Author: Mum Scottish

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Bloggers Saving Lives – Help Us Sponsor Children for #shareniger

Who says bloggers don’t get anything done?  Well not us, that’s for sure, we do have blogger power.

Parent bloggers have raised enough for 6 children so far, and are on the way to 7 children in Niger for the next year.  Help us do more and expand the network willing to help.  Lots of us can’t justify the whole price at over £20 a month each, so the sponsorships are being gathered in a way that almost everyone can afford to join in with.

A subscription for anything from £1 gives us some to add to the pot, or even just a one of donation of whatever you can afford gives enough to sponsor a child for a year when it is added into the pot.  Some bloggers are doing a child share and for £6 a month, they are committing to 1/4 a child each.  Two children have just donated for 1/4 of a child.  How fabulous is that.

#ShareNiger came about when blogger Sian To went to West Africa and the Niger region with World Vision.  The trip was shared among our community by blogging and tweeting, and the media picked up on the stories.

How could anyone fail to be moved by the plight of this lady trying to keep her whole family alive on the pack of baby food she is given to feed just one child.

I know you need to know more.  I have pledged and paid for my 1/4, if you can pledge anything, a family will live a little easier in the Niger region.  Supported by World Vision, and with promises from the Government to pledge £1 for every £1 we raise, Sian and Merry Raymond are gathering bloggers together to sponsor children in the deprived area Sian visited.

If you can’t afford to give money towards sponsoring a child, you could help to do your bit by retweeting or blogging and helping raise awareness among your own online community.  For anyone who read this far, thank you for reading, and lets see us get to 10 children with the support of social media.

If you can join in, click here to sponsor a child in Niger.

Sian To –  Share Niger Story

Chris Mosler – Vaccines One Year On 

Merry Raymond – how to join us and sponsor a child in Niger.

 

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Apetina Cheese – Summer Suncatcher Salad, with a Chance to Win a Fabulous Hamper

 

Apetina is a new cheese to me.  

I was delighted to be asked to make a new salad that would help our family nutrition by keeping the kids happy.  Looking for the cheese to buy, I was quite surprised to find they also have gorgeous little snack pots.  

The lovely looking Apetina Sun Dried Tomato Snack Pack and the Garlic and Olive Snack Pack also made it into my shopping trolley, along with a classic block.  It really is worth a try, and also suitable for vegetarians.

The cheese crumbles with ease when it is being eaten and seems to absorb flavours well.   Arla also make a light variety which I would have loved to try, but my local shop didn't have any left.

To keep my kids happy, a sharing dish is usually the best option, especially if I can put together all the ingredients that I know my kids love.  They always pick from the big help yourselves dishes on the table.

Apetina Cheese – Summer Suncatcher Salad Recipe

Ingredients

  • 1 x 200g tub of classic Apetina cheese
  • 1 chinese leaf lettuce
  • 150g grapes
  • 200g strawberries
  • 4 apricots
  • 10 cherry tomatoes
  • 15 cherries
  • croutons
  • olive oil
  • sour cream

Method

Salads are just so easy to make.  The first step is washing all salad ingredients and placing the lettuce in the bottom of the bowl, to make a bed for the rest of the salad to sit on.

  1. Drizzle a little olive oil onto the lettuce.
  2. Spread a little sour cream over the surface.
  3. Cut strawberries into quarters.
  4. Half the cherry tomatoes.
  5. De-stone the apricots and cut them into quarters.
  6. Sprinkle the fruit and tomatoes onto the bed of lettuce.
  7. Drain a tub of Apetina cheese and place on the salad.
  8. Top with cherries and croutons.
  9. Serve with sour cream as a side dish.

In our house, this was a success as I used the fruit that my kids love to mix with the cheese.  I like mixing fruit and veg where they work well together and salads are perfect for that.  We had a suncatcher that we made a few weeks ago on the window, so my boys named the salad the suncatcher as it had such lovely colours and looked spectacular on the table.

My Apetina recipe will be entered into the contest over on the Apetina Facebook page.  It will also be featured in the Recipe section of the website.

If you like the Facebook page, and vote for your favourite salad of the week, you'll be entered into a prize draw to win this fabulous picnic hamper.  Inside the basket, there will be a salad bowl with servers, and a dressing bottle.

The final week prize will be a BBQ, so head on over using the Apetina link to vote.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Slow Cooked Beef Stew with New Potatoes

Beef and New Potato Stew

Beef and New Potato Stew

Being the fan of slow cookers that I am, mine has seen something of  a slacking off period this last few weeks.   Now back and determined to get back to using it more often, we’ve just sat down to a lush slow cooker beef recipe that includes new potatoes.  As always I am cooking for a large family (usually 6 + at any one time to feed).   Reduce the side of the portion to suit your own family size.

Slow Cooked Beef Stew with New Potatoes 

  • 6 – 8 servings.
  • Preparation, 15 – 20 minutes + cooking time.
  • Nutritional, rich source of vegetables and meat.

Ingredients

  •  1.2 kg stewing steak, diced.
  • 500g mixed vegetables.  I used celery, leek, carrot and turnip.
  • 1 large or 2 small onions.
  • 1kg baby new potatoes.
  • 2 x beef stockpots.
  • salt, pepper and / or spice to taste.

Method

  • Brown the stewing steak and add to slow cooker.
  • Brown onions and mixed vegetables and add to slow cooker.
  • Add stockpots.
  • Wash new potatoes and mix with meat and vegetables in the slow cooker.
  • Cover with enough boiling water to skim the top of your ingredients.
  • Add 1 teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon pepper.
  • Put on lid and cook for 8 hours on low, or 4 hours on high for large wattage slow cookers.  Adjust heat and time depending on the size of your element.
  • Thicken, season to taste and simply serve.

Serving Suggestion

Serve with bread or rice cakes.

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Project 366 Day 5/365 – Summer Sun

Summer Sun – we go to a club every week that we help run.  For my special needs child it really is his lifeline out of school.  With other children that he can relate, he doesn’t have to worry about what is said or done.  If another special needs child says something out of turn, it really is because they just don’t like each other, and nothing to do with their disabilities.  It is lovely to see these kids acting like kids, and the mums get to have a coffee and a chat with other mums that “get it”.  Friendship is fabulous.

It’s nice to see kids making the most of the sun, even it if it is just to laze about on the grass.

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Project 366, 1/365 for me. My Old Lady Enjoying the Smells

My girl is 11.  She is blind with cancer and arthritis, but still she enjoys walking, cuddles and food.  She’s spending more and more time outside, so I suspect this year I will be taking lots of pictures of her as we really don’t have that many.  This is a new start for me joining the project, so adding more pictures of here will a common thing I suspect.  If I’ve done it wrong as I’m joining really late, someone please give me a shove to get it right.