Race for Life - I Did It!

On Sunday I took part in Race for Life in Guildford with my little family supporting me. The night before Isla was very excited at the prospect of seeing Mummy running, she kept running up and down the living room and hurling herself on the sofa, supposedly showing me how to do it! She also planned what she was going to wear for the big day (!) and then subsequently didn't seem able to get to sleep either she was that excited!!

Anyway, we arrived at the race and it was beautiful sunshine and everyone was adorned in pink and there were feathers and sequins aplenty! I collected my race T-shirt from the cute little Brioche Pasquier van (who were giving out lots of yummy Brioche!) and I got going. I'm very pleased to say that I did the run in 33 minutes, which for me is normal for 5km - I haven't got any slower, so that's a relief! I was quite emotional on the start line and then when I finished the race I felt so much relief. I'm pleased to say that apart from the generous starting donation of £250 from Brioche Pasquier I managed to match that with donations from friends, work colleagues and family and I've made over £500 for Cancer Research UK. I'm so pleased. It's still not too late for you to take part in Race for Life and Brioche Pasquier are also running a promotion, ‘Raise Some Dough’, throughout June and July which gives customers the opportunity to win donations of up to £100 to send to friends or family taking part in a Race for Life event through their JustGiving page - or alternatively they can simply donate to the Brioche Pasquier Race for Life team. 

At over 200 Race for Life events this summer, Brioche Pasquier UK will also be rewarding every participant crossing the finish line with a sample from PITCH, its filled brioche range. In addition, Brioche Pasquier will be hosting a variety of exciting experiential activities across 10 events, enhancing the overall race day experience for participants and their families.

If you fancy entering Race for Life, enter now at www.raceforlife.org or via the hotline on 0845 600 6050. The entry fee is £14.99 for adults and £10 for girls 16 and under. This covers the costs of staging the event series and means that money raised in sponsorship can go to help beat cancer. Events take place across the UK from May until the end of September

My Aero 'Perfect Pairing' Three Course Menu

I love cooking but find it difficult to make time for anything different or time consuming, so I generally stick to recipes I know or things that I know will be quick so when I was challenged by Aero to come up with my ultimate flavour combination, I knew that this would be a good excuse to get in the kitchen and cook something a bit different. The challenge was in honour of Aero Bubbles being given a makeover so that the two toned taste is now reflected on the inside and outside!

I was sent a fab cooking cookery kit which included a book that I've coveted for a while - The Flavour Thesaurus - a mine of information about combing flavours - what works, what doesn't, with all manor of crazy suggestions. 

As I don't get a lot of time to cook I decided to go with a Flavour Pairing Menu rather than one dish as I thought I would treat me and the OH to a night of feasting! First up:

Asparagus Wrapped in Bacon with a Mixed Nut Dressing

8 Asparagus Stems
4 rashers of streaky bacon

For the Dressing, combine the following:
Big Handful of Mixed Nuts (Roasted Almonds, Blanched Hazelnuts, Cashews and Pistachio) - crushed with pestle and mortar
3 tbspn Lemon
2 tbspn Soy Sauce
Seasoning

Method: 
Take 2 asparagus stems, wrap in bacon, season and drizzle with olive oil. Repeat another 3 times for 2 each. Put in the oven at 200C for 12 minutes 
Drizzle over enough dressing to taste

The flavour pairing here being the Asparagus and Nuts (not so much the bacon as that's a pretty standard coupling!). I very rarely make home made dressings - very lazy I know as they are so quick to whizz up - but this was delicious. I wouldn't have thought to put Asparagus and Nut together before but they really did complement one another, it brought out the woodiness of the asparagus and the saltiness of the bacon and soy sauce was lovely.

Next Up:

Chicken Stuffed with Banana, Wrapped in Bacon in a Butter bean, Sweetcorn, White Wine, Chili & Cream Sauce. 

2 Chicken breasts
4 rashers of streaky bacon (I know, I know more bacon - but we love it!)
1 banana
1 tin Butter Beans
Half a tin of Sweetcorn
1 small glass of white Wine
300 ml Double Cream
Large Nob of butter
1 teaspoon of lazy chili

Method:

Slice down the side of the chicken and insert half a banana
Wrap around with bacon to secure banana inside
Season and place in the oven at 200C (fan) for 40 minutes

For the sauce:
Put the butter beans, sweetcorn, butter and white wine in a pan on the hob and cook off for about 5 minutes.
Add the double cream and simmer for a further 10 minutes and then stir in the chili - we only used a teaspoon but I would perhaps go for a bit more next time.

I served it with mash, slicing the chicken, with the sauce around it.

The flavour pairing was the chicken and banana. I wasn't totally sure about this one but my OH liked it. I feel like it needed a bit of greenery with it. Bananas aren't my favourite fruit but I was so interested to see how it would go with a savoury meal that I wanted to try it. I would say that chicken, bacon and bananas do go together but I found it so filling! The chili with it gave it a nice kick though.

And finally:

Raspberry, Lemon Thyme and Goats Cheese Fool

1 punnet of Raspberries
Half a Teaspoon of fresh Lemon Thyme
200ml Whipped up Double Cream
125g Goats Cheese
1 tablespoon of Icing Sugar

Method:

Blitz up raspberries with hand blender
Whisk Double Cream until there are soft peaks
Mash up goats cheese and combine with raspberries and double cream
Add teaspoon of lemon thyme and tablespoon of lemon thyme
Decorate with loose raspberries and thyme

This was delicious. I thought that the goats cheese would be over powering but it wasn't - it was all creamy and smooth. The thyme gave it a little bit of zing. It was rather like eating cheese cake topping and I think that's what I would do with it next time. I might also serve it with meringue if I do it again. 

So that was our flavour pairing meal and we were significantly full and fat after all that I can tell you. Most of it was enjoyable - just the chicken and banana that I wasn't totally sold on, but not inedible!  

What flavour pairing would you like to try?

I received a cookery kit, a heap of chocolate and a fabulous book in order to complete this challenge. If I win the challenge I will have a whole load of chocolate to give away to you lovely people!

Tasty Thai Turkey Burger Recipe

I cooked these tasty Thai turkey burgers tonight and they were a winner! It had been a drizzly rainy day but these burgers brought a little bit of sunshine into our house at dinner time as they were packed with flavour. Here's how you make them and they take no time at all - bonus!

Ingredients (makes 5 burgers)

500g turkey mince
1 red chili chopped finely
1 handful of chopped coriander
1 teaspoon of grated fresh ginger
4 spring onions, chopped finely
1 egg yolk
salt and pepper
olive oil

To serve:
Ciabatta
Lime and Chilli Mayonnaise (mix a couple of tablespoons of Mayo with a couple of teaspoons of lime juice and a tiny bit of lazy chili)
Salad Leaf

Method

- Mix all ingredients together and make into 5 patties

- Heat olive oil in a frying pan
- Fry burgers - approx 5 - 6 minutes each side 

- Place in your ciabatta with some delicious lime and chili mayonnaise and a bit of salad

I love Thai food, so these are a bit of a western take on typical Thai flavours. The ginger and the chili make the turkey taste more robust. I think if I were to do them again I would probably do them accompanied with a satay mayo. They would also be brilliant on the barbecue, so when summer decides to pop back to Surrey then I'll be ready to unleash these!

I'd love to know if you try this recipe and what you think of it and if you want any other ideas on what to do with turkey then try the Lean on Turkey site! Turkey is a really versatile and easily affordable meaty option, try it and see what you think. If you fancy trying another of my turkey recipes look at my Turkey Enchiladas.

This post is an entry for BritMums’ Summer Turkey Recipe Challenge.

Virgin Money and WWF in Partnership with Young Savers Account

On a recent trip to London Zoo the kids got to see some amazing animals up close and it got me thinking about how many species won't actually exist in the wild when they are my age. It makes me feel really sad that some of these beautiful creatures will no longer be roaming the planet and that is largely down to the human race. I'm always trying to encourage the children to be interested in animals and now Virgin Money are also helping to encourage childrens' interest in conservation and the protection of endangered animals by partnering with the WWF. With every Virgin Money Young Savers Account opened from the end of April this year a 12 month WWF animal adoption pack will be given to the child. There are 11,000 packs available and they will be given away on a first come first served basis.

Isla already has a Virgin Money Young Savers Account, so we would have missed out of this fabulous adoption pack which includes: a cuddly toy, a certificate of adoption, stickers, bookmarks and a fact book and a quarterly update. Luckily we are being sent one, so now we need to think about which animal we want to support! Which would you choose from the Tiger, Hawksbill turtle, Adelie Penguin, Mountain Gorilla, Borneo Orang-utan, Bottlenose Dolphin, Amur Leopard, Giant Panda, Snow Leopard, Polar Bear, Black Rhino, Asian Elephant? I'm not sure which animal the kids will choose, I have a sneaky suspicion it might be the Giant Panda, in view of their love of King Fu Panda! Sadly official figures say that there are less than 1600 Giant Pandas in the wild, now that really is heartbreaking.

I'm as keen for Isla and Noah to learn about money and looking after it for their futures as I am for them to learn about looking after the world around them, it's never too early to be educated on these kinds of things. I want her to grow up in a world where all these animals still exist, not one where the only place we can see them is in the zoo. 

This is a sponsored post.

How to Make a Quick Model Rocket for Children

One recent Saturday morning we were a bit stumped for things to do as it was peeing down with rain outside, so I noticed we had two juice bottles in our recycling and I thought surely we could make something out of these? We’d been watching an episode of Ben and Holly when they go into space so I thought why not make model rockets from them? It seemed like a fairly easy idea in my head and actually in practice it was too. The kids had a lot of fun helping with this as it really is very simple. So here’s our crafty instructions on how to make a rocket…..


Materials:

1 Bottle – we made a small rocket from a small lunchbox drink bottle Silver Foil 
1 toilet roll 
Black card squares 
Stickers to decorate your rocket 
Bright orange/ yellow/ red tissue paper to make the flames 
Sticky tape 


1 – Take your bottle and cover the entire thing in silver foil – ensure you make a point at the top for a real aerodynamic look

2 – Take your toilet roll and cut in to 3 pieces and also cover them in tin foil

3 – Stick the 3 covered toilet roll pieces to the bottom of your covered bottle using sticky tape– these are your rocket exhausts! 

With the obligatory tongue out....

4 – Stick some black squares on the side of your rocket for windows and then stick lots of shiny stickers all over your rocket to make it look really state of the art

5 – Finally tear some strips of bright orange/ yellow/ red tissue paper and stick to the rocket exhausts for flames - there you have a a really speedy to make rocket!


Making the rockets was a lot of fun and then playing with the rockets after was also a big hit!

We ♥ Christopher Nibble by Charlotte Middleton

I can't remember how this book turned up in our house for the life of me - I think it may have been given to Isla by someone at nursery, but it's proving quite popular at the moment as it's feeding into her current love of dandelion clocks. She loved the dandelions when they had bright yellow flowers and she loves them even more now they are big fluffy seed heads that she can blow or wave around!

Christopher Nibble is a guinea pig and he lives in Dandeville with all the other dandelion loving guinea pigs, unfortunately they love the dandelion leaves rather too much and they disappear from the town. It's down to Christopher Nibble to solve the dandelion crisis. We love this book, the illustrations are really cute, it has a bit of a Charlie and Lola feel to it with lots of patterns used. I have been encouraging the children to do lots of planting and looking after flowers recently so this story really fits in with that too as Christopher Nibble goes about growing the towns favourite food! I love the quirky feel and the unusual story. It sends out a gentle message about conservation too.

This really is a lovely book and I think we'll check out a few of the other Christopher Nibble titles, they're great for pre-school children!

Toddler Talk - A Few Recent Funnies

Now that Noah is approaching 2 (yes, where has the time gone!!!??) there are some very funny conversations going on in our house and the other morning I was lucky enough to overhear the first real conversation between Noah and Isla and they didn't realise I was earwigging - well it was 6.30am - I was trying to keep a low profile and get a bit more time in bed!
 

Noah: You're being naughty

Isla: no you're being naughty!

Noah: No Daddy naughty

Noah: I'm not a monster (I've got to disagree!)

Then Noah goes through the entire family "Grandpa naughty, Nanny naughty, Aunty Kirsty naughty, Cousin M naughty etc etc"

Noah: I like Mummy best

Isla: I like Mummy best in the whole world wide 

*I like this part of the conversation!*

Noah: I like Daddy

Isla: You are a rude person

Noah: No I not rude. I'm not naughty.

Isla: I see you in the chair in the night being naughty (this is reference to the fact that Noah STILL WAKES EVERY FRIGGIN' NIGHT and I sit with him in the chair!) I'll give you a star if you stop being naughty (I love that she is going to start her own star chart system with him...!)

Noah: I want Poppy Cat and Daisy Doo

Isla: You are naughty, I'm going now and taking my sheep (at this point she comes in to me and I'm laughing my head off)

And finally a great one from yesterday: 

Me: Are you going to be a good boy today Noah?

Noah: No, I not be good boy, ever, never.

Pause.

Noah: I be silly and billy.

Me: *sigh*