Baking on Mondays.

Yesterday, I made banana muffins, chocolate muffins and fruit buns. Here is the Banana muffin recipe.

Wordless Wednesday:: Pepperoni rolls.

The dough

ready to go in the oven


YUM!!!!!!!!!!!

Tasty Tuesday: The perfect Pepperoni roll.

The perfect Pepperoni roll.

A friend posted this link last year on DCF forums and I was going to make them.

I book marked it but never got around to making them. I wanted to make some pizzas and remembered them. Since we have re installed windows since saving the page, I didn't have it anymore. At first I couldn't remember what they were called but after a search at DCF I came to the page. I am going to make them today so will let you all know what we think of them.

I am not only going to do pepperoni. I will also do some with sundried tomatoes, onion and cheese.

Recipe swap Thursday: Anzac Biscuits.

These are one of my favourite biscuits to bake.


Anzac Biscuits!!

Ingredients:

1 cup (150g) plain flour
1 cup (90g) rolled oats
1 cup (85g) desiccated coconut
3/4 cup (155g) brown sugar
125g butter
2 tbs golden syrup
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda


Method:

Preheat the oven to 160°C.
Line two baking trays with non-stick baking paper.
Sift the flour into a large bowl.
Stir in the oats, coconut and brown sugar.
Put the butter, golden syrup and 2 tbs water in a small saucepan.
Stir over a medium heat until melted.
Stir in the bicarbonate of soda.
Pour the butter mixture into the flour mixture and stir until combined.
Roll level tablespoons of mixture into balls.
Place on the trays, about 5cm apart.
Press with a fork to flatten slightly.
Bake for 10 minutes or until golden brown.
Set aside on the trays for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack so it cools completely.

These also taste nice with about a teaspoon of ground ginger in them. Put in with the flour and oats.

Don't forget to pop over to Therese's blog to see other great recipes.

Recipe swap Thursday. Christmas pudding.

Laura asked me for my Christmas pudding recipe so I thought it was a perfect recipe to put up for the swap. Don't forget to pop over to Therese's blog for other recipes. I haven't ever made my own Christmas pudding but this is a recipe I found on the net that I am going to try:



1½ cups (250g) raisins
1½ cups (250g) sultanas
1 2/3 cups (250g) currants
2 tablespoons sweet sherry
1 medium (170g) apple, peeled, grated
1 medium (120g) carrot, peeled, grated
½ cup (60g) ground almonds
1½ cups (300g) firmly packed dark brown sugar
250g butter, grated
4 cups (280g) stale breadcrumbs
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup (150g) plain flour
4 eggs
2 teaspoons finely grated orange rind
2 tablespoons orange juice

METHOD

Combine raisins, sultanas and currants with sherry in a large bowl; mix well. Cover and stand overnight, or for several days, stirring occasionally.

Add apple, carrot, almonds, sugar, butter, breadcrumbs, spices, salt and flour; mix well.

Beat the eggs with rind and juice, stir into the mixture.

Use a 60cm square of unbleached calico; if calico is new, soak in cold water overnight. Next day, boil calico for 20 minutes, rinse. Have a large boiler ¾ full of rapidly boiling water, 2.5 metres of string and the extra flour close by.

Wearing rubber gloves, dip the prepared pudding cloth into boiling water; boil 1 minute. Remove cloth from water, squeeze excess water from cloth. Working quickly, spread hot cloth on bench, rub flour into the centre of the cloth to cover an area about 40cm in diameter; leave flour a little thicker in the centre of cloth where the ‘skin’ on the pudding will need to be thickest.

Place pudding mixture in centre of cloth, gather cloth evenly around pudding, avoiding any deep pleats. Pat into round shape with hand. Tie cloth tightly with string as close to mixture as possible. Tie loop in string to make pudding easier to lift from the water, leave long ends of string free. Pull ends of cloth tightly to make sure pudding is as round and firm as possible.

Gently lower pudding into boiling water. You may wish to tie free ends of string to handles of boiler to suspend pudding. (If the pan is not large enough to suspend the pudding, place a heatproof saucer in the base of the pan.) Cover with tight-fitting lid, boil rapidly for 6 to 8 hours. Replenish boiling water as necessary to maintain boil and water level. There must be enough water in the boiler for the pudding to be immersed at all times.

Untie pudding from handles. Place handle of wooden spoon through loop in string to lift pudding from the water. Place the pudding into a bowl or colander. Cut the string and gently begin to peel away the cloth, scraping the skin back onto the pudding with a palette knife if necessary. Invert the pudding onto a plate and continue to peel back the cloth completely. Cool. The skin will darken on standing. (We prefer to remove a boiled pudding from its cloth before refrigerating or freezing. This prevents mould from forming on the pudding, which often occurs when a pudding is hung at room temperature in humid weather).

Soak cloth in cold water overnight, wash and rinse well; avoid using detergents.

STORING PUDDINGS:
Wrap the pudding thoroughly in plastic wrap then place into an airtight container or freezer bag. Refrigerate puddings for up to three months or freeze for one year.

REHEATING PUDDINGS:
Thaw frozen puddings for 2 days in the refrigerator and remove them from the refrigerator 12 hours before reheating.
STEAMED: Remove the plastic wrap and return to the steamer. Steam for 2 hours following the cooking instructions.
BOILED: Remove the plastic wrap and tie a clean, dry unfloured cloth on the pudding. Boil for 2 hours following the cooking instructions.
TO MICROWAVE: To reheat the whole large pudding, cover with microwave-safe plastic wrap, microwave on medium (50%) for about 15 minutes. To reheat 4 single serves at once, cover with microwave-safe plastic wrap; microwave on high (100%) for about 3 minutes.

I got the recipe from this link.

A great day.

Today the weather was quite a bit warmer.

Steve and I started the day with Mass and then went Christmas shopping. It is rare for us to get to Mass without children and it was really nice to sit there in the quite before without a toddler whispering in our ears.

We completed most of our Christmas shopping with a hour and were back home by 10.30.

I spent most of the day cooking and sewing. I have started the Christmas cake (that I should have done a month ago) and I helped Amelia sew a pair of 3/4 pants for her to wear Christmas day. I will do her top tomorrow. Brigette's dress only needs the zip and Madeline is making her own dress. Once I have done Amelia's top, I will start the boys Christmas shirts. This is the best thing about holidays. I can get so much more done. When Christmas is over, I am going to sew a heap of summer clothes for Tom and Christopher. Everything they have seems too short or too raggedy.

We have hired Mario Galaxy from the video shop and the boys have been playing it a lot. I have had a couple of goes at it and I really like this game. Maybe we will buy it after Christmas.

I hope you all have/had a good Wednesday.

Therese

A fun day and a disaster in the Kitchen.

Today Bill and Linda had a wedding to attend in Port Augusta. Between the ceremony and reception, they came to our house for lunch and their 8 children stayed while they went to the reception.

It has been great having another family in the house. Lots of children means lots of hungry bellies to fill though so we made a huge pot of spaghetti for tea. I was quite surprised they were able to eat the whole lot. It was a nice sauce though.

I had my first cooking disaster in my kitchen today though. Today I decided to mix up a big batch of muffins. I forgot that the recipe needed 6 teaspoons of bi carb soda and started putting in tablespoons. I put in three tablespoons before I realized this is frothing up way too much when I had put in three tablespoons. This was just three teaspoons more than usual but enough extra that the muffins all rose a lot and then went flat. They also stuck like crazy to my non stick pans that had been sprayed with cooking oil. We ended up with ten trays of sticky muffins that we couldn't really get out. The muffins tasted okay but they were all in pieces. Oh well. I will have to make some more tomorrow and remember that it is 6 teaspoons, not 6 tablespoons.

mmmmmmmm. Fish tonight.

We don't usually eat much fish. I have been to the fish shop today though and bought two baby snapper and 12 fillets of garfish. Tonight I am going to try fish parcels.

The recipe I have in mind is this:

Mix together the following:

Soy Sauce, dijon mustard, olive oil, and chopped garlic in a bowl. Sprinkle the fish with salt and pepper and then marinade it in the sauce. Leave in sauce for 1 hour and wrap in alfoil.

Bake in the oven at 180(celsius) until done.

If everyone likes it I am going to make it a part of my oamc. To do fish for oamc you buy the fish fresh, put the marinade on it and wrap it in alfoil. Place in freezer and then when you want to eat it heat the oven up and place the frozen fish in alfoil in preheated oven.

Getting everything ready.

Over the last couple of weeks Steve has been preparing our bedroom for painting. If you all remember, our bedroom is an old kitchen so he had to pull the tiles off the walls and remove the taps too. The walls have been a lot of work. He is finally just about ready to paint though. Now the hard part is agreeing on what colour to paint it.

I have made a bit of progress with the children's clothes that need to be sewn and had a shopping trip on Saturday and got most of our presents. I will have another shopping day later this week.

I spent a bit of the weekend working out our food menu for the next two weeks. I found a great recipe for home made egg nog at As we wait in Joyful Hope and I am going to have a go at making it. If we have egg nog here, I buy it in a carton. I am also going to make some White Christmas and Rumballs and make a Christmas Pudding. I haven't ever made my own Christmas pudding or egg nog before so I am looking forward to making them both. I hope they turn out as yummy as they sound.

Hot creamy tomato ravioli sauce.

I am looking for your best sauce recipe. The children have asked for ravioli this week and I usually buy the packet sauces for it but this week I want to make it from scratch myself. So if anyone has a spicy creamy tomato sauce recipe post it below.

Thanks
Therese

Well I missed Tasty Tuesday so today is Tasty Thursday.

I promised Blondie that I would post my pizza recipe so here it is.

Ingredients.

2 and a 1/4 Teaspoons of yeast
1 teaspoon of sugar.
2/3 cup of warm water
2 cups of flour
2 tablespoons of Oil.

Dissolve the yeast and sugar in hot water and leave till it is creamy. (about 10 minutes). Add the flour and oil. mix together and turn out onto bench. kneed for about 4 minutes adding more flour if it is too wet.

put in lightly oiled container. Roll in oil so that it is covered with oil. Put a damp cloth over it and leave in a warm place till it has doubled in size. (about 45 minutes)

Before rolling out the dough preheat oven onto 475 Fahrenheit (about 220 Celsius)

Roll dough out on a pizza tray and top with your favourite toppings.

Here are a couple of our favourites to put on.

Ham and pineapple.

Cheese, Tomato and basil.

Cream cheese and peperoni

BBQ sauce, mince cooked with bacon and taco seasoning, cheese.

Tasty Tuesday. Pumpkin and choc chip muffins

Pumpkin and Choc chip muffins from Michelle.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins.
3 cups white sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
8 eggs
3 cups pumpkin
1 cup water
6 cups all purpose flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoons ground cloves
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 cups semisweet mini morsels

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400*. Grease and flour muffin pan or use paper liners. (I just PAM it)Mix sugar, oil, eggs. Add pumpkin and water. In separate bowl mix together the baking flour, baking soda, baking powder, spices and salt. Add wet mixture and stir in chocolate chips.Fill Muffin cups 2/3 full with batter. Bake in preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes.

These muffins are so delicious. I made 120 mini muffins and they are all gone. I thought I would have enough for the week but I will have to make some more tomorrow.

I thought the fat content would be a bit to high for Tom (our diabetic child) but the dietician said it was fine. The sugar content is a bit high so we will be substituting a cup of choc chips for 1 cup of dates and putting in one cup of splenda and two cups of sugar with the next batch.

Tasty Tuesday. Yummy Chicken Fettucine.

Tonight I cooked Chicken Fettucine for tea. Since everyone told me how yummy it was I thought I would share the recipe.

500 gms chicken.
1 large onion.
3 sticks of celery
1 tin of cream of chicken soup.
1 tin of cream of mushroom soup.
1 tin of light evaporated milk.
1 pack of dried French Onion Soup.
500 gms fettuchine.

Boil water for fettuchine
Spray frying pan with olive oil and cook onion.
Add chicken, celery and French onion soup.
Stir occasionally until chicken is cooked.
Add chicken soup, mushroom soup and evaporated milk. Bring to the boil stirring occasionally.
Cook fettuchine and when tender add to chicken mixture. Serve. A tossed salad would go well with this dish. Next time I will definitely have a salad to go with this.

Serves 8.

A favourite recipe.

Here is a recipe for some low fat muffins. This is one I do regularly. On Sunday I made 120 of these muffins and they were all gone by Wednesday.

So here is the recipe.

2 cups of dried fruit (I use mixed fruit, saltanas, dates or apricots).
2 cups of cold water.
2 teaspoons of bicarb soda
2 tblsp margarine
4 cups of self raising flour
2 cups of castor sugar
2 eggs.

Put the dried fruit and water into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Boil for 4 minutes and take of heat. Allow to cool slightly and add bicarb soda and margarine. Sift the flour into the fruit mixture and add the beaten eggs and sugar. Mix to combine. Place in greased muffin trays. I use small muffin trays for this and get about 60-70 muffins from this recipe.

Place in an oven that has been preheated to 180 degrees. Cook for 15 - 20 minutes. Allow to cool on a cooling tray.

Enjoy. These are really nice warm.

little chickens.

Today some of our neighbours gave us 4 baby chickens and their mother. The chickens are really cute. We will try and get some photo's tomorrow and get them on the blog. I am so excited that we are going to have our own fresh eggs.

zucchini slice.

I made this tonight for tea. It was a big hit with all the children. They all wanted seconds. I would not have had enough if I hadn't doubled the recipe. So for those interested I found this recipe at another blog. I will be adding the website to my favourites so be sure to visit their site. It is called exclusively foods. They have lots of main meal dishes and sweet recipes too.

550g zucchini
1 medium onion,
finely chopped130g bacon (after fat and rind has been removed)
75g (1 cup, lightly packed) grated tasty (cheddar) cheese112g
(3/4 cup) self-raising flour
Salt & pepper
4 large eggs (we use eggs with a minimum weight of 59g)
83ml (1/3 cup) oil

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (160 degrees fan forced). Line an 18cm x 28cm baking dish or slice tin with baking paper.Finely chop bacon. Place onion and bacon in a heavy-based pan over medium heat.

Fry for about six minutes, stirring occasionally, until onion has softened but not browned. Set aside to cool.

Wash zucchini, remove ends and finely grate. Squeeze handfuls of grated zucchini over sink to remove excess liquid (this prevents the slice from being too wet).

Combine grated zucchini, cooled onion and bacon mixture, cheese, flour, salt and pepper in a large bowl.

Use a fork to beat eggs and oil together in a small bowl. Add egg and oil mixture to other ingredients and stir to combine.

Pour mixture into baking dish and spread evenly.

Bake for about 45 minutes, or until slice is golden brown and firm to the touch.

Store slice in the refrigerator. Suitable to reheat.

mmmmmmmmm. Home made bread.

JoAnn put a recipe on her blog for some home made bread. I wanted to try it because it didn't need any kneeding. I am not very good at kneeding. I started it yesterday and have just finished it. It has been a hit. I took some photos of the childen having a try of it.

So here is finished loaf and Christopher enjoying a piece.

Tom also enjoyed taste testing.

It is a nice loaf. I think I will try it again with some basil and cheese. I might even try a loaf with some wholewheat flour. Thanks JoAnn for a easy bread recipe.