inner pickle

healthy blueberry muffins

 

I'll be honest: blueberry muffins aren't my favourite. 

When I was at uni, the cafe in Manning House sold these enormous ridiculously processed choc chip muffins that set the bar for all muffin action since. I loved them.

Henry loves blueberry though. And there's nothing like a Henry to get me baking (even after seven hours in a commercial kitchen.)

Henry: Mum, this dinner is GREAT. REALLY great. You are the BEST COOK EVER. Hey would you make me some blueberry muffins for my lunch?

Oh, charm. His father's son.

 

 

These are quick to make and are low in fat (and relatively low in sugar.) Given their whole-grain-ness I've used two thirds of a cup of sugar (below) to keep the yummo factor. If you have kids who'll tolerate it, drop the sugar further and just use half a cup. 

 

BLUEBERRY AND QUINOA MUFFINS

Ingredients:

1 cup milk

⅓ cup vegetable oil

2 eggs

1 cup wholemeal flour (self raising or add 2 tsp baking powder)

1 cup self raising flour (or use all-purpose and add 2 tsp baking powder)

⅔ cup raw sugar

1 cup quinoa flakes

1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

 

Method:

Preheat oven to 180°C

Whisk the milk, oil and eggs together in a jug or bowl.

In a big bowl combine the flours, sugar and quinoa flakes.

Stir the wet (milk) mix into the dry (flours) mix, and mix well.

Lastly, gently stir through the blueberries.

Spoon into muffin pans - makes 12.

Bake for approx 15-20 mins or until spongy and golden.

 

xxx

 

P.S. The amazing and wonderful Cassandra Allen is having an INSANE sale over at her shop. 90% off if you use the discount code "CRAZYSALE". There are a few prints left, be quick, that's amazingly cheap and they are really gorgeous, check them out here!

nutso

 

It was Henry's first day back at school today and Tilly announced it would be her special day too. To qualify, it had to involve: making gingerbread men, picking flowers, painting a rainbow, and peanut butter sandwiches for lunch. 

I've been feeling a bit guilty about my middle child this week. There's been a lot of requests for craft and a story here and there and play-with-me's that have gone unrequited. 

What the heck. The washing, the cleaning, the tidying up - it'll all still be there tomorrow. Why not have a day painting rainbows. 

We flew through the list up until I discovered we were out of peanut butter. I usually make our own (have you tried it? dead easy and DELICIOUS.) And I had a few different nuts I wanted to try out. 

So we made peanut, almond and brazil nut butter. PAB butter. No, not very catchy. Yummy though. 

 

Here's how it goes. 

 

Peanut, Almond and Brazil Nut Butter

Ingredients:

1 cup natural peanuts

½ cup raw almonds

½ cup raw brazil nuts

1 tsp salt

2 tbsp peanut oil

Method:

Roast all the nuts either in a dry heavy based fry pan or in the oven for 5 minutes or until golden. We used peanut kernels today which had a husk - we got most (OK, some) of the husks off after they'd cooled down but got bored and just threw them in, husks and all. More fibre.

Put the nuts and the salt into a food processor and process for at least five minutes. It's clattering and loud and noisy but it takes at least this long for the oils to start coming out of the nuts and the mix to start clumping. 

Then slowly add your peanut oil - you might not need 2 whole tbsp. We like ours really spreadable, but you don't have to use oil at all if you like it thickish. 

That's it. 

 

Tilly likes hers on sandwiches. 

I think it's gorgeous on hot toast. 

 

I could pretend we ate these nicely at the table. With placemats. Maybe even napery.

We didn't.

Another essential Tilly-declared element to a special day? A tent in the middle of the kitchen. 

Happy days. 

xxx

recipe for honey cakes

There's something about honey cakes that makes me feel medieval. In a good way.

Honey was the sweetener of choice in the early Middle Ages (my period) and I always imagine people sitting outside little one room houses in small villages surrounded by enormous forests, nibbling honey cakes.

Which of course they weren't as they were too busy farming or sewing or brewing or baking or praying or fighting. 

I also had one of these:

 

Duck eggs are fabulous in baking! My neighbours have a duck and gave me this. 

How better to use it up than make up a pretend medieval recipe? Perfect.

These are a cross between a scone and a biscuit. Not very sweet, just a bit crumbly. Probably excellent with mead or hippocras (spiced wine) if you have them on hand. Lovely with a cup of tea. Great in a school lunchbox. 

HONEY CAKES

Ingredients:

125 butter, melted

1 tblsp honey

1 egg (chook egg is fine, duck if you have one!)

2 cups self-raising flour

1 good tsp garam masala

2 tblsp milk

 

Method:

Stir together the melted butter, the honey, the egg and the milk until mixed well. Then sift over the flour and garam masala and mix well.

Spoon onto a greased or lined baking tray into golf ball sized balls. 

Bake on 180 deg for approx 20 mins or until golden. 

 

 

What's in your lunchbox this week?

xxx

banana devil muffins

No, not as in devilishly naughty. Laced with devil may care brandy? Nope. Not even a crack about wickedly excellently tasting. Couldn't tell you that. 

Because I HATE BANANAS. 

Kind of like I hate spiders. And the overwhelming smell of nasty chemically deodorant in a lift. And people who don't wave when you slow your car down to let them into your lane. And the cold wet drip down your neck of a wet showercap. 

Did I digress?

Oh, bananas. 

It's a sign of my undying love for my children that I regularly mash or peel that evil, evil fruit for them. 

They are my Achilles heel. Well, bananas and the dreadful habit I have of cutting my own fringe.

Have you ever noticed the complete absence of bananas from this blog? 

THERE'S A VERY GOOD REASON FOR THAT. 

I have whole friendships based on a deep shared hatred of bendy yellow fruit. 

So what's this recipe for then?

Sometimes I have to slow down on the consumption of baked goods. You know, if there's an iced coconut cake in the pantry, it just calls me. I cannot hear the apple in the fruit bowl, I cannot hear the hummus and carrot stick calling. I hear the chocolate brownie. The Anzac biscuit. The currant muffin. 

So every now and then I crack out these for the sake of my bum. And, er, because the rest of the family love them!

 

Banana muffins

Ingredients

1.5 cups mashed banana

half cup of oil

1 cup milk

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

2 tbsp maple syrup

2 cups self-raising flour

 

Method

In a jug, mix up the oil, milk, egg, vanilla and syrup. In a bowl, stir the mashed banana into the flour and pour the wet ingredients over. Mix well. 

Makes a dozen muffins, or two loafs, or a ring tin, or a nice sized 20cm cake. 

Bake in a moderate oven (170deg) for approx 25 minutes. 

 

Totally inedible of course, unless you're a banana eater and then I understand it's lovely. Moist, tasty, low fat, super easy. 

And if you leave the house while they're actually cooking the smell won't hang around your clothes. Just the damn kitchen. Pooey. Rotten stinking fruit. 

xxx

this week I've been making...

Lamingtons! (Again.) I, er, used my own sponge recipe this time and it's failsafe. So third time lucky. I'm going back in though, this sponge is easy and good, but it's not a GREAT sponge. Lamingtons deserve a GREAT sponge, right? 

I'll keep you posted. 

 

A good old clean-out-the-fridge frittata. Mmm. (Or veggie puree if you're seven months old.)

Four eggs + 1 cup milk + 2 tbsp flour (plain and self-raising both work) + whatever you've got. Onion, tomato, carrot, mushroom, peas and steamed chicken worked well. Cook on about 180 degrees for about half an hour or until set. Gorgeous cold for lunch the next day. 

 

Back to school muffins. 

I made these up on the fly, no butter in the house, wasn't sure they'd be much good and then of course Henry loved them and I didn't write down the recipe. 

Am on a promise to make them again next week and will post it. 

Whatcha making at your place?

xxx

looking for my mojo

I'm sure it's around here somewhere. 

Hello? ... Mojo?

Dammit I need it. And totally do not have it. 

Right when it's all systems go, I seem to have hit the wall. Which could have something to do with about four weeks of religiously interrupted sleep (not just the six month old I must add. We could be running a good Catholic establishment here - up for Compline, Matins, Lauds. There's a bit of invoking the Lord's name on Adam's part which I guess might disqualify us.) 

Two. Weeks. Left.

As I am perennially guilty of burying fairly major news at the bottom of posts, may I refer you to the bottom of the previous post on Emily and the Wiggles?

Yep, we're moving to a distant green hill.

And seriously, I'm not kidding about the tiled orange bench top. You wait. 

But after catering Christmas and keeping up the energy through a gorgeous celebratory New Year with friends, we seem to have ground to a halt. Well, I say "we" but actually I can smell the chemical not-home-made cleaner which Adam has just attacked the oven with. Plus he de-spidered all the outdoor furniture today ready to move it. And he has a Master List. And a clipboard. 

Obviously, notwithstanding my lethargy, I'm in good hands. Lucky!

Meanwhile, shall we have cake?

Here's one I made earlier. For Tilly's last day of daycare, actually. She wanted to take cupcakes, but has a couple of severely allergic kids in her class. So the cook gave me her "allergy-free" cake recipe and actually it's pretty good! 

I fiddled with it a bit and reduced the sugar, but it rises well and tastes like cake. (Doesn't have the heart of a good butter and eggs cake, but sometimes you need something different.)

Egg-free, dairy-free and you could easily sub in gluten-free flour, which I didn't need to for this group. 

I made vanilla ones (above) for daycare but was pretty impressed with the simplicity of the recipe so made a chocolate batch for the next gathering of kids at my place to see how they went down. Quickly! Enthusiastically! 

 

 

Egg-free, dairy-free Cupcakes.  

INGREDIENTS
3 cups self-raising flour

2 cups warm water

1.5 cups sugar 

Half cup vegetable oil

1 tsp white vinegar

1 tsp vanilla extract (don't use imitation if you're making these for really sensitive kids)

 

METHOD

Prepare cupcake tins -either butter and flour them or use cases. My mix makes (weirdly) 23.

Combine all the ingredients together and whisk well until smooth then pour into pans. 

Bake at 160C (or 150 fan forced) until cooked and golden (approx 12 mins).

ICING: I mixed pure icing sugar and water to a paste and just piped it from a ziplock bag with the corner cut off. 

 

Right. Maybe my mojo is at the bottom of a cup of camomile tea. Better be somewhere. There is a giant bookcase waiting to be culled by 25% tonight. Yep, much smaller house, no built-in bookshelves. Adam is standing next to me with a determined look and a big box. 

P.S. If you find my mojo, please send it home? I'll send you back cupcakes with grins?

xxx 

apricot lunchbox snacks

My friend Lucie put me onto this book, for which I am very very grateful. 

Julie Maree Wood is full of truly excellent ideas about boosting the nutrition in the food of a small person who won't eat much of anything. 

These apricot balls, which she calls Iron Booster Balls, went down pretty well here. They look and taste like a treat! What's not to love.

Unless you buy organic apricots you'll be using apricots with preservative 220 (sulfur dioxide) which can be dangerous for asthmatics and has been shown to cause hyperactivity and behavioral problems. Like many additives and preservatives, really. 

I'll be honest: I don't always buy the preservative-free apricots, even though I know this. We have so few additives and preservatives around here that if I saw any effect of a handful of apricots a couple of times a week, I'd abandon them. Sometimes the rotten look of blackish organic apricots is a little too much for me. 

Apricot Balls (Iron Booster Balls)

Recipe by Julie Maree Wood, Feeding Fussy Kids

INGREDIENTS

½ cup dried apricots

½ cup dried peaches

2 tbsp boiling water

¼ cup almond meal

½ cup desiccated coconut

1 tbsp orange juice

2 tbsp wheatgerm

¼ cup skim milk powder

½ cup extra coconut

METHOD
Put the apricots and the peach into a food processor and pulse until finely chopped. Add boiling water and leave to soak for ten minutes. Add almond meal, coconut, wheatgerm, milk powder and orange juice. Blend until a firm dough forms. Add extra water if needed. Roll into balls and roll in coconut. Store in the fridge. 

xxx
 

what do you do to feel normal?

If the world is slightly outta whack, even in the best way possible, what do you do to feel grounded? Have a bath? Glass of wine? 

My house, while mostly entirely lovable, does not have a bathtub.

And my pregnancy disinclination for wine is still hanging around. 

So I bake.

We have lots of lovely visitors at present, and I cannot resist a bit of kitchen experimenting!

And so we have:

OATMEAL CHOC CHIP COOKIES

Ingredients:

125g butter, melted

½ cup brown sugar

1 egg

1 cup rolled oats

1½ cup self-raising wholemeal flour

1 tblsp wheatgerm

½ cup desiccated coconut

¼ cup orange juice

½ cup chocolate chips

Method:

Melt the butter and add the sugar. Add the egg. Stir through the oats, flour, wheatgerm and coconut. Add the OJ and then the choc chips. 

Bake on cookie trays for approx 12 mins on 180°C. Makes 24 (I think. I didn't actually count them.)

Titbit for the day (I apologise, dreadful, I know) - it takes approximately twice as long to type a post one handed if you blog while breast feeding.

(I did apologise!)

xxx

quick kids lunchbox muffins

Henry, like his Dad, adores sultana cake. 

Every week he gets to pick something for his morning tea snackbox at school and this week his pick was sultana cake (again.)

As the Best Recipes one I've been using has a LOT of butter and sugar and eggs in it, I whisked up these muffins instead this week, using wholemeal flour for fibre and cutting the fats and sugar. 

Going down a treat, I have to say.

Lunchbox Sultana Muffins

Ingredients

125g butter, softened

½ cup raw sugar

2 free range eggs

2 cups wholemeal self-raising flour

1 cup milk

1 cup sultanas

Method

Cream your butter and sugar. Beat in the eggs. Beat in one cup of flour then half a cup of milk. Then the other cup of flour and then the rest of the milk. Stir through the sultanas. Makes 18 morning-tea sized muffins (or 12 large). Bake at 180°C for approx 20 mins or until firm and golden. 

Notes: You could easily make these dairy-free if needed: there's an argument that 'good oils' (sunflower oil, nut oils) are better for children (and us) than butter anyway. However, I'm not convinced that the amount of butter (125g across 18 muffins for instance) is harmful enough to substitute oil which I do not love baking with. You could always replace the cup of milk with a cup of apple or orange juice. With two eggs and self-raising flour these little golden gems will always rise. (And vanish for afternoon as well as morning tea.)

xxx