Bread of the week - garlic flatbread

This is really easy and a great one to cook when you need something quick to go with dinner. It goes well with soups, pastas, casseroles etc.


With floured hands, pull about an orange sized chunk of dough* out of your container. Stretch and pull it into a rough circle (about 30cm in diameter) and put it onto a piece of baking paper. If you like you can flatten it out a bit more with your fingers, but I like it to have thicker and thinner areas and even some holes. This means you get some plump springy bits and some thin crunchy bits for texture.

Next pour some olive oil over the dough (I use a tablespoon or two). I subscribe to the Jamie Oliver school of thought about sometimes needing to use your hands when cooking, and here I find smoothing the oil over the surface with my fingertips distributes it best. Then crush some garlic over - 1 or 2 cloves, depending on how strong you like it and sprinkle with salt flakes.

Even though the original Artisan Bread in 5 minutes a day recipe states that you should let the dough come to room temperature, I find that if I turn on the oven first, then take the dough out of the fridge and stretch it, it's had enough time to rest by the time the oven is up to temperature. You still get enough rise in the dough and it allows for last minute cooking, always a good thing!

Put it into the 220c preheated oven on the top shelf on a pizza stone if you have one (see my transfer method in this post), or alternatively a baking tray. Cook until it starts to go brown around the edges (5-10 minutes), but not til it's brown all over, which will be a bit dry and lifeless (she says from experience). You can see the nice variations in thickness in the pic above. It's a bit like a focaccia where you dimple the surface with your fingers so oil etc sits in the indents.


I like to cut it into squares with a pizza wheel. It's so quick and easy that you can cook a few if you need more for your meal.

* basic recipe listed on this post

Bright spots

Some bright spots in a particularly frustrating morning that I wish had gone differently:


Beautiful magenta bougainvilleas set against a clear blue sky on our walk to the park...


... picking up a large coffee on the way...


... blessed sleep means a less clingey and grumpy 1 year old and...


... watching her play independently and then with her buddies. I also get to talk to my buddy...

Added bonus: she let me put piggy tails in her hair, a rare occasion :-)

Have a nice weekend.

Cuff love

The kids have been pretty demanding lately so there's not so much craft happening (plenty in my head though!). But as I have had cuffs (obsessively) on my mind since my late night session recently, I have squeezed in a couple using my favourite fabrics.


In one (above) I've finally cut into a beloved piece of Marimekko fabric designed in 1960. It has been waiting for the perfect project, and while I don't think this is the perfect project, one great thing about cuffs is that they only use a small piece of fabric and I think they'd be fantastic for using up small scraps. I bought a quarter of a metre of this lovely print back in the olden days BC (before children) when my time was my own and work lunchtimes in the city allowed for the occassional trip to a great shop like Funkis. I still hope to make the rest of the fabric into something like a bag or a panel in an A-line skirt, but for now I can at least enjoy a bit of it rather than let it all just sit in the stash out of sight.



The other one (below) is the Ikea fabric I posted about recently. I love how just taking a small section gives it a very distinctive look. Taking a piece from somewhere else on the design would obviously look quite different. I've been really enjoying wearing it with plain black tops and jeans and maybe a scarf in one of the the colours in the fabric. It just adds a little spark of colour. I backed this one with a piece of repurposed black wool from a skirt I chopped up recently.




In each I have gone with a really simple design where I've sewn the two pieces wrong sides together, sandwiching a small loop of hat elastic at one end, turned them inside out, hand stitched the opening shut then sewn on a button from my button collection. My style is very simple anyway but I really feel here that the simple, clean design lets the fabric speak for itself. I did try to embellish the black and grey one with a small felt disc free stitched onto the front where the button goes, but even that felt too fussy and I unpicked it all! Oh well, trust your gut instinct is always the answer I guess!

I also have plans to 'gather' some scraps and samples from some of my favourite Australian fabric designers and make more. How many do you think I could wear at once? ;-)

Labour comfort food

When I think of some of the memorable times in my life so far, both good and bad, food and cooking have featured.

Thinking of what I might cook for my boy's birthday dinner last night, I suddenly remembered the food around us during my labour with him and decided to recreate that meal (minus the labour pains :-).

The day he was born started with making a big loaf of bread 'just in case'. I had a couple of pains here and there during the day and suspected it might be about to begin.

Then there were some lovely dolmades (I think based on this recipe) and garlicky yoghurt sauce to go with them hanging around in the fridge from my latest cooking fad. I had my mum around to help watch the kids and this allowed me the relaxing but time consuming task of rolling all of those lovely parcels by hand which we then happily devoured. As predicted I haven't made dolmades since then - the rush of late pregnancy energy that produced tree lopping in pregnancy no. 1 and chair recovering in pregnancy no. 2 had produced piles of homemade dolmades in pregnancy no. 3.

In the afternoon I gathered ingredients to make some comfort food for us for the evening - if I happened to need to go to the hospital then everyone would be fed and happy! I'd decided on a tomato risotto with eggplant croquettes (fancy name for my veggie version of meatballs). It's an easy soupy style risotto that's nicely contrasted with the crispy exteriored, soft interiored croquettes. Somehow the routine of frying the batches seemed to take my mind off the mounting contractions but soon I could no longer ignore them.

I admitted defeat in the kitchen and retreated to the bedroom, where the big girl came to check on me several times, finally excitedly declaring "I think the baby is coming, mamma just said ouch!". Hmm, I'm sure it was something stronger than ouch! In typical third time labour style I made sure the kids were fed and reasonably organised for bed before stating that I couldn't last any longer at home and left the risotto cooling, heading for the hospital with the soon-to-be dad-of-3.

At 8.09pm (on 09.08.09) our baby arrived, plunging through the warm water of the birth pool and pulled up to me with my own hands. My head still spins with what an amazing, quick, intense, beautiful, painful, fortunate, incredible journey this labour was. Holding a friend's newborn recently I felt a little sad that I would most likely never feel that again (I think I need sleep more than another newborn now).

When the new dad-of-3 left the hospital a couple of hours later to go back to the clan I put my love to bed for his first sleep in the outside world, then wondered to the birth centre's kitchen and devoured 8 pieces of toast with vegemite. Unfortunately my planning that afternoon hadn't extended to packing myself a container of risotto but boy, did that toast taste good!

Birthday boy

This time exactly one year ago I was pottering around at home, wondering when my baby boy was going to come out into the world and meet us. Little did I know that later that evening we would be greeting him. My baby boy turns 1 today!

We had a hastily organised little celebration for him in the local park yesterday which I think he enjoyed, despite needing a little nap in the middle of it! He got to show off his new walking skills, as well as waving, clapping and doing his little dance to the music playing. Where has my baby gone?!!


His big sisters are always very excited to have a birthday in the family to celebrate, but particularly for their beloved baby, who they fuss over like mother hens! Of course they wanted to open his presents ASAP in the morning and burnt themselves out with excitement before it was time for the party! The things most anticipated were 1. the cake (isn't that always the way) and 2. the lucky dip we'd organised. I remember absolutely loving lucky dips when I was a child - the anticipation of putting your hand into the box or bag, picking something out and unwrapping it was huge! What a pity things don't excite us so much as adults!

As usual at our birthday celebrations I didn't take nearly enough photos, or rather not the right sort of photos. Lots of blurry group shots with kids running around but noone looking at the camera, but not so much the carefully planned details, like the loving wrapped lucky dip parcels being eagerly handed from one child to another (all chosen and wrapped by the big girl), and none of the CAKE! It astounds me that I can take so long making and decorating the cake then forget all about photographing it! So please forgive the dodgy zoomed-in detail shot.

It's become tradition that the kids all have a teddy cake on their first birthday - the one from this great kids cake cookbook. So here's what it's supposed to look like below. I used a bit more cocoa in the butter icing so he was a chocolate brown bear - which satisfied the chocoholics in this family.




And my chocolate apple cake is also a tradition with us now. The recipe was found by my mum when the big girl was little and we were hunting for egg-free cake recipes. It's a bit more special than our everyday egg-free chocolate cake. It's a good cake to cut into shapes as it holds its form well, plus I can kid myself that it's a little bit healthy as it contains apple (just don't think about all that butter icing on top ;-)



Chocolate apple cake

400g stewed apple
1/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon bicarb soda
125g butter or margarine
1 cup caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 cups self-raising flour
2 tablespoons cocoa powder

Preheat oven to 180c. Lightly grease and line a shallow 16 x 26cm pan. Place the apple, bicarb and milk in a saucepan and stir over a low heat for 2-3 minutes. Set aside.

Cream the butter and sugar, add the vanilla. Sift over the flour and cocoa and gently fold together. Fold through the warm apple mixture.

Spoon into the prepared pan and bake for 35-40 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Allow to cool in the pan for 5 minutes then turn onto a cake rack to cool completely.


Happy Birthday Mr Milo!

Homemade yoghurt

There are a few foods that I've always thought were not worth making myself (simpler to buy them) but I've changed my mind about some in recent years, I guess since having children.

Yoghurt was one I didn't consider making until recently. A friend told me a while ago about her yoghurt making experiments and it sounded interesting, but a bit time consuming given everything I was trying to do at the time, plus I was happy enough buying it. Happy enough, but the type of yoghurt we bought for the kids had bugged me for a while.

While pregnant with no. 1 I had lofty thoughts that my baby would eat only the best foods. This included the 'good' yoghurt I enjoyed eating, natural yoghurt with live cultures, no additives or sugar. I would sweeten this with fresh fruit purees for my baby and all would be well... or not. Let's just say that we ended up with princess strawberry yoghurt gracing the shelves of our fridge and I didn't feel that happy about it. As well as the nutrition factor, I try not to buy too many licensed things (food or otherwise), and so when the baby (no. 3) started eating lots of yoghurt and suddenly I had 3 hungry mouths eating Disney special I decided that enough was enough (or at least I'd give something else a try, and admit defeat later ;-).


So when I was offered a discounted yoghurt maker I jumped at the chance. Essentially it's just a kitchen gadget with a heating pad to keep the ingredients at the right temperature. You still need to heat the milk and add cultures. But I figured the machine would take out some of the guess work and experimentation and therefore get rid of my mental block about making it myself.

The first attempt was OK but the second attempt I'm really happy with, and quite excited about, not least because the kids love it as much as I do.

For the recipe I have spliced together one I found online and also the one from the gadget instruction manual. If you're interested, it's below. But don't ask me how to make it without a 'yoghurt maker'!


Obviously part of what kids like about the store bought yoghurt is the individual pots, opening the container themselves and the decoration. So I bought some little colourful plastic containers to decant the yoghurt into and drew pictures on the lids, listing the date it was made for my reference.

I decided to make a sweet vanilla flavour first as I didn't want to put them off and risk them labeling it 'grown-ups yoghurt' as they do with the Greek yoghurt I like. I've found kids have a way of making a quick judgement and sticking by it for a very long time, and it's hard to change their minds! So the sweet is a concession to their palettes. Later I hope to experiment with reducing the sugar, using honey as the sweetener and adding fruit. But at least I know what's in this, hopefully it's a bit more healthy and I'm keeping some money in our pockets instead of giving it to Nestle.

Have a happy weekend!



Vanilla yoghurt

Makes 1.5 litres

5 cups milk
3/4 cup powdered milk (to thicken the yogurt)
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons vanilla essence
1/2 cup plain yogurt with active cultures (for the starter)

Bring milk, powdered milk, and sugar nearly to a boil (80-85c on thermometer) in a saucepan, stirring often. Remove from heat.

Cool quickly by filling the sink with cold water and ice cubes, set the pan inside, stirring often until it cools to 40-45c (this will take about 5 minutes).

Gently stir in vanilla and yogurt starter (don't beat or whip). Ladle into yogurt container and process about 8 hours in your yoghurt machine (the longer it's processed, the more tart it will taste). Check to see if it's about as tart and as firm as you want it (otherwise process for longer). Do not stir. Refrigerate for 2-3 hours at least. Refrigeration sets the yoghurt further.

Toddler sing-along

Recently I designed the flyer above for my friend Rebekka's new Toddler Sing-along groups and it was lovely to participate in one of the first groups today.

These days I find myself really enjoying music and singing with the kids. Which seems kind of strange for me as I'd always thought of myself as not particularly musical. BC (before children) I remember being mortified if anyone heard me sing, I thought my voice was that awful. And it possibly was, but these days it doesn't seem to matter so much and I so enjoy singing all the kids songs. And they don't care if I sing off key, well at least not for now they don't :-)

There seems to have been a lot of talk lately in the media and on the streets about parenting and whether it makes us happy or not, and whether mothering is joyful or hard work (see Fi's interesting post 'Motherhood Lark' here). One thought I had was that for me, an unexpected lovely side effect of having children is a greater general enjoyment of music and singing. Seeing their little faces light up when music comes on or we sing is fantastic, and I finally enjoy participating too.