How do YOU do it?

It's no secret in our house that I am a huge piklete fan.

I could probably eat a whole batch on my own.

Fleur shares my obsession, we often whip up a batch of these babies and a pot of tea.

Fleur likes tea

1 sugar please....

 It's funny, pikelets are one of thoses things that vary from family to family,

a bit like lasagne or gravy...you know what I'm saying?

Over the years I've tried various different recipes, but the most recent is a beauty...

Well in my opinion anyway!

They're light, fluffy & evenly brown all over.

Pikelets:

1 egg

1/4 C castor sugar

3/4 C milk

1/4 tsp baking soda

*1 C self raising flour

1Tbsp melted butter

Beat egg and sugar till fluffy ( my Mum who made amazing pikelets always said you have to "beat the shit out of the egg & sugar!") Measure the milk & add the soad to it. Wisk sifted flour gradually into your egg mix alternatly with your milk & soda mix. Beat well to combine and then lastly add your melted butter. Drop spoon fulls onto your fan and flip when bubbles appear.

* I never have self raising flour, I just use plain flour with 1 tsp of baking powder.

*I always find the first batch (pan full) of pikelets tend to be the test batch and usually burn a little untill I have the temp just right, I use an old enamel cast iron pan and don't add any more butter to the pan after that first initial batch.

Happy cooking xx

High Tea

 I made strawberry jam today, mmmmm

Then my baby brother popped in for a wee visit,

so we donned our pinny's & whipped up some lemonade scones

Doesn't he look lovely in that floral?

What's for tea?

I recently found an amazing recipe for a 'yum as' dip.

It went quite nicely with my little lamb pies, so I thought I'd share it with you.

Little lamby pies

300gms (ish) minced lamb

1 onion diced

2-3 cloves of garlic crushed

1 tsp cumin

1 chopped chili

2 tsp paprika

2 Tbsp tomato paste

1 hand full of fresh mint chopped

2 Tbsp of pine nuts or sunflower seeds

Vege of your choice I used a big bunch of chopped kale but you can do what ever you fancy, or none at all!

2 sheets of puff pastry

Oven to 180C

Cut the pastry into 1/4's and pop into 'monstor muffin' pans or something equivalent.

Brown mince, drain fat, add onion, garlic & spices, then T-paste, vege, mint & seeds. simmer, adding more liquid if needed ( this mix is dryer than your normal Spag bog mix) Set aside.

Bake some kind of wedges. I made kumera wedges. Bung your little pies in the oven until the pastry puffs nicely.

Yummy dip

Caramelize an onion in 1 Tbsp of butter for around 20min. Pop in your blender/mixer with 1 Tbsp of wine or cider vinegar, 1 Tbsp of whole grain mustard & 3/4 Cup mayonnaise.

serve it all up with fresh green salad type thingy. Yum!

P.S: I often make this mince mix and pop it in a free form gallet shape with home made short pastry, making a layer of grated cheese on the bottom first in super nice.

Enjoy! xx



Square Eggs

What's for breakfast in your house this weekend?

Pretty Carrot Muff's

Best carrot muffins ever

2 Cups Flour

3/4 Cups white sugar (raw or brown would be fine)

2 tspn Baking powder

1/2 tspn Baking soda

pinch of Salt

2 tspns Cinnamon

1 tspn mixed spice

1 Egg

1 Cup of Milk

1/2 Cup of Oil

2 grated Carrots

1/2 Cup Sultanas

1/2 Cup Walnuts (or sunflower seeds)

Sift dry ingredients, mix wet ingredients & add to dry stuff. Fold in carrot, sultanas & nuts. Spoon into muff pans & bake at 180 C- 200C depending on how mental your oven is.

Ice with cream cheese icing:

1/4 Cup cream cheese

1 Cup Icing sugar

2 Tbsp melted butter

zest of 1/2 a lemon

Beat all togeather.

Nom Nom

xxxxxx 

Cooking & Baking.....

Lemon Tart

My new favourite food

Roast vege salad

A staple for sure

Owwww...

Thrifty finds here

A wool granny square blanket

perfect size for Imogen's pram

Yep....the smurfs!

This little beauty is a cot quilt with the foldy flap things
$2.50...cha ching

CAKE...cake...& more cake
August is a Birthday time for us

There are 7 Family Birthdays!

My Mum & I share the same day

This year I turn 30 & she turns 50

My Anya has just turned 8

hence the rainbow cake...

lots of fun to make

stuck together with white choc ganache

I ate way too much

so much I got a tummy ache

so much I had bright green diarrhea

I'm not kidding

& on that note

I will say

have a great week

xox

Stuff that been doing

I recently scored some very special 'little bugs'

Kefir to be exact. I had heard this name popping up more & more, in particular in Kay Baxter's book 'a change of heart' which I would recommend to anyone who is interested in the Weston A Price principles of eating & lifestyle. This is all quite new to me, but I feel the fundamentals sit right in my gut. I purchased both water & dairy kefir grains from HERE.

They come with detailed instructions, &  are easily Incorporated into your daily routine.

I've made two batches of soft kefir cheese, which is delish on crackers. In this batch pictured I've added sweet Thai chili sauce, crushed garlic & chopped herbs. All the kids devoured it which was refreshing! Dairy kefir is cool as you can make 'yoghurt' (I think it's just called kefir, but slightly runnier than your average yogurt?) without having to heat the milk, insulate or anything else you would usually do when making normal dairy yoghurt. With kefir you just add the little granules (they look like tiny squishy bits of cauliflower) to milk in a jar and wait. The waiting depends on the weather. At the moment it's taking 3 days for approx 3 cups to ferment. I read in Kay's book that she had a friend who left their kefir in milk on the bench for 4 months and they were still thriving!!

Water kefir looks like crystal rain ( the stuff you put with water to keep your plants hydrated)

They live on sugar and can be added to fruit juices to make natural fizzy drinks. Its a lot of fun

Kefir draining in muslin to become kefir cheese

The other 'things' I've br=een uo to is restoring some old towels. These towels had gone all weird at the bottom. Kind of gathered where the...'thing bit?' is. So I cut it off and hemmed them with some homemade binding turning them into spunky new hand towels. I haven't managed to get handmade home to myself yet, but from what I sneak when I visit my girlfriend Tink, I'm pretty sure she has something similar in her book

old towel with 'weird syndrome'

sexy new towel!

 It's funny as my blog posting (& I'm sure to many other Mums as well)  seems to coincide with breast feeding time. tonight Imogen was so knackered after her 'before bath snack' she simple went back to sleep sitting up! Would you believe that now it's bed time & shes wide awake 'DadadadaDADADADADING'! Sigh

completion

I have finally finished Imogen's bumper (what a funny word?)

What was supposed to be a quick 2 hour job, ended up being 2 1/2 weeks!

A rotten inside day allowed me to sneak into the studio in between sleeps (Ginny's no mine!)

Alex home today sick & Ged home as it's too wet to work.

Home made sausage rolls and cream potato bake for dinner

Yum.

Proper mental feijoa cake

Feijoa & orange cake

• 1/2 C Sugar
• 100gms butter
• 1 egg
• 1 Tbsp of golden syrup
• 2 Tbsp boiling water 
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 3/4 C flour
• 1 C feijoa pulp (I used warm stewed feijoas)

Beat butter & sugar, add egg & golden syrup. Mix boiling water & baking soda & add to the mixture with the flour & baking powder & feijoas. Pour into a greased tin and bake at 160 C for 45 min. Remove from the oven and top with a mixture of 4 Tbps of raw or demerara sugar & the juice of 1 orange. Return to the oven for another 15 min. Serve warm with cream of cold as you would a cake.

Chicken & Leek Pie

Chicken & Leek Pie:

2 Chicken breasts, 1 large or 2 small leeks, 3 cloves of garlic, 2 heaped tsps of seeded mustard, 1 chilli, 1/4 cup of white wine & cream, 2 good dollops of sour cream, S&P

Pastry:

2 C flour, 1/2 tsp salt, 175 grams of butter, enough cold water to bind.

Chop chicken & leeks, saute in a dash of olive oil with your garlic, cooking the chicken first. Add the wine and reduce, then the cream's & mustard and spoon into a pastry lined pie dish such as the gorgeous one in the pic below which I scored today for $4.50.

Pop a pastry lid on top, brush with milk and sprinkle with poppy seeds. Bake 180 C until golden on top Approx 40 min

My lovely seduced me with this when we first met. It was the first thing he cooked me on my 'first sleepover' xox

Kitchen busy

The weather today is total crap, I've lit the coal range for the first time in ages,

time to get some sewing jobs ticked off the list I think.However......

I discovered hiding in the hedgerows on Sunday...some Elderflower in bloom...

This gave me a little hope for hot summer days sipping elderflower cordial,

So I subtly pushed Ged out of the car with a bag....

and well the rest you can see for yourself xox

The other goodies getting create din the kitchen this week were a batch of home made muesli bars.

I was lying in bed when I realised that the daily lunches consumed 5 bars a day! seeing as you usually only get 6 in box, I thought....that's an average of $3 (approx) per week day....$15 a week. Enough of this frivolous spending, which we really don''t have anyway. Out came the cook book and......

Oatie slice:

1/2 C Sunflower seeds

3 C rolled oats (the porridge kind)

1 C sesame seeds

1 C wheat germ (I forgot the wheatgerm and sesame seeds and it still turned out fine)

2 1/2 C Sultanas (or your choice of dried fruit)

1 1/2 C wholemeal flour

1 1/2 tsp Baking powder

1 1/2 C Coconut

1-1/2 C Raw sugar

11 oz Butter

6 Tbsp Honey ( I can't eat honey so I made a blend of 2 Tbsp malt 4 Tbsp golden syrup)

Melt butter and honey mix pour over dry ingredients, press into 2x sponge roll tins and bake until golden...15-20min. Cut into bars when warm. xox Makes 32 bars. This recipe can easily be halved.

 

Fleur and I had a fossik in the garden and discovered that our first corn of the year was ready! So second breakfast it was. Yum.

Now were cooking up the blackberry haul, inspired by this great book called 'fruits of the earth', Gloria Nicol. A beautiful book which has many old fashioned and hedgerow inspired recipes for jam's chutney's etc....and a section on cordials which is what were making today.

Blackberry Cordial:

900gms of ripe blackberries

Sugar.

Place blackberries on a bowl with 100mls of water and boil in a double boiler for an hour breaking them up with a spoon as you go. Strain through a sieve and add 450gms of sugar for every 600mls of juice. Put this on the heat and bring JUST to the boil, remove and bottle in sterilized bottles or freeze.

I used to make a similar mix with black Doris plums which was heaven after a hot day in the garden mixed with soda water. I guess you could use this recipe as a standard for any berry cordial.

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