Attending trade fairs is always a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand it’s a great showcase for Cheeky Wipes, and a fantastic way to network and get new ideas / gossip. On the other hand it’s time-consuming and can be a bit boring, but you have to put up with it!

One of the things I like best about these shows are the ability to have a good nosey around and see what’s new from old competitors / friends or new to market. Of course, I always like to let you, my faithful readers share in what’s hot or what’s not – from my perspective anyway!

This time a couple of products have caught my eye. Firstly the lovely people from Naturally Cool Kids were nearby with their funky range of Hair & Body Wash / sunscreen, lip and cheek protector and my personal favourite, the Vapour Stick.

All their products are completely free from nasties, so brilliant for my sensitive, eczema prone skin. They also use my favourite lavender & mandarin essential oils (sound familiar?) in the hair and body wash, which comes in a handy pump bottle so you can operate it one-handed.

As I said though, it’s the Vapour Stick which is my personal favourite. Less messy than Vicks, less eye-watering than Olbas oil and just chock full of goodies, like sunflower seed oil, cocoa butter and beeswax which moisturise the skin, whilst helping you breathe more easily. Love it.

Naturally Cool kids products are available from major retailers including John Lewis, or online at www.naturallycoolkids.com, priced from £3.95 for the DEET free bugbands…

I feel that I can admit it, now that I’m back on the wagon again. My Itti Bitti nappies have been languishing in the hall cupboard since Aerin was born in March. Every time I opened the cupboard to get some Cheeky Wipes they’ve winked at me and waved ‘Hello’ before I slammed the door shut on the nappies and my guilty conscience.

You can imagine what it’s like when you’ve got a newborn and 3 other children. If you’re not feeding the baby, you’re getting the others ready for school / lunch / swimming practice / bathtime /bedtime. Staying on top of the washing was already a mission with my washing machine being on at least once daily never mind adding nappies into the mix.

So I ignored my nappies and used eco-disposables instead . And my Cheeky Wipes of course. But then I saw the lovely Norma from Itti Bitti at the recent baby trade show in Cologne and I had to admit that I hadn’t used my lovely Itti Bitti for a while, but couldn’t quite explain why not!

Now Aerin is 6 months old and at nursery a few mornings a week, I have a bit more time and things aren’t quite as hectic, so that definitely helps. And she’s gone past the pooing 10 times a day stage too, which also helps.

So I dug the Itti Bitti out and introduced Aerin to them and she just loves them of course and looks super cute with her little fluffy bum. But I thought it was worth doing a quick blog post to all the Mums who have their cloth nappies lurking in the cupboard rather than on your baby’s bum (I know you’re out there!) Remember the good thing about cloth nappies is that once you’ve got them, any use you make of them is going to save you money and help minimise your environmental impact through landfill.

It doesn’t have to be all or nothing, you can mix and match if you need to and it suits your lifestyle and circumstances. Dip in and out as you need to and don’t feel bad. Your nappies will welcome you back with open arms when you’re ready…

And with everyday make-up use there is obviously the need to remove it. My skin is super-duper sensitive, ridiculously so. And I have sneaked a clean Cheeky Wipe now and again, but don’t like scrubbing at my eyes to remove the mascara.

After a bit of googling, I came across a fabulous solution. Olive oil. You’ve got it in your kitchen cupboard, it costs pennies and it doesn’t leave your skin greasy, just supersoft and gently cleansed. Apparently oil dissolves oil (removing sebum and mascara etc) and this is actively recommended for people suffering from acne.

I know that sounds to good to be true but it really works and there’s a whole load of people who have tried it and loved it enough to blog about….Here’s how:

What you need
Clean Cheeky Wipes (I keep 5 dry ones in the bathroom and use to order)
Olive Oil
Hot Water
Few drops of mandarin or lavender & Chamomile fresh wipes oil (optional)

Method
Put a little olive oil on your hands – about the size of a 5p piece
Rub all over your face in an upwards circular motion
Wet a Cheeky Wipe with nice hot water – not scalding, just hot from the tap
Wipe the olive oil off. You might want to rinse the wipe out once or twice, again with nice hot water.
Wipe again until all trace of oil is gone.
Splash with cold water.

You’ll find your skin feels great, soft and clean with absolutely no tightness at all. And it will save you LOTS on expensive make-up removers….

Part of me thinks that I shouldn’t post this as it’s crossing too far into the realms of frugality to be almost called penny-pinching.  But you know what they say, ‘Look after the pennies and the pounds look after themselves!’

So let’s talk loo roll.  You know, the stuff you wipe your bum with.  And kids’ snotty noses too.  In our house we get through about 6 rolls a week (my kids poo a LOT).  I used to buy whatever was on offer – in my local supermarket that tended to be the premium versions, like ‘Quilted’ or ‘Velvet’.  I *thought* that I was getting a bargain, but one week there were no offers on, so I just bought the bog-standard (ha,ha) supermarket own brand.  Not the value range as that would be a bit too scratchy on their wee bums, but just the normal own brand.

To my surprise it lasted a lot longer – something I only realised the following week, when I bought more loo roll as usual and then realised that we hadn’t used up everything from the previous week, in fact there were two rolls left.

It turns out that the quilted / velvet versions have much less paper on each roll – around 160 / 200 sheets compared to 240/260 sheets for standard.  And, in our house anyway, we seem to use the same amount of sheets whether it’s quilted or not?

Comparing standard Andrex to their quilted version at the moment – both fromTesco, both on offer at 8 rolls for £3.50, you’d save £60 a year by using the standard Andrex.  And of course, if you switch to an own brand you’ll save even more…

Top Tip 2: Squish your loo roll

Saddo that I am I was discussing this with friends yesterday and the lovely Sally had a top tip for those of us whose kids like to tug the bottom of the loo roll and then go ‘wheeee….’ watching loads come off onto the floor.  If you squish your roll a little bit before you put it on the holder, it doesn’t roll quite so easily, so they’ll use less.

Any more top tips to share, please leave a comment!

This is what we ate over a 12 day period but as you can see for quite a few of the days we had freezer surprise or similar – and if it says ‘Fish Fingers and chips’ it means that H and I were out that night!

As you can tell from the menu this is probably the period that I’ve done least cooking, partly because I’m knackered and partly because I’m in the late pregnancy / indigestion hell and don’t feel like cooking big meals that I’m not going to enjoy eating.  There’s also quite a bit of comfort food….  As always I’ll identify any highlights below.

Menu Plan

Sunday – Poached Haddock with Mustard & Spinach sauce, Mashed Potatoes & Peas

Monday & Tuesday – Freezer Surprise

Wednesday – Macaroni Cheese

Thursday -Potato Wedges, sour cream, sweet chilli sauce

Friday – Falafel in Pitta bread with Hummous and Tzatziki

Saturday – Enchiladas (Yotam Ottolenghi Plenty)

Sunday – Oven Roast Salmon with green beans, tomatoes, olives and anchovies (Jamie Oliver).  Roast Potatoes & Salsa Verde

Monday – Fishcakes (made with leftover salmon from Sunday)

Tuesday – Creamed mushrooms on toast

Wednesday – Pasta & Tuna Bake

Thursday – Charlies African Sweet Potato Stew

Friday – fish fingers and chips – Meat-free month officially over!

Highlights

Both Sunday dinners were lovely.  The haddock in creamy mustard sauce is just the thing if you fancy comforting rich sauce, smoky fish and a big pillow of mash.  The baked salmon probably had the edge on it however, especially because the children seemed to prefer it.  Or maybe it was the roast potato chunks that I served with it which were practically chips and therefore always a crowd pleaser in our house.   The salmon is one of Jamie Olivers original recipes (book 1 or 2 I think) but worth reproducing here:

Roast Salmon, Green Beans, Olives & Cherry Tomatoes

• 400 grams green beans
  200 grams cherry tomatoes
  1 to 2 handfuls black olives, destoned
  2 Tbs olive oil
  Salt and freshly ground black pepper
  1 handful fresh basil, picked
• 2 x 200 gram salmon fillet steak
  1/2 lemon
  12 anchovy fillets

Method

Preheat the oven and a roasting tray to about 230c.

Tail and blanch the green beans until tender (3 minutes) in salted, boiling water, and drain. Put in a bowl with the cherry tomatoes and the destoned olives. Toss in the olive oil and a pinch of salt and pepper. Add the basil.

Wash and pat dry the salmon. Squeeze the juice of 1/2 a lemon over the fillets, on both sides, then season both sides with salt and pepper and drizzle a little olive oil over the top.

Take the hot roasting tray from the oven. Put the salmon at 1 end of the roasting tray. Add the green beans mixture next to the salmon in the tray.  Lay the anchovies over the green beans and place an extra couple of lemons halves in the pan for roasting too.

Roast in the preheated oven for 10 minutes.

Another fantastic recipe which we tried for the second time was again from Yotam Ottolenghis ‘Plenty’ and was for Enchiladas.  I’m not suire if it’s the enchiladas or salsa that has me hooked though – I LOVE the salsa so much I’ve been making it randomly for evening snacking.  (Yes, once baby comes, I’ll be replacing the crisps with healthy carrots, but until then…)

One surprising winner was the creamy mushrooms on toast.  Again, not a recipe to make if you’re watching your weight but as an indulgent comfort food it was right up there:

Creamy Mushrooms on Toast

• 500 grams Mushrooms
• butter – 40 grams
• 1 onion / 3 shallots
• 2 cloves garlic
• splash of madeira or white wine
• parsley
• seasoning
• Bread for toast – I used home-baked wholemeal, but sour dough would be perfect too

Method

• Gently fry the shallots / onion in butter until softened, then add garlic and cook for a further minute
• Add the mushrooms and fry until the water oozes out and is reabsorbed again
• Add a splash of wine / madeira / wine vinegar to deglaze the pan
• Once it bubbles away, add the cream and then simmer gently for about 10 minutes
• Add parsley and seasoning to taste
• Serve on thick slices of toasted bread

The last highlight was Charleys ‘African Sweet Potato Stew’, the recipe for which was posted in my comments earlier this month.  Just two words describe this – De-licious!

Hi Helen
Give this a whirl, It’s delicious.

african sweet potato stew
serves4-6

1 inion
4 tbs oil
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 tsp grated fresh root ginger
1/2tsp cayenne pepper
12oz sweet potatoes
1 tbs curry paste
1/2pt passata
1/2pt veg stock
8oz spinach leaves
8oz mushrooms
4tbs peanut butter
2tbs chopped fresh coriander

1. peel and chop onion and gently fry it in the oil with garlic, ginger and cayenne for 10mins.

2. peel sweet pots, cut into cubes. add the curry paste to the onion mixture and cook stirring for 1 min. add potatoes, stir to coat and fry for 3-4mins. add passata and stock, bring to boil and simmer for 15-20 mins till potatoes are almost tender.

3. roughly tear up spinach. heat a little more oil in another pan and stir fry the mushrooms till they start to release their juices. add to the potato mix with the spinach and cook for 5 more mins or till veg is cooked through.

4. mix a few spoonfuls of the stew juices with the peanut butter to soften it slightly then stir back into the potato pan. add the coriander, season and heat through.

We eat this with couscous.

Hopefully you’ve enjoyed this meat-free month and it has inspired you to try something new!

We listened to feedback from you and we’ve made the boxes ‘pop-top’ and easy to open with one hand, which is always helpful if you have a wriggly baby in the other hand!  We’ve also included extra functionality on the boxes, such as fill water levels, number of wipes indicator and mucky bag clips.

The new kits are now available for pre-order only (to be posted w/c 21st March) with a special opening offer of £35 including UK postage (normal price will be £36.95 plus £4.95 postage)

The new boxes will be available to buy separately from the end of April which is when the bulk of our shipment arrives.

Clearance on mini kits, exclusive to existing customers  – £15.95, save £6

To make room for our new stock we want to clear our warehouse, so we’re offering mini kits for just £15.95 which include:

• 25 terry towelling wipes
• fresh wipes container
• fresh wipes bag
• 10ml of either lavender & chamomile or mandarin fresh wipes oil

They’re available using this link:  http://www.cheekywipes.com/baby_wipes_kit_mini_offer

Stocks are limited so grab them while you can!

And finally…..we’ve got a new baby on the way at Cheeky Wipes, due to arrive around 20^th March which is the same time as our new stock!  Rubbish timing obviously.  But around this time, the easiest way to contact us will be via email to Helen@cheekywipes.com – please be patient, it might take us a day or two to respond!

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!

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…

Then in September we moved house. And when we moved we took boxes upon boxes of books with us. Literally enough to fill about 4 good sized, floor to ceiling book cases! It was this (and the clutter on my bedside table) that persuaded me to ask my friends and family to club together to buy me an Amazon Kindle for Christmas.

I chose Amazon rather than any other brand partly because they’re a brand I trust. I buy from Amazon a lot and their customer service is excellent. There are also thousands of customer reviews of the Kindle so before you buy you can see if there’s any drawbacks / irritations you need to be aware of.

So it was with great excitement on Christmas morning that I unwrapped my lovely new Kindle. Firstly I was surprised at how light it was (247g apparently), which is MUCH lighter than most of the books I read.

It was really easy to set up. It was literally 5 minutes to connect it to our home wi-fi (which I didn’t have to do since mine is the 3g version) and then deregister it from my husbands Amazon account and onto mine.

Later on Christmas Day I got a chance to steal 20 minutes alone and have a proper read and play. I was relieved and pleased to find that it really was as easy to read as a paperback. Because it isn’t backlit, it doesn’t tire your eyes in the same way as reading from a computer screen (or the Kindle iphone app). It takes a fraction of a second for the page to turn but you soon get used to that.

I downloaded quite a few free ‘classic’ books including Dracula and Sherlock Holmes which seemed to download almost instantly. Plus I took advantage of an Amazon deal on new authors, randomly picking a selection of books for just £1 each.

The real test however was how it would perform in bed….

And it performed with flying colours! I was able to prop the kindle against my duvet, meaning that I only had to press the button to turn the pages, I didn’t actually have to hold it. When I fell asleep reading it therefore it just stayed on the side of the bed rather than dropping to the floor. And it automatically switched itself off after I had fallen asleep which is great as it doesn’t run the battery down.

I’ve now been using my Kindle for 11 days and it’s telling me that I need to charge the battery. Apparently if I’d switched off wifi (just switching it on again when I actually want / need to use it) the battery would have lasted twice as long, up to a month which is good going.

As I think I mentioned before, I’ve got the Kindle iphone app. Although I’ve used it a little bit previously, I found it tiring on my eyes, so definitely not an alternative to the Kindle. However the other day when I was waiting for a midwife checkup I thought I’d have another quick look, to see if the new books that I had bought were available on the iphone. I was VERY chuffed to find that my iphone app had synced to the exact place where I’d fallen asleep reading the night previously. I had a quick read for 10 minutes, then when I got home and switched my kindle on, found that it had synced to where I left off that morning. Brilliant.

Anyway, in summary my updated list of Kindle / Ebook Reader Pro’s & Cons:

Pro’s

• Minimises storage space needed (holds 3,500 books!)
• Minimises environmental impact of book production
• Very easy to use and enjoy
• Light to carry around
• Books tend to be cheaper

Cons

• Can’t read in the bath!
• Book sharing is difficult (although if my husband decides to get a Kindle I’ll register it to my Kindle account and we can share the books)
• Not all books are available in Kindle / Ebook format

So far, I’m really pleased with my Kindle and would recommend it to anyone who’s thinking of buying one.  One of the few gadgets that it is (IMO) worth shelling out on.

Don’t get me wrong. Our house isn’t particularly cold (about 18c at the moment without the heating on) but sitting still at a desk makes it feel colder. I’ve layered up already with three top layers and two pairs of socks, but this morning still found me making endless cups of tea just to warm up my hands.

It was while I was making one cup of tea that I had my ‘Eureka’ moment. Although I always fill the kettle to the minimum fill level of 500ml, that’s too much for one cup of tea, so I always have hot water left over. I never re-use water which has already been boiled once as it gives tea an oddly metallic taste, so essentially I’m wasting 200ml of water each time I make a cuppa.

But no more. I dug out my trusty hot water bottle (or Piggy as I used to call it when I was little, possibly because it was pink and rubbery, who knows) and I now refresh it with the excess hot water each time I make a cuppa. It keeps my feet very toasty and, as everyone knows, if your feet are warm, you’re all warm!