Affectionately named ‘puglets’ by our youngest family member, these apple pikelets are a favourite afternoon treat in our house.
It doesn’t get much easier than whisking a few ingredients together in a bowl and cooking spoonfuls of batter in a frying pan.
Usually the hungry hordes hang around the frying pan and eat them straight away, but the more patient ones will enjoy them drizzled with some honey and a hot cup of tea.
Occasionally there are leftovers, and I wrap 2 at a time in glad wrap and pop them in the freezer for lunch boxes.
I like to use Wholemeal Spelt Flour to make these. It is much higher in protein, fibre and other nutrients than regular flour.
Ingredients
(makes approx 30)
2 cups wholemeal spelt flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
3 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 cups milk
2 eggs
1 apple, grated
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
Method
In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and sugar.
Add remaining ingredients and whisk until a smooth batter.
Heat a small amount of butter in a frying pan.
Drop a dessertspoon amount of batter into the hot frying pan.
Wait for bubbles to appear on the surface and then flip the pikelet and cook the other side till golden. This won’t take long. If they are browning too quickly, turn the heat down a little.
Well, our family recently enjoyed an unexpected winter treat!Â
After escaping to the family farm to see out what we hoped was the remaining week of ‘The Flu’, we found ourselves knee deep in a ‘once in 40 years’ snow event in the heart of beautiful Oberon, NSW.
2 of our 3 boys had never seen or been in snow before and so when we woke to see the farm covered in soft snow, 25cm deep, it was almost as good as Christmas morning!
A beautiful view across the farm.
Real Estate signs made the perfect toboggans for the big boys.
And yes, even Dad had to have a turn!
Sometimes life’s unplanned moments turn out to be some of the best. I celebrated my birthday as the snow was falling and it will definitely be a birthday I will remember for a long while yet.
How will we get out the driveway Mum? It ended up being Dad who shovelled us out.
Of course we had to build a snowman!
It might seem like a strange recipe to post after talking about the winter snow, but this beautiful salad is full of some of winters most wonderful produce and packs a huge nutritional punch in terms of goodness.
Let’s break it down;
Beetroots are high in fibre, have zero fat or cholesterol, are high in folic acid and help the liver in it’s detoxification process. The beautiful purple colour comes from a pigment known as betacyanin which helps to reduce the incidence of some forms of cancer. The leaves can be eaten too and are high in iron, calcium and Vitamins A and C.
Kale is high in fibre, water, calcium, iron, Vitamins C, A and K, many cancer preventing anti-oxidants, and potassium to help in managing blood pressure. It is best eaten very slightly steamed.
Oranges are a great immune boosting food due to their high Vitamin C content. They are also high in fibre, contain many anti-oxidants, some of which are essential for bone health and preventing osteoporosis. They are a source of carbohydrates and B Vitamins for energy.
Walnuts are full of omega-3 fatty acids which help lower bad cholesterol, help reduce the risk of breast cancer, heart disease and type 2 diabetes due to their high anti-oxidant levels. They contain melatonin which helps to improve sleep. They help lower blood pressure and contain lots of B vitamins.
Goats cheese is lower in fat and cholesterol than cheese made from cows milk and is more easily digested.
This salad takes minutes to throw together and can either be a meal on it’s own, or partner it with poached eggs, some chicken, beef or fish for a more complete meal.
These quantities will serve 2 as a meal in itself or 4 as an accompaniment.
Ingredients
1 orange, peeled and cut into thin segments
2 medium sized fresh beetroots (or a small tin of beetroot wedges if you are short on time)
2 stems of kale, leaves removed from stem and ripped into smaller pieces. Leave raw or lightly steam in the microwave for a minute or two.
a handful of lightly toasted walnuts
50gm goats cheese, crumbled
extra virgin olive oil to drizzle over the top
Method
If using fresh beetroots, preheat oven to 200 degrees celsius, wrap each beetroot in foil, place in oven and roast until soft when pierced with a fork. Cool slightly and using kitchen gloves (to keep your skin from turning purple!), peel skin away and cut beetroots into wedges.
Place all ingredients on a platter, drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.
It was one of those days where, unable to get to the shops, I needed to make dinner out of whatever was left in my almost bare fridge and freezer.
There are many times when I make up dinner based on a fridge and freezer clean out and not a specific recipe or meal plan. On the odd occasion it may be worthy of sharing, like this one turned out to be. But most of the time it isn’t. For every meal like this one, that my family really loved, there are more that I wouldn’t dream of photographing and sharing with you all.
On this particular day, my freezer had a boneless lamb shoulder and some leftover fresh lasagne sheets that I had thrown in a few weeks earlier.
I had 1/2 a block of feta, 1/2 a bag of baby spinach and some salami in the fridge that we’re all on their last legs.
The Pulled Lamb part of this recipe came out like a ‘ragu’, which is an Italian style meat based sauce you would serve with pasta. It is often cooked for a long time making it quite rich tasting and typically has wine and vegetables in it.  Not having wine on hand or many vegetables either, this is my version.
If you didn’t want to make this lasagne, you could just make the pulled lamb mixture and serve it over pasta with fresh parmesan cheese. It would also freeze beautifully too.
Italian Style Pulled Lamb
Ingredients
1.5kg boned lamb shoulder
750ml jar of tomato passatta
50gm sliced salami
1 leek, washed and roughly chopped
1 tablespoon of dried oregano
a few sprigs of fresh rosemary
1 teaspoon dried chilli flakes
2 garlic cloves, peeled, chopped in half
Method
Place all ingredients in a slow cooker and cook for 6 hours, removing the lid for the last hour to thicken the sauce.
Allow to cool slightly, and using 2 forks, shred the meat, discarding any fat.
Place sauce and shredded meat in a container to either freeze for later use or place in the fridge to use the next day in either this lasagne or simply over pasta.
Lamb, Spinach and Feta Lasagne
Serves 6
Ingredients
1 quantity of pulled lamb (see above recipe)
100gm of feta, crumbled
1 cup of baby spinach leaves
8-10 truss cherry tomatoes, halved
1/2 – 1 packet of fresh lasagne sheets, depending on the size of dish you use. (Whatever sheets you don’t use, just place in a snap lock glad bag and freeze.)
Method
Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius.
Place a small amount of lamb and sauce mixture in the bottom of a lasagne dish, approx
Place fresh lasagne sheets over the top, cover lasagne sheets with baby spinach leaves, then repeat layering (lamb and sauce, lasagne sheets, baby spinach, finishing with lasagne sheets.)
Spread a small amount of any remaining sauce on top to slightly moisten sheets, then place halved cherry tomatoes on the top.
I love to plan EVERYTHING and ANYTHING. From the big stuff like 5 YEAR PLANS and holidays right down to my weekly meal plan, to what I will wear to that dinner next week and then right down to ‘after lunch and those 2 phone calls I will clean Child Number 1’s bedroom.’
Some of you will be nodding in agreement. Some of you will probably think this is bordering on an illness and I should get some help.
It is who I am and always have been, but then I became a mother.
The best role of my life by far, has been the one that has really messed with my obsession with planning. I somehow wish, as I birthed each child, a new found ability to just GO WITH THE FLOW would have washed over me and I could have become one of those carefree, take each day as it comes, skipping through the meadows, spontaneous kind of mums.
But no, that didn’t happen.
My family often joke with me that the reason I have a bad memory of things that happened in the past, is that I am always living in the future in my next plan. I think there may be some truth in that statement.
This brings me to today.
Our holiday plan lies discarded amongst the tissue boxes and Nurofen bottles.
This sinister flu season has gripped our family and today, we end our second week and move into our third week at home.
On one hand, it’s just the flu. It will pass and we will be well again. This I know to be true. We also shouldn’t be surprised, this is quite normal for our family, and not just in winter. In the last 6 months alone, all 3 boys have been quarantined at home for weeks with Whooping Cough, multiple chest infections, pnemonia and now the real flu. When I look back over the last 12 years, the picture is the same, so we really should be used to it by now. But when your boys look up at you and say “Why is it always us and always the holidays?” that it catches in your throat and you can’t seem to find an answer other than “It’s just the way it is my son.”
I know many families walking much more difficult and permanent paths with their families health, that I almost didn’t write this. Really the flu shouldn’t even warrant a mention.
But, then I think maybe it’s good to write about the very real, not so nice and disappointing stuff. That maybe others will be encouraged to hear that 95% of my life is not worthy of a Facebook status update, but is indeed just every day, normal home life.
As a parent I have to help my kids learn how to process disappointment and also teach them from a young age that Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans. One of the challenges of parenting is trying to teach important life lessons to your kids that you are still struggling to learn as an adult.
When you strip away friends, outings, adventures, work, study, excitement and say NO to whatever the rest of the world seems to be doing, you are left with REAL LIFE.
The every day cycle of rise, wash, eat, drink, sleep and repeat life that is so very normal and yet so very monotonous.
In busy seasons I crave that simple domestic scene. But usually I only need a couple of days of it to refill my tank and this extrovert is ready to be OUT LIVING AMONGST IT again.
Doing it for weeks at a time and being the one responsible for keeping the family spirit high and coming up with new ways to fill each day in our home does not always come easy to me.
I go from cheerily saying ‘Boys, let’s all sit by this window and look at the rainbow the sun is making on the windowsill’ moments to the  ‘it’s every man for himself’ moments where I can cheer and cajole us no more.  I go from ‘I am so lucky to be able to SIT ALL DAY by the fire’ thoughts to ‘If I don’t leave this house soon I think I am GOING TO SCREAM’ darker thoughts.
So, the sun rises and sets, and every few days we’ve changed our PJ’s, just to keep things interesting.
And because I HAVE SO MUCH TIME TO THINK, I find myself reflecting on what may be one of the lessons my very faithful and patient Heavenly Father keeps trying to teach me, over and over and over and over again.
Be Faithful in the Small Stuff.Â
It’s not glamorous, world changing, dynamic, exciting, popular or even all that interesting some times.
Stay at it anyway.Â
The every day, very small, often insignificant, sometimes boring, repetitive stuff of no frills every day home life.
Keep on keeping on.
I’m not sure if this is eye-rolling or encouraging stuff to you reading this.
But even just typing the words has helped me to remember that in our not so exciting seasons of life, we are called to remain faithful and diligent with the task at hand, even if it’s not how we would choose it to be.
E x
This bare tree at my front door will soon start budding again. A beautiful reminder that Winter does not last forever.
When I first read about these delicate meringue cookies, I instantly fell in love with the name. These French cookies are a combination of meringue, dark chocolate and nuts. What’s not to love?
5 ingredients in total, these cookies are simple to make and get their name from the way they are cooked. You place them in a preheated oven, shut the door, turn the oven off, and ‘forget about’ them as they cook in a cooling oven overnight.
When I know we have a picnic or get together coming up the next day that I need to take something to, I will make these the night before, pop them in the oven before I head to bed and when I wake, take them out of the oven and put them in a container and I am good to go!
If you want to make them in the daylight hours, they just need to stay in the oven till it is cool. That will take approx 3-4 hours after you have turned the oven off.
Roast your hazelnuts in the oven for 10 minutes. While still warm, place them in a clean tea towel and rub them carefully to remove all of the skins.
Use a metal spoon to fold chocolate and nuts through until just combined.
Leave a small amount of space between each cookie
This recipe was from a French food feature in DELICIOUS magazine, June 2008.
Ingredients
2 egg whites
120gm (1/2 cup) castor sugar
150gm roasted nuts, chopped (I love hazelnuts, but you can use almonds, walnuts or pecans or a combination)
*see tip above on photo for removing hazelnut skins
150gm good quality dark chocolate, chopped into small pieces
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Method
Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius
Line 2 baking trays with baking paper
Whisk egg whites with electric beaters on high speed until stiff. (If using hand held beaters, this may take a little while). You will know when they are stiff, when you pick the beaters up out of the mixture and the egg whites are firm and don’t flop over.
Gradually add castor sugar, a little at a time, without stopping the beaters, until the mixture is a thick and glossy meringue.
Using a metal spoon, fold the nuts, chocolate and vanilla through carefully until just combined.
Drop small spoonfuls onto baking trays, leaving a little space between each one.
Place trays in the oven and immediately turn the oven off.
Once the oven is cool (or the next day), remove trays from the oven.
Store in an airtight container for up to a week.
I love to give these away too – place in a beautiful gift box or wrap in cellophane to make a lovely homemade birthday or simple ‘thank you’ gift.
