simplicity

Many moons ago when I packed my 1980's Ford Meteor and officially moved out of home, I was gifted with many plastic fantastic of the food storage variety.  Tupperware of all different shapes and sizes to see me through cheap university lunches and dinners, into work life when I expanded my cooking repertoire and then into early parenthood when the baby food was made in bulk and frozen in all sorts of said tupperware.  Slowly as the years have progressed lids were lost, the plastic cracked or lost it's shape.  Many an invite to the dreaded "tupperware" party have been turned down in an attempt not to replace plastic with more plastic.  Instead,  I've been drawn to glass.  All different shapes and sizes.   Recycling jars for further use, or searching in discount stores or kitchen ware departments.  A lazy afternoon crafting some labels.  Enjoying the sounds of the glass lids chinking, the earthy colours  of whole foods that I love cooking for my family. The aesthetic appeal of the beauty of glass bringing a small smile each time I open up the doors.    Packets discarded, filling the pantry with simplicity.

How do you organise your pantry?

Oh - I almost forgot...The Weetbix Giveaway winner has been announced (sorry for my tardiness in getting around that one!) 

passionfruit and white chocolate muffins

I grabbed a big bag of passionfruit whilst at the supermarket the other day and ate two as soon as I got home, scooping out the sweet pulp...yummie!  


My kids love to cook/bake and I like to pick recipes that are relatively quick and easy.  Usually I get all the ingredients ready before they come up to the kitchen bench but they were their and waiting with their aprons before me!  Today we made muffins using passionfruit and white chocolate.  It's an easy recipe and it requires minimal appliances and my kids really love to help pouring all the ingredients in the bowl.  It's super fast and the best bit is they taste great! The recipe says it makes 12 muffins, but I had enough mixture to make another 12 mini muffins.  So I think I'll be the letterbox fairy and drop some iced muffins off to some friends that live nearby.  Here's the recipe...

 (the munchkins hard at work...)

Makes

12

Ingredients

• 2 cups self-raising flour, sifted
• 1/2 cup caster sugar
• 100g white chocolate, chopped
• 125g butter, melted, cooled
• 1/3 cup milk
• 2 eggs, lightly whisked
• 1/4 cup passionfruit pulp
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• Passionfruit icing

• 1 1/4 cups pure icing sugar
• 2 teaspoons hot water
• 1 1/2 tablespoons passionfruit pulp

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200°C. Lightly grease a 12-hole 1/3-cup capacity muffin pan.
2. Combine flour, sugar and chocolate in a bowl. Make a well in the centre.
3. Whisk butter, milk, egg, passionfruit and vanilla in a jug. Pour into well. Gently fold until just combined. Three-quarter fill muffin holes with mixture. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Stand in pan for 5 minutes. Turn onto a wire rack.
4. Make passionfruit icing: Stir icing sugar, water and passionfruit in a bowl until smooth. Spoon over muffins, allowing to drizzle down sides. Allow to set. Serve.

(the finished product - although i took this pic before i iced them...)

Paula's Tarte tatin

My daughter loves apples!  Just loves them!  The problem being is that she takes little nibbles or sometimes a few bites out of an apple and then thats it....sometimes I cut them up later on and they get eaten but last night I noticed I had a fruit bowl full of nibbled apples!  So I quickly decided to make Paula's Tarte Tatin! I have attempted this dessert about 2 years ago and failed miserably but with Paula's delightful tips along the way (which she will be pleased to know I followed exactly) I had success, and she is right - four ingredients - easy peasy lemon squeazy!



Take a look!

For the recipe check out Paula's blog

my creative space...

Today my creative space finds me in the kitchen.  Yesterday a good friend off-loaded a huge bag of freshly picked green olives and last night I called my mother-in-law (who comes from southern Italy) and knows about how to preserve fresh produce. The process of turning fresh picked green olives into edible marinated table olives will take eight days.  So day one is - smashing all the green olives (omit any black olives) to create an opening as in the latter stages it will be easier to remove the pip and cover with  cold water which i will have to change twice a day for four days!

Take a look how divine the olives look!

Head over to kootoyoo to see the creative space of others!