Monday 29 November 2010

koeksisters!!!!

It snowed again this morning! Perfect baking weather. We decided to try and make a South African recipe called koeksisters.

Syrup
2 cups of water
3 cups of sugar
cinnamon sticks

just look at the lovely rough cinnamon sticks that I found!

Champ kept an eye on the syrup which has to boil for 5 - 10 minutes. I also added a splash of gingerbread syrup :o) which is obviously yummy but optional

take out cinnamon sticks and leave to cool

Dough
3 1/2 cups of strong white bread flour
3/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg beaten
60ml (4tbsp)butter
120ml milk
60ml luke warm water
1 packet of fast action yeast

* put the flour, salt, yeast, sugar into a bowl
* heat milk and butter in a pan until the butter has melted - let it cool until luke warm
* add milk, butter, egg and water.
* mix together and turn out onto counter and knead for about 10 minutes until silky.
* oil the bowl and put the dough in it and cover bowl with clingfilm and leave to rise in warm place for about 45 minutes until doubled in size.

There aren't any pictures of Boo in this post because she has just discovered Harry Potter, and spent most of the day reading :o)
Roll out dough until about 6mm thick and cut into strips
and plat
cut plats into about 3 inch pieces and place on flour dusted tray, clover with damp tea towel and leave to rise for 10-15 minutes.
Heat oil until hot. Use spare pieces of dough to test.

turn half way to brown both sides
take out of the oil and place on a towel to drain the oil. Dip completely in the cooled syrup. The syrup has to be really cold and the koeksisters hot so that they draw in the syrup.
The recipe makes 2 batches like this.
Then sprinkle with icing (powdered) sugar - optional but looks pretty and mirrors the weather outside :o)
and eat!

Hearts, flowers and slime!

I know that I have been really bad about blogging this week and that is because my time has been taken up with decorating the kids rooms. There was a major room swap so it's been a week of furniture moving, painting and trips to IKEA.
The kids were very good about entertaining themselves while I was busy. They loved sliding down the stairs on Kiki's old mattress. Look how dirty that wall is! I only repainted it a few months ago!
Painting the dolls house.
Champ painting his shelves
Kiki got hearts. She just needs to paint some pictures to fit into the frames that she painted. And finally, after a year and a half, I managed to put up the picture I painted for her.
A short game of football in the snow
painting picture frames
Boo's printers tray went up.
Boo wanted flowers. she also got new shelves for all those bits and pieces that she has accumulated.
The boys now share a room, so out went the flowers and the pink and in with the...slime!!! This is Googs side of the room.
And Champ's slimy wall.

brrrrrr

It's been snowing this week! After a week inside fixing the house, the kids enjoyed a walk outside.







Sailing in these temperatures!

Sunday 28 November 2010

Pottery

Last week we met the local home ed group for a natural pottery day. The sun didn't reach the valley so it was freezing!!!!
The group spilt into two groups: over 6 and younger 6.
The kids first task was to pick out of rainbow stone and find something from nature to match it's colour.


After that they got to make some nature art. Googs made a rugby post :o)
and Kiki made some horses

and then the camera died :( This was the last shot it took, Googs in a small cave.
A friend took this picture of the older kids. They had a number of nature activities too, including making nature pictures by using thorns to pin leaves to tree trunks.Even with the death of the camera, I was still able to take more pictures thanks to a generous friend lending me her spare camera :O)
After the walk in the valley we went back to the farm, to the pottery centre.

Demonstration clay. The kids had to make leaves with mini beasts on them.
Being shown what to do
Then they all got to have a go!





Kiki made a bee
Googs made a ladybird

Boo, a butterfly
and Champ....actually I am not sure what this is. I will have to ask him :)
We have to wait until Jan to get their fired clay creatures back, I can't wait!