Real Food Jelly

Jelly is so simple to make and so versatile it's a wonder that we ever buy those sugar and chemical laden packets in the supermarket, but believe it or not I use to get through several a week. I'd like to say my son had most of them, but it wouldn't be true. I used to just melt a few squares in hot water and drink it like tea!

Thank goodness Whittards introduced me to real fruit teas!!

Since changing my sugar consuming habits, we haven't had any jelly in the house, in fact, when I made this yesterday my nearly three year old didn't know what it was and eyed it up suspiciously!

It's so simple to make, and you can change up the fruit to whatever you have to had to make endlessly exciting combinations. There are a few fruits that don't work (pineapple for instance) because of their high enzyme content, but mostly you should be okay.

Jelly is a great way to get gelatin into your kids too, especially if they are so great at drinking bone broths. Why would you want to? Click here to find out, otherwise just move on and accept that it's good for you :o)

Take two cups of water and rind of eight oranges and simmer in a pan for 5 minutes to release the oils. Try to avoid the bitter white parts. 

Whilst it's simmering juice the oranges that you took the rind from. 

Remove from the heat, strain the liquid and stir in 6 tbsp of grass fed gelatin.

This is the correct time to add sweetener if you are going to. I recommend acacia honey. Since we switched to this from blended honey I can use less than half the amount I used to in each recipe because it is so sweet - great bit of knowledge from my friendly neighborhood beekeeper. 

Just stir it in whilst it's warm and test for sweetness.

Next add in the juice that you just squeezed and pour into a jelly mold.

I didn't have a jelly mold, so I just used a big bowl. It works fine though.
Refrigerate until set.

Yum!

Just in time too, because my littlest one is going to be three soon(!) and what is a kids party without jelly, right?

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Child Friendly GAPS Legal Butter Chicken!

I had to write this down before I forgot the recipe because it is AMAZING.

I started with a recipe from BBC food and just tweaked it a little, so if your children are less fussy than mine, or you aren't on a restrictive diet, feel free to just use their version, although I'm telling you, in the most humble way possible, mine is fantastic. You could add some chilli if you like, but my family are not fans of hot food, so the ginger was plenty heat for us.

You will need:

3 chicken breasts cut up (or equivalent weight in any chicken pieces)

1 whole pack of butter (raw if you have it)
100 ml plain yoghurt (bonus points for making your own)

200ml cream (raw if you can)

100g tomato puree (how to make your own)
2 whole limes, juiced

1 onion grated
1 small bulb of garlic, chopped up
3 inches of fresh root ginger, grated
3 tbsp of ground coriander
2 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp paprika
a generous amount of salt (I use smoked)

a good amount of ground black pepper

Directions:

1. Deep fry the chicken pieces in the butter. Yeah, you heard that right. Do it.

2. Once the chicken is starting to brown, throw in the garlic and onions to cook for a bit. 

3. Stir in everything else that is not dairy.

4. Remove from the heat and stir in the dairy slowly so that the cream doesn't split. 

You can serve this with rice if you are a normal person. We served it with a watercress salad and vegetable crisps, along with my cheese and chive dipping sauce.  

I also threw in a load of peas because my children are obsessed with them right now. You do not have to do this if you don't like them :o)

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Cheese and Chives

Did anyone else love primula's cheese and chive spread as a kid?

It was amazing, and with an abundance of chives in my garden I decided it was time to create the real food version. 

Happy to experiment a little, it actually turned out to be super simple! My version is a little runny and probably more of a dip than a spread, but that works well seeing as how I don't have any bread to spread it on anyway. Think if it as a veggie dip, and if you are super organised you could dehydrate veggie crisps to dip in it :0)

Here's the recipe:

150g cream cheese (bonus points if you make your own) 

1/4 cup of raw milk 

A pinch of good quality sea salt

A handful of fresh chives 

Snip up the chives, whisk into all the other ingredients. 

Easy peasy. 

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Intentionally Slowing Down

I like to take life slowly, as do my children. It's amazing to see the difference in their temperaments when we just "hang out" together, reading a book, cooking a meal, doing laundry vs me trying to find something to "entertain them" whilst I get stuff done or dragging them from fun activity to play date.

I have calm, intelligent, thoughtful children - when I don't over stretch them.

But I think part of that is how I react to them when I'm feeling over-stretched. At the park this half term I asked Matt to go watch the kids in the play area and let me walk the dog. He pointed out that the dog had already been on a long walk and I had to openly admit that I was just feeling overwhelmed. Half term in an adventure park is crazy - especially when you are used to only visiting that kind of stuff in school hours where you and a couple of other homeschooled friends can have it to yourselves!

Maybe the kids are just picking up on my tension, because I'm feeling overwhelmed.

This weekend my little boy has been struggling. He caught hand foot and mouth disease from somewhere. Although he's feeling much better, thank goodness, this is not a time to test his limits. To be honest, mine are being tested too with a broken dishwasher (again) and a child who wants to be cuddled all day but is too heavy to be worn in a sling and get anything done. 

That's when I decided we just need to slow it down. Obviously washing dishes is taking forever (little counter space and I don't have many dish cloths, because I have a dishwasher) but I also grated cheese by hand (the processor was dirty) and Lila got to help me. She loved it.

Next we had to do some "garden chores" (what my kids call gardening - although they love it, so I'm not sure why it's a chore...) So whilst I pulled up weeds, she spent a long time carefully carrying them one by one on a scooter to the compost bin. Realising that the compost bin could use some shredded paper, we had the option of opening the paper shredder - but in the spirit of doing things slowly I convinced her to sit down with me and shred a whole newspaper by hand, whilst we had a lovely conversation which I think was about pretty flowers, but it's hard to know because her consonant sounds aren't so great yet.

So today certainly hasn't been productive in the traditional sense, but Will and I finished reading a book together (four chapters!) and Lila has enjoyed the garden and I can always do the laundry and dishes once they've gone to bed.

These are my favourite days. 

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Save the Children

Children's early literacy is something I'm excited about. I'm sure I annoyed all my mummy friends going on about it when my son was a baby, because I was so excited about the research I was reading and giving him, what I considered to be, the best start in life.

I've relaxed a bit since having a second child; as in I've stopped being so evangelical about it, I'm still actively teaching her to read! 

But what's heart breaking is reading reports from save the children which show that poor nutrition (something I'm also passionate about) between the ages of 0-5 is not only damaging to children's physical health, it retards the brains ability to learn specific skills such as literacy, leading to generations of children who can't learn to read properly, no matter how hard they or their teachers try. 

Kasturi is the younger sister of Sangeeta. 

Photograph by save the children

Whilst she was small her family were struck by poverty and she had little to eat. In fact, the families nutrition was so poor that her twin sister died as their mother was unable to produce enough milk to feed them both. 

Kasturi's teacher, Chandra, says this:

"I've been Kasturi's teacher for two years now. Her learning is very slow and there has been no major improvement. She has difficulty writing, but can identify alphabets and pictures.

Even though she is in class 3 now, Kasturi still struggles with words and maths. She can't even keep up with the class two students.

Sangeeta was one of our bright students... ...she was very active and still is... ...a lack of proper food usually hampers children's ability to grasp things and slows down the pace of learning. There are a lot of children like Kasturi."

85% of brain growth occurs in the first five years of life, so it is critical that children receive proper nutrition during this period. Every year 2.3 million children die of malnutrition, but millions more are stunted both physically and educationally by it, leading to a cycle of poverty where the generation after them too will suffer the same. 

This is Ngouth:

It's hard to believe he is 12 years old, but lack of food as stunted his growth. 

Photographs by Helen Mould/Save The Children

He has had to move back two years in school because he and his family regularly don't have enough food. The area where he lives in the south Sudan has been named one of the world's hungriest places according to the UN. 

In his own words:

"I was five years old when I started school. Sometimes I had to stop coming because I was hungry. For two years I dropped out because I had to go to the river to fish and to the bush to collect wild fruits for my family."

This is why school feeding schemes, such as Compassion's child survival and child sponsorship programmes and Save the Children's work, are so important. When a child receives a meal at school, they are not only able to attend, but able to learn. 

There is enough food for everyone, but 1 in 8 people go to bed hungry every night. With a child dying every 15 seconds from hunger, this is the silent scandal and injustice of our age. On June 17th, David Cameron and other G8 leaders have a chance to tackle the causes of hunger and save millions of lives.

Please sign the petition to make sure that the G8 leaders know we think this is unacceptable. 

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Resurrection Year Book Review

Sheridan Voysey's 'Resurrection Year' launches today and I highly recommended it.

The first part is hard to read, as Sheridan and his wife struggle through infertility and failed adoption process for ten years, you read journal extracts and its heart wrenching. I know I've said it before, but this book really brings home again the fact that children are a blessing, not a right and as much as we hope to adopt in the future, there are no guarantees.

However the whole point of the book is that we serve a God of resurrection, One who was dead but now is alive, and that when our dreams and our visions for our lives die, He can bring new things from the ashes.

Sheridan and his wife embark on a 'resurrection year' journey, and reading through as they wrestle with the 'whys' of God letting their dream for a family go unfulfilled is thought provoking, but ultimately leads back to the same answer you always start with - I don't know, but God is in control and I trust Him.

Go get the book, it's a great read and I'm sure you'll love it! 

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Resurrection Year Countdown

I was lucky enough to get on Sheridan Voysey's 'Resurrection Year' launch team, which means I got to read his book before it was released :0)

I can't write a full review yet, because it isn't launched until the 28th of this month, but in the meantime you can still enjoy joining in some fun competitions on his blog.

Every day until launch he is going to post a photo from a chapter of his book and you get to caption it or tell him what you think it means in the comments section. You won't get to find out if you are right or wrong, but the most creative answer wins a copy of his book (in PDF).

Here is todays photo:



...but you need to go to Sheridan's site to comment (at least you do if you want to stand a chance of winning!) and remember to bookmark it so that you can come back and join in every day.

Here's the book trailer video to whet your appetites.

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