2011 February | Cheeky Baby Wipes Blog

5 Things you want your children to know about you.

February 25th, 2011

Another interesting topic for the Friday Club over at Notes from Home. This week it’s ‘5 things you want your children to know about you’….

1 – I’ll always love you.
No matter how grumpy and cross I am (which at 8 months pregnant is more often thaan not) I still love you. I’ve loved you all from the second that I knew you were in my tummy, until you popped out and wailed for the first time. I love you even when you’re snotty and whingey and when you’re grumpy and cross.

I love you when you play together like the Bisto kids and when you fight the bit out over something inconsequential. I’ll always love you. Sometimes I might not necessarily like you very much, but I’m sure the feeling is mutual….

2. Mummy knows best and is usually right

You won’t appreciate this one for a LONG time. I’ve only just come to realise this about my Mum in recent years, spectacularly illustrated when she repeatedly pointed out that the reason my 4 week old was crying a LOT was because she was hungry. ‘How could that be so’ I argued, ‘when I am exclusively BF’ing her, as I did her brothers?’. 11 weeks later a bottle of formula switched off my crying child and switched on my lovely baby girl again, proving tht my Mum had been right all along. And she’s never once said ‘I told you so’.

I look forward to being able to do the same for you some day…

3. Mummy does have a life that doesn’t involve you.

I know this one is hard to believe, but I am actually a person in my own right. Aside from being ‘Mum’ I’m also Helen, wife of D, ‘Cheeky Wipes Helen’, Helen ‘Madam WI president’ and just plain old Helen. Sometimes I want and need to do things for all these other Helen’s. Sometimes I want / need to do things just for me.

Some of these things might involve not seeing you for a few days (like if I get the chance to go off on a band jolly with Daddy to Glasto for example). But see number 1 for reassurance. It doesn’t change how I feel about you, but it makes a lot of difference to how I feel about me.

4. Don’t buy me flowers…

Not sure if this one is REALLY for you, or more for Daddy. If you feel the urge to buy me a present, firstly a hug is usually present enough from any of you. If you do fancy splashing some cash, chocolate is always a better idea than flowers. I’m not a flowery person and it’s better to spend your hard earned pennies on things which will actually be appreciated. Even a bar of Green & Blacks will do…

5. Repeat no 1.

You don’t need to know anything else really….

************

Here are the other entries in this carnival, please click through and read these lovely posts:

Alysonsblog
Inside the Wendy House
Patch of Puddles
SAHMlovingit
Today We Made

I Need Curtains…
Metal Mummy
Major Love of Film
LLM Calling
QWERTY Mum

CherishedByMe
New Mum Online
Emma and 3
JoJo’s So Called Life
Cass@frugalfamily

And Then All I Thought About Was You
Grumpinator
helloitsgemma
Freckles Family
Scribbling Mum

liveotherwise – five things
Ailbhe
Mummy’s Little Monkey
Thinly Spread
gingerbread house

Jacq at Mymumdom
Not Yet a Yummy Mummy
southoftherivermum
Domestic Goddesque
Bloggomy

TheSixthElement
Tiddlyompompom
Stephs Two Girls
Cheeky Wipes
Bibsey Mama

Mummy From The Heart…
yuckymum
Lauren “Real Housewife”
Jo “Given To Distracting Others”

Tags: friday club carnival
Posted in Friday Club | 2 Comments »

Tables aren’t just for eating at…

February 18th, 2011

…I’ve danced on this one.

This week’s Friday Carnival topic is ‘a cherished item.’ I’ve had this table since I bought my first place at the tender age of 21 -ish. It was just a little terraced house, but it had a pretty spacious kitchen diner with plenty of room for this big lump of a table. A friend of my brothers worked in a carpentry shop and he spent hours applying coats of wax to it, so it would be in pristine condition for me.

I think it cost me about £200 for the table and 4 chairs which was quite a lot of money, but it has turned out to be a sound investment as we’re still using it 17 years later.

I have danced on this table in my pre-baby days when it was ‘everybody back to mine’ after we’d been out to the wee small hours…. I’ve had boozy dinners around this table when we all drank far too much…. I may even have been *ahem* slightly quite inappropriate on top of this table.

The table migrated with me to London from Northern Ireland and then down to the South Coast. It has survived a 3 year temporary garage habitat when we just didn’t have room for it. It even briefly made an appearance as a workshop bench in my warehouse.

Now we’ve moved and have the perfect space for it again. I’ve sanded it and rewaxed the top and painted the legs white to bring it a bit more up to date. We’ve replaced the original country chairs with some modern white ones for the grown-ups and a bench for the littl’uns, who remind me of the Bisto kids when they eat their breakfast at it.

I love this table.

Here are the other entries in this carnival:

Making It Up gives us her favourite cherished items.

The Diary of a Frugal Family shares her family’s most Special Things.

Scribbling Mum tells us about her photo wall.

Make Do Mum writes about a precious item in Tick tock tick tock.

Red Ted Art tells us about her DIY Hobby Horse.

Snipsnaphappy tells us about her cherished item in My Granny’s needle.

I Need Curtains for the Window inside my Head writes about the pieces of jewellery that mean the most to her.

Tiddlyompompom tells us about Adopted Ted.

Freckles Family shares A treasured possession.

Mymumdom posts about A Small Boy’s Treasure.

Notes From Home posts about her cherished reclaimed box.

Tags: Friday Club
Posted in Friday Club, Frugal Living | 17 Comments »

Come and see us at the Excel Baby Show…stand C14

February 17th, 2011

Just a quick one from me as I’m currently getting ready for the madness that is the Excel Baby Show. It will run from tomorrow (Friday) until Sunday and if you’re pregnant or have just had a baby it’s well worth a visit.

We’re on stand C14 and will have our Cheeky Wipes kits, plus additional oils etc with us for purchase.

Come and say ‘Hello’ – I’m Helen the hugely pregnant one!

Tags: excel baby show
Posted in Baby Show News | No Comments »

Meat-Free February – week 1

February 15th, 2011

As you’ll know if you read my blog regularly, last year in March we did a meat-free month which was great. We ate more fish and veg, and tried some fantastic new recipes which have become family favourites. From an environmental perspective it’s always good to find ways to eat less meat (and it’s cheaper than meat too!)

I wanted to do the same thing again this year but as baby no4 (and yes, I am looking forward to the day when this child is no longer a number but has an actual name) is due towards the end of March and we’ll be relying on freezer meals after that, I’ve decided to bring it forward.

This was our first week, starting on Saturday 5th Feb and overall it’s been a great one:

Saturday: Vegetarian Pizza
Sunday: Jamie Olivers Fish Pie
Monday: Jacket Potatoes, Beans & Cheese
Tuesday – veggie paella
Wednesday – Creamy Tomato Mascarpone Gnocchi *
Thursday – cheese, onion and potato pasties
Friday – Fish Fingers & Chips (the adults are out for dinner!)

*This was a batch cook, so I’ve got some frozen for lazy tea!

Review

Jamie Olivers fish pie was a winner, it’s just so rich and creamy, we had friends round for lunch and it was clean plates all round.

On Tuesday we tried a version of the Ottolenghi Veggie Paella.“> Their recipe included fennel (which I couldn’t find when I went shopping) and artichokes which I’m not fussed on. So I swapped them out and included an extra pepper and a large tub of mixed olives and sundried tomatoes from Sainsburys. It was gorgeous, but we increased the ingredients by half again and it and made enough for D to take some to work with him for lunch the following day.

Wednesdays meal was a slightly different version of the Creamy Tomato Mascarpone Gnocchi recipe which I found on the waitrose website. I changed it to make standard potato gnocchi instead of sweet potato because I have a bag of spuds needing to be used up. I also doubled the recipe so I’ve got some in the freezer for a lazy meal another night.

D, A and I all really enjoyed this but no2 son point blank refused to touch it (to be fair he had been unwell) and J sucked the sauce off the gnocchi and didn’t eat them. Hey ho.

It’s only the second time that I’ve made gnocchi and I used a different recipe without eggs – these ones were definitely lighter and more fluffy. It’s quite easy if a bit time-consuming to make gnocchi but here’s the recipe:

Ingredients

Potatoes (I had about 1.2kg of flesh once I’d scooped them out of their jackets)
Plain flour (about 300g)
Seasoning

Method

Cook potatoes in their jackets in the oven for about 1 hour at 190c
When cooked, scoop flesh from potatoes and either mash or put through a ricer / sieve
Sift flour onto the potatoes and mix to combine to a dough – be gentle here!
Roll pieces of your dough into a sausage and then slice to form small pillow shapes
Cook the gnocchi until they float in a large pan of salted boiling water – you’ll need to do these a batch at a time.
If you’re not going to use the gnocchi immediately, place them individually onto a floured tray and cover until needed.
The gnocchi also freeze well like this – freeze them on the tray and once frozen you can put them into a freezer bag or two.
To use, cover with sauce and bake in a pre-heated oven at 180c for 30 mins or so.

Hopefully this will give some of you some inspiration to try more meat-free meals. If you do, be sure to let me know!

Tags: fish recipes, meat-free february, meat-free meals, veggie recipes
Posted in Frugal Living, Green Living, Meat-Free Meals, Menu Planning, Recipes | 2 Comments »

Parenting Tip – Fussy Eating

February 11th, 2011

Like most parents, I sometimes have days when I think that I’m the last person in the world who can give parenting tips (usually on the days when the school run has degenerated into a stressful imitation of the bull running at Pamplona).

However the theme of this weeks carnival over at Notes from Home is Parenting Tips and there’s at least one thing that my kids are generally good at – eating!

I think that most kids will go through a fussy stage at some point. The key as a parent to keep control of the situation, rather than letting your 3 year old take control! My eldest started getting fussy at about 3 and it took him a good couple of years to come out the other side of it, but now at 6 he’ll eat most things and is even being a bit more adventurous with curries and spicy foods.

Maybe I’m being old-fashioned but I think kids will always eat enough to keep them going, they won’t starve. And it’s better for your sanity to not make a big deal out of their fussiness. That being said though it is frustrating when (like last night for example) your 3 year old point blank refuses a lovely home-made meal. Gnocchi with tomato & mascarpone sauce which was yummy…but to be fair he’s been unwell and off his food generally.

So here are my 3 top tips for fussy eaters:

First off, check they’re not being ‘fussy’ because they’ve had too many snacks. Having an established ’snack time’ rather than letting them snack when they fancy works well for us
If your child refuses to eat a certain meal don’t make a big deal of it, just tell them that they won’t be getting anything else to eat until the next meal. No snacks, no nothing. This avoids the whole stressful ‘just one more bite’ coaxing / wrangling matches. Your child won’t starve because of one missed meal and it just makes mealtimes stressful for everyone involved. And try not to take it personally if you’ve lovingly prepared a gorgeous meal…though this is easier said than done!
Don’t give in and make separate meals for them. For a start, if they’re anything like mine, they’re fickle and what they like one day, they dislike the next – and vice versa. Just keep on making whatever tickles your fancy and keep it varied. My 3 yr old, who has been pretty much refusing pasta for the last 6 months, ate a whole bowl of macaroni cheese last week, which I was surprised and delighted with. Now we just have to work on peas…

Here are the other entries in this parenting tips carnival:

Nova at Cherished by Me shares her tips in Encouraging Children to Read.

Gemma at HelloitsGemma’s Blog gives us her working mum tips in This working Mummy’s guide to life.

Maggy at Red Ted Art shows us how Baby Can Draw!

Chris at Thinly Spread gives us her Secret to Relaxed Parenting.

Cass at The Diary of a Frugal Family shows us how she teaches her children about other countries and cultures whilst having fun in America Day.

Helen at Cheeky Wipes gives us her tips in Fussy Eating.

Mummy Beadzoid gives us some Parenting tips for the NICU/SCBU parent.

Kelly at Domestic Goddesque shares her advice in Terrible Twos: tips for dealing with tantrums?

Ella at Notes From Home gives us her tip for encouraging children to tidy up at the end of the day.

Tiddlyompompom shares her weaning tips in her oh so helpful guide to weaning.

Mymumdom shares her tips in Parenting Tips (Me Over The Edge).

SouthoftheRiverMum tells us her plans to set up a Reward System at Home.

Not so single mum at Diary of a Not So Single Mum shares her advice on doing what you feel is best for your child and your family.

Jax at Making It Up discusses behavioural issues in a quandary in search of a tip.

Bod for Tea shares her advice on finding a ‘helper’ to encourage your child to do things they don’t really like doing in Bunny says.

Hayley at Simply Hayley tells us about Hugs and Love.

Make Do Mum shares her stickability scale in Know Your Enemy.

Blue Sky at Looking for Blue Sky gives us some teenage tips.

Tags: fussy eaters, fussy eating, parenting tips
Posted in Friday Club, organised parent | 23 Comments »

Menu Planning (January Review)

February 8th, 2011

A couple of weeks ago I posted my to-date menu plan for January and we’ve just kicked off our Meat-Free February which I’ll update on next week.

Again, quite a few of the recipes are from The Kitchen Revolution and are linked to one another and marked with a ‘K’. For example, the ‘Bollito Misto’ aka poached chicken, provided the basis for the toad in the hold and risotto later that week.

If I’ve used an online recipe or can find something similar, I’ve included a link to it, if it was a batch meal I’ve put an asterisk beside it. There’s also a few comments on my favourites below.

Risotto K

Toad in the hole, onion gravy K

Jacket potato

Bollito misto K

Three onion Soup

Pasta ribbons & tomato beans. K

Moussaka. K

Olive and anchovy lamb, garlic beans, veg. K

Coq au vin* and chips. K

Fish and chips from chip shop (Obv I didn’t cook this!)

There are two sets of linked meals here – the lamb was SO tasty and delish and I had lots of yummy beans left over which made a really flavoursome pasta bake a couple of days later.

For me though, the highlight of these recipes are the other kitchen revolution ones – Bollito Misto, Toad in the hole and Risotto. Bollito Misto (in this instance) is a whole chicken which is poached in a really tasty stock, with celery, half onions, carrots, bay leaves, lemon rind, thyme and parsley. It needs to be really gently simmered (not boiled!!!) for about 90 mins (for a 1.8kg chicken) and I added 12 sausages for the last 30 minutes of cooking.

The Kitchen Revolution cookbook suggests that this is served with lentils and salsa verda, but my kids aren’t overly fussed on lentils (although I LOVE them, especially with salsa verde) so we had mashed potato and I made gravy with some of the stock.

We had leftover stock, cooked onions and sausages. The sausages and cooked onions made a fantastic toad in the hole – which actually puffed up the way it’s supposed to! I think the key is getting the oil smoking hot before you add the batter and then keeping it on direct heat until the batter starts to rise before putting it back in the oven.

The stock made a beautiful leek herby risotto, but I had lots of chicken left too, so I added this in to make it a bit more substantial.

The only batch meal I made was Coq au Vin which went down well but as I knew we were moving into our meat-free month I didn’t bother with any more…

Tags: frugal eating, Menu Planning, menu plans
Posted in Frugal Living, Green Living, Menu Planning | No Comments »

Favourite Cake Recipe – Coffee Cake

February 4th, 2011

I have to say I love a bit of cake. Give that I’m 7 and a bit months pregnant I seem to be eating quite a bit of it too, so thought I would share my favourite cake recipe with everyone as part of the Friday Club Carnival over at Notes from Home.

My problem was, which cake to choose? Obviously I LOVE a bit of chocolate cake (Nigella’s sour cream chocolate cake is just fab), victoria sponge is always good too ad I’ll never say ‘No’ to a brownie. But my favourite cake has to be coffee cake as it’s just a bit more grown-up (or coffee and walnut if I happen to have some around).

This recipe is a doozy. I’m not a huge fan of sickly buttercream, but this filling is gorgeous, not too sweet or too rich. It’s based on the ‘Coffee Cream Mousseline’ a la Delia and is a little bit trickier than standard buttercream but I *think* I can show you where it might go wrong. It took me 10 attempts and some googling to work out why it sometimes worked for me and didn’t at other times. Thank god for google.

Ingredients (ideally all at room temperature)

225g butter or marg (I use Stork, prefer the light texture and don’t notice much difference flavourwise. Plus it’s MUCH cheaper)
225g caster sugar
225g eggs (4 large or 5 small/pullets approx)
225g self-raising flour
2 tbs coffee essence (I use Camp coffee essence)
2tbs (ish) milk
2 x 20cm sandwich tins with removable bases

Method

Preheat oven to 180c, grease your sandwich tins thoroughly
Cream butter/marg and sugar until light and fluffy with either a handheld electric mixer, or freestanding one. This takes a good 8 minutes, so be patient it makes all the difference to your finished cake.
Add an egg, plus 1-2 tbs of flour to your mixture and beat until combined.
Repeat until all your eggs are included.
Sift in remaining flour, along with coffee essence and milk. Mix until combined. Your batter should be loose-ish, dropping consistency.
Divide the batter between the two cake tins and cook for 25 minutes (until the cake has started to come away from sides of the tin)
Leave to cool for 10 minutes, the remove from tins and allow to cool completely before icing.

Icing

Ingredients

60g caster sugar
4 tbs water
2 large (or 3 small) egg yolks
150g butter (room temperature)
2 tbs camp coffee essence

Method

Put the water and sugar in your smallest saucepan and slowly bring to the boil, making sure all the sugar is dissolved completely before it boils
Simmer gently for 12 – 15 minutes (temp on a cooking thermometer should be 103c – 105c)
Whisk the egg yolks in a bowl, then pour the sugar syrup onto the eggs whisking all the time. It’s REALLY important here to pour directly onto the eggs, not onto the beater or the bowl sides as the sugar syrup will solidify and it won’t work. It took me a long time to work out why this was happening!
Whisk the butter in about 25g at a time until you have a smooth fluffy cream.
Lastly whisk in the coffee essence. You can use the filling to sandwich and top your cake and it looks pretty decorated with walnut pieces.
Slice and enjoy with friends!

Here are the other recipes in this Cakes and Cookies Carnival:

Nova at Cherished by Me gives us her Cherry, Coconut and Marshmallow Traybake.

Kelly at Domestic Goddesque posts her recipe for heart-shaped jammy-dodger-style biscuits in Baking with a heart!

Heather at SAHMLovingIt gives us her Scrumptious Beetroot Seed Cake Recipe.

Jules at I Need Curtains for the Window in my Head posts her recipe for Almond Macaroons.

Gemma at HelloitsGemma’s Blog posts her (easiest) Banana Cake (ever).

Sian at Pumpkin and Piglet posts her Chocolate Digestive Biscuits.

Jax at Making It Up gives us her recipe for gingerbread.

Cass at The Diary of a Frugal Family posts her Nutella Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Clare at Seasider in the City gives us her Mars Bar Cake.

Bod for Tea shows us how she makes Iced Animal Biscuits.

Maggy at Red Ted Art has a guest post from Maison Cupcake’s Sarah showing us how to make Love Heart Cookies.

Rebecca at twobecomefour gives us her recipe for Beck’s Banana Bread.

Jenny at Gingerbread House gives us her Gingerbread cupcakes.

Tiddlyompompom shares the fun she has making cakes with her daughter in Have your cake and eat it.

Tags: coffee and walnut cake recipe, coffee cake recipe, coffee cream mousseline, Friday Club
Posted in Friday Club, Recipes | 23 Comments »

Review on Mellow Mummy

February 1st, 2011

Just a quick post from me as I’ve just seen a fabulous review over on Mellow Mummy which the lovely Emma carried out.

Like myself Emma has ‘issues’ with baby wipes and even has a wipes index list. A couple of months ago, I spotted a post musing over the fact that she had tried making her own reusable wipes but that they hadn’t worked for her…. so I dropped Emma a line to see if she’d like to try Cheeky Wipes.

Her review is now online here and if you take a look, you can see that I’ve given Emma an exclusive peek at our new improved Cheeky Wipes kits, which are available to pre-order now.

Tags: baby wipes review, cheeky wipes review, mellow mummy review
Posted in Buying For Baby, Cheeky Wipes News, cloth nappy | No Comments »

5 Things you want your children to know about you.

Tables aren’t just for eating at…

Come and see us at the Excel Baby Show…stand C14

Meat-Free February – week 1

Parenting Tip – Fussy Eating

Menu Planning (January Review)

Favourite Cake Recipe – Coffee Cake

Review on Mellow Mummy

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