Baking muffins

Today the day care children and I made muffins.
We used my favourite muffin recipe which makes the very same muffins that my family always enjoyed when I was growing up. My mum made these muffins all the time and my friends and I always loved them! (I will include the recipe at the end of the post)

The children have been really enjoying baking and look forward to it each week. I like the idea of having a waldorf rhythum and having a 'baking day', 'painting day' etc so that they know when its coming. Ive tried it before and forgotten about it but I think now they are getting to the age that if I make a colour coded chart they will remember about it and remind me!

After we had mixed the muffins and spooned them into our muffin tray I gave the children some flour to draw pictures in. They enjoyed this and it made the muffins cooking time more bareable for them:)

I love this fairy in her castle

The children all love to wipe the table ready for their snack time (look at those little hands whizzing about, they are good little cleaners!)

Ah, finally the muffins were ready and enjoyed by all

My Mums healthy yummy muffin recipe
1 cup self raising flour
1cup whole meal self raising flour
1 Tbs sugar ( I use a few Tbs honey and a little stevia sweetener)

1 cup milk
1/4 cup oil (I add a Tbs butter asweal)
1 egg (the kids love putting in a fresh egg that theyve gotten from our chookies)

a piece of fruit (mashed banana or finely chopped apple are our favourites)
*optional* 1 cup of sultanas or choc chips

Sift flour into a bowl, add sugar and mix (also add sultanas or choc chips if your using them)
Combine wet ingredients and fruit in a jug
Pour wet ingredients over dry ones and stir gently with a fork. Mix as little as possible to keep mixture nice and airated.
Spoon into a greased muffin tray and bake 180c for 15-20mins

Enjoy!

Oh and we also like to sometimes make them 'fruity suprise muffins' by adding a little sugarless jam to each when the muffin tray is half filled and then finish filling it with mixture. I saw this wonderful idea here

well its about time I do a new blog post I do believe...

 I mentioned a while back that my friend Alison was having a pattern featured in homespun magazine (last November)
It happened that my local newsagent doesn't have Homespun (I wasn't surprised, its small so doesn't have much)
Every time I went to bigger towns during the month I would get home and promptly remember that id forgotten to get it again!
On the very last day of November Anneke and I were in Kadina and I finally got to the newsagent. Unfortunately they had already put out the new issue but the lady was able to find one last copy out the back of the shop for me, yippee!!! (I think she was a bit cross with me for making her have to look for it until she saw just how happy and thankful I was:)

 I made this adorable little elf boot from Alison's pattern (which was beautifully written and easy to follow, well done Alison!) I reduced the pattern to make it small enough to fit my tiny Christmas tree. I look forward to making some more next year, id like to make enough for the day care children to leave out for st. Nicolas to put a treat in next year

 Here's some pictures of my 'veggie patch tea' the other night.

 I was especially proud of my carrots, although their pretty small they were the biggest tastiest ones I've grown so far!

I sat at the outdoor table cleaning and chopping veggies, stuck them on a tray with some olive oil, ground salt and rosemary, roasted for half hour and enjoyed them sitting outside while watching the sun go down. Its not so bad running out of groceries when you've got the good stuff growing out your back door!

I feel like Ive hardly had time for my veggie patches this summer but after doing some much needed weeding and removing some old plants that I was leaving to go to seed I could see that I have a thriving of potatoes, A patch of cucumber plants covered in flowers ready to produce and a huge tomatoe bush. Now that the weather is beginning to cool again (for now) me and the day care children are enjoying getting out and will plant some seeds again (lots more carrots)

holidays day seven, Making pasta

 A few months ago me and my sister Anneke and I were at markets and I saw a pasta roller/cutter. At the time I decided that I shouldn't get it as my little kitchen doesn't have much storage space but once we left I regretted not getting it. She remembered and surprised me with one for Christmas!
Tonight I googled a pasta recipe and made us carbonara for tea with fresh fettichini pasta.
The pasta was easy to make, just two eggs from my chooks and a cup of flour

 I mixed them together and kneaded for 8 minutes
 I then rolled it through the machine several times.
 Once the flat sheets had dried just a little I passed them through the fettuchini attachment and hung the pieces over my cupboard doors until I had enough for our meal



 I made our favourite carbonara sauce and it was delicious! Pasta for tea has never been so fun!

Ive also been working on a few more dolls for my daycare.
Last week Hansi helped me mark and cut the fabric pieces for two new dolls. The girl doll on the left is new. We attempted to dye her skin fabric brown with coffee (Hansi and another girl Yshi both have brown skin so I thought it would be nice for them) but I had no idea how much coffee to use and as you can see it only  worked a little bit. She is made using the same pattern as the boy doll but instead of using tubular bandage for the inner head I used a gathered piece of fabric and I love that her head turned out a bit chubbier. I crocheted her wig and then just hooked on hair around the edges and part for her pigtails. So far her name is Zoe.
Finn has a new cardie, he realy 'needed' one with green and white stripes:)
One day soon I will make another boy doll and we have a doll 'Talulah' coming from our Canadian day care pen pals. It will be nice (and peaceful;) when there are enough for each of the children

daycare activities this week

Notice how its not called 'daycare thursday this week? Yep having some computer issues. Anyhow, this is some of what we did this week.

Made Banana pancakes, like Anneke made for me last time she came over. They were so good and dissapeared quickly!

 This pretty flower bloomed

 The chooks got spoilt with extra food as usual:)

 We made slippery slimey friends

 I weeded the veggie patch while the kids collected snails and the chickens pecked up bugs