Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Fluffy Puffs ,Guilt and buckets


I'm ethnic, so that means I cook, clean and feel guilty . What do I feel guilty about? Doesn't matter really as long as there some guilt in my life. Not getting enough exercise, eating too much, not visiting aged parent often enough, not checking my spelling. Blah, blah, blah You know how it goes. Now I'm being helped in my quest to be a good ethnic by all the regulations and water restrictions. I'm really trying to save water but I hate being made to feel guilty all the time. I've reduced my showers to less than 4 minutes and I catch the first lot of cold water in a bucket. My house is full of buckets. I'm a bucket connoisseur now. My kitchen has 2, 3 in the laundry, 1 in the bathroom. I feel guilt if I don't put all my washing machine water on the fruit trees, guilt if I don't know whether something is recyclable. Do you know that bucket rhymes with an extremely rude expletive! I'm not saying it but I'm thinking it. If I have to feel guilty then the best guilty feeling is eating Fluffy Puffs.
Everyone needs these!!

250g Ricotta (smooth)
2 eggs
2 tblspn vanilla essence
120g plain flour
1 tspn baking powder
1/2 tspn salt
Oil for deep frying
icing sugar to serve
plate with paper towel to absorb some of the oil

Method:
Whisk together eggs, sugar and vanilla until pale and light, Fold in ricotta.
Mix together flour and baking powder then fold it into the egg and ricotta.
Heat some oil . ( not too hot else the middle doesn't cook through)
Drop in a teaspoonful at a time . (about 1/4 the size of a walnut - it fluffs up to the size of a small walnut !)
Don't overcrowd the pot. 5 -6 is enough at a time.
Cook for 2-3 mins , turning over once.
When they puff up and are brown allover , remove with a slotted spoon onto the paper , then put on a plate and dust with icing. Makes about 35-40 balls

We've seen various versions of this recipe and have adapted this one a bit to suit us ( us being cooks who like things simplified where possible)
huggs Little Ma

Friday, November 23, 2007

Homemade is best


Hi Everyone
It was a friend's birthday a few weeks back and we were trying to think of a prezzy to get her. We were really into cooking that week so we decided to make her her own truffle filled tin and a packet of the best Burnt Butter Biscuits ever. The truffle recipe is one I made up. The decorations on the top tell you the flavours. The blue faces are the originals, the yellow squiggles are vanilla, the red swirl roses are rose water and the green question marks are brandy flavoured.

This green jumper is one I had to restart because I left it sitting for a few too many months. Consequently it did not fit me and I had to start the next size up. Hopefully it will still fit next winter. [trust me to finish it before summer (:




bye for now MnM

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Love my old TV and new socks


As a kid I always wanted to have a TV outside. So I dragged this old TV out of the attic ( It was our first TV from 1980) and it works a treat , except for SBS. We sat outside watching morning shows with our breakfast and in the afternoon - sport. I felt like I was on holiday without the hassle of packing, organising animalcare , getting there blah, blah. Love holidays , hate organising them. We took out some armchairs and footstools. Had shandies, softdrinks and chips. How decadent! I finished my Caspian Sea Socks while enjoying the outdoors and TV.
I used Bendigo machinewashable wool in almond and dyed it using foodcolouring.The original pattern used more traditional colours, I guess, but I wanted to try food colouring and wanted to keep it simple in case I needed more of a color. ( I didn't, had some left over and am trying to make a coloured knitted beret thing with the leftovers - more on that later) I loved the colourwork, the new stitches especially the edge and it was a free pattern from Knitting Daily. There were mistakes in it , some I left , others I fixed. But they fit me , and not anyone else in the family so that makes them mine !
  • Caspian Sea Socks


  • huggs Little Ma

    Friday, November 16, 2007

    Moggy monsters


    This week we finished making these cat toys which were started a few months ago. They were made out of some leftover handspun wool we had laying around. They were originally circular in shape but we made one a little too big so decided to make a snowman -like toy. Mistakes aren't always a bad thing.

    hiya
    Aren't they cute.These little monsters just grew with each idea. I love when projects grow with inspiration and end up different to the original idea. It's just so much more fun than planning and working to a plan - sometimes : )
    huggs Little Ma