Baking: Cranberry and Pistachio Biscotti

When I found an image of Diamonds for Dessert's Cranberry and Pistachio Biscotti on Pinterest, I know I just had to try them. I'm a new convert the the world of Biscotti, but found this recipe easy to follow and the combination of the red cranberries and green pistachio's makes for an attractive display - and look great in these kilner jars.

I'm meeting one of my neighbors for coffee this week and will definately be taking some of these with me

Bento Box Lunch: Toy Story Aliens

Inspired by something I found on Pinterest (as so many of my projects are these days) I have discovered the Japanese art of decorative 'bento boxes' or more specifically 'Kyaraben' (character bento). If you haven't heard of them before Bento are individual portions of a meal presented in stacking boxes or compartments. Presentation of food is very important in Japanese cuisine, and 'packed lunches' are no exception - sometimes the layout and design of the food is very elaborate. In modern culture many of the bento designs are being crafted to look like movie or video game characters - often sculpting with sushi rice. What I found quite interesting was the way that some western mother's are now discovering bento techniques as a form of food art and a way to encourage fussy eaters to try new foods. Lunchboxawesome is a fantastic source of inspiration and is well worth a visit.

So I decided to give it a go myself. My son is rather a fussy eater, and currently asking for a Toy Story party next birthday so what else could I start with? I found this simple cucumber alien idea at Disney family and it set the creative wheels in motion. The 'spaceship' is red pepper, cheese and apple. with a grape and raisin space background, cheese stars with a cheesey puff planet and the aliens are made with cucumber, eyes cut from apple slices and halved peas. I admit I've cheated a bit by presented mine on a plate with sides as neither child needs packed lunches yet.

And as you can see he was really pleased with it, and ate every last bit even the red pepper! My daughter demolished all of hers and shouting 'a-len' through all of lunch :D

A place of everything and everything in its place.

Today I thought I'd share a little obsession with you - although, I'm not always the tidiest person, I am a complete sucker for organisation and compartmentalisation. I'm the kind of person who would have a drawer for spoons, one for knifes, another for forks and one just for egg timers ... not to mentioning my childhood compulsion for putting my coloured pencils in rainbow order, lol.

The kids arts'n'crafts cupboard was a mess so recently it got a make-over, albeit just with cheap tupperware pots and printed out labels. Not only do these keep everything neat, but the kids know where to find everything - although the finger paint might need keeping under lock and key ;)

And for balance here is a selection of my crafting boxes including ribbon cut offs, loose buttons, A4 papers, scrapbook papers, and my glue guns. I love these clear boxes, as they are so neat and they fit perfectly into my drawers.


Super Easy Yorkshire Pudding Recipe

As a 'yorkshire lass' (a title I'm keeping even thou we moved away when I was 3) a roast isn't a roast without some Yorkshire puddings and lashings of gravy. Despite this I have never actually made one from scratch before, and as we were all out of the frozen variety my Mum convinced me to try her super easy recipe for making them, I was surprised at how well they came out so thought I'd share the recipe.

Yorkshire Puddings

(makes about 12)

1/2 a cup of plain flour

1/2 a cup of eggs

1/2 a cup of cold milk

12 tsps of vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 200°C/400°F/gas mark 6.

Pour vegetable oil into each of the of recesses of a bun tray (enough to cover the base, about 1 tsp each).

Put the oiled tray into the oven for 5 minutes or until oil very very hot.

Carefully take the tray out, place on a heat proof surface and quickly spoon some of the mixture into each of the recesses before the oil cools, about a dessert spoon each, there should be a little sizzle as the mixture meets the oil.

Put quickly back into the oven and leave for about 20 minutes or until fully risen and brown (don't open the oven door during the rising stage).

Serve up straight from the oven with lots of gravy and the Roast meat of your choice (although traditionally this should be Beef)



Happy Easter!!!

I hope everyone had a great Easter. We've been really busy with Easter crafts, walks and a little baking. Everyone was really spoilt with chocolate eggs this year - I think we'll be eating chocolate till Christmas at this rate!

We made the traditional Crispy Cakes: Melted mars bars, rice crispies, and cadbury's mini eggs :) These were rather too morish, and no good for the wedding diet, lol! We also induldged in lots of hot crossed buns and eggs with soliders :)

The Easter Bunny must have been out in the rain, as we needed our wellies for Easter Eggs hunting this year. The kids really enjoyed it, and we were really impressed at how JJ helped his Sister to find them and didn't just grab them all for his own bucket.

Easter crafts with the kids

It's been a dull rainy day in Wiltshire today, but that didn't stop us going for a little family walk in the morning. Mr S is now busy making a Curry for tonight's dinner, meanwhile the kids and I have been doing a little Easter crafting.

They both made Easter cards earlier in the week at a Hobbycraft craft event so today we decided to make Easter pictures to go on the fridge. Granny had given them both a set of foam stickers so the kids used felt tips to draw on a piece of green card and then used the stickers to decorate. These are entirely their own work, with a little help from Mummy to stop the long 'happy easter' sticker getting stuck to itself.

We also made this years additions to the Easter Tree decorations. I drew around a cookie cutter and cut chick shapes out of yellow card which the kids then coloured in, we used glue dots to stick on feathers for tails and then hole punched the tops and threaded a ribbon through.

Good friday family beach trip

Our 'Good Friday' family tradition is to visit the beach - come rain, or shine or snow or hail... OK, so its quite a new tradition, only 3 years standing but all traditions have to start somewhere. We were prepared for bad weather today as there is snow in some parts of the country so we packed the wellies, coats, jumpers, with the buckets and spades and headed for Sandbanks beach.

  We made all of our names out of shells - the kids had a fun collecting them in their buckets and helping to spell out their names - but I think their best game was dismantling them afterwards!

The kids had a fantastic time: paddling, chasing wet dogs, building sandcastles, collecting shells and getting generally covered in sand and seawater :D And we were lucky with the weather, although a jumper was a necessity the sun shone all day.

Oh and I couldn't resist extending my name into the domain name for a bit of shameless beach side advertising, lol!