My Sunday morning

I think I must be a morning person...I came downstairs today with Ro and as I opened the living room door I was hit by the scent of honeysuckle.  Yesterday J was cutting bushes back in the garden: 1, because the trampoline keeps getting covered and 2, because we can't see to reverse out of our drive.  Anyway, I saw these little cuttings on the drive and felt they were too good for the 'brown bin'.  So popped them in a tiny vase along with some wild roses, it's the tiniest posy, I can't believe how strong the smell is, here they are...

Gorgeous and free! We then went into the kitchen and the bread machine starts to beep, another divine aroma - fresh bread.  I'm about to eat my hot buttery croissant with fresh coffee, more deliciousness...I LOVE Sunday mornings...Nx

Little Italian Courgette Cakes - haha the kids ate courgettes!

I haven't bought any biscuits on purpose, trying to be healthy. Needed a sweet fix today and my 3 year old loves to bake, so I got the new Abel & Cole book out...

Ingredients list:

75ml olive oil

100g sugar (I used light muscavado)

2 eggs

1 lemon (zest and 3tbsp juice)

half tsp ground cinnamon

250g plain white flour

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

quarter tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

1 mug of grated courgette

handful of crushed nuts and/or raisins (I used almonds and hazelnuts)

a little honey

There seemed a lot of ingredients but anyhow we set to work, weighing and measuring, grating and egg cracking...btw I halved the mix as I'd never made them before...

Whisk oil, sugar, egg(s), zest and juice, and cinnamon together until light and fluffy.

Sieve in the flour, bicarb, baking powder and salt.  Gently fold.  Carefully swirl (mine was quite dry for any swirling) in the courgette, nuts and/or raisins.  Save a few nuts for the tops.  Don't overmix.

I used a small cup for the courgette as I had halved everything else...

 Dot the tops with remaining nuts.  My mixture filled 6 bun cases...

Ro helped sweep up loads of grated courgette, while the buns were in the oven 180o/Gas 4 for 25-30 mins.

Drizzle a little honey over the tops when you take them out of the oven.  The cakes will store for 2-3 days in an airtight container (if they last that long!).  

Ta-dah! They are scrummy, I wish I hadn't halved the quantities now...and the children love them.

PS...Last night when we'd finished tea, Miss M asked what was for pudding?  I said I hadn't made any and to grab a yogurt.  She disappeared into the kitchen and after a while presented me with a plate, bananas and ice cream - loved the skewers, cute...Nx

Abel & Cole freebie from a friend

I have to say I'm quite giddy about this.  I met my very good friend Jane for a coffee last week along with a couple of others and she offered me a little piece of card.  To receive a completely free organic seasonal fruit and veg box, and all I had to do was log on and open an account, so I did. When I did there was also the option to order a free recipe book, hey why not!

Tuesday is delivery day, so today I was eagerly awaiting 'Driver Danny' with my box of goodies, he didn't disappoint...

It all arrived in this brown box...the anticipation...

Even Ro got a little over excited when I opened the box and he doesn't eat much in the way of vegetables.  As we were taking them all out of the box I thought I should lay them out in a nice way, so I could take a photograph and post it on facebook to say thanks to Jane.  I got a bit carried away! and the photo's blurry, I didn't get chance to take another before Ro grabbed a banana and ate it.

The book's great too, full of seasonal recipes and top tips, can't wait to try things out...Nx

A family day out at Wycoller Country Park - Spinning Yarn

We went to one of our favourite places on Sunday - Wycoller Country Park. It was one of those 'looks like its going to rain' days, but still needed to get out. So wellies on and off we went. 

You park in the free car park and walk alongside the very quiet road with gorgeous hedgerow shrubs and fields either side, these flowers looked stunning (guelder rose?) and I can't believe all the fields of tall buttercups I've seen this year...

As we had our wellies on we went off-road and into the beck, M leading the way...

under tiny bridges and stepping carefully on the slippery stones...

This is a tiny footbridge and just beyond (where J and Ro are) is the road through and cars cross the water...

Just here...

We let the little people go on by themselves for a while...

 I want to see where these steps lead next time we visit...

The ruins of Wycoller Hall... 

When we approached the aisled barn, we noticed a trailer full of sheep, we had just missed some shearing.  Then inside we found this lovely lady spinning her wool from Cocoa the sheep.  I can't believe I didn't ask her name and was cheeky enough to take loads of photos! I particularly liked her pointy edged jumper...

 The potato sack full of Cocoa's wool...

She let the children each have a turn on her spinning wheel...

and then wrapped their spun yarn around their wrists as a little bracelet...

M with her wild poppy (she's not very good at following the countryside code)

She had lots of lovely dyed wool set out on a table for all to see, M and I had a funny little conversation about rainbow sheep...

She had some leaflets for Woolfest, Cumbria and told us she would be there, I mentioned I would quite like to go to a local event called Yarndale, Skipton and she said she had also booked a stall there and to say hello if we went.  We headed towards the cafe for an ice cream...

Passing some wonderful houses with very pretty doors...

Witch way?

Sibling love...

And then back along the road to the same path we followed on the way in. Always something different to see here.  A lovely day out as it always is, whatever the weather...Nx

Rhubarb Flapjack

My friend left me some rhubarb from her garden and a pot of homemade rhubarb and vanilla jam at my door the other day. Much appreciated by all of us, Ro wants 'Becky's jam' for his dinner everyday now.  

This rhubarb has been staring at me from the top of the fridge ever since and today I finally got round to making something with it. A quick search and I found this lovely rhubarb flapjack recipe.  I adapted it slightly and used honey and a little bit of the syrup out of a jar of stem ginger as I didn't have any golden syrup. In fact I think using some of the ginger out of the jar instead of ground ginger would have made these flapjacks even nicer. I also used a little less sugar as I find most things too sweet.

My ingredients and quantities:
375g Oats   
50g Ground Almonds    
1tsp Ground Ginger
150g Butter 
70g Sugar (Light Brown Muscavado)    
60g Honey    
250g Rhubarb (chop small)

  Mix together: the oats, ground almonds and ground ginger.

 In a pan: Butter, sugar, honey and chopped rhubarb. Stir until the butter is melted.

 Press it down in your chosen greased tray. Bake for 20 minutes @ 170(fan).

Cut while still warm and leave in the tin to cool (mine made 22 small pieces). Enjoy!

I took a few pieces round to Becky's and left them by her door, hope she likes it...Nx

Caterpillar in my cauliflower and Butternut squash risotto with coconut oil

Fridge jenga is not my favourite game, I need a bigger fridge, look...

But...as I have to try and fit everything in, it led to this...

Ro was fascinated. he wanted to name it fluffy! It's not fluffy. Anyway, I popped it in a jar to show M after school.  

Today it was warm, but my children won't eat salad.  I'm trying to get them to eat more veggies and decided to make a butternut squash risotto with coconut oil, we had some mozzarella left over so thought I'd joosh-up some courgettes to go alongside the risotto.

Courgettes to roast with cherry toms, mozzarella and pesto

A heart ;-)

Roasting squash with coconut oil and thyme

I thought it was yummy, Ro liked the rice but that's about all, M didn't like any of it and went straight to the fridge for yogurt. Oh well, there's always tomorrow.  Back to the caterpillar. We went foraging for different grasses and leaves in the field next door...

 Put some soil in a large jar, along with the grasses and some large sticks...

 Put the caterpillar in 'his' new home...

 Popped a piece of material on top and hoped for the best...

M made a name badge for the caterpillar. She even drew pictures on the other side of the paper so that the caterpillar could see from inside, very cute.  The funny thing is she came up with Emerald and doesn't know what an emerald is. I told her that was a perfect name as it was green...hope we manage to keep it until it's a butterfly...Nx

Banana Bread with coconut oil (and a coconut oil body scrub)

I've got loads of bananas that need eating up, see...

We ate a couple on our breakfast this morning. Then I remembered I had a healthy banana bread recipe in a book somewhere and when I found it, it's using wholemeal self raising flour, 1st stumble, also has natural yogurt in the recipe, none of that either, or any poppy seeds. So this is my own version of a healthy(ish) banana bread made with coconut oil and other things I had in the house!

You will need:

80g Natural Molasses Sugar

1 Egg

200g of Greek yogurt with honey

2tbsp Coconut oil

2 ripe Bananas mashed

40g Sultanas

100g Plain flour

50g Porridge oats

1/2tsp Bicarbonate of Soda

1tsp Baking Powder

1tsp Ground Cinnamon

1tsp Ground Nutmeg

Preheat oven to 160o/325oF/Gas 3

Put sugar, egg, yogurt and oil in a large bowl and whisk together well. By the way, I didn't melt the coconut oil beforehand and it whipped together just fine.

Ro came into the kitchen at this point and wanted to help.

Stir in the bananas and sultanas.

Add everything else, and fold gently with a metal spoon (a 3 year old's version of gently).

Spoon the mixture into prepared loaf tin (grease and line it cos it's sticky). 

Now, here's the tricky part, the recipe says 50 minutes, but of course it's a completely different recipe, so I bet it had about 2 hours altogether, yes really! We got the hama beads out, then played with play doh, then went for a ride on the bike to school to drop off M's lunch bag and fed the ducks, and even when I switched the oven off, I left it in the oven just to be sure! Anyway, here is the finished article, I would say it tastes a little bit like malt loaf, it's nice anyway. Maybe didn't need as much yogurt (one pot would have done it) and then it wouldn't have taken so long to cook. Ta-dah...

PS. Scared the kids in the shower tonight, you know I love all things coconut oil? Well I tried out a home made body scrub tonight, using about 1/2 tbsp coconut oil and the contents of this morning's cafetiere! I know it's taking re-cycling to the extreme, but it worked and it smells lush, coconut ground coffee. I bet I looked a sight...Nx