Beautiful, Magical, Amazing BALLET

If you have a little one besotted by ballet and everything about it, then this is one for them.   Beautiful, Magical, Amazing BALLET by Mary Lee is one of three stories in this range about a little girl called Mia and her adventures, and is available in paperback or in a Kindle version.

The story follows Mia as she attends her first ballet lesson.  She can't wait to get there - she already knows everything there is to know about ballerinas and is sure she will be good at it.  But when she sees the girls already in the class practising their moves she feels a little self conscious and an attempt to impress them goes wrong.  The girls rally round Mia making her feel included and by the end of the lesson, Mia cannot wait to go back again next week.

I really love the illustrations in this book - the colours are very appealing - and DD loved them too.  This is a lovely little story to share while snuggled up together on the sofa during these cold afternoons.

Jumbo Jacks

I found this recipe on a scrap of paper torn from a magazine when I was looking through my recipe file for something easy to make with DD earlier today.  Its a good one for kids as it only involves stirring - no creaming required! - although you obviously need to do the part of melting the butter & syrup.  They turned out really tasty - DD and I enjoyed them warm from the oven while we watched The Gruffalo for the 78th time, and DS got them for his after school snack and gave his seal of approval too.

Ingredients
175g self-raising flour
175g granulated sugar
75g porridge oats
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp baking powder
175g butter
2 tbsp golden syrup

Method
Mix the flour, sugar, oats, bicarb and baking powder together in a bowl.

Put the butter and golden syrup into a small saucepan and heat until melted.  Stir into the flour mix until combined.  You might need to use your hands to bring the mixture together a little.

Take small balls of mixture, roll and press down onto a greased baking tray.  Bake for 180 (160 fan) for 12-15 minutes.

Warning: These spread massively so keep your balls small - see how DD's ones turned out!

German Style Gnocchi

I have no idea whether this is German style or not (I doubt it very much!) but when we visited our friends in Hamburg recently, we were served this for supper one night and it was delicious.  I sneaked into the kitchen afterwards to check out the recipe book and was delighted to find it was easy enough for me to remember and recreate in my kitchen back home the next week!

Ingredients
Half packet of small tomatoes (cherry, vine, any kind will do)
1 courgette
Packet of fresh gnocchi
Tub of creme fraiche
Handful of Ritz crackers (4/5)
Half block of feta cheese 

Method
Halve the tomatoes.  Slice the courgette however you like - I did mine in ribbons but you could equally chop it up.  

Put the tub of creme fraiche into a jug and crumble in the feta cheese.  Crush the Ritz crackers in too then blitz with a hand-held blender for just a minute, and stir well.  (If you don't have a blender, this would work fine just crushing & crumbling - would perhaps be a little more crunchy, that's all).

Heat a little oil in a non-stick frying pan and add the gnocchi - you don't need to boil it first.  Cook, ensuring you keep stirring, until it starts to brown.  

Add the tomatoes and courgette at this stage, and cook for around 5 mins until everything is brown / cooked through.

Stir through the creme fraiche mix and serve immediately.

Little Red Bus Craft

Those of you who have read my previous posts will know that I am hopeless at all things child-craft related but this sinks to new lows.  I was in two minds as to whether to post it but I figured you could all do with a laugh!

To be fair, the kids had fun making it and that's all that matters...right?!

You will need:

Empty box (tea bag box size)
Red paint
White stickers
Bottle tops
Photos
Glue
Tape
Scissors

First you need to paint your tea bag box with red paint.  Despite 3 coats, the box still showed through on ours but I think that was due to the cheap paint!  You need to leave this to dry thoroughly so you may decide to do this part yourself if you have impatient little people.

Next you need the "people" to go in the windows of the bus.  I printed off shrunken down photos of our friends & family (hence the pixellation!) but you could equally use magazine cuttings of the right size - obviously they need to be pretty small.  

Stick your white labels (white cut paper would work equally well) on to the box to make the windows.  Then get the kids to glue on their people - this part was quite interesting to watch, as DS chose all his friends and family members but DD only wanted to stick on photos of herself!  

Once the people are stuck on, you need to stick on your wheels.  Glue didn't seem to hold ours (but again, could just be the cheap brand I bought!) so we ended up putting tape on to stick them.  

DS asked if he could make a hole in his and attach string so he could pull it along but I was pretty sure it wouldn't survive so talked him out of it!  Nevertheless, we now have two red buses sitting on our table awaiting daddy's inspection when he gets home.

Christmas Table

Have you started thinking about Christmas yet?  Last night, I attempted the Christmas card photos - DS dressed up as an Elf and DD as a fairy.  I gave up after about 20 photos of ridiculously cheesy grins, none of which were great so I'm going to have to see if I can photoshop some together!

There will be 11 (possibly 12!) of us around my table this year so I'm trying to organise in advance.  I've been buying one Christmas item each time I visit the supermarket, not only to try and spread the expense but also so I don't have a huge load all in one go!  My utility room is fast filling up with mince pies, paper plates and crackers ;)

I'm planning to give the kids a few things at the lunch table to keep them occupied, either while waiting for the food to be served or when they are finished eating but the adults are still going.  In Sainsburys this morning, I found some wonderful Stacking Crayons for £1.99 a packet - way cheaper than Amazon - which I'm going to pair with some Christmas colouring pages.

My presents are very nearly all purchased, and I can't wait to get our tree up...in fact, this year, I'm really looking forward to Christmas!  Not quite at the counting-down-the-days stage but still...