Head over to Nourish from scratch for a look! I’ll be reviewing recipes (and showing some of my own) and sharing the journey of nourishing my family, join up if you like it!
Recipes and food
Today is….
Enjoying the cooler weather and baking homegrown zucchini loaves. I must give you the recipe, it’s fantastic!
Feeling thankful for the overnight and much needed rain and bountiful harvest from the vegetable garden.
Watching new personalities emerge from lovely dolls.
Roasting and grinding coffee, filling the house with a beautiful caramel scent.
Making another batch of homegrown tomato relish.
I love a cool day after a hot spell.
Mmmm… macadamias!
Some delicious things are starting to appear in the lead up to Christmas!
These sweet delights are for a good friend who loves macadamias (and happens to be a sweet tooth too!)
Nut brittle is deceptively easy to make and you can use any nuts or a combination.
Here’s what I did:
150g raw unsalted macadamias
1.5 cups white sugar
Roast the nuts at 180 degrees (celscius) for 5 minutes or until lightly browned and smelling gorgeous. When done, place on a lightly buttered tray.
Place the sugar in a heavy based pan ( I used our cast iron pot) on a low heat. When it starts to dissolve, stir. Continue stirring until completely dissolved and golden brown and smelling gorgeous.
Pour the dissolved sugar (toffee) over the nuts, leave at room temperature to set. Break or cut into pieces when hard, store in an airtight container.
Cake and rain, a good combination!
It has been raining for hours here, it’s beautiful. The tomato and corn plants are very happy!
Now for the Christmas cake saga. I didn’t read the recipe properly, so ended up with 2 cake mixes, not one as intended. No big deal, I just separated the mixtures into 2 lots. The first lot I discovered I had used too much self raising flour (sometimes I do wonder whether my brain is fully functional!) The cake turned out light, a little crumbly, but perfectly acceptable for morning tea munching.
The second cake presented with more of a hitch in the form of a malfunctioning oven. My 2 year old Westinghouse decided to go out continuously during the baking process, I had to keep lighting it to try and maintain the temperature. After about 5 hours of this, the cake was done! This is the cake you see above, so despite the oven it seems to have turned out better than the first one. Now I’m waiting for a technician to come so that I can fling money at him and get the oven fixed.
That makes this years tally – one dead washing machine, one dead hot water system and a broken oven.
Next adventure – Christmas Pudding (at least I don’t need the oven for that!)
Dyeing for Christmas Cake
A little word play in the title there (heh, heh). Sooo, I became interested in dyeing recently after seeing this mandala baby blanket on Sara’s blog. I wanted one for bubs for Christmas, but due to her current renovations Sara was unable to make one at this time.
In my typical DIY fashion I figured I’d try some dyeing for myself.
Love the colours in this tie dye. I’ve been doing some practice swatches with homespun. Haven’t been brave enough to try my silk yet, but after these very funky and cool results I’m not so worried.
I tied this one randomly in bunches and scrunchy bits and dribbled dye randomly (but a bit carefully!) This has lead me to a new discovery – I love dyeing!!
Thanks Sara!
I’m making my first ever Christmas Cake this year. I don’t know why I never have, I love fruit cake! I guess increasingly having a number of mouths to eat the end product helps. Here is my fruit soaking in brandy.
And here is the mixture ready for the oven. I’m using the “Prize winning fruit cake” recipe recommended to me by my Mum in law from the Australian Women’s Weekly Celebration Cookbook. I’ll let you know how it turns out.
Remember the giveaway is still on until Sunday.Ciao for now!
“Porridge is knowledge!”
A woman I used to care for in a nursing home would often say “porridge is knowledge!” (RIP Ludmilla – lovely lady). I myself am so enthused about porridge that I’m posting about it today. I think of it as a sort of all round superfood. It is very cheap, very healthy, and very filling. Not to mention it tastes good. If you’re also a porridge enthusiast here is a brief historical account and some Scottish recipes here.
Just don’t you dare make it salty like my mother in law used to! YUK!
We are so blessed to have had a lot of rain at this time and the garden really has some marvels to show for it. I don’t know that it has ever looked as lush.
The rather unattractive colourbond back fence is now completely dominated with flowering jasmine and dolocus.
And, most exciting, there are more than 3 apricots on the tree this year! Now the challenge is to convince the birds that we actually love them more than they do.
Garden fairy and soap
One of my nieces (did I ever mention that I have 29 nieces and nephews?!) sent me a lovely handmade card for the baby so I decided to send her something in return (she is 5 years old).
Being a lover of all things pretty and girly, I thought a little 4 inch garden fairy would be just the thing. I was happy to get these light filled shots of the said fairy as it was a gloriously warm and sunny winter’s morn.
I made some goats milk and vanilla bean soap for a gift. It smelled gorgeous in the pot, almost exactly like panna cotta. Speaking of panna cotta, have you ever made it? You must, you must, its simply wonderful and easy too! Here’s a recipe for you:
Err, if you’re on a diet or watching your weight you may have to develop temporary amnesia before you down this cool delight!
Vanilla Panna Cotta
Serves 6
3 cups cream
1 cup milk
the seeds from a lovely moist vanilla bean (you can use vanilla extract, but it ain’t the same!)
3/4 cup sugar
4 tsp gelatine
Bring the milk, cream, vanilla and sugar slowly to the boil. Remove from heat. Dissolve the gelatine in a little warm water just before stirring in to the cream mixture. Allow to cool to warm before pouring into moulds or some sort of container (I just use a plastic rectangular dish with tall sides) Cover with plastic wrap and set in the fridge overnight.
We have only eaten it plain, but next time husband suggested doing some fruit soaked in liquer as an accompaniment. I quite agree!
Saturday.
As you can imagine, most of my time lately has been spent “just being a Mum” and squeezing in a little crafting time wherever possible. Juggling feeds, nappies, baths, toddlers (and their often unruly behaviour), meals and all my duties doesn’t leave much time for anything else, but despite all this, I really feel happy and grateful. I’m doing what I’m supposed to do and I’m pretty good at it most of the time!
So, I thought today I should bring you a little eye candy lest you grow tired of my rambling text.
This is a shot of the wee bairny (now all of 12 days old!) in the Hugabub I previously mentioned.
Note the small observer to the side.
I managed to fit in some baking time yesterday using the dough hooks on the new mixmaster.
The bread rolls became garlic bread to accompany the anchovy, zucchini and onion creamy pasta we had lastnight.
The loaf is a lovely fruit loaf, for which I will give the recipe for you to try. Although it ages quickly, it makes a great next day toast. We toasted slices for morning tea with melted butter and strawberry cream tea from T2tea (delicious served hot or cold).
FRUIT LOAF.
First stage of dough:
100g plain flour
7g sachet dry yeast
1 tsp muscovado or brown sugar
250 ml warm milk
2nd stage of dough:
350g plain flour
half tspn salt
50g butter
1 tspn mixed spice
50g muscovado or brown sugar
225g mixed, dried fruit
1 beaten egg
Method:
1. First stage ingredients.
Mix flour, yeast and sugar, beat in the milk slowly. Cover with cling wrap for 20 minutes or until frothy.
2. Second stage ingredients.
Put flour and salt in a bowl and rub in butter. Stir in the spice, sugar and fruit. Add egg to first stage dough, then add flour mixture. I did this with the dough hooks, then continued to allow the machine to knead the dough. If kneading by hand, do so for about 10 minutes. Cover dough and leave to rise for about an hour.
3. Grease a loaf tin. Give risen dough a quick knead. Cut into 3 pieces and shape each into an oval to fit across the width of the tin. Leave to rise again for about 45 minutes. Preheat oven to 200 degrees (C). Bake loaf for 20 minutes, then loosely cover with foil and bake for another 15 – 20 minutes until the base sounds hollow when tapped.
Enjoy!
How to roast your own coffee beans…
My husband and I love to brew our own coffee in the mornings. We used to buy freshly ground coffee at the market each week until my husband made this discovery. Buying coffee beans in their raw state will cost you half as much as market coffee and much less than supermarket coffee (which usually tastes like dirty dishwater anyway!)
We brew our coffee in an Italian stovetop espresso pot (a marvellous invention).
Here’s what we do:
These are raw coffee beans. We buy Ethiopian beans from a little African supplies shop.
We dry roast them on a just lower than moderate heat in a deep frypan. The roasting takes about 20 minutes and needs constant stirring, so be patient! You want your beans to be very dark, crackling and smoking. It feels like you’re burning them, but its necessary to get a proper roast. The beans should also seem much lighter (in weight) and dryer by the time you’re done.
Once the beans have cooled grind them in a grinder (we use a little electric grinder that we bought fairly cheaply, it does a great job). The ground coffee in this picture is actually much darker than it looks here, yours should be nice and dark too.Store the ground coffee in the fridge either in a lined paper coffee bag or an airtight container.
Enjoy your delicious coffee!
Corn flake cookies
2 cups sifted flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
250g butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 & 1/2 cups Corn flakes
Preheat oven to 180 degrees (C). Sift together flour & baking powder. Beat butter & sugar together until light and fluffy. Add eggs & vanilla, beat well. Add sifted dry ingredients & corn flakes, mix well for about 2 minutes. Drop by tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets. Bake for 10 minutes or until slightly browned.