Making Sausage Rolls

Yesterday I bought the ingredients to make sausage rolls however the filling was a little unusual.  It had smoked paprika, grated lemon rind, wilted baby spinach (trying to keep it healthy) and pork mince among other ingredients.  I was up for anything and the kids have wanted home made sausage rolls for ages.  On a Friday afternoon after a quick visit to some friends for afternoon tea we came home and Sienna and I got stuck into making the sausage rolls.  The recipe called for caraway seeds to go on top of the sausage rolls which surprisingly we had.

In our household our recipes are usually rated 9 out of 10 or sometimes a 10 out of so as easy as these were to make, the flavours were not your typical sausage roll.  I gave them a 5 out of 10 which means I won't make them again.  James gave them a 5.5 out of 10 and Sienna didn't rate them.  I thought the kids wouldn't eat them at all however they didn't love the taste but happily kept eating them which I was pleased about as we had spent an hour making and cooking them.  We all agreed the traditional sausage roll filling will be in them next time.  As I say to the kids, you have to try these things to see if you like them and if you don't then we won't use the recipe again we'll try another one.  If anyone has the "wow factor" sausage roll ingredients you would like to share I would love to hear about it.  Here's a couple of photos from our little cooking last night.

Finding Happiness

On "Down to Earth" blog today Rhonda posted her thoughts on "Finding Happiness".  I think we all agree that there are times in our lives when we are extremely happy and times when we are not so happy and this is the way life is, with it's ups and downs.  Times for me being extremely happy were buying my first house, selling my first house to get another one to renovate, getting married, having my first baby and then my second baby and times that haven't been so happy were getting divorced because your husband won't stop having affairs and drinks excessively every night. Having to sell my dream family home and dealing with the aftermath of all of that.  Getting a phone call to say that your 17 year old brother was hit by a drunk driver who fled the scene and he won't make it through the night all while you are away in another state for the weekend in 1989.  Finding out our friend's 8 year old daughter has Leukemia and passes away 6 months later in 2012.

These things are the "big" things of happiness and sadness and in between those things there are ranges of both however all of our happiness does not have to be "big" and can be small although I think sadness sometimes leans more towards big anyhow because of it's general nature.  Sure we can be sad that our favourite TV show is ending and there's not much on TV but it's not real sadness that's more disappointment.  Some days we have good days and some days we have bad days and other days we have days just in between.

There are things that I wish for now that would certainly make me happier like being 10 kgs lighter, having more money in the bank for the future and a reliable car which would all go towards making me happier.  However I don't want to be rich, but if that happened and I won lotto then I would be okay with that sort of rich.   As I don't put in Lotto that dream could be a problem with or without a ticket I think I have an equal chance!  I do know that money doesn't buy happiness however it would certainly help along the way if we had a little more of it but happiness comes from family, friends, experiences and moments.  With all of that in mind I have put together a group of photos of things that make me happy at this present time in our lives.

Tonight's Harvest

Tonight I picked a few veggies from the garden to cut up and stir fry with oyster sauce....even though it's only a handful of veggies I was very excited that they all came from my little garden.  

Boiled Orange Chocolate Cake

I recently came across a lovely New Zealand blog called "Petite Kitchen" about cooking with wholefoods and I found a yummy chocolate cake recipe to try out.  It is gluten free, grain free, wheat free, dairy free and refined sugar free. So if you have an intolerance, this cake just about caters for everyone.  The beginning of the process is to boil two oranges in a pot on the stove for an hour, let them cool, then blitz them in your food processor and then add the rest of the ingredients and mix together and then pour into a tin and bake for an hour.  So from start to finish you will need about three and a half hours.  1 hour (oranges) + 15 mins (rest of ingredients and mixing) plus 1 hour (cooking) plus cooling so allow 1 hour.  Make this cake on a morning when you know you will be home.

It was really easy and the cake is very moist and dense and very much like a dessert.  Double cream on the side won't go astray either.  I think I needed to cook my cake for a little bit longer and even though the skewer came out of the middle without any crumbs on it, it's probably a bit moist (a bit like moose only set).   Either way this cake tastes like chocolate jaffas so if you love jaffas this is the cake for you. I dusted my cake with icing sugar which is nice and light so if you are looking for a delicious orange flavoured chocolate cake I highly recommend you try this recipe out.

Seeded Crispbread

Over the holidays I came across a healthy "Seeded Crispbread" recipe from "Easy Peasy Organics" that I made yesterday to put in the school lunch boxes.  I need some more recipes that aren't just straight biscuits or slice even though home made beats the chemical version at the supermarket I still wanted something a bit savoury so gave these a try.  The verdict from the kids were 10 out of 10 and next time I make them I would just cook them a little bit longer to make the top a bit crisper.  I bought all the ingredients from the bulk supply store "Simply Good" and then when I was making the recipe measured out all the seeds for the next time I make it so it's just a matter of then adding flour, water and oil and the packet of seeds and away I go.

This recipe made three big trays so if you wanted to give it a go you could halve the recipe and make the batch rather than committing to a huge quantity however I think these will be gone in next to no time.

It's pretty simple to make, so first of all you put all your seeds in a bowl, add the flour then the water and oil and mix it together.  I took half of the recipe and placed it on a baking sheet with another baking sheet on top and then rolled it out until it was thin.  I just kept lifting the paper to see how my thickness was going and when I was happy I just got a knife and cut the dough and then popped it on the tray in the oven for 20 mins.  Once it comes out cut it through and put on a cooling rack and into a tupperware container.  I made a tray of small pieces to fit in the little containers for school and then I made some larger ones for afternoon tea.

Slow Living Essentials - June 2013

Connecting up with Christine at Slow Living Essentials to write about our "Slow Living" for the month of June.  You can see the month of May Slow Living here.

NOURISH: Make and bake as much as possible from scratch.
We tried out a new pizza base recipe that you mix up and leave for 24 hrs and the verdict was good. The recipe can be found in "The Homemade Pantry" which I have written about in my "Baking in the Country" posts.  We used a mix of bakers flour, wholemeal flower and rye flour for our base.  My recommendation is that you make a thin base which seemed to come out better as James made a thicker base but I thought the thin one was fully cooked through and we all agreed.  Also bought some mini quiche dishes and made Quiche for dinner which we all enjoyed.

PREPARE: Stockpile and preserve
I continue to make spaghetti bolognese in the slow cooker using this recipe and freeze 3 portions for future meals.  This is our standard monthly stockpile for dinner.  We made more of Rhonda's home made biscuits and froze them so we could just take out a couple each for morning tea when we needed them and also made lemonade from fresh lemons which the kids and I love.

REDUCE:  Cut down on household waste by re-using, re-purposing and repairing.
I finally put a bedspread that I no longer use on ebay to sell and whilst it didn't sell this time round I'm re-listing it to get it out of my house.  The last time I used it was 7 years ago and it's taking up precious room.  The delay was getting it out of the bag and onto the bed to photograph it.  Once I actually took the photo it took me about 5 minutes to list it.  Sometimes these small jobs never get done because we don't make time to do something that is a small time frame only those things that might take a day because you actually can set aside a day to tackle a task.  Anyway it's going back on ebay so I can clear my clutter.

GREEN:  Up our lives.  Start (or continue!) using homemade cleaners.
No great change here however after the kids go back to school I want to make up an orange spray which is all over the internet.  Currently I'm still using an Aldi one so I'm in no great hurry as I don't want to waste what I already have but I know I want to try making my own.  I found some cleaning recipes over at I Heart Organizing.

GROW :  Plant/Harvest.
Harvested our first little green capsicum off the bush over the weekend.

CREATE: To fill a need or feed the soul.
Not much on the crafting front however I continue my photography of photography taking every day photos of our life and spotted some Autumn leaves which I had to get some photos of and Sienna was my willing model.

DISCOVER:  Feed the mind by reading relevant articles to current interests.
I borrowed from the Library a River Cottage DVD called "The River Cottage Treatment" which was fantastic and I watched it one night and the next day the kids and I sat down and watched it together.  Lots of positive messages about healthy food vs fast foods.

We also got a DVD out from the library called "Eco House Challenge" which was a series shown on SBS at some stage.  It was about two families who had to reduce their "hot spots" (water, electricity, transport, recycle) by 60%.  They did this over a 7 day period and each day were given the next hot spot and at the same time had to keep the hot spot from the day before going.  It was great and the kids understood a lot of it and are more conscious about leaving lights on and wasting water.  It was a great little DVD and to be honest a tough challenge for 7 days because they were told if they passed or failed each night but not if they failed because they used too little water or too much water.  I recommend it for the family to watch.  It doesn't look as if you can purchase the DVD but the Library had a couple.

Still discovering our wonderful Library transformation and borrowing lots of books and DVD's.

ENHANCE:  Community:
We had our school fete in June and I helped out on the Hot Dog Stand and purchased some beautiful handmade goods like a little apron for Sienna.  There was rock climbing, jumping castles and Sienna's purchase of the day which was her 50 cent bunny's from the second hand toy shop.  James bought some second hand books which he read in a day.

 

I made an effort to shop local when I bought my new bike so the kids and I can go on bike rides together.  Our first outing can be seen here.

ENJOY:  Life!  Embrace moments with friends and family.  Marking the seasons, celebrations and new arrivals are all cause for enjoyment.  Share a moment to be remembered from the month here.

We took up a Cudo deal for $10 tickets to see Burton's Circus and thoroughly enjoyed the 2 hour show which included camels, ponies, birds, clowns, trapeze to mention a few things.  Awesome afternoon.

We had an afternoon by the river with our good friends and the kids played in the sand, rode their scooters and played cricket and footy.  We made some focaccia and lemonade to take for afternoon tea which is always a big hit with everyone.

Buttermilk Scones

I've found the lightest and fluffiest scones are the ones that have buttermilk in them so when it was another wet and cold day outside I decided we should make some scones for morning tea to warm us up.

I used this buttermilk recipe from Retro Mummy and I used the Thermomix however she has instructions for the normal method and if you are using a Thermomix.  This is a very wet sticky dough so you'll need to put a bit of flour on the board and on top so you can pat them down and cut your shapes.

Sienna gave me a hand cutting the scones using a wine glass because I can't find my plastic scone cutter.  If you want small even scones use a champagne flute and they come out beautifully however today we wanted larger scones and used the wine glass.  Just prior to making the shapes I moved the kitchen scales out of the way however there was a bread and butter plate on top of it and when I moved the scales it slid off over the counter and straight onto the tiled floor and smashed into about 1000 pieces, no joke.  The downfall to having a tiled floor.

If you haven't ever made scones with buttermilk I highly recommend you try it.  If you are wanting a recipe just google "buttermilk scones" and you'll find heaps of links if you want to have a look at different ones. 

Here's how our cooking looked this morning.