#TheCharcoalChallenge

We took part in MoneySupermarket's #The Charcoal Challenge and were given £50 to throw the ultimate summer barbecue on a budget!  

We organised a get together at my mum and dad's house because they have an ace barbecue so we could spend time with our lovely family as they don't live close by.

On our guest list was Poppet and Littles' Grandad, Nana, Aunty Anna, Uncle Mike, Aunty Jenny, Uncle Peter, (Great) Uncle Ian, (Great) Aunty Christina, and second cousin Adam. Along with Mama and Dada it made 10 adults and 3 little ones. A Great Grandad was also meant to be there but wasn't well enough to leave the carehome in the end and was missed.

This is how we spent our money in order to make it stretch:

• £20 on burgers and sausages from our local butchers, (12 steak & onion burgers and 18 pork sausages).
• £5 on two family size bottles of Coca-Cola and one of Fanta, and two bags of lemons to make lemonade.
• £3 on paper plates, cups and napkins
• £19 on rolls, tomatoes, peppers, new potatoes, corn on the cobs, onions, mushrooms, a lettuce, a mutipack of crisps, cheesy nibbles, chilli couscous, halloumi, bananas and chocolate buttons and marshmallows.
• £3 on a 'Princess' ball (this was Poppet's choice!)

I made a big jugful of lemonade with Poppet's help, we are refining our recipe now and it tastes pretty good, roughly following the recipe at the bottom of this page. On this occasion we made it sourer than usual especially for Grandad, but left out a bowlful of sugar for those that wanted it sweeter. Aunty Anna bravely faced her fear of using knives despite her recent trip to A&E after a run-in with a quiche, and was my chief vegetable-chopper. Grandad displayed his barbecue skills that have been perfected over the last 30 or so years, even though he did forget the cardinal rule of always having a water bottle on hand. But he is 53 now so memory lapses are to be expected (only joking dad, there was some impressive barbecuing going on).

Most of the barbecue was spent 'ahhing' at the cuteness that was Poppet and Adam. Born only 6 months apart but living quite far away from one another they only get to meet up every few months. But when they do they are so sweet together, hopefully this is the foundation of a lovely friendship! They chat away to each other but no one else really knows what they are saying. Poppet really likes to stare at him and gently 'boss' him around.

Our menu included burgers and sausages in rolls with caramelised onions, barbecued vegetable and halloumi kebabs, chilli couscous, salad, new potatoes and corn on the cob. The sausages and vegetables were marinated in a homemade BBQ sauce that I got from More Than Toast. For pudding we had barbecued marshmallows and barbecued bananas with chocolate buttons. Below are some scenes of food enjoyment:

Aunty Anna also brought along a pear and cardamom cake that she made especially for the occasion and it was delicious:

The food went down well apart from Grandad still doesn't "see the point of couscous" and Uncle Mike forgot the kebab sticks but the veg and halloumi still tasted good so he was forgiven!

We attempted to involve the little ones in the stuffing-of-the-bananas-with-chocolate-buttons before they were wrapped in tinfoil and put on the barbecue, but most of the buttons did not make it as far as the bananas.

Little slept for most of the barbecue but made an appearance toward the end and got some Nana cuddles. She looked most displeased that we hadn't saved her a burger.

Poppet: 2yrs 6mos

Little: 9mos

Pesto Pasta with Mini Meatballs - #hungry2happy

Pesto Pasta with Mini Meatballs

I was recently sent some vouchers to try Richmond's new mini meatballs and incorporate them into an easy-to-create meal for kids.The meatballs only take 10 minutes in the oven from frozen and this whole meal can be made in 12 minutes, so perfect for those nights when you need something on the table quick! 

Pesto Pasta with Mini Meatballs                                                                     

Serves 4  

Preparation and cooking time - 12 minutes

Ingredients

Richmond's mini meatballs (40 pack)

Bag of fresh fusilli pasta

1 red pepper

1 red onion

1 handful of green beans 

Pack of button mushrooms

Pesto (I used 6 tbsps but depends how much you like)

Rapeseed oil/olive oil for frying

To serve: 

Pack of cherry tomatoes

Parmesan cheese

Garlic bread (chilled not frozen)

Balsamic Vinegar & Rapeseed/Extra-Virgin Olive oil

Method

1. Place the meatballs and garlic bread on a baking tray and put in preheated oven at 180ºC. Both will take 10 minutes.

2. Boil the kettle. Slice the onion and pepper into strips and cut the mushrooms in half. Heat some oil in a pan and fry the vegetables, stirring occasionally.

3. Fill a pan with boiling water, add the pasta and the trimmed green beans (these will both cook in 5 minutes).

4. Make the tomato salad - half the tomatoes and dress with oil & balsamic vinegar.

5.When the meatballs and pasta are nearly cooked, add 6 tbsps (or however much you prefer) of pesto to the frying pan of vegetables and stir to coat.

6. Add the cooked meatballs and drained pasta and beans to the vegetables and mix everything together.

7. Serve!

The meatballs were really popular with both of the girls, they taste just like Richmond sausages and sausages have always gone down well in this house! They also got mum and dad's approval for a quick, tasty meal.

This post is an entry for Britmums' Hungry to Happy Challenge sponsored by Richmond Mini Meatballs. We were sent the meatball vouchers for free for the purposes of this post.

Additions to the toddler play garden!

Poppet's garden is looking a bit more garden-like now we have added a few more plants to it - we've planted a couple of sweetcorn plants, some purple sprouting broccoli, a fuchsia (I loved these when I was little as the buds are so satisfying to pop and the little flowers look like ballerinas) and a thyme. Her alpine strawberry plant has grown a lot and is flowering and her little willow tree has leaves. I've also kept her garden well-weeded - I wish I could say the same about the rest of the garden!

We were lucky enough to receive a lovely little gardening set for Poppet from MoneySupermarket. It was the exact one I had been eying up at the garden centre so I was really chuffed! 

It came with 3 packets of seeds - Pansies, Sunflowers and mixed flowers, and we have spent a couple of lovely mornings planting them.

She loved the gloves but alas, the task of putting fingers into the correct places proved too much. I'll keep them aside until she is older. The watering can was put to use very quickly and she spent a good wee while watering everything in sight. Her watering method of choice is to concentrate on leaves and flowers, just like her Aunty Anna at the same age.

 

The back of the Pansies packet had a suggestion to grow the plants spelling out the child's name but Poppet is a bit young to appreciate that. She likes naming shapes so I decided to try growing them in shapes instead. I chose an empty border next to her garden and marked out a square and a circle using stones and then she started excitedly telling me to 'do a triangle!'. I don't know why she is so fond of triangles, she loves spotting them wherever we go. She's a real triangle fan. After that I did a star. This took me absolutely ages. I'm rubbish at doing stars on paper too but in stones on soil I was even worse. Stars are my downfall. But it looked quite star-like in the end.

Poppet poured the pansy seeds into a dish so we could investigate what they looked like.

Then we both sprinkled them into the shapes and covered them with compost. I'll have to keep an eye out for any stray pansy plants that appear outside of the shapes as Poppet was quite enthusiastic with her sprinkling! I hope the experiment works and we get some recognisable pansy shapes appearing later in the summer. Poppet also found a worm which made her day, obviously. It went up her jacket, eugh!

We had a plastic window box filled with pine cones in Poppet's garden so filled it up with compost and planted it up with the mixed flower seeds.

In only a few days these seeds have already germinated and she liked seeing all the little seedlings pop up through the soil.

I've been doing some research on sunflower houses and it is definitely something on my to-do list (once I have convinced J to let me dig up the lawn a little bit!). They are basically like dens made from sunflowers and sound magical. I will console myself with a sunflower tunnel of sorts for now. I thought it would make a nice entrance into Poppet's garden.

Unfortunately Little, who up to this point had been content crawling around the grass trying to eat dandelions, decided to get in on the gardening and knocked over our dish of seeds into the grass. Poppet and I spent a long time searching in the grass for enough sunflowers seeds to make our tunnel. I made two shallow trenches either side of the 'path' and Poppet scattered the seeds in.

I stuck bamboo sticks in either side and tied them together with string for support as the plants grow. The idea is that as the sunflowers get bigger they create a tunnel walkway into her garden and when they get tall enough I'll tie their tops together to make a roof.  Even if they don't get high enough for this they will still create a special entrance into Poppet's garden. I can't wait to see how it turns out!

She was really excited about 'her tunnel' as she already calls it. I also planted a few lobelia plants in either side to help define the path better and hopefully stop her stepping on the sunflower seedlings. She planted a couple in her garden too.

Once we were all finished I taught Poppet about the importance of keeping your tools in good condition! Here she is wiping the mud off them on the grass and putting everything back into her bag. She's a good little tidier-upper.

She is very proud of her little gardening set and enjoys carrying it around with her!

Indoors, we sat down and I started filling out a few of the seed labels for her and she copied me.....I love how she tried to make her squiggles look like actual writing....her emergent writing skills are really coming on and she definitely recognises that words have a meaning and purpose now.

This post is an entry for Britmums' #KidsGrowWild Challenge, sponsored by MoneySupermarket. We were sent the gardening kit for free for the purposes of this post.