Book review - Back to your Roots! recipe book

As a Parragon Book Buddy I'm very much enjoying the opportunity to try out a new recipe book each month. This month I've been looking at Back to Your Roots, a recipe book of root vegetable recipes from the Love Food cookbook range.

Vegetables are essential to a healthy diet, and root vegetables in particular contain slow-release carbohydrate that makes you feel full for longer and keeps your energy levels stable. Root vegetables are full of fibre, and many have special properties, such as beetroot which has anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. They are also generally fairly cheap, and have a reasonable shelf life, both of which are important considerations when you are feeding the family!

Root vegetables are often just treated as a basic side dish, and so this recipe book is packed full of inspirational recipes to encourage you to try something a bit different and experiment with some new flavours.

The book is divided into sections, which include main dishes, meals for when you are entertaining, and side dishes. Many of the recipes are vegetarian, or could be adapted as vegetarian recipes. There's a wide range of less traditional recipes, for example Beetroot Burgers, Sweet Potato Pancakes or Baked Root Vegetable and Rosemary Cake, as well as plenty of advice when it comes to cooking root vegetables, with tips on different methods and techniques. A great book to add to the recipe book collection!

I received a copy of this book to review as a Parragon Book Buddy.

Charlie Bucket costume for World Book Day

Thursday 6th March 2014 was World Book Day. I've been aware of it for a few years now, mainly from panicked online chatter about costumes. Now that Harry is in school, this was the first year that I needed to help him prepare a costume. I might appear crafty, but I've not had a lot of experience with costume making, so I wanted something easy and definitely from a book that he knew and enjoyed. I recently read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to him and he absolutely loved it, so Charlie Bucket seemed like an obvious choice.

The most important prop was a Golden Ticket. There are lots of printable Golden Tickets online. I used the one which I found here - Golden Ticket - because it was simple and high quality. We printed it in colour and then I glued it onto some gold cardboard. The book also contains the full text that was printed on the Golden Ticket, so you could type it all up yourself into a document and then print onto yellow or gold paper.

Then we bought him a Wonka chocolate bar. They are easily available in the supermarkets and I have to say that they are delicious! I bought my favourite which is the Millionaire's Shortbread bar. I didn't trust Harry to take a bar of chocolate into school and return with it intact for me to eat, so I removed the chocolate for safekeeping and replaced it with some thick cardboard.

Then I just dressed him in some old clothes - a pair of jeans that were a little too short in the legs, and a top which is getting a bit scruffy. He's quite skinny anyway and also generally quite scruffy, so he looks the part!

For a different twist on the theme you could even dress your child up as a golden ticket like Domestic Goddesque! You can also find some more Roald Dahl costume ideas here - World Book Day Roald Dahl easy fancy dress ideas - and Netmums have also put together a fantastic post of really easy World Book Day Dressing Up Ideas which I'll definitely be turning to in future years!

Mini Egg Cookies for Easter

My usual Easter baking is extremely traditional, and generally involves a couple of Cadbury Mini Eggs presented in simple 'nests' made from chocolate covered cornflakes. But this year I thought I'd have a go at something different, and so I tried some Mini Egg cookies. I know that it's not actually Easter for ages yet, but it's good to have a practice in advance. Also I've managed to resist Mini Eggs in the supermarket since just after Christmas, so I've done pretty well to get this far!

I used a very simple cookie recipe which requires few ingredients and was found originally on Living it Little. It works very well when any type of confectionery is added - I've also used Smarties, Maltesers, Minstrels and chopped up chocolate. The Mini Eggs do make the cookies rather bulky, and so perhaps cookie style cakes would be a better description, but they are still delicious!

Ingredients:

4oz softened butter
4oz light muscovado sugar
6oz self-raising flour
1 tbsp golden syrup
Two 100g packets of Mini Eggs (give or take the few that don't make it into the bowl)

Method:

Cream together the sugar and the butter, then add the flour and syrup and mix to a dough before adding the Mini Eggs. I make my dough in an electric mixer, and I found that the mixer bashed the Mini Eggs about a bit which worked well in the cookies. Otherwise you could leave them whole, which will increase the depth of the cookie, or perhaps break them up a bit using a rolling pin before putting them in.

Roll the dough into small balls slightly larger than a walnut, flatten very slightly, and place on a greased baking tray. Bake in the oven for about 7 minutes at 180C.  The most important thing to remember with these cookies is that you need to remove them from the oven as soon as they start to brown on top, even though they will still be rather soft and spherical in shape. Leave them on the baking tray to cool and they will flatten out. I find that this recipe makes about 15 good sized cookies, although natural wastage does usually occur during the shaping of the cookies, especially if there are small children about.

Next I'm thinking about attempting a Cadbury's Creme Egg batch of cookies. I wonder if they'd work, or whether they'd turn out too sticky?

Enjoy!

Book reviews - The Wonderful World of Simon Abbot series

The Wonderful World of Simon Abbott range of books is a non-fiction series aimed at children aged 5-7. They are beautifully illustrated books, designed for children to learn and have fun at the same time. There are already two books in the series - The Big Body Book and Journey Around the Solar System - and I was invited to have a look at the two new additions to the series - Planes, Trains and Cars and Animals Everywhere.

Harry is interested in everything about the world around him and always has been. I've found that these two books are a great addition to our non-fiction book collection. His reading is coming along really well, and although he's not quite up to reading the books himself yet it won't be long before he is. In the meantime we can sit and enjoy these books together, and there is plenty going on to talk about.

The books devote a double page spread to each different sub topic, for example in Planes, Trains and Cars it's a different type of vehicle or location associated with it. There's a lot going on in each page, with interesting facts mixed up with little cartoon characters having fun and chattering away through speech bubbles. Many of the facts were new to me and they are definitely designed to appeal to young children, giving them something interesting to remember that they can impress other people with! I know that Harry loves storing up little facts. Because it is all presented in short little snippets it is easy to remember and keeps the information interesting.

Harry is learning about animals at school at the moment, so Animals Everywhere in particular arrived with perfect timing. Most recently he's been learning about penguins - did you know that King Penguins have four layers of feathers to help them cope with the freezing temperatures?

These books are perfect for inquisitive little learners (i.e. all children!). I know that Harry will be picking them up by himself to browse through, especially as his reading improves, and I can see that I'm going to be learning a lot too!

I received these books to review, Amazon links are affiliate.

Mini Hama bead decorative plant markers

Oh, I am loving mini Hama beads at the moment. I recently posted about a few of the mini Hama things that I've made lately - mini Hama bead projects - and now I'm trying to come up with ways in which I can use and display the little finished pieces that are currently just being stored in a box. I've started by making some mini Hama bead decorative plant markers. They are really easy to do, just glue the completed design on to the end of a plain, coloured or painted lollipop stick to display in your favourite houseplant. I'm not sure how well they would stand up to outdoor use, although I guess as they are plastic and therefore waterproof they would probably easily last a season or two in the garden before being damaged by sunlight or frost!

I really like the look of the completed designs, it's a bit difficult to show the scale in photographs but I hope that the lollipop stick gives some idea. Each bead is about the size of a standard cross stitch, so they lend themselves really well to cross stitch patterns. The flower and dragonfly designs are not my own, they can be found in the Hama Mini Bead Flowers Pack which I received for my Birthday.

You could also come up with designs to match the plant that is being used to display them. I do like the idea of making little fruits and vegetables to signify what is actually growing in a plot, for example miniature carrots and tomatoes. They would be good for when you first start sowing seeds indoors, and something pretty to look at while you wait for the seedlings to start growing.

I haven't found many mini Hama bead crafts on the web, so if you have some to share I would love to see them!

Giveaway - A 12 month platinum subscription to Twinkl Primary Resources

If you're a regular reader of my blog, you'll know how much I love Twinkl Primary Resources. I originally wrote about them when I reviewed the site last summer, and since then Twinkl has become the first place that I look for resources to complement the topics that my son has an interest in. I always find what I'm looking for, and more. In particular, I've used Twinkl to find activities for all the themed days that I've organised for my children over the last few months, most recently our beach themed day.

This week, Twinkl celebrates its fourth birthday, having grown to become the largest collection of high quality printable teaching resources in the world. There are currently over 114,000 downloadable resources on the site, and many are available completely free.

To help Twinkl celebrate, I'm really delighted to be able to offer my readers the chance to win a platinum subscription to Twinkl, valid for one year. A platinum subscription opens up everything that Twinkl has to offer, most importantly full access to the entire collection of resources. It really is a fantastic prize!

All entries to the giveaway must be made through the Rafflecopter form below. As a mandatory entry you must leave a comment on this blog post - tell me what topic your child is currently studying at school!

Additional entries are available as per the Rafflecopter form. The closing date is midnight on Saturday 8th March 2014. If you are commenting below as Anonymous, please leave your name or Twitter handle in the comment so that I can moderate entries. Thank you, and good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Terms and conditions - The prize is a 12 month Platinum Subscription to the Twinkl Primary Resources website. The winner will receive their subscription details once I have confirmed their e-mail address. The giveaway closes at midnight on Saturday 8th March 2014. All entries to the giveaway must be received via the Rafflecopter form above. Invalid entries will be removed. If the winner does not respond within 14 days I will redraw and reallocate the prize. One entry per person, no third party or automated entries. There is no cash alternative.

Crafting for Mother's Day with Baker Ross

I'm really excited to be a part of the Baker Ross Bloggers Network. Baker Ross sell all sorts of arts and craft materials, both basic craft supplies and more structured pre-packaged kits which help children to make some gorgeous gifts and keepsakes. You can purchase in bulk, if you are looking to buy products suitable for playgroups or community groups for example, or parents can buy smaller quantities for home use. As a parent, I can see so many materials that we would use. In particular, if we are even planning a party based around any theme, there are lots of great products which would really make it unique and provide some wonderful crafting and party bag supplies.

We received a huge box of craft materials to try out. So many that I can't fit them all into one post! So I'm going to start by taking a look at some of the products we received which are particularly themed towards Mother's Day, celebrated in the UK this year on Sunday, March 30th.

As an absolute minimum for Mother's Day I would hope to receive a card, and Baker Ross offer a number of different pre-printed cards for young children to colour. I really like these MUM Pop-Up Cards, because they are a little bit different and have plenty of space for children to colour. We decorated them with some pretty flower stickers and gem stickers. We were also sent some Mother's Day Face Cards which we've not got to yet but also look like being a lot of fun for the children to decorate. Both cards are each sold in packs of eight, at £1.99 a pack, which I think is very good value. They'd be a great craft for a group of children at a playgroup or similar, as young children can work on them without needing too much supervision.

It's also lovely to receive a homemade gift on Mother's Day, and it's nice if it's something that you might actually use! These Heart Charm Bracelet Kits are really pretty, and Harry easily managed to put one together for me which he was really proud of. A pack of three bracelet kits costs £3.45, and there is a good selection of beads there that you could easily use in other projects too. I left Harry to make his by himself while I occupied Mia, but you could also take the opportunity to help your child think about planning a design in advance, and look at the colours and creating a pattern.

For something a little bit more freestyle, children can decorate these Wooden Heart Magnets, at £2.99 for ten. I painted them red first myself using acrylic paints to make sure that they were evenly covered, then gave the children various stickers, pens and buttons to decorate them. They would make a lovely gift for Valentine's Day too, or a Birthday present for a special person. I've also kept some of them aside, as I can see a few more crafting possibilities for me to try myself!

Finally, these Treasure Chest Foam Kits are girly enough that they would also make a pretty and practical gift for Mum, although I'm afraid that I won't get a look in at ours as they are already stuffed full with 'treasure' that the little ones have collected together! They were pretty easy to assemble, and came with plenty of bits and pieces to decorate them with. A pack of two costs £2.95, and you can also buy ten for £13.90 which I think is great value. I've been thinking that they would be fantastic for a pirate themed party - you could make them as a craft activity during the party, and then also use them as party bags for the children to take home, perhaps finding some chocolate coins or other suitable treasure to fill them with.

We also received lots more arts and crafts goodies which have been keeping us busy over the last few days, so do keep an eye out for my next Baker Ross post which will be all about Spring crafts. It's been nice to have actually seen some sunshine over the last few days!

We received a box of art and craft supplies from Baker Ross as members of their Bloggers Network.