The Great Wright Family Bakeoff!

Last week we watched the finale of The Great Australian Bakeoff. We got right into watching the show, which is quite unlike us - we usually don't go for reality TV. I'm not sure what it was about this show that hooked us - it could've been the delicious things they baked through the series, or maybe the corny jokes the host Shane Jocobson liked to crack, maybe it was the cruel judging reminiscent of country shows, or perhaps it was the gorgeous vintage décor (seriously, bunting made from vintage Australiana tea towels - too cute). Whatever it was, this reality TV meets the CWA show had us hooked enough to record it for the kids each week and watch it all together.

We loved it so much that we decided to have our own bake off - a muffin bake off. 

Last week, all for of us submitted a muffin flavour so that I could shop for any special ingredients. Then, yesterday morning (after brief Father's Day celebrations), we set up our kitchen for the baking. 

I supplied a basic muffin recipe, and each of us followed that recipe with our own flavours and variations. 

Stu and Jamie went first. They chopped, measured and mixed until they put their trays of muffins in the oven. Then it was mine and Lachie's turn to start baking.
 

Two hours later, 46 muffins had been baked and cooled and we'd each selected our best three to present for judging. 

Jamie presented some beautiful Jaffa muffins - flavoured with fresh orange juice and zest and dotted with chocolate chips. 

Lachie created a family favourite - chocolate, choc chip muffins. He added a few special caramel choc chips to the top of each and presented them beautifully on his choc chip leaf plate. 

Stu's muffins stole the show for looks - raspberry white choc muffins presented in a snow storm of grated white chocolate. 

And I tempted us all with the scent of warm cinnamon sugar with my jam donut flavoured muffins - a spoonful of strawberry jam in a lightly spiced muffin topped with melted butter and lots of cinnamon sugar. 

Tasting and judging was rather fun - I think the fact that we all got to eat our creations made us all winners!  But the judging was close (and sometimes harsh!), but there was a clear winner - Jamie's Jaffa flavoured muffins. 

Gotta say, I was very impressed with everyone's efforts. Every batch was moist and delicious. 

Lots of fun, with the bonus of a freezer full of muffin deliciousness for the week ahead's lunch boxes. It was such good family fun that we're already planning our next bakeoff......

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Our Basic Muffin Recipe

• 1 1/2 cups SR flour
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 3/4 cup milk
• 2 tbsp. oil
• + flavourings of your choice

(try cocoa and choc chips, replacing some of the milk with orange juice and adding choc chips, spices and jam or white chocolate and berries)

1. Mix together all of the dry ingredients in a bowl.
2. Mix wet ingredients in a measuring jug.
3. Add wet ingredients to dry and mix until just combined (don't over mix or you'll make tough muffins!).
4. Spoon mixture into muffin cups until about 1/2-2/3 full (we made 10-12 muffins with each batch).
5. Bake at 200C for 15-20min until lightly browned and springy.
6. Cool, decorate and serve.

Eating from the garden in late winter

Colour in the winter garden - beetroot, calendula and brocoletti flowers

Two years ago, if someone had told me that I would be able to eat veggies from my garden all through winter, I wouldn't have believed them. In the past, the only thing harvested in my winter garden was the silverbeet that had grown into a massive plant. I still have a long way to go in my winter gardening (no lovely heads of purple broccoli or cauliflower for us still), but now I can see the possibilities!

Snow peas in hanging baskets - snail and duck proof!

This winter promised lots of lovely silverbeet and peas, but my ducks put a stop to that. Instead, we've eaten great heaps of wombok cabbages, enough lettuce and rocket for salads and burgers, good supply of carrots, baby beets, some lovely stalks of brocoletti, the odd bak choi and masses of crisp and delicious celery. It's all been topped with the herbs that have kept going, and served with some of my summer preserved and frozen veg. It's not enough veg for us - I've still had to buy the odd pumpkin, frozen peas and bags of potatoes - but every day we eat something from our garden, and that feels very good indeed. 

Broad beans in flower promising more fresh veg soon.

Last night was a good gardeners meal. I made rosti with potatoes and a selection of fresh turnips, carrot, celery and herbs from the garden. They were served with new season eggs from our chooks (thanks girls!), sourdough toast, tomato chutney and the first few snow peas from my hanging baskets (ie. duck proof pea gardens!). It's a simple meal, but it tastes so good to eat all of those home grown and homemade items, knowing exactly what went into everything on the plate. 

Delicious!

With a bit of luck (and my planning paying off) and we'll continue to eat from the garden all through spring to make it a whole 12 months of garden consumption - yay!

Pretty purple and white turnip tops.

 

When you need a hand

I had to have a small operation on my left hand last week. I had the same surgery on my right hand 7 years ago, so I knew what I was in for - a pretty sore hand in a hefty bandage with no strength in the fingers and a lot of tenderness in the palm and wrist for several weeks. The pain is manageable and I know that in the long run I'll be better off, but for the meantime, I'm a hand short.

Finding yourself without the use of one of your hands is an interesting thing. Everyone would find it challenging - buttering bread, doing up jeans (getting dressed at all!), putting your hair in a ponytail, washing one hand, hanging clothes on the line, writing - give some of these activities a go without one of your hands and you are suddenly very grateful for the regular use of two hands!

For me, a person who fills her days cooking, crafting, gardening, caring for animals, driving to do the shopping, teaching dance classes and doing housework, I'm finding the time without a hand not only very frustrating, but boring too - I sat and watched tv all day for two days!  People who know me would understand how weird that is and how uncomfortable if felt for me. 

Thankfully, my surgery was planned and elective, so we were prepared. The week before, I put in hours of work filling our freezers with meals, bread and snacks. I wrote a menu plan filled with meals that used those foods and/or could be prepared by Stu and the boys. I arranged people to care for us when we needed it and drivers to get me where I needed to be. I taught my family how to do some of the jobs I have to do each day for when I couldn't do them and I completed the making of gifts and urgent gardening tasks before my surgery. We were prepared, so we've been able to keep going living our chosen way even while I'm partially out of action. 

There will need to be some sacrifices soon though. Our freezers could only fit so much bread, and with the incision being on my palm, kneading dough is out of the question, so the lovely sourdough I've been making won't feature again until I'm fully healed. But I've temporarily gone back to using my bread maker to do the hard work and am still able to make our bread.

The biggest thing for me has been asking for help - I'm usually so independent that to ask people to do lots of little things for me feels wrong, and I've avoided it too many times and ended up paying for it with a very sore hand afterwards..... a lesson in asking for help and remembering that I'm not invincible.

Do you have trouble asking for help too?

The evolution of our bread

I'm very pleased to say that I've been baking nearly all of the bread we eat for about 18 months now. And I've come a long way from those first (barely edible) loaves.

I initially started baking our own bread, not for the health of taste benefits, but for the waste reduction. It was back in the beginning of our 12 months of greening, and I was determined to reduce the amount of rubbish in our bin each week. Plastic bread bags and tags became a pet hate and so I set about replacing them with recyclable, paper flour sacks. 

Over the first few months, I perfected my baking, and eventually had a recipe of my own that consistently churned out delicious bread and rolls for my family. Everyone was happy.... And then I realised how often I was buying yeast and began to read about how much healthier sourdough is..... 

I figured it was worth a try. For me, the idea of growing my own yeast at home just made sense, and the idea of a bread(which we eat a lot of!) that was better for us seemed a worthy goal. So a couple of months ago, I made myself a sourdough starter. 

Ten days after mixing that first batch if flour and water, I baked our first loaf. I wish I could say that it was fabulous, but it was reminiscent of those first loaves of bread (ie. barely edible). So I tried again. The boys offered support - they too remember that I had a bad start with regular bread- but I knew they were longing for a loaf of my old bread. 

After the third loaf, things were improving, but I wanted a change, so I tried these sourdough tortillas.  They were easily the best tortillas we have ever eaten - hooray!  The sourdough culture was now smiled upon by all. 

Our latest triple batch of sourdough tortillas.

I kept trying with the bread, different recipes, techniques and tweaks, and eventually, I found my own recipe, an adaptation of this one. It's not quite as easy as the bread recipe I was using before, but it uses ingredients I'm comfortable with, fits my routine and makes delicious bread for the whole family. Like my old recipe, one batch makes a loaf and a dozen rolls for lunches of a couple of large loaves, so it saves on time, power and effort. 

It's not too sour (even though I don't use the baking soda as the recipe suggests), which is a good thing for a family loaf, and so long as I get a good rise in the first proving, it is lovely and soft.  The kids are happy to have the bread bin full of deliciousness again, and I love that I no longer have to buy yeast and that the bread is just a little better for us again (a far cry from nutritionless stuff I used to buy from the supermarket!). 

A soft and delicious sourdough sandwich loaf.

And to make a good thing better, we've discovered some of the other wonderful things I can make with sourdough starter!  English muffins, crackers, donuts and a choc orange cake have been tried and the tortillas are a weekly event. For Stu's  birthday, I experimented and created a sourdough hummingbird cake which was amazing!  I'll share the recipe soon. I'm looking forward to trying pancakes and croissants one day discovering more sourdoughy goodness. 

I'd love to lay out a timeline of our breads evolution - from supermarket bread to now. And I'm looking forward to the next chapter that I hope to attempt in the next year - home ground flour for my bread....

My friend Herman

Last week, one of my lovely neighbours knocked on the door and presented me with a new friend - Herman, the German friendship cake. Not actually a cake, but a portion of sourdough cake starter.

I was so excited!  I'd heard murmurs of Herman's travels in the blogosphere, and I was thrilled that he was travelling through our little town and stopped at our place. 

For ten days, Herman sat on my kitchen bench beside my (still nameless) sourdough culture and my jar of fermenting carrots. I fed him a couple of times and watched him grow. He was a lovely visitor. 

Today was Herman's last day with us. He was divided into four portions and taken in the car to three of my friends' homes. He has lots more travelling to do still. He was welcomed with more excitement into their homes and has found comfortable lodging on their kitchen benches. (And I have three friends who were very pleased that I thought of them!). 

The fourth portion stayed with me to reach its destiny as cake. I opted to make my Herman spicy, adding to the basic recipe a good few spoonfuls of ginger, a spoonful each of cinnamon, cloves and mixed spice, a couple of tablespoons of golden syrup and a cup of sultanas.  (I failed to add bicarb soda though, so my cake turned out short, but still rose due to the natural yeasts, enough to make it light)

Herman was baked and is now being eaten. Such a delicious friend to have!

I opted to not keep a portion of Herman for future cakes - he's a travelling kind of guy and I didn't think it would work to have him boarding here full time. Instead we enjoyed him thoroughly for the time we had him and wish him well on his travels. If he stops past your place, please say hi from us!

For more info on Herman, visit his website www.hermanthegermanfriendshipcake.com. The site has recipes and info and even tells you how to make a starter from scratch, but I reckon it's more fun to wait for him to come knocking on your door. 

When springtime came calling

The days are getting slowly longer here. No longer do we get up in the dark, and it is still light when Stu comes home from work. Jonquils are popping their heads up everywhere and my baby almond tree is the first to blossom in our garden this year. My chooks finally noticed the days lengthening and started laying again. Yes, it's still winter, but we hear springtime just around the corner.

This weekend, spring paid an early visit, the sun shone, the skies were blue and we wanted to be outside. 

Outside was a good place to be here as we welcomed new animal friends this weekend. 

On Friday, my mum's lamb came here. He came to be a friend for our goat. He stayed two nights and had to go home. Our goat didn't really like him and he was fretting for the calf he had been reared with. 

On Saturday, our goat, Jorgie, came home. Having bashed up the lamb, told the dog whose boss and decided that we're all her family now, she settled in. 

She is extremely affectionate and prefers us to be nearby. This was easy on the weekend when the kids wanted to play outside, Stu wanted to catch some of the suns warmth and I made the most of the springtime visit to pot up some seedlings and scratch around in the garden. Today it's harder. 

Today winter has come back with a vengeance. Swirly, gusty, cold winds. Rain and hail. It's not nice here today. And I can here Jorgie calling to me. Or maybe she's calling spring back. 

It won't be long now Jorgie girl. Springtime will be here very soon and with it, hopefully, will come a kid or two for you.

 

Bali 2013 - Adventure and other activities

I'm going to go with less talk and more pictures in this post, in which I'll cover the other activities that we did while in Bali.  Lets just say that we had a busy 10 days in Bali and made the most of our holiday.  I couldn't tell you which of the following was my favourite, nor the favourite of Stu or the kids - they were all terrific!

Our first activity was white water rafting on the Ayung river with our awesome guide, Made.

 

A few days later, we visited the Treetop Adventure park in Bedugal.

 

 

And later that day, the Elephant Safari Park in Taro.

 

 

Another day, we spent some quite time eating lunch and feeding huge Koi from a little hut built over the water at a café up the road from our hotel. 

 

 

 

 

While in Kuta, we visited Waterbom park for a WHOLE day!

 

 

And the kids discovered the fun of an arcade.

 

 

We also all had lovely massages and/or pedicures.

 

 

There was also time for walks through the country......

 

 

The town......

 

And along the beach.

 

Before watching our final peaceful sunset at Kuta Beach.

 

 

Actually, it wasn't that peaceful!

 

 

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Did you also read about the cultural activities we did? 

And where we stayed?

More on Bali to come still!