Rice Crispie Easter Eggs

This was a really easy thing to make and would make great easter gifts for kids or grown ups alike. You could definitely make them smaller than I did, but this is the mould I had to hand!

It's about 2 cups organic puffed rice kernels, mixed with about 250g to 300g melted chocolate and a few tablespoons of coloured sprinkles (definitely optional - I figured this amount of colouring and sugar as a special treat wouldn't break the healthfulness bank...but they'd also look great with some finely chopped goji berries and orange zest, or grated white chocolate). 

Also, the plan with this was to wrap it in cellophane and top it with a bright yellow ribbon, but as you can see from the above pictures, once the kids saw it being made, they wouldn't rest until they had tasted its bounty!! 

Hot Cross Buns - Easterlicious.

I'm not ashamed to admit it. I LOVE EASTER. My Easter cards went into the post two weeks ago. We have an actual storage crate for Easter Decorations. And I don't blame Easter. I blame Christmas. I am so in love with that annual celebration that, when December gives way to January, and the tree, the gingerbread, the tinsel and lights are all put away, I feel an emptiness that only another festive event will answer. Sure, New Years does its bit, but that's not really child-centric. 

Easter, on the other hand, in our house at least, is all about the tiddlywinks. We do a fair bit of crafting and celebrating to mark the event. 

Today, I made spelt hot cross buns for the kids, and they were so, so, so, so sinfully good. 

Ingredients

500g spelt flour + a little extra for the flour paste

300g mixed dried fruit, diced (I used a mix of dried fruits and nuts - cranberries, pistachio, sunflower kernels, raisins, apricot)

1/3 cup tepid water

2 tablespoons of yeast

1 tablespoon sugar

1 tablespoon cinnamon

C. 1 cup tepid water

Combine the water, yeast and sugar in a cup, stir, then cover with a saucer. Leave for ten minutes so that the yeast can 'activate'. Meanwhile, sift flour into a large mixing bowl and add the dried fruit and cinnamon. Stir until combined. Once the yeast is well and truly frothed, add it to the dry mix. 

I use my trusty kitchenaid (for anything I possibly can) but I've made these by hand and it's a cinch. Add extra tepid water until you get a dough like consistency - about 1/4 cup at a time, then stir, knead, etc. You'll know when it comes together but doesn't feel 'sloppy' that it's just right. Knead until it's elastic (you can press a finger into the dough and it immediately bounces back). 

Leave to rise around thirty minutes, then knock the dough back to its original size. Preheat oven to 180'c fan forced. Slice the dough into equal portions and roll to form balls. 

TO make the crosses, you can either score the buns (traditional) or make a flour paste, which I did (I always did love that crispy dough!). Just mix flour and water until you get a thick paste and then use a piping bag (or plastic sandiwch bag with a corner snipped off) to lay down your crosses. I know some people who make a really thick dough and roll out long snakes and place it on top to form the crosses. Whatever works for you. 

Bake for around 20 minutes. You'll know they're done when they smell divine and their bases sound a little hollow. Now, this is optional, but I like to top mine with a sugar syrup - a couple of tablespoons of good brown sugar mixed with water until it's thin and spreadable, massaged into the top of the buns while still warm. 

and there you have it! Easy, delicious and healthy hot cross buns. Perfect!

Food and things.

From the moment my kids showed a tentative interest in food (circa four months old), I've relished introducing them to different flavours and textures. Guiding them to become food appreciaters has been a true pleasure. Recently, though, we had dinner with a couple of our friends who have a daughter smack bang in the middle of my two kids. Like me, our friend loves food and has helped her daughter become a true gourmet (she counts tabbouleh and home made beetroot dip amongst her favourite things). However, unlike my unruly duo, this little one has just about the most impressive table manners I've ever seen. She knows the rules. She has to try everything on her plate, even if she doesn't eat it all. She has to ask before she leaves the table. She uses cutlery. She sips her water quietly. And after her meal, she goes straight to the bathroom to wash her dear little digits. I realised with abject horror as my two held their own slimy fingers perilously close to the immaculate white suede dining chairs, that I had dropped the ball somewhat when it came to dining etiquette. I had the best intentions. Truly, I did. I loved and lived by Pamela Druckermann's French Children Don't Throw Food, but somewhere along the way, the necessities of life meant I couldn't quite follow through. Meal time is when they're held still and captive, and (because our house is tiny and I could hear choking noises from any room) I use their restful states to zip around and do chores (laundry, that never-ending mountain of clothing). But not sitting with them, or at least being there and overseeing their meals, has meant they are slightly, well, aherm, savage. 

And so, it begins. Retraining my beautiful little messes. 

I might be painting a bleaker picture than is strictly true. We have many other little friends who seem to partake in meals in the same slap-happy and totally absorbing way that my kids think essential. It is an holisitic experience! 

Nonetheless, tonight I started to try to reprogramme them. Just a little. A little tweak towards juvenile civility. I started off with a shared cheese course (thank you, Pamela Druckermann, for making me appreciate that even toddlers can diferrentiate between their brie and blues). An organic apple sliced thinly with some dried locally grown and dried dates and an organic blue was the start to their dinner.

 

For mains, they shared a tasmanian salmon fillet (farmed, but antibiotic free) with organic vegetables. Part of this process was teaching them to squeeze a wedge of lemon over their seafood. This dinner will be blogged in more detail later. It's one of my after-work meal solutions. Eleven minutes from frozen and always a hit with every kid I've ever made it for.

For dessert, a local greek style yoghurt with these delicious apricots (from a cousin's back garden) I preserved before Christmas. And by preserved, I mean slow baked with raw caster sugar, brandy and vanilla beans until they were sticky and sweet. I chopped them into small pieces tonight and stirred through the yoghurt. Shockingly, my little mister did not like "the orange stuff" but little miss one ate with absolute gusto - all three courses. How she is such a tiny thing is beyond me!! 

Easy Roast Dinner

This dinner is the perfect meal for my little duo. It's healthy, affordable and involves a minimum of effort. Best thing about it? My kids, at least, polish off their plates completely when this is on the table. 

It takes 29 minutes to make this roast, from first heat of the pan to placing it on the table. That's about the time an episode of Dora lasts, for anyone keeping count. 

Ingredients

1 Free Range Chicken Breast

1/3 sweet potato - diced

1 carrot - diced

2/3 cup frozen peas

A few sprigs of mint, finely chopped, 

about 150g butter

2 tablespoons spelt flour

1 tablespoon fruit jam (optional)

1/2 cup filtered water

Pre-heat oven to 200'c fan. 

Heat a small knob of butter (about 40g) in an oven-proof pan over moderate heat. Add the chicken breast to sear, then the orange vegetables. Don't shake the pan. You'll flip the chicken breast once, and at this stage, you'll want to gently toss the other vegetables to coat in butter. This will take around four minutes.

Place the pan in the oven and leave to cook for twenty minutes. Have a glass of wine, or cup of tea, depending on which way your preferences run. Hands up, I sorted laundry with a strong black coffee <3

After 19 minutes, place 1/2 the remaining butter into a small saucepan with the frozen peas and mint. Stir intermitently - they will just gently heat over the next few minutes.

Next, remove the pan from the oven and place back on the stove top. Gently transfer the chicken and vegetables to a chopping board, leaving about three cubes of veggies in the pan. 

Because the chicken breast is skinless and a low-fat cut, there will not be much fat left in the pan - don't worry about that. Heat the pan and the remaining butter and the spelt flour. Stir until a paste forms, mashing the veg as you go. Add the water, and a tablespoon of jam if using, continue to stir over low heat for one minute. A gravy should now be bubbling away contentedly, ready to go. 

So easy, and such a lovely dinner for little people. Happy cooking!

Home Made Ice Cream Cones (GF, Organic, Vegan)

Look, I'm so very excited by these. I'm not kidding, of all the things I've been wanting to master, these have been in the top ten. It's not like we're ice cream fiends. In fact, my children polished off a box of cones last week that were left over from my son's first birthday party (he's three and a half). That in and of itself beggars belief. What the heck is used to make these things last so long without losing any of their crunch or crisp? Yikes. 

There's nothing uniform about how they look. But I guess that's part of the appeal. Plus, you can make them large for grown ups or tiny for kids, and all you have to do is change the quantity of batter you pour out. 

I used a frying pan first but then switched to a flat sandwich press which I found much better. 

The trick is not to get too much sugar - you can play around with the quantities to taste, but too much sugar will make them burn before they're cooked through, and not enough will make them not sticky enough. 

To get four small cones or two large ones:

Ingredients

1/3 cup spelt flour

1/3 cup raw organic caster sugar

between 1/3 and 1/2 filtered water

Combine the dry ingredients until thoroughly combined, then add the filtered water, stirring constantly. 

Once you have a batter than resembles a thin pancake batter, you are good to go. Heat your frying pan (and add a little oil or butter), or your sandwich press. Add about two tablespoons of batter and  leave to cook. If you're using a frying pan, keep the heat moderate and flip halfway through. If you're using a sandwich press, cook with the lid up for a couple of minutes then press lid down so that it's firmly pressed against the flattened out cone. 

The trickiest part of these is shaping them, and that's just because they're molten lava hot. I found that laying a clean tea towel out in front of the sandwich press or hot plate was essential. 

I used an egg flip to remove the 'pancake', then, pressing either a spoon or small rolling pin into one pinch point, I was able to clip the bottom (using the tea towel as a sort of glove between my skin and the cone).

 Shape it into a cone and depress for about thirty seconds along the seam until it feels firmly held. I then transferred mine to a small 7 oz beer glass to settle for a few more minutes (an egg cup is great, too). It's amazing how quickly these transform from flat pancakes to rock hard ice cream cones. And I think this must be similar to how fortune cookies are made. 

I served this with an ice cream stalwart - our mango and passionfruit. 

In the ice cream and the cone, there were SIX ingredients, and both components were made today in my own kitchen. As far as desserts go, this one feels pretty awesome. 

A feast fit for a Gruffalo

The Gruffalo is one of the most supremely favourite books in our house (and houses with small people, everywhere, I am sure). If, by some strange and bizarre sequence of events, you've not heard of it, then you simply must get thee to an independent bookseller sharpish and pick up your very own copy. Written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler, this book takes your imagination, grips it firmly in its hands and blows it up to the size of a hot air balloon. It's a wonderfully adventurous read, and odd food inventions are central to the narration. 

Tonight, in a tribute to this much treasured story, my little guys are having their own Gruffalo feast, of 'scrambled snake sushi', followed by 'gruffalo crumble with owl ice cream'. Apart from being delicious little meals, the descriptions definitely caught the kids' attentions at the business end of the day. Recipes coming soon. 

When my son asked why there were peas in with his scrambled snake (tuna and greek yoghurt, FYI) I told him without compunction that they're not peas at all, they're ssssnake eyessssss. Hissssssss. 

The Gruffalo Crumble is sugar free, but naturally sweet, with apples, pears, dates and a crumble mix of organic oats, butter and manuka honey with lots of shredded coconut. 

As for that Cheeky Owl Ice Cream (toowit toowooooo!) it's a mix of free range eggs, pure cream, raw caster sugar and homemade praline (only about two teaspoons worth, cracked into tiny shards. I thought it was going too far to tell my son that they were pieces of owl beaks (!) so I've let him crunch away in ignorance... 

Home-made bread

I love to make my own bread. Usually as a quick and easy starter when we have friends for dinner (served with a good quality locally grown olive oil and a homemade dukkah). But now, the more I read labels in the supermarket, the more I despair in terms of how far we have come from traditional fare. Bread, when made at home, is simple and healthful - nutritious, too. If I'm making it for the kids, I form it in a loaf tin so that it's got a bread like shape for sandwiches. 

Ingredients

2.5 cups spelt flour

3/4 cup teipd water

activated yeast (2 tablespoons dried yeast, 1 tablespoon caster sugar, 1/3 cup warm water, combined in mug and left to bubble for about five minutes).

In a large mixing bowl, sift the spelt flour then add the activated yeast and 1/2 the tepid water. Mix, adding extra water slowly as needed until you get the right consistency. I use a kitchenaid with the dough hook, but you can easily do this by hand, either using your fingers to combine and then turning it out onto a flat work surface to knead until elastic, or using a spoon if you don't like the squish squish squish of dough. 

The test of a dough being ready to rise is when you can lightly press a finger into the surface and the finger mark immediately bounces back. Cover it with a bowl and leave to rise for about an hour, until it's roughly doubled in size. Punch it back once and then either shape it into a loose form bread, or press into a loaf tin. Again, leave it to rise for about an hour, making sure it's covered from draughts. 

Preheat the oven to 190'c and bake for around 40 minutes. Once it's finished (and you know it's done by tapping the bottom of the loaf and you hear a solid sound) leave it to cool to room temp. If you're intending to use as a sandwich loaf, refrigerate until cold and then slice thinly. I freeze mine in zip lock bags and then just use as needed.