I made these for the children's teachers last week, and they looked really pretty when all wrapped up - the sparkles made them feel very Christmassy!
Ingredients
90g butter (soft)
100g caster sugar
1 egg
200g plain flour
1/2tsp ground ginger
1/2tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp fine salt
Edible rainbow dust (or any kind of sparkles)
Method
Cream the butter & sugar until fluffy, then beat in the egg. Mix the flour with the ginger, cinnamon, baking powder & salt then sift through a sieve to remove any lumps. Add the flour mix and the egg to the butter & sugar mix and combine thoroughly.
Mould into a ball and place it in a bowl, covered with clingfilm, and pop it into the fridge for half an hour.
When you are ready to cut the biscuits, take a piece of the dough and roll onto a floured surface - don't roll it too thin or the biscuits will be crunchy. Cut your desired shapes (I did trees and reindeers) and place them on a lined baking tray. Bake at 180 for around 10 mins.
Allow them to cool on a wire rack and sprinkle with the edible glitter when they are cool and firm (it sticks regardless). I stored mine in a tupperware overnight to keep the fresh and bagged them up the following morning to take into school.
On Friday night, Motorbike Man and I were rushing to pick up Spiderboy
from school so we could watch his final ballet class of the term. As I was getting him changed, he smiled a toothy grin at me in answer to a question about his day and I noticed a gap in his front teeth - one that definitely wasn't there when I dropped him off that morning! I was aghast - how and when did this happen?! He calmly told me that his tooth had come out that day at school...I was beside myself, holding him by the shoulders so he looked me right in the eye, to ask him what happened. Again he repeated that he his tooth had come out. I could tell by the twinkle in his eye, the one he usually gets when telling me a non-truth, that there was more to this.
"It's in my bag mummy, wrapped up in tissue paper". I made a grab for his bag and rifled through like a woman on a mission. What was going through my head? The simple question of "How on earth could I have missed a huge milestone like this one"? Losing his first tooth...I still had the pattern I was going to sew for the Toothfairy Cushion I was going to make. Of course I hadn't gottten around to it - it was far too early...he has 5 years old for goodness sake! Arghhh...!!!
I dug inside his bag and found a piece of toilet paper which I carefully unwrapped. Inside, I found the tiniest little tooth, root and all, nestled inside. I wanted to burst into tears right there and then. MM couldn't quite understand why I was acting so strange. It was no doubt exacerbated by me going away on my first girly weekend away from my babies in just 45 minutes time - I was so unprepared for this! Whilst MM finished getting Spiderboy changed, I rushed to find his teacher. She told me that she had seen him fiddling with it and he had pulled it out...and there was a *lot* of blood! She had rinsed his mouth (was there anything else she should have done?...bloody hell, these newly qualified teachers!)...and calmed him down, as he was apparently screaming in agony, with promises of the tooth fairy visiting that night.
All through his ballet performance, he poked and wriggled his tongue through the hole as I watched him, sometimes mouthing at me "it hurts mummy!" With a swift chat about why he shouldn't pull teeth out if they weren't ready, I was dropped at the train station feeling like a failure while MM and the kiddos headed home for Movie Night.
To make up for my apparent abandonment, I called up on Monday morning for an appointment with the dentist. I was concerned that his pulling out of the tooth (I was pretty sure it wasn't wobbly) had caused damage, and wanted to make sure everything was as it should be. I got an appointment the next day.
Which leads us to today. We headed to the dentist this afternoon, with Spiderboy fully aware that we were going to ensure his mouth was OK after he had lost a tooth and not in the slightest bit concerned.
After a brief wait, we were called in. I quickly told both children to wait there while I spoke to the dentist. A pleasant lady, I have dealt with before for both mine and the children's teeth, I expressed concern that he had pulled the tooth out before it was ready and that I not only wanted her to check everything was OK, but suggested she could perhaps talk to him about not pulling teeth out before they were ready. I specifically asked if she had experienced this before (i.e. a child pulling their teeth out when not wobbly) and was met with a "well, lets take a look, shall we?"
I called the children into the room and Spiderboy hopped up into the chair. He wasn't nervous in any way, and was quite happy to open his mouth wide while she looked into it. The dentist recited information to her assistant, which let me know that the tooth next to the one that had come out was "also" wobbly. She then asked her assistant to prepare a fluid and a sealant, not once talking to me and letting me know anything. The dentist then briefly told me she was going to fill a tooth (one that she had been watching since last time we visited) and at that point, I came over to the chair and knelt down beside Spiderboy. I held his hands and told him what was happening, as I try to do in every walk of life - especially when something is happening directly to him.
"You see the stick the lady has in your mouth? That has a mirror on so she can see your teeth at the back. There is a little hole in your tooth, and the dentist is going to put some cream in there to make it better for you" I said.
Before I had even finished the sentence, she had already squeezed in the filling and Spiderboy clearly felt some discomfort, as he gripped my hands and cried out.
"OK, mummy needs to stop talking now" she said. Why? Why did I need to stop telling my child what was happening to him?
"Next time, I'm going to have to ask you to wait in the chair" (on the otherside of the room).
"Sorry?" I was confused. Why was comforting my child viewed as a bad thing? "If my child is in distress or discomfort, I will comfort him" I replied.
"Trust me" I was told, "I've been doing this for many years. Its better if you wait over there".
She then muttered something under her breath and Spiderboy was dismissed from the chair.
I asked her what had happened and why, and she explained everything fully...at that point. But I walked out there with a very uncomfortable feeling - not anger but a rather bewilderment. Why was I not able to sit with and comfort my child? Why was this viewed as a negative? But also, why was a procedure carried out on my child without even a cursory glance in my direction? What, because you are the professional you know best?
He is MY child, and I will make the decisions as to what is best for him. Of course I would have agreed to the filling but the utter disregard for my feelings or even presence, astounded me.
Have you ever experienced anything like this?
These were super easy to make and so perfect for the kids to help with. Doodles loved cutting out the shapes - we used hearts this time but they could be any shape. This is another recipe from Annabel Karmel's Feeding Your Baby & Toddler book - this was my bible when Spiderboy was learning to eat and I still use it!
You might want to prepare the dough & chill it first if you have an impatient toddler who can't wait to get going :)
Ingredients
175g butter (at room temp)
75g icing sugar
225g self-raising flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp grated orange zest
60g plain chocolate chips
Method
Sieve the flour & icing sugar into a bowl. Add the remaining ingredients except for the choc chips and beat together well (or throw everything into a food processor and let that do the work!) When the dough has come together, stir in the choc chips and knead the dough thoroughly before rolling into a ball. Wrap in cling film and put into the fridge to chill for an hour or so.
Roll out the dough on a floured surface and cut out your shapes. Place on a baking tray (using greaseproof paper if you have it) and bake at 180 degrees for around 10 minutes.
A few weekends ago, Sunday morning saw the rain pouring down and it looked as though we would be housebound all day. Fine by me but I knew we would need something to keep the littles amused so I made some autumn play dough. I used the same recipe from before but added some cinnamon and nutmeg to make it smell wonderfully autumnal plus some red and yellow paint for colouring. (It actually turned out a little more pinky than I planned but they didn't seem to notice!)
Motorbike Man man a dash into the garden between showers and collected a variety of leaves, herbs and nuts from the garden, and we were set. We created trees of varying detail, from a few simple pasta pieces to a full display of leaves and nuts in the play dough.
We thought of autumn related things and made some of those - conkers, fireworks, pumpkins using the dough and some accessories.
They learnt to identify the tree by its leaves - I was impressed that Spiderboy could name quite a few of them!
We passed a good hour or so having fun with all the autumn colours and the kitchen had a lovely smell afterwards!
I had intended to make this with pumpkin as they were plentiful 1 day before Halloween but 2 days later there were none to be found in my local shops so I substituted with sweet potato instead. It was still pretty good...so good in fact that I didn't want to stop and take a photo before eating it!
Ingredients
1kg of sweet potato, peeled & chopped
2 small onions, chopped
1 litre vegetable stock
2tbsp honey
200ml double cream (or creme fraiche if you are counting calories)
1tbsp paprika
Method
Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a large pan and add the onions. Sweat them for 5 mins until they soften. Add the sweet potato & paprika, and cook for a further 10 mins, stirring to ensure it doesn't burn. Add the stock to the pan (mine was cold as I made it the day before), bring to the boil then reduce the heat and simmer for 15 - 20 mins until the sweet potato is soft.
Stir in the honey and puree the soup with a blender (my hand held stick one was fine for this). Stir in the cream or creme fraiche and heat through before serving with a sprinkling of paprika on the surface.
NB: This made a huge batch so I froze half.
