Little Miss Bossy becomes a calendar girl!

I have told you all about Jez Brown Photography HERE! 

But I also promised you my first collaboration with him and here they are - the pics! 

Yesterday I got told that one of them made the cut to be in the Reckless Girls Calendar 2012 - say hello to Miss December! 

Be surprised which pic will be featured! 

At my ripe old age of 32 I am ridiculously excited about this!

(c) Jez Brown Photography

(c) Jez Brown Photography

(c) Jez Brown Photography

(c) Jez Brown Photography

(c) Jez Brown Photography

(c) Jez Brown Photography

(c) Jez Brown Photography

(c) Jez Brown Photography

(c) Jez Brown Photography

(c) Jez Brown Photography

(c) Jez Brown Photography

(c) Jez Brown Photography

(c) Jez Brown Photography

(c) Jez Brown Photography

(c) Jez Brown Photography

(c) Jez Brown Photography

I am wearing a lot of my own wardrobe but some (especially the fabulous hat) is the stylists own - and who was the stylist? Of course Sarah's Doo-Wop-Dos - to be read about HERE!

Breastfeeding Awareness Week

It was breastfeeding week in the UK this week and I'd like to raise awareness within the vintage blogosphere!

I know there's a lot of preaching out there but it IS a really good thing - something I am quite passionate about.

Have a look at this most fantastic video - vintage mummys doing breastfeeding burlesque! I cannot tell you how much I love the video - though I'd prefer it without the Big Brother guy!

http://www.sexy-sassy-breastfeeding-women.co.uk/

I am an active La Leche League member - a support organisation whose praises I can't sing high enough. And there's a new exciting thing going on - in many of the Sure Start Centres across central Bedfordshire they are doing so-called Baby Brasseries - friendly drop-in groups where mummy can sit, chat and eat cake, baby or toddler can play, mummy can breastfeed without inhibition and there is always a trained peer supporter to help onsite. Have a look at your local Sure Start Centre for your weekly Baby Brasserie!

In my local one we celebrated the breastfeeding week today - several mums brought amazing bakery and yummy stuff and the staff of the centre provided the most relaxing massages for mums and babes!

Boobie cupcakes - my culinary contribution to the breastfeeding awareness week 2011

What are you wearing to the Royal Wedding today?

Mr. Bossy, who is 100% British, has been looking at me for the last couple of days as if I'd hit my head a bit too hard. But I don't care - I love revelling completely shamelessly in the guilty pleasure of the Royal Wedding.

Here I am all decked out in union jack colours ready to celebrate with the in-laws!

I also made some crazy patriotic cakes - yummy!

Have a fun weddingy day today!

Happy belated Valentine's day!

I hope you all had a loved up day!

Mine was full of shopping (for food, not that exciting), baking and cooking. And the always working Mr. Bossy managed to come home at a reasonable time to appreciate cakes and one of his favourite meals.

I love my cakes - so pretty.

Red food colouring is notoriously the worst of all and as I am the proud mother of a highly energetic toddler (a friend dubbed him the cannon ball child) it's really not something I want to give him voluntarily. These cakes look amazingly pink but it's all natural! We love beetroot!

The recipe is my trusted favourite cake recipe - blogged about HERE, just substitute the bananas with grated beetroot (I used 2 pre-cooked beetroots) and added about 1-2 teaspoons vanilla extract (1-2 because I nearly dropped the bottle and it overflowed...). The dough itself was a vibrant raspberry pink but when baked it looked rather golden with pink speckles. They do taste nice but I personally prefer beetroot in combination with chocolate - yummy. Blogged about HERE.

The icing contains about a ton of sugar so not all healthy cakes - but never mind. The recipe is taken from THIS lovely book:

110g unsalted butter, at room temperature

60ml semi-skimmed milk, at room temperature

500g icing sugar, sifted

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

I substituted some of the milk with beetroot juice - how much is utterly up to you. I think I used at least a good 20ml and they came out such a vibrant pink - but you cannot taste it.

Whisk all together until smooth and ice the fully cooled cakes with a palette knife. If you have any decoration put it on the minute you iced the cake as it hardens up fairly fast. The red hearts are shop bought and do propably contain artificial colouring - my son had a cake with only one heart on it and I suppose he'll live!

I love baking anyway - but themed baking is even better!

When I woke up yesterday morning this was waiting for me in the lounge.

That was a lovely surprise which I did not expect at all. My child was nearly hyperventilating and could hardly contain himself and then told me all about it that they bought this at the shop! According to Mr. Bossy the great big balloon was Bossy juniors idea. Now who would have thought that!

Yes I like baking

Mr. Bossy is a right Nerd. Not only does he look like a geek (which I love I may add) he really is one. He get's all glossy eyed around computers and anything related. I suppose that's not unusual at all. But he also gets a kick out of cleaning products. Yes I mean cleaning products. And cleaning utensils. Each to their own I guess because I do have my very own geeky spleen.

And that's baking.

Yes I love baking. It's relaxing, it's so much fun and please let's not forget the yummy treats to eat after you have whipped up some cakey delicousness!

But I suppose the geeky bit is that I myself get a kick out of kitchen utensils - especially if they are baking related. It just happens to be all so pretty!

Baking accessories and polka dots seem to be a match made in heaven - and obviously I am loving it!

I like to bake all kinds of things, anything that feeds my sweet tooth is good enough for the Bossy household.

But my heart belongs to cupcakes!

I have a whole array of baking books but these are just devoted to cupcakes.
All lovely presents for various occassions by Mr. Bossy or his family.

My birthday in October and Christmas just gone had a clear theme. Mr. Bossy and his lovely mother showered me with beautiful baking related gifts. The great thing - they did not know this of each other and neither for my birthday nor for Christmas I had one thing double! All different great things.

By far not all pictured here (I guess you know how for example a baking tray looks but it is muuuuuuuuuuuuch bigger than the old one)

Birthday and Christmas gifts together make a beautifully mismatched tea party set!
My dear mother-in-law gave me the strawberry milk jug and cake stand in October, Mr. Bossy the red tea pot also for my birthday, the sugar pot I got myself with a Birthday voucher from his grandparents and the tea set was a great Christmas gift from Mr. Bossys sister and her fiancee.

Not to forget the cupcake stand which Mr. Bossy also gave me for my birthday. And notice the golden starred cake cases? Also a birthday gift but I thought it's my last injection of Christmas today, they do look christmasy!

Lovely they are, aren't they? Various other presents included a cake decorating set, lots and lots of polka dotted cake cases, more baking tins and trays and and and.....

.... and this cake tin (2 more inside!) and new oven glove :-)

And in spite of all these lovely books I always fall back to my most favourite cupcake/muffin recipe. After all this talking about baking I might aswell share it. 

It is taken from Nigella Lawsons (who I adore by the way) "Nigella Express" book (Birthday present 3 years ago) and the original recipe calls for:

3 very ripe bananas
125ml vegetable oil
2 eggs
250g flour
100g caster sugar
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
150g butterscotch (or chocolate) morsels

I have never used butterscotch morsels but once used white chocolate chips instead. That was the only time I ever stuck to the recipe and yes they turned out great but this is my basic cupcake/muffin recipe and so adaptable. I usually use brown sugar or muscovado sugar and if it's for kids I cut down on the sugar (especially with the sweet bananas that much sugar is not neccessary). I also substitute the bananas with whatever is in the house - I have used all kinds of veg or fruit: courgettes, carrots, beetroot, pumpkin, apples, pears - whatever I find. Sometimes I add vanilla or cinnamon or - whatever. I have also used wholewheat flour, white flour or spelt flour (yummy in conjunction with bananas).

If it's too thick I add some milk or soya milk to stay dairy free, if it's too runny I add more flour. Easy peasy, always yummy.

Today I added some vanilla sugar (too much for my liking actually, should have cut down on the sugar instead) and apples instead of the bananas. I also added some all spice (cinnamon, ground cloves, nutmeg, ginger). And yes they are a bit burned, you may have noticed :-).

Mix dry ingredients in a big bowl, mix oil and eggs in a separate jug, stir all together, stir in the fruit/veg. Put in cupcake cases, the big ones bake for about 17-20 minutes at about 220 degree. But you have to adjust accordingly and keep an eye on it - banana seems to bake longer than apples, they burn faster. I also like to make mini mini cakes for the kiddos and they - obviously - need less baking time!

Valentins-Bäckerei/Valentine's baking

Wie bereits erzählt, hat bei uns die diesjährige Valentins-Bäckerei ein paar Tage verspätet stattgefunden. "Traditionellerweise" färbe ich meine Kuchen sonst immer rot ein, da wir aber ab jetzt einen Kuchen-Mitesser haben, blieb ich der roten Farbe (die ja angeblich die schlimmste von allen sein soll) fern und somit ist auch der rosa Zuckerguss sehr spärlich eingesetzt!

R. hat sich trotzdem gefreut :-)

As I already mentioned I did my yearly baking for Valentine's day a few days later. "Traditionally" I dye my cakes red - but as we now have another cake hungry mouth I steered clear of the red food dye (which is apparently the worst of all) and that also means a scarce use of the pink sugar writing.

Ryan still loved it :-)

Bilder/Pictures

Weihnachten und Neujahr sind zwar mittlerweile schon ein alter Hut, aber ich möchte euch trotzdem noch ein paar Bilder zeigen!

Christmas and new year are an old hat by now but I would still like to show you a few piccies!

Meine Schwiegermutter, Schwägerin und Baby Ray beim Mince Pies (traditionelle englische Weihnachtsbäckerei) backen

My mother-in-law, sister-in-law and baby Ray baking mince pies

Das waren nur mal die Stockings - der Geschenkehaufen war noch viel grösser

These were only the stockings - the pile of presents was a lot bigger

Beim Stocking-Packerl öffnen am Schoss von Tante Amy am Morgen - bitte noch eins!

Opening the stocking parcels on Auntie Amys lap in the morning- another one please!

Weihnachten ist toll!

Christmas is great!

Als Daddy von der Arbeit nach Hause kam haben wir auch die Hauptgeschenke geöffnet - oder eher versucht zu essen

When Daddy got home from work we opened the main presents - or more likely tried to eat them

Unser erstes Weihnachten war ein langer Tag!

Our first Christmas was a long day!

Mit vielen aufregenden Geschenken!

With many exciting prezzies!

Am nächsten Morgen war mein Geschenk interessanter als seine :-)

The next morning my prezzie was more interesting than his :-)

Und die typisch englischen Christmas-Cracker waren wieder ein Hit!

And he still loved the Christmas crackers!

Am Neujahrsabend mit einem wunderschönen Weihnachts-Geschenk (den Anzug haben wir übrigens von Betty bekommen!)

On New Years eve with a lovely Christmas present (the vest we were actually given by Betty!)

Ein Versuch ein Familienbild zu machen :-)

An attempt to take a family pic :-)

Zappel-Philipp bleibt ja nie still!

The fidget-bum never keeps still!

Ins neue Jahr bin ich übrigens stillend gerutscht - gefiel mir!

The new year I entered breastfeeding - I loved it!

Rote Beete mal anders/Beetroot in a different way

Hatte nicht viel Zeit meinen Blog zu updaten!
Bald komme ich hoffentlich dazu mehr zur Baby-Erziehung zu schreiben, aber hier mal einstweilen ein leckeres Rezept!

Das Rezept ist nur ungefähr, weil ich einfach vor mich hin gebacken habe – aber erstaunlicherweise sind sie gut geworden:

Rote Beete-Schoko Muffins

Zutaten:

4 Rote Beete Rüben (durchschnittliche Grösse)
250g Mehl
175g Zucker (ich habe unraffinierten hellen Muscovado Zucker verwendet)
ca. ¾ TL Backpulver
ca ¾ TL Natron
ca 3-4 gehäufte TL Kakao (ungesüsst)
2 Eier
1 Becher Sauerrahm (war 142ml)
8 EL Rapsöl

Die Rüben in der Schale weich kochen, auskühlen lassen und dann mit einem Messer schälen und in eine Schüssel raffeln. Alle flüssigen Zutaten extra in einer Schüssel mixen und zu den gemischten trockenen Zutaten geben und dann die geraffelte rote Beete unterheben. In ein Muffinblech füllen und 20 Minuten backen.
Ein bisschen Puderzucker drüber stauben und schon fertig!

Mir haben sie besonders gut geschmeckt, aber nicht jedem!

Didn’t have much time to update my blog!
Hopefully I’ll have soon time to write more about bringing up baby but in the meantime a yummy recipe!

The recipe might be a hit or miss as I kind of made it up as I went along – but surprisingly they turned out really well!

Beetroot-chocolate muffins

Ingredients

4 beet root (average size)
250g flour
175g sugar (I used unrefined light muscovado sugar)
ca. ¾ teaspoon baking powder
ca. ¾ teaspoon bicarbonate soda
ca. 3-4 heaped teaspoons cocoa (unsweetened)
2 eggs
1 pot of sour cream (mine was 142ml)
8 tablespoons of vegetable oil

Cook the beetroot in their skin until they are soft, let them cool down and then peel with a knife and grate them into a bowl. Mix all liquid ingredients and stir them into the mixed dry ingredients and then fold in the grated beetroot. Fill into muffin cases and bake for 20 minutes.
Dust a little icing sugar on top and that's it!

I really liked them but not everyone did!

Halloween naht

Halloween naht und somit ist für mich die leckere Kürbiszeit angebrochen!

Gestern habe ich wunderbare Kürbis-Muffins gebacken und in diesen Minuten wartet ein amerikanischer Pumpkin-Pie im Ofen!

Da ich logischerweise noch kein Foto vom nichtfertigen Kuchen habe hier ein Bild der letztjährigen Bäckerei!

Hier das Rezept:

175g Zucker
½ TL Salz
1 TL Zimt
½ TL gemahlener Ingwer
¼ TL gemahlene Gewürznelken
2 Eier
300g Kürbispüree
350g Kondensmilch
Mürbeteig

Den Ofen auf 220 Grad vorheizen
Teig in eine 23cm grosse Springform geben
Zucker, Salz und Gewürze in einer kleinen Schüssel mischen
Eier leicht in einer grossen Schüssel schlagen
Milch und Kürbispürre mit den Eiern vermengen und Zuckermischung beigeben
In die Springform füllen und für 15 Min backen – dann Ofen auf 180 Grad runter drehen und für weitere 40 Min backen (bzw Messerprobe machen) - ca. 2 Stunden auskühlen lassen und Guten Appetit!

Edit 13.10.:

Nach dem Verzehr des leckeren Pies weiss ich jetzt, dass ich beim nächsten Mal weniger Zucker verwende und dann auf jeden Fall Muscovado- oder zumindest braunen Zucker!

Und die Hexen sind geschummelt! Als der Pie vollständig ausgekühlt war, habe ich einfach zwei Hexen von der Girlande abgeschnitten und auf den Kuchen gelegt :-)

Seltsame Schwangerschafts-Symptome/strange pregnancy symptoms

Dazu gehört für mich vorallem die Unlust zum kochen!

Bis vor ein paar Monaten kochte ich gerne und mit Leidenschaft.

Fast täglich und keine Scheu vor stundenlangem in der Küche stehen.

Und wie ich erst das Backen liebte!

Doch seit ich schwanger bin vergeht's mir schon beim Gedanken daran.

Mag ich Pasta derzeit so gerne, weil mein Körper Kohlenhydrate braucht oder doch nur weil mein Unterbewusstsein weiss, dass es besonders schnell und ohne Aufwand geht? :-)

Gestern übrigens hatte ich tolle Nachrichten!

Alles ging klar mit unserem Check für die Wohnung - das heisst im Juni werden wir umziehen!!

Wann wie wo was genau - diese Details folgen noch :-)

PS: Mein PC zu Hause mag mich derzeit nicht so und in der Arbeit muss ich doch noch arbeiten - daher komme ich im Moment sehr schwer zum Blog surfen und kommentieren!

That mainly means for me my dislike towards cooking!

Until a few months ago I used to love cooking with passion!

Nearly on a daily basis and I was never afraid of spending hours in the kitchen!

And I adored baking!

But ever since I got pregnant even thinking about it makes me cringe.

Do I like Pasta so much at the moment because my body craves carbohydrates or because my subconscious knows it's quick and easy? :-)

Yesterday by the way I had great news!

Our creditcheck was all clear - so we can move into the new house June!

What when where and how exactly - all these details will follow soon :-)

PS: My PC at home doesn't like me at the moment and at work I so have to work - so at the moment I hardly ever get to Blog-surf and comment!

It's easter sunday!

Yesterday I managed to convince Ryan NOT to buy these overpackaged easter eggs!

Well it also helped that at 5 in the afternoom just before the shops closed hardly any eggs where left over :-)

So I whipped up emergency easter-baskets!

We found in the supermarket little flower-buckets and I had enough easter left overs from last year to make something! I had lot's of coulourful tissuepaper at home to line the buckets and luckily we found some little chocolate eggs in the supermarket which I filled in the bottom, I baked some bunny heads again and decorated the bucket with all the easter bits and bobs I could find in my left overs-bag - pipe cleaners can come in handy for making all kinds of stuff!

So here we have easter-baskets for Ryans mum, his 3 sisters and little Ella (including a pig we bought :-))

Unfortunately it was quite late last night when I finished - so the pics are dark and not the best quality.

Mr. Pea/Happy Easter!

Finally I have a picture uploaded!

So I proudly present Mr. Pea!

Happy Easter everyone!

This year the Easter time has gone completely past me...

But maybe subconciously I've been boycotting it because Easter is just HORRIBLE here!

For some strange reason people here don't seem to realise that you can actually make Easter eggs from REAL eggs. Everything is plastic or chocolate (ok not always a bad thing :-)).

But the typical British Easter egg is ever so bizarre to me - it is one plain chocolate egg of course foil wrapped and then in the strangest way packaged in a huge plastic protection thing and then in an even bigger box. Sometimes there's another chocolate goodie with it.

I absolutely don't understand why these overpackaged square boxes are Easter-like in any way.

Last year my little sister Mimi and a friend were here and I had my Easter egg decorating enjoyment with them!

Well this year on my own I didn't bother - just because I kept on dreaming of my new little Easter bunny helper I will have next year!

Then we will show these funny Brits how to blow out an egg and decorate it properly and beautifully!! :-)

But I had to do at least something this year - so for todays Easter food day at work I baked "Osterpinzen" as bunny heads :-)