Rice Pudding and Raspberry Leaf Tea

I've been drinking a lot of raspberry leaf tea this past week and a half.  It's meant to be good at helping when the ol' labour kicks off, and I must say in the mean time it intensifies the Braxton Hick's contractions.  All well and good- home stretch now (quite a scary thought!)

A friend has posted several times on Facebook recently about making rice pudding for her family, and every time I see her mention it, it makes me yearn for it.  I do have a bit of a weakness for a good old home made rice pudding.  I found a lovely recipe on BBC Good Food (once again they come good!) and it's so easy.  I didn't have pudding rice (it seems that not many supermarkets stock it these days, and people get very confused when you ask for it, wondering if you in fact mean tinned rice pudding!) so I used risotto rice, which worked excellently.

I love making this because a) it is so easy- just bung everything in a dish, pop it in the oven for a couple of hours, and voilà- a delicious dessert, and b) because it's great if you're trying to be thrifty- rice, milk, sugar and a dash of nutmeg- it doesn't break the bank!

Given that clearly I have a bit of a sweet tooth at the moment, I also decided to try out banana and chocolate chip bread in our bread maker.  I tried out a (disastrous) white bread recipe on the back of a yeast packet today, which did not work properly for some unknown reason, and after that decided that I had to have one bread success today, so I looked around on line for a nice (and not too complex) sounding recipe for banana bread.  What better than one with chocolate chips too?

I found the recipe here, but when I was about to turn on the bread maker, I did do a double take about the fact that it had no sugar in it (not in itself a problem, but it didn't sound normal for a sweet bread!) so I added 3 tbsp of sugar to the mix.  I was a little nervous about how it would turn out- especially given my failure once today already! However, I needn't have worried- it is delicious, and I particularly love the dark chocolate chips (chunks?)! A good breakfast tomorrow me thinks!

I finished my fat-quarters bag, and went with blue straps in the end.  I'm pleased with how it turned out, but with retrospect, you need a little more of one single type of fabric to make a bag of a more practical size.  It was my first little play with making up patterns myself, and I've learned a few bits and bobs, but it's given me lots of ideas for developing in the future!  And in the meantime, I reckon it would make a nice peg bag!

Right. I must stop now, and get on with clicking my needles together to finish that cabled cardi.  I'd like to complete it before the little one puts in her appearance, and I'm getting pretty close...
If you fancy another crafty blog read, one that I'm enjoying at the moment is Flossie Teacakes.  Lots of inspiration to be gleaned from there!

Hoping that you're having a lovely week.

Cx

Cinnamon and raisin bread and sticker charts.

Today I had my first resounding success with our new bread maker.  A friend recommended cinnamon and raisin bread (thanks Mel!) and since I am finding it hard to think of things I'd like to eat in the mornings currently, I decided that might be a tempting breakfast choice.

It smelled absolutely fabulous as it was rising and then cooking away, and it tasted delicious both plain with butter (says Al) and toasted with butter (says me!).  Sort of like hot-crossed bun as bread. Yum.

The other thing I discovered was that some of my lack of success had been due to the type of yeast I was using- not "fast bake" but one that was more suited to hand baking rather than bread makers.  Can it make much difference? It turns out the answer is YES, given that this one rose to about twice the height of my previous attempts!

Lots of my life at the moment revolves around spending time with my toddler son.  He's amazing, and a huge amount of fun to be with, but is also going through that (totally normal so I hear!) phase of pushing lots of boundaries.  It's quite full-on working out on a case by case basis how to respond in a loving yet firm way.  Today we decided to give stickers a try, and (although it's early days) the idea of a sticker reward for being well-behaved at the dinner table worked very well.  We'll see how this carries on.  He certainly pointed out his two hard-earned stickers to Daddy with pride upon his return from work.

We had potato rosti for dinner tonight.  I don't know if you have a good recipe for one, but I got our one from the back of an emmental cheese packet about a year ago, and we've been enjoying it ever since.  If you've not tried it before, then do! It's delicious.  If you don't know of a good recipe, let me know, and I'll post one.

Right.  Off to bed for me now.  I hope your week is going well.

Bread Makers

This was the lovely sight which awaited me in the kitchen this morning...

A Bread Maker! After wanting one for a really long time, and searching Freecycle to no avail for ages, I hit on the idea of looking on Daily Info- a brilliant Oxford-based website which happens to have listings of "wanted" and "selling".  I found a Bread Maker in great condition for a very bargain price which my lovely Husband and I went halves on!

Today I had my first go at using it (despite having some of that lovely fresh loaf from yesterday still to eat!).  My first attempt was cut short upon realising that we had no Skimmed Milk Powder, but after a trip to our local shop, that was rectified.  We then very nearly went rather wrong when I was measuring out the flour (all quantities given in "cups" and we did not have the original measuring cup that came with it), and put in four (what I thought were) cups (but were actually "half cup" measures).  Luckily I was watching through the little window in the top, and puzzling over the unusually 'sloppy' texture when the penny dropped!

So. After rectifying the said mistake, the Bread Maker got down to business, and the first loaf worked.  However it was fine, not good.  It was a little dense (possibly not helped by my brief pause of the cycle to add more flour!) and I think it tasted a little too sweet.  I know that sometimes the recipe books that come with Bread Makers aren't the most wonderful, so if anyone has a fail-safe recipe for lovely bread that works in a Bread Maker, then please do let me know!  I shall have a trawl on-line shortly.

In the meantime, the loaf from yesterday is fab...

And today we had an extra treat at breakfast- our Lodger had a lovely batch of Croissants left over from a breakfast he attended yesterday, so we had a rather luxurious first meal of the day- YUM!

In other news, I have just finished 3 matching towel and flannel sets for my Mum...

And Al, Elysee and I just had a lovely candle-lit dinner! Who says kids can't share in a little romance?!

Right. Now to get the active toddler into his PJs.  Enjoy your evening whatever you are doing, and do let me know if you have a good bread recipe!