Muddling Through Motherhood

Last year I had grand plans for our garden, and the bountiful veggie plot it was going to become.  However, I think we might be a bit distracted when the summer comes around so we are keeping things a bit smaller.
We bought some cheap seeds last summer – I know they might not be much [...]

I haven’t blogged for ages, for a lot of reasons. Mostly it is the fact that I have had a rough few months. I’m currently 4 months pregnant and have had a pretty rough time of it. David has been away a lot, one or all of us have been ill for [...]

We’ve recently joined the Soil Association and they sent a couple of free recipe books, including “The Organic Baby & Toddler Cookbook”. I was hoping it would be a sensible book, at least mentioning that there is no *need* to puree if you don’t want to, but no.
It mentions starting weaning at 4 months [...]

Its a bit late for these, but I’ve been doing ok on the challenges I set myself.
Tumble drier wise, we’ve been lucky with the weather lately and although it does get used for finishing off nappies, it is no longer full with whole loads we are too lazy to put out on the airer. [...]

I am seriously considering going on a soil association beginners gardening course. I’m finding trying to wade through books a but disheartening so I am hoping that something like this will help me get started ready for next year.
David has decided that this is fine and that I am going to be [...]

For various reasons I have cut down my online time quite significantly recently, including not checking facebook at all, and I’m finding that, at the moment I’m really making the most of those extra minutes (might blog more about that another day).
As I haven’t really missed facebook, I’m not going to go back on it [...]

And if not, why not? Do they eat the same thing as you? Have they always?
Rowan is a toddler that doesn’t want to sit down. As I understand it this is pretty common for toddlers and nothing to panic about. We’ve decided not to try to make him (unless we’re in [...]

This week we’ve enjoyed our no-meat challenge, with 2 days left to go. I, of course, cheated and had a steak when I went out for dinner with friends on Wednesday but I’m not counting that as I still cooked bean chilli for David and Rowan. It was such a success that we’ve [...]

As per this week’s challenge, I have been converting my lovely blackberries, collected from our garden and from ‘foraging’ expeditions near our home, into JAM!
I used this recipe to make my jam. I had 5lb (2.3kg) of blackberries and added about 1700g of sugar. Its a bit too sweet so I would cut [...]

Lots of good reasons to do this – save money, expand my cooking repertoire, eat less fat (if I don’t go overboard on the cheese dishes). I’m going to keep to some staples (mushroom risotto, cauli cheese, lentil curry, bean chilli) and pull out some old favourites that haven’t been aired in a while [...]