Tuesday 10 February 2009

kitchen at the ready...



Am looking forward to making vegan chocolate cake this weekend. I've a recipe that hadn't worked each time I've tried to make it in this house so far! Hence I've blamed the cooker each time. Now that excuse has gone, I really hope it doesn't sink! Valentine's day seems to be a good day to try it out!

So happy with the new kitchen. It feels like someone else's at the moment, or that we've won a competition. We didn't quite get what we ordered- the cupboards are painted in 'vanilla', a paler shade than the warm, light 'saffron', I chose... but it looks good also, and we've chosen green for the walls which we like. Very much into green!












Dinner tonight was vegetable moussaka veganised from Sarah Brown's 'Vegetarian Kitchen'. Doesn't take much adapting, just vegan butter and soya milk in the white sauce, plus vegan cheese on top. It is delicious, although note to myself: only make this at weekends when Mit's around to play with R and L; its a bitty recipe which has you in and out of the kitchen for best part of two hours. R and L watched tv quite happily, but the guilt pangs were there!









On another quick note: there was an information evening at the boys' preschool recently. I was with the boys so Mit went.. it was great to learn more about the Montessori approach, which is working wonders with our little poppetts. Mit found us a tip in conflict resolution; apparently, the school have those egg timers with sand running through. And if two children fall out over a toy, they put the egg timer on to help with 'taking turns'! Well, I think that's genius! Haven't got an egg timer but I've been setting my mobile phone for three or so mins at a time! It works! The alarm acts as some external decider and I feel less of a referee. Hooray!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

the kitchen is truly a thing of beauty, I must pop in for a cuppa soon.....talking of which would you and the boys like to pop in after school one day now the weather has improved to meet Edward? xx

RedLentil said...

Very envious of your gorgeous kitchen! The egg timer approach is brilliant with little ones, particularly if it's a sandtimer so they can see the time physically running down. Kids work really well with anything really visual don't they :) It's good for time outs too because they can see how the time is going. In our house, we have fights over internet time and we have an egg timer (though not a sand one) and it's a godsend. When someone wants their turn, they just set the time for however many minutes and we get surprisingly few arguements when it rings! Yay!

Paula J. Norcott said...

Your kitchen is beautiful! you must be so excited! Timers....aaahhh yes! my very best friends! We use them for EVERYTHING! toys, time-outs, schoolwork, quick pick ups (everyone pick up as fast as you can for 5 minutes!) taking turns on the Wii. Everything. We have multiple timers all throughout the house.

Bea said...

Em, yes would love that. It feels a breeze getting around again! Snow was fun for a while though....
Timers.. honestly, I feel like a referee with just my two boys so with more, no wonder you incorporate these nuggets of genius anywhere you can! Isn't it funny though how you realise that 5 minutes really is no time at all?!