Category: Home and Family

Since my last post about Ethan receiving his friendly Herman Cake from Nursery, I have got a few requests on how to start your own friendly Herman Cake. If you can’t wait to be given Herman, you can start Herman yourself. Here is how.

Ingredients
140 g shifted flour
200 g caster sugar
7 g yeast
280 mL warm milk
60 mL warm water

Method
Wake your yeast up by sprinkling the yeast into warm water. Leave to stand for about 10 minutes and stir.
Add sugar, stir and add flour and stir again.
Add milk slowly mixing thoroughly.
Cover Herman with a clean cloth and let him rest for 24 hours at room temperature.
Herman is ready for his 10 days cycle after the 24 hour rest

 Refer to my previous post for instructions on how to take care of Herman.

Have fun with Herman! Now you can share Herman with your friends 🙂  Will it spread like an epidemic (a good one of course, don’t want to offend Herman)? Tell me about it!

Another mummy day off for me as they boys are at nursery. I am counting down to the day that I will be starting work …. 6 more days …

Has it been one year already since my maternity leave?! Where did the time go!…Flew away for time waits for no men!

Am I looking forward to going back to work? Who am I kidding of course not. I will be missing my little men. Just thinking about it makes me miss them….but on the other hand, I am in need of some sanity…back to the big big world….where it involves other things other than nappy changing and feeding the kids and hubs.

Dont get me wrong, being at home taking care of the boys is very rewarding, I would love to be a stay at home mum, but also loved to be a working mum…can’t have it all can we…just take a day at a time, they boys will have new activities, fun, learn new things, make friends and do all sorts of awsomely fun messy play which I would not allow them to do at home. At nursery, they get to play with sand and water indoors in the middle of winter, squashing jelly on trays, finger painting with paint, tomato sauce and chocolate etc. Ethan even got to bake at nursery and make a mess without me telling him off for flinging flour everywhere.

Yesterday, after nursery Ethan and I made churros also known as Mexican long donuts. It was yummy, not too sweet to make him jump off the roof. Fun and easy to make and filled his belly during snack time when he was peckish. Posted the pictures on Facebook and got some interest. So here it is Jane and Polly, the easiest churros recipe. Enjoy!

Ingredients
50 g caster sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon
(for coating the hot fresh churros, yum)

150 g plain flour (or self raising flour if that is all you have)
1 tsp baking powder
15 mL olive oil
250 freshly boiled water
500 mL vegetable oil for frying (approximate)

Method

1. Place the sugar and ground cinnamon in a big container and mix by shaking (do a little dance if you like).
2. Mix the flour and baking powder in a heat proof bowl.
3. Beat in olive oil and the freshly boiled water. Keep mixing until you have a warm sticky dough.
4. Let it rest for about 10 minutes or for as long as it takes for your frying oil to heat up.
5. To cook the churros, heat up the frying oil in a saucepan (oil level should be approximately 1/3 way up the sides of the pan.
6. To check oil temperature without an oil thermometer – like me! toss a small piece of bread into the oil. if it turns brown in 30 seconds you are ready to go.
7. Load a piping bag with a large star nozzle (8mm) and fill it with your churro dough.
8. Squeeze approx 1.5 to 2 inch dough into the hot oil (or make it however short ot long you like) snipping the end with a pair of scissors as you go. You can also make funny shapped ones.
9. They are ready when they turn golden brown, fish them with tongs or chopsticks or slotted spon even and place them on paper towel to blot off the oil.
10. To keep your Churros warm, place it on a baking sheet into a preheated oven (175 degrees C)….we didn’t bother with this step as we want ed it to cool down as fast as possible so we could tuck in.
11. Rest the churros for about 10 minutes to allow the inside to set and so it doesn’t burn your mouth and throat.
12. Place the warm churros in the container containing sugar and cinnamon and ‘shake it all about, you do the hookey pookey dance’ and that’s all about!Make a choc dipping sauce and you will be dancing to another song Note: if you find that your batter is abit runny, just add a little more flour…

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Ewan’s at nursery try-out giving me a few hours free to do as I pleased. I decided to take a nap, lay down for 10 minutes and was itching to do something else. Jane said the first thing she did when she was free from her kids were to have a long poo time! Classic Jane!

I saw this recipe (lavender shortbread) from a cook book given to me on Christmas and decided to try making myself some green tea shortbread. My experimental shortbread turned out scrummy! Here is the recipe, though I must warn you, it is extremely buttery and sinful

Ingredients
70 g caster sugar (I used brown sugar to compliment the strong green tea flavour)
2 tsp green tea powder (optional you can use cocoa powder, dried lavender, dried rose etc for variations)
1/4 tsp fine salt (though I did omit this as I used salted butter)
350 g slightly softened and cubed (original recipe says to use unsalted, but I only have salted butter in the fridge)
350 g plain flour

Method

1. Preheat oven to 145 degrees C.
2. Mix sugar, salt and beat in the butter until well combined.
3. Fold in the flour until just combined (I cheated as the butter was sooo sticky, I broke my spatula whilst folding the batter, hence, I whizzed 3/4 of the flour with my electric mixer and folded the remaining 1/4 of the flour).
4. Transfer the mixture into a brownie / baking pan (30 x 25 x 5 cm).
5. Pat the dough down until well combined and level.
6. Sprinkle caster sugar on top.
7. Bake for 45 to 55 minutes until the top is golden brown and the edgse shrink from the pan.
8. Remove from oven, allow to cool for 10 minutes in the pan.
9. Remove from the pan and cut into squares.

Enjoy!

I have made this cake for more than 10 years, my boys and in-laws love it. Recently, I made this for a friend (with Ethan’s help of course) she and her little-lings loved it. Lin, this post is for you as promised, sorry it took so long.

This recipe is very versatile in the sense that you can use most fruits and vegetable as long as you follow the proportions and include 2 bananas and some carrots. I have substituted courgette with persimmon fruit, apples, pears, peaches and plums in the past. They were all yummy with the bonus of it being very easy to make and pack with fruits and vege!

Ingredients

250 plain flour or self raising flour (I used both before)
2 tbs baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp salt (optional)
250 to 150 g caster sugar (depending on how ripe is your banana and other fruits or if you are adding more vegetables to fruits ratio)
25 g pine nuts (optional)
100 to 25 g sultanas (optional)
175 mashed ripe banas (about 2 large bananas)
3 large eggs, beaten
250 g grated mixed carrots with courgettes or apples or pears etc.
150 mL sunflower oil (I have used other vegetable oil and olive oil)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 175 degrees C and line a 9 inch cake tin with paper parchment – a loose-bottomed spring-release tin is best.
2. Mix flour, baking powder, bicarbonate, salt, sugar, pine nuts and sultanas in a large mixing bowl and mix well.
   Add mashed bananas and beaten eggs.
3. Stir in grated vegetables/fruits and finally the oil.
4. Beat the cake throughly for a minute to a thick lumpy mixture.
5. Pour into the prepared baking tin and bake for about 1 hour until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.

Enjoy!

What do you do when you are too busy to cook but not too busy to eat a good meal? You find ways to make your life easier without compromising your balance diet…this is one of my very easy yet yummy recipies, even my 3 (nearly 4) year-old can make it…some say Iam cheating as I am using prepack spice and ready puff sheets. Cheat or not, it is easy to make, yummy and a balance meal.

Ingredients
500-700 g Diced beef
200 g Diced carrots
200 g Diced potatoes
150 g Sliced mushrooms
1 Sliced medium onion
2 tbsp oil
150 ml water
0.5 to 1 Colman’s beef casserole sachet (or you can marinate your beef with herbs, soya sauce, salt, sugar, wine, sherry depending on your taste, but for this post, lets concentrate on making your life easy and use ready packed spice…with no MSG or artificial colours or preservatives of course!)
2 x 320 g Jus Rol puff sheet

Method
1. Place all ingredients in the oven roasting bag provided (note, these are special oven bags, do not use ordinary plastic bag if you don’t want to eat melted plastic!)
You can do this the night before storing it in the fridge until you are ready to cook, perhaps when you come home from work!
2. To cook, preheat oven to 170 degrees C (150 degrees C for fan assisted).
3. Place the filled oven bag in the middle shelf and bake for 2 hour 15 minutes.
Note if you bake it at a higher temperature shorter time, your beef will not be as tender.

When this is ready….you can dig in or to make puff pastry pie, read on…

4. Preheat oven to 220 degrees C (200 degrees C for fan assisted) .
5. Unfoll your pastry sheet on a lined baking tray and spread with your yummy casserole to make a big pie. Cut the sheet to smaller portions if you want to make smaller pies. Leave some sheets so that you can wrap your beef casserole into a big neat parcel or many mini parcels.
6. Seal the sides and cut the top to allow the steam to escape whilst baking.
Optional….add cheese on top!
7. Bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown.

Soooooo Gooooood! Yummy meal made easy!

Dinner today will complete with yummy moist choc cake known as the Ultimate Devil’s Food cake!