Vegan Mushroom and Walnut Risotto

I hesitated to put "vegan" at the start of the heading, I am not (yet) vegan, but am exploring the world of vegan cuisine for health and ethical reasons, but I though that I might inspire others to include a few meat/dairy free dishes in their weekly menu and the word "vegan" helps with searches etc.  So really forget that this is vegan and just see it as a really delicious risotto. (Serves 2 adults and 2 small children)

Ingredients:

1 medium onion,
2 garlic cloves,
1 pack of mushrooms,
250g risotti rice,
1 stock cube,
water to cover,
1/2 cup coconut water,
1/2 cup cooking wine.

Chop onion, garlic and mushrooms and fry until soft, add rice, water and stock cube, coconut milk and wine and leave to simmer until rice is tender.  Serve with green beans.

It's really tasty and delicious, and also has a nice bit of crunch with the cashews, dairy free, soy free, wheat free, but certainly not taste free!

Fun Things to do With Toddlers - A Week of Activities!

We've been busy!  it's been a fun and activity filled summer, here are some of the things we have been doing in a bumper week of fun toddler activities. 

So our week of activities has come to an end and I really hope you have enjoyed it and found some of the ideas useful and inspiring.

Today we have our sofa slide which we have visited and re-visited many times this summer, or as Boris likes to call it, his "slippy-slide!"
Apologies for the quality of this photo and that lack of quantity, this activity was actually a while ago and I didn't think to photograph it properly because I just wanted to put it on Facebook.  (So sorry if you are a Facebook friend and you have seen this before!)

So basically what you are looking at is a slide made from sofa cushions with two big pieces of cardboard on top.  We used one piece of cardboard as a sort of sledge to slide of the the second piece. Literally hours of fun, or at least it would be if I had the energy!  Boris still needed supporting down the slide or else he slipped off the side! It was great fun, fab for gross motor skills and raising the heart rate.

So that's it folks, back to normal tomorrow, though I have really loved writing every day and hopefully with be a bit more frequent with my posting from here on in. 

Fun Things to do With Toddlers - A Week of Activities!

We've been busy!  it's been a fun and activity filled summer, here are some of the things we have been doing in a bumper week of fun toddler activities. 

The week is nearly up but I still have another great activity to share with you and best of all it's easy peasy!
All you need is some chalk, some toy cars and a toddler with oodles of imagination.

I lined the cars up and said "ready, steady, GO!" and showed him how the cars could drive between the lines.  Then he was off!

After a while the cars adopted their own personalities, one was Mummy, one was Daddy and one was Biscuit and they had little conversations.  The cars soon left the confines of the race track and began driving round the rest of the garden!

A super easy activity which encourages imaginative play and develops fine motor skills, perfect for when you are stuck for something to do and need an activity at short notice. 

One more post in this series to come, stay tuned.  If you have any toddler activities, feel free to share them in the comments.