Christmas Cooking! Nutella Tree

11 Dec 2016 50 Comments

by Ritu in Foodie Pics, Recipes, Thoughts Opinions & Memories Tags: Blog, Blog Post, Blogger, Blogging, Festive Treats, Naughty but nice, Nutella, Nutella Christmas Tree, Recipes

I love checking out all the videos that pop up on my Facebook page, especially the ones to do with food!

Last week the same particular item popped up a couple of times, different videos but the same treat… Nutella Christmas Trees!

Well, it would be rude not to try that, especially during this most festive of times!

So I headed on out and bought me some Puff Pastry. I had the Nutella at home, as did I have icing sugar, and egg for the egg wash!

Here is my attempt!

I was pretty impressed!

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And it didn’t last long either!

The kids loved it too!

There was quite a bit of excess pastry left, after cutting the triangular shape out so I made some chocolate filled croissants too! (So good for my diet… not!)

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Unfortunately Lil Princess and Hubby Dearest were hit by a tummy bug last night so I had very little sleep. Still, I figured that I deserved a naughty breakfast after being up half the night, washing sheets, changing sheets and mopping sweaty brows!

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Hope you get a chance to have a try, the end results of both were delicious! It would make a great sharing centrepiece for Christmas day!

I may even experiment with a savoury version one day!

Spidey’s Serene Sunday – Part 95

11 Dec 2016 19 Comments

by Ritu in Spidey's Serene Sundays, Thoughts Opinions & Memories Tags: Blog, Blog Post, Blogger, Blogging, Calm, Courage, Quote, Serene, Spiderman, Spidey, Spidey's Serene Sunday

“Courage does not always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, “I will try again tomorrow.” – Mary Anne Radmacher

Spidey was obviously thinking of my Lil Man when he found this quote, on this fine Sunday.

Those of you that regularly read my blog will know that last week passed with plenty of drama in his little life. After a nasty hit on the head the previous Thursday, by a football, he was suffering concussion. As it was a hit to the same place he had managed to get concussed from 2 years ago, it was a little bit of a worry.

He was in a lot of pain every day.

But credit where credit is due. Every night he would be the positive one, saying “I’ll see tomorrow mummy, I want to go to school.”

Every morning he would wake, eat breakfast and try to get ready, before he admitted that it hurt too much.

On Thursday, I was going to call the school and say that we would just leave him off for the week, and try again on Monday.

He stopped me and said “No mummy, I still want to try to go to school tomorrow.”

I was so proud of him this week. Seriously.

Despite being unwell, he was a true soldier and attempted to get himself ready, before admitting defeat.

I know plenty of people who would milk an injury or illness for all it’s worth, and if the doctor says a week or two of rest, well they would just take if, even if they only needed a day or two!

But not my boy!

So we will see what Monday holds for him. If today is anything to go by, he will be fine!

But it is a lesson for us all, to never stop trying, or hoping that things will get better.

Hope you have a wonderful Sunday my dear Peeps!

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

10 Dec 2016 59 Comments

by Ritu in Children, Family, Thoughts Opinions & Memories Tags: Blog, Blog Post, Blogger, Blogging, Christmas, Christmas tree, Concussion, Family, kids, Sonu Singh

It’s taken a while, but we are finally with tree! 20161209_183837

What with Lil Man’s concussion, and a week of school, and oh so much ‘mum stress’ and worry, the Christmas tree, I’m afraid, took a back seat.

But yesterday evening, I came home to find a different child at home. Previously during the week, he had been really suffering from bad headaches, and was unable to get up, or do anything. Last night, however, he was so happy, helping me with housework, and even doing his homework!

The week was filled with hospital visits as his headache was no better, and he was waking each morning, conscious of missing school, but standing with silent tears falling due to the pain.

There were tears from me too… It is far too hard to see your child in pain, and not being able to do anything about it. We were lucky that Hubby Dearest works from home so he was at home with Lil Man, but it meant that I would come into work, and if anyone showed concern, I was a blubbering mess!

It didn’t help when the Locum Doctor at our surgery refused to acknowledge the concussion diagnosis by TWO hospital Dr’s and dismissed the whole thing as a headache because of the weather! And then he sent Hubby Dearest and Lil Man away saying he didn’t want them to waste anymore of his time! Seriously? This is a child with a diagnosed head injury??? We had been asked to go to our surgery to discuss next steps if the pain worsened. I wanted to hit someone (the doctor!) but I just cried instead!

Still, that is all a stress of the past now, and he seems so much more himself finally!

And Sonu Singh has been getting involved too, as usual!

He loves sitting under the tree and then sneakily trying to climb it! But the best is him getting acquainted with my giant Nutcracker!

And yes, I admit, I attempted some dressing up… but he was not compliant with me this time! See below for the Snowman and Elf attempt… FAIL!

He made himself feel better by sitting in our KFC bag instead!

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#SoCS Dec. 10/16 – Bear/Bare

10 Dec 2016 49 Comments

by Ritu in Challenges, Thoughts Opinions & Memories Tags: Bear/Bare, Blog, Blog Post, Blogger, Blogging, Linda G Hill, Socs

Linda’s Saturday prompt…

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “bear/bare.” Use one, use both, use ’em any way you please. Have fun!

The Bare Necessities.

One of my all time favourite Disney songs, from my absolute favourite movie, The Jungle Book!

It’s one of those songs that I simply cannot stop singing, once I hear it! You know, like one of those ear worms, that annoy the heck out of you, except this one doesn’t annoy me, but probably annoys all those around me as I go about my business, being Baloo the Bear, singing about the best way to go about life (if you were a bear!)

Many people ask me if I like it because of the connection to India, me being Indian, but to be honest, it’s as far removed from any India I have ever experienced! In fact it didn’t really click to me that the film was even based in India until much later!

As I got older, then the racial connotations of people calling Indian boys Mowgli, started to make sense.

But you know what, I am not interested in making this some preachy post about racism, and stereotyping, oh no!

I just want to celebrate this fantastic film, and song!

So, which song is your ear-worm of choice?

Ritu’s Healthy Eating – Week 18 – #icandothis

09 Dec 2016 32 Comments

by Ritu in Health, Thoughts Opinions & Memories Tags: Blog, Blog Post, Blogger, Blogging, Health, Healthy Eating, Slimming World, Weight Loss

Another week of naughty but nice things!

My parents were here last week, so we had pizza on Friday night, and a luscious Indian meal out on the Saturday night… and did I mention the Krispy Kreme donuts?

I was definitely not on for a loss this week! The best I could expect was to maintain my weight!

I decided to attempt to do a couple of SP Extra Easy days. For those of you who aren’t on the Slimming World plan, this is basically when you strip back your eating to a lot of ‘free’ foods that are filling, but low calorie. This meant no stodgy carbs, and certain fruit and veg, and yoghurts, were out of the picture.

And it obviously did the job…

I stood on the scales today and this happened!

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