Not so silly..........

So this years season can be considered pretty straight in the silly terms. Guess that's what happens when the midgets begin to rule your world.

This year we went to visit my folks on the mid north coast and despite the weather (yep, go north for the weather and end up with rain!) had a brilliant week of family and feasting.

We stayed in National trust listed house with tonnes of vintage style, took advantage of the crap weather and did lots of cooking and spent time being a family without the pressures of the day to day.

Cooking Pancakes

Morning started with pancakes...made by the incredible husband. He does pancakes much better than me...I cook most of the time, but his pancakes blow mine out of the water. So here is his recipe.








Ricotta Pancakes 

2 cups flour (1 plain, 1 wholemeal)
2 tsp baking powder
1 3/4 cups milk
3 healthy dollops of ricotta with a tablespoon
2 eggs or No egg substitute

Dump it in a bowl, mix it up, don't get fancy with it. Heat your hotplate to halfway on the dial, ladle palm sized servings into a hot buttered frying pan and replace butter as it gets soaked up. Flip when they pancakes start to bubble on top. Don't screw around, commit and flip.

Serve with lashings of everything but especially maple syrup.

This time we had berries, usually its bananas.

New Christmas tradition

Presents followed and after Nanny, Poppy and my brother and his little family arrived we got down to the serious business of eating. Ham and Turkey for the meat eaters and a 4kg Salmon for the not really vegetarians.

Now which one is mine.......all of them!

I love cranky monkey face!

Stay tuned for more exciting Xmas!!!!

Shiny red kitchens.

Yes, this is my shameless plug to win a kitchenaid. I will pimp myself for prizes. But hey, can you blame me? Matchbox ran a competition to a new shiny, mixy, did I say SHINY! kitchenaid. And I love my red kitchen porn, so of course I entered. And I got to make a fool of myself in public (in my lunch break at work, where they are used to me making a fool of myself on a regular basis).

The competition was to dress up in my fave vintage frock and have my photo taken in public (preferably in a matchbox store). There are no matchbox stores near where I live, so I figured I'd create a montage of fabulous frocks, in various locations with me holding my dinky cardboard cutout. This was all I managed, since it was the week before Christmas and the rest of life got in the way (more on Christmas later).

Dress: 70's polyester thrifted

Belt: 80's vinyl thrifted

I would of liked to of worn something 50's inspired, but this is what I wore to work that day and I still think it works.

So, if I don't win at least I got to have a laugh in the process.

CC

N.B Thanks to the Organized Housewife for featuring the comp.

I didn't win the mixer....but I did win a Kitchenaid blender!!!!!

Back off bugs

I've been on a carrot hit the last week, mainly as carrots are cheap, I'm stingy and they are quite easy to whack in food without Chuckles noticing. So we have had wraps, stir-fries and finally cake. Although by the time I made it to cake I was running out of carrots and had to supplement with zucchini, which is also cheap and easy to whack in food without Chuckles noticing. The result was an amazing moist fruity cake that if you left off the cream cheese icing would be vegan. I am not vegan so I piled the icing to the sky. Yum!

As you can see Poppet enjoyed her first experience with cake batter.

It also seems that I am pushing carrots on the kids through this years Christmas book. Every year I try and buy a Christmas themed book. I remember being read  A Christmas Carol as a child and to this day Dickens remains a favourite. This years book follows everyone's favourite wombat on a Christmas adventure. 

Image from Harper Collins

Having been on maternity leave this year I haven't kept as up too date with recent publications as I would like, so was pleasantly surprised when I encountered this read by a dear friend at a recent storytime. I rushed out and bought it the next day and am pleased to day that it been read at least once a day this week!

Carrotty Fruity Cake

2 cups of flour

1 cup brown sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

2 cups grated carrot 

1  cup grated zucchini

1/2 cup oil

1/2 banana

1/2 cup orange juice

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup sultanas / chopped dates

1/2 cup walnuts

Cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice to taste.

Preheat oven 180c

Line smallish round tin (large loaf tin would probably also work)

Combine dry ingredients

Add carrot, oil, banana, vanilla and juice.  Stir until just combined.

Add fruit, nuts and spice.

Bake approx. 45 minutes. 

Leave in tin for 5 minutes and then turn on to wire rack to cool. Be careful when turning out as it has a tendency to break.

When cool top with cream cheese icing. 

xxCC