❤
Silent Sunday ~ Happy Easter!
Category: cooking
School Holiday Activities
Besides growing flowering plants in my garden, I also have areas where I grow fruit trees, vegetables, and herbs. My poor veggie garden is looking rather neglected these days, however, due to the heat. A few days ago I brought in the last of my beetroot plants, which I have now pickled, leaving just a lone rhubarb plant to fend for itself. It is actually fending very nicely, but I am keeping a close watch on it. I picked a few stems about a week ago and stewed them with two large apples off my tree – yum!
My kids grew up watching me bring fruit indoors for jam-making and often climbed the trees to reach higher fruit for me. I once had an amazing kumquat tree and made the tastiest marmalade from the fruit. I also grew starfruit, lemonade fruit, grapefruits the size of which you would never find in the stores, mangoes, lemons, and mandarines. Some trees have gone to heaven and have since been replaced.
One fruit I have never had any success growing is strawberries. We have the climate for it, they grow, but the visiting birds and animals always get to the ripe strawberries before I do!
Not to be deterred, when my favourite seven-year-old asked if I could make strawberry jam with him during the school holidays, I found beautiful ripe strawberries at our local store. My son – his Dad – knew I would relish the task, given my past history of making jams and chutneys when he was growing up.
My grandson had an even better idea – could we make bread also, to put the jam on, he asked? I knew we would both enjoy our day in the kitchen making both. 🙂
Short, seven-year-olds need a chair to stand on to reach the stove, so he was able to climb higher, and was fascinated watching the strawberries turning somersaults as they bubbled away in the boiling pan. So was I! I explained everything I was doing, step by step, and found my student to be an extremely willing assistant.
As I had not made strawberry jam before, I decided to make a half quantity, just in case it was a complete flop. It produced three jars of the best strawberry jam I have ever tasted! Even his Mum, not usually a fan of jam, announced she now apparently did like it! 🙂
The bread recipe I used required two, two-hour sessions of rising! I chose a Paul Hollywood recipe for a white loaf as that is what my grandson prefers and we alternated between jam-making and preparing bread dough for the next rise. After sharing the jam and bread with his Mum and little brother when they came to collect him, the loaf was nearly all gone!
Later, when I spoke to his Mum, I told her that he was a willing student who could undoubtedly give her complete instructions on bread and jam making if she asked – she said he already had! Lol. 😀
Christmas 2023 ~ and that’s a wrap!
Christmas at my house is choc-full of fun, food and festivities. The main instigator of preparations, which begin in early December, is my daughter, child number three, a December girl who waits a whole year to celebrate both her birthday and Christmas. My Sagittarius is a whirlwind, the one in the family with the loudest voice, sparkling eyes and the biggest heart; you know when she enters a room without looking, her presence is so strong. For the past month, I have been “organised” by my daughter to go shopping for the ingredients we need to prepare a Christmas feast … and more!
A few days before Christmas, my five grand-babies came to my house for the annual Kid’s Cooking Day. Not a lot of actual cooking is done, it is pre-prepared for the little ones to have some fun. Chocolate Crackles require no baking, they are set in the fridge after the children help Aunt Em count out the cups and spoons full of ingredients, mix, and place them into patty pans. Emma and I baked cookies for them to decorate a few days before, and I also had a Christmas craft kit for the children to make decorations with.
This year, I made matching aprons for the children to wear while cooking, which Master Seven and his little brother, Master Two, modelled for me to take a photo.
I have lost count of the number of years Emma has baked and decorated a gingerbread house for Christmas. She gave up on perfection after her nephew, Master Seven, first decided he wanted to help with the decorating. As more children have come along, Emma has been happy to sacrifice her ideals of perfection for the little ones.
By the time the big day arrived, I was exhausted. This year, we had twenty guests here on Christmas Day consisting of my four grown-up “children”, their spouses, my five grandchildren, my ninety-year-old mother-in-law, my son-in-law’s sister and her daughter, and my daughter-in-law’s parents. It was a relief to finally relax, sit around the pool, and enjoy the garden where I spend so much of my time working!
As soon as the deck chairs were empty though, this cheeky pair grabbed them!
Being a hot day, this year we spent most of the day outdoors. The children loved playing in the pool and had fun setting up a picnic area on the grass, in the shade, where they ate their Christmas dinner.
The three older generations enjoyed our Christmas meal at the table!
December has been quite a busy month. It’s fun, but I have to admit that I am pleased there is only one Christmas in a year. The preparations are worth the effort though when I see my family together, relaxing, enjoying the day … and acting like total clowns!
And everyone celebrating, having fun, making memories, and feeling comfortable in the home my four children grew up in. 🙂
Silent Sunday ~ Anzac Day
A Wet Easter Monday
On a day when I hardly saw my back garden let alone Mount Warning, due to this mist and low cloud, I spent most of the day working on a university assignment, which is due this Wednesday.
During constant reading of any description, I find I need to take regular breaks, usually in the garden. What to do when it’s raining heavily outside? I baked a loaf of bread instead.
It’s been many years since I baked a loaf of bread, although I always bake a batch of hot cross buns every Easter. This year, I baked two batches, and they turned out so well I was inspired to try bread baking again.
I started simple, just a plain white loaf, and the result was a beautifully crispy golden crust and soft white bread inside.
It was a pretty good way to spend the final day of the Easter long weekend, here in the damp subtropics.
In My World 