Ruffly Girliness

It's not like me at all to have just a girly purse, but I am a girl after all.  I'm entitled to a few frills.

Made from soft suede, using all recycled materials, including the zippers and handle hardware.  It began life as a suede skirt and I think I took the hardware off a non-functioning backpack. 

Oh, the inside wasn't recycled, but it was donated by a friend and I love it.   I have a matching grocery bag.

I've already found a flaw in the purse though.  While girly and pretty and soft, it's not big enough for a book!  Oh no!  I always seem to have a book with me.  What to do, what to do....

Free buttermilk

Superstore was clearing out its whipping cream.  It wasn't near expiry, but they must have thought people will now be acting on resolutions to lose weight and whipping cream doesn't factor in well. 

$0.94 / 500 ml.  Not a great bargain, but good enough.

$3 gave me 1+ pounds of butter plus two pints of buttermilk.

It's like saying "If you run your mixer for 15 minutes, we'll give you two pints of free buttermilk". I'll take it!

Daily harvest

Finally.  After a month of providing light and heat, we are getting some happy feedback from the ladies.  Usually five a day.

All slightly different and we're just guessing at who is laying which colour.  It's tough to catch them in the act.

Condiments

I'm glad they prefer homemade, as I probably wouldn't be so good about providing it if it was battle to get them to eat it.  At least I generally know where the ingredients came from and how much is in there.

We made awesome fries in our new fryer last week (don't worry - the novelty I'm sure will wear off before we become statistics).  Problem - We ran out of both ketchup and mayonnaise.  

 First up:  Ketchup. Not hard.  I used Julie's recipe again.

It's definitely different than Heintz, but in a good way.  Would you ever consider using purchased ketchup as pizza topping?  No, I thought not.  This one you can, so if you make too much there are many uses for it.  

Next:  Mayo.  

I like to use our own eggs, and this recipe only uses one whole egg and one extra yolk.  It's a big egg though.

I didn't realize until this closeup shot of my jar that it has developed a crack!  I need some Aussie to send me a case of Vacola jars in different sizes.  Are there any readers out there?   Maybe I'll have to appeal to the Down to Earth forum and see I can make a friend or two.

There.  All stocked once again.  Fries for supper again?

How we spent our holidays

This is the Christmas present that has seen most of our time this season.  What a great game!

Settlers of Catan - Seafarers

In our future

Not right away, but I do see one of these in our future. 

We babysat Bird Bird for a few days to see if I would show any signs of an allergic reaction.  Nothing, and he was kind of fun to have around.  He isn't messy, makes lovely cheeping noises, can say his name (and so, theoretically, can be taught to say other things), sits on my shoulder or the top of the laptop, reacts positively to the piano playing (the sax created one moment of fear, but then was fine too).


I think it could be fun to have a pet who actually likes us.  The chickens are functional and tolerate us because we feed them, the gerbils really are trying to escape from our attention all the time, and the fish...well, he's just a wet fish.  We'll see. 

Bird Bird, it was fun to have you in the house!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to everyone!  Are you still there?!  Do I still have a few readers?  I don't blame you if you've gone awol as well.  But I'm happy to hear from those of you who still check.


I'm back, but I don't make resolutions so I promise nothing about posting regularly.  I do really miss having this little record of what we do in this house.  Without it, it seems sometimes as if we do nothing.  I know that can't be true, but we have just finished an extraordinarily lazy Christmas break.  

There's always a bit of crafting.  These snowflakes are all that is left of our Christmas decorations.  The kids said that they are snowflakes, suitable for about 8 months of the year.  I love them, so I let them stay.  

Beth was sick over most of the holidays, so it wasn't perhaps as busy as usual.  No toboganning, skiing, or skating.  We were hoping to do those things with Beth when she got better.  She's finally better, but now she's in school.  That could have been timed better.  Maybe we needed the rest.

We didn't suffer for food though.  We hosted two small parties, Boxing Day and New Year's Eve, and that gave us the excuse to buy special cheeses and use our new deep fryer to make these yummy treats.

Croquettes!  And these were exactly as I remember them from childhood.  Grandpa's croquettes, except gluten free.  I've increased my wheat intake a lot, but Yvon really can't.  When you make rock hard GF biscuits, croquettes are an awesome use for those breadcrumbs.  Just so I don't lose the recipe, this is the one I used and it worked perfectly. Next time I'll double the batch to freeze some but I didn't know it would be so worth it!

Croquettes

Brown:
    1 lb ground meat (pork, beef, chicken, whatever)

Make a roux:
    2 Tbsp butter
    4 Tbsp flour

Slowly add:
     1/2 c milk
     1/2 c broth

Add:
     Browned meat
     1/2 tsp chilli powder
     1/2 tsp paprika
     1 tsp curry (I didn't have this)
     1/2 tsp salt
     1/4 tsp pepper
     1 tsp worchestershire sauce
     1 tsp parsley

Cool in your fridge or freezer until stiff enough to form balls.  I set the pan outside in the snow for an hour or so.

Form balls quickly.  Flour, dip in beaten egg and then bread crumbs.  Deep fry until golden.  

Of course we had Oliebollen to go with them and those turned out great too.  I didn't try the wheat ones, but the gluten free ones were perfect.  No picture for some reason, but before I lose the recipe, here is my grandpa's oliebollen recipe too.  Thanks to my sister for testing the recipe and sharing it before Christmas!

Grandpas' Oliebollen

2 tbsp. yeast
3 tbsp. sugar
½ cup lukewarm milk
3 eggs, well beaten
½ tsp. vanilla
1cup beer (optional – or use water)
1 tbsp. salt
4 cups flour
3 apples, peeled and diced
2 cups raisins or currants

Soak together yeast, sugar and the 1/2 cup milk for 10 minutes. Mix with eggs, remaining milk, and vanilla, salt and beer. Beat in flour, proceeding slowly. Add raisins and apples. Cover bowl and let dough rise for 1 ½ hrs. Drop by teaspoonful into hot oil. Turn, if necessary. Remove from oil. Sprinkle with sifted icing sugar.

And the ones we're more likely to eat around here:

Gluten Free Oliebollen (from www.Schar.com)

225 g GF bread mix
5 g dry yeast
65 g sugar
200 ml lukewarm water
75 ml lukewarm milk
1 egg

 Mix everything together (don't worry if it looks too thin - it'll work).  Let rise for 1 hour.  Drop spoonfuls into hot oil, turning once.  You can add apples and raisins after the rise if you like.  Always sprinkle with icing sugar. 

Do we have to wait until next New Years to eat these again, or can I can them apple fritters and get away with it?  Silly Dutch tradition!