my-speck

i'm pregnant and it's going to be a rollercoaster

Christmas cooking (with kids): gingerman bread December 22, 2011

Filed under: activities for kids,cooking,eating,family,Parenting,Raising a Child — rakster @ 11:04 am
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Yep, that is how we say it around our house: Gingerman Bread.

It’s very funny to watch kids try to wrap their tongues and heads around funny phrases and words. Especially when they are your own kids and you can just laugh out loud…

Last year when we went to Canada to celebrate Christmas with our Canadian family in the snow, we visited some friends in Vancouver on the way through who had the MOST amazing gingerbread house and scene ever made. Let me tell you. It was amazing. (Note I’m having to tell you rather than show you as I’m such a numpty I forgot to take a photo of the wonderful creation.)

They make one each year, and keep it up on display without snacking or nibbling for a few weeks over Christmas, and when the kids go back to school in early Jan they take it in as a treat for all the kids to eat together. And I was inspired – I’ve always wanted to do one.

So last week I emailed them and got the recipe for the gingerbread and icing, and started to think about making it… Then realised that although it would be fun for me, the two year old in our family would LOVE to help and the house construction and decoration is just a little bit beyond his decorating ability, patience-level and possibly balancing skills. I could forsee typhoon-struck ginger-house with icing dripping from gables aligned with the floor… (I’ve also been wondering about how a gingerbread house would ‘hold up’ here in humid Brisbane… In Canada the humidity is so low you have to have a humidifier on. Here you can almost drink the air some days. I’m not sure that any gingerbread house would have a long-life without ‘growing’ some of it’s own extra-special green decorations.. Anyone have experience with this is Australia??)

So I embraced the idea of just having fun with it and opted for gingerbread christmas shapes.

We invited O’s little cousins and grandma from Canada over and away we cooked. There was lots of mixing, measuring and then cutting.

rolling out the dough. Lots of helpers..

Then baking.

Then decorating. I put a sheet of baking paper out for each child, in front of them at the kitchen table, and three bowls each for the toppings: smarties, sprinkles and heart decorations. Then a big smear of royal icing on their baking paper and a small palette knife each, and they were off.

gathered around the table...

Little Miss L's lady..

little miss p's star

We were planning on gifting some that O had decorated himself to O’s teachers and a few other people. On reflection, after witnessing the licking of palette knife, fingers and smarties that went into putting his together, I decorated a few myself to give on his behalf…

But I still love the creations, licks and all!

mmm. a reindeer!

O's creations. Lots of licking when into these beauties....

….

love mum

P.S. Oh, I forgot. They are absolutely DELICIOUS… Thank-you Mickey for the recipe! Yum Yum Yum…..

P.P.S. I am now planning on making the making of these (and a gingerbread house when the kids are bigger) a Christmas tradition in our house.

P.P.P.S. And you may ask – where was the little baby during all of this? Alternately happily rolling around on the floor, breastfeeding and sleeping. She really is a dream child…. !

luna-baby watching the gingerbread-making process

 

And she has started eating…. We are going baby-lead-feeding.. December 20, 2011

Filed under: baby stuff,cooking,development stages,eating,family,healthcare,Parenting,Raising a Child — rakster @ 1:00 pm
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In other developments around our house, the littlest member of the family has started on her food adventure. I don’t know if I managed to get a photo of her first food (cucumber), but since then we’ve introduced a range of vegetables, a little fruit, and a bit of meat (cooked by her daddy), bread and crackers. Did I mention that you got your first tooth about 2 months ago at 3 months old?? Well, regardless of teeth, you are into food.

I remember when little O first had food like it was yesterday. Avocado. You haven’t tried that yet. Will have to add it in.

Dear Little L:
So far, your favourites have been: steamed / fresh snow peas (preferably from the garden) and turkey. Yes, your Dad cooked a Christmas turkey on the weekend and you are very much into it. We are giving you only whole food: the baby-led feeding approach (read this brochure if you want a quick summary on it). So your sit in your bumbo or on our laps, and get whole bits of veges and other stuff to play with and eat as much as you can of. And since starting, your hand-eye co-ordination has improved out of sight and you have no trouble getting the food from your plate to your mouth. And there is definitely some going down, as is evidenced by the seeds and other bits and pieces I can see in your poo. mmmmm… All good fun. We spoon-fed your brother a bit at the beginning but he really wasn’t into it at all so soon changed to the baby-lead feeding approach. For him it didn’t make much difference – he is just a little skinny thing. You seem a lot more into food so far in general. Thankfully. It is nice to have a little robust baby after the skinny minny your brother turned into at around six months (and still remains).

love mum

So around here mealtimes are a family affair.  It’s fun to see:

munching on some cheese: baby-led feeding

a family meal

Love and kisses :)

mum

 

getting ready for Christmas – cherry pie December 18, 2011

Filed under: cooking — rakster @ 4:10 pm

Also in the spirit of Christmas and the festive season, I’ve been busy cook, cook, cooking.

Mostly for fun (i.e. not so inspired on the family dinners)…

I’ve been putting together my version of a cherry pie.

Inspired by a sour cherry pie (a tart really) made by the welsh lady here in Brisbane. I’m not even sure she still makes them: I haven’t been into the store in years (it’s on the other side of town and really only totally loved the sour cherry pies). This particular pie was something I hankered after when I returned to Brisbane after living overseas for years: an individually-sized open-faced sour cherry tart with a custard base… mmmm.

When Chris and I first started going out, I talked about these pies and promised to get him one (food has always been a common love). But it took us about two years to actually get our hands on one. She didn’t make them all the time, they sell quickly and we didn’t get to the shop that often. One morning we turned up early, asking for the pies, and recognising that I’d been in a few times over the space of a year looking for them, she promised to cook some right away and for us to come back in a few hours. We did. The pies didn’t make it out of the carpark….

Anyway. I’ve been wanting to make my own version. But with fresh rather than bottled sour cherries. I got myself a wonderful cherry pitter for Christmas (a bit early) from my mother-in-law, and have been pitting cherries like mad ever since. The pie has been practiced so it will be ready for Christmas day (of course, just because you need to practice, we wouldn’t eat a cherry pie for no reason other than liking it!..).

cooked cherry filling

 

mmm.

open-faced cherry tart

One big fat fresh-cherry pie made with a custard filling from our lovely garden-fresh eggs… Yum…

open-faced cherry tart: fresh cherries

P.S. And thanks to my wonderful husband for cooking the fresh cherries. It was a joint effort… :)

 

bottles and jars November 3, 2011

Filed under: cooking — rakster @ 10:48 am

JARS PLEASE!!!

I’ve been on a cooking spree again recently. And to divert myself from the sweetness of baked goods and icecream, I’ve been venturing out to explore preserving and pickling.

We freeze a lot of pantry staples that I’d prefer to make myself rather than buy: stock, pesto, sometimes reduced tomatoes etc. And they taste 1000% times better than anything you buy at the store. But freezer space is limited, despite my having rushed out in the heat of a pregnancy-induced-buying frenzy and buying a stand-up freezer to replace our spare fridge about 6 months ago when I was 2 months from giving birth. Also, as the little O still needs to eat dinner pretty much bang-on 5pm otherwise nothing gets eaten and chaos descends, we often find ourselves putting together meals a lot more hastily than previously. So we have resorted to buying and using more frequently store-bought pasta sauce etc which we bulk-out with vegetables etc. I’d rather be using OUR pasta sauce.

So. I’ve decided to try to ‘can’ a bunch of things using the pressure cooker and jars. But, and this is where you come in, we don’t have many jars. So in the interests of feeding my family and you perhaps getting a bottle or two of yummy home-cooked goodies in jars, if you’re in the Brisvegas vicinity can you please collect any glass jars that you use with their lids (I’ll buy new sterile lids but need the old ones to get the size right) and keep them for me??

I’ll do pickups!!! Thanks!

 

Recipe: Strawberry Balsamic Icecream! October 23, 2011

Filed under: cooking,eating,Parenting — rakster @ 9:19 pm

strawberry-balsamic-icecream... yum!

If you’ve never made icecream at home before, this is my all-time favourite no-cook simple recipe.  Nothing beats freshly made strawberry icecream with a hint of balsamic.   It can be done without an icecream maker if you want to experiment.  Yum!!! Make it now!

strawberry balsamic icecream

450g fresh strawberries

150g caster sugar

1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

150ml whipping cream (36% fat) (i.e. plain cream)

method

  1. Wash and hull the strawberries. Dry thoroughly then start to process them with the sugar in a food processor/blender.
  2. Add the balsamic vinegar while blending.  Blend until ingredients are combined to a smooth puree.
  3. Pour into a bowl, cover and refrigerate for a few hours to allow the flavour of the fruit to be brought out by the sugar/vinegar.
  4. Combine the cream with the strawberry mixture and still freeze / freeze in an ice-cream maker.
  5. Put into container and cover with greaseproof paper (to eliminate air touching the icecream).  Then pop in the freezer and freeze for an hour until firm enough to serve OR  freeze but allow to soften for 20 minutes in the fridge if frozen solid.

notes

  • Yum!!! It never lasts more than one day in our house.  Amazing flavour!
  • I sometimes reduce the cream and add some milk for a lighter mix, or a bit of jam stirred through etc to change the texture.
  • make when small children are asleep.  then you don’t have to share. They will just be happy with fresh strawberries.  There has to be something exciting to look forward to when you’re old..

source

adapted from Liddell, C. & Weir, R. Frozen Desserts 1995

 

apple poppyseed cinnamon muffins September 28, 2011

Filed under: activities for kids,cooking,eating,Parenting,Raising a Child,vegetarian — rakster @ 11:12 am
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The muffins we made on Saturday are a staple around our house – simple, sugar-free (just honey), take about 5 minutes + cooking time, and can be done with pretty much any fruit you have about.  The original recipe calls for blueberries, but we usually do apple.  They are so simple, kids can help measure, mix, spoon and they are ready in a jiffy.

cupcakes! AKA apple cinnamon poppyseed muffins

apple poppyseed cinnamon muffins

1 banana, mashed

¼ cup vegetable oil

⅓ cup honey

¾ cup milk

1 cup wholemeal self-raising flour

1 cup white self-raising flour

½ cup poppyseeds

big dash ground cinnamon

finely grated zest 1 lemon

2 medium-large granny smith apples, diced 1cm or smaller cubes

method

  1. Mix together banana, oil, honey and milk.
  2. Add the flours, poppyseeds, cinnamon and zest and mix very lightly (remember that muffin batter should only be just mixed).
  3. Stir in the apple.
  4. Spoon into 12 lightly greased muffin pans. Bake in a preheated moderate (180°C) oven for about 20 minutes.

notes

  • serve warm! they don’t need butter that way
  • they freeze well
  • works fine with frozen/defrosted bananas (i always put my oops forgot about those bananas in the freezer for cooking.  Just skinned and in a freezer bag/container.
  • you can substitute pretty much any fruit, or a combination, or put more or less to your tastes.

variations

blueberry

substitute 1 cup blueberries (fresh or frozen) for the apple, and omit the poppyseeds, cinnamon and lemon zest.

source

the original blueberry recipe from: Creber, Ann. (1988) The Almost Healthy Cookbook p13

 

 

P.S.  Always looking for new muffin recipes – let me know if you have a favourite!

 

Saturday morning breakfast… September 24, 2011

Filed under: activities for kids,cooking,development stages,Parenting,playing,Raising a Child — rakster @ 10:02 am

“Mum, can we make cupcakes?”

Mmmm..  I don’t think he’ll know the difference between cupcakes and sugar-free apple and cinnamon and poppyseed muffins….

Let’s cook!

eating the spoon

can I lick the spoon now??

We mixed the batter, licked the spoon and baked.

They turned out well:

cupcakes! AKA apple cinnamon poppyseed muffins


off to the garden for breakfast:

Eating the end result!

 

Juggling a temper with an ear infection… and cuteness.. September 15, 2011

Filed under: activities for kids,baby stuff,baby's feelings,Communication,cooking,development stages,family,healthcare,Parenting,playing,Raising a Child,speaking — rakster @ 2:12 pm

Day three of an ear-infected, cranky little boy. And a sleeping-a-lot-trying-to-fight-it-off little babe.

Mummy is going a bit stir crazy. She was seen stalking the neighbour’s cat with a squirt gun this afternoon through the back garden… By a workman who she didn’t notice in the other neighbour’s garden. Nice look. He waited until she had been down there for about 5 minutes acting like a dodgy commando-action-hero actor before he made his presence known by raucous laughter. She was a tad embarrased. But granted, she was doing it as the blasted cat was trying to eat her two new chickens. And for some light self-entertainment (she makes her own fun). The workman graciously pointed out where the chickens had gone and where the cat was hiding when his laughter subsided.

As you can see, fours days with two children at home all day, one of whom is on full whine/tantrum/attention-needing at all waking hours, with very little adult human interaction, has left her unable to speak in the first person anymore. She has reverted to full third-person child-speak. God-knows why.

The only saving grace was a few minutes last night when she was preparing dinner. Little O was very excited to be at the big table on his new grown-up big chair and was entertaining his sister with the gift she so carefully chose for him when she was born.

entertaining the little sister


cuteness.

drilling - hard work

 

Cooking Experiment – Rocky Road…. August 11, 2011

Filed under: cooking,Parenting — rakster @ 1:31 pm
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Can I rate it before I describe the process?? YES?

FAIL, total fail, on an objective how good was your rocky road quality test.

PASS, exuberant PASS on a subjective how good does it taste test.

OFF THE SCALE SUCCESS on was it a good way to spend a Saturday afternoon with your rocking little sister test.

So, as I mentioned in a previous post, on the weekend we attempted to emulate the amazing Noosa Chocolate Factory’s Rocky Road

Which was a very fun process, but not so successful in emulating their product…

 

I started by making homemade marshmallows using David Lebovitz’s recipe, which worked wonderfully.  Light, fluffy and lovely to bite into and eat.

 

homemade marshmallow

cutting up the homemade marshmallow and the finished product! Yum

It was the fruit jelly layer that was our first undoing.  We had a number of attempts, using no recipe but ones we adapted using a mix of gelatin and agar.  Then realized after attempt #5 that the Noosa chocolate factory actually use pectin.  Which we decided we didn’t want to try at 4pm after attempt #5.    We ended up with one set of jelly that we thought would hold together ok and tasted ok.  Ok, not wonderful, but worth a shot.  …

attempts at fruit jelly layer for rocky road

Then we tried to mix it all together: our roasted peanuts, coconut, marshmallow, fruit jelly and melted chocolate…..

 

My sister was all for just throwing it in together and mixing.  I decided I’d prefer to experiment with a few techniques.  Luckily we went with my advice, as guess what?  Hot melted chocolate melts marshmallows made with egg white and gelatin!  Who would have thought!

But we had a hoot: laughing, eating sticky piles of goo, and eventually ending up with a few samples that we might actually serve to friends.

 

attempts to combine ingredients to an edible rocky road

attempts to combine ingredients to an edible rocky road... note the bottom left... bit of a mess!

Overall verdict: FUN.  But still requires some tweaks.  I think we might give it a rest for a month and then have another shot…..

homemade rocky road

the finished product: sans-fruit-jelly-layer rocky road!

Love me.

P.S. and this was definitely a not-for-the-two-year-old dish. He would have bounced right into the sky with the amount of sugar in it!
P.P.S. If and when you read this when you are older, I was keeping you from it for your own good. And it wasn’t perfect, so have to perfect it before you are old enough to have it anyway!

Readers – have you ever tried homemade rocky-road? Any tips???

 

I won!! I won!! I won!!! (something for once, and something good!~!) and… the start of a rocky road adventure August 6, 2011

Filed under: cooking,family,Parenting,vegetarian — rakster @ 2:34 pm
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Hello,

here I am, quietly spending my Saturday experimenting with gelatine, agar and a few different varieties of a strawberry jelly… Because my sister and I are trying to create our own version of the marvelous Noosa Chocolate Factory rocky-road that is sold at the Jan Power markets here in Brisbane.


It is totally addictive and amazing.   I’m just lucky I don’t have the energy to walk the 30 minutes to the city on a Wednesday yet when it is sold so I can buy it regularly… (though note to self: that may change. Bulge around the middle from baby-stretch: advises against incorporating this outing into the weekly routine. Taste-buds and sugar-receptor centre of brain advise: the case for – walking would burn off enough energy to eat a lot, surely that would compensate… and there is a playground, pool, etc at Southbank on the way, so it combines as a good kids outing)…

So the homemade marshmallow is done.  Thank-you to David Lebovitz for the recipe.

But the jelly layer isn’t going so well.

 

But I won!!

Frustrated, I returned to my computer to once again find some recipes for a fruit jelly and see what I could tweak after attempt #4 is not quite right… And got sidetracked reading a few blogs…..

 

AND DISCOVERED THAT I WON BABYMAC’S FABULOUS 5 YEARS BLOGIVERSARY GIVEWAY!!!!  Yes, me, I won!!

…  And the first thing I think I’ll enjoy is a glass of great champagne.  As I was just saying on facebook yesterday: “breastfeeding, bouncing and thinking, ‘oh yeah, I could go a cocktail’ while listening to the dj on jjj at the moment.. Greatest hits of my previous life as a clubber :) ”.  So next DJ set I put on I can express some breastmilk in advance, pass off a feed or two, have a nice glass of champagne and bounce along myself.

 

Thank-you BabyMac!

-r

 

P.S. Notes on the rocky-road adventure to follow tomorrow.