Reading with your baby to combat illiteracy!

Today I went to the launch of the new Fingal Libraries Video.  It is full of useful hints and tips for parents and carers about how to read with their baby. It also gives brilliant advice such as "visit your local library"!!


Did you read with your children when they were babies?

Boots Haul!

I needed to pick up a few items so I went to Boots as I had a voucher that if I spent over 35 euro I got 500 points back on my card (500 points has a €5 value).

I got two deodorants and toothpaste along with some dry shampoo. The Batiste Dry Shampoo was buy 3 get 1 free so I saved €3.99 on that.

L'Oreal were Buy 3 get cheapest free.  The primer was €11.99, the powder was €10.79 and the lip gloss was free! (Saving: €10.49).  

My total was €36.33 with a saving of €19. All of the above should have cost me €55 and with the €5 euro points back I think this was all a pretty good deal!

L'Oreal Voluminous Butterfly Mascara

Awhile ago, I wrote about L'Oreal False Lash Wing Mascara and said that it was really amazing.

I had seen this L'Oreal Butterfly Mascara for sale in CVs in the States and I thought it was the same as the L'Oreal False Lash Wing Mascara.  

On my recent holiday to California I bought two of these mascaras in Walgreens (they were on special at buy 1 get one 50% off).

All in all I think I paid about $16 which is such a bargain considering I paid about €18 for the False Lash Wing Mascara.

The mascara itself if amazing and I honestly think these mascaras are the same product just with different branding for the the two different markets.  

This is the False Lash Wings - how similar does it look to the Butterfly one above?!

Deli 97 in Ranelagh

On Sunday mornings we generally go for coffee in Butlers in Ranelagh. However, it was a nice sunny day today so it was packed and there was nowhere to sit outside with the dog.  

We decided to go to Deli 97 at the other end of the town (near Tesco) instead.  Ciaran likes Deli 97 because it serves Fixx Coffee - he also gets a friendly greeting from the guy who used to work in Coffee Society.

 I always think it is a little strange sitting out on the main street of Ranelagh right beside the traffic but it works generally!

 Here is the menu for Deli 97.  They do a full Irish Breakfast and I like the sound of the eggs and avocado.

 We had a glance at all the lovely pastries but ignored them as we are trying to stay away from carbs (and we've had a bit of a bad weekend)

 As well as fresh deli food, they have a selection of different foods like Fluff & Cookie Dough from USA. 

The fresh food looks very tasty but we were only having coffee as we were going to my parents house for dinner at 1pm.

 Bones chilled out under the table.

 After walking home, we stopped off to look at the football in the field behind our house - one of Ciaran's favourite things to do!

Thai Food & Rugby

Wales and England were playing at 8pm tonight so we decided to watch it at home and order a takeaway.

 Siam Thai do a meal deal for 40 euro which includes 2 starters, 2 mains and a bottle of wine.

What a great deal.....

 When I rang and ordered, I was asked what wine I wanted.  I was like "red".
The lady taking my order then said that they had either Malbec or Cabernet Sauvignon.  You can guess which one I went for!  
If you are regular reader of this blog, you will know I can never turn down a Malbec (and this one turned out to be an Argentinean Malbe too!).

The food was good.  We didn't order what we normally get and next time I will probably go back to our usual.

On this occasion, we started with wings & duck rolls.  Then for mains, we had sweet n'sour chicken and Singapore Noodles. Again I repeat, what value it for all this food and also a bottle of wine (however, I'll let you know if I wake up with a headache!)

Love chilled out Rugby Saturdays!

And best of all Wales beat England in an amazing game!!

Friday Brunch in LPA

This morning two friends visited for brunch and also to see my house which they had been looking forward to seeing since I moved in, (for shame, 3 yrs ago!). We have worked together over the past 15 years but are currently working in three separate libraries over two different shifts so have found it hard to meet up. Our last meet up was in February and I blogged about it here.

Ciaran suggested I make Fat n'Fluffy French Toast with bacon served with maple syrup and cream.  I thought this was the perfect brunch food so googled a recipe. This was the French Toast Recipe I found and used after modifying it slightly.  It was the first time I had used flour in French Toast but it worked!

I used a fresh loaf of bread from Supervalu that I cut in to thick slices - so good!!

It was a lovely morning I really enjoyed the girls company.

One of my friends had her two and a half year old son with her. When he got home he told his older brother "I was in a house with a swimming pool & a dog".  
How adorable! I love this!!
We only have a hot tub but to a two year old it must look huge!

Low Carb Cauliflower Meals

Check this baby out!

I got a new Food Processor (the Kenwood FP582 takes up 30% less space in a kitchen press than a regular processor due to its streamlined design) which makes chopping up cauliflower a breeze. 

I flew through these cauliflowers and had 3 batches of cauliflower rice in no time at all.  When you have the right tools it is easy!

This is all the waste from the cauliflower - there is more waste than actual cauliflower!! This will all go in to my brown waste bin which takes all my compostable material.

I made up three different things.   
* Pizza for tonight (with cauliflower base)
* Pizza I froze for Thursday night (thanks to a blog reader for suggesting I make two bases at the same time - Great tip Lisa!) 
*Kung Pao Chicken with Coconut Cauliflower Rice for tomorrow night.

Here is the pizza we ate tonight. The base was a bit more solid than the other time I made it so it felt more like real pizza.

Here's the pizza that went in to the freezer. I will cook from frozen on Thursday evening.

 I plated up the Kung Pao Chicken for tomorrow evening. It might have been a better idea to make the coconut cauli-rice tonight but then cook the chicken fresh tomorrow. I'll do that next time.

The Kung Pao Chicken with Cauli Rice is a banting recipe from The Real Food Revolution Cookbook.

All in all a fairly productive hour and a half or so of cooking - however the house does smell of cauliflower which is not so good :-(

Highlights of my California Trip

Here's the highlights of my recent California Trip (in no particular order)

Whale Watching in Monterey
Seeing nature in the wild makes me feel so alive!! This experience was amazing.

Football Game in Oakland
I had no idea what was going on most of the time but I still enjoyed it immensely

398 Brasserie
So good we ate here 3 mornings in a row.  And they make great Bloody Mary's too!

Santa Cruz Beach
And drinks on our balcony looking at the beach

Cable Car Tour with Bar in San Francisco
Ridiculous amount of fun aboard and we stopped off for a great Irish Coffee in Buena Vista Cafe

Olympic Club 
Ciaran thought it was the nicest club he ever played in - and there was some pretty good squash played there too in the O'Stillman Cup

Betty's Burgers in Santa Cruz
Had the "Bareback burger" with Betty's special lube - otherwise known as a Burger with burger sauce but no bun!

Petroglyph in Santa Cruz
We each painted a mug and then picked them up a few days later when they had been fired.  

Pacific Grove Movie Theatre
Old school fun!

Getting a pedicure on the night before we flew home

Eating in China Town in San Francisco
I've always wanted to do this.  The food was fine but the atmosphere was amazing!

Roof top eating in Cheese Cake Factory (Union Square) 
And take away cheese cake slice!

Bus Tour in SF that took us over the Golden Gate Bridge

Fierce cold and windy - it brought tears to our eyes....but so worth it!

Frank Lloyd Wright Building

Waking up to this view!!
In Santa Cruz (Casablanca on the Beach)

And watching the lads play football as the sun went down

What a trip and great memories for life!

Game Day - Raiders versus Bengals

When all the squash was over, the team broke up with many going back to Ireland, some staying on in San Francisco and some travelling to other parts of the States.

We stayed in San Francisco for a few days before flying home.

A friend of Ciaran's was very keen to go to a Football Game on the Sunday after not being able to go to a college game on Saturday due to the squash.  

I have no interest in Football but I love the atmosphere of the game and the stadium so made a decision to go with them if they were able to get tickets.

The plan was to get tickets as the stadium but lucky for us a USA squash player was able to hook us up with a ticket seller and we got them through him (we played over the odds but at least we didn't have to deal with scalpers at the stadium).

We got the BART out to Oakland.

 New rules had just come on to force where you couldn't have a bag bigger than basically a DVD. So I had to check in my bag. I saw these mounted guards when I made my way to bag check in (where I had to pay 10 dollars for the privilege) 

The football field had the baseball diamond laid out on it.

It was a chilled out fun afternoon.

The lads chatted to this Raiders fan during one of the breaks

 A huge screen was at each end of the field.

The fans were great - all decked out in black to support their team.

Ciaran & Conor visited the Raiders Store after the game.

Here's the remains of the tail gating!

While the lads were in the shop I went and got my bag back. While doing this I saw the cheer leaders leave the stadium, which was pretty cool.

All in all a fun afternoon, and something we can't do at home in Ireland. I had no idea what was going on the majority of the time but I really enjoyed myself!

When we got back to San Francisco we ate in a restaurant in China Town which was another cool experience. A fantastic end to a brilliant day.