Thames Valley Mums Blog

Ten yummy things to do with blackberries (recipes included)

I love this time of year. All across England, hedgerows are full of blackberries just waiting to be picked. It brings back childhood memories, sometimes bitterwseet. Though I looked forward each year to plucking the juicy berries off their prickly nests and eating them by the handfull, their arrival signaled that summer was soon coming to an end.

But what an end! As a family, we love going blackberry picking and we will often come home with bucket loads. We make jam and pies and crumbles, and I always pop a few in the freezer to bring out in the depths of winter to remind us of warmer times.

So if you are at a loss for what to do with your pickings, here's a list of 10 things to do with blackberries, recipes included below.

1. Bake a blackberry and apple pie
2. Make blackberry and apple jam
3. Try blackberry cranachan (had to add this Scottish recipe)
4. Bake a blackberry and apple crumble
5. Put in a summer Pavlova
6. Create a blackberry fool
7. Make a blackberry smoothie
8. Put a few blackberries in lemonade
9. Freeze a few for later. Do not wash. Lay evenly on a baking tray and put in the freezer. Put them in a zip lock bag the next day and then use as needed.
10. Eat them plain or sprinkled with a little icing sugar. They're yummy!

Here are the recipes:

Planning a family doesn't always go to plan

If you’d been in a certain branch of Starbucks in Berkshire on Monday afternoon you may have noticed a slightly dishevelled pregnant woman on the comfy sofa in the corner eating a Rocky Road cake. She’d managed to cordon off a small area with a squashy seat and pushchair to barricade in her escaping toddler. She could be overheard explaining to her eldest son that if everyone jumped on the chairs in Starbucks there would be nothing left for people to sit on. She may have forgotten to brush her hair that morning. There were probably dried rusk stains on her trousers.

This is probably the image I present to the outside world. One glance and you may think I could produce children at the drop of a hat. This isn’t necessarily true. A few years ago I would never have dreamt the above description would be me. Husband and I were trying for a baby but nothing was happening for us.

A tricky question and the family geek streak

"Mummy what would happen if I had twenty five willys?" I instinctively looked around for someone to help me answer this one but the only other person was a gurgling one year old.

"Er..." Just because I'm a parent doesn't mean I'm suddenly qualified to have answers to these questions. I've got no better chance of coming up with an answer than the child-free couple next door. In fact they'd probably have a better answer because they're not as tired and worn out and hormonal as me.

Shopping hell -- a challenge for you all

So you know your normal weekly grocery shop? The one where you write a list but leave it at home accidentally and forget your bags and have the kids with you nagging for comics and it costs you double what you think because you haven’t planned meals and have fallen victim to every two-for-one offer there is? It’s not a barrell of laughs is it?

Or perhaps you are a meal planner. Perhaps you cleverly think out what you’re going to make each day and how you’ll use the leftovers in the next meal. And you save yourself a good wodge of money. But it’s still exhausting and by Friday you’ve given up and get a curry take out anyway.

Well try this.

Win some Apple kit for your little kickers

Kickers is partnering with Apple to offer school kids the chance to win a top spec Macbook, iPod Nanos, iPod Shuffles and iTunes vouchers. All you need to do is text "Kickers’ to 83333.Simple, really.

The competition runs from 1st July until 31st August 2009 in selected Barratts, Schuh, Brantano, D2, JD and Slater Menswear stores. Terms and Conditions.

Good luck!

Life before children and now

I used to be economically active. I miss my financial independence. One day, when I stop having babies I'll earn some money again. It sounds like I don't need to work, I do. But working would involve paying for childcare and not many people are going to employ someone who's 21 weeks pregnant either. Also, I want to bring up my babies myself for some reason, and I often wonder why. How times have changed. Here is a typical day when I used to work and now.

6am
Then: woken up by alarm, leap into shower, breakfast, into smart clothes, make-up on, nice shoes, nice bag, hair which is brushed, kiss husband, out of house and onto train to London.
Now: woken up by one or both children shouting / laughing / crying / getting into our bed or by baby leaping around in tummy. Get into clothes which are stretchy and have vague traces of snot on them. Sort children's breakfast and cats' breakfast and try to eat Cheerios before they go soggy.

Surrogate mums ... brave or mad?

Watching the Cutting Edge program on surrogacy, I was left in two minds: are these women brave or are they mad?

Going through the pregnancy and all it entails: sausage fingers, stretch marks, swollen ankle, no sleep, explosive heartburns... and give the baby away? It is almost like putting your womb for rent, free of charge... Now I personally think that renting it to my own children is an OK deal. They are in for a long life of repayments: lots of public embarrassments, kisses in public, Papa doing the Madness dance at parties, sharing their childhood stories with potentially important girlfriends... Ok, I agree with you, their Dad doing the Madness dance is a very high price to pay, but it is nothing compared to the total cost of Tum Tums during my two pregnancies!