Simple Things: Homemade Almond Milk

I stopped drinking cow's milk some time ago now, long before any thoughts of a vegan diet were seriously floating around in my head. My body just started telling me, very clearly, that cow milk was not good for me. Noticeable tummy pains after I drank anything with it, and a growing icky feeling at the thought of using it. And it wasn't even the first time that had happened, I had gone off it previously but ended up drinking it again, for convenience I suppose.

So I have tried plenty of alternatives to the standard cow milk that are available. I'm not so keen on soy milk, rice milk seems to me to be water with a hint of white and almond milk was definitely the best option for me but again, watery and loaded with additives. And then when I got my hands on the My Darling Lemon Thyme cookbook, I read the recipe for almond milk and just knew I had to try making my own. But that was quite a few months ago now, and I have to admit that complacency had set in and I was stuck on supermarket almond milk. This despite having a nut milk bag and nuts in the cupboard. And a blender.

Anyway as happens with these things, necessity is what forced the change. After a big day out, a late afternoon at home, scrambling to get dinner sorted, a tired and cranky toddler, a tired and cranky me, no almond milk in the house and knowing that I would be needing the milk in the morning, that's what finally drove me to do it. And goodness me, it was so ridiculously easy I don't know what I was procrastinating about all that time. That's often how it goes, right?

It was incredibly easy - just soaking a cup of almonds in water overnight, draining it off in the morning and blending it up with another 3 cups of fresh water in the blender, then squeezing it through the nut milk bag and into a jug. Pretty easy. But the part that I love the most is how amazingly good the milk was (is). So creamy! So fulfilling! So satisfying! It made our rice porridge so incredibly smooth and creamy, and my chai tea was all kinds of good, and my sometimes evening treat of a small cacao drink is now the creamy smooth drink I was dreaming of - just no comparison any commercial nut milk. And even the added bonus of all the almond pulp for adding to our porridge and in our baking.

Of all the changes I have made over the years to increase my self reliance and reduce my reliance on supermarket chains, this is a big one for me. I've always found the homemade products to be superior to the commercial product, but the extent of the difference between homemade almond milk to commercial almond milk is just - huge. I don't know how else to say it.

I've been looking and looking for a milk this good for so long, and all that time, I just needed to devote about 10 minutes to the process and I could have done it myself. And now I know. I can't tell you how much I enjoy drinking it, it feels so decadent and now it's become my new normal. And on the cost side of things, I did crunch the numbers a little while back as I thought it would be hugely expensive using all those almonds, but I worked out that over a week, it would cost me about the same to make my own as to buy a commercial product. Plus, the bonus of spending less on buying almond meal for baking is a big factor for me, as I bake gluten free and almond meal features in pretty much everything I make.

Do I sound like I'm raving on about how good it is? I am! It is that good!

Have you ever tried making any nut milks or any other kind of milks at home? What was your experience with it? I'd love to hear.

Simple Things: Baking Bread

What is wrong with this image? Don't get technical on me, I'm talking about the knife-wielding toddler. I can assure you the phone (camera) was hastily put down to correct the situation.

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I'm still very new at baking bread at home. It's one of those 'simple' things that is so easy to do but I had a real block with bringing it through. I've been doing a lot of simple, homemade stuff for a few years now but this one, I never quite got to, until recently. Partly because I wasn't really eating much bread (living mostly gluten free) and having slipped back into eating a smaller amount of bread, I suppose I found the idea of baking it myself overwhelming. 

Anyway we have been enjoying going to a playgroup where bread making is the first activity of the day (such a beautiful way for the little ones to settle in) and I started to see that this was really something I could bring in to our days easily enough. It's not an everyday activity, and with not many mouths to feed, one morning of bread-making lasts us a few days. And then I feel like I need a few days to recover from the bread overload before I even think about doing it again. But we love it. And I love watching my little one playing in the garden, baking his bread, popping it in a sunny spot to rise. This is how they learn, isn't it?

The recipe I've been using the last few months is a simple one that was shared by our wonderful playgroup coordinator, so I'll share it here with you. I can assure you there is nothing complicated about this recipe and so many ways to vary it, change it up and add interesting extras for flavour and texture. I'm also eyeing off the amazing looking recipe in the My Darling Lemon Thyme cookbook, a gluten free sourdough. When I can master that, I think I might be in bread heaven. But first, the basics.

Bread

Ingredients

5 cups flour (whole wheat, spelt, white can be used or even a mix of flours, e.g. 3 cups whole wheat, 2 cups white)

1.5 tsp granulated yeast

2 tsp extra virgin olive oil

2 cups warm water

1 tsp sugar (optional)

1 tsp salt (optional)

Method

Dissolve sugar (if using) into warm water and stir in yeast. Let sit for 10 minutes or until frothy bubbles appear giving off a fermenting 'beer' smell.

Sift flour/s and salt (if using), mixing together. Make a well in the middle.

Add oil to the yeast liquid and pour into well in flour, stir.

Knead well (approx. 5 minutes).

Place bread dough in a bowl covered by a warm, damp tea towel and leave to rise in a warm spot (at least 1 hour).

After the dough has doubled in size, give it a second kneading (approx. 5 minutes) and transfer to a greased bread tin or shape into rolls. 

Let it rise a second time in a warm place (a sunny spot or a pre-warmed oven with heat turned off) until doubled in size again.

Bake in preheated oven at 180 degrees for about 40 minutes.

It's pretty simple. It's a really primal thing, for me, making bread at home. The slow, mindful kneading of the dough (with a sweet little song to hold the space for little one, and big one), the smell of freshly baked bread that fills the house, the simple pleasure of eating bread baked fresh with your own hands. It makes a house a home; it makes the everyday come to life. I am most definitely keeping this practice going. And on bread day, we eat a simple soup for dinner, just so we can eat a little more bread.

Do you make your own bread? 

Simple Things: Homemade Lip Balm

I whipped up a new batch of lip balm last night. It's not the first time I've blogged homemade lip balm but it's been a while. It's been years now since I bought any commercial lip balm and I really couldn't bring myself to do it any more. Even when my own pots of balm have run completely dry and there's not a sliver of balm to be found, I'll put up with dry lips for a few days until I get a chance to make up a batch rather than buy a commercial product. I probably need to work on keeping my supplies up before I run out but that's for other days.

There are so many good things about making your own (if you're a lip balm addict). For starters, you know exactly what goes into your balm, and that usually means no nasty chemicals (I have seen recipes around that suggest putting some favourite lipstick in for a colour tint, but to my mind that just introduces chemicals which are what we're trying to avoid). Then there's the cost difference, which is huge. I produce five small pots of balm for a couple of dollars, max. I don't even know what a lip balm costs these days, last I saw they were around the $4 mark for a tube. So for five of them, that's roughly $20. I mean, it's probably not going to break the bank but still, paying a lot more for a lot more chemicals is not a win in my book. Then there's the packaging side of things. Making balm at home, you can use pots and lids that you just wash and re-use - no waste. Buying commercial usually means buying plastic that ends up in landfill somewhere. All good reasons to do it yourself!

There's millions of lip balm recipes online but this time around I used my recipe that I adapted from one in the book Down To Earth by Rhonda Hetzel. The only sticking point for me with this one is the use of beeswax and honey - and I say that as I'm tending towards vegan living these days, and well - bees. This time around I just went with it as I was desperate for lip balm and I had all my ingredients on hand, but perhaps next time I will look for some non-animal-source ingredients. Which is one of the important things that helps make the shift from buying commercial to making your own with lots of things, having the ingredients on hand. It's so easy to just keep doing what you do, keeping the status quo and promising 'next time' to yourself (as I have done here). Having the ingredients you need within easy reach just means there's no excuses. And from there it's literally a 5 minute job to whip up a batch of lip balm. Anyway I'll share this simple recipe as a starting point, it does make a lovely balm (don't ever be tempted to use coconut oil in lip balm - I thought it would be great but no, it's not so great in warm weather).

Simple Homemade Lip Balm (makes 5 small pots like those pictured)

3 Tbs beeswax
3 Tbs Sweet Almond oil
1 Tbs honey
2 drops lavender essential oil (optional, or whatever you like that you're comfortable with)

Melt the beeswax in a small saucepan over very low heat. When it's melted, remove from heat and stir in Sweet Almond oil, honey and lavender oil. Pour into clean pots and pop on lids. Allow some time for it to cool and set, and that's it. Super easy!

There's something so completely rewarding in making your own products, whatever they may be, rather than buying them. And each little product that you make feels like only one small thing, and it probably is, but over time and as you make more and more of your own needs at home, you start to rely less and less on companies and manufacturing, and more and more on yourself. And that is always a wonderful thing.

Christmas Trees and Decorations

So we got a Christmas tree. One that grows in a pot, and that we can keep in it's pot all year round, and bring in again next year. Just like the one we used to have that we planted in a paddock at our old place. But new.

And we made some decorations, out of air-dry clay, like we did at playgroup. And then we painted them with fingerpaint, as that was what we had. And then we hung them with wool from my stash, as that was what we had. And then we decorated the tree with our homemade decorations, and it was wonderful.

We have a very low-fuss approach to it all in this house. I'm still torn between not wanting to celebrate Christmas at all but still wanting my child to experience the magic of Christmas. There is no Santa for us, which is only awkward when strangers, being ever so kind, say 'Santa's coming!' and get met with blank stares. But there are some small gifts all the same.

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas whether you celebrate the occasion or not; I hope you spend time with those you love and have a peaceful and joyful day.

I'm getting in early with a Boxing Day sale in my shop. You can get 50% of everything with the code THANKYOU at the checkout from now until New Years Day. I know it's a little early but hey, so it goes.

Have a good one!

Homemade: Fresh Basil Pesto

I originally wrote this post as a guest post over on Red Parka Diaries about a year ago. Since it's that time of year again, and I'm looking at basil plants with a limited lifespan left, I thought I'd share it here. One of my all time favourite things to make is fresh, homemade basil pesto. Yum.

For some reason, whenever I grow basil [every year], I'm always cautious to use it up too soon, so I end up being overly sparing with it. And then, of course, the plants go to flower, the season comes to a close and I have all this basil that didn't get used. It's like clockwork. The best way I know of to use up excess basil is to harvest it in big chunks and make pesto. It's super easy, it tastes delicious and you can adjust the ingredients so that it's perfectly to your liking [hello too much parmesan]. Here's what I do.

Ingredients:

fresh basil - a good handful, torn or chopped

garlic - 1/2 clove, crushed

pine nuts, lightly toasted - 1/4 to 1/2 cup, more or less

sea salt

cracked black pepper

parmesan cheese, finely grated - 1/4 to 1/2 cup, more or less

olive oil - 1/4 cup, more or less

optional: fresh lemon juice

You may note that I'm a bit vague with the quantities in this list. That's because I don't tend to use set quantities, rather, I just start out with however much basil I have, and make it to a consistency and flavour that I like. You can taste it and adjust as you need to along the way. 

Method:

I use a mortar and pestle for making pesto. You could use a food processor, but I prefer the rustic, homemade appeal of using brute force. So pop your basil leaves into the bowl, along with the garlic, pine nuts and some salt and pepper to taste, and bash away. You want it to form a paste, and you can either leave it more chunky or keep on bashing it til it's a bit smoother, your call. Next add your parmesan and give that a good stir through. Then pour in some olive oil and stir to get your paste nice and smooth. At this stage, you'll want to have a taste and see what you think - is there enough parmesan added? Is the balance of flavours about right, or is it too heavy on the basil? Is it too dry, in which case you'll need more oil? So many variables, but I find that it changes every time I make it, and it's very easy to adjust ingredients on the go. 

So basically, make whatever adjustments you think it needs, and you're done. Homemade basil pesto! Something to note, if you intend to store it for a day or two you'll need extra oil, and make sure that when you put it in a jar, the top is covered in oil. You can also add a dash of lemon juice to help stabilise the colours if you're making it a bit ahead of eating time. This gives it a nice fresh lift too.

Three of my favourite ways to eat fresh homemade basil pesto:

1. stirred through cooked pasta with extra pine nuts and parmesan for good measure.

2. as a dip, along with crackers, a sharp cheese and a chilled white wine [you could substitute pine nuts for cashews if you're planning on serving it this way].

3. as a base on homemade pizza - fresh basil pesto on Turkish bread, topped with roasted sweet potato, spinach, feta and topped with more cheese of your choice. 

I honestly think that fresh homemade basil pesto is one of life's loveliest treats. And it's so easy! I hope you've enjoyed seeing how I do it.

What's your favourite way to use up lots of basil?

Homemade: [Sugar-Free] Banana and Date Loaf

Requested a little while ago now, and here it is. And I say sugar-free since there is no added sugar, the sweetness comes from the bananas and dates, which is more than enough. Obviously there is sugar in the bananas and dates.

Banana bread is made very regularly in this house. Mainly because we buy up bananas and then they ripen too quickly, before we've been able to eat them [at least, this is what happens in summer]. You can pop the in the freezer when they're over-ripe too, and pull them out to bake with when you want them. Great for 40 degree days when they're well over-ripe and it's too hot to put the oven on.

Anyway, this is a super easy loaf to bake. It's the simple banana bread recipe that I use to make baby teething rusks [see this post here], but with dates added. You could add anything you like - walnuts, cranberries, raisins, whatever you have on hand. But dates are a bit of a classic. It makes a low-lying loaf, not too large, and is truly best eaten fresh. And warm, with a good slather of butter. Mmmm.

Ingredients

About 60g butter, melted

1 egg, lightly beaten

2 ripe bananas, mashed

1 cup self raising flour*

1 tsp cinnamon

handful of dates, chopped

How To Make

Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius. Grease or line a loaf tin.

Mix together the melted butter [let it cool a bit first] and the egg, then combine with mashed banana.

Add the flour and cinnamon, mix until all blended in. 

Stir in the dates.

Pour/scrape into prepared loaf tin and bake for about 40 minutes.

Allow to cool a little in tin, but not too long, as it's best eaten warm.

How easy is that? Sit down, have a cup of tea, a chunk of banana and date loaf and put your feet up. Thank me later.

What else would you add to this loaf? Any other suggestions? I'd love to hear [and try a few new flavours..].

* We use gluten free flour in our baking.

Making Things, Photographing Things

Snippets of things I've been making lately. Blogging truly is an excuse to interrupt everyday life to take photographs of everyday things. 

Chopped plums about to be made into plum jam.

A dishcloth in the making, not far to go.

Homemade soap, grated up and ready to be used in homemade laundry liquid.

Chocolate sponge cake, a bit on the flat side, but yummy all the same [and filled with homemade jam!].

Chamomile flowers waiting to make chamomile tea [and the remnants of a banana and date loaf].

Have you been making anything lately? Do you feel the need to photograph what you get up to?

Linking up with Photography Friday.

Homemade: Plum Jam

I had totally forgotten that this place we've moved back to has a plum tree. And even in the first month or so that we were back here, it hadn't dawned on me that there would soon be plums. But as November progressed, I watched and saw the little green plums being formed on the tree. I have a wonderful view of it from our sunny afternoon sitting spot where we read books. And I kept thinking to myself, I must get out there with the camera and capture some images of the plums turning from green to red. And it still never occurred to me that I could make plum jam. And I didn't really get any good images either.

Once the plums started ripening, and I started harvesting lots and lots of plums, it became a matter of urgency to make the jam before they got too ripe. I'm new at this jam-making business, and I've had a few attempts with the plums now [with varying success], but I'm hooked. I love that those delicious plums won't go to waste now, as so many of them have been turned into jam that can be eaten for months to come. Actually I think I've made more jam than we're likely to eat in a year. I could give it away, and probably will, but I want to be sure of the quality of my work before I go handing it out. Obviously mum gets a jar regardless.

So we have plum jam. We've been eating scones and pikelets and we had to make jam drops [my favourite biscuits]. I am yet to master the art of jam making, but I'd like to think I'm learning more with each attempt. The first attempt was a total fail, it was too set and we could barely get it out of the jars. The second attempt was much better, it is spreadable but still a little on the too-set side of things. The third attempt is cooling in jars as I type, and I'm concerned that I've over-corrected and it's now too runny. Time will tell. Fingers crossed it sets well as it cools. I think I need a lot more practice at this jam making caper. 

Here's the recipe I followed. 

Plum Jam

Ingredients:

900g plums [prepared weight]

150ml water

900g granulated sugar

Method:

Put plums into a heavy based saucepan. Add water and bring to the boil. Lower heat, and simmer gently for 30-40 minutes. The fruit should be soft. 

Tip in the sugar and stir over a very low heat until sugar has completely dissolved.

Raise the heat [gently] and bring back to a rolling boil, then rapidly boil for 10 minutes.

Remove from heat, skim off any excess scum from the top and allow to settle for a few minutes. Pour into hot sterilised jars and seal.

Making jam is one of those things that connects me to my grandmother, and her mother. I'm learning how to do something that was common knowledge a few generations ago. And it's one more thing I can make from scratch, instead of buying as a processed product at the supermarket. 

Have you made jam? Are you a pro? Or a novice like me?

Homemade: Apple and Cranberry Muffins

It's high time for another recipe post. Which actually means that in my flat out days of mothering an 8 month old, I made these muffins and managed to snap some photos of them. So my blogging secret is out - if I have a photo, a blog post happens. If I don't, it doesn't. So much for forward planning..

Anyway, they are very yummy muffins. I've reached a point in my baking evolution where I can make muffins without a recipe - vary this, add that, hold back some of this, add a little more of that. And produce something reasonable. And all while watching the clock waiting for a sleeping babe to wake. Motherhood is certainly increasing my efficiency at life. These are super easy, and of course, you can vary them to suit yourself.

I used a 6-hole muffin tray for large muffins, but you could use a 12-hole muffin tray for smaller muffins. And of course, no added sugar. There's more than enough sweetness in the apples and cranberries without adding processed sugar. 

Ingredients:

3 apples, chopped into chunks

1/4 cup olive oil

1 egg, lightly beaten

3/4 cup milk

1 1/2 cups self raising flour*

1/3 cup almond meal

cinnamon to taste

handful of dried cranberries

Method:

Heat oven to 180 degrees celsius. Grease muffin tray.

In a bowl, combine olive oil, egg and milk and mix together. Add flour, almond meal and cinnamon and give it a quick stir [it doesn't have to be all combined]. Add chopped apples and dried cranberries and stir it all together. Just enough so there's no dry flour left, you don't want to over mix it. 

Spoon it into the prepared muffin tray and bake for 20-25 minutes, give or take. Closer to 20 minutes for 12 small muffins, closer to 25 minutes for 6 large muffins.

Cool in the muffin tin. Or don't cool them, just eat them warm.

The only problem with making 6 large muffins rather than 12 small muffins is that they disappear too quickly. And the chunkier you leave your apples, the chunkier the muffins are. I like to call it the rustic look. But you can always chop your apples smaller if you have the time/patience/inclination.

* I use gluten free flour.

Homemade: Easy Sweet Biscuits

I thought I'd share with you the recipe for our homemade biscuits. We make these a lot. As in, I don't buy biscuits, and this is about the only thing I make [regularly] that has added sugar [ok so the the odd chocolate muffin also happens..]. They are definitely my go-to treat for when I'm craving something sweet. Warning though, these are dangerous. Fresh out of the oven they are so good it's highly possible to eat a large portion of the batch without realising it and then have a mega sugar high. Followed by a mega sugar crash. You have been warned.

This recipe is adapted from the Cheap and Easy Biscuits recipe in the book Down to Earth [clearly a favourite of mine]. This is the base recipe, and from here you can make whatever biscuit you like - jam drops [my favourite], choc chip, peanut butter, plain and sprinkled with icing sugar, whatever you fancy. We get four batches of biscuits out of this basic mix, so we wrap them separately and put them in the freezer. It's so easy to have yummy homemade biscuits when you only have to defrost the dough, roll them into balls and bake them. Too easy really.

Ingredients:

250g butter, softened

1/4 to 1/2 cup sugar [depending how sweet you like it]

1 x 395g can sweetened condensed milk

4-5 cups of self raising flour*

Method:

Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius. Line trays with baking paper [I re-use my baking paper when I make these].

Cream together the butter and sugar, and add the sweetened condensed milk. Stir in the flour. The final amount of flour depends on how thick the mixture is looking [how much sugar you use also impacts]. If I add too much flour and it's looking to thick, I add a dash of milk to moisten it up again.
Add any bits to the dough like chop chips. Shape the dough into little balls and flatten onto baking trays. For jam drops, make a little hole in the centre of each biscuit and fill with jam. For plain biscuits, flatten with a fork for a pretty look.
Bake for 8-10 minutes, depending on your oven and how crunchy you like your biscuits.
Remove from oven and eat them [or let them cool and store them].

We get about 15-20 biscuits per batch depending on how big we make them. Also, when using dough that has been frozen, I find that it gets a bit dry so I usually work it in a bowl with a little milk to bring it back to a good consistency. Since we started making these, some months ago, we have not made any other kind of biscuit. I probably need to branch out and at least keep my hand in with some other recipes, but seriously, this are just so easy and good, you can't blame me for getting a bit stuck on them.

What's your go-to sweet treat that you make?

* We use gluten-free flour.

Homemade: Nappy Balm

For the past couple of months I've been making my own nappy balm for our baby. When William was first born I had no idea that you could make your own - I was just another consumer doing what consumers do, and buying the best we could find. I didn't like it, but it's just what you do, right? Anyway it wasn't long until I realised that you could make your own perfectly well, then another month or so of the idea floating around in my head until it actually happened. And you know what? It is so, so easy, I can't believe I put it off as long as I did. It takes about 10 minutes. It is that easy.

There are lots of recipes for homemade nappy balm out there, this is just a simple one that has been working well for us. If you make it another way or with other ingredients, please do share, as I'd love to know. Whilst I am happy with this balm, I am always on the lookout for ways to tweak and perfect our homemade products.

Ingredients:

1/4 cup coconut oil

2 tsp beeswax

2 tsp almond oil

5 drops lavender essential oil

5 drops tea tree essential oil

storage container

Method:

Over low heat, mix together the coconut oil and beeswax in a small saucepan. Add the almond oil and blend. Remove from heat, add the essential oils and stir well. Pour into your container. Allow it to cool before using it [it will solidify somewhat].

Done! How easy is that? Now there's a couple of things about this recipe. I vary ever so slightly the quantities of coconut oil [a touch less usually], beeswax and almond oil [a touch more usually] based what I want the consistency to be. Coconut oil is solid at room temperature, and liquifies as it gets warm, so in warmer weather I would use slightly more coconut oil and slightly less almond oil. And vice versa in cooler temperatures. The original recipe I used didn't have almond oil but I found the balm became too solid, so I added the almond oil just to keep it a bit softer.

This makes up enough to keep us going for about 8 days. I'm pretty happy with how this balm works on William's skin. When some nappy rash does flare up, I tend to rub the balm in a bit more, the coconut oil seems to help heal and sooth. And it is fine to use with cloth nappies.

So tell me, what else would you/do you add? Or have you never tried making your own? 

The Homemade Revolution

I was chatting to my mum yesterday, about how many things we're now making from scratch, at home. And I'm not just talking about meals, but they are definitely very homemade from scratch. There's so many other things we've branched out to this year. It's something we've been thinking about, talking about, planning on doing, for ages. Wanting a different way of life, a simpler way, a way that doesn't involve constantly buying 'stuff' and using harsh chemicals. Being more self reliant. I really feel that this year marks a turning point for us, in actually making the changes we need to make for this way of life that we seek. I'm so enjoying this journey too, and I'm excited about making even more things from home. This is what we've been up to so far.

Homemade dog food. A big one! We have two little dogs, who are fussy little eaters. We used to buy them tins of food at the supermarket, which they would sometimes eat and sometimes turn their noses up at. I've always had my doubts about what actually goes into those dog food tins. Plus they add up in dollar terms. Earlier this year I stumbled across a recipe for home-made dog food on Rhonda's blog Down to Earth [see here]. So we tried it, and what do you know - success. We make up a large batch of food, freeze it in portions [we have dedicated dog-food containers now] and use it as we need. Our little dogs have a nice layer of plumpness [is that a word?] on them which I'm happy about over winter. And Mr Ralph has stopped his incessant nibbling at his back [itchy skin] - it just stopped happening. It saves us a huge amount of money, plus the unnecessary use of aluminium tins in preprepared food. We're very happy with how it's working out. 

Homemade soap. I blogged about it here. The only thing I can say about this one is, the end result is well worth the hour or so in the kitchen playing mad scientist to make it. I love using it on my skin. It feels luxurious, it isn't drying, it's creamy and soft and one batch makes a heap of soap. Plus I can flex my creativity in future batches with different scents and added ingredients, like herbs, essential oils, natural colourings and adding exfoliating ingredients. Skincare is a huge area where we are exposed to so many chemicals without really thinking about it [well I never really thought about it anyway] but once you start to pay attention, well, it's scary. Cue the next thing.

 Soap in a box [we actually have rubber duckies in the house these days].

Homemade face wash. This is a new one for me that I'm just playing around with, but I'm currently trying a blend of olive oil and castor oil, which I found here. Basically, you combine the oils [the ratio depends on the type of skin you have], apply it to try skin, then place a hot wash cloth over your face for a minute and let it steam clean, before wiping off the oils. This is pure bliss. It feels lovely, leaves my skin soft and hydrated [so no need for added moisturiser, win] and gives me an extra little bit of 'me' time. Because being a new mum, I have learned that true 'me' time only happens in the bathroom, behind a closed door when daddy-baby time is also happening. So an extra minute to wash my face is pretty awesome. I take that minute to do some meditative breathing. Clean skin and a calm mama is all good.

Homemade lip balm. Using the recipe straight out of the book Down to Earth, which for me ends up being a bit too sesame flavoured from the oil. But it feels lovely on my lips, and does the job perfectly. One batch made up a heap of lip balms [and by a heap I mean 9 little jars] so I'm set for a while. But again I'm thinking about different options to try with future batches - scents and colours and oils. How nice is it to be able to decide, hmm, I think I want vanilla, or perhaps rose scented. And then just go and make it. Self reliance is awesome.

A lot of lip balm to keep me going.

Homemade nappy balm. I will blog this one soon. I've made a few batches now and I'm pretty happy with how it's turning out. I hated using chemical-laden products on my little baby's bum. We were given different nappy rash creams when he was born, from various places, and bought a few panic creams when the first sign of nappy rash appeared. We tried them all. One was ok, most were icky and one was downright horrible. I couldn't deal with the smell. And now, our baby's bottom is beautifully cared for with soft oils and beeswax and smells like tea tree and lavender. And funnily enough, not much nappy rash to be seen [not that we have had much anyway, obsessive-compulsive nappy changers that we are].

That's a little summary of the changes we've made that are really starting to 'bed in' and feel normal for us. There's plenty more to come over the next few months. Next up on the agenda is homemade laundry soap/powder. I was holding off doing this until I had my own homemade soap to add to the mix, which is now ready to go. I'm excited to try making it. I still haven't made my own facial scrub, but there are some great recipes out there [I'm planning to try this one first]. I'd like to make my own skin moisturiser, which I'm sure won't be too hard. And for the husband, I'm keen to have a try at homemade shaving cream. Oh and then there's the homemade dishcloths [I've made one so far], homemade face washers [looking forward to making some and using them with the homemade facial cleanser] and making some more homemade baby wipes [I've made a bunch so far, but with the introduction of solids, we need backups, believe me]. Honestly the list is endless, my head is almost exploding with how many things I want to make rather than buy, and I haven't even touched on the food side of things, or home cleaning products, or what I could whip up on that poor old sewing machine that doesn't get much use.

More to blog about on other days. How about you, are you feeling the need to make things at home rather than buy them? What are you making? Do you have any good recipes to share? I'd love to hear them!

Homemade: Sugar-Free Banana Rusk for Baby

We've hit that point. William baby is 6 months old and looking for things to eat. And wanting to chew on everything in sight. So instead of giving him cardboard [which gets accidentally eaten], I thought it best to give him something to gnaw on that he can actually eat.

I googled and found a few recipes for banana teething rusks, but they all contained added sugar. Which I thought was a bit - not so good. Because apart from natural sugars in fruit, I don't want my little getting too much of a liking for sugary stuff. Anyway the recipes I did find were essentially banana bread, sliced and baked a second time. So I decided to try our usual banana bread recipe, which has no added sugar, and see how it worked out.  

I have to say, so far it's working out pretty good. William is happy enough to gnaw away on them, and they soften up in the process, so he actually gets to eat little bits of it. At some point it gets thrown somewhere dirty, and then it goes into the chook bucket. No waste in this house! It's only moderately messy [compared to say, a banana on it's own] and I can pretend it's biscotti and eat a slice too. Win.

So here's the recipe [and for banana bread, just stop after the first bake, it's good].

Ingredients

About 60g butter, melted

1 egg

2 medium bananas, mashed

1 cup self-raising flour*

1 tsp cinnamon

How to Make

Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius. Grease or line a loaf tin. 

Mix together the melted butter [allow it to cool slightly first], the egg and the bananas. 

Add the flour and cinnamon, mix until all blended in.

Pour into prepared tin and bake for about 40 minutes.

~for banana bread only, stop here and eat it~

Reduce the oven temperature to 150 degrees celsius. You may need to leave the door open for a few minutes for the temperature to drop.

Cut the loaf into slices and place on a lined baking tray. If the slices are too wide, cut them in half lengthwise.

Return to the oven and bake for 45-60 minutes. Keep an eye on them past the 45 minute mark. There is a fine line between hard baked and black and crispy. You want hard baked.

Cool and enjoy. 

These are fine stored in an airtight container for about 3 days. I'm sure you can freeze them, but I haven't tried yet. Do keep an eye on your little one while they chew on them. They could bite a piece off, especially if they've got teeth already. 

Do you have any other suggestions for good [vegetarian] baby chew things? I'd love to hear. I'd really, really love to hear!

*We use gluten-free flour.

Homemade: [sort of] Castile Soap

Let me just say that making soap has been on my list of things to do for a while now - I distinctly remember contemplating a first attempt back at the start of the year when I had a great big baby belly to contend with. Of course it didn't happen back then, but it finally has now! I was given a great recipe for a [sort of] castile soap from the kind folks behind Eco Market, and the moon and the stars aligned and I happened to have all the ingredients and materials on hand and with my husband keeping our baby boy at bay, I got busy and made my soap. I am absolutely hooked. My mind is bursting with different things to try next time... and the time after that... and the time after that. Anyway, this is what I did for my first go. Oh and I say a 'sort of' castile soap, because a castile soap [as I now know] is olive oil based and although this recipe does have a lot of olive oil it also has a fair amount of other oils. So it's sort of a castile soap.

The Recipe

Ingredients:

800ml olive oil

800ml sunflower oil

600g coconut oil

900ml water

300g caustic soda [lye]

Essential oils of your choosing

Equipment:

A stick mixer*

Protective gear [gloves, glasses, apron]

Digital thermometer or milk thermometer 

Large stainless steel pot 

Soap moulds

Scales

Measuring jug
Cooking spray

What To Do:

1. Wear protective clothing unless you're a complete pro. Caustic soda burns, you don't want to get it on anything, yourself included. Open up windows to ensure good ventilation. Cover your work area in newspaper [if you value it]. And grease your moulds with cooking spray.
2. Measure out all your ingredients. Put the oils in the stainless steel pot. Put the lye in a small bowl, and put the water in a measuring jug. Keep the essential oils close by.
3. Heat the oils slowly to about 45 degrees celsius, mixing as you go. When they reach this temperature, carefully add the lye to the water in the measuring jug. This will go nuts and heat up really quickly, and you want it to be the same temperature as the oils. Gently add the lye and water mix to the oils.
4. Remove from heat, and blend with a stick mixer for about 10 minutes. You need to blend until it reaches a point called 'trace', which is roughly when you can see ripples on the surface of the mix. Be careful not to overheat your stick blender [like I did...].
5. Add essential oils, and blend again until they're mixed through.
6. Pour it into your moulds, then wrap them in a towel or tea towel to cool slowly. After about 15 hours, it should have set enough that you can tip it out of the mould and cut it into bars.
7. Leave it alone for 6 weeks, on a rack where air can circulate. This is the hard part, as I'm finding. Turn it over ever other day or so to help it set. This part is really important, as this is what makes the soap into a good solid block that will hold together well.

The End Result
Awesome. Like I said, I loved doing this. I can't wait to start using the soap, my patience is being sorely tested. And I want to make more! There are just so many combinations I want to try. This time around I used Ylang Ylang essential oil. I would love to try it also with Lavender, and Sweet Orange also sounds nice. Plus there's different options for adding colour [paprika anyone?], and even making exfoliating soap [by adding poppy seeds!]. I love the homemade look about it. And if it all just sounds too hard but you still want the benefits of homemade soap - head on over to Eco Market and see what's on offer, there might just be someone selling some near you.

Do you make your own soap? I'm sure a few readers are old hands at the soap making thing, what advice would you offer to a newbie soap maker?

* Only one stick mixer got harmed in the making of this soap. Let me just say - read the instructions of your mixer carefully. If it says 'don't mix hot oil' and 'don't mix for more than 15 seconds at a time', then it's probably not a good idea to hold it in hot oil for 10 minutes. Or even 8 minutes for that matter.

Homemade: Tomato and Chickpea Soup

I love soup. Especially in winter, when it warms you to the core. And soups are generally so very easy to make. This one is no exception, all you need is a few simple ingredients and you're good to go. And honestly, it tastes better the day after being made. Next time I will make double the quantity and freeze some. 

Ingredients

1-2 tbsp olive oil

1 onion, chopped

1-2 cloves garlic, minced

pinch dried chilli flakes

440g can chickpeas, drained and rinsed

1 litre vegetable stock

handful of green beans, chopped

400g can tomatoes, diced

oregano, dried, to taste

pinch of sugar

sea salt and cracked black pepper, to taste

How to Make

Gently cook onion and garlic in olive oil over a low heat until soft. Add chickpeas and chilli flakes and cook for a minute or two. Add stock and bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer. Add green beans, tomatoes, oregano, sugar and season to taste. Stir well and simmer, covered, for about 15 minutes or until beans are cooked to your liking. Serve with crusty bread.

Serves 2 for a main meal.

Homemade: Roast Sweet Potato and Feta Muffins

There are two foods in this world that I find most agreeable, and in combination work even better than they do alone: roast sweet potato and feta cheese. Feed me anything with those two ingredients and I'll be a happy woman. My standard go-to meal is these two mixed with a short pasta, basil pesto, pine nuts and something green [think spinach leaves or broccoli]. But from time to time you need to mix it up a bit, right? So, muffins it is. 

I can't take the credit for making this lot. My wonderful husband did the baking, while I was stationed on the couch with a sleeping baby in my arms. We work as a tag team these days, whoever is baby-free does what needs to be done. And I have to add that the muffins were made with bucket loads of love. Here's how he did it.

Ingredients
2 cups self raising flour*
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup milk
2 eggs
feta cheese, diced, to taste
roast sweet potato, diced, to taste
rosemary, to taste

How to Make
Sift flour and baking powder into a bowl. Add the milk and eggs and mix to form the batter. Then add cubed feta cheese, roast sweet potato and chopped rosemary. Mix all together, spoon into a greased 12 cup muffin tray and bake 180 degrees celsius for about 20 minutes. Test they are cooked with a skewer if you're not sure.

Eat warm with butter!
Or eat for breakfast the next day, cut in half and grill cheese on the cut side. Seriously good.

* We used gluten free self raising flour.

  

Homemade: Sugar-Free Apple Crumble, of sorts

Lately I've been making an effort to avoid using sugar in my cooking, or at the very least, use it in small quantities. I guess over the past 12 months we have cut a lot of processed foods out of our diet, and this has automatically meant cutting sugars out of our diet. But the result is, we're noticing the natural sweetness of foods so much more than we used to. I think we don't appreciate the natural sweetness of fruits and vegetables when we add sugar to recipes. Anyway I've reached a point where I can't stand the extra sweetness when sugar has been added, and I'm loving the sugar-free treats. I should point out that what I'm not eating in sugar added to recipes, I'm making up for with my chocolate addiction.

One of my go-to recipes is sugar-free banana bread, using this recipe I found over on Mother Down Under, with some minor modifications. But I've been searching for the ultimate sugar-free apple and cinnamon type of recipe. I didn't really mind what the end food was, as long as it contained apple and cinnamon. I finally thought I'd try the banana bread recipe, but substitute apples for the bananas. It turned out pretty amazing! Not in a bread kind of way, but when I first took it out of the oven, it was more like apple crumble [made me want to smother it in ice-cream] and was best served in a bowl. I let the rest of it [that I didn't eat straight out of the oven] cool in the tin and then it became more slice-like, but still quite crumbly. Anyway all that aside, it tasted divine. And there's no added sugar. Here's what I did.

Sugar-Free Apple Crumble, of sorts

Ingredients

4 tablespoons butter [approx]

1 egg

5 medium apples, peeled and chopped

1 cup self raising flour*

cinnamon, to taste

handful of seeds and sultanas mix

Method

Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius. Grease and line a loaf tin.

Melt the butter. Allow it to cool slightly, then add the egg to the butter and mix it in.

In a bowl, combine the chopped apple and the butter and egg mix. Sift in the flour, then sprinkle over the cinnamon [I use a lot of cinnamon]. Add the seeds and sultanas mix, and stir everything together. It will be chunky but you want to make sure all the flour has been mixed in with the liquid parts.

Pour the mixture into the loaf tin, and squish it down quite well. 

Bake for about 40 minutes.

And that's it. The combination of butter and flour makes a crumbly crust on the top of the loaf, and the centre is soft and moist. The sweetness of the apples is enough without any added sugar. Best to eat it warm. If you're feeling kind, save some to share with your loved ones. Otherwise, best to just eat it all if you can.

* I use gluten free flours in all my cooking.

Homemade: Potato, Leek & Cannellini Bean Soup

I grew lots of different vegetables in my garden this summer, including potatoes and leeks, so this soup was always going to happen. What I've really enjoyed about growing a wide range of my own produce, is getting a feel for what foods are best in which season. You know, when we shop at the supermarket all the time, and fresh produce is always available [I use the word 'fresh' lightly], you can tend to lose touch with the seasonality of food and the rhythms of nature that go with eating seasonally. Anyway it wasn't planned, I just realised early on that I had leeks growing, and I had potatoes growing, and they would probably be ready for harvest around the same time. I guess that's why we have potato and leek soup!

Being a non-meat eater, I'm always keen to round out my meals with a bit of extra protein, so my version of this soup is modified to include cannellini beans. That, and because there was a tin of them in the cupboard at the time. And they're white. And it's always nice to take an idea for a recipe and modify it to suit yourself. Unless that recipe is for a Donna Hay cake or other sweet treat, in which case, don't mess with it. Anyway, here's what I did.

Potato, Leek & Cannellini Bean Soup

Ingredients:

1-2 tablespoons butter

2 leeks, thinly sliced

4 large potatoes, cut into small cubes

1 to 1.5 litre/s vegetable stock [more if you like your soup a bit thinner]

dash of nutmeg [optional]

1 tin cannellini beans, rinsed

1/4 cup parmesan cheese, finely grated

splash of milk

salt and pepper to season

Method:

1. Heat the butter in a large pan over a low-medium heat. Add the leeks and cook gently for about 20 minutes. You want them to be soft, not browned.

2. Add the potato, stock and nutmeg and bring to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer for about 10 minutes, or until your potatoes are almost cooked. 

3. Add the cannellini beans, and cook for another few minutes until they're heated through.

4. Remove the soup from heat, then blend, either in batches in a blender or food processor or with one of those hand held blender things [which I dream of owning].

5. Return the blended soup to the pan, and reheat over low heat. Stir in parmesan cheese and milk and season to taste with salt and pepper. And you're good to go.

Notes:
I'm not convinced on adding the parmesan. It did make it quite rich. But then I kinda liked that too. You could also add pouring cream at the end instead of the parmesan and milk. Or you could not blend it up and leave it chunky.

This makes a pretty thick soup. It's strange because I tend to think of this as more of a winter soup, yet I'm making it in late summer. I guess it's really an autumn/fall soup. It feels like autumn here already so it fits. I love seasonal eating!

Homemade: My First Preserve

Something I'm very passionate about is making food from scratch, at home, preferably with produce grown in the garden. It's just better, you know? It looks better, it tastes better, it's better for you, all that stuff [I've a confession to make here though - I prefer tinned beetroot to fresh... there, I said it]. One thing I've not tried until now, is using up the excess produce by making preserves. It always just seemed too hard, what with sterilising jars and all. A few months ago I gifted myself with a book on making preserves [similar here]. I gave it a go this past weekend, with a Caramelised Onion and Beetroot Relish. And I only broke one jar in the sterilising process.

I started out by harvesting beetroot from the garden [I still grow the stuff, even though I prefer to eat it out of a tin]. I'll be honest here - the hard work is in the scrubbing off of dirt, and peeling and grating of beetroot, and the slicing of onion. I was up to my elbows in the stuff. Beetroot stains. Wear gloves. The actual process of cooking up the preserve was really easy. I sterilised my jars by standing them in low oven for 30 minutes while the preserve was cooking, I'm hoping that was enough to kill off any nasties. 

And the finished product? Well it looks good! But now it has to sit for 3 weeks before opening, so I can't tell you yet how it tastes. I'm quietly confident that it will a] taste amazing and b] have a total lack of mould because my sterilising process was perfect. We shall see. 

I'm slightly concerned about the condensation on the tops of those jars. My recipe did say to seal immediately [while still warm] so I can't see how you wouldn't get condensation. I guess the testing will be in the eating. Have you ever made a preserve or relish? I'd love to get some tips!