Slow Cooker Rice Pudding

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I've owned a slow cooker now for a year but the one thing that I rarely try to cook in it is a pudding. Stewed fruit always seems the most obvious but I've never been confident enough to try anything more adventurous. One thing that has been niggling away at me to try though is rice pudding, perfect for Winter time, and when I saw a packet of pudding rice on the shelf in the supermarket it seemed I could avoid it no longer.

I got home to discover the recipe on the packet called for three eggs which needed separating. As I don't do eggs, I panicked until I found this incredibly simple recipe online. I decided to give it a go one evening, and even though it was quite late already to put the slow cooker on, I carried on.


Ingredients:

  • unsalted butter
  • 150g pudding rice
  • 40g of sugar (I actually used sweetener)
  • 1.5l of milk (I used whole milk for a creamier taste)
  • 2 teaspoons of spice (I used cinnamon and nutmeg)
  • 1 teaspoon of vanilla bean paste
  • 30g of raisins or sultanas
  • 2 measures of Baileys's (optional and clearly not to be added if giving to children!)
  1. Use the butter to grease the inside of the slow cooker pot to prevent the rice from sticking.
  2. Add the milk, spices, sugar, vanilla bean paste and pudding rice and stir thoroughly.
  3. Put the lid on, turn the slow cooker onto 'high' and leave for two hours, stirring occasionally. (Every time the lid is lifted off the slow cooker, 15 minutes has to be added onto the cooking time, so keep this to a minimum).
  4. The rice will suddenly swell at around 1hr 45, it may need more milk added. This was also the point that I added the Bailey's and the fruit (30 minutes before the end of the cooking time).
  5. Serve immediately with grated chocolate sprinkled on top

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Also linking up to Funky Foodies

Guest-Post: Cleaning Up In The New Year!

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Mrs. Green blogs at Little Green Blog where she writes about green tech, natural health and parenting. She's passionate about doing her bit for the environment but doesn't always succeed!

I don't know about you, but I tend to start the beginning of each new year with some vague goal of 'getting my house in order'. Top of the list is decluttering. I know I have an inner minimalist waiting to be given the light of day but I think my decluttering mission has been going on for 5 years now!

I'm also on a 'pay of debts' mission – aren't we all? And as I love a good declutter and I love to make money I thought I'd share some top ways to combine two of my favourite tasks!

CLOTHES

Hands up who has a wardrobe full of clothes and nothing to wear? Anything still with the labels attached? Any items that are the wrong size?

I'm fortunate enough to have a second hand dress agency nearby. I take in my clothes, the owner puts them on the rails for 8 weeks and I go in to collect my money at the end of the stint. She keeps half and I get half – it's a win-win! There are online services if you have nothing local to you.

Ebay can be great for selling bundles of clothes; especially children’s. I personally find listing on eBay a procrastination job but once items are up there it's a great buzz to see how many people are watching your items and to get a bidding war at the end. Remember to weigh things before you list them and take into account eBay listing fees and paypal fees so you're not out of pocket if your items sell for a low price.

ELECTRONICS

Electronics are one of the most common Christmas presents – tablets, smart phones, cameras and a myriad of other 'essential' gadgets that we can no longer live without.

The average person in the UK updates their mobile handset every 18 months and millions of unused phones are hiding in drawers and cupboards across the land.

The thing is, you can make money and save previous resources by recycling your mobile phone. Top Dollar Mobile were rated “Best Overall”, from a selection of phone recycling websites offering the highest prices, in the February 2011 issue of Good Housekeeping magazine. They send you a FREEPOST envelope so there's nothing to do but dust off your handsets and start earning money!

TOYS

I find the second hand toy market a bit depressing. We spend a fortune on flashing pieces of plastic ready to turn our kids into geniuses and a few weeks later the toys are worth nothing.

But it's such a waste to throw them out so why not let your children hold a garage sale or take them to a car boot sale? It's a great way for them to earn a bit of pocket money, meet new people, learn to haggle and practice giving and receiving money!

BOOKS

My favourite place for selling books is Amazon. It's so straight forward and there are no fees until you actually sell something. You need to find the ISBN, describe the condition of the book and submit it! It stays there for ages and if you're savvy and keep checking in to make sure you're offering at the lowest price, you can usually make quite a bit of money.

Another site is Green Metropolis. While the market isn't as large as Amazon it's straight forward to use and I've had a lot of success.

Selling books on these sites is better if you're not in a hurry for space. If you want to get rid of them quickly you might be better with a car boot sale, or selling as a bundle on eBay.

What about you? How do you declutter your home and make money?

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A Snowy Flashback

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Settling down to peruse the delights in my Instagram feed, I knew full well that 95% of the photographs would be of the snow that has settled on the entirety of Great Britain. All of it bar this little pocket of south Wales nestled on the coast of the Bristol Channel.

We rarely get snow, and when we do it's not very much and it barely settles. It seems like the entire town is coated in salt preventing its inhabitants of having fun with the elusive white powder. We've had snow, I know we have! I distinctly remember a time back in the early 1980s when the snowfall was passed the tops of my wellies, which is incredibly high when you're six. That was probably the biggest snowfall in my lifetime, anything since has been no deeper than three-four inches.

It's got me thinking of the snow that The Boy has experienced.

a snowy flashback 1

This was The Boy's first experience of snow, the Winter of 2009-2010, and he was incredibly curious about the fluffy white stuff that was very cold on his baby hands. Mr. TBaM made an excellent snowman in both the front and back gardens, the snow stayed around for about a week to ten days.

Later on that year in the Winter of 2010-2011 we awoke one day to a glorious sight!

a snowy flashback 2

Unfortunately all we could do was sit and stare out the window at it; the snow was literally like powder and didn't stick together to make a snowman or snowballs, it just dissolved quickly leaving us wet and disappointed. It also prevented a repairman getting to me until two days before Christmas.

And that's it. We haven't had any snow since 18th December 2010.

In the porch a bright red toboggan sits waiting and has done since November 2011 when it was eagerly purchased before the shops ran out…

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Country Kids: New Year's Day On The Beach

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The weather has been foul for the best part of the past fortnight. It managed to not pour down on Christmas Day (which was kind of it), but by and large it's either been pouring down as if Armageddon was about to occur, or it's been devoid of all colour. I'm not sure which I dislike least; I think the incessant rain was preferable as at least then the wellies get used!

It was beginning to feel like we'd never see the sky with any form of vibrancy in it again, until we woke up on New Year's Day to a world of blue skies and brilliant sunshine! As Mr. TBaM said, "It's almost like the weather's trying to make a New Year's Resolution!"

We donned our wellies, coats, scarves, hats and gloves and headed down to Barry Island.

Along with every other person in south Wales!

I seriously cannot remember the last time I saw the island so chockablock with traffic; not even on the hottest day in the Summer was it that bad (and I'd know because I was there then as well!). However we persevered and did actually manage to park on double yellow lines find a parking space quite close to the beach!

The Boy and I set to building a sandcastle, only the little monkey soon demolished it repeatedly at which point we decided to dig a hole instead. It was to be of epic proportions!

new years day 1

We were quite a way up to the top of the beach but as you can see, after a while we hit the water table. Did this stop us? Nope, we kept on digging and in the end The Boy took his bucket down to the water's edge to increase our supply.

new years day 2

It was at this point that I went to get some chips for us. Again, I wasn't the only person with that idea: six chippies on Barry Island and three had run out of chips, with a thirty minute wait in all the others. In the end, thanks to 'Big Dave', we did get our supply and we sat in the car with rosey cheeks and drippy noses munching on big, fat, chips!

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coombe mill

Also linked up to No Such Thing As Bad Weather's Outdoor Play Party

Learning for Life

Project 365: A New Year

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I spent the last month or so alternating between;

"NEVER, EVER AGAIN!"

and;

"But it's my thing and I won't not be able to!"

So here I am, about to enter into my third year of taking a photograph every day. I tend to take a lot more than that but to concentrate on one that is technically good is hard work; the trick is not to make your child want to shove the camera lens into the nearest mound of playdough.

There's a lot of interest in the project at the moment and so I'm going to answer some FAQs and set out some guidelines here:

  • Project 365 involves taking one photograph a day, every day, for a year. It's your project and therefore it should be youtaking the photograph.
  • The photographs can be uploaded to either a blog (daily or weekly), Instagram, Tumblr, Posterous or 365project.org (the official and original site). I've done two years of blogging it daily and I'm losing the will to live, therefore I'm going to put the images together into a weekly collage (using Picmonkey.com) and blog it on a Saturday.
  • Each weekend I run a linky for the community. The point is to share either one favourite photo of the week in the linky or, if like me it's going to be a weekly collage, then the link to that round-up post. It is possible to link up Instagram images by finding the web version and using that URL. The linky can be found over on the 365 tab of my blog. It opens at 8pm on a Saturday evening and closes at 11.59 on Sunday night.
  • I ask that you include my 365 badge onto either the linked blog post or in a sidebar wherever the pictures are hosted (if possible). Not because I'm precious and want the information spread around, but because it means that people can find the linky more easily to see other entries and join in on the community.
  • There is a Facebook group here, it's private and you'll need to request access. As long as it's obvious to me that you're taking part in the project then you're in!
  • There's also a collaborative Pinterest board I've set up to share images. If you'd like to join then please let me know.

Here's the badge for the project, you can find the html code underneath in a nifty box thing done by Mr. TBaM.

See you on Saturday!

ShowOff ShowCase

A Photographic Flashback of 2012 (Linky)

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The idea came to me when I was looking back over my photographs from Project 366, each week I have been asking the participants to pick a favourite photo from the week, and when it's only one photo out of seven then that's relatively simple. However, what if you had to pick just one photo from the whole month? One photograph from (an average of) 30 days?

And so last night I spent hours carefully selecting my favourite twelve photographs of the year, here they are:

I'd love it if you would join in?

Pick one photograph from each month throughout the year and create a collage, then link up below. You don't have to have been taking part in the 366 photography project to take part in this, everyone is welcome! The linky will stay open until Friday 4th January 2013 at midnight.



Sponsored Video: TomTom Unwraps The World

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It's the time of year when we have plenty of television programmes rounding up the 'Top 100 … of 2012' and one of those that I enjoy more than others (who wants to watch the Top 100 celebrity cringeworthy moments?) is the programme that highlights the most successful television adverts.

It always amazes me the lengths that advertising companies will go to in order to promote their product. Some of them are very memorable (the Irish stout drink adverts are pure genuis) and others are quite frankly ludicrous. It must be an incredibly hard job to create an advert which gets people talking about your product having seen a thirty second mini-programme highlighting it, and some agencies are better than others at this.

See what I mean?

I've highlighted previously the amazing competition that TomTom held for people to win the chance to map a tropical location for their satellite navigation gadgets, and they've got another cracker this year!

TomTom is launching an online competition 'TomTom Gives you More' which encourages people to “unwrap the world” where players select a wrapped up continent and unwrap it. Once they have successfully unwrapped an entire route,  they’ll be able to upload a file (it could be a video, a song, a short story or even a poem) to explain why they should be selected to win the competition.

And the prize for this competition?

One of six unforgettable driving adventures for four people, either the: Ruta 40 in Argentina, the Garden Route in South Africa, the Grand Alpine Tour in Europe, the Malaysian Roundabout, the Australian Coastal Route, or the Pacific Coastal Highway in California.

Now I've driven the Pacific Coastal Highway in California and while moments around Big Sur were slightly white-knuckle, the vast majority of the route was astoundingly beautiful and intoxicating.

More information about the 'TomTom Gives You More' competition can be found here. There will also be thousands of other prizes to win, including TomTom navigation devices, Nike+ sport watches and gift vouchers. The competition runs until the 15th of January 2013.

This post has been sponsored by TomTom, but all thoughts are my own.

Country Kids: A Breath Of Fresh Air

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Having been stuck inside for the best part of a week, if not longer, I felt we were all going a little stir-crazy. With a break in the weather today (it has poured most of the morning), we headed out to blow the cobwebs away on one of the beaches in Barry.

Our normal choice is Barry Island but I knew The Boy would want to build sandcastles and we needed to keep moving! We ended up going around to the Cold Knap instead to feed the swans on the lake there, and then going for a walk across the sands at Watchtower Bay.

Wrapping his lordship up well in his bargain outdoor weather suit from Matalan (I'm not entirely convinced his ear infection has gone unfortunately) and bargain sheepskin lined wellies from Trago Mills, we headed off to the lake to feed the swans. At the outside edge of the lake I noticed there was a load of inch long tiny fish scattered all over the pathway. Either it had been raining fish (!) or the wind which was creating waves across the lake, had blown enough water over the side and caused them to be washed 'ashore'. Looked very odd and I felt a bit sorry for them!

Following this 'brisk' stroll we got blown along the path went to explore the bay surrounding the old harbour in Barry Island; Watchtower Bay. We've played on the sand in the harbour before but never walked across the bay from the other side before. The tide was really low this afternoon, and perfect for sploshing, paddling, finding paw prints and tracking the animals (dogs) and chasing the billowing sand.

The wind this afternoon certainly blew away the cobwebs in our minds, and every other corner of our bodies! The Boy was getting a little tired and cold, as were we, but not really ready to go home yet. Resigning ourselves to the inevitable crush on a slightly damp Sunday we headed to softplay where I buried my head in my intermittent 3G, while they carefully picked their way through the non-warfare sections of the centre.

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coombe mill

Sponsored Post: British Gas Smart Meters

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I pride myself on being a bit of an eco-warrior; we reuse and recycle where possible, use resuable shopping bags 100% of the time (although living in Wales we have little choice), compost all fruit and vegetable matter and utilise the food waste initiative in place through our council, and I am instilling this in The Boy, ensuring he has a good ethos when it comes to waste management. He is sometimes better than us, insisting on something going into the recycling bin that we've said could go into the 'normal' bin.

Following a rather startling and shocking gas bill about five years ago (£600!) because of an inaccurate meter reading, and my fondness of the gas fire, we have cut right back on the amount of fuel we use. As the average household wastes £150 a year by leaving the boiler on in an empty house, the central heating is on an efficient timer which is pretty much always on during the days I'm not at work, but on a low temperature maintaining an even heat. We have thermostatic controls on every radiator, and in the rooms which aren't used often, the radiators are turned right down. I also haven't used the gas fire in three years! Not only because of the bill, but because I was too worried about The Boy!

The one area where we need a little work on our energy usage is with electricity. Granted, every light bulb in the house that could have an energy-saving light bulb in it does have one, but the dining room and kitchen lights are pretty and aren't compatible. The oven is switched off at the plug (albeit to prevent little hands from fiddling with the knobs) and we do try and turn the television off at the wall rather than leave it one standby. We rarely use the tumble dryer, but at this time of year it does tend to get more of a look-in than I'd like. However, I'm well aware that we're probably still using too much electricity and when your household income is three-quarters of what it used to be, but your outgoing 150% of what it was pre-children, trying to find anything that can help financially is a necessity.

One of the newfangled gizmos which has been created to help monitor energy usage is the British Gas smart meters. As the 2019 target set by the Government to have a smart meter in every British home is looming in the not so dim and distant future, British Gas commissioned the Oxford Economics Report which has highlighted that smart meters are a way to help us voluntarily take charge of our energy use and stay in control.

The very ingenious gadgets (one for gas and one for electric) allows for users to set the budget and input some personal information concerning the family's requirements. Real-time use culminating in a daily total is calculated as the energy is being used around the home, which can only help to guide and inform on which devices need more careful monitoring and restricting. These smart meters provide the homeowner and billpayer with control over the fuel used and the bills, an opportunity to monitor where the pennies are being spent, and peace of mind as the readings are transmitted back to British Gas daily, putting an end to inaccurate meter readings (and £600 gas bills!).

For more information on British Gas' energy saving initiatives, be sure to follow them via Facebook and twitter.

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The Ultimate Chocolate Brownie

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These brownies are quite simply the best ever known to all of mankind in all of history.

A short while ago I was eavesdropping on a twittervation between a few friends and saw mention of something called 'slutty brownies'. Not a fan of the 's' term, I was slightly intrigued to see a chocolate cake described in such a way and followed the link posted to see this recipe on The Londoner's blog. Simple enough for anyone to make, it results in a brownie which is worthy of such a better title and is guaranteed to make grown men and women weep.

Ingredients are simple:

  • packet of chocolate chip cookie mix
  • Oreo cookies
  • packet of chocolate brownie mix
  • water

And my own additions to the original recipe:

  • Galaxy chocolate
  • white chocolate drops

slutty brownies

  1. Make up the cookie mix first following the directions and spread it on the bottom of the greased or silicon baking tray.
  2. Layer the Oreo cookies.
  3. Make up the brownie mix and place on top.
  4. Bake for 30 minutes on 200°C.
  5. Serve warm.

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