Baking, Bikkies, and Beautiful Banana Bread

With the warm yellow sunny days now fading and turning crisper, I thought it might be a great opportunity to share some of my go-to, no-fail baking recipes!

These are regulars in Katie's lunchbox, or when we need morning tea! 

First, my NO FAIL AWESOME ALL PURPOSE BISCUIT RECIPE!

Yummy! EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

3/4 cup SR flour

3/4 cup plain flour

1 cup chocolate chips

1 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla essence

125g butter, softened.

Mix ingredients and knead with hands to form a stiff dough. Roll teaspoonfuls into balls and press lightly onto a lined baking tray. Bake 180 deg celcius (160 degrees if fan forced) for 12 mins for a soft cookie, 15 min for a crunchy one.

You can substitute lots of things for choc chips! I've used nuts, sultanas, muesli, dried fruit, m&ms...

You can substitute coconut sugar or stevia for the brown sugar.

You can substitute 1/2 cup coconut oil for the butter if you want a dairy-free version.

So versatile!

The second staple recipe in my house is my friend Laura's Banana Bread. It's super easy, and it's like a warm hug from a friend on a cold grey day :)

LAURA'S BANANA BREAD

125g butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 cup plain flour
1 cup wholemeal flour
1 teasp baking soda
1/2 teasp salt
3 Large very ripe bananas, mashed
1 teasp vanilla


Preheat oven to 180 deg C (160 deg C for fan forced ovens). Mix all wet ingredients together well in a large bowl. Add dry ingredients, and mix till well-combined. Pour into a loaf pan. Bake 50 - 60 min or till skewer comes out clean and top feels 'springy'.

I promise you it wont last long! And your house will smell AMAZING when it's baking!

So there you go! 2 staple recipes from my kitchen (2 of many!) that are super easy and yummy for lunchboxes or afternoon tea.

Or midnight snacks ;)

What's baking at your house?
xx

Autumnal anxieties.

Waking up for the school routine today was just a bit greyer. A bit darker. The butter was unspreadably hard on the bench top. Katie asked where her school jumper was.


Autumn is here.


And I was over reading Kate's post today, and it made me crave my ultimate warm comfort food: Avocado, Vegemite and Tomato on toast.



Unfortunately our Grosse Lisse's aren't doing so great. There's SO many on the vines, but the minute one of them starts to show a hint of colour: BLOSSOM END ROT.

Ive brought a few green ones inside to see if I can ripen them on the window sill. So disappointing.

Sticks and Dip

The cuc's are going gangbusters! Growing fast than I can pick them! Katie has cucumber in her lunch everyday, and luckily, Tara's favourite lunch is "Sticks and Dip".



Taking the lead from my fellow thrifty homesteading bloggers, Ive attempted to preserve some, and make some lacto-fermented cucumber pickle. (I used the same method I used here.)








Soon it'll be time to plant seedlings in our winter foam planters for our next bale garden. Which we haven't got the bales for yet. And to finish our dog fence. Which we haven't got the wire for yet. And stack our season's firewood. Which we haven't got the chainsaw fixed, or started collecting yet. Or cleaned the chimney.

Ive been losing a fair bit of sleep lately.

Winter Foamy Seedling System!

Time's just flying by. Proof of this: Katie our big school girl is 5 in a few weeks!!! I've knitted her these cute slippers from Ravelry. Purple by request!

Cookie knows how to stay warm.

Our plans for Autumn:

More Ex-batts - we're down to 11 girls, so we'll be adopting 10-15 more.



Hay stockpile - for the bale garden AND to last Will the winter! We currently have about 15 bales, but I'd feel much better with a stockpile of 30 or 40 more in our barn.







Finish the dog-proof fence - to enclose a new four-legged addition to the family we'll adopt soon... saty tuned...





Firewood stockpile and service the chimney -it's not working so great. we've been getting a fair bit of smoke in the house and it doesn't draw very well.



Blackberry Jam - The blackberries are finished, and I have a freezer full of berries ready for pies and jams! I found a Slowcooker Jam recipe (Is there ANYTHING they cant do?!) - I HAVE to try it!

Cast on some beanies and winter woolies for us! -  Winter is coming! Time to get knitting!




...It's not such a big To Do list, right?

Plus we have to workout what we need to plant now, build a new bale garden, sort out our finanaces, plan and hold Katie's 5th birthday party, mow the lawn, prune the fruit trees...

*BREATHES HEAVILY INTO PAPER BAG*

At least I'll be less of a One Woman Farm in the next few weeks: Ben had his last scheduled chemo session today! HURRAH! Hopefully this means he's on the road to recovery. we're very grateful that his prognosis is so positive, and we're fairly certain he won't need too much more treatment after this. Others are not so lucky, and cant be that certain of a positive outcome. For them there's no end in sight to the chemo/radiation nightmare. My heart goes out to all those people. I've reminded myself of that often over the past few weeks, and it's how I've stayed grateful and positive (even on the days I hit rock bottom. And there were a few of those too.)

Livestrong. Be grateful. Winter is coming, but so too is Spring.

Big love xx