Cookery Monday - Quiche

I wasn't well for this cookery Monday so, since hubby was off for the day he took 'Cookery Monday' for me!  :O)

On the menu was:

Broccoli and Black Bean Quiche


Since my hubby took this cookery session I asked him if he'd mind typing up the blog post for me as I wasn't involved at all.
He agreed, so the following is written by my Mr.   :O)

First off there is the flour, 8 oz (which turned out to be 9), pinch of sea salt (which Quinn told me was not very nice, and tasted like the sea) , 

4oz (now 4 1/2 oz due to increased flour) butter, and finally 2 oz (now 2 1/4 oz) of water.

pre heat oven...... "200 or 2000 Daddy?". "180 will be fine".

Stir mixture with a wooden spoon...... 

but we cheated. Good old kitchen Aid!

Time to work it.

"Push Charlie" said Quinn (sigh) 

"I should be doing this bit charlie, I'm the strongest"

Of course caden politely let his brothers do
the rolling out while he grated/ate the cheese.

Roll out the dough to 1/4 inch thick
(that's 6mm for you modern people out there),
push into tray, and cut off excess.

now for the best bit....... fill lined pastry case (and table and floor) 

with dried beans.  Blind bake pastry for approx 20 mins

Mix together 225ml (8oz) of milk, and eggs

eggs

eggs. (3 altogether)

Next gather some fresh basil,

and parsley

and chop (not your fingers)

add 1 diced red onion, 1 cup of cooked
broccoli and half a can of black beans

Spread evenly in pastry case

pour in the milk and egg mixture

and let the cheese rain!

and while the quiche is baking.... play time

not sure how long later the quiche is done and we have to keep it in the
middle of the table, out of reach of little fingers.

The kitchen crew.

and here we have the fussy customers...

Who seem to like it...

6 thumbs up - gotta be good!

ALEX

Encouraging my Husband

My family and I were blessed this past weekend to go on a Christian family retreat in Wales.  We had a lovely time and best of all I got to spend 4 fantastic days with my hubby!  :O)

After a mini break together going back to the regular schedule can feel rather sad.  We love having daddy home with us and he loves to be home with his family.  It would be so wonderful if we could keep him at home with us all day every day, but that isn't going to bring in the pennies, and as much as daddy loves to be at home, he loves to provide for his little family too.  :O)

Despite the joy of providing, work can be stressful and draining no matter how much he loves what he does.  Today was hubby's first day back after our little break and it occurred to me during the morning that I should make an extra effort to encourage him today. Texting came to mind, but I didn't want to just send him the odd text telling him I loved him.... no I wanted to do more than that today.  So I set about sending hubby a text every hour with just one sentence/thought.  

The texts consisted of things like:

You're Awesome

I'm so proud of who you are

You're my hero

I love how you father our children

You're special

..... and so on and so on it went.  This led me to thinking about other ways we can encourage our husbands, I have many tried and tested ideas and I'm sure I could sit here and think up some more.  How about you?  Would you share with me how you like to encourage your husband?  Next week I would like to write a blog post on '10 Way to Encourage Your Husband' and I would like you to submit your ideas so I can compile them into a list for next week's post.  Perhaps we can make it 20 ways or even 30 ways to encourage our husbands!  :O)

Please send a list of some of the things you like to do to:

whatapairofshorts@gmail.com

or

for those of you who know me on Facebook you can private message me there.

Thanks!!  Look forward to hearing from you...  hopefully LOTS of you!  :O)

Cookery Monday - A Home Ed Group Session

Once a month a group of us home schoolers meet together 

for fellowship and fun!  :O)

This month we decided to have a cooking session 

which was lots of fun (and hard work lol)

Here's what we got up to:

Here we are just getting started with 'group 1' 

who are cooking apple flapjacks.

Several take it in turns peeling the apples while others 

busy chop the apples up into small chunks

Rosina was the teams cheerleader!  :O)

Next it was time to weigh out the sugar

And then the butter

and some of the younger ones enjoyed dropping handfuls

of raisins into our mixture.... and eating a few strays 

that fell to the side - yum yum!

 After I had cooked the apples in butter for about 10 minutes

it was time to stir in the measured out ingredients and then 

pour into the pan ready for baking.

 Ready to go into the oven

Now it was group 2's turn. And they worked on some

Oatie Biscuits.  Here's Michiah measuring out the butter

 And here he is trying to beat the butter and sugar together

- was rather muscle breaking work!!

 Caden has a go... we're not getting very far!

Thankfully in our team of mummies we had our very own

human mixing machine and once she was put to work the butter

was soft in no time!  :O)  Thanks Karen!

Here one of the home school family's bake some special

'free from' biscuits to meet some special diet requirements.

Apologies for the lack of pictures for group 2's baking session

things got very, very busy and I didn't get the camera out as

much as I should have done.  Here are the biscuits having just 

been rolled around in a bowl of oats and ready for popping in the oven.

Ahhh at last... everything is out of the oven and we have a 

small slice of flapjack and half a biscuit for all the children.

 Everyone tucked in rather eagerly

AND THE VERDICT??

Hurrah!  It was an all round thumbs up!

A thoroughly good time had by all. 

Choosing excitement over fear

On the 21st of February, Alex and I were absolutely over the moon to discover that God had chosen to bestow upon us another of His special blessings - yes He has sent us another precious child! Our 8th baby!  What joy! Another miraculous soul growing within me. How privileged I feel. How blessed we are!  How marvellous it is to be a woman - carrying new life.

I would be lying if I told you joy and excitement were the only feelings we had about this new pregnancy.  As most of you will know our last two pregnancies ended in miscarriage and miscarriage hurts - it really hurts!

I think of my babies that are no longer with me frequently and they have changed me forever - each one leaving their own special imprint on my heart, each one never to be forgotten, each one I long to hold, each one I look forward to meeting when I join them in Heaven.

When I first discovered I was pregnant again, all I felt was that wonderful excitement and joy, but as the day slowly passed by so the fear in my heart grew.  As my love grew for this child I now knew was growing, so did my anxiety that I may never meet this child on this earth.  I tried to squash my fears and focus on the excitement...  I eagerly awaited the quiet of night when I could tell Alex the wonderful news.  I starred at him while he opened the little parcel I'd made with a scroll inside telling him the news.  His eyes grew wide as did his smile - he was thrilled!

Moments later however, he expressed the very same feeling I had been fighting all day.  It was a sad realisation.  I didn't want this pregnancy to be this way - over shadowed by fear and worry of what may happen.

God spoke into my heart and asked me to CHOOSE excitement. He asked me to celebrate this little baby's life no matter how long he/she remains. Life doesn't begin at birth it begins at conception! God asked me to not focus on the possibilities, but to focus on the here and now and - this child is here now, alive now, growing now.  He asked me to dream for this child.

Right now that dream has to be, that even though our tiny, tiny baby is only 1/4 of an inch in size, that s/he would be celebrated.  Life is such a precious gift and if this child's life's mission is complete while I am still in the 1st trimester or 2nd or 3rd for that matter then we should make the most of the life while it is here.  This pregnancy is the beginning of a new life and therefore a new God given purpose. We don't understand why 3 of our children's life mission was so short, but they had a mission - and it was completed!  So it is with this new life - God has a plan for this child, We don't know what it is, but we are choosing to embrace it whatever it be.

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. Psalm 139 v 13

One of the things I felt God telling me to do was to announce this pregnancy straight away.  Sharing joyous news breeds joy doesn't it!!  :O)  and I think, that for me anyway, keeping quiet and hiding my little baby's existence from the world would have bred fear.  And how can I truly celebrate this child's life if only a handful of people know that s/he even exists?  We have been spreading our happy news for a week now and consciously choosing to focus on the things God told me and by God's grace, while we do these things, the fear is gone.  Praise God!

SO... please celebrate with us for as long as we have with this new life, be it days or 80 years

Cookery Monday - Raspberry Fudge

Ready to get started!

Just look at all that sugar!!!  1lb in total.

Measuring 1/2 a pint of milk

 Checking we've just the right amount

The milk goes in first and we bring it gently upto the boil

The boys were fascinated watching the milk 

gradually start bubbling away.

In goes the butter 

and all that sugar!

 Time now to stir continuously until the sugar is dissolved.

While I was busy stirring:

It was time for our experiment.  No recipe for a raspberry flavoured fudge in our recipe book so we just ad-libbed. We used 50g frozen raspberries

and chopped them up really small with a pair of scissors.

They all wanted to have a go!

 Now that the sugar had dissolved and reached boiling point we put the lid on the pan for preciously 2 minutes.  The boys (esp. Charlie)

were amazed watching the foamy mixture rise higher and higher in the pan.

After the 2 minutes were up we let it simmer 

for 15 minutes while stirring occasionally

Then we turned off the heat and added the

vanilla essence & raspberries

Once it had cooled for 5 minutes we beat the fudge until it was just starting to loose it's shine.  After that we poured the fudge into our greased dish and waited for it to cool and set.

And here we go.

Ready to taste

The Verdict

O dear! Caden wasn't impressed! hah!

Quinn said it was delicious and Charlie said it was scrumy.  Caden said that he didn't like the taste or the texture.  I have to say that the texture wasn't perfect for fudge on this particular batch.  I personally thought the flavour was really good.  Will definitely try this one again and try to perfect that texture.  The texture issue wasn't related to adding the raspberries as I had a slight separation looking issue right at the beginning.  This may have been because I had to use some caster sugar to make up for a shortage of granulated or perhaps because I had to take a brief pause in the important stage of continuous stirring.  Anyway.... well worth a go if you have a soft spot for fudge.  :O)

The Recipe:


Ingredients


1/2 Pint (300ml) fresh milk
450g (1 lb) granulated sugar
100g (4oz) butter
1/2 tsp vanilla essence 
50g (2oz) frozen raspberries


Method

1. Pour milk into a saucepan.  Bring slowly to the boil.
2. Add sugar and butter
3. Heat slowly, stirring ALL the time, until the sugar dissolves and butter melts.
4. Bring to the boil. Cover the pan with a lid. Boil for 2 minutes
5. Uncover and continue to boil steadily, stirring occasionally, for a further 10-15 minutes or until a little of the mixture, dropped into a cup of cold water, forms a soft ball when rolled gently between finger and thumb.  Temperature on a sugar thermometer, if used, should be 116 degrees Celsius (240F) 
6. Remove from heat. Stir in vanilla and raspberries. Leave mixture to cool for 5 minutes
7. Beat fudge until it just begins to lose its gloss and is thick and creamy
8. Transfer to a greased 18cm (7in) square tin
9. Mark into squares when cool.  
10. Cut up with a sharp knife when firm and set.
11. Store in an airtight container.