Autumn Leaves Are About - Time For Pumpkin Soup

Seasons
Autumn leaves are abundant and vibrant everywhere one looks at the moment.  I absolutely love the autumnal season, but I'm biased.  The autumn weather in Christchurch can be very chargeable however.  One minute we are basking in mild temperatures in the 20's, meaning we deliver our morning newspapers in just a t-shirt.   The next moment a southerly storm arrives and frosts begin on the ground.

Cooking & Baking
Along with the autumn weather, autumn food prices are beginning to sneak in at the fruit and vege shops.  Apples have come way down in price, thankfully because apples are our fruit of choice around here.  Apples, along with oranges, kiwifruit and the odd banana are what I mainly buy.  I will only buy bananas if they are under $2 per kg.  That does not happen very much any more, however, last week bananas were .99c per kilo along with those royal galas I bought.  Lucky Alf gets to eat them for his work lunch.

Alf had to work over most of the Easter break, so on Easter Sunday I packed his lunch like this

My Favourite Pumpkin Soup

1.5 kilos pumpkin, peeled and chopped into chunks
2 medium potatoes
2 onions, chopped

200g bacon, chopped

3 litres of chicken stock

4 Tablespoons butter or oil for cooking

salt and pepper

Dash of milk at the end if needed

Chop the bacon, onion, potato and pumpkin pieces.

In a large pot, melt the butter/oil, then add above ingredients.

Stir around and then cover with lid .

Turn the heat down to the lowest setting and let the ingredients sweat for around 5 minutes.

Remove lid and pour in the stock, give it a stir, then increase the heat until the liquid simmers.

Simmer until vegetables are soft.

Puree in batches in the food processor and return to a clean pot.

Check for seasoning and if too thick add some milk

 Enjoy

Weekly Roundup - Birthday Celebrations, Water Pumps And A Stroke

Around The Home
Thought I should tell you about what has been happening around here in last few days.

Birthday celebrations were held this week for Alf.  As he is a man he probably won't mind me telling you he turned 47.

Just as an aside, Alf is a very busy man at the moment.  He is putting in 12 to 14 hour days working on our battered city's water supply.  As an engineer with many talents, he has a specific history of working on the pumps for our wastewater plant for some 24 years, before sadly being made redundant.  However, in the city's hour of need, they have seconded Alf (via the new job at the drilling company) to work on the water pumps.  He has so far this week worked 9 days in a row ,and for very long hours. So, it has been an equally long week for us at home, so sorry not much blogging has been done.

Alf's job at the moment is to treat our (previously untouched) water with chlorine because of contamination from the sewerage pipes.  Through his working with the water system staff, we are able to see council-only lab results for the city water.  These emails clearly show the pumping stations around the city that have tested positive for ecoli.  There are masses of positive results, so it's still very important to boil the water after all this time.  As I recently experienced the symptoms of food poisoning, I am extra vigilant on this front.  Alf has kindly brought home some boxes of bottled water from his work, allowing me a small break from the jug.

Busy at work in one of the pumping stations

A container of chlorine being readied for our water

A map our our city, the dark green bit is the only part of the city where sewerage is working.  That's where we live, the rest of the city are using long drops, chemical toilets and porta loos.

Amazing to think contraptions like this are stopping nearly half a million residents from getting very sick.  Alf has the ability to "think outside the square" to find solutions to unusual problems

Let Them Eat Cake

The mere mention of celebrating with food sent Georgia and I into the kitchen to create yummy decadent fare.  Over the last year I have twigged my quick chocolate recipe, adding a slight coffee edge to it.  The combination of chocolate and coffee taste, mocha I suppose you could call it, gets me really excited.  To my chocolate cake recipe I added cooled coffee where the recipe called for just water. Here is my easy chocolate cake recipe.  I will often delete the cocoa, adding extra flour turning these into amazing little quick cupcakes.  I used this recipe a while back for Alf's leaving morning tea, making chocolate cupcakes.

How To Make A Big Chocolate Cake In A Hurry 

Ingredients:
2 cups self-raising flour
pinch of baking soda (bi-carbonate of soda)
4 tablespoons cocoa
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 cup water
150g melted butter

Put all ingredients into a large mixing bowl 

Beat with an electric mixer for 3 minutes
Pour mixture into large greased tin (approx. 25x30cm)
Bake at 190 deg C fan bake for 35 minutes, or for 50-69 minutes normal oven

Butter Icing

100gm butter, softened
2 cups icing sugar, sifted
1/4 teaspoon vanilla essense
1-2 tablespoons hot water

Cream butter until light and fluffy.  Add vanilla.  Gradually beat in icing sugar, beating until smooth.  Add sufficient water to give a spreading consistency.

Butter icing with coffee added for extra taste

Ready for icing by Georgia

Handy Icing for when time is short, thoroughly recommend this product

With a little help from mum, Georgia got the cake decorated

Butterfly Cakes

Using the 3 minute sponge from the iconic Edmond's Cookbook, I placed small spoonfuls of sponge mixture into pretty little patty cases.  Once they had cooled, I cut out a cone in the centre, cutting that in half.

Cream was piped into the centre (at this point some lemon curd could be added) and the butterfly wings placed into the cream.  Icing sugar dusted on top. Serve.

These dainty cakes were made in less than an hour

On My Mind

Lastly, my lovely Dad, Jim, suffered an unexpected stroke early this week.  He is a  fit and healthy man, so this has totally come out of the blue for my mother and two other sisters.  They are calling it a min-stroke, luckily the symptoms lasted only about 24 hours. He blacked out while reading the morning paper at the dining table, falling from his chair and hitting the wall.  The only indication something was not quite right was the partial paralysis on one side of his face.  None this less,  it has been upsetting for us all.  Dad came out of hospital yesterday afternoon, and is resting at home.  The stroke has meant he cannot drive for quite some time, and is now taking quite a few medications to prevent any more strokes happening.  We are all cautiously hopeful that everything is behind us, but the doctors did call it a warning sign.  So I am praying that his health remains as good as it is at the moment.

Blessings

Lee-Anne

Making A Little Go A Long Way

Hard financial times in our home at present, leave little money left over in the household kitty once the bills have been paid.  It's our reality at the moment.  Some days are very hard and coming up with frugal methods of cooking day in day out to keep our house ship shape is a struggle.  In times like this I just have to remember that we are able to pay our bills and put made-from-scratch homemade food on the table.  We are indeed blessed, as others do have it much tougher than us.  So as I hop down off my mighty Frugal Soapbox, I wanted to talk about how s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g  the staples in my cupboard, makes our meals go a little further, without appearing to.

Cooking Up Chickpeas and making Chickpeas with Curried Cous Cous

This dish has evolved over the years, as many favourite dishes tend to.  You become so adept at making it, and one day you think, oh I'm missing some the ingredients, I'll swap something around.  This is how my roasted vegetable salad became a chickpea salad.  Also, this is a dish I spy alot at flash cafes around the city and can easuly make at home.

Based on Roasted Vegetable Salad with Curried Dressing, from Sophie Gray's STUNNING FOOR FROM SMALL CHANGE

Chickpeas: Short cut the soaking period by placing 2 cups of chickpeas in 8 cups of water, bring to the boil and cook for 2 minutes.  Leave to stand for 1 hour.

They are then ready to cook for 1-2 hours.  Keep checking the level of water, as it does evaporate quickly.

That's the chickpea part.

Cous Cous: I place 2 cups of cous cous into a dish and cover well with boiling water.  Cover immediately with tinfoil and sit for 15 mins unitl completely swelled and fluffy.  Fluff up with a fork, add small dob of butter and stir through.

Curried Dressing:

2 tsp curry powder

1/4 cup oil

2 tsp vinegar

1/2 tsp sugar

1 clove garlic, crushed

Combine above ingredients then add a handful of sultanas.

Everyone has their favourite bolognaise recipe they use week in week out.  I certainly do, and I like to do as much as possible with it, stretching it out into several dishes.  Everyone loves lasagne in our house, and it's one of those great  do ahead dishes.  Monday is our tricky day, when we are out of the house in the late afternoon for several hours. Last year art class was between 5pm and 6.30pm, now we are doing rock climbing in the city from 4pm until 5.15pm.  I make several weeks worth of lasagne in use-again foil dishes and freeze them.  That means I just need to defrost one during the day, pop into the oven and reheat.  With the addition of the cous cous salad and veges, a satisfying meal is provided for the hungry family.

If I keep aside some of the bolognaise from the lasagne, I am able to make several more dishes.  The good old pizza is immediately jazzed up with a layer of the meaty sauce.

Last but not least, pinwheel scones made with the meat sauce, then sprinkled with cheese.  This made for a filling school holiday lunch.  Easily put in a lunch box for outings as well.

Celebrations and More Shaking Earth Part 1

Sunday 14th November 2010

It has been Show weekend here in Canterbury.  Show a great success , Friday is a public holiday here, so no school or work.  We have been busking in hot summertime over the last week with temperatures reaching the mid to high 20's. So a time to relax for a few days, everyone doing their own thing.

Friday saw Georgia and Alex swim at a local river with the other girls from the paddock.  The horses also got to go along for a swim as well.  With a float that takes only 2 horses at a time, several trips need to be made to get all the horses out and back.

Friday was also our wedding anniversary.  The day was kicked off with a brunch of waffles, bananas, bacon, coffee and grape juice.  The children got right into the swing of things.  As predicted Georgia set the table and made a lovely job, she made the coffees and organised getting the boys to the table while I cooked.

Brunch plated up and ready to go, Mmmmmmm

Talk at the table soon turned to how Alf and I met 18 years ago.  It's funny when your children get old enough to want to know about things like this.  Alex at 14 and a half was genuinely interested at "how" we met.  I laughed and said it sounded like an episode of How I Met Your Mother.  But it was a lovely time sitting and enjoying a family time together, even though Alex had quickly eaten his plate of food and was eagerly checking out everybody else's bacon! poor teenage boy, to think if we had been out at a proper restaurant, he would have polished off more than 1 plate of  food, likely 3!

The hot weather has encouraged the cats to lounge around more, trying to find a cool breezy spot.

 Now I know why some strawberry plants are squashed.

Bye for now, Lee-Anne

Decadent Desserts

Saturday 6th November

A busy day catching up with housework and washing after much rain on Friday.

We have a BBQ 12th birthday party to attend.  Niamh is one of Gerogia's very best friends, so a special dessert or pudding as we call it in our house, is called for.

Chocolate Chip Biscuit Log, from The New Zealand Womens Weekly
 
1 cup cream
2 Tbsp icing sugar
250gn mascarpone
2 Tbsp brandy
1 tsp vanilla
250gm packet chocolate chip biscuits
1/2 cup strong coffee, cold
50g dark chocolate, grated

1.  Whip cream and icing sugar together, then mix in the mascarpone, brandy and vanilla.
2.   Dip chocolate chip biscuits briefly into coffee, one at a time.
3.   Spread biscuits with cream mixture and sandwich together to form a log on a serving platter, using all the   biscuits.
4.   Cover the log with remaining cream, then sprinkle with grated chocolate.

Refrigerate for several hours before serving.

The dessert was simple to make, however we used 500ml of cream altogether.  I left out the brandy and just told adults at the BBQ that there was coffee in it, in case they didn't want their children having coffee.  The coffee flavour was very subtle and delish!!! I plan to make this for Christmas Day so I wanted a trial run making it. 

Here's how mine looked, it had been sitting out on the bench as there was no room in the fridge

The highlight of the night must have been the amazing cake Lucy, Niamh's mum, made.

Chocolate Explosion

Happy 12th birthday Niamh!!

Lee-Anne

A case of mistaken identity

Monday 1st November

"Pinch and a punch for the first of the month"

Already November and a mere few months to the end of the year and Christmas.  Seems it was only the other day we were struggling  through winter and dark days, now we are almost in summer.

It seems that Miss Lettuce has turned into Mr Basil.  I knew things would be touch and go back when we were planting out the seeds and the trays were not labelled.  However, the basil looks to be doing really well.  What was obviously the lettuce therefore failed to even sprout.

Escapee in the bean garden, quickly whipped her out of there!

Dinner is cornish pasties and there is enough mince mixture leftover for a pie to freeze (or so I thought...)
mashed potato and coldslaw made with cabbage, red cabbage and carrot.
Plymouth Pie
(page 37, Destitute Gourmet - Everyday smart food for the family) If you want me to place recipe on here I shall do so.

Dinner served with lots of leftovers, which is unusual in our house.  My nephews arrive (20 and 16) for a catch up and have been offered no dinner at home (long story) so the said pie for the freezer does nicely with vegetables. My heart is happy providing for the boys, a wonderful catch night for everyone.

Springtime on the outskirts of the city, 2 mares and  their foals

Bye for now, Lee-Anne

Games we play

Tuesday 26th October 2010

A busy day with homeschool.

On a Tuesday morning Georgia is a horse handler for a local Riding For The Disabled group. It is her job to control horses that are being ridden by distabled teenage riders. She loves her job very much.
Her instructor is full of praise for her calmness and compassion as she goes about her job. Being homeschooled has allowed Georgia much more freedom to pursue her passions.  And an absolute passion for her is her horse and horse riding.  So much so in fact, she plans on a career in the equine industry as a riding instructor.  I am so proud of her at the grand old age of 12, she knows what path in life she will travel.  It is my job to help direct her on this journey.

So on Tuesday mornings we head out to just past the satelite township of Templeton at 9.30, she begins at 10 sharp.  I then go back out at 12pm to pick her up.  I must be honest that this disrupts our Tuesday schooling day, however, Georgia tries very hard to make up her lesson time throughout the rest of the week. And I think everyone should encourage their children to volunteer in some capacity .  At her age she can even undertake qualifications and unit studies which will help her to ultimately become an instructor.  I believe with her very mature outlook, empathy and natural teaching ability she will do very well.  I know I'm very biased, but I can be because I'm her mum!

A resource we use in homeschool is a game called Kiwi Quiz. I want our New Zealand general knowledge lessons to be fun and preferably oral. However, we don't play it according to the rules. So on a Monday  I gather together 20 questions, and proceed to ask those questions, sometimes getting a correct answer, but mostly not.  This is good because it gives us all week to find out more about answers we didn't know.  Even I'm learning heaps.  Topics covered range from history to quotes, art to Maoris.  It seems to cover all the basics.

It's handy to have the New Zealand Encyclopedia on hand as well.

Here are a sample of some questions, see how you go.  Will give answers tomorrow...

Hone Tuwhare is well known for what? golf-rugby-art-poetry

What is the edible larva of a flying beetle, found in decaying wood & regarded as a Maori delicacy?

In what year did NZ first win the Americ's Cup?

What town was once called Kororareka & in 1840 was the largest settlement in NZ?

What do paua derive the colour of their shell from?

In which forest is the world's largest kauri tree?The passing of the New Zealand Ensign Act in 1902 instituted what change to the NZ flag?

Bread rolls for tomorrow's lunches.

Simple fruit loaf from my trusty Edmonds Cookbook.  This recipe is an absolute godsend for me in the kitchen. I try to make it as I'm doing dinner as it is soo quick and basically looks after itself.  The tins can go into the warm oven once dinner is cooked.  I usually double the recipe therefore getting 2 loaves.

Sultana or Raisin Loaf

1 cup sultanas or raisins

1 Tablespoom butter

1/2 cup sugar

1 Tablespoon golden syrup

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda (bicarbonate of soda)

1 cup boiling water

2 cups baking flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

Put sultanas, butter, sugar & salt in a bowl.

Sprinkle baking soda over.

Add water.

When butter has melted sift in flour & baking powder.

Mix quickly.  

Bake in greased 22cm loaf tin at 180 degrees centigrade for 40 mins, or until scewer comes out clean.

Bye for now, Lee-Anne

Road trip to the country

Monday 25th October

The majestic Southern Alps with the last of the winter snow

Crossing the Waimakariri River, a large braided river that flows across the Canterbury Plains from the Alps to the sea. You can just see the Port Hills and Christchurch in the distance.

Up early today to head out to the country for a horse show.  It promises to be a beautiful sunny warm day. We are going to support one of the girls from the farm, Kat, who is competing in the View Hill Pony Club Outdoor Event.  Georgia is part of the support crew for Kat, she has slept overnight at the paddock, ready for an early start out at 5.30am. Alex and I have the luxury of being out there by morning tea time.

So into the kitchen to make some food to take.  Pizza dough made in bread maker yesterday, so have pizza for myself, Georgia and Alex.  Something sweet to have with my coffee...

Spiral Sponge
This sponge roll is delicious and quick enough to fling together in the mornings. TIME 20mins.

3 eggs
2/3 cup white sugar
pinch of salt
1/2 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
25g melted butter

Beat eggs, salt, and sugar until pale and thick.

Sift in flour and baking powder and fold together. Gently fold in melted butter.

Pour into lined sponge roll tin. Bake 10mins until golden and risen

Turn out onto clean tea towel and remove paper.

Roll the sponge quickly in the towel, then unroll and spread with jam or cream.

Homemade strawberry jam, see all the strawberries!

Roll up again, dust with icing sugar and then slice

Delish! do try it

Packed up a and ready to go

Kat riding Indy, she did well and placed 2nd in her class. Camera was on zoom lense here, you can just see her jumping.  Georgia finally finishes her long day at 7.30pm.

Goodbye for now, Lee-Anne