gTea Summer 2013

Friday was the day for gNappies gTea, I'm a bit of a fan of gNappies or gDiapers as I first found them. It was a great day with lots of lovely gMums and gDads.

The lovely gCupcakes

There was even a surprise guest in the form of the new royal gNappy. It's a lovely dark purple with a minkee finish unlike the other gNappies and with embroidered embellishment of the g and crown. We can't wait for it to be released.

As part of the gTea, gNappies were filming and taking lots of pictures of the gBabies who all seemed to have a really lovely time walking up and down the carpet babywalk. There was even a table with a few nibbles on some of them were supplied by a lovely gMum who couldn't make it to the gTea itself.

Eating his strawberry while being filmed

At several points the rain started and stopped, so we made for cover under some trees. Even the rain didn't spoil the sprit of the day.

It was a great time for swapping cloth advice and asking for any help with your g's or any cloth nappy, the gCommunity are always lovely and happy to help if you have a look at the gNappies facebook page you'll see examples of gMums helping other gMums. 

Photo Day

I just love this picture, Nate is sitting proudly with his sunflower he made.

Dairy Free Pizza

Not too long ago Nate's nursery said he wasn't eating his tea. It didn't take us long to work out why, all of the other children were eating pizza while he had toast with vegemite. They asked if I could think of an alternative so I went home and made special pizza's for him. I use a basic pizza dough, there is one on the BBC website that works well. Once the dough has had it's first rise. I divide it up into small balls and stretch it out by hand.

Once it has been stretched by hand, add a little tomato paste this time I used sun dried tomato paste.

On top of the paste, I added sliced courgette. Normally I get the baby courgettes as they work better on the small pizza's.

Just for a fresh tomato taste sliced baby tomatoes.

Then some sweetcorn and sliced pastrami for this pizza, I've used sliced ham or pre-cooked chicken before.

I freeze them on a slip of greaseproof paper individually on a plate and then after half an hour package them up with cling film and send them up to nursery individually packaged. Nate loves them and if he sees me making them has to have one for his supper that night. They are perfect for a quick supper if we need something for Nate. 

Easy lunch

Today, we didn't know what to have for lunch and were a little bored of sandwiches. I had a quick look in our fridge and we had the jus rol croissants and ham and pasta stir in. That looks like an impromptu lunch with no dairy. 

 First of all I added a little of the paste to the croissant. I only put it on the base of the croissant but you could add more but not all of the way to the tip otherwise it would get a bit messy.

 Then I added a little ham, once again you could add more but I felt this was enough as the croissants are only small. Roll them up, like you would normally.

This is how they came out after 15 minutes in the oven. Yummy!

Jamie's Italian

Our newest food love is Jamie's Italian. The first time we visited Jamie's Italian (pre Nate) we loved the food (especially the polenta chips) but we didn't go back until recently. Nate rarely eats a different meal to us, we normally order for ourselves and then share with Nate. He eats really well like this as he always wants whats on our plates. At Jamie's we had previously tried the Italian Feast (this isn't available in all Jamie's) as it gives a starter and then three different mains (smaller portions). Between Nate and his dad I didn't get a look in at the pasta alla Norma. 

This visit however, it was just Nate and myself so I thought I'd have a look at the children's menu. It looks pretty good as about half of these options are on the adults menu as well. I didn't ask if it was possible to have a children's portion of an adult meal but they are pretty accommodating we had a quick conversation about the no dairy, Nate had the Spaghetti Bolognese and followed it with Elderflower sorbet.

Nate's Spaghetti Bolognese arrives. My starter and Nate's main arrived at the same time and Nate digs straight in. I had a quick taste and it tastes pretty good, not overly salted. The only thing I would improve is the portion sizes for an older child I think the portion may be a bit big but for Nate is was way too big he didn't eat half of it. Maybe have a smaller toddler size meal as well.

Dairy Free cooking

Nate is Dairy Free due to suffering from an intolerance to Dairy along with Soya so we are constantly looking for recipes and ideas. At the moment we seem to be baking biscuits every fortnight, Nate likes to help with the rolling and cutting the biscuits out. I found a recipe for a simple biscuit which is very nice.

Here is our variation
165g Plain Flour
100g Dairy free spread
50g natural caster sugar
1tsp ground ginger

We roll it out to roughly 3-4mm thick use cutters (the fun part) to cut biscuits out and bake at 160C for 14 minutes. Our oven can be fiery so it may be best to check the biscuits often.

Nate cutting out his biscuits

Another thing we love here is rice pudding, we've had to change it a bit for obvious reasons as we used to love it with clotted cream stirred in at the last minute. 

I found a recipe last year that was made with coconut milk, and black rice. I decided to give it a go. 

Nate's Portion in a heart bowl

"Yummy in my tummy"

Now the black rice turns a purple colour and does stain little people so best on a nice hot day when you can strip them down and then pop them in the paddling pool. 

I don't have the exact recipe for this as I have made this different each time. This is the basic outline:

3/4 cup of black rice (we found the black rice in a small local Asian shop)

1 small can of coconut cream

20g sugar (I've limited the sugar due to Nate having it and the coconut cream is also sweet)

1 1/2 cups of Water

Put the rice, coconut cream and water in a saucepan bring to the boil and then add the sugar. Turn down to a simmer. Simmer for an hour, keep an eye on the pan as you may need to top the water up.
Enjoy!

The rice has a slight bite to it but it went down well here.

Little Swim School

When Nathaniel finished swimming with Little Dippers are few months ago, we had high hopes of continuing with his swimming every week. We started well, we went twice in a month the first month to our local swimming pool and then three times since and that was roughly 5 months ago. When I saw the little Swim school was starting lessons a two minute walk from home, I knew we should sign Nathaniel up. We managed to miss the start of term. However, we had our first lesson yesterday and I can't say Nathaniel loved it but as soon as we were out of the pool he wanted to go back in.  I think it might take a little time before he is throwing himself in like he was last year.