[volcano cake]

It's my youngest boy's 8th birthday today, and the cake request was a volcano!! Mmmmm, challenge accepted.

Here's the recipe:

VOLCANO CAKE

6 eggs (separated)

1/2 cup stevia

2 tbs cocoa powder (for the egg whites)

2 tbs cocoa powder (for the egg yolks)

2 tbs almond spread

1 1/2 cups SR flour

1/2 zucchini (peeled and finely grated)

1/2 carrot (peeled and finely grated)

1/4 cup choc bits

1/2 cup milk

1. Preheat oven to 160 degrees Celsius.

2. Whisk the egg whites, stevia and 2 tbs cocoa powder until it forms soft peaks. (This may take a while, so be patient.) Hint: The mixture goes lighter in colour as you get close. :)

3. In a food processor mix together egg yolks, 2 tbs cocoa powder, almond spread, flour, zucchini, carrot, choc bits and milk. Blitz until thoroughly combined.

4. Set aside 1/3 of the egg white mixture.

5. To the remaining egg whit mixture fold in the rest of the ingredients you'd mixed together.

6. Pour this mixture (gently) into a 25cm spring form cake pan.

7. Then gently scoop the egg white mixture you saved into a mound on top of the centre of the cake. Use a spatula to pull up and smooth the sides of this mound to form a slight ridge around a depression at the top (this is the crater at the top of the volcano).

8. Bake for approx. 1 hr (until a skewer tests clean).

9. Once the cake is cool, drip melted chocolate around the rim of the 'top of the volcano' allowing it to run down the sides. As the chocolate starts to set, draw it up to the rim of the crater with a bamboo skewer and sculpt/mould the volcano into your desired shape. Chill the cake until the chocolate fully sets.

10. Make a red jelly separately and when set scoop into the crater (and put some flowing down the side) before serving. 

(The red jelly with the chocolate is very Black Forest-like. Delish.)

The texture of the cake was wonderfully 'cakey' and moist, and the choc bits sunk to the bottom making a great 'sedimentary layer'. The meringue layer of the cake under the crust was gooey and sweet, and although the chocolate top was at least 2-3cm thick at it's centre, a hot knife and cracking sections off worked a treat to distribute to my boy and his two friends ... they even came back for seconds!! (Not that I told them there were vegetables in the cake!!)

[pressie for my niece]

It's my niece's 7th birthday so what little girl wouldn't love a handmade bracelet in it's own special box? 

I think making the bracelet was the most difficult, not because of the complexity of the beading, that part was easy, but because my almost 8-yr-old son was reluctant and wriggling around when being the model for measuring the wrist size! My first measure attempt led to chasing a dozen or more beads bouncing around on the floor! Boys!!?!

Anyways, to jazz up the presentation I made an origami box and lid to put the bracelet in, and decorated it with a pretty pink quilled flower. Noice!

[butter & sugar free cupcakes]

I've been experimenting in the kitchen the past few weeks trying to find a 'healthy' cupcake. Last week's attempt was tasty, but didn't rise at all, so was very dense and more like a pudding, so I froze them and have been eating them as a warm dessert with a dollop of vanilla yoghurt (or icecream).

This week I am proud to say I have had some success with a much lighter 'cake-like' cupcake, rather than a banana bread! It's not exactly the same texture as a regular buttery and sugary cupcake, but that's because it has oats in it, so think of it as the 'multi-grain' version of a cupcake.

GUILT-FREE 'Z' CUPCAKES

Ingredients:

3 eggs (separated)

1/4 cup stevia (sugar alternative)

1/2 zucchini (peeled and finely grated)

1 tsp (heaped) almond spread

3/4 cup rolled oats (processed to a fine meal)

3/4 cup self-raising flour

1/4 tsp vanilla

Method:

(Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius)

1. Separate eggs - keep whites in a large bowl, put yolks into a food processor (or mixing bowl).

2. Add stevia to egg whites and whisk until soft peaks form.

3. Add grated zucchini, almond spread and vanilla to egg yolks and mix until well combined.

4. Then add rolled oats (meal) and flour, and mix to a paste.

5. Add paste to egg white mixture in small portions and gently combine with a folding action.

6. Once the paste is evenly distributed, place spoonfuls into patty pans (almost to the top) and bake until slightly golden on the edges and when a skewer comes out clean when you test.

7. To add a little 'guilt' to your 'clean' cupcake, wait until totally cool before icing with a small dollop of cream cheese frosting.

Ahhhh, stealth vegetables, don't you love 'em!

[home-made soft tortillas]

Rather slack on the blogging of recent times, but have picked up a great recipe for soft tortillas courtesy of a Facebook friend - thanks Tracey! 

My kids love this as we haven't had soft tortillas for ages as the store bought ones have preservative 282. We found out last year how much preservatives, artificial colours and MSG affected their behaviour, and since we've avoided these foods I've had calmer kids who can concentrate at school and sleep well at night! Just back to basics cooking really, without the crap! 😊

SOFT TORTILLAS

Ingredients:

300g plain flour

1 tbs oil

185ml water

1/4 tsp salt

Method:

Combine ingredients and knead into a dough. Rest dough for at least half an hour, divide into eight portions and roll into rounds. Dry fry in a non-stick pan on both sides until they colour slightly (and look like the ones from the shop), and serve with taco mince and salad.

They also freeze well (great for making 'wraps' for the kid's lunches) - just interleave each wrap with baking paper and then seal in a freezer bag. This way you can easily get one out at a time as you need them.

Happy preservative-free baking!

[celebratory quilling for some of the divas]

There have been a few milestone celebrations this past month, all of them for my wonderful dancing friends (aka the dancing divas). The celebrations kicked off the first weekend of March with a Rocky Horror 30th birthday. Anything for a dress up I say! I got my Magenta on (with many other Magentas), including the birthday girl, but the star performers were the birthday girl's hubby as Rocky and her brother as Frank'n'Furter. I also created a quilled birthday card for her in a monochromatic mid to very dark metallic blue colour scheme, with silver highlights.

The second event was an engagement, and it was lovely to see the sun out for a very pleasant afternoon in the park. Sitting under the boughs of sprawling trees while a light breeze gently buoying paper lanterns strung up in the foliage was just perfect. I'm sure the special couple were very thankful after having weeks of rain in the weeks leading up to that weekend. A little passport-sized photo accompanied the invitation so that was my inspiration for the quilled card I created, with the colour scheme picked from the background of the photograph.

The final diva celebration was last weekend for a 40th birthday get-together. The card I made was a actually a combination of a card and a picture frame, with a special slip-in card at the back where everyone could sign their name. I knew I'd picked the perfect colour scheme when we walked into her house as the feature colour in the living area was red! Using some scrap booking and collage techniques, the final piece was a delicious feast of reds, oranges and a little dark green as a highlight. The entire piece was contained within a paper frame, which I found a pattern for at this incredibly talented quiller's blog.

Quilled butterfly detail.

Quilling numbers and letters is rather tricky, you have to assemble the vertical paper strip in mirror reverse by delicately holding it by pins, pinned into a polystyrene board. Sometimes there are some very tricky moments when the paper strip comes adrift and you have to place it back on the pins with tweezers. You then have to carefully put glue on the uppermost edge of the paper strip and then place your paper down on top of it, wait a moment for the glue to start to stick, and then carefully peel it away from the pins. 

I've previously blogged a step-by-step guide on a 50th Birthday Project - I learnt the hard way on that project that you need to do the lettering in mirror reverse from the beginning!

[Masterchef-fest month of dinners]

Been a Masterchef-fest at our place for a while now. Here's the past month's efforts...

Homemade chicken lasagne (even made the pasta from scratch)

Baked veggie tasting plate with Rosemary Lamb Mince and homemade slaw - (Veggies: clockwise from top baked potato crisps, slaw, zucchini chips, roast pumpkin, popcorn cauliflower)

Corned beef with three veg

Moroccan lamb and feta DIY tacos

Chicken breast two ways with zucchini chips, cauliflower noisettes and tarragon-infused veggies

Spinach and feta tart with salad

Satay pork pies with potato bake, garlic roasted pumpkin, honey carrots, peas and corn

And to finish, a dessert: Strawberry tartlets

[new craft corner]

I've always been a furniture rearranger - ever since I was a pre-teen I'd switch my room around and make it feel like brand new. Nothing much has changed, as I did the same with my home office in January. What I didn't have was somewhere I could do my quilling and card making that didn't involve pulling things out of a cupboard and setting up on the dining table. (Which then had to be put all back away before the next meal!)

Over the weekend I finally managed to rearrange the inside of the cupboards and make one side of my really long Ikea desk as the 'craft corner' and the other the 'work' side. And the great roll front cupboards (yes, Ikea again) are fabulous as they can be rolled down once you've put everything back and you're left with a clean uncluttered space. Ikea may not be the best quality so far as materials (the foil desk tops chip and scratch so easily) but the storage solutions and neat hideaway things (like the cord cable organizer I have screwed to the underside of my desk) are just awesome. Plus I've found a few cheap desk mats from Officeworks protect the desk as well as making a nice writing surface.

I've replaced one of these desk mats with a cutting mat on the 'craft' side of my desk which means I can cut intricate patterns out of paper with a scalpel on my desk whenever I want! No dragging out the cut mat from under the cupboard every time I need to do some paper surgery! I also have all my papers, embellishments, punches and tools in easy reach. Likewise, on my 'work' side of the desk I have easy access to stationery and paperwork trays.

Now the hardest part is fighting the crafting bug when I really should be working!

[look honey, free plants]

I'm loving my little greenhouse as I have more room to experiment with striking cuttings and growing free plants - plus they're all in one place so easier to tend! Previously I would have pots scattered throughout the garden and watering them would be a major effort... or up to the rain, so a few of them didn't make it. I never used a striking powder either, so it really was a matter of survival of the fittest.

Last week I stumbled across a YouTube video where they used honey instead of rooting hormone, and as hubby had brought home a half kilo tub from someone at work who had their own hives, we had plenty of pure natural honey in the house.

Yesterday I struck 60 plants from cuttings of plants in my garden, and I'm quite pleased with my efforts, especially as this morning they are all looking happy and not drooping... so, so far, so good. :)

p.s. You'll also notice in one of the photos I have a half egg carton I'm using as a seedling tray ... it has Agapanthus seeds I collected, and one of them has finally sprouted. I'm persevering with this container for the moment, but it hasn't worked as well as I planned. Unfortunately the cardboard has tended to wick away the water from the soil, rather than keep everything moist. Oh well, never mind, the whole point of self-sufficient no cost recycling is exactly that, no cost, so even though it didn't work well - it WAS free!

[my kitchen almost rules]

Well it tasted liked it ruled, but it was almost a disaster... My culinary vision...Ground Beef Roulade infused with spinach cream cheese served with corn on the cob, peas, maple syrup carrots and garnished with potato rosti.

I experienced first hand only a glimpse of the pressure, so sorry, I ain't gonna nominate for any of those cooking shows full stop - and I only had four meals to make, not a dozen - and only one course!!

There was a bit of everything that seems to happen on My Kitchen Rules for me tonight, well, except for me resorting to tears, but then again, my meal was still edible and not a complete failure.

Firstly, I got that glimmer of cooking nirvana where everything goes to plan - the spinach cream cheese with minced garlic, tarragon and basil blended beautifully with the stick mixer (and had a lovely flavour), and then my ground beef mix with fresh breadcrumbs, onion, zucchini, an egg and a dash of the previous herbs came together nicely in the food processor and then rolled out into a nice rectangle without sticking to the rolling pin.

And then my perfect service came crashing down into a flaming heap, literally! Talk about dramas on top of dramas!!! My mince wasn't rolling around the cream cheese tightly enough (I reckon it needed time to refrigerate out flat first), and then when I finally got it to roll, the filling spewed out the ends and on the final join, which was totally NOT what I had in mind. I rolled it using cling film like I'd seen on Masterchef and set it aside in the fridge to firm up. It turned out I really needed to allow another hour for this roll to chill and firm up, but as I wanted the kids to eat before 8.30pm I thought I'd better get onto cooking it after only a measly 10 minutes (in the freezer!)

My next drama was that I didn't have a frypan (or hotplate) big enough to a accommodate my entire 'roll', so I had to straddle a stainless baking dish across two hotplates to fry it off on the outside before putting it in the oven. While holding the baking dish with an oven mitt and attempting to flip/roll the meat over, it flopped onto the other side splashing oil at the back of the stove and onto one of the hotplates...which then caught fire! A quick smother with a tea towel and the cooking could continue. ...and then the top of the roll split open...arghhhh! I carefully drained the excess oil from the baking tray and then disguised the split on the top with some strategically sprinkled mozarella cheese and then put it in the oven.

Fortunately my roll of meat 'set' so I could cut a large slice for each plate, and thankfully the veggies weren't an issue, as they steamed perfectly in the microwave.

I did have one major technique that was a big success though - my potato rosti. After peeling the spuds I used the potato peeler to make 'shavings' and then splashed some vinegar on top and gave it a good mix up. Just like lemon juice, the acidity of the vinegar ensured the potato didn't turn brown before I got to fry it off in 'clumps' of golden crunchiness.

I guess this meal was just fancy meatloaf with veggies and crispy chips, but hubby and I thought it tasted fabulous. The kids weren't entirely convinced though, oh well, sometimes you've just gotta give it a go. Don't know if I'll bother with such fussiness again, as plated up it didn't look all that spectacular; but I'm mostly glad there wasn't a film crew following me around! Here's to experiments in the kitchen!! ;)

[greenhouse mods]

South-east Queensland's climate and my new greenhouse didn't see eye-to-eye...it was just way too hot in there for my poor plants, so I had to quickly make some mods!

Firstly within a couple of days after building it I cut a back door in, and didn't zip up the front and kept it open. A few days later I could see the plants were still not happy despite being well watered. So mod 2 came into play ... I added some shade cloth inside (zip tied to the frame). A few days later I thought the plants would be happy again...but alas, no. Time for mod 3 - I installed a sunroof! (Basically I cut open the roof and folded it back.) The new ventilation lowered the overall temperature, and with a few rainy days about it also meant the universe watered both sides of the greenhouse where my plants were! Win win!

[my little greenhouse]

I'm a bit surprised how much I'm enjoying gardening ... I guess because it's exercise with the bonus of a nice garden ... I've always been a multi-tasking kinda girl.

Over the last couple of years I've been growing cuttings and collecting a few seeds after things have flowered - so far I've just been propagating plants for around my garden - and the challenge of seeing what grows and what doesn't has been rewarding. The added bonus is that it costs me next to nothing... there's nothing I hate more than buying a plant that goes and dies on me! To keep things nice and cheap I just kept recycling pots from the few plants I have bought over the years; but now I'm really getting into it, I've run out of pots! Not to be beaten, I started recycling our empty 2L milk bottles (my boys drink so much, if we had a paddock, I'd consider a house cow!). Every other day when we finish a bottle, I wash it out, cut the bottom off, drill a few drainage holes, and 'voila' a free pot!

I'm not a total scrooge though, and I did lash out last week when a special became available at an online store, and bought a little 1.5m square greenhouse. My little greenhouse arrived during the week and yesterday afternoon I played garden Mecchano and put all the bits together to build it. Today I've gone around my garden beds and collected all the little pots I had, including some orchids and other plants I'm babysitting while my Mum is away travelling. It's all looking a bit professional now, so my vague plan of putting up my excess plants for sale online for a bit of holiday pocket money is looking closer to becoming a reality!

[secret garden orchids]

I love orchids, and these little beauties are in full flower right now. What's especially good is that they last a few weeks. :)

[butterflies & dessert]

I'm getting back into the groove of home baking for school lunches ... and made the cutest butterfly cupcakes today ... and as an added bonus, they're sugar free! I used Xylitol in the recipe instead of sugar, and dusted the top with Stevia (Stevia was also used to sweeten the whipped cream). I can't say the whipped cream is super healthy, but it's a teaspoon's worth, so not too much, and it's oh so delish, and so light and fluffy.

I used my favourite Patty Cake recipe from my Grade 9 cookbook, Everyday Cookery (by Helen Bunney) ... I keep going back to this resource ... just back-to-basics cooking, it's great, no frills, just practical recipes with ordinary ingredients. As a personal triumph, I think I've finally found the technique to get these little beauties so they work every time ... a food processor to mix everything together! I don't know what is different to using my electric beaters, but it just seems to turn out so light and fluffy using the food processor. Maybe I've just had dodgy beaters all this time? Who knew? I thought it was the oven that was too hot/not hot enough that made my previous attempts little lumps of lead. Apparently not.

An accidental dessert...

I had some ripe bananas in the fruit bowl, so was contemplating making banana cake to use these up. I also had some mangoes (from the tree in our backyard) that were starting to get almost past their use by date, and thought, 'I wonder if I swapped mango for the banana would it work?' Feeling brave after the cupcakes turned out so well, I decided to bite the bullet and give it a go.

My mango cake turned out quite dense, and I sandwiched it with a whipped cream filling ... which looked pretty, but was a bit too strong (flavour-wise) on it's own. I was a little disappointed, and thought I'd serve it up as dessert with a scoop of vanilla ice cream - it was just what was needed to balance out the stronger taste of the pudding/cake. Winner! And there are 10 more servings in a container in the freezer for us to enjoy periodically over the coming weeks. Happy days.

[naked tacos]

A late start on dinner, and what to cook? Looking in the fridge I surveyed what leftovers we had ... taco mince and some roast chicken... My youngest son wanted pizza, but it was too late to start on making a base, but I remembered a recipe of Nigella’s for Meat-za, which is basically a meat base with pizza topping. Inspired by that, I decided I might make tacos on a plate without the taco shell (as we only had three taco shells left!)

Yum, Yum!!

Taco mince, mozarella cheese and tomato slices topped with salsa and then put under the grill until the cheese is golden and melted.

Left: after grilling, top the dish with grated carrot, shredded lettuce and a dollop of sour cream. Serve with a broken toasted taco shell so you can dip into the yummy mince like nachos.

Right: a chicken version (without tomato) for my hubby’s ‘anti-gout’ diet.

[babysitting the bonsais]

My Mum and her new husband of 9 months (can't quite get used to saying step-Dad yet) are travelling around Australia at the moment in the motor home, and I'm charged with looking after his bonsais while they're away. Now as you know, I don't mind gardening, but certainly don't profess to having totally green thumbs, so it's a bit of a hit or miss affair...

I've been pretty much just watering them since Mum left mid-October, but just before Christmas I gave the bonsais a good prune and a few days ago (under the guidance of some YouTube videos) cut the roots back and repotted them. So far, so good, they seem to be happy, let's just hope they continue this trend, especially as I think a couple of the trees are over 15 years old!

(The only issues so far is that some wildlife was digging up the dirt, and yesterday we found a dirty old toad snuggled into the potting mix, so I suspect this is my digging culprit - hopefully a few more carefully placed pebbles will discourage this behaviour Mr Toad!)

My favourite tree is the one with the really wide base trunk. This is also my youngest son's favourite, as he says it reminds him of the trees in Pamela Allen's books. The one with the little bridge is my teenage son's favourite ... typical, the one with 'accessories'...lol