Lazy lasagna recipe with midweek meatballs

My children motivate most of my meal planning; it needs to be fast, full of nutrition and tasty! Not much to go on, I know, but I find a way. This recipe blog catalogues some of my favourite solutions for the midweek freak out that can become the answer to “what’s for dinner?” As much as I love to cook, I’m an essentially lazy chef, so I need cheats like the “meatballs” my kids love. They don’t realise that traditional meatballs are huge, hand-shaped and time consuming, but they squeal with delight when they see my pasta with meatballs all the same.

I call this a lazy lasagna because using linguine instead of lasagne sheets saves so much time! I also use sausages for the meatballs; mild Italian pork is not spicy but flavourful. In the UK, I used to buy gluten-free sausages for their high meat content – I don’t need all of the bread fillers. I’ve been known to de-case the sausages for lovely ground pork, but in this recipe, I’ve left the sausages in their casing and slice them towards the end. I can usually have this meal on the table in about 45 minutes, but it can be even quicker if you’re super talented and have three pots on the stove going at once. It may create more dishes, but that’s not always a bad thing if it calms the starving hordes a bit sooner.

Don’t get me wrong, nothing can replace a true restaurant-style al forno lasagne, but this recipe has so much of the flavour without the fuss, it’s got to be tried. I don’t like the meal to be too rich or the kids won’t like it, so the addition of vegetables and ricotta help to keep it fresh and light. Most American-style lasagna is layered with ricotta and spinach, and egg even for the oven baking, and takes ages to layer and then bake. This method takes half the time but packs a powerful lasagna punch.

ways tocook.png

You’ll need:

  • 1lb (6 large) sausages (I use mild Italian or gluten-free)
  • 1 tablespoon veg oil of choice for searing the sausages
  • 1 teaspoon olive oil
  • 1 cup chopped onion (I use frozen)
  • 1 cup shredded carrot (I use pre-shredded/julienned)
  • 2 x 8oz/400ml tins of chopped tomato (or 1 chopped and 1 sauce if you need less chunks)
  • 1 tablespoon dried oregano
  • 1 teaspoon fresh minced or dried garlic
  • ½ teaspoon crushed fennel seeds
  • 1 teaspoon Italian spice mix of choice (mine has thyme, rosemary, basil and parsley)
  • 1 cup of chopped spinach (I use frozen)
  • 1 teaspoon chicken stock concentrate
  • 2 cups of water for the sauce
  • Linguine pasta (one handful dried pasta made enough for 4 people)
  • 2 cups ricotta cheese
  • ½ cup grated or shredded parmesan
  • Salt and black pepper to taste

The method:

I try to have as many things going at once as possible to cut down on the time, but you can use the same pot for your sauce after searing the sausage if you have time and want fewer dishes.

If I know I’m going to sear meat for colour and flavour, I usually take it out of the fridge to allow it to come closer to room temperature before frying. This is usually about an hour before I get started – I just leave the packet on the sink.

Warm a pan and the veg oil to a medium-high heat before adding the sausages. Try not to move them for about 3 minutes before turning. The longer you can leave them sitting, the better colour they’ll get. Don’t worry about cooking them all the way, they’ll finish in the sauce.

While the sausages are browning, bring another pot to a medium-high temperature with the olive oil and onions. Once the onions begin to sizzle, add the carrot and dry spices and mix in well.

Once the onions and carrots have been coated with the spices and fried for a minute or two, add the tins of tomatoes.

Be sure to turn your sausages to get colour on as much of the casing as possible. I use a cast iron pan for this job.

You can get a medium-sized sauce pan started with boiling water for your pasta. I almost never use a huge pot of water as it seems a waste and takes ages. I break my handful of pasta in half before adding it to the boiling water with a splash of oil. As long as you stir once in a while, there’s plenty of space for the pasta to cook.

Add the chicken concentrate and water to your tomato sauce, then add the water and spinach and bring it all to the boil. I usually cover the sauce and only slightly reduce the heat to keep a rolling boil going without the splattering. This will help the sauce break down quickly.

Once the sausages have lovely colour on most sides, go ahead and add them to the sauce and the re-cover the pan. The sausages will finish cooking in the sauce after another 10 minutes or so, and their juices will flavour the sauce.

Once the pasta is cooked to your preferred texture – we go slightly softer than al dente – drain and lightly rinse your noodles.

Add the ricotta, parmesan, salt and pepper to a small bowl and mix well.

Toss it together to coat the pasta with the cheese and set aside.

Cheese on pasta.jpg

Check your sauce is reducing and the carrots and tomatoes have softened. Go ahead and remove the sausages from the sauce, onto a plate for slicing.

Slice the sausages into equal pieces so they’re, you know, meatballs! Return the sausage and any juices from the plate back into the sauce and allow it to simmer for another 5 minutes uncovered.

Chopped sausages.jpg

When you’re ready to serve, add the pasta to the sauce and toss it all together. You don’t want to overdo it, or it’ll start to turn to mush, so a few quick turns to pull the sauce from the bottom should be fine. You can also serve the sauce ladled over the pasta if you prefer.

Once you’re happy with the temperature for serving, pile onto plates and enjoy! My kids are temperature adverse, so the cooled pasta with the hot sauce meets their requirements without really needing to reheat. It’s not the most beautiful meal in the world, but it’s got everything you need for a lazy lasagna experience. Hope you enjoy it!

Sparkly Mummy

Letting your toddler smash your iPad

I’m going to go ahead and admit it: my kids each have their own iPad minis. And I shamelessly use them on long journeys, at restaurants, and even sometimes to get a few minutes peace at home.

My youngest is 2 and is fully skilled at using the Kid’s YouTube app to watch videos of full grown women playing with “In the Night Garden” toys. He watches someone play with a toy Ninky Nonk while he plays with his own toy Ninky Nonk. It’s Ninky Nonk inception.

But of course when you’ve got an expensive bit of kit like an iPad, you want to make sure it won’t be too easy for your toddler to break it. That just won’t be any fun for anyone. There are loads of iPad cases on the market, but it’s surprisingly hard to tell which one is best for protecting it from the rigours of toddler management.

We had a pretty robust iPad case that we’d been using, but there were several things I didn’t like about it. It didn’t have holes for all the buttons, and it was really hard to get it in and out of the case. The thing for propping it up for watching it was really unsteady too and it fell over all the time.

So I was pleased when I was sent the tech21 Evo Play case for testing.

IMG_20170220_164604.jpg

As you can see, it comes in a lovely bright colour with a really attractive design. The handle props it up at a comfortable angle for watching it, or can be used for carrying it around. It has holes in all the right places so you can plug in headphones and a charger and easily press the power and volume buttons. It’s also easy to put the iPad into the case – you just sort of push it in without much struggle and it stays in.

The biggest drawback to the product is it is kind of heavy. I think it might have doubled the weight of the iPad. But the 2yo can still carry it around just fine.

It makes up for its weight by the very robustness of the material. You can wipe it clean and if it gets really dirty, you can stick it in the dishwasher.

Years ago my eldest was sick all over his iPad and we could not get rid of the stench on the cover from just wiping it down. Finally, we tried putting it in the washing machine because we decided it was either that or the bin, so we had nothing to lose. It did vaguely survive the washing machine, but it’s great to know that we can dishwash this case with no worries about ruining it.

But the boldest claim of this case is that you can drop it from a height of 2 meters / 6.6ft and your screen will not crack. I personally don’t feel it would be a thorough product review unless I tested this bold claim. So, please view my lovely YouTube video below, in which I drop my iPad in the Evo Play case unceremoniously onto my kitchen floor.

As you can see, the case has passed my rigorous product test. I even had to drop it more than once because I am crap at making YouTube videos. And I hope you didn’t look too hard at the background. I didn’t do the washing up because I was too busy blogging.

Disclosure: I received the product in exchange for this review but it’s all my honest words above.

The Pramshed
Keep Calm and Carry On Linking Sunday

Mindfulness and coping with grief

Trigger warning:  the topics of losing a loved one and teenaged death are discussed in this post. 

I am going through a tough time at the moment. My grandmother, who raised me in my early years, is very ill. She is unresponsive in hospital, and it’s looking like I’ll never get to speak to her again. So although she is not completely gone yet, I am already missing her. I will probably be writing a few posts about my grief and in tribute to her when the time is right. In the meantime, I asked the wonderful Hayley from Mission: Mindfulness – the blog to share some thoughts on how to cope when we lose someone who means the world to us. Hayley’s thoughts here are helping me every moment that I wish I could hear my grandmother’s voice on the phone.

A guest post by Hayley from Mission: Mindfulness: the blog

Dear Reader,

Nicole wrote to me a few weeks ago asking me to write a guest post for The Mum Reviews blog. Nicole is a blogger buddy of mine who I didn’t want to let down, and I was honoured to be asked. I really wanted to write something that fitted with her remit of mindfulness and suffering a loss, yet I was fearful of writing such an important post. I am certainly no therapist and not an expert in grief management, but said I’d have a think and get back to her. And then yesterday I knew what I wanted to write, so here it is.   

********
Today was the usual busy morning at our house.  Porridge being served.  Bread being toasted.  The radio blaring out.  The kids were, well, just being kids really …

And then suddenly an unexplained and unanticipated sadness hit me – coming from what seemed like nowhere. I was transported to a different place and time. But, as I tuned into the song on the radio, I recognised what was going on. Oasis’s “Masterplan” had started to play. My chest felt like I’d been squeezed too tightly in a big, unsolicited hug, and my eyes prickled in the familiar sensation I feel when tears are close.

Although nearly 20 years ago, the power of music was able to vividly remind me of a tragic event. A time when the fragility of life became palpable to me.

The time when my older sister’s boyfriend was suddenly taken from the world in a tragic car accident.

We’d all had a fabulous summer – working and playing together. It was the era of Britpop, and some of us were enjoying the twilight of our teenage years, while others were embarking on the beginning of their 20s. I recall the new Oasis album had been playing A LOT as we drove around the country roads of Lincolnshire, causing great debate. Some of us loved it – Adam, my sister’s boyfriend, being one.  Others of the group were not so sure.

That I remembered all of this as if it were yesterday is testament to how powerful music can be. At that moment, the sadness of losing Adam seemed as raw as it had at the end of the 90s.

And yet Adam had not been my sweetheart. Nor my son. Nor my grandson. Nor my  brother. Nor my best friend. And so I can only begin to imagine how many times, and how intensely, this happens to people who were these things to him. And as my thoughts overtake me, whisking me away from my residual feelings, I wonder: how did they cope?

Of course it would be crude to speak of a hierarchy of grief. Yet in reality it seems that the rawest of emotions come when a person is taken from us too young. By this I don’t just mean someone of a similar age, or younger, to the beautiful Adam, but even someone much, much older who still also seems to have so much life and living left. That sense of injustice and anger which mixes with the deep sadness of the grief must be an almost overpowering blend of emotions.  Understandably these can lead to very dark thoughts.

Until recently it has seemed the norm in our culture – in keeping with the idea of the British “stiff upper lip” – not to allow these thoughts and emotions to consume us. Rather, to distance ourselves from them as quickly as possible, to distract ourselves, or worse still for our “inner critic” to take over and berate us for not “coping” as we perceive we should.

Instead, Rumi, the 13th century Muslim poet (much quoted on Mindfulness courses and retreats) offers a different perspective. The suggestion is to allow these feelings and thoughts to freely come and freely go.  Without judgement.

To be with them for a moment or two. If that feels okay at that particular moment in time. To view these thoughts and feelings as passing guests and treat them accordingly.

This principle, so important to mindfulness, is eloquently described in Rumi’s poem The Guest House. 

The Guest House

Translated by Coleman Barks

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Wishing all who are going through difficult times at the moment much love.
Hayley xx

Blog:  www.missionmindfulnessblog.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/missionmindfulnessblog
Twitter:  https://twitter.com/mummy_mindful
Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/mission_mindfulness_blog/

Tammymum

Running to help vulnerable children

It is perhaps unoriginal to say that the suffering of others is upsetting to me. But becoming a mum has turned me into an absolute mess when I hear sad stories. I can’t watch any of those big charity fundraising programmes on TV because I just sob all the way through.

When I read the paper on the train to work, I’m often fighting back tears. It’s not that I didn’t have empathy before I had kids, but now that I do, that empathy is visceral.

When someone loses their child, I feel the fear of losing my own child.

When someone loses their parent, I think how much the idea of not being there for my own children worries me.

When children are lost, abused, broken, I think of the sweet innocence of my own children and how brutal it would be if that was torn from them.

Children are living in war zones, watching their families being murdered as they run away to escape their own death, rape or enslavement. Children whose families have lost their homes through debt are living in filthy hostels full of drug dealing and despair. Children are living rough to escape abuse at home. Children are sacrificing their childhoods to look after parents who are unable to look after them.

It’s easy to feel helpless when faced with the world’s violence, hatred and despair. I can only find my way through this by resolving to make some small contribution whenever I have the means or opportunity. So when The Children’s Society asked me to support them by doing a 10K in support of their charity and then blogging about it, I saw a great opportunity to help disadvantaged children whilst doing something healthy for me too.

Last year, The Children’s Society worked with over 18,000 vulnerable children and young people, and their campaign wins will bring life-changing support to more than 5.6 million children. I’m not that keen on running to be honest and never thought I would do a 10K. But it’s very motivating to know that by doing something that will improve my health, I will be playing a small part in improving other people’s lives as well.

If you’d like to know more about The Children’s Society and my training plans, please check out this little YouTube video.

How you can help

If you want to support me, the best (and completely free) thing you can do is to share this post on social media.

If you would like to donate to The Children’s Society in support of my 10K run, you can do it on my JustGiving page.

If you would like to get involved in your own charity challenge, check out The Children’s Society’s challenge page.

Tammymum

R2BC at Mummy from the Heart

Restaurant-worthy refried beans for tacos & more

I am a true Mexican food fanatic. I grew up in Los Angeles, so it’s part and parcel of my childhood. I usually rate a restaurant based on their refried beans; maybe it’s silly, but if they can’t get these right, I’m usually less than impressed with the more complex dishes. As the mum of two small children, I don’t have a lot of time to soak beans from scratch, but this recipe using tinned pinto and black beans is so tasty, you’ll hardly know the difference.

Refried beans can be pretty calorific if you use traditional methods, like including pork fat or lard as your “fat”. For sure it tastes amazing to use drippings, but I can’t handle that much grease, and I don’t keep lard on hand. For this recipe, I use 50/50 butter and veg oil for frying the onions and spices, and the flavour is just as rich. My daughter loves these beans so well, she asked for a bowl to herself. I like them in tacos and burritos, or with a handful of tortilla chips for dipping.  This may be a side dish or the star of the show, but it’s easy and fresh. I doubt you’ll go for tinned refried beans again.

mexican

You’ll need:

  • 425g/15oz tin pinto beans
  • 425g/15oz tin black beans
  • 1 tablespoon salted butter
  • 1 tablespoon veg oil
  • ¼ cup chopped white onion
  • 1 heaped teaspoon mild diced chilies (I use a small tin of fire roasted diced chilies for flavour, not heat)
  • 1 tsp garlic powder
  • 1 tsp cumin
  • 1 tsp smoked paprika
  • 1 tsp chicken stock concentrate, or 1 stock cube
  • 3-4 cups of water
  • Salt and pepper to taste

The method:

Open and drain your beans, but don’t rinse them so that you keep some of their own liquid.

draining-beans

In a wide pan, bring the oil and butter to heat together over a medium-high heat before adding your onions.

Coat the onions in the oil/butter and begin to lightly fry before adding your diced chilies and dry spices.

stirring

Allow the spices and chilies to fry lightly for about a minute before adding the drained beans.

adding-the-spices

Coat the beans with the onion mixture and bring to temperature, allowing the bean liquid to begin to evaporate/reduce. This offers a little frying to some of the beans, before we cover the lot with stock.

Add your chicken stock concentrate and enough water to just cover the beans. Give it all a good stir, cover the pot and reduce to a medium-low heat.

Once the beans are boiling away, covered in a pressure cooker environment, they’ll soften even more, and take on the spices and chicken flavour. I usually allow them to boil for about 20 minutes, topping up the water if it begins to stick on the bottom.

Cooking beans.jpg

After 20 minutes or so, uncover and bring out the potato masher, if you want to crush the beans. You don’t need to do this, but the smooth consistency of restaurant beans won’t be matched without some smashing.

Beans in the pot.jpg

Once I’ve mashed the beans, I add another ¼ or ½ cup of water to loosen the beans and help them cool down. I go another step and use my food processor to blitz the beans once they’ve cooled a little, especially when using black beans. If you’re only using pinto beans, they’ll likely smash easily enough with the masher.

Blended beans.jpg

Once I’ve whizzed the beans, I add salt and pepper to taste, but the chicken stock and butter add sodium, so be sure to taste before piling on the salt.

These refried beans are ready to eat as is, or you can roll them up in a tortilla, serve with rice or chips, or put them into tacos like we did last night. I also made a quick batch of taco meat using ground turkey, and the kids gobbled it up. I hope you’ll enjoy these as well as we do, and have fun making your own restaurant-style beans.

Bean tacos.jpg

Sparkly Mummy

The anxiety of parenting…

Clare has written this fantastic guest post describing her anxiety about her eldest son starting high school. Even though my blog usually discusses parenting of younger children, I think the emotions she is feeling are something that many parents experience, no matter their children’s ages. I hope that her honest sharing will make people feel less alone when dealing with anxiety.

A guest post by Clare from NeonRainbowBlog

My eldest son Oli is 11 this year and joining the world of high schoolers in September. He is nothing but excited about the whole experience. For him this marks his leap into becoming an adult, where he gets more freedom and more responsibility. However, for me, I feel apprehension. My baby is no longer a baby at all, and I have no choice but to let him grow. If I could stop time right now I would, because in all honesty I don’t want him to grow up.

Oli-1.jpg

I’ve always been an overprotective parent and I often say the words “It’s better to be overprotective than underprotective”. Throughout Oli’s life he has had to deal with his Mum’s anxiety over letting him grow up, and even though to him it’s normal and doesn’t really phase him, I’ve no doubt when high school and the teenage years really do kick in that it may become somewhat of a problem.

As he’s grown up, my anxiety over parenting him has reared it’s ugly head numerous times. For example:

  1. I was always reluctant to let other people babysit him. When I did it would cause me nothing but worry, panic and nervousness.
  2. Trips to the park were coupled with overbearing “be careful, don’t do that, watch you don’t fall, wait your turn, don’t push in” comments. I’d be constantly following him around like he would break or fall at any moment.
  3. The same could be said for letting him walk places with us. This gave me major anxiety: what if he veered near the road, what if he fell by accident and into the road, what if a car came up onto the path and he was in front, what if, what if, what if.
  4. Even learning to ride a bike came with unbearable anxiety over him falling off, going out of my sight, hitting something, something hitting him.
  5. More recently he started playing out in our cul-de-sac and our neighbours houses. This prompted constant worry over where he was; was he being good? Could I trust him to know his boundaries? And lots more “what ifs”. I’d constantly look out the window or just sit there doing stuff while continuously being able to see him. I’d also text the other mums to make sure he was behaving or being good.

I feel like my anxiety does go beyond the realms of usual parental anxieties. I know every parent will feel some sort of panic over their child growing up, making changes and becoming their own person, but when does that panic get too much?

As time has gone on the anxiety I feel when my son plays out has subsided. He can play out in our little street and in the neighbours’ houses and I feel virtually anxiety free. I’ve gotten used to it. He even ventures over to the shop or the Pokestop on our estate (it’s a few mins away) with his friends – he has to have his phone with him, and a time limit to be back for before I go looking, but 9/10 I feel okay with him going – not 100%, but manageable.

However the thought of him going to high school is terrifying me.

High school for me was a terrible experience. Most of the anxiety I harbour today was born in that playground. I was bullied by my own “friends”, no less (though I didn’t really see this until I was an adult). I felt like I had nobody I could fully trust or who wanted to genuinely be my friend. There would be days I had lots of friends to hang out with, but the very next day they could decide they didn’t want to hang out with me at all, so I’d be the loner. There was no stability for me, and that’s why I find it hard to form friendships now I am an adult. I struggle to trust anyone, and those feelings of sadness, hurt and anxiety I felt are always at the forefront of my mind when I think back to my experience of high school.

I feel all those old feelings of anxiety are flooding back to me every time I think about him going. What if he gets bullied? What if nobody likes him? Will he be okay walking to and from school (even though it’s at the bottom of our estate)?

But furthermore, what about when he wants to go out with his friends alone and go to parties? I don’t know how I am going to cope with giving him that kind of freedom, but I know it’s an essential part of growing up.

Is it just my anxiety from childhood that makes me so nervous for my own child? Will the anxiety fade like when I started giving him the freedom to play out in our street?

I honestly don’t know and I wish I had the answers. All I can hope is that it isn’t too much of a rough ride and that I’ve taught my boy enough about the world to make the right choices.

Any advice for this overprotective, anxiety ridden mother?

Check out Clare’s social media:
https://www.instagram.com/neonrainbow_sw/
https://twitter.com/neonrainbowblog
https://www.facebook.com/Neonrainbowblog/
https://uk.pinterest.com/neonrainbowblog/

Two Tiny Hands

Gourmet food, celebrity chefs and drinking by the river

One of my passions in life is food and drink. Before we had kids, my husband and I saved our pennies to go to Michelin star restaurants on big birthdays and anniversaries, and were always on the lookout for special deals that would make the very best cuisine affordable. We still watch all the celebrity chef and cooking shows we can find.

However, having young children has seriously reduced the amount of time and money we have to spend in pursuit of culinary delights. We can’t even watch Saturday Kitchen anymore. It has been replaced by CBeebies (or, if we dare vary from that, lots of whinging). For the most part, the only gourmet food we eat is that which my husband cooks (and he is pretty good, but he hasn’t got any Michelin stars).

So I was excited to learn about Pub in the Park, taking place 19-21 May 2017. This is a fabulous new food, drink and music festival hosted by celebrity chef Tom Kerridge.

In case you don’t know, he’s famous for his 2-Michelin-star gastropub in Marlow, The Hand and Flowers. He also has another pub, The Coach, opened in 2014. He has featured on well-known foodie TV shows such as The Great British Menu, and hosted his own shows such as Tom Kerridge’s Proper Pub Food. Right now, he’s getting a lot of press for his new diet cookbook Tom Kerridge’s Dopamine Diet. I’m pretty impressed that he lost 11 stone with a diet he created for himself. That’s the right way to turn 40!

I’ve been wanting to go to The Hand and Flowers for ages but never had a chance. Now, this fantastic weekend festival is giving me the chance to sample a whole range of gourmet tasting dishes at affordable prices. There will be a fantastic lineup of celebrity chefs there doing cooking demonstrations, along with some great live music, all set in the beautiful Higginson Park in Marlow next to the Thames. Check out this amazing line-up:

full-line-up

There will be plenty of places to get a refreshing beverage and kick back on the riverside. And, best of all, it is family friendly. Under-5s go absolutely free, and there will be a children’s pop up picture house to keep them entertained.

If this sounds like a good day out to you, consider signing up to the newsletter (scroll to the bottom of the page) in order to get access to the exclusive pre-sale on Thursday 23 February. Tickets will be available to the general public from the 24th. On the link above you will also find all the information you need about the festival.

Hope to see you there!

I’m receiving complimentary tickets in return for promoting the event in advance and reviewing it afterwards.

Keep Calm and Carry On Linking Sunday
Sparkly Mummy
Two Tiny Hands

She’s just a mother

A good of friend of mine had a little rant on Facebook last weekend about two things she heard on Radio 4’s Today programme that really made her cross. The first was one female reporter talking with disgust about the picture of Tamara Ecclestone feeding her 3 year old. The second was when another presenter made a counter-argument for government funding for parks and green spaces because “aren’t they just for mums pushing babies around in prams?”.

My friend was upset by the way these two moments on what is usually an enlightened radio programme minimised the experience, expertise and contribution of mothers, and even vilified them. Her impassioned post got me thinking about this quite a bit, and I asked her permission to write about it here.

My friend is right that in society motherhood can be seen as mundane – so everyday that it doesn’t bear thinking about. Or it can be put up on a pedestal – a model of selflessness and competence that many feel they can never live up to.

Motherhood is also something to be regulated. She should breastfeed, but not in public and not for too long. Stay-at-home mums are bored and boring. Working mums are abandoning their children.

On a recent Mumsnet thread, a person rubbished mum blogs, saying “Why would you read a blog written by a bog standard Mum? Isn’t there anything better to read?” Many on the thread agreed with her.

Well, there are all sorts of things to read in the world, some more compelling than others, but what is it about motherhood in particular that wouldn’t be worth reading about? Why is it unimportant for mums to have parks to walk in with their prams?

It’s a lie that society tells us: that women bringing up children is something that is merely to be expected.

This expectation – that we are just doing our jobs – is the reason only 4% of Fortune 500 CEOs are female. It’s the reason that maternity discrimination is still pushing women out of work. It’s why mothers who want to work are still told they can’t have it all.

It’s the reason that stay-at-home mums are still asked what they do all day, and modern dads are tired of being called “babysitters”. It’s why dads who take their kids to playgroups or to parenting rooms are often ostracized and even accused of perversion. It’s why there are still no bloody changing tables in the majority of men’s public toilets.

Despite years of feminism, western society still sees women as the primary caregivers for children, and yet sees caregiving as menial work. And as the work we do is menial, everyone thinks they’re qualified to have an opinion about it.

“What does she know about the best way to feed her child? She’s just a mother.”

“Why is she complaining about losing her job? She chose to become a mother.”

“Why does she write about the highs and lows of motherhood? ONLY other mothers would want to read that.”

“She doesn’t know what’s good for her. I have a right to regulate her body and her parenting choices.”

“She’s too fat/too thin/a yummy mummy/a slummy mummy.”

woman-1566154_1280.jpg

This is not to say we haven’t made progress. We do have more choices than we once did. We can speak and act more freely than we ever could. But there is still work to be done. We need to let the multitude of female voices – mothers or not – speak for themselves and be heard. We need to carry on defending one another’s choices, even when we don’t agree.

We need to keep telling the world about our “mundane” lives, because they’re not mundane. Our lives are REAL and they are IMPORTANT. And the world needs to know.

Keep Calm and Carry On Linking Sunday

Gorgonzola Potatoes recipe

As a parent of two young children, I am mindful of the foods they eat, and the types of processed foods and chemicals that come into their diet. I try my best to cook from scratch, so I know how to pronounce the ingredients, and so my kids can see their mum using ingredients instead of packets. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not nearly perfect, and of course there are days that require a fast food emergency or a frozen pizza hail Mary. I try to minimise the chances by cooking baking trays of food that can be used and reused and frozen and reused later. This dish is a great example.

Served with a roast for a large crowd, or served with Polish sausage for a quick midweek meal, this is an easy dish that tastes extravagant. Using baby potatoes cuts the cooking and prep time, and my flourless cream sauce is gluten-free and fail proof. I strive to incorporate grown up flavours into my recipes. Even though they’re geared towards my 4- and 6-year-old, my husband and I still have to eat dinner! I find introducing the kids to more complex flavours, like stinky cheese, is best done in stages. With this in mind, please feel free to up the stinky ante and go for all gorgonzola in the recipe, but I’ve done a 50/50 with a sharp cheddar to mellow the blue cheese.

This recipe takes just over an hour, but it’s broken up with waiting for the potatoes to boil, and later the oven takes over. As a busy mum, I manage this midweek around washing up, potty breaks and sibling rivalries. The cheese sauce is so simple, and I can walk away from it if I have to without fear of burning. I cook gluten-free meals for my husband, but I’ll never go back to a flour-based sauce again after adopting this method. We like this with kielbasa and steamed broccoli, but it can be served with any number of meat/less varieties. I usually pop the sausage into the oven below the potatoes so they finish together, and it’s scrumdiddlyumptious. Hope you like it!

Gorgonzola Potatoes.png

You’ll need:

  • Large pot 1/3 full of water (approx. 1 ltr)
  • 15-20 baby (new) white and/or red skin potatoes (I half-filled a 9×13 glass baking dish)
  • 1 tablespoon butter
  • 1 cup chopped white onion (I use frozen)
  • 1 teaspoon garlic powder
  • 1 teaspoon lemon pepper
  • 1 ½ cup chicken stock (I used a teaspoon of concentrate dissolved into water)
  • 1 cup crumbled gorgonzola cheese
  • 1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
  • 2 cups single cream (or half & half)
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • Large baking dish to single-layer the potatoes in the sauce

The method:

Bring to the boil a large pot full of the potatoes and water. Allow to boil for 10-15 minutes until just soft, slightly beyond parboil.

Boiling the potatoes.jpg

If you’d like to use a second pot, you can start the cheese sauce now, but I usually get something done while I’m waiting and then reuse the pot while the potatoes drain and cool.

Drain the potatoes and allow to cool slightly for minor handling. Preheat the oven to 190C/375F.

I use the same pot to now melt the butter and onions and allow to lightly fry on a medium-low heat for 3-5 minutes.

Onions in the pan.jpg

Add the dry spices and fry with the onions for about 1 minute before adding the chicken stock.

Allow the chicken stock to reduce by a third for about 5 minutes over a medium high heat. 

Add the gorgonzola and cheddar and stir into the stock until it’s melted and incorporated, about 1-2 minutes.  

Add the cream and stir into the sauce, reduce the heat to low and allow the sauce to simmer for 3-5 minutes. Have a taste and add salt and pepper as needed.

Don’t worry if it looks like a little oily – as it reduces it will thicken up. Once the sauce covers only the mostly boiled potatoes, they will soak up the sauce so nicely (I promise).

While the sauce is reducing, the potatoes will have cooled and you can either use a cutting board, or my lazy method of toss and slice in the colander.

Cutting potatoes.jpg

Once you’ve halved (most of) the potatoes, gently transfer them into the cheese sauce to coat them well.

Pour the potatoes and sauce into a baking dish (greased if metal). If you’ve missed a couple of potatoes in the toss and slice, this is your chance to slice away before putting the dish into the oven. The baby potatoes are so creamy themselves, it’s nice to keep larger chunks, so I don’t go crazy. 

Gorgonzola potatoes going in the oven.jpg

Bake uncovered for 30-40 minutes, or until golden on top.

My family love this dish, and it’s lovely to see them embracing stinky cheese. We had it this week with sausage and broccoli, then again with fish and peas. I’ll freeze a portion for easy midweek reheat, or it will go perfectly with a Sunday roast. I hope you find your favourite combination!

Sparkly Mummy

A guide to growing Twitter followers for busy parenting bloggers

I have been blogging since the end of July 2016, and just over 6 months later I have over 3,300 followers. I find that I gain an average of 100 followers every week. There are plenty of bloggers out there who have more than me, but I’ve spoken to loads of bloggers who find Twitter difficult.

Most people will tell you that the key to Twitter is to actually chat to people rather than just dropping links to your blog posts. And they’re not wrong. However, I’ve still done pretty well for myself so far, and I am totally chat-impaired. I can’t think of anything to say on Twitter to just start a chat. I am not particularly witty and I fear commenting on current events.

I’ve read loads of posts about how to grow your Twitter, and there are lots of tips out there. In this post, I’ve tried to say something different from what I’ve seen all over town. These are my personalised tips for growing your Twitter without being witty or putting loads of time in. I hope you find them useful!

Get your basics right

Be sure you have nice pictures for your profile picture and cover photo. I personally think that it’s better to have a picture of yourself as your twitter profile pic because it makes you seem more personable. It’s also important to put a clear and personality-laden description on your profile. And of course, make sure you put the link to your blog on there.

It’s also a great idea to pin a post that you’d like people to notice. When I follow a new blogger, I often click on their profile and retweet their pinned tweet.

Get sharing from your blog right

First of all, make sure you are using Twitter cards. Twitter cards are when Twitter automatically adds the featured image of your blog post and its title in a nice big rectangle when you share the link. This is so important. I really don’t think anyone clicks on links that don’t use Twitter cards.

If you are on WordPress.com, Twitter cards should work automatically. If you are WordPress self-hosted, you will need to use a plugin such as Yoast. If you don’t use WordPress, I don’t know how you do it, but it’s worth figuring out.

Also, please make sure that your Twitter sharing button on your blog posts has your Twitter handle connected to it. This means that if anyone shares one of your posts using the sharing button, you will automatically be tagged on Twitter. If you don’t have this enabled, you won’t know if someone shared your post, and you’re missing a valuable chance for interaction. I often don’t even bother sharing posts if their Twitter handle isn’t connected.

Finally, make sure your Twitter handle is easy to find on your blog. You’d be amazed how many blogs on which I’ve struggled to find it!

Don’t use robots or be a robot

Not everyone will agree with me, but I just can’t bring myself to automate my Twitter. Many people use tools that automatically tweet out their new blog posts, but I think that takes the joy out of it.

When I tweet a link to a new post, I don’t use the title of my blog post in the tweet. I write an interesting quote or fact from the post, or I ask my readers a related question. If I tweet the post more than once, I introduce it differently each time.

PLEASE never use automatic DMs. Don’t send any DM to people, automated or otherwise, simply thanking them for following, or asking them to follow your other social media accounts. I don’t know anyone who likes that.

Use hashtags well

When you’re ready to drop a blog post link, spend a few minutes searching relevant keywords to see if there are any relevant hashtags you could use. It’s good to use one or two on each post. Also, check what’s trending and use a trending tag if it’s relevant (and ONLY if it’s relevant).

Be supportive – engage

Even though I’m not good at initiating chats or saying clever things out of the blue, I do engage with other people on Twitter as much as possible. At least once a day I scroll through my feed and retweet or favourite a few things that I like. If I see something to which I have a response, I reply to the person and start a conversation about it.

When I follow someone new, I go through their feed and try to find something to retweet, just to be nice.

If someone shares one of my posts – or tags me in a post that is relevant to me – I always favourite and retweet it. And I reply and thank them for sharing.

Curate who you follow

When I started blogging, I followed a load of random parenting bloggers. This wasn’t too bad of a strategy to start with. Many of them followed me back and I was able to start building relationships with them. Not everyone will agree with me, but I have a general policy of following people back when they follow me, and it’s served me well.

I choose whether to follow someone back based on their profile description.

  • I always follow bloggers back (because it’s a chance to be mutually supportive).
  • I don’t waste time following random celebrities, news sites or anything that I don’t feel could potentially benefit my Twitter following or my blog.
  • I follow back brands I’m interested in (but not that random mattress company in Spain).
  • I sometimes even follow back those vaguely spammy people who claim to be SEO or content marketing experts on their profiles.
  • I never follow back content bots (the way to spot them is when all their tweets have every word starting in caps along with clickbait-style links).
  • I don’t follow back “normal” people who follow me because of a comp or who just tweet about their lunch or their dog.

The thing that makes me totally comfortable with following freely is Crowdfire. It tells me when someone unfollows me or if I’m following an inactive account. If someone unfollows me, I simply unfollow them back. If someone never tweets, I unfollow them too. It is purely through this strategy that I’ve managed to end up following fewer people than the amount following me.

Take advantage of linky retweets

If you are joining in with linkies (and if you’re trying to grow your blog, you probably should be), a lesser know fact is that they are great for your Twitter account. If you have no idea what a linky is or how to use one, please read Cuddle Fairy’s Linky Guide.

The main purpose of a linky is to get comments on your blog whilst discovering and supporting other blogs. However, most linky hosts will offer to retweet the link to your post if you tag them on Twitter once you’ve linked up. And most linky hosts have huge followings, so they will be sharing your post with a huge amount of potential followers.

For example, one of my favourite linkies is “Keep Calm and Carry on Linking Sunday” hosted by A Moment with Franca. Franca alone has over 10,000 followers, plus she usually has about 4 co-hosts who will also retweet you. So they will be spreading your link all over Twitter. I also join a linky called #EatSleepBlogRT hosted by Petite Pudding and Diary of an Imperfect Mum, in which the main goal is for people to retweet each other’s posts.

Twitter chats

I have only joined in one Twitter chat – #tribalchat (follow @tribalchattweet for more info) on Tuesdays at 8pm – but it has been so beneficial to me. Every time I do, I get noticed on Twitter, even occasionally by brands. I assume this is because you are being active and Twitter’s algorithm decides to show you to more people.  And even better than that, I’ve actually made some really good blogging friends through doing it!

The way #tribalchat works is that there is a host each time and they ask “icebreaker” style questions that all the chatters answer. They’re usually very silly and even slightly rude. Then we are all meant to interact and chat away as much as possible. You can join in as much or as little as you choose. Just remember to put #tribalchat in everything you tweet so the others will see what you write.

It can be intimidating at first, and I know I didn’t feel I was witty enough with my answers. But alcohol and practice has made me a pretty decent #tribalchat-ter. A few practical tips:

  • Chat on your laptop. The chats go fast and it’s almost impossible to keep up on a phone.
  • Check the host’s feed for the questions.
  • Search on the #tribalchat hashtag to see what other chatters are saying. Remember to click the “latest” tab, otherwise you’ll only see the most popular things people say rather than all the things.
  • Keep refreshing your notifications too and respond to what people say to you.
  • Retweet anything you think particularly funny or interesting.
  • Use GIFs because they’re funny and take up more space.

If #tribalchat isn’t your cup of tea, you could try #ukpbloggers, #tbhchat or #babybantzchat, among many others. Fellow blogger Samantha from North East Family Fun also suggested to me that joining in with local non-blogger chats is a great way to bring in a new crop of readers.

Run competitions on your blog

I use Rafflecopter to occasionally run competitions on my blog, when I find a brand willing to cooperate. You can ask people who want to win your comp prize to follow you on Twitter and tweet about the comp. This has the potential to grow your following massively. Some compers will unfollow after the competition finishes, but many will stick around.

How parenting bloggers can grow Twitter followers by 100+ per week

Thank you to bloggers who responded to my crowdsourcing request for this post. I found I already had pretty set ideas for the post, but their contributions were appreciated:

 

What do you think of my Twitter strategies? What are your top Twitter tricks?

Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started