I started writing on Planning With Kids all the way back on January 2, 2008. At that time we only had four kids aged 10, 7, 5, and 2. Our youngest was born a year and a bit later on January 22, 2009. Almost 16 years later the kids are now 25, 22, 20, 17, and almost 15. My life is so very different from when I started. And while the teenage years have their challenges, I still feel family life became easier for me as the kids grew older.

I often say there was a sweet spot when the eldest was 13 and the other kids were 11, 9, 6 and 3. If you have kids in that age range now, cherish those moments! But in all seriousness, every stage of family life has its challenges and moments to cherish. Sometimes we just have to look a little harder to find the cherished moments.

This is the last post I will write on Planning With Kids. And I write this with profound gratitude that you are still reading and for the tremendous opportunities this platform has provided for me and our family. It is also written with a fond sadness. Now is the right time for me to pivot all of my attention into Adapt Drinks. I am very much following my own advice – when you are working on a challenging goal, you need to have one single goal and give it all your time energy and attention. The last few months of growth on Adapt Drinks have been excellent and my business goal for 2024 has a huge growth target that needs my full attention.

The timing is also right to say goodbye to Planning With Kids. We only have two kids left in school and they are very independent in getting themselves organised and managing themselves. Yes, I very much still have a parenting role but it is very different from the primary school days. The beauty of putting in the hard yards in the earlier years with routines, organisation skills and time management means that your role changes as they get older and can do this for themselves.

The Planning With Kids website will stay online as a resource, so if you have a favourite recipe or post you like to go back and read, it will all still be here. I just won’t be adding any new content.

For this last post, I am going to share some tips, thoughts, philosophies, bits of advice I have received that have helped me with family life. A key thought I will discuss before I get to the list is that there is no one right way to parent. What I share below is what has worked for us. Throughout my parenting journey, I have been like a bower bird, I take some things that are shiny and appeal to me try them on and see how they go. If they fit well and work for us they stay. If they don’t, I discard them. I encourage you to do the same. DO NOT use this list as something to measure yourself on or compare yourself to. That is not its purpose. The list is a resource from which you can for pick and choose- mix and match!

And I have one last ask of you! If you have been reading for a while and have taken something I have shared and applied it with success in your family life, could you please share in the comments below? This would be a great reflection for me to read but it will also help others who find this post.

Thank you so much for reading, sharing and caring about Planning With Kids over the last 16 years. I know I am going to miss writing here and interacting with you. I wish you all the absolute best for you and your families in 2024 and beyond.

Nic

Parenting

1. I noted this above but I have included it here in case you have skipped straight to the dot points. There is no one right way to parent. Every family is unique and you are unique. You need to parent in a way that suits you and your family. Test all the advice I have listed below on your family and stick only with what works for you.
2. Parenting is not a competition. It however can be easy to get caught up in what other families are doing and focus only on what you are not doing. There most likely is a lot you are doing that others aren’t and you can’t see that. Don’t compete and don’t compare.
3. Make decisions on how you live family life that works for you and your family. Make conscious decisions rather than just going with the flow so you don’t look back and wish things had been different. Something I remind myself of often is the saying which is attributed to Jerzy Gregorek. “Hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life.” As a parent, we have to make lots of hard choices.
4. This relates more to very little ones – it is only a problem if it is a problem for you. Take babies and sleep. If you are getting up many times at night to feed/settle your one year old and you are happy to do that, then don’t let others pressure you into taking action that doesn’t feel comfortable to you.
5. Have kids do what they are capable of doing and adapt this as they grow and age. Kids are more capable than we often give them credit for. Think about what you want them to be able to do for themselves by the time they are in high school – make their lunch, get themselves to school, manage their homework etc and progressively teach them the skills to be able to do this. (Of course, they can do this much earlier, I am just using high school as a random benchmark.)
6. Kids need to experience a full range of emotions – happiness, gratitude, pride, disappointment, failure, boredom etc. It is not our role to take the harder emotions away from them in every instant.
7. Related to the above, we don’t always have to give our kids solutions when they come to us with their problems/issues. Most often they will just want us to listen. If you are not sure, a great question to ask is “Are looking for help with this problem or do you just want to talk about it?”.
8. As tempting as it is to prevent negative consequences from the kids’ actions or inaction they will learn much more from experiencing the consequences of their behaviour. This is of course within reason of safety for themselves and others around them. But getting a detention at school, being late for school, or not having the right equipment at school are all survivable teaching moments.
9. You don’t have to go to every game, concert, training session, class etc for your kids. If you want to go, then by all means go but don’t feel bad if you don’t. When we had five kids doing sports/after school activities if I could watch them play a couple of times each across the season that was a great result. They were fine with it. They knew I cared and took an interest. As they were in their senior years of high school, they would even get themselves to games if the logistics and schedules required it.
10. Craft time out of your week to spend one on one time with the kids when they are little. It is an investment of your time that is so worth it.
11. Admit when you are wrong. I have made so many mistakes in my parenting journey, some with the best of intentions, others because I have been too emotional or had my own biases. Regardless of the reason, when I have worked out I got it wrong, I have taken the time to sit down with the child in question and apologise. It means a lot to the kids and these moments are actually really bonding.

Family organisation

1. Planning will always save you time and mental energy and if you think you are too busy to plan then you need planning the most! You can always change a plan once you have it but it is so much easier to start with a plan and adapt.
2. Menu planning deserves its own point because it is so pivotal to family organisation. Whether you menu plan weekly or monthly, this is a key tool to help organise a key challenge of family organisation – feeding the family!
3. Get kids helping around the house from a young age. Simple tasks like dusting, folding towels, etc can be done by very little kids. It is much easier to get a teenager to help around the house if they have been contributing since they were young. And it is not just about getting kids to do the work, this is where they learn the skills they will need to be independent – eg cleaning toilets, cooking meals, vacuuming, etc.
4. Leave every room in a better place than when you entered it. Wipe a bench down, put an item back in its place, etc as you walk through a room if it needs it. These small tasks make a difference in how the house will look at the end of the day (this rule applies to any parents living at home too!).
5. Have simple routines (morning, afterschool, evening etc) for the kids to follow from a young age and build on this as they age. Personal management and time management skills are a gift you can give to your kids and it will make your life easier too.
6. Have a nightly routine that will prepare you for the next day. A chaos free morning starts the night before.
7. Have a way of sharing family time commitments by sending calendar invites or using a shared calendar so both parents know what is happening.
8. Use time blocking to get tasks done and use small blocks of time to help reduce procrastination if you need to. It is amazing what you can get done in 15 minutes. Use timers to help you. This is especially helpful if you have tasks you don’t like doing. You can do almost anything for 15 minutes!
9. Make sure you have a home for everything. This doesn’t mean expensive storage systems but can be simple hooks, boxes, etc.
10. If you have the budget to outsource tasks/buy gadgets to make family life easier so you can spend more time being with the family, rather than doing for the family then that is a great investment.
11. Set up communication channels for the family – family meetings, chat groups etc so that issues can be calmly discussed, tasks delegated and so the kids also feel like they can raise issues as well.

Personal organisation

1. Set a goal for yourself every year. How challenging the goal is will depend on the stage of family life but working towards something for you is important.
2. Make time for activities that are important to you. Have discussions with your partner and/or kids about how it can fit into the week/month and gain commitment from them so it can happen. Likewise, you can do this for your partner too. If it isn’t scheduled it is unlikely to happen by chance.
3. Don’t be ruled by your feelings. For example, my feelings will tell me I don’t want to get up when it is dark, cold and early but I set the alarm and get my running gear out the night before so I am ready to go. When the alarm goes off, this isn’t time for listening to my feelings, it is time for action. I get up and get going. Getting up is the hardest part and I have never been on a run I have regretted.
4. Simplify your wardrobe. This makes choosing clothes less time consuming and aesthetically it is calmer to have less.
5. Allow more time than what you think you need. So often we only allocate the exact amount of time to get ready or get to a place based on a “perfect” previous experience. In family life, there is so often something extra and then there is traffic and parking! Add more preparation and journey time and you will find the process less stressful.
6. Create white space in your calendar. Allow for time that is not scheduled for you (and the kids). We all need time to do “nothing”.
7. Linked to the above when you are accepting calendar invites, appointments, etc for dates in the future, ask yourself if you had to do it tomorrow would you say yes? Often we say yes, leaving our future selves to have to deal with a task that our current self doesn’t want to do. If you don’t want to do it now, it is unlikely you will want to do it in the future and you should say no.
8. Have an effective to-do list process. Random lists can generate more stress and less focus but a strategic to-do list is a tool that can help you be more productive and feel less overwhelmed.
9. Have an information collection process – somewhere you keep the books you want to read, places you want to visit, ideas for kids’ birthday gifts etc. I am now using Notes on my iPhone for this but the software you use doesn’t matter, it is important to have one place that you find easy to use and access.
10. Being productive is much more than just time management. We can be efficient in our time management, working on tasks in a very organised manner, but if those tasks are of low value or come at the expense of more important tasks, then we are not being productive.
11. Don’t assume your partner/kids know what you expect from them. It is so much better for relationships if you make it clear through calm communication rather than martyring yourself.

Thank you again and I look forward to reading what your key takeaways from Planning With Kids have been.

PS. If you feel like would still like to read what I am writing about, I have a weekly newsletter for Adapt Drinks you might like to sign up to. Each week I send out a newsletter designed to help you nurture your best self – click here and head to the bottom of the website to sign up. x

The post 33 lessons from 25 years of parenting appeared first on Planning With Kids.

For November my experiment was to practice a breathing exercise every day for at least 5 minutes and focus on breathing through my nose as much as possible at all times other than exercise. I was super consistent with this and managed to do it every day and I did notice a considerable difference in my mood and my patience levels.

My goal this year has been to embrace life with curiosity and experimentation to gain greater connection and this monthly experiment was perfect in helping me work towards achieving my goal. Spending time focusing on breathing and practicing breathing techniques allowed me to manage my stress and to help me feel more relaxed. When I am feeling this way, I have increased patience and that is so much better for creating greater connections with those around me – especially the kids!

We can take breathing for granted – we do it without thinking. But how we breathe can have a huge impact on our health and well being.

When a person is under stress, their breathing pattern changes. Typically, an anxious person takes small, shallow breaths, using their shoulders rather than their diaphragm to move air in and out of their lungs. This style of breathing disrupts the balance of gases in the body.

When a person is relaxed, they breathe through their nose in a slow, even and gentle way. Deliberately copying a relaxed breathing pattern seems to calm the nervous system that controls the body’s involuntary functions.

Better Health

As we are in the midst of the festive/end of school year season you may be feeling more moments of stress and anxiety than usual. I highly recommend doing some breathing exercises to help keep the stress levels down and allow you to enjoy this time. It doesn’t have to take long, below I have listed some guided breathing exercises that I found helpful and the main one I used (the first one listed) was only five minutes so you have time to do it !

Create a monthly experiment

Connection to goal – Embrace life with curiosity and experimentation to gain greater connection – I love my routines and they provide an excellent base from which I can achieve a great deal. My love of routines can mean that I can take a very well-worn path. This year I want to mix it up more. Add more play, challenge myself and try new things while bringing along others as I go.

Quote to connect to – “The true method of knowledge is experiment.” – William Blake

November performance – As noted above, this month’s small daily experiment had a big impact. I found the breathing exercises were fantastic for calming me down when I was getting stressed and also great for a lead-in to going to sleep. I found these breathing meditations very helpful when I needed guidance:

• Box Breathing For Anxiety Relief (5 minutes)
• Short Breath Meditation To Release Stress & Anger
• Breathing For Deep Sleep
• Breathwork For Stress Relief
• Sama Vritti : Box Breathing

On other days I would simply practice box breathing for five minutes on my own – sitting outside, waiting in the car, after a workout or lying in bed. This is a practice I will continue most days as I find it is a very grounding activity that makes a difference in how I feel, which makes a difference in how I respond to those around me. I was definitely more patient this month. You can find other monthly challenges I have completed below:

• January – to play every day
• February – take a short video every day
• March – pray the rosary every day
• April – Yoga With Kassandra’s – Flexible Body, Flexible Mind – 30 Day Challenge
• May – create a new design in Canva every day
• June – do a 10 minute Non-Sleep Deep Rest session each day (fail)
• July – write 10 ideas in 10 minutes
• August – cook two new meals a week – I had a 80% success rate with this in terms of actually cooking two new meals a week (only one was a dinner and the other was lunch or breakfast just for me). Out of the meals I cooked, there are two that I have cooked again since and will become regulars in the rotation.
• September – 10 minute daily NSDR – this was great and while I didn’t achieve 100%, it would have been closer to 80% it made a huge difference to how I am feeling.
• October – daily rehab – I had an injury in the lead-up to the marathon so daily rehab was a priority and I stuck to this as noted above until the marathon!

My experiment for December is to spend a minimum of five minutes on the slackline. This will be great for working on core and balance for me and will also hopefully encourage the kids now on school holidays to get out and have a go too!

Practice switching from judgement to curiosity

Connection to goal – Embrace life with curiosity and experimentation to gain greater connection – Having strong opinions on issues means that when I hear a dissenting view I can move to judgement and not make an attempt to understand the opposing viewpoint – it stifles open communication.

When I hear/read/view something that triggers me, I want to be curious not judgemental about it and really listen and understand the thinking behind the differing view and have truly open communication with others. Communication is key to connection.

Quote to connect to – “Listen with curiosity. Speak with honesty. Act with integrity. The greatest problem with communication is we don’t listen to understand.” – Roy T. Bennett

November performance – Decreasing my social media usage has made me realise how much of my rush to judgement or emotional responses have been coming from taking in too much information online. While I never engage in online debates (arguments!), there are plenty of times when I have felt heightened emotions and even outrage that I take with me offline. If I then hear someone talk about these topics in real life, I am quicker to judge them than listen to what they are saying because I have all those emotions already associated with this topic. As the article from Big Think notes we can disengage from outrage and the more I am doing that the more curious and less judgemental I am being. 8/10.

Outrage is an evolutionarily useful emotion because it punishes rulebreakers and keeps people in line. Today, we express much of our outrage online, which serves no particular purpose and only rarely addresses the moral offense or seeks to correct it. We are not slaves to our nature. We can disengage from outrage.

BIg Think – Outrage! Our minds and morals did not evolve to cope with social media

Consume a diverse low information diet

Connection to goal – Embrace life with curiosity and experimentation to gain greater connection – When consuming information from many sources now, algorithms are feeding us what they think we want to see based on what we have already seen, listened to or read. It takes a concerted effort to diversify the information we are consuming.

We are becoming an increasingly polarised society on so many issues and it is causing deep division. If we only ever look at one side of the story our divisions will only grow bigger.

Quote to connect to – “We need diversity of thought in the world to face the new challenges.” – Tim Berners-Lee

November performance – I had intended to review the Instagram accounts I follow in November but that didn’t happen. I went to start it but it seemed a bit overwhelming to be honest and I felt like I would end up spending more time on Instagram as I looked at profiles and determined whether or not they would stay or go. I decided not to do it. I need to work out a better strategy for cleaning up my account. If you have tips on how to do this, I would love to hear them. November was another low consumption month for me in terms of social media which was great.

Tasks for the Year

• February – Completely overhaul my Feedly feed – completed. It took me about 90 minutes to overhaul the feed. It was interesting to see so many blogs that now no longer publish new articles. I completely deleted entire folders of feeds. Over time my interests have changed but by keeping so many feeds in my account, there was too much info coming in so I wasn’t seeing the ones I wanted to. I would have halved the number of feeds I had in my account which is great.
• May – Edit, add and cull the email newsletters I am subscribed to
• Review accounts I follow on Instagram
• July – Review podcast subscriptions – deleted podcasts I no longer listened to and added some new ones to create diversity in my feed.
• March – Review Youtube subscriptions – this month I worked on adding diversity to my Youtube subscriptions and deleting anything I am no longer interested in. I unsubscribed from over 50 channels. There is so much quality content on Youtube now that I am tempted to pay for the premium version!

What did you work on in November?

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With only a month or so until Christmas now is a great time to start thinking about your Christmas menu plan for 2023. Why start planning so early I hear you ask? Because it will make your life easier over the next month if you do! Starting your Christmas menu planning now means:

• You can space out the workload if you are hosting Christmas this year. Many of the menu plans below have sections where they list off what you can do 4 weeks out, 2 weeks out, 1 week out etc.
• Choosing a Christmas menu plan now that works for you means you can spend a small amount of time up front but then you can just check the list weekly to see what you need to do and set about doing the work. At this super busy time of the year, you won’t have to think about what needs to be done as you have already sorted that. It saves you a significant amount of mental energy.
• You can delegate tasks easily with advance notice to others. It is much easier to get the help of others when there aren’t time pressures.
• The more time you have, the more considered your purchases can be. You have time to place orders, search for the best value and don’t have to pay more because you have run out of time and options.

A Menu Plan for a Christmas Afternoon Tea

I am hosting an extended family Christmas afternoon tea this year. I haven’t seen some of these beautiful people since before COVID so it is long overdue. I decided to make it an afternoon tea so as to keep the workload down for me. Below is what I have planned and there is an emphasis on items that I can do some preparation work for in the days leading up to it. The preparation plan will look like this for the Sunday Christmas afternoon tea:

• Wednesday evening – make ice cream cake and choc peppermint bliss balls
• Friday evening – make rocky road
• Saturday – prepare veggies for sushi, prepare chicken mix for sandwiches, make salad but keep dressing separate, make popcorn
• Sunday morning – make sushi, make sandwiches, mix and portion out salad, make probiotic punch

Chicken Sandwiches – we all have those recipes that are most requested of us and this would be in my top 3 and for some members of my family it wouldn’t be Christmas without these sandwiches!

Sushi – this is a great option for a Christmas finger food as you can make it gluten free, dairy free and meat free if you need to cater to those who have dietary preferences. Just choose the fillings that will work best for your guests.

Salad boats – are also a great option if you have to cater to dietary preferences. I used this vegan mixed grain salad recipe in the photo but you could serve many different types of salads this way as a finger food option.

Probiotic punch – this is like your standard punch but it has kombucha in it!

Rocky road – this is another recipe in my top 3 most requested. My dad said this is all he wants from Christmas from me – a big batch of my homemade rocky road!

Choc peppermint balls – these are for those like me who like a sweet treat but not the sugar bomb that is my rocky road!

Christmas popcorn – and this is something a little fun for the younger members of the family who will be attending.

Ice cream pudding – I am only making this as it is going to be a birthday cake for the eldest whose birthday is the next day!

Previous years’ Christmas menu planning 2023 ideas

If you are wanting a full blown Christmas Day Meny Plan for 2023 then you might like to check out the previous years’ posts on Christmas menu planning.

• Christmas menu planning 2022 – myfoodbook – Budget Christmas Menu 2022, messy veggies – Australian Vegan Christmas Meal Plandelicious – The day before Christmas menu planner, Taste – Express Christmas menu (no dish over 45 mins) and Taste – Made from scratch Christmas menu plan
• Christmas menu planning ideas 2021 – download my free Christmas Menu Plans – realise however that not everyone loves Christmas menu planning, so I am again posting my free Christmas Menu Planning Guide that you can download if you prefer having something to follow. It contains three complete menu plans plus a one-page checklist of what you can make ahead and when plus a shopping list for the Christmas menu plan. Each Christmas menu plan idea is quite different – there is Paleo, Greek and a more traditional easy Christmas menu plan idea.
• Christmas menu plan ideas 2020 – RecipeTin Eats Christmas menu plans, BBC Good Food Vegan Christmas menu and Curtis Stone’s easy seafood barbecue
• Christmas menu plan ideas 2017 – Not Quite Nigella’s Italian Christmas, Easy no bake Christmas menu plan and A step-by-step guide to cooking Christmas dinner – Delia Smith
• Christmas menu plan ideas 2016 includes – Gluten free Christmas menu plan, Beginners’ Christmas, Jamie’s Christmas Day – the masterplan and Donna Hay Lifestyle Christmas Menu Plan
• Christmas menu plan ideas 2015 includes – BBC goodfood “failsafe” Christmas, Modern Australian Christmas, Chef George Calombaris’ Christmas lunch and Christmas cocktail party
• Christmas menu plan ideas 2014 includes – Gluten free and cane sugar free, Traditional Christmas dinner, Heston Blumenthal Christmas and Grand holiday buffet Christmas menu plans
• Christmas Menu Plan Ideas 2013 includes – Simple, Paleo, Asian and BBQ Christmas menu plans
• Christmas Menu Plan Ideas 2012 includes – Vegetarian, Skye Gyngell Xmas Lunch Menu, Mexican Fiesta and Donna Hay Outdoor Christmas menu plan
• Christmas Menu Plan Ideas 2011 includes – Greek Inspiration, Curtis Stone’s Guide to Christmas, Aussie Christmas, Classic family Christmas dinner and Gluten Free menu plan
• Christmas Menu Plan Ideas 2010 includes – No-worries vegetarian Christmas feast, Christmas garden party, Nigella Lawson’s Christmas Menu and Seafood BBQ Christmas Menu Plan
• Christmas Menu Plan Ideas 2009 includes – Children’s Christmas Menu Plan, Modern Christmas Menu Plan, Traditional Christmas and Cheat’s Christmas

What does your Christmas Menu Plan for 2023 look like?

This post is part of the 2023 Christmas Planning series on the blog. You can find other posts in the series here including gift idea lists and planning checklists.

The post Christmas menu planning 2023 appeared first on Planning With Kids.

Older teenagers can be the hardest age bracket to buy for. I know many who like to give some form of gift vouchers for older teens which I have done plenty of times but sometimes you do feel like buying them something physical and something that is a surprise. It is a tricky age to buy for because older teens can be super particular in their tastes. I am lucky now to have my older kids (in their 20s!) to act as great sounding boards for ideas for the older teenagers.

In this post I have collated some of the favourite items we have in our house at the moment and that we have gifted to older teens for Christmas or birthdays that have been a success. I am always up for new ideas so if you have gift ideas for older teens this Christmas please leave them in the comments section below – thanks in advance!

Christmas Calm Collection – A little bit of self promotion here first! If you have an older teen that has had a big year, the Christmas Calm Collection I have put together for Adapt Drinks could be the remedy they need.

HIS|HER from WHO IS ELIJAH – WHO IS ELIJAH is a fragrance house built on being cruelty free, genderLESS and hand-filled in Sydney. This fragrance can be described as floral, woody, spicy & fresh and is one of their best sellers over the last few years. We haven’t tried this one in our house but it has 265 five star reviews so could be the fragrance Christmas gift for your older teen this year.

Define Jacket Nulu – this jacket is super popular with not only my daughter but lots of young runners I know. The fabric is great and it is really flattering while still being practical for active purposes.

Wunder Train High-Rise Short – whether your teen likes to run outdoors or is working out indoors at the gym, these shorts are great for both. There are a number of pairs of these shorts in our house.

Hunter Essentials Kit from Hunter Lab – Hunter Lab is Australian owned and made. Founded in 2015, it makes gender-inclusive natural skincare. This kit features their best selling Cleansing Facial Scrub, the 2-in-1 exfoliating cleanser, and Daily Face Fuel. It comes packaged in 100% compostable and biodegradable gift box crafted from reclaimed paper pulp.

Creatine Mono – by no means are supplements needed for teens and I am including this specifically for the older teens. If you have a teen who is spending lots of time in the gym lifting heavy then my guess is they would love the Christmas gift of high quality Creatine. We have quite a bit of Creatine in our house. While most supplements have very little evidence behind them to support their claims creatine is among the most well-researched and effective supplements:

The primary benefit of creatine is an improvement in strength and power output during resistance exercise. Creatine is well-researched for this purpose, and its effects are quite notable for a supplement, both in the general population

Source – Examine.com

Stainless Steel Shaker – we have a cupboard at our place that exclusively houses shakers! We have quite a few of these stainless steel shakers and they are great at keeping drinks cold and they don’t have that plastic taste to them. This would make a great Christmas gift for the older teen that likes to work out.

Not Here to Make You Comfortable – 50 Women Who Stand Up, Speak Out, Inspire Change – if you have a teen of any age who is a bit of a people pleaser this could be the perfect book for them this Christmas. This book is only recently out so haven’t read it but am keen to.

Your Turn – How to Be an Adult By Julie Lythcott-Haims – Lythcott-Haims offers compassion, personal experience, and practical strategies for living a more authentic adulthood, as well as inspiration through interviews with dozens of voices from the rich diversity of the human population who have successfully launched their adult lives. I haven’t read the book but listened to this excellent episode with her on the Rich Roll Podcast and think the book would be great for older teens.

Tangle Teezer Wet Detangler – with over 40 million sold world wide this brush has certainly been tested. Can be used on wet or dry hair as a daily detangler and to smooth hair cuticles

Slip Scrunchie Set – scrunchies are still a thing and they are having a moment. These are made with slipsilk (long fibre pure mulberry silk) which prevents catching that can happen with other hair ties.

Inika Natural Tanning Kit – in our house Bondi Sands is the preferred tanning solution and that of many older teens. I have championed for a more “natural product” without success. Either way, tanning is super popular with many older teens and you probably know if you have teen in your life who would like this as a Christmas gift.

What are you gifting your older teens this year?

Some of the links contain affiliate links, which means at no extra cost to you, making purchases through them helps support this site. Thank you!

The post 12 Christmas gift ideas for older teenagers 2023 appeared first on Planning With Kids.

You may or may not have noticed that I didn’t publish a monthly review for August or September. Sometimes with the juggle of multiple online businesses, family and marathon training, some things have to give and my reviews were one of those things.

Where to direct your time, energy and attention is an ongoing challenge when you want to be productive. Productivity to me is not simply something you measure in terms of output of work. I define productivity as:

Productivity = using your time + energy + attention effectively to achieve your goal

I looked at my current business goal during these months and made decisions on how I would allocate my work time based on what activities would help me progress most toward my goal. The key point to note here is that the choices I made were done so intentionally. To get the most out of our time, we need to use it consciously.

My business workload over the last few months has been greater than I can efficiently and effectively manage so I am putting time into thinking how I move forward for 2024. Below I share how I have progressed with my personal goal for October.

Create a monthly experiment

Connection to goal – Embrace life with curiosity and experimentation to gain greater connection – I love my routines and they provide an excellent base from which I can achieve a great deal. My love of routines can mean that I can take a very well-worn path. This year I want to mix it up more. Add more play, challenge myself and try new things while bringing along others as I go.

Quote to connect to – “The true method of knowledge is experiment.” – William Blake

October performance – In Spetember I injured myself in a strength workout. The timing was terrible as I was about six weeks out from Melbourne Marathon. I needed to do daily rehab to help get me to the start line and I simply didn’t have any bandwidth to add any thing else, so I made my daily rehab my challenge. I was absolutely perfect with it until the marathon. The week after the marathon I didn’t do anything but jumped back on to it for the last week of October. You can see my previous daily challenges below and I added some notes on what I did and how I went for August and September. For November I am going to practice a breathing exercise every day for at least 5 minutes and focus on breathing through my nose as much as possible at all times other than exercise.

• January – to play every day
• February – take a short video every day
• March – pray the rosary every day
• April – Yoga With Kassandra’s – Flexible Body, Flexible Mind – 30 Day Challenge
• May – create a new design in Canva every day
• June – do a 10 minute Non-Sleep Deep Rest session each day (fail)
• July – write 10 ideas in 10 minutes
• August – cook two new meals a week – I had a 80% success rate with this in terms of actually cooking two new meals a week (only one was a dinner and the other was lunch or breakfast just for me). Out of the meals I cooked, there are two that I have cooked again since and will become regulars in the rotation.
• September – 10 minute daily NSDR – this was great and while I didn’t achieve 100%, it would have been closer to 80% it made a huge difference to how I am feeling.
• October – daily rehab – I had an injury in the lead up to the marathon so daily rehab was a priority and I stuck to this as noted above until the marathon!

Practice switching from judgement to curiosity

Connection to goal – Embrace life with curiosity and experimentation to gain greater connection – Having strong opinions on issues means that when I hear a dissenting view I can move to judgement and not make an attempt to understand the opposing viewpoint – it stifles open communication.

When I hear/read/view something that triggers me, I want to be curious not judgemental about it and really listen and understand the thinking behind the differing view and have truly open communication with others. Communication is key to connection.

Quote to connect to – “Listen with curiosity. Speak with honesty. Act with integrity. The greatest problem with communication is we don’t listen to understand.” – Roy T. Bennett

October performance – The world really threw me and everyone else a challenging practicing ground in October. The referendum and the conflict between Israel and Palestine were/are highly emotional and have been covered widely on social media. I will be honest and admit that my reaction to this has been to consume content much less. I realise I am in a privileged position to be able to do this and it doesn’t mean I don’t think about these issues and those affected, I definitely do and it is distressing to me. I have been listening to a great podcast though which was recommended to me by a lovely reader, Gillian, called The Rest is Politics. It is hosted by former Downing Street Director of Communications and Strategy Alastair Campbell and cabinet minister Rory Stewart they come from across the political divide and discuss UK and World politics. 8/10.

Consume a diverse low information diet

Connection to goal – Embrace life with curiosity and experimentation to gain greater connection – When consuming information from many sources now, algorithms are feeding us what it thinks we want to see based on what we have already seen, listened to or read. It takes a concerted effort to diversify the information we are consuming.

We are becoming an increasingly polarised society on so many issues and it is causing deep division. If we only ever look at one side of the story our divisions will only grow bigger.

Quote to connect to – “We need diversity of thought in the world to face the new challenges.” – Tim Berners-Lee

October performance – I didn’t take any particular action other than to reduce the total amount of information I consumed during the month. As a consequence I read more and went to bed earlier – winning all around!

Tasks for the Year

• February – Completely overhaul my Feedly feed – completed. It took me about 90 minutes to overhaul the feed. It was interesting to see so many blogs that now no longer publish new articles. I completely deleted entire folders of feeds. Over time my interests have changed but by keeping so many feeds in my account, there was too much info coming in so I wasn’t really seeing the ones I wanted to. I would have halved the number of feeds that I had in my account which is great.
• May – Edit, add and cull the email newsletters I am subscribed to
• Review accounts I follow on Instagram
• July – Review podcast subscriptions – deleted podcasts I no longer listened to and added some new ones to create diversity in my feed.
• March – Review Youtube subscriptions – this month I worked on adding diversity to my Youtube subscriptions and deleting anything I am no longer interested in. I unsubscribed from over 50 channels. There is so much quality content on Youtube now that I am tempted to pay for the premium version!

How was October for you?

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Our Christmas wrapping station is all ready to go for Christmas 2023. I found this Christmas paper you can see in the photo above and it helped me choose a Scandinavian Christmas Theme for this year. I ordered the paper, gift tags and some ribbons online. I already had some left over ribbons and belli-bands that I can use (well mainly my daughter as she is the chief gift wrapper at our place) so didn’t need to order as much this year.

In the Christmas wrapping station, we include:

• scissors
• tape
• ribbon
• belli-bands
• pens
• fine liners / textas
• gift tags
• and of course the Christmas wrapping paper!

Having everything in one place makes the task of wrapping Christmas gifts so much easier. It also means if you have a shoe box like we do to contain ribbons etc things don’t get misplaced over the year and you can see what you have before you buy anything new.

Of course, you don’t need to buy anything to wrap your Christmas presents if you prefer not to. This post on the blog has some excellent thrifty and eco friendly gift wrapping options for Christmas. And if you are into DIY check out this post on Upcycled Christmas gift tags. I have also collated some more gift wrapping ideas for you below:

• I Tested These 11 Eco-Friendly Gift Wrap Ideas. Here Are My Favorites!
• 11 Eco-Friendly Gift Wrapping Ideas
• 15 gift wrapping ideas using brown paper
• 5 Inspiring Gift Wrapping Ideas
• 50 of the most beautiful Christmas gift wrapping ideas (with stacks of free printables!)

And if you are really into your DIY, Bunnings has a tutorial on how you can create a Christmas wrapping station which is next level!

Do you create a Christmas wrapping station?

This post is part of my 2023 Christmas series. You can find other posts in the series here.

The post Create a Christmas wrapping station appeared first on Planning With Kids.

This collection of 10 non fiction books for Christmas presents in 2023 was super easy for me to collate as I just went through my wishlist of books and chose ones I think would make great gifts!

Before I get to the list (if you wish to skip this part and head straight to the list click here) I will share with you a super simple but effective way I share Christmas gift ideas with my family.

Shareable gift idea spreadsheet

I have three wonderful sisters, the youngest of which is THE MOST organised person I know! It is often around this time of year she will email me asking for ideas on what to get the kids for Christmas!

As a group, we decided a few years ago to create a shared spreadsheet where we could list gift ideas for our kids. There is absolutely no obligation to buy from the list, they are just ideas. Sometimes I buy from the list, sometimes I don’t. It is super handy though when I have no idea what to buy a niece or nephew! When we buy from the list we simply cross out what we have bought as soon as we have bought it, so others know not to purchase it.

Below are the instructions and a free template to download, that I have shared previously.

I have created a template for you to use if you think this is something that will suit your family. As with the master checklist the spreadsheet contains some extra columns for notes etc. To be able to enter into the spreadsheet you will need to click on ‘File’, then ‘make a copy’ to have your own version you can edit.

Click here to download your Christmas gift idea spreadsheet.

To then share this spreadsheet with your broader family, click on the share button in the top right-hand corner.

It will then bring up a pop up box for you to enter the email addresses of the people you wish to share the document with. Enter them and click done!

Then your family members can view and edit the document on any device – so even on their phone when they are out shopping!

Non Fiction Books For Christmas Presents 2023

Below are 10 non fiction books that I would love to read. I am yet to read them so I have taken the short description included from the Booktopia website. Please note the links in this post are affiliate links, which means at no extra cost to you, making purchases through them helps support this site. Thank you!

The Comfort Crisis – Embrace Discomfort To Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self By: Michael Easter – In many ways, we’re more comfortable than ever before. But could our sheltered, temperature-controlled, overfed, underchallenged lives actually be the leading cause of many our most urgent physical and mental health issues? In this gripping investigation, award-winning journalist Michael Easter seeks out off-the-grid visionaries, disruptive genius researchers, and mind-body conditioning trailblazers who are unlocking the life-enhancing secrets of a counterintuitive solution: discomfort.

Behave – The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst By: Robert M Sapolsky – Why do human beings behave as they do?

We are capable of savage acts of violence but also spectacular feats of kindness: is one side of our nature destined to win out over the other?

Every act of human behaviour has multiple layers of causation, spiralling back seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years, even centuries, right back to the dawn of time and the origins of our species.

In the epic sweep of history, how does our biology affect the arc of war and peace, justice and persecution? How have our brains evolved alongside our cultures?

This is the exhilarating story of human morality and the science underpinning the biggest question of all: what makes us human?

Jaws – The Story of a Hidden Epidemic By: Paul R. Ehrlich, Sandra Kahn – Jaws by Paul R. Ehrlich and Sandra Kahn is a groundbreaking book that sheds light on a silent epidemic plaguing western civilization. In this captivating non-fiction work, the authors explore the alarming decrease in jaw size and the resulting crooked and crowded teeth that have become all too common. But this is not just an aesthetic concern; it also poses serious health risks, including obstructed airways and breathing difficulties.

While modern orthodontics offers solutions such as braces and oral devices, Ehrlich and Kahn delve deeper into the underlying causes of this oral evolution. Drawing on their expertise as an orthodontist and an evolutionist, respectively, they reveal the biological, dietary, and cultural factors that have contributed to this crisis.

However, this thought-provoking book doesn’t stop at highlighting the problem. The authors also propose simple adjustments that can help alleviate these issues and prevent further complications. Moreover, they present a major alternative to traditional orthodontics, offering a promising long-term solution.

Anatomy of a Breakthrough – How to get unstuck and unlock your potential By: Adam Alter – Everyone, at some time, will go through episodes of simply being stuck; whether it’s in our careers or relationships, our personal, professional or artistic lives. We call these things like ‘being stuck in a rut’, ‘having writer’s block’ or ‘being frozen in place’.

This is not just harmful in the short-term, but is often chronic, dangerous to our mental health and well-being, and with severe consequences to our success and development.

Anatomy of a Breakthrough is the remedy to identifying and overcooking the ‘friction points’ holding us back. Adam Alter offers a brilliantly applicable new framework for not only getting ‘unstuck’ but also going on to thrive. Critically, he introduces us to the Friction Audit:a test to work out where our sticking points lie, categorises them as existing in our head, heart or habits. Unstuck then takes us through a 5-step process to strive for more and to thrive.

Wifedom – Mrs Orwell’s Invisible Life By: Anna Funder – Using newly discovered letters from Eileen Orwell to her best friend, Funder recreates the Orwells’ marriage, through the Spanish Civil War and WW II in London. As she rolls up the screen concealing Orwell’s private life she is led to question what it takes to be a writer and what it is to be a wife.

Compelling and utterly original, Wifedom speaks to the unsung work of women everywhere today, while offering a breathtakingly intimate view of one of the most important literary marriages of the 20th century. It is a book that speaks to our present moment as much as it illuminates the past.

Doppelganger – A Trip Into the Mirror World By: Naomi Klein – This is a book for our age and for all of us; a deadly serious dark comedy which invites us to view our reflections in the looking glass. It’s for anyone who has lost hours down an internet rabbit hole, who wonders why our politics has become so fatally warped, and who wants a way out of our collective vertigo and back to fighting for what really matters.

Dead Man Walking – The Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty That Sparked a National Debate By: Helen Prejean – Prejean’s working with men on death row soon leads her to ask: How can society benefit from replicating the violence it condemns? In formulating her answer, however, Helen Prejean also confronts the counterbalancing factors. Chief among them is the devastating rage and grief of the victims’ families, whom she comes to know and befriend and whose need for retribution she understands. Prejean’s indictment of capital punishment sensitively navigates the complex personal, ethical, and legal issues involved, balancing compassion for both the criminals and the people whose lives they destroy. By turns reflective and deeply personal, spiritual and candidly human, this engrossing and deeply moving meditation on one of the most painfully controversial issues.

Japanese Death Poems Written by Zen Monks and Haiku Poets on the Verge of Death
Compiled By: Yoel Hoffmann – Although the consciousness of death is, in most cultures, very much a part of life, this is perhaps nowhere more true than in Japan, where the approach of death has given rise to a centuries-old tradition of writing jisei, or the “death poem.” Such a poem is often written in the very last moments of the poet’s life.

Hundreds of Japanese death poems, many with a commentary describing the circumstances of the poet’s death, have been translated into English here, the great majority of them for the first time. Yoel Hoffmann explores the attitudes and customs surrounding death in historical and present-day Japan, and gives examples of how these have been reflected in the nation’s literature in general. The development of writing jisei is then examined—from the poems of longing of the early nobility and the more “masculine” verses of the samurai to the satirical death poems of later centuries.

You Are Only Just Beginning – Lessons for the Journey Ahead By: Morgan Harper Nichols – Sometimes it’s difficult to take that first step into your future and embrace the unknown. This illustrated collection of poetry and essays empowers you to embrace your next adventure with confidence and grace, drawing on invaluable lessons from nature.

Popular Instagram poet and bestselling author Morgan Harper Nichols reimagines the classic heroine’s journey—from the very first call to adventure, through trials, hardships, and new relationships, all the way back home—and offers key lessons and affirmations to encourage and equip you every step of the way.

Killing for Country – By: David Marr – A gripping reckoning with the bloody history of Australia’s frontier wars. Killing for Country is a unique history of the making of Australia – a richly detailed and gripping family saga of fortunes made and lost, of politics and power in the colonial world, and the violence let loose by squatters and their London bankers as they began their long war for the possession of this country – a contest still unresolved in today’s Australia.

And a bonus idea if you are shopping on Booktopia, I have my eye on this fabulous Mucho Black Spiral-Bound A5 Notebook from Semikolon. Perfect for the person in your life who likes to write things down!

What non fiction books are on your wishlist?

This post is part of my 2023 Christmas series. You can find other posts in the series here.

Some of the links contain affiliate links, which means at no extra cost to you, making purchases through them helps support this site. Thank you!

The post 10 Non Fiction Books For Christmas Presents 2023 appeared first on Planning With Kids.

For 2023 I have created a new and simpler Christmas expenditure tracker. While there isn’t a line for a budget in the spreadsheet, I am assuming you have set yourself a budget for how much you will spend this Christmas and you can work out how you are tracking against that. If you haven’t set a budget for how much you will spend this year, then sit down with the family and do that first.

The free 2023 Christmas expenditure tracker is a Google Sheet. Please read the instructions in the first column so you can make a copy and make your own changes to the document. You can find it here:

Free 2023 Christmas expenditure tracker – Google Sheet

I have created a video tour of the free 2023 Christmas expenditure tracker, so if you are new to Google Sheets watch this first and take note of which data not to delete (the totals towards the bottom).

It can be so easy to overspend at Christmas time and this is a time of year when I really need to watch myself. I do love buying gifts for others and trying to make Christmas day as fun as possible and if I am not careful that can lead to me spending more than what I need to. Tracking my expenditure keeps me honest. If I am not tracking what I am spending it is easy to be in denial about how quickly lots of small purchases add up to a huge total.

Tracking your expenditure doesn’t have to take the fun out of Christmas. It actually makes it more sustainable and I find I have to be more creative in my gift giving and entertaining when I stick to my budget. And of course, by staying within budget there are not the post Christmas spending blues to deal with either!

Have you set your budget for Christmas 2023 and started tracking your expenditure?

This post is part of my 2023 Christmas series. You can find other posts in the series here.

The post Free 2023 Christmas expenditure tracker appeared first on Planning With Kids.

It is now just less than 10 weeks away until Christmas which is super exciting. The 10 week mark is when I like to start very slowly making plans and taking action for Christmas so I can spread out the workload and not get freaked out when December 1 rolls around with all the work I need to do.

Planning and taking action ahead at this point helps in so many ways but I will list just a few reasons why I think you should start planning now:

• Having a planned approach to Christmas starting now means you can spend a few hours a week on tasks and avoid having to cram to get everything done in the immediate weeks leading up to Christmas. This means you should get to Christmas day feeling less stressed and less tired.
• Planning ahead now means you can also delegate tasks to other family members. In our house, I do most of the Christmas planning and activities but I love doing it so I am happy with that. Our daughter though has done all of our Christmas wrapping for about the last five years and this is a huge help to me as I don’t love this task at all! But there is no reason why just one or two people have to do the bulk of the work, writing up a plan now also gives those who you delegate tasks to plenty of time to do them too.
• Planning out now means you can set a budget and create gift lists early enough so you can take advantage of the sales in November and save money.
• Beginning your planning now allows room for things to wrong in the lead up without having to push through. For example, if you get sick or there is a family crisis in these next 10 weeks, starting early on your Christmas planning gives you a buffer to be able to cope much better if the unexpected happens.

2023 simple Christmas plan

Below I have shared a simple Christmas plan you can follow for 2023. It doesn’t have everything you need to do on this list, but it covers the big activities that need to be completed to ensure Christmas Day runs smoothly.

You can access a Google Sheet template version of this plan via the link below:

Planning With Kids 2023 Simple Christmas Plan

Christmas themes for 2023

Each year I like to choose a theme for Christmas. Choosing a theme doesn’t mean I go out and buy new everything but it means that when I buy wrapping paper and cards etc I will use this theme, where I can I will weave the theme through the Christmas menu plan and I will repurpose what I currently have to fit the theme where possible.

Below I have listed three themes for 2023 Christmas to help inspire you with some ideas. I have been curating Christmas theme ideas for many years now so have a big archive of ideas if you find these themes don’t resonate with you. You can find previous years’ Christmas theme ideas here:

• Christmas theme ideas 2022 – Very Peri, Australian Christmas and Nativity themes
• Christmas theme ideas 2020 – Pantone Colour for 2020 – Classic Blue, Wood, Flora
• Christmas theme ideas 2018 – Ultra Violet, Stripes, Rose Gold
• Christmas Theme Ideas 2017 – Greenery, Recycled and Polka Dots.
• Christmas Theme Ideas 2016 – Kraft, White and Metal.
• Christmas Theme Ideas 2015 – Upcycled, Metallic and Neon themes.
• Christmas Theme Ideas 2014 – Red and Silver, Star and Chevron themes.
• Christmas Theme Ideas 2013 – Red, green and gold, yellow and recycled themes.
• Christmas Theme Ideas 2012 – Blue and white, Paper and Bird themes.
• Christmas Theme Ideas 2011 – Black and White, Peppermint Candy and Eco Friendly themes.
• Christmas Theme Ideas 2010 – Natural, Blue and Silver, Red and White themes.
• Christmas Theme Ideas 2009 – Non Traditional Bright Colours, Natural, Red, Green and Silver themes.

Scandinavian Christmas Theme

Image source: housebeautiful.com

Candles – as Christmas is in the deep dark winter months in Scandinavian countries, candles are used a lot at this time of year. Add some natural folage to make them look a little bit special.

Image source: tidbits-cami.com

Gift wrapping and tags – going with neutral colours and natural materials is a great way to give your gift wrapping a Scandinavian feel.

Image source: wildandgrizzly.com

Scandinavian place settings – making and decorating biscuits can be a gorgeous and fun way to create beautiful place settings.

Image source: julieblanner.com

DIY Christmas wreath – this is a great step by step tutorial using natural materials and the post has lots of great tips on general decorationg too.

Pantone’s Color of the Year, Viva Magenta 18-1750 Christmas Theme

Pantone’s Color of the Year, Viva Magenta 18-1750, vibrates with vim and vigor. It is a shade rooted in nature descending from the red family and expressive of a new signal of strength. Viva Magenta is brave and fearless, and a pulsating color whose exuberance promotes a joyous and optimistic celebration, writing a new narrative. Source

Image source: wayfair.com

Viva Magenta Christmas flower arrangement – these peonies in the gorgeous Viva Magenta would be a stunning way to decorate your house at Christmas in the Pantone theme colour.

Image source: peachesandmint.com

Viva Magenta Christmas fruit arrangement – as I noted in the introduction when using a Christmas theme you don’t have to buy more “stuff”. You can choose food and natural items to help give a themed look to your Christmas day like this gorgeous fruit arrangment.

Image source: auntpeaches.com

Flamingo Christmas tree – for those of you who love bright and fun and/or flamingos, then definitely check out this blog post from aunt peaches.

Image source: forbes.com

Viva Magenta Christmas drinks – this collection of drinks are all so pretty. If you prefer them to be non alcoholic you can use non alcoholic gins etc instead.

Nutcracker Christmas Theme

Image source: jonesdesigncompany.com

Nutcracker gift tags – you can sign up to access a free template to create these cute nutcracker themed gift tags and make them yourself if you like a bit of DIY.

Image source: target.com.au

Nutcracker Christmas platter – this super cute Christmas platter is currently at Target for $20 and would make a great addition to the Christmas table.

Image source: akailochiclife.com

DIY Nutcracker Christmas scene – another DIY project you can try if this is your thing! This post shows you how to make your very own Nutcracker Christmas scene.

Image source: thecafesucrefarine.com

Sugar Plum Fairy Shortbread Bites – another way you can weave your theme into food! These look very pretty and would also make great handmade gifts too.

Have you started Christmas planning for 2023 yet?

I am aware that Christmas is extremely stressful for some and planning like this is not going to solve the stress that they will have. These articles may help if you find Christmas an especially stressful time:

• Beating Christmas stress and anxiety
• Three techniques to help you cope with Christmas stress
• Christmas can be stressful
• Festive stress: why the Christmas season can be anything but merry

The post Your 2023 simple Christmas plan and Christmas themes appeared first on Planning With Kids.

I saw a meme a few weeks ago that had Melbourne firmly placed in the season of “The spring of deception”. We had just had an amazing week of warm weather and true to form Melbourne has turned chilly again. But chilly does mean it is easy to get slow cooker meals over the line again with the kids. They are not that keen on slow cooker meals in summer.

Now in the method for this Slow Cooker Beef Vindaloo I do write it up with some steps to brown the meat first. I do think this produces a slightly better taste in the end product but when I have been short on time, I have just made the paste then thrown it all into the slow cooker and it has been fine. My recommendation is to do what time allows!

The great thing about making your own beef vindaloo is that you can adjust the spiciness to suit your family. With this recipe you can omit the dried chillies and de-seed the fresh chillies for a milder curry. Also as it is cooked in the slow cooker you have great flexibility with the meat you use and can get away with cheaper cuts, so it is good for the budget!

Print

Slow Cooker Beef Vindaloo

Cuisine Indian

Prep Time 30 minutes minutes

Cook Time 4 hours hours

Ingredients

• 1 tsp whole black peppercorns
• 2 tsp cumin seeds
• 2 tsp coriander seeds
• 2 dried red chillies omit if prefer milder curry
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 6 garlic cloves
• 5 cm piece of ginger finely chopped
• 3 cm piece of turmeric finely chopped
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 kg diced blade
• 1 onion finely chopped
• 2 fresh red chillies stemmed, seeded (or keep the seeds if you like it spicy!), and finely chopped
• 400 grams tinned tomatoes

Instructions

• Heat a large frying pan on a medium heat and add peppercorns, cumin seeds, coriander seeds and roughly chopped dried chillies Toast them for a minute or two or until you have a fragrant smell of spices.
• Add the toasted spices to a coffee grinder and grind until they are like a fine powder. Transfer to a mortar and pestle, add crushed garlic cloves, ginger, turmeric and use the pestle to combine.
• Next add 1 tbsp olive oil, apple cider vinegar, cinnamon to the mortar and use the pestle again until you have combined ingredients to make a paste.
• Add 2 tbsp oil to the frying and heat on a medium high. Add in the onion, fry for a couple of minutes, then add in the chilli and fry for another minute. Add in the beef and brown the meat. Once browned add in the paste and cook for a couple of minutes, then transfer to the slow cooker.
• Add in the tinned tomatoes and cook on high for 3- 4 hours or 6-8 hours on low.

You can find other family friendly recipes here:

• Slow Cooker Recipes
• Self Serve Recipes
• Quick Meals

What have you been cooking lately?

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