Crafty Makes

Although I've been quiet on this blog I've been busy making behind the scenes.  Here are a few of my recent makes:

First off is a blanket that I made for my new nephew who arrived last Tuesday!!! :)  A whole week old he is today!!!  Very very exciting and he's totally gorgeous!!  I did make this a while ago though but have been unable to share until today.  As you can see my little man thinks it's a perfect place for bunnykins to lie!!

This is a blanket that I've been working on for a while - it was meant to go in the shop but I love it so much that I can't bear to part with it!!!!  The little man loves this one too and snuggles up on it on the sofa - it's a perfect little man sized blanket :) 

Lots and lots of granny squares surrounded by cream 

This is a custom make for my mum to match her kitchen.  I've got lots of garlands for sale on my fb page and etsy shop and they can be made to order if other patterns, colours and numbers are required. 

These ladybug magnets made from stone off the Suffolk beaches are now on my pages - aren't they adorable?  I've got lots of plans for others - watch this space. 

This is a love garland that I sent our friends as a wedding gift.  

Now I am turning my thoughts to Halloween and Christmas even though the sun is beating down but I am sure I will have a mad rush as usual!!!  Is anyone else thinking about the dreaded C word yet?

Meal Plan Monday

Really!?!?  Again?!  So soon??  And not much on my little blog for another week...I will rectify that I promise.  I have some new crafty things to show you ...but first lets talk food :)

So last week we had:

Chicken and Rice on Monday which was lush if a tad hotter than intended!!  I used a different curry paste and clearly you don't need so much.  As a result the little man ended up with bread and butter for his dinner as it was too hot for him.  We really enjoyed it though and it's something I used to make a lot but haven't lately.

It's so simple and quick to make - heat some curry paste in a large frying pad and then add some cooked chicken, some frozen peas and some cashew nuts if you have them.  Lightly fry and then add a packet or two of Uncle Bens ready cooked rice - I use the vegetable pilau flavour.  Stir fry till it's all warm and serve with a squeeze of lemon juice.  See how easy is that?!

Tuesday night was Egg and Chips as I forgot to get the beef out for the curry! Wednesday night was quorn mince and rice.

Thursday night was paprika chicken and jacket potatoes and veg.  This was a packet I got on offer in Aldi and you cook the chicken along with chorizo, onions and mushrooms (in place of peppers as the boys aren't keen) IN A BAG!! I know!! In a bag - amazing!  Here is said bag having just come out of the oven...

Doesn't look that exciting does it?!!  But it tasted lovely - and was a v cheap meal; made with reduced chicken legs and packet mix and jacket potatoes I got for 21p for 4.  Will be making again.

Friday was these Sweet Chilli Hot Dogs which were lovely.  Saturday was curry from a jar cos it was one of those days!!  And Sunday we had beef casserole done in the slow cooker whilst we were at a boot sale.

On Saturday morning I had a notion to make pancakes and whipped up these little fellas which were lovely :)  

Have always thought pancakes were a bit of a palaver but turns out that's not the case and these worked really well with rice milk.  

So onto this week - hubs is on holiday this week so we are planning to go out and about and therefore this really is subject to change!!! 

Monday - left over beef casserole and rice

Tuesday - Turkey Burgers and Sweet Potato Fries

Wednesday - Chicken in a bag again!!

Thursday  Fish, Chips and Mushy Peas 

Friday - Chilli and Rice

Saturday - I'm hoping to go to the Suffolk Food Hall Fete on Saturday and pick something lovely up from there

Sunday - Roast Pork...possibly! 

Fizzzzzzzzzz

I found an activity on Pinterest that held the little mans attention for longer than two seconds!!

Here's the link

Here's my vinegar all coloured with food colouring and raring to go 

And here's the little man with his pipette and mad scientist hair 

The patterns the vinegar made were really pretty and we did some paper prints before it got a bit too sludgy 

He loved the fizzing and the bubbles  - he's very big on bubbles at the moment!  Will be one for another day I think :) 

Meal Plan Monday - again!

How is it Monday again?!!?  I had great plans to do some other blog posts in the past week but time obviously eluded me - along with sleep again! Thank you little man!

So last weeks meal plan didn't quite go to plan - lack of sleep and change of plans meant that our meals plans at present are very flexible.  I think I said in my previous post I was off to buy some dinner for Tuesday night and in the end we had a Roast dinner with a lovely ready roast dish from Aldi - two chicken breasts wrapped in bacon to which I added some roasted new potatoes and veg and some yorkshires - lovely! I also made a plum, apple and blueberry crumble using these lovely plums from our tree.  This was all the tree produced as it's still young so it seemed a good idea to use them all in one go!!

And here are my boys making the crumble topping - the little man gets his little stool out whenever he sees cooking occuring and has to join in, actually take over!!  Not sure how the big man got roped in!  

I used a recipe from Marian Keyes Saved By Cake book which is a new borrow from the library - and it was lush (the book is fantastic too - amazing original combinations in it), although I tweaked it slightly as follows..

Mix 175g plain flour with 50g caster sugar - and the recipe calls for 50g of dark muscovado sugar but I didn't have this so used the same quantity of demerara sugar.  Rub in 100g of butter (I used stork as usual) and then mix in 100g of oats - I didn't have that many oats so I used about half of oatmeal which I've had kicking around for ages.  And it was blooming lovely - I meant to take a pic but we ate it rather too quickly!!! 

Wednesday night - I made these herbed turkey meatballs - which were ok but nothing special.

Thursday night I made a sausage and new potato bake.  I threw in some chopped onions, chopped sausages and chopped new potatoes and some mushrooms when they were nearly cooked and served with beans - blooming gorgeous!! 

Friday night was homemade pizza for me and hubs and Macaroni cheese for little man - I made enough of this to feed an army so hubs and little man had it on Saturday whilst I had fishcakes and chips.

Yesterday I had a disaster with some beef brisket and the slow cooker (I don't want to talk about it) and we ended up having hot dog and chips at the sea instead :)  Lovely

So onto this week:

Tonight - Chicken & Rice
Tuesday - Beef Rogan Josh
Wednesday - Quorn Mince and Pasta
Thursday - Paprika Chicken and Jacket Potatoes
Friday - Sweet Chilli Hot Dogs and Chips
Saturday - Chicken Tikka Masala
Sunday - tbc!

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Meal Plan Monday

Following on from bedgate last week I've totally lost my cooking mojo with my tiredness.  Last weeks meal plan did kinda go to plan but I worry that sharing my meal plan secrets means I've lost the magic as I can't get my head around it all now!! lol!!

Last week we ate as planned other than on the weekend when on Saturday we went out and Sunday we had pasta in the evening due to having pigged out the evening before.

So onto this week

Monday - Fish, Mash and Veg

Tuesday - today - was going to be paprika chicken but I've forgotten to get the chicken out of the freezer so when the little man wakes up we are off to the shops and I will get something nice from there!

Wednesday - Turkey Meatballs and Pasta

Thursday - Quinoa and Sweet Potato Chilli and Rice

Friday - HM pizza

Saturday - Chicken Tikka Masala and trimmings

Sunday - Sticky Pork and BBQ beans - probably ;)

oooo I have my own shop!!!

I've opened my own Etsy shop - which wasn't quite as scary as it sounded!!  Only a few things listed at present but lots more in the pipeline.

Do take a  look

I am working on adding a button to the side of this blog for the shop (as well as for Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest) when I can.  I've been struggling with this but it hit me the other night that I'm married to a computer programmer so maybe I should ask him........ Watch this space ;)

Meal Plan Monday and beyond....

A bit late again I'm afraid! It's been one of those weeks as I mentioned in my previous post.

We did stick to the previous weeks meal plan - we even had falafels!!  Although hubs wasn't that keen on them but the little man loved them and the cous cous I served with them.

The chinese chicken noodles turned into Jamie's Satay chicken which I completely mess about with and don't make kebabs but smear it over some chicken chunks and shove under the grill.  I then use the other half of the sauce to fry some noodles I've soaked in boiling hot water whilst I was doing the above and serves like this...

I think I've taken a pic of this one before but here's my healthy ham egg and chips which is one of my fave.  Although eagle eyed readers will spot the omission of ham which I only realised once I'd served up - ooops! 

And this is my little man making jam tarts!! AKA a mess ;) 

So onto this week....well first I have a bit of a confession!  I generally do a months meal plan at a time.  This has caused my merriment amongst people as to how the heck I do it and probably more likely WHY?!

I love food, love looking a recipes and cookbooks but when it comes to meal planning and writing a shopping list OMG is it dull!!  My inspiration totally leaves me so makes more sense to do it all in one go for the month.  It's also much cheaper to do it this way too. I always check my cupboards and freezer first to see what I've got left and can make from that and then I do one big online shop at the start of the month, get my meat from Waitrose's 3 for £10 range (or any other offers I see) and then do a biggish shop from Aldi as well.  I then in theory just top up in the week for fresh stuff and the stuff I've forgotten.  The month before last - which would be June - I didn't do this and it was definitely more expensive.  Last month I did a two week plan and then fudged the rest of the month and that didn't work so well either.  So this month I'm back onto a monthly plan ....but with a difference!  One of the downfalls of a monthly plan is that you don't always know what you are going to be doing or feel like eating in a few weeks time so things can get changed (I've always been flexible with it anyway and have some back ups in the freezer) but am adding in more flexibility by planning the correct number of meals but not allocating them to days (are you still with me? It is possibly you may think I over think my meal plan but it's food!!  You can't overthink it!  And I can get through any thing a day throws at me if I know what I'm eating at the end of it)

So this month I've planned a set number of midweek meals, a set number of Sunday lunches and a set number of Friday and Saturday meals and have ordered everything I need for these other than the fresh stuff that I can get on a weekly basis.  

So onto the meal plan.....

This week

Monday - Fish in breadcumbs from the freezer with oven chips and beans

Tuesday - Fajitas

Wednesday - nothing as we had a Burger King for lunch (it's been one of those weeks!!)

Thursday - tonight - Quorn mince with rice/pasta

Friday - Sausage, mash and Veg

Saturday - Mac and cheese

Sunday - Sticky Pork Shoulder with BBQ Beans and Mash (unless it's ridiculously hot and then I might make something else).

For the rest of the month it's looking like this:

Sunday meals - Roast chicken (from the Waitrose 3 for £10), Roast Chicken legs (managed to get 4 for £2 yesterday in the reduced section in Tesco),  Sausages (on offer in Waitrose - 3 for £6) in either a toad in the hole or casserole.

Friday & Saturday meals - HM Pizza, Turkey Burgers and Chips, Chicken Tikka Massala and Chicken Korma and trimmings from the Hairy Bikers Curry Book, Chicken Fried Rice - a new pin on Pinterest, Healthy Ham Egg and Chips, Chilli and Sweet Chilli Hot Dogs with HM rolls if I can manage it. 

Midweek Meals - Ravioli and Sauce, HM Fish Cakes, Mac and Cheese, Paprika Chicken (a mix I got from Aldi last time I was there to go with the other 2 chicken legs), Slow Cooked Beef and Beef Rogan Josh (as I got some cheap casserole Beef in tescos reduced section yesterday as well), Quorn sausages and chips, Turkey meatballs, Chipotle chicken (as I've got some chipotle paste that I don't know what to do with!!!), Lasagne, Quinoa and Sweet Potato Chilli (to use up a small amount of quinoa), Lentil Curry, Fish in Breadcrumsb and Quorn mince and pasta! 

Watch this space to see how many of these actually get made!!! 

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Major developments

Sorry I've not been about for a bit - it's been all go here.  With a very busy weekend with family visits and two big developments having taken place!

Unfortunately the second didn't go so well and has impacted on the first so I will tell you about that first!  We decided at the weekend that we would move the little man into a big boy bed.  Now we were a tad worried about doing this on a Sunday night after a very busy weekend but thought naively how much worse could his sleep get?!  Well it turns out much worse - only about 1 hour on the first night before 5:30am when I started to sleep next to him on the floor (cutely at about 8am he got out of his bed and came and slept with me <3 ).  After two more nights of awful sleep and upset on his part we've gone back to his cot and he slept better last night than he's done in ages so it was clearly the right decision!  We will try again in a few weeks/months and probably take the sides of the cot slowly rather than rushing it as we did.

As we've not had much sleep not an awful lot has got done - and the list is ever growing!!  Hopefully I can catch up now!!

The second development is that I've started to sell my crafty makes!!  So far I've set up my own facebook page and am working on an etsy and folksy page!!  All very exciting.  And would be more so if I had another 24 hours in each day and no need for sleep!

Here's are my first makes:

A felt bird garland

A green heart garland

A hungry caterpillar garland

An owl cushion

An owl garland

A pink heart garland

I have a million ideas for these garlands and cushions plus another million more for other items and am starting to think about Halloween and Christmas....now where did those extra hours go?