Art on the Fridge

Do you have art on your fridge? Magnets? Photos? We usually keep the toddler-height area of our fridge door for alphabet and number magnets. The other day, E decided to decorate a little.

Here she re-purposed parts from her Easter chicks to make a new artwork, incorporating plenty of those magnets:

And here she displayed some collage/drawings she'd done earlier that morning:

And another that we drew together:

There was a time when all that was kept on our fridge door was perhaps a shopping list. It's so much more colourful now. :)

-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

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

Parsnips and a New Toy

Whilst in our garden the other morning, E and I decided to pull up the last of our parsnips. They were intended as a Winter crop, but ended up lasting us a whole year. Better than the swedes, which didn't grow at all. :/ Here's the parsnips we pulled that wouldn't fit in our basket:

We decided to turn them into chips using our new toy:

Our first ever food-processor is from the same series as our coffee-machine and juicer both of which we are very happy with. Perhaps we're brand snobs, but after buying a bread machine (of a different brand) that made a total of 2 loaves of bread before dying (and not being able to return it), it's nice to have confidence that each new appliance might actually do what it's supposed to do. Plus, it's kind of nice having everything match. :)

-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

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

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!]

Toddler Baking Time

Yesterday, E asked for cake for breakfast. I said no (and not just because we didn't have any). She settled for yoghurt and fruit. 

After breakfast, we decided to bake a cake. 

We picked a packet mix from the pantry (red velvet cake) and got to work.

We poured the dry mix into a big bowl.

We counted 1...2... eggs, beat them, and added them to the bowl.

We measured out 1...2...3... quarter cups of milk and added that to the bowl.

(I don't have any pictures of all this. It's quite mundane and I hadn't planned on blogging about it.)

Then my phone rang. I went into the next room to answer it and came back to this:

Yes, that's our half-mixed cake batter all over the kitchen floor. E had climbed up onto the counter and decided to try pouring it into the tin on her own. Most of it missed.

E taste-tested the spilt batter (from the tin, not the floor) while I salvaged the small amount left in the bowl. By adding a little extra liquid, to get it back to the right consistency, I managed to make 6 heart-shaped cupcakes. They were quite tasty.

So there's our latest baking adventure. Has anyone else been having fun in the kitchen?

-Polly

Lots of Baking

cornbread

A few years ago, a good friend of ours gave me a cookbook for Christmas called "The Joy of Vegan Baking". While it is an American book, it doesn't use any weird ingredients that we can't get here and any measurement or temperature conversions have already been done. I have made many versions of the Chocolate Chip Mint Cookies over the years and it is one of my go-to recipes for cookies. I made a big batch of caramel-choc-chip cookies the other day that were a variation on the Chocolate Chip Cookies from the same book. Next time I think I'll cut back on the sugar a little - they're very sweet. Whenever I flip through, I remember that I mean to try one (or both) of the soda bread recipes. I don't tend to keep that much flour on hand, as we'll get moths in the pantry again. I really should invest in some storage containers with better seals, I suppose. One recipe that I used to make a lot is the Cornbread. I made it again the other day (after finally remembering to pick up some polenta) and served it with a veggie soup that used a bunch of our home-grown veggies.

And, just to show that we're not all about sugary treats around here, here's an easy frittata (not vegan, obviously) that I made last week:

1 zucchini (grated)

2 carrots (grated)

1 onion (finely chopped)

5 eggs (whisked)

1 handful wild rocket (finely chopped)

2 Tbsp parsley (finely chopped)

1 Tbsp flour

Squeeze as much moisture as you can from the veggies.
Mix all ingredients together in a bowl.
Transfer to a greased and lined pan (20x20cm).
Bake at 180C for 30 mins.
Serve with cracked pepper and fresh lettuce.

Mmm, all the greens in this recipe were freshly picked from our garden. If only we had the space for some chickens.

-Polly

A Blue Day

blueberry smoothie

...literally, as we're all quite happy here. :)

Colours make good, easy theme days. Today's theme, in our home, is "Blue". E and I got up this morning and put on some blue clothes. We made blueberry smoothies for breakfast. I know that blueberries are technically purple, but they are called blueberries and blue isn't exactly a colour that is generally associated with food. We used blue straws. E likes banana smoothies and although we did add a banana to our smoothie this morning, she took one sip and said "No!" pushing her cup away. So E had regular, not blue, toast.

I printed the word "Blue" in block lettering and we coloured it in using blue markers and blue crayons.

Next, I gave E a blue bucket and we walked around the house collecting anything blue that we could find. We collected toys, blocks, bowls, books, a cup and a hat. We arranged some of them on our blue couch to get these photos, which were in part inspired by Maple's gorgeous photos here and here...

...and we made some little buildings with the blocks after that.

Yesterday we had clear blue skies, so I thought that I'd be able to point that out to E today. No such luck, as it was raining all day and the view from our back window was decidedly grey.

grey sky

For another blue activity, we baked blue cupcakes. I know, I know, I said blue wasn't a colour for food. What was I thinking?! I usually avoid artificial colours in our food, especially blue. I've even refused to give E blue frosted cake at a birthday party. We had just about every colour patty cases except for blue, so we used pale, purplish, stripy ones. The cupcakes did turn out quite pretty, don't you think? They taste nice, just like normal vanilla cupcakes... but they're blue. That's just not right. We had one each, anyway. E gets excited about cake.

 One other blue themed activity that we did today was about the easiest yet. I gave E a piece of blue bubble wrap to play with. Pop, pop, pop!

Playing with bubble wrap.

-Polly

The Pigeon says "Happy Birthday"

E likes to have her daddy read "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus," by Mo Willems. It's very clever, reminiscent of a 'Sesame Street' book that we both read as children: "There's a Monster at the End of This Book," and is written all in speech bubbles. The Pigeon acts just like a preschooler trying to get his or her own way. I'm sure E is learning 'tricks' that she wouldn't have otherwise picked up on just yet, but it's a cute book all the same. 

Our whole family is pretty much obsessed with books. I can't wait until the council builds us a local library. I believe that they have allocated funds, but that's all I've heard. There are a couple of public libraries not too far away, but they're a pain to get to on public transport. In the meantime, we're building up our home library. We have bought a lot of books recently. Everything from board books to 500+ page textbooks.
The latest children's book to arrive at our house is a sequel to "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus" called "The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog", in which the pigeon has become even more impudent and we are introduced to a new character, the duckling. Otherwise, it pretty much follows the same formula as the first book. We realised that E probably didn't know what a hot dog was, so Hubby decided that we'd have hot dogs for his birthday dinner this week.

Mmm, cake batter.

Because it was a birthday dinner, of course we had to bake a cake! The request was for moist vanilla packet cake. Easy. E and I spent the morning baking. She could hardly wait to lick the spoon. While waiting for the cake to cool, I did a bit of crafting and made a pigeon. I would have used marzipan so that it was edible, but that's not something that I keep in the pantry. This way we get a keepsake, anyway. I had bought some craft felt for another project and the rest was all from my 'stash'. I love those big, white buttons that I used for the eyes. They're the reason the pigeon is so large. E and I then iced the cake and decorated it, with plenty of time left before hubby arrived home from work.

-Polly

Mum's Apron

Milk and cookies

We've been baking again. We made choc-chip cookies this time. E wasn't too keen on getting her hands sticky when it came to rolling the dough into cookie-sized balls, but she loved saying "Plop!" as she dropped each one onto the baking trays.

Mama's apron

In my last baking post, I spoke about E's apron. Well, here's mine. -->
I made it from an old pair of hubby's jeans. The main part of the apron is one and a half legs of the jeans, stitched together. I made little darts in the top to give it a bit of shape. The neck strap is made from the waistband of the jeans and the pocket is one of the original back pockets, cut out, and stitched to the front of the apron. I added waist ties from another old apron. I hemmed the sides, but left the bottom edge raw. This is a good, tough apron for working around the house.


-Polly