Mini Stuffed Pumpkins

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When we went pumpkin picking recently, we may have been over enthusiastic in the amount of orange gourds that we returned with, particularly those described as 'munchkins'.

Munchkin Pumpkins

Straight away I knew what I wanted to do with them; far too perfect to not be enjoyed whole, they were crying out to be stuffed with a delicious vegetarian concoction.

Mini Stuffed Pumpkins

  • Makes: 1 pumpkin serves 1 person, multiply for the right amount of 'guests'
  • Preparation time: 20 minutes
  • Cooking time: 35-45 minutes

Ingredients

  • munchkin pumpkins, 1 for each person
  • a knob of butter
  • 3 blocks/pellets of frozen spinach
  • 1tbsp mascarpone
  • small block of blue cheese (matchbox size), crumbled
  • black pepper for seasoning
  • basmati rice mixed with mediterranean vegetables (peppers, courgette, onions, etc)
  • grated parmesan

You'll also need:

  • a sharp knife
  • metal, circular (pastry) cutter
  1. Press the cutter down into the top of the munchkin pumpkin to mark out the area to be cut, then carefully cut down into the hollow centre of the pumpkin all the way around the circle. I am a little clumsy with a knife, so actually hammered the cutter down to cut through the tough exterior, then used the knife to prise the lid off.
  2. Remove the lid and scoop out all the pith and seeds. Slice the pith and seeds from the bottom of the lid.
  3. Wilt the frozen spinach with butter in the microwave for one minute. Stir through the mascarpone cheese and season with black pepper.
  4. Crumble in the blue cheese and fold in the rice mixture.
  5. Divide the mixture between the pumpkins up to the bottom ledge of the lid area. (This will allow expansion space for the rice as it cooks).
  6. Replace the lid loosely and place on a baking tray. Place this baking tray on a large and deep baking tray with water in, this will help keep the pumpkin moist as it is roasting.
  7. Cook in the oven on 190°C/375°C/Gas Mark 5 for 35-45 minutes until the pumpkin's sides are soft to the touch.
  8. Remove the lid and sprinkle on some grated parmesan. Replace the lid and return the over for a further two minutes for the cheese to melt.
  9. Serve with salad for a light lunch, or with spring green vegetables and a chicken breast/grilled tofu.

Stuffed Pumpkins

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Back To School: Stamptastic Name Stamps

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As we race towards the end of the first half-term of The Boy's Reception year in school, I thought now would be a good time to write my review of the Stamptastic labelling system that I was sent during the Summer holidays. Yes I could have written the review before school started, but I actually wanted to focus on the durability of the near-permanent name stamper on a range of different materials.

Stamptastic is a way of labelling children's clothes and other school belongings that takes seconds, doesn't require sewing or ironing on labels, or indecipherable writing with a Sharpie pen which has bled all over the label. Quite simply it involves a stamp with the child's name on it and an inkpad.

I did The Boy's entire uniform (5 polo shirts, 5 sweatshirts, 3 jogging bottoms, 4 pairs of trousers, 3 pairs of shorts, coat, hat, P.E kit – shorts, daps, t-shirt, joggers, sweatshirt), book bag, lunchbox, lunchbag, and water bottle within five minutes.

All of it, in five minutes.

The process is incredibly simple: order a resin stamp block with your child's name embossed out of polymer, choosing three different fonts and a variety of sizes; and then order an ink pad. Within a week, the set will arrive ready to personalise your child's uniform.

name stamper

The actual stamping surface is 38mm x 15mm so it fitted really easily onto every clothes label that we had, it is also clear and doesn't bleed; it dries within a couple of second. The ink is an oil-based ink, which is the equivalent of a marker pen, but doesn't run.

Stampastic labels

Apologies it's not the entire label but as I have never shared The Boy's name, I decided that would be a bit daft to do so now! However, this close-up shows the quality of the stamped image.

Six weeks after stamping everything, and with the uniform having been washed every week, it is safe to say that on clothing the ink is excellent and has not faded at all! The only thing that it has come off from is The Boy's plastic water bottle and plastic lunch box. This is something that Stamptastic are aware happens, it's to do with the coating that the plastic items have which prevents the ink from being absorbed. However, it's not a problem as it takes less than thirty seconds to locate the stamp set and restamp it!

The stamper costs £8.00 and the ink pad costs £10.00, and I think that is excellent value for money. It's an equivalent price to iron-on or sew-in labels, with the added benefit of lasting a lot longer, and being nowhere near as time consuming! Stampastic gets a big thumbs up from us!

I was sent this product for the purpose of this review, my opinion is honest and unbiased.

Ladybird: Read It Yourself Books (Review)

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Even though he is approaching four and half years old, The Boy still adores Peppa Pig in any format. Therefore when Ladybird asked me if I'd like to review some of the books from their newly revamped 'Read It Yourself' series, and mentioned that they had titles from the pink porcine in their range, I jumped at the chance.

The Boy has been reading CVC words (consonant-vowel-consonant, e.g. cat, dog, mum) for several months now and has a developing sight vocabulary for high frequency words like 'and', 'the', 'this' or 'from'. I was sent two Level 1 books and two Level 2 books:

  • Level 1: For children who are ready to take their first steps in reading;
  • Level 2: For beginner readers who can read short, simple sentences with help.

The books do the right thing in that they provide an introductory page with the keywords on it, and there is also a parents' guide at the front explaining how to use the book.

So far so good.

Looking specifically at a Level 1 book here, the stories are simple and attractively presented with picture cues which can help the reader to ascertain the context of the text. Many of the high frequency words like 'this' or 'little' are repeated throughout, alongside the key vocabulary. But then into a sentence there will be a 'house' or a 'snail', or the one that really flummoxed me earlier was 'says'.

Those are not first stage readers' words.

First stage readers words are CVC words with some of the very highest frequency words, like the books we were reading together tonight which has sentences like 'Biff and Chip set off'. The Boy could work those out because the blends were easy. Segmenting and blending 'house' and 'snail' are not easy; that requires an understanding that 'ou' makes an 'ow' sound (but it can also make an 'oh' sound) and that 'ai' makes a long 'a'. Likewise knowing that 'ay' makes an 'air' sound when put into 'says'.

That's not easy. It is not for children 'who are ready to take their first steps in reading'.

In the Level 2 Peppa Pig book 'Sports Day' there are even more complicated sentences like '"Ready, steady, go!" says Madame Gazelle.' Again, this is supposed to be a book for 'beginner readers who can read short, simple sentences with help.' It's not, this is a tricky book, and although the sentence structures are repeated, the vocabulary requires working out in the first place.

I may seem overly critical here, but I think that labelling these books as Level 1 and Level 2 is not helpful to parents. I'm lucky that as a teacher I have a fairly decent understanding of phonics and how to teach reading. I would hate to see a parent buy these books for their four year old child, pressure them into trying to read it and then put them off the joy of reading.

Most schools seem to use the Oxford Reading tree reading scheme which starts off at Stage 1 or Stage 1+. They will be the books that most Reception children will start to read, and they contain sentences like, 'Dad got on it.' or 'Kipper put on a rug.'

So why the discrepancy with these 'Read It Yourself' Level 1 books?

The added complication is apparent when on closer examination of the back cover, under the bar code, there is a label 'Book banded for school use: Book Band 5 (for Level 1) or Book Band 6 (for Level 2).'

Book Banding is a system that was created to ensure that all the different reading schemes on the market could be compared realistically.

  • The Oxford Reading Tree Stage 1 books which I gave examples from above are Book Band 1.
  • The Ladybird 'Read It Yourself' Level 1 books are Book Band 5.

These books are beautifully presented and attractive. And I am sure that they are enticing and engaging for children to read, but the fact that they are labelled Level 1 is deceptive as it implies (and states) that they are for beginner readers and they are not; they're far more developed than that.

I was sent these products for the purpose of this post. My opinion is honest and unbiased, and based on my professional experience.

365 #41

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We've got 11 weeks left of this year's project! 11 weeks!

The 365 linky only works because of people linking to it and then contributing their thoughts to others' posts via comments. I can't emphasise this enough, it's the whole point of the linky!

Join in by entering the URL of your favourite photograph of the week (either a 52 or a 365 photo) and show some comment love to everyone else in the community. We've got a Facebook group, and now I've created a collaborative Pinterest board (if you'd like to collaborate, let me know and I'll add you).

  1. Choose your favourite photo from the past week and link it up below.
  2. Please add the badge to your linked-up post so that other people know how to find all the other fabulous entries.
  3. If you can spare five minutes to comment on a few other entries I know they'd appreciate it!
365



Days 279 – 285 of Project 365

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279 - 285 of 365

279. Sunset Splash (Having taken my niece and nephew on their first conker hunting session of the season, the three of us then went down to Barry Island for a chippy tea. We of course had to paddle in the sea, although The Boy had difficulty understanding it would be too cold to take our shoes off at this time of year. He ended up splashing around in his boots instead. And when I say splashing in his boots, I do mean in; there was three inches of water in each boot.)

280. Eye-Eye (Magnifying glasses are such fun!)

281. Construction (The Boy was having a great time tonight constructing an aeroplace. He very rarely constructs anything without guidance or a picture to work from, so I was pleased to see him having a go.)

282. Greedy Guts (A quick after school trip to the local nature reserve to feed the swans, they are very greedy and reach up to grab the scraps from the boardwalk.)

283. Concentrating Mummy! (We revisited the nature reserve to film The Boy tree-climbing for a National Trust project that I'm collaborating on, and were very happy to find a new, perfect tree with low sweeping branches and thick boughs.)

284. Homework (Those who follow me on Instagram will know of my ongoing concerns about when The Boy's school was going to introduce homework, as he has been able to read since May, and I am eager to give him the opportunity to develop his interest. Tonight we had his first homework; a worksheet which he had to practise his 'S' formation on. We decided that was a little boring so got out the shaving foam in the bath!)

285. Wait For Me! (Where Fiery Cousin goes, The Boy must follow! A wonderful afternoon at Dyffryn Gardens, the local National Trust site.)

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TheBoyandMe's 365 Linky

Why Our Children Need Outdoor Play

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I'm not going to bombard you with words or images in this post, just please spare the two minutes that you might normally sifting through all of that to watch this video.


PROJECT WILD THING – official trailer from Green Lions on Vimeo. David will be touring nationwide with the film, dates available here.

This is the man that made me realise why I have to ensure that we get plenty of outdoor play time in a week; because I can't have The Boy be one of those statistics.

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Linking with Country Kids

365 Photographers: Five Go Blogging

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Photography should tell a story; the best photographs in the world have got something going on in them, something hidden to be deciphered by the viewer, or sometimes something obvious which involves those looking at it. Alison from Five Go Blogging is one of those great character photographers on the 365 project.

FiveGoBlogging

Alison has been with me from the beginnings of the 365 linky, and her weekly collages are amongst those that I look forward to the most. I've noticed over that time that she has a few particular types of photographs that she likes to take; shadows, faces in fences (I kid you not), light streaming through windows/trees/anything around, and mischievious snaps of her children being cheeky!

Her Instagram feed is one of my favourites to follow, because of the wonderful beauties that she manages to spot on a walk to and from school, or a little thing that is noticed in her kitchen. And the best of these make it into her Project 365 weekly collages; full of life and telling a story.

FiveGoBlogging 1

These two photos to me show two very different sides to Alison's photography; the simple colours of nature, and the quirky kitchens. There are many eye-catching photographs in her Instagram feed which show the wonderful colours and details that she can spot, like a brightly coloured leaf covered in dew in a gutter. Likewise there are a multitude of humorous shots of bits and pieces in a kitchen. I love the way her son is poking his head and nose over this, desperate to spot what mischief he can get up next.

FiveGoBlogging2

In Alison's kitchen, there is a slatted blind. And through this slatted blind, the sun casts some serious light at times, creating wonderful photographs like this one of her son laughing away, and another marvellous one from last year (which I couldn't find) of a half empty beer bottle and it's emerald green shadow. And for my final choice, I've selected a sentimental shadow picture which demonstrates how she uses light to perfection.

These are her favourite six from the 365 Project so far.

09062012

9/6/12 – Burghley House and the children all scooting: Our favourite day out and its only a mile from home. No matter how many times, we go the children can always find something new to do or look at and I can take another photo that is different again from last time. I love this one because it shows the ages so perfectly of the children.

30092012

30/9/12 – Swings: I took about 30 photos before I got this one with them both at the same point and both looking at me. I just love their expressions.

14102012

14/10/12 – Tweeting gate: Again at Burghley House. I just saw the birds kissing and thought it was perfect for a twitter picture.

18112012

18/11/12 – Family walking out of a winter evening sun: I loved that the sun was behind them, they look like they are returning home after a long satisfying walk (which they were).

21082013

18/08/13 – Reflection in a knife: My favourite photo so far this year. I love reflections and shadows and just happened to glance down at my cutlery and saw the shot!

27012013

27/1/13 – Shadow: I had to have a shadow shot in there somewhere and this one sums me up perfectly. My iPhone and a shadow.

  • When did you start doing the 365 photo project, and why?

I started Project 365 in January 2012. I am a habitual photographer and almost always take at least one photo a day anyway and when I heard of this project I knew it was something I wanted to do. It was a way to capture the memories and hopefully improve my photos in the process through practice and inspiration from other photographers.

  • Why did you decide to continue the project for a second year?

Once I had started and completed a year of 365project, I was hooked. The thought of a day passing and not capturing a shot was scary! I'd love to say it is because my followers insisted I carry on but neither of them seemed that bothered!

  • What's the best bit about doing a 365 photo project?

The best bit about the 365project for me is the photographic diary I am making. I suspect I'll still be doing this in twenty years time and look forward to going through my albums with whoever I can persuade to sit with me.

  • Are there times when you've wanted to give up, why? What kept you going?

I haven't ever thought about giving up but there are days when I just haven't been inspired or had time to really look for the shot. That's when you see a random still life photo in my collage!

  • What tips would you give to anyone who wants to start a 365 project?

If you are thinking about starting a project yourself, then just start snapping! There is a huge community to look to for support and inspiration and photographic critique if you want it. I use my iphone 99% of the time and I know they are not technically brilliant but more often than not a photo suddenly appears before me and I have to snap it there and then. Those are the best and most fun shots in a 365project and take no time or effort.

Like Five Go Blogging, how could you use light and shadow to improve your photographs?

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Please pop back next Thursday when I introduce the high-definition perspective of Point & Snap The World.

'Florentine & Pig And The Lost Pirate Treasure' by Eva Katzler (Book Review)

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This is an absolutely charming story that tells the tale of Florentine and her friend Pig. Imaginative and descriptive, it uses the good old fashioned medium of pretend play  to help them both find Florentine's lost Ever-So-Sparkly Button.

When they wake one morning, the discover that they can't play outside as intended as it is pouring down (clearly not my child, we'd be out in our wellies and macs!) and so they decide to dress up, which is when the disaster concerning the button happens! They end up using a map to 'sail' to the Lost Treasure Island in order to find it, and whip up a picnic basket to help them on their way (these recipes are included at the back of the book when the story has finished), and search the island high and low for the lost Ever-So-Sparkly Button.

Florentine and Pig and the Lost Pirate Treasure

'Florentine and Pig and the Lost Pirate Treasure' is published by Bloomsbury and is available as a hardback, paperback and eBook. Prices start from £6.99.

I was sent this product for the purpose of this review, my opinion is honest and unbiased.

Packed Lunches Made Easy With Jungle Dogs

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Back in August we were lucky enough to be invited to an event in Longleat Safari Pack to launch a brand new, meaty chilled hot dog called 'Jungle Dogs'.

While there are plenty of cured hot dog sausages on the market, Jungle Dogs are significantly better quality as they are made with quality cuts of pork, naturally smoke, and contain no artificial colours or flavours. Significantly it contains no MRM (mechanically recovered meat) which has been used in hot dogs since the 1960s and isn't a very nice thing at all.

At the jungle-themed event, the hotdogs were presented in a number of different ways for the children, designed to tempt and tantalise their tender tastebuds.

Jungle Dogs selection

  • Jungle Skewers: alternate chunks of Jungle Dogs, cucumber, yellow pepper, and cherry tomato onto a mini skewers.
  • Jungle Potato Salad: Mix chopped Jungle Dogs, cooked sliced potato, red onion, crème fraîche and mayonnaise.
  • Wild Lunchbox Wrap: Spread soft cheese or hummous onto a wrap, grate carrot over the top, roll a Jungle Dog up from one end of the wrap.
  • Lion Bites: Mix ketchup and soft cheese and spread over two slices of bread, slice Jungle Dogs over the bread and make a sandwich, use a paw print or lion cutter to make a wild shape.
  • Snake Eyes: As with the wraps, spread slices of salami with soft cheese, place a Jungle Dog at one end and roll up. Secure with a cocktail stick.

I've made the skewers and the snake eyes for The Boy for a tea-time meal or light snack, and they've gone down very well. I've also made him the lunchbox wrap several times and he really enjoys them. I am getting bored of making sandwiches for him, I'm sure he's bored of eating them. A Wild Lunchtime Wrap is a far more exciting thing to see in his lunchbox.

Hot Dog Wraps

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Many thanks to Jungle Dogs for inviting us along to the event, The Boy had a great time tasting the yummy hot dogs which Mr. TBaM said were incredibly firm, moist and tasy (I'm vegetarian so couldn't try them). And with 85% pork in them, I'm reassured that The Boy is eating a quality sausage.

Jungle Dogs

We were invited to, and received free entry into, Longleat for this event, and received several packs of sausages and a goody bag. My opinion is honest and unbiased.

'Penguin On Holiday' by Salina Yoon (Book Review)

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'Penguin On Holiday' is without a doubt one of The Boy's most favourite books at the moment! And I have to say, he's not the only one who's found of reading it!

One day Penguin wakes up and realises that he's a bit bored of all the snow and normal snow activities, so spotting an ocean liner in the distance, he packs his bags for a holiday, waves goodbye to his Grandpa and sets off on his journey on an iceberg. Landing on a tropical island, he soon realises that all the activities which he normally likes to do don't work so well on sand. At a bit of a loss as to what to do, and beginning to feel homesick, he soon befriends Crab who helps him find new holiday activities. Soon it's time for him to return home and wave goodbye to his friend.

But is that the end of their friendship?

Penguin On Holiday

This is a really sweet story and one that is excellent for explaining to The Boy that there are different climates around the world, different animals who have adapted to live in them, and where these climates are. We've both really enjoyed reading this book and as it's coincided with my brother emigrating to Australia, The Boy is now eager to see a map of the world and find both of their locations!

'Penguin On Holiday' is published by Bloomsbury and is available as a hardback, paperback and eBook. Prices start from £5.39.

I was sent this product for the purpose of this review, my opinion is honest and unbiased.

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