Recently the school had their annual Christmas Fare aka Hell. The weeks leading up to it we, The Parents, are continually fleeced to pay for the bloody thing through a flurry of none uniform days each one requesting a different 'contribution' such as bottles of stuff one week and chocolate the next.  Then you're expected to attend (good luck with that, they'd need wild horses to get me there) and fork out money to win the stuff back.  Genius.

This year The Spawn came home with the news that there was to be a cake stall and surprise surprise they wanted the parents to not only buy the cakes but to make them too.

Moomin doesn't really allow for baking and I won't use the oven etc whilst she's in a front carry so we needed something quick and easy, cue cheat fudge.

I have neither the time, temperament, inclination nor thermometer to actually make real bonified fudge. 

I have in the past made microwave fudge which is terribly moreish yet is more akin to Scottish Tablet in texture and crumbles (made using sugar, butter, condensed milk and vanilla)

I've seen the famous slow cooker cheats fudge recipes circulating ye old world wide web yet the thought of stirring the bastard thing every ten minutes for over an hour is simply too much exercise for me

There's another way though, using similar ingredients yet on the hob.  Granted, like it's slow cooker fudge cousin, it's not real fudge but nonetheless it's tasty and easy.
I made two varieties from the same basic recipe and method which is to gently melt 575g of chocolate (I used white) and a can of condensed milk in a pan.  Add your extras then pour into a silicone tray (I used silicone loaf tins so I could slice it rather than cut into the usual squares) leave to cool for a few hours then cut or slice.

The first batch was cookies and cream fudge.  Before pouring the melted mixture we added 3/4 of a pack of Oreos, which we'd bashed and smashed roughly into pieces, into the mix. We stirred it through, poured then finely bashed the remaining Oreos into near dust to cover the top with.

The second batch we made was festive gummy fudge.  Before pouring we mixed in a pack of Midget Gems which I'd painstaking snipped into halves.  Once poured we added sprinkles on top. The finished product looks a cross between dismembered elves and fairy lights.

The possibilities are endless.  You can use white chocolate,  orange chocolate,  mint chocolate,  plain chocolate or milk chocolate.  You can add any confectionary you choose or even flavours such as Baileys.  Knock yourself out.

A #MorrisonsMum post: The i'm cheaper experience

Thanks to Morrisons and Britmums I was chosen to be a part of the  #MorrisonsMum / #MorrisonsDad project to help promote their recent 'I'm Cheaper'campaign,  permanent price drops on thousands of every day items.  Rather than increase their savers range, they've decided to make higher quality products cheaper, so you get better for essentially less.  In their own words, they're 'cutting prices, not corners'.  It isn't just Morrisons own lines either, you'll find thousands of popular every day branded items.

Our brief?  To descend upon our local Morrisons store and do some shopping using vouchers they kindly provided us with to experience the price drops and resultant food over the bank holiday weekend.  We actually chose the second closest as our usual branch is quite small and we wanted to visit the cafe too.

Seeing as The Preschooler had been poorly previously in the week, we decided to fortify him first with a hearty dinner in the Morrisons Cafe.  Yum!

We're no stranger to Morrisons, as our own local supermarket happens to be a Morrisons, however in the past we've only really used it for bare basics having to venture further afield to be able to feed our family on our small weekly budget.  However, despite our familiarity we were greeted at every turn with price drops.  There was no need to look for them, I went in armed with a list to make three meals (Thai Curry, Creamy Chicken Pasta and wholemeal calzones) over the weekend yet found often when I reached for something, it was cheaper!  This is where the the penny drops, it really is buying your usual items and getting them cheaper.  It really is everyday items you probably buy anyway.  Often you'll find in supermarkets that the items on offer are those that you don't actually need and wouldn't ordinarily buy which although make a nice treat, it's a bit of backwards economics as you end up buying them in addition to your usual items.  Brilliant for the supermarkets yet not so good for our purses.

This meant there was room for the odd extra that wasn't needed nor on the list such as the bargain £2.49 Ben & Jerry's ice cream.  Shush, I'm pregnant.  It's medicinal.  Oh and some cheeky king prawns.....

So what did we eat chez Tiaras & Prozac this weekend?

Firstly The Husband and I had a delicious Thai curry which although I have a picture of the ingredients, there's no picture of the finished article....I was hungry.  It didn't hang around long enough to be photographed!  It's unusual to ever get any meal that all of The Family will eat together so The Spawn had an old favourate, sausages and garlic bread.  Morrisons cheesy garlic pizza breads have been a firm favourate of ours for years and they're nearly always on offer so a bargain to boot.  Yet i'll admit to being pleasantly surprised at finding the sausages cheaper too.

If you look here, you'll see The Preschooler making some Jammie Dodgems with the #ImCheaper jam we bought.  He's only just turned four, so be kind.  He's an excellent baker.

Another night I made is a Creamy Chicken dish adapted from one of the recipes found on Morrisons own site with their basic range garlic baguettes, which again are firm favourates of ours.  They're cheap as chips  (only 30p each!)yet tasty too.

To make our version we used:

Serves four 

* 300g pasta (We used Farfalle instead of spaghetti) - £0.95p for 500g.
* 200g smoked middle bacon snipped into pieces (the recipe says 100g, what can I say though? we love bacon) - £2.18 for 240g #ImCheaper
* 200g cooked chicken-  £2.00
* 1 crumbled Stock Cube (From store cupboard)
* 300ml reduced fat creme fraiche - £0.90 #Imcheaper
* 1 tbs wholegrain mustard (From store cupboard)
* Garlic & mixed herbs (From cupboard)

* x3 Garlic baguettes @ 30p each.

Total cost : £6.93
Cost per person: £1.73

Surely that's a bargain in anyone's book?

It's super easy to make:

- Cook the pasta as specified on the pack.
- Dry fry the bacon then add the chicken (we used Morrisons Savers cooked pieces) with a crumbled stock cube and 4tbs water.
- Combine the Mustard, garlic, herbs and  Creme Fraiche then add to the meat.
- Stir in the cooked pasta
- Serve!

The Baguettes easily cook in the oven whilst the pasta cooks on the hob.  A quick and easy meal.

Last night we made our own wholemeal Calzones using my favourate quick pizza dough recipe.  These are an absolute favourate with all of us, the bonus is The Spawn make theirs themselves, we find that if you involve them in the making process they enjoy eating it even more.  We're huge meat eaters (Sorry Babe) so we had a mix of chicken, pepperoni, salami and ham.

I really do urge you to go to your local Morrisons and see how much of your usual shopping you can get for cheaper.  As soon as you enter you're presented with a mass selection of fresh fruits and vegetables, many of these, you've guessed it, are included in the 'I'm Cheaper' price drops too and the price drops just continue around each subsequent department you walk through.

***I received Morrisons gift vouchers to purchase the food however all opinions expressed and experiences described remain my own.


This post is part of the #MorrisonsMums promotion, why not visit the Britmums linky and see how some of the other mums got on and find some more tasty recipes!

A #MorrisonsMum Post: Baking with The Preschooler (Post 1)

One of our favourate recipes to bake at home is Jammie Dodgers.  They're cheap to make, easy, fun and best of all they're yummy.

I promised The Preschooler we could bake this week, the only ingredient we'd run out of was Jam.  Not a problem whilst doing our #MorrisonsMum shop, we picked some up and as a bonus it fell under their new #imcheaper price.  It means you can afford to get a better quality product for less without having to drop down in quality a little to the basic range.

I'll now pass you over to The Preschooler's more than capable expert hands to show you how to make this culinary delight....

1.
 (First you have to add all the ingrediants; flour (& bicarbnate of soda), sugar, butter, egg and golden syrup)

2.

(The we Mix mix mix)

3.

(Now we roll it out.)

4.

(Then we cut the shapes out, don't forget the holes!)

5.

(Get a grown up to put them in the oven)

6.

(Finally put the jam or chocolate spread on!)

The recipe we use is the Jammie Dodgers recipe from the Morrisons website.

To make these you will need:

* Plain Flour
* Caster Sugar
* Bicarbonate Soda
* Golden Syrup
* Egg (#ImCheaper !)
* Jam* (#ImCheaper !)
* Icing sugar (#ImCheaper !)

* You can also substitute the jam for lemon curd or chocolate spread.

Here's some I made earlier:

** Disclaimer: This post is part of the Morrisons & Britmums #MorrisonsMum campaign.  To take part we were provided with gift vouchers to spend in Morrisons.

Don't jump!

The first week, or perhaps in the name of accuracy I should say the partial week, back at school has seen  Things One and Two firmly ensconced back into the daily woe that is school life. Early mornings and early nights. Thing One as ever was remarkably unperturbed, as always with regards to embarking upon a new school year, unfortunately Thing Two, the one that actually likes school had a wibble on the first morning, complete with quiet devastating tears. In public she's a stoic little mite so its always especially moving to see her let her guard down outside. I suspect it was the somewhat overwhelming nature of being utterly surrounded by people large and small, she's not especially enamoured with busy places. So I walked her to her line and her dear teacher wordlessly clasped her hand and kept her side. The tears had stopped yet Thing Two was still heartbreakingly consumed by melancholy and I had to in against all mothering instinct and leave her with someone else whilst knowing she was upset despite the knowledge that she would indeed be fine once she was in situ inside.

The hospital was awfully murky about Thing One and his ankle with regards to school versus rest and The Husband in typical husband style didn't actually seek the important clarification as to wether the resting for several weeks would pertain to no school or not. Thing One is hamming up his limp quite spectacularly and needless to say anything he is asked to do at home would surely exacerbate it whereas running, jumping, swinging and kicking balls is seemingly okay.

The Toddler appears to be enjoying having the house back to himself during the day and I have nearly forgiven him for shitting on my bed at the weekend, the fluffy toy sheep however that had the unfortunate experience of being in the wrong place at the wrong time may be less forgiving despite a rather successful jaunt in the washing machine. Am trying dreadfully hard to behave and not call him scatty, the sheep that is.

I am irrevocably saddened by fact I dislike tea yet as always have a cupboard full of It yet am rather partial to gin and have none. Woe is most definately me. Oh well, at least there's Zoloft.

Unfortunately I may have to share the happy pills with a kitten in a neighbouring flat that was attempting to jump from a second story window today whilst I flounced in sleep deprived induced delirium around my garden imploring it to not jump, that life is allegedly worthwhile and to think of all the fish he's yet to eat!  Either I'm an exceedingly good Samaritan or else it thought it best to get away from the disturbing Purple haired woman, either way it buggered off back inside.

Tomorrow Thing Two turns six, Yes six!

The Husband and I are having a bake off, each making her a cake to which she will be the judge. I am a bit nervous that The Husband may burn the house down so am going to go check/laugh at his nocturnal baking attempt...

The spoil sport is refusing to grant me access into the kitchen. If his cake is better then mine I shall never let him have my virginity.

Easy banana bread.

The rain returned and washed away the childrens smiles turning their mood greyer then the heavy pregnant clouds. This summer holiday malarky sucks.

I rather stupidly had a silly notion of sympathy and felt Sorry for them. More fool me.

I should know by now by the large 'vacancy' sign hung where my sanity used to reside that I should ignore any and all thoughts of a remedy for Thing One and Thing Twos boredom when they are together. What can I say? Childbirth ate my brain.

So despite vowing to never, ever, under any circumstances including the end of the world to bake with both Thing One and Thing Two, together. Don't get me wrong they're utter darlings, regular little sunbeams....who just happen to be a tag team of deadly sanity assassins with namely yours truly being their target.

I'm usually a solitary baker. I like it that way. I like element of control and the transient moment of stolen alone time.

So, I agreed to bake some easy peasy banana bread with Thing One and Thing Two. I must admit, it was the lesser of two evils, the greater being attacked constantly by the pox ridden ninja boob junkie that is The Toddler.

Generally in past ventures into baking, in some futile attempt to limit damage to everyone I strategically pre-weigh out ingrediants blue peter style. Today in an uncharacteristic moment of being text book motherly I let then write out the recipe, weigh out the ingredients, mix the ingredients and I refrained from gagging then and duct taping them to the walls. Just

I did however manage, rather impressively, to nearly flood the kitchen. Arse.

I would bore you with baking photographs but the Blogger app keeps eating my posts.

Is it vodka o clock yet?

Domestic UnGoddess

I genuinely don't understand why people buy cakes from supermarkets etc when it is so insanely easy, quick and fun to make your own. Not only do you control exactly what goes into them the texture is infinitely superior and quite frankly they have more taste!

So ours may not be perfect, but I'd take them over mass produced crap any day.

Whether you do it alone or bravely with your spawn, make the time and indulge in the difference. Chances are you'll never look back.  There's a sense of motherly achievement in whipping up a quick batch of cakes or cookies for your spawn (& their friends) and serving them fresh and tasty.

It really is the small things that matter.  It's the small things that shape childhood memories.

Recipe: Quick, easy, tasty hob nobs

What you need:

• 8oz Self raising flour
• 8oz butter/margerine
• 8oz Porridge oats
• 8oz Caster sugar
• 1tbs Golden Syrup
• 1tbs Hot water
• 1/2 tsp Bicarb soda
• 1 tsp vanilla essence

What you do:

• Put the flour, oats and sugar in a bowl.
• Melt the butter in a pan with the hot water and the sugar.  Once melted stir in the Vanilla essence and the Bicarb. Soda.
• Add the melted mixture to the dry ingrediants and combine.
• Roll into balls and place on greased baking sheet and gemtly flatten with a fork.
• Bake until lightly golden brown, approximately 15mins.
• This makes approximately 24 biscuits and they're around 150 calories each.

Why not:

Add chocolate chips?

Add white chocolate chunks and smuched up raspberries.?

Add raisins?

Add smarties?

Cover the tops with melted chocolate?


These are really easy, really quick, cheap and tasty.

Avalanche Bars

Today I stupidly kindly donated the bare remaining threads of my sanity to Thing One and Thing Two and baked with them both, together, after school.  Generally as baking goes or any other type of making activity, doing it with the both of them together is virtually sanity suicide.

We made Avalanche Bars from this fab recipe.  It's basically melted white chocolate, peanut butter, chocolate chips and marshmallows with rice crispies.

Unfortunately I've probably scoffed the entire of June's calorie allowance in one sitting..... oops.

...the old man is snoring

When life gives us lemons rain ...

...stay in and bake (with Thing Two)

Easy pizza dough recipe

You may have noticed I've made a fair share of pizza lately or should I say three garlic breads, four calzones and one pizza. I used to make dough from scratch but got rather bored of the whole 'waiting' element, what can I say, I'm impatient.  I resorted to packet mixes yet decided I wanted to do it from scratch but without the waiting so I found the recipe below and it works a treat.  I made The Sprogs some garlic bread using wholemeal bread flour in the pizza dough and it was a success, they scoffed the lot!  I find the below recipe makes approximately two 9" pizza's with a little spare, if you like them thinnish.

 

Ingredients

• 1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
• 1 teaspoon white sugar
• 1 cup warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
• 2 1/2 cups bread flour
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon salt

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C). In a medium bowl, dissolve yeast and sugar in warm water. Let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes.
2. Stir in flour, salt and oil. Beat until smooth. Let rest for 5 minutes.
3. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and pat or roll into a round. Transfer crust to a lightly greased pizza pan or baker's peel dusted with flour. Spread with desired toppings and bake in preheated oven for 15 to 20 minutes, or until golden brown. Let baked pizza cool for 5 minutes before serving.  recipe from: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/quick-and-easy-pizza-crust/

Daddy wears too

Taking advantage of the lack of rain yesterday, The Toddler and accompanied The Husband with Thing One and Thing Two on the school run today then did the two mile round trip for some shopping only to have to set out yet again to deliver Thing Two's packed lunch to school seeing as we had run out of bread pre-shopping, oops.  Although the thought of Thing Two professing that she has no lunch as 'we have no food' is amusing in a mortifying sort of way. Due to a sore shoulder resultant of contorted positions whilst feeding the toddler all night long The Husband wore The Toddler for a nice change whilst I annoyed him greatly by insisting on taking lots of pictures.






I made some sweet and salty peanut biscuits today despite the fact that none of us actually like nutty biscuits, yet the desire to bake them was there all the same despite The Husbands growing frustration at all the extra pots it creates for him to wash, I do fear he's becoming a tad exasperated in a way. However, The Grandparents were very grateful when I palmed the biscuits off on them. gifted the biscuits to them.



Thing Two had his Special Day with The Grandparents yesterday and I received a phone call from The Mother o'mine to ask if he could possibly have anything else to eat as he was awfully hungry despite having two burgers, four chicken nuggets, fries, a chocolate cake, fruit bag and a pack of Rolo's knowing that he has hollow legs and we limit what he eats as he really would eat and eat and eat.  I asked to speak to Thing One and when I gently told him he'd had more then enough (far more then I'd ever have allowed) he proceeded to burst into tears wailing down the phone line 'i'm so so hungry mum!' gulp.  I swear that child has hollow legs.  They match his sometimes vacuous brain at times, take for instance him losing his book bag (again).

Thing Two came out of school with four, yes four, stickers taped to her dress and two prizes.  Apparently she wrote two awfully good stories and even had to go into the nursery class and a year 2 class (she's in Reception) to show other teachers and have them read them out in front of their classes.

After a 6 months drought in reading which is quite extraordinary for me seeing as I usually average 80-150 books a year (yes books, I like real paper books) I finally have found my reading mojo and have read two and a half novels in as many days.  I don't know if I should be amused or ashamed that it's the notoriously popular '50 shades of grey' trilogy that has broke the literary starvation.

Get in the doghouse

The party of five is whole again, the wanderers have indeed returned.  Thing Two came first, in full sulky mode and later The Husband arrived with a full of beans Thing One, The Husband however was not so full of beans, more full of hangover shall we say and has bleated incessantly ever since about how totally poorly he is.  Being the mean wife that I am, I declared I have absolutely no sympathy for self induced over indulgence whilst becoming increasingly cross that not only did he get a whole night out, he didn't start his day until 11.40am, didn't arrive home with Thing One until gone 4pm and yet has the sheer audacity to assume he has the right to whine and wax lyrical about how awfully ill he feels whilst immediately doing his usual of dozing on the sofa, poor poor baby, it must be so awfully difficult having a life.  To say my very limited store of patience waned would perhaps be a slight understatement.  By the time he carted himself off to bed for an hour or two after Tea my patience upped and left.  However I will keep my fishwifery contained until tomorrow and unleash it should he dare deny me a soak in the bath and a nap.

Before Tea I kindly left him alone with all three of the blighters darlings whilst I disappeared into the kitchen to bake, which is less likely to get me arrested (especially when The Husband deemed himself far too poorly to do the pots so I purposefully improvised rather then wash any myself, a girl has to have principles!) then other activities that ran through my mind and whipped up a batch of the rather delicious Nigella Cola Cupcakes.  It was only after I devoured two of them that I realised they have approximately 320 calories each.  Oops.

Tea was quick and simple frankfurters yet to try and impress The Toddler I decided to make him a plate of 'Hairy Hot Dogs' Unfortunately he was far from impressed and with absolute horror he pointed at them, simply appalled, tilted his head with eyes narrowing in accusation and demanded 'wha wat?!' followed by an 'Urghhhhhhh' So that would be another fail then. His expression was an amusing cross between 'WTF?!' and complete and utter disdain.  No worries he soon pinched some of The Husbands hotdogs.

Thing One and Thing Two are tryinng to bring down the ceiling bouncing upstairs to test Thing Two's therdometer which when I questioned Thing One as to whether he meant his sister had a thermometer or a pedometer turned out to be the latter.

Nearly bedtime (& thank fuck for that) I shall enjoy waking The Husband, possibly with a cold flannel.

Nom Nom...

Phew.  Found the recipe.  Thing One had much fun making them.  I just wish they weren't so scrumptious..... oops, there goes another one.  Silly kamikaze Jammy Dodgers that simply insist on launching themselves into my mouth.  After their self sacrifice it would be churlish and somewhat disrespectful to not eat them, would it not?

It's a good job I worked out the calorie content after I devoured three of them..... at just under 200 calories a pop.  Ouch.

Diet Fail (...again)

See what happens when I'm housebound?  Not only do I eat superfluously and constantly I also bake, a lot.

When The Grandparents are in the country Thing One and Thing Two have a 'special' day each at their house which started before they were school age.  So tonight The Grandparents picked Thing Two up straight from school and tomorrow it will be Thing One's turn.

Not only do they get quality time with The Grandparents without having to compete for attention, they also get some time out away from each other at home so slightly less mayhem and spats here.

It's not often I get one on one time with Thing One as although we adore each other I often fear we're from entirely different planets and he much prefers to be walking miles on end on adventures with The Husband or learning Morbid Angel riffs on his guitar.

So, I waited till he returned home from school to bake today.  Many parents often bake with their young and hats off to them, they obviously have a much higher tolerance level and patience then me.  Usually baking avec les spawn makes me want to lock myself in the bathroom swigging gin from the bottle whilst gibbering in tongues.

 Today we made Oreo cookie cupcakes using this fabulous recipe.  You can't really see but at the bottom of the cupcake is a whole Oreo cookie (the white ones look better this is a double chocolate one)

They are utterly divine and the mere thought of the calorific content gives me the fears.  My willpower is a fickle and weak thing so as always I shall be palming them off on relatives and begging The Husband to eat them whilst I'm sleeping.

The Husband is attempting to teach Thing One how to play with The Toddler as unfortunately the darling child appears to be missing the play gene and has an innate inability to play with toys, always has done.  However Thing Two and The Toddler can amuse themselves with toys independently, spontaneously and thoroughly.  Thing One has to be running (I kid you not we used to nickname him Forrest), play wrestling or watching TV.  All games are physical and without toys which isn't necessarily a bad thing, just rather exhausting to watch and frustrating for himself as he struggles to play alone and other then lining cars up and writing lists his copious amount of toys gather dust..

It's exceedingly amusing watching The Toddler pin and tickle Thing One and a welcome break to not hear him constantly shout and scream at Thing One which is the norm between them. As always though the fun is somewhat getting out of control with their over excitement so operation 'got to keep them seperated' for a while is about to commence as The Husband and Thing One disappear up to my bed to watch a Carry On film on my television and no doubt The Toddler will attach himself to me and feed like the boob junkie he is.

I'm beginning to wonder if The Grandparents have stolen Thing Two.......I'm five minutes away from making the 'where is she and what have you done with my daughter?' call.