I love my slow cooker. I work full time, and my diet would probably be pretty terrible without it.
I am also incredibly lazy, and it means that chopping veg and chucking herbs, spices and meat into a dish = a tasty dinner to come home to!
Today in my slow cooker, we have lamb and pearl barley stew. I found pearl barley in my cupboard whilst mooching for dinner ideas and figured I'd give it a go! It's cheap, thickens stews and bulks them out, so it's a winner in my books!
Lamb and Pearl Barley Stew
400g Diced lamb
1/2 courgette, chopped
3 carrots, chopped
1/2 leek, finely sliced
1 red onion chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 sticks of celery, chopped
45g of pearl barley
1 tsp rosemary
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 pint stock (I use what I have, beef today!)
salt and pepper optional, I chose not to as the small Bears will be eating it.
I'm way too lazy to be browning meat, so I chucked it all in for 7 hours and it wasn't the prettiest of meals but it was lovely with crusty bread! It's bloody cold outside today, and coming home to a comforting dinner already cooked was wonderful.
Wednesday, 27 March 2013
Friday, 22 March 2013
I'm a very busy mummy bear...
Okay, so I'll give you a breakdown of a day in the Bear household...
6am: Hear Baby Bear wake up. Ignore crashing of toys, pattering feet and shouts of 'mummy, I awake!'
6.30: alarm goes off. Press snooze.
6.31: Squishy Bear starts grabbing my face and attempts to rearrange it whilst singing. Get out of bed, say good morning to BB and open stair gate. BB flees his bedroom and disappears down the stairs. Collect neat piles of clothes prepared the night before.
6.35: Catch BB and change his bum and get him dressed. Find SB who has learnt to zombie crawl and is attempting his escape. New nappy and dress him also. Feed BB
6.50: Make coffee. Give BB fruit and a drink so I get five minutes peace. Doesn't work.
7am: Hang out nappy wash.
7.10: Get dressed. By this time both babies will decide they want my attention and begin to whine.
7.20: Feed babies.
7.30: Drag BB to bathroom, wash his face and get our teeth brushed.
7.45: Put pram up and load it up with their bags and lunchbags.
8am: Eat breakfast. By this I mean run around the living room with my sons chasing me whining for more food whilst I try and shove porridge down my throat.
8.15 Make sure everybody is ready to go, and wake Daddy Bear.
8.30: shout a load of instructions at a half awake DB and run out of the house.
9-5.30: work a shift in a busy lab.
5.45 pick boys up from nursery. Load up pram. Drag to tired whiny boys home.
6pm Bath, PJs, night nappies, stories, cuddles etc etc etc.
6.30 pm: give BB milk, shut stairgate and door. In theory, he is done for the night. Sometimes he does wake, but he's fairly easy to settle. Start feeding SB. He's a monkey to feed and fidgets badly when he's tired.
7pm Pop sleeping baby in his crib. He WILL wake up the second his back touches the crib. Leave the room. SB will wail for about 30 secs before falling asleep.
Rest of the night will be spent putting on washing, tidying toys, packing mine and the boys lunches, packing bags for the next day, cook dinner, wash up, sterilise bottles... By the time I sit down it will be about 9pm, when DB comes in from work. I am usually falling asleep by this point.
This happens four days a week. One day is slightly easier as my mum has the boys and I don't have to sort nursery thighs out and she gets them ready for bed. Weekends are spent cleaning and general pottering I don't have time to do during the week.
I still use cloth, I still breastfeed when baby is with me, he has formula during the day as a) my damn breastpump broke. b) SB feeds so much I can't pump between feeds anyway, I still use slings (I've started tandem wearing at home!) so I still get to parent my way :)
desperately needing time off
xxx
6am: Hear Baby Bear wake up. Ignore crashing of toys, pattering feet and shouts of 'mummy, I awake!'
6.30: alarm goes off. Press snooze.
6.31: Squishy Bear starts grabbing my face and attempts to rearrange it whilst singing. Get out of bed, say good morning to BB and open stair gate. BB flees his bedroom and disappears down the stairs. Collect neat piles of clothes prepared the night before.
6.35: Catch BB and change his bum and get him dressed. Find SB who has learnt to zombie crawl and is attempting his escape. New nappy and dress him also. Feed BB
6.50: Make coffee. Give BB fruit and a drink so I get five minutes peace. Doesn't work.
7am: Hang out nappy wash.
7.10: Get dressed. By this time both babies will decide they want my attention and begin to whine.
7.20: Feed babies.
7.30: Drag BB to bathroom, wash his face and get our teeth brushed.
7.45: Put pram up and load it up with their bags and lunchbags.
8am: Eat breakfast. By this I mean run around the living room with my sons chasing me whining for more food whilst I try and shove porridge down my throat.
8.15 Make sure everybody is ready to go, and wake Daddy Bear.
8.30: shout a load of instructions at a half awake DB and run out of the house.
9-5.30: work a shift in a busy lab.
5.45 pick boys up from nursery. Load up pram. Drag to tired whiny boys home.
6pm Bath, PJs, night nappies, stories, cuddles etc etc etc.
6.30 pm: give BB milk, shut stairgate and door. In theory, he is done for the night. Sometimes he does wake, but he's fairly easy to settle. Start feeding SB. He's a monkey to feed and fidgets badly when he's tired.
7pm Pop sleeping baby in his crib. He WILL wake up the second his back touches the crib. Leave the room. SB will wail for about 30 secs before falling asleep.
Rest of the night will be spent putting on washing, tidying toys, packing mine and the boys lunches, packing bags for the next day, cook dinner, wash up, sterilise bottles... By the time I sit down it will be about 9pm, when DB comes in from work. I am usually falling asleep by this point.
This happens four days a week. One day is slightly easier as my mum has the boys and I don't have to sort nursery thighs out and she gets them ready for bed. Weekends are spent cleaning and general pottering I don't have time to do during the week.
I still use cloth, I still breastfeed when baby is with me, he has formula during the day as a) my damn breastpump broke. b) SB feeds so much I can't pump between feeds anyway, I still use slings (I've started tandem wearing at home!) so I still get to parent my way :)
desperately needing time off
xxx
Friday, 1 March 2013
I haven't disappeared!
Gone insane, yes. But I am still here!
The reasons for my absence are individually very easy to cope with. All together, I'm quite surprised I'm not in a loony bin.
1) my laptop died. It suffered the seven beeps of death before failing to turn on ever again. Luckily, all of my photos of my bears are safe, the motherboard died but my hard drive is fine and residing in my paperwork cupboard, until I can afford a new laptop.
2) I lost my iPhone. After my laptop dying, I was using my iPhone as my main source of Internet. And then First buses suffered my wrath after expecting me to get on a bus with no pram facility, and three steps. Bloody hell. Cue carrying on toddler, and sitting him in a seat, then running off of the bus, grabbing squishy bears car seat from the pram and putting that next to bb, then back off again to fold my pram, drag it up the stairs and heave it into the storage bit. At some point I dropped my phone but didn't realise until I got off of the bus. This time I have lost all of my pictures. My own fault for not backing it up but without a laptop I couldn't, but I'm devastated to be honest.
3) I moved house. Never ever want to move house ever again. Not until the boys are big enough to not cry constantly throughout the move! Almost finished unpacking, also very difficult with two under two.
4) I start a new job on Monday. Full time. And the boys are going to nursery. Sob.
5) my post natal depression has gotten to a point where I don't feel like me anymore. My gp won't see me because I've moved out of area, so I'm a bit lost now until i find a new one. I hate feeling like this.
So there you go. Quick update! Will post again with more detail when I get a chance.
The reasons for my absence are individually very easy to cope with. All together, I'm quite surprised I'm not in a loony bin.
1) my laptop died. It suffered the seven beeps of death before failing to turn on ever again. Luckily, all of my photos of my bears are safe, the motherboard died but my hard drive is fine and residing in my paperwork cupboard, until I can afford a new laptop.
2) I lost my iPhone. After my laptop dying, I was using my iPhone as my main source of Internet. And then First buses suffered my wrath after expecting me to get on a bus with no pram facility, and three steps. Bloody hell. Cue carrying on toddler, and sitting him in a seat, then running off of the bus, grabbing squishy bears car seat from the pram and putting that next to bb, then back off again to fold my pram, drag it up the stairs and heave it into the storage bit. At some point I dropped my phone but didn't realise until I got off of the bus. This time I have lost all of my pictures. My own fault for not backing it up but without a laptop I couldn't, but I'm devastated to be honest.
3) I moved house. Never ever want to move house ever again. Not until the boys are big enough to not cry constantly throughout the move! Almost finished unpacking, also very difficult with two under two.
4) I start a new job on Monday. Full time. And the boys are going to nursery. Sob.
5) my post natal depression has gotten to a point where I don't feel like me anymore. My gp won't see me because I've moved out of area, so I'm a bit lost now until i find a new one. I hate feeling like this.
So there you go. Quick update! Will post again with more detail when I get a chance.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)