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This recipe serves at least 4 people and we usually have enough left for the next day.

Ingredients Chinese Braised Pork:

1.5 kg of pork
2 whole star anise
2 cinnamon sticks
1 tbsp cumin seeds
3 large dried red chillies
600ml rice wine
1.2 litres chicken stock
300ml dark soy sauce
50ml light soy sauce
175g granulated sugar
5 cm piece of fresh root ginger (sliced)
6 garlic cloves, crushed
6 spring onions
1 tbsp salt
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
muslin cloth

Ingredients Fried Vegetable Rice: 

1 cup basmati rice
3tbsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp dark soy sauce
4 tbsp groundnut oil
1 tbs oyster sauce
150g mushrooms, sliced
1 medium onion, sliced
1 red pepper, sliced
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1/4 medium sized broccoli
1/4 medium sized cauliflower

Method Vegetable Fried Rice:

Pour 1 cup of basmati rice and 2 1/4 cups of water into a sauce pan and boil until the water is evaporated. Then wash the rice under cold water, so all the heat is gone out of it. Drain for two hours, then splash in 3 tbsp of light soy sauce and mix well. Prepare the vegetables and heat up your wok so it’s smoking, then add 2 tbsp of groundnut oil and fry the rice until it’s golden. Pour it into a bowl and clean the wok, before you heat it up so it’s smoking again. Then fry the vegetables and garlic in 2 tbsp of groundnut oil over a very high heat. Add 1 tbsp of dark soy sauce and 1 tbsp of oyster sauce and mix the rice into the vegetables and give it a good stir. Heat through until thoroughly cooked.

Method Chinese Braised Pork:

Bring a large pan of water to the boil and add the pork. Return to the boil, skim and simmer on a low heat for about  30 minutes. Drain thoroughly. Meanwhile, put the star anise, cinnamon sticks, cumin seeds and dried chillies in a piece of muslin and tie together. Prepare your braising liquid by combining all the ingredients in a very large pot and bringing it to a simmer. Add the spice bag of spices and the pork, and bring back to a simmer, partially covered, while skimming the foam that builds up on the liquid. Cover the pot and simmer gently for 3 hours, until the pork fat and rind are very soft and tender. Remove the skin and cut the meat into small pieces.

Final Steps:

Plate up the Vegetable Fried Rice and the Chinese Braised Pork. Skim off all the fat from the braising liquid and reduce it by boiling it. Pour it over the meat to moisten it and serve.

Enjoy and don’t for get to let me know what you think, if you decide to give it a try!

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Ingredients:

1.5l of water
3 tbs of Tom Yum paste
4 cloves of finely sliced garlic
1 red pepper
1 green pepper
2 medium sized onions
salt
some sprigs of coriander

Method:

Boil the water and add 3 tbs of the Tom Yum paste and 4 cloves of finely sliced garlic. Simmer for 5 minutes. Add the rest of the vegetables and simmer for another 5 minutes. Season to taste and decorate with some coriander. This is a super quick and easy recipe and you can basically add whatever veg you like to give it your desired taste. Enjoy!

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Do you remember opening your lunch box at school to find yet another cheese sandwich and some apple slices? I do! Packed lunch could be incredibly boring and for some reason your friends’ lunch always looked tastier than your own. We often swapped around and sometimes I didn’t touch my lunch at all just to secretly throw my sandwich into the bushes on my home. On rare occasions, I completely forgot about its existence and it almost started growing legs and running through my bag, but I promise this didn’t happen a lot.

To make sure that your children enjoy their packed lunch a little more than the average student, I am giving you the chance to win one copy of Amanda Grant’s book ‘Healthy lunchboxes for kids’. It does not only contain many ideas for healthy lunch options, but also great recipes for quick and easy snacks that all the family can enjoy. Packed with all the information parents need to know on nutrition and including advice on how to ensure your child is eating the right things, this colourful and easy to follow book includes over 75 recipe ideas that will help lunch boxes to step out of the shade and become fun again.

If you want to win a copy of Amanda Grant’s ‘Healthy lunchboxes for kids’, simply fill in the Rafflecopter below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Prize Finder – UK Competitions
Loquax – The UK Competition Portal

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I love taking photos, especially if Amy plays along and helps me to capture snapshots like this. At the moment, she absolutely loves having her picture taken. She turns into a right little diva and plays with the camera. It’s so funny to look at. I took this photo about three weeks ago when we were in Germany to stay with my family. We had a lovely day out and the weather was on our side. The sun was shining and we could enjoy some ice-cream by the beach. You can even see some traces of it on Amy’s top. It was her first ever ice-cream and she absolutely adored it. Doesn’t she look like she’s shouting for more?

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When they are newborns, it is sometimes hard to make out the sex of a baby. Are they a boy? Are they a girl? It’s easy to put your foot in it and declare a boy a girl or the other way round. By the time the little ones have reached their first birthday, it usually becomes a little easier to say, if it’s a little boy or a girl who is smiling at you on the bus. Well, that’s what I thought!

Recently, Amy has been mistaken for a boy two days in a row and I have to admit that I got a little grumpy about it. I know it’s nothing serious, but one of the people was actually quite rude about it when we informed them that ‘He’s a girl’. Personally, I don’t think that Amy looks like a little boy, especially as she is usually wearing quite girly colours, but it doesn’t seem that obvious for other people. The first incident happened in a London souvenir shop at the Cybher weekend. We were on the lookout for a couple of postcards and Ben had a look at a London clock for the kitchen, when one of the shop assistants looked into the pram and asked ‘How old is he?’. I politely answered that ‘He’s a girl and a year old’. Amy wore a red and blue cardigan that day, so I thought I’d let him off. But then the sales assistant replied ‘Well, she still looks like a boy’. I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach. How dare he be that rude and tell me to my face that he thinks my little girl looks like a boy? I actually couldn’t believe it and pushed the pram onto the pavement in front of his shop while Ben quickly paid for the postcards. When we walked back to the hotel, I was fuming and there might have been the one or the other not so nice word coming out of my mouth.

The next incident was on our way back from London to Bristol. We had just jumped onto the taxi when the driver asked the same question ‘How old is he?’. I gave the same polite answer, but this time we received an instant apology and we forgot about it. In my eyes, there’s no need to make a big deal about it. The taxi driver apologised and that was it. We can all get it wrong after all, but why did the shop assistant feel the need to be rude about it and make an evil little comment about my baby girl? Argh, unnecessary rudeness just winds me up!

Has your little one ever been mistaken for the opposite sex? How did you react? Let me know, if we are sitting in the same boat or if I am maybe over-reacting!?