Finger painting from 2011

Edit: Yay I found this post! It's from my old blog, written in November 2011! Crazy how time has gone so fast. And how come I didn't remember that this finger paint is so easy to make! Oh well, we're going to give this a go too so that Noah can get messy too. Enjoy for the glimpse to the past!  

Last week was a bit like a holiday for us. My husband took the week off and spent it with us, because today he is starting at the Police Academy and we will only see him during the weekends. It was so nice having him around, but still we were busy doing things around the house all week.

So I thought we should do something together with Emma.

One part water, one part flour and then some food colouring! That simple!

It was perfectly sunny and warm day to do it, so we went outside, stripped her nearly naked and started painting.

First some paper and then some feet.

And then anything we could find.

It was so much fun! I recomend it to anyone.

Summer fun with finger paint (thermomix recipe)

Part of my husband's job is to work as long as you are required to work. So sometimes when he's suppose to finish at midnight, he doesn't actually get to finish until 8am and be home at about 9am. This was the case just yesterday morning. In these circumstances I have to come up with some sort of activities to do with the kids that doesn't make much noise and is preferably outside.

Yesterday morning I thought it was time to try what sort of finger paint the thermomix would make. We used the recipe from the everyday cook book (I halved the recipe thats's in the book), but you could do this without the thermomix too.

Recipe:

• 35g of cornflour
• 20g of sugar
• 1/2 tbs salt
• 235g water

Just mix all these ingredients in a pot and heat it up until it goes thick (like cornflour does). If you're not doing it with a thermomix, you do have to keep mixing it until it goes thick. It's that simple. Then just divide the mixture into little containers, add your food colouring and mix it in.

The paint this makes is a rather gooey kind, more like jelly than paint. Emma still loved it and painted heaps. She tried what different colours make when you mix them together. She squeezed them between her hands and had a blast. Noah on the other hand didn't find the texture very inviting and only poked his fingers in it.

I have made finger paint before, when Emma was about 1 and I like that recipe better. I might find that and give it a go as well, after all it is really warm at the moment and we like playing outside before it gets too hot. It's fun to play with edible finger paint because then you can do this:

She became a green monster! Oh I forgot to tell you, WHEN you start painting with finger paint and if it's summer, let your kids go nude, it's so much more fun when you don't have to worry about getting your clothes dirty. When we were finished I just put Emma in the shower and she cleaned herself off. This was so much fun and we are definitely going to do this again.

Lamingtons with a twist // Tasteful pranks

So lets start this New Year talk already! Who's made New Year's resolutions? I made one last year and I didn't do very well, I'm so bummed that I won't even tell you what it was. So wiser than last year, I have decided to make no resolutions but I do have a few goals for this year that I would hope to wish to achieve with the kiddlies. Without any stress.

One of those goals is to make a few tasteful pranks. What are tasteful pranks you say? Well here's the first idea and an example of one; lamingtons with a surprise. Let me tell you what I mean; we always make things for the police station as we really appreciate all the hard work they do. But this time we decided to play a little fun prank on them and instead of making normal lamingtons, we made them into rainbow lamingtons. The joke was that they didn't have a clue until they had a bite. Emma thought this was such an exciting prank to pull on the coppers and I thought that there's no harm in doing something funny.

I used my thermomix (obviously) to make these lamingtons (recipe in the Everyday Cook Book), but I found a recipe that I used to use from my old blog so I copied that for all of you who don't have a thermomix. The most important step is that once you've made the mixture, divide it into smaller bowls and mix in the colours. We used 4 different colours, but 3 would work great as well.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup self-raising flour
1/2 cup plain flour
1/2 cup corn flour
6 eggs (room temperature)
1 cup sugar
1 tbs boiling water

3 to 4 different food colours of your choice

Chocolate icing

2 cups icing sugar
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup boiling water

and desiccated coconut to roll the pieces







1. Reheat oven to 160°C. Use a 20 x 30cm pan and line the base and sides with baking paper, allowing it to overhang slightly.

2. Combine the flours and sift them into a large bowl. Repeat twice.

3. Use an electric beater to whisk the eggs in a large clean, dry bowl until thick and pale. Gradually add the sugar, 1 tbs at a time, whisking well after each addition until mixture is thick and sugar dissolves.

4. Sift the combined flours over the egg mixture. Pour the boiling water down the side of the bowl. Use a large metal spoon to gently fold until combined.

 5. Divide the mixture into small containers and mix in all the colours. Pour mixtures into the prepared pan one colour at a time.

6. Bake in oven for 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Turn cake onto a wire rack, cover with a clean tea towel and set aside to cool.

7. Cut the cake into 15 squares.

While the cake is in the oven it's time for the best part, licking the bowls.

8. To make the chocolate icing, sift the icing sugar and cocoa powder into a medium bowl. Add the milk and water and stir until smooth.

9. Dip 1 cake square into the warm icing and roll onto all sides to evenly coat. Allow any excess icing to drip off. Then roll the cake in the coconut to evenly coat and place on a wire rack. Repeat with the remaining cake squares, icing and coconut. Set aside for 1 hour or until icing sets.

And those in Finland who want to try this, 1 cup is about 2,4 dl, and instead of self-raising flour you have to use normal flour and then add about 3 tsp of baking powder.

Have fun baking and even more fun pranking!

So let us bring more smiles in the world this year and make some tasteful pranks. It doesn't mean that the pranks need to be edible, but pranks where no one is humiliated and no one gets hurt, pranks that bring a smile to our faces and makes us more happy.

Chocolate fruit and nut hearts

What is Christmas without chocolate? I'll answer my rhetorical question; NOTHING! Christmas = eating chocolate! So now my husbands quick Christmas chocolate recipe.

Let me tell you the story (don't worry, it's not very long). Two weeks ago my grandma passed away, she is one of the most inspiring women I know and even though she lived a very full and happy life, nothing to be sad about, I was still heart broken. She along with my mother are the reason why I know how to knit and crochet and sew and do all the craftiness that I do. To support me in my sorrow, my husband made this chocolate heart. What a keeper! So I wanted to share his idea with all of you.

You will need:

• 200g dark chocolate (a little less will do too, I know because I ate two pieces)
• 50g nuts of some sort (I used cashews)
• 100g dried fruit (I had a mix of sultanas, cranberries and goji berries)
• cookie cutter (heart shape works great)

Melt your chocolate. If you melt your chocolate in the microwave, remember to mix it every 30 seconds so that it doesn't burn. In about 2 minutes all the chocolate should be melted.

Mix in the fruit and the nuts. Put some of the mixture in your cookie cutter. If you feel like it doesn't hold well when you take the cookie cutter off, put it first in the freezer for few minutes with the cutter still in place, that way the chocolate goes harder quicker.

One you're done, let it go hard in the fridge, wrap it up, hand it away and wish them a Merry Christmas.

Snail bread

The next best thing for my little girl, after ladybirds, is snails. It's so much fun to see them poke out their heads and watching them slowly making their way towards my garden pots. Well the good thing is that she usually takes them away from my garden so in a way she's doing a great favor for me.

Though in some parts of the world snails are considered a delicacy I didn't think to cook ours, but we did make some edible snails! These ones are yummo!

You could use any kind of bread recipe I'm sure, but this is the one we used:

Snail bread:

• 300g water 
• 2 tsp dry yeast
• 300g bakers flour
• 100g wholemeal flour
• 20g olive oil
• 1 tsp salt

I made my dough in a thermomix so it was done in 3 minutes. First you warm up the water and yeast 1min/37degrees/speed 1.Then just add the rest of the ingredients and mix 6sec/speed 6 and then put your thermo on knead position for 2 min. Let it sit for 30min in a warm place and you're ready to make your snail rolls.

If you don't have thermomix you could just heat your water and yeast in a microwave and then mix the reast of the ingredients with your hands, remember to knead well and let it sit in a warm place for 30min.

 Once your dough has doubled it's size take a handfull off it and start rolling it into a long sausage. Once it's as long as you want then start rolling it in to a snail. Pretty simple, yeah? We used sultanas as eyes, but you don't need to if you don't want to. Some of them fell off anyway after they came out of the oven. Then bake for about 15min in 200 degrees.

If the ladybird bean bags were a bit too difficult for a three year old, then this one is just perfect. Emma was so into rolling the dough into snails and could do it all on her own. We finished these so quick as she made her ones and I made mine. Have a go and enjoy your own yummo snails!

Wheatgrass smoothie

So I tried that wheatgrass in a drink and whipped it to million pieces. Thermomix worked it's magic and I'd say it tasted really good. Actually my kids would say that it tasted really good as I didn't get much of a taste before it was all gone.

I used our trusted ingredients that we usually use to make our green smoothies; spinach, pineapple, banana, ice and water and I just added one bunch of wheatgrass hair from our pot friends.

The recipe goes like this:

hand full of spinach
1 banana
2-3 slices of pineapple
some wheatgrass
hand full of ice
a glass of water

I chopped the spinach and wheatgrass first just to see how the thermomix would chop the wheatgrass, but if you make this with or without the wheatgrass you can totally put all the ingredients in the bowl at once and mix it for 5sec/speed 9.

The pictures don't make justice as it was early morning and I just took all the pictures with my phone, but I think you can still get the idea. Happy kids and yummo drink! They both drank one glass each. There was a  little bit left in the bowl so I thought to try what this mixture would taste like with frozen berries in it.

And that is how our day started. By the time daddy-o woke up the smoothie was just a happy memory in our full bellies.