jam drops

We've just finished up baking an afternoon sweet treat. I've been a little unwell, Lola and Sadie have a little bit of excess energy and so baking was a nice calming activity to do!

I altered a recipe that I already had so as to not get 'mother's guilt' over the amount of sugar that is usually in these yummy little biscuits. I made SO much jam at the end of summer but I haven't really cooked with yet - so here we go!

Jam Drop Biscuits
  
125g coconut oil (melted)
1/3 cup stevia
1 teaspoon vanilla essence 
185g plain flour 
1 teaspoon baking powder 
2 teaspoon milk 
Jam of your choice

Pop your dry ingredients into a mixing bowl and combine. Make a well in the dry ingredients and add the coconut oil, vanilla and milk. Stir until its a nice doughy consistency.

Now roll the dough into little balls that are about 3cm in diameter and squish them down flat. With your thumb make a little dent in the centre of each biscuit.

Pop the biscuits into a preheated oven at 180 degrees for about 10 mins.

Remove and pop a little bit of jam onto each biscuit, then pop the biscuits back into the oven for another 5-10 minutes.

Let your biscuits cool and enjoy!    

 *** Our biscuits are extra golden as we had a little toilet drama and they came out a little later than I would have liked.... Happy baking xx

green chai tea

Are you a chai tea fan? I am! In fact, I'm a green chai tea fan. I drink waaaay too much. It's my addiction...

Would you like to make some chai tea with me?

Here's my recipe:

Pop about 3 tablespoons of loose leaf green tea into a jar * Then add 3-4 star anise, 5 cardamom pods, 1 teaspoon ground cloves and 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon to the jar * Shake the mixture up and either pop a spoonful into a teapot or into an empty teabag * Pour some hot water into your teacup or teapot * Then shave about 2 cm of orange peel off an orange and pop this in your teacup with a good spoonful of honey * Yum!!

zucchini fritters

We have soooo many zucchinis at the moment. So as to not bore my family to tears with our fruitful harvest of zucchini I have been getting creative in the kitchen. Here's a fritter recipe that I made up yesterday. It worked and my little ones LOVED them (that's the important part, right?!). Its super nice to make dishes up around whats growing in the garden. Here's my recipe if you'd like to try it? Enjoy xx

Ingredients:

4 potatoes
3-4 zucchinis
1/2 cup fresh mint
1/3 cup feta cheese
2 cups of flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp sweet paprika
2 eggs
1 3/4  cups of milk

Grate the potatoes and zucchinis then press them into a tea towel to remove any excess water.

Chop the fresh mint and pop into a bowl with the zucchini and potato mixture. Crumble the feta into this too. Now add the dry ingredients and mix together.

Finally add the eggs and milk. Mix well.

Pop about a tablespoon of olive oil in a pan and heat the pan. When the pan is hot pop a heaped spoonful of mixture into the pan. Cook until golden brown on each side.

These are super yummy served with a dollop of natural yoghurt! Yum!

flavoured water

We've been living on flavoured water this summer. It's a nice change to just drinking plain water. Here's a few of our favourites. You could mix up any of your favourite flavours though! We usually make ours up in the evening and leave them to sit over night.Yum! Enjoy! xx

chocoholic

Yep, thats' me! How about you? Hands up, who here has snuck into the cooking chocolate in desperate times?! I found this recipe for yummy raw fudge balls a few years back and I recently just rediscovered it. They are sooo good and super easy to make!

(recipe from lolaberry.com)

You will need:
1 cup pited dates
1 cup walnuts
1/2 cup coconut
1/4 raw cacao powder

Pop all the ingredients in to a food processor, roll the mixture into balls and then coat in either more cacao powder or coconut. Golly wiz, they are so darn good! You can play around with the ingredients too by using different nuts and dried fruits. These 4 ingredients have saved me from making a few naughty trips to the shops in search for a chocolatey fix, hooray for that! xx

sunshine, picnics and lemonade

Today my little ones and I all had a very homemade picnic. We ate homemade pizza and drank homemade lemonade in the tree house that my husband handmade for the girls. Our little ones love getting involved in making things. I think it's so important for them to understand and appreciate the time and effort that goes into making things. Lemonade is a favourite in this household. It's super easy to make! Would you like to make some too?

You will need:
* 4 lemons
* 4 cups of boiling water
* sugar or sweetener (we use stevia) to taste.

Makes 6-8 litres

Remove the zest from the lemons and place in the boiling water for a few hours (it's best if you leave this overnight).
Juice the lemons and add to the lemon zest mix. Pop in some sugar or sweetener to taste. It should taste quite strong at this point. Now just dilute this mixture to as strong or weak as you like with water or mineral water! Enjoy! xx

community arts garden

Once a week I take my little ones to playgroup. We have a lovely little Steiner playgroup in the local community arts garden. My friends runs it and you can read her blog here. The community arts garden is a beautiful place for the children to run around in and explore. Some of the parents have plots there and sometimes we come home with yummy treats. This week there was chard that really needing eating! Here's what we made:

It was a pretty slap dash recipe.
I used:
a bunch of chard that I chopped and cooked down first.
about 300g ricotta
1 block of hard fetta
I popped some filo pastry into a muffin tray, filled them with the mixture and then into the oven for about 10 mins.
Easy peasy and yum!

xx

lets eat cake!

Today is Tom's birthday! Happy birthday Tom!! I made him a yummy lemony peach cake. Home made cakes are sweet. Cake's with lemons from my parent's tree and peaches from my pop's tree is even sweeter!! Would you like the recipe? I would love to share it with you, yes I would!

Ingredients:
175g butter
3/4 cup castor sugar
2 tablespoons grated lemon rind
3 eggs
1 cup of plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 cup natural yoghurt
3 peaches, sliced

Method:
Preheat oven to 160 degrees celsius
Place lemon, butter & sugar into a bowl and mix. Gradually add eggs, beating well.
Add flour, baking powder, yoghurt and beat well until just combined.
Pop the mixture into a cake pan and top with the sliced peaches.
Bake for 1 hour or until cake is cooked through.

And there you go.... omy nomy lemony peach cake!

xx

Summer Harvest

Hello there! Hands up, who's a green thumb?! It's that time of year when some of our garden's seem to be growing out of control, hey. Tomato anyone?! I have a really simple tomato relish recipe if you'd like to try? It's easy and it's yummy and it might save you from having a bowl of mouldy tomatoes because they just grow SO FAST!!

You will need:

3 tablespoons olive oil
1 red onion, chopped finely
1 red or green chilli, chopped finely
about half a kilo of tomatoes (I leave the skin on but chop into 1" size pieces)
1 tablespoon brown sugar
2 tablespoons red wine
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
2 teaspoons fresh oregano, chopped finely

Finely chop up your onion and gently cook in the oil until soft. Add the chili, tomatoes, brown sugar, red wine, oregano and balsamic vinegar. Slowly cook over a low-medium heat for about an hour or so, until the relish is kind of jam like. Pop into some clean jars and voila!

labels by write to me