Baking day!

I hope all you mummies (and daddies!) enjoyed the half term holidays with your littlies. What did you get up to? It can be a nightmare organising childcare if you work never mind trying to find things to keep them entertained. So the fact that I am able to work weekends does come in useful. I guess I should think myself lucky for that.

Himself had a week off too, and it was so nice to be able to spend time together as a family. We had several days out planned and even though the weather wasn't great, it didn't really spoil anything.

As well as the trip to the museum, soft play (I was more shattered than the kids on that one, chasing round after a fearless Teaghan!) and a very poorly considered trip to the Trafford Centre (really, in half term, what were we thinking!) we had some fun at home with a couple of jars of mincemeat.

If you thought that mince pies were all you could make with mincemeat then do yourself a favour and let your imagination run. It is actually quite versatile, as I have found over the last few years. By far the favourite use of it has been to add a few generous tablespoons to pancake mix to make christmassy pancakes, delicious with vanilla cream or ice cream. If you're keen to try this (and please do, you won't be disappointed!) then might I suggest using a thick American style recipe for the pancakes and not thin pancakes. Although the mincement would make a lively filling if warmed a little rolled up in flippy pancakes as Caoimhe calls them. Mmm might have to try they. Watch this space!

This year I attempted my first lattice mince pie,  which Himself declared as delicious. But easily the biggest hit was when I introduced mincemeat to Herman. Ok you know me well enough by now so I bet you saw that coming didn't you!

For the benefit of my good friend Sharon (you can find her fab blog Chasing Art  here ) here's the recipe.

To 1cup of Herman starter add 2 cups of plain flour, 1cup of sugar, 2heaped teaspoons baking powder, sprinkle of salt, generous teaspoon of mixed spice, 2 eggs and 2/3 cup of oil.

When all are combined, and as with all muffin batter don't go mad beating it, a few lumps are not only acceptable but necessary in my experience!, add the mincemeat. You can add as much as you want according to your taste. I started with 4 very generous tablespoons, although did add slightly more for the second batch. After mixing in you can add a chopped apple, which I have found to be a necessary addition to all my Herman cakes so far.

The batter will make 12 muffins or 2 1lb loaves. Or a mixture of the 2. Bake at 200c for 25 min for the muffins and 35-40 for the loaves. You may need to cover the loaves towards the end of cooking as they may burn.

As it's Monday don't forget to get yourself over to Wendy's blog for  handmade Monday and I hope you all have a fab week.

Til next time!

Missing in Action

It's been too many weeks since my last blog post. This working only weekends malarky is definitely having a negative effect as I just don't seem to have time to blog at the mo. I don't have the energy when I come home from work and now I do the nursery run 5 times a week as well as all the other things I try to fit in time just seems to disappear. I am in awe of mums with small kids who get everything done. How do you do it??!

I have had a little time to make over the last couple of weeks. We have made Herman (of course!) blueberry and apple muffins, I've made a couple of cards and Caoimhe carved an ace pumpkin with her Auntie. We also got a papier mache pumpkin and Caoimhe enjoyed painting that with Grandma, as well as going to Ashton library with daddy to make a lantern for Diwali. There was a disappointing turn out for the latter apparently. Much a shame as we will lose these services if we are not careful. Our local library service holds a fair few events for children and we do try to go. Obviously it's not easy especially when you have to squeeze so many things in but lots of these events are free and lots of fun for the kids too. It would be a huge loss if they stopped offering them. At least I think so!

As it's Monday I'd like to give a huge shoutout to Wendy at Handmade Harbour for the weekly bloghop. I've not been able to read many blogs recently but really hope to remedy that as I feel I've been missing out!

Also I'd like to mention ATCs with attitude, a challenge blog for tiny pieces of art that are very addictive!

That's all for now! Am blogging from my phone today and this will be my 3rd attempt at publishing so wish me luck!

Til next time!

ps the links seem to have appeared at the bottom of my post today and I can't put it right! But here they are:

 Handmade Harbour  handmade harbour  ATCs with Attitude

An unexpected treat

Just a sneak peak of some gorgeous super chunky yarn I've been treated to this weekend by my hubby. I'm going to make myself a scarf with it as it's so wonderfully soft and I'm loving all the colours! I prefer variegated yarn to plain for most things and can't resist it. He also treated me to some yellow baby dk which has lovely flicks of pink and green so will look fab when made up. I'm not sure to what yet tho.

It's such a treat because my hubby normally complains about the amount of wool and other oddments I have scattered around the house. For him to see it in the shop and buy it for me without being asked was a lovely surprise.

I really do have a fab husband who I love very much!

I know I'm too late to add my link for Handmade Monday this week but please go and have a look at the blogs that are linked. You'll find the link on my sidebar to the right.

Til next time!

Brrrrrrrr!!

I can't believe how quickly Autumn seems to have hit! I know we haven't had the best summer but I really didn't expect to be needing big coats and the heating on before the end of September. But here we are! It did give me a reason to find my mojo and get my crochet hook out though. I realised that the Littlest doesn't have a winter hat so thought I should do something about it.

The photo shows the hat I made over the last couple of evenings. It's in a lovely soft baby chunky yarn and i'm not sure if you can see from the picture bit I added a scalloped edge just for a bit of interest.

Of course the Biggest wants one now, so the hook will be out again later when she decides what colour she wants.

I know I have been missing in action for a couple of weeks. Sorry about that! Sometimes life gets in the way a bit and over the last few weeks I don't seem to have had a minute to myself.

I have been a busy girl on the baking front. We seem to have turned Tuesdays into mummy and Flip Flop's  baking day. We've made lots of pasties, Herman bread and of course Herman cakes. The biggest hit was apple and blueberry muffins and though i say so myself they were delicious :)

More of the same this week, too. She starts school nursery next week so I am making the most of it!

I'm linking up with Wendy for Handmade Monday over on  Handmade Harbour  Go and have a look at some lovely blogs :)

Til next time!

Silent Sunday

Home, Sweet Home

We''ve had a lovely family break in Norfolk, lots of shopping, and playing and exploring to be had in one of my favourite counties. It's a pity the weather wasn't kinder but you can't have everything, and we did manage some lovely rain free days. Without a doubt the hit of the week was Bewilderwood The kids loved it, even if our pockets didn't! I don't often say this when spending lots of money as I really do believe attractions, and merchandise etc aimed particularly at children are way overpriced and take advantage of a parent's love of their child and wish to make them happy... but it really was worth it.
We had exploring and climbing and boat trips and face panting, and two very happy, giddy, tired girls.
The picture I posted for Silent Sunday was taken in Bewilderwood, Caoimhe told me it was her fairy's house and got very excited telling us about the colourful fairies and elves she could see as we walked round. Oh to have that powerful, wonderful, innocent imagination all over again! It really is what being a parent is all about!

Needless to say there has been no making from me over the last week, aside from some cooking of course (and we had homemade pizza, by far exceeding in quality, taste, cost and fun the efforts of takeaways and even the prepared ones from the supermarket. We made these with round pitta breads, a dollop of passatta, cheese, mushrooms, and strips of ham and even fussyeater Caoimhe ate the lot!) So I have nothing recent to share with you. However I am keen to show eager for Handmade Monday as I have missed it over the last couple of weeks. It's such a lovely community and it's always nice to see what everyone has been up to.

I have an afternoon of baking planned today, and I have some carrots and potatoes bubbling away make potato cakes for dinner. But that isn't very exciting to show you...and I haven't started the cheese and veg pasties for tea yet, or the Herman cake for afters. So I have decided to share a couple of ATCs I made for the ATC trail on UKscrappers a few weeks ago. I used my new steampunk digikits from Daisytrail on a backing of some scraps of paper from my stash.

Hopefully I will have more to show you next week. I really need to get my crafty mojo back so I''ll be looking at the blogs linked up to Handmade Monday for inspiration!

Til next time!

Ps sorry about the format of the photos. I'm using a new app to blog from and frustratingly it won't let me move pictures where I want to. Grrr.

Silent Sunday