Treasure

I have been trying to make Elsie a 'Treasure Basket' for the last couple of months. A treasure basket should be a natural basket that has sides no higher than a coffee mug (so the baby can see what's in it). The basket should be filled with various objects - made of natural materials e.g. small glass jars, shells, wooden objects, wool, leather etc. There shouldn't be any plastic or brightly coloured Fisher Price-esque objects in there.

I have been searching the beach and surrounds for 'treasure' for a while now - I expected this to be easy but it has been surprisingly difficult. And then when I think I have found something cool for the treasure basket - it gets vetoed by the baby safety police (AKA Joel and Charlotte!). 

Anyway, we came to a compromise and here is Elsie enjoying exploring her basket

Elsie in the washing basket

Today we put Elsie in the washing basket. We drove her around the lounge making vroom vroom vroom noises (as you do...) - she loved it!

Joel and Elsie

I like this photo

The Deans

Robyn came around for a coffee with the girls this morning. It was lovely to catch up. Joel and I couldn't get over how well behaved Ruby and Sadie were. Such delightful wee girls...

Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies

This is from Marcus Wareing's 'How to make the perfect...' cookbook. I haven't tried it yet but I like the fact that it uses caster sugar - as the granulated sugar was obvious in the last batch that I made.


Inredients:
180g strong white bread flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
Pinch of fine salt
115g softened unsalted butter
75g caster sugar
75g soft brown sugar
1 medium egg, beaten
1/2 tsp vanilla
170g 70% chocolate chips or chopped chocolate


Method:
Preheat oven to 170C fan.
Sift flour with baking powder and salt.
Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy using a paddle attachment at high speed.
Mix in egg at low speed.
Add vanilla.
Fold in flour in two batches with a rubber spatula.
Fold in chocolate chips.
Roll into a 25cm x 5cm log on a lightly floured surface.
Refrigerate for 2 hours.
Line a baking sheep with baking parchment.
Cut log into 20 slices.
Bake 12-15min then cool on the baking sheet.

Cardamom Coffee Icecream

Been meaning to make this....


Ingredients:
6 green cardomom pods
375ml milk
250ml double cream
1 tablespoon instant coffee
115g caster sugar
5 egg yolks


Method:
Crush cardomom pods, place into saucepan with milk, cream and coffee.
Heat gently until boiling point, remove and leave to infuse for 20min.
Beat sugar and egg yolks until pale and light.
Stir in the cream, strain into a saucepan.
Heat gently, stirring constantly over a low heat for 8-10min until the mixture is thick enough to coat the bak of a spoon. Do not boil.
Cool and follow instructions for your icecream maker.

Charlotte's Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:
1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
3 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp hot water
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups chocolate chips
1 cup chopped walnuts


Method:
Preheat oven to 175C.
Cream butter and sugar.
Add in eggs one at a time.
Stir in vanilla.
Dissolve baking soda in water, add in salt and stir into flour with chocolate chips and walnuts.
Place spoonfuls on a baking sheet and bake 10mins

Charlotte's Light Scone Recipe

Ingredients:
350g self raising flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
85g butter - cubed
3 tbsp caster sugar
175ml milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
squeeze lemon juice
beaten egg - to glaze


Method:
Preheat oven to 220C.
In a bowl mix flour, salt and baking powder.
Rub in butter until mixture resembles fine crumbs.
Stir in sugar.
Place milk in a jug and microwave for 30 seconds
Place baking sheet in the oven to heat up.
Make a well in the dry ingredients, add liquid and combine with a knife.
Sprinkle the bench with flour. Turn dough out onto bench and fold 2 - 3 times.
Shape into a 4cm deep circle on the baking sheet and cut into wedges.
Glaze with egg wash then bake for 10min.

Feijoa Paste

This was a roaring success in my book. Really yummy - great with blue cheese.


Ingredients:

1kg feijoa pulp

1.2kg sugar

6 apples - chopped (skin, core and all)

Method:

Peel feijoa's until you have 1 kg of pulp reserving the skins. Set the pulp aside in a large heavy based saucepan for later.

Put the feijoa peel into a saucepan with the chopped apples. Just cover with water and bring to the boil. 

Simmer for 10mins then strain off the 'fruit stock' and discard the apples and the skins.

Add the fruit stock and the sugar to the feijoa pulp in the heavy based saucepan.

Boil the hell out of it for 4 - 8 hours - until the mixture turns a deep red colour and it comes away from the side of the saucepan. I made two batches and it took around 7 hours each time. Stir periodically to make sure it doesn't catch on the bottom of a pan.

Pour into a swiss roll tin and leave to set (we also poured some into sponge tins which was nice as you could cut it into nice wedges once set). Generally leave it exposed to the open air to set - otherwise it will sweat - you want it to dry really.

Guava Jelly

Trying this at the moment...


Ingredients:
Guava
Sugar
Lemon juice


Method:
Put guava in a saucepan and just cover with water.
Bring to the boil and simmer until fruit is soft.
Strain through a muslin cloth for at least 24 hours.
For every 1 cup of guava juice add 1 cup of sugar and 1 tbsp lemon juice.
Boil vigorously until jelly meets the setting test (put a small amount onto a cold plate and when it cools it makes ripples when you push the jelly from the side).
Watch carefully - this stage only takes about 10mins. 
Let it stand for about 10mins. 
Pour into hot jars and seal.

Moist Lemon Ring Cake

Still trying to use up a glut of lemons. Francine kindly sent me a link to this recipe for a lemon syrup loaf. It's a 'bung it all in the food processor' recipe which is perfect as I don't have any electric (or otherwise) beaters here in Westmere.  I also didn't have a loaf tin so I made it in a standard ring cake tin - it worked perfectly - I didn't need to adjust the cooking time at all.  Definitely a keeper. Yum

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/recipes/8059974/Moist-lemon-cake-recipe.html

Perfect Anzac Biscuits

I've tried a few Anzac recipes this year - with some disastrous results - but this one is currently the winner. I like my Anzac bisuits crispy - and this recipe gave me the perfect texture. The mixture was really quite dry..I had to squish them into shapes on the biscuit tray - but the outcome was great.

Ingredients:

• 125g unsalted butter
• 1 tablespoon golden syrup
• 1 cup plain flour
• 1 cup coconut
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
• 2 tablespoons boiling water

Method:

Preheat oven to 180°C. Line 3 trays with baking paper.

Place flour, coconut, sugar and rolled oats in a large bowl.

Melt butter and golden syrup in a small saucepan (don’t burn!), then add bicarb and water.

Fizz! Stir butter-foam into dry ingredients and mix well.

Roll a heaped teaspoonful into small balls and place on trays.

Leave about 3cm between them. Bake for 10-15 minutes.

Cool slightly before lifting off with a spatula to cool on wire racks.

Upper Huia Damn

Completing our week of fitness in the Waitakeres today we walked up to the Upper Huia Damn. I can't remember why now but for some reason we were running late during this walk and we ended up just power walking the entire way trying desperately to see how much faster we could walk it than the Department of Conservation estimates (unusually not much it as it turns out!). 


We definitely earned our sandwiches at the top.

Waitakere Walking

Today we went a bit further with our walks - we headed up the Huia Damn Road and then picked up the Twin Peaks Track, then the Tom Thumb Track, then the Karamatura Track which bought us back to Huia Road. We then walked back to Andrew and Jeannie's.


This was a great walk - we had a fabulous day. Incredible to have all this on your doorstep.

Huia Bay - on our way to pick up the track

Huia Bay

Huia Letterbox

Huia Bay

Sandwhich?

Backpack is doubling as a highchair

Our lunch spot

Scenic breastfeeding again

Mt Donald Mclean

As the weather is improving and our time living in Huia is coming to an end we have been trying to make the most of the wonderful walking in the waitakeres.


Today we walked up to the lookout on Mt Don Mclean.  Elsie loved being in the backpack as usual.

Storm the Lucky Cat

While we have been living in Huia we have been looking after Andrew and Jeannie's cat, Storm. Well Storm isn't actually their cat...Storm is the neighbours cat from two houses down the road. However, Storm decided that she much preferred to live with Andrew and Jeannie (securing her place at the top of the pecking order with no other pets residents) and she has remained with them ever since. The neighbour, Aleesha, works for the SPCA and as such has adpoted a number of pets along the way.


So you can imagine how we felt when last Sunday (4th September 2011) we accidentally ran over Storm on the driveway. Storm does have a habit of running down the driveway to meet the car. You then have to play a game where you inch forward in the car - then wait for Storm to run ahead before inching forward again. It is a source of much debate as to whether, if you just sped down the driveway, Storm would get out of the way or not. And we didn't find out - that's not how Storm got run over!


On the day in question we had just been to Avondale market to get our veggies and we were coming home. I had got out of the car to check the post and so I was walking behind the car down the driveway. There was a neighbouring cat on the property and I saw Storm trying to see the intruder off. Storm then came down the driveway to greet the car. Joel was inching the car forward much more slowly than usual - perhaps this was the problem or perhaps Storm was distrated by the other cat - but the next thing I knew I heard an almighty meow and saw Storm run/limp away from the car and round the side of the house. 


When I caught up to the car I joked to Joel "Did you just run over the cat?". "Yes" came the reply. Oh dear.


Around the side of the house I found storm crouched the ground and panting. Still alive = good, panting = bad. We carried her upstairs (she didn't like being moved) and gave her some water while we figured out which vets were open on a Sunday.


Vet found, we headed over to Aleesha's to borrow a cage to transport Storm in. You can imagine that went quite well. Knock knock "Hi I've just run over your cat - can I borrow a cage please". Not my finest moment.


Anyway, we took her to the Avondale Vet, who I was very impressed with. After two overnight stays and a few tests Storm was discharged home to us on Tuesday.


Cat sitter for hire anyone?

Licking her wounds?

Eight lives to go then...

Webber Street Picnic

We are moving from Huia to Webber Street on 13 September, however, as the Webber Street flat is currently vacant we are dropping off a load of our stuff everytime we head into town. Today we had a picnic on the floor after at Webber street.

On the menu

The lady likes to lunch...

Fun with Fabric

Elsie is developing a real fascination with fabric - she loves having it over her face. This is currently the way we put her to bed at night...against all Plunkett guidelines we lie her down and then drape a soft piece of fabric over her face. She loves it! Today she was playing with my black scarf. 

Elsie Enjoys the Funnies

I really really want to still be asleep