We had Claire Bear staying with us through the week.
As a treat I bought the sproglets some decorate your own gingerbread men. And these were the results!
It was much to Mini Man’s disgust that I asked if he would share with me.
Needless to say I did not get a bite!
Wee monkey.
Join in the fun with Mammasaurus and co. Just give the pic a wee click :).
Makes 12 cookies
100g caster sugar
100g butter
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
175g plain flour
175g milk, white or plain Chocolate chips (we used a mixture of milk and white)
Heat oven to 180oc/gas 4.
Grease 2 baking trays. Turn on your oven.
Place caster sugar and butter into a large mixing bowl. Stir well with a wooden spoon.
Keep on stirring, quite briskly. You need to get the mixture as smooth and creamy as you can.
Break the egg in a small bowl and beat.
Pour in the vanilla and mix in with the egg.
Pour your egg mix into the bowl and stir well. Sift in the flour and combine.
Once the mix is smooth, stir in the chocolate chips.
Place heaped tablespoons of the mix into the baking sheets.
Flatten each cookie slightly with the back of a fork.
Bake the cookies for 10-15 until they are golden brown.
They should be slightly soft in the middle.
Leave cookies for a few minutes, then place on a cooling rack to cool.
Enjoy 🙂
These biscuits will keep for 5 days in an airtight container
I don’t know about all you lot out there, but when I am knee deep in conjuring up food, sometimes most the time, I leave a trail behind me!
This mainly happens when I am in “the zone”, usually when the Mini People are at granny’s or in bed.
Although, once finished, my kitchen can look as though a bomb has hit it, once the cooking is done you can’t beat a good clean down. It has to be done.
My best friend in the kitchen is the dishwasher, not the Mr, although he’s not too bad at doing the dishes. But the plug in the wall kind.
John Lewis have a great selection and I have fell in love with a couple on their site, it’s just convincing the Mr that we could do with a new one!
Take a look on the John Lewis site. (The black Smeg is my favourite!)
The second important part is the wipe down of surfaces etc.
I don’t know about you lot but when I’m cooking sauces etc, especially tomato, I get it everywhere! I think this is because my kitchen units are white.
So these need to be wiped down quickly before it gets all sticky.
Every couple of weeks I do a bleach clean of the kitchen.
As you may have noticed, the kitchen is my favourite room in the house!
I would forever be in there if I could, it’s my sanctuary, and a clean kitchen is (hygienic!) necessary.
I also regularly sort out my cupboards, ingredients and tools.
Ok, ok, I’ll stop now as I am beginning to sound a bit Controlling of the kitchen. I am but sshhh 😉
Do you have regular kitchen cleaning antics?
Or have any fabulous tips to share?
Let me know 🙂
Disclaimer
This is a sponsored post
When you think back to your younger years, I will guarantee one thing you will remember is the SodaStream!
Whether you had one or really really wanted one. They were one of the most sought after products in the 90’s (my era).
We were lucky enough to be sent the gorgeous Red Night Spirit to review.
And boy was I excited by this! Not only getting to relive, some, of my youth, but we can now make cocktails with it. Mmmmm how I love a cocktail!
Back to the SodaStream….
I couldn’t believe how compact the machine is. It is lovely and slimline and will fit in anyone’s kitchen.
I remember it being big and chunky when I was younger, and I don’t remember them looking as good.
When making drinks, it was so easy. Most of the time I let the Mini Man and Little Lady help make our choice of fizz for the day.
Cherry is the favourite here.
I am not too keen on cherryade, but this one wasn’t as sickly as the ones on sale in the shops.
We all enjoyed a glass of that in the sunshine
The SodaStream is so simple to use, I have been getting my Mini Man and Little Lady to do most the work!
Full your bottle up to the line.
Chill.
Attach to the drinks maker and carbonate, the mini’s favourite part.
Add syrup and shake up.
Bob’s your uncle!
SodaStream have also brought out new Cocktail syrups, *drools.
There are 3 syrups available – Mojito, Margarita and Cosmopolitan.
These are all on my shopping list! As mentioned earlier, keep your eyes peeled for a future blog post on these.
One of my favourite aspects of the SodaStream is that it helps me with my budget.
Each bottle of syrup makes 12 litres of juice and the syrup is only £3.49. Compare this to the average of roughly £1.50 for 2 litres of fizzy in the shops and you know you’re onto a winner with this.
We also tried out the new My Water, flavoured essence.
I liked this, as I love flavoured water. My only problem was I had to use more than the bottle stated. This could just be my taste, as I like quite a good flavour instead of a subtle touch.
All in all, the Night Spirit went down well in our house.
The Mini’s love making their own juice, I am loving that we aren’t spending a lot on juice anymore and that I can make cocktails 😉 and the Mr loved his Cream Soda. His words – not as sickly as previous ones he has tried.
At £69.99, the machine isn’t too expensive and the pennies you will save by switching to this from bottled fizz is fab!
Have a closer look at the Night Spirit here you won’t regret it!
Disclaimer
We were sent the Night Spirit for the purpose of this review.
All our opinions are of our own
Well, that’s our holidays for this year over and done with 😦
We are just back from a fun filled and sunny week down south.
Started off with a few days in Birmingham at my dads, a couple of days in sunny Somerset at grandads and ended with a quick stopover in Lymm at my sisters.
We all had a ball whilst away, wish I was still there as I miss my family a lot. But there is always cheeky wee weekends in between the next long visit :).
And now it’s back to normal on the blog front, got a fair few posts to get out this week so bear with me. I expect tonight will be a caffeine fuelled night of writing. Love it!
Here’s a few snaps from our week away.
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I had a fantastic day out on Wednesday to see the amazing Bon Jovi *swoon.
He was sublime, the band was sublime. It was all just, well, sublime really.
Myself, my friend who we will call Cedric and her mum went along and my wonderful Mr picked us up at the end of the night.
My feet hurt, my throat hurt, I had a few ciders ;), as you do.
All in all it was a great day/night out.
600g lean minced beef
2lb potatoes, peeled and quartered
2 tbsp semi skimmed milk
1 tbsp dried parsley
1/4 tsp salt
4 tsp sunflower oil
3 tbsp plain flour
16 fl oz unsalted brown or chicken stock
115g shallots or onions, thinly sliced
2 tbsp cider vinegar
1 tsp dried thyme
Freshly ground pepper
Preheat oven to 230oc or gas mark 8.
Boil potatoes in saucepan and simmer until potatoes are tender.
Drain potatoes and mash along with milk and parsley. Set aside.
Mix together 2 teaspoons of oil with flour in saucepan over a low heat. Cook paste for 1 minute.
Gradually whisk in the stock and summer until it thickens.
Remove pan from the heat.
Place onions or shallots and vinegar in a frying pan and cook over a medium heat until vinegar has evaporated and onions are limp.
Add the beef mince and brown it over a high heat, making sure you break up big lumps.
Remove from the heat and stir in the thyme, ground pepper and thickened stock.
Divide the meat mixture into separate gratin dishes or one large dish.
Top the meat with the creamed potato and smooth over the top of the mince.
Bake in the oven until potatoes are lightly browned.
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The monsters had a great time making this crumble.
They chose the recipe, and we headed to the shops to get all our ingredients. They seemed to feel more important as they marched around the supermarket with their list in hand, bless their wee aprons.
We hope you enjoy this simple, tasty recipe.
Serves 6
500g eating apples
6 tablespoons of water
Ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon caster sugar
For the crumble
100g plain flour
100g whole meal flour
100g butter
75g light brown sugar
Preheat the oven to 180oc/gas mark 4.
Cut the apples into quarters, peel them and cut out the cores.
Place them in a pie dish.
Add the water to the apples. Sprinkle them with a large pinch of cinnamon and the caster sugar.
Mix together both flours.
Cube the butter and add into flour mix.
Mix the butter and flour together with a blunt knife, stir and cut into flour again, until the butter is fully coated with flour.
Wash your hands and dry them well.
Rub the butter into the flour. Lift the mixture as your rubbing and let it fall into bowl.
When the mixture is of breadcrumb consistency, mix in the soft brown sugar.
Sprinkle the topping over the apple mix and spread out evenly.
Place pie dish on a baking tray in the oven.
Bake for 45 minutes until the top has went a golden brown colour.
Once cooked let the crumble cool for 5 mins and then serve with ice cream or custard.
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I have decided to start a weekly recipe post called Little Chefs.
I will be posting up every Friday recipes and outcomes of what my little chefs and I have been upto.
I love cooking with the little ones and they love to get new cookbooks (think Lolly is starting to get an obsession with them like me and she’s only 2 1/2!).
They chose the recipe, I write the shopping list and we all go to the shops to get the items in.
I hope you enjoy these weekly posts as much as we will be making the recipes.
I will do a linky further up the road, when I figure out if and how I can do it on here.
Our first official Little Chef recipe post will be live later on today 🙂
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