Oven baked prawn toasts!

So it's Chinese New Year on Friday, the year of the horse, but between now and then we wont be able to do anything to celebrate it, so I decided to do a little cooking activity today with Arthur of oven baked prawn toast.  I looked up various recipes online and the all involved frying, I am trying to be a bit health conscious, and also hot oil and toddlers definitely don't mix, so I decided to experiment and try and make it in the oven.

Ingredients

1 cup frozen peeled prawns (defrosted)
2 slices of bread no crusts (we used Hovis best of both)
1 egg white
small amount of lazy ginger
pepper
sesame seeds
Olive oil

Sweet chilli sauce for dipping

We put the prawns, egg, ginger and seasoning in the food processor and whizzed it to a paste.  Then we dabbed the toast with olive oil to help it crisp, and cut into triangles.  Once the paste was ready we spread it on the toast, and dipped it prawn down onto the sesame seeds. We then put it in the oven, at about 180 for 20-30 mins, until it looked like the seeds were browning and the toast was cooked.

To go with this I cooked some noodles with peas and sweetcorn, although it was a bit of a waste of time, as Arthur was in one of his "don't like it!' moods before he had even tasted that or his toast! Alyssa however thoroughly enjoyed eating the toast, before copying her big brother and throwing noodles everywhere!

Dabbing the bread (Yes he's still in his PJ's!)

Adding the prawns

Whizzing it all up

Yummy Yum Yum!!

Aboriginal cotton bud painting!

Inspired by yesterday's Australia Day (unfortunately I was at work so couldn't do anything then!) I thought today would be a good day to get the paints out again and get creative! It seems like forever since I let Arthur paint last,  which is a shame as I know it's something he loves.

I searched Google Images for Aboriginal art, and found various pictures to show Arthur and talk about how they are created but lots of dots.  I then got some black paper and some earthy toned paints, and some cotton buds.  I chose one of the more simpler pictures and left it on the screen of my Kindle for inspiration for him, and did a few dots in a 's' shape to show him how to use the buds, then let him go wild. 

To begin with the concentration was immense whilst he carefuly dipped the bud, then dabbed it on the paper, then he just started using it as a normal paintbrush and swirling it around the paper.  It was very interesting watching him look at the screen every now and then, I may start putting more pictures up for him to 'copy' and be inspired by.

Alyssa also joined in, but with chalk and black paper instead of paint, as I didn't want her playing with the cotton buds, she still tried copying Arthur with the dabbing motion though.  She soon got bored however and wanted to get down.

Chalk dabbing

Cotton bud dabbing

Intense concentration!

Less concentration

Arthur's final masterpiece!

Oatcakes for Burn's night!

So January 25th is traditionally Burn's night in Scotland, a celebration of one of their most famous poets.  Traditionally it is celebrated with a Burn's supper of Haggis, 'neeps and tatties' (parsnips and potatoes) and plenty of whisky!  Not really something you can do with a toddler and a baby, so I decided  to have a go at another Scottish food item Oat cakes !

I got all the ingredients together then got Arthur to weight them all out for me, I also gave Alyssa a small bowl with a small amount of oats and flour in to play mixing with, which soon dissapeared into her belly!!  Arthur did really well adding the ingredients to the bowl, and stopping when I told him too.  He really enjoyed squidging the butter into the oat mixture, and cutting out the cakes at the end.

Once cooked we went on a nice windy woodland walk, to come home to the oat cakes with cheese and apple for our afternoon snack.  Alyssa really seemed to enjoy them, but Arthur just ate the cheese!  Definitely something to make again for regular snacks, so simple and nutritious. 

Measuring!

Mixing!

Cutting!

BAking!

Cosy den book nook fun!

Today was another wet and windy miserable day, our original plans for the afternoon had been cancelled, and Alyssa had her one year jabs in the morning.  So not wanting to drag her out too far just in case she became grouchy, I decided that today called for a nice cosy den and some book reading, so that if a certain little lady decided to sleep she could do so easily.

Arthur was very excited about the den and wanted to eat in it, so I decided to make a fun party picnic style lunch, including some special crisps bought specifically on the way back from the doctors as a treat.

Once lunch was other Arthur was desperate for me to read, I ended up reading "We're going on a bear hunt" about four times as he really enjoyed it, then he finally let me move on to a few more other books.  Alyssa wasn't really interested in the book nook, she was quite happy to crawl in and out and play with her toys, she did finally have a little nap.

At one point Arthur and I were lying in the den pretending to go to sleep, when he noticed that the blanket looked like it had stars on it where the light from the room came through.  I then tried telling him the name of some stars as we pretended to stargaze! I can't wait to sit out with them in the garden looking at the stars and camping, I really need to learn more about star systems!!

Marble painting!

After a long day at nursery we headed over to a friends house for a bit of a play date.  Whilst there The mummy suggested we do some marble painting , it is something I haven't done with Arthur since he was about a year old, and I forgot how wonderful the results are.

It was a little bit hard for Arthur to not try and use the marbles as a paintbrush, so he got a bit covered in paint, but after some perseverance he soon started tipping the tray around and asking for more marbles and paint. 

It's such a simple idea, and works on his coordination as well as being simple and creative, I will definitely remember to do this more often, I don't know why I haven't done it for so long!!

Salt writing

I wanted a quick to prepare activity to keep Arthur amused whilst I packed the change bag and got us ready to go out. So I poured some salt and glitter into the lid of a biscuit tin and gave Arthur a small make up brush to make some marks, and practice his shapes etc.

He really enjoyed it and didn't make a huge amount of mess, however the mini hoover was on hand ready for the clean up.  He really seemed to like effectively rubbing out his marks and starting again, as well as trying to scoop up the salt with the brush.  It's a great activity for working his mark making skill in practice for writing, as well as his imagination, as he kept trying to build a snowman!

Superhero fun!

Arthur had great fun this morning dressing up as Superman and running around saving Alyssa and I and his toys from various things.  He even wore a pair of underpants on top of his trousers and a cape from his dress up box,  made out of an old t-shirt.  Although actual shop bought outfits are wonderful, today just proves that all they need is some imagination.  He even had a cardigan and a pair of funny glasses and pretended to be Clark before taking them off and transforming into superman.

He had great fun saving the toys from bus crashes, derailed trains, dragons, falls and whatever his imagination and toys would provide for him.  He also saved Alyssa from the evil sock monster, and the evil suck monster (the dustbuster hoover!) although it did put up quite a fight!

Poor granny and grandad had to put up with the superhero fun all afternoon as he refused to take the pants off for the rest of the day!

Superman cape!

Flying around saving the day!

"Help us Superman!! Save us from the sock monster!"

"AAAAH!!"

Who needs Superman!

I is for Ice cream!

In Arthur's nursery they have a letter, number and colour of the week, and I have always vaguely tried to know these and mention them at home when I remember.  Well with Alyssa starting there as well now and with the New year, new starts in mind, I decided to try a bit harder at doing this.

This week is the letter 'I' so I drew and ice cream and got Arthur to decorate it using torn tissue paper and glue, as he wanted to do some sticking.  Alyssa enjoyed playing with the tissue paper whilst he did this.

Then I put some small letters into a bowl with some objects beginning with 'I', and we stirred them and fished things out and talked about them, as well as me geting Arthur to look specifically for the letter 'I'.

Then I decided to make the most of the leftover mince pies and clotted cream from Christmas and make some Ice cream!  I used a simple clotted cream ice cream recipe, but just replaced the strawberries with the mince pies crumbled up.  Arthur loved crumbling up the mince pies and squishing the clotted cream to make it easier to mix, such different textures for him to experience and feel, and the almost magical moment of watching all the ingredients combine and change.  And of course, as always, licking the spoon.

 

Alphabet soup

Mixing and scooping

Adding the cream

Ready for the freezer

Taste test!

Bird cake

Looking out the window the other day I noticed that our bird feeder was empty, so not wanting to neglect all those hungry birdies, I decided that we would make a new bird cake.  I looked at various recipes online and made up my own mixture based on the ones I had found. 

Lard
Cheese
raisins
mixed seeds
chopped nuts

I didn't used any specific amounts, I just mixed it until it looked right, it's really easy, just warm the lard to room temperature, squish it with your hands, which Arthur adored doing, feeling it squidge through his fingers.  Then mix in all the other ingredients and pop it in the fridge for half an hour or so to set.

Once we finally put it out, Arthur was very excited to see the birds eating it, so we sat by the window with a bird book to help identify the birds.  He learned to tell the difference between a Crow and a Blackbird by their orange beak, and was overjoyed when a Robin nearly tried his cake, but then he got over excited, shouted, banged on the window and the Robin flew away.

Squidging

mixing

All ready for eating

Hanging it up ready

Bird watching!

Indoor puddle jumping!

I've had a some time off from blogging recently, enjoying some family fun time with daddy on holiday and enjoying watching them exploring all their new toys they have been playing with over the holiday period,  and extended family have also been visiting, so here is my first post of 2014!

This morning before breakfast we went on a family walk, the usual January urge to get fit and healthy has hit mummy and daddy after eating far too much lovely food!  We walked for about an hour around our village, however Arthur did insist on being carried for a bit as he was tired, but loved jumping in lots of puddles caused by the recent rain.

Once home we had a yummy breakfast, and whilst they finished up, inspired by the walk I made some home made 'puddles' for Arthur to jump into and play with.  We made the puddles closer and further apart, made 'splish splash' sounds and hopped from one puddle to the other in a line.  I was a great way of keeping Arthur moving and burning off some off the excitable energy he has accumulated from the past weeks fun.  Also the different textures I used for the puddles, using whatever blue things I had, made a great sensory play activity for Alyssa too, as obviously she can't jump yet, although first unaided steps have been taken, and she is an expert stair climber! 

Hopping in puddles

I can see through this puddle

SPLASH!!

WOW!