Pumpkin Carving Competition - Winners!

We had some wonderful entries for our pumpkin carving competition, and we are thrilled to announce the winners. Drum roll please!

The Winner

In first place, the Emery family. We loved their super scary original creations, with clever use of the stalk for a gnarly nose!

Runners Up

Mr Gus - What a pro! Lots of great entries from this talented man. 

Russ Horne - Great carving combined with painted elements to create a jack o lantern with bags of character. Our winner is welcome to join us for a family lunch for up to four people. Our runners up can have a tasty lunch for one. Vouchers are winging their way to the winners. Thanks so much to everyone who entered. We had enormous fun seeing your creations. What a talented bunch you are!

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COMPETITION NOW CLOSED

Halloween will soon be here, and to mark this spooky time of year, we want you to show off your pumpkin carving skills.

Send us a photo of your fiendishly creative carving, and we will reward our top three with vouchers for a delicious Bridges lunch.

Using the hashtag #BridgesPumpkinCompetition, send us a photo of your creation via Twitter, Instagram or Facebook, or by good old email info@bridgescambridge.co.uk. Your pumpkin carving could be of a traditional Jack o' Lantern, a witches cat, some scary bats, or an image of your boss or head teacher. Yes, really scary stuff! You are only limited by your imagination, so go wild with your creation. We will share your images on our social media platforms and on the competition gallery page. Get your entries in by Monday 2nd November please, and we will announce the winners during that week.

The Prizes

First Prize - Family lunch voucher (mains + sweet treat + drink for up to 4 people) 

2 Runners-up - lunch for one (mains + sweet treat + drink)

Ingredient of the Month - Kale

I’m sure many of you have already heard about the proven benefits of kale when it comes to eating healthily, so I’m not going to list them all here. Instead I want to focus on how we use kale at Bridges, and also at home when preparing dishes for the family after a busy and hectic day.

Kale is a popular vegetable, a member of the cabbage family, related to cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower or Brussels sprouts. So when I bribe my children saying ‘only after you've finished your cabbage’, they know they have a choice. They normally choose kale, feeling “how lenient my mum is” because they are used to the green juices or stir-fries that they are exposed to frequently at home.

Throughout the year Bridges has beautiful deliveries of curly kale (or Scots kale) that we use a lot in juicing. Next time when you order your green juice, look at it being put in the juicer and you will see how much kale is needed in just one glass of our apple, carrot and kale juice. And think of all the vitamins you are getting in one tasty hit!

So, for busy parents and carers, if you are at home and have 5 minutes, put your favourite ingredients in the juicer with a lot of curly kale - just a single cup of kale has an impressive 600%+ RDA of Vitamin K, 200%+ of Vitamin A, 130%+ of Vitamin C. It also contains calcium & iron, which is a bonus to me having a child who is not keen on dairy products nor meat. Not only that, it only has a total of 33 calories!  

Of course, (depending on the type of juicer you have) juicing can reduce the amount of fibre and nutrients consumed as there may be wastage from the pulp that is extracted by some juicers. Therefore, here is a simple stir-fry recipe - a firm family favourite - with one cup of curly kale and nothing wasted.

Stir-Fry Bean Sprouts and Kale with Fresh Garlic and Chilli

• 300g of fresh bean sprouts, washed

• 1 cup of chopped leaves of curly kale (steamed for 2 mins)

• 3 cloves of garlic, minced

• 1 fresh red chilli, chopped

• 1 tbsp of olive oil

• 2 tbsp of soy sauce

Optional: chopped spring onion & sesame oil.

Heat the oil in a wok, put in the minced fresh garlic and chilli, add the bean sprouts and stir fry quickly. Add the soy sauce within 2 mins and fry for another minute. Put in the steamed kale and mix while turning the heat off. Arrange on a plate, sprinkle on spring onions & sesame oil (optional) for a more appetising look and smell. Enjoy! 

Remember it’s a quick cook recipe; the steaming and frying can be done at the same time.  As kale has lots of fibre, it’s not ideal to use it in raw salad. Short steaming the kale is important, not only to make it chewable, but is proven to dramatically increase the bile acid binding effect, lowering cholesterol levels which is good for your heart.

We don't want to think of food as medicine, but it does have medicinal effects without us knowing. As most of us do, our focus is on the taste, health benefits and ease of preparation. I must say this one is top of my list of nutritious meals to whip up quickly, so we can enjoy more time together as a family!

Our Visit to the Cambridge Science Centre

Although it's a very busy week at Bridges, I decided to take the children to our neighbour Cambridge Science Centre to spend an hour and to do the Cosmic challenge. However one hour is definitely not enough to explore all the interesting activities provided by the centre. In addition, the cosmic challenge is actually a treasure hunt that took us around town to locate the clues, whilst getting fresh air and exercise with the little ones - perfect for the summer holidays!

Although it's a very busy week at Bridges, I decided to take the children to our neighbour Cambridge Science Centre to spend an hour and to do the Cosmic challenge. However one hour is definitely not enough to explore all the interesting activities provided by the centre. In addition, the cosmic challenge is actually a treasure hunt that took us around town to locate the clues, whilst getting fresh air and exercise with the little ones - perfect for the summer holidays!

I was fooled by the size of Cambridge Science centre. It only has one room but it can easily keep my kids and myself busy the whole afternoon. Due to rotating talks every day, you can easily visit consecutive days and see something new. On arrival, I was greeted by the lovely Lisa-Marie Cahill (who contacted us to ask if we would be one of the venues for the challenge), and although the centre was packed with visitors, Lisa-Marie Took the time to explain to us about the work behind this project.

There were lots of staff helping in the hands-on activities, so even a 3 year old can make and build a design and see it 'work' in the workshops with amazement. I was aiming at jotting down some notes of the day, but the impromptu science demonstrations and stimulating activities really kept me busy. The staff were brilliant and really knowledgeable. If you prefer to explore at your own speed, there are written explanations and questions about how science works in each interactive area.

Lots of activities require trial and error and constant testing. When my boy finished building the tracks to enable the ping-pong ball to go at the right speed and right angle on the vertical wall, he couldn't help but jump up and shout with joy. I think the satisfaction of success after numerous failures was great - what a lifelong lesson to learn!

Not long after, the children were called to attend the mini lecture and demonstration. All of the children, ranging from 3 to 13, quietly gathered in front of Lynne who gave an amazing and interesting talk about safety in space. My children kept raising their hands to volunteer to test all the little gadgets to help Lynne's explanation. A little girl and dad were chosen to try on layers of the space suit to find out why certain materials are good to protect the astronaut. The whole lecture was really interesting and well thought out.

One more thing amused me is that all the staff that day were female. And the educational and entertaining talks were also presented by friendly female scientists. How nice to to see female role models around when my daughter once told me "science is more a boy's subject". Now she is convinced she can be a scientist too!

We had been there for 2 hours before I remembered we had to find the clues in town to answer the questions in the cosmic challenge. Very reluctant to leave the never ending activities, my children and I managed to call in to all our local buddies who are participating in this summer project. It's really special to visit and say hello to the everyone in person.

As well as Bridges (we knew the clue already of course) the other participating partners include 

ADC Theatre - Cafe on the Round - Providence - Townsends Light Blue Cycle - Heffers - Tindalls - Let's Go Cambridge - When I was a Kid - Bellina's - The Urban Shed - Jacks on Trinity

Although the questions in the treasure hunt are all done, it won't stop us from returning to visit the centre again. Apart from Safe in Space, there are more talks that we plan to attend in the next few weeks, including

Explore Your Universe: Voyage through Space,

Ultraviolet

Design a planet

To the core

Small Bodies of the Solar System

If you have children like me to entertain this summer, I hope you can spare some afternoons to give it a go and I know you will enjoy it as much as we did.

http://www.cambridgesciencecentre.org/whats-on/cosmic-challenge/

Cambridge Science Centre - 18 Jesus Lane, Cambridge, CB5 8BQ