A Quiet Easter Sunday

So much of our Easter Sunday passed as it always does but so much of it was different too.  

A soft felted bunny in a basket.

Tiny sweet eggs and a chocolatey bunny or two nestled themselves into little handmade baskets that I put out, along with our other Easter treasures, atop our old wooden table. This is where our sleepy-eyed son always finds his bounty upon waking and remembering it's Easter Sunday. 

A little woven basket filled with spotty eggs.

After coming in from the garden, where we spent time watering and weeding while our teenage son slumbered on (as they do), we three had breakfast together out on our verandah. Leftovers on toast in the warm sunshine! In other years, our verandah would have seen us sitting and sharing a lovely Easter lunch with my husband's family but this year it's not to be. 

A tiny rabbit on a tiny plate.

Instead, for the Grandma who lives close by, we nestled another chocolate bunny, a handmade washcloth and some soap into a little basket and drove to leave it outside her door. We wished her a Happy Easter from a socially-distant afar which is all we can do right now. For the Grandma and Poppy who live so far away, on a peaceful pocket of land in the far north, we set up a Skype session and were able to see them and talk with them from this distance we all now have to endure. While Skype can't replace the hugs I so wish I could give them, it was something in these surreal times.

A drawstring bag for gathering.

We three had our hot cross buns for morning tea (I did indeed make another batch on Saturday) and a simple lunch of toasted sandwiches which were warm and cheesy and just right for this year's Easter. The afternoon saw each of us absorbed in our own pursuits. While my others completed a jigsaw puzzle, read books, rode bikes and kicked footballs, I gladly curled up and watched Gardening Australia's Easter Special on ABC iview, walked Sir Steve dog and did some more sewing with lovely vintage linens. Perhaps the little drawstring bags I made could hold some of next Easter's eggs.

Three little Easter Bunnies.

In the evening, we shared a meal up at our old wooden table, with its display of little Easter bunnies and baskets beside us. Somehow those little baskets weren't holding quite as many chocolatey eggs as they had been in the morning. Hmmm... I'm pretty sure Sir Steve dog didn't steal any for he knows chocolate is not for dogs! 

This year, it was just the three of us but next year I hope wider family will gather here and we'll be truly together again. How are you spending your Easter time?

Meg

Making Meals in my Kitchen

I grew up eating my mother's homemade food. It was rarely anything fancy but it was good and filling and nourishing and there on the table every day. Now I cook for my own family. The food I make isn't that fancy either but it's fresh and wholesome and there on the table every day. 

This past week there was one roast dinner and lots of salads among other homemade deliciousness. I planned out our meals for the week, substituted what I did have for what I didn't have, shopped for what I needed and made the most of the ingredients I bought. Nothing was wasted; the compost bin got the peelings and my enthusiastic Labrador "supervisor" got the tidbits with roast chicken and leftover gravy being one of his favourites ... among his many favourites!

A lovely roast dinner.

On the one cooler evening we had this past week, I roasted a whole chicken (I had one left in the freezer that I did not cook up for Christmas lunch) with lots of roasted vegetables and made pan gravy from all the goodness stuck to the bottom of the roasting tray. We had leftover chicken wraps for lunch the next day too. Yum!

An oven baked frittata filled with roast veg.

From the leftover roast vegetables, I made an oven-baked frittata for dinner the next night. It stretched to lunch, accompanied by a summer salad, the following day.

Mmm ...  Macadamia & Mango Rice Salad

Salads are on our plates often during these Summer days. They are quick to make, full of revitalising colour and healthy goodness, taste amazing and there's always leftovers if you make a big enough bowlful to begin with. 

This Macadamia and Mango Brown Rice Salad is full of flavour and crunch! I bought the mangoes and raw macadamia nuts from Aldi and I have enough of both to make another big bowlful of this over the coming weekend. Besides roasting the macadamias and cooking the rice, there's very little else other than chopping up some fresh veg, throwing in a handful of currants and whisking up a two-ingredient dressing. So simple and so good!

Macadamia nuts roasted in my oven.

I roasted beautiful macadamia nuts for the salad while I was toasting a batch of homemade granola. Granola, or toasted muesli is so simple to make and so versatile. I added dried cranberries and chopped almonds and shaved coconut to this one. My husband loves coconut-everything (me, not so much) but you can add in your own favourites be it coconut or dates or dried apricots or pecans or sunflower seeds. That was breakfast taken care of!

Toasty homemade granola.

While the oven was on, I baked a lovely lemon slice using more of the rolled oats I bought for the granola, a tin of condensed milk I had in my pantry and some lemon juice I had in the freezer. I should have photographed that slice before putting it out for afternoon tea because it was gone before I remembered ... and I don't think the aforementioned Labrador had anything to do with that!

Meg

A Simple Sponge Cake

We had a bit of a celebration here over the weekend and I made this simple sponge cake, filled with jam and iced with unsweetened, fresh cream and a circle of tiny chocolate buttons. Simple and soooo good!

A slice of a simple &  scrumptious sponge cake.

Iced with fresh cream, tiny chocolate buttons & a flurry of chocolate flakes.

The recipe for the sponge cake is just a doubling of the base cake for this cheesecake sponge. You need eggs, sugar, plain and self raising flours, cornflour and lots of whipped air! 

Here's the adjusted recipe for the sponge:

Grease and line a medium-sized round cake tin. Preheat your oven to 180C. Beat 4 eggs until thick and creamy. Gradually add 2/3cup caster sugar while beating until sugar dissolved. Gently fold in 4 Tablespoons each of sifted plain flour, self raising flour and cornflour. Spoon mixture into prepared cake tin and spread evenly over base. Bake for approximately 20mins. Remove from oven when lightly golden. Rest cake for a few minutes before turning out cake and cooling on a wire rack.

Beat eggs 'til very frothy.

 Beat in sugar until pale and creamy.

Sift three flours into whisked eggs & sugar. 

Fold flours gently into  

 Pour mixture into prepared cake tin.

Bake until lightly golden.

Once the sponge cake has cooled, you can make it into something special in lots of different ways. I chose that classic combination of strawberry jam, cream and a little chocolate for my cake:

 Cut cake carefully in half and spread with jam.

Spread reassembled cake with very thickly whipped cream. 

Grate dark chocolate over the cream & add a ring of tiny chocolate buttons.

Sponge cakes, all light and airy, are just perfect for special celebrations. Instead of icing with thick cream, you can dust them with icing sugar as Cheryl, over at A Simply Good Life, did for her birthday high tea. Or perhaps, instead of strawberry jam, you'd rather fill them with slices of fresh strawberries to make a strawberry sponge cake like the one Rhonda, over at Down to Earth, enjoyed for her special birthday this year. Next time I make a sponge (...I'm just waiting for any excuse...), I think I will fill it with cream and drizzle tangy passionfruit icing over it to make this delicious looking Passionfruit Sponge I found over at SBS Food. How utterly indulgent!

The next "excuse" for sponge cake here will coincide with an almost-80th birthday to be celebrated in July. Best save some passionfruit pulp in the freezer for that occasion!

Meg

Friday Frittata

A simple frittata, made with the vegetables languishing in the crisper of your fridge just before shopping day, is a healthy, delicious and economical meal. Using up those veggies, before they go way past their best, is not only frugal but it stops the contents of your crisper adding to the shameful piles of food waste thrown away by many households every year. It's a great dish for using up leftover roasted veg too!

The recipe, for Roast Vegetable Free-Up the Fridge Frittata, comes from Melissa Goodwin of the blog, Frugal and Thriving.  All you need to do is: 

Liberate any languishing veggies from your crisper. Cut them into chunks & roast them.

Gather some simple ingredients for your frittata.

Add your roasted veggies to the whisked eggs & cream.

Put in some cubes of ham or bacon if you want to.

Top with some grated tasty cheese.

 Bake your frittata until cheese is melted & golden.

This tasty frittata makes a delicious lunch or dinner. Leftovers are great for a veggie-laden breakfast or to take to work or school in the lunchbox. (It makes a nice change to sandwiches or rolls.) Best of all, it's a dish that's good for you and, if you use up veggies you might otherwise have thrown away, it's good for our Earth too!

Have a very happy weekend everyone.

Meg

Mini Quiches

Filled with the goodness of fresh eggs, grated or leftover veggies, tasty bacon or ham and a little flavoursome cheese, mini quiches are a great bite-sized lunchbox, picnic or weekend-at-home snack. I make them often!

A batch of mini quiches ... bacon and zucchini OR leftover roasted pumpkin. Yum!

These little quiches are quick, easy and versatile.  To the eggy filling you can add, in any combination you like, some grated zucchini, kernels of corn, diced capsicum, chunks of leftover roasted vegetables, thin slices of tangy tomato, some cubes of bacon or a little ham and/or a scattering of chives or some spring onion. A sharp, tasty cheese like Parmesan, grated and sprinkled on top, gives them an inviting golden topping too.

Just out of the oven ... 

Little Mini Quiches

2 sheets ready-made Puff Pasty 

4 large eggs

2-3 Tablespoons pouring cream

a selection of some fresh or leftover veggies, as suggested above, grated or diced/chopped 

2 rashers bacon or 2 slices ham, chopped to small size

a twist or two of black pepper

grated tasty or Parmesan cheese 

1.  Preheat oven to temperature recommended on puff pastry packaging.

2.  Defrost puff pastry sheets and cut each one into 9 smaller squares.

3.  Line each muffin hole, in non-stick silicone muffin pans, with a square of pastry.  

     (Alternately, you can place each pastry square on a slightly larger square of non-stick

     baking paper, and then line each muffin hole.)

     

4.  Beat eggs in a large bowl. Whisk in the cream until combined.

5.  Mixed in your choice of grated, chopped fillings except for the cheese.

6.  Transfer eggy mixture to a large pouring jug and 3/4 fill each pastry-lined muffin hole.

7.  Sprinkle grated cheese on top of each little unbaked quiche.

8.  Carry carefully to the oven (I place my silicone muffin pans on baking trays before I fill
     them otherwise I find I can't move the pans without the eggy mixture spilling over.)

9.   Bake until the egg is cooked through and the cheese is golden on top.

10. Allow to cool a little before devouring! 

A homemade and scrumptious snack.

These scrumptious little snacks quickly become lunch or dinner with the addition of a simple salad and some fresh bread. Enjoy!

Meg