Thursday, May 7, 2009

Puppies!

New family members!

Foxy/Australian silky terrier X

Homemade corn chips


Homemade corn chips!

In the never ending effort to reduce our exposure to chemical and to 'know' what's in what we are eating, we tried to make our own corn chips.

It's weird, you eat one and and you think... "uummm it's ok, strange texture" then you suddenly find you can't stop eating them, it's like they have an addictive causing substance!

Corn Chips
180 deg C
10 mins

Mix: 1 cup corn meal (polenta)
2/3 cup flour
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 Tablespoons milk powder

In a separate bowl & stir
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup oil
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/4 teaspoon Tabasco sauce

Choice of topping: powdered garlic, paprika, onion, or seasoned salt etc

Add liquids to dry mix. Stir with fork. Knead until smooth.
On two sheets of baking paper, sprinkle cornmeal. Divide mix in half and roll out thinly on both sheets. Go really thin but not so there are holes.
 Sprinkle with topping of choice. Garlic powder is what I used. Roll again to press topping in.
Cut into triangles, or whatever you want. Prick with fork.

Bake 10 mins or until lightly brown. 

*We found that the edge pieces were the nicest. So next time I'll try to go thinner again.

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Mmmmm soup


Winter is in the air and my favourite thing to do is have a pot of soup on the heater. Chicken or lamb and vegetable is the usual. It simmer gently waiting for hungry tummies to eat when they are ready. At no further cost to the family, the heater is going anyway.
I use an Aldi mixed vegetable for $1.75 (New Zealand produce) and a few chicken drumsticks or those strange lamb bits when you buy half a lamb (bones and all). Some stock, onion, garlic and pepper. I bring it to boil on the regular stove and move it to the heater for the rest of the day. 
It makes about 8 litres.

Sprouts!

I lost my sprouting jar, I missed them, then forgot them! How unfaithful of me :0)
But the jar is back. It's a large coffee jar and we cut the top of the lid and added fly screen.

I'm sprouting mung beans. Mung beans need to soaked 8-12 hours in warm water to kick start them
.
I leave the jar upside down on mung beans as they have a tendency to go moldy.
Mung beans grow very quickly and these have started to sprout already, just from their initial soak.
Sprouts are such a quick cheap way at add lots of nutrition to your diet. Especially good in winter when the garden has slim pickings.

Here's the the next day....





Saturday, May 2, 2009

Cooking on the Canberra!


We are cooking dinner in the "Canberra" which is outside on the verandah and we found some more tomatoes, nice plump yellow ones. The children find some tiny red ones too. I guess we ended up with more than one tomato this season... but only just ;0)