Rent a Hen

Today we decided to rent a hen from our local chicken centre Mill house farm who specialise in many different breeds of hens and are all outdoor reared gentle natured hens.

Beetroot and apple soup

With Hubby working from home and sophie running about Lunch is one key point of the day, looking for something a bit different from the norm i being a lover of soup this soup sounded just the ticket.

Dragon puppets for Chinese new year

Today mummy,daddy and Sophie got busy making some puppets for the Chinese New year, which is on the 23rd on January this year and this year it is the year of the water dragon, so we decided to have some fun and make a couple of different dragons for Sophie to play with.  Sophie has really got into shadows recently mostly from the introduction of her Dora bedtime book So Daddy decided that for his dragon he would make it as a shadow for her.

After finding a cut out dragon shape from the British Museum we put this on foam and draw and cut round it and then assembled it with split pins and doweling rods.

After the dragon was made the pair went and played with it and a very bright mag light to help create the shadows,  there was lots of roaring and the dragon did lots of eating of Sophie and her toys as well as hiding and jumping out followed by more roaring.

For the next puppet this was made using a baby sock that didn't fit Sophie any more, here is scruff who as you can see has been at the chocolate.

After pulling some bits and bobs together from the craft cupboard mummy got busy with the glue and made a face with horns and some pretty wings from foam and flat beading which was pulled apart and was stuck on the wings.

Sophie put her sock puppet on and flew him round and round the living room roaring, there was a lot of roaring today.

Learning ABC with felting letters

How did you teach your little one the ABC's?


From about 6 months old i have always sang the ABC's song to Sophie every day so she heard the rhythm of the song and got used to the tune, whether it be in the car or while i was doing house work when she was in the room with me. It then became part of our walk up the stairs on the way to bed.

Soon she was talking and learning her words, and she was a very quick learner and loved to talk, the one thing she like to do was her ABC's completely un prompted but not all of it just the start A.. B.. C.. So we ended up doing ABC's together when ever she was in the mood to.

We extending her letter knowledge a letter at a time when she was confident to do so but mummy would continue to carry on and complete the ABC's so she could hear the song to the end.

We also learnt count at the same time as the ABC's doing 5 numbers at a time. However i would tag counting at the end of the ABC tune and changed the words a bit from
"Now you know your ABC wont you come sing along with me"
to
"Now you know your ABC come count number 123"
then we would count to as far as she could and mummy continue to 20

By the time Sophie was 2 she could do her ABC all the way to Z and count to 20.  Which is Great but...
it dawned on me that she could repeat ABC and 123 like a parrot but hadn't yet made the connection as to the meaning.

Now i don't know about you but there are two school of thought on this. One let your child go to school as a clean sheet and let the teachers do the teaching so they can mould them to what ever standard the government are basing them on.  Or help prepare them for their epic journey through schooling with some of the basics like counting, letter and being comfortable with books etc.

You can guess i am appart of the latter group so now i am having a think about how to support Sophie and help gain the understanding and meaning of the letters after all there are 26 of them and that is quite a mind boggle if you have never seen them before or know what they mean.  Also i have been very careful and we learn the letters saying Apple apple A A A to make the connection with the letter sound and linking to the item rather than A is for apple as this is supposed to be confusing for children as they know that 4 is four and not for.

Anyone who knows me knows i am a little bit crafty and you have probably noticed all the pictures as you have read down and have seen that i have made Sophie these ABC flash cards.  I have found lovely big letters then i have made a felt item such as Apple or Carrot which can be attached and removed via velcro we talk about the item practice the alphabet sound and match it to the letter i also wrote the name of the item underneath.

We play with these every day if she wants to and she does and slowly she is making the connection. Although she does still get them in a muddle and i help her out, but in time we will get there and she doesn't see this as learning but more of a game.

I am hoping that these will help her get to Z but wondered what it was that you did to help your little acorn learn their ABC's ?

Toca Boca Robots

Toca Boca Robots are great fun with first deciding and building your very own robot then going out into Toca world where your robot can fly to hunt and search for 3 stars before finding a big magnet to stick to your head and get whisked off  Whoo that does sound odd but a lot of fun.

Toca Boca Shopping

What a fab little ap this by Toca Boca for the I pad and is and a way to a girls heart SHOPPING, talk about starting them young this is great to play as a single but better as a twosome. First set up your shop by choosing what products you want to sell from the big catalogue.  When the shop is ready one person can be the shop keeper and one person the shopper.  This is great game for choosing and even better thinking about counting when you come to pay, it is entertaining, fun bright and really rather cute.

Cocoa and partridge ravioli

Cocoa and partridge ravioli served with demi glace, beurre noisette and Parmesan.

I have come over all masterchef and decided to to have a go at making one of the recipes i saw in the show, although the picture above doesn't do it justice as the ravioli is dark due to the cocoa.


Ingredients
for the pasta dough
175g tipo 00 flour (or strong flour)
4 tbsp semolina flour
4 tbsp cocoa powder
3 eggs beaten
3 egg yolks
2 tbsp olive oil

for the pasta filling
1 carrot
1/2 celery stick
1 onion
3 dried porcini mushrooms re hydrated
2 bay leaves
small sprig of rosemary
small sprig of thyme
salt and pepper
2 juniper berries crushed
2 partridges
3 tbsp fine chopped parmesan
2 tbsp ricotta
1 egg
knob of butter

for the beurre noisette
60g unsalted butter

to serve
3 tbsp finely chopped parmesan
fresh thyme

make the pasta filling. Heat the olive oil in a large casserole and gently cook the carrot, celery, onion, porcini, bay leaves, rosemary, thyme, salt, pepper and juniper berries until the onion is softened and golden-brown.

I browned the partridges in the pan with the vegetables, then add boiling water to 5cm/2in above the contents. Bring to the boil, then simmer gently for two hours until the leg meat falls easily away from the bone.
(The breasts are not used in this recipe but i cooked them in the broth and have saved them for a salad for another occasion.)

While you wait the 2 hours for the broth to cook make the pasta dough

For the pasta dough, place the sifted flours and cocoa on a flat, clean surface. Make a well in the centre, add the beaten eggs, egg yolk and olive oil and knead to a smooth dough. Wrap in cling film and rest in the fridge for 30 minutes

While still warm, pick the leg meat off the bone and finely chop it to a pulp, ensuring there is no shot. Mix it with the parmesan and ricotta. Season to taste with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper and add half of the egg yolk. Discard the remaining half yolk.

Strain the stock through a fine sieve into a clean pan and reduce until syrupy and thick – this is called a demi-glace. Just before serving, add the butter and whisk to emulsify.

To assemble and cook the pasta, roll the pasta through a pasta machine to a very thin sheet and use an 8cm/3¼in round cutter to cut out 12 circles of pasta.

Lightly whisk the reserved egg white and brush the edge of a pasta disc. Place a teaspoon of filling in the centre, fold the circle in half and close the ravioli, making sure that no air is trapped inside and the edges are well sealed. 

Repeat with the remaining pasta discs and stuffing. Cook the ravioli in a large pan of boiling salted water, in batches if necessary, for three minutes then drain well. 

Meanwhile, make the beurre noisette. Place the butter in a heavy-based pan and heat until it turns a nut-brown colour. Remove from the heat and strain through a sieve lined with muslin cloth.

To serve, add the beurre noisette and parmesan to the drained ravioli, mix very gently then place three ravioili at the centre of each serving plate. Garnish with the demi-glace and thyme leaves and serve immediately. 

This was a lovely dinner and the pasta really wasn't chocolaty if your worried about that it was a hint of the bitter cocoa which was really pleasant, the filling was firm and tasty and Ali said you can cook this again when he finished, so i will take that as a thumbs up. i have slightly changed the recipe but the original is here Source

Wiggy Weekend

Oh yes this is just a shameful post of Sophie in wigs looking cute and what fun we had too.

Potty trainning week one

Ok so we have decided or rather Sophie has given us the sign she is ready for potty training.

She is two and four months and I know there are kids that are clean already and some still won't be even as each child is different, but we let her lead us for when she felt confident to make the journey.

In the past she has been extremely embarrassed about doing her poos and hides away and then claims that she has done no poo and it's gone, even though the stench of baby poop lingers around her making poor mum and dad pass out and fight over who has to change her.

Feathered Owls

Sophie and i decided to do some sticking today and a bit board of random bits of paper and glue we thought we would stick feathers instead.

Instead of paper we found these pots, what a great shape for making owls, so we got the glue out and got sticking.

We started with the small pot and the stuck the feathers round the edge one by one the size of the pot was quite good as 1 feather covered top to bottom on it.  Next we had to cover the top so we picked the fluffiest ones for the head and carefully stuck these on too.

Of course we hunted out our biggest roundest googly eyes and stuck these on with a little yellow beak.  Sophie did a good job and mummy didn't get much of a go so made one to out of the bigger pot with Sophie's help, so now we have a mummy and baby owl.  

We also had some coloured feathers and for fun we made a parrot (ish) bird this time we stuck the feathers pointing the other way up.  he looks rather odd but fun and i think we prefer the Owls 

A book for bed time Ten juicy radishes Peter rabbit

Ten juicy radishes, Peter Rabbit a delicious 3D counting book published by Penguin and based on Beatrix Potter.