Festive fare

Blogging on Christmas Day! I am truly a tragic creature - or maybe just one with small children who are in bed...

Before I forget, I thought I'd post some recipes of what I contributed to the family Christmas lunch today.

Mulled Wine Baked Fruit



One of the blessings of living in the Southern Hemisphere at this time of year is that fabulous summerfruits are in season! This is made with a combo of fresh pears, peaches, apricots, pineapple, cherries, blueberries, raspberries and bananas. Chances are there is other stuff in there too - if it was in the fruit bowl, it was at my mercy!

I baked it for 20 minutes, then poured over 1/4c brown sugar, 1c red wine, a cinnamon stick and 3 cloves, which I had warmed until the sugar dissolved. After this, I baked it for a further 30 minutes and it was done.

It is best served warm - by lunch time fruits were barely distinguishable - very tasty though!

And Roasted Vegetable Salad



Not much to this one, really. I just threw a whole load of vegetables (including baby new potatoes - sacrilege, I know!)into a roasting dish, added a good shake of balsamic vinegar, crushed garlic and decent olive oil, and roasted for 40 minutes or so. Basically until the cherry tomatoes were bursting and the capsicum was well blackened. I bunged the capsicum in a snaplock bag until the skins slid off easily, tossed through some bacon, sundried tomatoes and lemon juice and it was done.

All in all, it has been a great day - gorgeous weather, happy times, and great food and pressies :D

BTW, kitchen and sandpit proving very popular...

DIY Play kitchen and sandpit

The Bells are being frugal this Christmas. Actually, at the risk of sounding like a pompous gobshite, it's more about reducing the amount of plastic in our house than money, but nevertheless, our kids' main presents this year have been homemade.

Sophie is getting this:


It began life as this:


...and cost a grand total of $11 on Trade Me. With a few purchased extras, and lots of bits and pieces we had lying around, we turned it into a very cute piece of furniture that will hopefully store away a great deal of Sophie's food play paraphenalia. I suspect she is going to have a career in catering with the fervour she puts into her cooking games, and now she has a sturdy kitchen to help boost her imagination - not that she needs that!

The costings for it are below:
$11 - Entertainment Unit
$15 - Sheet of custom wood for the back
$10 - Wallpaper paste (annoyed I had to buy a whole packet for such a measley job!)
$10 - Recycled tap
$3.90 - Bowl for sink
$20 - knobs and handles (I went high end ;-) )
$6 - Clock

All up, $75.90. Not bad, and could have been even cheaper if I bought cheaper handles. I was just stressed because Mitre 10 Mega were getting a tad shouty on the loudspeaker about imminent closing, and I grabbed impulsively. Entirely their fault, the money-grabbing beasts!

We encountered a few tricks along the way, such as using the Speed Brush to paint the veneer, as the enamel paint showed every single brushstroke otherwise.

And here is Caleb's sandpit:


It's made from macrocarpa sleepers left over from our vege garden (actually, 'left over' is misleading - we haven't finished the job yet!) and larch capping. We weren't happy about using treated timber to make it due to arsenic leeching into the sand, and going by the fun they had in it this evening, many hours will be spent in there. We also bought fancy sand - special super-dooper sandcastle-making stuff!

Have a fabulous Christmas all, and thank you all so much for reading my blog!

Mwahhh! XXX

Speedy non-post...

Just a quick update before the grand unveiling of Sophie's Christmas present, that has been lovingly upcycled by her slightly stressed and frazzled parents over the past few evenings. Will hopefully be near finished on Thursday evening. She'd better like it...

In fact, I now realise that I have so little to say that I really shouldn't be posting anything. 'Tis a narcissistic world we live in, isn't it?

Have discovered a FANTASTIC source of child entertainment - a roll of wrapping paper, sellotape, scissors and small cardboard boxes (cereal / washing powder etc) - Soph and Caleb love wrapping them up (using far too much sellotape, but at 90c for 2 rolls, I shouldn't whinge) then 'gifting' them to lucky recipients, and crowing over their contents ("Ohhhh, LOOK! You got an empty Tiny Teddies box - it has TEDDIES on it! Yay!!") before repeating the process. Particularly love the facial expression in this picture...



Have been making more yummy Christmas treats too. The inspiration for these comes from a girl I taught last year (or was it the year before?? The years blur into one...) who bought them to school for the staff one morning tea. I was hooked. These remain the one chocolatey treat that I cannot eat more than 2 of in a sitting, so they deserve kudos for that alone.



1) Melt dark chocolate in a bowl over a simmering pot of water. I use Whittakers Dark Ghana. 72% cocoa, or something like that. Gooooooood, anyway.
2) Brush up the sides of small silicon mini muffin cups and bung in the freezer until set. Leave them longer than you think they need - about 15 minutes will do it.
3) Pipe or spoon in caramel. I cheated and used the stuff in a can, but if you were organsied and did the 'boil condensed milk for 3 years' thing that all good and diligent domestic goddesses would do, it would be more admirable. And taste even better.
4) Top with cream and a strawberry. Again I cheated and used cream from a can. Because it's easy and tastes better.
5) Eat quickly, before they melt in this crazy heat or worse - you have to share!

Must post a pic of the vege garden. It's going MAD! I'm sure I can literally SEE things growing out there. We're devouring spuds, courgettes and lettuces, as well as fresh herbs. The pumpkins, beans, capsicums and carrots are a wee way away, but we'll be eating broccoli and tomatoes soon. The citrus trees have fruit too - can't wait to eat them, if they actually survive - seems too good to be true to have home-gorwn mandarins in Canterbury.



And finally, here is a picture of Helga, the Christmas alien. I'm allowed to say that, because Sophie was the one who originally declared that she looked decidedly ET-like. I think I love her. Christmas centrepiece, methinks!

More Christmassy treats

Look what we made!



And they're goooooood :D

Just a basic meringue, but with food colouring stripes down the inside of the piping bag and covered with a sprinkle of crushed candy canes before baking - fancy, aye? And surprisingly easy. The recipe called for 1/2 tsp of peppermint essence in the eringue mix, but as we didn't have any, I told myself that the candy canes would be minty enough. And they were - I don't know any better!

After dinner, I tried the same trick again, as they were a tad chewy for my liking. And I'd eaten them all, so needed some more anyway, but lets not talk about that. The kids helped me, anyway, so they should foot some of the blame. The Mark II recipe contained more than just caster sugar and egg whites, and I intend to let them dry out in the oven overnight, so hopefully they won't be so chewy.

We've had a really fun weekend - Preschool Christmas party, Santa Parade, catch-ups with friends, and just enjoying the lovely weather. In true Canterbury fashion, it's bound to be hideous come camping season, so we need to make the most of it. Here are some pics, taken by the new fandangled Panasonic Lumix FZ100 camera we recently purchased...

Sophie with her Highly Commended prize ribbon that she won for her sandsaucer in the Year 1-2 class at the local show. Cute - and pretty good for someone not even AT school!


Discovering Nana's raspberries...


And preschool party games...

Christmas baking

The kiddies and I did the token Christmas baking activity today. You know, the trendy one where you cut out different shaped stars, bung them together, decorate them, and they look like a gorgeous wee Christmas tree all stacked up. 'Twas interesting. Taste-wise, it was a definite success, so I'll include both the regular and gluten-free recipes we used. In terms of management and resulting clean-up, however... lets just say the Spray'n'Wipe and elbow grease was given a work out today. That glace icing can STICK!

Before I totally put you off the activity, I must praise its virtues. It has the potential (with ONE child, preferably 3 and up ;-)) to be awesome for teaching geometric and measurement knowledge. We found ourselves using language like 'small', 'smaller', and 'smallest', 'large', 'middle-sized' etc, and had lots of fun ordering the stars in size order. Basic stuff, but a hugely important learning step. Estimating the size of spaces then fitting the shapes in around each other while cutting them out was also a skill we practiced (far from mastering this one!) and of course the standard baking skills of measuring, pouring liquids and powders, mixing etc that are the normal learning experiences for an activity like this. Good fun. Just don't turn your back for a SECOND when you give a two year old a bowl of icing and jar of sprinkles **twitch-twitch**

The recipe below arrived in my email inbox last week, courtesy of my food heroine, Sophie Gray, of whom I have spoken in rapturous terms of at length in the past. Shan't repeat any of my adoring rhetoric here, except to say that if you haven't read any of her cookbooks, do. And if you can't afford to buy them, beg, borrow or steal them. Or just watch my blog and I'll probably eventually post all of my faves to save you the bother - I'm sure she won't mind :D

Lemony Star Tree Christmas Cookies

¾ cup sugar
125 g butter
1 egg
½ cup sour cream
2 tbsp lemon juice
Zest of a lemon
1 tsp baking powder
4–5 cups flour
Castor sugar for sprinkling
Silver balls to decorate


Cream the butter and sugar, add the egg and sour cream then stir in the lemon juice and zest.

Stir in the flour and baking powder and knead the mixture adding more flour if required to make a firm, roll-able dough.
Chill the dough for half an hour then roll out and cut into stars using a variety of star cutters if you have them, or the use the link above to download the star template. Cut plenty of extra stars in the smallest size as you will place these between the cookie star layers to give the tree some height.

Bake at 180°C for 10–12 minutes. Smaller stars will cook more quickly.

While the cookies are baking, make a bowl of glace icing – how much will depend on how many stars you use. I used about 1½ cups of icing sugar and enough lemon juice with a drop or two of water to give a good spreadable coating and a nice lemony zing.

Spread each star with the prepared icing and then quickly sprinkle on a few silver balls before the icing hardens.
Cake decorating shops sell silver balls in a variety of sizes. I used tiny ones, like stardust, as well as regular ones. Or use other pretty decorations, edible glitter or sweeties.

When the icing is beginning to firm, use a bread and butter knife to scrape the edges of each star, removing the drips and over-runs. The overall effect of the trees is better if the edges are clean and crisp.

To assemble the trees select the largest size stars to form the bases of the 3 trees. Place a blob of icing in the middle of each one and put one of the smallest stars on the blob as a spacer. Add another blob of icing and affix the next biggest star, then another blob of icing and another small star. Continue in this manner until you have used all your stars. You should have 3 iced Christmas trees. You may need to allow the icing to harden a little before adding each layer.
Dust with icing sugar if you like and wrap in cellophane to keep fresh.

Edit of the title my own. I love you dearly Mrs Gray, but if you ever dare to write the plurals 'tree's' or 'sweetie's' again, I shall have to take drastic action.


Here is my standard GF gingerbread man recipe. They are quite sturdy, particularly if you roll them out thick. Very popular around here, and happily eaten even by gluten gluttons. This is high praise.

GF Gingerbread Men

275g GF flour mix (Simple worked well, as would the Destitute Gourmet #1 with a bit of Guar Gum, I expect)
1 1/2t ground ginger
1/2t baking soda
125g butter OR DF spread
125g caster sugar
2T melted golden syrup

Preheat oven to 170deg C.

Sieve dry ingredients. Rub in butter, then stir in sugar and golden syrup. If dough is too dry, add water a sprinkle at a time until it forms a dough.

Roll between two baking paper sheets to a thickness of about 5mm, then cut in shapes and bake for 10 minutes. Don't move from baking sheets until cool, as they are bendy at this stage!

Decorate as desired.


Just a bit of friendly co-operation...



And two little friends walking up the hill on a gorgeous sunny morning - until the Southerly thunder storm hit a few hours later!