It's been a while so here's a bit of an update (and a recipe to make amends!).
Last weekend was my grandad's 90th birthday and my great aunts 60th jubilee of nunhood (is that a word??) so we made our way to Upminster for the celebration.
29 members of the family pitched up, along with a few friends which was great, although Natalie was a bit overstimulated by all the attention. Grandad's house used to feel huge when I was little, but now that the family has grown so big it's struggling to contain us all!
Natalie can now add butternut squash to her list of favourite foods! She's also tried courgette and green beans, and is loving all the new experiences. Next week we'll move onto 3 meals a day (at the moment she's just having breakfast and dinner) which will be fun, it wont be long before she's eating the same meals as we are.
We managed to get a great charity shop purchase the other day - this lovely pumpkin patch vest was only 99p!
We harvested our carrots the other day. They're a special variety - they're spherical! They taste yummy - very sweet!
I finished (well, almost) the student welcome packs for church. Here's what they look like:
You're probably wondering when I'm going to tell you about the tooth I mentioned in the title of this blog. The wait is over! Yesterday Natalie did 5 poos - literally every nappy bar one was a pooey one. I now realise why, as she was smiling up at me this morning and I spotted a tiny (and I mean really tiny) bit of tooth poking up from her bottom gum! What a big girl - she's growing so fast!
(ok, you can't really see it in the pic but it is there!)
We also had some really good tummy time yesterday, mucho progress!
I almost forgot to mention that our dishwasher miraculously came back to life! After handing in his case study, Pete decided to have another look at the dishwasher to see if he could fix it. He switched it on for a rinse to see what it would do, and it seemed to work fine! Not sure how long it'd been working for, hopefully not long so that the weeks of washing up haven't been in vain!
I've been thinking about the blog, and have decided I'd like to make it a bit more tailored as I currently cover lots of different subjects in each post. I'm coming up with a list of topics so watch out for the slightly more focussed Purple Toucan, coming very soon!
Now, here's the recipe.
Bacon & Pea Risotto
We eat this meal quite a lot because its really tasty but very easy to make and doesn't require many ingredients at all. You may think that the words 'easy' and 'risotto' are oxymorons, but this is a bit of a cheats risotto that doesn't require constant stirring. Enjoy...
Serves 2
1 onion, finely chopped
2 rashers of bacon, chopped
150g risotto rice
500ml hot vegetable stock
50g frozen peas
1. Fry the onion until lightly browned in 1tbsp olive oil and a knob of butter in a saucepan (about 7 minutes).
2. Add the bacon and fry for 5 minutes until it starts to crisp.
3. Add the rice and stock and bring to the boil. Stir well, then turn down the heat and cook, covered, for 15-20 minutes.
4. Stir in the peas, add a little pepper, and cook for 3 more minutes.
5. Dish up and serve with some grated parmesan.
