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Category : Cooking
Friday, October 02, 2009
Cooking and sewing
Mmmm, what a creative day :) I finished off my "cat" - he's called Ramses and I got the pattern here. To be honest, mine has not turned out quite so well and April says he looks like a bear! I did do something a little different with mine in that I half filled him with toy stuffing and half with dried chamomile flowers which smell lovely and are supposed to help you nod off. I should have given him to my insomniac husband in the hopes that he might get a puuuurrfect (*groans*) night's sleep. However, April seems to have adopted him so I guess I'll have to make another.
Anyhow, here he is ..... he's a bit ..umm.... weird! I also took some short cuts with the sewing which is naughty, naughty ;)
I also baked today - firstly apple crumble cake. This is a first for me but it turned out very yummy - the topping (dark brown sugar, oats and cinnamon), in my opinion, could have been left off. It tastes nice but is soooo messy!
I also made cheese scones - now I LOVE these (remember them being about the only thing my mum ever made that vaguely resembled anything edible). Tim enjoyed them (or at least he SAID he did - he could have been trying to humour me), Rosie ate them but said she was confused because she's used to them being sweet (doesn't take much to baffle my kids eh?). April made so many disgusted noises and had so many coughing fits, you would have thought I'd fed her arsenic for her tea *rolls eyes*.
Right, off now to get the kids in bed, have dinner and then settle down to sigh over Chris Packham - sorry! did I say that? I meant enjoy the beautiful nature - in Autumnwatch. Actually, the beautiful nature is what I love - I've been looking forward to this for ages! :)
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Foodie post :)
Plums are in season at the moment and very lovely they are too! Tonight, I made plum and apple crumble for pudding - here's the recipe - this was just enough for a small crumble to serve 2 so increase the ingredients as required:
Ingredients :
Plums
Apples
Plain flour (100 g)
Unsalted butter (50g)
Demerara sugar (1 level tablespoon)
How to ... very simple this!
Put the flour and butter into a mixing bowl and rub together until it takes on a breadcrumb-like appearance. Stir in the sugar and put to one side.
Peel and slice the apples (don't slice too thickly otherwise they will take a lot longer to cook than the plums).
De-stone the plums - do this by slicing vertically all the way round the plum then taking both halves and giving them a firm twist. This should pull them apart and you can remove the stone. Chop each half in half again and then peel off the outer skin.
Place all the fruit into the bottom of a dish.
Everything ready :)
Sprinkle the crumble mixture evenly over the top of the fruit. Take care to cover the fruit really well otherwise you'll get burnt bits. Cook in the oven at 190c/gas 5 for around 40 minutes but check at 30 minutes. In any case, they crumble should be light golden brown and the apple (when you stick a knife in) should be soft.
Done! Some of the fruit escapes up the side and caramelises but don't panic - meant to be like this!
Serve with a blob of Greek yoghurt - yum!
Sunday, August 30, 2009
I didn't discover Narnia but ....
Decided, on impulse (not entirely sure what came over me!), to clear out a cupboard in the bedroom today. I've been putting this off because it's dark, deep and so full of stuff that the door has to be opened with extreme caution in case everything comes tumbling out. Anyway, I was feeling brave today so in I ventured.
Well! I think the kids were glad I did because I re-discovered all kinds of gems amongst the utter rubbish! Witness ....
My plant cell model! I made this a year or so ago for Rosie - it's air
dry clay painted in acrylic and I put holes (in the right places) in it
before it dried and then wrote labels on sticks for it. I even carefully
drew a control chart to go with it and I'm VERY proud of this particular
piece of educational diy. What can I say, it's clearly a masterpiece 
April can't read the labels so she was looking at the chart and matching up the words so she could put the sticks in the right places on the model - clever girl! :) PS - no, I don't force my kids to do schoolwork on a Sunday - this was entirely voluntary!
Another exciting find - a cute little toy market stall. I brought this YEARS ago from Myriad for Rosie and it was much loved. We kind of mislaid it and I thought it had got thrown away but it turned out it was just broken and I'd shoved it in the cupboard to be mended "sometime". So, I mended it today and it's got a new happy owner who likes to make plastecine food :)
Also today, I decided to treat my lovely family and got up early to make cinnamon muffins for breakfast - very yummy (and no, they're not overdone! - I sprinkle the tops with demarara sugar and cinnamon before cooking)
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
On clutter
I'm a clutter hater - I can't stand tonnes of pictures on the walls, vases of flowers everywhere, pictures on every sideboard. They collect dust and make the place feel claustrophobic. That said, I do have a few things dotted about - one of our wedding pictures in a lovely frame, a sparkly crystal that Rosie got me for Christmas and some gorgeous candlesticks (also a Christmas present - from my mother in law). The candlesticks, I'm sad to say, have been ignored for ages - stuck on the top of our fridge/freezer along with about as much "stuff" as it was possible to get up there.
This little spot, for some reason, always gets overlooked in my tidy-ups - sometimes for weeks and weeks and weeks on end - no idea why. The rest of the house can be spotless but this area stays awful *embarrased blush*. So today, I braced myself, and waded in. I realised that the main culprit for the mess up there is none other than my lovely hubby - loose change, sunglasses, car keys, bank receipts, credit card, combs and wage slips. Oh my god ... the wage slips! They dated back to MAY and they were all jumbled up. In an attempt to help (force) him to be tidy, I found a nice box for all his bits and pieces - all he has to do is shove stuff in there instead of just plonking it on the fridge top. As for the payslips - well, the past-life-as-secretary in me came soaring to the surface and I spent ages going through them all, putting them in date order and filing them away.
Then, I could retrieve my beautiful candlesticks, dust them off and put them by the kids nature table. I even lit a couple of vanilla scented candles which is what greeted Tim when he got home from work :)
Also been busy over the last couple of days making "things". Made some gingerbread men (well, ladies, I couldn't find the man shaped cutter) and ginger biscuits. The kids iced faces on them - very nice :)
I also did some maths notebook/lapbook things - we get bored of workbooks all the time so we make little lapbook type pages occasionally. I made one for Rosie on converting decimals to fractions - I used Open Office for this one but I'm divided as to whether it's better than Word. Word is more user friendly (Open Office actually confused me senseless the first time I tried it but I've got used to it now) - Open Office has more features and a better drawing facility. I tend to swap between the 2 depending on what I'm doing.
Here's the finished decimals booklet (obviously, not stuck down because Rosie hasn't done it yet) - cute no? ;)
Tim is really busy at work this week - another 6 days of overtime. Yesterday, he had to take some new guy out to show him a route and he (Tim) said that the bloke's breath smelled horrid! He said he had to virtually drive around with his head stuck out of the side window of the van *laughs* I believe Tim is sometimes guilty of being a bit garlicky depending on what we've had for dinner the night before but at least that is garlic (and he is permanently chewing gum "just in case") and not ... well... god knows!
Thursday, I believe, the Air Show is starting (there has been a Red Arrow parked by the side of a roundabout in Bournemouth for the last couple weeks). Tim is concerned about how busy it's going to be because, in the past, he's ended up stuck in traffic for EVER. Hopefully, Thursday won't be too bad for him because he's finishing at lunchtime - we've all got to go to the dentist in the afternoon. Hmmm, lesser of the two evils I think - air show induced traffic jams or a visit to the dentist? Unfortunately, we can't avoid Mr Yilmaz and his implements of torture for more than 6 months at a time so the dentist it is.
Categories: Cooking, Homemaking, Homeschooling, Places
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Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Creepy crawlies
April had a fun day today :) She spent ages outside this morning hunting for ladybirds (I got a photo of a newly hatched ladybirdy on her hand but it came out too blurry) and released one that had hatched in our bug box. After lunch it poured with rain but she still wanted to go out so she put on her rainmac and went off. She'd been gone a while so I went to check on her and found her playing with a GIANT slug! Bleeeuurgh! I think it's fair to say that she's following in Rosie's footsteps for liking bugs!
My brother and his wife popped over just before lunch with some homemade meringues and fruity icecream which we later ate for tea and were very yummy indeed :)
April also had her first gym club today - we've been on a waiting list for ages and I thought they'd forgotten us! She was her usual confident self and ran off and joined in, listen to the instructor well (which was a surprise because that's something she has difficulty with sometimes!) and was really quite good at it for a first attempt! Tomorrow it's Rosie's turn for the p.e lesson (heehee!) at her trampoline class at the Littledown - me, Tim and April will be out playing in the swing park while she's in there.
Got the letters sent off today to the education authority about April not going to school now. Very glad we did it. Very glad we finally reached this decision on what has been a very trying few months. Y'know how I considered school, partly because it would give me time alone? Well, it would seem I'm almost certainly going to get more time if she's homeschooled! Tim is being absolutely fab with wanting to help me out with this so not only does April get the fun of homeschool but I get a whole bunch of me time. Perfect :)
On the subject of homeschool, I've been really busy getting organised for the new year - got such a lot of really fun stuff planned that we almost can't wait to get going!
Categories: Cooking, Homeschooling, Life, Places, Wildlife
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Friday, June 12, 2009
We shall not be crushed
What do you do when the likes of Graham Madman and Ed Bollocks have attempted to trash your day with their foul darlek-type crap?
Why! make garden cupcakes that's what :) Cute cupcakes covered in pale green icing and little sugar flowers. Sweet.
I did take a piccy only it came out making them look more like snot covered cakes and I didn't want to put anyone off their tea so it's not here!
I also put some more maths resources together for April (we're following the MEP programme for both of them next year), examined a can of Mr Sheen and then put it back in the cupboard coz I couldn't be bothered to dust and agreed with Tim that chips from the chippy would be in order for dinner tonight.
I am also grinding my teeth in irritation at not having Sims 3 yet and having to wait until my birthday in July to get it!!! Nats already has it and I'm beyond jealous.
Non-Simmies out there won't understand this but trust me, it's agony.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Sun, sun, sun
Absolutely gorgeous day and, it would seem, more of it to come :) I'm a happy bunny.
Today was a kind of quietly productive day - everything just ambled along nicely and we all went about our business sort of ... happily :)
Tim worked this morning and then went to the shops 3 or 4 times after he got home. Yes, really - shocking waste of petrol, I know.
April played with water inside at the kitchen sink:
... and outside with a bowl:
Rosie did an edition of her family nature newspaper:
We put some flowers in the press - I think the kids are going to make bookmarks with these:
Finally, I made a raspberry jam and fresh cream sponge (just too delicious for words!):
Tonight, Tim and I are having tuna steaks in a sort of lime marinade and salad for dinner. This is one of our regular summer meals and it's the first time we've had it since last year - the weather is just so definately summery though, that it called for it. :)
Edited later: I've just realised I put "telly" down as one of the categories for this post and then forgot to write anything telly related *rolls eyes*. I was going to mention that I'm thoroughly enjoying springwatch this year and Chris Packham (who replaced Bill Oddie) has turned out to be utterly lovely :) I was always worried he might be a bit dull but far from it - brilliant telly!
Categories: Cooking, Seasonal, Telly, Things
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Monday, April 13, 2009
All chocolated out!
.... well, ok, maybe not quite!
We had a very nice Easter - lots of chocolate (too much really as always!) and I did my usual "getting up at the crack of dawn to hide eggs in the garden". The kids wouldn't let me get away with not doing this I think!
Yesterday, we went and had lunch round Tim's mums and ended up being there for the rest of the afternoon. Tim played the piano lots, me and his mum chatted and all the kids went over the field for a run about with Uncle Rob who got roped into making daisy chains with April :) Today the weather was absolutely gorgeous and so it was a bit of a shame that poor old Tim had to go to work hehe! The kids spent most of the day outside and then later Rosie made shredded wheat chocolate nests for tea - these will probably be our last Easter treat this year I think!
Tomorrow afternoon, we're going to Honeybrook Farm - haven't been there for YEARS and hopefully there'll be lots of baby chicks and things to get soppy over :)
Saturday, March 21, 2009
What an amazing week :)
Well, we've come to the end of a week which I reckon must count among the best we've ever had. The weather has been glorious, we've been out loads, socialised with other home educators, learned tonnes (English, maths, science, history, arts/crafts, computer....), cooked, cleaned and played. All perfect ...... except one tiny little blot on the landscape .... every time I look at April, I think "come September she won't be here doing any of this with us"..... *shrugs* .... painful it is.
Now look, I've gone and turned into Yoda!!
Anyway, today we made biccies :) Simple little vanilla things which the kids decorated with writing icing afterwards - they don't look too happy about it but I assure you they had fun *laughs*.
Here are the biccies, and the beginnings of our spring nature table (please excuse the tissue in the gnome home - I dot essential oil on it and hide it in there for a natural air freshner!)
Also got an email today regarding the comment I made about ... er... comments (see previous post). I think she was under the impression that I was in some way "concerned" about not getting many comments and said not to worry about it! Erm... no, actually. Many readers who've been with me for a loooong time will know that I went ages and ages without ANY comments at all - as I said at the time (and it still stands now), I don't need anyone's opinion (good or bad). If I was bothered about having tonnes of comments, I wouldn't have gone well over a year with none at all - I'm not a comment junkie.
As I said, I noticed from my stats that people were going to the commenting pages but then not commenting and I had a feeling this was because of the virtually unreadable spam code. Frankly, I'd be put off commenting ... in fact, I don't reply to comments as often as I should for that very reason! I don't want to go through all that hassle to put a comment on my own blog! *laughs*.
Anyway, that all said, I'm off to make pasta bake with Tim now and enjoy a lovely glass of wine and relax :)
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Yuck!
Tim and I have been going around feeling VERY peculiar today. Last night, we enjoyed a rather lovely chicken and broccoli pasta bake for dinner with a couple of glasses of wine. Now, when I say a couple, I do mean a couple however, we both ended the evening feeling a bit plastered (i.e like we'd sunk a LOT more). It was all very odd.
Anyway, I woke first this morning honestly feeling extremely hung-over and, more worryingly, with very blurred vision. This was, in fact, so bad that I ended up having to wear my glasses (which, anyone who knows me well enough will know, I avoid at all costs). Then Tim got up and said he felt a bit weird and hung-over too! Ye gods! What the hell was going on?!
I know what you're thinking .. "oh yeah, couple of glasses eh? .... very good, pull the other one". I SWEAR that was all it was!
My brother came over and said perhaps the wine was "off" and this is what Tim and I were thinking even though it tasted absolutely fine at the time. *Shrugs* well weird!
Due to all this, we didn't do a lot today - I just made some flapjacks (needed the sugar me thinks) and we played Nintendo and drank lots of tea.
Only one more day to go before I can check to see what the outcome of the school application was ........ I can barely contain my excitement .........
Monday, March 02, 2009
Monday stuff
A mixed day so completely at a loss for a title! :)
We've been continue with our declutter/spring cleaning and the whole house is now looking much better. It's really hard work though, so we've decided to have another go in a few weeks (sort of split the job into bitesize pieces!). There's also the garage to sort which, frankly, there is no way on this earth that I'm going to volunteer to do because of the unimaginable horrors that lie therein (spiders for starters - huge ones - *shudders*)
As well as cleaning, I made some rather yummy bread rolls and we had them for lunch with Tim's broccoli soup (bright green, looks like some kind of alien slime, but GORGEOUS). I didn't finish all mine and, since I have a child that actually likes vegetables (i.e April), it got finished off for me :) Here she is, tucking in - thought she looked rather cute with the huge bowl and spoon!
I also sorted out some Montessori stuff today. I made Rosie some decimal fraction number cards to go with her current maths work. I also dug this out for April to play match-up games with:
Now, this is one of several similar sets that I made to sell on Ebay (on different topics) and they all sold very well (very pleased!). Obviously, you have to get one non-paying-bidder oik though don't you? That was the case for this little set and in the end I couldn't be bothered to relist so their loss was April's gain :)
I also started putting together some initial sound object boxes for her (would be nice for her to be able to read those leaf card labels eh?). I haven't finished them all yet, but here's the first ones:
t - tiger, tree, toothbrush, train
c - conker, car, candle, cup
b - bug, bee, bag, bone and p - peg, pinecone, plate, pebble
s - sofa, scarf, spoon (need to find another object for this one!)
Finally, April got writing today - she copied some simple 3 letter words and did pretty good at it! She got me to write "pig" at the top of the page but then she took over and in the end did both sides of the paper - pretty impressive! :)
Categories: Cooking, Crafts, Homemaking, Homeschooling
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Friday, February 06, 2009
A GOOD home ed day!
We seem to be settling into a good routine with the home ed at the moment. We are (shock, horror) using the National Curriculum but in a very hands-on way with lots of crafts and computer projects thrown in. Rosie seems to be absolutely thriving on it which is something I never thought I'd hear myself say!
Today was just one of those days that needs documenting! We got up, bright and early and settled down to breakfast of warm, homemade honey muffins (divine!).
Whilst doing so, we couldn't help but notice the school-kids in the alley way out back, slumped in their coats, fighting their way through the freezing sleet. Poor things :( Rather a stark contrast to my kids, tucked up safe and warm and dry indoors!
Then we got started on learning - April did some chalking on blackboard, played with play dough mats and built a pretend lizard house with her building blocks. Rosie did maths first - decimals - and we had one of those glorious "ah-ha!" moments where a lightbulb went on in her head and she finally got something that had been perplexing her for ages! English next - prefixes - all seemed a bit basic for her to me, her English skills are amazing, might have to skip on to a Year 7 book I think.
Then we did science, and this was fun. It was about the heart so she did some reading in her study book, worked through some questions and then went here and explored some interactive, 3d virtual models of various hearts (human, sheep, dog etc). Fascinating!
Finally, we did history - this isn't National Curriculum because we prefer to study history chronologically rather than hop about all over the place like a lost-in-space time traveller (as with the NC). So, this year, we're doing the Middle Ages and today we read about the different stages a boy has to go through to become a knight and then Rosie made this diorama (it's actually got 4 different sections although you can only see 2):
By the time we'd done all this, the sleet had turned to full-on snow (we now have loads of it again!) and Tim had got home from work. Rosie had got on to Google Earth so she and Tim spent ages looking at various world landmarks in 3d.
Lunch next - boiled eggs and dippy soldiers and yoghurt (not all on the same plate!) followed by more Google Earthing for Rosie and piecing together the Europe puzzle map for April.
Tim then went out and braved the elephants (snowing really hard!) to get some shopping and when he got back I got baking again - shortbread and cherry cake this time :)
Y'know I just wish EVERY day could be like this but that's life guess *laughs*. Today, everything went perfect - tomorrow will probably be a raving nightmare!
Monday, February 02, 2009
Picture roundup
Hello lovely people :) Feeling a bit more refreshed after the short (very!) break. So, what have we been doing over the last few days? Well, we've .....
Cooked (and ate of course!) cupcakes and scones:
Counted:
Made strange, no-sew ... er caterpillar"y" creatures:
I made a maths mini office for Rosie (not finished):
Enjoyed the blank mini-books:
...and had a bit of this:
Oh, and we didn't forget to feed our feathered friends - Tim took this, very sweet :)
I also went and filled in the question for the latest home ed consultation - I was in two minds because I'm not that great at those sorts of things. I know what I want to put but it never comes out quite right and I get frustrated. Anyway, I did it. I also wrote to our local MP - he's a conservative - is that going to be a help or not I wonder! *laughs*.
The other thing on my mind at the moment is April going to school. I'm really torn over this again for one main reason - basically, I think she'd love school all the time it was part time. However, I think she'd get pretty fed up pretty quick once it was full time because she only can do "focused" stuff for a certain amount of time and then she needs to run about and let off steam. She's also doing REALLY well with her learning at home at the moment - she loves counting and doing her phonics workbook. I'm really bothered - Tim won't get involved, he says it's my decision and, of course, that's probably true as I'm the one that does the actual homeschooling. If I could find, or get together, a decent enough homeschool group then I'd definately keep her at home. I'm actually thinking along the lines of getting together a sort of homeschool nature group - going for nature study walks, taking part in conservation work, going to activities at Moors Valley/Avon Heath, that sort of thing. Anybody from Dorset/Hants might be interested in that?
Finally, sorry, still got the rubbish comment anti-spam code thing going on. If you can't read it, just refresh the page (about 100 times!) and you should get one you can read eventually. MUST do something about it soon!
Categories: Cooking, Crafts, Homeschooling, Seasonal, Wildlife
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Sunday, January 25, 2009
This, that and a bit of the other
Is it just me or has anyone else noticed the evenings getting lighter? I know this is supposed to happen, but it still seems remarkably early in the year! I took this yesterday at well after 4.00 and it quite surprised me just HOW light it still was!
Today has been ....erm..... tedious! Sunday's are never my favourite day of the week but today has been worse than usual - very slow and lethargic. I think it was made worse by the fact that we had kind of loosely decided to go for a walk today but then it turned out rainy. Actually, it started out just gloomy so we thought we might go to Hengistbury Head but instead of walking all round, just go on the pebbly beach and collect shells. Alas, the "gloomy" weather turned into drizzly weather and then the drizzly weather turned into full on rain *grumbles*.
So, we flopped about and amused ourselves in silly little ways. Tim and I made a chilli in the slow cooker for dinner tonight (he has a "thing" at church - not sure what - this evening so slow cooker food is good). Rosie has spent a vast amount of time reading today and wrote a story in Word on the computer. April started this (but never finished putting the flags on):
.... and then decided she wanted to paint fircones green:
Btw, remember what I was saying the other day about my hair not being as dark as the sidebar pic? Well, it's actually slightly darker than April's - see what I mean! Who says the camera never lies?!
I've been sorting out some work for Rosie - stuff on decimals. Now, here's a weirdy thing, she absolutely "gets" fractions but decimals - even when I try and show her that they are essentially the same thing - *sigh*, it's painful! She just don't get it. So we're going right back to the bare bones with them and taking it VERY slowly. I made her up a little worksheet to show tenths:
Maths with Rosie is deeply difficult and requires a huge amount of repetition. The other day, she was rounding numbers to 10, 100, 1000 and 10,000. There was a chart in her book that she had to fill in by rounding several numbers to the nearest 10, 100 etc. She filled in the first 2 lines perfectly on her own and then, inexplicably, "forgot" how to do it! What the ....?!!! How can that happen? She was genuinely baffled (and, frankly, so was I). So, I have to sit there and go over it again before she can finish the exercise - it's really slow going. I think it's fair to say that this child will excel in other areas - English, no problem - Science, piece of cake - Maths, let's move along here please, nothing to see.
Did have a bit of an amusing discovery today - I was checking my blog stats and some people were coming from a post by another blogger. She is American and made a comment along the lines of "does anyone else find themselves reading the blog (mine) in a British accent". *Laughs out loud* I never thought I sounded particularly "British" in my blog but obviously I do! Tim says maybe it's because I say "crikey" sometimes - do I? I didn't realise!
Crikey.
Categories: Cooking, Crafts, Homeschooling, Life, Seasonal
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Friday, January 09, 2009
Baby, it's cold outside
It SO is, isn't it?! I honestly don't believe it's been this freezing for YEARS - we've had a real spate of mild winters recently so this is a bit of a shock to the system! Yesterday, it was a bit warmer but today we're back to arctic conditions again with a very heavy frost this morning.
I've been faithfully feeding the birds through all this and putting water out for them in our little bird bath. Yesterday, Tim got a quick snap of a robin having a splash around - it looks like the water is frozen but that was the water from the previous day! So although it got warmer yesterday, it clearly wasn't enough to melt the ice! I just tipped the fresh water on top! Sorry, bit blurred but I think Tim was trying to do it quick before the thing scarpered!
Today, I put water in the birdbath and some more in an old biscuit tin lid a bit further up the garden. I went indoors and about 5 minutes later, looked outside and it was already freezing up!
Yesterday, in celebration of a slightly warmer day and (if I'm honest!) because we're heartily sick of fruit cake, I made a raspberry and fresh cream sponge - ooooo! yum! It really did make a nice change after all the rich Christmas food. I've also been steadily working through getting the homeschool stuff sorted. I'm going to start easing Rosie back into work on Monday and I want to have everything ready for then. April's already been asking for work!
We're off out in the chilliness this afternoon - got to go to Tim's work to collect his wages (he's officially on holiday but doesn't go back to work until a week Saturday and we still need money!) and then we're going to "big-Tesco-near-hospital" as it's commonly referred to round here. Need a whole bunch of general food shopping and some other bits and pieces beside, iincluding laminating pouches - I told you I was busy with homeschool stuff!
Right, off now to brave getting dressed - got the heating on full blast and I'm still shivering - roll on spring!
Categories: Cooking, Homeschooling, Life, Seasonal, Wildlife
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Sunday, January 04, 2009
Sewing, school stuff and sweet treats
Christmas is well and truly over - we put the decorations away today and gave the living room a bit of a clean up so that's that.
I've been starting to put together our home ed things for the new term. Sticking with a (pretty much) Montessori basis but, rather than putting all the materials out, I'm just getting a few out that we need at the time. Science is usually the worst culprit for creating LOADS of materials all over the place so I've decided to concentrate on one area of science a term. For the spring term we're doing human biology and I've created a "human body topic box" containing books, worksheets, 3 part cards and so on. We're also going to finish up the life size, "lift-the-flap", body part activity that we started waaaay back at the beginning of the school year so I've got that taped to the wall in our homeschool area. So far, poor old virtual Rosie just has a brain, face and heart!
I've also been sewing. I brought a dress ages on on Ebay which I hated the style of but fell in love with the material (dark purple, velvety soft fine cord). I always figured I could make it into something wearable and now I have - a simple, a-line skirt (looks gorgeous with my knee high boots). Will post piccy of the completed article when I get one but here are a couple during the making of :) The second one shows the material - I just luuuurve purple!
Finally, I got this book for christmas:
If you love cooking (baking in particular) and you still get a (slightly guilty) pleasure out of those old-fashioned kids books (the jolly, smashing, chalet school, "oh rather!" type), as I do, then you'll ADORE this. Today, I treated my everso deserving family to the first treat I've made from this book- Red Kitchen Jam Tarts. Tim and I were both very nervous having been subjected to rock hard, usually burnt homemade jam tarts as kids. We were incredibly surprised though - this recipe produces light, crumbly, sweet totally YUMMY tarts. Will post recipe tomorrow.
Right, that's it for today - out shopping tomorrow to spend my Christmas money - heaven! :)
Categories: Cooking, Crafts, Homeschooling, Life
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Friday, December 19, 2008
Alpen Bar Biscuits
These are ickle tiny little bits of yumminess - an invention of my own fertile imagination. I wanted to make some biscuits today and spied a lonely Alpen bar on the shelf (a fruit, nut and chocolate variety). Hmmmm....... A bit of experimenting later and taa-daaa! Gorgeous bikkies! The bits of Alpen bar, which start off chewy, end up all crunchy and the chocolate melts into little puddles in the biscuits. Yum.
Ingredients:
* 175g/6oz plain flour
* 100g/4 oz butter
* 50g/2 oz caster sugar
Couple drops of vanilla extract
1 chocolate/nut/fruit Alpen bar (although, I guess, you could use any variety) chopped into very small pieces.
A little milk
You will also need 1 large, greased baking sheet and to preheat the oven to 150C/300F/Gas 2.
Ok ...... Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Stir in the vanilla extract. Then add the flour and stir in well. Add a splash of milk and the chopped up bits of Alpen and then go in with your hands and bring the whole lot together into a soft dough (if it's too sticky, just add a bit more flour to it). Turn the dough out onto a floury surface and roll out to about 4-5mm thick. Use a cookie cutter (I used a tiny one of about 5cm diameter because I wanted little bitesize bikkies) to cut them out and put on tray. Bake for around 25-30 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on wire rack. Done.
Saturday, December 06, 2008
Linking
Tim and I are cooking pasta bake for dinner tonight (which is something we have very routinely because it's very yummy). We like cooking together, it's nice to get the kids in bed, pour a glass of red wine and just relax in the kitchen together - very couply! :) Obviously, we'll be reeking of garlic tomorrow - in fact, the other day he went to work (the morning after eating pasta bake) and his boss pointed out that he smelled of garlic. Since then, I've been referring to him as Stink Boy which is probably REALLY starting to get on his nerves and is also probably pretty silly as I almost certainly stink too! *laughs*
Anyway, my main reason for posting is to throw a link at you (or at least the home educators amongst you). School Express has LOADS of e-workbooks on their site and you used to have to pay for them but now they're free. They're very basic but pretty handy for extra practice (especially the maths ones).
I only came across this by accident as I don't tend to bother looking for home ed stuff much these days because our home educating days seem to be pretty numbered. April is determined to try school next September (so fingers crossed that we get a place for her at our preferred school) and Rosie has, what, 5 years left? Wow, time sure does go fast!
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Must .... have .... glitter
Y'know, however much I've been trying to co-ordinate my website and blog and make them look more tidy and (dare I say it!) grown up, I'm still partial to a bit of glitter. I'm thinking I must have a more festive look on this blog - it IS only 27 more sleeps until Christmas after all!!
So I guess I'll do that then ;)
Christmas-wise, Tim and I aren't actually doing THAT well although we are hoping to rectify that this Friday when we shall attempt to do some shopping (cue crowds, overheating, frayed tempers and grinding of teeth). Hoping to go to my favourite shop (Tiiiiim! can we go to the big Tesco by the hospital?) because there's a little something I want to get April from there and also I want to get the wrapping paper to match our Christmas cards (yes, I'm like that).
I'm feeling slightly more festive than I did a few days ago (boy, did I feel bad then!) and, generally, more upbeat. No, I'm far from 100% ok - I still have slight moments of feeling a bit sad and gloomy and Eeyore-ish. I've still got stuff going round my head (unbloggable stuff) that really, honestly shouldn't be there.
Have been reflecting over things of the last few months quite a bit lately. It's been a funny old time really - I think what started it off was that it popped into my head that it's almost a year ago since I started the Structured Home Ed Yahoo group. Obviously, I chose someone else to run in the end (although, God knows I wish I'd spent a bit more time and chosen a bit more wisely ....) Whoever might be running it though is irrelevant because I still consider it my baby *laughs*. It was a needed group and I'm proud of myself for starting it.
Over the last few months there have also been friendships gained ... and then lost again. Friends I wish I still had but there were just too many cases of "taking things the wrong way", but I wish they were still around .... and yes C I mean you, if you still read this.
Blimey, I'm starting to get morose again! Actually, I'm not that bad - just reflective.
Anyway, I'm ....
- Going to put the Structured Home Ed thing to bed ..... finally. After a year, I think it's time to get over myself *grins*.
- Stop thinking about past friends - what's done is done and that's all there is to it.
- Be postive about April's school thing (yes, she said today that really does want to go). So I'm going to put a postive spin on this and consider the good points rather than dwelling on the bad.
- Try VERY HARD to stop thinking about the unbloggable thing (actually, in blogging-land, probably only Nat knows about it) even though it's pretty much doing my head in.
Right, that's it - watch out for the festive glitter coming soon and a definately more upbeat attitude. 'Specially once I start my Christmas shopping!
PS - I did put the extra brandy on my Christmas cake btw, and despite my fears over hexing *laughs*, it was actually GORGEOUS! It smelt so Christmassy and yummy!
PPS - the vocabulary bag and cards that I blogged about yesterday. I had a really long think about it and I've decided to send them as a surprise to someone I know. Sowwwy!
Categories: Cooking, Homeschooling, Life, Seasonal
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Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Apple & Cinnamon Muffins
I've just finished making these for tea today so I thought I'd share the recipe as they are rather lovely :)
There are 3 things which are really important with making muffins - first, get the oven on before you start doing anything else because once the muffins are in the cases you need to get them in the oven pronto. Second, get all the ingredients ready and then mix the whole lot together (you'll see what I mean in a minute!) - do NOT try and weigh and prepare things as you go along as you need to be quick. Third, don't over mix - with muffins you need to end up with a sort of lumpy (rather revolting in fact!) looking batter.
Ok, ingredients (makes 6 large muffins):
2 eggs
100mls milk
250g self raising flour
1 level tablespoon baking powder
125g caster sugar
100g unsalted butter
1 teaspoon cinnamon (approx. you can vary to taste)
1 large cooking apple diced into very tiny pieces
Method:
- Turn on oven 200c/400f/gas 6 - do this BEFORE you start measuring stuff out to give it enough time to heat up.
- Place muffin cases into muffin tin.
- Place butter in glass bowl and stand this over a pan of boiling water - melt, stirring occasionally. While butter is melting:
- Sieve flour, baking powder and cinnamon into another bowl. Stir and put to one side.
- Measure milk into jug and beat in the eggs. Put to one side.
- Make sure the sugar and apple are measured/chopped and ready to use.
- When butter is melted, remove bowl from pan and leave to cool for a short while (but don't let it solidify again!) then stir in the sugar, then the apple and then the egg/milk mixture.
- Pour the liquid into the bowl containing the flour mixture and, using a metal spoon, stir in roughly (this is one recipe where you can be a bit haphazzard!)
- Spoon the mixture into the muffin cases and put STRAIGHT into the oven.
- Leave to cook for 15-20 minutes (they should look lovely and golden brown when done).
- When done remove to rack to cool down.
(and yes, I did draw this cupcake on my paint programme - cute eh?)
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