reminds me, if there’s one thing that’s important to give up when you have kids, it’s time, but time can seem difficult to find sometimes.

Kids need to spend as much time with parents as they can. To bond, to learn social awareness and everything parents can teach them. I think it also helps them learn how to occupy themselves, so it is also an investment in more free time later. When it comes to spending time together, I find we are all happiest when we are all doing something new, me included.

It is so easy to get stuck in a rut with time. There’s so many different ways to spend time with your kids, here’s a few that we’ve liked recently, would love to hear yours!

Indoors

1. What about a bit of painting? Watercolours and recycled paper isn’t expensive, paint pictures of each other. It’s great for kids’ self-confidence when you put their artwork on show on the fridge or around the house.

2. Charades is a tried and tested way of having fun indoors. It’s great for improving kids’
communication skills. Click through here to find out how to play charades.

3. Kids love baking together, things like cornflake cakes don’t even need any cooking. Scones only need flour, milk and butter, and meringues only need egg whites and caster sugar.

4. Play hide and seek, or sardines.

5. We all need a family movie sometimes, but why not make an occasion of it, make tickets, make a ticket booth, sell the tickets, line up seats in the living room, dim the lights, make popcorn, dress up as ushers with torches.

6. Put on the kettle, get out the biscuits, get out the craft box sit round the table and see where it takes you. The tea and biscuits tempt the adults, before you know it you’re all creating together.

Outdoors

1. Playing a game of catch or tag is a great way to get kids moving, and it’s so much fun! This weekend we made up a variation based on moving like a ninja after watching Kung Fu panda.

2. Among other great ideas, the Swedish kid’s clothes brand Polarn O. Pyret suggested making stilts. They have some other fun spring activity suggestions with worksheets. You have to be around to help out with hammer and nails, but the pride kids get from helping construct something is great for their self-esteem.

3. Making a game of spotting things outdoors fascinates kids. Make a list of things that might be seen, and have them tick off everything as they go along. It’s a great way to encourage them to ask questions about what they see, make them walk further, as well as spending quality time with you.

4. Chalks are a great way to take their artistic side outdoors and can lead to all sorts of games, chalk letters, numbers, pictures, chalk a shop front, chalk hopscotch, chalk a football net or chalk circles to bounce a ball in.

5. Use garden canes or cut down branches to build a den or wigwam, or even make a mini one for a soft toy with twigs.

What have you done lately that’s made your time with your kids special?

Share and Enjoy

Girls Night In or Out?

1 Reply

Night Out by ahisgett, on Flickr

I could probably count on one hand the nights out I have had in the last year, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been socialising. Staying in has definitely become the new going out for me since I became a parent and hit my mid thirties.

It’s cheaper, warmer, cosier, doesn’t require a babysitter, plays good music, has nice decor, doesn’t have sticky floors or stumbling, slurring drunken people (well…ok) But nights in don’t have to be at my house, I’ve enjoyed girls nights in recently in a windmill, a hot tub, a kitchen, a living room, a den.

So does a time come when girls’ nights out become girls’ nights in? Yes, according to Ladbrokes bingo who recently conducted some research into women’s socialising. 57% of respondents agreed that nights out lose their appeal in favour of home entertaining, dinner parties and well, girls’ nights in. 13% were die hard girls’ night outers, and 30% said ‘maybe’ the time would come for nights in.

There were minor annoyances, like the 26% who had experienced toilet roll stuck to a shoe, 7% who’d got their dress tucked into their knickers and 31% who’d laddered tights early on in the night.

Joking aside, why do women really prefer staying in? Well, 31% said they preferred a night in with the girls to encountering sleazy men, 13% were dodging an ex and 32% preferred not having to wait in the cold for a taxi.

What makes the best topic of conversation? 22% of women said men, 36% relationships and sex, 1% said jobs. I’m not sure that reflects my best conversations, *racks brain for more philosophical conversations from recent girls nights in* oh, all right then, it probably does.

Overall 66% of women said that a girl’s night in was more fun than a night out, I’m with them. But I do think it is important, especially for parents, to leave the house, although I’m more than happy with that being to visit someone else’s house.

Where do you stand, out or in?

Image from flickr by used under creative commons licence, click image to view.

Commissioned post

Share and Enjoy

Why family travel is good for kids

Leave a reply

This guest post really made me think about how important holidays are as a family, It takes a while when you first become a parent, to accept holidays aren’t like the escapes of your child free days, so it is really lovely to be reminded of all the benefits of holidays to the family:

Holiday trips are therapeutic for adults, but they present even greater opportunities for children travelling with their families. Depending on the chosen destination, (check out this best family holiday destination list) family travel sparks children’s imaginations as they see new places and experience different cultures.

Quality time spent with family also offers a way to relieve the stress of their daily school routines. Holidays present families with opportunities to create special memories that children remember all their lives.

Developing The Creative Child

A future Pulitzer Prize winner may be living closer to one’s home than otherwise thought. Children who are bent in the literary direction often have experienced events early in their lives that feed their imaginations. Young children are especially curious and see things from a unique perspective.

Holiday trips give them the forum to see new things, ask questions, and form opinions that shape the way they view the world. Children who with their parents’ help can cultivate the skills needed to put their thoughts and experiences into words are on their way to becoming well rounded adults if not Pulitzer Prize candidates.

Holidays Are A Break From School Stress

Many do not realize the amount of stress that today’s children face. They are under pressure to do well in school and in extracurricular activities. The amount of homework, preparation for classroom activities, and exams that are given to children slightly resembles full-time employment.

Children are also involved with extracurricular activities due to peer pressure, personal desire, or parent pressure. These activities coupled with family chores put a great deal of stress on children early. Holiday trips are a way for them to just have fun and act their age without caring about meeting performance expectations. These frequent breaks allow children to return to their routine activities refreshed from the quality time spent with their families.

Holiday Trips and the Sneaky Educational Opportunity

Family holiday trips are fantastic learning opportunities for children without them even realizing it. When it comes to school coursework, some children state that they are just not interested in certain subjects. Their lack of interest may come from a true dislike of the subject, or they may feel that way because of the way the subject’s materials have been presented to them.

If the latter reason is the case, an exciting holiday trip may help change their perspective. For instance, children who dislike science taught in a classroom setting may enjoy a naturalist-guided snorkelling trip to a place teeming with a variety of marine life. Today’s technology allows for underwater photography so the aquatic flora and fauna seen below the sea may be discussed further when the family reaches dry land. Family camping trips also present many opportunities to place the subject of natural sciences in a better light for children.

Culture Shock Them

Although the internet is a great tool used to introduce people to different cultures worldwide, there is nothing quite like experiencing those cultures up close and personal. Children who travel with their families on holidays abroad get to do just that. During these highly educational trips, children get to sample different cuisines and experience the communication styles of different people.

While children are learning a second language, holiday trips abroad to the homes of native speakers are especially beneficial to them. Prudent parents will, however, adequately prepare their young ones before taking trips abroad by informing them of known cultural taboos to avoid any international incidents.

If you are planning to go on family holiday this summer then start looking for flights and hotels as soon as possible and also try to be flexible with dates, as you might find that mid-week flight rates are much lower than weekends. There are lot of flight deal comparison sites like – cheapflights, travesupermarket etc. and for hotel deals you can check out Expedia, hotels.com, booking.com etc.

Share and Enjoy

Relationship Glue

1 Reply

A couple of things nudged my thinking about marriage and partnerships as a parent this week. I read an inspiring article in a magazine I tend to view as for older women than myself, which had reader’s perspectives on what makes a happy marriage or partnership. While my fellow mid 30s parents mourn the lack of some of the wildness and freedom of their twenties’ relationships, it was nice to read women in their 50s and 60s reflect that relationships grow into stronger friendships. It is easy to forget that.

Secondly, I am taking part in #tokensofaffection on Twitter a project in which a range of bloggers are documenting the little everyday things that glue a relationship together. It has been lovely to see how simple some of these tokens are, yet we don’t always recognise them until asked to take a photo of them. So I did a little looking round the internet and I bring you relationship glue:

Cups of Tea. A well timed cup of tea is the most wonderful token of affection. In the words of philosopher Bernard Paul Heroux:

There is no trouble so great or grave that cannot be much diminished by a nice cup of tea

Non verbal communication. Hugs, kisses, pats, smiles, eye brow raises, winks, strokes, ruffles. This silent stuff is far stronger relationship glue than people realise. Which sometimes lead on to:

Sex. I will never forget the first wedding I went to as a teenager, the vicar stood there and told the happy couple to have sex. Well, obviously he put it more delicately, but he said it god’s gift and crucial to a relationship. I’m not religious, but experts agree he has a point:

‘All the evidence points to the fact that an active sex life keeps couples together,’ says Dr Geoff Hackett, leading expert in sexual medicine and former chairman of the British Society for Sexual Medicine.

Team work. Trying to play on the same team and not against each other when it comes to the kids. Taking over when one team member is struggling. Taking on bathtime, bedtime, breakfast solo to give the other a break. Easier said than done, sometimes it would be far easier not to have to compromise with someone else’s parenting style. But in the words of Mark Twain:

To get the full value of joy, you must have someone to divide it with.

Talking. One in four couples talk to their partner for less than 10 minutes a day. Two thirds would rather be on social media than talking to their partner according to research by Bingham’s.

However, actually talking about your relationship might make things worse according to Love and Stosny, the psychotherapists behind the book How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About it. While talking about feelings soothes women, it makes men physically uncomfortable, they begin to show their discomfort physically which is when women think they aren’t listening. So pick another topic and the rest may follow.

Gifts. They don’t have to be expensive and they don’t have to be for a reason, but little surprises are a lovely reminder of how important you are to each other.

Do you have any tips on relationship glue?

Share and Enjoy

Raising Girls Steven Biddulph

10 Replies

Steven Biddulph’s book Raising Girls is coming out next week. I suspect the bigger trials with parenting a girl lie ahead of me, and what I read about Biddulph’s book reinforces this.

The combined pressures of society, business and media on girls hammers home tough messages that favour body over mind. If I think about it too long I am horrified by the extent to which girl’s toys, programmes, popular culture role models and clothes have become so sexualised and body concious.

Biddulph says it has never been harder to be a girl. But how does he suggest parents deal with it? He suggests avoiding toys that suggest being a girl is just about looks and body shape and opting for practical rather than too girly clothes. Nurture talents and interests and confidence and provide role models outside of the mother daughter relationship.

I think this is sound advice, I think I see the pay off in a daughter who is confident, creative and hates dolls, pretty and pink. But I also see the vulnerabilities in her. They’ve set in via school, though wanting to fit in with others and through pop music, which is riddled with over sexualised role models. For me that the missing link is teaching girls to deconstruct the media and society’s messages. Again, from what I read about the book, Biddulph point that many girls lack an understanding of basic feminism, the knowledge that it isn’t their fault, but inequality at play.

This avoidance of stereotypes and encouragement of role models and interests reminds me in many ways of the advice in Raising Boys. I really look forward to reading Raising Girls.

Parent Shaped

notes from parenthood

Top five kitchen gadgets for healthy, thrifty eating

Share and Enjoy

How to Celebrate World Book Day with All the Family

Share and Enjoy

Guest Post: Spring is coming, but what to do?

Share and Enjoy

Easy Scones recipe.

Share and Enjoy

How to help your child with maths

Share and Enjoy

Making Time with your Kids Count

Share and Enjoy

Girls Night In or Out?

Share and Enjoy

Why family travel is good for kids

Share and Enjoy

Relationship Glue

Share and Enjoy

Raising Girls Steven Biddulph

Share and Enjoy