Holy Aioli!

I had a couple of egg yolks looking for a use and thought some aioli would be nice. I followed Stephanie Alexander's recipe from The Kitchen Garden Companion and it was really garlicky. Like, don't-have-too-much-hopefully-you're-not-going-out-afterwards garlicky. It was good, don't get me wrong, but less garlic next time would have made all the difference.

Nothing like making aioli or mayonnaise by hand to get the arm muscles toned!

6 cloves garlic
salt
2 egg yolks
1 1/2 cups olive oil
squeeze of lemon juice

Crush up garlic and a pinch of salt to a paste, I just did it on the chopping board with the back of a large knife.

Transfer to a large bowl and stir in the egg yolks to combine. Very slowly drizzle in the olive oil, drop by drop to begin with, whisking as you go. It will become thick. When almost all the oil is added squeeze in some lemon juice and taste for seasoning. I also added a little bit of hot water at the end to thin it out, it was very, very thick.

An Easy Weekday Dinner

This
+
this
+
buckwheat pasta
=
quick, yummy dinner after a busy day out and about.

Rocket Pesto

We got a massive bunch of rocket in our F&V box recently and I knew the boys wouldn't like it as salad leaves too spicy Mummy! so I turned it into the yummiest pesto! With brazil nuts instead of pine nuts it wasn't exactly traditional, but what does that matter!

1 bunch (2 firmly packed cups) rocket
1/2 cupbrazil nuts
1 cup olive oil
120g parmesan cheese
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
salt and pepper to taste

Whiz everything up in a blender of food processor until it reaches your desired chunkiness!

Enjoy as dip, salad dressing, a sandwich spread, stirred through pasta. Your imagination is the limit!

Organic Homemade Ricotta

The day before its 'sell by' date the organic milk at our local grocery gets reduced to a ridiculously cheap price. Being the food hoarder that I am I buy every bottle that is reduced (sometimes three or four 2l bottles) and use it straight away for cooking or freeze it to use later.

Making ricotta is a great way to use up a large quantity of milk to give a different product that is so versatile. A sweet dip for fruit when mixed with honey, a topping on pizza, a filling in filo pastries, the uses are endless!

Here's my recipe using just milk and vinegar. Too easy!

2l organic, non-homogenised milk
3 tbls white vinegar or lemon juice

Heat milk slowly to 97C or just below boiling point if you don't have a jam thermometer.
Remover from heat and stir through vinegar or lemon juice.
Sit, without stirring for 15 minutes
Strain through a muslin cloth for 30 minutes or until it's as firm as you desire.

I don't salt my ricotta as I like to have the option to use it for sweet or savoury.

Meal Plan Monday and Random Recipe Review

Last week's Random Recipe was Pot-Roast Meatloaf from Jamie Oliver's Ministry of Food (p161). If I had been as organised as I had planned to be it would have been better, but I was having a lazy day so skipped half the recipe! I was going to make the meatloaf earlier in the day and then just pop it in the oven when dinner time rolled around but I got caught up in other things so I had to do it after I picked Elliot up from Kindy. By the time dinnertime rolled around I really could not be bothered dirtying more dishes to make the tomato and chickpea sauce that went with it so we just had it as it was. I think the sauce would have made it, without it was just another boring meatloaf. Not bad, just nothing special. As we're not big meatloaf eaters at the best of times it definitely won't be on our list of regular meals.

Pot-Roast Meatloaf

1 medium onion, chopped finely

olive oil

1tsp groun cumin

1tsp ground coriander

12 Jacob's cream crackers*

2tsp dried oregano **

2 tsp Dijon mustard

500g minced beef

1 large egg

4 rashers of bacon ***

1. Fry the onion in a little olive oil with cumin and coriander until soft and fragrant. Put in a large bowl to cool.

2. Smash up crackers until fine **** and place in bowl with cooled onion mixture.

3. Add remaining ingredients except bacon and mix with hands until thoroughly combined. Shape into a log/meatloaf shape and rub with a little olive oil.

4. Place the meatloaf in a casserole dish or baking pan and then cook in a preheated 200C oven for 30 minutes.

5. Lay bacon over the top of the meatloaf and return to the oven until crispy - this took another 15 to 20 minutes.

* I subsituted these for a good handful of breadcrumbs

** I substituted oregano with some finely chopped rosemary from the garden

*** The original recipe called for 12 rashers but 4 were enough to cover my meatloaf

**** Omit this step if using breadcrumbs

What I'd do differently:

• I'd definitely make the sauce that is in the recipe. It was a basic tomato sauce with some chilli, Worcestershire sauce and balsamic vinegar thrown in along with a tin of chickpeas.

On to the plan for this week! We're having a short week, heading to Brisbane for a long weekend so only three nights of cooking here and then I'll plan with Mum the meals for the weekend. Also, we're trying to eat the freezer and pantry down so apart from some fruit and veg from the markets on Thursday morning I won't need to grocery shop! Hurrah!

Monday:
Sausages, mashed sweet potato and steamed veg

Tuesday:
Marinated steak, steamed veg and some sort of potato side dish

Wednesday:
Pasta with lentil sauce

Don't forget to link up if you're menu planning this week!

My Creative Space

I've not sewn or created anything crafty since finished Mia's apron. In fact, the other apron gift for our little friend is still sitting in the sewing room on the dining table along with a half packed up sewing machine. Life seems to have gotten in the way at the moment. I'm involved in starting up a Transition Town in our town (more info to come) and the kindy committee meetings have begun and the boys just seem to be going through a phase of being more demanding of my time.

Anway, it's a bit of a stretch but I still wanted to participate in My Creative Space this week so we've been creating a new flavour (for us) of ice cream .... HONEY!

This little man was so excited to make some ice cream!!!

Look at this amazingly thick cream! When I went to the dairy I spoke to the lady who makes the butter and cream and she said the thick cream (instead of the thin I usually get) makes much better ice cream and she is soooooo right!

When we went to the dairy to get milk yesterday Archie announced from the back seat that he'd like to make ice cream. Alas we don't have any vanilla so I bought some cream and tried to come up with something different to do, we're out of peppermint essence too so choc-mint was off the list. Then it hit me - honey!

I just omitted the sugar and vanilla and added 1/2 cup of honey. I used Iron Bark honey, it is really strongly flavoured so I thought it would go well with the richness of the cream but I think it's too much. Matt (not at all and ice cream person, odd man that he is) and the boys really liked it though. Plus I just wanted to use up a good chunk of the Iron Bark cause it is way too strong for me, I prefer a Macadamia or Brushbox but anyway, that is another post!

So the recipe looked like this:

Honey Ice Cream

1.5 cups milk

3 cups cream

1/2 cup honey

Warm the honey slightly to make it easier to mix with other ingredients

Mix together all ingredients and churn 25 - 30 minutes or until frozen like soft serve

Transfer to container and freeze until hard

 

Of course two boys wanted to help do the dishes!

A Big Menu Planning Post!

After having a couple of readers suggest it, I've decided to start a linky thingy so others can join in with my meal planning fun. I'm not too techy though, so I hope I've done it right! So if you're meal planning this week, link up and join in! You may find some new "blogosphere" friends and you will probably find some great meal ideas!

We're having a short, yet very busy week this week. As the first week of 'Meal Plan Monday' link up it's a pretty poor show but you get that some weeks! We're away for a long weekend this coming weekend and on Wednesday I've got a late Dr's appointment and then an early evening at a friends place babysitting all with Matt being away in Brisbane for work for the day and not expected home til quite late. Crazy days!!!

Monday:
Chicken and zucchini risotto (using up the leftover chicken from the weekend's roast)

Tuesday:
Felafel with flat bread, salad and yoghurt dressing

Wednesday:
No idea, maybe we'll have dinner at our friends, maybe we'll have something easy at home like eggs and toast after a pop home and pop out again.

Extras:
Chicken stock (from bones from weekend's roast), wholemeal bread, some sort of baking for the freezer for morning teas, choc-mint ice cream

I'm so excited to see what everyone else is planning this week!

Passionfruit Ice Cream

It's an exciting time in our house when the passionfruit lady is back at the markets! Hurrah! Unfortunately do to all the rain and flooding the only crop they've got at the moment is passionfruit, she told me last week that they lost over 15 acres of tomatoes and cucumbers in the recent flooding and three lots of earlier crops over the past 6 or so months.

This is why I love going to the farmers markets. I get to talk to and get to know the people who are producing our food. They know the boys, give them a free bit of this or that every now and then. Yes, we could get all our fruit and veg from the grocery but then we'd be giving our money to big corporations and the farmers that supplied them would be getting a pittance for all their hard work. I know that when we give the passionfruit lady $2.50 for a bag of passionfruit that all of that $2.50 is going to her, her hard working husband and their children that help them on the farm.

I now have two helpers in the kitchen!

These passionfruit were the first of their harvest and oh so delicious. We decided to add to that deliciousness by making passionfruit ice cream! It's just our basic ice cream recipe with the pulp from a few passionfruit stirred through and the vanilla omitted. I can't remember how many passionfruit and even if I could it wouldn't be accurate because it was a case of 'one spoon for the ice cream, one spoon for the boy helping'!

Don't you just love chubby toddler hands?

Our Basic Ice Cream Recipe

Makes 2 litres

1 cup white sugar

1.5 cups milk

3 cups cream

2tbls vanilla essence

Whisk together the sugar and milk to dissolve the milk.

Whisk in the cream and vanilla until combine.

Churn in the ice cream machine for about 30 minutes or frozen like soft serve. 

Transfer to a 2L container and freeze.

Lick the paddle and scoop out the super frozen remnants with a plastic spatula!

Random Recipe Review and Monday Menu Plan

Last week's random recipe was Megadarra from The Australian Women's Weekly's Cook, p400. It is described in the book as 'a pilaf-style dish, often referred to as the poor man's food of the Middle East' which I got pretty excited about! It was tasty, not complicated or difficult to make and very wholesome and nutricious. And as an added bonus, Elliot devoured two servings! It was recommended to be served with a salad like tabbouleh or fattoush but I knew that wouldn't go down well with the boys so we had it with a side of steamed vegies and some Greek yoghurt. The recipe says that it serves 4, but they must be four incredibley hungry people because it fed the four of us (Matt and Elliot had seconds) with two serves (enough for Matt and I to share for dinner each) in the freezer.

Megadarra

2 cups brown lentils

1.5litres boiling water

3/4 cup white long grain rice

1.25 litres boiling water, extra

1.5 tsp ground allspice

1 tsp ground coriander

2 tsp salt

 Caramalised Onion

1/4 cup olive oil

4 large onions, thinly sliced

2 tsp white sugar

1/2 cup water

1. Place lentils and 1.5L water in a large saucepan, bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered, about 15 minutes or until lentils are just tender. Drain

2. Meanwhile, make caramalised onion. Cover to keep warm.

3. Combine rice, extra water and spices in medium saucepan. Add half of the caramelised onion; bring to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered for 12 minutes. Add lentils and salt; simmer uncovered about 3 minutes or until liquid is absorbed.

4. Spoon megadarra into serving bowls and top with remaining caramelised onion.

Caramelised Onion: Heat oil in a large frying pan, cook onion and sugar, stirring for 5 minutes. Add half of the water, bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered for about 5 minutes. Add remaining water; simmer, stirring for about 5 minutes or until onion caramelised.

What I'd do differently next time:

• It definitely needs the salt, don't be scared to add it!
• I'd add some more spices, cumin for instance.
• I'd use the specified brown lentils. I couldn't find brown and already had red so I just used them. The result was more porridge-y than pilaf-y, but still yummy.
• I'd add more vegies to the Megadarra itself, spinach would be great.
• My friend Emma who blogs here has also made it since we had it for dinner and she omitted the rice completely and said it was delish! She also added a bouqet garni and spinach.

So, on to the plan for this week. It looks like this:

Monday
Fried rice with chicken drumsticks

Tuesday
Pork sausages, steamed veg and mashed sweet potato

Wednesday
Vegie quiche and salad

Thursday
Chicken Donburri - Random Recipe from The Thrifty Kitchen, p81**

Friday
Italian lentils with cous cous

Saturday
BBQ

Sunday
Bean burritos

** If I can find all the ingredients. It is a Japanese dish that calls for dashi stock, made from dashi powder yet our two grocery stores and Asian grocer in town don't stock dashi powder. I'm going to have to see if I can get it online or have a friend in the big smoke send me some in the mail! If I can't get it in time for Thursday's dinner it'll definitely be on the list another week, it looks divine!

Basil Pesto

100g basil leaves

2 cloves garlic

75g pine nuts

75g finely grated parmesan cheese

200ml olive oil

Process basil, garlic and nuts until finely chopped.
Add cheese and with motor running add oil through liquid spout.

Homegrown basil and homegrown garlic. So easy and so yummy with pasta!

This made a thick, dip-like pesto. To make it more saucey simple add more olive oil. This quantity made plenty for our dinner and lots more for the freezer.

Monday Meal Plan and Random Recipe Review

Last week our Random Recipe was Maggie Beer's Lamb, Barley and Cinnamon Casserole from her wonderful book Maggie's Harvest. I absolutely love this book, I've read it cover to cover several times since I got it for Christmas last year from Matt and the boys. The cover is a beautiful fabric with embroidery and it is full of wonderful photography and sentimental stories of Maggie's journey in food. Oh, and heaps of gorgeous, seasonal recipes.

While I randomly chose from the 'Spring' section, the dish was really a very wintery one, but still very yummy. It was a bit of an all day affair because I made the chicken stock in the morning and as the casserole took 4 hours in the oven, it had to be in by 1:30 so we could eat at our regular nanna hour for the boys. The lamb and pork was deliciously melt in the mouth and the barley had soaked up all the juices and it was very much like a risotto. I was just about to type out the recipe but in the book Maggie mentioned she made it one the TV show, and all their recipes are on the web, so here is the recipe and a pic, a much better pic than I could have taken!

A short week this week:

Monday
Bean Burritos

Tuesday
Peppered porterhouse steak with mashed sweet potato and steamed veg

Wednesday
Steamed fish with brown rice and steamed veg

Random Recipe Review

After all the busyness of the weekend and Archie's Baptism, I really needed to get back into my routine of meal planning today. I just couldn't face it last night and fell asleep on the lounge at about 7:30! It really was such a big weekend and I'll post more about it tomorrow.

The last Random Recipe was from a fortnight ago, I just didn't get a chance to post about it last week. The recipe was Boiled Chicken with Aioli from The Mediterranean Collection. It wasn't a dish that we'd normally have, but the sort that Matt would like me to cook more often. It was surprisingly yummy, really simple flavours that would be good for a cold winter's night. It was basically just making a chicken stock with added sausages and pancetta. Vegies like cabbage, carrot and potato are cooked in the stock and then it's all served up with reduced stock like a gravy. In the end I couldn't be bothered making the aioli so we just had it with the vegies cooked in the stock and some extra steamed greens, just cause I like to have heaps of veg!

Boiled Chicken with Aioli (without the Aioli)

Poule au Pot

 1.5kg free range chicken

1 onion, studded with three cloves

250g piece of pancetta

4 good quality pork sausages

4 carrots, trimmed

4 leeks, trimmed

bouquet garni

 4 waxy potatoes

1 small green cabbage, cut into wedges

1. Wash and dry the chicken and stuff the cavity with the studded onion (my onion was really big so I put half in the cavity and half in the stock). Place in a large, heavy stockpot, cover with cold water and bring to the boil, skimming the surface as necessary.

2. Add the pancetta, sausages, carrots, leeks and bouquet garni and return to the boil. Simmer gently, partially covered, for 20 minutes. Add the potatoes and cabbage and continue to simmer for a further 40 minutes until all meats and veg are tender.

3. When the meats are tender, carefully remove them and vegetables from pot and place, covered with foil, in a low oven to keep warm. Strain the poaching stock into a clean pan and boil rapidly until reduced by half. Season with salt and pepper.

4. Carve the meats and arrange on individual plates with veg. Pour over some of the stock.

Random Recipe Review

Well, we ended up having last week's Random Recipe last night after some unexpected take away on Friday. As a result everything on the plan got bumped back a day. The Random Recipe for last week was Pasta Primavera from Rose Elliot's The Classic Vegetarian.

As is my usual with recipes that aren't baking and don't call for exact measurements or ingredients I changed it up a bit in terms of both ingredients and cooking technique. If I followed Rose's instructions I would have used 5 different saucepans to cook 5 different green vegetables! I don't think so! I also added garlic and spring onion to the butter sauce. I omitted the broad beans because I couldn't find any anywhere, as well as the chives because our chive plants are too small yet to harvest any. I added broccoli and frozen peas too.

So here is my take on Rose Elliot's Pasta Primavera!

250g long pasta, spaghetti or fettucini

60g butter

2 cloves garlic, crushed

2 spring onions, sliced

handful of frozen peas (Rose gave exact weights for all the vegies, but I just chucked some in!)

handful of green beans

handful of snow peas

small head of broccoli, stalk and flowerets chopped

small bunch of parsley, chopped

In a large pot of boiling water, cook pasta and broccoli, adding green beans and frozen peas after a few minutes and adding snow peas just before the pasta is cooked.

Meanwhile in a frying pan saute the garlic and spring onion in butter, adding parsley at the end.

Drain pasta and return to pot, stir through the butter sauce and season with salt and pepper.

Serve with parmesan!

It was a big hit, especially Elliot who requested it for dinner again tomorrow night! We were doing our meal plan for next week at the time so I told him that we'd have it another night later in the week.

Speaking of meal plans, here is our plan for the week:

Monday

Roasted pumpkin risotto

Tuesday

Boiled chicken with aioli

Random recipe from The Mediterranean Collection p72

Wednesday

Pasta primarvera

Thursday

My birthday dinner - surprise!

Friday

Lamb and spinach curry, brown rice and steamed veg

Saturday

Fried rice with egg and veg

Sunday

Pepper steak with mashed sweet potato and steamed veg

Cucumber Pickle

A friend recently told me about a fruit and veg wholesalers in town that also sell a little bit of retail to the public. Their regular prices are more expensive than most fruit and veg shops and definitely more than the markets. They do however do 'throw out' boxes of produce that is getting close to being unsellable, bruised or just doesn't look quite right. These boxes are really cheap and earlier this week I picked up two, one was $3 and the other was $4! They were full of lovely produce and it's really forced me to think of some different ways to use it all up so it doesn't go to waste. At the moment we've got a crisper drawer full of apples! Apple crumble anyone?

In one of the boxes were three cucumbers and we're not big salad eaters. The boys would much rather have a plate of vegies than a plate of salad! I just knew we wouldn't eat three cucumbers so instead of them going squishy in the bottom of the fridge I thought I'd have a go at making cucumber pickle! It turned out to be really easy, just a bit dangerous with kids around cause there is hot liquids and hot bottles involved, but the boys were playing happily on the verandah for that bit thank goodness! I was getting the DVD player all warmed up!

Cucumber Pickle

3-4 large green cucumbers, unpeeled, thinly sliced

3 large onion, thinly sliced

3/4 cup salt

1 cup water

3 cups vinegar

2 1/2 cups sugar

sprinkle of pickling spices

Layer the sliced cucumber and onion in a bowl, sprinkling the layers with salt.

Leave to stand for 3 hours.

Bring remaining ingredients to the boil, stirring to dissolve sugar. Boil for three minutes .

Drain cucumbers and onions and add to pickling liquid. Bring near to boil but do not boil.

Bottle into hot, sterilised jars and seal.

Recipe from NMAA Cookbook, one of my favourite recipe books!

Kenny Gets His First Workout

Now that we're all (mostly) settled and I'm back to getting the good, bulk wholemeal flour I've started making our bread again. And boy, how I missed homemade bread! I'm sure my waistline hasn't missed it though!

Elliot loves Kenny too! And yes, my benches are normally this cluttered!

I'm not using the breadmaker anymore, I now much prefer to use Kenny to mix and knead the dough and then shape by hand. For our everyday loaf (which I make about every second day) I get two loaves from the following recipe. I've also been making raisin/fruit bread too so I'll post that recipe once I've perfected it.

The verandah is a great, sunny place for the bread to prove. Especially when Matt is out mowing the grass!

The original recipe that I used was from the Kenwood recipe book that came with Kenny but I've tweaked it a bit.

Everyday Wholemeal Bread

Makes two 700ish gram loaves

750g wholemeal flour

150g white flour

3tsp dried yeast

1 tbls salt

1 tbls bread improver

2 tbls honey

500-600 ml warm water

Mix dry ingredients together. Mix through water until it forms a dough. 

Mix on minimum speed setting for 1 minute and then turn speed up to 1 and knead for 4 minutes or until dough is smooth and elastic.

Let rise for 1 hour.

Knock down dough with hook on minimum speed and then slowly knead for another minute or so.

Remove from bowl and shape into two loaves. 

Place in oiled bread tins and let rise for at least 30 minutes.

Bake in preheated 230C oven for 10 minutes then reduce 

temperature to 200C and bake for another 15-20 minutes. 

Remove from tins and cool on wire rack.

A Decadent Breakfast

Our regular Sunday breakfast of pancakes was jazzed up a bit by yummy balsamic strawberries!

Wholemeal and Oat Pancakes with Balsamic Strawberries

2cups wholemeal flour
1/4cup oats

2tsp bi-carb soda

3 eggs

1/4cup sugar

1 3/4cups milk
1tbs vinegar

Mix together dry ingredients and eggs. Mix milk and vinegar in separate jug. Slowly stir wet ingredients into flour/egg mixture. Cook 1/4 cupfuls in greased frying pan over moderate heat.

For the strawberries:
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
2 tsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp arrowroot/cornflour mixed with 2tbs cold water
250g strawberries, halved or quartered

In small saucepan over low heat dissolve sugar in water and vinegar. Once dissolved add arrowroot/cornflour mixture and simmer until syrupy. Stir through strawberries.

Enjoy on a lazy Sunday morning with family and friends!

Guest Post

Today I've written a guest post for Meagan at Ecomilf as she spends some quiet time with the newest addition to their little family. Wishing you much peace and love at this exciting time Meagan!

I invite you to head over to her place and check it out and also check out her inspirational and informative posts. Happy reading!

For All That Ails You

We've all been hit by the flu this weekend. For Archie it started last Thursday, I was down on Saturday, Matt was Sunday and Elliot has fared pretty well really with just a bit of a sniffle and slight cough in the evenings.

I made this wonderful chicken soup over the weekend that we've been eating for lunches. It was inspired by a recipe from Nourishing Traditions, but I've changed it up a bit, adding a lot of garlic and fresh ginger to help us get over this bug. It is soothing and warming and was oh so easy to make because I had stock and soaked, cooked brown rice in the freezer. I put the chicken breast in whole and shredded it at the end so all I had to do was cut up the veg while the chicken was poaching away. Super easy, super good for us!

We had it again for lunch today, except Archie now has a bit of a funny tummy so he wasn't very interested. He has been surviving on toast, rice crackers, water and breastmilk. I hope the poor wee man is feeling better soon!

Chicken and Brown Rice Soup

2l chicken stock
1 chicken breast
3-4 cloves of garlic, crushed
a good grate of fresh ginger
1 1/2 cups of soaked and cooked brown rice
1-2 cups of diced vegies (I used cabbage, carrot, corn, broccoli stems and green beans)

Place stock, garlic, ginger and chicken in a large saucepan and simmer gently until chicken is almost cooked through.
Add rice and vegies and simmer until cooked.
I also added snow peas for the last minute or two so they were still crunchy.

Wholemeal Orange Muffins

The original recipe was from The New Muffin Cookbook by Family Circle and for Lemon and Poppyseed muffins but I think I have changed it enough to call my own! Obviously I used plain wholemeal flour with baking powder instead of white self-raising flour, I reduced the amount of sugar, I used yoghurt instead of sour cream, I used half poppy seeds and half chia seeds and I had to use significantly more liquid than the original recipe, 8 tablespoons of milk, plus an extra one of orange juice.

They are very yummy and very very morish! Luckily I made mini-muffins so if I *happen* to eat 3 or 4 while typing away at the computer it's ok! Making mini-muffins is great for the boys because I know they'll eat a whole muffin, instead of just picking at it in bits and pieces. They also take next to no time to defrost from the freezer! Great for sticking in lunchboxes for trips out and about or when friends drop by!

Next time I'll use some orange zest and just orange juice instead of the milk and see how that goes. I would have done that today except I'd already given Elliot the leftover orange juice to drink!

Wholemeal Orange Muffins

2 1/2 cups wholemeal flour
5 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup mixture of poppy and chia seeds
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 cup natural yoghurt
3 tbls orange juice
8 tbls milk

1. Mix flour, baking powder, seeds and sugar in a large bowl.
2. Whisk together eggs, yoghurt, milk and juice in a separate jug.
3. Add wet ingredient to dry and mix just enough to combine, it should be lumpy.
4. Divide mixture among greased muffin hole tray (I used 2 x 24 mini muffin trays)
5. Bake for 10-15 mintues in preheated 180 C oven or until muffins come away from sides of tin.


In the original recipe they were to be iced with a cream cheese icing, but I didn't bother and they were lovely!

Homemade Spray and Wipe

I have been on the homemade journey for a while now and one of the first cleaning products I started to make myself was this recipe to replace commercial spray and wipe. To be honest, we never really used that much spray and wipe anyway, we'd usually just wipe the benches over with hot soapy water from when we did the dishes. Once Elliot started solids and there was food everywhere, some of which was sticky and gluggy, I realised we needed something that could be used more often than just when we did the dishes!

For most cleaning I simply use bi carb and vinegar but that was really not cutting it on the kitchen benchtops and I wanted something that was simple to use. Sprinkling the benches with bi carb and then spraying the vinegar is too much mucking around (not to mention difficult on a high chair)! I needed something as easy to use as the commercial stuff, easy to make, better on the environment, cheap and that used household ingredients.

After some googling I found this recipe but to be honest, I now can't remember where I found it. I wrote it down on a piece of paper that has been stuck to the noticeboard in the kitchen for about two and a half years. When we moved I packed it in a really special place because I have tried to find on the web since and have failed.

So, this is not my recipe. If it is yours, thank you for sharing it! If it is someone's that you know, can you let me know so I can thank them and give them the kudos they deserve. Other than that I'd like to share it with everyone so we can all be part of the home/green revolution together.

Homemade Spray and Wipe

4 l hot water (just tap is fine, it doesn't need to be boiling)
2 tbls cloudy ammonia
125 ml white vinegar
2 tbls bi carb soda
2-3 drops of essential oil (I use a lot more than this, just a good
glug of Eucalyptus or Tea Tree Oil)
2 tbls dishwashing liquid

Mix all ingredients in a large bowl.
Stir to dissolve bi carb. It will fizz up a bit so make sure the bowl is a bit
bigger so the fizz is contained.
Decant into bottles for storage and spray bottle for immediate use.

Use in place of commercial spray and wipe.
Will keep indefinitely.