It's all about family and food

Sunday, December 26, 2010

Christmas Day

Setting up for Santa

Giving Grandad his present

With the present Harry bought for Gandad from his own money

Remembering to read the card

Dad-am and George

Russell

Reubs (with hat-hair) and Archie in the morning

Nana Helen and Harry

Grandad with the dart board set up

Cousin Renee and Harry

Shaz (the boys aunty) and Helen

Shaz, Helen, George and Russ

Archie waiting for his Xmas treat

Lunch...after the fact

The end of a lovely Xmas day up at George and Russell's beachhouse in Mahurangi with a beautiful sunset

Xmas day this year was up at George and Russell's beach house in Mahurangi. The day started out at 315am with a VERY excited Harry waking to see what Santa had brought him. Needless to say he was made to go back to sleep even though he managed to snore and still keep us awake before waking every so often to ask if Xmas had started yet. By about 6 am we gave up and so it began. Harry was beside himself with excitement and loved opening all of his presents. Reubs also loved it and there was paper everywhere. We had a lovely breakfast of Sabato pastries, fresh fruit, homemade granola and good yoghurt before George and I set to to finish off the Xmas lunch preparations. I'll blog about the food properly later on as I managed to get a couple of photos...not high on the list of priorities when you have lunch to prepare on top of a couple of glasses of bubbly! However in a nutshell we had.... glazed ham, boneless turkey stuffed with a cranberry stuffing, boneless leg of lamb done on the BBQ, potatoes roasted in duck fat, a really lovely roasted kumara and avocado salad, a fresh seafood salad, a 'red' salad and bread rolls. For dessert we had a chocolate and cherry trifle, pavlova with strawberries and blueberries, stained glass window jelly and a yule log. We also had homemade Xmas mince pies and pecan tarts too as well as plenty of bubbly and wine. So needless to say we were stuffed full. Thankfully the weather on the day improved after lunch as it had been a bit windy and overcast so we were able to have a swim in the pool and walk the dog. Overall a lovely Xmas day which would have been perfect if all the family had of been able to be there.

As a quick aside Boxing day has been wonderful. Perfect hot and sunny weather with lots of swims in the pool, lazing around and eating leftovers with a obligatory trip to the Big Red Shed in Snell's Beach for the boys to spend some of their Xmas money. After a fair bit of drama from Harry with a bleeding tooth, it finally fell out! So this photo was taken after the tears over the blood.

Finally losing his other front tooth

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

A Whole Lot of Bits and Pieces- Family and Food

Well with the huge workload of things to do in the month before Christmas there hasn't been a lot of time for blogging. So this post is a whole lots of bits and pieces from all the stuff I have been up to lately with the family and, of course, in the kitchen. Hopefully this will make my friend Adelle at work happy as she keeps me on track to keep on making posts. Besides I could hardly sleep today because of the heat. We have finally lost the rain and are back to sunshine but the heat does make it hard to get any proper sleep. Therefore I have some time to blog...even though I'll pay for it tonight at work.

For Xmas this year I am making some homemade gifts. I won't post exactly what at this stage but I have also discovered some fantastic easy gifts to make. The first of these, which is not photographed as it is WAY too hot for it, is a Hot Cocoa Mix. THIS is a revelation I have seen it posted in a few blogs and have heard how delicious it is so thought I would whip some up. The blogs were right....this is amazing and puts bought hot chocolate mix to shame. I think I will really enjoy it when the weather gets colder.

The recipe is as follows:

Hot Cocoa Mix

1 1/2 c milk powder (I used low fat)
1 c icing sugar
3/4 c cocoa (Dutch processed would be good but I used garden variety Pams and it lovely too)
3/4 c white chocolate chips, drops or chopped white chocolate
1/8 tsp salt

Put it all into a food processor and whizz up. Store in jars. Mix in with hot milk for a divine hot chocolate.

For work last night I had really wanted to try a recipe I have seen for Caramel Crackers. There are a few different recipes out there, but I used the one from the latest Dish magazine to base mine on. I had heard how delicious these were but really DON'T make them if you don't have anyone else to share them with as they are moorish and extremely yummy. I kind of took a bit from here and there when making mine and ended up lightly sprinkling over some Fleur de Sel salt.

Salted Caramel Crackers

225 gm butter
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
Salada crackers
Chopped dark chocolate

Preheat the oven to 190 C. Line a shallow dish measuring about 22x32 cm with baking paper. Line with a single layer of crackers.

Melt the butter and sugar together in a pot and stir until it comes to a boil and is mixed in. Pour evenly over the crackers and put in the oven for 8-10 mins until the caramel is beginning to darken and bubbling all over. Mine took about 10 ins.

Remove for the oven and sprinkle over the chocolate. Wait for it to melt then spread with a spatula. Now you could sprinkle over chopped pistachios and chopped dried cranberries (or whatever else you want), or sprinkle over Fleur de Sel salt. I love the salty caramel flavour but make sure you don't use normal salt as it will taste awful.

Cut when it has started to cool and whatever you do, try to stay away form eating too much of it!

Other things I have made lately are a heap of cupcakes for Harry's last day at school as it was his birthday on the same day. I thought the class and teachers might like them and by all accounts they did. I have also made a carrot cake with cream cheese icing for my sisters-in-law Jules and tarn who also have their birthdays in December, as well as these delicious mocha chocolate chip biscuits (recipe to follow once I find it), the obligatory Christmas cake from an old Dish magazine and other bits and pieces. Because it has been so frantic I keep forgetting to photograph my baking BUT I promise to be a bit more onto it from now on. I have lots to do for Xmas day as well as for the gifts I have planned so will blog about those as I make them.

Mocha Chocolate Chip Biscuits

Some photos from over the last month....

The trophy Harry won last year for ballet

His name engraved on

With the trophy and the medal his group won at the show this year (in his PJ's by the way)

Last ballet class for the year

Trying on his suit for his pageboy gig when Uncle Marc and Aunty Bex get married in March

Handsome, beautiful boys

Jesse and Reubs...before you wonder where the photos's are of Reubs, it can be notoriously hard to get a teenager to pose!

Our cat Louis

Our dog Archie

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Harry's 6th Birthday

On Friday my baby Harry turned 6 yrs old. Now I know he can really no longer be classified as a baby BUT both of my boys will always be MY babies no matter how old they get.... sorry boys! Within one week we celebrate 3 birthdays of Harry and his two little friends Ruby and Billy who are respectively one year older and one year younger than Harry. So right before Xmas we have quite a few birthday parties as well as the usual Xmas celebrations. Needless to say it's quite a busy time of year!

Last year we threw a big 5th birthday bash for Harry so this year we went to Chipmunks Playland and let them do all the work instead. I did make the cake pops seen in the previous post and his cake, (banana with chocolate icing as chosen by Harry), so it wasn't all work-free but at least we got to leave the mess behind us so that stress was taken out of the mix. It was just as well we chose Chipmunks as the weather here has gone to pieces and it has rained for 4 days on end with no reprieve in sight. Harry had such a wonderful time and got to spend his party with friends as well as most of his class from school. Although it was raining it was also very hot, hence the very red faces you can see in the photos. Today we have 2 more parties so it is yet another day of fun, celebrations and junk food. Somehow I think we will need a quiet week ahead before Xmas day!