Tiny beanies!

One of my friends has started a community group supporting premature babies in hospital, they are delivering newborn packs to new families while their babies are in hospital. All items are donated from the community and designed to help new families during the scary journey of premature birth.

So, lately I have been using stolen moments to work on some cute beanies for these little babies. I am overwhelmed at how small the beanies are! I'm 31weeks pregnant, so making such tiny beanies makes me realise how much more my baby has to grow before she is born. 

Happy Mothers Day 2014!

Creamy Carbonara (egg free version)

Our little one loves cooking, she wants to help with everything and it can get a bit much during the dinner time rush. Luckily my husband and I are pretty in-sync and can keep her involved and patient while getting the meal ready. Tonight's menu ... Creamy carbonara (the no egg version since I am pregnant). Our little one loved helping cut vegetables, passing ingredients and taking turns stirring. It can be a bit of a handful at times but at least meal preparation is not boring!

Mmmmmmmmmmm! 

I have a powerful love of pasta in general and while pregnant with our first child we basically lived off macaroni and cheese packet mix meals loaded with whatever we had in the fridge. My husband never complained, he just accepted that once the baby came he would get more variety back in the dinner menu.  Pregnant second time around and my love of pasta remains.

This meal, however, is better than any packet mix pasta creation! Lots of fresh ingredients, that satisfying sizzle of bacon and mushrooms cooking, creamy cheesy goodness ... Sigh. Food heaven!

This is the second time I have made this dish and I am feeling a bit proud. My husband kept going back for more. No leftovers tonight!

 

Creamy Carbonara (egg free version)

Ingredients:

6-7large mushrooms 

4 large shallots

3 rashers of bacon 

1 tablespoon of oil

4 cloves of finely grated garlic

1tablespoon of butter

300ml thick pouring cream

100ml milk

30gm finely grated Parmesan cheese

250g fettuccine 

Method:

1. Boil fettuccine in saucepan, rinse and keep warm during cooking

2. Dice bacon, mushrooms and shallots.

3. Grate garlic and Parmesan cheese

4. Fry bacon with grated garlic in oil on high heat until cooked

5. Add mushrooms, shallots and butter and fry until mushrooms brown slightly

6. Lower temperature and add cooked fettuccini and cream, milk and Parmesan cheese

7. Cook until sauce thickens to desired consistency

Chocolate Fudge Brownies

Being pregnant is hard work! One of the most annoying parts is not being able to sleep despite being completely utterly exhausted. So, waking at 430am is frustrating but it gives me a chance to catch up on the housework and enjoy a coffee in luxury just before my little one wakes for her day. This morning I am extra lucky because I baked chocolate fudge brownies yesterday and they have been cooling in the fridge overnight. Cutting up chocolate-y treats is definitely a task you need to do when there are no little hands reaching out to steal it while you chop.

Mmmmmmmm, chocolate-y goodness! 

I do not particularly remember where I originally got this recipe from, could be a Martha Stewart or a Taste online share but not sure anymore, I've had it for ages and had to modify it to my own baking methods. I have changed the types of flour and amount of chocolate and made a few tweaks to make them full and fluffy rather than dense and fat. Overall, I think this is my 'go to' chocolate fudge brownie recipe. It takes some time to cool but worth it in the end for such perfect bites of manna! (Scroll past the photos for the recipe!)

 

Chocolate Fudge Brownies

Ingredients: 

200gm of chocolate (or choc melts)

225gm unsalted butter (melted)

2/3 cup of Self Raising Flour

2/3 cup of Cocoa

2 cups of caster sugar

4 eggs, lightly beaten

1 tbsp of vanilla extract

Method:

1. Line baking pan with baking paper and preheat oven to 160degree celcius 

2. Roughly chop chocolate into small chunks 

3. Melt butter until nearly completely melted and allow to cool slightly

4. Sift Self Raising Flour and Cocoa. Stir in Caster Sugar

5. Add eggs and butter alternatively to the dry mix, stir well

6. Add vanilla and chocolate until combined

7. Spread over lined pan and bake for 1hour

8. Allow to cool in pan then on a baking rack. Transfer to cool in fridge overnight

9. Cut into squares once cooled completely

Chocolate alternatives for Easter: Play-doh Plastic Eggs

Searching for plastic eggs to put stickers and such in my little ones easter basket was a nightmare! Pinterest would make me think that plastic eggs are a dime a dozen during Easter holidays and that every Mamma has an endless collection of them stored in her magical handbag of awesome. Not this Mamma! This Mamma was going to write a general letter to all those Pinteresting Mammas and demand they share their secret plastic egg source! 

It took literally two weeks of scouring supermarkets and specialty stores until I found some in Woolworths hidden down the toilet paper isle! I picked these Play-doh spring eggs up with the last of my grocery money and did a little impromptu dance surrounded by toilet paper and personal hygiene products. Any one walking past would have thought me odd, but when you spend so much time searching, you have to celebrate finding your treasure!

Now that I have these babies secure in my possesson I am not sure whether I can dump the play-doh to use the plastic eggs! They are just perfect for little people to play with during Easter!

 

 

 

 

Malteasers slice

My husband and I went to see "Cuban Fury" on a recent date night and Nick Frost makes a random comment about white chocolate malteasers, which automatically makes them next on my list of treats to devour. Being suggestible and pregnant is not a good combination, especially when our local supermarket seem to be lacking in their stock of white chocolate malteasers!

Searching the Internet for a suitable substitute I discovered a recipe from Mum's Lounge for a delicious Malteasers Slice!  (http://www.mumslounge.com.au/entertainment/food/2429-malteser-slice.html)

Yummy!

I love how ingredient list allows for snacking on malteasers as you go, otherwise my slice would have been sorely lacking once I munched on my fill. 

 

 

Chocolate alternatives for easter: Sidewalk chalks

My little one loves her egg shaped sidewalk chalks so much that I picked up some for my nieces and nephew for Easter this year. I just adore the pastel colours and cutesy egg carton container! I found shape of the chalk was ideal for little hands and my little one was easily able to cup the chalk in her palm and decorate our driveway! Daddy loves coming home from work to see what new art has been created that day.

 

 

 

Easter basket for a toddler

My toddler loves chocolate already, Oreo's are her favourite. We have been very lucky and been given little chocolate eggs every time we visit the shops and my little one carefully peels her egg and savours it for ages. Chocolate covers everything and her little smile is contagious, luckily the sugar rush is manageable. Easter will be a bombardment of chocolate if we are not careful, so I have been looking at chocolate alternatives to balance the sugar overload.

Some of my research, aka google searches, have shown little baskets of gifts as a popular alternative. Here are some of the ideas I found:

• Baskets full of healthy treats
• Basket of gifts with a theme of a favourite cartoon character
• Baskets with the daily essentials like PJ's, slippers and tooth brushes
• Baskets with craft activity supplies. 
• Baskets with religious items like a new bible

I decided on a Sesame Street themed basket and combined a lot of different items; I found an Elmo Easter parade book, Rosita plush, Elmo PJ's, some stickers and hair clips that I could put in little plastic eggs and will add a few little chocolate eggs and chocolate bunny. I am still contemplating adding a new toothbrush to the basket, but have not quite decided yet.

Oh, and finding little plastic eggs was a nightmare! Pinterest would have me believe that they just grow on trees, reality was much different! I had nearly given up on finding plastic egg cases before I found these ones in a stationary store.

 

Egg Carton Easter Baskets

Easter is approaching and its time for craft! Time to pull out the poster paint, egg cartons, painting tarp and get messy! This year we are making Easter Baskets for relatives and friends, which we will fill with chocolate eggs and goodies. I set up a tarp over the old coffee table that I had in storage in the garage and it was the perfect height for my little one to stand at and paint. It was so fun to see how enthusiastic she became mixing colours and decorating her egg carton masterpieces!

 

 

 

 

Can not wait to visit everyone and let my little bunny share her treats with everyone!

Easter crafts and individual peculiarities

My husband did crafts with our little one today, it was nice that he was able to have some special art time with her. Since Easter is coming up and we have copious amounts of cotton balls (more than any person may go through in their lifetime), a fluffy bunny picture was planned.

I left my favourite pair to their crafting fun and got some gardening done. I was surprised to see my little one peering out from the window to watch me gardening soon after I left and wondered how crafting with Daddy was so quick. It made me giggle to think of impossibility of our toddler being rushed through the fun of smooshing things in glue.

Later once my task in the garden was done I searched out my little family and I asked how their crafting went. My husband laughed and explained that it was going well until our little one accidentally got glue on her hands and then some cotton ball fluff attached itself to her. He explained she got so overwhelmed wiping the fluff off with one hand only to have transferred it to the other that she was stuck in an endless loop.