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When I was hosting my pinterest party I pinned a recipe for 58 calorie chocolate muffins that I thought we could try. They were pinned from this site but apparently originally it came from Dashing Dish (although I couldn’t find them on there). Dashing Dish may just be my new favorite website btw. It’s amazing and I will definitely be trying some recipes from there soon.
We didn’t get round to making these on the night (you missed out girls!) and so I have just used the ingredients I bought to make them with Littlelish. The recipe was ridiculously easy, basically you throw everything together in a bowl or a blender, mix and pop in the oven!
Here is the ingredient list:
- 1 and 3/4 cups of oats (I used porridge oats)
- 3 egg whites
- 3/4 cup of unsweetened cocoa
- 1/2 cup of unsweetened applesauce
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt (or regular plain low fat yogurt)
- 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 cup hot water
- 1/4 cup + 2 tbs stevia
- 1 cup of dark chocolate chips
And the steps we followed to make them:
- I greased the muffin tin using butter (probably added a few calories but nevermind!). You would be better off using paper muffin cases if you have them. I didn’t ;)
- I only have a hand held blender (I know, poor me, I agree!) so I used this to grind the oats down into a fine powder – they pretty much flew everywhere so a blender would be better.
- I then added the remainder of the ingredients (apart from the chocolate drops) and Littlelish mixed them all together with a wooden spoon.
- We then carefully poured and mixed in the chocolate drops and spooned the mixture into the muffin tray.
- We baked for 15 mins on 200 degrees.
They came out of the oven moist, soft with gooey melted chocolate in them. They are divine and I ate 2, which totally and utterly defeats the object of making low calorie muffins but whatever! Note: you are supposed to spread this mixture out over 2 muffin tins to make 24 small muffins of 58 calories. I only used one muffin tin and made nice big muffins which are presumably then 116 calories but that is still pretty good!
Let me know if you try them and what you think! xx
Remember I told you I had an awesome Easter weekend? Not only was I well enough again to eat chocolate (hoorah) but I got to spend it with all my favourite people. Easter Sunday was spent with my lovely family but I also managed to arrange a little get together with my bestest girlfriends on the Saturday night (not all of them as they are spread out across the world!) and do my favourite thing – make things!
I was lucky enough to be challenged by Swinton Home insurance, who have some great Cheap Home Insurance Quotes Online, to have my perfect night in! I always enjoy going out for dinner or to watch a band but I do love staying in too. Normally my nights in involve me cooking for people (which I love, I’m a bit of a feeder I think!) and wine :) But with a £100 budget I wanted to do something a bit creative and different. First port of call when looking for inspiration? Pinterest!
After a good 30 minutes looking for party inspiration it came to me! I would arrange a pinterest party! I am forever pinning amazing creative ideas for things to make but realistically I don’t often actually do anything with all those pins I pin. Very occasionally I’ll revisit something I’ve pinned on there… but how fab would it be to have a night in with the girls trying to recreate some of these lovely ideas that I pin?
I decided to split the budget and spent £50 on food and drinks and £50 on craft materials which actually worked out perfectly. The planning took a bit of extra thought, I spent quite some time sifting through pinterest (oh what a hardship) looking for the perfect ideas to recreate. I didn’t want anything too complicated, something that we could all get involved in and something the girls could take home with them. I am also trying to be a bit healthy at the moment so was looking for healthy food recipes and non alcoholic cocktails (I know, but everyone was driving!). I made a prelimary board http://pinterest.com/mummylish/pinterest-party-ideas/ but there was so much choice, so many ideas, craft ideas, make up ideas, nail art ideas, food ideas. Eventually I settled on making…
and these crafts to make
Shopping for the party was pretty tough, I had two ridiculously long shopping lists. It must have taken me 3/4 of a day to find it all! In all fairness, the craft shops round here are not great so I spent a while running round looking for the bits I needed and running from one end of the supermarket to the other collecting ingredients for the recipes. I still managed to forget a few things which was annoying!
The girls arrived at 7pm and we set to work following the food recipes and getting things going so we had something to eat! We started with the strawberries so we could get them straight into the freezer, they were very simple to make but were delicious. At this point I still had an excited Littlelish around so this was the perfect thing for her to help with. The quinoa nibbles and mini taco cups were also very straight forward recipes to follow, simple with only a few steps, the stacks of aubergines had a few more steps to the process but were also simple.
By 8pm we were tucking into our food. All the girls agreed, the recipes were delicious :) When I make the quinoa nibbles again I may experiment with flavour as quinoa can have a bit of a bland taste like couscous. The aubergine stacks were yummy, even without the all important feta (which was one of the things I forgot, duh)! We replaced it with parmesan and mozarella cheese and they were equally as delicious (infact we couldn’t really imagine them with feta) a little bit like mini Melanzane Parmigiana. Our absolute favourite were the chicken taco cups, we were all in agreement that this was a brilliant idea for party food and such a yummy bite.
We were all so full we decided to wait with making the chocolate muffins which were apparently only 58 calories (amazing!) and time was ticking on and we wanted to get on with the crafts. We did a quick clear away and brought out the craft stuff, ready to make our pinboards! We chose our fabric, followed the instructions, which worked well and we were there to help each other if we got stuck at all. It was lovely both with the cooking and crafting as we all sat round the table chatting, laughing and catching up. It was a really lovely, chilled atmosphere and we all agreed it was fun and different to be making something together :) There was a little bit of a joke that we were turning into the women’s institute but you know what, we didn’t care! We all love to cook and craft and chat so it was absolutely perfect combination! I may have missed some wine but I think that wine would have made the crafting a bit more difficult and we may have had a rather different outcome ;)
After we had all made our pinboards and done lots of chatting it was already 11pm! Some of the girls decided to call it a night but we still had bracelets to make! Maybe they were all crafted out ;) The ones that were left stayed up making the bracelets which were actually not that easy! I think this was definitely something to do with it getting late, I kept on forgetting which side I was knotting to, the left or right! Whoops. I tried again the next day and it was much easier. I’m a little bit addicted to this new found technique and have been making bracelets all week :)
Thank you Swinton Home Insurance, we had a fab night. In fact we enjoyed it so much we said we would make it a regular thing :) I’d totally recommend hosting a pinterest party but it requires some good thought when planning. I’ve given you my best tips below on throwing a pinterest party – enjoy! x
Tips for arranging and hosting a pinterest party
- Don’t plan too many activities, you’ll never get to make it all and you want to take it a bit easy and chat along the way
- Choose activities that all your guests will be able to do, remember people have different ability levels when it comes to craft
- Write a clear shopping list of all the ingredients and craft items you will need. Try shopping in advance
- Make some food before hand or buy some little nibbles and crisps like I did so people have something to nibble on while making their food.
- Invite people you feel relaxed around, like your closest friends. Its a pretty informal set up and you will want people to get stuck in with helping you make the recipes etc.
- It is nice if your friends get to leave with something they made :)
- Start a pinterest party board now so that when you come round to organising you have loads of ideas to chose from!
Yesterday was a good day. A day spent at home with my girl. A day spent baking cakes and crafting houses out of junk – the best kind of day. We have a garden full of apples so we decided to make a delicious Apple, Walnut and Cinnamon cake from the Baking Bible by Mary Berry and it was sooooo good I thought I’d share it with you. It’s really one of those throw it all in a bowl cake and mix so you can’t go really wrong making it with kids. There are also lots of fun bits in between like spreading the grated apple, squishing the walnuts that are perfect for little ones. The end result is a really tasty, not too sweet, delicious cake!
To make the cake you will need:
- 225g softened butter
- 225g light muscovado sugar
- 3 large eggs
- 100g chopped (or squished) walnuts
- 100g sultanas
- 225g self raising flour
- 2 level teaspoons baking powder
- 400g cooking apples (peeled, cored and grated)
- 1 level teaspoon cinnamon
To finish:
- light muscovado sugar for sprinkling
- extra walnuts (chopped) for sprinkling
- icing sugar for dusting
You’ll need to preheat the oven to 180 degrees C / Fan 160 / Gas 4 and then prepare a cake tin by lining the bottom with greaseproof paper and smearing the sides with butter. Best done by little people, although Littlelish likes to lick her fingers afterwards – blurgh!
You need to add the butter, sugar, eggs, walnuts (chopped), sultanas, flour and baking powder into a large bowl and mix for 2 mins until it’s all blended.
Halve the mixture and spoon it into the cake tin. You then need to add all the grated apple and sprinkle it with the cinnamon. When you’ve done this you can add the rest of the cake mixture on top and sprinkle generously with the muscovado sugar and walnuts you have left. This was Littlelish’s job which she took very seriously :)
You then need to bake for up to 1 and 1/4 to 1 and 1/2 hours until well risen and nicely browned. Ours took little over an hour to be completely cooked, I only just got it out in time in fact! So keep an eye on your oven, ours is particularly warm so it took less time.
You then just need to leave to cool, turn out and dust with icing sugar and ENJOY! We did. Oh and we may have added some cream :)
Extra tip for mummies: Is your little one learning to read? How about writing out some parts of the recipe in simple language for your child to read like I did with Littlelish? I wrote up 1.Mix for 2 mins 2.Put in the tin and 3. Cook in the oven in large, clear legible writing for her to read at the appropriate time. The goal of needing to know what to do next meant that she concentrated on her reading well and was able to tell me! Good for little ones who need to have a reason for doing things like Littlelish ;)
Inspired by Katy from I can cook (you know the very happy, bouncy, smiley lady that does mushroom impressions, yep her), we made own own version of Green Parcel Pie. In fact it was not really green because we had no courgettes in the house at all but we borrowed the parcel pie idea, which was super easy and fun to do.
We made the filling for the pie first and settled on what we had in the fridge at the time that might have made a good combination. It turned out to be lovely hence my sharing it with you all. I supposed you could stuff it with anything, mushroom and chicken might be nice.. we will try that next time. For this particular experiment we used;
- Filo pastry sheets (3)
- 2 large pieces of Salmon
- A bunch of Asparagus
- 1 red pepper
- Philadephia with chives (about 3 tablespoons)
- 1 egg
- Parmesan cheese (about 3 tablespoons) we lurve Parmesan!
- Olive oil
- Salt and Pepper for seasoning
Firstly we chopped the salmon into pieces as well as the asparagus and pepper. We added this to a bowl and mixed it together.
We then cracked an egg into a small bowl and beat it with a fork, this then was added to the salmon and vegetables. We then added the cream cheese and mixed, mixed, mixed. It cannot really go wrong so I let littlelish mix for ages ;) I added a little bit of salt and black pepper for seasoning. At this point I did not add any milk but with hindsight I might have added a splash of milk just to make it a bit saucier ;)
Now you need to get your tin ready, I used a loaf tin. Brush with oil and put on your first sheet of filo pastry. According to Katy you now have to brush the pastry with more oil, only we didn’t keep brushing with oil and it turned out fine – up to you I guess. You then need to overlap the other 3 sheets of pastry. Mine were not squares, more rectangles so I turned the middle layer and draped it over the other way… I’m not sure why just thought it might be clever ;)
Now you are ready to pour your mixture in the loaf tin. Now you can fold and scrunch your filo pastry over the filling. Brush the top with a little bit of oil to crisp it up.
We now put ours in the oven for about 30 mins, because it is salmon we did check that it was all cooked properly before we got it out!
And then we devoured it and it was delicious! Littlelish would have loved it as she loves all of the ingredients only she is majorly off her food at the moment! (Not sick just stubborn). Let me know if you cook this or a variation of it and how it turned out :)
Ta da!
Sometimes I am a great cook. This normally involves an excellent recipe from the likes of Jamie, Nigella or Delia and quite a lot of sweat and tears (most likely my husbands as I am the worlds MESSIEST cook). On an average day I like to make a quick dish that is nutritious, more »
Sometimes I am a great cook. This normally involves an excellent recipe from the likes of Jamie, Nigella or Delia and quite a lot of sweat and tears (most likely my husbands as I am the worlds MESSIEST cook). On an average day I like to make a quick dish that is nutritious, fresh and yummy. Pasta is a staple in our house, ask D on any given day what she wants to eat and I can guarantee you that will be the answer. Tonight we had this delicious pasta dish created from, well just what we had in the fridge (luckily we always have lots of nice veg in stock!) and I thought I would share it with you.
To feed 2 and a 1/2 people I used:
- 2 Chicken breasts (chopped)
- Asparagus tips (chopped to about 1 inch pieces)
- 1 Pepper (chopped)
- A few strips of Parma ham (chopped)
- Pasta
- Milk
- Flour (1 tbsp)
- Parmesan (fresh)
First pan fry and season the chicken for a few minutes until it has turned white (not too long) then throw in your chopped up pepper, cook for a further 5 mins. You will then need to add your asparagus to the pan and cook for another 5 mins. Pour some milk into the pan to make the base of the sauce, not too much just enough to create the right amount of sauce you desire. To thicken this up you need to add 1 tbsp of flour, keeping stirring until all the flour is dissolved and your sauce is thickened to the right consistency. You then need to grate in some fresh Parmesan to taste, normally a handful is enough. In a separate pan quickly dry fry your Parma ham until it goes crispy. Dish up the pasta, followed by the sauce and sprinkle on the Parma ham and enjoy!
I’m a freelancer in creative marketing with a background in design and styling but when I'm not working I'm doing the most important job in the world, being mummy to my beautiful little girl! I love to create and craft and have a passion for colour and beautiful detail. This blog is all about my life, my amazing daughter, my inspirations and creations!
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