cooking

baking, cooking, cooking with kids

Fun and educational activities to do with your children at home

Creating a productive, fun and educational environment in your home has never been more important to you. Making sure that your children always have a go-to activity to exercise their mind, body or soul is always at the top of your priority list. When it comes to feeling happy in your life, you are always at the top of your game when you’re spending time with the people you love the most. With that being said, you need some activities in your backpocket, so that you always have a good idea. Consider some of the following ideas, and you’ll soon have a whole host of fun activities to do with your children at home.

Board Games

Board games are such a valuable tool when you have children of any age. Getting them involved in classic games such as chess or pucket will not only teach them about strategy, but it can also help to improve their concentration. Getting your youngsters into the competitive spirit with a good board game will always be successful, as someone will always learn a valuable lesson as a result of the game they’ve played with you.

pucket

Cooking

Cooking is one of the most valuable skills you can teach your little ones, especially if they are getting older. Teaching your children how to read a recipe, cook basic meals and be proud of the finishing product is so important. At home you can encourage your kids to get busy in the kitchen, whether they’re baking lemon drizzle cake for guests or helping you cook a full dinner, you can gradually introduce them to the idea of cooking.

Exercise

This is one activity that will never go out of style when it comes to quality family time. Encouraging your youngsters to stay active and move their bodies in a way that feels enjoyable to them is so important. Exercise can come in all sorts of forms, from walking in the park to going swimming with friends. Leading by example with exercise will teach your children healthy habits and it will also allow everyone in the family to get into a good routine when it comes to physical activity.

Watch Documentaries

Parents often feel guilty about giving their kids too much screen time, but sometimes that’s all you need to relax, unwind and learn something new. There are so many fun and educational documentaries that you can enjoy with your child, and it won’t give you any guilt for putting them in front of the television for an hour or two! This is something you can do as a family, and it will spark conversations afterwards too.

It doesn’t matter how old or young your children are, you can get them involved in all of the healthy, fun and educational activities mentioned above. Whether you’re teaching them how to play chess from the comfort of your own home, or you’re cooking up a delicious recipe in the kitchen, there is so much you can do to spend quality time with the little ones you love.

This is a collaborative post.

cooking, cooking with kids

Creating a Family Dining Room: Tips for a Functional and Stylish Space

The family dining room is more than just a place to sit down and eat; it’s where everyone comes together, builds memories, and shares stories. Designing a dining room that is both family-friendly and stylish can transform the experience of gathering for meals. 

From choosing the right furniture to creating an inviting atmosphere, let’s explore how you can design a family dining room that combines durability, style, and functionality.

Choose a Durable Dining Table

The dining table is the heart of the room, so it’s important to select one that meets both your family’s needs and your personal style. Since the table will endure daily use, consider investing in a durable, high-quality piece. A marble dining table is a fantastic choice for families looking for something elegant yet resilient. Not only is marble a timeless material with a luxurious appeal, but it is also sturdy and easy to maintain with proper care. Check out various marble dining tables available in different styles that can elevate your dining room while withstanding the daily wear and tear of family life.

Choose Comfortable, Child-Friendly Seating

When selecting seating for a family dining room, prioritize comfort and durability. Look for chairs with supportive cushions that encourage everyone to gather around the table. Family-friendly materials, such as microfiber or leather, can resist stains and are easier to clean, making them ideal for households with young children. If you have very young kids, consider chairs with armrests or high backs to provide them with extra support while eating. Benches are also a space-efficient option for families with multiple children, offering plenty of seating and the ability to easily slide under the table when not in use.

Include Ample Storage for Easy Organisation

Family dining rooms often serve multiple purposes. They are spaces where family members work on crafts, complete homework, and share meals. Therefore, it is essential to have plenty of storage to keep things organized. Buffets, sideboards, or wall-mounted shelves can be used to store everything from tableware to board games and art supplies. By ensuring that you have ample storage within reach, you can quickly tidy up before meals or after activities, helping to maintain a functional dining room.

Choose Family-Friendly Decor and Accessories

Creating a warm and inviting dining room doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice style. Choose decor that reflects your family’s personality, whether through centerpieces, artwork, or decorative rugs. However, for a family dining room, opt for items that are easy to clean in case of spills. When selecting table decor, choose items that can withstand a bit of rough handling, especially if you have young children.

Conclusion

By creating a family dining room that blends functionality with style, every meal can feel like a special occasion. With the right choices—ranging from durable dining tables to appropriate storage solutions—you can design a space that is always ready for your family to connect and spend time together.

This is a collaborative post, enabling me to continue to create unique content for Kids Chaos. com

baking, cooking, cooking with kids

Lemon drizzle cake with ground almonds

lemon drizzle cakeWhat’s your favourite cake in your house? Ours has to be lemon drizzle cake…

we’ve have the recipe scribbled down on a piece of paper, shoved in the cake section of Delia’s cookbook, for years… Quite fortunate it’s our favourite cake really, as we sort of OVER-ORDERED the lemons on our Ocado delivery on Friday, and ended up with 12 lemons, yes, TWELVE lemons… oops!

So we wanted to share the recipe with you, and tbh, it makes it easier to find if we write it up on KidsChaos, as we just google ourselves ‘ kids chaos lemon drizzle’… 🙂

Admittedly this recipe doesn’t use all twelve lemons, however we make two lemon drizzle cakes at the same time as it disappears pretty quickly here, and we like to have it in our packed lunches in the week, in place of shop-bought snack bars (so just half the quantities if you only have a 1 litre loaf tin)

Lemon Drizzle Cake Ingredients:

350g caster sugar
350g butter, softened
4 unwaxed lemons
6 eggs
200g self-raising flour
150g ground almonds
A drop or two of milk
200g demerara sugar

Lemon Drizzle Cake Instructions:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180C/160C fan. Grease and line two loaf tins with greaseproof paper. Beat together the caster sugar, butter, and the finely grated zest of two lemons until light and fluffy. Add a pinch of salt and beat in the eggs, one at a time.

2. Sieve the flour and fold in, then add the ground almonds (not essential, particularly if anyone has a nut allergy!). Add a tiny amount of milk to ensure the mixture has a dropping consistency, then pour into your lined tins. Bake in the oven for about 50-55 minutes, until your knife pulls out dry when you test it. Leave it in the tin for now….

3. Mix together the lemon zest, and juice of the lemons with your demerara sugar, then prod holes all over the top of the lemon drizzle cakes and pour over the lemon drizzle, so that it runs into all of the little holes.
4. Allow the lemon drizzle cakes to cool in the loaf tins before turning out.

honeycomb with chocolate fondueFor more delicious #cookingwithkids fun try our honeycomb recipe golden syrup pictured here…

Oh, and I’m on twitter.com/MoreKidsChaos too… Instagram is my new favourite thing, Erm, and funnily enough on Facebook and Pinterest! Pop over to say hello x Like it? Pin it!

If you enjoyed this, check out an updated version with poppy seeds over on incredibusy.com

baking, cooking, crafts, create, key stage 2, kids, travel

Fforest gather – a new kind of family holiday

Cheese makingFforest gather – a new kind of family holiday

Family time together just so special as our boys get older – they are more independent and dare I say a little ‘feral’ this year? We’ve had the best of times and made new friends, made memories, and given us something to look forward to next summer too – why? what? how? you ask? Well, a week at Fforest gather, that’s what!

Over to Spike age 15:

If you’ve not heard about Fforest gather – you’re clearly not following @incredibusy on the instagram – or @coldatnight, which you should remedy forthwith – follow us here and here… It’s through instagram that Mum, and it transpires on chatting to fellow campers at Fforest gather, many others, have ‘met’ Sian and fallen in love with what she and husband James have been doing in Cardigan, Wales for the last couple of years…

A small intimate ‘festival’, not really a festival, but that explains the basis of the event – week long holiday with accommodation (optional, you can also bring your own tent/camper van) and daily workshops you won’t want to miss… a new kind of holiday in fact! Two family friendly weeks of adventures in nature, music, culture, creativity and simple pleasures.

view from our group tentWe stayed in one of the ‘group tents‘ – our family in one end, in two bedrooms, and our friends and their three small children in the facing ‘tent’. We brought our own sleeping bags and pillows, and the shared bathrooms a short walk away were positive luxury compared to some campsites we’ve stayed in! The group tents have a communal cooking, and eating area in the centre – and an amazing view across the fields. However, after trying the first catered meal in the canteen, we decided that we’d ditch the camp cooking, and eat with the majority of the other campers – the breakfast and evening meals were just amazing – and the dining area was super conducive to socialising too.

supper time

The beauty of the Fforest gather is that the workshops, talks, walks, performances and activities are all included in the ticket price. Two sessions a day, one at a very civilised 10am, and the afternoon sessions start at 2pm – Between our two families, we tried Screenprinting, Nature illustration; natural dyeing, canoeing, Tamsin with her pencil and puppet making, Bees make honey with the honey farm, making bacon, smoking fish, making cheese,  cooking with fire; axe & knife craft; yoga and wellness; drumming; beer cocktail classes; bird illustrations, silver ring making;  forest school sessions; den building; tree climbing; wild swimming and learnt about foraging with Jade and coppicing with Bruce – woah, all in one week?!

the pubThe evenings were equally entertaining, with, Music from Eyre Llew, and DJs and chatting, and Fforest Island discs, and beer drinking at the adorable little ‘Bwthyn pub‘. Candle lit, and roaring fire – this little pub is located at the heart of the Fforest camp.

A brief selection of our favourite workshops:
Natural dyeing with Hazel Stark – Indigo Shibori (a Japanese pattern technique) – we were so blessed with the weather, so a day spent outside in the Fforest vegetable gardens, patiently folding, pegging and dipping our canvas tote bags was well spent.

Indigo Dye
Indigo Dye

Bird drawing with Matt Sewell, such a delight; as was the glasses onto inanimate objects with Finn Thomson making faces and giving objects sight – such a fun workshop! Seeing objects – using wire, paper, glue, and a LOT of imagination, in the project barn.

Screenprinting was a really big hit with Lex from Feather studios and her patient partner @morganhenryjames.

 

Cheese making was a revelation (and made for the best photos! #instagramthat) Curds and whey with cheese chief Max – who it transpires, can also tell a tale, and sing a song….

Beer O ClockBeer was high on the agenda for the grown-ups, with Evil Gordon doing a turn talking beer cocktails, Beerbods, and sourdough bread making in the wood fired oven.

Jade Wild Pickings

And then there was foraging! @wildpickings 🍃🌿 Jade took us on a walk; foraging for edible hedgerow wonders – we’ve learnt such a LOT this week 🍃🌿

Oh and Sam! The Newquay Honey Farm Man – brilliant and enchanted!

Seriously, this is an event/holiday/week long party I would recommend – such a lovely way to spend time with your family.
We went with good friends, and came away with even more…

 

beer-cocktails-backstage-fforest-gather
The Farmhouse

bandcamp-beer-fforest-gather
Music from Eyre Llew

beer-cocktails-fforest-gather
Beer cocktails in the Farmhouse

coppice-college-sign-fforest-gather
Coppice College

 

coppice-college-tols-fforest-gather
In the tool shed

walk into Cardigan to visit the PizziTipi
walk into Cardigan to visit the PizziTipi

Sunset over the Tipi
Sunset over the Tipi

Forage baskets
Forage baskets

making Sour dough
making sour dough

Coppice College Woodburner
Coppice College Woodburner

 

Time to plan for 2018… 23 JULY – 5 AUGUST 2018 www.fforestgather.co.uk
A new kind of holiday.
Two family friendly weeks of adventures in nature, music, culture, creativity, making, growing & simple pleasures.
500 acres of bliss. Only 300 tickets available each week.
Week 1 – Monday 23rd – Sunday 29th of july
Week 2 – Monday 30th july – Sunday 5th of august

TO FIND OUR MORE ABOUT FFOREST CLICK HERE

Ali also writes over on incredibusy.com and funcraftskids.com and  aGreenerLifeforus.com

cooking, kids

Eating for peace – Conflict Cafe

Eating for peace – grubclub

grubclub-conflict-cafeIf delicious food, finding out about other cultures, and a love of peace sound like your perfect evening’s entertainment, book your place at Conflict Café, in the atmospheric tunnels underneath London’s Waterloo Station.

Here chefs including Imad Ghossain (pictured) from Lebanon and Ruby Kughanathan (pictured) from Sri Lanka will delight diners with food from their home countries, helping to show how much we can get to know about others and their countries simply by breaking bread with them and sharing a meal.

imad

rubyBoth Imad and Ruby became passionate about food by watching their mothers at their stoves at home as they cooked for the family, and then joining in. They left their countries of origin for a safer life and believe very much in the power of food to help transform attitudes, hence their support for Conflict Café.

This pop-up restaurant is being run by peacebuilding charity International Alert for the third year running from 22
September – 2 October 2016.
Conflict Café was inspired by a tradition that is common to many cultures around the world: coming together and reconciling differences by preparing and sharing meals. Diners will sit at communal tables and enjoy traditional dishes while finding out more about issues facing countries affected by conflict. It’s hoped that strangers will be inspired to talk together and start conversations about building peace through food.

Rebecca Crozier, International Alert’s Head of Emerging Programmes, explains the reasons behind the idea: “Across different cultures and continents, food has the power to bring people together and encourage the act of sharing. In some Middle Eastern countries, it is custom for the perpetrator of a crime to cook a meal for the victim and their family as a way of fixing broken bonds. In Europe, too, we find ways of using food to calm domestic storms, to unite communities and bring neighbourhoods together.
She adds: “We hope that Conflict Café will give diners a glimpse into the diverse cuisines and complex histories of some of the countries where we work, highlighting the positive role that food can play in peacebuilding.”
The organisers say that eating a meal may not obviously be changing the world but, if a diner is giving a thought to Lebanon or Sri Lanka in their hurried life, they believe that they are already ahead. The event changes – or creates – that person’s perception of that country. People will not often take three hours to read everything about world events. But if they go out for a great meal and hear someone from that country talk, they will be experiencing human detail from that country. They may tell their friends about it or write on social media and that’s how change can take place.
The initiative kicks off with Conflict Café: Lebanon, a country which ended its civil war just 10 years ago and is now hosting more than one million refugees displaced by the conflict in Syria.

diners-at-conflict-cafe

The focus will then shift to the delicious flavours of Sri Lanka where, after nearly 30 years of conflict, more than a generation of Sri Lankans have grown up with no real experience of peace.

Conflict Café is part of the Talking Peace Festival organised by International Alert, a charity established by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and other visionaries 30 years ago in a bid to secure an end to some of the world’s most bitter disputes. Once you’ve eaten you can take a look round the other tunnels in the House of Vans complex. These are housing other parts of the festival including the Create Syria multimedia exhibition.
This shows footage of exiled Syrian artists and cultural figures running workshops in Lebanon with refugee children and young people to help them to overcome their experiences of war.
The whole event is at the House of VANS, Arches 228 – 232 Station Approach Road, London SE1 8SW

Tickets are £35 for dinners and £20 for brunch. They are available online at www.grubclub.com/conflict-cafe

Twitter: @talkpeacefest
Instagram: @international_alert
Hashtags: #ConflictCafe and #TalkingPeace
Talking Peace Festival website: www.talkingpeacefestival.org

otto-schade-illustration‘Say it with flowers’ – a powerful image from Chilean artist @ottoschade for #ART4PEACE.

cooking, cooking with kids, food, kids

Quick Pizza with White Beans, Garlic and Rosemary

Pizza stage 1 Bean-Garlic-Rosemary-KidsWe do like a quick pizza on a Friday, or a playdate night at our house!

When we make our pizza base mixture in the bread maker, we always make double quantity and freeze them in small balled portions…

Perfect – so this morning, I took four of these portions out of the freezer, popped some flour onto a plate and place each of the frozen balls onto the plate to defrost for the afternoon.

Both boys like a different pizza topping, this is 11yo’s as he’s not so keen on cheese and tomato (what?!) – you’ll see he’s moved the mozzarella into one slice size just for me!pizza with bean garlic rosemary

Ingredients (for two)

2 pizza bases (either buy them ready made, use flatbreads, or follow the instructions for the pizza setting on your breadmaker)
Slosh of olive oil
2 large garlic cloves
400ml water
2 tins of beans – we used chick peas, although very nice with cannellini beans
Couple of sprigs of rosemary
1 ball of mozzarella
Handful of olives and capers
Salt and pepper

Directions for this quick pizza

Heat oven to 240ºC.
Chop the garlic, and fry gently for about a minute in the olive oil, adding the white beans, and the water, turning up the heat and simmering. Pour the beans, garlic and water into a small blender and whizz up, leaving some beans (or chick peas in this case) partially whole. Add a little water, and stir, seasoning this puree with salt and pepper and spread.

Spread the puree over both pizza bases, chop up the olives in half, and sprinkle them with the capers over the pizzas (not too many, as they are both super salty).

Rip up the mozzarella and drop onto the pizza bases (not essential, tastes good without if you’re not fond of cheese!)

Drizzle over the olive oil, and scatter the torn rosemary and pop in the hot oven for 10 minutes. Enjoy your ‘quick pizza’… 🙂

Follow Ali on twitter as @incredibusymum and twitter.com/MoreKidsChaos for more posts like this one… Erm, and funnily enough on Google+, Facebook and Pinterest! Pop over to say hello x Like it? Pin it! and come say hello at instagram.com/incredibusy too x
Ali also writes over on AGreenerLifeforus.com

 

cooking, cooking with kids

Tasty and quick Spinach and Mushroom Lasagne

This was another quick ‘rustle’ tonight by the 9 and 11yo boys, as we had a big bag of spinach and no coriander in the house to make a spinach dahl!… The fresh pasta sheets were in the freezer, so we defrosted those and got busy with the Spinach and Mushroom Lasagne. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.

Spinach and Mushroom LasagneIngredients for 4 people:

1 tbsp olive oil
300g bag spinach
2 garlic cloves, crushed
250g pack mushrooms, sliced
2 tsp thyme leaves, chopped
Cheese sauce (see below)
400g tin of puy lentils
1 tsp bouillon stock
300g fresh pasta sheets

For the Cheese Sauce

Big knob of butter
Flour
Milk
Water
Grated Cheese to taste

Instructions:

1) Heat the oil. Crush the garlic, and gently fry in a large frying pan for one minute in the oil.

2) Add the sliced mushrooms and the chopped thyme and stir

3) Meanwhile start the cheese sauce, by melting a bit knob of butter in another pan, and adding a tablespoon of flour, to make a roux – add milk, and keep stirring, the secret is to use a hand whisk which gets the lumps out, add water if it starts to thicken.

4) Add the spinach a handful at a time to the mushrooms and garlic in the frying pan. Sprinkle and stir in a tsp of bouillon low salt stock.

5) Add the grated cheese to the white sauce and keep stirring.

6) Add the remaining spinach and a tin of drained and rinsed puy lentils and stir.

7) Start to layer up the pie dish (we use a glass dish, as the kids like to see the layers) – starting with the spinach and lentils mix, then add two sheets of lasagne side by side to cover, and a dollop of the cheese sauce, and so on until you have used up the lasage, finish by pouring the remaining cheese sauce over the Spinach and Mushroom Lasagne dish.

8) Grate over another handful of cheese and crumble on some breadcrumbs. And place in the hot oven for 35 minutes. I find that covering the dish with tin foil after twenty minutes stops the cheesy breadcrumb crust from over cooking.

Another favourite for 11yo is his Salmon with mushrooms and pak choi, click here to read more.

Ali also blogs over on aGreenerLifeforus.com and is a new lover of Instagram too… pop over and say hello!

cooking, cooking with kids, gardening, gardening with kids

Tasty leeks with chickpeas recipe with grilled halloumi cheese

This was a quick ‘rustle’ last night, as we had a big bag of leeks, and all I could think of was Leeks in Cheese Sauce… not very original, 11yo doesn’t like cheese (unless it’s grilled halloumi!), and he wanted to make something that looked ‘restauranty’!

KidsChaos Leek Chick Pea Carrots Parsnips recipeIngredients for 4 people:

6 large leeks
500ml low salt vegetable stock
2 tins 400g tin chickpeas, drained
Packet of Halloumi cheese, sliced

For the dressing

4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 tsp runny honey
Juice and zest of 2 lemons
2 garlic cloves, crushed
A pinch of salt flakes

 Instructions:

1) Chop the leeks in half, and then slice into quarters length ways, to create ribbons.

2) Break up a stock cube into a large deep frying pan, and pour in the 500ml boiling water, add the leeks and simmer for five minutes.

3) Mix up the dressing of olive oil, honey, and the juice and zest of the lemons with the crushed garlic and salt flakes

4) As the leeks soften add the chickpeas to the pan and stir through to heat them.

5) Meanwhile using a ridged frying pan, grill the halloumi (we like the grill stripes!) and start plating up the leeks and chickpeas, spoon over the dressing, and then top with the halloumi cheese – very ‘restauranty’ don’t you think?!

Serve with honey and garlic roasted carrots and parsnips – delicious!

Another favourite for 11yo is his Salmon with mushrooms and pak choi, click here to read more.

You may also like Chris Mosler’s Thinly Spread’s Rich Leek Tart. We’ll be trying that one for sure!

Ali also blogs over on aGreenerLifeforus.com and is a new lover of Instagram too… pop over and say hello!