Tag Archives: food

Feeling Festive – Melted Snowman Biscuits

Posted on by
6

Only one sleep to go ’till the big day, yay! I for one am not sure I could withstand another trip to the shops for last minute Christmas presents (am sure I have them all now…) nor another evening spent wrapping (surely the most tedious of Christmas traditions, no?!), so it’s time to focus on putting our feet up and feeling properly festive.  And what better way to get into the Christmas spirit than with a festive biscuit (or six)? – this week I was inspired by these gorgeous Melted Snowman Biscuits that one of my favourite bloggers, Mummy Daddy & Me Makes Three recently showcased on her blog.

I thought they looked fantastic and made a batch this week to take to a Christmas party we went to at a neighbour’s house.  All twenty biscuits were swiped and chomped through before the night was out, in fact I didn’t even get to try one – which means I’ll HAVE to make another batch of course :-) – and Allegra was particularly taken with the “no-man biscuits”, so I think they’ll be in demand in our house for a little while.

They’re pretty easy to do, I found the hardest part getting the consistency of the icing sugar just right but other than that, it’s all straight-forward stuff and the final effect is great:

Ingredients:

The Essentials

1x pack of Marshmallows – you want white ones ideally

200g Icing Sugar – I think I probably ended up using lots more, to get the consistency right, but then threw away a fair bit… a learning for next time around!

Writing Icing – various colours (buy them in packs from the supermarket baking aisle)

Biscuits – we used digestives, you could experiment with others, or even make your own!

simple but delicious

Method:

Make up your icing sugar by mixing with water – you want to get the consistency just right, so not too runny and not too thick.  Top tip: sieve the icing sugar to avoid it looking lumpy (I didn’t do this but will next time around).

iced iced baby

iced iced baby

Spread the icing sugar on each biscuit – less is more, so you’re better off putting a small teaspoon on and letting it spread.  If you overload them then it all becomes a bit of a mess!

The icing sugar needs to set on the biscuits before you decorate them with the writing icing.  In the meantime, set to work decorating your “snowman heads” – aka the white marshmallows!  Again, less is more, don’t overload with icing or it can run and become a bit of a melted face (which is not really the look you’re aiming for!).  As I decorated each head, I then placed on a biscuit so that the icing would set under/around it and thereby keep it in place.

marshmallows + icing writing = snowman heads

marshmallows + icing writing = snowman heads

Once the icing on the biscuits is set, you can grab your icing writing pens once again and get to work to create the bodies:  don’t forget to include little stick arms and the ubiquitous snowman buttons!

Leave to set then serve and enjoy!

a set of melted frosty snowmen!

a set of melted frosty snowmen!

I’m already thinking of what variations on this theme I could create, it’s such a fab idea.

Merry Christmas!

mOmma I love you!

Posted on by
Reply

No, this is not a tribute to the (rather naff) Spice Girl’s song, god that was awful and don’t get me wrong, I loved all that girl power stuff as much as the next girl but I was always more of a “Say You’ll Be There” lover.  Anyway, I digress…

mOmma by Lansinoh (yes, those of nipple cream fame) is a range of rather stylish and contemporary looking products from Italy, which are designed for babies and children, and really do combine function and beauty.  I was sent the 250ml Non-Spill Cup with Dual Handles to review with Richmond Baby, which retails at approx. £5.99, and basically, I love it.  Fact.

Apart from the fact that it is rather gorgeous in its design, with its rounded bottom (who doesn’t love an curvy bottom eh? I know I do…) and ergonomic shape, which encourages a rocking movement, it also has a rather clever soft silicone spout, which has “spill-proof” technology.  Essentially, you can fill it with milk, tip it upside down, and shake it to kingdom come, and it DOES NOT LEAK OR SPILL.  It is quite simply, remarkable.

When I was sent the mOmma cup, Richmond Baby was still firmly established on the same bottles that we’d essentially been using since birth – having changed the teats gradually as she got older – and we were still sterilising and all that malarky, which was frankly getting increasingly tedious.  Conscious that I needed to start moving her on from a bottle to a beaker, I hadn’t found quite the right transitional product and various cups/beakers I’d tried had either baffled her or soaked her in equal measure.  Not good.

So, I was interested to try the mOmma cup, and I was so impressed by it and by the ease with which Richmond Baby picked it up and started happily using it, that I packed up the bottles, threw away the teats, and boxed up the steriliser there and then and sent them up to the big storage unit in the sky (aka “the loft”).  Boy was it liberating!

Road-testing the mOmma

Let me tell you specifically what I love about this cup:

1) it doesn’t spill, like, ever

2) Richmond Baby finds it easy to hold onto thanks to the big and easy to grip handles and easy to drink from thanks to the soft spout, which – as I may have previously mentioned – DOESN’T LEAK! and only requires gentle sucking (unlike some other beaker/cups I’ve tried, that you’d need to get Henry Hoover on the case with to get anything out of them)

3) because of its rounded bottom, it’s like a Weeble (remember them?) – it wobbles but it don’t fall down… which means that even when it gets chucked on the floor from the heady heights of baby’s highchair, the spout doesn’t end up touching the floor as it just rocks softly and the rights itself – genius

The mOmma cup at breakfast

I honestly have been so impressed by this cup and by how easily Richmond Baby took to it, that I am now desperate to buy more of them.  In fact, a week after getting the sample to try, I headed off to Boots to buy more – thinking they must be stocked there.  Sadly they are not (they should be!) and that was a bit annoying – not least as I’d packed all my other bottles away in enthusiasm for the new cup! – but, you can buy them from Amazon, along with lots of other lovely products in the mOmma range.

The cup we trialled is recommended for age 9 months plus and I am thinking, now that RB is just over 13 months, that we might try graduating to try out the mOmma cup with straw with dual handles, which is recommended for 12 months plus and looks rather gorgeous (got to love that Italian design credential) and again, has a RRP of £5.99 – which I think isn’t too bad, considering the quality and functionality of the product.

There are lots of other desirable products in the mOmma collection, from drinking to mealtimes and teething, through to even nappy changing bags.  A few items that I particularly like the look of:

mOmma Vogue - £4.99
a bottle with a thermal jacket to keep liquids at a certain temperature

Developmental Meal Set - RRP £13.99
check out the gorgeous fork and spoon!

So all in all, I can’t say enough good things about mOmma.  If you want to take a look at the website, click here, and if you’re looking to buy, then Amazon stocks much of the range.

Me and my mOmma

The weaning journey: an update…

Posted on by
6

Weaning… I haven’t really enjoyed it that much if I’m being honest.  I’ve written about it a couple of times here and here and while yes,  it is wonderful introducing Richmond Baby to new tastes and new textures, I have however found it (a) a lot more time-consuming than just preparing a bottle and giving it to her to suck away on, so the day really seems to disappear faster than usual, (b) pretty disheartening when you spend time cooking/pureeing a meal only to then have to chuck it away when it is met with disdain and retching noises (my cooking’s not THAT bad, honest!), and (c) boy is it messy… especially when they get hold of the spoon, or the bowl, or both…!

I’ll admit, there have been times when I have descended into slummy mummy territory and just relied on pre-prepared pouches (thank you Ella’s Kitchen and Plum) to feed my little one, mostly because I find that whenever I serve those up she does eat them pretty much without fuss and certainly without a soundtrack of retching and hurling, which of course is a bonus.  But after a few lazy weeks days, I did my best to get back on track by dusting off the Annabel Karmel book and trying again with the home-made approach.

And, I think we’ve turned a corner… I think Richmond Baby was at her fussiest when it came to food during a particularly full on bout of teething – which is understandable I guess – and now that’s settled down again, she seems to be more willing to entertain the whole eating thing again.  But also, I think she’s starting to enjoy food more now and meal times have become less of a battleground and more of a fun activity (there is still the odd spat, but by and large I think we’re on the right track).

So, thanks largely to inspiration from Ms Karmel and the New Complete Baby & Toddler Meal Plannerbook, I can now confirm that Richmond Baby’s top five foods/dishes are currently:

Getting acquainted with chicken, sweet potato, and apple

  1. Chicken with Sweet Potato and Apple (pretty self-explanatory!)
  2. Lovely Lentils (split red lentils with onion, carrot, celery, and sweet potato)
  3. Napolitana Pasta (tasty tomato sauce with little pasta shapes)
  4. Going Bananas (banana cooked with ground cinnamon and orange juice – makes the house smell amazing too!)
  5. Cauliflower Cheese

Getting messy with some banana

I need to branch out more into red meats and give her more variety generally, but I’m pleased that we’re getting there in terms of establishing her on three meals a day.  At breakfast time she usually happily chomps on porridge or a baby version of weetabix, with milk, and then has some fruit and/or a yoghurt, and some milk.  Lunch is usually one or other of an Annabel Karmel recipe followed by fruit.  She’ll have a small bottle of milk mid afternoon, then tea around 5.30pm – again, usually an AK recipe – and then a bedtime bottle at around 6.30pm after her bath.

I’m so pleased that it feels like we’re finally going in the right direction, feeding your little one is clearly an area fraught with potential stresses and worries, so to see them eating anything enthusiastically feels like a real victory. Aside from the AK dishes, Richmond Baby has also shown a keen liking for…. Philadelphia cheese – ideally on a rice cake, or toast, but equally happy to just eat it off your finger tip (just mind those teeth!);

A Philly moustache for Movember!

fromage frais and/or yoghurt – loves it and quite often I have resorted to feeding her that at the same time as her main meal if she’s being fussy about eating!; melon, avocado and banana mashed together, and sweet potato with just about anything!  She has also developed quite a liking for mummy’s morning crumpet with butter, which of course I am happy to share :-)

So, on the menu for the week ahead, I think I am going to give some more Annabel dishes a whirl, I particularly like the look of the Braised Beef with Sweet Potato – because I’m hoping that baby’s love of sweet potato will encourage her to give red meat a try – and the My First Bolognese Sauce – which I’m hoping she’ll embrace with gusto as she’s a 1/4 Italian, so surely she must be pre-programmed to love Bolognese, no?

In the meantime, I am encouraging her more and more to feed herself by giving her things like chopped up banana or little rice cakes, or toast, to pick up and eat, and she’s pretty good at that.  In truth, I think she’d probably rather feed herself than have me coming at her with a spoon, but I’m just not sure I’m quite ready for the mess that will undoubtedly result… will put that off for just a bit longer!

What are your top weaning tips? – do share! :-)