Month: June 2015

20 minute Spaghetti Bolognese

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You know when you come in from picking up the children from school, they are grumpy, the laundry needs sorting, the house is a mess, your husband is coming in late from work and you want to cook something quick for dinner that there’s a good chance your children will eat?  When this is the situation for me, I turn to Italian recipes and Spaghetti Bolognese is definitely my go-to 20 minute recipe.  Carbonara would be just as quick but I’m trying to be dairy free, I can make a tasty dairy free lasagne but it’s not fast enough… Jamie Oliver is a personal hero of mine and I have his 30 minute recipe book, I’ve yet to get the 15 minute one but I’ve seen a few episodes of that series.  I think the concept is fab and I’m grateful he’s put time and thought to come up with the recipes.  However I do think he forgets the washing up and the fact that you have to grab things you need, wait for things …

Dairy and Sugar Free Chocolate Brownie

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Recently I went on a three week “elimination diet”, not for weight loss, although I did lose a few kilos, which I’m not missing at all.  No this was in fact to help me know for sure what it is that I eat on a daily basis, that doesn’t agree with me.  After two years of casual experimentation I thought I should actually see what makes my digestive system become extremely anti-social.  I have been pretty sure that dairy is not my friend but what if there was something else like tomatoes, gluten (please Lord no) or something unexpected that I literally put in every meal, like garlic or olive oil. You remove A LOT of things; citrus fruits, gluten, dairy, tomatoes, bananas, beef, pork and lots more besides – for the full list I used, go to Cleanse Program. I ended up eating a lot of apples and kiwis, quinoa, salmon and rice cakes.  I missed bananas, beef and cooking only one meal for the family.  During the three weeks I found out almost all nuts are the enemy for …

Still Alice

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I was warned before I watched this film so I think it’s only right that I should warn you too. You will need tissues, you will cry, it is sad. This is about a woman who I presume is in her fifties as they don’t give her exact age, only that she is young for her disease.  She is an academic, she has proven herself professionally and done it raising three successful children whilst married to an equally ambitious husband.  We enter her life when she has it all, a great career, strong marriage, loving family and her hair is ‘Julianne Moore fabulous’. But we cringe as she forgets what she wants to say at a presentation, worry as she forgets where she is on her daily jog and feel the anxiety with her when she begins tests with a neurologist who doesn’t say, I’m sure it’s nothing. I don’t think I am giving a spoiler here as it’s essentially the whole premise of the film – Alice has early on-set  Alzheimer’s.  She has a …

Be England What She Will, With All Her Faults I Love Her Still

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This will be our fourth Winter in New Zealand now.  In many ways it’s hard to believe we have been here that long but at the same time, England feels like a distant memory. I am homesick. I think it’s a number of things that have triggered it off.  Facebook posts of friends over there at the moment.  The delayed Christmassy feeling I get in June.  Jackson having another birthday with no grandparents or cousins being there. I think most of all it’s just, about time. We’re very happy here.  Christchurch is a great place to bring up a family, we have a lovely home, good jobs, we’re in a vibrant church, we’ve made some awesome friends.  My homesickness isn’t about being unhappy here.  Anyone who lives away from where they grew up will know this feeling, it’s not that you want to go back as such, you just miss all the good things you had there that you don’t have here, like for me… I miss being able to get a meal deal at …

In Four Years

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In less than a week, our little man is going to graduate from toddler to full-blown child. In celebration of this “coming of age” I thought I would share a few things I have learnt in the last four years.  ‘Lessons by Jackson’, if you will. One of my earliest revelations after Jackson arrived was that even though your little people share the same genes, womb and passage out into the world, they are really very different.  I know this is obvious but when you are barely sleeping at night, you spend your days changing nappies and feeding people that can’t work a toaster or peel a banana, you could miss a bus falling on your house, so it took a while for me to realise what worked for Minnie was going nowhere with Jackson. Minnie screamed for the first three months of her life, Jackson seemed to be stunned into silence for the first six months of his life. Food was interesting and attractive to Minnie, Jackson refused anything other than milk until he was …