Strawberry Fields

 Our travels took us to the penninsula today. First a new adventure playground in Rye, followed by lunch at the Olive Grove but the pinnacle was a visit to Sunny Ridge berry farm.

I had never been berry picking before and the sales assistant wasn't very enthusiastic given we were at the end of season, she suggested berries would be hard to find. People walking back with empty punnents didn't help our expectations however we still went and it was great. 

 The kids wandered happily through the rows of strawberry plants. They had to look hard for good gruit, but they found it and filled their punnets, and bellies.

A birthday was celebrated and we made the trip home. While we were tired, our strawberries did not fare so well. They were getting squished purely from their own weight. Rather than put them in the fridge until they were off enough to throw away... 

 We made JAM! Yes, then and there. Strawberries were cleaned and crushed.

Equal parts of fruit and sugar, lemon juice (from our tree) and I put in some vanilla bean. Basically we melted the sugar and then boiled it til it set on a plate and bottled it. 

Delish.

Baking up a storm

The bitch has left the kitchen!
Baking is not my forte. While I am happy to give it a go, it is not my passion. The end result is fine, but for your own safety, just don't come near me while I am at it.

For our fabulous school cake stall cakes are provided by Prep and Grade 1 parents. With 2 I needed to do double.

Here is my lemon poppyseed cake (from a packet mix) and twice baked cookies - recipe here. 

 The second batch was chewy choc chip cookies - recipe here  and finally Humming bird cake without the walnuts recipe here. (SO EASY and YUMMY!)

Really the drama came down to bad planning. Everything cooked at a different temperatiure. The sink was already full of dirty dishes resulting from the prior impromptu fridge clean out. Every open package in the pantry decided to fall on my head. Not all at once of course - just each time I needed something. And finally - bad time mangement. I really should have started before this afternoon with a delivery time of before 5!

All that being said - they ended up looiking really good. The kids tell me the cookies taste great. Lets just cross our fingers on the cakes.
Here is an early pic of the stall complete with bunting. Looks enticing doesn't it.

more space party- food

Food is an important part of any party, and as our was over lunch time, I wanted to make sure they didn't eat a load of junk. There are also some kids with alergies (to egg and dairy) and some fussy ones, so I didn't want anyone to feel left out. Finally, I wanted it to fit within the space theme. So with this in mind I set my menu.
The first was a moon pizza. This was an activity as well. Each child was given a silver tray (shown below) with half and english muffin in it and I put out pizza toppings for each child to make their own pizza - tomato sauce, cheese, pineapple and ham. They enjoyed doing this and usually will eat something they've made. Each was named and put in the over. Once they were sitting at the table, the other food was brought out -
- fairy bread made with dairy free spread and cut into space shapes with cookie cutter
- chips which were dairy free (although the cheese balls were an exception)
- the space melon. I had covered a watermelon with tinfoil and scooped out the inside melon. The lid was also covered in silver. Inside I had used mum's all balling tool to make little balls of honeydew and watermelon as well as cantaloupe.
- Rocket ship dogs - were simply little skinless franks in bake at home rolls.
- for drinks the kids had the choice of pop-tops in apple or apple blackcurrent juice and we refilled them with water - these are great because they save on spills.

The cake was the same as the invitations. Half of this was a basic slab cake that I bought from the supermarket. ( I was sewing there was no time for baking!) The fire is an egg free, dairy free recipe that I found on the internet. This was a great recipe, easy and actually tasty - and a great standby for any time you don't have either eggs or milk and need to do a cake - I'm sure you could also alter it from chocolate.

Dairy Free Egg Free Chocolate cake Recipe
Ingredient
185 g flour
3 tblespoons cocoa
250g sugar
1 tsp bicarb soda
1/2 tsp salt
15 ml white vinegar
90 ml oil
250 ml water
1 tsp vanilla essence

Directions
Preheat oven to 180 degrees c. Combine dry ingredients in a bowl. Combine liquid ingredients. Add liquid ingredients and stir quickly. Bake for 40 minutes. Cool 10 minutes before turning out of the pan.