Family Favourite Recipes

Yes, I know this is my third home-made book post recently, but I want to share another very special book with you that is used almost daily in my house. It, like the Endo-something book is all about feeling good, feeling at home and feeling nourished (or treated). On leaving home my mother presented my brothers and myself each with one of these... A little ring binder. On the cover is a copy of a family characture I did when we were all still teenagers. Inside are copies of recipes that were firm family favourites in our home. What I love most, is that my mum wrote out the recipes by heart, using many 'Whalenisms' and lots of 'in' jokes. Over the years I have added to the book, and the recipes map out a history of where we have been and who we have been with.

This recipe was written by a very special friend who isn't around anymore. How I love seeing his hand writing and remembering when he cooked this for us and we shared the meal together. Food is like that for me; as much for the soul as for the body. Over the years I have gathered many recipes, from friends, newspapers and magazine and of course the intenet. So my book was getting over loaded with lots of scraps of paper just 'filed' into it.

Yesterday, my mum sent me a whole load of new little pockets for my folder (having seen the disorganised state my folder was in on her last visit). So I set about orgnaising it.

I'm always looking for ways to recycle the children's pictures, so I have used some of them as dividers. I put all my recipe scraps into the the pockets and all into some kind of order.

Now I'm feeling pretty organised. Also what was really nice was coming across recipes that I haven't made for ages. It has given me a little inspiration in the kitchen.

I think this will be a tradition I shall keep within my family. A gift of home cooking and love for my children to take with them wherever they go wherever the wind will blow them.

oh such nice weekend

smiling :-)I really had such a lovely time this weekend. We all had such a lovely time this weekend, apart from poor old Joa. He is really having a tough time with this whole crawling thing. He just can't go forwards and he is so cross about it. He spends his whole time crying to get down onto the floor to practice and then the whole time on the floor crying because he just can't do it :-( Poor mite, I hope he gets the hang of it soon!

Anyway, our brilliant weekend; starting on Friday with our afternoon down on the beach and then Andy and I shared a beer in the evening (something we hardly ever do). Saturday; Andy was working so the kids and I went food shopping, not that exciting apart from we bumped into Rebe's special friend 'Peter Painter' whom we had not seen since the summer. She could hardly contain herself.

Today was just blissful, like this...

creative mess in the morning

set-ups

lots of outdoor play/ washing windows work

making yucky soup (with veg peelings that were en route to the compost)

making laundry soap, like my friend Melanie did too this week, it is also her recipe.

Celeriac soup - to my joy my supermarket is stocking celeriac for 99c a piece at the moment!

knitting. Very, very sadly the strawberry-berry hat has been lost. Benny says it blew off when he was out with Andy last weekend. We have scoured the earth but it is well and truly lost. I can't tell you how sad Benny is. So, I am knitting him a new hat; a pirate hat, although I think I will have to make him another strawberry-berry hat too!

Some time for sewing

a walk to the cliffs


We made Valentine's cupcakes for Rebe to take into her class and she also made Benny this card today whilst he was having a nap.

A snail with a love heart shell, and inside instead of words...

lots more snails!

Hope your weekend was as wonderful as mine!

hugs x

Gingerbread (what another food post!)

Before I do anything Rebe wanted me to show you her new slippers. They're from here. We'd gotten Benny a pair of the tractor ones a month or so ago and they are so great we decided to get Rebe a pair in the hope that she'll actually wear them as slippers! She loves them and so far they are ON HER FEET :-)

I also quickly wanted to show you this...

A few nights ago Rebe found an actual ladybird in her bed, I have no idea how it got there, but she really wanted to keep it as a pet. She kept it in a jar for a few hours, but as it became less mobile and happy she decided she wanted to put it outside. She came back in tears because she had wanted to keep it so much, but she said; 'I'm sad because I miss my little guy, but I'm glad I gave him his life back'. So, to replace him I have borrowed a button from one of Joa's cardi's, and Rebe made this beautiful habitat for it to live in. I think that's a pretty good compromise.

So on to the gingerbread...

A few weeks ago Rebe started bringing home little Christmas cards from her class mates. It seems that they give a card to every child in their class. This just doesn't sit for me, it seems pretty meaningless for a start as Rebe has no idea why people were giving her cards and she couldn't remember who they were from, never mind the cost both financial and environmental. And as you may have guessed I just don' t go in for consumerism! So instead we decided to make a gingerbread house for her to bring on the last day of term for the whole class to share.

The day before yesterday we mixed and baked the gingerbread. Oh, it was so christmassy, the smell of ginger and cinnamon. The heat from the stove and I brought down the tape player and we listened to Here Comes Christmas. We had this LP when I was a child and we listened to it every Christmas growing up. My dad kindly taped it for us last year, there is nothing else that gets me into the Christmas mood than listening to this.

Lots of gingerbread Mio Gingerbread

Lambie (with a funny eye)

That evening, with many sweary words, I cobbled it together. I have made 3 or 4 gingerbread houses, but never before had so many problems sticking it together! But finally I did it and yesterday afternoon Rebe decorated it (very gently).

We took it in to her school this morning. To my pleasure she reported to me that the WHOLE SCHOOL got to share it. I love that! It was a great success and I think this is a tradition we may do every year.

Still with food, here is my little cooking helper preparing the veg for dinner in a very novel way...

Check out the 'tools face'.

Lastly this little boy has been teething. Red , red cheeks, drooling, grumbling, chewing, but it's been worth it....

HAPPY TOOTHDAY JOA!

cooking up a storm

I've had a real day in the kitchen.
This morning while Joa had his nap I made bread dough and these Oatmeal Crackers.
The recipe is from Whole Foods for Babies and Toddlers
They are great, really crunchy and have only 4 ingredients: oats, oil, honey and water! I think next time I make them I might add some crystallised ginger yum yum!

My bread came out pretty good although I say so myself...

I have a friend at a playgroup we go to that is a bread maker, so I sat her down and interrogated her. I'm much happier with the result and so it seems are the rest of the family. It's funny it's just not something I can give up on this bread making. It's something I want to be able to do and it bugs me that I can't make bread taste the way I want it to. Still I feel I'm a step closer today!

I also made 2 huge vats of soup.

The orange is squash and red lentil and the light coloured one celeriac. I want to eat soup a lot these days but not finding time to make it in the mornings. So I thought I'd make loads and freeze them in batches then I can whip oneout for lunch no matter how busy my morning is.

So I'm pretty cooked out now, I'll be getting something out of the freezer for dinner lol!

I'm off to do a bit of knitting, (either that or breastfeeding).

I'm working on Rebe's cardi. The little minx went through my drawers last night and found the Peter Pan buttons so it's no longer a surprise but I know she LOVES the buttons which is what is important anyway. Still, I am disappointed it's no longer a surprise. At least I hid the Santa presents better.

Hope you're having a good weekend x

shhh... don't tell Rebe

...but look at these buttons!! Peter Pan buttons from this shop on Etsy. I haven't shown them to her, though I'm dying to. I plan to knit her a green cardi with some kind of leaf design in the yoke (any pattern you know of?) with these buttons on it, a pure Peter Pan cardi. She'll love it!!

So what else have we been doing...
Benny and I have had some great mornings together doing lots of jobs before our walk/ outing.

Here we are making Bombay potatoes, bit of an unconventional way to make them but they were lovely.

I've been doing lots of crafting....

Knitting secret things...

Making custom order waldorf dolls.

Rebe has been her usual crafty, creative self...

a little paper kitten in a blanket with a pillow. (Melanie, I posted this for you, see how alike our first born girls are!)

We've been doing lots of playing...

Generally all is good here under rainbows, starting to get a little more sleep and getting very excited about a visit from Bubs next week and thinking a little bit more seriously about Christmas plans.

hugs x

ravioli

Yesterday we made ravioli.

I got the dough out of the freezer I'd slung there a while back,

I rolled it out as thin as I could. This is really good for your stomach muscles (who needs an abs trainer!).

Then we cut it into squares and let it sit (just long enough for a quick story).

We made a simple filling of minced beef and green pesto and put a plop in the middle of each square. We beat an egg and painted around the outside then folded it over and stuck it together.

Rebe was actually really good at this. I've been noticing recently how good she is with more fiddly things. While we did this she played a funny game that she was a chef and I was her son (she was a daddy) and she was teaching me how to make ravioli. Somehow making ravioli while talking in a funny voice was so much better!

Then we let them rest again for about 10 minutes while we got the sauces on the way. We cooked them in boiling water,

and served them with cheese sauce and ravioli. They were actually delicious (I was surprised) and everyone ate them all up! We'll need to try different fillings now, I can see this becoming quite a hobby....we'll actually no, but I do think we'll make them again :-)

Today while Rebe was at school Benny and I went down to the beach and collected sand for the sand pit.

He was delighted (as was Rebe when she got home!).

Last night I did a bit more crafting. I'm waiting for some materials to arrive so I can finish my first waldorf doll custom order, so I did some needle felting. Gosh I really am enjoying it, it's like painting in wool in 3d!

Mouse on a pumpkin

Windfall Apple.

Of course I'm going to put them up in the etsy shop.

Finally I just wanted to show you these busy little hands...

He is finding his way through the world of touch. Love the dimples on the knuckles!

hugs x