Mmmmmmmmmmmm Comfort Food

When you were small and you were un-well or a bit under the weather, your Mum would make you something to make you feel better. As the youngest of five children, we all had different ‘comfort foods’. My big sister loved custard, whereas I just loved home-made vegetable soup. My brother strangely enough had the ability to eat cornflakes at any time of the day!


So now as a Mum myself, my children also have their own comfort foods, homemade Chicken and Potato Pie being one of them. However my new version of comfort food, came to me much later in life, it is actually stuffed paratha .  I absolutely love cooking Indian food and it offers a great many dishes when entertaining as being a vegetarian I have loads of dishes to consider.

I love having friends over and cooking a host of curries and having a table full of good wholesome food and lots of new things for them to try. Now to be true, you should make  paratha, however they can be found in the frozen section of most good supermarkets and as my Mum would say, life is too short to stuff a mushroom!

I think curries appeal to me as they can be made ahead and only improve by additional cooking and time. My children all love curries and something like Butter Chicken  is a great way to get them started. Like everything else, it is all in moderation.

I also love the ‘sharing’ part of Indian cuisine, having lots of poppadum’s and a good selection of chutneys, it’s great to hear that ‘crack’ as the poppadum breaks and everyone can share and chat. I love my relish bowl  which has been on many an outing including being taken on holiday!

It is very useful as not only does it have lids, it also has individual serving spoons so that is far more hygienic and also means that more than one person can use it at one time. The fact that it rotates on its central spindle makes it very handy.

I have to admit it also has had lots of other roles in my house, I used it to put cake decorations in when my children were small and were decorating fairy cakes, it was far easier to have this great item in the middle and they could turn it and share all the different decorations.

So I hope you will try to have a ‘sharing’ dinner it does mean the conversations flow more and if that does not work then make the wine flow more!

Once upon a time.............................

Once upon a time there was a Young Princess who just would not keep her 'palace' tidy!


She actually had a floordrobe and all of her lovely sparkly shiny things would be left all over the floor!


Well, this was just no way for a gorgeous princess to behave!


So distraught with this constant mess and seeing how sad there little princess was, it was decided that a jolly good de-clutter and visit by the 'tidy-fairy' was needed!


So the date was set, and the de-cluttering begun.  Lots of sparkly things and dresses that were too long, too short, too big or too small were sent off to Freecycle  with lots of books and toys which made the Princess very happy to know that lots of other people could share her lovely things and hopefully that would make them all smile too!


A new lovely white wardrobe was bought and matching drawers together with some designer wallpaper!  It was all looking rather fabulous, but the princess was still not completely happy.


The walls were painted (actually four times! - What was her mummy thinking of by painting it blue previously!) The paper put up and new bedding bought from Sainsbury's.


It was now looking much more like a bedroom fit for a Princess but oh Dear,  her smile was still not complete!


So the next thing was to accessorise!


What could they buy?   They had spent so much of the family funds on new furniture etc.  Where would they find something to make her smile every day?  They all thought long and hard and they all were still very puzzled.  When suddenly they remembered and knew they had found the perfect thing!


So they bought it on-line and within a few days the postman came!  It was so exciting, they could hardly contain themselves!  They found the perfect spot and put it up on the wall !


Every day she smiled and it smiled back!  Even when she was feeling sad, it always smiled back and eventually she would smile back too!

Smile and I will always Smile Back!

Click above for link direct to site for further details!

So if you want to transform your Prince or Princess's little palace then take a look at Mirroin for a great range of fun and funky children's mirrors which are safe, fun, practical and great value for money!


Disclaimer: And the moral of the story is keep your room tidy or even a little Princess could be named and shamed!

My how times are changing

As a new year is upon us, its a time for reflection and also a great opportunity to meet up wth friends and family.

Over the Christmas and New Year period, I was lucky enough to be able to spend lots of time with friends and family and also my Aunt. We were talking about when we were little and my Aunt was explaining about some of the photographs she had from when I was a baby. Well, we soon got out old photograph albums and also pictures of my brothers and sisters when they were small (black and white ones may I add!).

My aunt had just become a great great grandma and she wanted a small gift to give to this new member of the family, so she decided a blue baby comforter would be the ideal gift to the newest member of the family!

So a personalised comforter was made and my Aunt was very pleased.   It made me think back to my picutures of when I was small and how I was such a dolly girl! 

Now we have so many other gorgeous gifts to give to babies!

New Year - New You?

Well firstly Happy New Year to you All! I hope you celebrated the New Year in Style and over the last few weeks spent some quality time with family and friends.

So who has set New Year Resolutions? Well not me! Is that a sign of age? I wonder, actually I am happy with me, my motto in life as a premature baby I was not quite finished, a bit like a nearly baked cake! And as I always say to my sisters if I had been fully baked, I would have been six foot six and a supermodel! So I will not be joining the gym to go mad for two weeks and then have every excuse under the sun never to return and work out that each day that I did go cost a small fortune!

However, I do have a few small goals, to keep more in touch with friends and family, I am rubbish at this at the moment! To get better organised and to carry on de-cluttering the house.

I am also going to bake more, and actually sort out my freezers to start 'cooking ahead'.

My husband bought me a fab new digital slr camera for Christmas and I am going to take more walks with our dog buster and also take more photographs! I have already been snapping away and made some collages of family over the christmas time. I will also keep on getting prints of photos as I do not want to just be able to view them on my computer!

So a happy wealthy, fun fillled 2011 to you all.

Kindest Regards

Ellie