Spell-T Animal Crackers

Fun...The N cutter is a face with a big Nose. Not what I would have thought of for the letter N but I think it is my favourite cutter.

This is what I did today...made about 80 animal crackers. The first batch are spelt and honey and the second are oatmeal spice. While my Gramma Hobbs was cleaning out her apartment to move she found these really cute little animal cracker cutters. We love alphabet noodles and alphabet cookies and such, so these are a welcome addition to our pantry. We also found these cutters very useful with Playdough.

Oatmeal Spice Animal Crackers
(adapted from allrecipes.com)

1/2 cup rolled oats or (spelt flakes)
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons sugar
1/4 cup butter
2-3 teaspoons honey
1/4 cup buttermilk

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Grind oats until fine using a blender or food processor. (I use my coffee grinder)
2. In a medium bowl, stir together the blended oats, flour, baking soda, pumpkin pie spice, sugar and salt. Cut in the butter using a pastry blender or your fingers until the butter lumps are smaller than peas. Stir in the buttermilk and honey to form a stiff dough. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out to 1/8 inch in thickness. Cut into desired shapes with cookie cutters. Place cookies 1 inch apart onto cookie sheets.
3. Bake for 5 to 7 minutes in the preheated oven, until edges are lightly browned. Cool 2 minutes. Spell, eat. You could even top with cheddar cheese.
   

Lucy's New Threads

Sewing is just a different kind of recipe. In fact, I often mix up the terms and say I'm using a pattern for dinner and a recipe for sewing...
For Clara's third birthday she got a dolly from her Great Gramma Dorothy and named the dolly "Lucy". Gramma Dorothy is a wonderful seamstress and has always made beautiful things including doll clothes. I had a little spare time last night and was digging through my old patterns when I found a vintage pattern for doll clothes. I used some sweet fat quarters that my Mum-in-law bought me for my birthday and now Lucy has some cool new threads.

Driveway Art

The cottage was beautiful. It was so good to be with family and friends more regularly than usual. The kids loved having Gramma and Grampa to play with. All that said, Clara needed something to do today and since there was no beach or lake we made paint.

It is so easy to make that you could easily make every colour of the rainbow in less than 5 minutes.

Milky Street Paint

1/4 C cornstarch

1/4 C Water

food colouring

containers

Mix the cornstarch and water together until smooth and add as much food colouring as you need to make the colours you are requested to make...such as peach and turquoise and lavender.

Corners of the Kitchen

I have a very small kitchen but I really love it. There are so many aspects of it that are very personal and special to me.

I was reading this post about mason jar lights and happened to mention that I thought it was such a cute idea. That very day Jimmy installed one for me in our kitchen window. I love it.

Garden Greens and Beans

Our chard crop has popped up and is flourishing. This is my favourite way to eat it. Mr. Jibs cannot decide if he like the beans or the greens better.

Wilted greens with Poached eggs

1 bunch Swiss Chard

5 cloves of garlic,thinly sliced

2 shallots, thinly sliced

olive oil
salt & pepper
red pepper flakes (to taste)
6 sprigs thyme, chopped
1 can white beans beans, rinsed
1/2 cup chicken broth
1 tbs vinegar (i use apple cider)
4 eggs

Warm olive oil in a pan. Add garlic, shallot, thyme and red pepper flakes. Once they are fragrant (about 1 min) add your greens and saute until wilted. Add beans. Add chicken broth and apple cider vinegar.

Simmer for about 4 minutes...until all the flavors meld.

Poach eggs.

Serve with eggs on top.

Baking for the Cottage

We are up at the cottage this week enjoying creation, family and some of these treats.

A few new things

~My first zucchini was harvested today...so beautiful.

~Clara and I were feeling adventurous today so we decided to try something new- Hand kneaded, rolled and cut pasta from the River Cottage Family cookbook. We plan on eating it with a certain roasted zucchini and this sauce. This recipe for pasta gives a really nice pictured tutorial with an identical recipe to ours.

~Sunday Suppers has a great recipe for an Herbed Flatbread...we made that too.

Clara made this bread almost entirely by herself. I read the recipe to her and got out the ingredients and she went to it kneading and rolling, forming and topping. She proudly served her daddy and baby brother the bread she made herself.
Clara rolling out the dough for the flat bread.
Loving the zucchini.

Rows of beautiful pasta.