Veggie-Terror!
No, this is not a post about how The Boy won't eat his greens; far from it in fact!
We received a lovely orange box the other day wrapped in a hand-tied bow. Inside was a lovely selection of fruit and vegetables and a note from Innocent asking us if we could create a veggie-monster. The Boy had a good old look at the selection inside and was very intrigued with the kiwi! Wouldn't try it though!
Using the toothpicks which they provided, and spelling out the name with the special innocent glow-in-the-dark magnets (a full set; I almost jumped for joy!), we came up with this lovely lady:
Her name is Ms. Hel O Wyn and she was rather pleased to be visiting our house for the day!
However, she's now sat in a pot on the stove making a stew for tea tonight.
Innocent have a rather fabulous campaign on at the moment to celebrate Halloween and their new glow in the dark magnets. They want children across the land to get creating their very own weird and wonderful fruity freak or veg monster. It's very simple, just do the following:
- Cut, carve and create your fruity freak or vegetable monster from the weirdest looking fruit or veg you can find.
- Give it a name and spell it out in innocent magnets (how about 'Terry Able' or 'Aaaaaaaaaalan'.)
- Then take a picture of your spooky creation, post it in their scary halloween flickr gallery.
- When you've done that, email them (myfruitandvegmonster@innocentdrinks.co.uk) with your flickr name and a postal address (important so we know which picture is yours, in case you're one of the first thousand people).
- The first 1,000 entries win a very special set of limited edition halloween 0-9 number magnets which ALL glow in the dark (the perfect addition to your alphabet ones)
The competition runs until 7th November 2011.
And because we love food and hate waste, afterwards, why not use any leftover veg to make a stew like us?
We were sent a box of fruit & vegetables (& magnets, hurrah!) to take part in this campaign and help spread the word.
Saturday 29th October 2011 – 'Froggy Feast' (301/365)
ShowOff ShowCase: The Scary & Spooky One
You know the usual format for ShowOff ShowCase by now; link up a post either along a theme, or The One That Should Have Done Better.
This weekend, it's the turn of a theme. So in recognition of all the ghoulish and ghastly posts out there highlighting craft activities or cookery or party games, I've decided that the theme is:
The Scary & Spooky One
Link up as many Hallowe'en posts as you want, let's use it as a resource bank of activities!
Hungry Hallowe'en
This year, probably due to The Boy being that much older, I'm really feeling Hallowe'en. Not the ghosts and ghoulies (steady on) you understand, but the whole party, dressing up malarky. It's helped by the planning that I'm doing for my toddler group's party this weekend, and so I've been going to town on costumes, decorations and food. As it's obviously a party for under-five year olds, the food we're preparing has to be quick and easy to cook, transfer and eat. However, there are some other meals that will be featuring on the menu at home this weekend.
Scary Soup
- Heat 1tbsp of olive oil in a large pan, add one chopped leek and a handful of sliced mushrooms. Sweat for a few minutes to soften.
- Add the chopped flesh of one butternut squash (or pumpkin), two diced carrots and two peeled and diced sweet potatoes and cook for a couple of minutes. Then add 1½ pints of stock. Season with salt and ground black pepper, cover and bring to the boil, then simmer for 25 mins until the squash, carrot and sweet potato are really tender.
- Stir 200ml of Alpro soya milk* into the soup, whiz everything together in blender or processor in batches until smooth. Return to the pan, gently warm through to serve. Pour into bowls and finish with a swirl of Alpro soya alternative to cream*.
- Serve with crusty, warmed baguette or tiger bread.
Alpro Soya is a tasty alternative to dairy for those who are lactose intolerant.
Devil's Cakes
Who doesn't love a little bit of Gothic coloured sponge cake? Black oozing red, sticky substance anyone? The full recipe for these, can be found here.
Mudpots
I've always wanted to have a go at making my own jelly-type pudding but obviously being vegetarian, it's a bit tricky! I recently discovered a vegetarian gelatine and had a go at using the powder. I mixed one sachet with 1 pint of Alpro Soya 'milk'* and stirred it until it had dissolved. Bringing it to just under the boil, I stirred in one pot of Alpro Soya chocolate dessert* and mixed it through with a balloon whisk. To flavour even further, I added 40g of chocolate orange drinking chocolate (if this is intended as a dairy-free pudding, check the drinking chocolate is lactose-free) and whisked this in thoroughly. Pour the mixture into serving dishes and allow to cool. After half an hour, the pudding should be thick enough to allow a segment of satsuma (hoorah, Christmas is coming) to rest on the top, sprinkle with chocolate flakes.
Scrummy!
Ghoulish Guzzlers
Vampire Broth: 3 parts diet cola* made using our new Sodastream* and 1 part vanilla ice-cream. Dust the rim of the glass with caster sugar, place the ice-cream inside and pour on the cola. Watch it froth up!
Magic Potion: 2 parts sparkling apple juice* and 2 parts cranberry and raspberry juice* (both sugar-free). Decorate the rim with red edible glitter for that extra touch of blood-curdling authenticity. If you've got any raspberries (we don't) crush them up and add them to the mix.
Chilling Chocolate: Dust the edge of a glass with cocoa powder (not drinking chocolate as it often contains dairy) and pour in some cool Alpro Soya chocolate milk*.
Can you come up with any more funky mocktails?
I was sent the items marked with a * to review. However, all the cooking, images and text are my own, and honest.
A Tale of Two Wizards
There once was a little boy who lived in a nice house with his mummy and daddy. Although the staircase had lots of space underneath it, and he was very curious as to the space and what was hidden in there*, he didn't live under the stairs. Unlike another little boy who did have to occupy such a space, he had his own bedroom.
However, he did have quite a vivid imagination and started to dream of magical things, like wizards and witches and riding around on his special broomstick for sweeping the kitchen. Unlike the other little boy, for him these were only a dream. The other little boy was destined to be a great wizard who would be really good at flying on a broomstick, regardless of whether it was meant for cleaning up the lunchtime crumbs or for chasing a ball around the sky.
Although for one it was a reality, and for the other it was fiction, they both had a dream of wearing fancy wizards' robes. While one of these boys would buy these wizarding robes from Madam Malkin using golden coins, the other had a beautiful parcel arrive one day. He opened the parcel and found inside a garment lovingly wrapped in embossed tissue paper. Carefully removing the seal, he then ripped open said tissue paper (in the style that only a two year old can manage) and discovered the most gorgeous and sumptious velveteen wizarding robes in a plush purple. The robes were embellished with magical symbols and the collar and cuffs were a mystical silver fabric, and it fastened at the front with a single button. Rushing to put it on, with the help of his mummy, he placed the wizard's hat upon his head!
One of the two boys may have had more magical powers, but The Boy knew which one looked the best!
As he practised performing spells upon everything in sight, including his mummy (needs to perfect the slimming spell) and the dirty dishes, one rebounded off the chutney cooking on the stove and knocked him onto his little bottom. Blinking, he tried to clamber to his feet but found he could only hop!
Hopping around the hallway, his mummy was quite intrigued to discover that the little boy that she'd always called 'a jumping frog' had indeed fulfilled that prophecy. His skin had become a rich green with lighter spots, and his ticklish tummy was now golden yellow, making it much easier to tickle. Looking at him with his new attire, she soon realised that he was destined to become 'The Boy Who Hopped'.
The Boy was sent these costumes for review purposes from PartyKids. While the story is fiction, my opinion (that they are absolutely gorgeous and extremely well-designed and made children's costumes) is not.
*His Christmas presents.
Thursday 20th October 2011 – 'Mr. Potter, I Presume?' (292/365)
Hallowe'en Party Ideas
It all started when I was sent a fantastic box of Hallowe'en goodies* to review. Then, when I became involved with planning my toddler group's Hallowe'en party, the cogs in my little ol' head started whirring. I'm just starting out on the whole party extravaganza, but I love party-planning. For me, it's the whole experience; party games, tableware, food, costumes, decorations, party bags etc.
Therefore, I've decided to put together some ideas for a toddler's Hallowe'en party, of the non-scary variety.
Party-games
- Dangling Doughnuts: suspend doughnuts on strings (enough for one child) from a washing line. Without using their hands, the children must try and eat the doughnuts. This is a much safer alternative for pre-schoolers to bobbing apples.
- Messy-play: this is the ultimate excuse for goo and ickiness galore! Delve into green rice-pudding, beans, pickled onions (eyeballs anyone), custard and jelly. For added fun, hide small (wrapped) treats or gifts in the cauldron which the children must find.
- Trick or treat: have two tubs, one filled with dry-ish small food types (like rice) and one filled with slime (beans, custard, pumpkin innards). Bury the treats at the bottom of the pot and the children have to choose a trick or treat bowl to find their goodies. I'm using this one for trick or treat-ers on Hallowe'en night.
- Digging for bugs: Fill a large 2litre capacity tub with green slime (jelly). As the jelly cools, drop in plastic bugs and spiders, make sure you do this in layers. Once cool and set, provide the children with a tea-spoon to dig out the insects.
Decorations
When we have our toddler group's Hallowe'en party, we're going to be hiring a church hall (eek! Hope the big man doesn't mind?) and will need to decorate it quickly, but effectively. That's where the black spiderwebs will come in; we'll use them to decorate the walls. Combined with orange and black balloons which we will be sticking up, it shouldn't take too long to decorate but look effective.
Hallowe'en: Devil's Cakes
When the lovely Jenny from Mummy Mishaps announced that her next 'I Love Cake' linky was going to be cakes for Hallowe'en I started to have a think. The toddler group that we belong to is having a Hallowe'en party and I'll need to take a plate of party food along so I decided to kill two birds with one stone: practise my cakes for the party and link up to 'I Love Cake' at the same time.
I decided on Red Velvet cupcakes. When I was looking for recipes I was intrigued by a couple of things. First of all, it's not just a sponge with red colouring in it. The colouring is achieved through mixing red food colouring with cocoa powder, and then added to the initial wet ingredients. I thought vinegar was a weird thing to put in but according to the never-wrong Wikipedia: "the reaction of acidic vinegar and buttermilk tends to better reveal the red anthocyanin in the cocoa". That's interesting thought I! Then I read on further and discovered that Devil's Food cake (a type of chocolate cake) and Red Velvet cakes often get mixed up in recipe books.
Perfect! I'm making me some Devil's Cakes!
Ingredients:
- 60g room temperature butter
- 150g caster sugar
- 1 egg
- 10g cocoa powder
- 20ml red food colouring
- 20ml black food colouring
- 1½tsp vanilla extract
- 120ml buttermilk
- 150g plain flour
- ½tsp salt
- ½tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1½tsp of white wine vinegar
- chocolate spread
- strawberry jam
- milk chocolate
- orange & black vermicelli
1. Cream butter and sugar, then add the egg and mix together.
2. In a separate bowl, mix the cocoa powder, red food colouring and vanilla essence to make a thick, dark paste.
3. Add to the butter mix and stir in thoroughly.
4. Add half the buttermilk and beat. Then add half the flour and mix in. Repeat until all is used.
5. This is a really cool science bit: add the salt, bicarbonate of soda and vinegar. Watch it fizz! Beat well until really smooth.
6. Put a spoonful of cake mixture into the cases, enough to cover the base. Place a small amount of chocolate spread in the centre of each one, and then pour another spoonful of mixture on top; enough to fill two-thirds of the case.
(As I had spare mixture from the 12 that it's supposed to make, I wanted to see what it would like as a black cake. I added a further 20ml of black food colouring (Asda sells it) and put jam in the middle instead of chocolate spread)
7. Bake for 20-25 minutes in a pre-heated oven (170°C).
8. Melt some milk chocolate in a bain marie and pour into the centre of the cake. Smooth over to cover the top and then sprinkle some vermicelli on the top.
9. ENJOY!
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Pop over and see the other entries into 'I Love Cake': The Hallowe'en Edition using this widget thing below. The linky will be open from Saturday 15th October and will close at the end of the witching hour (ie. Midnight) on Halloween itself Monday 31st October.
