Peanut Butter in a No-chocolate-eating household

This blog has been a long time coming. The last couple of months have been crazy, full of uni assignments, work, church, uni assignments, wonderful friends, adventures, uni assignments and baking. Prior to moving house, while I enjoyed baking, I always preferred cooking. One of my favourite sayings is: 'Baking is a Science, but Cooking is an Art.' Maybe that was because I was just lazy, or maybe having a kitchen that is (semi) your own changes things (or maybe baking just offers some brilliant procrastination time) but suddenly I LOVE BAKING! Like right now. I am sitting at uni, doing assignments - and writing a this blog. 

Now to explain the title. 

Some might think its a complete waste of time to bake if it doesnt include chocolate. About 8 months ago I would probably have agreed, but since this is my year without chocolate, I have had to find a new medium. And I found it. Boy, have I found it. Anybody who has talked to me in the last two months can attest to the fact that I am, in want of a less tragic word, almost OBSESSED with Peanut Butter. It is the best and can go on 97.4% of things. (this has not been scientifically proven, nor should it be - thats just gross). 

You can, quite literally, eat it for breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner, dessert and snacks. Trust me, I have. While you can (AND SHOULD) use if for savoury deliciousness, this post is about baking, so I shall keep it to that. This blog is about some  the peanut buttery goodness I have discovered and tried out in the last few months. 

A few points before we start. 

- If you think it is just me who is obsessed with PB, think again. There are several sites dedicated to the stuff my personal favourite being 'Peanut Butter lovers.' This is real guys. Get on it. 

http://peanutbutterlovers.com/

- The deliciousness of your creation is directly related to the type of Peanut Butter you use. There is a peanut butter heirarchy. My personal favourite is Kraft. Its sweet, its goodness itself and can be consumed in its best form - just with a teaspoon. Sanatarium is like eating crushed peanuts  and '100% nutz!' gives the experience of eating glue. Eta is pretty good. Moral of the story: use Kraft. Life is too short to use rubbish Peanut Butter. Trust me. 

- The debate between crunchy and smooth. I prefer the taste of smooth, but Get crunchy. makes all these recipes about 150 times better. Smooth is good if you want to eat it by itself. And even for that crunchy is better. 

ALright. 

Recipe number One: Peanut Butter Granola

Found at: http://www.shape.com/healthy-eating/healthy-recipes/10-healthy-peanut-butter-recipes?page=2

Eaten best: For breakfast or dessert. 

Served Best: With your favourite type of yogurt. 

Tips: Use larger oats. Dont be stingy with the peanut butter. Keep an eye on it in the oven and turn often. While crispy granola might be yummy, burn isnt. 

Recipe Number Two: Peanut Butter Cookies. 

Found at: http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/peanut_butter_cookies/

Eaten best: For dessert. Or snack. 

Served Best: With a glass of Milk  

Tips: Dont bake until hard. Need to look slightly undercooked (not still doughy) but this will save the chewyness.  Eat when hot. tempted to say, only when hot. Again, crunchy peanut butter is best. 

Recipe Number Three: Peanut Butter Brownies. 

Found at: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/chewy-peanut-butter-brownies/#

Eaten best: ALL DAY. Eat whenever you have the chance. 

Served Best: With a glass of Milk. by them selves, doesnt matter. these are gold. 

Tips: Again, dont over cook. Keeps some of the chewyness. If possible. Eat when hot. Make sure you put some away first or there wont be any left anyway. Still good the nest day. Defy you to have any left after that. 

Recipe Four: Baked Peanut Butter Cheesecake. 

Found at: http://www.alaskafromscratch.com/2012/05/05/individual-peanut-butter-cheesecakes/

Eaten best: for dessert. 

Served Best: with nothing else. maybe a glass of water. 

Tips: just make filling. dont even bother making the base -  just eat by itself. Make mini cheesecakes as too sweet to eat much more than that. so, so good. 

Recipe Five: Peanut Butter Smores 

Found at: my own geniusness

Eaten best: for late night snack

Served Best: cant beat perfection 

Tips: Krispies. ONLY use krispies. Most delicious cookie ever made and, unexpectedly, the best combo with Peanut Butter. Krispies, Peanut Butter, roasted marshmellow. 

Favourite Snack: Peanut Butter and Krispies. All you need is this and a spoon. Go for gold. This is mine and Hellies favourite snack and possibly the best dessert in a hurry. Again, only use Krispies. and Kraft peanut butter. 

SO, now that you think Im crazy, and possibly need help, these are my fav peanut butter recipes. You can honestly go wild! and if you do/can eat chocolate, there is no combo better. 

Now to get back to that assignment. *sigh* 

An aunty on holiday

I am finally on uni holidays now. This is funny because it has taken me so long to write a blog about it that I actually start uni again next week. come to think of it, that aint so funny... *sigh*

Anyway. Holidays have been WONDERFUL!!! After a week of winter school, I have spent the rest of the holidays re-reading and re-watching the entire Harry Potter series (dont judge me, it was great), baking (this will feature in my next blog post), having adventures, family and friend catch ups, working (yay for the money!) and most importantly, being an aunty! Because of uni, I had slipped in my aunty role and was determined to get it back. Today was possibly the most fun. I wasnt expected to be looking after Ella-Brea and she has been feeling a bit sick. The weather was not looking altogether very promising, so I decided we should do one of my favourite things - make playdough.
I used this recipe by the Polkadots - best ever (you should have a look through the rest of their blog too. (awesome activities to do with kids) http://blog.polkadots.co.nz/2009/10/best-play-dough-recipe-ever/
I halved the recipe and it make more than enough.

In her apron (that I got her) haha

All ready to 'bake' 

After the dough had been made - ready to colour it

Isnt she the cutest, cleverest thing?! yes. she is.

primary colours. sorted. 

We then took time to get used to playdough and explore a bit.

 she wasnt too sure at first, but soon trying out all of its... qualities.

We then experimented with what happened when we mixed the primary colours. I say we, but it was mostly me getting excited about the colours we created. 

She really started to enjoy it, and I loved seeing her get excited about squeezing the playdough through her fingers and seeing what she could do. 

I had so much fun today! I love being able to have spend time with her. It doesn't take much, but its so fabulous! It also got us started with thinking scientifically, artistically and being able to manipulate space and materials.  Haha, the poor thing. she has a nerd for an aunty! 

And for any of you that are thinking that I am an awful aunty for now leaving her alone to write a blog post, she is napping. ;) 

Oh how I melt!! 

New Adventures

It has been soooooo long since I last wrote a post. Then again, it has been so long since I have had internet. The rectification of both is quite an exciting process.

So, for the news part, I have moved out!! It was actually quite scary at first. I have lived in the same home for thirteen years and it is a part of me. My dad spent so many hours fixing and caring for the house to make it into our home. Everything in that house brings memories of him, the staircase that he stripped and made, the tiling, the wood floors, the bathrooms. His love and energy is all throughout that house and so saying goodbye to it was quite hard.

Luckily my new home is the cutest thing of my life. I am so in love with it!!

Everything from the fireplace

and our ritual of roasting marshmellows

To my gorgeous room that I am going to pretend always looks this clean.

It is also pretty darn fabulous because I am living with three of the cutest people ever. My adorable niece

and my sister and brother-in-law. She makes everything look nice and we have fun baking together, and he does cute things like make dinner for when his wife gets home. 

It has been the best (nearly) three weeks and we have had so many adventures! - like new appliance shopping, and having no power or internet, having a deck being built, having a kettle blow up and much more. And having 5 uni assignments and 2 tests within a week and a half. But with all those adventures, I think however, that my favourite part is this: 

I also think that right now, life is pretty darn good. 

Most in-love Aunty Eva. ;)

I am not quite sure how it got this far in my blogging life to write about this, but today's Blog is about one of my favourite people in the whole entire world. 

My Niece. She is actually the most gorgeous thing of my existence. I am obsessed. It is almost to the state of ridiculousness, but we just let that slide as I also buy her the most gorgeous outfits. Exhibit A: white polkadot raincoat above with matching headband. Matching gumboots were also bought, but she is currently too little - major inconvenience. As is the fact that she has already out-grown the matching blue top and jeans I bought her previously. *sigh* I will just have to but her more. Exhibit B; a gorgeous pink and flower ballet dress that I got for her before I knew Helen was pregnant with her. Obsessed, I told you. (don't worry, photos are to follow when I have some of her wearing it...) 

Today is her first birthday. I am flabbergasted, astonished, in a state of unbelief and so forth. I cannot get over how much of my heart she has stolen in just one year!! and nine months... ;) 

As today is sunday, we celebrated her birthday yesterday with a zoo trip and then a dinner that evening with family and a few friends. 

Disclaimer: We did take (some) photos of the actual animals at the zoo, but who wants to see photos of giraffes and zebras when you can look at the adorableness that is my niece? So, I will tell you what we were looking at and then show you a picture of my niece. hahaha, makes you feel like you were there. ;) 

Disclaimer 2: I am a horrific photographer. It has never been a skill I  possess, so I have been working very hard to improve it. Not difficult as I really could only go up. So have patience. 

Disclaimer 3: My nickname is 'Ling', 'Eva-Ling,' 'Linglet' - this will make the following pics make SO much more sense. 

Start of our adventure - the opening of the first present from
Aunty Ling: matching winter set: raincoat, headband and gumboots. 

Matching mum and daughter - my two favourite people. ever.
This was at the entrance getting excited about going to the zoo and the bizarre mosaic lizard. 

Flamingoes: she thought they looked so funny.
Had to share her amusement with her mum. 

The Tiger: kept pacing right by the window - she was honestly  a couple of centimetres from her face . Naturally not the most calming of experiences - luckily Aunty Ling was there to give cuddles.  

Lions: waiting for them to come out and eat . 

Exploring local-wildlife first hand. 

The elephants: When she is unsure of something, or is trying to figure something out, Ella Brea (pronounced Bree) will narrow her eyes and stare at it. 

Feeling special closeness to the 'Ella'-phant

                                                

Waving at the monkeys

AT the big monkeys. they were making the funniest, nosiest sound.
Needed mummy-cuddles to make everything better. How fetching cute are my girls!!  

She loves her Uncle Emil - we have a photo of him on his
first birthday on this elephant, so had to keep the tradition going.  

bahahahaha

Exploring with her daddy

She got so spoilt and was so good and was just so cute. I fall more in love with her everyday. She even tried to blow out her candle that night . 

I am so excited to see her grow up even more. and she what new words she learns. She so far has the most hilarious vocab. apart from dad, she says 'duck' and 'quack' and can put these into many everyday situations. she says 'dot' 'yessssssssssssss' and 'watchaaaaaa' thanks to Aunty Ling. she days 'done' and 'shoes' and 'socks' and 'ha-ha-ha' - complete with arm waves - of something is hot. She also says 'ha-ha-ha' when she is being a kangaroo and is hopping around. and she says my name. She learns so much every day. oh how I love her!!!!

One of those Life lessons...

I havent written in a while and so when today presented me with an opportunity of something to blog, I was rather excited. Mel (one of my fabulous cooking partners) and I decided that we would make a relatively special dinner tonight. The basic idea was fairly simple, just home-made burgers but being who we are we were going to make it impressive. The blog was going to be great. I was going to talk about how when I make dinner I make it not just for the food but for the experience; How the feeling is just as important as the ingredients.

We cut potaoes into  fries, and made with individual pockets for each person to serve them in,and had red and white checkered table-clothes to complete the look. We were even taking photos as each step






The product of meal was going to be colourful, crisp and delicious.I love cooking especially when I get to show my impressive domestic-goddess skills, and this was going to be no exception.

And then reality set in. I wont go through the painful step-by step process of what went wrong, just the finished products.

2. The chips were boiled into oblivion and
wouldn't fry or roast, so we had to mash them.
Not even kidding. horrific.

1. The patties would stick. 

3. All I managed to create was the smell of buring, have the kitchen under water and dirty nearly every dish in the house. Mel and I ate soo many burger 'patties' before dinner even started. They were absolutely delicious. Just were not, by any stretch of the imagination, aesthetically pleasing. To anyone. 


We finally managed to, after adding bread-crumbs and egg and all manner of other things in our attempt to make them stick, create a tray of burger patties. Definitely not what I was going for.







I did manage to take a pic of the few fries that werent mush, and create a burger that wasn't falling apart in order to have a picture of the would-be dinner. I wasn't even able to arrange everything nicely so you could get the feel of it... probably because the feel of it wasn't there in the first place.
The only thing that turned out even close to the 'colourful and crisp' part of it was the salad, which I didnt even end up cutting.

To see how the burgers can and are meant to look this is where I got the recipe. They really are the most delicious burgers ever!!!
http://missionarymums.wordpress.com/2012/05/18/beef-and-sweet-potato-burgers/


So, all in all, tonight wasn't how I intended it to be. My culinary skills took a beating as did my domestic-goddess image. And my ego. But that is life. It is something that I learn from uni, home and what I will learn everyday as a teacher and future mum. Things will very rarely go as planned. I will also very rarely be proved a genius or impressive. Life will show me my weaknesses, even when I thought I had converted them to strengths, every moment of my life. What matters is how I deal with that. I can either get mad and sulk. Or I can laugh and enjoy the fact that although it didn't turn out as expected, there are still good points. In this case it still tasted good. and when is mashed potato ever a bad thing?

Tonight I learned (again) to laugh at myself and remember to not take myself so seriously. Somehow its a lesson that doesnt seem to get easier, no matter how many times I have to learn it.

a tad OTT

Any body that knows me will attest to the fact that I love celebrations. LOVE. sometimes, too much. But really, if there is a reason to celebrate, go with it. No, Why stop there?  Take it and run with it and go crazy!  And make it something to remember! Luckily the majority of my family is the same, so apart from my older brother rolling his eyes and telling me im going over board, celebrations are pretty good. To illustrate here is what we did for Mothers Day today.

My sister and I started a tradition long ago of making the meal part of the gift, especially for my mom. This means that for mothers day, anniversaries, birthday and whatever else comes up, we create a meal. "Creating a meal," you say, " That sounds pretty straight forward, everyone makes their mum dinner on mothers Day." But as with everything, we take it to its illogical conclusion. This involves brunch, treats and for dinner, a three course meal. Sometimes life would be so much easier if we didn't love food so much. In the past, we have done Meditteranian Pasta Salads, an entire French themed meal, blueberry and hazelnut cheesecakes, German pancakes, Baclava, and the list goes on. There is nothing quite like creating new meals out of several different recipes and seeing where it takes you!

We kept it pretty straight forward for brunch, starting off the day  with French toast and Banana Berry smoothies. I don't have a photo of this, but use your imaginations... And then came dinner (obviously several hours later...) This is what the table looked like at the end. I love cooking with colours!!

 First, the roast vegie salad. You can add anything and just cut them up into chunky sizes.  We had pumkin, kumara, potatoes, red and orange capsicum, carrots, corgettes, onions, fresh garlic and then just rub them with oil and rosemary seasoning. Roast until soft and then allow to cool before adding feta and spinach leaves.

One of my favourite things to make and eat and inhale, is bruschetta. Meant to be the entrée, but really becomes the best part of the meal...  It made its début at our 'Julie and Julia' inspired French meal for Mom's birthday a couple of years back. There are many recipes but I use tomatoes, red onion, yellow capsicum (adds an amazing colour), fresh garlic and fresh basil leaves. and oil. The smell, the colours, the taste! Oh. my. goodness.

\The main part of the meal was changed half way through making the dinner. I am still determined to try it though so I wont share what it was meant to be, but this turned out rather fabulous also. This is a cheesy creamy chicken, mushroom pasta dish. Yes,  the title does need work, but it explains what it is. As does 'delicious...'

Dinner was delicious and hopefully helped the two mums that were celebrated feel extra special! I am so grateful for these two wonderful women in my life!! They are such an example to me and are always there for me. I really cannot cook enough food to show them that - altho I do try... ;) 

For anyone who is worried that I didnt do anything that will last, I also go over board with gifts, so I really tried to do something this mothers Day that would mean a lot to my mom, instead of my bank account... My mom is the type of person that collects people. She is a mom to so many people - our friends, and anyone who comes through our door, really. And she loves them all probably about as much as she loves us, so I thought it would be nice for her to hear from them as well. I sent an email for some of her 'kids' and got some gorgeous letters back - really made her Mothers day! 

We really should never pass on an opportunity to tell people how much they mean to us, or how grateful we are for them. Maybe thats why I love celebrations. I also hope, however, that people dont feel like they arent important to me unless it is their birthday or something. I want to make sure that I show and tell people how much I love them, every day, through the little acts of service. And I guess that is the thing I have learned through my mom's example.

 Thank you for everything and Thank you for being mine, Mommy! I love you, and Happy Mothers Day.