Macaroni Cheese & Mini Meatballs - Hungry To Happy

Meatballs are great, aren't they? I made home-made Swedish Style meatballs to eat during the Eurovision Song Contest a couple of weeks ago, with a random selection of dips I found in our fridge.  Squeaky even helped to make them, but then refused to eat them, saying she only likes "nice round meatballs, not yucky ones".  Fortunately, Richmond's Mini Meatballs are definitely nice, round meatballs, and not at all yucky, so she was quite content to join Daddy & I eating Macaroni Cheese & Mini Meatballs in the sunshine on Friday.

Daddy's bowl, I couldn't take a photo of Squeaky's fast enough!

Want to join us?  Then here's the recipe.

Ingredients
100g macaroni
50g grated cheese
25g plain flour
25g margarine (or butter)
250 ml semi skimmed milk
Large handful of frozen peas
4-8 Richmond Mini Meatballs per person
Handful of baby plum tomatoes
Seasoning to taste.

Method

Place the mini meatballs in the oven, cook following the directions on the package.

Boil the macaroni in a pan of water until al dente, add the frozen peas during the last minute or so of cooking to cook through.  Remove from the heat, drain & set aside.

Make a cheese sauce by placing the flour, milk & margarine into a saucepan, place on a medium heat & stir constantly with a wooden spoon. Bring to the boil & cook until thick & smooth. Remove from the heat & add grated cheese, stirring all the time.

Add the cooked macaroni to the cheese sauce and mix well.

Place macaroni cheese into serving dishes or plates.

Arrange the cooked meatballs on top of the macaroni.

Cut tomatoes in half lengthways & arrange on top of the macaroni.

Cooking time, about 15 minutes.

This is the point where I admit that this is the macaroni cheese recipe I learned in school.  And that there's always the option to skip the hard work & use a packet macaroni cheese mix, though it doesn't actually save any time at all, just a little bit of mixing the sauce.  It's up to you really.

This post is an entry for BritMums’ Hungry to Happy Challenge sponsored by Richmond Mini Meatballs.

Disclosure: I was provided with vouchers to purchase the meatballs used in this recipe free of charge in order to take part in this promotion.  I was not told what to write & all opinions are my own.  Links are provided for convenience, I am not a member of any affiliate scheme & will not receive reward for their use.

Silent Sunday #silentsunday 2/6/13

A trip to the beach

Yawn.  That's what you're thinking now, isn't it?  Another blogger, bragging about her latest jaunt to the seaside, while you're stuck inside because it's not so sunny where you are.  Well, stop rolling your eyes, put down your cuppa and read on.

I put the washing out to dry yesterday morning.  Always a mistake, it started raining about an hour later.  Typical.  It stayed drizzling on & off for most of the day, which put paid to any exciting plans we may have had for going to the park, or anything more strenuous than a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse marathon.  Squeaky, however, had other ideas.  She wanted to go to the beach, and have a beach party.  She's been hassling me for days on this front, and as it was my day off today, there was no excuse that I had to go to work, or she had to go to nursery.  A beach party was the order of the day.

No chance in this weather though, I don't really enjoy being that kind of old person who sits in their car on the seafront sipping a lukewarm cuppa out of a flask, reading the paper.  So I had to come up with an alternative.  And if we can't go to the beach, the next best thing is to bring the beach to us.  I'm not daft though, there was no chance of sand & water play on my carpets.  No way.

Instead, I raided the airing cupboard, and found every blue, brown & yellow towel I could get my hands on. Squeaky then made the blue towels into the sea, and the brown & yellow into the sand.  We got our buckets & spades, a beach ball, and had our very own indoor beach party.  (Please ignore the pile of clean washing artfully displayed in the background!)

We spent the afternoon building sandcastles, swimming in the sea, catching and eating fish, and throwing the beach ball around.  We even managed to turn the tv off for a good couple of hours!

I don't think this is a rainy day game we're going to manage on a regular basis, part of the excitement today was because we're off on a proper holiday soon, so Squeaky's building up to that.  Even so, it was a lovely way to spend the afternoon, and it's great to watch her imagination develop, suspending the reality in place of something much more fun.

What do you get up to on rainy days?

Tea India - A New Review!

You may remember that late on last year, I reviewed Tea India's Black Tea & Masala Chai. This post still gets loads of hits, so I must have been doing something right that day!  Well, when they got back in touch recently to ask me if I'd like to do a second review, I was hardly likely to say no, was I?

This time, it wasn't me opening the door to the postie, it was Daddy, who is slightly less terrifying first thing in the morning  I was greeted with a box containing Black Tea and Vanilla Chai.  (And some tissue paper which has been stashed in the craft box for a rainy day. We have lots of those.)

While I'm not a big tea drinker, I always keep some on hand in the house for visitors, and so I enlisted the help of a couple of willing volunteers (aka my parents) to test out the black tea.  They were very impressed with the box, it's such a pretty design, and really gets across both the "tea" and the "India" sides of things, even if you took away the words, the paisley print teapot is so pretty!  On tasting, my dad said "It's tea, it tastes of tea."  Well, yeah.  Mum was a bit more detailed, "It's GOOD tea, one to save, not just for breakfast every morning."  I'll take that as a complement, I noticed the box sneaking out of the house in her handbag, so they're back to whatever's in my cupboard next time!

I kept the Vanilla Chai for myself.  I'm not good at sharing!  I love love LOVE vanilla chai.  I'm not even sure where I picked the habit up from.  It's not something I can find many places, but when I do, it makes me a very happy person, so receiving my own personal stash of it was a really big treat.  I make it with milk, but you can drink it black if that's your thing.  If you're really technical, you can even make it into a chai latte by heating the milk and using more milk & less water.  That's a bit too much work for me though.

I'm still of the belief that Chai isn't *really* tea.  It's nicer.  And the vanilla is so soft and smooth and soothing, after Squeaky's gone to bed, I can curl up with a mug and a couple of biscuits and have a few minutes of "me time" before I get back on with the busy life of a mum, blogger, laundress, nail polish addict and whatever other titles I may currently have.

Have I tempted you enough to want to try Tea India out for yourself?  I have? Excellent!  Right now, on their facebook page, Tea India have a You and I and a cup of Chai campaign going on.  Click on the link, and invite your best tea-drinking buddy around  for a very special cuppa.  You're then in with the chance to win a selection of teas, including Black Tea, Cardamom, Vanilla, and Masala Chais to share with your friend, and earn you a favour or two!  Read the terms & conditions before entering.  I'm not in any way connected with the promotion, just giving you a heads up!

Tea India is available in various supermarkets nationwide.

Disclosure: I was provided with the packs of tea shown above free of charge for the purposes of this review. I was not told what to write and all opinions are my own.  Links are provided for your convenience, I am not a member of any affiliate scheme and will not receive reward for their use.

Singalonga Drive-time

My car's a strange little creature. I curse it a lot of the time, it's not been the most reliable vehicle ever made, but it usually gets me from A to B, and more importantly, it's got stereo controls on the steering wheel.  I can't drive without some kind of music on in the background, though sadly I get less & less say on it these days as Squeaky tends to demand the latest Justin Fletcher cd at all times.  There's only so long I can listen to him singing assorted nursery rhymes before I want to cry.  Hopefully by the time desperation has been reached, she's fallen asleep, so it's time for my choices.

The cds in my car are an odd mix.  Don't judge me by my taste in music, please!  There's usually some 60's girl groups knocking around, Erasure's Greatest Hits, a couple of soundtracks and a really odd Spanish beach party cd that came back from Majorca. I don't understand most of it, but it sounds good with the windows down & the sun shining.  However, there's one cd that's more important to me than all the others put together.  It's a compilation that I've owned in various formats since it was first released, and I'm sure I've bought it about 4 times now, just to make sure I've got a working copy.  It's the kind of cd that if someone hadn't made, I'd've had to make myself, so many of my favourite songs in the same place.

So I fished it out of the glovebox, and tried my hardest to pick the one song that I love to drive to the most.  The song that's currently on loop in my head is one from the cd, and one of my favourites, but probably not THE best driving song.  There's one that's just made for listening to in the car.



The stereo effects on this song just work so much better in the car, you can really feel it move from side to side, even if your ears are as rubbish as mine!  And the fact it kind of encourages me to get there a little bit quicker? Well, I'm staying under the speed limit, just about!

This post was written as part of the Carcraft Sing-alongs campaign, to find the nation's favourite driving songs.

Rechargeable Batteries - Review

I'm hoping over the last month or so, you might have noticed a slight improvement in some of the photos on my blog. I decided to treat myself to a new camera, as my old one was heading rapidly towards both obsolescence and the point of no-repair.  I love my new camera and all its flashy settings, but for one thing. My old camera had a single solid rechargeable battery, similar to the ones in mobile phones.  The new one takes AA batteries, and seemingly eats them at much the same speed I eat chocolate digestives.  So when Rechargeable Batteries got in touch, offering me the chance to review some of their rechargeable batteries, it was like Christmas had come early.

I received a charger with 4 batteries included, a second set of 4 batteries, both sets designed for high-use items like cameras, and sneakily a little bit of chocolate.  They definitely know the way to make me smile.  Guess which I opened first!

Once I finished tucking in to the Dairy Milk, I opened up the packages.  Cleverly both sets of batteries come already charged, so you can just pop them in to your camera & away you go.  I was quite impressed to notice the difference in battery life between the rechargeable batteries and the standard alkaline batteries I'd been using before.  They seem to last about twice as long, though it can be hard to tell when I'm taking random snaps around town.  And unlike the rechargeable batteries I remember from my childhood, the power doesn't diminish in time, with over 85% power still available after a year's use.

The charger comes with both a standard UK plug, and a car charger, so there's no risk of running out of batteries on a big adventure.  A simple idea, but so effective.  How many more items should come with a car charger as standard?  Rechargeable batteries may look expensive in the initial outlay, but think about how many packs of batteries you'd get through otherwise.  In our house the simple answer is LOADS.  Even at discount store prices, you'd make your money back within half a dozen battery changes, beyond that, you're in profit.  Plus, rechargeable batteries aren't contributing to landfill or environmental damage.  I know that shops that sell batteries now have to provide recycling facilities, but how often do people really remember to take the batteries from the tv remote back to the supermarket?

I like the way the Rechargeable Batteries website is laid out - you can easily search for the items you're looking for, by type, by brand, or what you want to use them for.  The prices are clear, and there's no hidden extras.  Unless you count the chocolate!

Disclosure: I was provided with the batteries and charger detailed above free of charge for the purposes of this review. I was not told what to write and all opinions are my own.  Links are provided for your convenience, I am not a member of any affiliate scheme and will not receive reward for their use.
 

Aqua Ears Review

I love summer, and more than that I love swimming.  Unfortunately my doctor isn't quite so keen on me swimming, because I've had an ear infection for the majority of the last 2 years, or at least it seems that way. It comes, I have about three different lots of ear drops over the course of a month, it goes away for a few weeks, and then it comes back & we start the cycle again.  At the moment, it seems to be clear, and my doctor has given me strict instructions to get some ear plugs for swimming.  Squeaky also loves swimming, but HATES getting water in her ears.  So when I learned that Cirrus Healthcare were launching AquaEars children's ear plugs in larger branches of Boots this June, I was keen to give them a try.

I'd actually already bought some of the adult ones, BioEars, in our local Boots a week or so earlier, so the timing couldn't have been better.  They're a brand I recognise, and trust with Squeaky's health.  AquaEars, and the adult BioEars, are soft silicone ear plugs, designed to mould gently to the shape of the ear canal to stop water getting in, and also provide 22 decibels of noise reduction (very welcome around a noisy swimming pool!), which means they're also great for protecting delicate ears at festivals.  They've got ActivAloe and are antimicrobial, protecting from germs and stopping water getting in to the ear canal.  The AquaEars range feature a selection of favourite cartoon characters - Mickey Mouse, Hello Kitty, Spongebob Squarepants, Nemo, Cars & Princess Ariel.  We were sent a set of the Princess Ariel AquaEars, and a set of standard BioEars to try out & review.

The AquaEars have transfers of Princess Ariel on them, and Squeaky was very excited to have a mermaid princess to go in her ears.  I had to remind her from time to time to leave them alone when we were in the pool, but she wasn't bothered about them, and needed reminding far less than she would otherwise have been complaining about water getting in, so I think that's a success.  When we went swimming this Friday for the second time since receiving the AquaEars to try out, she actually asked for them, which really pleased me, and shows she's happy with them.  The earplugs are reusable and can be put back in their carrying box between wears, though they don't got back to their original shape, they keep the shape of your ear.  This makes them a little bit harder to fir the second time, but it would be a bit pricey if they were single use.  Sadly the transfer breaks up a bit on use, so they don't quite look like Princess Ariel after the first wear, but even so.

Nails: Deborah Lippmann - Ruby Red Slippers

I tried out the adult version, which are just a translucent pale blue, no pretty transfers for me.  Wearing hearing aids on a daily basis, I'm very used to having something in my ears all the time, so they felt no different to me.  I'm not sure how they'd feel if you're not used to the sensation, but as Squeaky was able to ignore them, they must be fairly comfortable.

I was a little bit hesitant to begin with in putting my ears properly in the water, I really don't need another ear infection right now, but in the interests of a full review, I did it for you.  And I was pleased to find that they do do what they claim, and were properly waterproof. No water in my ears at all.  Happy girl, happy ears, happy doctor!

AquaEars and BioEars are available from Boots, as well as other retailers.

Disclosure - I was provided with a pack of BioEars and a pack of AquaEars free of charge for the purpose of this review. I was not told what to write and all opinions are my own.  Links are provided for your convenience, I am not a member of any affiliate scheme & will not receive payment for their use.