Loving.... Grateful..... My baby turns 1

So much to love and be grateful for.

One year ago our life changed and became so much richer with the arrival of our beautiful little boy, Cohen. It has been a year of pure joy and love, frustration, delight, sleeplessness nights, tears and cuddles. It has been an amazing journey and i am so grateful for every moment.

Those beautiful blue eyes and cheeky grin really brighten my day. I often wonder what i used to do with my time, everything seems so much more precious and meaningful these days. Right i'm off to sort through the party pictures from yesterday. I'll see you all tomorrow with a few favourite pics.
Take care everyone. xx

2 days to go!

This week in the lead up to the little man's first birthday everything seems to be floating by. Things to buy, stock the cupboards, baking and sewing have all been keeping me busy. Tonight more family arrives and it will be time to relax back with family and enjoy the upcoming party on Sunday.

There will be lots to show you after the big day has passed, so i'll see you all in a few days when things have slowed down.

Have a great weekend everyone, so excited! party!

xxx

Beer bread 2.0

I had a great blog post all planned about beer bread to post last night. The dough looked so delicious and bubbly but it came out of the oven like a rock. lol gotta love that. I figured it wouldn't be a very inspirational post so today i made beer bread 2.0. Although i'm not sure what went wrong with the first loaf i did get some advice from the resident beer expert. And when i say expert i don't say that lightly if there is anything this man doesn't know about beer and it's flavour and character notes it's not worth knowing. He takes his beer very seriously!

So today with some advice about beer types i made another loaf, this time with a sparkling ale which apparently will add more malty flavours and give the bread more depth. Gotta love that man, we're a great team.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C 

Into a bowl goes 

450g wholemeal flour

1 T baking powder

1/2 t salt

1 t honey

350ml beer ( a stronger beer like an ale is best) 

Mix together to a soft dough

Grease a bread pan or loaf tin. I'm lucky enough to have this terracotta bread basin my mum bought me a few years ago. It's made by the local potters where she lives.

In goes the dough.

The whole lot then goes unto the oven, hmm yours might be slightly cleaner than mine. Good thing Dad is coming for a visit. Have i ever mentioned how my Dad, along with being a Jack of all trades, is the ultimate oven cleaner?

Cook for 40mins and allow to cool slightly in the pan.

Turn out onto a cooling rack to cool fully. I love that perfect roundness the bread basin gives.

Kinda looks like a giant muffin.

This malty loaf is perfect with cheese and pickles and went well with some leftover onion soup i found in the freezer. Perfect for cold, sick days at home.

Take care people.

Loving... Grateful....

My Monday night ritual to reset and start the week in a good place.

Loving.....

~ The crafty preparations leading up to the big 1st birthday this weekend.

Grateful ......

~ for the time and space to make my little man's first birthday special.

~ for the childlike glee i feel working with these bright, happy colours

~ for delicious cakes

~ for my sewing circle

~ for hot soups on cold days

~ for quiet moments in these wet months

~ for loud moments as the little man finds his voice

Peace and calm.

Take care people

xxx

My friend broccoli

I never cease to be amazed at what can entertain a small child. Today it was broccoli that kept my little one entertained for half an hour. First he had a long chat with the broccoli, talking about the woes of the world i'm sure. Then the broccoli got a little de-leafing haircut and finally he had a bit of a chew before deciding other things were more interesting. It really was the cutest thing though.

On other fronts it's always nice when someone posts a recipe on their blog of the very thing you have been thinking of baking. So tonight for craft group i whipped up this banana cake from cityhippyfarmgirl as a practice run for the birthday next week. Some banana cakes in the past have tended to be a bit dry but not this one, it was perfect - moist and flavoursome. 

Thanks Cityhippyfarmgirl!! Most appreciated. xxx

Cookie

House tidied, washing on, baby sleeping, dinner done, dishes washed and batches of cookies in the oven. Definitely time for a hot cocoa and maybe one of those cookies. You know, just to make sure they're not bad or anything.....

Chocolate drop cookies

200g butter
8 T sugar
4 T golden syrup (or condensed milk)
3 C flour
4 t baking powder
chocolate drops ( as many or as few as you like.)

Cream together butter and sugar. Mix in the golden syrup (or condensed milk). Add in the dry ingredients and the chocolate drops and mix to a firm dough.

Roll into balls and put on a baking tray. Flatten with a fork.

Bake at 350 degrees F for 10-15 mins until just lightly golden.

Makes about 24 cookies

The great thing about this recipe is because it is so basic you can mix and match a bit with chocolate, dried fruit and nuts to suit what you have in the cupboard.

Enjoy. xxx

Fuzzy bunny cheese

Cheese making is a rather odd process when you think about it. You create this milk based product, press it into a round cheese shape and then stick it in your wardrobe (and in the case of camembert) wait excitedly for it to grow mould. I can't think of a single other time where this would happen. Certainly as a student mould didn't cause this degree of excitement and there was a lot of it in those days.......

Anyway, As you can see the camembert is progressing well and the white mould has been growing over the surface. There was a small hiccup when the cheese on the right grew a small ammount of blue mould and we thought it was ruined, but no apparently this is common and you just scrape it off and wait for the white mould to grow over the scraped areas.

Told you it was weird! So hopefully in a few more days we will have fluffy bunny fuzz camembert's all ready for wrapping and ageing. In the meantime i thought i might whip up some quark for some instant gratification.

Take care people

xxx