Flippen Lekka Portugese Style Chicken

Quick easy and super tasty with Flippen Lekka BBQ Spice!  A bit of a bite, but you can just add a bit less of the peri peri.

Ingredients:

5 Portions of Chicken
1t Paprika
3 t Flippen Lekka BBQ Spice
1/2 t Peri Peri
1/2 Sweet Red Pepper diced
1 t Garlic
1 Tomato peeled and diced
a dash of Olive Oil

Method:

Mix all the ingredients, except chicken portions.  Keep on side and prepare the chicken.  Place chicken in an oven proof dish, and sprinkle with some Flippen Lekka BBQ Spice, add some water to the bottom of the dish - I usually cover half of the chicken portions in water.  Sprinkle the prepared mix on the chicken.

Bake in preheated oven of 180 degrees celcius till done.

Enjoy!

Thank you to Flippen Lekka BBQ Spice for providing me with free spices used in this recipe.

Sewing Projects {PJ's and Jacket}

 I made this cute jacket for Mouse as one of my sewing projects for May.  She was super excited about it!  After finishing the entire jacket with just the button holes to finish up I realized my sewing machine's button hole function wasn't working.  Mouse had to wait a few days until I had the chance to visit my Mom's to use her machine to finish up the button holes.  After finishing it Mouse insisted on putting on the jacket immediately!  She has been wearing it since every day!

I also made these PJ's for myself and I am in the process of making some PJ's for hubby as well.  Then I will need to take my machine in for a service and to fix the button hole function.

I have some more projects planned and I'm looking forward to it!

Picnic Time!

 On one of the last beautiful days here in Cape Town we had a picnic in our garden!  It was so much fun having our lunch outside in the sunshine.  The dogs of course decided to join in :)

Book Review - Vegan Family Meals

What a wonderful opportunity this was to review this wonderful vegan book by Ann Gentry!  A while ago we decided to rather eat more vegetarian and vegan dishes, to not only improve our health, but also the aspect of animal rearing that is so controversial at this stage. 

I loved this book, the book is not only beautiful and easy to use but the mouth watering recipes will make sure that you don't even miss any meat!  I love the fact that the recipes are easy to follow and that it doesn't contain any ingredients that are difficult to get hold off.

This book is not only for vegans, but for anyone that wishes to start a healthier lifestyle. 
Large-scale studies have shown that mortality from ischemic heart disease was 30% lower among vegetarian and vegan men and 20% lower among vegetarian and vegan women. Additionally, those following a meatless diet tend to have lower body mass index, lower levels of cholesterol, lower blood pressure, and fewer incidences of heart disease, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, renal disease, osteoporosis, and dementias such as Alzheimer's disease and other disorders. 

Great book with wonderful yummy recipes for everyone!


Vegan Family Meals: Real Food for Everyone - Amazon link
Kalahari link


Thank you to Andrews McMeel  Publishing for providing a free digital edition via NetGalley of this wonderful book for me to review.

Flippen Lekka Kiddie Friendly Dish

I have a very fussy little eater.  She eats only the minimum amount of food, therefor I need to get creative to get the most nutrition into a few bites of food.

Ingredients:

3 x Carrots (cleaned, peeled and diced)
1 x Potato (peeled and sliced)
300g Mince
1 Egg
1 &1/2 t Flippen Lekka BBQ Spice
15ml Chutney
15ml Tomato Sauce
1 slice of bread soaked in a bit of water, water squeezed out
Cheese grated

Method:

Start by cooking the carrots and potato.  As soon as they are tender and done, puree them into a smooth puree.
Mix the mince, egg, Flippen Lekka BBQ Spice, chutney, tomato Sauce, bread and veggie puree.
Place in an oven proof dish, sprinkle with some cheese and bake in a pre heated oven of 180 degrees Celcius for about 30 min.

After it is done you can serve with rice or pasta.  The veggies is already inside, so fussy eaters will be none the wiser!  I normally boil some rice and then make up small bowls of the rice and mince mix that I freeze. Great to just pop out and defrost when you don't have time to cook.  The end product is not very firm, it is soft, this is to enable little ones to eat it a bit easier.

Enjoy!

Website {babynursryrooms.com}

Looking for a fun and informative site while planning your baby's room or nursery?  Visit http://www.babynurseryrooms.com - here you will find everything you need!  I just love the Ladybug room! 

Images via babynurseryrooms.com

Flippen Lekka Herb Braai Chicken

We love cooking a whole chicken on the braai.  This is super easy to make at home in stead of buying the pre made versions from your local shop.

Ingredients:
1 Free Range Chicken ( I prefer Elgin) - cut chicken to flatten it by cutting through the breastbone
5 t Flippen Lekka BBQ Spice Hot
2 t Crushed Garlic
50 ml Olive Oil ( I love the truffle infused olive oil available from Woolworths)
3 sprigs of Rosemary, chopped
Juice of 1 lemon

Method:

Prepare chicken by cutting and flattening it.  Now prepare your marinade.  Mix your Flippen Lekka BBQ Spice, Garlic, Olive Oil, Rosemary and Lemon Juice.  Rub generously into chicken.  I usually sprinkle some extra Flippen Lekka BBQ Spice over the chicken before placing in on the braai.  Leave to marinate for at least an hour.

Braai and baste with excess marinade throughout.

Enjoy!

Thank you to Flippen Lekka BBQ Spice for sponsoring the spice used in this recipe.  Spices available in Hot or Not and various sizes.

Arts and Crafts {Cotton Ball Craft Series}

I like doing arts and crafts in a series, that way you can pack in much more than just one of two crafts and explore the mediums much better as well.  I found some cute little cotton ball crafts that we will be making over the course of a few weeks.  :)  Cannot wait to start crafting away!

I always find that Mouse is so super excited when we start with a new medium that the first craft never goes according to plan.  She always wants to explore everything on her own before listening to what I actually had in mind.  This time I decided to do things a bit differently in that I gave her all the different mediums that we were going to use for the actual craft to first explore and basically do what she had in mind with it - totally open ended.  She loved this!

I gave her some cotton balls, glue stick, pencil, black sharpie and normal paper.

She really had fun and enjoyed playing with all the different art supplies.  This is her finished open ended cotton ball craft!

When she was done with the open ended version I started introducing the concept of actually doing a set craft with the cotton balls.  I drew around my hand and coloured in the finger tips and thumb to form feet and a face for a little sheep.  I then showed her to glue the balls onto the body of the sheep.

 Very easy and simple craft, but a great start to our cotton ball craft series.

 She insisted on re doing the sheep's face.

Here is the finished sheep cotton ball craft.  Nothing fancy, but now she is excited about creating more fun goodies with cotton balls!

I found the cutest 3 D sheep craft with cotton balls that I will be sharing next week!

My first knitting projects!

My friend Celiah Ann from FUNdamentals, inspired me to start knitting. She makes the most beautiful knitted goodies and you can take a peak at her work on her craft blog Ann's Work basket.  For my very first knitting project I made this scarf for Mouse.  She is so excited about her scarf and I enjoy watching her wear it, it is made with love!

For my second knitting project I made these sleep socks for my hubby, it is getting cooler and the weather is perfect for these little socks!  They were really easy to make.  I downloaded the pattern here.

I'm busy with a pair for myself now and I am really enjoying my new hobby!  Thank you C for the inspiration!

Book Review {2 Children's Books}

What to Expect When You're Expecting Joeys by Bridget Heos

Congratulations, marsupial parents-to-be! You're about to meet your tiny bundles of joy. They're called joeys. Some are as small as a grain of rice when they're born! Read this book to find out how many babies to expect, how to help them find your pouch, and what those little joeys will do in there all day long. Whether you're a possum or an opossum, a kangaroo or a wallaby, a koala or even a shrieking Tasmanian devil, you'll find answers to all your parenting questions here. 

This super cute little book is packed with facts on marsupials!  I thoroughly enjoyed this little book and will included this in our homeschooling when we do marsupials.  What I also liked about this book is that it is easy to read and understand for older children that self read already.  Mouse loved the illustrations, which are beautifully done.  A great addition to any home library!


Amazon link: What to Expect When You're Expecting Joeys: A Guide for Marsupial Parents (And Curious Kids) (Expecting Animal Babies) 


Thank you to Lerner Publishing Group for providing me with a free digital copy via NetGalley for review.  

Small Medium Large by Emily Jenkins

 The colorful, lively characters in Small Medium Large will captivate young readers as they discover the wonderful world of relative sizes--an important stepping stone to learning early math skills. Small, Medium, Large and all their friends: Extra Large, Huge, Enormous and Teeny-weeny, Itsy bitsy, Miniscule and others join Colossal in this super-sized learning adventure featuring a dynamic double gatefold that can hardly contain all the fun!!


This is one super cute little book!  I loved the fact that it Emily Jenkins included words like colossal and miniscule as well.  This is a great teaching aid to teach all little ones about sizing.  Not just your normal small, medium and large but other terms that refers to the same concepts as well.  This will also be a great tool for us to include English in our homeschooling.  Mouse also loves the beautiful illustrations and the text is easy for beginner readers to understand.


Thank you to Star Bright Books for providing me with a free digital copy via NetGalley for review.

Homeschooling May 2011 {Week 2}

We had some more fun with our letters of the alphabet that we are currently busy with! At this stage we are learning the following letters: t, l, a, m, k, b

We are concentrating on the following:

1. Identifying the different letters {only lower case at this stage}
2. Identifying one word that starts with each letter {according to our Kinderwerf Reading Course}
3. Identifying objects in the house that starts with the letters.

To make it a bit more fun and also sneak in some gross motor skills as well as shapes and colours I took out our trusty beanbags.  I'm so glad I took the time to make these, they have so many possibilities!  I made cards for each letter that we are busy with and placed them on the ground.

I then asked Mouse to throw the red square on the letter k for example.  I had to still indicate which one was the correct letter, but she loved this!  Whenever the beanbag didn't fall properly according to her she would go and adjust it!

We need to start concentrating more on maths and the foundations for maths.  I made this super easy little game for her.  She really enjoys playing with it and it also has so much possibilities!  I love games that can double up as something else as well. 

I used a little piece of card stock and drew the snail and leaves on it.  I then took a milk bottle top and drew 10 circles using the milk bottle top as a stencil, I then numbered the circles 1 - 10.  Using 10 milk bottle tops I also numbered them 1- 10.  She can now match the snail's route to the leaves using the milk bottle tops!  If she is playing on her own she can simply match the numbers or I can ask her to count from 1 - 10 while matching.  Later on we can remove only certain tops and she must identify the missing numbers, etc.

We had a beautiful sunny day yesterday and we took the opportunity to play outside before the Cape Town rain starts.  I received this set of planks and blocks from my aunt, the idea is to build a course for your little one to complete to help with balance and other gross motor skills.  After spending some time designing a course Mouse only walked it once and decided that she would much rather spend some time building something totally different with the planks and blocks!

She build this "chair" and "table" and we both sat down and had some cool water, while we chatted.  She loved this and didn't want to go inside!  I love seeing her creative side, it is always amazing to see what she is thinking. She is such an amazing blessing in my life!

Hope you have a blessed week!

Flippen Lekka Basil and Tomato Pasta

I love super quick and easy recipes over weekends.  This one is one of those!  The plus side is that it is also super tasty!  Mouse also enjoys this pasta recipe.

Ingredients:

1 t Minced Garlic

300g Mince or Chicken Fillets cubed

1t Flippen Lekka BBQ Spice ( Hot)

1 t Tomato Paste

1tbs Basil Chopped

2 Tomatoes (Peeled and chopped)

grated Cheese

Pasta of your choice

Method:

Bring some water to the boil and add your pasta to cook, drain when cooked. 

In the meantime gently heat some oil and fry the garlic, you just want to cook it don't let it brown, otherwise it will have a horrible bitter taste.  Add the mince or chicken and brown.  Add your Flippen Lekka BBQ Spice (I used the hot version, which isn't hot at all, just some gorgeous flavour!  Mouse ate it!), Tomato Paste, Tomatoes.  Cook to fuse flavours and to soften tomatoes.

Just before serving stir in chopped fresh basil.

Dish by placing pasta on the bottom, then your mince / chicken mix and top with your favourite cheese.

Enjoy!

Thank you to Flippen Lekka BBQ Spice for sponsoring the spice used for this recipe.  Spices available in hot or not plus various sizes!

Homeschooling May 2011 {Week 1}

We had loads of public holidays now here in SA and we are finally getting back into the swing of things with full 5 work day weeks.

I just love the Kinderwerf range of products, I love the fact that everything is in Afrikaans (our home language) and that every product is so well thought out and planned. We have recently started using the Kinderwerf Reading Course Level 1. It might sound crazy, but I'm not teaching her to read, yet. The course consist out of alphabet cards, word cards, posters with lower case alphabet, upper case alphabet, mixed alphabet and then also the cutest posters to teach kiddos the difference between b, d and a, which looks very similar to little eyes! We have been going over just some key cards at this stage. There is a wonderful parent manual included with lesson plans in, but because Mouse is still so young we are taking it slow and just having fun with the alphabet at this stage. If you want more info on these stunning products please feel free to email me. There is also great English learning aids available and the recently launched Clever Kids Club is the English leg of Kinderwerf. There's some great free resources available on Clever Kids Club, be sure to visit!

Here we are busy having fun with our reading course material.

She loved learning what the letter t looks like, because that is what her favourite bear, Ta Tam {the grey lump beside her!}, names start with.

She loves puzzles, we build at least 2 a day, here she is finishing up her Barney puzzle.  My MIL gave her this and she loves it.  She also finishes it all by herself. 

A very proud little puzzle builder after she finished her puzzle.

Here she is with her finished work.

We also love the Rainbow Animal Cards from Suczezz, the amount of games that you can play with this little game is astonishing!  Great for language development and other skills.  If you would like to find out where you can purchase any of the Suczezz goodies please feel free to email me.

I'm busy planning, planning, planning for the upcoming months homeschooling.  I will hopefully be able to upload both our homeschool plans as well as our arts and crafts schedule by next week.

Mouse is going green!

We always have time for a bit of silliness in our house! I was a make up artist before Mouse was born, I still do the odd bridal make up, but for the most part my kit is just standing there. This weekend we rediscovered some fun hair pieces and an old make up bib. She had so much fun playing with it!

All geared up with her green hair piece, make up bib and some extra hair pieces in pink and blue!

She loved this and didn't want me to take it out!  I'm sure we will still have loads of fun with our "new"  dress up goodies!

Flippen Lekka Lamb Shank

Melt in your mouth tender lamb shank with Flippen Lekka BBQ Spice!  So easy to make, very little prep and you have a great meal!

Ingredients:
2 x Free Range Lamb Shanks
1 x Onion, diced
3 x Tomatoes, peeled
2 x Carrots, diced
Flippen Lekka BBQ Spice
Beef stock

Method:

Brown onions, add carrots and tomatoes.  Cook for a minute, season Shanks well with Flippen Lekka BBQ Spice, add to vegetables and brown on all sides.  Add enough beef stock to cover the shanks halfway, place in oven proof dish, cover and cook in pre heated oven at 180 degrees celcius for 2 hours.  Switch oven off and leave for another 45min before removing from oven and serving.

Enjoy!

Thank you to Flippen Lekka BBQ Spice that sponsored the spice for this recipe.