Around here

During the school holidays we went strawberry picking which was great and we especially love the strawberry ice cream we have while we are there.  It's not a big outing in that we are only there for about an hour and it's an hour's drive there and an hour's drive back.  I can say that the strawberries were delicious and I made a pavlova and decorated it with fresh strawberries for our family BBQ.

We also bought some party lights from Bunnings and put them up and they look great and now the outdoor entertainment area has a nice festive appeal.  These I bought plug into my outdoor power point however there are lots of different solar lights as well if you don't have access to power.

Tracey & Jo from Additive Free Lifestyle are currently running their "beginners guide to going additive free 7 day challenge" this week and even though I did this May last year it's a great reminder to keep going.  Food companies do get away with a lot of things and try and trick us into thinking things are healthy.  Have you read this blog post about "flavour vs natural flavour"? 

This is a link to my blog post when I did the 7 day challenge which has links to some podcasts.

Today's topic was on caramel and it's not good for you and it's in lots of things.  I went through the sauces I have in the cupboard and pulled these out to throw away which either has nasty preservatives or caramel.  To be honest I only the Soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce and Oyster sauce.

I have been making my own Tomato Sauce, BBQ Sauce, Pizza Sauce and Sweet Chilli Sauce since May last year.  I believe Melrose brand has some better options and Ceres Organics.  It's just a matter of double checking labels which I normally do however as I make most of my sauces now there is less to read. 

If you get a chance to listen to the podcasts listed above in the blog post from last year they are worth your while.  Hope everyone has a good week.

I made some condensed milk this afternoon for the first time in my Thermomix which took less than 3 minutes to make and OMG it's delicious.  Tomorrow I'm going make this ice cream and I thought I would have a go at making condensed milk myself as it's so easy.  I have used brown sugar so that's why mine looks brown rather than cream as you get in the tins.  I also used salted butter as that's all I had on hand and it's fine.  The original recipe calls for unsalted butter and can be found on Sophia's Kitchen YouTube channel.

I also like to have the recipe on my blog so here it is:-

INGREDIENTS

50gms unsalted butter [I only had salted so used that]

125gms water

200gms brown sugar

110gms whole milk powder

METHOD

Place butter, water and brown sugar in Thermomix bowl and heat on Varoma temp for 2.5 minutes on speed 2.

Add the milk powder and blend for 30 seconds on speed 10.

Transfer into a sterilised jar and leave to cool before refrigerating.  You can keep it in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.  So quick and simple.