Play dough time!

Another rainy day, another indoor activity! Lack of clothing while making it was Maisie's nod to the summer. Making play dough is the perfect impromptu activity, as all the ingredients are usually to hand. We got the idea from this lovely blog.

Play Dough

2 cups flour
2 cups warm water
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon cream of tartar
1 cup salt

The salt is to preserve the mixture and like Erin I didn't have enough so I just stuck in a little bit. We mixed everything together and heated it in a pot until the mixture clumped together in the middle of the pot.

When it cooled a bit we added some food colouring and mixed it up. Sticky and fun!

 

Truthfully though, our play dough didn't turn out that great. It was too sticky. I was too impatient with the cooking I think! Sometimes I have this problem with the simpler things...yesterday I made THE worst rice crispie buns ever and I burn the porridge more mornings than I'd care to admit to. So the play dough was more fun to make than to play with. But the making of it was fun enough to want to try again and hopefully a little more expertly next time!

What doing doing?

When Maisie was younger a common phrase that was heard throughtout the day was 'What doing!?'

Then it turned into 'What doing doing?' (much to the amusement of our friend Labhaoise!)

So here's some stuff she's been getting up to lately......

It's the little things....

.........hawthorn in bloom along the lane way.

 .....the house martins, recently returned and rebuilding their nest above our door.

 .........cupcake experimentation (the truly yummy Sweet Almond Cupcakes from Get It Ripe and Fairy Buns from The Gentle Art of Domesticity.

...spotting hares in the field beside us. 

.....wild flowers on the table.

...the sweet smell of lilac filling the house. 

 ....sharing breakfast and a walk with old friends out on the bog!

Yes it's the little things alright, that are brightening up my days!

Carrageen Moss Pudding....and some excuses!

Soooooo. I had no laptop for a while....then somebody got sick of my complaining and now I'm the proud owner of my own portable computing device! Might be time to start complaining about my camera situation!

Starting April 1986 a regular, (but not much enjoyed, sorry Mam!) part of our diet was Carrageen Jelly. Carrageen, meaning 'little rock' in Irish is a seaweed that has been used in Ireland for generations as a remedy for coughs, colds and other ailments. Recent research shows that it has antiviral properties but it's the high concentration of iodine in Carrageen that made it of interest to our Mam. In the months after the Chernobyl accident that released radioactive material into the atmosphere and over parts of Europe, she served this jelly to top up our natural iodine stores. Iodine, that can in some way protect against the effects of radiation.

On the 11th of March once again we had a terrifying reminder that we are not in control of this planet we inhabit and it behoves us to take care of our planet and ourselves if we want to remain here.

Being a practical Mammy, my Mum was quick to deliver a package of Carrageen Moss with instructions to feed it to her precious Granddaughter as often as possible! That night at 11.30pm (that's when I get extra things done!) I started cooking.

I figured my Masie mightn't go for the jelly of our childhood so I reached for Irish Seaweed Kitchen: The Comprehensive Guide to Healthy Everyday Cooking with Seaweeds and found Myrtle Allen's Carrageen Moss Pudding recipe.

I adapted her recipe a little, since we had no eggs I used apple purée but I think the apple worked really well with the recipe.

Firstly (and most importantly!) it pleased the palate of our youngest family member and second it tasted pretty good to the rest of the family!

Carrageen Moss Pudding

from Myrtle Allen

in Irish Seaweed Kitchen

3.5 - 4.5g carageen moss (I used a handful!)

1 1/2 pints milk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla pod seeds

1 1/2 oz sugar

1 egg, separated (I used a cup of apple purée)

1. Soak the carrageen in cold water for ten minutes, then remove and put in a saucepan with milk and a vanilla pod.

2. Bring to the boil and simmer very gently for 15 minutes, semi-covered, taking care that it does not boil over.

3. The carageen will now be swollen and exuding jelly.

4. Pour through a strainer and into a mixing bowl.

5. Rub the jelly through a strainer and beat it into the milk with the sugar, egg yolk (apple).

6. Whisk egg white and fold into mixture if using.

7. Transfer to serving bowl and serve chilled.

Making a yummy pudding and protecting us from radiation at the same time, is there anything this magic seaweed can't do! 

Seaweed bread

Maisie and I had a go at making 'white soda bread with duileasc' from Irish Seaweed Kitchen by Prannie Rhatigan recently.  Duileasc is the Irish for dulse, a seaweed commonly found in Irish coastal waters. According to Prannie this is a seaweed that has been eaten in Ireland since 3200 BC!  It also has the distinction of being mentioned in the Brehon Laws, a set of laws governing Ireland that was written in the 5th century.  You won't find a better accompaniment to roast fowl seemingly!

If you have a little helper in the kitchen first get her to mix the dry ingredients.

Then add the seaweed.....

 After a gentle mix, needed because the recipe uses spelt flour, pop in in the oven and 45 minutes later you have one very big and totally yummy seaweed soda bread!

 It looks and tastes soooooo good. Really hearty. We ate it with curried red lentil, chickpea and red kale soup. 

A perfect winter meal.

House happenings....

• Welcomed a neighbour back from hospital with a St. Bridget's cross, a card with Maisie's handprint and upsidedown pineapple cake.

•  Made spinach feta pie from Feeding the Whole Family. One of our family favorites.

• Found Murphy asleep on some warm knits and didn't have the heart to schoosh him off.

• Got the paints out to make Valentine's day cards...painting with a 17 month old is messy but always good fun. We printed the hearts using a potato. I was going to put up a pic of Maisie during this painting session but she had so much red paint on her it looked a little frightening!

• Found a new favorite cookie recipe in Get It Ripe. The Chewy Peanut Buttah Cookies are ridiculously addictive.

• Listened to Becoming A Jackal by Villagers a lot. So good.

Hope your week was good too. Happy Valentine's Day!

Family recipe book- 'Dad's scones'

When we were growing up, 'Dad's scones' were a regular and much enjoyed feature of our lives. Somewhere between Irish soda bread and an afternoon tea type scone, Dad's scones tasted best straight from the oven dripping with real butter. Yum.

I bake them every so often and right now I am tweaking the recipe somewhat to make them with vegan 'sour milk' instead of buttermilk. Mainly because I don't keep buttermilk in the house but always have rice milk. Also next time I'll be using spelt flour instead of wheat as it's just that bit healthier.

Dad's scones are the first recipe in our family recipe book. This was a great present I received from one of my favorite people in the world (and soon-to-be-blogger!), Becky. She took an old book and blanked out the pages, wrote in an occasional funny comment and left it to me to fill with whatever I chose. It's one of those things I would grab first if the house was on fire! I have recipes from my family and some friends and intend on passing it onto Maisie whenever she needs it.

  The scones turned out well, not as well as Dad's, but that's not surprising.

Dad's Scones (original version)

12 tbsp stoneground brown flour

1 tbsp white flour

2/3 tbsp sugar

1 tsp salt

1 tsp bread soda

1 tsp baking powder

3 oz marge

buttermilk to wet

1. Mix all the dry ingredients.

2. Add the marge.

3. Add the buttermilk till it's almost sticky.

4. Make into square shapes and bake in oven for 10 or 15 minutes at 180 degrees C.

5. Eat with proper real butter (salted if possible) and add a slice of cheese if your're feeling savory or if there's any homemade jam in the house then go mad!

House happenings (or what we got up to last week!)

Last week we baked the amazingly yummy oat, hazelnut and maple cookies from The Blazing Salads Cookbook, am, three or four times I think! We ran out of hazelnuts so substituted chocolate chips.

Maisie helped, if helping can be defined as finding all the chocolate chips that fell on the floor (and lots did....since she was helping) and eating them as quickly as possible.

            They lasted just long enough to take a few photos of.......

The apple cinnamon muffins from Get It Ripe, are so easy to bake, so healthy and so tasty for no sugar, wheat or dairy! We made them for our playgroup and to take over to a friends house so we've eaten rather a lot of them this week.

Lots of tidying up happened in anticipation of friends over for dinner on saturday night then lots of tidying the next day after the seven adults, three kids and six dogs that were over. I love dogs but cleaning up the hair from six dogs tested that love somewhat!

Refilling the bird feeder several times, we've got hungry birds here on the hills! All the usual culprits, Goldfinches, Blue Tits, Chaffinches plus the bigger crows that swarm down and scare all the others away.

Made Tamale pie from this book, enough for three days. Sure you get a bit tired of eating the same dinner every night but I love not having to cook dinners!

                   What happened in your house last week?