Eight

Eight. Hard to comprehend my squigy cuddly little baby boy is now a long lean lanky, callused palmed and boofy, eight year old boy. How the years have melted away.

The eight year old boy was lucky enough to score TWO cakes this go round, a pretty mean feat considering mum had spent the best part of the week prior away at Westech Field Days in Barcaldine. But seeing as his birthday fell on a Saturday, a second cake was required to share with the 6 little friends at school.

 

There was plenty of sisterly love going his way. Momentarily at least!

Lego and games, and a new hat, boots AND WHIP. All dogs in the district are cowering. Boy can crack a whip far better than his mother (who’s whip cracking skills are very lacking).

Cake One was a chocolate and freckles masterpiece that did not last past morning smoko.

Cake Two was a lot heavier on the sugar laden embellishments. Smarties and TV Snack biscuits surely do hide an absolute multitude of sins, do they not?!

Happy Birthday Angus. Now about that whip. Back corner of the back paddock is a brilliant place to practise your whip cracking, son.

Lots o' lemons

I got a very full shopping bag of lemons from mums tree recently, I love a slice of lemon in my glass of water. However this is taking things to extreme, what to do with them all?!Here are a few ideas that I've gathered from the www in case you too have a lemon glut....(and looking at these, the chooks must be laying well at the same time, which fortunately for me, with the arrival of new chooks, is the case)

LEMON SQUARES SLICE

MICROWAVE LEMON CURD

LEMON CHUTNEY (which I am finding a bit intriguing!)

FOOD PROCESSOR LEMON SUGAR BISCUIT (which doesn't use a lot of lemon really but I like biscuits I can make in my food processor: keeps the mess down)

LEMON AND PASSIONFRUIT SLICE 

LEMON CURD

As you can see most of these are smoko based, as any recipe I came across for savoury didn't include BEEF, which is what fills 99% of my freezer (although in-laws have found a good place to buy fresh fish down the coast, so will have to start supplementing the BEEF diet a little bit I think! or perhaps we need a keen fisherperson friend!) Although, that said, as I delve to the depths of a rattling empty freezer, there will be a bit of pork roast featuring on tonight's menu (a bit of a skinny scrawny looking one, the reason it hasn't been used before!)

Please feel free to chime in with your own lemon-using ideas! (I do plan on squeezing and freezing the juice from some).

simple and good

I lay no claims to domestic godess-try, in either the cooking or cleaning stakes, but I manage to adequately cater for and keep alive my little bunch of  hooligans.  My cooking tends to the simple and easy, and here I have a recipe that ticks those boxes and more, and has many licking their fingers and coming back for more.  I think its been around for awhile, but this was passed along from my auntie, who lives up in the cane growing country of Port Douglas, where there are many a good Italian (and non Italian!) cook.

Sour Cream and Apple Slice

Base

3 tablespoons butter or marg

1 cup of coconut

1 packet homebrand vanilla cake mix

Melt butter (you may need more, I find that 3 tabs is a bit too dry for me) and pour into combined coconut and cake mix in bowl. Mix throughly and press into LINED slice pan. Bake moderate over for 10 minutes.

I may have used a tad too much butter, but it doesn't matter. Butter is good :-)

Next, whilst the base is cooling, assemble the rest of your ingredienst

1 LARGE tin pie apple (bigger than what I used, I had to use two) I've also been told tinned peach and the like are also good.

1 tub of sour cream

dessert spoon sugar (brown is brilliant, however any will do)

cinnamon

Spread the apple evenly over the top of the pastry base, and sprinkle over some sugar.

Stir up your sour cream in its container, and then plomp on top of the apple and spread all over. Don't be stingy ;-) although a full container in this sized tray might be a bit much. Sprinkle over cinnamon to your liking, and bake for another 10-15 minutes until the cream is set nicely. Cool for awhile in the tray, then lift carefully out using the excess baking paper, place on bench or cutting board and slice with a large, heavy knife.. Feel free to eat the dodgy corner pieces as you go :-)

Refrigerate once sliced. Not sure how long this will last in the fridge, as its never gotten past two days here, and I've rarely brought any back from a function that I have made it for. It is also a good one to make in a huge baking dish if catering for a big crowd, just increase the base ingredients to fill the tray and topping accordingly.

And even better, the ingredients can easily be kept in the pantry cupboard and freezer (the sour cream) so no need to run around madly when presented with an invitation to something the night before. This one is a winner for smokos AND desserts.

No thanks needed :-) Enjoy!

all quiet on the western front

I'm not much of a baker; well I CAN bake reasonably well, its just that I don't very often. I don't even dislike doing it - rather I dislike the mess I make (inevitable) and how quickly the results are consumed, meaning I would then have to do it all over again in a very short space of time, when I haven't even gotten over the stress of cleaning up the mess I made in the first place.

So, smoko's of an exciting baked nature don't come our way that often.

As you can tell from the expressions on their faces!

And lest you think I went all Fiona or Amy like (those two being ladies - both of whom I'd love to visit in real life and sample their cooking!) who like cooking and whip up wonderful delicacies at a moments notice, let me set you straight.  I spied a "bare" double sponge cake on sale at Woolies, and brought it home with me. 

I should have grabbed another, as really I wasted one cake by making it a double layer. But it was yummy!  With cold just-whipped cream and generous lashings of strawberry jam, there wasn't much left over once we'd all had a generous slice (or two, ahem!)

However, nothing like this for smoko today;  we had a reasonably late night last night celebrating an engagement, and no-one seems to firing on all cylinders, mother included!

Tidy kitchen drawer

The bottom draw holding all of my recipe books (not often used, to be honest) had been rather a mess for awhile, and the other day I finally did something about it. I threw out a milk crates worth of old cuttings and un-used freebie cookbooks.

Ahh, much better: (you are lucky I didn't take a BEFORE shot, although then you would be truly able to appreciate the after shot I guess!)

Also found (well, I knew I had them, but it tickled me to see the dates again - 1969 - 1970 etc) were these vintage lovelies!

I was having a dilemma as what to do with these booklets - which are full of great old fashioned and user friendly recipes (ie not containing weird out there and not easily attainable ingredients for those of us who don't have a flash Woolies around the corner!). 

When in the city recently I grabbed a cool Kraft A4 lever arch folder (how I wish I had grabbed two) in which to house these booklets and other recipe clippings - should I ever need more! in page protectors. I might hit the Kraft folder with a quick painted on coat of PVA glue just to seal the cover from any kitchen messes it will be sure to face!

I'll share the results of my Kraft folder and how it turns out, might be a nice project for the christmas holidays!