Birthday Brownies

What to make for my own birthday?  - especially as hubby is away and the wee ones are not quite up to full on cake construction solo....

Triple choc, nut and honey brownies YUM

They'll do until a delayed birthday celebration calls for the necessary over-the-top cake !

200g 72% dark chocolate
250g salted butter
1 hugely scooped dessert spoon full of Manuka honey
4 free range eggs
1/3 C fairtrade cocoa powder
1 1/4 C plain flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
100g choccie drops
100g bashed mixed nuts (use a mortar and pestle)

icing sugar shaker to serve


Preheat the oven to 160 degrees Celsius

Melt the dark chocolate and butter in a pan on low heat until smooth

combine honey and eggs in a large bowl until well mixed

Add the melted choccie mixture

Add the cocoa, flour and baking powder, stir to mix

Fold in the choccie drops and bashed nuts

Pour the mixture into a greased/lined tin (say 20cm or so)

Bake for 45 minutes until a skewer comes out cleanly

Leave to cool slightly but these lovelies are best eaten warm !

Enjoy

The Big Bad Mouse!

My wee ones just LOVE Julia Donaldson's The Gruffalo and The Gruffalo's Child and Axel Scheffler's drawings are irresistible.

Santa brought my smallest wee one the mouse for Christmas but he was missing one vital accessory....


Thankfully Gigglinggoblin provided exactly what I needed - a knit pattern for a lovely mouse sized hazelnut  !

I used DK brown for the main nut and a fawn coloured scrap of fine alpaca blend for the top of the nut - the mouse, and my wee one are very happy !

Crunchy Crackers....

We have been eating a little too much bread lately - we all love freshly baked Arabic bread and the odd white loaf for toast but it was beginning to weigh me down a little and so, as the littlies love crackers I was flitting through some recipes to try and find something easy to rustle up on a Sunday afternoon.

It was during my recipe box flitting that I came across a note I had made about Wendyl Nissen's Swedish cracker recipe and so I went looking in the cupboards for supplies.

I didn't quite have everything she had listed so I came up with my own version based on what I had available:

225g organic bread flour (stoneground)
225g organic Jumbo rolled oats
150g mixture of black and white sesame seeds
50g poppy seeds
75g organic flax seeds
2 tsp seasalt
500ml warm water
1 Tbsp organic olive oil

I put all the dry ingredients into a bowl and mixed up evenly.

Then I added the oil and the water and stirred with a fork and then spatula to ensure complete combination.

I oiled two trays and then spread the mixture out on to the two trays - using the back of a spoon to flatten it out into a thin layer on each tray.

Baked in a 130 degree Celsius oven for 15 minutes

Took out the trays and scored the mixture into rectangle shapes with a knife before putting them back in the oven and baking for another hour.

took out and cooled for a few minutes on the tray before breaking up along score lines and putting on a rack to cool completely.

The littlies LOVE them and I do too. The sesame gives it a nice nutty bite - rustic but not like cardboard ;)

Noodles for the littlies...

We love organic noodles in our house including Somen, Ramen and my favourite - Udon

 

The littlies love noodles as they learn to use chopsticks and having the bowl closer to their face and dropping food and trying to pick it up is all part of the fun.

 

Chops sticks that have an attachment at the top do help to keep them in little hands

 

 

 Here's a recipe that works well for my littlies - they love the sweetness of the veg and the crunch of the meatballs

Maple Veg and Meatballs for pre-schoolers

 

Ingredients – serves 2 preschoolers

1 serving stack of Somen Noodles (we use Hakubaku but whatever brand you can get will do the same)

2 Tbsp organic maple syrup

1 small white organic onion, sliced thinly

2 small organic rainbow carrots – try one orange and one red

1 Tbsp organic coconut oil

8 small handmade organic pure beef meatballs  - made by rolling about 2 tsp of ground meat together tightly

10 or so sliced mango pieces (fresh)

portion of frozen peas

 

Instructions

1 - cook Somen noodles as per instruction and drain and leave to cool slightly

2 – put coconut oil into frying pan and cook meatballs, turning, so they are cooked all the way through and crispy brown all over

3 – put meatballs on a plate to cool

4 – using the same frying pan cook the sliced onion until soft and golden coloured

5 – add the thin slices of carrot and continue to cook until softening and golden glisten on the surface

6 – add 1 Tbsp of Maple syrup and continue to cook on the medium heat until surface becomes slightly tacky and the syrup has caramelised the veggies

7 – take the frying pan off the heat

8 – Boil up a portion of frozen peas for a couple of minutes until cooked

9 – Add the peas and noodles to the frying pan and gently stir to mix evenly

10 – Put noodle mixture in to bowls, place meatballs over the top and drizzle with rest of Maple syrup

11 – sprinkle over sliced mango pieces and serve – YUM!!!

 

 

Purple Sprouting Broccoli dip/spread...

We have finally found the right time of year to sow seeds for broccoli, purple sprouting in this case - late summer and no earlier! It gets too hot here from spring onwards and the plants always seemed to bolt or just not fair very well at other times of the year, but this year we have a veritable bonanza of the gorgeous purple tops and the sheep and cows are loving the leaf as a change from soggy grass.

Our winter harvest has been fantastic and we have been trying to find a variety of ways to have PSB in our meals. I have made quiches, muffins, sautéed and steamed but today I tried something a little different, I made a spread/dip/hummus out of the tops by throwing in anything we had to hand really and I must say it's blimmin' delicious!

So I used a good bunch of PSB tops - enough to feed a family of 4, I steamed them until tender then put them in a processor and blitzed them with a clove of garlic, a handful of toasted nuts (pinenuts and non salted cashews are what I had in the house but I am sure walnuts would be fabulous), 2 Tbsp of olive oil (more to taste), 2 Tbsp jumbo rolled oats, juice of one lemon - you could add toasted cumin seeds, apple cider vinegar, tahini, anything that takes your fancy really.

Gorgeous on freshly made bread from the oven.....

Chilli sauce for a chilly day....

My husband brought me back a copy of Chili Lovers Cookbook from his last trip to the USA and as we have a few overwintering chilli pepper plants in the greenhouse with some little green and red offerings I felt compelled to make the most of them one cold wintery day last week.

So I adapted the Chili Sauce recipe and ended up using:


1/2 lb of a mixture of whatever chillies I had - Jalapeno, Marconi red, a couple of Thai..... (cleaned, stalk and seeds removed then soaked in warm water until soft)
2 cloves organic garlic
a good 2 cm sq lump of fresh ginger root
1/4 C water
a few springs of fresh oregano from the garden

I blitzed it up with the hand blender and ta-da !!!

It was gorgeous - I have had it on chick pea fritters, beef pitas and in soups

LOVE IT!

A Yarn to tell.....

I am having a ball getting back into knitting and crocheting. One of my Grandmothers taught me to knit when I was about eleven and I managed to produce a neat little summer top, but I never really got into it.
Only years later, with little ones of my own do I now understand the importance of the craftwork skills and not only have I begun knitting again but I have been to a local wool shop for crochet classes and am in seventh heaven looking for beautiful yarns with which to practice.
I am now working on a crochet cardigan for myself after crocheting hats for my wee ones and flowers for embellishments. I have, though, fallen in love with granny squares and the multitude of patterns and projects that can be born from this simple square.

One of my first easy to do and quick to finish projects was a hot water bottle cover.

All I did was crochet 8 granny squares of varying designs, from a lovely little book for beginners - stitched them together (with simple double crochet, although now I have come across 10 different ways to join granny squares I shall be experimenting) and crocheted a slight collar with treble crochet - magic!

I highly recommend you get to a local crochet class, we must not let these wonderful craft skills die out.

Yarns - kid in a candy store, me!

Couscous balls

I needed a quick filling lunchtime meal for the cherubs as they have a club tonight and we always get back late so have a form of cold 'picnic' before bed.

I am also trying to use up leftovers as I hate throwing any food away, even if it's being recycled by the chooks, I like to see what we can make of it first.

So today I was presented with leftover couscous...

The cherubs are not mad keen on the friable texture, a bit like trying to shovel sand onto a fork!

So I mixed in a good couple of tablespoons of fig syrup - left over from making my fresh fig preserve and a couple of tablespoons of ground almond.

I then took about a heaped teaspoonful of the mixture and rolled into small balls before cooking in the oven at around 190 degrees Celsius for about 15 minutes, until they had browned a little.

Delicious!!!

There was a nice texture to the bite and they hold their shape really well so are going in snack boxes too.

The most important win - the cherubs ate them!!

No gray and no spray......

The rain has passed, the sun is out and the sky is a glorious blue....

We are slowly reclaiming parts of the property for garden and veggie/fruit growing. Flowers are done mostly in pots as the moment, until I get around to preparing areas of ground for them to flourish 'au naturel'.

The land has had it tough in the past, ex-dairy farm and so quite intensive 'off-site' inputs into the land and lots of output. We are not looking to get certification but we are aiming at managing our land with a sensitivity to nature's order, so spray-free and reusing material from one part of the property on another. However, in these early days we are having to bring in potting soil and garden mix to have any medium in which to grow the veggies.

Just recently we dismantled 4 compost heaps we had set up when we moved in and had not really tended to - we simply added to them with peelings, cuttings etc. and turned when we remembered (and had time). Well, nature got on with it and we had enough homemade compost, full of worms, to set up four or five no-dig beds for a more concerted veggie growing effort this year (partly spurred on by the fact that the cherubs are less needy and a little more helpful in the garden and in amusing themselves).

We didn't set up borders to the beds this year, I might do that next year with old sleepers. This year we simply reacted to the successively maturing seedlings in the greenhouse! So the first bed was laid out so that I could get the squashes and zucchini in and then it was corn, then tomatoes....

So we simply did newspaper, straw (actually recycled old hay from the property), compost and seedlings. We have weeding to do, but actually the crops have grown so well they are outcompeting the weeds, which I shall pull out to try and reduce seeding. Irrigation is important but the set up does hold on to moisture really well and the plants have survived being left for two days in heat when in the past, plants straight in the ground would have perished on the first day.

This is definitely the way to go for us on this land.

We not only see the benefits in the environment by going spray-free and growing things more naturally, but the more we read about pesticide residues in food the more we believe in the benefits to our own health and especially the health of the cherubs. We aren't perfect, we don't always use organic growing material, we live close to non-organic farms and so drift and leaching will impact on our land. However, we do what we can. We buy organic when possible and we grow spray-free and we hope to reduce any negative impact on the environment and on our bodies, targeting the dirty dozen as we can.

The no-spray strawberries were a hit this year. We didn't have huge crops everyday but a steady trickle that allowed the cherubs to taste their deliciousness almost every day and even provided enough for a couple of pavlova and a jar of jam!

Happy New Year and here comes the harvest!

Well it's been a while. Mostly I was busy getting trees planted, seeds sown, seedlings watered, kiddies to school and the usual jazz that any SAHM might have on a daily basis.

Spring was nicely wet and so was the early summer so we have not reached the horrible dry conditions I find very difficult just yet, although I am sure that is to come.

We have a pet lamb now and our lone calf born in October is doing very nicely. Mum is doting as is Auntie and the three are enjoying the slowly increasing shade from the trees we are getting going around the property.

The lamb is a proper pet lamb, actually he's not sure if he's a person or dog. He gets on very well with our larger, younger dog who is able to hold his own against playful butts. He also likes to 'just be with us' when we are in the garden doing our jobs - I guess in his eyes we are part of his flock.

However, as much as the lamb (he'll always be a lamb to us no matter how ridiculously big he gets!) is great company he is also a driver for us to get on with some more heavy landscaping tasks such as fencing.

We have ideas about fencing and 'cutting' up the garden (which is still reminiscent of its paddock heritage) so that we can have pathways leading to secret corners and more truly garden like features. These ideas are being finally put into practice, albeit slowly, as the need for protection from a dry-grass weary lamb becomes immediate. He does keep the grass down around the property and helps us not have to mow as much (long term plan is to get rid of grass and plant up with cropping plants/trees and natives), but he's quite partial to variety! Who can blame him hey?

So, slowly I am getting post and rails up, using a hand borer and re-acquainting myself with the composition of our soil and the improvement in worm count since we moved onto the land.

The zucchini, squashes and cucumbers are growing prolifically and I am having to become a tad more adventurous with my use of these in fresh recipes as there is only so much preserved produce one wants in their store cupboards. I have opted for preserves that have shown themselves to be favourites of the children - otherwise we end up throwing excess to the animals or giving lots away and even neighbours have a limit for pickled zucchini!

 

So I have made some piccalilli, curried pickled zucchini, rhubarb and apple chutney and am making tzatziki on a daily basis (a very simple chopped cucumber, garlic and yoghurt mixture - takes me back to holidays in Corfu, just delicious).


I went all out on trying zucchini recipes from the BBC Good Food website and my go-to girl, Nigella Lawson. I can heartily recommend courgette fritters, courgette and mushroom bread and courgette loaf cake.





 We all loved the courgette filo pie, my version of Nigella's courgette and chickpea recipe. Letting it cool a little, it sliced beautifully and was just as tasty cold the next day with salad.

I am also starting to turn my hand to cheese making. It's going to be another slow burn project, but having satisfied myself that I am competent in Ricotta, Labneh and Mascarpone making I tried making Halloumi - spurred on by a cheese-making kit I got for Christmas. It is produced by the Country Trading Company in South Island, NZ and contains a beautifully constructed Feta/Halloumi wooden frame/press. The method was simple enough and it worked! My blocks of Halloumi rose up in the whey and we had delicious fresh 'squeaky' cheese for our BBQ supper that same night.

 

 

 So the New Year is off and running - busy, busy. Gardening, construction, baking, cooking, preserving, craft bits and bobs as I can fit them in (there have been a few woolly hats and sundries made during lazy evenings with a glass or two of a warming red wine).

 

All the very best for your endeavours and I shall keep you posted periodically on what I get up to......

Winter Chills......

Well technically it is Spring but the weather has not decided on that really yet and we are getting some belated Winter wind and rain.
Consequently, the jumping from barmy to chilly weather has played havoc on our bodies and my cherubs and I have been struck down with a terrible sinusy lurgy.

It is at times like this that you don't actually feel you want to eat anything substantial but I know I should be taking in some well needed nutrients if I am to kick this sucker into touch.

We were so affected we didn't leave the house so I am delving deep into the abyss that is my chest freezer and trying to use up meat cuts before we go for another homekill.

That's when I found the bacon hock....what to do? I admit I have not cooked one of these before.

So after much trawling of the internet and cook books I decided on boiling the hock in stock and using the meat in a soup. WOW...delicious, nutritious and, although the girls still weren't up to eating much I used the soup juice to soften up some mashed potato for them, they loved it.

And it's easy peasy to make :) Don't worry too much about exact quantities, feel free to fiddle to your heart's desire.

Hearty Hock Soup

1 organic Bacon Hock
2 large organic Agria potatoes
1 large red Kumara
2L organic vegetable stock with 4 cloves and 8 black peppercorns and 1 large organic garlic clove squashed
2 large organic carrots
bunch of homegrown parsley, mint and thyme
3 white onions
extra organic garlic

Place the hock in a large saucepan and pour in the stock. Bring to the boil and then simmer for 1 1/2 to 2 hours until the meat starts to come away from the bone.
Pull out the hock and allow to cool, then take the skin off and cut the meat off the bone into chunks.
Strain the stock and return to the pan. Put in the washed and chopped potatoes, kumara and carrot.
 Cook until tender.
In a frying pan sauté the sliced onions until soft using oil with two squashed garlic cloves.
Add the onion to the pan and chop up all the washed herbs and add those too, cook a little longer (say 10 minutes).

Enjoy and be well!

It's been a while......and Story Stones

I was going to start by apologising for my tardiness in adding to my posts, but then I thought......heck, WHY?

Initially, the reason the writing this blog was to help me review just exactly what I had been up to all day when I flopped down having finally got the wee ones off to sleep.
It still is that to me, but sometimes....often, real life is just so darn busy I don't find the time to sit and cogitate on what I am so darn busy with!

I am thrilled to think some other mums and friends out there might pop in for a peek at what we get up to, but I don't feel pressured by it, think I'm going to make a living from it or often, don't have time for it.

Hopefully when I do post something it might be interesting or even useful to someone out there. I am certainly not going to put a post up every day or every week just to be regular.

Right, enough ranting......................what have we been doing?

Well, we have had family gatherings, tree planting, fence building and animal wrangling.

We have been putting in many more natives and fruit trees - we love the cherubs being able to wander around in the summer and autumn, eating directly from the trees - and improving fencing to keep the cows from getting to our garden or the little stream by the citrus orchard. We have also increased the livestock count by adding pet lambs to our happy home and the cherubs are thrilled. The little woolly fellas think they're dogs and go hurtling around the paddock with our big pawed sofa hogger.
The cherubs are in to books big time - one is learning to read and the other has really switched on to the power of her imagination. So many library visits later.....

Phew.....

Well, today I got to have a go at making story stones with the cherubs. I saw some ideas on pinterest and thought - How cool is that? So I got the cherubs to choose pictures from stickers, fabric and magazines and we each made up a set of stones as practice.

We used:

• polished pebbles - you could scavenge them from beaches, your driveway etc
• PVA glue - it's nontoxic, washable and dries clear
• sources of pictures
• Scissors for fabric, scissors for paper

GO WILD!

The idea is to choose, whether blindly or knowingly, say 3 stones and using the 3 pictures tell a story to everyone else. It can be done as a competition, winner of best story gets a prize - say a new book?
Can be used on camp overs, parties and in the car. (Of course mum and dad can always make more adult versions for their friends ;) )

Addendum to 'Sunset on Summer'....

 

The crabapples and quinces were not to be outdone by the green tomatoes and I have been preserving the very last of the fruits this week.

I decided to make the batches slightly more adventurous and added herbs and spices to subtly enhance the standard jellies I normally make.

The crabapples (Malus sp) we grow are 'Gorgeous' (both in name and flavour), grown on MM106 rootstock. The tree has done fabulously well again - thank you tree.









I made crabapple jelly with cinnamon and cloves - mmmmmm, smelled divine and the spice flavour will really draw out the taste of chicken and turkey as well as ham.

Ratio of ingredients is:

2lbs crabapples
1 pint water

Throw all the apples, unpeeled and uncored in to the preserving pan with the water and simmer until it turns to a pulp.

In go a few cloves and some sticks of cinnamon....

Put the pulp through a muslin/jelly bag overnight. Measure your juice collected and then put into the preserving pan with 1lb of sugar for every pint of juice collected, boil rapidly until set then seal in sterilised jars.

I also livened up the quince jelly by adding a few sprigs of Thyme and some Sage leaves and the shredded peel of 1 lemon. Our quinces are 'Taihape', a tree that survives droughts, flooding and possum attacks.....well so far anyway!

And of course - it always helps to rustle up some muffins whilst the jellies are boiling - Peanut Butter and chocolate chip, yummy.......

 

 

But true to form, you are going to need something wet to wash it down with - a lovely cup of Yorkshire tea did the job for me this afternoon !

Mix these dry ingredients in a large bowl
2C self raising flour
1/3C wholemeal flour
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 C caster sugar

In a small bowl mix together -
100g melted butter
3/4C peanut butter (smooth organic)
1 egg
1C full fat milk

have extra peanut butter to hand

Mix the wet ingredients to the dry ones, folding together until damp but not smooth.

Divide half into a 12 hole standard muffin tray, then plop a dollop of peanut butter onto the batter before adding the other half of the mixture to all 12 muffins, so enclosing the dollop between the layers.

Bake at 200 degrees celsius for around 15 minutes - until they spring back when pressed gently.