Comfort Food - Banana Jam Roly Poly.

What am I making with these ingredients

While making dumplings for our casserole the other day, I saw the recipe for a Roly Poly. Roly Poly's weren't a childhood staple for me but it made me want to try and make one. What about the filling though, we have lovely Strawberry jam in our fridge that could do but we love bananas here, and I had seen on one of the websites I frequently visit Banana Jam. 

Banana Jam

400g of banana (skins on, roughly 4 smallish bananas not the tiny ones)

1/2 cup and 1 tablespoon of Light Muscavado Sugar

1 cup of water (can add more if you want a thinner consistency)

2 teaspoons of Cinnamon (less if you aren't a cinnamon fan)

Pinch of Salt

Cut the bananas up and let them simmer for 20 minutes, stirring often.

The more you mush the banana's the thicker the jam will be, I like a smoother jam but left a few chunks as others like chunky jam.

I made the suet up to the recipe on the back for dumplings. I made a slightly bigger batch, so 60g of suet, 120g of flour ( I had plain flour so added a teaspoon of baking powder)

Roll out your suet pastry, & add a layer of your jam the pastry. The right hand edge was left clear as that was used to stick the roly poly together.

Ready to go in the oven.

I baked the Roly Poly at 170 for 30 minutes and made custard using our normal milk (Koko) and birds custard powder. It was a hit here with all of us going back for seconds. There was enough banana jam for jam on toast for breakfast. 

Ski holiday

I am the person who is always complaining about being cold; I'd have my electric blanket on all year round, as soon as October starts I'm in thermals. Now there is a chance to be a Mark Warner mum and the options are a skiing holiday or a sun holiday, you'd think I'd want the sun, but no I'd love to go skiing.

When I was offered the chance to go on a ski holiday with school I ummed and ahhed for ages, worrying about the cold. In the end I went and I loved it. I was cold for all of the five minutes it took to walk to the ski lift, once I was on skis I was lovely and toasty. There is of course the necessity to wear layers but I often went out in the evenings in just a windproof jumper (and thermals of course). However, I haven't been skiing since Nate was born or actually ever since meeting Nate's dad. 

Looking back on my skiing holidays, I was always impressed by the little children who would fly down the mountains, think of a motorway (not the M25, or the M1 they are always slow) and the car zooming past in the fast lane doing at least 100MPH that's what these little people were doing. I have always wanted Nate to enjoy skiing and have been planning to take him as soon as he was a good age, but what is a good age? 

This is a debate my friend and I have had since Nate was born, at first she thought 2 was a perfect age to just let them go. I wasn't so sure, but now Nate is two and not that tiny little person I think I'm slowly coming down to 3 (I was previously saying no earlier than 5). I'd love Nate to love skiing and not have the fear I did when beginning, although there is no promises that learning to ski early will protect you from the fear.

The thing about a ski holiday is that it's not just about sitting down doing nothing, it's about having fun and the best bits about the ski holidays were always the fun on the way up the mountain and what we did after skiing. Now I have no reason to believe Nate wouldn't love skiing, knowing him I'd have trouble getting him off the mountain at the end the day, but even if it's not his favourite there is always something else to do. We'd live for the Hot Chocolate at lunch, there is nothing better than sitting at the 'top' of a mountain with your sunglasses on and lovely warm cup of hot chocolate.

Advent Calendar

This year will be Nate's first time having an advent calendar, and it'll be a homemade one. There are a lack of good pictures of the advent calendar as Nate insisted on it going in his tent and then either laying on top of it or hiding under it. It is also not 100% finished, at the minute it doesn't have his name on it.

All of the numbers are in order unlike most advent calendars this was mainly to make it easier for Nate to get the right present and also so he can learn the number orders.

It makes a perfect blanket to hide under

What am I going to put in each of the pockets? Well every day there will be two little chocolates and a sticker. I found some lovely scratch and sniff stickers in one of our local shops. Nate loves his stickers so will love having a sticker everyday. For the weekend days he also has another little present such as a little puzzle from Tiger Stores(£1 each). 

As Nate is dairy free, I have been making little advent chocolates in non-advent shapes (Dr Who) from his favourite dark chocolate. These were made using the Chocolate mould from lakeland. 

Dr Who Advent chocolates

As Nate is a bit of a Who fan & the Doctor Who Magazine had a advent calendar as their free gift, Nate also has a Dr Who figurine for each day of advent.

We're starting to get a bit excited now.

BritMums Xmas

A picture post, there were so many lovely things and people, so I thought I'd leave the pictures to do all the talking.

A tip for those who are dairy free, put lard instead of butter under the skin of the turkey or a little olive oil (be careful with olive oil don't go mad) 

Silent Sunday 24/11/13

Barbados April 2012

I've been recently thinking about our holiday last year. Mainly due to BericeBaby going there now.
Last year we stayed in a beautiful hotel called Almond Casurina, in St Lawrence Gap. The Gap as it is otherwise known as is the place to be for nightclubs, rum bars etc. It is not where you would expect a lovely peaceful family hotel, but this is where both the Almond Casurina and Turtle Beach (another lovely family resort) are based. The Almond has since closed and reopened as Couples, an adults only resort. We would have loved to have gone back, I haven't written this blog post before due to the closure of the hotel.

Nate 'reading' in his cot

My grandmother lives in Barbados so I have only stayed in a hotel for 2 visits there and a three day stint another time. So to experience Barbados as a Tourist (can you ever really) was fun although we really didn't need to leave the resort as it was an all inclusive.

One thing I would recommend with any island is check the beaches, if you can't see any locals there is a reason for it, especially Barbados as you cannot own a beach. This beach was not as rough as those on the South-East coast in Barbados (i.e. Sam Lords Castle or The Crane) but it wasn't as serene as the beaches we visit in the rest of Christ Church (Barbados is divided into Parishes a bit like UK is  counties). We didn't swim at the beach here, Nate didn't like the waves and we had access to two pools which he was used to.

It's very hot, I think I need to repeat that again, it is very hot. Nate took an extra nap every day and was exhausted by 6. It was hot and he handled it well but it did exhaust him. Be careful in the sun with little children, their skin is thinner than adults.

This was our balcony, we enjoyed "breakfast in bed" one morning we were there, no where near bed as you can see. Nate loved the birds that would come and steal crumbs. There are lots of animals to watch, this time he loved seeing the lizards. 

Nate spent most of the holiday in as little as possible however, there is a tipping point. It is very hot so when in the sun he was covered up and we spent as little time as possible out in the sun, pre-breakfast swim and post-lunch swim were our main times for being out in the sun and in the pool. 

We took Nate to Harrison's cave, which is a crystallised limestone cavern. He was a little young to enjoy it but I think he enjoyed the coolness of the cave. He'd enjoy it more now he is slightly older and could ask questions but did sit quietly on my lap. I remember growing up I would want to go to The Cave every year but they closed it often to doing work to improve it.

As you can see we really enjoyed our time at the Almond Casurina. It was a lovely resort that had lots of things to do. Since becoming an adults only resort they have recommended the resort next door which is Turtle Beach. We however, didn't stay there but have had a lovely stay at The Crane, which has two sections the original 1887 building and the new buildings. We stayed at the original 1887 building when they were still building the new buildings over 10 years ago and recently stayed in the new building. It is lovely and the views are gorgeous unless you get a room overlooking the building work (we did) but there was still a beautiful view if you ignored the concrete. 

There is plenty to do in Barbados for all ages.

Busy making for Christmas

Just a teaser post :)

Flavourings and icing

These are the ingredients I'm currently using. 

Any ideas what I'm making?