Camera, Photo, Canvas!

I realised while reading back over some of my recent posts, that I have not been posting many photographs. This is really because I am hardly ever using my proper camera, but my iPhone to take pictures. My digital camera is not that great anymore, and what I really, really need is an SLR camera.
This brings me nicely onto the blog of a friend who is running a competition to win a 20 x 28 inch canvas from HelloCanvas.co.uk. You can read about her review of the canvas she had made, as well as the details of this competition on her blog http://allbabyadvice-blog.com/

This is the photo I would love to have on a canvas. Naturally, it's my two children and although they seem to be naturals at having their picture taken, this is not the case at all! Like most children, it is so hard to get them to both look in the same direction at the same time and I struggle to get R to stand still without striking the most ridiculous poses and face pulling stunts.
This almost acceptable picture was probably achieved after about 30 shots, and it's the best of many, many, many more!
So it will be a reminder of my hard work and a motivator to keep at it. One of my next goals will be to get a good close up of their faces together, and also one of me and them together, good enough to get blown up onto a canvas.
It is also the day before K is due to have his plaster cast removed, so this is probably the last picture taken of him with it on.

Thoughts of the day....

I discovered a new set of feelings today. Well, I seem to be feeling them each and every day. Feelings I never knew I could have. Feelings that just grow and swell within me day after day. My children fill me with wonder and amazement every day. Sometimes I just stare at them in awe! Is that weird? Sometimes I feel that I don't want them to grow up anymore so I can enjoy their sweet innocence perpetually. I love their wide-eyed innocence when they are in awe of something they find truly amazing.

As a mother, I make lists in my head as I drift off to sleep. When I saw this scene acted by SJP in the film "I Don't Know How She Does It" I was so excited that I could show my husband that this is exactly what goes on in my head as I lie in bed.
Another line from the movie which I loved was the following description of mothers:
"While apart from their children, mothers are wondering what they're doing, wishing they are safe and hoping they are happy."

Lessons in life: What you can and cannot do

1. You cannot make everyone happy, so look after number 1, because no-one else will

2. Pick your battles - it's a cliche but you win some, you lose some

3. You are not always right

4. Learn how to make decisions, it is an essential life skill which you don't learn at school. At school you mainly learn how to follow instructions and a set of rules. 

5. Respect and trust have to be earned in any relationship, even from your own children

6. Take everyday action towards your goals

7. You are only limited by your attitude

8. Be grateful for all you have

On that last point, I feel that I'm finally starting to get my life back. I don't have the duty of taking K with me everywhere. There is so much we take for granted in our lives. Our health. Our ability to see, hear, walk, talk, feel, touch, and even just to breathe. Our wealth. The roof over our heads, clean running water, heating, electricity and gadgets. Cars, education, holidays, restaurants and entertainment. Doctors, medical care and medicine, laws and their enforcers. We are lucky enough to see all these things as necessities in our lives. Imagine if you lost just one of these things. It can turn your world upsidedown. Now imagine losing 2,3 or 4 and you have entered what the Western developed world calls a Third World country....

Courgette, Carrot and Chocolate

The title of this post might suggest that I have made something using all these ingredients in the same recipe. This is not the case, but I have used all these ingredients to make something which you might not easily guess.
Let me first tell you how I came up with these three things. Well, I found myself with an abundance of carrots and courgettes (and also mushrooms) in my fridge so I decided to make a batch of ragu using these vegetables finely grated in it. I have frozen some to use later. And chocolate...I had a large and tempting bar of cooking chocolate in my kitchen pantry which I wanted to use before its use by date.
I still had an excess of vegetables so my next plan was to make cakes. I made a carrot and walnut cake, and a courgette cake. Some of you may have heard of a courgette cake but those of you who haven't, it really works! It was the first time I've made it and it looked and tasted like a real sponge cake.
So here are the recipes

Carrot and Walnut Cake

150g wholemeal self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
1.5 tsp ground mixed spice
7 tablespoons light brown sugar
2 medium eggs
100g butter or reduced fat spread. I love to use Flora Cuisine in baking, it is already in liquid form so you don't have to soften it as you would with butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
225g finely grated carrots
60g roughly chopped walnuts

Preheat the oven to fan 160C
Line a cake tin with baking parchment
Place all the ingredients in a large bowl and mix together
Place the mixture into the tin and cook for 45 minutes to 1 hour depending on the tin size.


Courgette Cake

I couldn't find the photo of it but it did look very similar to the carrot cake above!

250g finely grated courgette
2 large eggs
125ml vegetable oil
75g caster sugar
225g self-raising flour
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees, and grease and line a cake tin
Make sure the grated courgette is sieved to remove excess water.
Cream the eggs, sugar and oil in a bowl.
Sieve in the flour, bicarbonate of soda and baking powder and mix well.
Stir in the courgetter
Pour the mixture into the cake tin and bake for 30 minutes
Test it with a wooden skewer and if it comes out dry then it is ready.
Leave the cake to cool in the tin before turning out.

Variation
Add in 1 teaspoon of cinnamon powder and half a teaspoon of mixed spice.
Add in 50g chopped walnuts and the juice and zest of 1 orange


Finally, I made a chocolate cake for A's birthday which happened to fall on Friday13th this year. I'm not a very superstitious person but I am very conscious of days like Friday13th, and while I don't have a fear of it, I do feel slightly relieved when it has passed without incident.
It is the best chocolate cake I've ever made, and it can only get better so I am now waiting for the next occasion to bake a cake. I usually have a homemade maderia cake at all times, but I have built up a resistance to it which means I can bake the cake and not eat any of it. I haven't managed to do with chocolate cake yet. When I make a chocolate cake, I EAT chocolate cake!

Here's how I made it


225g Self raising flour
35g cocoa powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
125g plain chocolate, broken into pieces
4 tablespoons water
125g caster sugar
125g light brown sugar
150g butter
3 medium eggs, beaten
150ml cream

Preheat oven to fan 160C
Grease and line the base of 2 x 20cm tins with baking parchment
Sift the flour, cocoa and bicarbonate of soda into a bowl and set aside.
Place chocolate and water in a small heatproof bowl and melt over a pan of simmering water
Using an electric whisk, cream the sugars and butter together until light and fluffy
Gradually add the beaten eggs, with a little of the flour after each addition
Add the cream and the melted chocolate
Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 40 minutes or until firm
Leave the cake to cool

To make the ganache, place 200g plain chocolate, broken into pieces with 300ml double cream over a bain marie until well combined and melted.
Pour over the centre of the cake and gently spread out over the top and sides of the cake

I made mine using a bundt cake mould and it works just as well!

Banana ice cream crumble

A simple but SO satisfying dessert, or just when you feel like a treat, and best of all it's extremely easy!!

Take a ripe banana, peel it and cut into 1cm thick slices. Put these on a plate and put it in the freezer for 2 hours or so. When the banana slices are frozen, mash them up with a fork until they resemble ice cream, or you can put them in a blender instead.
Crush some plain digestive biscuits in a bowl. Add a scoop of banana ice cream. Crush some more digestives over the top, and drizzle with golden syrup, honey or toffee sauce. Eat. Enjoy. Wow.

PJ Sunday

I woke up this morning feeling very relaxed. I had a relaxing evening last night, doing nothing much, and the children woke up late, which meant a long lie in for me!
I have a few errands to run and I had planned my day to fit them all in. However, my children had other plans. They were not interested in tagging along to my chores, and all they wanted to day was spend the day in their pyjamas and playing at home. So that's exactly what we did! My errands can wait till tomorrow.
They played so wonderfully together, and really enjoy each other's company. They spent almost the whole day going from room to room finding creative ways of entertaining themselves. Why disturb their hours of joy by taking them on errands which are so boring for them? The fact that is was pouring with rain for most of the day made even more sense! The afternoon brought some sunshine so they were able to play in the garden as well. Yesterday they helped me do some gardening, and they wanted to do more today.
In the afternoon, I left the children with their dad who was home from work early, and I went to do my gym and swim workout. The Wimbledon men's final had just started and I went to watch it during my workout. Thanks to the rain the match was interrupted for 45 minutes and when it restarted I was so engrossed that I hardly felt the workout, though I did pause several times during the tense, nailbiting moments. But it was not to be, Andy Murray lost the game but won our hearts with his emotional outpouring speech. I wish he would just smile more, though who can imagine the amount of pressure he is under. Federer, on the other hand is pure genius, there's no other way to describe him, he's a prodigy of tennis.
After I came home, I put the children to bed and sat down to organise the week ahead. Meal planning is not something I always enjoy, especially when I would rather be reading one of my new books from Amazon, but it's something that I have to do. This week however, I am in a very experimental mode and I have a list flying in my head of new recipes to try that I have not attempted before. The recipes require shopping for ingredients that I have not used before and I love trying new things, I get a little buzz when I go out to find them! So if you want to know what these dishes are, and how they turned out, keep following to find out!

School days

When R is at school, I really miss her. She is so wide-eyed and animated, as most 4 and 5 year olds are naturally. K misses her too and from about 1pm everyday, he asks me several times if it is time to go and pick her up. When we do go to pick her up, it's the highlight of his day. He sometimes hugs her and starts telling her about what he did in the day.
On the 7 minute drive home, we talk about her day at school and we also manage to make plans for the rest of the afternoon. Some days we do some gardening, wash the car, bake bread, and play fun games.
On other days, all she wants to do is watch her favourite children's tv show and raid the fridge for snacks. K is happy to go along with whatever she wants, though I don't know how long this will last!
There is one thing that I'm struggling to get her to do is her spellings and reading books from school. Struggling and she's only in Reception! Now I'm not looking forward to the next 12 years of school that we have to go through!

One particular day, I got out of the car and opened the back door to let the children out. I saw R's face looking at my shoulder. It was a face of terror but she didn't say a word. She just went silent. I asked her what was wrong.
She replied in a very slow and stutter-y manner "There's.....there's something....on your collar"
Me, frozen: Well, what is it R?
R: Erm.....errrr....
Me: WHAT?!? What is it? Is it moving? Is it alive?!
R: Yes I think so

I felt like I wanted to scream and throw off my jacket, but I kept calm. I didn't want the children to see me panic hysterically! It took a lot of focus for me to appear brave and cool. I dropped the bags in my hand and slid off the jacket. I looked at the collar, and there was a small but extremely disgusting insect on the collar. It was a neon green insect with red edges. I flicked it off with an umbrella, shuddering at the thought that it could have gone down the back of my neck! Obviously, the children were fascinated by this insect and wanted to make sure I had not harmed it!

Time for a coffee on my comfy sofa I think!