Vegetable fritta recipe, the ultimate comfort food...

Last week when I was feeling ill and we didn't have a huge amount of food in, I wanted to make myself a warm comforting lunch.

I decided on vegetable frittas.

They were easy and yummy!

To make approximately 12 small frittas you need:

2 Carrots

1 Courgette

2 eggs

2 tbsp Flour

some cheese 

salt and pepper

 Oilve oil

After grating the veg I squeezed out the excess juice, then mixed all the ingredients together.

 I rolled the mixture in to little balls and squashed them in to the hot frying pan, frying them for a few minutes each side.

I was going to save half of the frittas to re-heat for lunch the next day, but they were so moreish I ate them all!

Pregnancy update - Week 29

I'm the worst ill person EVER. I moan continually. I want attention and sympathy, but don't want to be fussed over. I want permission to sleep on the sofa, but I will not tolerate being told I should go to bed. I want medicine, but I also distrust doctors and their willingness to hand out drugs willi nilli (yep I said willi nilli)

I know i'm this bad, but somehow I have never managed to get better at being ill, May be in 50 years I will be able to gracefully lounge in bed, accepting visitors with a smile and patience. But I doubt it.

Why am I telling you this in my pregnancy update?

I have a cold and I am ILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL! (said in the whiniest voice you can muster)

This cold is worse then most, precisely because I am growing a bun in my oven.

Last Friday after a night of terrible sleep and being turned away from the dentist- because they didn't want my germs. (It makes sense to me now, but I was fuming at the time.) I decided to visit a pharmacy to see if they could offer me ANY relief, on announcing my presence with a coughing fit and informing the nice lady of my pregnant status I was quickly turned away with only a box of paracetamol and menthol sweets. I then wandered around the supermarket on the verge of tears- because I am that pathetic and the pregnancy hormones have turned me in to a drop-of-the-hat crier.

Also whilst dealing with this melodramatically over stated worst cold EVER, Britain has been in the grip of a heatwave, excellent news for all who are fit and able to enjoy the excessive heat, terrible news for me.

Good news, I went to the doctor monday and have been prescribed anti-biotics, because the cold was moving to my chest and an inhaler, so hopefully I will recover soon and be a little more chirpy, easier to live with and able to something other than mope around watching catch up TV in my Pyjamas.

All of the above was my round about way of informing you that there will be no photo this week, as I have hardly washed, not brushed my hair and worn my pyjamas for 5 of the last 6 days.

I should probably give you some pregnancy related information, as this post is entitled 'Pregnancy update'.

I still have had no cravings. 

I haven't re-weighed myself -I thought it best.

Baby is moving constantly! It freaks me out a little the strength of movement sometimes. 

I can tell when baby has hiccups, which is also weird but cute.

I had my gestational diabetes test and results- good news, I am not diabetic!

I have finished knitting a blanket and am in the process of re-covering our moses basket.

I haven't had too much swelling in my ankles yet.

According to my app baby is 39cm long and his or her bones are now hardening.

Writing this post has been very cathartic, if you have read this far - thanks and well done! Sorry again for lack of photos, I promise I will make up for it next time :)

Super Jamie and his cape

A few months ago Jamie asked me if I could make him a cape out of some old youth event t-shirts for him to use at the latest youth event.

I said yes but I would need some time, so only a week before the event I get handed a bundle of t-shirts.

I couldn't get my head around what to do, so I called Rachel for help. 

Between us we measured, did maths and drew up a plan, so we measured again, cut out squares then sewed them together.

Rachel was a veritable sewing machine!

Once we reached the point of sewing the patch work on to the backing we realised that all of our measuring and planning was at some point thrown out of the window and we had completely gone off piste....

Thankfully all we had to do was add a border to the backing to make it work.

We didn't manage to finish the whole cape in one evening so the next day I finished off and attached it to the top of a t-shirt, I was so much heavy fabric might be a bit much to tie around someones neck, attaching it to the top of a t-shirt worked really well! 

Introducing...

Super youth worker!

I think Jamie is happy with his cape...

Blog Lovin and my favourite outfit at the moment

Just a little note to let you know I have signed up to Blog lovin!

You can follow me HERE

This is my favourite outfit of the moment, comfy, cool and light.

 Also suitable for work!

Splosh

I am pretty keen on looking after our environment and living in a way that is sensible and respectful of our natural resources, as much as possible. I'm not fanatical and I don't go to extreme lengths but I do try to buy in-season produce, recycle and we are planning on using reusable nappies.  

I also try to use the more Eco-friendly cleaning materials. So I was really pleased when I discovered Splosh.

Splosh is a relatively new company, started in 2010 by Angus Graham who felt it was a waste to throw away and recycle so many good plastic bottles. He set about coming up with a range of cleaning products that are Eco-friendly, naturally derived, made use of perfectly good bottles again and again and importantly are cost effective.

How it works:

You order a starter pack of the products you would like to use, either 2 or 4 bottles. They arrive through the post.

I ordered a starter pack of 4 bottles; Kitchen cleaner, bathroom cleaner, washing up liquid and laundry detergent.

Inside each bottle is a super concentrated sachet of the product. 

All you have to do is add water and watch the sachets dissolve.

After a couple of Minutes you have a bottle full of a Eco- friendly plant derived cleaning product that smells lovely! 

My favourite smelling so far is the grapefruit washing up liquid.

The starter pack of 4 bottles is £12.95 which you may feel is a bit steep, but the beauty of Splosh is in the refills. For most of the products you can buy 4 refills for between £3.95 and 5.95 which is cheaper per bottle than, Ecover and most other supermarket brands!

After the initial big box of bottles, all of the refills fit through the letter box and there is no waste as the sachets dissolve completely.

I haven't tried all the products splosh have to offer, but the four I have tried are great and i'm considering investing in more.

The weekends adventures / photos from my phone

This weekend my Mum came to stay (at this juncture I should point out that my weekends are generally 4 days long - I know not fair!) I don't know how it happened but i didn't manage to get and photos of my Mutti, but I did get a few others...

On Friday Mum and I went to West Kirby beach with my brother Robert, the two of us (me and Robert) tried walking to the little island in the distance, (whilst mum sunbathed) 
I didn't make it because I was wearing shorts I didn't want to get wet.

 At this point we were up to our knees and there was still a way to go... this is where we parted ways

 I watched him stride off in to the distance then made my way back to the ice cream van ;)

He returned an hour later, very wet with a bleeding toe

 Friday evening mum and I went to see the Chester mystery plays at the Cathedral. It was a magnificent setting, mum thoroughly enjoyed the evening but for me it was too warm, too uncomfortable and too long!

 I blame the baby.

On Saturday Mum joined Jamie and I for our first NCT nearly new Sale (check out what they are and other stuff for pregnant people or those with Babies here) and scored some bargains, but only after our awesomely generous friends gave us more baby things!

Later that afternoon I had to work, I manned a bottle tombola at a local Carnival, I learnt that tombolas featuring alcohol are very popular! 

We also got to watch a dog herding ducks - naturally.

That evening we played with our new baby things, Oliver was once again our willing pretend baby

Jamie played with the boxes...

Sunday we went to church, and relaxed a lot. 

Monday whilst Jamie and most other people went to work Mum and I had a spa day. It was lovely, a great end to a brilliant weekend.

Thanks Mum for visiting, joining in the fun and pampering me.

Pregnancy update - week 27

27 Weeks preggo photos!

As usual they aren't that flattering but I don't care :)

Outfit details: Top- fat face, Shorts- a hand me down in a larger size then I usually wear so I can still do them up, Sandals- my trusty Birkenstocks. 

None are maternity.

I have officially put on a stone! This scared me quite a lot so I did some googling and it turns out the average weight gain in pregnancy is 2.5 stone! This statistic scared me more! (sorry about all of the exclamation marks) Something I have learnt about my self during this process is how much of a control freak I am - all of  my friends and family are rolling their eyes because they have known it all along. Before being pregnant I felt in control of my body, I knew that everything was fine, functioning properly and my stomach by some miracle had stayed relatively flat from all my years of dancing. I had just got to the point of accepting my large butt and small boobs, I knew how to dress to flatter my shape and I most of the time felt confident and relatively fit. 

Now is different, I'm not in control of my body, regardless of what I eat or don't eat my stomach will continue to expand in order to fit more baby in. I get scared if I don't feel baby move for a while because I don't know what is going on in there, I don't know how he or she is doing. My boobs (for me) are ginormous! I have to work out the acceptable cleavage parameters with every outfit change and well my shape is definitely not pear at the moment! And I get worn out very quickly which is very frustrating!

These things are all small in comparison to the massive blessing of being pregnant. I am thankful every day that we have this baby in our life and that he or she seems to be growing healthily and I'm having a relatively easy time.

This week, according to my app, baby is 900g and 37cm head to foot. He or she can hear and distinguish voices, sleeps and wakes are regular intervals and can open and close his or her eyes. It's amazing!

Next week I have to have a gestational diabetes test which sounds pretty gruesome followed by an extra injection because my blood type is o- and I have been told by the midwife they will take lots of blood to do extra tests just because they can! I'm not looking forward to it :(

On the subject of my midwife, I had an appointment at 25 weeks, which is the point where they start to measure the bump to check it is growing at the right rate. I got up on the bed and lifted my top while she went to fetch the tape measure, she had her back to me when I said how traumatised I was about my "outy" belly button she started to reply with "well it can't be that bad at 25... OH!" she exclaimed as she turned and saw it in all its "outy "glory. I consider myself a medical marvel and have decided to stop complaining about it. The outy is here to stay (please God make it go back after I have had the baby! Amen)

What to do when your crazy husband buys you a whole watermelon...

First take a photo of its magnificance, then become friends, compare bumps and take a "selfie" 

Next ferociously chop it with your biggest knife

Fill the fridge with your wonderfully chopped segments 

Put some in the freezer to see how that turns out- not so good, I was imagining a watermelon ice lolly but it is a bit solid.

Then share the watermelon love and celebration with Fred the tortoise...

As you can see he loved it, but after feeding him this segment I thought I should check whether or not domesticated tortoises are safe to eat watermelon. 

The general online consensus is not :( 

Don't worry I have kept a close eye on him and he seems none the worse for wear. Its a shame really because he loved it! Oh well more for me.

Photos from my phone

 On Friday Jamie and I went to see Despicable Me 2.

 It was fun, it wasn't a patch on the first film but Agnes is still super cute and the minions were great as expected. Definitely worth a watch. 

If you haven't seen Despicable Me yet you need to sort it out! 

The best animated film since Toy Story.

This is Oliver Jamie's teddy monkey modelling one of the six reusable Nappies I bought last week. (he is a small monkey)

I may have become a little obsessed with researching nappies. 

They are so cute and colourful and there is the bonus of not tripling our landfill contribution when the little one is born - Win Win!

I bought a load of this beautiful chevron fabric from Abakhan last week. I'm trying to find a good use for it, it is difficult though because I think I like it too much to chop up...

Happily I can still paint my toe nails

I pass this gate on my way to church, the ivy has truly taken over.