Updated Diary of a Newborn and first food video

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Diary of a newborn has been updated with a video of Little Miss A enjoying her first taste of food!  Please check it out x

Pancake day!

Since Little Mr A started school no ‘holiday’ big or small (Diwali anyone?) goes without a celebration in our house.  Last week he came home very excited as he had had pancakes at school (they are on half term this week so had them a week early).  He has been pestering me all week for pancakes and finally, today, I was able to let him have some!

Here are some pics of me and my helper making our pancakes:

Making the batter...

Making the batter…

Mummy are they ready yet?

Mummy are they ready yet?

 

Mmmm.... Chocolate spread!

Mmmm…. Chocolate spread!

Enough pictures now, I want to eat them!

Enough pictures now, I want to eat them!

 

The aftermath!

The aftermath!

 

Roll on Easter!

Yippee! I’ve got mouldy bananas!

Ok so maybe not something I should be bragging about, having mouldy food in the house.  Under normal circumstances it’s not an exciting event, except when it comes to bananas as it means I can make banana bread, one of our family favourites!

banana bread

To make your own delicious banana loaves, this is the recipe:

200g plain flour

2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)

75g butter or margarine

115g caster sugar

3 bananas, mashed

2 eggs, beaten

1.  Pre-heat oven to 180/gas mark 4

2. Sift flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon into a bowl

3.  In another bowl mix the butter/margarine with the sugar until light and fluffy

4.  Add mashed bananas and eggs to sugar/margarine and mix well

5.  Add to the dry ingredients and mix quickly and evenly

6.  If making one large loaf it will take around 50-60 minutes to cook, halve this time if making small loaves or muffins

I have topped mine this time with a brown sugar glaze and two of them with chopped nuts but it tastes just as good plain.

It is a really versatile recipe and also makes great banana muffins.  I have also made it before adding raisins or chocolate.

Let me know what you think if you try it out! 🙂

 

This post is part of the #FaveFamilyRecipes Competition with BritMums and Tilda Rice. Every pack sold will provide a meal to an expectant mum in Bangladesh

Mmmm Cheese!

IMAG0267Thanks to Primula and Mumsnet Little Mr A’s Primula Pod’s arrived today.

IMAG0263First impressions….yummy!

IMAG0266

Big Mr A’s Big Fat Hairy Diet

Big Mr A has been unhappy with his weight for a while but, like a lot of people, struggled to find the motivation or effort to do anything about it.  Over the summer we watched the Hairy Bikers dieting programme and he thought if they can do it so can I.  Great, I thought as images of Daniel Craig’s body with Big Mr A’s head flashed through my mind, then the realisation struck me that I would be the one who would have to plan and cook his healthy meals and snacks!  I don’t know about you but the thought of planning meals each week that the whole family enjoys and that don’t break the bank fill me with dread every Sunday!

For Big Mr A’s birthday I bought him the Hairy Dieter’s cookbook and, flicking through found loads of great recipes that would satisfy the whole family.  Some looked quite daunting at first as there were a lot of ingredients and instructions but there are plenty in there for even the most basic cook.

Having used the book for the evening meals for a couple of weeks and, running out of ideas, I decided to go through all of the old recipes I had saved from various magazines and managed to find a few that would fit in with Big Mr A’s diet.  I now have a nice selection of recipes to choose from each week that are great for the whole family.

Having been on the diet now for 5 weeks Big Mr A has lost over a stone and a half (even though he has strayed a couple of times!).  I am really proud of how well he has done, cutting out snacks and especially steering well away from his beloved beer on a Friday/Saturday night.  He is looking so much healthier and his clothes are starting to hang off him already!

I am not looking forward to joining him in a couple of weeks, I have developed a real sweet tooth these last few weeks of my pregnancy and don’t know how I will cope without chocolate, cakes and especially donuts!  Maybe the Hairy Bikers can come up with a recipe for healthy but tasty donuts?!

A couple of our favourite recipes from the Hairy Dieters:

Skinny Lemon Cupcakes when you need a sweet fix

Delicious chicken korma