Muesli bars ....

I have three boys, they eat a lot! I try and make most of there snack food from scratch. Apart from the fact that its often cheaper, I love knowing what goes in to what they are eating and also having the choice of substituting ingredients for healthier ones.
the last couple of years I've been trying to perfect the perfect muesli bar. I have tried (no word of a lie) at least 20 different recipe's! I really wanted the bars not to be full of empty carbs and sugar, but I also needed the boys to like them and most importantly eat them! Anyhow i am happy to say that i think i have finally nailed it yeah!! I have a muesli bar that is filling, nutritious, semi healthy and appealing to the chillins! Since I've done all the testing, made all the mistakes and I've been asked for the recipe by a load of  peeps. I'm sharing the love. The beauty of this recipe is as long as you keep the base quantities the same, you can pretty much chop and change it to your hearts content....... Hope you like xxx

Muesli bars

Base:
2 cups of rolled oats ( I use wholegrain,  they are low GI so keep you fuller for longer)
2 cups of ricies ( can substitute for any random cereal you might have lying round)
1 cup of shredded coconut
1 cup of mixed seeds ( I usually use small seeds like chia, flax seed, millet, sesame seeds)
!/2 cup of dried fruit (optional, i don't usually put it in, not great for kids and mine don't like it)
1/2 cup of nuts (optional, I like sliced almonds or chopped peanuts)

Put all of the above in a BIG bowl, mix.

Toffee (glue that holds them together):
125 grams of butter
1/4 of a cup of raw sugar
1/3 of a cup of honey
1/3 of a cup of nut butter ( I alternate between almond and peanut)

Put all of the above into a pot and stir over a low heat until the sugar has dissolved, once dissolved simmer on low for 5 mins until toffee has thickened, make sure you stir every so often to prevent catching,

Tip the toffee into the dry ingredients and stir quickly,. transfer in to a prepared slice tin, and press down firmly. I like to use a tin and roll the tin over the bars. It packs it down nicely and prevents the mixture sticking all over your hands!!
You can now leave it like this and pop it in to the fridge to set, all you can sprinkle some choc chips over the top yum! Takes a couple of hours to set, once set chop into bars, makes about 30. I keep ours in a container in the fridge.

This past year .....

Ive run three running events, two half marathons and a 10k.....

Mahana Half Marathon

St Clair half Marathon

Kaiteriteri 10k

I've spent a lot of time here ....

 

Had an amazing summer with family, friends and lots of sun!

 

 

Had some crafty time, though didn't take a lot of pics :(

Cute high waisty!

merino shorts

yearly milo

Wow there you have it in a nut shell! I feel like these photo's are but the tip of the iceberg, but what can you do when you ignore your blog for almost a whole year!!
There has been a change in my life, coinciding I guess with the boys getting older.  I'm finding myself with a lot more 'me' time, and have really been enjoying trying out new things. These things tend to be more away from the home, and sporty in nature (i know right). The blog may have a a bit of a different emphasis, as I find myself more passionate about yoga and running, then baking and sewing. This does not however mean that I don't do the latter, just not as much as I used to!
Well if anyone is reading, thank you for sticking around! Hopefully I will as well :)

 

Sick .....

This morning we all piled in to the car at 8.20 am ready and rearing to go. This is very unusual for us, as we like to chill out in the morning and take it easy, especially during the school holidays! Today though, we were dropping Jack off too soccer camp, picking Nana up, and going out to see the hamster farm!! My littlies have been looking forward to this all week, I was looking forward to it as well as we were going to sneak in a coffee and a browse at one of the local winery's!

However half way there we had a glitch in the plan, Charlie was sick. Full on. Glassy eyes, high temp, sore tummy the lot. Now you might be wondering how I had not noticed that he was sick before then, this is why. Charlie is like the boy who cried wolf, he always has a sore tummy, or a headache, when its convenient for him (getting out of chores, not eating dinner etc..) So when he mentioned it this morning, I just brushed it off like any other day, bad mummy!

My new favourite winter sheets (managed to wash everyones sheets!)

Soooo, we dropped Nana off and headed home. Charlie was popped to bed, and promptly slept for 3 hours.
Now I had one small child who was very disappointed we didn't get to see any hamsters, so we did the next best thing in his eyes and baked! I had come across a recipe on line to make bulk biscuits. It only had 4 ingredients to make the basic dough, then you can add what you like. We quartered the dough, and added peanut butter to one lot, choc chips to the other, and put the other two in snap lock bags to freeze for another time. These turned out great, (I will write out the recipe at the end of the post), easy to work with dough, and nice and versatile. While they are certainly not some sort of culinary delight, I'm sure they will go down a treat in the lunch boxes.

 Next on the baking list was cupcakes, Archie loves making cupcakes, well actually the icing! Today was the first time he was able to use sprinkles,  (I'm a mean mummy who wont let her kids eat all that colour, plus its one of the things that makes jack go CRAZY!! ) finally I found at the super market, some sprinkles that used natural colours, hooray yep not deprived any more!

yay!

Cupcake ?

All in all, though we didn't have the fun excursion that was planned, while sicky slept, I was able to spend some nice one on one time with Archie, and I caught up on loads of house work!  There always is a silver lining, its taken me a long time to figure this out. I used to get so disappointed when things didn't go to plan,  rationally I knew that it was just life, but I used to dwell on the bad. Now the kids are older, this kind of thing doesn't happen so much which makes it easier I guess, and we can all go to the hamster farm as a family on the weekend xxx


Basic cookie dough

1cup sugar
500g marge (I used butter)
1 tin condensed milk
5 cups s/r flour
heat oven to 180, grease oven tray (I used baking paper instead)
cream butter & sugar. Mix in flour & cond. milk. Add any extras to mix - this is the fun part - we did a few different versions - added cocoa to some, choc chips to some, craisins to some, orange peel to some - the choices are endless, what ever you have on hand to biff in - do it! Place on baking tray in balls & press down with fork (we did slightly bigger than teaspoon sized balls)
Cook for 10-15 mins til golden brown.

Sunday .....

Today I went to the market and had coffee with friends. It was sunny, the coffee was good and we gossipped for ages FAB!  I got 3 dresses, a really pretty floral one, a practical merino one, and one I will refashion into a tee. I got all 3 for $4, SCORE!!

Merino dress, nice and cosy!

 

We took the boys for a bike ride up the river, then an ice cream.

                              






Archie's Fav!

Off to the Trains, Archie's idea of paradise!!

Home we then went for dinner and whilst I was making dinner, decided to make a loaf to use up some of the mountain of feijoas we have at the moment. The boys wanted bikkies, so made some of them as well!

It was lovely to spend the day together as a family. We all seem to be so busy with our own activities, that we make it a priority to have family time on a Sunday. We don't do anything fancy, just hang out and enjoy each others company.



Jack took charge of the  bedtime story!

Tomorrow Andy has the day off, and he is taking all the kids out for the morning so I can have have some uninterrupted sewing time! I'm looking forward to completing some of the orders that I have mounting up, I might even be able to show you some pics!

Bread.........

I have three boys, they eat alot!! So, I started making bread. I love it, I find it really therapeutic, its a great process! I have the best rye sourdough recipe, I will share this soon I promise!

Over the years I've searched the web, asked people, bought books and tried loads of different recipes. I seem to have narrowed it down to few favs now, one of them being the Artisan Bread in 5 mins. This bread is my 'go to'. when its a bring a plate, BBQ whatever really. A nice fresh loaf of bread, a bit of cheese and some hummus..... looks like you have gone to loads of effort, but really you haven't, great!

This is no traditional bread, though it certainly looks the part!! You basically put everything in a bowl, give it a mix, and let it do its thing. How easy is that!! The best bit is, you can then bake a loaf, and put the rest of the dough in the fridge. This will keep for up to 2 weeks, so those days where you feel like some yummy bread to go with that soup or some buns for school lunches, you literally pull the dough out, let it sit for an hour and bake simple I tell you!!
This recipe has been doing the rounds in the blog world for a few years, yet I still have lots of people ask me for the recipe,  so I thought id share :)

Artisan Bread

Adapted from ”Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day,” by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François

• 1 1/2 tablespoons yeast
• 1 1/2 tablespoons saltcoarse salt (kosher or sea salt)
• 3 cups water
• 6 1/2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour, more for dusting dough (*you can replace about 1 to 1 1/2 cups of white flour with any whole grain flour with great results).
• Cornmeal
1. In a large bowl, mix yeast and salt into 3 cups warm water. Add flour, and stir to combine completely. Let dough rise in a warm place for at least two hours, until it rises and collapses (up to 5 hours – or even overnight won’t hurt it). The dough may be baked at this point, or refrigerated for later use.
2. Cover dough, but make sure it is not airtight – gases need to escape – and place in fridge. When you are ready to use it, throw a small fistful of flour on the surface and use a serrated knife to cut off a piece of the size you desire. (The authors recommend a 1 pound loaf – which means cutting off grapefruit-sized piece of dough). Turning the dough in your hands, stretch the surface of the dough and tuck in under. The surface will be smooth, and the bottom with be bunched.
3. Dust a pizza peel (or any flat surface – I use a rimless cookie sheet) with cornmeal. (This prevents sticking, and adds a nice, rustic crunch. You can use flour instead, but you’ll need to use a very generous dusting). Allow dough to rest in a warm place for 40 minutes – longer (up to an hour and a half) if you use some whole wheat flour in place of the white, or if you make a larger loaf.
4. Twenty minutes before baking, preheat oven to 450 degrees with baking stone (or overturned baking sheet) inside on the middle rack, plus a shallow pan on the top rack. Throw a small fistful of flour over the dough, slash it 2-4 times with a serrated knife (in a cross, a tic-tac-toe, or a fan), and slide it into the oven, onto the baking stone. Throw 1-2 cups of tap water into the shallow pan, and quickly shut the oven door to trap steam inside. Bake for 30 minutes, or until crust is well browned and bread sounds hollow when you knock on the bottom.

(I found this recipe here)

Dough from in the fridge ready to go!

Sprinkle some polenta....

Add dough, bit of flour....

YUM!!!

Go on give it a go, you will love it xxx