Spicing up my cooking

I love Indian food. It is one of the first things I learned to cook from scratch properly beyond the standard things that my parents cooked. They are pretty easy as they are reasonably forgiving. They can take a bit of time though and when I plan meals now, I have to be mindful of cooking time and not making anything too hot so that the children will eat them. Occasionally, I dip into the world of curry paste but I never use cooking sauces. It goes against my nature. Call me a food snob if you like. 

I always marvel at how quickly they can make the dishes in restaurants and take aways so when Living Social invited some bloggers including myself to Dilli restaurant in Altrincham to join one of their cookery classes, I made sure I could get there and see how they do it. 

You notice I've not mentioned "curry" so far. As we were told by one of the two chefs that taught us, curry basically means "gravy". And masala? "Sauce"!

At the start of our day, we were shown how to make onion bhajis. Apparently, the key is to leave your onions mixed for a while to draw out some of the water as this makes the onions crisper. We got to sample them with a tamarind dip and a mint dip, both totally unlike the stuff you usually get with it. They also made potato and onion bhaji which was not made into balls, so it was a bit like eating spicy fries! 

Meal Planning Monday - another 5 for £20 edition!

You may remember that I have in the past reviewed the Sainsbury's meal plans. Last May, we tried the £50 weekly one and then in October, we tried out one of their evening meal plans, which offer 5 evening meals for a family of 4 for £20. Sainsbury's have just launched a new meal plan so have given me the chance to try  the latest one. The meals have generally been brilliant, although I do find some of them rather carb heavy so I tend to cut back on quantities now if it's a pasta or rice dish in particular. And they add mozzarella to risottos - what is THAT all about?

The meal plans are great if you don't have time to meal plan and they often suggest veggie options. You can print a shopping list for you and transfer most of the ingredients into their internet shopping site - you have to add some of the items for reasons I will never understand.

So here is what we're having this week, courtesy of Sainsbury's.

Monday - Tomato and broccoli risotto
Tuesday - Simple sausage supper
Wednesday - Creamy pork and mash
Thursday - Sandwiches or soup and sandwiches
Friday - Turkey chilli with rice
Saturday - left free for family party
Sunday - Cheesy jacket potato with bacon and pepper ratatouille

Come back next week and I'll tell you how we did. Don't forget to visit Mrs M's blog to check out the other entries in this week's Meal Planning Monday and feel free to check out Sainsbury's Live Well for Less site and all their meal plans.

What's on your menu this week?

LifeCircle 2012 - Progress report

Having done our life plans, it's time to return to the actions you committed to two weeks ago. Well, it might not be two weeks right now but it should be by the time the linky is published next Thursday.

What I want you to do is report back on:

- whether you completed your actions or not, whether they are partially completed or whether you have not even started. Come on now, be honest! It will be useful for future reference.
- how it went when working on your actions.
- how you felt about doing them,
- if you didn't complete your actions, explain why you didn't and how you feel about that. Again, be honest. If you procrastinated because you were scared of tackling issues, please do say so.
- whether completing your actions has made you feel different about the issues you were tackling, aspects of your life or your life in general.

I am really interested in barriers so the more honest feedback I get on why you might have not managed to complete your actions, the more I can help you later on. If you feel uncomfortable sharing that with your readers, I'd still like to know so I'm happy for you to email me with this. Don't worry, I'm not going to be telling you off: I just need to know the issues so we can work on them in future tasks.

I bet you thought this week was going to be easy, didn't you? Well, this is what LifeCircle is all about; pushing yourself a little bit.

Get writing those posts, publish and come back on Thursday to link up. I can't wait to read them, I think there are going to be some interesting reads.

No mess messy crafts

I may have said before, many times, that I am not good at crafts. Whether it is a side effect of being left-handed (or cack-handed as it is so delightfully put sometimes) which has meant I've never been quite as able to use crafty things properly, or whether I just have no talent or imagination in that field, I'm not really sure. I'm not particularly interested. Missy Woo, however, does like making things. Which is a problem, when you have a mum like me.

Missy Woo with her kit

Another thing I dislike is mess. Well, yes, I have children, we live permanently in a mess but I can cope with untidiness even though, in an ideal world, the house would stay tidy and the children would clear up after themeselves, which we all know won't happen. But mess that I actually have to clean up? No way, I'm not a fan. I don't have time for housework as it is, why do I want to give myself any more cleaning to do?

This is again problematic when you have small children as you do really need to let them do messy things and anyway, it's fun. We have managed in the past with judicious use of messy mats etc although most activities with high mess factor have been relegated to the kitchen, which is wipe-clean friendly. The only things I allow to be done in other rooms is colouring with crayons and felt pens (thankfully, we have passed the draw-on-the-walls-when-Mummy-is-not-looking phase) and sticky mosaics that I discovered during the Toyologist programme. Even playdough and its inferior alternative, Moon Dough, cannot be trusted.

Then I was offered the chance to try some Sand Art kits from Kids Bee Happy and thought we'd give it a try. We got sent two kits, one a very girly set of pictures and one of a more boyish nature, complete with little tubes of sand. The picture boards are self-adhesive and you peel back the different shapes and pour the sand on, and it sticks to the self adhesive bit.

Making their pictures

I left the children doing the pictures with Daddy on Sunday morning and all he had to do was put them on tray and he was happy to let them make their pictures in the living room. When I came back, the pictures were virtually done and all the waste sand was on the trays apart from a little bit on the coffee table which was easily cleared away. The only thing was both Monkey and Missy Woo decided that you didn't peel off the background bit so they both have yellow backgrounds to their pictures! Oh, and Monkey pulled a bit too far when peeling one of the shapes off and managed to pull some of the picture away but he is clumsy and generally needs to take more care.

Both Monkey and Missy Woo loved doing the sand art. I thought that Monkey might get bored but both of them were completely absorbed in the activity. The pack also comes with laminating pouches so you can preserve your little darling's creation but our laminator has sadly laminated one sheet too many and expired some months ago so that is not an option for us.

And afterwards, it was pretty simple to clear up! Bonus!

These kits cost £8.99 so they make a great present for any child really. It doesn't require any drawing ability so even a 3 year old can produce a nice looking picture. The children loved it so much that they want to do more, which speaks for itself. The children were happy and I was happy too. No mess messy crafts. That's what I like!

(We were sent two sand art kits to review and I have received no other compensation. I was not told what to write and all opinions, words and pictures are my own). 

LifeCircle 2012: Life Plan

I guess you've come here to read my life plan. I've written it before. It therefore might look pretty similar to that as it's only a few months later. Remember, it's ideal lives we're talking about so I'm hoping you're all using lots of positive language in your posts. I shall be checking your work later, she said in her best schoolmistress voice.

We'll start, as before, with five years from now. By then, Monkey will be 11, nearly 12 and Missy Woo 10. Monkey will have just started at high school, one that we believe is right for him. Missy will be in Year 6 and due to follow her brother the following year.

A conversation

"You know, you bought her what she needed."

He frowned. "Bought?"

"I meant brought. I always get those wrong."

"Oh. What was it?"

"When Dad died, she was lost. She needed company, someone to care for, someone to boss around..."

"She was good at that!"

A tear sprang from her eye. "She needed someone to share her life and her home. You gave her that."

"Listen, I...." he began.

"Don't," she interrupted. "I'm here to say thanks. Mum died happy. She knew she was loved. Even if we fell out now and then, I'm proud to call you my stepdad."

This is entry in this week's 100 Word Challenge for Grown Ups over at Julia's Place

The prompt this week was "... you bought her what.."

Meal Planning Monday - the OMG it's still January edition

God, yes, is it still only 23rd January? I could have sworn it was February this week. Christmas feels like an age ago, although admittedly, other times it seems like yesterday. Make it finish soon. I'm still on a BBC Good Food tip this week - particularly as I love that it adds nutritional information so I can make sure I'm not overdoing it. I'm still being good, and trying to keep up our veg intake. Here are this week's delights.

Monday - Italian style beef stew (adapted for the slow cooker)
Tuesday - Chicken, leek and parsley pie
Wednesday - White fish with spicy beans and chorizo
Thursday - Sweet potato and coconut soup with bread
Friday - Lazy cheesy veg hotpot
Saturday - leaving free
Sunday - Honey and mustard pork with broccoli and mash

Don't forget that Mrs M host the linky every week. Why not pop over to check the other entries? And don't forget to tell me what meals you have planned for this week?