Hello everyone, welcome to What’s The Story for w/c 13th July. Thank you to those of you that joined in last time.
We’ve had an especially busy weekend, mostly at the brilliant GoFest, so my #whatsthestory post is live on Tuesday this week. It will be the first post from our holiday in Corsica with Mark Warner and it’s rather photo heavy *obvs*. In the meantime, I’m leaving you with nutritious recipe – courgette chocolate brownies. Grain free and gluten free but still delicious!
Hello everyone, welcome to week #53 of the Black and White Photography Project. Thank you so much to those of you that joined in last time.
We were at GoFest, the UK’s festival of sport, dance, health and fitness, yesterday. The highlight was certainly meeting the lovely Ian Waite (and smiling like a buffoon at the equally lovely Natalie Lowe). That was until swum all by herself for the second time – the first time being in Corsica last week. This photograph was taken at the back end of the day when Daddy was playing tennis and we were having a mini picnic nearby.
How to join in
To join in with the Black & White Photography Project, just link up a short post featuring a black and white photograph or black and white photographs. The photograph/s can be from any time – both old and new are welcome. You’ll find a post on how to create better black and white photographs here.
Don’t forget to share on Instagram using #bwphotoproject. You can also share your posts and photos in the B&W Photography Project Facebook Group. Please feel free to tweet me @The_Doves if you’d like your post retweeted too.
Grab the badge!
Feel free to grab the #bwphotoproject badge (you’ll find a monochrome one here).
Pinterest loveliness
PODcast now has over 3,000 followers on Pinterest. If you’re looking for monochrome inspiration, do check out the Black and White Photography board. It features some incredible photographs from artists all over the World.
Follow PODcast’s board The B&W Photography Project on Pinterest.
The Happy Egg Co has partnered with award-winning nutritional therapist Christine Bailey with a challenge to create a healthy and nutritious recipe. As Christine is a well-renowned chef, author and broadcaster with 18 years experience transforming people’s health, we thought we’d give one of her recipes a go. The prize for the winner is an amazing Nutribullet and with a Dove health kick on the horizon, we just had to join in. Apart from anything else, we love brownies.
Christine Bailey’s Courgette Chocolate Brownies are made with almond nut butter instead of butter and xylitol instead of sugar so they’re better for you than conventional brownies. Given I’ve never cooked with either of these ingredients before, this recipe was a bit of an experiment for me. Thankfully the recipe is great and the brownies tasted just as good as they smelt in the oven! All the ingredients were in our local supermarket with the exception of xylitol which I substituted for another sweetener on this occasion. Almond nut butter, if you’re not familiar with it, can normally be found in the jams and spreads aisle.
Christine Bailey’s Courgette Chocolate Brownies
This recipe is grain free, gluten free and packed full of natural protein and healthy fats thanks to the eggs, nut butter and almonds. Eggs are one of the highest quality protein rich foods and you’d never guess courgettes were in these brownies. They add natural sweetness and moisture plus they’re a great source of vitamin C, potassium and dietary fibre. What a fabulous low in fat treat!
The preparation time for this recipe is 10 minutes with the cooking time 25 minutes. You can expect to make around 16 brownies.
Ingredients
200g almond nut butter
200g dark chocolate (can be dairy free)
100g sweet xylitol
3 medium Happy Eggs
1tsp vanilla extract
60g ground almonds
1tsp ground cinnamon
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 courgette, about 125g finely grated
Method
Pre-heat the oven to 180ºC or gas mark 4. Grease and line a 20cm square baking tin with parchment paper. Place the almond nut butter,
dark chocolate and xylitol in a pan and warm gently to melt the chocolate. Keep it on a low heat and make sure you stir regularly. With the texture different to using butter, I kept a close eye on it!
Place these ingredients in a food processor along with the eggs, vanilla extract, ground almond, cinnamon and bicarbonate of soda. Process to combine, once done add the courgette plus the pecans if you’re using them. I decided not to on this occasion but we did have them at the ready.
Spoon the mixture into a square 20cm/8 inch baking tin. Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes until golden brown and firm to the touch. Allow the brownies to cool before cutting into bars and eating. If you’re anything like me, you may feel obliged to have a sneaky taste while the brownies are still warm.
The smell coming from the oven while the brownies was cooking is divine and they tasted delicious. I was quite surprised having only eaten the higher fat variety so I was really impressed. I’ll no doubt be on the hunt for more of Christine’s recipes in a quest to eat better and get fit. This was such a great challenge for me and it was great to eat something tasty that’s also nutritious.
Nutritional information
Calories per serving: 225kcal
Protein: 5.2g
Carbohydrates: 15.9g
Sugar: 14.1g
Total fat: 17.5g
Saturates: 3.5g
Top tips for creating deliciously healthy recipes
Christine Bailey has a number of top tips for creating healthy and delicious recipes. I found these rather encouraging, particularly in terms of cutting the sugar, using fruit and cutting out the fat.
Cut the sugar – reduce the amount of sugar by one-third to one-half and it’s unlikely to make any difference. Add spices such as cinnamon, cloves or mixed spice or flavourings such as vanilla extract or almond flavouring to boost sweetness.
Use fruit or dried fruit – sugar can also be replaced by apple puree or dried fruits like dates. These will add natural sweetness as well as soluble fibre to support digestive health.
Going dairy free – instead of butter, try using coconut oil. To replace milk, try almond milk or coconut milk.
Add in extra fibre – grounded flaxseed or chia seed is delicious in baked recipes and provides valuable soluble fibre to help stablise blood sugar levels. Flax-seed also provides omega 3 fats and protein.
Want to cut the fat? – replace some of the butter in a recipe with mashed banana or stewed apple. Instead of cream, try thick greek yoghurt – it’s tasty and full of beneficial bacteria too.
The Taste 100 Healthy Eating Recipe Challenge is in partnership with The Happy Egg Company and Christine Bailey #happyeggtastemakers
We’ve embraced this warmer weather with open arms and POD loves spending time outdoors at the weekends and after pre-school. The increase in temperature hasn’t helped her eczema though and she’s often up in the early hours scratching. I had dreadful eczema as a child so I understand how uncomfortable it is and that it’s hard to stop scratching even though you know what damage it will cause.
POD’s troublesome areas include behind her legs, her armpits and the crease of her arms. Being at pre-school every day, she also has trouble with her hands and can, if left to her own devices, scratch her fingers until they bleed. It doesn’t stop her dressing up as Elsa obviously!
In the hope these warmer climes are here to stay, I’ve outlined below a few tips to manage eczema especially at bedtime when a flare up is most likely. One golden rule is to stay cool as heat makes eczema worse. We usually have a window open or a fan on in POD’s room so the temperature is just right.
Bathtime
Avoid bubble bath and soaps as they don’t help eczema and can irritate. We use Oilatum Junior in POD’s bath as it moisturises the skin, bath toys help her stay in longer so it soaks in although she loves baths so that’s not normally a problem. Her hair is long at the moment so we tie it up while she’s in the bath. We wash it afterwards while the bath water is draining away so it stays oil free and she has minimal contact with the shampoo. We also check POD’s nails at bathtime, they’re usually cut twice a week to minimise further damage to her skin.
Although too many baths dry out the skin, POD has one most nights. This is because she often comes into contact with products that irritate her skin at pre-school. Or she’s been lying in the sandpit making snow angels! Likewise if we’ve been to a swimming pool, we’ll give her a bath as chlorine is also an irritant.
Bedtime
Once out of the bath, we moisturise POD’s skin with Oilatum cream. Dryness causes the skin to itch so we try to ensure she has no dry patches – I check her body and her face too. We’ve tried to build this into her bedtime routine so she knows she’ll be creamed! We usually tackle the worst bits with Sudocrem or Dream Cream from Lush. Hydrocortisone creams are often necessary but we try to manage POD’s eczema with the other creams so we can use them sparingly.
After the bath she’s normally distracted by teeth cleaning so the creams can start to work their magic. Creams can be sticky for a time next to pyjamas and bed clothes but the benefits far outweigh the discomfort. If she’s already itchy, we give her liquid antihistamine so it kicks in before she goes to sleep. Her bedding is always 100% cotton and we only use non-biological washing powder. We didn’t once and she ended up in a Turkish doctors!
In the night
If POD’s eczema wakes her up, it’s usually in the early hours. Most important is stopping the itch so she doesn’t do herself damage. When I was a child I scratched so hard the gloves my parents put on me to stop me scratching had holes in them. Thankfully we’ve not had to resort to such measures with POD and I’m grateful her eczema thus far is not as bad as mine was. I like to think breastfeeding played a part in that as well as managing the condition as best we can.
We’ll usually give her antihistamine straight away if she’s really scratching and able to have another dose. It does take a while to work though so at times when she’s particularly itchy, we distract her with books or an episode or two of Peppa Pig. Anything to keep her occupied as the more she scratches, the more damage she does.
We’ll also re-apply the creams so they can help her skin while she’s asleep. Although it might take an hour or so for her to get off again, she’ll then have a good night and sleep through. In case you’re wondering, she often sleeps with a headband on although it’s not not usually this one!
If you have any further tips about your child’s eczema, feel free to share them in the comments below.
Oh my goodness I can’t believe we’ve reached letter Z already! I don’t know about you but this series of the Alphabet Photography Project seems to have flown past so quickly! Thank you to everyone that’s joined in, the interpretation of the theme and variation in photographs has been wonderful.
In a quest to avoid zoos and zebras, this week I’ve opted for zanyism. There was a lot of buffoonery when we were away last week but this photograph of POD pretending to hide does make me laugh. I had a better image of her larking around at breakfast but it was taken on my mobile so not great quality. She was making some hilarious moves with her hands on her face. One of the waitresses even came over to check she was alright!
I’m aiming for the next Alphabet Photography Project to kick off in September once the children are back at school. Hard to believe POD starts this year, we haven’t quite got our heads around it yet! She’s currently 8th on the waiting list for the local school so there is a glimmer of hope she might get in although it seems unlikely.
How to join in #alphabetphoto
To join in with the Alphabet Photography Project, all you need to do is link up a post with a photograph that represents the letter Z. It’s your call on how you interpret the theme – it might be an object, an adjective or a representation of that letter. If you need any hints, head over to the Alphabet Photography Project page.
Your photograph can be from any time too so don’t feel you have to take a fresh one each week! You can join in every week or once in a while too, it’s entirely up to you.
You can also join the #alphabetphoto project on Instagram (PODcast is here). Feel free to link up your Instagram photo here too. You can also share your post in the Pinterest and Facebook groups or in the Google+ community.
The Alphabet Photography Project runs weekly with a new letter every Wednesday. You can link up your post anytime from that day to the following Tuesday.
Inspiration on Pinterest
PODcast now has over 3,000 followers on Pinterest. There are some awesome photos on the #alphabetphoto Pinterest board.
Follow PODcast’s board The Alphabet Photography Project on Pinterest.
We started POD swimming when she was just six months old. She took to it like a duck to water and for several months she loved it. She even seemed to enjoy being under the water. A break (literally in my case!) changed all that and it was quite a few months before we returned to the thalassotherapy pool.
A new course teacher believed POD would be fine to pick up where she left off despite the absence. But she developed ‘the fear’ in her first lesson. We persevered for a few weeks but POD was terrified even before she entered the pool. Once in she continued to cling to the POD Father like a limpet and her screams became more intense. We were told to persevere so we did but each week was the same.
Hello everyone, welcome to What’s The Story for w/c 6th July. Thank you to those of you that joined in last time.
I hope you’ve been enjoying the recent UK heatwave. We’ve just returned from Corsica so we missed it completely although we had the most brilliant time. This week’s #whatsthestory post is all about building water confidence as POD swam in her arm bands for the first time. Although I only caught 4 seconds on video, it was an amazing moment!
How to join in
What’s The Story? enables you to share the stories behind your favourite photographs. To join in all you have to do is share a photograph and the story behind it. You can write as little or much as you like and your photo/s can be from any time. The Linky is open every Monday until the following Sunday.
Feel free to use the What’s The Story? badge or include a link to PODcast in your post and do share some comment love too. There’s a community on Google Plus so do pop over if you haven’t already. We’re at Charly Dove or PODcast.
Please feel free to tweet me your posts whenever you like and I’ll share them for you throughout the week.
Grab the badge!
Hello everyone, welcome to week #52 of the Black and White Photography Project. Thank you so much to those of you that joined in last time and anyone that’s participated in the past 12 months. I can’t believe this little project is already a year old!
We’re enjoying some pretty this week with photographs from Shanklin on the Isle of Wight. We stopped here for lunch when we visited recently and absolutely loved this little village. From the thatched tea rooms that had a thatched tea pot on its roof to the wonderful Pencil Cottage gift shop and tea garden.
How to join in
To join in with the Black & White Photography Project, just link up a short post featuring a black and white photograph or black and white photographs. The photograph/s can be from any time – both old and new are welcome. You’ll find a post on how to create better black and white photographs here.
Don’t forget to share on Instagram using #bwphotoproject. You can also share your posts and photos in the B&W Photography Project Facebook Group. Please feel free to tweet me @The_Doves if you’d like your post retweeted too.
Grab the badge!
Feel free to grab the #bwphotoproject badge (you’ll find a monochrome one here).
Pinterest loveliness
PODcast now has over 3,000 followers on Pinterest. If you’re looking for monochrome inspiration, do check out the Black and White Photography board. It features some incredible photographs from artists all over the World.
Follow PODcast’s board The B&W Photography Project on Pinterest.
