making and getting ready

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Making…

A happy crocheted mobile. It’s colourful, I made it and it didn’t come in plastic packaging. Now, just waiting for little toes to gently kick it.

“Scrappy and Scoot”, my first soft toys. Definitely not the most sophisticated of efforts, but they were made from scraps of fabric, I did it, and there isn’t a made in China tag on them… I’m happy with that.

Celebration pom poms. Reusuable and decorative. You can’t help but smile every time they go up.

Getting ready…

There is a different energy round these parts. A shift, a change…expectancy is hanging in the air.

Tomorrow Monkey Boy starts a new school year. A new lunch box, a new class, a new teacher…he’s excited. I’m nervous. Will his teacher be as wonderful as last year?

A change for Little Monkey as well. No more big brother at home to play with during the day.

Expectancy also circulates me. With a belly now so big, waiting…

Excited… It could be weeks off, but waiting for those beginnings of labour to start.

chocolate immunity

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Mr Chocolate always said that he had chocolate immunity.

That is, he can eat a vast quantity and have no ill effects from it. No effect what so ever. Having been on quite a few long car journeys where I’ve been the chocolate supplier to the never-ending opening mouth. Yes, I think I could vouch for the fact he can put quite a lot away and still having nothing to show for it.

Not me though, if I have too much I know about it. Heart rate goes up, tongue goes a little odd. One square too many? Yes, I think so.

Not Mr Chocolate though. Dark, milk, white, they’re all there. The household is a sad and sorry one if it looks like we are down to our last 100 grams. The man likes to have options and he also likes to dip in to those options on a regular basis.

With that in mind, dipping into those options he did. Right before a chiropractor appointment. Thinking nothing of the couple of hundred grams of goodness he had just consumed before going in. He was a little startled to find the chiropractor finding a new point in his head that showed a spike in high blood sugar levels.

Were you drinking last night? she questioned…

Pffft, no way.

Have you had something quite sweet recently?

Uh ohh…

Perhaps a little chocolate this morning?

Busted. Chocolate immunity no more. It clearly was coming up on a point on his head and was there for all to see. Well for all canny chiropractors known for using corresponding cranial points anyway. His pancreas was clearly waving the red flag of, “I’ve just consumed rather a lot of good quality chocolate in order to get through the working day.”

Lesson learnt anyway. Mr Chocolate now knows, it’s a much better idea to eat that block and a half AFTER his next chiropractor appointment. That way chocolate immunity remains intact.

Everyday Chocolate Mint Biscuits

175g softened butter

110g (1/2 cup) caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp peppermint essence

300g (2 cups) plain flour

1/2 cup cocoa powder

Cream butter and sugar in a mixer until pale and fluffy. Mix in, vanilla and peppermint, then add remaining flour and cocoa.

Quick knead and roll dough between two sheets of baking paper, approximately 5mm thick and refrigerate until dough is firm.

Cut into shapes and bake at 180C for approximately 20 minutes.

cherry plum and almond wreath

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cherry plum and almond

A baking challenge?

You bet.

How could I not. It looked delicious. The taste possibilities were endless, and it looked like just the thing to tickle The Monkeys taste buds.

Make it with local seasonal fruit, even better.

peach and blueberry

For how to make one of these wreaths, pop over to Discovering Sourdough.

I’ve written down the changes I’ve made, but it will make more sense if you check out the original recipe first.

Cherry Plum and Almond Wreath

200mls milk

3 tbls sour cream

50g butter

50g sugar

Warm ingredients gently and then cool a little and add

210mls water

Set aside.

450g starter  (100%)

650g strong bakers flour

Mix together with liquid mixture and let autolyse for an hour.

2 tsp salt

Add the salt, mixing well with dough hooks.

200g strong bakers flour

Then out on to a well floured board and incorporate the extra 200g of flour. Slowly and over about 10 plus minutes.

Prove for 3 hours

Cherry Plum and Almond Mixture

6 blood plums cut up

large handful of fresh cherries, pips out

3/4 cup of sugar

Cooked up for a few minutes until soft, draining any excess juice off and stir through a large handful of blitzed almonds, (or almond meal if you already have it.)

Peach and Blueberry

Peach Punch Jam

fresh farmers market blueberries

This post submitted to yeastspotting.

Grass under the toes

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It’s moments like last night that I love living in Sydney. A free outdoor concert, showing three ridiculously talented Australian bands, (part of the Sydney Festival.)

Did The Monkeys want to go? You betcha.

Did Mr Chocolate want to go? Yes indeed.

Did this city hippy mama with a big tummy want to kick off her birkinstock and feel some grass beneath her toes while listening to some tunes? Damn straight she did.

It was The Monkeys first concert. A line up of Busby Marou, Kasey Chambers and Dan Sultan, all music they love. Sure they like The Wiggles too, but watching my boys rock out to Dan Sultan…well that just brings a totally different smile to my face.

*******

What have you been up to this weekend?

Any music been making your head bop and toes stomp?

pepperonata- Frugal Friday

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The first time The Monkeys saw yellow capsicum, they raised a skeptical eyebrow or two. Even after my assurance that yes, it was still a capsicum, yellow it may be.

Capsicums are red or green mama…

Yes, but they are also yellow.

Now come on, eat it.

A tentative bite, eyebrows still cocked…

It is capsicum!  They happily declared.

(Saying that, they wouldn’t touch this dish, they like their vegetables on the raw side.)

Pepperonata

A couple of good slurps of wonderful local olive oil

as much diced seasonal garlic as you fancy

and sliced capsicum

cook it through for a few minutes, and then pop a lid on and wilt it down until it becomes soft. Salt to taste and serve with some crusty bread, and perhaps a little chorizo, (the chorizo alway wins points with The Monkeys and Mr Chocolate.)

a farmers hands

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Her hands gently held my wrists. Feeling for my pulses, she was working out whether I would be having a baby girl or a boy. While her touch was gentle, and the contact and meaning behind the check I found fascinating, it was her hands that struck me the most.

A farmers hands.

I’m lucky enough to be able to get the majority of my vegetables straight from the source. No middle man, no super market. Just my lady with her stall, selling what she grows. I love this.

I love that I can choose what to buy, its spray free, and the taste doesn’t even come close to anything else I could buy at a regular chain supermarket.

The tomatoes may look a little gnarly, the lettuce still has some dirt on it, and the cucumbers sometimes curl around a small child’s wrist.

Perfection.

This is what I want. This is how I want to choose to eat. Knowing my money is going back directly to the person growing it and toiling the soil to fill my dinner plate. If I’m not sure how to cook with something I’ll ask. Purple carrots not in this week? She’ll try to bring me some next week. Having that contact with someone who produces such an important part of my family’s life is invaluable.

If more people supported farmers markets such as these, I think societies would change. How could they not?

You would have contact with the person that was producing a large proportion of your food. You would be eating healthier, a higher proportion of your diet coming from vegetables, rather than pre packaged food. Money would be spent and going directly to the local producer, knocking out that chubby middle man, and not to forget that social contact. That wonderful element of connecting with someone and talking to them about what they do. This is just to list a mere few wonderful positives on shopping like this. Buying your vegetables in a supermarket what are the positives? Convenience?

Maybe convenience is overrated…

Chocolate Hazelnut Surprise- Frugal Friday

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So, desserts don’t usually make it in to my Frugal Friday posts. But drown me in amaretto if this one isn’t frugal.

Mr Chocolate’s parents were coming over for lunch and my thoughts had been else where. The lunch bit was sorted, but it would be nice if there was a little sweetie something to follow it up with. Now what do I have?

some cooking mistake freezer brownie

some old cream

some sad looking strawberries

oh and some chocolate (50%)

Now I hate tossing food out. I can generally give something a new lease of life well after it has looked it’s best. I like the challenge of it, and it let’s me be a little creative in the kitchen. I was a little nervous with this one though, as it wasn’t just the usual culprits eating it.

Hmmm, thinking cap on, and…

Chocolate Hazelnut Surprise

crumble up some freezer brownie

then whip up

300mls of cream that needed using

add a good shake

 of some hazelnut meal through it (approx 50g)

and

1 tsp vanilla into the whipped cream

and then slowly drizzle some

melted dark chocolate (about 100g- I used 50%)

in as well (don’t over whip it)

layer it with your brownie (or an old chocolate/plain cake you may have hanging around)

add a few

chopped up sad looking strawberries on top and then

drizzle a little more chocolate on

******

So how did it taste?

Delicious.

Did the inlaws suspect anything less than a well planned dessert.

Hell no.

(This is not a recipe. Not really any way. Just use what you have and play. You will probably end up with a lovely tasty surprise.)

skippy barm bread

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I had good intentions of following the recipe. It just doesn’t often work out like that.

Two minutes in, actually lets be realistic. Thirty seconds in and I already had done something completely different to what Dan Lepard’s recipe said.

Don’t you read the recipe? Mr Chocolate helpfully said.

Um no… I guess I don’t.

Right. It was pointless in continuing with Dan’s method. Heating the beer up surely couldn’t be a crucial part in the breads success could it? I softly closed the book and resumed hackbaking 101. One day, one day, I might be able to follow a recipe.

One day?

Popping my thinking cap on, I wrote down my own recipe. I quite often write down what I’m going to do before I do it. I look at my ratios, see if it looks right, and then make any adjustments to the ratios as I go along.

With the beer, flour and starter mixed together, I left it over night. Coming back in the morning like an enthusiastic kid waiting to open a present. Would it look like it should? Would be a deflated watery mess? Would it have escaped the bowl and be slowly making its way down the kitchen cupboards, making a clear getting away towards the door?

I peeped inside and happily saw, it looked kind of like how I would expect it to look. Excellent. Now to the bread bit.

Behaving well, the end of the day and it’s baking time. A shape and a slash. Bake and ….

Happy mama. It looks decent. Mr Chocolate spies it and demands bread rights. I say not a chance, need to take some pictures, and then you can try it and give the crucial Mr Chocolate test.

It passes.

Phew.

* Note, Dan Lepard asks for bottle conditioned beer with live yeast. I didn’t use that, instead just a regular type of beer. Does this mean it’s now not a barm bread, but instead a regular beer bread? Not sure, perhaps perhaps… Any enlightment from the bread gurus?

Skippy Barm Bread

Hack baked  Adapted from Dan Lepard’s The Handmade Loaf

Barm

330mls room temperature beer

1/2 cup (75g) flour

3 good spoonfuls of active sourdough starter (100%)

Whisk together and leave overnight.

Barm Bread

550g barm

4 cups (600g) flour

200mls water

Mix ingredients together and leave for half an hour or so. Add 2 1/2 tsp salt and mix again. Quick knead, and then prove for a while. Another quick fold and then shape. Prove again, slash and then bake at 240C with steam.

I’ve also done an olive bread using the same dough. Just weave your favourite kind of olives through the dough on shaping, prove and then bake. Make sure those olives are really tucked in, otherwise they pop out when baking.

This post submitted to yeast spotting.

Raspberry Chocolate Layer Cake- let’s just look at the pretty pictures

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Ah this week, you’ve been a funny one

up, down and turned it all around

big ups

big downs

a Monkey Boy Birthday

a Monkey Boy hospital visit

some Monkey Boy hives

a mama virus straight from hell

whacked

happy baking

a gathering

lots of laughs and smiles

 the big storm ending Sunday evening

fitting

******

What’s been happening in your week?

Vanilla Cake

Raspberry Jam

150g raspberries

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 lime squeezed

Chocolate layer

150g melted chocolate (50%)

250g mascarpone

50g icing sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla

Vanilla Cream

300mls cream

50g icing sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla

strawberries

extra raspberries

houmus- frugal Friday

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Tahini was one of those food items that I had long since written off as something I didn’t particularly like. I didn’t mind it in other peoples cooking, but I certainly wasn’t going to be eating it by the spoonful from the jar. If you can imagine a cat coughing up a fur ball, that would be me trying to eat a spoonful of tahini.

Then I decided that I wanted to make houmus for The Monkeys though. When making houmus it needs tahini, everyone knows that, so I was going to have to revisit my spoonful of fur ball.

I decided to try the unhulled darker type as it had been the hulled version I had always tried in the past. With teaspoon at the ready, I dipped in.

Holy houmus, it was delicious.

It tried another small piece to see if my taste buds were tricking me. Nope, it really was. It was like peanut butter…but sesame butter. Now I don’t know if my taste buds have simply changed over time or unhulled tastes ridiculously better than hulled. Either way, it’s now a staple in the fridge and The Monkeys can have as much houmus as they want, as this dip is dead easy to make.

Houmus

400g canned chick peas

1 clove raw garlic

1/4 tsp coriander

1/2 tsp cumin

4 tbls olive oil

3 tbls lemon juice

1 tbls unhulled tahini

salt and black pepper to taste

Whiz it all up in a hand held blender. Spoon it out on to a dish, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with a little paprika.

Peach and Almond Clafoutis

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Do you ever have those moments when you are glad that you are friends with your kitchen? Your hand goes past your face, and you get a smell of peaches. You check the other hand, bringing it to your nose and there is a dash of almond still residing there. If someone was smelling your hair, there would probably be the lingering smell of a little baked vanilla and sugar. I like those moments. It sure beats smelling like old sausages… or cabbages.

Now, up until now I had been Clafoutis-less. That is, I hadn’t eaten one before, let alone made one. I was reading through the tasty Bits and Breadcrumbs, and there before me was a clafoutis. Looking fine in all its appley-ness. I commented, I mentioned I had peaches. Bits&Breadcrumbs mentioned amaretto and whoosh I was off.

Amaretto had been on my list of ‘things’ for a couple of years. I still hadn’t bought any. Put it down to hormones or an obsessive compulsive collection of taste buds but I rather fancied some and the best biscuits of my life eaten here, had only enhanced that wanting. I nipped down to the bottle shop before I could convince myself otherwise and two minutes later was left holding a gorgeous big bottle that surely would last years…maybe.

I resisted having a smell of it there and then, but key in the front door, Little Monkey pushed to the side and that lid was off like a rocket.

Ahhhhh, that’s the ticket.

It smells amazing. I have no inclination to drink it, (on account of a bubba in my belly) but smell it, oh yes. So I do, all afternoon.

Every time I walk past the kitchen. Sometimes I find an excuse just to walk by again.

Ahhhhh… Amaretto, I think I love thee.

I don’t know what it is that appeals. It’s slightly medicinal smelling, and like marzipan it has that almond something that just does it for me. What’s not to like really.

Peach and Almond Clafoutis

3 eggs

50g raw sugar

75g plain flour

50g almond meal

300mls cream

80mls milk

1 tsp vanilla

2 tbls amaretto

zest of half a lemon

peaches quartered

Grease a baking dish, and sprinkle it with raw sugar.

In a separate bowl, whisk eggs and sugar together. Then whisk in remaining ingredients. Set aside and cut or slice your peaches, (or any other seasonal fruit*). Line the baking dish with them and then gently pour your cream mixture in.

Bake at 180C for approximately 40 minutes.

******

It’s summer here, so stone fruit is tasting wonderful at the moment. Use what ever fruit you have in season though, apples (like bits and breadcrumbs did), blueberries, cherries (as was traditionally used), apricots, plums, or raspberries (as Christine made at Slow Living Essentials)…

run with it.