I'm addicted!

I'm never one to really take notice of recipes on packets of food. Usually I just cook what ever I'm going to cook with it and leave it at that. However, while doing some real honest to god popcorn, in a saucepan, like the old days (not that microwave crap Grumbles loves), I noticed a recipe for Caramel Nut Popcorn on the back of a Riviana Popping Corn packet. I couldn't help myself, after days of thinking about it, dreaming about it, I just had to make it (less the nuts because we are still unsure if Buggles still has his peanut sensitivity).

OMG, it is delicious! (would be even better with nuts I think) Between myself, Grumbles and Chicken, we ate half a batch in one sitting. I'm too scared to work out how many calories is actually in it, but I'm pretty sure its going to be scary. Note to self: MUST DO EXERCISE TODAY!

Don't you just wanna lick the screen?!

Home grown always best.

Yesterday we got to sample some of our delicious home grown beans. they are just a simple dwarf bean, easy to grow, low maintenance, and tasty. Check out these babies, my first harvest of beans from this crop. They don't look anything like some of the old rubbery, banged up and dehydrated things you see in the supermarket at all.

We had them dished up with a very average corned beef, spud bake using Grumbles Mums recipe and other veges. I swear, I am never buying corned beef from bi-lo again. It really was blah. I normally (almost always!) buy my meat from my friendly butcher. Everything always tastes so much better, you know its fresh and you get personalised service, although you do pay extra for it at times. However we have been struggling money wise recently when hubbys former employer went bust, and we were without income for a couple of weeks. It really puts the brakes on the grocery and meat budget in a hurry. Thankfully we will be able to a good quality steak again soon, much to Grumbles' delight as he hasn't had a t-bone in weeks!

The Fun of Making Yogurt - Part 2

Yum, yum, yummy, yum, yum! Home made yogurt. From back left to front: Blueberry, raspberry and creamy dreamy vanilla.

I have it! The perfect recipe for home made yogurt. It is thick and creamy and delicious, and worth the 20 minutes of effort to make it.

Really it is so easy. So for those that want to have a go here's what I did.

1 litre of light milk (can use any milk you like)
About 1 - 2 tablespoons of store bought plain yogurt (make sure it has active cultures - I think the brand I used was farmers pride)
1/2 cup powdered skim milk.

Mix the milk powder and milk together in a saucepan and heat gently, stirring often with a metal spoon, and bring to just about boiling point. Don't burn it, but make sure it gets hot enough, so when it just starts to rumble, but not boiling furiously.

While your doing that have some containers, plastic or glass, and wash in hot soapy water, rinse well then fill with boiling water to steralize. Also, get your store bought yogurt out so it comes to room temp.

After your milk has come to the boil, cool it down (I pop it in a sink of water with an ice brick to hurry this stage up), stirring regularly until it comes down to approx 39 - 42 degrees. (If you don't have a candy thermometer like moi, I just stick my pinky in, it has to still be warm but not burning, so if you can hold it in and count to five in comfort its good to go. (empty the boiling water out of containers and let them air dry while waiting to cool)

Mix the store bought yogurt with a little of the milk in a bowl, mix till its smooth then pour back into the saucepan and stir through.

Now here's the part you can do what you like. If you want plain yogurt, just pour it straight into a container ( I leave a little plain for the starter yogurt for next time, also it can be used as a sour cream sub, you can make cheese, salad dressing, dips, etc). If you want it flavoured, what I did was pop some yummy jam in the bottom of the container, and added about a tablespoon (more if you like it sweeter) of castor sugar to the milk and mix it in, then pour milk onto the jam in containers. For the last container I added some vanilla extract and mixed it in.

Now pop your containers (no lids) into an esky, with a couple of jugs of hot water from the tap, put the lid on and walk away. If its a cold day, or the esky was cold at the start you can refill your jugs a couple of hours in, but other wise leave the lid on and let them cook for about 8 hours. When you lift the lid you should have nice thick creamy set yogurt. Pop the lids on in stick in the fridge.

I have read it can last anywhere from 10 days to 3 weeks. We are having problems keeping it in the container for anymore than 2 days because it gets scoffed in no time, but as far as I'm concerned its coming out a lot cheaper and I can make any flavour we like, and have all different flavours in the fridge at once. You can also make as big a batch as you like, just increase your amount of starter yogurt.

And apparently you can heat your milk in the microwave, which will be my next experiment.

Enjoy!

I have babies!

Baby beans, baby strawberries and pretty zucchini flowers.


The beans I can't wait for. I LOVE fresh picked beans for dinner, in salads, as a side amoungst my veges, a little butter, a little S&P, they are so yummy, and so much nicer home grown. And hopefully one day the kids will agree and start eating the damned things!

Here's one of our strawberry bushes. For so long they have only popped out one or 2 now and again, but check this baby out. I've got babies everywhere. I will definitely get an updated piccy when its covered in the delicious little morsels. I might even be able to make some yummy dessert if I can beat the kids before they scoff them all on me.


And lastly my pretty zucchini flowers. I was trying to grab a pic with the bees in them but I scared them away (big scary thing that I am). The thing is I seem to have lots of boy flowers, and no girl ones. We've discovered too much water does that with pumpkins too, so am thinking this 10 inches of rain we've had over the last couple of weeks is making my plants a little testosterone happy at the moment (not to mention my back yard boggy and smelly). However, the milk spray I used has definitely helped with powered mildew, which ravaged my last crop of squash and cucumbers. Hopefully this time we will get some to eat. (Mmmmmmm.... I'm dreaming of crunchy home grown cucks.)

The fun of making yogurt.

Yeah, its the small things that amuse me sometimes. The kids and I eat a lot of yogurt, a good source of dairy for the kids, and is much healthier than ice cream or custard, and its very good source of protein without too many calories for myself. But the cost of yogurt in the shops is hideous, and I thought you could only make it using those almost as expensive pre-made yogurt making packs.

Noooooo!

Is so easy! After a little reading, and just a few minutes of my time yesterday I made my very first batch. I'm pretty happy with it, but am going to try a couple of little changes to my next batch to see if I can make it thicker, so won't divulge the details of yogurt making just yet. I want to find the best recipe possible first.

So the container you see hasn't been flavoured as yet, and the kids and myself have already scoffed the stuff that had raspberry jam added, and the vanilla one. But I have visions of blueberry yogurt, cheesecake yogurt, real strawberry yogurt using strawberries from the garden (will be a small batch as we only ever get 3 berries at a time, and then you have to fight the kids for them). And to think I now have control over sugars (no more nasty artificial sweeteners) and preservatives, while saving money and the waste of packaging at the same time.

Yes, this makes me happy!

Wet weather cook up

The weather here in 'Sunny' QLD has been horrid over the last few weeks. I can't remember how many inches of rain we have had, although considerably less than further north that is suffering terrible flooding right now, but I still have my gripe about my back yard resembling a swamp. Its yucky, and smelly, and I'm having a gawd-awful time keeping the kids out of the stinking filth.

However the rain has been fantastic for my vege gardens!

The older one has been going on and off for a couple of years now, but we have finally got its soil to a decent standard by composting and mulching, and what was once dust is now beautiful soil. However my only real successes so far are lettuce, which I eat by the tonne (while trying to lose 22kgs - 14 down, 8 to go) and beans, which I appear to be the only person in the house to really appreciate. I'm sure Jamie Oliver would like my beans. Honestly, freshly picked beans from garden to stove to plate in the same hour are just delicious and so much better than the half shriveled up, dehydrated, touched by god knows how many dirty hands beans they sell at the local shops. We've also managed 3 pumpkins, 1 very small but tasty watermelon, and plenty of cherry tomatoes which the boys (the guinea pigs - Zhra Zhra and Igor as named by 'Chicken') gobble up super quickly.

Currently I also have some zucchini, cucumbers and radish growing. Now that I've discovered a natural treatment for powered mildew (watered down milk sprayed on the leaves - can you believe it!) on my zuchs and cucqs, I might actually get some produce from this crop.

Garden number 2 is all of a week or 2 old. Still in its early stages, layers of cardboard, old hay bails and a ute load of dirt to get things started. Its currently growing a green manure crop of peas and different grain out of the guinea pig grain mix, which then after its cut down, will be topped with fresh compost which is on the cook right now and a good layer of mulch. The plan is to have it ready for my winter veges crop of broccoli and caulis and whatever else I can in amoungst it.

So we are loving our regular rains in regards to my veges. However the kids are driving me nuts!

Chicken and Buggels have cabin fever, I have no car and we are sick of looking at each other. here's a list of thing I have discovered to make the day go quicker.

Baking!

Bake biscuits - these yummy cornflake and choc chip ones are yummy. Leave a bit of mixture in the bowl for them to munch on (outside under the pergola away from me) so as they get a little queasy, quieten down a tad, and also be less likely to scoff the whole batch before I get to sample one.

Review: These are like the old days when my Mum used to bake goodies for school. I feel like I'm 12 eating these babies.

Bake a cake - Jam Swirl butter cake anyone?. (tip: avoid this one if watching weight, 250gs of butter can't be a good thing) The best thing about cake... the beaters! This is why I only have 2 kids; 2 beaters. Imagine the shit fight if there was a 3rd. Ok, so there's the bowl, but its so much more fun to watch the kids try to get their heads in the bowl at the same time so they can lick it.

Review: Very tasty with my afternoon coffee, and use whatever jam you've got handy.

So on top of a little humour and peace for Mum, a little boredom killing for the kids, I've managed to get some snacks in the freezer and cupboard for lunches for Grumbles and the feral rugrats. Easy peasy!

And on top of that, I also managed to toss a couple of old family favs (beef casserole and apricot chicken) in the oven to stash in the freezer for days I'm late, to tired or just can't be assed cooking. Even better!