Pages

Wednesday 24 September 2014

Lately












1. We broke in our juicer for the first time since purchasing it almost two years ago. Why did we wait so long?!
2. Family pizza night at Aunty Ash & Uncle Al's house
3. Grazed knees is where we're at right about now
4. Day visits from Oscar & Renee
5. Books before bedtime with Daddy
6. Busting out the Boleslawiec tea cups for morning tea with Elle

Monday 15 September 2014

Simple Kale Chips

For the past couple of weeks I've been obsessed with making these super simple kale chips as an afternoon snack, and some days I make a batch up as my lunch. I've previously avoided making kale chips because whenever I've googled 'simple' recipes they always end up requiring multiple ingredients I don't already have in the pantry, and I'm not very confident to improvise with recipes just yet (unless Luke is here to help me!). Kale is a vegetable we usually buy each week, and after we scored a plentiful bunch a couple of weeks back I started to get the kale chip nagging itch again. I looked through a handful of helpful recipes but ended up going rogue and making my own simpler version.

All you need to have on hand to make these simple kale chips is a couple of leaves of kale and coconut oil. If you don't have coconut oil you can use olive oil instead, I've made batches using both and they do the same job.

1. Pre heat your oven to 180 degrees

2. Roughly tear up your kale leaves into small pieces discarding the stem. I found it was much easier & less time consuming to just tear the pieces off the stem rather than cutting them up with a knife. The smaller the piece of kale, the more likely it is to get burnt so keep your kale pieces relatively bigger

3. Heat a heaped teaspoon of coconut oil in a pan over the stove. If you're making a bigger batch of chips you'll obviously need more oil than a teaspoon

4. Using an oil brush, lightly coat the kale pieces with oil on both sides 

5. Lay out the kale pieces on a baking tray and bake for 8-10 minutes. Keep your eye on them, kale chips can be pretty easy to burn. You don't necessarily have to season your chips as they already taste great on their own, but if you do prefer to season them try sprinkling a little bit of taco seasoning for a little bit of bite. Or salt, salt is good too!

Simple, huh?

Friday 12 September 2014

Brunch At Aunty Ash's House

My sister Ashleigh scored herself a long weekend off work to go to Kanye West, but before she set off on her exciting weekend with her girlfriends Romy & I spent the morning visiting and we had a little brunch date together.

On her morning travels Ash picked up some delicious jalapeƱo & cheddar bagels for our  brunch date. It's been a good couple of months since my last bagel and now that I've had a taste for them again I can feel a little bit of bagel fever coming on. I'm sure if I ask nicely Luke might bake a batch on his day off.

While Romy usually doesn't shy away from spicy foods, today she wasn't open to trying the bagels and stuck to her banana, blueberry & orange bread I baked during the week. I most definitely will be sharing this loaf recipe in the next couple of weeks because it would be extremely selfish of me not to considering how darn tasty it is!

During our visit Ash picked her first homegrown blueberry, it wasn't quite ready but it was still pretty exciting none the less! Ashleigh just recently bought her first home & the previous owners had planted a pretty extensive fruit & vegetable garden that has all kinds of things. I'm looking forward to our family dinners made using their garden produce.

I hope you enjoyed your Friday too & have a wonderful weekend ahead of you. I'll be working all weekend & Romy will be spending that time with Luke for the first time all by themselves. Fingers crossed I come home to a batch of freshly baked bagels!


<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/12600233/?claim=mdwsbc8t3kc">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

Thursday 11 September 2014

Spring, You're Here!

Today was the first real day of spring. For the past couple of weeks the weather here in Newcastle has been miserable and frustrating. During the middle of winter we were fortunate to have a good month of nice sunny t-shirt wearing days that unfortunately racked up a mighty fine cold & rainy debt. And for the past few weeks we've been shut inside watching The Wiggles waiting for the storm to pass, so to speak. I usually love winter, give me a cardigan and a hot water bottle any day & I'm happy. But its days like today where the temperature isn't bothersome in the slightest that wins me over - that and a good bunch of perfectly arranged (thanks Renee!) spring fresh flowers!