What are you doing on the 9th November? Coffee and cake anyone?

If you've read this post - you'll know I'm in the midst of trying to raise a lot of money for our local campsite. We need £25,000 for a new roof, and I'm determined to help out (not least as I want to use the venue for the wedding)

On the 9th November 4th Friern Barnet Guides will be having a coffee morning to raise money - they've been set a target of £10 per head - and at their estimated costs, that'll be 10 slices of cake each.

I'm opening our doors to all bloggers, cake makers, crafters (guiders or not) who would be willing to make and donate a cake, raffle prize, preserves, or anything else we can sell or otherwise raise money from.

If you can't do any of those things and are in or around the North London area that day, why not pop along, say hello and have your morning tea or coffee and cake with us.



Venue: Guide and Scout HQ, Stanford Road, Friern Barnet, N11 3HX

Time: 11am to 2pm

Date: Saturday 9th November

Guiding and Social Media part two

Hopefully you've seen part one of this series, extolling the benefits of using Social media for your Rainbow, Brownie, Guide or Senior Section unit. This is the write up of the intermediate session run by Rosie from CHQ - again if you've not had this training locally please do direct your local guiders to this post. 

So, lets work on the basis that you're tweeting. You have your unit facebook page up and running and are using it to keep in touch with friends and family. You might have a closed (or secret) group for your Rangers and it's all working well. 

What now? How can you extend your use of social media and  most importantly make it work for you? 

Ultimately of course that's the main question. We're all volunteers - we don't want to be attached to our laptops and smartphones any more than we have to be. I don't know about you but I didn't volunteer as a leader to add a few extra hours each day sweating over Twitter. We need to make our social media channels work for us, not the other way around.

The power of social media lies in it's speed, and the way it encourages engagement. If we're going to campaign we can make use of those strengths to create and sustain a buzz around our message, reach a larger audience over a longer time and ultimately strengthen our message. All in all this means that we increase our impact. 

The starting point of any campaign is the end point. Identify what result you want and work backwards from there. 

• Be specific - is it more volunteers you want? Or in fact do you want 2 new Rainbow leaders?
• Will you be able to tell you've achieved your goal? Make it measurable
• Are you being realistic? Is having every unit in your County fully staffed at all achievable?
• When do you want this to happen by? By being time bound we give ourselves a framework (Again, be realistic!)

The next thing to think about with your planning is who do you want to target? And which social media is appropriate?  Personally I'm a twitter fan* as I feel that you reach a wider audience. Facebook's new(ish) policy whereby you pay to promote your page means that actually your reach is hugely reduced. I've got 100 'fans' on the Penelope's Pantry facebook page, yet my last status update reached 6 people - especially annoying as that was for a competition I'm running giving away a £50 Sainsburys voucher. 

Twitter has no limits like that and as I mentioned before the national Girlguiding page actively follows units and RTs campaign tweets - be it recruitment, event publicity or just #weekendguiding activities. Also with twitter you can schedule tweets using a programme like Tweetdeck so that your message goes out at different times during the day so catches people as the Twitter audience changes. 

When you're developing your campaign, think about it in three stages:

1. The build up... you want to raise interest
• Hook people in by making it interesting. Use a call to action or question in your tweets. Sound enthusiastic - no one is going to be excited if your status update reads "Going to camp on Wednesday. Dreading it. Weather's awful. Guides are stressed" I hate to sound PRish, but spin that fear, why not tweet "Guides and leaders nervous about camping in this terrible weather! Anyone have any suggestions for surviving torrential rain on camp?"
• Encourage engagement. 
• Answer people's responses to you
• Use hashtags # or link people using handles (their twitter name, which starts with the @ symbol - mine is @penjy) to involve others. 
2. The event itself
• Encourage attendees to participate. Ask people to post what they're up to, and to share what you're doing - don't limit yourself to words, use pictures, videos - anything that tells the story. Offer a prize - best picture tweeted on the day wins a Middlesex east thermal mug! 
• Nominate someone to tweet during the event - set up a hashtag and tell people what it is -  it could be something simple like #guidecamp or something really specific like #MEGA2012 
• When you can, try and make sure there's somewhere accessible with wifi or 3G coverage so that attendees can join in with their media
• Make use of other media like Instagram and again use hashtags and handles in those feed to involve others
3. After the event
• Encourage people who attended to again share their updates, pictures, videos (ensuring that relevant permissions have been obtained)
• Curate the event - if you've had a lot of coverage and want to capture it all in one place, use something like Storify to draw it all together
• Keep the conversation going - ask follow up questions
4. Evaluation
• Ask for feedback - you can use something like Survey monkey in case people would prefer to be anonymous
• Did your campaign work? Did you reach that goal?
• What went well?
• What would you do differently? 
• Don't beat yourself up about things that didn't go well - learn from them.

Before this really drags on a few final things to think about

Social media is not just about taking - you need to give as well - so, if you see a unit (even if they're at the other end of the country to you) selling badges for a GOLD trip, RT it. Who knows what badge hungry guiders, or units in search of a challenge badge to fill those few weeks before camp you have following you?

Think about your brand - select your profile picture carefully, and think about what it looks like on screen.

Don't give yourself Guiding fatigue - make sure you've got at least one other person staffing those accounts so it's not all down to you. 

Think about your tone of voice - I tend to keep tweets chatty and friendly. I'm not presenting to the board!

Use apps to help you - I've mentioned Tweetdeck and Hootsuite which will notify you of and help you to keep on top of any mentions you get.

Just be aware of your data allowance - I'm deliberately on Three so that I have unlimited data. Similarly remember your charger! All too often I'm just out of battery when the guides have formed a perfect human pyramid whilst in full uniform on a bouncy castle singing Taps. Ok maybe not exactly that, but you get the picture. 

A huge thank you to Rosie from GirlGuiding CHQ whose workshop this is all based on. I've just written it up, she did all the hard work *Brownie thank you claps*

And now my call to action - have you got any questions? Any? At all? About anything in either of these posts? Either comment here or send me an email at penelopespantry@googlemail.com and I'll bring them all together in a Social Media superpost and ask Rosie and the Social Media team at HQ to answer them all on here. I may even chip in myself ;-) 

As an aside, if you're reading this and fancy winning a £50 Sainsbury's voucher either for yourself, or to put towards the food bill for this summer's Guide camp or Brownie holiday, why not enter the competition I'm running here - for a recipe using your favourite Kitchen Hero or storecupboard staple from Sainsburys? You don't need to be a blogger, just pop your recipe in the comments section and Sainsbury's will pick their favourite!

*Something which no one was surprised at. Ever.

Guiding and social media part one

Social Media and Guiding don't always seem the most natural fit - I don't know about you, but although I am a prolific *ahem* fairly seasoned blogger, tweeter, facebooker etc, I've not quite got to grips with doing those things as a representative of my unit, district, division or County. Or so I thought. This weekend I took part in two workshops run by Rosie, one of the Girlguiding CHQ marketing interns and in response to request am writing up the key points here for people who haven't had access to this training locally to them. 

If we start by thinking about Girlguiding themselves, they have huge reach - their followers and likers on Facebook and twitter amount to about 29,000 - stats which are increasing by 3 - 4,000 per quarter. Whether we're using those mediums for local, regional or national communications - that's a huge amount of people reading and responding to what Girlguiding have to say. You might think "but I only have 30 girls in my unit. Who would listen to me?" But, if your follwers retweet or share what you're talking about then your reach extends and extends. And the Girlguiding accounts follow units, districts, divisions and Counties and will retweet/ share your news, thoughts and views. 

There are things we do need to bear in mind - Child safety, especially on facebook. Closed groups for Senior section, with carefully chosen securities and permissions for photos work best. But Guide, Brownie or Rainbow units could have a Unit page. With Twitter your account is open - your feed needs to be brief but relatively frequent and you do need to engage - neither Twitter nor facebook work as social media tools if you're just shouting into an empty room - but if you talk to people, linking them into your conversations, retweeting others' you start to find your place in those communitiies. 

Some final hints and tips for new tweeters/ facebookers

• Tweet/ Share good news and information
• Use a strong profile picture
• When tweeting or updating your status use a call to action - a question for your followers to answer
• Include links and pictures (bear in mind photo permissions) where relevant
• Don't be afraid to ask people to share your message - Twitter shorthand for this is 'Please RT'
• Tweet others as you would like to be tweeted ;-) - share their news, respond positively, link up

Next time a write up of the intermediate session 

Oh and have some cake  

Chocolate chip and pretzel cookies

Salty and sweet is a thing. A real honest to goodness thing. I was out with my lovely sister and my genius nephew (true story) a couple of weeks back, we popped into M&S ostensibly for a cardigan and picked up an elderly lady (also true story) and some chocolate and caramel pretzel bites. We demolished them happily, as Noah napped and removed his socks in the back of the car. 

I went away that evening thinking about those sweets (what can I say? I need to get out more) and wondering if I could make those flavours work in a cookie. Pinterest threw up a few suggestions but as it tends towards American recipes I wasn't entirely sold on their ingredients. 

When Nigella Express came out I made her Totally chocolate, chocolate chip cookies a handful of times, whilst I love them, they are amazingly rich and sometimes the chocolate feels a bit headachey. Plus M can't eat dark chocolate as it makes him feel sick. So I needed to adapt the recipe and this is my adaptation of that

Chocolate chip and pretzel cookies

125g milk chocolate, melted (I used leftover Christmas and Easter chocolate)
150g flour
30g Cadbury's drinking chocolate (the one you make up with milk)
1 tsp bicarb
1/2 tsp salt
125g softened butter
50g white sugar
75g soft brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
200g chopped up chocolate - a mix of white and milk
150g pretzels (about 2 handfuls) lightly crushed - reserve about 24 whole ones

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees and line a cookie sheet with baking parchment
Beat the butter and sugar in your mixer (or with a hand beater)
Add the melted chocolate, egg and vanilla continuing to beat until well combined
Fold the flour, bicarb drinking chocolate and salt into the batter
Stir in the chopped chocolate and pretzels 

Using a tablespoon measure out big dollops (technical term) of cookie batter onto the sheet. Don't press them flat as the mixture spreads, so leave big gaps between the spoonfuls. I can fit about 8 cookies at once on a sheet. 
Top each ball of batter with a whole pretzel - just push it lightly into the cookie

Bake for 15 minutes - remove from the cookie sheet straightaway with a spatula and cool on a wire rack - this helps mine stay smooshy in the middle (which is how I prefer them). If you like your cookies crispy then cool them on the tray for 5-10 minutes first as they'll continue to cook using the residual heat from the tray. 

This mix makes at least 24 cookies and they keep in an airtight tin for up to 5 days. You can freeze the original Nigella recipe - but I don't think you could with the pretzels as they would go soggy. 

Just a note for the Guiders out there - I know that our girls would go mad for these - try doing them with teaspoonfuls of mix instead of tablespoons and you'll get - 2-3 times as many! As they're such a quick bake (and in smaller measures would be even quicker, 9-10 mins) they're ideal for a chocolate badge evening, or to be bagged up for a bake sale, father's day or mother's day treats... well the list is endless so I'll leave the reason up to you.

Hello, is it me you're looking for?

Source

Apologies for the break in service - I'd like to say normality will resume presently but I'm going to be taking things slowly for a while. Whilst I love blogging, and adore the friends I've made through my little space on the internet, I've recently found life a little challenging. There's a lot going on here in the Pantry; big and little things and to say I've  felt overwhelmed by life would have been an understatement. I am trying to get things a bit more back on track and need to be a bit easier on myself - aren't we all our own worst critics? 

The plan is that for a while I'll just be blogging recipes and activity plans for my Guide and Brownie units - the things I love most. And taking that a bit more slowly. One of the things I've realised is that I can't do everything or at least not well. And that the person that's affected most by trying to be all things to all people is me. 

If you've found your way here from Guiding magazine - hello and welcome to my pantry - hopefully you'll have a poke around the recipes and activity plans and find something that interests you. If there's something you've wanted to try with your unit but am not sure how, or some inspiration for food activities for a particular theme or festival, drop me a line - either in the comments, or at penelopespantry@googlemail.com 

Next up - chocolatey chocolate and pretzel cookies... 

A wondrous weekend: the Guides do Harry Potter

Source

We try to take the Guides away twice a year; once indoors in the winter, once outdoors in the summer. This weekend heralds our annual winter trip, excitingly in a new venue. Much planning has been done, crafts purchased, activities planned and voted for. The girls are excited, and spent yesterday evening painting room signs appropriate to the theme.

As QM (QuarterMaster - basically cook) I'll be doing the cooking over the weekend with the help of the Guides of course. The girls voted on the menu and the online shop has been done.

Friday night supper: Chicken or veggie Fajitas, wedges, carrot sticks, cherry tomatoes, cucumber sticks. Grated cheese, guacamole and lettuce to go with. Pudding is my snickerdoodle blondies with icecream or squirty cream

 

Friday bedtime: Hot chocolate

 

Saturday breakfast: Cereal, fruit juice, eggy bread (woohoo!) bacon/ turkey bacon, tea, bread and marmalade/ jam if still hungry

 

Elevenses: Fruit - apples, bananas, grapes, satsumas and Squash

 

Saturday lunchtime: Roast chicken, roast potatoes, vegetables, stuffing, yorkshire puddings, gravy. Nigella's chocolate cake baked in trays for pudding

 

Threesies (it's a legitimate meal): Biscuit and squash

 

Saturday teatime: Soft rolls with leftover roast chicken, tuna, ham, or cheese, carrot sticks, cherry tomatoes, cucumber sticks and lettuce. Pudding will be what we bake in the morning during our Potions class (see back next week for pictures and recipes)

 

Saturday bedtime: Hot chocolate

 

Sunday breakfast: Cereal, fruit juice, Jennifer's special pancakes, bread and marmalade/ jam if still hungry, tea

 

Elevenses: Fruit and squash

 

Sunday lunchtime: Sausages/ veggie sausages, baked potatoes, beans, veg, gravy. Pudding ice cream sundaes

All of this will be interspersed with vats of tea for the grown ups and lots of running around for the girls. See you on the other side!

Remembrance sleepover, batch cooked bolognaise

This weekend heralds Fourth Friern Barnet Guides annual Remembrance Sunday sleepover, seventeen girls and all 4 leaders will be parading on Sunday as part of the local Remembrance service. As I type I imagine (hope) neckers and t-shirts are being ironed, extra layers for under uniform being packed, school shoes being cleaned. And that's just me. 

As the girls are willingly giving up their Sunday to participate in something important, we have a sleepover the night before - we're combining our Confectioners badge with giant jenga, the chocolate game, and making poppy brooches. 

Tomorrow we'll be bag packing in our local Tesco to raise some much needed funds for the unit - we're in desperately in need of our own, lightweight Patrol tents, and other things like new baking equipment, sewing kits and some camp uniform as well as subsiding tickets for Wellies and Wristbands next year. We're hoping that bag packing will help us towards those targets, and we'll also be using the day as as opportunity to raise awareness of Guiding in the local area and with any luck, recruit some new Adult leaders. 

If you've got people being that busy then obviously you're going to need to feed them. We had a Guide chat with the girls on Tuesday and pasta seemed to be the general consensus - most are having it with a traditional bolognaise, some with a vegetarian version of the same, and a couple will have theirs with cheese and butter, but supplement that with carrot & cucumber sticks and cherry tomatoes. 

This meant, that while running a temperature and fighting off a fluey bug I found myself in Asda this afternoon with a list, a trolley and a single minded ambition to get the food for the sleepover sorted. 

In case you're wondering, to make Spaghetti sauces for twenty one people, your shopping list looks like this:

8 tins chopped tomatoes
8 cloves garlic
4 onions
1 large box (750g) mushrooms
12 peppers
12 carrots
Half a butternut squash
1 parsnip
Tomato puree
Oregano
Marmite
2 kg lean minced beef

Vegetarian Bolognaise

Dice 4 carrots, half a butternut squash, parsnip, 4 peppers and about 250g of mushrooms
Blitz 1 onion, 2 sticks of celery and 2 cloves of garlic in a food processor
Add oil to a large pan and heat up gently
Add the onion, celery and garlic and cook gently for about 15 minutes
Add the carrots, butternut squash and parsnip with a splash of water
Put a lid on the pan and let the veggies steam for about 10 minutes
Add the rest of the veggies, stir in and let cook down for 5 - 10 minutes (until the mushrooms start to colour)
Add 2 tins of tomatoes a large sprinkling of dried oregano, a tablespoon of tomato puree and a tsp of marmite
Leave over a low heat for about half an hour until most of the liquid has reduced

After this, I've put the sauce in a large foil tray, let it cool and will reheat in the oven tomorrow. I wouldn't usually use root veg in a bolognaise type sauce, but courgettes and aubergine are out of season and we work on a budget of £5 per head per day for food. The sauce I made today works out at £0.88 per head £18.49 in total. If you add the cost of the pasta in, it's £1.02 per head.

Bolognaise

Split the mince into 4 portions - for each portion, use the following quantities

Blitz 1 onion, 2 sticks of celery, 2 cloves of garlic, 2 peppers, 2 carrots and 100g of mushrooms
Cook down until softened
Add mince and cook through until browned
Add 2 tins of tomatoes, a large splodge of tomato puree and a teaspoon of marmite
Add a large sprinkle of oregano
Cook down until the sauce is thickened and the liquid reduced - for about half an hour or so

I did this 4 times, and working on the basis that one portion of that does 4-6 adult portions, I figure that we should easily accommodate 17 hungry guides and 4 hungry leaders. Please god let it, as there's now nothing else in my cupboards! 

And after all that... what did I end up having for my supper? You've guessed it

And if you've ever wanted to know what the shopping for 21 people for a 24 hour sleepover looks like...

Olympics food and no-cook cooking activities for little ones

This summer a lot of our Brownie activities have been Olympics led - my unit are so excited about the Olympics badge (as am I, I can't wait to get it on my blanket, badge nerd that I am - isn't it pretty?)

Girlguiding UK's On Your Marks resource isn't just about sport, but also culture so some of the activities the girls chose to do in our pow wow were about food. I wasn't surprised! The activities they chose are ones that we know they love, but as the summer holidays are nearly upon us, I thought I'd add here in case anyone wants a healthy foodie afternoon that's an alternative to cake decorating and biscuit baking - which I admit would be my preferences but with our focus on healthy activity (as well as sport) introducing some more fruit can be a good thing.

One of the things our Brownies love to make is fruit kebabs. Now as with aforementioned new Guide and nuts, we have a Brownie who's allergic to kiwi and strawberries. Please be sure if you're a Leader to check your Join us forms or Go! to check before doing with your unit. If you're doing this at home, well I guess you know.

We choose lots of brightly coloured fruit - including different ones that the girls haven't seen before - typical choices are:

• Kiwi
• Strawberries
• Raspberries
• Pineapple
• Apple
• Pear
• Orange/ satsuma (our girls prefer smaller fruit as it's more manageable for little fingers)
• Starfruit
• Grapes
• Mango

Now having said that the girls won't have seen these before, it seems that few or even none of these are particularly different to your average 7 year old in North London - I think I would have fainted on sight of a mango at 7 in East London (but that was 26 years ago). Lots of units make fruit kebabs but we try and tie it in not just to healthy eating, but also to learning knife skills. When we go on Brownie holiday the girls take on the role of 'Cooks' with their six - in this role they help to peel and chop up potatoes, carrots (we whizz the onions in the food processor to prevent random breakouts of swimming goggles) fruit for puddings and elevenses and anything else that the girls have chosen as part of their menu.

In our weekly meetings we don't have time for all of that, but we do have a stash of coloured plastic chopping boards (which can be dishwashed) and what I would call paring knives. They're neither dangerously sharp nor dangerously blunt, and the boards have enough friction(?) that things aren't slipping around. We also put the boards on old teatowels that we routinely collect from time to time. We work with what I would call the 'bridge' technique of cutting. The girls hold the knife in their right hand (if right handed) and make a bridge with their left, holding the fruit in place, we then encourage them to chop the fruit into bite size peices. There's no expectation that the fruit will be chopped up evenly, there's no sense of their being a standard to meet. As in our promise each girl does "her best". Each type of fruit goes into it's own plastic (or disposable) bowl, and each girl has a kebab or cocktail stick.

For our Olympics challenge, the Brownies had to try and get a peice of fruit of each colour of the rings on their stick, with a second challenge that if there was a type of fruit you hadn't tried before then to add that one (even if it meant you had an extra ring). This all linked in to the Olympic value of Excellence.

excellence – how to give the best of oneself, on the field of play or in life; taking part; and progressing according to one’s own objectives

Now I'm no Mummy blogger but it's worth noting how rarely we have leftovers on Brownie holiday as the girls are proud to eat what they've made. This activity was the same, everyone tried everything - and the chatter on leaving was about their newly learned abilities to chop fruit. And I really do mean made - there's no sense of token 'helping' in the kitchen. It's also always a surprise that if we haven't started our holiday prep with a session on knife skills, the amount of girls who 'aren't allowed' to help out in the kitchen.

A couple of other thoughts I wanted to include about children and fruit that I've noticed over the years - should I qualify this by explaining that I've been Guiding in a leader role since the age of 14? I'm sometimes hyper aware that I'm not a Mum and I don't want anyone thinking I'm trying to teach them to suck eggs, or that I'm speaking out of turn.

• Children (and by that I mean those between 7 and 14) who won't eat a whole piece of fruit, will do so if it's chopped up. I frequently core and quarter apples and love that girls who nibble a whole apple for a long time and ask if they can leave it, will eat 6 peices of chopped up apple.
• I've already mentioned satsumas, easier to peel for little fingers, sweet to eat, less pips and again as they're little - lots of our girls will eat 2
• If we can't get smaller ones, half a banana is sometimes enough
• Now I can't take credit for this one, but our Division Commissioner has been known to scoot around the local Greek supermarkets and get a watermelon cheaply that we can then hack into peices for elevenses - the girls devour this in the same way they do marshmallows!
• If seedless grapes are on special I chop them up into small bunches
• Chopped up fruit is dressed(?) sprinkled(?) with lemon juice. This was a Hugh F-W tip that I shamelessly adopted a year or two back. In the same way my two units go crackers for Tanfasticks, they love fruit with lemon juice on it.

On holiday we always always have bowls of fruit and jugs of squash and water that the girls are encouraged to help them to at any point. They don't have to ask, all they have to do is wash their mug up themselves. We use a cleverly titled 'mug bin' on camp - yes literally, but it's never been used for rubbish, full of beakers, mugs with handles that the girls can help themselves to so there's no having to find your plate bag if you're gasping thirsty.

To keep the fruit and squash cool, another tip - old, clean net curtains. Yes, really. Dampen it down in cold water, and cover the fruit bowls and juice jugs, then dip one end in a washing up bowl of cold water. Voila! Camp fridge

And also we're not perfect - threesies (yes, it's a word) are always a biscuit or little cake. On Guide camp the girls bring their own, home-made ones - extra snaps this year to Mia and Anoushka who made stunning cupcakes and chocolate cake respectively - and we all have that with our drink and break in the afternoon.

Just a quick note: I'm away from home this week and without pictures, but wanted to get this up before the end of term.  All pictures used are from Google images.

Memories, like the corners of my mind...

Misty water-coloured memories
Of the way we were

This is a request, a plea really. Last month, 749 Guides, Brownies, Rangers and their leaders took over PGL Liddington. An amazing weekend was had by all and many many happy memories were formed. Memories that will hopefully stay with the girls long into adulthood.

We would like to preserve those memories, and the plan is to send each unit a memory stick with the photos taken at the weekend on it, so that each girl has the opportunity to keep them. However, we have no money in our budget to pay for them. Being an unfunded, voluntary organisation our coffers are somewhat limited and this is one of those times.

I've been tweeting mercilesslly since our return, begging for unwanted memory sticks any other bloggers, twitter followers or organisations might have. Last week, thanks to some retweets from much bigger bloggers (Helen of Fuss Free Flavours and Jules of Butcher, Baker to name but two) one PR company said that they knew someone who could help, unfortunately they couldn't find the budget to fulfill their intial promise.

So, I'm putting out a call to arms (well, not quite) if ANY bloggers/ readers/ PRs out there can help with memory sticks I would, and 749 girls and young women would be eternally grateful. We only want 56 memory sticks - one per unit that attended. As a County of 3,000 we regularly need promotional materials, and a donation of this sort would definitely put you in our minds for future events and activities.

If you can't help yourself - please could you share this post, on facebook/ Twitter/ Stumbleupon or Pinterest - even to your email address list in case someone out there can and will help us. If you can help us, if you would contact me either here in the comments, or at penelopespantry@googlemail.com that would be amazing.

As a Guide, I believe in thinking of others before myself and would me incredibly thankful if you would help us.

Yours in Guiding

Penelope

Meal Planning Monday: Betwixt and between

This week is neither one thing nor the other in the Pantry. I have a four day week (Hurrah!), but am going off to Guide camp at the end of it, so need to fit in some serious baking on my down time. I'm not teaching as I was going to be down in Poole. I haven't done a food shop. And I have fruit coming out of my ears. It's all a bit disorganised really, and means that my normal tidy and calm front has slipped somewhat.

However, you do get a double whammy in the form of this Meal Planning Monday post - not just my meal plan, but the meal plan of my Guides for Guide camp this weekend. Ever wondered what your daughter eats on camp? The sort of meals you can make over an open fire? Well here you have it, the girl led, cooked on an open fire, £3 per head per day menu *drum roll*

So, this week - yes. Right. OK. Erm... ???

Breakfasts: Yoghurt and a banana for me, cereal and toast for M

Lunch: Sarnies, sausage rolls, cheese, cereal bars for M. Fruit, veggies and houmous for me. Soup if it's cold.

Dinners:

Monday: Chilli con carne with brown basmati rice

Tuesday: I'm at Guides so freezer surprise for M

Wednesday: Those chicken kievs I mentioned before, with veggies

Thursday: Brownies and Welsh for us, so soup for me

Friday: I'm at camp so will leave something for M (another freezer surprise I expect, shhh don't telll him)

Camp Menu - in case you're interested (as voted for by Fourth Friern Barnet Guides) is:

Friday supper: Sausages in buns/ Hot chocolate before bed

Saturday breakfast: Eggy bread and bacon/ turkey bacon, cereals, bread and jam/ peanut butter/ chocolate spread/ fruit. Fruit juice & tea to drink

Elevenses: Squash and fruit (apples, bananas, satsumas)

Lunch: Soft rolls with ham, cheese, tuna, salady vegetables (carrot, pepper, cucumber sticks, cherry tomatoes, lettuce), crisps, cuppa soups if it's cold, with squash to drink. Fruit and cake for pudding

Threesies (yes it's a legitimate meal): Squash and cake

Dinner: Chicken/ veg fajitas, with more veg. Angel delight with added extras (chocolate buttons, toffee peices/ banana) or fruit/ cake, with squash to drink

Supper: Hot chocolate and cake

Sunday breakfast: Sausage sandwiches, cereals, bread and jam/ peanut butter/ chocolate spread, fruit. Fruit juice and tea

Elevenses: Squash and cake

Sunday lunch: as Saturday lunch

No one EVER goes hungry on Guide camp! It's the first rule. There's always a big bowl of fruit and big jugs of water/ squash on the table in the mess tent and the girls are allowed to help themselves from at any time. If they're ever cold or hungry they know to come and find us and hot drinks and cake will be dispensed.

Cake is a big feature of Guide camp. It's in the main home-made, and is a quick way of keeping the girls going. They burn up energy like nobody's business, and eating regularly is the best way to keep them going and (my priority) keep them warm.

I'm planning on making three tray bakes: Peanut butter and jam bars, old fashioned gingerbread with lemon icing, and apple cake with a streusel topping. I'll blog the gingerbread on my return - this week, there's no chance I'll have time!

Oaty Bars: The activity plan

	For reference, Guides are aged 10 – 14 Break the girls up into Patrols/ groups of 6-8
Oaty Bars
Equipment: Sturdy saucepan (biggish) Wooden spoon Scales Greaseproof paper Brownie tin/ cake tin/ roasting tin Sharp knife Grater Clean hands
Ingredients (per patrol): 65g butter (Sainsbury’s economy butter is the best and cheap) 75g light, soft brown sugar 65g crunchy peanut butter - a no sugar one if you can find it, I'm using a Whole Earth 35g of honey (or golden syrup) and 2 teaspoons to drizzle over at the end Zest of a lemon 100g porridge oats 75g of dried fruit 75g of mixed seeds This makes about 12 Energy bars, so ideal for a Patrol of 6-8 girls	If doing this with Guides it is an ideal Patrol cooking activity and links into the On Your Marks resource: Energy Boost (page 18) I would also count this towards clause 9 of the Cook badge as the girls need to chop the fruit, grate the zest of the lemons, use the cooker safely and cut up the oaty bars at the end. If you’ve not got digital scales – go with rough quantities. But if you’re rounding one up by 5g do the same all the way through to maintain ratios of ingredients Why not get the girls to taste and choose some different dried fruits – each patrol could make a different batch up
Instructions: Wash your hands Measure out the butter, sugar, peanut butter and honey and put into a big saucepan Grate the zest of the lemon into the pan too Melt these ingredients over a low heat, when they’re all combined, stir in the oats, dried fruit and seeds Press into either a greased and lined brownie pan (about 20cm square) or if you prefer flatter bars a roasting tin Cook at 160 degrees for 35-40 minutes Take out of the oven and leave in the tin to cool completely Using a sharp knife cut into squares or bars and store in an airtight tin for up to a week. These are ideal for a pre-camp cooking activity and will make a fantastic snack once you’ve pitched your tents! I checked on the prices on www.mysupermarket.com and Asda came out the cheapest, working out at £0.45 per head for a unit of 24 girls.	Safety notes: Please make sure that the girls are well supervised – especially when melting the ingredients. This recipe has huge allergy alerts – Peanuts and seeds, so please check your Joining forms/ Go reports for any allergens you need to be aware of. The peanut butter can be replaced by a couple of mashed up bananas. Alterations for Brownies/ younger Guides Weigh out the ingredients yourselves and put into little bowls Get the girls to put them in the pan, but let a leader melt them A sturdy pan is best, I didn’t bother about using a non stick one though Keep your heat low. Usual kitchen safety rules/ washing up apply.

Montage Part two: Secondary characters (or Oaty bars, which is more literal)

I don't know if I've really talked about M's job much - but he's very active, and is often hungry. The quest to make sure he stays warm and has energy is one that I've struggled with, we've tried dried fruit, chocolate bars, bananas, but nothing quite hits the mark and I hate the thought of him being cold and hungry (it's clearly love).

Cereal bars that you can buy often seem to be a miss for us, they taste processed, oily even and I just don't enjoy them. So a couple of weeks back when I caught an old River Cottage I was intrigued by the idea of Hugh's oaty bars. Akin to a thick flapjack, using honey and peanut butter as the base they were chockablock with good things; dried fruit, seeds, nuts. The recipe is one of those that you can take as more of a guideline, and over the last couple of weeks I've run with it, taking the rough quantities and interpreting them loosely, depending on what we have in, and M's tastes.

Oaty bars - the Pantry version

125g butter
150g light, soft brown sugar (darker sugar would make your bars more treacley and would work really well with chopped, fudgy dates)
125g crunchy peanut butter - a no sugar one if you can find it, I'm using a Whole Earth
75g of honey (or golden syrup) and 2 teaspoons to drizzle over at the end
Zest of any two citrus fruit you have
200g porridge oats
150g of dried fruit - again go with what you like - we had chopped dates and sultanas last week, plain sultanas this week. Don't forget to soak your sultanas in tea to make them more succulent
150g of mixed seeds - last week we used sesame and pumpkin, this week we used the end of those, pumpkin and linseeds

As long as you don't alter the ratios too much, this is a completely versatile recipe - change it up to suit your tastes. Once you've made it once it would also work perfectly well doing it by eye. I can't say I weighed much this week when I made them *cough*lazycook*cough*

Method

Melt the butter, sugar, peanut butter, citrus zest and honey in a heavy based saucepan over a low heat
Stir in the oats, dried fruit and seeds
Press into either a greased and lined brownie pan (about 20cm square) or if you prefer flatter bars a roasting tin
Cook at 160 degrees for 35-40 minutes
Take out of the oven and leave in the tin to cool completely
Using a sharp knife cut into squares or bars and store in an airtight tin for up to a week.

This is such an easy recipe I wouldn't hesitate to do it with the Guides - in fact we are next week as part of their On Your Marks badge. (Just check for allergies) I'll type this post out as an activity plan.

PS: This post is without pictures because the light is APPALLING this week, and the oaty bars look like mush in every photo I take. What is my life? *overreacts*

Sourdough starter: Day three

Day three and there are loads of bubbles. When you peel off the cling film I can definitely smell the yeasty sweetness that I associate with a starter or leaven. I'm starting to get slightly excited at the prospect of sourdough next week.

I haven't caved and bought the bannetones yet, but it's payday Friday so maybe then. I do think, if you're doing this and at all nervous then digital scales would be sooooo much easier. I'm finding with the water specifically that I'm getting more than a bit frustrated with the small quantities. But I'm nothing if not tenacious, determined (and maybe just a bit stubborn) so I shall continue on.

Still tweeting at #sourdoughtweetalong, still following instructions from Baker and Loaf. Mine's a bit more like the first picture of their's today.

And with that, I'm off to Guides. Did I mention we're looking for leaders? Did I? Have you had a look here yet? You really should.

And now for something completely different

You'll have noticed, that occaisionally, in passing, I might accidentally mention that I'm a Guider. Tongue firmly in cheek here you understand I'm sure. This post has nothing to do with food, and everything to do with Guiding. Fancy a s'more? Or is a damper more your style? OK, so maybe a bit to do with food.

I lead Fourth Friern Barnet Guides, and assist at Fifth Whetstone Brownies, I've been working with both units for about 6 years now, and I love it. I enjoy the games, the craft, the activities and the holidays. I love to sing and am renowned at Division level for my rendition of The Princess Pat, with actions no less. I love that the children don't know (nor do they need to) of my disability. I get immense satisfaction from watching them grow from girls into accomplished, confident young women. I love that they don't care that I'm pulling my hair out at work, that I desperately need to do the housework, that I'm tired, that I have blogposts to write.  While I'm there - I'm theirs. They have my undivided attention, their world is my focus. It's liberating, thought provoking, and most of all fun.

I myself was a Brownie, Guide and Young leader and was active until University when Winchester proved not to be the hotbed of Guiding activity I had hoped for.  I then had a break and started Guiding as an adult about a year after my Dad died. This was all a long time before this blog was even a twinkle in my eye. I was a bit lost really in the world, the person that had always been my rudder, my home if you will had gone, and feeling somewhat sad I sent GirlGuiding UK an email asking if there were any volunteering opportunities near me. Within a week I had a phone call from Sarah, our District Commisioner (now a good friend) who needed some help at Brownies as her mum was retiring. Sarah came over for coffee a week or so later, we chatted, completed my CRB and within about 6 weeks I went along to Brownies for a visit. I've talked already about what I get from Brownies now, but then what I got was the validation that enthusiasm, a willingness to learn, to throw yourself into something meant I could be good at something. I started shortly after a Brownie called Maisie had made her promise, when I made mine, she stuck a silver star onto my promise badge because she was proud of me, I still wear it that way to this day as a reminder - Maisie's about to start Rangers. At Brownies and Guides none of the things that meant I felt different mattered, and in time, with the support of a girl only space and the women who've become my friends they didn't ever matter.

Now I have amazing friends - we meet up from time to time, most excitingly on Brownsea Island which to this day is one of my favourite weekends probably ever. We share crafts, sing songs, eat together, sleep in dormitories, wear our uniforms with pride and generally love and care for each other like the sisterhood we are (Ben, I include you in that). My Guider friends were the people I turned to when I was turned down for a job and learned my Grandad had died within about 6 hours of each other, they're the ones when I am feeling down send me hugs. They divert me (and I them) with Draw Something, and sometimes they turn up with ice cream, a copy of Heat magazine and their knitting when they know I need company. They help me build my Ikea furniture in my first home of my own, they send me Secret Santa gifts and they share my outrage when someone says something negative about Guiding anywhere on the internet.

What makes me sad though, is when we can't do things, when I can't (as I can't this year) physically manage to organise and run another camp, when I hear of units closing because we don't have enough volunteers. Of girls missing out because we don't have enough adults.

And that's the situation I find myself in at the moment. In our Division, this summer - three Rainbow units will close as we have no volunteers to take on the responsibility. Rainbows traditionally meet earliest because they're our youngest section (from 5-7) Three units? That pretty much all of them. Somewhere in Finchley, Whetstone or Friern Barnet we have to be able to find 6 people who would take these units on? Would, with support from the established leaders, build these units up and enjoy the experience that volunteering brings.

For more information about Rainbows - click here

Perhaps you want to learn some new skills to polish up your CV? Perhaps you want to try something new, or just an evening where you just do something completely different? Equally, although my specific aim at the moment is those Rainbow leaders, it's not all front line - are you interested in Marketing? Event Management? Accounts? Shopping? Recruitment? There's opportunities to get involved in all of those things on a local and national level.

I'm specifically looking for leaders in the Finchley, Barnet, Friern Barnet and Whetstone areas - however, GirlGuiding UK currently has around 50,000 girls and young women on waiting lists across the country. Girls who are being denied the opportunity to learn new skills, meet new people, try new activities, go on holidays, trips, legitimately (and safely) learn to set and cook over a fire, go wild in the countryside, on camp. Be themselves, be validated in a space that's theirs, where they don't have to conform to the societal expectations of how they should look, speak or behave. Be friends, learn leadership skills, develop their self-confidence, their commitment to being a citizen of the world, to social responsibility and to having fun.

Can you give up some time, each week to have fun and potentially change someone's life?

If you're local to me - please click on this link to see more about what's going on in Finchley and Friern Barnet, or email me here for more information.
Perhaps you were a Brownie or a Guide yourself and want to pass that experience on? Don't be put of by the preconception that you have to give up x amount of time each week - Guiding prides itself on being flexible. If you're somewhat daunted at the prospect of volunteering - why not try our 12 hour challenge specifically designed to give you a taster of what Guiding's about. It's not brown dresses and sewing on buttons anymore.

Lots of employers are pleased to support people who volunteer, some offer extra annual leave to be used with your unit (great for camps and holidays) allow and support you to leave early on meeting nights, or even match fund for equipment and outings. Employer Supported Volunteering can really make volunteering easier on you.

Click here to start an amazing journey of fun, friendship and a startling amount of glitter.

All girls pictured have appropriate photo permissions