Mmmmmore recipes

Just have to post a couple of recipes / links that have worked a treat lately so I don't forget them later :)

These cinnamon rolls were absolutely terrific - I didn't have cornflour so substituted Orgran GF flour and I used Orgran GfG instead of Xanthan gum. The mixture turned out impossibly soft and I couldn't roll it, but dropped blobs of goopy batter into into the pie dish and it turned out wonderfully! Mmmm definitely a keeper!

This lemon and olive chicken was great too - used lemon juice instead of slices, but otherwise it was basically according to the recipe. Great family dinner :)

Lemon cake recipe

I love lemon, and I love lemon things to be REALLY lemony... this is tangy enough even for me!

125g butter (or Nuttelex)
3/4 cup caster sugar
1 1/2 tbsp grated lemon rind
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/2 cups GF SR flour (or 1 cup SR flour, 1/2 cup almond meal)
1/2 cup sour cream or greek style natural yoghurt
1/2 cup lemon juice

Beat butter, rind and sugar with electric mixer. Beat in eggs and fold sour cream or yoghurt through mixture, as well as sifted flour and lemon juice. Mix well to make sure it's all combined. Put mixture in a cake tin greased and lined with baking paper. Bake at 180 degrees C for 40 mins or until a skewer comes out clean.

We like to serve this with partially thawed frozen raspberries and gf vanilla icecream.... yum!

Just call me super-aunty!

Posting has been slow around here as usual, but this time I have something exciting to report.... drumroll..... I've scored 2 nephews and 1 niece in the last couple of weeks woo hoo! Actually I scored them (because this is of course all about me, not them / their parents) on the same day, which was super - extra exciting!

We've seen gorgeous little Sam a few times now (don't have any pics though because I spend the whole time trying to stop my kids loving him to death ... will have to rectify that soon!) but the twins are still in Ethiopia, which is making visiting them a tad difficult. My fab sister and her equally fab husband are in Ethiopia meeting their special babies at the moment and they have a blog ... www.twinorama.blogspot.com if you want to cyber-stalk them. No pics unfortunately yet, but I can assure you they are the cutest things with the most ENORMOUS eyes! Gorgeous!

Deep...

JoJo has been grappling with the big issues of life lately.... "but why didn't God make Cinderella mum?"!

Owl bag

My sister wants to see my new (actually not so new) bag, so apologies to the rest of you, but bear with me :)

It's made of navy corduroy and lined with this lovely bright blue quilting cotton:

It has a very dodgily sewn inside pocket and phone pocket - I wish I'd taken a bit more time over those bits but I was a bit over it by the time I got to them. Maybe I'll unpick them sometime and fix them up. Ha ha ha or not.

Here's the whole bag:

And my little applique owl on the front:

Busy busy

I've been super busy with some really fun knitting / crocheting over the last month or so. Thought I'd quickly put up some pics before I forget because I've given / posted most of them away already. The pants above are made from my super gorgeously soft organic merino. They were such fun to make and I think I'll be doing a similar pair next winter for a special new member of our family :)

I did these cute under the sea pants for another custom order. They're made from super thick Cascade Ecological Wool - should be great for winter and nights :) I made felt for the fish and stitched them on. Always fun to do something new!

This little kimono was for a special new baby at church. I haven't made this style of top before and it was super easy. I had plenty of knitting time up at the hospital - the bright spot in an otherwise pretty stressful day!

Here's a quick pic of some tiny newborn longies for a recently born baby - they seemed to take forever to make even though they're so small. I think I'm not used to 8ply anymore!

Last but not least, here's the first garment I've knitted for T3 (ie the new baby)... I had boy yarn and girl yarn dyed so I could cast on straight after our scan. I suppose you can guess what the result of the scan was! This nappy cover turned out HUGE! I don't think she'll be wearing it for awhile! Loved the pattern though (Vanilla soaker) - totally my fault that my gauge was off! Better too big than too small though I always say!

Cooking etc

I've been getting very fed up with the whole gluten free 'thing' lately.... sooooo much extra work and expense involved for frankly not very inspiring outcomes. Last night though I came across a great blog which has links to heaps of fab looking recipes and I actually started feeling slightly keen on cooking again... hooray!

This morning before heading out to our college wives picnic I made these orange creme cupcakes. I made a few changes as I'm not that keen on xanthan gum and I didn't have any egg replacer and some of the ingredients are American brands. So, no xanthan gum, used about 2/3 cup of orange juice in the cake part and then had to add about 1/2 cup of rice flour because the mixture was so runny. I also used 2 eggs instead of the egg replacer, and used mainly Orgran GF plain flour instead of the sorghum flour. Used Nuttelex in the icing too, instead of whatever she specified.

They were really yummy! A bit dense but fantastic flavour :) I think it helps that we're in the middle of navel orange season at the moment - delicious! Next time I think I'd make the Orgran flour SR instead of plain and see if that added enough extra lift.

Cherry blossoms etc

I'm making a pair of longies for someone who wants a cherry blossom theme... woo hoo, how fun! The longies are turning out a little larger than I had planned (how did that happen?) but I'm hoping it will work out (I do have a plan!) and I'll be able to move onto the embellishments soon (the fun part!). I'm planning to blanket stitch on blossoms made from felted merino wool and probably make crotcheted stems / sticks for them to sit on. Have to *ahem* learn to blanket stitch first - can't be that hard right? Lol I'll be back here whining about it in a day or two!

Anway I need a place to dump some links to good photos of cherry blossoms, having never met one in person, so this will have to do.

Close up with pink centre

Are we having fun yet?

Jeremy has woken up with a particularly nasty tummy bug :( Very very very not good - exams are next week, with several assignments due imminently as well. Poor guy - he's really sick. We'd appreciate prayer that he recovers quickly (and doesn't pass it on) and that he can get through the mountains of study he's supposed to be doing this week.

The world according to Miss 4

JoJo (middle name Caroline, after my sister) has been trying to figure out names lately...

JJ: I have 4 names mummy.

Me: Really? What are they?

JJ: JoJo Tea, Joanna Tea and Aunty Caroline Tea........ Oh. I only have 3 names.

Oh BLAH

I have a miserable cold. Great hey? You know what's even better .... Jeremy has it WORSE THAN ME!! Arghhhh! Guess who got to sleep in and then go back to bed while their other half dragged themself to church (no doubt to share the germy love around... everyone will appreciate that) and then have their 2 highly emotional and volatile children who have now succumbed to the lurgy entertained? Not me that's for sure.

My attempts to approach this challenge graciously are obviously not proving as successful as I might hope... *sigh*. I did get to eat dinner on the couch (my escape) for which I am extremely grateful.

Oh blah.

Rain

We have had so much rain here in the last week - apparently the dams got 1 years worth of water in about 3 days. Bizarre after being drought stricken for ages. It has been absolutely torrential (obviously) but this morning was fairly tame so I let the kids go out for a play. They had a ball of course (and left a trail of wet muddy destruction on their way back into the house!).

JoJo decided to investigate the alternative possibilities of her umbrella and rigged up a pretty nifty pulley system to that she then wanted X to ride on... I vetoed that one, knowing that I'd have one broken umbrella and 2 kids in tears. It was a pretty cool idea though!

I've re-started my career

...as a professional whinger that is. Bought some gelati from a company that shall remain nameless - it had a big "gluten free" label on the front so I thought "Great I'll just buy that one and I won't have to bother reading the label for once". When we opened it up though for some reason I checked the ingredients and it says it may contain traces of BARLEY!! What the????? Not happy. JoJo was on the verge of a major meltdown until we discovered the genuinely gluten free sorbet in the freezer - *phew*.

We'll see what happens ... if nothing else at least it's got me back in the groove of complaining to companies about their defective products. I used to quite enjoy that once upon a time :D

Amazing!

Here's a pic of the newest member of the Tea family - cute hey? That's not just the biased mum talking either - the sonographer even said so, so there. What's that? You bet she says it to all the mums she scans? And that that picture looks identical to every other baby scan you've ever seen and I probably just downloaded it from the web? Never!! My child is obviously far better looking than the average baby (just look at its parents).

I find it so amazing that 3 months ago this little person didn't even exist, and now it's almost fully formed and just has to get bigger - each child really is an incredible miracle.

The 3D scan was pretty unbelievable too - haven't had one of them before!

oh dear!

How slack am I? A month and a half with no posts? That always seems to happen when we go on holidays... i feel like I need something really profound to say before I say anything when it's been awhile, and I just don't seem to have anything profound to say!

I've been meaning to post a bit of an update on the kids and what they're up to - will try to get to that in the next day or 2 :)

Fess-up Friday

I'll admit it... I've actually been known to refresh my own blog to see if there are any new posts. LOL! :D

Quote of the day...

JoJo at dinner last night.... "We could a-doctor a baby, just like Aunty Caroline!"

Fess-up Friday

Everyone else is doing it, so why can't I? (Have alliterative blog days, that is.) Fess-up Friday is here to stay, at least for this week.

I have to say it.... I just don't like Lily Allen. I know everyone else thinks she's great but seriously, I can't understand it. I should clarify that it's the music / lyrics I'm talking about... no opinion of Lily as a person!

I also feel that I should confess that my 2 year old has eaten custard for 3 out of the last 5 main meals. At least it has calcium right? It's positively healthy.

There you go. My deepest darkest secrets have seen the light of day ;)

Fwowah Dowwy

I've finally taken a pic of Flower Dolly (aka Fwowah Dowwy) - made for our trip to Melbourne last year. She was meant to be for JoJo, but JJ took exeption to her for some reason, so she now forms part of Xander's large and incredibly un-masculine collection of bedtime toys.

Yum...

A very lovely friend of mine looked after the kids on Monday morning so that I could go and battle the beast that is Centrelink. Being the amazing person she is, she not only has two lovely kids and a husband, numerous well cared for animals and a lovely, welcoming home but she also has the most enormous and productive garden. When I came to pick the kids up I was given a huge bag of Roma tomatoes and passionfruit.... mmmmm!

The tomatoes have since become scrummy gluten free roast tomato pizzas and the passionfruit are desitined to become passionfruit curd when I track down a not-too-eggy recipe.

Yum, thanks Jo :)

Jesse tree ruminations

I'm going to make a Jesse tree to help teach the kids about Jesus' ancestory and some of the main events in the Bible. (Here's an explanation of what it is.)

I'd like to take it further though - not just stop at Jesus' birth, but go on and finish the story. I think the kids would really enjoy having visual reminders of each part of the story, and I think it would be a great family tradition to start. Now I just have to decide how exactly to do it!

Any of my Brisbane friends want to join me? I've been thinking it would fun to get together and do our crafty stuff - this would be a great thing to work on don't you think? :)

Put a spot over here...

X had a great time painting today (while singing the spot song), although of course it was the dinosaur that he made me paint for him that he really loved! I think he still has paint in his ears.

Pics of my lovely girl

It's really time I started learning to use my camera a bit better. I made JJ stay still for a bit of a photoshoot this afternoon so I could try out some different camera settings. It was fun!

Is it just me or am I getting a preview of the "sarcastic teenager" face here?

This is more like my happy JoJo (with her beloved doll Purpley of course)!

Bubble fun :)

It's water and bubble day at playgroup on Thursday and I've got the job of mixing the bubble solution. Just thought I'd record the recipe that seems to be working so I can make more later....

2.5 cups filtered water
2 tbsp glycerol
1/2 cup "Morning Fresh" concentrated detergent

It's just mixed, and it's making nice big bubbles. I'll try it again later when it's had time to sit and think.

***ETA it wasn't very good.... I think I'll use "Blast" detergent next time and distilled water.

Stencil fun

Today I had one of those rare (for me!) occasions when an idea in my head came out just as I had planned ... I've been trying to come up with a stencil to use on a striped shirt - something with enough interest to be interesting, not too busy given the loud background and something that works with the stripes rather than against them. This seems to have worked pretty well.

I've done this trial run on one of JoJo's manky kindy shirts - excuse the stains (it actually covered up quite a few horrible marks!).

I used freezer paper for the stencil - what a FUN craft idea! When I went to cut the stencil I was horrified to discover that my trusty stanley knife is now far more broken than trusty, but fortunately I could do this shape with scissors. We used to have a scrapbooking shop literally around the corner from us, and much as I loathe and detest scrapbooking I did venture inside the shop one day and bought a superb pair of ultra sharp scissors which are perfect for stuff like this :)

Mr 2

Xander is too cute these days (he's also giving us a good look at his naughty side, but let's not go there for now). He's very keen to do things his own way, by himself - it's gorgeous seeing his concentration and hard work to master skills I take for granted :)

Goodness Gracious great balls of ..... felt!

Of late I have become just a little besotted with felt balls ... they are so lovely to look at and feel so nice to hold, and they even bounce (a bit!).

The kids have been having a great time playing with the ones I've made them (not the ones in the top pic - they get the trial ones!). JoJo has made up all sorts of complicated games involving multiple characters and scenarios, but Xander is more concerned with putting them in and out of containers, and trying to work out how to carry them all at once!

Best gluten free playdough recipe

I've been searching high and low for a decent gf playdough recipe, and this is the best one I've tried by far....

2/3 cup maize flour
2/3 cup besan (chickpea) flour
2/3 cup rice flour
1/2 cup salt (table salt is best)
2 tbsp canola oil
4 tbsp cream of tartar
1 1/2 cups warm water
food colouring

Chuck everything in a saucepan and stir it until all lumps are gone before heating. Cook over low heat and stir often- this takes a long time! Leave it to sit until pretty cool - it will get less sticky.

* This seems to take more cooking time than "normal" playdough - it needs to be cooked very thoroughly.

Grandma

My dear Grandma died early this morning. Death is a horrible thing, no matter how old, frail or sick the person is. This is not easy.

Is this enough new posts for you Donna?

:P I think it will do for today anyway!

Birthdayville

We've had a busy month (Jan... I'm a bit slow with my blogging!).

The 2 little people in our family both had their birthdays, and both had a fabulous time (although Xander has taken to yelling "I want a present, I want a present" if he gets the slightest bit tetchy).

JoJo also started kindy and is loving every minute. She's so tired at the end of the day that she can hardly eat her dinner, but it's great to see her having so much fun. Doesn't she look grown up? I've included a photo of X doing his wierd fish face - he's made this face alot ever since he was really young - I think it started when he was teething one time, and is now his default expression esp if he's concentrating on something. Strange boy.

Hear that?

It was the sound of me breathing a huge sigh of relief. My fantabulously wonderful and amazing husband has helped me to get the words of a song that's been bugging me for years to a level of bearability I can live with! Thanks J :D

It's a song for kids about a story in the Bible - a man called Nicodemus comes to see Jesus and they have a rather intriguing conversation. You can read it here if you don't know what I'm talking about.

What do you think? I'm still open to suggestions :)

Born Again

There was a man called Nicodemus who wanted to be good
So he tried and tried and tried and tried as hard as he could
To do everything right
But then one night
He talked to Jesus who explained that he hadn't understood
Jesus said

You must be born again,
You must be born again
Repent and believe,
God's Spirit receive
That's the way you're born again

"But I'm too old to be a baby, I can't go back to Mum
See I've grown and grown and grown, a big strong man I've become"
Nicodemus, be smart! You need a change of heart!
You should know all this stuff, how can you be so dumb?
Jesus said....

And now we've heard that if we really want to be God's friend
We mustn't try and try and try and try and try and pretend
That we've got the right stuff;
We're just not good enough
But in our place God gave His son, and on him we can depend
That's why....

© Lucy W 2009 Don't steal my stuff or I'll come and poke you with a knitting needle ok?

It's better than the old version anyway!

pic from stock.xchng.com

Italian Chicken Casserole

... and while I'm on the topic of recipes, here's one of the easiest "having people over, must cook large quantity of food" recipes around. AND it's gluten free and easy on the budget!

Ingredients
Lots of skinless chicken drumsticks or lovely legs
Enough Homebrand Chunky Pasta Sauce to cover the chicken (I use 2 jars for approx 15 pieces of chicken). Homebrand is nicer than Savings in this instance, just so you know.
Pitted Kalamata olives
Grated cheese (check it doesn't have a thickener with gluten in it, or grate it yourself)

Method
Put chicken in a single layer in a big roasting pan.
Tip sauce over chicken
Put in oven (I cook it at 140 degrees for a couple of hours, or 180 for about 45 mins - 1 hour)
Turn chicken when it's nearly cooked, put some olives in the sauce, sprinkle with cheese and crank up the oven to brown the cheese.

Serve with rice and salad or veges.

Yum!

I probably shouldn't have posted this recipe because anyone who comes to my house gets served this dish and I'd prefer them to think I'd spent hours hand roasting my home grown cherry tomatoes for the sauce. Ah well.

Amazingly Yummy Can't-Tell-It's-Gluten-Free Chocolate Cake Recipe

If I say it myself :) Oh, and it's also nut free if you pick the right ingredients! I made this for the kids' birthday party last weekend and it worked out really well. I figure it's easier to share a recipe on my blog than write it out by hand, so here you go Santina:

Ingredients
125g butter
1/2 cup caster sugar
1/3 cup icing sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/4 cup blackberry jam (or other smooth, seedless jam)
1 1/4 cups Orgran gf SR flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp bicarb
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup plain yoghurt mixed with 2 tsp brown sugar

Method

• Preheat oven to 180 degrees C
• Grease a 20cm cake tin and put baking paper on the bottom
• Beat butter, sugar, icing sugar till light and creamy
• Mix jam well with a spoon to break up any gooey bits, add to butter etc with vanilla
• Add eggs and mix well
• Sift flour, cocoa, baking soda and baking powder together
• Fold in 1/2 of flour mixture, then milk, then other 1/2 flour etc, then yoghurt
• Pour into tin, bake 45mins or until a skewer comes out clean.
  
• Leave in tin for 15 mins then turn onto a wire rack to cool.
  
• Ice with something yummy (eg vienna cream).
  

I made 4x this mixture for the party and it was huge! Too big for my jumbo mixer, and too big for JoJo to stir (she gave up after one attempt!).

Good Riddance Bye!

The dolls are finally leaving! Xander will be sad - he loves to play with his "dowwies" but I'm glad they're going to a new home and I can start working on some other sewing projects. Farewell my garishly bright little friends!

Interesting...

I've come across a very interesting article about breastfeeding, early gluten introduction and coeliac disease (actually it's the articles referenced at the end that make particularly interesting reading). Turns out my determination to hold Xander off solids until 8 months may not have been such a great plan after all, although to be honest he hates eating so much it's probably just as well I wasn't trying to force feed him any earlier - might have saved myself a few grey hairs there.

Hip Hip Hooray!!

I'm going to be an aunty again! My sister and brother-in-law have just been approved to adopt a baby from Ethiopia and I'm super excited! It's been a huge ordeal for them to get to this point, and I'm so glad that it's finally official and meeting baby "Cutie" (as JJ thinks it should be called) has become a when, not an if. I'm so grateful to God that things are going smoothly for their adoption... I'm sure they'll be fabulous parents. Congratulations J and C :)

I'm completely amazed that I've managed to keep my big trap shut and not tell anyone up till now (as instructed on pain of death) ... just a moment while I pause to pat myself on the back.

(pic from stock.xchng )