Those Calzones

This recipe has changed the way I do pizza.  Seriously.  We used to buy 95% of our pizzas as a convenience food and 5% of the time when we wanted something a bit nicer I would make something, though usually on a bought base.  Slowly things started changing and I started making more and more of our pizzas and the bought base changed to flat bread bases.  Then I started using this recipe and now we probably make 95% of our pizzas from scratch and buy the occasional one when I need Wolf to grab something on his way home from work after all my plans for the day have fallen in a heap.

This is our pizza base, calzone shell, cheeseburger roll up dough, it's so easy and it's so fun for the kids but without the mess that kids cooking usually involves.

Grab a bowl with a lid, make it a lid that fits well, not just a cover.

Chuck in...

1 3/4 cups SR flour

handful of grated cheese (60g?)

1/4 cup olive oil

2/3 cup water

pinch salt

pepper

"Pizza Topper" herb mix or whatever herbs/spices you want.

put the lid on, make sure it's fitting tight.  Hand it to a kid and tell them to shake it in a circular motion (or just shake it if they are like my kids).  If you don't happen to own one of these genius labour saving devices then you can shake it yourself.  Or if you don't have a bowl with a good fitting lid you can just stir it with a spatula or your hands.

Now you have your dough... you need to turn it into something... It's got quite a bit of stretch to it so I find it easiest to work it with my hands rather than a rolling pin.  For the mini calzones I pulled off chunks a bit smaller than a golf ball and made a flat "circle" about 10cm diameter.  I say "circle" because it sure wasn't a square or a triangle but it was also lacking some rather important circle identifiers... like actually being round, and symmetrical and stuff... but you get the picture.  Anyway, spread the whole thing with sauce of some sort leaving about 1cm all around the edge sauce-free.  then put your fillings on half the circle still leaving your sauce-free zone free from toppings too.  For the boys I use ham/bacon and pineapple and cheese. Then fold the edge over with a sort of pinch and roll thing to make sure it's good and shut.  If you are making bigger calzones you will need to prick them with a fork but I find for these mini ones that they don't need it.  You could probably brush them with milk or sprinkle them with cheese or something at this point but I don't think they need it.  Chuck them in a moderate oven until they are browned and cooked looking.  About 15 minutes but it's going to depend on how big you do them and how thick you make your bases.

I press the dough out REALLY thin for both these and my pizzas.  The cheese and oil in the crust makes it kind of crispy but the cheese also seems to make weak points as you are trying to spread it out.  I am sure I have forgotten something here, I have been imagining myself making them to try to make sure that I don't skip a step but I probably still did.  When I make pizzas usually I make a double mix and do one pizza each for Wolf and I and the boys make a calzone each.  Wolf eats a pizza and there is some of mine left for our lunches and Lion and Dragon each have some calzone left to go in the fridge for their lunches.  It works well.

I have also used this for a side dish... spread out your pizza base and then spread out some cherry tomato halves, sprinkle with crumbled feta and then drizzle with olive oil... or mix minced garlic in with the dough mix and just use Parmesan on the top of the pizza... or top your pizza with feta, Parmesan and cheddar... mmmmm, yummy.

If you like a thicker base you can add 7g of dried yeast and make it hot water and then once you press it out into shape you cover it with plastic wrap and leave in a warm place for 10-15 minutes.

I have tried to put a photo with this but it's just not working so if you want to see them again you can go here.

I was also going to do a whole cooking show for you but just making sure I gave you all the ingredients was challenge enough for me...

Now go and make some pizzas and calzones for the ones you love!

Slimey Slimey SLIME!

When you are having a Messy Construction Site Party you need some messy stuff for all the tiny little construction workers to play with. So, Dragon and I had a special little time on his birthday making 20 Litres of slime for the party. I had made this before but I couldn't remember the recipe so I looked it up and then I thought I would record it here for future use and to share with the wider slime loving community.

First you gather all your stuff. Because we were making lots and lots we needed a great big trugtub to hold our slime and the only main ingredient ingredient is... Lux Soap Flakes... shown here by my incredibly handsome model.

Measure out 1 cup of Lux for every 2L of water you want to use.

Start adding warm water. If you don't have a little tiny helper you can start with boiling water to dissolve it faster then add cool water to bring it back to a usable temperature. I just used water from the hot tap for the whole thing because I knew it wouldn't burn my sweet assistant as he stirred it with a whisk for me.

Once you put in the right amount of water just keep stirring. Add any colours you want at this point so you can make sure the colour is what you want. Adding it earlier can mean you add way too much or way too little. So add it now and put in a bit, stir it, a bit more, stir it, until you get the colour you want. The foam on the top doesn't colour much and will trick your sweet little assistant into thinking you don't know what you're on about. Not that you could tell that's what he was thinking from this photo.

Pull back the foam and prove to your chocolate coated assistant that it is a beautiful iridescent snot colour and you actually might know a thing or two about slime making. Only for captain chocky-face to inform you that you haven't got rid of all the soap flakes (they do continue to dissolve as it sits).

Leave it to sit and cool and the slime will thicken and get all slimy and goopy... tease your kids when they are in the bath by pretending to sneeze on them and flicking slime everywhere... Pull it out for your modified pass-the-parcel game for the next days birthday party.

After all your friends have left, put on your daggy clothes, grab any willing children and have a slime fight!

Just in case you missed it in all the fluff the recipe is... 1 cup Lux Soap Flakes, 2 Litres of warm water, stir until soap dissolved, stir in colouring, leave to sit and cool.

Can I have another piece of...

CHOCOLATE CAKE





*Theme music and jingle fade out and Mummy McTavish is standing in her spotless kitchen (that her personal assistant cleaned for her) smiling into the camera, head tipped slightly to one side Nigella-esque (have you noticed she does that??? it bugs me, I think she has an ear infection... she should get that looked at).*


Hi and welcome to this weeks episode of Mummy McTavish Can Cook. Today we will be baking a milk-free, egg-free, butter-free chocolate cake that I have discovered. I found the original recipe here but I read through the comments section and decided to edit the recipe straight up. Thankfully it worked -I am, after all, head chef of Chalet McTavish I should never have doubted myself. It's a very moist cake and I think if you are on a gluten free diet it would translate well to some of the GF flours. They tend to make a denser cake from when I've cooked with them which would work well with this recipe. That would make it free of all your major allergy and intolerance foods... good for a birthday cake to send to school! (just don't go and add a butter icing ☺)



Grease and line a 10 inch round cake pan *camera shows a perfectly lined pan belying the fact that the personal assistant took 2 goes to get it right since she cut the paper WAY too short the first time* and do make sure you double check that when your spring-form pan was last put away that the base was inserted correctly. *Mummy gives death-stare to personal assistant then smiles sweetly back at the camera*

From the pantry we will need *show ingredients already measured by previously mentioned personal assistant and sitting in sweet little ceramic dishes waiting to be thrown together so viewers believe the cake takes 3o seconds to put together instead of the real life time of 10 minutes*

375 g plain flour

300 g white sugar

100 g brown sugar

40 g cocoa powder

9 g baking soda

9 g baking powder

160 ml vegetable oil

475 ml water

30 ml white vinegar

10 ml vanilla extract

Now it really is a simple cake to put together so here we go...

1. Sift the flour, cocoa, baking soda and baking powder together and combine with white and brown sugars. Really, SIFT IT. NO, you can't get away with skipping it. JUST TRUST ME


2. In a separate bowl combine all the wet ingredients.


3. Dump all the wet ingredients straight in with the dry and mix on low speed until combined then increase speed and mix well.


4. Pour into a greased and lined 10 inch round pan. It will also work as mini muffins, Texas muffins, a bar cake, whatever)


5. Bake at 180C for 40 minutes or until a skewer in the middle comes out clean. Now do remember that time is not going to be accurate for any oven except mine since it's currently marching to the beat of it's own drum.


6. Cool the cake in the pan before turning out and icing.

Here's some I prepared earlier *flashes her dazzling smile at the camera*

*shot fades out as Mummy McTavish can be heard screaming "Who ate the mini muffins I made for the show? I told you DON'T EAT THE MUFFINS but what do you do? YOU EAT THE MUFFINS! I'm a celebrity, I don't need this..." fades to credits*

NO, Wolf is not the personal assistant referred to here! I know you were thinking it, but this is all made up!

A post by any other name would smell as... postlike?

All dressed up and ready for....

PLAYGROUP!!! It was Pyjama Day at playgroup today. For the first time in ages I didn't dread getting dressed to go out. I could be REALLY comfortable. The boys thought it was so much fun wearing their PJ's to playgroup. Don't look too close, my eyes say I'm all dressed ready for bed as much as my clothes do. Please also ignore the used nappy on the floor that had just been removed from a small child.

I was on the roster for craft so I thought I would share what we did today. Mostly though because I thought Dragon's craft was particularly beautiful. I wanted something simple that there was a chance that even my boys might be interested in (they aren't big on arty/crafty stuff) so I printed out a person outline and cut up pieces of old fabric for the kids to glue on to make some "Crazy PJ's" As usual the girls got right in and um'd and ah'd over where to put each piece and I had to really encourage Dragon to stick with it till the end. Lion didn't want to do it at all... not surprising, it would have taken his time away from the Mobilo. Then Dragon got on to colouring in the face... he has one eye, one ear, one nose and hair... lots of hair... and a beard. I think he's pretty great!

The only problem I had with pyjama day was that I couldn't wear my most comfy pj pants because they are 8 years old and wearing thin in A LOT of places. I have three pairs of the same style in varying lengths that I picked up when we lived in Bundaberg. The elastic around the waist is showing in spots almost the whole way round, the bottom of the legs are starting to look a bit tatty, I haven't even checked anywhere else for holes! I seriously put them on and thought about wearing them but decided my comfy Bonds tracky dacks would probably be a better option.

At nap time today I think we may have hit upon a winner. I'm not sure if it will continue but it certainly worked again at bedtime. We pretended we were getting on a plane to sleepyland. I was the captain making "boarding calls" (getting them to come to the bedroom) and we read the "flight plan" (story time) and gave them the inflight messages - keep your head on your pillow, keep your eyes closed, falling asleep will help pass the time faster, please keep your fingers out of your nose, I will provide you with inflight music as long as your eyes remain closed, I will now dim the cabin lights for your comfort during your journey... that sort of thing. I didn't have to speak to them after I left the room at either nap time or bed time. AMAZING!!! I didn't get a single request for the light to be left on, at nap time they even ASKED if I could close the (plane) door (something that usually gets shrieks and panicked screams any other time). We'll see if this keeps up.

I made Hillbilly Spaghetti Pie for dinner tonight... BOY was that a winner too! Lion ate so much I thought he would POP. I did put too much on Dragon's plate so I took some back off half way through and he finished what he had. Not a peep of "I don't like this bit" or "this isn't what I wanted" or "I'm not going to eat that stuff" or any of the things they usually try on us. OH BOY WAS IT GOOD! I think it's better than regular spag bog. The boys usually pick out as much tomato and meat as possible with spag bog and they didn't pick out anything with this, so I'm quite fond of that point too, CLEAN PLATES! I found it here at Be Encouraged a lovely new site I am visiting. But she got it from here. That's the link to the actual recipe. The absolute best bit... ONE POT! There's a few things that I am thinking of doing to this recipe but the one that attracts me most is to replace the cheese on top with a cheesy bachemal sauce but I need to weigh up if it's worth dirtying the extra pot to do that. Seriously, try this recipe! Tonight!

Cheddar Chicken Recipe

We are off on our holiday really soon I just have to get some children to momentarily forget about it so that they will go to sleep...

I thought I would post the Cheddar Chicken recipe with my own edits in purple from my big cook-fest the other day since people were asking...

Chimera's Cheddar Chicken.
(Yep, not mine, she makes it better than me too!)

Meat from one cooked chook. You can buy a cooked chook and pull all the meat off it or I just chop up a few thighs or breasts or whatever's in the freezer.
4 rashers bacon chopped and cooked. Or more... I like bacon.
1 pkt cream of chicken soup mix
1 pkt spring vegetable soup mix
water

cheese (um, it's up to you, I like it cheesy, but at least a cup)

1 onion
1 cup chopped veg. Or more... I like to hide as much as I can in there! I use carrot, zucchini, celery, all grated. I also use broccoli but I run my knife over the top to get all the "bubbles" to fall off I chuck them in then I grate up as much of the stems as I can until it gets too woody.
2 cups macaroni. 2 cups dry, then cook it up.
Herbs, S&P to taste. Honestly there's enough in there I usually forget and don't even notice.
1 each bacon and chicken stock cubes. Yep, usually forget these too!
Crushed clix biscuits. Or you can use breadcrumbs or nothing at all, its just a yummy crunch top for it.

Mix soup and water over heat until gluggy (think thickened cream consistency, it's usually a couple of cups of water but it can vary quite a bit)
Add grated cheese and stir till melted (hold back a little for the top).
Add EVERYTHING else except the clix and macaroni.
Gently stir through the cooked macaroni. I don't have a pot big enough because I make such a huge batch. I put the macaroni in the bottom of the dish, pour over the mix and stir it through as best I can.
Pour into an oven safe dish top with extra cheese and crushed clix.

Bake till brown and heated through. Or don't chuck it in the oven yet... this is where I freeze it. Then I just whip it out when I need it, defrost it for a bit then chuck it in the oven.

So there you have it. You can ask me anything you are unsure about but it might be a bit before I get back to you because I'll be chillin' and checking out some butt-flies and some lovely markets and some not so lovely markets and Myer and all sorts of fun stuff.

Happy Australia Day

Okay, the plans didn't go quite according to, well, plans. It was raining and although that isn't enough to stop the church cricket match it was enough to stop the Australia Day grinch (a.k.a. Wolf). So we stayed home and had a relaxing day.

But we did make Damper!

Damper is a basic bread created by the early stockmen. It has very basic ingredients because they weren't able to carry a lot of provisions with them away for weeks or months at a time.

The basic ingredients are...

3 cups of self raising flour

3 tablespoons of butter

salt

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup water

2 adorable helpers to make a massive mess.

We added some herbs so that we could have it with our spaghetti for dinner (I know it wasn't lamb but I didn't have any lamb)

You can add sultanas and other dried fruit and some sugar for a sweet bread.

Now it's time to get your hands dirty! Put all the dry ingredients in a basin and rub the butter through with your hands until it is like fine breadcrumbs.

Make a well in the centre and add the milk bringing the dry ingredients together to a dough.

Once it's all together tip it onto a floured surface and knead for a minute or two, while wearing some fantastic hats.

Shape into a disc, slice the top (Dragons was sliced in wedges, Lion got a crisscross pattern), brush the top with milk and sprinkle with more flour (or more herbs) and place on an oven tray.

Lion's loaf

Dragon's loaf

Bake in a moderate oven for 10-15 minutes until golden brown.

Tear it apart and eat it while still warm with lots of butter.

Have some lamingtons for dessert.

Hey good lookin' what ya got cookin'?

APPOLOGIES, this was started on monday... it's taken a while...

To most people this would look like a messy bedroom....

To me it was bliss. After hurling my guts up over the weekend I was not looking forward to a day on my own with the boys. I love having them to myself most of the time but they are high energy little things, and energy is not something I am high on at the moment. I had them both off to Lion's swimming lesson this morning (something I try not to do since Dragon just wants to dive in with him) and then home. Thankfully when grandma was free she came round to help for a bit and then left us for nap time. After nap I popped the boys in the playroom and wandered off to do some things. Lion informed me "we are playing in my room now" and they happily migrated to his bedroom. I went in and found this mess all over the floor and realised that they had grabbed the "kitchen" basket from the playroom to take with them. "We are making you a cake mummy" Says Lion "yeah, cake" Dragon adds for emphasis. "It's a birthday cake, it's just for you. But we didnt have any pickles to put in it" Mummy wonders who has been teaching these kids to cook. The cake consisted of a lettuce leaf, two chillies, and a spoon.

And as for the clean up... every good kitchen needs a dishwasher, so we improvised. For one cake they put about 5 loads through the dishwasher.
Lion told me that he made the cake and Dragon made me some jumping jelly beans (what his swimming teacher says he must eat for breakfast, boy did I need some of those) and something else I cant remember.

After they put lettuce and chillies in my birthday cake I figured we should do some real cooking and I just happened to be making something kid friendly for dinner so I got them up to the bench to help me top and tail beans and dice tomato. This is one of our favourite ways to do beans. A plate of steamed or boiled beans is not my idea of yummo but cook them like this and I could eat the dish full!!! I didnt have a lemon or pine nuts but I think it is just as yummy with peppitas (pumpkin seeds) and lemon juice from a bottle with do if i need to, one thing I really do prefer though is baby roma tomatoes or grape tomatoes, something small, halved and tossed in instead of chunks of tomato that fall apart as they are cooked. It's a slightly modified Jamie Oliver recipe.

The Bean and Tomato thing

(everyone in my family knows what we are making if I say that)

Beans

Tomatoes (see recommendations above)

GOOD olive oil (it's for flavour as much as the other ingredients in this one)

Lemon

Pine nuts

all the quantites are entirely up to the chef.

Top and tail the beans and cut them into bite sized pieces. I usually just cut them in half unless they are a really long bean, Lion cut each bean into 15 tiny pieces just because mummy let him use a sharp(ish) knife, Dragon threw the beans in whole because mummy gave him a bread and butter knife, but look at the look on his face, HE HAS A KNIFE!!!!

Chop up the tomato into bite sized pieces. Dragon was still hacking away at beans so Lion did one tomato and I did the other, I went very slowly because I was very nervous about Lion cutting up a tomato. They were VERY BIG TOMATOES.

Toss it all into an oven proof dish, squeeze over the lemon juice and a REALLY good slug of olive oil and a good handful of pine nuts/peppitas (they need to go crunchy). You can leave it in the layers so it looks like this but I prefer it all tossed through. then if you used a whole lemon, chop it up a bit and wedge those pieces down into it for some extra flavour (and they are really yummy when they stick tothe bottom and caramelise)

Chuck it all in a hot oven till it looks like this (about 40 minutes)

I made it to go with what were supposed to be crumbed lamb cuttlets but I think they were the proverbial "...dressed up as...".

Just remember, just because they make it doesnt mean they'll eat it. Dragon got no dessert and Lion was fighting to get it down to get some dessert.

And as for dessert, Lion found a can of condensed milk on the bench and wanted to cook with it. I tried to distract him with a packet mix until I realised I had no normal milk so i googled a recipe ofr condensed milk with no real milk and i found macarrons with just coconut and condensed milk. sounds great I have aobut 4 packets of coconut in the cupboard. Well, in goes the condensed milk, and the coconut that was left in the container and i went to get another bag of coconut out... oh dear... I have used up (finally) all my coconut. I thought we might have had just enough in the mix but aparently not... I dont think they are supposed to look like this... you probably shouldnt forget about them in the oven either...

I am going to just break them into chips and use them like wafers in icecream (yes we are eating icecream in the middle of winter and sleeping with the fans on too!!)

Brownie Smore Slice

With the bonfires we have been having I was looking for ideas for what else to put in S'mores. Traditional marshmallow and chocolate I know but I knew people have come up with all sorts of yummy concoctions. But there was a few places that I found variations on this...

Brownie Smore Slice

Make your brownies as you usually would (I know it's cheating but I LOVE the Betty Crocker packet mix without frosting, it's the perfect brownie).

Once they are cooked but before you take them out of the pan sprinkle with minimallows (i chopped up normal marshmallows) and shove it under the grill until they are toasted to perfection.

Whip them out and before they go firm again, top with graham crackers.

Okay, I used lattice biscuits because we dont have graham crackers here and to me they look like some sort of unappetising digestive biscuit so I can't see what the fuss is with them. The girls at my meeting last night thought it was great, the kids probably wont be tasting it because I just dont think the clean up would really be all that fun!