He's Alive!

(now I may be giving you a spoiler here, given that today is Good Friday, but just wanted to share that it turns out ok!)

Recipe book

Quick post written one handed as JJ's sleeping on the other!

I bought myself a recipe book yesterday and today I've been writing in recipes from random scraps of paper, most of which I found yesterday when I gave my 'baking stuff etc' cupboards a good tidy up and clear out.

I found one recipe, which originally Bekki found somewhere, written on four different bits of paper,meaning I'd rung one or other of the family to get it on four separate occasions!

Do you have a popular family recipe you'd share with me? Either in the comments or on your blog, with a link in the comments. Pretty please? And I'll share the banana cake recipe one day soon when I have two hands to type with!

(It amuses me every time that blogger's spell check fails to recognise the word 'blog')

Cooking

When I was little my dad was diagnosed with coeliac disease, this means (very basically!) that his body can't tolerate gluten, and he needs a gluten-free diet. Twenty plus years ago, the availability of gluten-free products was very limited, and those that there were didn't always taste good. That meant that it was better for my parents to get gluten-free flour, and make things from scratch.

I don't really remember what it was like before my dad was diagnosed, but I'm pretty certain my mum did a fair amount of cooking from scratch anyway, but after, they cooked pretty much everything from scratch, and I grew up thinking that was normal.

I am sooooooo thankful that that's the case. I was just looking on facebook and one blog or other was asking people their essential freezer meals, and then attempting to re-create them from scratch. I had a think about that, and realised I don't really even think of buying any freezer meals*, cos I just think that fresh/home cooked would be better.

I'm not saying I don't buy junk. sure, everyone does. But I've never bought a cake mix in my life - it just wouldn't even occur to me to do so!

I think what I'm trying to say is thank you mummy and daddy for the way you raised me, teaching me to cook from scratch. Cos it seems that's a skill a lot of other people are attempting to learn later on in life!

* In the spirit of full disclosure, I do sometimes by ready meals off the reduced shelf for Menard to take to work for lunch. But I wouldn't dream of eating them myself! I'd much rather have homecooked lasagne than the stuff you buy as a ready meal. 

Jaiden's approach to eating

Jaiden's reacently got into using a spoon (or at least trying!)

But now he wants to use it for everything.

Sandwich? Bring on that spoon!

I *think* that's progress

Morning conversations

Soph: I want more milk
Mum: There's still milk in your cup, you can drink that
Soph: It's too wet
Mum: What?!?!?!


 Mum: Jaiden, kiss Soph to say sorry
Jaiden: Mwah
Soph: *wiping slobber off her cheek* Jaiden, that's NOT a nice kiss

Pick me, pick me

I've just been promoting my blog facebook page a little to my friends and I got a couple of new 'likes'.
That made me think that maybe I ought to actually write something on my blog. Oh the pressure.

( If you're on facebook and want to like my page, it's here
While you're at it, you might as well also like our business page too, go on, you know you want to! )

Well, it's Mothers' day here in the UK, so whether you're in the UK or not, if you're a mummy, then I'm wishing you a happy mothers' day. And to any of you for whom Mothers' day is tinged with sadness, then I pray that God's peace and comfort will be you.

Muffins and Mush!

This morning I've been productive in the kitchen and at using up things from my freezer that are from before my big de-frosting session last weekend (by which I mean the one ten days ago, and not the one that's just gone).

I made 'Healthy pumpkin banana muffins' roughly from this recipe. It's the second time I've done them, and the recipe is definitely a keeper (well, a keeper to continually mess with!).

I used all wholemeal flour instead of a mix of white and wholemeal, a mix of wheatgerm and wheat bran instead of oat bran. I made applesauce from scratch. Last time I used a mix of pumpkin that mum and I had cooked (two different pumpkins, a pot of each!). This time I had no pumpkin, so I boiled and mashed sweet potato and that totally worked!  For the spices I did a good shake of mixed spice and a a bit more than that of cinnamon. Instead of nuts I put about 150g plain chocolate.

 I also made 'sausage and vegetable mush'. Which despite it's name, is actually yummy and not as weird looking as you might think!

I took out of the freezer the sausagemeat, home cooked black eye beans, and mashed banana. I'll be putting back in 5 pots of sausage stuff, some of 46 muffins (depending on how many we eat first!), and two pots each of applesauce and sweet potato. Result!

Easy food to give to new mums (and dads)

We have lots of pregnant ladies in church right now, and many of them are due in the next few days, weeks, months.

We were so blessed when people brought us food in those early days, so I'm setting up a rota of people to take food over to them in the first week or two.

I was going to make a list of foods that would be good to take, but then a friend of mine shared this website with me, and I'd definitely recommend checking it out if you know someone who'd appreciate a meal, whether it be new mum, or old!