Gingerbread Kiwis

In honor of our newfound citizenship my friend Debbie gave me a Kiwi cookie cutter. I decided to break it in today with a batch of gingerbread Kiwis (I figured we should make brown cookies for a brown bird). I will confess that we used the American gingerbread recipe which calls for molasses instead of the New Zealand version that calls for golden syrup.

100% Kiwi

We're a 100% Kiwi family now! The boys were both granted New Zealand citizenship when they were born here (after Ben was born they changed the rules and one of the parents has to be a NZ citizen or have permanent residency to give the child citizenship). Dan wanted to have citizenship like the boys, so after we reached the length of time of living in New Zealand required we applied. Here's a photo of us after the ceremony.

For the very cute video of our day, please click on or cute and paste the following link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIGbNrsTZnM

Science Afternoon

It was a full fledged science fair at our house on Tuesday afternoon. Ben and I continued our fun Tuesday afternoon program (Josh is at preschool) and this week we invited Hazel to come join us. The theme was science. We started off with our volcano and did a few cool experiments from the Disgusting Science kit (Ben's favorite was the slimy buggers) and then we did a few others from the Mind Blowing Science Kit (my favorite was the underwater volcano eruption that changed colors). Then Ben & Hazel decided they wanted to do their own experiments. It was wonderful to watch them come up some great ideas, a little of this, mix that and their excitement and awe was just awesome. We made a mess and by the end of our science afternoon Ben was so excited he couldn't sit still, literally bouncing off the chairs and the walls.

Baking with Kids

For Christmas my mother gave me the cookbook "Baking with Kids" by Linda Collister, which she bought from the local shop Jumping Tangents. Since we decided it was too wet for soccer practice we decided to give one of the recipes in the book a try. Below are a series of photos from our baking adventure. We're saving the treats for dessert.

Ben's treasure map

There's are Ben's words, I just wrote them down as he instructed me.

If you want to go on a treasure hunt please ask Ben. Four golden coins, and one treasure map and one telescope and one treasure map. Please make sure if you don't know where, there are arrows in my room or the lounge. Ben is in charge.

Just Peachy

Today's food project-- find some yummy ways to consume an entire bag of peaches from a friend's yard. I am happy to report that Josh and I did an excellent job. We made peach muffins

and then we boiled peaches to freeze (while eating about half of them in the process). And later we made a peach crumble, which didn't look all that great, but tasted lovely. Thank you to all the friends who helped contribute some ideas on what to do with all these lovely peaches. It's been a peachy day and I've only got 2 left over, an impressive feat if you'd seen the bag.

Chocolate in Disguise

Magic Chocolate Cakes

Prep: 15 minutes

Cook: 50 minutes (less if making smaller cakes)

1 cup sugar

1 large egg

1/2 cup milk

1 packed cup (100g) grated raw pumpkin or carrot or a mix of both

1/2 cup premium quality cocoa powder, sifted if lumpy

1/2 tsp mixed spice

1/s tsp ground cinnamon

100 g butter, softened

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp natural vanilla essence

1 Tbs golden syrup

2 cups self raising flour

1/2 cup strong, boiling hot coffee

Preheat oven to 160 degrees C. Line a 23 cm round cake tin with baking paper or prepare 2 x 10 cm tins (recycled tuna cans are perfect) or 10 muffin tins (using 1/2 cup of mixture per muffin tin). Place all ingredients in the bowl of a food processor and mix until combined, about 30-40 seconds (or place ingredients in a mixing bowl and beat with an electric beater). Pour into prepared tin and smooth the top. Bake until risen, no longer wobbly in the middle and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. One large cake will take about 50 minutes, for 2 medium cakes allow about 40 minutes and for muffin sized cakes allow 20-25 minutes. Cool in tin and cover with frosting. Store in a sealed contained in a cool place for 2-3 days or wrap and freeze.