The miniature garden

Charlotte has entered the miniature garden competition at the village fete tomorrow. I tried showing her pictures of miniature gardens and suggesting ideas to her, but she was adamant as to how she wanted to do it. The ideas are all her own, and I was itching to help, but all I did was sneak a handful of coffee stirrers from the cafe today and cut them in half for her. I just wish she would put some flowers or plants in it!

Chicken and couscous "ready meal"

My sister had her second beautiful little girl last week and I went over to see her yesterday. I wanted to take a pre-made dinner to save them the hassle of cooking, as I know what it's like with a baby and toddler in the house! I had a lot of things to think of, it needed to be easy to finish off cooking, contain no onions or hot spices (she is breastfeeding and these don't seem to agree with new babies) and not need any ingredients that were not already in my fridge.

So, the answer came to me, chicken in a vegetable and tomato sauce with couscous.

Method

I skinned and chopped 3 large tomatoes and placed them in my big saute pan with a small tin of "chair de tomate", a splash of olive oil and 2 frozen cubes of garlic.
I simmered these together with about 150ml of chicken stock, black pepper and mild paprika.
I added 2 medium sized chopped carrots and half a bag of spinach and simmered until the sauce was quite thick.
In a frying pan I seared 2 chicken breasts and then placed them in a casserole dish and covered them with the tomato sauce. I then cooled it quickly in a bath of iced water and put it in the fridge.

I made up 200g couscous with chicken stock and 1 tbsp sunflower oil, then cooled this and put it in the fridge.

When I went over, I took the 2 dishes of food, all they had to do was microwave the couscous and cook the chicken for 30 minutes at 180c and they had a home cooked dinner. Easy.

Lime and ginger cake

I bought a large number of limes for my husband's birthday party, hoping for good weather and cocktail making. Unfortunately, the weather inspired tea-drinking instead, so I have a lot of limes to use up. I searched around online for a cake recipe, and found this one. I have adapted it a bit, so my new recipe is below:

Ingredients

200g soya margarine
175g caster sugar
Zest of 3 limes and juice of 2
3 eggs
200g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1.5 tsp ground ginger
50g desiccated coconut

for the drizzle:
3 tbsp granulated sugar
3 tbsp ginger syrup
juice of 1 lime

Method

Cream the margarine and sugar, then add the grated lime.
In a bowl, mix the flour, ginger, coconut and baking powder.
Alternately add the eggs and tablespoons of the dry ingredients, mixing after adding each.
Add the remaining dry ingredients and the juice of 2 limes, then mix well.
Tip into a lined 2lb loaf tin and bake for 50 minutes at 180c.
Leave to cool for 15 minutes in the tin, then make lots of holes in the top of the cake with a skewer.
Slowly pour the mixed drizzle ingredients over the cake, allowing it to soak in.

The original cake had stem ginger in the cake and on the top. I only used the syrup left over from a batch of biscuits I made at the weekend. I think the flavour of the cake would definitely be improved with the extra ginger, but it was still delicious without it.

Painted tea light holders

Charlotte is entering the decorated tea light holder competition as part of the village fair this year. She is also entering a few other competitions, as is Emma. The girls both decorated glass tea light holders with glass/ceramic pens, and the results were both very pretty. The glasses were IKEA ones from ebay, £5 for 4. I think the rest (we bought 8) will be decorated closer to Christmas as presents.

Emma's 

Charlotte's

Scooby Doo villain posters

The beast from the bottomless lake

It will be Charlotte's birthday next month and she has decided on a Scooby Doo themed birthday party. We started making the posters for it, to be used as part of a mystery solving game and I was very good and allowed the children to help. I am usually very possessive of anything arty for a party as I want it to be "just right", but I learned from this experience that I need to let go more often and trust the children to create with me.

Ghost astronaut

I drew up the villains on A2 card, then we all block painted them with acrylic paint, not worrying about details too much. Finally, when they were dry I used a black marker pen to fill in all the details. I have to say, the ghost astronaut and the beast from the bottomless lake look better than I could have achieved, and the girls painted these all by themselves.

Charlotte has decided that she now wants the whole Scooby Doo gang as posters too, so we need to get some more card now.

"Graham cracker" chocolate chip muffins

I came across a recipe the other day for Graham cracker chocolate chip muffins and they looked and sounded delicious. I couldn't get hold of Graham crackers here in the UK, so I had to resort to digestive biscuits in this recipe adaptation. I have made them dairy-free, and am hoping that I haven't lost too much of the taste of the original recipe in the process.

Ingredients

2 cups of plain flour
1tbsp baking powder
1/2tsp salt
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup of digestive biscuit crumbs
1 cup sweetened soya milk
1/3 cup sunflower oil
1 large egg
2tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup dairy free "milk" chocolate chips

topping:
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup light brown soft sugar
1/4 cup golden granulated sugar
1/2 cup digestive biscuit crumbs
3/4tsp cinnamon
3tbsp soya margarine, melted

Method 

Mix flour, crumbs, baking powder, salt and sugar in a large bowl.
Mix oil, milk, egg and vanilla in a jug.
Add the wet to the dry mix and stir well to combine.
Finally add the chocolate chips and mix in.

In a smaller bowl, mix the topping ingredients together. The mix should be crumbly. I have changed the ingredient quantities from the original, as my version of the original was really gloopy. It must be due to the water content of the margarine.

I made 16 muffins in lined muffin tins with this quantity of mix, with each case 2/3 full of mix. I then added a teaspoon of the crumbly topping to each muffin and baked at 190c (fan) for around 15 minutes until they were cooked through. They smell amazing. They taste delicious, especially while still warm!

First loaf of bread!

I made bread today. I had a brief dabble with bread rolls last summer, using a bread ready-mix, but they weren't great. I was up early this morning and the incessant children's program theme tunes drove me into the kitchen. I have had a bag of bread flour sitting in the cupboard for ages, and I though the kneading might be relaxing. So I did it.

I followed the instructions on the yeast sachet to the letter, and the result (2 hours later) is not bad at all. Can't wait for it to cool so I can try some.