Slimming World Quick and Easy Creamy Pasta

This Slimming world quick and easy creamy pasta recipe is so easy to makeand is super tasty PLUS its almost syn free, has plenty of speed foods and is really filling

Ingredients (serves 4)

• 1 tub tomato and herb Quark
• 500g pasta
• 1 Pepper de-seeded and chopped
• 1 onion chopped
• 10 cherry tomatoes chopped
• 1/2 tin or 140g frozen sweetcorn 
• 1 chicken stock cube
• 1 dessert spoon of grated parmesan
• Chilli Powder
• Garlic Powder
• Salt and pepper

• Bring a pan of water to the boil and add the stock cube, pasta, pepper and onion and simmer for 10 minutes

• Take out 2 serving spoons of the pasta water and keep to one side

• Add a teaspoon of garlic powder and a half teaspoon of chilli powder to the reserved pasta water and stir well

• Add the sweetcorn and tomatoes to the simmering pasta and cook for a further 5 minutes, then drain well

• Remove the pan from heat and retrn the drained pasta and veg to the pan
• Pour in the reserved pasta water and mix in the tub of quark and one dessert spoon of parmesan cheese
• Season with salt and pepper
• Stir well
• Serve

I have more Slimming World friendly recipes here

Let me know when you try this yourself, I'd love to hear what you think.

Happy 7th Birthday Golden Child

Oh my Golden Boy happy happy birthday, last year I wrote about how the years are going too quickly (as I do every year) and I feel like I wrote it only yesterday.

What a fun packed year we have had with so many activities and days out, holidays and adventures

You have remained the funny cheeky chap who wins hearts wherever we go and my boy you melt my heart whenever I look at you. You make me giggle with your perfect comic timing and your funny funny facial expressions, you can always make me feel good with one of your all encompassing hugs and I love how much you adore your sisters and Daddy

We've had a bumpy school year and there have been many tears from both of us and I know school can seem imposing but your bravery and strength have carried you through. 

 I still know that you could rule the world so long as you knew Daddy or I were right behind you, soon you won't need us giving you that security you will know you are capable of anything and then the world will be your lobster. For now I'm happy to hug you tighter and hold your hand whenever you need it, and I shall do that forever and for as long as you let me.

You are my crazy dude, my handsome kind, generous and empathatic boy always wanting to make people feel good and always with a strong sense of what is right and just, one day you will be changing this world for good (and to us of course you already do) fighting for what is right, or perhaps your love of problem solving, lego build and logic will set you down an engineers path like Daddy but whatever you do this world is better for having you in it. We love you more than all the grains of sand on the beach and all the salt in the sea

Don't ever change your gentle ways my little Golden Child

Education Quizzes

Don't worry it's not another SATS rant, I'm actually talking positively today about Education Quizzes, but not in the formal sense.

Peanut and The Golden Child get a lot of homework, a fair bit of which doesn't make sense to me! I know it's been a long time since I was in school but teaching  happens  very differently now so I'm often at a loss as to how to help them, especially Peanut with her key stage 2 work.
I  recently read about online education quizzes and had a bit of a light bulb moment.

The site has many sections each containing teacher written quizzes, we especially loved the KS2 education quizzes which really helped Peanut and I understand how to work through some of her trickier work by going through questions online together and getting answers straight away so we knew that we were on the right track

Education quizzes is a subscription scheme costing £9.99 per month with no obligation or minimum subscription length

Although the subscription cost of £9.99 may be prohibitive for some parents I like the fact that you can dip in and out when you need so if you want only one month you simply cancel your subscription and pick up later if you need to or you can have as long as you like on a rolling subscription , better still schools can sign up and subscribe for pupils  from only £2 per pupil per YEAR! I think this would be a great way to support parents and children out side of school.

Now you all know I'm against formal testing so while I see the benefit of this subscription in preparing for SATS that's not the biggest appeal for me. I'm more excited that I have a wealth of teacher created worksheets at my finger tips, so when we pack up for our family adventure and take time out of school I can test MYSELF to make sure I'm not doing a disservice to the kids' education while home educating. Alongside that there are Spanish quizzes which means I have a jump start on our family goal of learning Spanish on our adventure!

What do you think about this scheme? would it be something you could see benefit in?