Week 39 of the 2011 Food Storage Challenge

$10 Challenge
Store 5 kgs wheat

$20 Challenge
Store 10 kgs wheat

If you can't store wheat, store flour, or rice, or whatever your family eats most of. 

This wheat can be put through a grinder to make bread, or tortillas daily if needs be.  I do have some wheat stored (20 kilos, or something like that), but I tend to store more flour as I used to be allergic to wheat when I was a child. Some people can develop intolerances for whole wheat in breads.  I am not willing to risk that should I need to rely solely on my food storage.

You can sprout wheat too, and munch on that.  There is a recipe for 'Swamp Water' floating around in my food storage folder which uses ground up wheat grass.  I have tasted it.  I was very nearly sick.  I don't think I'll be making that unless my life depended on it - and I'm seriously hoping it won't come to that! ;D

Freezable Lunchbox Snacks

I love being able to stock my freezer door with some easy-to-grab snacks that I can throw in lunch boxes in the morning.

Portions of the following are easy to individually wrap, freeze and grab:-

• Muffins
• Cupcakes
• Focaccia
• Slices
• Brownies/Blondies
• Sandwiches

Today I made a chocolate brownie and parmesan herb focaccia for lunchboxes tomorrow as we were running low on freezer items.  They made for a great after school snack this afternoon, then they were sliced up, wrapped and into the freezer they went.

Usually I use make Cherry Blondies, but I didn't have enough white chocolate, and couldn't open the jar of Morella Cherries I had (doh!), so a chocolate cakey brownie it became.

Here's the recipe:-

Ingredients

100 grams butter
180 grams white chocolate
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup self-raising flour
3/4 cup plain flour
1 cup pitted cherries
Icing sugar, to dust

Prepare a slice pan - I am not into my brownies looking really pretty on the crust, so I throw baking paper in a baking dish.  Less mess.  Easy!

1. Melt butter and chocolate in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat. Remove from heat.  Set aside to cool for 5 mins.
2. Add sugar, eggs and flours to pan.  Stir to combine.
3. Spread into prepared slice pan.  Press cherries into mixture
4. Bake for 30 mins or until edges are firm and top golden in a 180 degree C oven.
5. Cool in pan. Dust with icing sugar.

Enjoy!

Week 38 of the 2011 Food Storage Challenge

$10 Plan
Replenish the Kitty Tin

$20 Plan
Replenish the Kitty Tin

If you have been doing the 'Kitty' method, where you put the $10 or $20 into a jar or tin each week, and use only that money to purchase your Food Storage, this is where you would put that money in and leave it in for this week.  There are some expensive things coming up that you need to 'save' up for, like vitamins.  In order to get ones that will actually be of benefit, you'd need to spend a bit of money on those.

And how cute is that kitty tin?

Just Dance!

I started Ballet when I was 4 years old.  My father was a ballroom dancing teacher (now retired) and I attended a well known Performing Arts High School, so I have grown up with dance all around me.

Sadly my husband doesn't dance.  That's a whole 'nother story that I'd better not go into here, but I miss being able to dance.  I don't have anyone to dance with anymore.  Or so I thought...

I decided this week I was going to teach my children how to dance.  I may have bribed my son with a few gobstoppers.  Anyways, it worked, and he actually smiled! He also kept checking the windows to make sure no-one was peeking in.  Self conscious much?

We started with a basic Samba to this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sy-QL2eCU3Q and we have a few things left to fix up, but we're having fun.  Even Phil joined in today, once he saw how much fun the kids were having, and agreed (at least for today) that it was a good thing.  We'll see if he has the same opinion when I make him dance again ;D

We're doing a Waltz next.

Anyone else want to join in a dancing challenge and see if you can learn a dance a week for a month?  I think the Jive will prove to be the most fun!! 

If you are not a dancer either, I will accept shaking imaginary maracas in your hands, alternating shoulders and wiggling your hips. :D

Cake Pops. What ARE they exactly?

I think they're an American-ish sort of a thing.  We have cupcakes here, and mini muffins, but I'm hearing more and more people talking about making cake pops.

What are they?

I like to bake, these things can't be that hard to make, surely?

I did a search.  This site has a crafty Mum who loves to make all things miniature cakey: http://craftsmumship.com/tag/cake-pops/

She made these:-

Isn't Lorelei clever!!

Apparently there are cake pop makers, just like donut or cupcake makers.  I have a mini donut maker, but I consider my oven and muffin moulds to be my cupcake maker.  I can't imagine using one of these things to make cake pops though?

Cake pop maker

So it looks to me like there are two different ways of making these:-

1. Make up a cake batter and use the cake pop maker to bake the cakes into a mini circle.  They're 'stickable' once they have cooled (insert stick), then dip into coating.

2. You have a pre-made cake, cool it, crumble it up and mix a little liquid or icing, then form into balls, stick with a skewer, cool again and dip or cover with whatever you like.

I've made mini Christmas puddings complete with icing.  These may frustrate me more.  At least the puddings don't have to balance on a stick!

However I do have a son obsessed with Lego.  I think these may be just the thing to cheer him up on his next birthday ;D

More detailed instructions here: http://www.livinglocurto.com/2010/06/lego-cake-pops/

Bunny Hutch Re-arranging

I love my bunnies, really I do, but they can be a great bit hassle.  Especially when it comes to little rodents trying to share their food.

I have had pet mice before, and I didn't like them much.  I really don't like wild mice either.  Not because I am scared of them, but they're a nuisance, they're really fast so you can't whack them with a broom (yes, I tried), and they're smelly.

I found the perfect spot for my two most unsociable bunnies (they like each other, not people!), or so I thought.  They were getting a little morning sun, were on a patch of dirt that had next to no nutrients in it  and are a little messy. I thought putting these two bunnies on top of this horrible 'dirt' would be able to improve the soil in the long term.

It didn't take long for mouse tracks to be visible, then some great big burrows.  Eek!

I had to move these bunnies today as high as they could go.  On top of Storm's hutch.

He isn't very pleased.  He can smell them, and he doesn't like them one bit.

Storm (down the bottom) was wondering what I was doing, and why, if I was outside, wasn't I patting him!

The girl bunnies on the other hand, don't mind having more boys next to them.  They don't like mice either, and are forever stuffing newspaper in all the nooks and crannies to keep the mice out.

I have put mouse baits out everywhere now, so there is going to be a bad 'dead' smell happening in about a week or so.  Gross!

Orange/Citrus Cleaner Review

A funnel and a strainer to get every last drop!

I am using my orange peel cleaner, and it is just as great as the stuff you purchase, so I won't be purchasing any more!  I could buy three bottles of vinegar for one bottle of commercial citrus cleaner, and I'm sure it isn't good for my lungs to be breathing in those chemicals.

In fact, my lungs have been much happier with the vinegar/orange peel cleaner, so it's staying.

It doesn't leave a residue.

If you spray it on white tiles in the bathroom and forget to clean it off again, it won't stain the tiles, but it will look like a naughty boy has urinated all over your nice white tiles.  Oops!

The only person not happy with my new cleaner is my son.  He doesn't like the smell of it.

I haven't known him to ever wipe down benches anyway, so tough luck kiddo!

My orange cleaner concentrate back in the vinegar bottle. Two more jars of peels 'marinating'.  The green spray bottle is my diluted half water/half citrus cleaner concentrate ready to go.

I found three weeks was better to leave the citrus peels 'marinating' in the vinegar.  Two weeks doesn't quite develop them enough.  It smells better after three weeks as well.