Ben's Bruschetta recipe

Here is my hubby's delicious recipe for tomato and basil bruschetta- we enjoyed this yesterday in the sun with our bread from the farmers market and homegrown cherry tomatoes and basil. Feels like a bit of a distant memory as it is pouring down now and feels quite wintry for the first time in ages

Ingredients
Bread- ciabatta or baguette is best
Tomatoes
Fresh basil
Olive oil
Garlic clove
Salt and pepper

Roughly chop tomatoes and basil. Mix together with salt and pepper in bowl
Slice bread into thick slices and brush or spray with olive oil (both sides)
Place bread on hot griddle pan or under the grill until toasted (both sides)
Peel and slice garlic clove in half and rub one side of the bread with the garlic
Heap tomato and basil on top of bread and drizzle with olive oil

Enjoy!

squashed pumpkins

I came across a lovely tutorial for a patchwork ball from one of my favourite bloggers- Melissa at tinyhappy.typepad.com
Here it is here
http://tinyhappy.typepad.com/tiny_happy/2008/05/how-to-a-simple.html
Being a beginner crafter I thought I would give it a go- mine have ended up looking more like squashed pumpkins (well that's what the hubby said when he saw them) but the girls are loving them so that's nice. I went to Bernina and got some little bells to put into the balls so Stella really likes that :)
I think my problem is that I need to make my petals a bit longer and skinnier. Also I need to learn how to hand sew the seam together by using the ladder stitch which I haven't tried yet. I have two newly
pregnant friends so I really want to make one for each of them as a wee congratulations gift.

a morning at the beach

What a beautiful day in sunny Tauranga- I took the girls over to the Mount for a play and to meet up with a friend and her 2 little ones. Amelie liked making "ponds" and Stella enjoyed the sand. I used to think it would be really tricky to take two kids to the beach by myself but I am slowly realising that its not that hard and its really worth it!

easy peasy quiche recipe

Well, if I can make this anyone can! A friend from New Plymouth gave me this recipe-great for vegetarians or just a good cheap meal.  Even my toddler aged nearly 3 loves it and that's saying something! Only took me about 15 minutes to prepare the filling even with my toddler wanting to 'help', and then 30 minutes of cooking.
I don't use pastry so I guess it is more like a frittata maybe? Either way, it is quick, easy and delicious!

Ingredients
1 tbls butter
3 rashers bacon (if you want)
1 onion chopped
assorted chopped vegetables- I used chopped spinach, grated courgette and chopped capsicum
2 tbls standard flour
1 cup milk
4 eggs (we have quite a big dish so if you have a smaller one you could try 2 or 3)
half a cup grated cheese
salt and pepper


Instructions
Preheat oven to fanbake 200 degrees celsius
Melt butter in large saucepan, add onion (and bacon if you want), cook until onion is clear.
Add your vege's and cook
Stir in flour and cook until frothy
Gradually add milk, stirring constantly until mixture boils and thickens
Remove pan from heat
Lightly beat eggs in a bowl with a fork
Add eggs and cheese to the saucepan, stir to combine
Season with salt and pepper
Pour into suitable dish
Place in 200 degrees celsius oven for 30 minutes
Serve with salad and bread- yum!

PS: a tip if you are using grated courgette- after grating put the courgette into a paper towel and get rid of as much moisture as possible otherwise the quiche can be a little soggy. When I made it the second time I actually left the courgette out

shoe frou's

I saw these on one of my favourite TV programmes last year-' Lush House' with Shannon Lush on the Living Channel. She made these cute eco-friendly and cheap shoe frou's as an alternative to store bought shoe deoderisers so I made some up last night for each shoe wearing member of my family!

SHANNON LUSH'S SHOE FROU RECIPE
2 tablespoons talcum powder (keeps shoes dry by absorbing sweat and moisture)

2 tablespoons bicarb soda (general cleaner)
2 drops oil of cloves (kills mould, stops shoes smelly musty)
2 drops tea tree oil (kills tinea)
2 drops lavender oil (adds a nice fragrance but also a muscle relaxant)

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl and then spoon them into the foot of pantyhose – tie off and dab in your shoes as often as you like to clean and deoderise.

it's true what they say

Everyone says kids love gardening and are better at eating their vege's when they help in the vege garden and I am amazed at how true that is! Our toddler loves helping with the watering and picking the 'harvest'. She is eating beans straight from the plant and loves courgettes now too. She loves picking the cherry tomatoes too but is still unconvinced as to the taste of them!
We bought a raised bed kit before Christmas so she can have her very own garden- my ideas for it are to have a swan plant to attract the monarch butterflies, some beans and peas as she really likes them, some flowers which we are going to plant to form a letter A, some sunflowers and maybe some blueberries too.

Lo♥e my cloth nappies!

A friend of mine put me onto Honeychild nappies a while ago and I just love them- wish I had used them with my first baby but didn't really think about it then to be honest.  I have got 6 so I use one at night for my toddler and the others in the day for my baby. I still use disposables for her afternoon sleep and night sleep.  I've also started using little baby flannels and a homemade baby wipes recipe - even though my hubbie still prefers the disposable wipes we buy them rarely now as opposed to buying them weekly!
Here is my baby wipes recipe- I just put it straight into a spray bottle which I then spray onto a flannel when I am changing her.

Megan's Baby Wipes recipe 
(for small sprayer bottle)

2 squirts baby bathwash

2 squirts baby oil

1 or 2 drops of essential oil- I use lavender and tea tree oil
Fill up rest of bottle with water and shake to combine 

the worms are happy

I have had a worm bin (a Worm-a-Round) for about 5 years now- I got it when I was teaching and it sat at the back of my classroom - the kids loved putting their lunch scraps in it.

The worms I started with have fed and bred quite happily in there for all these years until this summer- we moved the bin to a warmer spot around the house and to my dismay the worm population has diminished hugely! The only thing I can think is that it was too hot for them there... so with my small amount left I am going to start again and try to build up my population before transferring them back to the big worm bin. I used the instructions from World Sweet World mag autumn 09 issue and made a little one out of icecream containers- hopefully they will breed like crazy in there! My toddler put some banana skin in there today and said the worms are happy, so hopefully she's right!