Check out my interview with the Christchurch Writer’s Guild. Where I reveal all my secrets…or not. đ
Check out my interview with the Christchurch Writer’s Guild. Where I reveal all my secrets…or not. đ
I’m excited to announce the upcoming release of Backyard Bugwatcher. This kid-friendly book includes all the cool information and identification keys from Insects in the Classroom. A great addition to any bug-lover’s library, this guide complements insect guides like Which New Zealand Insect? and Life-Size Guide to New Zealand Insects, giving you additional background information on a broad range of New Zealand arthropods, and providing keys that can help you learn to quickly categorise creepy crawlies for identification.
Contact me to order your copy, or order on Amazon.comÂ
Some days you just have to be silly.
Half way through cooking yesterdayâs dinner, I felt it was incomplete. It need a little something extra. Something light and fresh. By the time I thought this, it was already dark outside. I didnât feel like picking a salad in the dark, so I thought I might make a fruit salad.
But neither the bananas, nor the pears in the fruit bowl were ripe yet, and that left just apples and mandarines. Pretty boring fruit salad.
How could I make plain old apples exciting?
Turn them into swans, of course!
I found instructions for these fun little fruit birds on the Curious Little Kid blog. Hers are much prettier than mine, but mine got a laugh at the table all the same. They turned boring apples into an exciting side dish.
Last weekend we were hit by a major winter storm. The weekend before, another storm dropped snow almost to sea level. A third storm is forecast to blow in over the next couple of days.
But John Snow needs to change his tune.
Spring is coming.
No question about it.
Iâve felt it.
The plants have felt it.
The birds have felt it.
Spring is coming.
Get ready.
Spring is coming.
Iâve had a hankering for my ice cream sandwich cookies for weeks, but itâs midwinterâwho wants to eat ice cream sandwiches?
But yesterday I had an idea. What if I turned those same cookies into homemade Oreos?
Oh. Yes.
I took my ice cream sandwich cookie dough and, rolled it out a bit thinner than I do for ice cream sandwiches. Instead of cutting it into rectangles, I cut circles with a cookie cutter. I baked them for 8 minutes at 190ÂşC (375ÂşF), and then let them cool completely on a rack.
When cool, I stuck them together with the following icing:
60 g (1/4 cup) softened butter
60 g (1/4 cup) Olivani at room temperature (shortening will work, for those in the US)
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups icing (confectioners) sugar
Beat butter and Olivani until smooth and light. Add vanilla and beat thoroughly. Sift confectioners sugar over the butter mixture and beat until smooth.
The icing was too soft at first and tended to squeeze out of the cookie when we bit into them, but it hardened overnight into the perfect Oreo filling consistency. I found this quantity of icing perfect for the number of cookies, but if you like double-stuff Oreos, make twice as much filling.
It has been decades since I last ate a real Oreo cookie, so I canât say whether they are exactly like Oreos or not. But they are FANTASTIC!
The line between biscuits (in the American sense of the word) and scones is a blurry oneâadd an egg and little sugar to a biscuit and, hey presto, youâve got a scone! Take away the egg from a scone and, voila, youâve got biscuits!
This morning, wanting scones but facing an egg shortage, I found myself improvising. The biscuit variation I came up with was absolutely marvellous, particularly when eaten with a dollop of honey.
This is a giant Sunday morning quantity of biscuitsâenough for breakfast for four, plus extra snacking through the day. Easily halved, if youâre not feeling like Sunday decadence.
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
2 Tbsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
3 Tbsp brown sugar
125g (8 Tbsp) cold butter
1 1/2 cups milk
Combine all dry ingredients in a large bowl. Cut butter into the flour mixture until it resembles coarse meal. Stir in milk. Briefly knead dough, just until smooth. Roll to 1.5 – 2 cm (1/2 – 3/4 inch) thickness and cut into squares, rounds, or whatever biscuity shape you like. Bake on an ungreased sheet at 210ÂşC (425ÂşF) for about 15 minutes, until browned.
You sit in my hand and tell me stories.
I am not as I appear
Stories of ice and fire.
My colours fade here, away from my home
Stories from deep within the earth.
Only anoint me in the sea and you will see my true self
Stories of heat and pressure,
Once smooth, featureless, grey
Of torturous change,
Violence tore at my very structure, squeezed me until I wept
Of slow cooling,
My tears still glisten, and trace my scars with brilliance
A condensation of minerals,
I glow with the translucence of accumulated stress
The story of your journey from crucible to mountaintop.
The angles of my fractured existence plain upon my face
The story of your tumbling fall to the sea.
My pain worn smooth from repetition
Tell me your story.
Let me rest now
Your whole story.
Soothed by abrasion
So like mine.
Slowly giving up my identity to the sea
I made Irish soda bread to go with dinner today. As I mixed up the dough, I remembered making soda bread back when the kids were preschoolers. The recipe I have is easily quartered, so I would make a full batch, and each of the kids would make their own quarter-sized loaf. It didnât even require any calculationsâI simply gave them a smaller measuring cup (1/4-cup and 1/4 tsp to my one-cup and 1 tsp measures) and they could follow the recipe just like I did.
They loved baking their very own loaf, and then seeing it next to their plate at the dinner table.
Of course, these days, the teenagers are less keen on baking the bread and more keen on eating it, but I reckon one day they might make their own Irish soda bread again and remember making mini-loaves with Mum.
The recipe I use comes from Beard on Bread, by James Beard. I donât know if this wonderful little cookbook is still in print, but I encourage you to find a copyâif youâve never made bread before, Beard will walk you through it. If youâre a seasoned baker, Beardâs comprehensive selection of recipes will give you plenty to riff off as you experiment.
3 cup wholemeal flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
2 cups buttermilk
Combine dry ingredients. Mix in enough buttermilk to make a soft dough. Knead on a lightly floured board for 2-3 minutes. Form a round loaf and place on a buttered baking sheet. Cut a cross in the top with a sharp knife. Bake at 190ÂşC (375ÂşF) for 40-45 minutes.
I regularly check out cookbooks from the local library. I enjoy trying new recipes and getting inspiration for new dishes.
Iâve gotten some fabulous recipes from library books.
Iâve also gotten some duds.
In winter, I gravitate toward the baking books, so when I saw the book, 500 Cupcakes on the library shelf, I checked it out without even opening it.
The first recipe I scribbled down and tried was mint chocolate cupcakes. Everyone in the family loves chocolate bars with mint, so why not a cupcake?
I had my first misgivings as I was mixing up the batter. The recipe called for only 1/4 cup of cocoa. Surely a chocolate cupcake should have more cocoa, I thought.
But I donât bake with mint often, and I decided to trust the recipe on quantitiesâI would hate to get the balance off and not be able to taste the mint over the chocolate.
Unfortunately, I should have gone with my gut feeling on the chocolate. The resulting cupcakes are simply not chocolaty enough to stand up to the strong mint flavour. Theyâre not awful, but after the whole family weighed in on them, I wrote âmehâ on the recipe.
Oh, weâll eat them all. Theyâre not that bad. But I wonât be making them again, at least not by the recipe.
Still, it wasnât a wasted exercise. Every time I try a new recipe, I learn. Thatâs worth eating some lacklustre cupcakes now and again.