Baby food.

Our youngest girl is at that stage where she is wanting more variety & textures in her food, and eating quite large amounts, but our meals aren't really suitable for her yet.

We're vegetarians, we eat a lot of mexican food which can be a tad spicy for a bubba, and also because of our eldest's allergies we stay clear of the common allergenic foods for approximately the first year. When she was little that tended to mean that we often relied on the limited ranges of meat/egg/dairy/wheat free baby foods available around here, but those were often the most basic mush & quite expensive when she eats a lot!

So our solution is as follows... 

She is way beyond 'the icecube stage', so we went for a roasting pan instead!

What we should have done first is to line the pan with baking paper. Turns out cooked rice sticks really well to roasting pans.

I cooked a whole heap of rice, gluten-free pasta, and red lentils (rinse these first!), to slightly past al dente, and spread them over the bottom of the pan.

Then I steamed a bunch of carrots & cauliflower, just using what we had on hand, and spread them over the previous layer -

Then same again with green beans, peas, corn & endamame -

Chucked the whole thing in the freezer, then when it was frozen I tipped it all out (ok, gouged it all out), broke it up, and popped it into little one or two portion containers!

The little containers live in the freezer, and just before her dinnertime I lift one out to defrost (doesn't take long), mix some pureed vegetables through it as a sauce, warm it up & it's ready to go!

It was a bit of cooking initially, but it makes HEAPS,  and means your bub gets a good variety of foods every time, it's easier than making a little meal from scratch each night, is much cheaper than just using bought baby food (even though we do use the little 4-6m purees mixed in this), and it means you don't have to think about what to feed them if you are having something unsuitable!!

It's worked really nicely for us, so I thought I should share!

When is too much...??

THIS is too much!!

 For paul's birthday, I made a two layer rich vegan chocolate cake, with this concept in mind, and as such I (rightly) thought that buttercream icing would be a bit much for the filling & icing, so just did a plain cocoa + icing sugar icing... and that is where this started to go a bit wrong.. as we allll know, that sort of icing goes hard VERY fast. Too fast to be able to glue Kit-Kats on easily... 

And speaking of Kit-Kats... I bought 3 family sized Kit-Kat blocks to hopefully have plenty to spare. Nuh uh. Turns out family sized Kit-Kat blocks reeeeeaallly don't break nicely. In fact, they don't so much break as shatter. Or rip they base off the bar next to them. So there was a fair amount of chocolate shaving & gluing going on.

And guess who forgot that their ribbon stash has been missing since moving house?

That all being said, it was rather delicious!! Though it was SO sweet and SO chocolatey that paul had no chance of finishing all his portion.. Even the kids had a bit left over!!! Even I had a couple of crumbs left!!!

mmm chocolate.

On a much easier note, but still a little chocolatey - 

Chocolate chip Anzac biscuits from this recipe. But with chocolate chips thrown in too, cos that is how we roll.

(hey did you know that you are not ALLOWED to call them Anzac cookies?! There are strict rules about these things. I'm expecting a stern letter about those chocolate chips.)

Pancake Day!!

need i say more?!

ok, i will anyway.. shrove tuesday, another classic example of how us agnostics/atheists have the best of ALL worlds, because we can indulge in the culinary delights of any festival that we choose! Afterlife? well, have to cross that bridge later.... ;-)

anyhoo... we had 5 minute vegan pancakes, with choc chips & maple syrup, for lunch today... yum!! the recipe is in the recipes/tutorials tab at the top of my blog - it's a perfect recipe for when you have almost no ingredients too!

"Rabbit Food"

a chunky pot-pie waiting to have it's top crust on & be popped in the oven-(i don't think i'll ever cease being angry with the mystery auto-rotate thing!)

and a hearty pasta classic-ALL VEGAN!

i think i'll pass on the celery & pumpkin seeds for now thanks.

(edited to add - and both are completely soy free, for those who don't believe in the stuff ;) )

"Sunshine cakes"

if you are serving them to kids...

otherwise known as Potato & Carrot Latkes!
(for my friend Shar..)

I found these a bit weird quite honestly, but then didn't have the right ingredients, and they all got eaten, so hey, it's all good overall!

you need-

500g of root vegies - potato, carrots, beetroot, kumara etc - peeled
1/2 a small onion (or a pickling onion)
1/8 cup potato or corn starch (turned out i didn't have either, so resorted to mostly cornmeal topped up with Ogran No Egg, cos that is mostly potato starch - possibly contributed to the slight weirdness)
1/4tsp ea salt & pepper
1 cup matzo meal (again, none of that here, so subbed in plain flour - made these "traditional jewish potato pancakes" decidedly un-kosher)
lots of vegetable oil for frying

* grate all the vegies using a food processor
* in a large bowl mix the vegies with the starch, until the vegies have released some moisture & the starch has dissolved
* mix in salt & pepper
* add the matzo meal/flour, and mix well. set aside for 10 minutes.
* heat a large frying pan over medium/high heat, add 1/2 cm of oil to the pan. the oil is hot enough when you get lots of tiny bubbles forming around a small bit of batter.
* using wet hands, form the mixture into golf-ball sized balls, squish, then fry until golden brown on both sides, drain on some paper towels, then serve!

i never said these were healthy per se, but i suppose if you're interested in getting some lovely vege-based minerals & vitamins into your kids, and a little bit of greasiness is acceptable (we like rice bran oil), then these are a good option!!

my little big boy

my little guy was about to get a whole year older (it happens overnight you know) and so i decided he needed to join in on our first proper family birthday tradition - the felted crowns.

so i started with some wool-
(yes it's pink & purple, it was left over from lexi's so-long-ago Tigger Cardi (look how little she is!), and the only feltable stuff left in my stash!)

some food colouring & vinegar,

and some of this stuff-
and.... ta da!


the butterfly theme was because we inherited a couple of monarch caterpillars a month or so ago from our playgroup, and we've had a constant stream of them to look after ever since! Eli absolutely loves them, and has been finding the process fascinating, so i thought it would be a fitting theme for his crown :-)
i think he likes it!

i was incredibly proud of lexi too, who was inspired by my efforts to make eli a present herself as well! she decided to make him a toy horse, which turned into a unicorn, so i cut the basic shape out of felt (i like minimum 70% wool felt), showed her how to do a whip stitch, and off she went! I did the eyes for her, and threaded her needle, but the rest was all her work, even choosing the colours (it's red on one side, purple on the other ;-) ).

(there was a minor controversy on eli's birthday when she decided she actually wanted it to have a short mane, so hid behind the lounge curtains to give it a haircut without asking first, but really since it was her project she had to be forgiven!)

and of course there was birthday cake... not one of my sleeker efforts to be sure *blush*
but it tasted good & the kids loved it, so i'm happy!

Lexi's 4th birthday!

within a month doesn't count as late blogging!

due to unforeseen circumstances we had to cancel lexi's party, but we still had a little get together with lexi's aunty, uncle & baby cousin, which lexi was more than happy about!

i made a few things for it, firstly a Little Rocket (designed by a very clever friend called megan!)
(auto photo rotating grumble grumble)
made out of scraps of yarn from lexi's earflap hat & felted slippers (not bad value for an $8 200g hank from the titirangi markets!)
and a special new birthday dress (two years running now!)
i'm rather happy with the detail, the buttons are the same as her Spring Butterfly
modelled with the crown & cape that were handmade for her birthday by her nursery teachers(!!!)
and a very silly alien cake-
i think she enjoyed her birthday!

vegelicious

I dug up a haul of self-seeded potatoes a while ago, a beautiful purple heritage variety called Urenika-
not bad for a free potato plant!

and yes, they're even more purple inside than out-
people often seem to wonder what vegetarians actually eat on a day to day basis, well this is an example of the sort of meal that makes me happy...
a "token pasta dish", as one of my vege friends puts it, purple taters with cream cheese, green beans, and a salad with homegrown carrots, tomatoes & cucumbers (plus a bunch of other stuff) with way too much mayo.
simple, but tasty, fresh, colourful (before i added way too much mayo ;-) ) and with plenty of protein, for those that obsess over the stuff!

and speaking of home grown tomatoes & cucumbers, these are some of my Deka & Port Albert (respectively) heritage cucumbers-
and a few of the pretty Red Russian & J.Walsh heritage toms we've been harvesting... i've got some black toms ripening too, but they're obviously a later variety.
also dug up the garlic, and i'm very pleased!! i had a much smaller patch this year, but ended up with larger, plumper bulbs, which taste a thousand times better than the imported chinese stuff!
it's a shame i couldn't get a photo to capture it, but they had a gorgeous pearlescent purple quality to them, which made them all the nicer to have hanging up :-)

Cheesy Biscuits

or cookies, if you're that way inclined. alliterates better too, i suppose.

(any american types out there, *what* are what you call biscuits?!?!)
anyhoo....

1Cup Flour
1Tbsp Icing Sugar
1tsp Baking Powder
1/8tsp Salt
pinch Cayenne Pepper
2Tbsp Butter, softened
75g Grated Cheese
some milk

Sift the flour & other dry ingredients together.
Rub in butter & add cheese.
Mix to a stiff dough with a little milk.
Knead and roll out very thin on a floured board (ours were approx 3-5mm), cut into fingers, squares or shapes
Bake for around 10min at 200°C
and munch!

we had ours dipped in tomato & BBQ sauce ;-)

breakfast... chocolate pancakes!!

5min vegan pancakes!

Ingredients

* 1 cup flour (whichever kind you prefer)
* 1 tablespoon sugar (I used organic cane sugar)
* 2 teaspoons baking powder (maybe more?)
* 1/8 teaspoon salt
* 1 cup soymilk
* 2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Directions

1. Set out all your ingredients.
2. Set a stove element with a pan to medium heat.
3. Combine the 4 dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder, salt) in a bowl.
4. Add the soy milk and vegetable oil to your mixture.
5. Mix until smooth.
6. Now the pan should be ready for your batter, so spoon one pancakes' worth of the mixture into the pan.
7. Flip [carefully] when you see bubbles in the middle of the pancake, or if the edges are looking stiffened.
8. Repeat until the batter is gone, and try not to eat them all while you're cooking them.

(stupid blogger rotate-y thing!!!)
once i had flipped it once i sprinkled choc drops over the top to melt, then once the 2nd side is cooked, lift it out of the pan, fold in half & drizzle with chocolate sauce!!
awesome....

(gypsy if the kids, and me, are going troppo at playgroup today, well know you know why!)

(and we're away for a couple of days, so no blog posts, but hopefully i'll have something to show for it!)

Lunch

homemade bread and butter.oh yes indeedy.

just perfect with tomato & creamy local-ish camembert!(and yes, another attack of the random blogger rotator! grrr...)(and it looked way nicer a minute later once the hot bread had melted the cheese..just use your imagination)

If you want to try making your own butter, just pour some full fat cream, a pinch of salt + a couple of marbles into a large jar, shake like mad, then give up & beat it in a bowl with an electric beater or cake mixer. Squeeze & pat the butter to get all the buttermilk out, then refrigerate.
Just like that.

Don't eat the marbles.

Intermission

*doo-dee-doo-dee-doodoodoodoodoo. doo-dee-doo-dee-doodoodoodoodoo. doo-dee-doo-dee-doodoodoodoodoo-doo-doo!*

sooo....
a) the power supply for our puter packed in = no puter
b) school hoildays = kids who interfere with precious puter time
c) we've been busy ripping up the carpet = no table for puter to sit on (umm yeah, hi dad. we've ripped up the carpet.)
d) still knitting hoodie of certain doom. ok, so i exaggerate really, it's actually going rather well, and i only have this much more to knit -> until i run out of yarn anyway, hopefully that will be enough to finish the pattern too! ;) fortunately if i do run out the sleeves are orangutan-worthy, so i have a bit of yarn retrievable from there...

other than that it has been pretty ho-hum here on the crafting/making stuff front, except for this little morsel...

waaaay back last summer we grew our own popcorn. mini black popcorn to be precise-
which we finally popped one cob of - strangely resulting in the whitest popcorn i have ever seen!
tasted good though :)

guess what?!

i bought a nice big stockpot today :-D

so now we're all set for lovely winter soups, making jam.. and whatever else you use a big pot for lol..

i've already put it to use, can you guess what i'm cooking?!(and the one person who would definitely know can't seem to post comments here! *neener*)

foody goodness

lexi's 3rd birthday cake-

(it had been slightly poked, tasted & de-pebble-d before i took the pic!)

plum jam on the go-
yes i made jam!!
(unfortunately i was a bit worried about it being too liquidy so overdid it somewhat.. it has a serious caramel overtone, and.. well.. paul says it's a bit like trying to spread a gummy snake on your bread! lol..)

and today (while i was updating this blog!) paul & the kids made and decorated gingerbread men!

i evidently forgot to take a photo of the awesome apricot & capsicum chutney paul made for xmas pressies... doh!

Any excuse for cake..

but finishing a post-grad diploma AND getting a job is a pretty good excuse i reckon!

(it's supposed to be a blackboard, ok?)

it's a funny shape because i came back from putting the bub to bed to find...

and a certain toddler proudly announcing (with chipmunk-style stuffed cheeks) "I been eating a cake!"

and for the record, black icing is a bad idea.

pantry challenge..

i've been thoroughly inspired by sandra's 'using up the cupboard'ness :-)

so i did an inventory of the bitsnbobs in our pantry that, well, needn't be! and came up with...
chickpea flour
couscous
brown lentils
sunflower seeds
custard powder
oat bran
cornflour
sesame seeds
lime juice
dried cranberries (craisins!)
pinenuts (we don't like pesto..)
balsamic vinegar
miso
hulled tahini
sweet chilli sauce
Braggs All Purpose Seasoning
blackstrap molasses (best before june 07! does this get any worse than when it's fresh?!)
and the obligatory tin of treacle..


but with the help of Supercook.com i just whipped up this!-

granola!
(and just to the left of it is a pot of nettle tea.. what a hippy!)
basically you melt 2Tbsp of butter & 2Tbsp of honey together on med. heat in a frying pan..
add 1/4C of sesame seeds (i bunged a few sunflower seeds in too) and cook til golden..
add 1C of oats and cook, stirring lots, until golden..
i dumped approx 2tsp of treacle in with the oats too, just to use some of it up, and added the craisins & a few sultanas at the end too..
then spread it out on foil to cool! :-D

now, i don't actually know what granola is *supposed* to be like, but this is kind of a crumbly, clumpy muesli bar stuff, and rather yummy! once we get some more oats i reckon i'll make more of it to use up the rest of the seeds, and just cos i'm liking it ;-)

if anyone knows of any meat and egg free ways to use up the other stuff i'd be really glad to know about them! :-D

yeah ok, spot who's having a lot of thumb-twiddling blogging time...

golden delicious...

So here's the story..

a few months back i convinced paul to try making his own toasted muesli! He decided to try the microwave option... burnt it.
yesterday, inspired by the rubbish free year people, i decided to give it another go, but in the oven this time... burnt it.

today, tried again.. success! :-D
well, ok, it does taste a *tiny* bit on the overcooked side, but when combined with this mornings batch of homemade soy yoghurt, it's not too bad ;-)

(i also tried making bread rolls using the bread maker for the first time yesterday too, and they were great! yup, bread rolls, yoghurt & muesli all in two days, gold star for me! lol)