Asparagus Soup Recipe

Lately I have been trying to cut down on the amount of meat we eat each week. I have started making soups with items we have in our fridge and grocery cupboard. I am also trying not to run out to the shop for ingredients constantly. I'm slowly making changes around our home that will save us money, increase our health and reduce our carbon footprint. I have started stock piling items and cooking from scratch, our winter veg garden has been planted and I am going to try and have a constant supply of certain veggies that are grown here at home by succession planting. Shew... it sounds like a lot of changes but I am starting slowly so that I don't overwhelm myself.

This is a soup I made last week, I had some asparagus in the fridge that I meant to cook with one of our dinners. I definitely couldn't let it go to waste! We LOVE asparagus here and I thought it would make a tasty soup for lunch with fresh honey bread.

This is what I used, all my ingredients were either in the fridge or grocery cupboard, it also felt good to not need to shop for anything to prepare this meal.

500 grams of fresh asparagus
2 garlic cloves
1 red onion
salt and pepper to taste
Cannellini beans (1 tin)
5 Baby potatoes
1 litre of water
500 ml of Chicken Stock
Cream
Olive oil

1. Chop up the red onion and fry it in a little olive oil with the chopped up garlic
2. Chop up the asparagus and add it to the pot.
3. Cook for about 3 minutes.
4. Dice the baby potatoes and add.
5. Add 1 litre of water.
6. Mix up the chicken stock and add to the pot.
7. Let your soup cook until the potatoes and asparagus are soft.
8. Add a tin or half a tin of Cannellini beans (these make soup lovely and thick)
9. Let the soup cook for another 10 minutes.
10 Add salt and pepper to taste.
11. If too thick, add a little water.
12. Add salt and pepper to taste.
13. Use a stick blender and puree the veggies until smooth.
14. Pour on a little cream.
15. Enjoy with some fresh homemade bread.

Do share the changes you are making in your home:)

Joining in today with Natalie's Kitchen Crafts.

Easy Spaghetti Bolognese Recipe

Thanks so much for your lovely comments about the Valentine bookmark pattern, you are all so kind. Today has been a busy day, we are back into the full swing of homeschooling and tonight I am making something easy and simple for supper, spaghetti bolognese. This is such a quick and tasty recipe, it takes about 30 minutes to make the mince and then boil the spaghetti and you are finished.

I have also been working on my blog a little, I have discovered tabs! I have started adding them to the top of my blog, I have only added one so far called Recipes. These are such clever little things because now I can add all my recipes in one place, just click on the Recipe tab above to view them. I will add others soon for tutorials and patterns too:)

Now for the recipe...

Ingredients:
450 grams of lean mince
2 tablespoons of Olive oil
1 Large brown onion cubed
250mls of Vegetable or beef stock
Black pepper
Herb salt
2 tsp of Garlic
1 can of tomato and onion relish
Organic Spaghetti
Cheddar cheese
Parmesan cheese

Method:
Add about 2 tablespoons of olive oil to the pan, 2 teaspoons of fresh chopped garlic and the diced onion.
Stir until the onions are a golden brown colour.
Add the lean mince and cook, stirring continuously, until brown and all the raw areas have disappeared.
Pour in approx 250 ml of veggie or beef stock and stir.
Add the tin of tomato and onion relish.

There should be quite a lot of liquid in the pan now, turn down the heat and simmer for about 10 minutes.

That is all:)

Boil your organic spaghetti until al dente and then serve.
Sprinkle a little cheddar and Parmesan cheese over your dish and add salt and pepper to taste.

Enjoy and have a lovely day!

Tomato and Onion Soup Recipe

Yesterday I spent most of the afternoon fighting my way through the tomato and pumpkin area of our veggie garden. You have no idea how crazy plants can get if they are left to their own devices for a week. It was wonderful though, to be working amongst the veggies and discovering hidden treasures amongst the foliage. There was slight drizzling of rain, the perfect weather for garden work. I managed to collect quite a few tomatoes from the heart of the mass of plants and they taste so sweet, so good indeed!

I also got a head start on those weeds that like to grow all over the place. With all the rain we have been having, they are huge! The ground is lovely and soft after the constant thunderstorms, so pulling them out has been quite an easy job.

We have decided to grow more food for our family and develop the unused areas of our ground. Jenna and Erin have chosen their own veggie beds to look after. They are going to care for these beds, weed them and try succession planting as well. It makes me happy that they are serious about this and that they made the decision by themselves. We spoke about eating what is actually growing in season and not buying produce that has been flown in from overseas or kept in cold storage. They felt very strongly about us developing our acre of land here to sustain our family and then we can also barter produce with neighbours and friends. Feels right, feels good...

Last night I made a tomato and onion soup with veggies picked from our garden, I am so please with how it turned out, it got the 'delicious vote' from the family so I will definitely be making it again soon!

Tomato and Onion Soup:

Ingredients:
Olive oil 2 tablespoons
Garlic 2 teaspoons
Herbal salt
Black pepper
About 600 grams of tomatoes, you can add more
3 onions, diced
Chicken and vegetable stock, 500 mls
500 mls water
Half a can of butter beans, rinsed
4 chopped baby potatoes
Parmesan cheese

Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil to your pot. Once heated add 2 teaspoons of chopped garlic and then the diced onions.
Cook for about 5 mins until the onions have softened.
Chop up the tomatoes and add to the pot and stir.
Add 500 mls of chicken and vegetable stock to the tomatoes and simmer on a medium heat so the tomatoes can release their flavour, then add 500 mls of water.
Add the butter beans and potatoes and cook until the potatoes are soft or just add cooked potatoes.
Add salt and pepper to taste.
I used a potato masher to squash all the veggies a little before serving.
You could also add a little Parmesan cheese as a garnish and it tastes amazing too!

Enjoy!

Tuesday

Today has been a lovely, easy day. We built a quick reed fence to stop the chickens from flying over the wall to the back garden. This is where the dogs live and for some reason the chickens try their best to reach this part of our property. I am so relieved the fence is up and they are all safe and sound in the front garden now.

We are also having heavy rains tonight, it's actually wonderful, don't mention this to Richard, it has been raining for a few days now and he hasn't been able to ride his bike, so he isn't too thrilled about all the rain, (my poor love). Jenna and I made a delicious Jamie Oliver pasta recipe for dinner. It's off of his Jamie Oliver Food Guide App, amazing and well worth it!

I also picked some Canary Yellow Spinach and cooked it up stalks and all with some coarse salt, pepper and fresh cream, yum! Can you believe how yellow those stalks are, just love it. These were from some heirloom veggie seeds I planted a few months ago.

Well, I'm off to bake a chocolate cake for my dad's 83rd birthday tomorrow.
What have you been doing today?

Father and Son

We have had a lovely Saturday, we were busy most of the morning with shopping, I have been slowly gathering all my ingredients and materials for the cold processed soap making. I found some candy thermometers and I have my oils ready. We came home and Richard and Kye baked banana bread together, it was so sweet watching the two of them mixing and eating the ingredients... It was a special time... If you would like to make the recipe go here.
Well, now I am off to the kitchen to attempt my first soap batch from scratch, I am a little nervous but Richard is there to lend a helping hand, wish me luck! I will let you know how it all turns out soon.
xo
Linda

Chinese Cabbage Oven Veggie Chips

Thank you all for your well wishes! You are so kind and thoughtful:) I adore this space, where I can come and write my thoughts and feelings, where I connect with the most wonderful people from all over, each day.... Thank you:) I am feeling a lot better today, the sun is shining and I can feel that Spring is approaching too, which is just wonderful!

I thought I would try and make some Chinese cabbage veggie oven chips, I was a little sceptical at first, BUT let me tell you, they are just SO tasty and crispy. I know this is true because Richard walked into the kitchen after I had just made the first batch, looked at what I was making and looked a little concerned. Green leaves on a baking tray coming out of the oven??? Then he tasted them and well.... let's just say, I had to make a whole new batch:) He ate them all, loved them so... need I say more?? (They taste good)...

I used:

Chinese Cabbage

Olive oil

Have It Herbal Kitchen / Table Salt (seriously THE best herbal salt I have ever tasted!!)

These are so easy to make.
Tear up the cabbage into little pieces, pour some olive oil over them, grind some herbal salt over them and mix to ensure they are all lightly covered with oil and salt.

Space the pieces on a baking tray and pop into the oven on medium heat for about 10 minutes or so. You need to keep an eye on them as they can also burn easily too:) I am sure you could make these in your dehydrator too, it would just take a bit longer.

The finished delights! You must give it a try, you won't be sorry:) I am going to give beetroot chips a try next, wish me luck:)
xo
Linda (from a not too freezing, slightly warmer winter than usual, South Africa:)

What's Cooking? Curry...

We have been experiencing some really freezing weather here in Johannesburg lately and to warm us up we like to make delicious curry with wild rice... Together with the curry we also add, (inseparete bowls), some sliced banana, sliced tomato and onion, a small bowl of chutney and a small bowl of dessicated coconut. Sometimes we have poppadoms too!

Recipe:
Olive oil, 1 tbsp
1 onion, chopped up
Leeks, chopped
Chicken fillets, cut into strips
Potatoes, cubed with the skins left on
Mixed Vegetables, 1 cup
Turmeric, 1 tsp
Cumin 1 tsp
1 tin of coconut Milk
Water
Chicken stock, 250 ml
Chutney
Curry powder, 1 tsp
Salt and pepper

Put some olive oil into a pan and cook your onions and leeks, leeks add amazing flavour!
Cut the chicken fillets into strips and add them to the onions, keep stirring until cooked.
Cut up the potatoes with their skins on and boil them in a separate pot until cooked.
Add a teaspoon of turmeric and cumin to the chicken and stir.
Take 250 ml of chicken stock add to it 1 teaspoon of mild curry powder, stir and add to the chicken.
If you would like more liquid add some water.
Add the cooked potatoes to the chicken.
Add the mixed vegetables.
Add the coconut milk and a pinch of salt and pepper and stir.

Let all the ingredients simmer for 20 minutes on a low setting.

While everything is cooking, boil 1 cup of wild rice and make up your separate bowls of chopped tomato and onion, chopped banana, chutney and dessicated coconut...

If your curry is ever too hot, just add a little chutney to the mix and this will cool it down:)

I usually make quite a large quantity and then we have leftovers the following day for lunch. Have you ever noticed how amazing curry tastes the next day.... or is that just me?
Have a lovely day,
Linda

Chocolate Coconut Squares Recipe

This is the most delectable, scrumptious recipe for Chocolate Coconut Squares. The recipe was passed on to me by my mom, she has it hand written on a beautiful piece of writing paper and it is kept safely in her recipe folder. I also write my recipes on hand writing paper and always note where they came from. This process of writing out recipes is very special to me, that they are written and not simply printed out on a printer, the written word is so much more meaningful... When I was little I remember her baking these wonderful squares for us. It was always such a treat! You really have to try them, (even if just once ;) Jenna made up a batch this morning and we are all enjoying them with our morning tea:) They could even be given as a homemade gift at Christmas time...

Recipe:

Ingredients:

225 grams of butter

Half a cup of sugar

2 cups of flour

2 level teaspoons of baking powder

Pinch of salt

2 cups of coconut

1. 
   
   Cream the butter and the sugar until smooth.
2. 
   
   Sift all the dry ingredients and add the coconut.
3. 
   
   Mix well with the creamed mixture.
4. 
   
   Press the mixture into a square, flat baking tin.
5. 
   
   Bake for 30 minutes @ 170 degrees C.

Icing Mixture: 

Make sure your base is cool before you apply the icing:)

Ingredients:

2 cups of icing sugar.

1 Tablespoon of cocoa.

1 teaspoon of vanilla essence.

Add boiling water gradually and mix until a frim consistency has been reached.

Let it cool and then spread on the base.

Enjoy!

Yum!

Colourful Playdough Tutorial and Recipe

Hello Friends,

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! Thank you to everyone who stopped by and wished us a happy Easter:) We had a lovely weekend, we visited with family, went to see the Moscow Circus, this was amazing and we also went bicycle riding...

Jen has been making colourful playdough for her little brother, Kye. We are going to make all the colours for the days of the week... so far we have yellow, purple, green and orange. We just need to make red and then we are finished:) Enjoy the tutorial...

Playdough Recipe:

You will need:

1.5 cups of flour

1.5 Table spoons of cream of tartar

1.5 Table spoons of oil

Half a cup of salt

1.5 cups of water

Food colouring.

(If you want to make more, just double up the recipe:)

Put all the ingredients in a pot on a medium heat and stir constantly.

Keep stirring until you notice that the dough is coming away from the sides and is fully mixed. This is very important, otherwise, it will be too sticky. It shouldn't stick to your hands at all. When you notice it coming away from the pot and attaching to the spoon, it is ready:)

Share the Love Heart Swap:

Our Heart Swap is well underway, there are so many crafty mamas taking part, it is wonderful to see all of your  amazing talent:)
If you would like to take part, feel free to email me lindadawkins@mweb.co.za or Heidi gerry@mweb.co.za and send us your full name, address, blog link and email address and we will partner you up with a swap partner:)

We also have a Flickr group for participants to post photos of their beautiful heart projects:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/sharetheloveheartswap/

Natural Kids Giveaway on the 15th of April:

I am also very excited to tell you all that on the 15th of April, I will be hosting a Natural Kids Giveaway:) If you would like to see who Natural Kids are visit here. You can also click on the button in my sidebar to see this amazing group of talented artists:) Don't forget to stop by on the 15th for their lovely giveaway:)

Have a wonderful day,
Warmly
Linda
75P3M5BTMN86

Elderflower Cordial and Garden Produce...

Today, early this morning, Jenna and Erin and I began preparations for making Elderflower Cordial. We have been waiting for our beautiful tree to be in full blossom and today was the right day...

We measured out the correct amount of flower to water and sugar ratio...

Boiled up the sugar and water and poured it over the flowers, we used this wonderful book for the recipe: http://www.amazon.com/Festivals-Family-Food-Diana-Carey/dp/095070623X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256313010&sr=8-1

We also went looking in our veggie garden to discover so many pea pods were ready for picking and eating... (not many pods made it back to the kitchen...)

Our strawberries are also ready and some had little visitors, if you look closely at the strawberry, you will see a little worm...

Radishes...

Our nectarines...

Great excitement, today we went and bought a solar oven, we came home and immediately put it out in the sun. It worked so well, we had boiling water in no time at all. This little stove can cook for a family of 6 and even roast veggies and chicken and bake bread! I can't wait to cook with it tomorow again...

Tuesday...

Today is quite chilly outside, actually my fingers feel freezing on the keyboard, but I love to visit all your blogs and see what everyone has been doing so far in this week. We have just come back from guitar lessons and my children have built a double tight rope and are having such fun! Next week we will be building a platform tree house in our Oak Tree in the back yard and they want to have a pulley system linking between that and the other Oak tree, exciting times ahead...

This is Ben and River, they are two Turtle doves that Jenna and Erin rescued and have been taking care of over the last two weeks, they are almost ready to be released and are so beautiful.

Drawings from Ancient Greece and Astronomy from Jenna:

Grecian Urn:

Leo and Hercules:

Orion:

Erin has just finished her second Man and Animal Block and now we are starting Beowulf:

Caiden is enjoying Fables still and he is almost finished his block:

The Fox and the Crow:

Caiden's desert scene for verbs and nouns, sounds animals make in the desert, we are still busy with this.

Lastly, my Shabby Chic Donkey I knitted from my yarn I spun on my spinningwheel.

Don't forget to leave a comment for the sock wool giveaway, just page down a few posts to find it.

Lunch:

Today we are having a real South African lunch, we are having Pap and Gravy it is really yummy and really filling,

Recipe:

Ingredients:

1 Bag of Mielie Meal ( crushed dried white corn)

Gravy:

4 Tomatoes, 1 onion, beef stock, salt, pepper, oil.

Bring 1 litre of water to the boil, once water is boiling add 4 cups of mealie meal and cook slowly for about an hour or until it is fluffy.

While this is cooking, take another pot for your gravy,

Gravy:

Cook your chopped up onions and tomatoes in a little oil then add about 1 tblsp of beef stock and mix into your tomatoes and onion, add some water and allow you gravy to cook until it is lovely and thick.

Add salt to taste, it is really divine, we eat ours with some Achar on the side, yummy...

Dish up your pap and pour on your gravy and there you go...

Have a great day...

Potato Wedges

Yesterday we all helped and cooked dinner together, it was really nice to have the whole family helping. We made a supper with food grown from our garden. We also made a big portion of potato wedges.

Here is Kye helping from his stove.

Here is our potato wegdes recipe, it is really divine:

Take as many potatoes as you want, and cut them into wedges. Place them in a good sized dish and pour Olive oil all over them, then sprinkle Rosemary and herb salt over the wedges. I usually add about 1 clove of crushed garlic as well.

Move the wedges around before they go into the oven and make sure they are well covered with all the ingredients.

Set your oven to 180 degrees C and bake for about an hour, or until your potatoes are cooked. Take them out of the oven and move them around in the sauce again and then return them to the oven and grill for a short while, just to make them a little crispy. Be careful not to burn them.

Here is the finished product, they truly do taste amazing, enjoy!!!!

Lemon Cordial

We have five lemon trees in our garden and they are all full of lemons at this time of year, so Jen and I decided to make Lemon Cordial with our bounty of lemons. This is a recipe from granny and it is lovely.

Ingredients:

3 lemons

2 teaspoons of citric acid

900 grams of sugar

a large bunch of mint

750 ml boiling water

Grate all the skins off the lemons and place them in a bowl, then squeeze the juice from the lemons over the skins. Add all the other ingredients, pour the boiling water into the bowl and stir until the sugar has disolved, crushing the mint at the same time.

Let this mixture cool down and then strain and bottle when cool. It can be stored in the fridge.

Because this is a cordial, you only need to pour a tiny amount in a glass and fill the rest of the glass with filtered water. This is such a refreshing drink, enjoy!

Mozarella Cheese

I was looking at various blogs today and I came across:
http://www.littlehomebiglove.blogspot.com/
please visit their site for the recipe for their Mozarella Cheese. They have this lovely Mozarella cheese recipe that is so quick and easy to make and since Erin is in grade 3, I thought it would be a good opportunity to make more cheese. It is hardening in the fridge now, but I thought I would blog the photos of our experience.
The milk has boiled, the vinegar has been added and it is starting to curdle.








After 15 minutes the milk is completely curdled.














Draining the cheese. Don't forget to add salt.














We tied the cheesecloth onto a spoon over a bowl to drain and harden a little.










Here we have taken the Mozarella out of the cheesecloth . Thank you Littlehomebiglove for sharing this process with us, we really had a wonderful time making it and we can't wait to taste it tomorrow.

Lemon Cheese

Today as part of Erin's Farming Block she made Lemon Cheese! It was so quick, I was amazed. This is the big ball of cheese that she made from 1 litre of milk and the juice from 3 lemons and a pinch of salt. In the photo the cheese has been hanging in the cheese cloth for half an hour. It has already become quite hard! The longer you let it hang in the cheese cloth, the drier and harder it becomes.

We were able to eat it on crackers after half an hour, it was fantastic!!

Banana Bread

Today we had so many bananas and because it's Richard's favourite, I decided to bake banana bread. It turned out divine and I am going to share my recipe with you. It has been in our family for quite a few generations:

 

Ingredients:
125 g butter
1 cup brown sugar
2 free range eggs
2 cups flour / 8 ounces
2 tsp baking powder
4-6 really ripe babanas
1 tsp vanilla essence
half tsp salt

1. Beat sugar and butter until creamy then add vanilla.
2. Add eggs one at a time and beat.
3. Sift dry ingredients together and add to butter and sugar mix.
4. Mash babanas and add to the mixture.
5. Mix well and put into a small greased loaf pan.

Bake @ 180 degrees celsius for an hour.
Enjoy