Welcome Spring

It has been cold and stormy here for most of the past week, but before that I took some photos of our garden. It has only taken me a couple of weeks to upload them. :P
Here's our little peach tree in blossom:

It has many more flowers now.

Our nectarine tree has many more fruits than last year, though none are ripe yet.

 

And spread throughout the garden there are still many nasturtium flowers ranging in colour from dark red to almost white.

 



Really we have let the garden go this season. It is overgrown with wild rocket and random weeds. It still gives us food, namely chillies, parsley and the occasional onion (although the onions, too, are flowering right now).

Welcome Spring.

-Polly

Breakfast in a Biscuit

I made biscuits and they were good.

Once upon a time I had a gym membership and I used it. My favourite part was the Les Mills 'Body Combat' classes and I showed up for one every Wednesday morning (my day off at the time). After the class, I would walk a few blocks to the nearest bus-stop and head into town. Usually I'd head to my favourite café and order a black coffee and a 'breakfast muffin'. The café is no longer there and they stopped serving the muffins long before that, but these biscuits taste just like them!

Thanks to Vegan MoFo (that's Vegan Month of Food, for the uninitiated) I've been browsing vegan blogs again. Yesterday I came across this recipe from 'Vegans Eat Yummy Food, Too' and realised that I had all the ingredients to make them. I changed up the recipe a little and ultimately my version is no longer vegan. Oh well, they tasted good and are still healthier than your standard sweet biscuit.

Here's how to make them:
Ingredients

• 1 cup oat bran
• 1 cup grated carrot
• 1 cup Crunchy Nut Cornflakes®
• 1/4 cup sultanas
• 1/4 cup ground flax seeds (linseeds)
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 cup applesauce
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1 Tbsp margarine

Method:

• Preheat oven to 180C.
• In a large mixing bowl, combine the oat bran, grated carrot, sultanas, flax seeds and cinnamon. Stir until well combined.
• Fold through the applesauce, honey and margarine.
• Stir well until mixture clumps together. (Use your hands if you need to!)
• Shape into rounds and place on a lined baking tray. Flatten each biscuit with your fingers or a fork.
• Bake for 18-20 minutes until lightly golden brown.
• Transfer to wire rack to cool.

When my father came to visit recently, he left us a box of Crunchy Nut Cornflakes® that none of us enjoy as a cereal. This recipe, though, is perfect for them. Any time of day we can taste the flavours of breakfast, in a biscuit.

-Polly

Baking

We have been enjoying a lot of sweet treats lately because I have been baking again. Now that we've been getting some cooler weather, it seems okay to have the oven on more often. Recently I made these orange and date muffins using one of my mum's recipes. I hadn't tried this particular recipe before. Mum always made yummy muffins. :)

One of my husband's favourites is this caramel mud cake from a packet mix. It has been requested 3 times already.

I have also made Gran's banana cake, lemon cupcakes, apple-blueberry crumble, date loaf and vegan lemon slice. I put some of them into the freezer to eat at another time.

They all make a great morning tea with a nice hot cuppa. It has been especially nice to enjoy them together while my husband has been on holidays from work. I have been adding a few slices of lemon zest, along with the tea leaves, to the teapot for a little extra flavour some days. The coffee machine, too, has earned it's keep.

E is learning how to bake along side me. Her favourite part is licking the spoon!

-Polly

Autumn Garden

In our garden there are leaves turning yellow and red and falling to the ground.

Our smallest tree is giving us lots of lemons which we have been making into lemonade and baked lemon slice.

Nasturtium plants are flowering beneath the citrus trees and parsley has taken over the herb bed.

Honey-snap peas are sprouting in little pots alongside spinach, basil and rocket.

And we're still getting ripe eggplants and chillies.
I wonder if we'll get enough warm days for the green tomatoes to ripen.

-Polly

Making Pesto

We recently harvested all the basil from our garden, except for the new seedlings just sprouted. Here it is all washed and ready to make pesto:

And into the food processor. I'm loving this new appliance.

It's simply lots of basil and olive oil blended together. We transferred it into jars.

So far we have used it on fried field mushrooms, on veggie burgers and mixed with garlic and chilli for a pasta sauce. Yum. :)

-Polly

Peanut Butter Biscuits

I tried a new recipe recently and it has got to be the easiest biscuit recipe ever. Yummy, too. I can't remember where I originally saw it, but this is my variation anyway.

Here's the recipe:

PEANUT BUTTER BISCUITS
Ingredients:
1 cup crunchy peanut butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup oat bran
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla

Method:
Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.
Mix all ingredients together in a bowl.
Place tablespoon-sized balls of dough onto a prepared baking tray. Flatten a little with your fingers.
Bake for 9 minutes.
Let cool on tray for 10 minutes, then transfer to cooling rack to cool completely.

Makes about 24 biscuits.

Enjoy.

-Polly

Apples

E recently spent some time learning with and about apples. We spoke about different types of apples and I found a chart online with pictures of many of the varieties grown here in Australia. We went to a local shop and bought three different types: fuji, gala and granny smith. We cut some open to see the flesh and the seeds and had taste tests. E's favourite was the granny smith.

"Ten Apples Up On Top" by Theo LeSieg (Dr Seuss) was read a few times during our apple theme and is always good fun. E liked trying to balance an apple on top of her head like the animals in the story.

There are a lot of educational pages and packs online with an apple theme. We used this size sequencing activity from Confessions of a Homeschooler:

and this puzzle from the 2 Teaching Mommies Apple Tot Pack:

From that same tot pack, I printed two copies of the "apple match" page and we used them for some patterning as well as having extra pieces for colour-matching.

We had some fun in the kitchen and E learned how to use the spiral cutter:

We also made some apple pikelets using a recipe from a book called "Du jour: Easy but Glamorous Recipes for Every Occasion".

E requested an apple colouring page, so I found one at www.activityvillage.co.uk. We made our own little booklet sequencing an apple from fruit to tree. I also made some little vocabulary cards to go with our booklet, with pictures for E to colour. There were words such as 'pips' and 'core'.

There were more activities that we did on this theme, but this post is getting long so I'll share them another time. :)

-Polly

The Cat in the Hat

I read somewhere that today is World Book Day. Perhaps E knew that, as for the last couple of days we seem to have been reading non-stop. It's a good thing that she loves books so much.

Last week, as part of our "Dr Seuss" theme, we read "The Cat in the Hat" and then made some cat-inspired hats. We had previously painted some cardboard rolls red, so we used those and glued on some strips of white paper. At first, E wanted to cover the whole cardboard roll in paper, but she soon got the hang of leaving gaps to form the ABAB pattern of the cat's hat.

We taped on circles (or, more accurately, doughnut-shapes) of white card to form the brims and they were ready to be modelled - on our own heads and on those of various toys. (See also the skeleton in the first photograph).

Then we read "The Cat in the Hat Comes Back" and made some hat-inspired desserts. Our desserts were simply raspberries and vanilla ice-cream layered in tall glasses. We made paper coasters to look like the brim of a hat.

As we ate them, the ice-cream turned pink - just like the "cat-ring" and the snow in the story. :)

-Polly

Green Eggs and Ham

March 2nd would have been Dr Seuss's birthday, so there have been a lot of Dr Seuss ideas floating around the internet. E has a whole box of Dr Seuss books that we read regularly, but over the last week we have spent a few days doing some activities to go along with them.

After reading "Green Eggs and Ham" together, E had some fun balancing a green, plastic egg on a spoon and walking to different parts of the house. It took her a while to get the hang of it, but she was quite proud when she did. Perhaps I should have weighted the egg like Megan did at Coffee Cups and Crayons. Our egg kept breaking open when it was dropped, so that would have meant rice all over the floor unless I taped it shut.

We also made our own green eggs. Here's the recipe, although we didn't actually measure anything:

GREEN EGGS
Ingredients:
6 eggs
1/4 cup mayonnaise
handful baby spinach
small bunch parsley
1 tsp american mustard
a drop or two of green food colouring (optional)
salt and pepper

Method:
Hard-boil the eggs. Cool and peel.
Carefully remove yolks and arrange whites on a plate.
Finely chop spinach and parsley. Add to yolks in a small bowl. Mash together with mayonnaise and mustard. Add food colouring if you want a little extra green-ness.
Spoon or pipe mixture into egg whites and season with salt and pepper.

The verdict? E says "I LOVE green eggs!"
We didn't attempt green ham, but E did have a SPAM sandwich the other day which she rather enjoyed. Ew.

-Polly

Corn

Here is some sweet-corn that we grew in our garden this year:

Yesterday we had a "corn" themed day. Some of our corn was left until it was dry and I set these out on a tray for E to explore, with the cobs, husks and silk all separated.

She discovered that she could pull the dried kernels off of the cob.

I introduced her to dry polenta (ground corn) and we made some cornbread using a recipe from "The Joy of Vegan Baking".

E made some corn collages using little squares of crepe paper.

We glued on some real corn husks to finish them.

Some of the husks were also used to make this paper flower:

I thought this might be a good theme for the beginning of Autumn (according to the calendar). According to the weather outside, it's still very much Summer.

-Polly

Chinese New Year

February 10, 2013, began the Chinese year of the snake. Leading up to this festival season, I thought would be a good time for a "China" theme. We did some Chinese New Year themed colouring pages and quite a few themed crafts. E learnt how to find China on her globe and how to say "Ni Hao". We made a few paper decorations, like the "fu" banner to the left.

We learnt a bit about some Chinese inventions, including the abacus. E had lots of practice counting on her's. I also made a cardboard tangram puzzle for her to try and she has been having fun with it ever since. She also did a simple Chinese flag puzzle, but that wasn't nearly as fun. We made (and ate) some Chinese style foods including spring rolls, noodles, and a sweet & sour stir-fry.

Thanks to an idea from lightly enchanted, we made some goldfish kites (see right) to hang up around the house. E loved this craft and wanted to make more and more!

Lastly, we made some dragon puppets to dance around with. For these I simply printed the dragon head and tail pieces to colour in. Then we cut them out and glued them together with a long piece of folded paper in the middle and taped on a couple of pop-sticks to hold.

-Polly

Pancakes

Look at our yummy brunch:

This morning, E requested that we make pancakes. Instead of instant pancakes-from-a-bottle or plain pancakes, I made up this quick recipe. They were really tasty.

Blueberry-Yoghurt Pancakes

Ingredients:
1 cup SR flour
pinch salt
1 egg
1 cup almond milk
1 Tbsp olive oil
175mL (one single serve) berry yoghurt
1/2 cup blueberries

Method:
Use electric beaters to mix together all ingredients except for blueberries.
Stir in blueberries.
On a hot non-stick pan, cook 1/4 cup-fulls of batter until golden on one side. Flip and cook other side.
Serve with butter and maple syrup (or your favourite toppings).

Makes about 10

Easy as that. :)
-Polly

Baking Australia

As part of our recent Australia studies, E and I made a shortbread map like the one by the kids at Creekside Learning. We used the basic shortbread recipe from "Cookery the Australian Way". Here's E checking the instructions:

E got her hands sticky rubbing in the butter and then she rolled the dough flat.

I helped to get the right shape using a printed map and cling-wrap. There was just enough dough left over for E to use cookie-cutters to make her name. Then we baked it all in the oven.

E wasn't up to adding landforms or state lines like the cookie made by the Creekside kids, but at least we included Tasmania. E chose to make purple icing and we spread that all over our shortbread.

We added smarties in the approximate positions of each capital city and E had fun covering the whole thing in sprinkles...

and then we invited Daddy to help eat it. Yum!

-Polly

Australia Day

Happy Australia Day (for yesterday) to all the Aussies out there!

For the last week, E has been doing a lot of "Australia" themed activities. Here's just some of them:

We looked at maps of Australia in our atlas and E learnt where on the map we, and other relatives, live. She also learned how to locate Australia on her new globe.

E did some Australia themed colouring pages and we read some Australia themed books including "A is for Australia", "Wattle Babies" and "Possum Magic". We, of course, ate Vegemite sandwiches and lamingtons. :)

I printed out a simple map of Australia that showed the state lines. E coloured it a little and then I gave her cut-outs of each state (on thin cardboard) that she could place on the map as a puzzle. This also helped her to start learning the names of each state and territory.

We did some activities based on the Australian flag. E made a paper flag using this puzzle from Lessons Learnt Journal and some glue. I also made a slightly more detailed flag puzzle using thin cardboard.

I printed a series of Australian flags in different sizes so that E could sort them from biggest to smallest or smallest to biggest. She found this activity fun, but easy.

Lovely Living do some great, free printables. They do ask that you donate to one of their preferred charities using links on their page. Together, E and I made their Australia Day Bunting and hung it in the window above E's desk.

Yesterday, which was actually Australia Day, we put on our Australia bucket hats (mine has a flag design and E's has lots of little Australia maps) and headed to a friend's place for a BBQ and a swim in the pool. We also painted our toenails in green and gold:

I printed this little Australia Day book to take along. E and another little girl coloured it together.

I hope all Australians are enjoying the long weekend.
-Polly

PPK Burgers and Other Food

It's been a while since I've done a food post, mostly because I never think to take any photos of our food. Packaged tofu and frozen veggies really aren't worth blogging about, either. E has been helping a lot in the kitchen. She wants to do everything herself lately. Here she is making scrambled eggs:

Our big basket of parsnips was turned into soup... and then risotto... and then veggie burgers. The soup was going to be parsnip and garlic, but then I realised that we didn't have any nice garlic. I added a can of mushroom soup and it was okay, but nothing special. The next day, I used the leftover soup to make a kind of risotto, adding rice, peas and some extra stock and seasoning. We had leftovers of that, too, so after dishing up a second meal of risotto for lunch, I made veggie burgers.

I had been wanting to try this recipe from PPK for ages, but was hesitant because we don't have a food processor. I used a hand grater for the beetroot and made sure the onion was chopped really fine. Using a potato masher to mince everything together worked fine. I used the risotto instead of plain rice, omitted the garlic because we had none, and used curry powder instead of the suggested spices. I also made them smaller than suggested, using 1/3 cup for each patty. These burgers were really good. I served them as cheeseburgers in wholemeal rolls with cheese, pickles and tomato sauce. I would have loved to add some salad, too, but we didn't have any. The beetroot was fresh from our garden and I only used half of one beet to get one cup. We have really big beetroot.

Also, how meaty do these burger patties look?!

So our meals this week have almost all been from one basket of home-grown parsnips, but we've had a lot of variety. The burgers were by far the tastiest.

Have you been cooking anything interesting lately?

-Polly

[PS. My version of the beet burgers was not vegan. I'm pretty sure canned mushroom soup has dairy products in it (and perhaps some iffy additives). Add to that the fact that I served them with a generous slice of cheese!]