Nov
19
Lasagne is one of those recipes like bolognese, everyone has their way of making it. It may be your parents recipe or even your grandparents recipe. I love my dad´s bolognese so much and luckily my husbands tastes very similar and now shares the number one spot with my daddy´s. My lasagna recipe is from a cookbook called Gant in the Kitchen. It is one of my favourite cookbooks. Very randomly so, as it is from the interior & clothing company. It has so many classic recipes and some a bit more contemporary ones and they are all so good. One of our favourites is the vegetarian gruyere lasagna. I have made both the veggie version and then I have made a more classic one with minced beef. I have used gruyere but also substituted the cheese for a bit mellower ones like emmenthal & cheddar. And we turn it in to an ” alpine” lasagne on our ski trips by using the gruyere and then even adding raclette cheese on top. It has a very strong scent but it is the best thing after a day on the slopes! I have made the tomato sauce from scratch with the juice & tinned tomatoes and I have used store bought marinara that I have seasoned with the herbs in the recipe. It always turns out so delicious. When I serve it with meat I just substitute the mushrooms for minced beef and still keep the aubergine & the carrot in the recipe. They just make a difference. It is a bit more work than your average lasagne but well worth it! Enjoy! I´m sharing it as it is in the book but feel free to use my fast track tricks and substitutions!
Nov
14
Happy weekend
by Sofia - in Cooking DIY projects Good things for kids Party planning
Do you have something fun planned for the weekend? We are baking for a charity bake sale with the girls on Friday evening. Saturday morning we are also decorating some cupcakes. Saturday night we will get all the girls from Cotton Candy´s class for a sleepover. It´s her birthday party this year. They will decorate pizza for dinner ( just make the pizzas ahead or buy frozen and cut cute shapes of ready sliced cheese they can add on it right after it comes from the oven and get some fresh herbs too like sage, oregano and basil).We will do milk shakes with sprinkle covered rims on the glasses. And soda, because it´s a birthday party. I baked some mini bite sized cupcakes and the cutest cloud sugar cookies with little faces on them.
Nov
11
Be a bucket filler
by Sofia - in Good things for kids
Last year my girls were gifted a book from their friend´s mother. It´s called Sara the bucket filler, A story about showing kindness and being happy. Inside it she inscribed my girls names and wrote ” May you keep on spreading kindness and friendship”. The basic idea is that we all have invisible buckets of sand and when we do or say nice things to others it does not empty our buckets but fills both theirs and ours. We all know this to be true. If you try to fill yours by taking from the other ones bucket you just empty both. It´s a very basic concept but even some adults still struggle with this. It´s such an easy metaphor for children to understand that I wanted to share this with you for a few reasons.
I need to start with a bit of a disclaimer if you will. None of us wants to live in a “good vibes only” world. It´s not realistic. Feelings are definitely meant to be felt. I know I´ve said it here a thousand times but I´ll say it again. Sometimes we are all angry, we are tired, we are stressed, we are sad. It´s good to cry and it´s good to let all your emotions out ( I´m the first to raise my arm and admit I snap at my family… but I´m also very good at apologising). It´s nothing but normal and healthy. We have to also realise that there are two kinds of worries. They are both real and both are valid but we have to learn to draw the difference between the kind of worries that should not completely overwhelm us and the kind we need professional help dealing with. So when I write things on my blog I´m not writing them from a perspective of actual mental of physical illnesses or being, say for instance, in a financially helpless situation. We all know that when your troubles or the worries of your loved ones are overwhelming and you feel like drowning a simple “light up a candle and feel better”- advice is not useful. Yet it´s still normal to be sad or angry even if your worries do not swallow your whole life all the time. And that is the state of mind I write my blog in. I try to turn some negative thoughts in to positives. You don´t have to learn to love ironing even if I tell you it makes it lovelier if you use a great smelling linen water and watch Nancy Meyers movies while at it but it may make you feel inspired to try and you might like it.
But back to bucket filling. As our family can at this point in our lives be very grateful for all we have I tell my girls to use it for good. When they wake up in the morning they can hopefully feel their buckets are very full. They are met with kisses and a breakfast. They have clean clothes that are warm and that fit. Someone has remembered to ask if their homework was done and they have been helped with it if needed. We braid their hair and tell them to have great day. My girls can leave home with their buckets full so they have plenty to share from and I try to remind them and myself to be the kind of girls to do just that. When someone seems to be alone go talk to them. When someone seems sad or tired console them. Give a compliment. Help without being asked. When you have where to give from then do. It is so simple in life. It´s easier when your starting point is already good but we can all fill ours- and others buckets regardless of our situation.
