Day Ten: My christmas wish list

The Real Food Companion



Forgotten Skills of Cooking



The Original River Cottage Cookbook



The River Cottage Meat Book


A Slice of Organic Life

Over the last couple of months I have been lucky to have these great books constantly by my side. Great tomes of information lugged everywhere from parks to play dates, from coffee shops to school pick up.

I love my local library, I really do. But sometimes you come across books you just don't want to give back.

Today I had to return the last one (The Forgotten Skills of Cooking). The others had been returned on their due dates over the last couple of weeks. It will be strange not to pick up a book with 600 odd pages, just to answer a question in my head.

So I have started my Christmas wish list: These five books and a little 5 acre farm with a cottage on a hill.

Thanks Santa xo

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Day Nine: Baking bread

You may have read on my other blog about the bread maker that mum bought me at a garage sale. Today I finally got around to using it, and it worked. Fresh bread!

I got 10 slices from the bread, that gives only five sandwiches. I will need to do a bit of costing to see if this is a good or bad thing. It would be easy to bake daily as it is foolproof, but it is cost effective? Do you bake your own bread? I would love some advice in this area.

I can see that there will be much trial and error along our journey for the perfect everyday family loaf. This is just the start.

I actually prefer multigrain bread to wholemeal, and prefer rye to multigrain. But wholemeal flour is what I had at hand and it made a nice wholemeal loaf.

There was so much excitement over our 'first ever' loaf of bread that Spunky Monkey (fresh from his bath and wearing pajamas) asked if he could take a slice of bread to the neighbours.

" Mum, don't forget to cut it into four so everyone can try a bit. They are going to love it!"

And they did!





Have have written the recipe here, as much for me as for you. My bread maker is a Panasonic (SD-200) I'm not sure how different they are.

Here is what I did:

Large Wholemeal Loaf

• 1 1/4 teaspoons dry yeast (I've kept mine in the freezer)
• 400 grams plain wholemeal flour
• 2 teaspoons table salt
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 2 tablespoons raw sugar
• 370 ml water

Put the ingredients of your bread into the bread maker in the order of the ingredients list. Yeast first and water last. There is no need to mix. Press the menu button and select wholewheat. Press the select button and select bake. Press start and walk away. When the beeper beeps to indicate that the bread is ready lift the lid immediately to remove the bread. Remember to wear oven mits and shake the pan several times to remove the bread. Place the bread on a wire rack to cool.

Et voila, fresh bread!

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Day Eight: Home alone

I have been home alone today.

No... not in a movie and hot chocolate kind of way.

I have been spring cleaning - like a mad woman.

With no interruptions and no time to eat or drink cups of tea, I have washed, wiped, scrubbed, vacuumed, dusted, rearranged and rearranged again, tidied and sorted. Walls, floors, drawers, cupboards, wardrobes, bookshelves and windows. The children's rooms and playroom look amazing. Lets hope some pocket money (bribes) will help keep it that way.

Still more spring cleaning on the list for later this week, but today has been a great start. I am happily exhausted, there is nothing like a bit of spring cleaning to put a 'spring' back into your step.

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Day Seven: Preserving beetroot

This morning I have been preserving beetroot.

My hands are pink and my kitchen smells vinegary, but I don't care. I can't seem to wipe the smile from my face. There is nothing more satisfying than home preserving.

Hmmm.... unless of course I had grown my own vegetables.



I am working on it.

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Day Six: Embroidery

Over the school holidays I had a chance to get started on Miss Moo Moo's 'tooth fairy' pillow.

I have finished the embroidery this afternoon with a just enough thread. It was touch and go there for a while. I had chosen this colour as the perfect match to the backing/pocket fabric. However I only had a small amount; it had come from a thrifted bag of collected thread.

Tomorrow I will sew it, stuff it and pop in the cupboard for when it is needed. Spunky Monkey's tooth pillow has been sitting in his cupboard for the last two years waiting... waiting....

To see more creative spaces, click here.

and...
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Day Five: Time out

Today, Miss Moo Moo went back to Kindy. It was the first time I had been alone for three and a half weeks. I hadn't realised this until I fell into a heap.

I had grand plans: bread making, jam making, preserving vegetables. Not to mention the much needed tidying (culling) of the toyroom. I even thought I would squeeze in a little bit of embroidery.





But I felt crappy and the weather was crappy. So after a bit of grocery shopping I came home, made some hot chocolate and curled up under the blankets to watch "Miss Potter"

I'm feeling much better now that I have had some me time, I even managed to cook a yummy casserole for dinner.

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Day Four: Fresh fruit

And it doesn't come any fresher that this.

Spunky Monkey picked a pineapple from our garden for afternoon tea today. The cut top from a market bought pineapple had been planted over two years ago.

With such a long time coming, we savoured every juicy morsel.

It's just a pity it was all gone in about 5 minutes.

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