Scouts Raft Day

The big boy went raft racing with Scouts at Browns Bay this morning.  It was a fun day out but not the quite the result we were hoping for......

Getting ready

Looking Good

Team Professional

Starting Well

Not so Good

Utter Chaos

Sinking Fast

Wet and happy

Team Last

The kids all had a blast and cant wait to go again next year.  Maybe they will learn some engineering skills before the next one.......

Barbs

Loving Pasta

Emma loves pasta!

She would eat it everyday if she could.  Last weekend she decided to make Minestrone soup - All by herself!  She chopped all the ingredients up and carefully added them to the soup pot and stirred it on the stove top.  She tasted and seasoned it.  I think she is a budding chef.

Carefully chopping the veggies

Minestrone is such a yummy soup - filled with lots of veggies, pasta and beans.  It makes a nutritious vegan dinner in about 1/2 an hour.  We don't really use a set recipe but it goes something like this

1 onion, 2 carrots, 1 stick of celery, a couple of cloves of garlic - all chopped up and sautéed in olive oil for about 10 minutes until soft.

Add about 4 cups of water, a tin of tomatoes and some fresh herbs, salt and pepper and bring to the boil.

Once it is boiling add about a cup full of dried pasta and bring back to the boil - boil for about 5 minutes then add about 3 cups of fresh green veggies (cabbage, zucchini, beans, peas, spinach - it doesn't really matter).

After another 5 minutes (when the veggies and pasta are cooked) stir in a tin of kidney or canellini beans.  

Do a quick taste test to see if it is good, add more salt and pepper if you need to.

Then serve with a big slab of fresh bread and you will have a scrummy quick and easy and tasty dinner.

Yum!

Later in the week she had this scrummy pasta salad for her school lunch.  It was made with risoni pasta and had spring onion, red capsicum, celery, cucumber, olives and salami in it.  She would love to have this for her school lunch everyday.

I've always been amazed at how many interesting things Emma will eat.  I guess when you take out so many of the usual kid type food from the diet, the door is opened for lots of other exciting ingredients to come in it.

Happy eating.

Barbs

Loving Bread.

Bread.

It is the staff of life.

And my new bread maker is the bees knees.

Just before Christmas our old Sunbeam breadmaker died.  I had never formed a truly loving relationship with it.  Several years before that our old much loved Panasonic Bread-maker had gone to the happy dumping ground where all good and loved appliances go.  We went off to find our replacement and to our huge disappointment we discovered that Panasonic were no longer making them :-(.  We bought a sunbeam.  It was okay.  The dough cycle was much used, but the loaves...well they were just not what we were used to.  And when it died we were annoyed.  Christmas was hardly the time to be rushing out to buy a new appliance.  But we did hear that Panasonic was back in the bread maker business, but they were pricey.

So we were bread-maker-less for January.  Then my lovely hubby found a great deal on a new Panasonic bread-maker and drove to get it.  I tentatively put the first loaf on and O.M.G it was good.  No not Good, it was Awesome.  All hard and crusty on the outside and squishy and soft on the inside.  It was the best loaf of bread ever.  And the bread-maker is back on the used every day list.

Here is the recipe we have been using.  It is a rapid bake one so  takes less than 2 hours - ie ready for lunch.

2 1/4 tsp Dried yeast (I use Edmonds dried yeast sachets and measure out the correct amount)
620g High Grade Flour (I use Pam's)
2 tsp salt
3 Tbsp Olive oil
2 Tbsp sugar
430ml water

That's it - just bung it in the bread-maker and put on large loaf, bake rapid, and wait until the house is full of yummy bready smells.  Then cool for as long as you can and eat.

I am totally back in love with Bread.

Linking up with Paisley Jade.

Allergy Friendly Ice-Cream!

One of the hardest things about having a dairy and soy allergy is not being able to have ice cream on a hot summers day.  I mean doesn't this look yummy?

Banana-Berry Ice Cream

You'd never guess it has no dairy or milk substitutes in it all, would you?

Yup, this dairy free ice cream is really good and so easy to make.  All you need to do is to whizz up frozen bananas.  I know it sounds kind of weird but when you stick frozen bananas in the food processor something quite magic happens.  First they turn into crumbs and when you do it the first time, you think that it is just an old wives tale and it wont really work.  But then you keep the food processor going and soon you see a smooth and creamy looking paste.  At this stage you can add other things to it if you want, like a spoonful of honey or some dairy free chocolate chips, or some berry puree.  Alternatively you can add other frozen fruit with the bananas and whizz them all up together.  Then when you have your ice-cream just how you want it, you need to pop it back into the freezer until it is frozen again. Then serve with your favourite dessert, or just on it's own.  It will keep for a wee while in the freezer, if you don't scoff it all on the day you make it.

The real bonus is this dessert is actually just fruit (unless you add the extra's) so it is a treat that you can have as often as you want and the family will love you for it.