The upside about this kind of weather, is that you can enjoy indoor activities without thinking you are missing out on the beaches, playgrounds and bushwalks

It has been wonderfully busy (and at times stressfully busy!)….dinners with old friends, Christmas parties, Dance concerts, Christmas shopping (done super early…YUS!), Nativity family home evening with friends, Relief Society Christmas meeting to organise and there was a lot eating. I have to mention the chocolate fountain with strawberries, pineapple and jumbo marshmallows to dunk…oh heavenly!

Then, this past Friday night, my body shut down, and I was bedridden until Monday. Hubby took over the reigns, bless his heart, and now I am feeling a lot better! All the busyness is behind me, and now we are just gliding into Christmas!

My 5 year old and I made Cafe Pancakes from Sophie Gray’s book, “Enjoy!”. Thankfully, my son was on the ball, and asked how many eggs we needed just when I thought we were all done…phew! He saved the day!

Below is the recipe I used, which is tripled. It is enough for 1 hungry adult and 4 hungry kids.

3 3/4 cups Flour

3/4 cup Sugar

6 tsp Baking Powder

3 pinches of Salt

3 Eggs

2 1/4 cup Milk, soured with juice from a small lemon

90 g Butter, Melted

• Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together in a bowl.
• Make a well, and add the eggs.
• Add half of the milk and mix. Then add the milk a little at a time to form a smooth batter.
• Finally, stir in the melted butter.
• Place a big spoonful of the batter into a warm oiled pan. When the batter forms bubbles, turn over. Then cook the otherside until golden. Repeat (you may not need to use any more oil/butter in the pan. Cooking pikelets and pancakes without oil/butter on the pan creates the smooth brown surface on the pancakes.)
• Serve with butter and maple syrup. YUM!

Pancakes always bring back memories whenever I make and eat them. The thick pancakes drizzled (generously!) with maple syrup, reminds me of how they make them in Japan. The thin crepe-like pancakes topped with sugar and freshly squeezed lemon juice, remind me of the pancakes we made with my dad.

I haven’t quite managed to be the kind of mum that has fresh cookies waiting for them as they walk through the door. I do however have a container of pre-cut oranges in the fridge that I can just whip out at a moments notice to add a bit of variety to their afternoon tea.

If you slice along the rind (about 3/4 along) you get an easy snack that the kids can just pop in their mouth.

Since I had a bit of time up my sleeve, I quickly whipped up a little Christmas treat.

• Mix up your favourite cupcake recipe (I used the Edmond’s cook recipe and used “No Egg” egg replacement since my daughter would be bringing her one to Playcentre).
• Put half of the finished mixture in another bowl.
• Mix in green food colouring in one bowl, and red in the other.
• Put a spoonful of green into one side of the cupcake liner, then put a spoonful of red into the other side.
• Don’t be too precious about how they look before they go into the oven, because the mixture automatically fills in any gaps and flattens out and rises.

RAINBOW CUPCAKES

You can mix up different colours and make a treat the kids love. They are so pretty that I don’t even ice them.

(These cupcakes were done with egg, so they seemed to rise better – even after a thorough mixing by a 3 year old!)

EDMONDS COOKERY BOOK CUPCAKES

125g butter, softened

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

1/2 cup caster sugar

2 eggs

1 cup flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 cup milk

• Cream butter, vanilla and sugar until light and fluffy
• Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition
• Sift flour and baking powder together.
• Fold into creamed mixture.
• Stir in milk.
• Place in patty tins. (The recipe says it yeilds 18. I do 9 muffin size cupcakes with this recipe.)
• Bake at 190 C (380 F) for 15 minutes or until cakes spring back when lightly touched. (I keep an eye on it from 12 minutes onwards)
• Transfer to a wire rack.
• When cold decorate as wished.

When the cats away, the mice will play….

This is what happens when you leave a 6 year old and 3 year old to lick the bowl…..handprint art on my cook book!!

This is a recipe that I have tweaked over the years, but today I finally wrote down the measurements!

1 cup White Flour

1 cup Wholemeal Flour

4 teaspoons Baking Powder

1/2 teaspoon Salt

2 Eggs (I quite often use Orgran No Egg: Natural Egg Replacement, and it works fine.. .just bare in mind that the batter doesn’t really bubble when you fry it)

1/2 cup White Sugar (although my next try I want to experiement with brown sugar)

1 1/2 cups Milk

1/4 cup Chocolate Chips

• Put dry ingredients in a bowl and stir
• In a separate cup or small bowl, mix together the egg and sugar
• Add egg and sugar mixture to the dry ingredients, along with the milk
• Stir mixture together until it is just combined (do not beat until smooth)
• Spoon mixture into a frying pan which has been heated to a medium temperature. (The size of the pikelets is up to you!)
• When the pikelets start to bubble (unless you are using the egg replacement), turn them over when golden. Fry the other side until golden.

(Here’s a little secret from me to you…..if you use oil/butter you will get the type of pikelets you see in my picture. BUTTT if you have a non-stick pan which you can get away with not using any kind of oil, then you will get a smooth pikelet (kind of like hotcakes)

Source: Google Images

We tried cold pasta with sausages & veges, rolls, french stick sammies, tortilla wraps, pita bread pizzas and some other variations. Next on my list to try is sushi!

Today, I needed some inspiration and ideas on what to feed the kids when they came home from school. Thankfully, my lovely friends on Facebook came to the rescue with a bunch of suggestions! I thought I would share them with you. What is your favourite snack to whip up?

16 Snack ideas:

1. Cheese toasties
2. Fried rice
3. Toast with their favourite spreads
4. Fruit
5. Popcorn
6. Muffins
7. Scones
8. Smoothies
9. Carrot sticks and hummus
10. Homemade soup and toast
11. Big glass of chocolate milk
12. Cheese and crackers
13. Jelly
14. Rice crackers and hummus
15. Pikelets
16. Pancakes

Source: www.scifest.org.nz

The search is finally over for the “The Ultimate Southern Cheese Roll”. Cheese Rolls are a staple in the South Island, just like Paninis are to Wellington cafes! hehehe

The competition was part of the New Zealand International Science Festival. The winning cheese roll was analysed by the University of Otago’s Food Science Team alongside a panel of culinary experts. How very official!!

The winner, Joy Jones said that she had been making her winning cheese roll recipe for over 8 years and that it was a family recipe passed down by her mother. She was able to beat off 80 other entries.

I remember a friend from Playcentre making some cheese rolls for the kids, and they LOVED them! She told me that the best part about the cheese rolls is after you roll them you can pop the tray straight into the freezer. Then, once frozen you pop them into a zip lock bag so you always have an easy snack that can go straight into the oven, and is ready at a moment’s notice.

Joy Jones’ Winning Cheese Roll Recipe

500 grams grated cheese – (Mainland Mild Blend or Mild Cheddar)

1 tin Nestle carnation evaporated milk (375ml)

1 pkt Maggi onion soup mix (32g packet or 1.13oz)

1 finely chopped onion

1 teaspoon mustard powder

¼ cup cream

Heat in microwave for 6 mins – stirring in between time, cool – spread lengthways onto long cut white bread from Marlow’s Bakery, South Dunedin. Roll into cheese rolls (3 folds).

(They didn’t include the cooking instructions….you can either put a bit of butter on the cheese rolls just before you pop them in the oven….or you can spread butter on the outside of the bread before you put the mixture in and roll it. Then you either bake it or grill it (you’ll have to turn it if you grill it) until golden and crispy.)

Recipe source: scoop.co.nz

A Good Read:

Otago Daily Times: Quest to find the ultimate cheese roll (with video on how to assemble a cheese roll)

Photo by Juggling Motherhood

Want the “wow” factor the next time you bring a plate to a Christmas function? Try making these delicious treats using MallowPuffs (or equivalents).

I saw the recipe by Simon Holst in the Little Treasures magazine a year ago, and thought they were the cutest things! I made a tray of these for the Family Home Evening we had last week at my friend’s house.

Photo by Juggling Motherhood

Christmas Pudding Puffs

Ingredients:

MallowPuffs (or equivalents)

Jaffas (or some sort of red candy)

Spearmint leaf lollies (I found these at The Warehouse)

Icing – You can either use melted white chocolate, or make your own icing with icing sugar. I used the icing sugar version. As I assembling each “pudding”, I would put it straight into the fridge to allow the icing to harden so the “holly” wouldn’t start sliding off.

Icing

1 Tablespoon butter

1 Tbsp boiling water

1 cup icing sugar

1-2 tsp extra water if required

Put the butter in a medium-sized bowl, add the boiling water and stir until the butter has melted. Sift in the icing sugar, then mix to make a soft, smooth icing. Add 1-2 tsp extra water if required, but don’t make the icing too soft or you won’t be able to stick the decorations on.

Assembling the “puddings”

Spread about a teaspoon of icing on each MallowPuff then decorate with a couple of spearmint leaf lollies and a jaffa or two!

(I used 1 packet of jaffas, a packet of spearmint leaves and 3 packets of MallowPuffs and it made a huge tray full.)

Photo by Juggling Motherhood

I don’t think my kids have ever seen a traditional Christmas pudding!

Photo by Juggling Motherhood

This is the icing I use for slices like Lisa’s Chocolate Crunch.

INGREDIENTS:

2 Cups Icing Sugar

1 1/2 Tbspn Cocoa

1/2 Tsp Softened Butter

3 Tbspn Water

1/2 Tsp Vanilla Essence

Sift icing sugar and cocoa together into a bowl. Add butter. Mix in the water, then add the vanilla essence.

If you pre-prepare the icing before you need it, you may need to add a little bit more water to get it back to the consistency you are after.

This is a slice I like to do when I need to bring a shared plate for an event. I usually have the ingredients in the pantry and it is quick and easy. The recipe I am sharing with you is a double batch, so feel free to half it.

INGREDIENTS:

2 Cups Flour

2 Tsp Baking Powder

4 Tbspn Cocoa

1 1/2 Cups Sugar

1 Cup Coconut

6 Crushed Wheat Biscuits (In New Zealand we use Weet-bix)

250g Butter (5 Ounces)

1 Tsp Vanilla Essence

Pre-heat oven to 180 C / 350F

Sift the flour, baking powder and cocoa together.

Add the rest of the dry ingredients, and mix well.

Melt butter and add vanilla essence, then pour into dry ingredients and mix well.

Press into flat greased tin and bake for 20 minutes.

Ice while hot with chocolate icing. The crumbs from the slice stick to the icing spoon, but don’t stress as it doesn’t show up like it does when you ice a cake. This is because the heat from the slice keeps the icing nice and liquidy (I don’t think that is a word?!)

Notice how my icing isn’t perfectly smooth?

Once you sprinkle the coconut on, you can hardly see the wee bumps here and there. Gotta love a quick and easy recipe like this one!

Cut once it has cooled.

Traffic Light Jelly is a pretty simple treat that looks really cool!

Although this can be done in a bowl, I think putting them in individual glasses has much more of a “wow factor”.

The cups you use don’t have to be stemmed, as long as they are see-through.

The kids all choose a colour that they were going to be “in charge of”.

DD8 was first. She mixed the green jelly and poured it into the cups using a ladle.

TIP: It helps if you do the first one, and then the child uses it as a guide to fill the other cups to the same height. Also it makes the jelly set quicker if half the amount of water is boiling hot. Stir and dissolve. Then put the second half of the water in, but this time put in cold water. This way the water ends up being luke warm, so it cools down and hardens quicker. When you put the cups in the fridge to set, put them on a tray to make transporting them in and out of the fridge easier.

Once the jelly was semi set (you put your finger in and it is solid), DD6 came along to add her yellow jelly. (you can use orange)

DS4 added the final colour, red!

DD2 made a bowl of traffic light jelly with the left over jelly that didn’t make it into the cups. (This was an easier job for her, rather than spooning set amounts into individual cups)

We started making this late morning, and it was all done by after dinner for dessert! YUM!

This is the playdough recipe that we use at Playcentre. This recipe is perfect for my 4 kids, so halve it if you have less than 4 kids, and double it if you have more than 4!! Once you start making your own playdough, you won’t need to buy it any more, and as long as you keep the ingredients topped up in your cupboard (especially the salt) you can make it on demand!

• 3 cups Flour
• 1 1/2 cups Salt
• 3 tablespoons Cooking Oil
• 6 teaspoons Cream of Tartar
• 3 cups Water

Put all the ingredients together in a large pot and stir it constantly over a medium heat.

Add some food colouring if you wish, or you can wait until the end and split the dough and add different colours.

Once the playdough starts to come away from the bottom and sides of the pot, take the pot off the heat, and plop the playdough on some flour.

Kneed until you get a nice texture and it isn’t too sticky.

PLEASE NOTE: When you are finished with the pot, fill it with water immediately to make cleaning a lot easier.

Also this playdough is extremely hot when you start kneeding it so, please take care, and do not give it to the children until it has cooled.

Apparently this playdough will keep indefinitely if stored in a covered container