Skeleton Gingerbread Men for Halloween

This year, instead of baking Choc-Orange Halloween cupcakes for a sweet Halloween treat, my daughter and I made Skeleton Gingerbread men.  The idea came from the internet but we used a recipe that I already had on file for iced gingerbread men.

I baked the 'men' and my daughter decorated them.  This recipe makes about 15 gingerbread people and I doubled it, so there are plenty left for the lunchboxes this week.

Gingerbread Men

125g (4 oz) butter

1/3 C brown sugar

1/3 C golden syrup or, if not available, light treacle

1 egg, lightly beaten

2 C plain flour

1/3 C self-raising flour

1 Tbsp ground ginger

1 tsp baking (bicarb.) soda

Icing

1 egg white

1/2 tsp lemon juice or white vinegar

1 C sifted icing (confectioner's) sugar

Method

Preheat oven to moderate (180C/350F).  Grease two or three baking trays.  Beat butter, sugar and syrup until light and creamy.  Add egg and mix in well.  Sift dry ingredients and stir into the butter mixture until just combined.  Use a well-floured hand to combine the dough, then tip onto a floured surface and knead for 1-2 minutes until smooth.  Roll out the dough to 1/4"/5 mm thickness on a floured surface and cut into people (or other) shapes.  Using an egg slide, lift the shapes onto the greased baking trays.  Press the remaining dough into a ball and re-roll then cut out again, until all the dough is used up.  Bake for 10 minutes until lightly browned then cool on trays before icing.

To make the icing, beat egg white with an electric mixer until foamy, Add lemon juice then gradually add the sugar, beating until thick and creamy.  Pipe in a skeleton design on the gingerbread men - I used the smallest round nozzle that I have.  Allow time for the icing to harden before serving.

Using a Sitting Room as a Guest Room

This week I am joining in Show Us Your Life Friday again on Kelly's Korner blog.  The theme this week is guest rooms, and like most people with four kids, I expect, we don't have a dedicated guest room. 

Our plan is to use our formal sitting room as a guest room.  When we (finally) buy a couch for this room it will be a sofa bed for visitors.  At other times this room will be a quiet retreat for reading and thinking and playing musical instruments.

When the children have friends to stay they sleep in the kids' bedrooms, so we only need a guest room for adult guests.

At present we use my grandmother's old folding bed for overnight visitors.  This is what it looks like all set up and ready to go.

Yellow Roses

 The yellow roses are in full bloom and they are absolutely beautiful.

I can't decide whether to bring any into the house or whether I should simply enjoy their sunny loveliness outdoors.

Byessar: Moroccan Broad Bean Dip

 A glut of broad beans in the spring garden is a wonderful thing until you need to plant out the tomatoes and realise that there isn't any space left. 

One solution to the problem of what to do with all those beans is Moroccan broad bean dip.  I use the version found in Stephanie Alexander's The Cook's Companion [2004 Ed.] but a similar recipe can be found here.

A delicious and healthy snack.  Even my team of bean podders like it served with warm pita bread.

Sorting Through the Mess

Having spent most of today sorting through some boxes of photos and stamp collections, craft supplies, kids' shoes and dress-up costumes that have been in our garage since we moved here in March...

...I have concluded that I already own everything I am ever likely to need, apart from food and some clothes, for the rest of my life.

Perhaps I should take these pictures with me the next time I feel like shopping for more stuff.

Organising a Shared Kids' Bedroom

Organising a bedroom shared by two or more children can be a real challenge.  This is especially the case when the bedroom is not a large one.  In this post I will show some of the ways we manage a bedroom shared by two of our sons, aged 12 and 7.

The boys have always shared a bedroom.  In the past they had bunk beds but when we moved into this house in March we decided to take the bunks apart and give them single beds.  This has resulted in less floor space but I think a more pleasant living environment for the boys. 

I think the trick to managing a shared space is to allow separate places for the children's special treasures whilst minimising the amount of clutter in the room.  For example, I keep a large suitcase in the garage full of off-season boys clothes so their cupboards and drawers only need to hold gear they are currently using.  

Having furniture with a dual purpose is also very useful.  For instance, the blue and white chest of drawers holds clothes but also doubles as a bedside table for both boys.

Another thing to remember is that while we can decorate a baby's room to our heart's content, older children will want some say in how their rooms look and what items they want on display, and that may not be to our own taste.  That is one of the (many) reasons why you never see a teenage boy's room featured in a magazine!

Although not shown, there is a large built-in wardrobe in the room that holds many of the boys' clothes and toys.

You will observe that I don't store anything under the beds.  There is too much temptation for young boys to hide lolly wrappers and dirty clothes under their beds without adding to the mess!

This original artwork of a crocodile attacking a koala was done by the 12 year old when he was in year 4 and is the only artwork in the room at present.

I bought this small Edwardian desk in a local antique shop and it is perfect for this small space.  The drawers provide extra storage and the lid pulls down to form the desk.

 This post is part of Show Us Your Life Friday at Kelly's Korner Blog.

Thank you for visiting.  I hope you have a lovely weekend!

Backyard Harvest: Broccoli

Homegrown broccoli is entirely different from the broccoli found in the supermarket.  It is about a million times nicer. I never really liked broccoli until I grew it for the first time.

 And the thing about homegrown broccoli, is that you don't want to do too much to it.  Why spend a couple of months growing something from seed or a tiny seedling only to try to disguise in a thick sauce?

We have been enjoying (my sons would say 'enduring') our broccoli very simply stir-fried or steamed.

The next step is to try to get my kids to eat broccoli raw as a crudite.  Which is about as likely as me growing wings and flying to the moon.

Growing a Garden From Cuttings

Outside my grandmother's back door there was always a row of pots with odd-looking twigs, some with a leaf here and there, sticking out of them.

This was how Gran grew many of her new plants; by taking cuttings, poking them in soil, and waiting for them to grow.  I expect ladies of that era often swapped cuttings with each other, thus filling their gardens with flowers at very little, or no, expense.

This spring I am trying to grow cuttings of roses, daisies, geraniums, lavender and wormwood.  I am getting quite ruthless at asking friends if I may take a snippet of some of their plants - or snapping off bits that poke over people's fences and popping them in my handbag as I walk past.  Shh! Don't tell anyone!

Once I have a cutting I trim it to just below a join in the stem because the join is where the roots will form.  Unlike Gran, I usually dip my cuttings in rooting hormone and I use commercial potting mix in my pots. Sometimes I plant a cutting out straight where I want it to grow - this works best with things like geraniums and daisies that will grow anywhere and don't need too much watering.

It is important to keep the soil moist until the cutting takes root.  You will know the cutting has taken root because new leaves will start to grow.

  If you have never grown plants from cuttings why not give it a try?  It is a very thrifty way to garden.

Pale Pink, Rose-Scented, Home-made Liquid Soap

This weekend I made a batch of Leanne's liquid soap (recipe here).  Instead of Lux Flakes, I grated a bar of pink, rose-scented soap.

Pale pink and smelling delicately of roses, the result is almost too pretty to use.

Not a Real Home Office Tour

Although this is the week for home office tours on Show Us Your Life Friday at Kelly's Korner blog, I feel I am participating under false pretenses today.  You see, we don't have a dedicated home office at our red house.  Like many people with several children (we have four), we found that bedroom space was more necessary than a whole room for an office.  Maybe one day!

The kids have desks in their rooms for doing their homework, and apart from that we use our dining room table and a small desk in our family room for computer work.  I like to have computers in public areas rather than bedrooms so that I can supervise what people (read: my children) are using them for.

Today I will feature our dining room (already written about here) and the family room study corner.

I try to keep the office area in our dining room fairly minimal and well-organised.  Apart from the computer I have stacked in-and-out trays, a pen holder and two boxes, one for bills and one for taxes.  My favourite thing is the round mousepad with birds and flowers on it.

Not having much on the table means that it can be cleared away super fast if we need it for other purposes, like say, eating.

In the pictures below you can see the computer corner in the family room.  This is one corner of a large single room that is kitchen, breakfast room (except we eat all family meals there) and family room.  You can see other pictures here and here. 

The desk is an old roll top desk from which we removed the top.  I like to keep a couple of cute notebooks by the computer for writing lists, making notes and recording ideas.

 Thank you for visiting this week.  I hope you have a lovely weekend.

Flowers in My October Garden (and my first attempt at mosaic making)

The cupid who lives in our front garden is, like all cupids, in love with spring.  He adores anything that makes the birds and the bees happy, and in spring the birds and the bees are very happy because of all the flowers.  So here is our cupid's tour of the flowers in our Adelaide garden this October.

1. seaside daisy, 2. flowering carpet rose, 3. holly flowers and berries, 4. coriander flowers, 5. orange flowers, 6. lemon flowers, 7. yellow rose, 8. onion flower head, 9. apple blossom, 10. strawberry flower, 11. pansy, 12. yellow rose

(Thank you Jenny from Little Jenny Wren for teaching me how to use Mosaic Maker.  It's so much fun!)

What does 'in season' mean?

image is from www.allposters.com

Over the past week or two I have read in Adelaide newspapers and supermarket flyers that cucumbers and blueberries are in season.  Yet if I look in my own garden, the cucumbers are still seedlings and the blueberries have almost finished flowering, without a fruit in sight.  Cucumbers and blueberries may be in season in Queensland but they are certainly not in season in Adelaide or Melbourne or Hobart.

So why do we say something is in season when clearly it is not?

Living in a huge continent like Australia, just about anything can be in season at any given time, but that does not mean that it is truly in season in a local sense.  It is like someone in Stockholm, Sweden, saying that oranges are in season because it is the season for oranges in Madrid, Spain, over 3000 km to the south west.  That is roughly the same distance between Adelaide and Cairns, and the climatic differences are similarly enormous.

I think it would be fair to say that something is in season if it will grow within a few hundred kilometres of where I live, and particularly if it is growing in my own backyard.  Thus I know for sure that broccoli, broad beans, spring onions and peas are in season because I can see them out my window.  Cucumbers will be ready in December or January and blueberries sometime after that.

So then, why does this matter?  Am I just being pedantic?

In one sense it doesn't matter at all, especially if we want to support Australian farmers over, say, producers of frozen blueberries from China.  However, if we are trying to cut the food miles of what we eat then we need to be aware of what is likely to have been produced locally, and what was inevitably transported thousands of miles.  It might be fair for a national newspaper or magazine to say blueberries are in season but the local media should deal with local facts.

What do you think?  Does any of this matter?

Vegie Patch October 2010

I am so excited to have a vegetable garden this year for the first time since we moved to Adelaide in 2008.  Although it's still fairly early in the growing season the vegie patch is shaping up well. 

The previous owners had a cubby house in this corner of the garden which they took with them, leaving a bare patch of earth that just yelled 'vegie garden' to me.

I have divided the area into four beds with bricks, partly so that I can rotate what I grow, and partly to provide somewhere to walk.  I don't want to tread all over my new little seedlings!

In the picture below you can see broad beans, lettuces, broccoli and silverbeet.  There are also a few tomato seedlings, pea plants and radishes, but they are too small to show up in the picture.

In the shot below, taken from the side, you can see potatoes, onions and carrots.  The bare, straw-covered bed at the back will have summer vegetables once they are big enough to plant out.  I am hoping to get some sort of trellis to cover that very ugly metal fence and will growing grapes or passionfruit over it.

This rose-covered arch (not yet flowering) is the gateway to my vegie patch.  In another month or two it will be very pretty.

Here are the rest of my summer vegetables, growing in a mini greenhouse (I took the cover off for this photo).  There are watermelons and rockmelons, tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchinis, eggplants, peppers, chillis, squash and sweet basil.  I'll plant them out when they get their second set of leaves.

I'm trying to grow everything from seed this year.  I don't know if it will all work but I'll keep you posted!

Seaside Daisies

Seaside daisies (Erigeron karvinskianus) are unlikely to ever win a prize in a flower show.  They are neither glamorous nor dramatic nor big.  Yet as a hardy perennial groundcover, they are hard to beat.

Thriving in the poorest soils with very little water and no maintenance, seaside daisies will provide their small pink and white flowers year-round in mild climates.  They will spread to fill any bare patches of soil.

And I think they are rather photogenic, don't you?

My Sunny Kitchen Tour

After our last house, a rental, which had a dreary, windowless kitchen, I was very keen to have a window in my next kitchen.  Oh, and plenty of bench space.  Fortunately, this house has both. 

I will never underestimate how wonderful it is to be able to daydream out a window when my hands are deep in sudsy water.

Here are some views of our kitchen from a few different angles.

From the family room.

A corner from within the kitchen.

Looking out across the table to the garden.  The family room/informal living room is to the right.

And here are some details.

I haven't bought anything new for this kitchen, so what I am showing is things I already had.  Fortunately, just about everything goes with an off-white kitchen!

Anyhow, here's the windowsill, which has a little blue dish my husband brought back from china, a little bowl with my favourite rose-scented soap, and a blue chook.  The tree outside the window is a lemon tree which I have underplanted with strawberries given to me by a friend.

As you can see, the splashbacks and windowsill are granite as well as the benches.This makes for very easy cleaning!

A little birthday gift from friends who know how much I love to grow things.

This small white bin is used for kitchen scraps which I put in one of our worm farms (we have two).

Finally, some canisters.

I hope you have enjoyed my kitchen tour.  It is participating in Show Us Your Life Friday: Kitchens at Kelly's Korner blog.

Have a wonderful weekend.