Halloween stuff

A carved pumpkin

A 'vomiting' carved pumpkin

These are the efforts we have gone to for Halloween this year;

Black paper bats in hall

Black paper bats in living room

Trick or treating (in Scotland - guising) costumes

Pumpkin satsumas for snack!

Strawberry and Raspberry Ice cream cake

Make a regular sponge and cut in half. Get a tub of vanilla ice cream and spoon through a punnet of raspberries. Cut a punnets worth of strawberries in half.

Compile in a lined cake tin and freeze. 

Take out 10mins before you wish to slice and serve.

Reasons to be cheerful.. 1. 2. 3.

Thank you Ian Drury and the Blockheads (which includes my old drawing tutor Humphrey - though I'm not sure he would be very impressed by my efforts) for this idea!
I have put the frame up on the hall table as a daily reminder of all the reasons to ignore the persistent Scottish rain and greyness and be happy anyway!
The reasons (and happy faces) are written with a white board pen onto the glass, so they can be wiped off and updated in an instant!

Bircher muesli

Lately we have been in to having Bircher muesli for breakfast during the week. It's really quite filling and I don't get hungry during the morning in the same way as porridge.
We make a dry mix which include oats (about 200g) we buy oats that have bran in as well, handful of sunflower seeds, sprinkle of poppy seeds, raisins, dried blueberries or whatever I have - pumpkin seeds, dried cranberries, whatever...and keep it in tuperware in the cupboard.
Then the night before we want it, I put into a small bowl enough for me and my man for one morning. Then I add a grated apple, some milk & apple juice (enough to cover the oats), and putting it in the fridge overnight. Then in the morning add a big spoonful of natural yoghurt and some poached fruit and a drizzle of honey if you fancy.

Space agency

Yesterday Max decided he wanted to make a space helmet, then it all got a bit out of hand! We made control panels, with buttons, knobs to twizzle, dials, levers, star maps, walkie talkies, a keyboard out of cardboard, silver foil, scraps of paper, egg cartons, pipe cleaners, loo rolls and pencils.
Then he used it all to make a rocket out of all the cushions and went to space. Mission accomplished!

Soups of the week - Chorizo & Bean soup, Thai broth

Forgot to take a photo of the Thai broth!

Chorizo & Bean stew soup.

Chorizo, White Beans, Sweetcorn, tinned tomato, fresh tomato, garlic, smoked parika, ground coriander & cumin

Thai broth

Stripped poached chicken, fresh ginger, chilli, lemongrass, lime leaf, fish sauce, palm sugar, coconut milk, pak choi, spring onions, lime juice, chicken stock, baby corn, green beans

Library book recepticle

So many people have seen us with this and said what a good idea it was that I thought I would share it with the ether... It's an old washing powder box (the really big 90 washes size) covered in coloured paper used for carrying and storing the kids library books.
It's a lot stronger than carrier bags, even jute/canvas ones. Plus it stays upright so works better to keep library books together once they are home and being read in the bedroom.

Apples, apples everywhere!

This wasn't my car but I feel like it should have been!
Our neighbour offered us some cooking apples from his friends garden and we happily accepted, excited at the idea of the lovely treats we could make.
But, I have since become afraid to leave the house, as every time I do, there are 2 more huge bags full! I think we have had 12 bags so far.
Over yesterday and today I have made;
6 litres of unsweetened puréed apple which I have frozen for future apple pies and crumbles
an ice cube trays worth of the naturally sweetest ones for Charlie to eat
2 more litres of sweetened and spiced cooked apples for apple pies this weekend
4 pints of apple, lime and ginger juice to which I plan to add some stock syrup and churn in the ice cream maker to make some sorbet
6 jars of indian spiced apple chutney
6 jars of apple, tomato, smoked paprika and chipotle chutney
plus we have send in 2 bags to Tom's friends and had baked apples for pudding today!

Our dream home has an orchard in our mind's eye, but please can we not have too many apple trees!

Chestnut Cake Pops

Today's school holiday activity was making these chestnut/conker inspired cake pops. I was inspired by some truffles I saw in this book but decided to make them as cake pops when I saw that a walnut cake was on sale in Sainsburys.
This is how we made them;
Smush a walnut cake like this into crumbs, then mix in a large tablespoon of nutella (warmed in the microwave for 10secs), plus 2 tablespoons of some chestnut paste (I had some in the cupboard that I had never known how to use!), and a teaspoon of peanut butter.
Refrigerate this mix for a while, then roll into balls. I made 20 about the size of large marbles.
Then I put a few drops of blue food colouring into some ready made golden marzipan to make it green. Use the marzipan to make little blankets to wrap around the chestnut cake balls.
Then put on a stick and cover the outer with melted chocolate which you agitate with the back of a teaspoon to give a spiky look as it dries.

Blow rockets

Today we made blow rockets. You draw a rocket, cut 2 out and sellotape the edges together to make a pocket. Insert a straw, have a countdown and blow. See which goes furthest and which sizes and shapes work best.

Autumn Leaves Sunlit Window Decoration

Today we made this window decoration from some of the leaves we collected from the garden. I looked at various methods for preserving the lovely colour of the leaves as we collected leaves last year and they all went brown! The quickest, cheapest, easiest method I found is this; microwave them! Yes! I put them in the microwave in a single layer between 4 sheets of kitchen roll, with a tuperware box on top just to keep them flat, and microwaved them for about 30-40 seconds per load. This apparently dries them out quickly enough that they keep their colour. 

I dried this batch of leaves 2 weeks ago and they have seemed to keep their colour but I will let you know if it doesn't work long term.

The boys organised the colours to ascend from red- brown to yellow-green. Then we stuck them in lines between 2 lengths of sellotape (one wasn't enough to keep them stuck) and used the ends of the selloptape to stick them to the inside of the window.

They look lovely when the sun shines through and lights the colours up.

Kids' Pants Peg bags

I know these aren't very well made! I had to bend the coat hangers to fit the size of the scraps of material I had, and I should have hemmed the opening on Max's bag but they still served the function I desired! The boys' chest of drawers was getting completely rammed so I popped down to the charity shop and picked up a lovely 1950's one for £20 and moved the dressing up blanket box upstairs to make space for it. So despite getting a new chest of drawers things were still a bit cramped so I made these peg bags to keep their underpants in. It works better than having them in the drawer because they were always muddled up with other things like belts, gloves, socks etc.

The Best Chewy, Gooey Cookies

Every three months or so I make a double batch of this cookie recipe and split it into 3 different flavours. These mixes get put into cling film sausages and frozen, then we can slice a round from the frozen sausage (with a sharp knife!) and cook wonderful warm fresh cookies as demand requires! The only trouble is being patient enough to let them cool down! They are great for when the boys bring a friend home from school at short notice and for impromptu coffee mornings. 

Recipe for a double batch

500g plain flour

1tsp bicarb

1tsp salt

340g melted unsalted butter/stork

300g dark brown sugar

200g vanilla infused caster sugar (or plain caster sugar plus 2 tsp vanilla extract)

2 eggs plus 2 egg yolks

plus;

1-2 large handfuls of raisins,1-2  large handfuls oats, tsp ground cinnamon, tsp ground ginger, sprinkle all spice for Oat and Raisin cookies

2 handfuls choc chips or chopped choc for Choc Chip cookies

2 handfuls choc chips or chopped choc, plus 1tbsp cocoa for Double Choc cookies

Beat the sugar and butter. Add the eggs. Add the flour, bicarb and salt. All with the paddle on the kitchen mixer.

Then split the mix into 3 and add the separate flavours (feel free to make up new ones! Stem ginger, White choc and nut, freeze dried berries, fudge pieces, pistachio and rose water, peanut butter, nutella etc)

Cook at 170*c for 15 mins

Or at 200*c for 10mins from frozen. (But keep an eye on them as it depends on your oven and how fat you have sliced the cookie mix!)

Pirate treasure box

We missed 'International talk like a pirate day' this year, which is a shame as we enjoyed it so much last year. It was on 19th September. But Max came home from nursery going on and on about Pirates. So we made some treasure and a treasure box. Then we made a map and gave it to Ollie to find the treasure chest when he came home from school.
The treasure was made by wrapping plastic bottle tops (I knew I had been collecting them for a reason!) in aluminium foil. And we made the box with some cardboard boxes and some coloured paper.
When Ollie got home Max gave him the map and then immediately led him to the treasure, way too excited to play the game properly! I had hid a few bits for their snack in there too!

I was very impressed at Ollie. Who proceeded to write a 'pirate note' stating "This treasure is Ollie's and Max's" I was so impressed by his spelling that it took me a while to notice the correct use of the apostrophes! He is 5 and already better than me at English grammar!

Camping in a kata/teepee

This weekend we went on our first 'glamping' trip!

We stayed in this place. The teepee or Swedish kata as they called it, was fantastic. It was well equipped with a large raised bed area, with a clean sheet on, covered in sheep fleeces, cushions and throws, and under a waterproof lining. There was a lovely handcrafted table, bench and stools, all made with wood from the forest. There was a little wood burning stove, with a bag of wood and kindling supplied. There was a little kitchen area, with a camp stove, water, plates, bowls, pans, cutlery and washing up equipment.
Outside was even better. The kata lay off a track that came from the main camping and hostel facilities, in the woodland. There was a little bridge which took you to the area of the teepee. The teepee was at the top of the hill on a wooden plinth. The area was defined by a gushing stream making it's way down the hill. There was a firepit, a bench, a hammock and an area to dry the washing and loads of exploring and climbing potential.
Unfortunately it rained from the second we arrived on Friday evening to the minute we left on the Sunday. And not just a bit of drizzle...stair-rods! All the more frustrating because the  whole week had been gorgeous up to that point. And even more frustrating because pretty much the rest of the country continued in the glorious and unseasonably marvellous weather.
So, we couldn't enjoy the facilities as much as we would have liked! We tried hard, we attempted an outdoor fire in the rain but it quickly fizzled, and we had a go on the hammock but quickly slid over in the quagmire around it!
The woodburner helped up dry out a bit and made it lovely and cosy. We cooked chilli and curry on top of the burner and played games, It was still a great adventure in a place we could not recommend more!
In review, the people at Comrie Croft, could not have been friendlier or more helpful, and the personal touches they gave the whole place (hangers and door knobs etc made from wood from the forest) made the pretty much impeccable facilities even better! We hope to go back, but  in slightly better weather!