Author Archives: 3yearsandhome

The new Annabel Karmel book – Quick & Easy Toddler Recipes

According to a new study, British parents reach boiling point at least five times a day with Monday being the most demanding day of the week. Tell me why? Maybe it’s down to these five stressful situations that topped the survey:

1. Braving the supermarket with tired, tetchy children in tow.
2. Juggling domestic tasks with entertaining the kids.
3. Morning madness getting everyone up, fed and out the door.
4. Mealtime mayhem trying to get children to eat a cooked meal.
5. Catering to fussy eaters – one in twenty mums actually admit to making ten or more different meals a day. Ten!

In a bid to make mealtimes more manageable, enjoyable and tasty (and because she can’t really solve points 1 – 3 for you), Annabel Karmel is launching the first in her ‘Quick and Easy’ series: Quick and Easy Toddler Recipes. Having been in possession of the book for the past four weeks, I can tell you that it’s a veritable treasure trove of simple, tasty and time-saving recipes.

From a nod to my homeland with Welsh Rarebit, a whole section on nutritious sandwiches, rice and stir-fry meals, vegetarian recipes and a few somethings for those of you with a sweet tooth, there’s over 100 dishes to choose from. All are explained in Annabel’s simple and straightforward manner and yet again, she manages to sneak in fruit and vegetables in unexpected places so every meal is packed full of flavour and healthy.

We’ve tried quite a few recipes from the book – and have many more on our list to cook. All have been easy to prepare, and despite the title saying they are ‘toddler recipes’, they’re actually perfect for the whole family. I loved the Mini Chicken Burgers; Paul’s favourite is the Tasty Chicken and Pasta Salad; and CK is pretty much demanding the Beef, Broccoli and Corn Stir-Fry on an almost daily basis.

However, one recipe has already become a family favourite.

The humble flapjack.

With the simplest of ingredients and bung-it-all-together-in-a-bowl approach, it’s the ideal snack for getting your toddler to help make as well as eat.

Annabel also includes 30 grams of desiccated coconut in her recipe but Paul has a bit of an aversion to it so we leave it out. We’ve been making an addition of our own though. One that Annabel may not be entirely approving of. We melt a few squares of dark chocolate and drizzle it over the top. It’s really yummy.

They take five minutes to prepare, twelve minutes to cook, fifteen minutes to cool down, and a minute to eat … the entire plate full.

Quick and Easy Toddler Recipes (RRP £9.99) will be published by Ebury Press on June 20, 2013. We received our copy free of charge for the purpose of this review. It’s hard to find fault with Annabel’s books and this is another gem. And it gets extra points from me as the recipes don’t require a ton of pots, pans, mess and cleaning up after.

Creating the perfect living space

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When we picked our new house in North Wales, there was one room that really stood out for us. The combination of a kitchen, dining and family room. It’s the perfect space for a busy family – Paul or I can be cooking (mainly Paul; I’m rubbish), and the boys can be sat at the table, playing or watching TV. It runs the entire width of the house and also has the advantage of french doors that open up on to the garden. It really is wonderful.

The kitchen has already been installed – a combination of white and walnut units – and the most beautiful floor tiles have been laid. We picked walnut for the kitchen as before we had the boys and were a bit more (a LOT more) cash-rich, we splashed out on our dream furniture from Austrian designers, TEAM7. We loved their design and their ethos, only using hardwood from sustainably managed forests. Their pieces are amazing and despite CK’s best attempts to bang hell out of them with spoons, drum sticks and cars, they’ve aged fantastically well.

But now has come the time to choose a few accessories and a touch of colour. I toyed with pink but Paul quickly rejected it. And then we uhmed and ahed over green. It would go nicely with the walnut and also lead well in to the outdoor space. However, maybe I’ve been listening to Coldplay a bit too much recently, but it’s as if someone has been whispering ‘yellow, Yellow, YELLOW’ in to my ear as my eye keeps being drawn to the colour of sunflowers.

So here is my current mood board:

The photographs were taken when the room was in its almost-finished state and that’s the dining table (seats ten) and the coffee table that we already have from TEAM7.

What do you think? Does yellow work? Or would you opt for green? Or maybe another colour entirely? Answers on a postcard, please (or in the comments box below).

I think I might be a bit yellow-obsessed at the moment as I’ve just asked for this saddle bag from Zatchels for my birthday in a few weeks. I’ve matched my bags to many things in the past but never a room. A few days of sunshine and it’s gone to my head!

P.S. If you want to see more details about any of them items on my mood board, you can find them here on Pinterest.

Dear CK – Schwimm time

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Dear CK,

This morning you were the most excited that I’ve ever seen you. So excited that you ran round the apartment shrieking and unfortunately scared the living daylights out of me just as I was first cut in to a new fringe. Mama’s not looking good, darling. You’re too young to understand why people will be staring at me in the street until it grows out. I’ll tell you that it’s because I’m so beautiful and at two years of age, you will simply nod and agree with me.

But back to the reason for your excitement. It was your first trip to the swimming baths with your papa. Or ‘schwimming’ baths as you call them in your delightful English/German hybrid way of speaking.

Trunks on, towel wrapped round you like a cloak, you stood ready at the door for half an hour before we actually left. For a few moments, I thought about the possibility of using ‘we’re off to the schwimming baths’ as a way to get you out of the door for not so inviting activities such as trips to the supermarket or doctor’s. But that would be too cruel. Wouldn’t it? We could pop in for a moment on our way to the shops and let you have a little look through the window, couldn’t we? Then it wouldn’t technically be a lie.

Back to the schwimming. So full of joy to be at the baths with your papa, you hadn’t actually considered that it meant getting wet. You spent the first five minutes stepping in to the water and then trying to dry yourself. A drop got on your forehead and you were really not happy about it. I’d say you squealed but if you’re reading this in years to come, we can agree that it was a rather manly cry. Or we can pretend it never happened if you like? I’d like to pretend my current fringe disaster never happened. Quid pro quo?

After realisation dawned that you couldn’t actually partake in any schwimming activities without getting a little wet, you relaxed a little and went in waist deep. I can’t say that you looked overjoyed but the ~~squealing~~ manly crying stopped. You then discovered the little fountain and I think that this was the highlight of your first schwimm. Papa put his head underneath it; you put your right hand in. I think it you suspected that he might be tricking you in to a hair wash. You were not to be fooled.

Papa then took you in to the big pool for a bit and you enjoyed splashing about with him. You really wanted to take a closer look at the diving board but Papa held you back. He’s such a spoilsport, isn’t he? You also thought you might like to go in the lengths pool but I think we’ll save that for maybe your second or third visit.

So that was your first trip to the schwimming baths with your papa. I had thought it might be a nice weekly thing for you to do together but you’ve just informed me that you’d like to go to Kung Fu instead. While I think that this would be a wonderful activity for you, I’m not sure I could take the ~~squeals~~ manly cries of disappointment when you realise that there are no pandas in your class. We’ll see.

Love you, my cheeky monkey.

Mama x