A Birth Day

Hmmm So i think im supposed to feel different today!! I don't ask for much, just a cake. If i get more, than that's great, i wont say no. I find myself grumpy at the looming day every year. My dear husband even had a surprise party lined up at our favorite restaurant about 5 years ago. I had a hissy fit and stayed home, he was devastated and told me that there were people waiting. Its a joke to this day, my sister always thanks me for the party i never attended.
So what to do with myself? I find i can compartmentalize every stage of my life because its been so vast from one experience to the other.
childhood
Youngster
teenager
foreign student
out in the world on my own
fallen
broken
mother
single mother
lost
found
in love
married
religious
student
baby machine (which i loved)
wife
teacher
healer
confidant
mate
friend
support

And now what to do?.......Most of the things Ive become will stay with me forever ie mother hopefully wife! and there are alot of things that t i know, i am and i can improve on always. I met a lady once who made an impression on my life. She said that she would seek out to learn something new each week. She was a stay at home mother, and still is i presume. She said she would pick something each week and learn about it. Well ive been trying to adopt this philosophy since i met her, but with my own twist. I did have a learning buddy but between her and i we have been pregnant since we became friends. So this being my 33rd year of life i am going to either
1- learn something totally new, maybe the piano or take those singing lessons ive always wanted or
2-join a group.
i cant really say joining a group to me is all that different from learning something new, as i don't play well in a team efforts, but maybe i hiking group or something active.  or
3-go back to school, which i know in my heart im not ready, nor is my family, for yet.

Ive been sitting on my lounge for the past few days thinking of who or what i am. I am determined that i will look back at this chapter and say "hmm i think i started back when i was 33, yes 33 was the year!"
Now its just choosing something i want to make apart of my self that will hopefully improve me. I think maybe i will start by going to bed! i don't really handle sleep deprivation the way i used to : )

Free Fruit!

 

Yesterday Dean had the pleasure of driving all the way down to my mothers house and back! and she loaded him up with some lovely fruit. Well the bananas are on their way out and half the Apricots are soft and bruised. Actually to look at this photo some of you (you know the whole 3 of you that read my blog) may say WHAT! but i say hellllooo baking day!

With kids going back to school in about a month and banana prices going up i would be stupid not to put these beauties to work. So banana bread it is for today. There are about 30 bananas there and so that calls for alot of bread. I have a whole bunch of apple sauce that i bottled from last season that needed to be used. I remember seeing a recipe i have somewhere that called for apple sauce so there you go. But when i read the review on the bread again i noticed that people were say to substitue this and that and wow! so i just took a bit from each advice and this is what i did. Its not the fluffiest banana bread recipe i have but its definantly moist, going into school lunch boxes, and my kids will eat it. Or do what i found out Charna was doing with my muffins last year SELL them! (she didnt actually know she was selling them she said to me one day that she swapped someone $2 for my muffin i had to explain to her that that is selling!)

Banana bread the way i made it with Apple sauce

Blend 5 bananas together

add

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

mix and leave to sit for 15mins

then add

2 eggs

1/2 cup of applesauce

mix well

add

1tsp vanilla

2 cups plain flour

1 tsp baking soda

1tsp baking powder

1tsp cinnamon or chocolate chips

I had a block of lindt dark chocolate with pear pieces inside no one in this house was going to eat it like it was so into the bread it went. 2 loaves with cinnamon and 2 with choc for today!

Mix  till only just combined then bake in 2 loaf pans for 30-45 mins. Im going to wrap them and freeze them for school. 1 loaf =1 week. It wont last the whole week but if i haven't had the chance to bake that week or if its Monday and im not organized, thats when i whip them out. And at least they have had some sort of homemadeness for the week. : )

I also made some fried banana scones for a treat today. So in total ive used 13 bananas. I will also make muffins and a cake for the freezer for school. It just makes life alot easier on those mornings you cant be bothered. . Ill also freeze a few of them for a later date. Waste not want not!. With the apricots i made jam and the kids ate some. I actually have a recipe for a cake that i want to try using fresh apricots not dried.

Gadgets

 Gadgets gadgets everywhere!. So for christmas this year my mother was kind enough to get me this Belgian waffle maker. I already have a waffle maker, but it only makes one at a time and there are 5 hungry growing kids in my house. So i gues my mother felt sorry for me having to slave away over a one waffle at a time waffle maker. But i tell you what......I love my mother. This is waffle machine makes 4 think and luscious waffles at a time, and is up there with my most favourite things in the kitchen to use list, the only thing that is above it is my Kitchen aid. Why?,  i hear you asking there only waffles!. Well now come over and ill make yo a batch and you will know what i mean. Im going to make a waffle Machine carry bag so i can take this thing anywhere i go. Crazy no way i just love waffles!

I triple the batch every time beating the eggs whites and everything. The left overs i freeze and the kids can take them out as they please and toast them for breaky.

 So up untill Christmas day 2010 i had one of those gadgets that are a blender and processor in one kind of deal. Yes i scored again and got a flash new processor from santa. (santa must have felt sorry for me too because my old one had a crack in it and i couldnt do anything liquidy). So that left us with this big ol machine with only one thing on it that i needed (the blender). So i went out and bought a new blender. In summer time my family love making smoothies and shakes. Look at the colour of these beauties!! imagine something that vibrant in colour growing from our earth. It can only be good for you.

Corona smoothie

1/2 cup frozen berries (mixed berries in this case you could use mango we often do)
1/2 a banana (freeze those too already peeled and halved)
1/2-1 cup of low fat milk
1 heaping tbls of yogurt

serves 1

 Smoothies and waffles oh my life just couldn't get any better!

This is my new flashy food processor. It comes with all sorts of fancy attachments. See them all there in the back? Well Dean was watching Jamie Oliver the other night and was inspired to make this dish. Dean said that Jamie said  : ) to use a processor if you have one, because whats the point of having it if you don't use it! (in reality i use mine ALOT) but i indulged dean and pulled it out. Recipe - Smashed carrots. So i peeled my carrots and fed them trough the processor with the slice attachment. MAN it was FUN!! quick too no sore fingers. Then dean put them in a pot with only a couple of tbls of water and boiled them quite high for about 10 mins.he added butter, thyme, and pepper. Then when they were tender he smashed them quite chunky. We ate them with rice and plum sauce chicken. Yes home made plum sauce i made last year at about this time!

a gift in use is a good gift!

Well Well look what we have here! Dean called me one night to" come quick and see this". Well it was worth getting up for because this is what he wanted to show me. Baydan was playing with his bath pack kealin made for him for Christmas. And actually when i think of it those cut out sponges are always stuck on the shower window now. worth it? YES!

Holiday Fun For free

So ok,  I always get given a hard time because i loovvee having my kids home for the holidays. I love having them around, I love sleeping in and hearing them slowly get out of bed and play, i love making my own plans and i love doing fun stuff with them. The only problem is there isn't many things to do without spending a little money. Movies = money, mini golf = money, the town pool = money, a take away lunch = money, a local fair these days often  = entry fee money!.One of my New Years resolutions is to try to not spent money everyday. Yes Yes i know this sounds silly but between paying bills, groceries, petrol, stuff here things there i noticed that there isn't many days i go without spending a little money.Take a picnic for example, a picnic you would think wouldn't cost a lot of money, but it could, and most of the time i do spend money on picnics on things i can go with out, like fizzy drinks, lollies, expansive salad things (fancy kinds of veggies), maybe a bbq chicken and chips from the corner shop, paper plates, snacks,  hmmm what else, i don't know just STUFF!. On the other hand if you use your head and think outside the box a picnic really can be quite inexpensive.

A beautiful day only means one thing to me....A day outside, Yes a picnic at the beach!. My family and i just came back from our Christmas holiday with my parents a few days ago. And i don't know about you but i like to clean out the fridge and have my House sorted before i go. Oh i leave some things in the fridge, say if its only for a week and a half like i went for i left a few veggies that don't perish fast ie carrots and potatoes, i use powdered milk so its only a matter of making some up etc etc. I always save a little cash for when im home to get immediate things like bread and cheese. Although this year we came back late Saturday and we don't shop on a Sunday so i had to make bread : ( (i love making bread but not out of necessity silly i know). So my point is i didn't really have anything but mainly food storage stuff to pull together a picnic feast, and when trying to stick to a budget and pay day looming in on a few days from now,  i thought..... All the things i normally take on a picnic or variations of the same kind of menu were already at home. A day at the beach can be low cost food and all. And this is how We do it.
New Years resolution broken yes...but not by much.

New Years Day Picnic 2011

Ok So i always take a chocolate cake with me on any picnic, well a chocolate cake or a batch of brownies maybe a slice, no actually im lying i would never make a slice instead of a chocolate cake. I would make it as well as a chocolate cake!! So this would be the first thing i do, make up a chocolate cake batter and put it in the oven right away (the oven would be pre heated i turn it on before i start mixing batter) I have a multitude of chocolate cake recipes. And i use different ones for different reasons. This time i used my Perfectly chocolate choc cake recipe, its quick to whip up, everything goes into one bowl, and i didnt have much butter, this recipe calls for oil. If your wondering why my cake is on a cooling rack on a chair outside? well its because i need it to cool down, hey if it was good enough for women in the "old day" to cool their food on a ledge outside their kitchen windows....its good enogh for my cake to be on a chair outside my kitchen door!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While the cake is cooking i wash out my bowl and make up a mix of cookies. Today i choose peanut butter cookies, for two reasons. 1- Dean was given a few packets of kisses from work for Christmas and i love putting them on these cookies and have been wanting to since he got them. and 2- this recipe calls for only 1/2 cup of white sugar and the rest brown. After my cake i only had just! 1/2 cup white sugar. Note to self buy some more sugar women! So there you go i call these nut kisses hehehe cute hey? but when i don't have kisses i break up squares of Cadbury and push those into the middle. There is a tray like that in the back there as i ran out of kisses. Any cookie will do, cookies are an essential picnic food as you can take one shove it in your mouth and run away and do stuff!

 While the cookies and cake are either cooking or cooling i make up some sandwiches. I could have choosen to do egg sandwiches as i left 3 dozen in the fridge before i left for holidays but i also had 2 bags of carrots , why so many carrotts? who knows! so with the $20 bucks i had left from holidays i went to the shop and bought a kilo of cheese for $8, some fresh rolls for $4, $5 of Deli ham and $3 went to fruit. There are just some things that are worth there wieght in gold and cheese is one of them. I learnt this little trick from the mother of the two kids i have staying with me. 

Grate some cheese

Grate some carrot 

add some mayo

mix mix mix and then add it to any lunch meat you choose, its quick and the kids love it! i choose fresh lunch rolls and ham today

Pigs in a blanket anyone? These were the last to go in the oven. I raided my freezer and found some little hot dog sausages and two sheets of short crust pastry. Cut the pastry into 12 pieces and wrap 1 sausage in each piece of pastry. Bake in the oven you haven't turned off yet from the cookies. Let these cook till their brown. Put them in a container after they have cooled for a minute or two. They will be nice and warm still when you eat them!. I also throw in the cooler a little tub of Tomato sauce for dipping, heaven help me if i forgot that!!

The cake is finally cool and is the last thing i do before leaving. Actually it was because i wanted the cake to be nice and cool and i was waiting for the pigs in a blanket to cool off for a minute.

I also took along a couple of bags of chips. I already had these and anyone who knows us knows these are always an abundance in our house! (not that we are unhealthy or anything its just we always have them)

New Year Public holiday at the beach

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All Packed and loaded for the The day Don't forget water! from the tap of course its free and a little extra from the food storage to top up the empty bottles for the thirsty kids

 Eating the chocolate cake, the perfect start

                                                                Yep we had a nudie rudie

 Sunscreen and hats for all, But please someone out there sympathize with me here, Its real hard to keep those hats on!

 The traditional burial

The Serious fisherman only need to try!!

A rest from the day off? Yes i think so Marmaduke anyone?

And so ends a day at the beach cost?.....Petrol that we already had in the car. Might not have been all day but it will be a day to remember and a great way to start off the new year.