Summer crops

It's been fun :)

Yummy December

(It was actually end of Nov that..) I did a cooking class at Dosa House.
Jeyanthi showed us some quick home foods that could be done as a one pot rice cooker/pressure cooker  meal. Very interesting and she did a great job for her first time ever!

DS2 Also got cooking in his music class. "Noodles from scratch" like the song.

We also went to the Danish Christmas Fair - so going next year!! Yum.x

I went for lunch at Dosa house recently and Jeyanthi let me have a go at making my own Dosa. This is hers (no-one wanted to be in the pic).

  .. and this is mine! Small but looks pretty awesome! Ask I was spreading it out on the hot plate she was saying, "Ooooh!!! Suzi! Suzi!Suzi! Oooh!". I'm thinking "What?! What am I doing wrong?!"
She was just impressed. Apparently her waitress (who's also indian and not in the pics) can't make one this good. (She may have been being kind) :)

Our first fortnightly shop for 8 families in our local fresh fruit and veg co-op. Urgh! What a flamin' effort. It reminded me of doing a health food co-op order, but much bigger and not great quality of food. Cheap, but..

 So I'm not convinced.. I'll see how I go.

DS2 and I making picallili (should have done last month - oops!). This is one of the smaller yellow zucchinis on our plant (seriously!). We're growing a few marrows to stuff with left over Christmas ham, cheese and crunchy bread crumbs.. Or maybe quinoa, ham and apple.. yum!

Lego StarWars Prep..

I accidentally invited all of the kinds from the yr1 contact list... so here's hoping most are on holidays! :)

So far we've trialed, lego crayons, biccies (such a shame that my natural home made green colouring didn't stay through the cooking - poor yoda :) and R2D2 water bottles.

Onto the light sabers and death star pinata this week. Wish me luck! (No, I'm not going to say, 'May the force be with me'.. c'mon!)

 So onto the Jedi Juice, lego cake and Jedi training exercises. It should be fun! 
... now just to figure out where to have it... let's hope it's not too windy to have it at a park.

Sick of bad seasoning?? Solution!

Just make it yourself! I know, I know, it sounds time consuming and risky.
Who has the time to do that? How do you know the recipe you follow is even going to work out for your family?

I'm sick of the taco seasonings that just taste like salt and chilli. Mission brand was the nicest but still too much salt, so I made my own. Here's an "inspired" version, not traditional to any type of food but an easy base for family dinners.

So I used it as inspiration and made up one myself. Here it is, the Mexican/Moroccan/Indian Versatile Spice Mix:(inspired, not traditional!)

Step 1: Dehydrate
6 large capsicums (Red, green or yellow doesn't matter, I like red and yellow)
9 medium tomatoes

When they're ready they'll look super dry but will be a bit bendy. Leave them to the side for a few minutes and they'll crisp up. They are OK for safe storage when they snap like a cracker. Soft will spoil.

Step 2: Coffee grinder/food processor
Grind the dehydrated veg to a fine powder

Step 3: Shop and mix
From the store, get: Powdered garlic, oregano, sea salt, dried minced onion and white pepper. Mix to the following amounts:

1 cup capsicum powder
1 cup tomato powder
25g garlic powder
25g cumin
3T oregano
1 1/2 T sea salt
1 tsp white pepper
25g of dried minced onion.
Store in airtight container

Step 4: Cook with it!
Use 2-3 tablespoons of this spice mix with 500g of either meat/cooked beans then add some extras:

For Moroccan  add cinnamon, nutmeg and cayenne to taste.
For Mexican add fresh coriander stalks finely chopped, bit of parsley and cayenne to taste.
For a quick Indian dish add 2 tsp of your fav curry powder (I get mine from the local Indian grocer) with extra coriander and fresh curry leaves if you have them.

Above is my Moroccan version of the spice (with added veg stock cube) mixed with mince and cooked pasta stars then stuffed into capsicums to roast. Hubby loved it though I would have preferred beans and quinoa I think. :)

The dried veg base makes ALL the difference to taste without using salt, yeast extract and all the other junk in store bought spice mixes.

Enjoy!
x

Peanut butter cookies (secret ingredients.. sort of)

If you're out for a different sort of cookie, you want to reduce the amount of flour/grain you're eating, have a gluten free diet.. (and completely sick of gluten free tasting food!).. then THIS is the cookie for you.



It's YUMMO! I didn't have the vanilla esscence so added almond essence and maple essence. So mine tasted like an Almandine tart - can I repeat, YUMMO!

EDITED TO ADD: Since writing this I've had to go on a gluten free diet and to my horror - OATS are not gluten free! (due to the processing/growing of them with other grains). So please be sure to get gluten free oats for this recipe.

Check it out:
http://snapguide.com/guides/make-secret-ingredient-chocolate-chip-cookies/?utm_source=Snapguide+users&utm_campaign=c591d7fa46-newsletter-20130718&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b41a61f843-c591d7fa46-412488001&utm_expid=69945963-41.10jY8VZ6T0W-JifR9lgQOw.0

Raw Milk and Pickles

It's been way too long since I last had anything to blog about "dirt to dinner" wise. I've been extremely busy with Norwex which has been great. The Sydney team is growing, the Central Coast team is new and doing really well. Now it's just my own area of Sydney that I need to work on!

Hubby's been off work for 6 months now with a back injury. He's on the mend but in the meantime I've done my best to kick up business and make it work for me. It's been surprisingly easy (though a lot of work) as people seem really really ready for a change from the extreeeemely expensive, high maintenance, relatively short lived and time consuming Enjo. I'm happy to say that ex-Enjo consultants and customers are now topping up with Norwex and LOVING it!

Anyway! Mon-Wed is DS2 time. I finally felt my old self a little after making pickled onions and experiencing organic raw milk for the first time. It's illegal to sell for consumption, so it's not sold for consumption... if you know what I mean.

It was lovely to have a whole chunk of "watch me Mum!" time and peel then brine the onions.
 The wooden walkway to the door above was finally upturned about a week after this pick. We found 37, yes, THIRTY SEVEN RED BACK SPIDERS - Argh!!! Squish, squish, squish!
Below is the gnome's cave. Isn't DS2 so cute :) Even at 4 he still has those soft curves.

 A massive jar of the almost ready product. (Thanks Mum for the spices)

And below the raw milk. You can't really see in the pick the difference between the lite milk from the supermarket (right) and the raw stuff (left). There is so much cream in it! I must have had the stuff towards the end. Now how to find out a way of separating the milk and cream while it's fresh.

 

So if you're interested in organic raw milk (bathing, soap making.. or whatever) then let me know.
X

Today's funny... one of them

Honestly, I make delicious food for my kids, they refuse to eat it, 

(DS1) "I'm not hungry"
(Me) "Do you want an apple"
"Yes"
"Then you've got enough room for this, eat it"
"Nooooo!" etc etc
 

Then we get in the car and I find my eldest eating cardboard.....