Cordial

This week has been very productive and super busy, I have lots of photos to share but I need to organise them. Last year when we went strawberry picking I made strawberry cordial with some of the strawberry's we picked, the cordial was beautiful but strawberry flavoured cordial was too weird for my plain Pauly. Since I had some oranges sitting not being eaten I thought I would give orange cordial a go. Paul LOVES this cordial, he loves that it tastes orangey- like real oranges and this has no preservatives or flavours (yay).

This recipe is super dooper simple and ANYBODY could make this (this recipe comes from 'a slice of organic life')

Simply take 500grms of fruit - whatever you like I want to try lemon next- cut it up and put it in a bowl.

Sprinkle over 40grms of citric acid.

Then 900grms of Sugar- I used caster

then pour over 500mls of boiling water

Stir until the sugar is dissolved, cover and put in a cool dark place for 3 days

After three days strain off (i had to squeeze all the juice/cordial out of these oranges as I went) and pour into a bottle. This will last in the fridge for 6 months (my strawberry cordial lasted longer but I doubt the orange will last two weeks) and it made 1 1/2 liters

Smooth Days

Recently we have started making a smoothie almost everyday. If i am really honest with myself( and I have only just discovered this) I don't really like eating fruit raw (esp apples, pears, kiwi, oranges and mandarins) but I do like fruit salad, apple crumble and all sorts of other fruity goodness- I guess I am weird :) . Bananas used to be my go to fruit but since they are so expensive here at the moment we haven't been buying them often, and when we do they get hidden from the boys lol. I love most summer fruit but straggle with winter fruit a bit. Any way I also had hopes of making some green smoothies and getting some more veg into the boys. Blake is keen but Luke not so much- figures since hes the one who needs more veggie.

We started off making some that had a mixture of frozen berries water and a handful of baby spinach. The next day Blake wanted milk in it so we replaced the spinach with milk and yogurt. we have made a variety of different ones and have liked every one - even the ones with spinach in were yummo! Today I had a left over juice from a can of pineapple so we used that to make a yummy smoothie

today we used
1 ripe pear
2 oranges
1/2 a banana
pineapple juice

It was just enough for Blake and I , I got a good dose of fruit and Blake has been getting raw greens some days- so all is well :)

On my Table

The other day I made some Anzac biscuits I thought I would share the recipe here:

1 cup of plain flour

1 cup of roller oats

1 cup of dessicated coconut

3/4 cup of sugar

125 grams of melted unsalted butter

2 tablespoon of golden syrup

1 teaspoon of bicarb soda

1 tablespoon of boiling water

Mix dry ingredients, add butter and syrup. Mix bicarb and boiling water together then add. Mix until combined. roll in to tablespoon size balls and bake @180c for about 13 mins.

Simple and yummy!

a bit of orange cake

Lately I have been reading a lot of blogs that arnt the crafty blogs that i would usually read. I have been reading a lot about living simply and a lot about gardening. We moved out here to live a more simple life and also i have a huge backyard that needs to be filled :) In the next few weeks i am going to attempt my first batch of handmade soap- even Paul is on board with this one, some things he is not so happy to change! Any way while looking for handmade soap recipes on the down to earth blog (btw Nicole has some beautiful handmade soap- check her out in my sidebar!) I found a simple recipe for a orange cake:

1 whole orange

3 eggs

180grms of melted butter

1 cup of white sugar

1 1/2 cups of SR flour

Put the whole orange in the food processor and process until fairly fine (you don't want big chunks left )

And the rest of the ingredients and buzz for 30sec

Bake for 40mins @ 180c

Simple right! I thought so....anyway Blake and i made it together and he loved putting a whole orange in the food processor. We baked it and it tasted delicious- Blake loved it, Paul even took some to work today. Only one problem when i got up to warm Luke's milk up in the microwave there was something in there that looked like custard. Yeah I forgot to put the butter in the cake!! So if you feel like omitting the butter i can safely tell you that it still works, and its non fat :P check out my orange cake

Today I Made....

Play dough The recipe:

3cups of flour
1 1/2 cups of salt
2 tsp of cream of tartar
3tbs of oil
2 cups of hot water
vanilla essence
food colouring

I think I have posted a play dough recipe before but i think this one is closer to the one my mother used to make for me. If you were making the play dough one colour put it in with the water.I generally use just boiled water so I don't let Blake get his hands in there until after it has cooled down. I also knead in glitter when I knead in the colours