BLW: Lois’ Cheesy Balls

Posted on April 3, 2017April 3, 2017 by Amykate

One of the best things we did to prep for this baby was sign up to an NCT course – we learned a lot of facts about labour and birth that were truly horrific and perfect for dinner time conversation but the best part was meeting a group of lovely lovely people who are all going through the same thing at the same time, we now have a group who we can vent to or ask advice of when the baby is being a little… darling!

Lois is one of the mums from our NCT group, pretty sure she invented these, there are lots of similar recipes floating around but these take the best bits and put them all together and they are amazing, you end up with these tasty bites that, although rather strongly flavoured, the baby really seems to love! They are the right size for him, you can make them in bulk, they are easy, they freeze, you can stick a couple in a Tupperware and take them out with you. Plus they’re vegetable based so practically good for you!

I have tweaked slightly, here is my recipe.

Ingredients
1 large broccoli head OR 1 cauliflower
1 slice of bread or pitta bread (whole meal if you’re being very healthy), grated or blitzed into breadcrumbs
Grated Cheese – I’m use mature or medium
1-2 eggs depending on the runnyness of the mixture
Pepper
Small onion diced
Clove of garlic or garlic powder

Method
– Steam the veg till tender, then let it dry off whilst you get the rest ready so the mixture isn’t too wet later on
– Mash / blend the veg to a textured pureé
– Mix everything together into a glorious sticky mess
– Put small balls onto a lightly greased baking tray (a couple of sprays of olive oil)
– Bake till golden at about 180 – roughly 12-15 mins depending on oven
Grown up version
– I find the onion too strong so I would saute it first, but the baby likes it so I haven’t tried this yet
– I also plan to try bacon with the cauliflower ones at some point

BLW – Pancakes

Posted on March 13, 2017March 13, 2017 by Amykate

Ok, I admit – I forgot about Shrove Tuesday! And you know that nipping to the shops when you have a baby and it’s coming up to a meal time and you haven’t started on supper and you’ve not had a shower yet is oh so super convenient so all I can say is, thank you past Amy for making sure there was SR flour, Eggs and milk in the house!

Ingredients
– 100g Self Raising flour
– 100ml milk
– 1 egg
– oil or butter for frying
– Anything else you fancy

Base Recipe
– Put 100ml milk in a jug
– Put jug on scales and add 100g Self Raising flour
– crack in an egg and beat up (I used my hand blender that I have for making baby purees)
– You can either cook now or add other things at this stage – see below
– Heat a frying pan with spry olive oil in (or butter etc. what ever you have around)
– Cook 3 or 4 dollops into the pan for 40 seconds (ish), flip and cook for another 40 seconds
– Continue until you’ve used all the mixture or the baby screams the house down because supper in taking too long – the mixture can stand for a while, in fact it helps if it does – something to do with gluten.
– Serve – they can be hot in the middle so be careful

Savoury cheese
– Add finely chopped onions
– Add grated cheese – I preferred stronger cheese to be honest, about 30g but it’s not a science
– Grown up version – serve with soured cream and some chives

Blueberry
– Add 30g ish of frozen blueberries, did I defrost to start with? No, should i have done? Maybe
– Warning – your baby will look horrendous after eating blueberries! But they love it

Banana and Raisins
– Roughly mash a banana and add to the mixture
– add raisins
– a healthy pinch of cinnamon and stir
– Grown up version – I had mine with maple syrup, yum!

Pizza Toast

Posted on March 13, 2017 by Amykate

Pizza Toast

Another quick baby meal made from store cupboard things and what ever you have lurking in the fridge.

Harlyn loves cocktail sausages so we always have them in, it’s amazing what you can add them to!

– Turn on the grill
– Make toast
– Spread with tomatoe puree – not too thick
– Add pizza toppings, I used chopped peppers and a sliced cocktail sausage but once again this is a “what ever is in the fridge” meal
– Cover with cheese – grated or sliced
– Grill for, oo, 3 and a half minutes – you want the cheese melted enough to hold everything together but you don’t want the toast to burn
– Slice into squares or fingers,
– Let cool and enjoy!

Baked Egg, or Fridge Surprise – Baby Version

Posted on March 7, 2017March 13, 2017 by Amykate

The “What the feck do I feed the baby for tea?” feeling hit around 4pm today, we’ve had a busy week and there were no left overs in the fridge for once. We had been swimming today so he needed something more than just toast but I wasn’t up for a full scale cooking or cleaning event.

When I don’t know what to cook for the grown ups I cook “fridge surprise” which is usually pasta with a sauce made up of what ever is the in the fridge – or sometimes it’s a stir fry or when things are really barren in there, it’s hat old classic – an omelette. As we’re doing baby led weaning and the baby has what we have, it waas time for baby fridge surprise!

And so the Crust-less-quiche / omelette / fridge surprise fusion was born. And the baby liked it 🙂

Ingredients:
– An Egg
– Cheese
– What ever else you have around, I used a slice of wafer thin ham as I wanted to up his protein for today (it was a carby lunch!)
– Pepper
– Dash of milk – not sure if this actually helped, it just felt right

EDIT: I did this again without the milk and it was fine! I added green pepper this time – that worked well, he wasn’t too sure to start with but got into it!

Method:
– Spray some cooking oil into a ramekin, or grease with butter. I didn’t do either of these things and it still worked
– Crack an egg into the ramekin and beat up a bit
– Add cheese – lumps or grated, I had some little bags of cheese cubes so threw them in
– Add ground pepper
– Tear up a slice of ham and add
– I added a dash of milk at this point, probably wont next time
– stir it all up a bit
– Microwave for about a minute and check, it may need a little more – babies should have solid eggs
– Turn out onto a plate, let cool, cut into “fingers” or chunks.

Variations:
– Add what ever the hell you have in the fridge tothe egg mixturn before cooking, torn or cut into suitable sized chunks

Slightly odd – and very British – tips for expectant mothers

Posted on November 21, 2016 by Amykate

As you may know, we’ve recently had a baby boy, but before that I was pregnant (funny that…) and the the internet is just full of bat shit insane and down right dangerous / terrifying information for mums to be. In this sea of chaos was an oasis of sense – /r/babybumps – well, sense and an inordinate number of watermelon related posts.

Anyway, 6 weeks post-birth I returned to thank them for their help and to offer my own tips, the lovely people of Reddit agreed with my tips so I’m blogging them for prosperity.

(NB the american redditors were a little baffled by the focus on tea and toast in my post-birth life, but as you know, that’s exactly how a brit copes with everything and anything)

Here we go:

As I have now been a mother for almost 6 whole weeks, I’m fully qualified to pass on some tips 😉 I know you’re all covered on the usual stuff (lip balm – yes!) but here are my top slightly off wall tips.

Full disclosure: I’m a technical project manager and I’ve suffered from a chronic fatigue syndrome so I’m good at being organised whilst being a tired zombie- that training helped, but may explain some of the odder tips below…

But first, advice – nothing will go as planned, it’s bloody hard and you can do it. Make sure you and your birth partner know the options, make it clear to the midwives that yes, you will be asking for the pros and cons of everything but if you’re informed you can make choices there and then and know you’re doing the best in that situation, this gives great peace of mind. Also as we both knew the plan, I could delegate choices to my hubby when I just couldn’t cope – he was amazing, asked all the right questions and made the right things happen 🙂

Anyway, our top tips:

Water bottle. Go and buy a large good one NOW, you will need it during labour, you need it now to keep yourself hydrated and dear god you will need it when breast feeding. You will be soooo dehydrated. Get a decent one!
Get one for your partner too! Put it in their hospital bag and tell them to drink. Labour takes forever, when your sidekick gives you water, they should drink a swing too. The midwives went to get the hubby a cuppa at one point but my bp dropped so there was a flurry and it was about an hour later before we looked over to him and saw him fading! Make sure your man can keep hydrated.
Make sure he eats something. Yes I know you’re the main player here but you’ll need him later – I stuck harribo and chocolate in his bag, he forgot about it and looked very very pale after about 24 hours. Dread to think how I looked! Actually I took a photo, I looked terrible. I couldn’t eat as I was at risk of cesarean – the darling baby wasn’t looking the right way which was…inconvenient! Anyway, once the beloved had had some sugar he looked much better.
3m long phone charging cables. You may be stuck in hospital for some time, being able to sit in bed on charge was great – you know how long those beds are and how far away from the wall sockets they can be, 3m was awesome. Also get your home set up now, you will be sat for hours all over the place feeding, decent length cables can trail over the backs of sofas etc. I used these, a couple of quid and they are fab. Order now!http://s.aliexpress.com/aQRBrM3q
You’re going to feed horrid, get some really really nice shower gel and face wash, I know it sounds daft but decent face wash and really nice shower gel will make you feel human. You’ve already spent a small fortune getting ready for the baby, this is a drop in the ocean. You deserve it. Plus middle of the night, washing your face can give you a new burst of energy.
Go to Costco and buy breakfast bars (their own brand are yummy!) and some small chocolate bars or something similar. This is what you will live on the first couple of days, and that’s ok 🙂 we have a rule that if you do a night feed, you totally can have a caramel freddo bar! We also bought a tray of tins of bakes beans, anyone can make beans on toast with one hand whilst calming a screaming baby.
Get a milkman! Do they have those in America? We’ve signed up with Milk and More here in the UK. So once a week we get milk and bread delivered – you can do anything as long as you can make tea and toast.
Get a shopping basket, we have an old fashioned wicker one. Why? You will spend your life going from room to room and floor to floor in your house with one hand carrying the baby, a basket will allow you to move more than one thing. You can also use it to clear out all the mugs that will end up all over your house. Trust me on this one! It’ll save you a lot of effort 🙂
Pyjamas with pockets. You will be doing a lot of walking around with a baby in your arms – you need to be able to put your phone somewhere, or store a bottle etc. Chaps too.
If nights are hell, get a thermos flask, a hot cup of tea or coffee may just recapture your sanity at 4am after an hour of being screamed at. It’s rather civilised!
Remember this – both you and your partner are perfectly capable, no don’t fall for any of that crap about ditsy dads, apart from breast feeding there is nothing the chaps can’t do, do it all together, yes things will change when one or both of you are back at work but that first week is a team effort, you’ll be fantastic.

Everyone is different, but hopefully some of this will help. Good luck, you’re going to kick arse.

We had a baby

Image posted on October 10, 2016 by Amykate

Yes, we had a baby! He’s called Harlyn James and naturally we think he’s adorable.

But that does explain why I’ve been so quiet on the internet front – turns out pregnancy is hard! As is looking after a teeny tiny baby. The less said about labour the better at this stage I think…

There are many aspects of the whole pregnancy, childbirth, newborn life I will probably blog about later on, but for now I’m off to bed – I need to feed the boy shortly and we have a busy day tomorrow, at 11 weeks old we’re going swimming for the first time… he has a more hectic schedule than me.

Fluffy eggs

Posted on August 20, 2016 by Amykate

Hello,

Yes I know, it’s been 2 years since I last blogged – I’ll get to that. But first, Fluffy Eggs. A new breakfast / brunch / I’m hungry and time no longer has any meaning….dish.

If I can whip these up in my current state, anyone can. I more or less followed this recipe – the only tip I would add was I put each egg yoke into it’s own shot glass so I could then deploy it into it’s fluffy egg white cloud directly.

Enjoy!

Happy New Year 2014

Posted on January 6, 2014 by Amykate

Happy new year everyone. It’s 2014, doesn’t time fly.

It’s January, which means only one thing – the great board game play through of 2014.

The rules
– Each board game in the house must be played once
– No repeates
– No new board games must be bought by either player before all games in the house are played.
– All variations of each game must be played

We just created the list – we have 59 board games in the house… this may be a long January!

Ham Pasta Recipe

Posted on August 15, 2013May 26, 2016 by Amykate

A very simple and healthy pasta dish. It was cooked on an advert for I think Waistrose years ago, but I can’t find a reference to it now. Good staple, very easy and very tasty.

The Cast: – Bow pasta – Spring onions – Thin ham – Creme Fraiche – Olive oil spray – Black pepper (not shown) – Parsley (Optional)
Put the pasta on to cook Spray a wok generously with the olive oil spray chop the spring onions and start to gently fry.
Chop the ham – as hard as it may be, do not be neat about this or it will all stick together!
Throw into the pan with the spring onions – don’t let them burn. You’re trying to fry the onions and heat the ham, not crisp it. You’ll probiably have to turn it off whilst you wait for the pasta to finish cookingMake sure the Creme Fraiche is out of the fridge!
Drain the cooked pasta and add to the wok
Stir it all together
You want the ham distributed evenly.Turn off the heat, add the Creme Fraiche and stir!
Add plenty of ground black pepper and some parsley if you have it. Enjoy!

May 2012

Posted on May 25, 2012 by Amykate Admin

So what have I been upto this month? A quick recap!

It’s play time – memory of water in the village. It looks fantastic, I’m on lighting this time. Luckily a lot of my Noda lighting course in August 2009 is coming back to me.
- It’s a lot like sound.
Currently reading a book – Prince of Thorns, so far it’s good if bleak.
The last book I read was the first in a trilogy – The-Traitors-Heir, very good, written by someone from my old school.
Booked a trip to Bruges for late June with the beloved, 5 days – beer, chocolate, canals, chips and muscles 🙂
Off to dddsw this afternoon, looking forward to another interesting weekend – last year was an eye opener, yes I met the beloved but I also learnt about Kanban for the first time and had my eyes opened to the life changing concept of test driven development.
Today my Raspberry pi arrived! Very exciting.

I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to do with it. I haven’t even got a hdmi cable… I feel like a terrible hardware-mother, it’s like bringing a baby home without having a pram…
I’m sure it’ll be fine and it won’t resent me, although I’m expecting some hardware failures when it hits its teens…
As I’m busy with rehearsals for the next two weeks I won’t get a chance to have a proper tinker with it for while but I’m still pleased 🙂

Recipes:

my mashed potatoes – mix in a small amount of cheese, dash of milk, possibly butter, plenty of pepper and the secret ingredient – a teaspoon of horseradish – serve with poached eggs, lovely.
millionaire shortbread – I followed the recipe on the tin but made my own shortbread
lots of variations of my tomato pasta recipe

first attempt at Millionaires Shortbread... poached eggs on onion/cheese/horseradish mash. Rather yummy

Media:

The Avengers Assembled – assembled as I saw it it the uk where the Avengers is something completely different. Good fun film
more game of thrones
still ploughin through star trek TNG – really enjoying it now I’m past the first season
In the Star Trek theme – watched the documentary Trekkies on netflicks
And yet more – saw the documentary The Captains
– the Saboteur play list on spotify – see below

Gaming:

My education is gaming is continuing, I’ve been brought The Saboteur which is really enjoyable, once you get past the rather… stylised Irish accent. It looks and sound good, I’m enjoying the sound track.
I brought farm frenzy 3 on the iPad a few months ago when it was on sale and I’ve been powering through that, it’s a lot more addictive than a game that involves gathering milk/eggs/fleece has any right to be

Work:

couple of upgrades recently
couple of new projects
one of which involved a significant amount of data manipulation in and out of 3 SQL server databases, it even included a multi-sheeted spreadsheet. This makes a very happy Amy!

Nice reflections today #officeviews