Onion syrup

I can hear you all the way across the fibre optic cables: EWWW! Well, actually, no! It's surprisingly nice and it's a gentle but effective way to treat coughs.

I'm a mum and there is nothing more frustrating as a mum to watch your baby struggle with ill health, there is so little you can do for them, it makes you feel so powerless. My daughter currently has an almighty cold and at night, she'll cough so much that she'll make herself sick. There isn't much I can give her because there just aren't many meds that are safe for tiny people to take. Anyway, I don't like pumping my body full of chemicals so why should I think it's ok to do so with my child?

That got me thinking, in all my training from way back when, there had to be something I could give her that would be safe and would help, even just a tiny bit. Then it hit me, onion syrup! Onion syrup is really simple to make, it's a really good expectorant and anti-inflammatory and it's perfectly safe for my baby girl. As I have many friends who currently have babies with colds ('t is winter after all!), I thought I'd post a pictorial on how to make onion syrup.

All you need is 2 large onions, light brown sugar (which you could swap for caster sugar or dark brown sugar, whatever you have to hand) and a Kilner type airtight jar.

1. Chop your onions roughly.

2. Put a layer of onion in the jar, then put thick layer of sugar on top, press it tightly. Repeat until the jar is full.

3. Your jar should resemble something like this. Leave it to sit on the countertop for a whole day or a whole night.

4. At then end of the day/night, the sugar will have melted, absorbing all the qualities of the onion. It will look something like this:

5. Using a metal sieve, drain the syrup from the onions. Press and stir with a spoon to get as much syrup out as you can.

6. You should end up with a thick syrup looking something like this:

7. Store it in a clean airtight jar and keep it in the fridge, it will keep for up to a week.

The recommended posology for a child is 1 teaspoon every 4 hours.

Good luck to all you mamas with a poorly baby out there!

Bath bombs

I can't believe another two months have passed since I last posted on the blog! Of course those two months are easily the most hectic of the year, what with Sinterklaas, Christmas, my daughter's first birthday and work's quarterly reports and annual reviews all following each other in quick succession.

So... As always, I made loads of gifts for Christmas but not only I couldn't post about them until I'd given them to their recipient, I've also just realised that in the flurry of making, I've forgotten to take pictures, silly me!

I did manage to photograph my bath bombs though, so I can tell you about them in a bit more detail.

Back in October, I became a member of the Women's Institute. I'd been wanting to join for ages and a branch opened right around the corner, and it's full of lovely crafty yummy mummies, just like me (Well, they're yummy, I'm not sure I qualify for the same adjective). The first meeting we had in November was a demonstration in the art of bath bomb making so of course I had to make some for Christmas! The base ingredients are relatively easy to find - I bought mine from the same people I buy all my aromatherapy stuff from: www.baseformula.com.

I made 3 batches, the first one was to experiment with the recipe, and then when I had that perfected, the next two batches were my gifts, with two different scents and decorations. What I learnt in my first batch is that rubber baking moulds don't make very good bath bomb moulds. You have to pack the mixture tightly in them and the more I packed it in, the more the moulds expanded which meant that what should have been a heart ended up only very vaguely resembling one. In the end, the only thing that worked well was cupcake cases in a bun tin.

Once I worked all the kinks out, this is what I came out with:

I think people enjoyed receiving them, I haven't had any feedback yet on how they liked them in the bath. My daughter definitely thinks they're the bees knees, she loves playing with them while they fizz in the bath. And I take great comfort in the fact that I know exactly what's in them and that they contain nothing that could damage her precious skin.