Pure Naughtiness

As I am sitting down to eat one of my super scrummy Chocolate chip cookies, that Miss EJ and I made yesterday afternoon. I can't help but share the naughtiness with you. These are no ordinary choc chip cookies and they definately don't last long in this house.

WARNING: just one is never enough !!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients

115g butter softened
115g brown sugar
1 egg
100g porridge oats
1tbsp milk
1tsp vanilla essence
125g plain flour
1tbsp cocoa powder
1/2tsp baking powder
175g milk chocolate broken into pieces (I use cadbury family block)
175g white chocolate broken into pieces (also the white cadbury family block)

Preheat the oven to 180'c. Line 2 trays with baking paper. Place the butter and sugar together in a bowl and beat together with a wooden spoon until light and fluffy. (now because I am lazy and like to make things easier when I have an almost 2 year old helping, we do the whole thing in my electric mixer)

Beat in the egg, then add the oats, milk and vanilla essence. Beat together until well blended. Sift the flour, cocoa and baking powder into the mixture and stir. Stir in the chocolate pieces.

Place dessert spoonfuls of the mixture on the prepared trays and flatten slightly with a fork. Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes, or until slightly risen and firm. Remove from the oven, cool on the trays for 2 minutes then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

Be sure to let me know how you go and I bet you won't be able to wait until they have cooled completely before you have to take a bight. xx

Lamb Shanks Recipe

With this change in weather it has got me thinking about all the yummy winter dishes that I love to cook. So I thought I would share with you, one of my all time favourites. This dish has been tried and tested with many glasses of red wine by family and friends over the years. So if you are looking for something hearty to warm you up why not try this 'Lamb Shanks with tomato and rosemary' recipe by Donna Hay.

First things first though, may I suggest a good glass of red to go with this. Have you tried 'Two Hands - Gnarly Dudes' Shiraz from the Barossa Valley? be careful it can become addictive!

lamb shanks with tomato and rosemary

8 lamb shanks trimmed (ask your butcher to cut the ends for you so they fit better in your pan)
plain flour for coating
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 onions, sliced
4 cloves garlic, sliced
1 cup red wine
2 1/2 cups beef stock
400g can tomatoes, lightly crushed
1 tablespoon rosemary leaves
2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley
sea salt and cracked black pepper

Toss the lamb shanks in flour, shaking of any excess. Place half of the oil in a large, deep frying pan over high heat. Add the shanks and brown well. Remove and set aside. Add the remaining oil to the pan and cook the onions and garlic until golden. Return the shanks to the pan. Add the wine, stock, tomatoes and rosemary and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat, cover and simmer for 1 hour.
Remove the shanks and continue to simmer the sauce, uncovered for 10 minutes or until reduced and thickened. Return the shanks to the pan with the parsley, salt and pepper. Mix through and serve with mashed potatoes. Serves 4

I find sometimes I need to cook the shanks for longer than an hour. I have also cooked this recipe in my slow cooker which I found that if you add a little cornflour when you are simmering the sauce it helps. I have even cooked this recipe in my pressure cooker in just 45 minutes, but again I needed to add cornflour to the sauce.

I hope you and your family enjoy it as much as my family and I do.

Deb x

Which hat will I wear today.... cake decorator!

For those of you who don't know me, I love baking! I find it relaxing, it's my little escape from what's going on at the time as I focus on my creation, crossing my fingers that it turns out, hoping that it resembles something of a master chef creation (a winning creation of course) and above all else that it tastes delicious. Well becoming a mum has opened my eyes to 'ready to roll icing' and all the amazing things you can create with it. Let's face it birthday cakes can be expensive if you pay for someone to do it for you. So for Miss EJ's first birthday at the end of last year I decided to give it a go, let's put it this way it took me three evenings till after midnight to create it. When I had finished I was devastated that hubby had gone to bed as I was so excited to show it off... what to do, I couldn't drag him downstairs to take a peek and the thought of a sleep deprived mother carrying my new creation up the stairs... I had visions of face planting it down the stairs and having to buy a shop bought cake for her party the next day. So I took photos on my phone raced upstairs and climbed into bed very noisily trying to wake up hubby without actually poking him, "oh your awake, sorry didn't mean to wake you, but since you are, look at my cake!"

Anyway since then I haven't really had an opportunity to make another one, this week though it happened to be my sister's birthday. So I decided to tackle decorating cupcakes instead, thinking it would be easier to stop and start on them as I swapped between my mummy and cake decorator hats! Of course Miss EJ was in the kitchen to help with the cake making and chief taste tester as always. For my first time I was more than happy with the results, and the cupcakes were yummy. Watch out family and friends.... guess what your getting for your birthdays?

Recipe for a healthy snack

I am always on the look out for different snack ideas that are healthy, quick and easy to just pop in your bag on the way out the door. I recently came across this recipe in my Women's Weekly - The Happy Baby Cookbook. As well as loving the end result, Miss Ej was a great help in the kitchen as chief taste tester. So we thought we would share this recipe with you.

Muesli Squares

Ingredients
125g butter
1/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons honey
1 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup desiccated coconut
1/2 cup finely chopped dried apricots
1/2 cup finely chopped dried apples
1/2 cup sultanas
1/2 cup self-raising flour

Method
1. Preheat oven to 180'c/160'c fan-forced. Grease and line 20cm x 30xm lamington pan.
2. Stir butter, sugar and honey in large saucepan over medium heat, without boiling, until sugar dissolves. Remove from heat; stir in remaining ingredients. Press mixture into pan.
3. Bake about 20 minutes or until golden brown. Cool in pan; cut into squares to serve.

You can easily change the dried fruit to suit your toddlers taste as we added dried cranberries to the mix. Muesli squares are delicious as is for a quick snack or can be broken into pieces and stirred through some yummy vanilla yoghurt!



The Women's Weekly - Happy Baby Cookbook was given to me as a gift from my mum and it has become a firm favourite in my kitchen! "When you're a first time parent your naturally nervous and unsure about what to feed your precious little bundle of joy. Should you choose breast or bottle? When should you start introducing solid food? When can baby start eating with the family? Is there such a thing as a healthy snack? This delightful book helps answer these questions and is jammed full of recipes for first foods, puddings and lunchboxes, as well as allergy-friendly and party food. There's also a big chapter on family food with useful information on how to cook delicious meals for the whole family"

Product Review: Baby Mum-Mum is Yum Yum

I love these rusks as they leave no mess and Jordan loves the taste and that they are easy to eat!  They don't have trans fats and are low in fat so make a great treat.  Each serving is wrapped individually which means the rusks stay fresh and are super easy to take out and about.  You should be able to find them in the baby section of most supermarkets.  I hope you enjoy them as much as we do :)

More information about the Baby Mum-Mum products can be found on their website.

Food for Thought - Cooking in Bulk

There are days I crave a break from the kitchen!  Who doesn't want a yummy home cooked meal without the preparation, dishes and cooking from time to time?  So today I invested some quality time in my kitchen and cooked up a massive batch of Chicken, Leek and Green Pea Pie - freezing a heap of portions for nights when a quick, easy dinner is just what we need!

I'd like to share this yummy recipe with you, for times when you might like to cook in bulk to save money and time in your kitchen too.

CHICKEN, LEEK AND GREEN PEA PIE
Heat 40g of butter in a large saucepan or stockpot over medium heat until melted.  Cook 2kg of diced chicken in batches, stirring for 3 to 5 minutes or until browned.  Add 4 leeks (trimmed, halved, washed and chopped), 4 celery stalks chopped and 4 tsp fresh thyme leaves.  Cook, stirring for 5 to 7 minutes or until celery has softened.
Stir in 1/2 cup of plain flour.  Add 3 cups chicken stock, 1 1/2 cups pure cream and 800g desiree potatoes peeled and cubed.  Bring to the boil.  Reduce heat to medium low.  Simmer for 10 - 12 minutes or until potato is tender.  Stir in 1 cup frozen peas and 2 tsp mustard. 
TO FREEZE
Put chicken mixture into foil cases.  Cover with supplied lids.  Freeze for up to 3 months.
TO COOK
Thaw chicken mixture in refridgerator overnight.  Pre heat oven to 220C or 200C fan forced.  Remove lid and top pie with frozen ready-rolled puff pastry, partially thawed.  Brush with egg and bake for 30 minutes or until golden.


Do you have a recipe that works well cooked in bulk?  We would love for you to share it with us.