Pear & Cinnamon Muffins

While I had a little time one morning before school I thought I'd whip up some muffins I'd seen on another blog.  Unfortunately the page wouldn't load so I pretty much made it up as I went.

They went something like this.

INGREDIENTS
1 cup plain flour
1 cup almond meal
about 2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
about 1/3 cup white sugar
1 egg & 1 egg white, lightly beaten
1 cup lite milk
2/3 cup or less olive oil
1 1/2 pears, grated

METHOD
Preheat oven to 180 deg C.  Place a muffin case in each hole of a 12 hole muffin pan.

Put ALL ingedients in a bowl.  Mix gently with a wooden spoon until until just combined. 

Divide evenly amongst the holes.  Bake for at least 25 minutes.

Grating the pear.  Sorry, but this is the only pic I took.  I'm sure you know what muffins look like though.

I'm thinking this was probably not quite long enough or perhaps not hot enough. They were SUPER moist & stuck to the cases badly.  VERY tasty though :)

Bye for now, K

Rippy Strippy

We made windmills or pinwheels last week. 

Carefully cutting along the lines I marked out for her. 

She got a bit carried away with her "careful cutting".  See the pile of pink paper on the left.

This little mess is what she calls Rippy Strippy.  Not sure whether it's come from pre-school or something she's come up with all by herself.

We thought we'd do it again on the weekend while the older boys were home and this was what they came up with instead.

Mr Magoo had a windmill in his picture at least.

H's plane.

More rippy strippy from Miss Pants.

Bye for now, K

Finally another WIP to share

I didn't say anything was finished but that's OK because this is Work In Progress, NOT Work Completed.  Ha ha ha, my little sneaky escape.

I'm pretty sure I've shown you this before, while it was just pinned in place.  Well, I got it all sewn on.  I haven't put the back on yet though, so not finished.  Lots more to do but should have another few hours this Sunday to work on things. WooHoo!!

The Perfect Woman

I went to a Christian Women's Conference on 12 May.

The topic was Proverbs 31.

Hmmm, this is a little harder than I thought.  Perhaps I'll just start and then see what comes out.

Well, this was my first CWC.  It was pretty darn good.  I have to be honest though, I thought it would get me thinking more deeply about my role as wife and mother.  Or perhaps give me a longer list of ideas as to how I can improve in these areas, but it didn't.  Maybe it is because I have been thinking about these things for quite some time anyway. 

I came away with some Bible references that I still want to read though.  It has certainly increased my WANT to spend time reading the Word more often.  Just prior to attending I was getting pretty good anyway (and yet just of late I've been slack again, Grrr). I also strengthened a few friendships (well I think so anyway).

If you've read Proverbs 31 you'll know that this woman has achieved perfection, so to speak...

One thing I'm sure all husbands would appreciate from the day was that everyone was told, (probably AGAIN for many women) that the best way to show husbands that you love them is to have sex. Yep, SEX!!  Men are so completely NOT like women in this aspect.  We need so many other things before we feel loved, which can lead to sex, but men just need sex.  THEN they feel loved. Sigh...  It would be soo much simpler if we needed the same things.  There might be a little less falling asleep on the lounge, then being wide awake when they drag themselves into bed, and a little more "let me clear away after dinner for you & give you a massage with no strings attached" type activities.  Yeah I know, I'm dreaming.  LOL.

Anway, there were a couple of talks, then a time for small groups to have a bit of a chat and to put on paper any questions we had for the panel.  (Yes, the sex thing came up again in question time.)  I had spent the day sitting in the "breastfeeding section" so was speaking with other young Mums.  I think it would have been nice to listen to what some older womens opinions were too though.  That sounds awful.  I don't mean OLD, I just mean older than me.  At a different stage of life I guess.  How do they see themselves comparing to this version of perfection.  Do they strive for it?  Did they ever try to get there? What advice or wisdom could they impart on me??

I spoke to a few women the following day about the Conference but didn't really get onto this.

So I know I have mentioned that I crave time with the Lord and with His word but I feel like I need more.  A friend suggested that perhaps I need to approach the ministers wife and ask if she or someone else within the congregation could act as mentor for me.  After attending the CWC I felt so inspired and uplifted that there were so many Christian Women out there.  I can't imagine the turnout if I were to go to one in Sydney.  It really was encouraging!  

I haven't done it. Yet. Still.  The finding-a-mentor I mean.  I don't want to be a burden on anyone.  I don't know how to ask.  I'm confused.  I think my kids know more about the Scriptures than I do.  I guess I'm a bit embaressed.  Everytime I come close to asking I chicken out, or it doesn't seem appropriate, or I feel I've already used up too much of valuable time (of whoever I'm speaking with).  I guess I will get to it one day.  In the mean time, I'll keep reading His word for myself.  Might even pinch all the kids bibles off them & start there.

Bye for now, K

Oven Baked Sausage & Tomato Risotto

I was talking to a friend on the phone the other day that I speak to maybe once every 3 months.  When we talk it's like we never skipped a beat.  We've been like it for years.  We certainly don't always see eye to eye on things but we're OK with that.  Anyway, last time we chatted she was making risotto. I've made a vegetable risotto before but it got me thinking about making something different for a change so google & Taste.com were visited.

This is what I came up with...

INGREDIENTS
1 tblspn oil (if you need it)
725g italian sausages
1 brown onion, chopped
1 1/2 cups arborio rice
3 celery stalks, sliced
400g can diced tomatoes
1 1/2 cups chicken stock
1 1/2 cups water
1/4 cup flat leaf parsley, to serve

METHOD
1.  Preheat oven to 180deg C.  Heat oil in a 12 cup flame proof casserole or ovenproof saucepan (such as my new Como Advanced Saute Pan from The Chefs Toolbox) over medium heat. Fry sausages for 10 minutes, turning until browned and almost cooked. Remove from pan.

2.  Add onion to saucepan, and more oil if you needed.  Cook for 5 to 8 minutes until soft.

3.  Slice sausages into bite-sized pieces.

4.  Add rice and celery to saucepan.  Cook for 1 to 2 minutes, stirring.  Add sausages, tomatoes, stock and water.  Stir.  Remove from heat. Cover with lid or foil.

5.  Transfer dish to the oven & cook for 30 to 35 minutes or untilalmost all the liquid is absorbed and rice is tender, but firm to the bite.  Serve sprinkled with parsley.

I left mine in a little too long so I sprinkled each plate with water before serving it up.

It turned out we're not huge fans of italian sausage. Lol.  It was still pretty good though.  Even after two had two lunches from the left overs there was still PLENTY left too.  I think we could almost half the recipe next time.  I'd like to try it with extra lean pork sausages I think.

Do you have a favourite risotto recipe you'd care to share??

Bye for now, K

Rice Rice Rice

I recently decided that 3 yr old Miss Pants (short for Cranky Pants) needed to improve her behaviour.  Actually I've known that for some time but I had no idea how to do that.  She is number three in the family but I have no idea how to "manage" her. I've been in contact with a couple of people lately that don't actually have TV's in their houses and I know a friend of mine limits the time their children watch TV to before 9am & after 5pm (sometimes recording shows outside that time bracket) so I decided that perhaps Miss Pants could do with LESS TV time & more Mummy/imaginative play time.

After school drop off on the first morning of limiting TV time, I gave her half a cup of rice to play with in a plastic bowl & some of the toys from the bath.

It was a HIT!!

From there I decided to make coloured rice to play with.  Years ago, when I did Child Care at TAFE, I had made some for a music themed task.  I couldn't remember how to do it though so I googled.  I found this which provided a few different ideas.

We took a little walk to the local supermarket, purchased a cheap 2kg bag of rice & some food colouring & came home to get colouring.

I grabbed a couple of baking trays.  Lined them with foil.  Grabbed an aluminium mixing bowl, a measuring cup and a spoon then gathered what I needed... Rice, White Vinegar and Food Colouring

This was SUPER easy to do.

I put 1/4 cup of vinegar in the bowl, added the food colouring, then added 1/2 cup of uncooked rice.  Now, the amount of food colouring varied but I had been reading that some people used about 8 drops.  I'm guessing it may depend on the brand you use but I ended up using 20 - 30 drops depending on the colour we were trying to achieve.  Miss Pants chose the colours we used this time.

So we added the rice and gave it a stir for a few minutes.  Seriously, it wouldn't have been any longer than about 5 minutes. (Be very careful not to make a mess because it'll be difficult to remove.  It probably won't come out of clothing either.)

Carefully drain the water off (or use a fine strainer if you have one) then spread the rice out on the prepared tray to dry.  We went with the leave-it-in-the-sun-to-dry option and ducked off to pre school with a book order while we waited for it to dry.  When we got back I gave it a bit of a stir and found it almost dry, so we had lunch while we waited and then she was off to play!

I should really just add though that if you are anal about keeping your carpet clean, do NOT let this be an indoor activity.  I though, realise that our carpet could not only do with cleaning, but also replacing, so I'm pretty cool with it.

Seriously, this has entertained her for HOURS over the week.  Even Mr Magoo & H have enjoyed playing with it.  Over the week the bag has reduced slightly in size though.  Some of it has been vacuumed up because try as we might it is really hard to pick it all up off the carpet.  Her tea set & cooking utensils have been used to play too.  We made some little shakers with leftover plastic eggs from Easter as well.  Rice really does make some pretty cool sounds.

Now, I need to come up with something else for her to do.  Any ideas????

We might make some windmill/pinwheel thingies this week...

Bye for now, K

An update on REST TIME

Just quickly I thought I'd let you know how things are going with Miss Pants.  Although I didn't receive any help on ideas for dealing with Miss Pants (except from Mario's wife.  you know who you are), I did follow through with minimising her TV hours & MAN does it make a difference!!

I had no idea how much of a difference it would make to her general behaviour!  True, I have had to play more of an active role in parenting, but that in itself is FANTASTIC I have to say.

One day I did let her watch an episode of Play School but it was on my iPad so I knew we wouldn't be tempted to watch anything else or leave the tele on "just because".  Instead of having the TV for background noise we've been listening to music.  Predominantly new Christian CD's I've bought or borrowed, but still some mainstream stuff too.  Kids and adults music.

Oh & I let her watch Toy Story 3 today because she is sick.  She missed out on Pre-school yesterday AND Pip Squeaks today, so I thought she could have a little rest this afternoon and watch one of her favourite movies.  She fell asleep before it was time to do the school pick up.  I knew she needed some rest. Lol.  She'll miss swimming tomorrow too.  I can't wait to deal with that little let down, but it shouldn't be as bad as todays.

Perhaps in my next post I'll share something that has been taking up LOADS of time, INSTEAD of the TV :)

Bye for now, K