Mom's Entry for Heidi's Baking Challenge

Good morning everyone! Here is my mom’s entry for Heidi’s Baking Fun Challenge - Valentine’s Food (Roses, Hearts, red, pink, etc.). The challenge closes this afternoon, so be sure to hop over and enter:)

If you can’t, then be sure to visit her blog tomorrow to vote for your favourite recipe!!

STRAWBERRY SHORTBREAD

200ml (200g) soft butter

125ml (110g) castor sugar

185ml (110g) cornflour

375ml (220g) cake flour

Extra castor sugar for dusting

250ml (130g) icing sugar, sifted

Pink food colouring

Beat the butter until light, add the castor sugar and beat for two minutes. Sift the cornflour and cake flour together and stir into the butter mixture until it forms a stiff dough. Roll the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and cut out heart-shaped biscuits. Place them onto greased baking trays. Use a smaller round cookie cutter to cut a hole out of the centre of half of the heart shapes. Bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees Celsius for 15 minutes or until just golden. Remove from the oven and sprinkle with castor sugar. Allow to cool completely. Mix the icing sugar with enough water to make a spreadable consistency. Add a little pink food colouring. Spread the icing on the biscuits without holes and top each one with a hole in it. Allow the icing to set until firm.

Have a lovely day,

Kelly-Anne

Delicious Mango Cooler by Beth

Good morning everyone!  Thank you all for your lovely comments on my giveaway post!  If you haven't entered my {HeART} Giveaway yet, then go Here!  My seven year old sister, Beth, made Mango Cooler to enter into Heidi's Fortnightly Baking Fun Challenge.  The theme is 'smoothies and cold drinks'. 

To make this yummy drink, combine 250ml peeled and chopped mango with 80ml natrual yoghurt in a food processor.  Add 5ml honey and blend again.  Serve with ice and mint to garnish.

I hope you are enjoying your weekend!

Kelly-Anne

In Need of Refreshment?

Hello friends!  I hope you are doing well and enjoying the long hot days of summer?  My sweet friend, Heidi-Mari, hosts a lovely baking and cooking challenge which occurs twice a month on her blog, Heidi’s Crafts. Her current theme is ‘Smoothies and Cold Drinks’ and she is offering SUCH a lovely prize to the winner!

I have decided to enter my refreshing Ginger Beer into her Fortnightly Fun Baking Challenge!

The recipe is as follows:

GINGER BEER

600ml Sugar

15ml Ground Ginger

1tsp Brewers Yeast

Raisins

Bring 2-and-a-half litres water to the boil in a large saucepan. Add the sugar and stir until it has dissolved. Remove from the heat. Add 2 litres of cold water to the saucepan and stir in the ground ginger. Allow the mixture to cool down until it is lukewarm, then pour 125ml of the liquid into a bowl or jug. Add the yeast and stir until dissolved. Stir into the rest of the liquid. Stir well, then use a jug and a funnel to pour the liquid into cleaned and sterilised bottles. Add 2 raisins to each bottle. Close the bottles tightly with a lid, leave at room temperature for about 24 hours, then place in the fridge . The ginger beer is ready to drink, preferably ice cold, once the raisins have floated to the top of the bottle. Enjoy!

January is also nearly over, so be sure to enter your Christmas makes for December time (or maybe even make some new ones to put on your Christmas tree this year!) in my sewing challenge! I am offering a lovely prize to the winner:D I would love to have you join, but if you can’t, then please spread the word to other bloggers and sewers?!!

Have a lovely week further and be sure to come back later for a little surprise I know you will love!

Kelly-Anne

Heidi's Fortnightly Baking Fun Challenge - Colourful Food

Good morning everyone!  I hope you all had a very blessed and merry Christmas?  Today I am entering my very dear friend's Fortnightly Baking Fun Challenge for 'Colourful Food'!  My entry is blackberry jam.

What you will need:

A big pot

Wooden spoon

2 side plates, placed in the freezer

Pastry brush

Jars with clean lids

Scale

Clean wiping cloth

Plenty of hot water

Ingredients:

1.2 kg Freshly picked wild blackberries

800g sugar

Method:

Place your berries in your pot, along with the sugar.  Bring to the boil over a medium heat without the lid.  When the sugar has dissolved, use your pastry brush dipped in water to clean the sides of the pot (you need to remove all the sugar that hasn't dissolved yet).

Take note of the time...your jam should need to boil for just under an hour.

Wash your bottles in hot, soapy water and place in the oven on a low heat to sterilise. Bring clean lids to the boil in water. Set up your bottling station - I use two oven racks, two plates, a ladle, a clean, wet cloth and a clean dishtowel for the next stage...

Testing if your jam is ready is the tricky part of this process. Get your ‘frozen’ plate out of the freezer and pour a little bit of the syrupy jam on to the plate (you will do this about 50 or 55 minutes into your cooking process).  If the jam is runny and doesn’t slightly wrinkle when pushed gently with the tip of your finger, your jam is not yet finished evaporating. It should make a tiny pucker when it is finished boiling.

Put your pot on to one of the oven racks and get a jar out of the oven with your dishcloth
 (leave the rest in the oven to stay hot). Put the jar on one of the clean dinner plates and
immediately start pouring the jam into the bottle. Fill right to the top.
Use tongs to lift a boiled lid out
of the hot water and screw on tightly.  Wipe your bottle and set aside.
 Repeat until all the jam is bottled. Rinse your cloth and give each
bottle a thorough clean. Press lightly on each lid to seal.

Blessings,

Kelly-Anne

Recipes for Hot Days

The other day it was very hot...I am not a summer loving person because of the extreme heat - I prefer days that aren't too hot, not too cold with a slight breeze!  But hot days are here to stay for a while, so I made something really chilly to cool us down!

 

This is a fruit slushy made out of frozen papaya, frozen blueberries, frozen banana, icy fruit cocktail juice and a little rice milk to bind the ingredients.  The more milk (or yoghurt) you add, the more 'ice creamy' it becomes.  I just blended these ingredients together in our smoothie maker and voila!  A delicious snack to help us cool down!

I'm entering this slushy into Heidi's Fortnightly Baking Fun Challenge for 'Fruit and Vegetables'.  Hurry over to join in her challenge, she's offering a great prize!!

Later in the day thunder clouds came rolling in and we had a magnificent thunder storm with quite a bit of rain!

Poor Zak, our puppy dog, was bewildered by the big noises of the thunder and he tried to dodge the rain drops:)

It was beautiful and cool that evening after the storm!

Blessings,

Kelly-Anne

A Recipe for Chicken Pie and How to Have Fun in the Rain:)

I missed two of Heidi-Mari’s baking and cooking challenges:( When Mom told me we were going to make a pie for supper on Monday night, I jumped at the opportunity to do a bit of cooking and enter Heidi’s challenge for ‘Anything Goes’.

We went to help Uncle Terence and Aunty Anne-Marie make fruit juice for the Saturday markets on that particular Monday evening, so we took supper along to share with them. I will be posting lots on the Saturday markets and juice making soon...back to supper!

Here is the yummy recipe for chicken and mushroom pie – adjust quantities to suit your family size.


Chicken and Mushroom Pie

 1 whole chicken or several chicken pieces
Olive oil and butter for frying
1 punnet fresh mushrooms
Himalayan salt
Black pepper
Fresh rosemary
1 onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 egg
Puff pastry
Butter (for white sauce)
Cake flour (for white sauce)
Milk (for white sauce) we use rice milk
Homemade chicken stock
White wine and/or cream (optional)


















1. Mix up a few sprigs of fresh rosemary from your garden, some freshly ground Himalayan salt and black pepper with a little olive oil.

2.  Brush over chicken pieces and place in a preheated oven to cook at 190 degrees Celsius.  After about 10 minutes, turn the oven down to 170 degrees.  Turn chicken over to cook equally on both sides.

3. In the meantime, finely slice an onion and two garlic cloves. Fry in a little butter and set aside when starting to brown. Separately fry a punnet of sliced mushrooms in a little butter till soft. Remember, fry your mushrooms in stages – the less you have in a pan, the more flavourful they will be. By frying them all in one go, they lose their flavour and create lots of water.

4. When chicken is cooked, remove from oven and cool. When cool, shred into small pieces and set aside.

5. Make a white sauce with homemade chicken stock and rice milk. For extra flavour use white wine or cream as well!

6. Combine the onions, garlic, shredded chicken, mushrooms and white sauce and pour into an oven-proof dish. Lay your ready-made pastry over the top and decorate. (I made leaves and berries out of the left-over pastry.)

7. Beat up an egg and brush over the top. Bake in a preheated oven for about 45 minutes at 180 degrees celsius or until golden brown and done.

Serve with roast vegetables, brown rice and a fresh salad!

{It was delicious!}

After supper and before (Ha!) washing dishes, Nancy and I took the dogs for a walk. This farm is huge and a perfectly safe place to go for a short walk to the dam and back – besides, we had the dogs with us:)

 

This photograph reminds me of ‘The Lion King’ which is set on the African Plains...look at that sky!

My gorgeous sister, Nancy.

Nancy running down the hill to the dam with Buta and Miki (the dogs).

Love these flowers – love them.

Those clouds came fast and furious...not long after this photo was taken it poured with rain – a long run up the hill:) Aunty Anne-Marie and Mom laughed at the two of us – completely wet and cold! They sent us off to have a shower and Aunty Anne-Marie lent us dry tops:D We had a fun evening, though!

Please hop over and take part in Heidi’s challenge! Remember, she is offering a great prize!

Blessings,

Kelly-Anne

Beth's Entry for Heidi's Baking Challenge - Snazzy Snacks

Hello everyone!  Beth decided to enter Heidi's Fortnightly Baking Fun Challenge with her delicious crunchies she and Mommy made for snacktime yesterday!  Below is the recipe:

Crunchies

125g butter

1 tbsp syrup

1 cup flour

1 and a half cups oats

1 and a half cups coconut

1 cup sugar

1 tsp bicarb

Mix oats, flour and coconut in a bowl.

Place butter, syrup, bicarb and sugar in a pot and dissolve over medium heat until mixture becomes golden brown and frothy. Add to dry ingredients and mix. Pour out crumbly mixture into greased biscuit baking pan and press down firmly. Bake at 180 degrees Celsius for about 12-15 minutes or until golden brown. Cut into squares while hot.  Enjoy!

Please hop over to Heidi's blog and see if you can join in her fun baking challenge for 'Snazzy Snacks'!  She is offering a great prize, too!  Voting for her last challenge 'Muffins' is open till Sunday, so please hop over and vote for your favourite muffin recipe today!

Blessings,

Kelly-Anne

Heidi's Baking Challenge - Puddings and Desserts

Hello everyone! I am entering Heidi’s baking challenge on behalf of my lovely mother, Hazel! Heidi-Mari decided to extend her current challenge for another two weeks and she is offering the winner a PRIZE! You have another day left to enter your puddings and desserts before the challenge closes. Please go here to enter!

My mother made us a delicious rice pudding for after dinner last night. We have made all sorts of rice puddings before, but this one is by far the best of them all.

Rice Pudding

Serves 6

180ml uncooked rice

125ml water

750ml rice milk

60ml raisins

5ml nutmeg

1ml ground cloves

2 extra large free-range eggs, separated

125ml cream

60ml sugar

2ml vanilla essence

Preheat oven to 160 degrees Celsius. Boil the rice until all the water has been absorbed. Add the milk and raisins and simmer until the rice is tender and most of the milk has been absorbed. Cool. Mix the nutmeg and the cloves with the egg yolks, cream and sugar. Add the vanilla essence and mix well with the rice mixture. Whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks are formed and fold into rice mixture. Pour into greased oven dish and bake for 40-60 minutes or until set. Serve hot with custard.

I like this pudding so much as it has very little sugar in it.  If my Mom makes it into the top three recipes, then please would you hop over to Heidi’s blog and vote for her?! Voting starts on Tuesday, 20th of September.

Have a great weekend,

Kelly-Anne