Day 16 - happy face biscuits

250g butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar (forgot to weigh this for proper Thermomix conversion)
2 eggs
few drops vanilla extract
4 cups/530g plain flour
jam for filling

--

1. Cream together butter and sugar (Thermomix: 30 seconds or so at speed 4)
2. Beat in eggs and vanilla (Thermomix: about 15 seconds at speed 4)
3. Stir in the flour and mix to a fairly soft dough (Thermomix: add the flour in batches and incorporate until a dough is formed)
4. Turn onto a floured board and knead gently (Thermomix: 30 seconds at interval speed)
5. Roll out to 3mm thickness and cut into rounds. From half of these, cut out eyes and mouth.
6. Place on greased baking sheets and bake at 190 degrees for about 15 minutes or until golden-brown. Leave on the baking sheets for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack.
7. When cool, spread biscuits with jam and sandwich together.

Based on a recipe from a very old Margaret Fulton cookbook.
--

Alastair helped me make these. The faces are a bit wonky and therefore creepy-looking, don't you think? We also didn't roll out the dough quite thin enough, and used quite a large round cutter, so there's a LOT of biscuit in these.

However, they sure are yummy! There's nothing like making food with happy faces on for a feel-good activity :)

Bargains at late-night shopping - Day 15

49c for a 500g punnet of strawberries! I bought four ... I did leave two for other shoppers. ;)

Amazingly, only ONE berry in the 2kg had to be thrown out. About a quarter were good enough to eat whole and are in the fridge for the kiddies, and the other 1.5kg are chopped up in the freezer, ready for smoothies, icypoles, muffins and anything else fun I think of.

Today I also had about 5 litres of milk to use up. People have been sick this week, and we get 10L delivered each week - delivery day is tomorrow. So tonight I've made 1.5L of vanilla ice-cream, a batch of vanilla custard, a batch of chocolate custard, and I've currently got yogurt going and am about to make mini-frittatas before heading to bed. Alastair and I also baked some yummy biscuits, but I'll save those for tomorrow's post.

Happy birthday to Emma! - Day 6

It is my elder daughter's birthday today. Eight years old. Where does the time go? We had plans for a nice park party, possibly the last time as she might feel too grown-up for that next year. However, bureaucratic squabbles meant the new playground didn't open in time and we had a party at the local swimming pool instead, which was fun, but I get mentally exhausted trying to watch children at the pool.

I baked cupcakes to avoid having to slice a cake. I get a bit of an inferiority complex at school birthday parties - almost everyone brings bought/professional cakes. Still, Emma liked them and the kids all ate them, so I think I did ok.

Basic chocolate cupcakes with piped buttercream icing. The sprinkles and yellow food colouring are both all-natural and found at the supermarket - Nemar natural 100s and 1000s (my local Coles doesn't stock these, but my local IGA does) and Queen natural food colouring (found at Coles).

Yum, yum!

This afternoon we nibbled on some blueberries from the garden. We only have one small, young bush, so it's not exactly a harvest, but there are a handful ripening at a time, which is very exciting for the little ones. Maybe I should get some more of these (the Nellie Kelly variety) as it's so rare for me to grow anything successfully! Although, looking at that website now, possibly my efforts were helped by our unusually cold winter this year.

Currently, I have yogurt cheese draining on my kitchen bench. We get 10L of raw milk a week, and I think this will be a good way of using up any left over at the end of the week. Some weeks we use it all easily, others, like this week, we have quite a bit left over. I'm planning on using it where I'd use cream cheese or ricotta - both of which are pretty expensive if using a whole tub, so that's another advantage.

Blancmange

from Wikimedia Commons

Unfortunately, that isn't MY blancmange. Mine didn't set nearly so firm; I don't think I left it in the fridge for long enough (5 hours or so). However, it was delicious!

We've been getting deliveries of raw milk and thus I've been looking for easy recipes that use up milk if we've still got a lot left towards the end of our week. I'm also trying to use it for desserts to avoid buying commercially-made ones. I remember my mum making blancmange, but I had never tried.

Blancmange (recipe originally from here)
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600ml milk
4 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons cornflour
Vanilla essence

Blend cornflour with a litle of the milk.
Place the rest of the milk in a saucepan and bring to boiling point.
Add sugar and blended cornflour, stirring well the whole time.
Place over heat and boil for 2-3 minutes.
Flavour with vanilla essence then pour into a wet mould.

Or, instead of all of the above, just put all the ingredients in the Thermomix for 9 minutes at 90 degrees on speed 4, then pour into the mould.

Place in fridge to set.

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I called it "milk jelly" and the kids loved it. I might try reducing the sugar by a tbsp next time, as it was plenty sweet enough.

Lamingtons

So, I have a work deadline tomorrow, a cold, three demanding children, and a house in chaos. When asked to bring something for a school shared lunch tomorrow, do I take the easy route and buy something?

Of course not. I have the bright idea to try making lamingtons for the first time ever.

I followed this recipe. Thank goodness for the Thermomix.



Excuse the poor quality phone photo (you can see the very early stages of my Ill-Fated Socks in the background).

I must say, they're quite tasty. I had to sample one, just in case they were horrible ;)

I am very excited because I have a new toy coming. Nothing to do with cooking or craft. I'm going to keep you in suspense!

Carrot almond muffins with creme fraiche topping

I was waiting to add a photo, but I can't find the camera cable. I hope it shows up before we go on holiday! This is today's baking effort. A Facebook friend commented that it sounds almost healthy - I don't know, there's plenty of sugar and fat, but also carrots, nuts, and eggs for protein ;) And two out of three of my kids don't normally eat carrots ...

Ingredients
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Melted butter, to grease (I use good quality silicone bakeware, so I didn't grease]
5 large eggs, separated
170g raw sugar [you could use less if you're happy with a less sweet muffin]
2 tsp finely grated orange rind [just one orange, for simplicity's sake]
3 medium carrots, finely grated [I just gave them a scrub and left the skin on, but I buy organic carrots]
200g almond meal
100g self-raising flour, sifted

About 200g creme fraiche [i.e. what was left in the tub after making mushroom stroganoff the other night]
1 tbsp icing sugar
squeeze of fresh orange juice

Method
----
Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Prepare muffin trays - this mix made 14 for me, so I used two individual molds as well as a 12-cup muffin tray.

For Thermomix users, I grated the carrots first, 10 seconds or so on speed 7, rinsed and dried the bowl, and then grated the orange rind. If you're also making your own almond meal, be sure and do that before you start.

Place yolks, sugar & rind in a bowl or mixer and beat until thick & creamy (Thermomix: about 30 seconds on speed 4/5 with butterfly). Add carrot, flour and almond meal, and stir (Thermomix: about 40 seconds on speed 2, reverse).

Place egg whites in a bowl and beat until soft peaks form. If you're doing this in the Thermomix, you'll need to put the mix in another bowl, clean the TMX bowl and make sure it's dry before whipping the egg whites. I was lazy and didn't dry very carefully, so my whites didn't really whip - the recipe still worked.

Fold the egg white into the carrot mixture in two batches. Pour into muffin pans and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until skewer comes out clean (this is a moist muffin, though, so it won't be completely dry).

To make the creme fraiche topping, whip all ingredients together until soft peaks form. I didn't whip mine thick enough to be an icing as such, I only intended to dollop it over the top like whipped cream.

Based on this recipe.

Meal planning again

Last week I stuck to the plan pretty well, except on Tuesday I left it too late to make the pizza base and ended up ordering pizza instead. Bah. This week I need to get that done in the morning and chuck it in the fridge - and make two extras for the freezer.

Next Sunday morning we are going to Broome - a town up in the north of Western Australia, which enjoys lovely winter temperatures of about 30 degrees Celsius. Bliss. That does mean that I need to use up fresh vegies this week.

Tonight: beef & vegie stir-fry with noodles
Monday: home-made pizza
Tuesday: Roast chicken pieces, roast potatoes, vegies
Wednesday: Leftover chicken with rice and salad
Thursday: osso bucco with pasta and vegies
Friday: vegetable & chickpea curry with rice
Saturday: leftovers or baked beans on toast

What's for dinner?

I am not one of those super-organised supermums. I struggle a lot with feeding my family, as I'm the only one who cooks and my partner often isn't home until after dinner is served; he's certainly rarely home to wrangle the children while I prepare it in peace. For the past few weeks I was really jaded with cooking dinner, and thus didn't plan - big mistake. When will I learn? We ate loads of crap and I was even more jaded because I would have to think of something at five o'clock!

So, I jumped back on the meal planning bandwagon.

This week's dinners will be ...

Sunday: steak and mushroom pie, salad, broccoli, cauliflower
Monday: grilled fish, chips, salad
Tuesday: home-made pizza, garlic bread, carrots, peas
Wednesday: leftovers (there's soup & dhal in the freezer)
Thursday: lamb koftas, couscous, cucumber & red onion salad
Friday: mushroom stroganoff, mashed potato, cauliflower, broccoli
Saturday: Moroccan sweet potato, carrot & chickpea soup, with some sort of bread

And last week's were ...

Monday: pork meatballs in tomato sauce with pasta.
Tuesday: roast chicken, roast potatoes, vegies
Wednesday: chicken fried rice w' leftover roast chicken
Thursday: Evie's birthday, got takeaway
Friday: Moroccan lentil soup, fresh focaccia
Saturday: leftover soup (we had lunch out so ate lots)

Now, the secret to meal planning for me is to be flexible. For instance, I'm thinking tonight (Monday) I might crumb the fish instead of just grilling it, because I have some breadcrumbs in the freezer and, well, I just feel like it. Similarly, I'll often cook different vegies than what I write in the plan. And sometimes I'll swap the days around, especially if we're late home on a day when I'd planned to do something that takes a while to cook. But having the rough plan means that I know what meat to get out of the freezer in the morning (if any); it also means I waste fewer ingredients, like the packet of salad mix I got in my organic box on Friday. I opened it last night and it only lasts a couple of days so I planned it into tonight's meal as well, and had some with the leftover pie for lunch today. Most of all, it means my brain doesn't have to think on the run. It's not so good at that these days.

For those reading who don't know my children - sadly they don't eat most of this multicultural and varied assortment of foods. We're working on it. Evie liked the pastry of the pie last night, and Alastair liked the chunks of meat. Sigh.

What's for dinner at your house this week?

Cooking up a storm!

From this:



to this (and more, but I am not photographing it all):


A friend and her husband took me to the Canning Vale Saturday clearance markets this weekend. I don't drive so it's impossible for me to get to otherwise, and they have no kids and not huge amounts of storage space, so by taking me with them they could split boxes with me. I also supplied the stroller for carrying the boxes!

Apart from it being bloody freezing down there at 7.30am, it was pretty good. I got:

- box of oranges
- box of Pink Lady apples
- box of plums
- half a huge bag of baby spinach, $5
- half a huge bag of basil (I used 250g of leaves to make pesto and still have heaps left)
- half a box of tomatoes (5 kg)
- 2 eggplant
- 2 zucchini
- 2 butternut pumpkins
- 2 leeks

for the grand total of $42 (and I'm only learning - I could've got the apples for cheaper if I'd shopped around at the various stalls better). So far I've cooked up basil & spinach pesto, tomato & basil pasta sauce, roasted tomato passata, plum teacake, plum muffins, beef & barley soup, and pumpkin soup. The kids have eaten a good amount of the apples and I'm going to freeze some according to this method, for making pies/crumbles. I'm going to juice the oranges and freeze in ice cube trays for baking and sorbets. I blanched and froze the rest of the spinach and will use for spinach and ricotta triangles this week. The eggplants are going into eggplant curry tonight and then eggplant pasta sauce for the freezer. I stewed a big batch of the plums and they're in the fridge for snacks/desserts/breakfast (with yogurt for breakfast, custard for dessert). I might make some jam but I need jars first.

Basically this will mean that I have quick healthy lunches and dinners ready when I'm tired. It will reduce our food bill over the next month or so.

I should probably add here that the Thermomix is my best friend ;)

I would definitely recommend these markets if you're in Perth and are able to preserve the produce in some way, and/or buy with friends and use it quickly. Just take a hat and gloves!

Carrot, orange and date loaf (Thermomix)

From the original recipe here. I tried this at a Jamaica Blue cafe the other week and it was delicious, so I came home, searched for the recipe and tried it in the Thermomix. Then tweaked it a little.



Carrot, orange and date loaf

Ingredients:

100g wholemeal spelt flour
180g plain (all-purpose) flour
2tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
120g raw sugar
4 eggs
1 orange
70g canola oil
130g plain unsweetened yogurt (mine was home-made in the Thermomix)
1tsp ground cinnamon
280g carrot, peeled and cut into large chunks (that was 4 carrots for me)
100g dates

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180C (170C fan-forced) and lightly grease a loaf tin.
2. Grate carrots for 5 seconds on speed 5. Set aside.
3. Chop dates for 5 seconds on speed 7. Add to carrot.
4. Peel orange and grate the peel (minus pith if possible!) for 8 seconds on speed 7. Add to carrot and dates.
5. Quarter the orange, removing remaining pith. Juice for 20 seconds on speed 8. Pour into a cup.
6. Add remaining ingredients and orange juice to TMX bowl, mix for 20 seconds on speed 5.
7. Add carrots, dates and orange zest. Mix for 20 seconds in REVERSE on speed 4.
8. Pour into prepared tin and bake for about 45-60 minutes until cooked through. It will still appear a little moist on the skewer, I tend to listen to it, if you can hear it bubbling it's not finished yet. Cool for 10 minutes in tin before turning out onto a wire rack.

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Tip: Don't worry about cleaning the Thermomix bowl out in between steps, scrape it down as much as you can and leave it at that - it's all going in together.

Lazy update-by-photos

Home-made finger buns. FINALLY found a recipe that my kids will eat in lieu of the Baker's Delight ones - all I did was add an extra tablespoon of sugar to a white bread recipe, do the dough in the breadmaker, and the key is to put them close together on the tray so they have the joins like the bakery ones. Oh, and undercook them a little compared to what you would do regular bread, so they'll be soft rather than crusty.



Custard apples ... the only thing I can grow, and no-one here really eats them. Palmed a couple off on friends and added one to a batch of strawberry sorbet for sweetness. Amazingly, these things sell for up to $8 each in the shops!!



Chocolate cupcakes for Miss Emma's seventh birthday, to take to school. Icing is natural food colouring.



Cake for her birthday party, she only wanted a love heart and didn't mind that it was a bit of a slipshod decorating job, heh. It does say "Emma" in sprinkles.



And the birthday girl herself.



Really bad photo of the Milo vest I knitted Evie; I finished this a while ago but had no pics. I've lost my yarn needle so the ends still haven't been woven in! Argh.



There's one important domestic art every mother should teach her son - how to make a good coffee.

Bread

Bad, bad blogger, I know! Life got in the way.

I haven't been doing much crafting lately anyway, but I need to get into gear for Christmas.



One thing I have been doing is making bread. I was lucky enough to find a breadmaker, in perfect working order, on my local Freecycle group. Only one suburb away, too!

This thing is awesome. I did make bread before, sometimes. But I had two issues: firstly, finding a big enough block of time to mix, knead, prove, knead, prove, bake, because we're in and out a lot most days. The Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day takes care of that, but the kids don't like the artisan-style bread. The second issue is that I'm a lazy kneader and the bread was never light and fluffy enough.

I was buying about 4 loaves of preservative-free bread, and a bag of rolls, each week. Plus my partner kept buying lunch because neither of us got organised enough to make sandwiches. The past couple of weeks, I've bought one loaf of bread a week, and he has taken savoury scrolls for lunch.

Savoury Scrolls

1 quantity of your favourite bread dough
pizza sauce, pesto or some other kind of sauce
grated cheese
other toppings, e.g. ham, bacon, chopped onion, mushrooms, capsicum, sundried tomatoes, pineapple.

After its first rise, roll out the dough into a large rectangle.

Spread with sauce, add other toppings and sprinkle with cheese (reserving a little cheese).

Roll up, starting from the long side. When you've rolled it into a log, pinch the edge a bit so it sticks. Cut into 2cm pieces.

Place either in a large round cake pan, or on a tray (depending on whether you want the scrolls to join up or not). Cover with a clean tea towel and leave to rise for about 30 minutes.

Sprinkle with reserved cheese, and bake in a preheated 180 deg C oven for about 15 minutes or until browned and hollow-sounding.

When cooled, they can be wrapped and frozen individually. Just pull one out each morning for lunch!

--

The breadmaker does make a funny-shaped loaf, so if I have time I just do the dough in there, roll in sesame seeds and bake it in a loaf tin. But for when I don't, the time delay function is awesome, being able to wake up to freshly-baked bread!

Making butterfly cakes with Emma

Butterfly cakes are a classic from my childhood :)

Artisan bread in five minutes a day

Surely I must be the absolute last person in the blogosphere to try this!

Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day



This is the first loaf from the first batch, and it is SO yummy, and SO easy! I think I might ask for the book for my birthday in September.

My new toy

Magimix 3200

I've never had a food processor before. It's very shiny! It came with a dough blade, a whisk blade, a cutting blade, and three discs. Three different sized bowls. Twelve year motor guarantee. Drool drool.

There's a lot of from-scratch food preparation on Failsafe. I figured I could do with the helping hand.

Here's the first result:



A yummy scroll. Not a cinnamon scroll because we're not allowed cinnamon. Yes, it's mostly eaten, lol!

Can I have more time, please?

Baby girl (now nearly 8 months old) hasn't been sleeping well at all lately. She's always been a night waker, but this week it was ridiculous - no daytime napping, and she'd wake up at 5am bright and alert, refusing to go back to sleep.

So I would like more time, please. I suppose technically I'll gain an hour when daylight savings ends!

I also broke my laptop, which makes blogging less convenient. I'm using an old laptop, but I miss my bookmarks, and it doesn't have enough memory to run all the browser windows I like to have open.

I received some absolutely scrumptious bamboo jersey and ribbing in the mail last week, and I am thinking winter long-sleeved T-shirts. I made this for Alastair using the pattern I bought at the op-shop:



I quite impressed myself with the freehand guitar! The ribbing at the neck is a bit messy, need to work on that. Ignore the line down the front, it's a crease that I was too lazy to iron out. The long sleeves wound up too tight, so I'll adjust the pattern and probably chop this one to short sleeves. Although, really, I think I should have sized up to size 4; I'd say it's a small-fitting pattern.

I tried it on Alastair before finishing the hem and sleeves, and he refused to take it off, so it's since been worn and washed and landed back in the sewing room to be finished properly. I should be glad he likes it!

I also finished my Fetchings, in time for cold mornings:



These annoy me because I'm SURE the two balls were from the same dyelot, but they've knitted up so differently. It's not so obvious when worn, thankfully, and it was just some stash yarn I had lying around (Patons Jet, wool/alpaca blend).

I also made Evelyn a nappy cover, since she's outgrown her smalls:



and had my first try at melting and moulding chocolate. I am aiming to give fair trade/ethical gifts this Easter, but there's not much of a range, so I bought some bulk chocolate and will make our own shapes and eggs.



This was much easier than I thought, but I think making hollow eggs will be more difficult.

He's THREE!

My little boy turned three today. Wow.

I must admit that he is into a lot of commercial kiddy stuff, so he did love the Talking Rescue Pack (from Go Diego Go!) that we bought him, and the Thomas shirt and playset. But I also made him two presents:



A doll sling (he wore Tigger in it later and it was sooooo cute, but I didn't get a pic).



A pillowcase, because he's just started sleeping with a pillow, and we really don't need any more sheets, so I didn't want to buy a whole sheet set.

I also have to share this adorable rideon car my parents bought him:



And his cake:

Pictures, not many words

I'm knitting my first Fetchings, in fact, my first ever cable project:



Here is last night's baking. Muesli slice and apple & strawberry muffins.





All devoured at playgroup.

Op shop find - a handmade smocked dress for $1.75!

Recipes

Simple, but yummy. I don't usually write out recipes, just make 'em up in my head, but here goes.

Watermelon 'sorbet'
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This is what I made up tonight when I was craving ice cream and there was none in the house. It is sugar-free! All quantities are approximate, I don't measure. Agave nectar is a natural, low-GI sweetener available from health-food stores.
--------
2 cups frozen watermelon chunks
2/3 cup coconut cream
a squeeze of agave nectar (to taste)
a handful frozen raspberries (other fruit with robust flavour will work, the mixture was too bland with just the watermelon)

Throw everything in the blender and blend. A food processor would probably work better. It's not scoop-able (too liquidy) but it's very refreshing!

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Beef & vegie pasta bake (serves 4)
--------
Made this up because all the pasta bake recipes I've found use sauces that are too rich for what my partner likes (either too tomatoey or too creamy), and pasta bake is a great way to use up floppy vegies from the bottom of the crisper. Use whatever vegies you have.
--------
200g beef mince (ground beef)
2 carrots
a head of broccoli
1 medium sweet potato
2 cloves garlic
about a tsp oil, depending on how good your pan is!
150g crushed or diced tomatoes (canned or over-ripe fresh ones)
100mL cream
1/2 cup vegetable stock
1 tbsp cornflour
1 tsp dried thyme
2 handfuls grated cheese
salt & pepper
500g pack dried pasta of your choice - I used macaroni

If you have a pan that can go from stovetop to oven, all the better. Otherwise you need a pan AND a baking dish. I love my Square Roaster from Chef's Toolbox.

Cook pasta according to packet directions, and drain. Cook (boil, steam or microwave) vegies until just tender, and drain. I cook them all in the same pot to save washing up!

Meanwhile, brown the mince in a pan with crushed garlic cloves. Add tomatoes, cream & thyme. Mix the cornflour with a little of the stock to make a paste, then add cornflour and stock to the pan.

Add drained pasta and vegetables to pan (or transfer both to baking dish), and toss to combine. Sprinkle grated cheese over the top.

Place in a preheated 180C oven for about 15 minutes or however long it takes to feed the baby :P

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Healthier banana muffins (with credit to this recipe for the original)
----------
175g wholemeal spelt flour
75g plain/allpurpose flour
1/3 cup raw sugar
1/4 cup agave nectar
2 cups mashed ripe banana
110g butter, softened
2 eggs
5 tbsp milk
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda/bi-carb soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt

Cream butter and sugar until smooth. Add agave nectar and eggs and mix until combined well.

Sift flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon together and fold into liquid ingredients until combined.

*Optional: add walnut pieces. My kids don't like nuts, so I fill a mini muffin tray for them, then add walnuts and fill a regular muffin tray for us grown-ups. This makes 18 regular muffins or 24 mini muffins plus 8 regular muffins.*

Fill greased* muffin trays. *I use good silicone bakeware, so I don't grease.

Bake in a preheated 175C oven for 12 minutes (mini muffins) or 20 minutes (regular muffins). My oven cooks fast, so check they are cooked in the middle.


-------
Lemon tartlets (makes 5 tartlets)
-------
2 eggs
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp finely grated lemon rind
(basically, 1 large lemon will give you this easily)
1/3 cup caster sugar
50g butter, chopped
about 7 plain sweet biscuits
about another 50g butter, melted

Whisk eggs, lemon juice, lemon rind and sugar in a saucepan. Add chopped butter and whisk over a low heat for 6-8 minutes, until the mixture coats the back of a spoon. Remove from heat, allow to cool down.

Crush biscuits (I use the ol' plastic bag and rolling pin trick). Add melted butter and mix. Press into tartlet cases (you could use muffin trays, but the tartlet cases look cool!) and refrigerate.

Fill tartlet cases with lemon curd. Place a couple of berries on top if you like.

These are not healthy. But they are sooooo good.

Poor Evie had to settle for the plate (she's not on solids yet):



And someone requested a photo of Alastair in his guitar T-shirt. This was when he ran off when I tried it on him, only half-completed.