Bank Holiday "Baking"

I'm not sure you can call melting a leftover Easter egg, butter and golden syrup together, then mixing rice krispies in "baking", but that's what we did today...

Rice krispy cakes made even better with sprinkles!

As bank holiday baking projects go, this was a good one. I sometimes do proper baking with Izzy, but she gets frustrated by not being able to do everything herself. Whereas with these, she was able to do everything and Toby was even able to help too. And there was only one bowl for me to wash up afterwards - win!

After we'd eaten some of the chocolate krispy cakes, we headed into town for a bit of shopping followed by lunch at Costa. I had a really tasty mushroom and cheese toastie, and an only-ok strawberry lemonade...

And then we went home to do Miss Isabellie's exercise routine! Haha, it was so cute - she'd got it all written out in her notebook and stood at the front of the room telling Liam & I the instructions!!

The teacher herself...!

Dinner was something I've been meaning to cook all weekend - one of our favourites, butternut squash risotto...

Toby won the award for the weirdest eater. He ate all his butternut squash first, to the extent that we all thought that was the only thing he was going to eat so we also gave him some of ours, then when all the butternut squash was gone from all of our plates, he finally started eating his rice! Ha, same as I said about Izzy yesterday, he does know how to get the things that he wants, in Toby's case without even speaking!!

Once the children had gone to bed, it was time for my evening treat - strawberries with chocolate Philadelphia...

I felt kind of silly buying the individual pots of chocolate Philadelphia. 4 little 30g pots cost the same as 1 big 160g tub, so in terms of cost/100g it would've made sense to buy the big tub. But the one and only time I bought chocolate Philadelphia before, I ate the entire big tub in less than 2 hours with constant trips to and from the fridge with a spoon! So far I've only eaten one little pot since I bought them on Saturday so, even though I should be able to exercise some self-control, it probably does end up being more economical to buy it ready portion-sized!

Favourite easy baking projects? Muffins are another quick thing I like to make - they are usually a quicker method than making cupcakes anyway, and then of course the lack of icing speeds things up. These rice krispy cakes were even quicker though so definitely one we will be doing more often. Liam loves them (and the lack of washing up!) more as well, so more brownie points for me!!

Do you try to buy portion sized things, or can you buy big bags and make them last?? I buy big bags of some things - dried fruit for example - and they do last ok, but I tend to have the occasional handful whilst I'm cooking dinner etc. Chocolate or other sweet snacks usually needs to be portioned, although if I'm honest sometimes I can be good and make things last regardless, and other times it doesn't matter if it's portioned or not - if I'm in a "snacky mood" I'm going to eat all the portions that are available!

Bank Holiday Sunshine

I hope everyone in the UK has been enjoying the bank holiday weekend? We've had fun the last two days, enjoying the sunshine. Saturday was a bit miserable (which I solved by making caramel sauce!) but yesterday and today have been wonderful!

Despite my sweet tooth, I've been waking up fancying savoury breakfasts recently, specifically eggs. Yesterday I had two slices of seeded toast with raspberry jam, plus two scrambled eggs...

This morning I also had two scrambled eggs, with one slice of seeded toast + pure spread, and an avocado nectarine 'salsa'...

These were both delicious, I love the egg-jam combo, and this morning's avocado was so creamy, delicious!

Lunches have also been great. Yesterday, Liam had a long shift at work so had requested a "light" lunch as he's usually too tired to eat much. I aimed to please with a summery salad (plus it meant I could spend more time in the garden before starting to cook!) - spinach, quinoa and basil tofu, plus mozzarella for the others...

This was really tasty, warm quinoa with cold spinach and tofu was a great combo, and it was filling without being too heavy. I also drizzled a little sesame oil in the quinoa for extra flavour, yum!

Today Liam had the day off work, so we went out for lunch. I had a sweet and sour vegetable stir fry with noodles...

...plus a bowl of sweet potato fries for everyone to share...

The sweet potato fries were, of course, amazing! The stir fry was nice - the vegetables were really fresh - but there was a bit too much sauce for my liking.

After lunch, the others had ice creams on the seafront...

but I went to Costa instead and got a iced vanilla soy latte...

Mmm, real coffee! I switched to decaf coffee a week or two ago as every time I had a latte I was getting horrible making-me-double-over stomach pains. However, when it started happening after some of my meals as well, I started to realise that it usually occurred when I had a lot of dairy. So the last few days I have been using non-dairy milks, avoiding cheese etc (although still eating trace amounts of dairy in cakes and chocolate chips!) and I am pleased to report that, so far, I've had no stomach pains. And (more importantly!!!) this coffee caused no problems, so I can start having caffeine again, yey!! :-D

I haven't really eaten proper "dinners" the last couple of days - yesterday I had lots of snacks during the afternoon. Including, but not limited to, several coconut cakes topped with raspberry jam...

and an Alpro Soya vanilla dessert with pb & chocolate chips...

So I ended up having dinner pretty late, and still fancied something sweet. Enter porridge made with a mashed banana and peanut flour, topped with Julie's peanut butter granola...

I think I should have cooked the granola for a minute or so more as it didn't get very crunchy, but it was still so addictive - I ate the whole batch over the course of the evening!

Delicious, I want to try baking lots of different types of granola now - so easy to make, I can't believe I haven't done it before!

This evening, I haven't actually had any dinner yet. We didn't end up eating lunch until 3.30pm as Izzy was awake at 4am so had a 2.5 hour nap in the middle of the day! I have made muffins this evening, but I will wait until I can take photos in better light to share that recipe tomorrow. I ate one of those straight out of the oven though, and will go and get more food once I publish this, I just don't know what I fancy/can be bothered to make!

We have made the most of the sunshine to go to the play park lots over the last two days. Izzy had been desperate to go for days but the weather kept preventing us, so as soon as we saw the sun was out yesterday, we knew what we had to do! Yesterday, my sister and her boyfriend joined me and the children - we went at 9.30am on Sunday morning, so the park was still nice and quiet!

Today, Liam and I took the children to the park twice. Being a bank holiday, it was much busier, but we still had fun. We first went this morning...

We had then planned to go straight for ice cream, but both children were very tired (aka grumpy!) so we went home for them to both have naps. We came back to the park on the way home from lunch later on...

I'm so glad we managed to fit in lots of fun this weekend! I doubt the sunny weather will be around for that much longer (it is already quite chilly even when the sun is out) and Izzy goes back to school next week anyway. She's really looking forward to going back, but I'm a bit sad - it's been fun to have her around more and not have to stick to the routine of the school run!

How has your weekend been? Did you do anything special today if you had a bank holiday? Oh, and I wanted to say 'have a great time' to all of you that are meeting up in Manchester tomorrow - I've been reading all your tweets and wishing I could be there...if only it wasn't so far away/so expensive to get there! I look forward to reading all about it on your blogs though! :)

Bank Holiday Weekend

Hope you’ve all had a great long weekend! It’s been a busy one here, although today has been more relaxing, some chill-out time was needed!

Saturday, as I already posted, we went to a family BBQ, lots of yummy food and the children enjoyed playing with Woody the dog! Liam and I then went out in the evening for a friend’s birthday – excuse the hat – the theme was nautical! I drank lots of Pimms, my favourite summery drink. And I also realised that my old camera is way slower than my DSLR – hence the face!



It was a good night. We only stayed out until about 11pm as Liam had work early Sunday morning, but it was fun to get out for a few drinks and enjoy some adult company!

Sunday, we had another BBQ to go to, luckily the weather was better than Saturday had been as this BBQ was at a friend’s house and she was expecting 100 people!! Would’ve been a lot to fit inside her house if it had rained! We weren’t heading over there until the afternoon, so I made us lunch first. My Mum had boiled some new potatoes for Saturday’s BBQ but had completely forgotten to serve them! So I was sent home with half of them, which added to garlic, 6 eggs and some peas made a yummy omelette…



This was really tasty and so easy to cook, especially as the potatoes were already ready to eat. I would’ve put a sliced onion in it too but we were all out. I added extra garlic for flavour which worked well enough without the onion anyway :)

After the children had napped, my Mum, the children and I headed over to the BBQ (Liam joined us after work). We came across a snake on the road as we were walking!



But we made it to the BBQ in one piece! Daughter was a bit freaked out but luckily the snake didn’t come near us, slithering up the wall into someone’s garden instead!

I didn’t take any food photos at the BBQ (!!), I just ate 2 mini baked potatoes with coleslaw, supplemented by lots of plastic cups of Pimms and Pina Coladas…bit of a boozy afternoon! I did take some photos of the children having fun though :) There were loads of children there, but daughter was a bit shy as they were mostly boys slightly older than her, so she preferred to stay playing with her brother…





And of course eating! Baby spent the first 1.5 hours sat in the chair in pic #1 being brought food by daughter…he was quite happy just sitting there pretending he couldn’t move and munching away! Daughter ate the usual sausages, nachos, burger etc, but her favourite was the popcorn…



There were lots of toys etc to entertain the children which was great – the hosts have 6 year old twin boys so the place was pretty child-friendly. We were able to stay until about 7.30pm which was good for us as the children are normally in bed by 7. Sounds like the party carried on much longer once we’d left though, with many more cocktails involved!!

Today was a quieter day. We had planned to go to a local fete this afternoon but the weather was a bit grotty and we all decided we’d rather relax at home. My morning somehow started with a lie-in and breakfast in bed, bliss, thanks Liam! French toast using Genius bread, topped with banana, pumpkin seeds and Sweet Freedom (he couldn’t find the sunflower seeds or agave but it still tasted good!) He even took photos before bringing the food up to me…very “well-trained”!!!



I love French toast, although it does always sit heavy on my stomach…this kept me going for hours!

Even after lunch-time had been and gone, I still only fancied breakfast foods. So breakfast #2 instead of a late lunch – baked oats – I’ve not had this in ages but it was what I wanted today!



This was my Tropical Baked Oats, except with crystallised stem ginger replacing the dried mango. Topped with Rachel’s coconut yoghurt and fresh raspberries.



I love the soft flapjack texture of this. The ginger was great too – baking had made it not quite so fiery, but it still provided a sweet crunch with a slight kick. So good. Give me breakfast over lunch anytime!

Dinner was a recipe I’d not tried before. When shopping for Saturday’s BBQ I’d been feeling indecisive so had bought halloumi and paneer. As I ended up making halloumi kebabs, I had paneer left to use.



I knew I wanted to make muttar (sp?) paneer, but I wasn’t sure what recipe to use. In the end I followed this simple recipe on BBC Good Food, adding in the leftover coconut cream from the baked oats for extra creaminess. The paneer was really good just after the first stage of frying it off. I couldn’t help sneaking a few pieces whilst the curry was cooking!



It was even better when made into the curry though. Served with brown rice…




We’ve still got another pack of paneer left, which Liam has said he’s happy for me to use in the same recipe again rather than trying something else…so I guess that’s a success all round!

Right, off to chill for a bit. Liam has work all day tomorrow, so I will be at home with the children. Daughter is off school as it’s half-term, so I’ll have to think up something fun to do! Fingers crossed for nice weather then we can head to the beach or park! :)

How have all your weekends been? Any favourite things? Huge Congrats to Maria who completed the marathon in Stockholm on Saturday…I can’t imagine ever running a marathon, let alone in another country with all the travelling, preparation etc that goes with that too…well done Maria, hope you’ve had a restful weekend since!