Recently in our house....

I've been doing a lot of baking to satisfy some of my "sweet" cravings. Trying to put healthy ingredients with the unhealthy - banana choc chip muffins. Super easy and quick. One i'll definitely make again. I can personally recommend them hot from the oven with a home-made flat white on a sunny day sitting in the garden. :)

Our kiddies are getting so grown up. I swear our girl Miss E has added two inches to her legs in the past 2 weeks. Master L is just a little dude. Loves to be silly and getting a sensible picture of him standing still is proving to be quite a challenge.

Trip to the dentist today for both of them. We take them twice a year for a check up with our own dentist, a lovely soft spoken scottish lady called Morag. Turns out Miss E has 3 of her adult molars coming through and a wobbly bottom left tooth. She was so delighted! I had a terrible experience with the dentist in my younger years and swore that my children would enjoy going, hence the twice annual visits and all the excitement I can muster running up to the appointments. Both sat in the chair without a hand hold and opened their sweet little mouths like professionals. I'm a very proud Mummy!

Bakin' bread

Give us this day our daily joy..ahem, i mean...bread.

This here is the third homemade loaf to eventuate this week. My mother-in-law loaned me her bakers oven a couple of years ago and i've used it intermittently. We used to only get through a shop bought loaf every 3 days or so. Now with two guzzle gut rascals and Mr (I inhale bread) Stef (i must think of a better blog name for him...) its more like every 1.5 days. Our freezer is measely and small. I daren't go to the supermarket every day. I can pop in for a $3 loaf of bread and spend $50 - how does that happen? Our financial advisor, if we had one, would go to an early grave. So, I am trying to get into a rythym of baking bread. Simple steps. Honestly. Simple. It's just a breadmaker after all...

• Ingredients ready and prepared as per the instructions. Easy.
• In they go; wet ingredients first. Done.
• Dry ingredients next. A doddle.
• Close the lid. Next!
• Press start. Okey dokey then.
• 5 mins later - open lid, check it's mixing.
• 5 mins later. Open lid again, prod dough. Too hard, add more water.
• 5 mins later. Open lid. Curse that the dough is now too wet. Add more flour.
• 10 mins later. Be proud that i've left it 5 more mins than last time. Open lid.
• 10 mins later. BEEEP. Dough cycle done. Open lid, check dough. Hmm, is it okay?
• 30 mins later. Remove dough from pan, hand knead, hand shape and put in loaf tin.
• Leave said bread to rise, observing its rise every 3-4 minutes until done.
• Preheat oven
• Place loaf in hot oven.
• Check baking process every 3 minutes until done.

Now surely the key of having the breadmaker is to let the machine do everything? Yes? NO! Sorry. Didn't mean to shout. That's what your supposed to do, but I'm Stef. I'm the control freak. I can't just press start and leave it to do its thing and have a baked loaf ready for me in 3 hours. Nooooo. Nope. I don't even trust the blasted machine to bake the bread for me. I've got to remove the dough, knead it a few more times myself, shape and bake it in the oven. Yes, I open the door to the oven every 5 minutes too. Wrong I know, but I told you C-O-N-T-R-O-L freak.

Maybe just freak.

I'm taking baby steps to rectify this. One day, I will do the following.

• Ingredients in, wet first, dry next, lid closed, press start. Leave house. 3 Hours later. Fresh bread

For now I'm content that there's actually been 3 loaves baked this week. I'll call that an achievement and leave it at that shall I?

Shopping and Baking

I spent yesterday morning at the Mall after dropping the kids at pre-school. It was great to wander around the shops with no-one pulling on my trouser leg or asking for this that and the next thing like money's no object (E!). I was choosing a gift for my sister-in-law, and thankfully also one of my closest friends. Fortunate to get exactly what I wanted I browsed the shops for and found these shoes on sale. I come from a family of women who like a bargain, so they were swiftly purchased; i won't tell you how much, but they were ridiculously cheap! Flat and comfy, just how I like them these days.

I was surprised to read on my mum's blog that she too had been shopping for a more worrying reason than my shopping expedition. Hoping to hear some news in the morning and wishing for the best news possible considering.

I love to bake when i get time. The aforementioned sister-in-law came around this afternoon with her mum and her mum's friend who were visiting. P always pulls a cake or two out of the hat for special occasions and birthdays, including my own, so thought to whip up a quick something to celebrate. This cake is soooooo easy and even more tasty, it's a staple bake for an afternoon tea. It was a lovely afternoon and thoroughly enjoyable to see Nana B again.

Here's to tomorrow's joy and Happy Birthday P. x