Saving my sanity

There are 2 things that are currently helping greatly in the daily struggle to maintain a few shreds of sanity, and even help me to get slightly organised (shock, horror!).

Motivated Moms is a printable jobs list for around the house. My bloggy friend Nikki at Nikki's Notes mentioned it to me a few months ago, and it has since become my lifeline. It is a series of weekly check-lists, that help to get daily, weekly and occasional chores, all scheduled in.

I feel like it is a safety net, for jobs that I know I should do, but never really get around to scheduling. I never think to clean out my car. But about once every 6 weeks or so, my Motivated Moms list tells me to do it, so I do -- and I get to tick it off the list! My car has never been cleaner!

I never thought that having a check list would give me such a feeling of satisfaction, to have something to look at and feel like I HAVE achieved something that day.

Oh, and I bought the version that has a schedule of daily Bible readings as well - I have always wanted to be more organised about reading my bible. Now I have a set reading each day, which will get me through the Bible in a year. And, you guessed it - each day I get to tick it off the list!

For the princely sum of US$4.00, this has been the best investment I have made in a long time.

The second thing that is helping me out is my Hands On Homeschooling folder, for 2 year olds. I am sure I have mentioned Terri at Hands On Homeschooling before. She has fanastic 'curriculum' folders for ages 2, 3, 4 and 5. The folder is packed full of fun learning activities - 3 activities per day, 5 days a week, for a whole year, in fact!

I don't pretend that Naomi isn't in a tough stage -- she is such a busy-minded child, but socially and emotionally very dependent - not good at entertaining herself for any length of time.

This morning she was really acting up. Naomi just wanted to watch a dvd - again. I needed to get some things done. We were at an impasse - until I remembered Hands On Homeschooling. The activity for today was to cut out and colour in a star shape, in any yellow colour. Naomi loved doing that. Then she asked what else we could do with it. So we used it as a template, to colour around for other stars. Next, she asked what else was in the sky with the stars - so we talked about (and drew) moons, the sun, clouds - even birds, planes and kites! Before I knew it, we had passed a very pleasant hour of time, with not one whinge, or request for the tv to be turned on.

And this afternoon we are going to tie a string on our star and hang it up in her drawing corner, to show Daddy when he gets home from work.

I can't recommend these 2 products highly enough. They are certainly saving my sanity -- which is a very impressive feat!

Do you have anything that you feel is a great aid, whether in organisation, child teaching / entertaining or any other area?

Mmm.... cookies!

Wow, the last couple of posts have been heavy going! So here is something lighter... cookies!

This is our favourite basic biscuit recipe:

Ingredients -

120 gms unsalted butter

1/2 cup castor sugar

1 egg

2 cups self-raising flour

Vanilla essence (just a tiny splash).

Preheat oven to 170 C (a moderate oven). Beat together the butter and sugar with an electric mixer, until light and creamy. Add the egg, and mix until combined. Add the flour and vanilla essence.

Knead the mixture, in the bowl, to form a ball. Wrap the dough in glad wrap (cling film) and refrigerate for about 20 mins.

Roll out the dough on a lightly floured bench (this is easiest if you do it in 2 smaller batches). Use biscuit cutters to cut out cookes and put them on greased oven trays.

Bake for approx 8 - 10 mins, until lightly golden. Cool on a wire rack.

This is a great basic mixture, which can then be played around with - I add in a handful of dessicated coconut, or a large glob of peanut butter. or a squeeze of lemon juice and some zest ...

And of course, I bake wearing one of the delicous new aprons available at Sasha Sews!

Satay Chicken

While shopping in a variety store a few weeks ago, my eye was caught by a series of cook books, which were well-priced at A$10 each. There were about 7 different titles, but the one I bought is simply called "chicken". It is published by Murdoch Books, here in Australia.

We eat a lot of chicken - it is reasonably cheap, and easy for a 2 year old to eat. So the idea of having 75 new recipes for chicken appealled to me!

Here is the one we tried last night, for Satay Chicken:

1 1/2 tbsps oil
6 spring onions (scallions), cut into 3cm lengths (I actually used eschallots)
800 gms (1lb 12oz) of chicken strips / pieces
1 tbsp Thai red curry paste
4 tbsps crunch peanut butter
270ml (9 1/2 fl oz) coconut milk
2 teaspoons brown sugar
1 1/2 tbsps lime juice

Method:

Heat pan to very hot, add some oil and spring onion, stir fry for 30 seconds. Remove from pan. Add extra oil and brown the chicken. Remove chicken from pan.

Add more oil to pan, and curry paste. Fry paste for about 1 minute, until fragrant. Add peanut butter, coconut milk, sugar and 250ml (1 cup) water and stir well. Bring to the boil, and boil for 3 - 4 minutes or until thickened. Return chicken and spring onions to the pan, stir in and cook for 2 minutes, until heated through. Stir in the lime juice, and season with salt / pepper to taste. Serve with steamed rice.

I actually skewered the chicken into kebabs, with some red capsicums (bell peppers), grilled them in the oven and just poured the satay sauce over the top. Naomi had fun skewering the meat, so it was a good child-entertainer as well!!

And the verdict? In Naomi's words .... "Mmmm.... 'licious".

Coconut Ice

When I was a child, my mum had a stash of cans of condensed milk. It was left over from when we lived on a remote island and she had to order food for 8 weeks at a time, to come in by barge. Somehow they just sat in the back of the cupboard for years, after we moved back to the mainland. When we finally opened a can, we discovered that it had turned to caramel all by itself, over the course of time. So if you have a spare decade, this is an easy way to make caramel!

In my opinion, condensed milk should be a food group all of its own - rich, creamy, sweet - and yet I can pass it off as dairy, and therefore good for us, right??

Coconut ice is a great recipe to make for your next church fete. Or just because it is yummy!

Ingredients:

5 1/2 cups icing sugar

2 1/2 cups dessicated coconut

1 can condensed milk

1 egg white, lightly beaten

Method:

Sift the icing sugar into a large bowl. I squish mine through a sieve, to get the lumps out. This is quite important, to get a smooth consistency. If you use the icing mixture (with cornstarch in it), instead of pure icing sugar, this step is a whole lot quicker!

Then, add the coconut to the sugar and stir together.

Tip in the condensed milk and egg white, mix well together. The mixture will be very thick and sticky. Yum.

Press half the mixture into a tray lined with baking paper. Then add pink food colouring to the other half, and press it in on top.

Refrigerate for 3 - 4 hours, until completely set. Slice into small pieces and enjoy!

This is a good recipe for kids, as it is just measuring, mixing and squishing into a tray. However, it does require some patience, waiting for it to set. I make it before nap time, and then take Naomi off to bed for a while, to pass the time.

WFMW - Great idea resources

This is the "Mum, I'm Bored" edition of WFMW. Thankfully, I haven't heard those words much yet (Naomi is still stuck in an "I want..." phase, which is driving me crazy).

Anyway, when I need to divert attention from crankiness, boredom, or simply pinching her baby brother's cheeks too hard (yep - he doesn't have *naturally* rosy cheeks, poor kid), I have a stock standard list of places to get easy ideas that can be done quickly.

Some great websites that I highly recommend:

http://www.huggies.com - yes, good old Huggies. I don't buy their product, and don't ever intend to. But their website is chock full of great activities, games and ideas for keeping young children entertained. Lots of templates to download and print off and simple hands-on activities that we can do with things we have in our craft box. You just have to sign up online (for free) and receive their junk emails (which I have directed straight into my spam).

http://www.starfall.com - this is a great site for very young children to learn their letters. Naomi (age 2) adores it - it is interactive, colourful and I like to think it is educational. I was put onto this site by Kara at Eskimo Kisses & Air Hugs.

http://www.handsonhomeschooling.com - This one isn't fee, but Terri has written curricula folders for children ages 2 to 5. I bought the one for 2 year olds. It is about 3 inches thick, and is chock full of wonderful fun ideas for activities that are also educational. It also includes devotionals and simple activities to teach little ones some Bible stories. I highly recommend it as money well spent, that will last for years.

For more ideas to keep children entertained, head over to We Are That Family.

Tuesday Tips for Mum - Playdough recipe

Which child (or adult, for that matter), doesn't love the squishy feel of playdough between their fingers ... or toes? Of course, we all know it is a great activity for development of fine motor skills, creativity, colour / shape recognition etc etc etc. And it keeps sweet darlings entertained for hours!

My favourite playdough recipe is simple, and uses only ingredients that you will have in the pantry, so you can whip it up at a moment's notice.

Ingredients:
4 cups flour
1 cup salt
1/2 cup water (approx)
1 tbsp oil (approx)
Food colouring of your choice

Method:
Mix flour and salt together. Mix food colouring into the water and stir well. Divide the water into several cups and mix up a few different colours, if you want.

Add the oil to the flour and mix. Divide flour mix into several bowls if you are making different colours. Then add water to flour mix, stirring well. Add more water, or flour, to make a good squishy (but reasonably dry) dough.

Play!

Keeps well in the fridge in an air-tight container, for about a week.

To make playdough a bit more educational, and add another dimension, have a look at this website: Sparklebox . They are playdough mats that you download, print off and cover with plastic. Then you can play the various games, which are mostly focussed on basic counting skills. Of course, you could make your own, with addition, subtraction etc for older children.

This is a Tuesday Tips for Mum post. For more great idea, check out Raising Olives.


http://www.sparklebox.co.uk/md/counting/mats.html

Chicken, corn & tarragon pie

I am not much on buying magazines - I can usually think of better ways to spend the money (like feeding my fabric addiction). But the cover of the Notebook: magazine does grab my attention, whenever I see it on a shelf. They look more like real women than those on the cover of any regular glossy. And there are usually some very pretty flowers, or vintage type furniture or something. So this month, I went ahead and bought it.


What does this have to do with the title of this post? Well, there were some totally scrumptious sounding recipes - including this one for chicken, corn and tarragon pie. Naomi and I baked it on Monday night - it was received with the great accolade of "mmm... alicious" from Naomi, and a totally scraped clean plate from Brad. It is going in the family favourites recipe book.

Apologies for the dodgy photo - for some reason, I can cook food but photographing it nicely is beyond me!

• Ingredients:
• 1 tbsp olive oil,
• 4 chicken thigh fillets, cut into small pieces
• 1 brown onion, finely chopped
• 1 carrot, chopped
• 1 celery stick, chopped
• 2 tbsps plain flour
• 1 cup chicken stock
• 1 large (420g) can sweet corn, drained
• 1/4 cup cream
• 1 tbsp Dijon mustard
• 1 tbsp chopped tarragon (I used dried tarragon)
• 1 sheet frozen puff pastry
• 1 egg, lightly whisked

Preheat oven to 220 deg C (hot oven). Heat oil in a pan and brown the chicken. Remove from pan. Brown onion, carrot and celery in the pan, for 5 minutes. Add flour to vegetable mix and stir for 1 minute or unti well combined. Add chicken and stock and stir until mixture starts to bubble and thicken. Add corn, cream and mustard and stir. Remove from heat, then add tarragon and salt/pepper to season.

Spoon into a pie dish (or 4 individual dishes). Cover dish with pastry sheet and brush pastry with lightly beaten egg mix. Bake for 15 minutes, or until pastry is golden and puffed.

Yummmm.... and just as good for lunch the next day!

This post is part of Thursday's Ultimate Recipe at www.lifeasmom.com . Head on over there to read more yummy things to do with food.

Delicious apple cake

I recently saw this recipe on KimC's blog, Life in a Shoe. It sounded delicious, and also had few steps, making it perfect for a cooking project to do with a 2 year old.

I am pleased to report that the results were just as good as it sounded, and it was indeed a good kids project - plenty of measuring, tipping and stirring, and then just straight into the oven.

So the recipe is:

German apple cake

2 eggs

1 cup oil

2 cups sugar (I used brown sugar)

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups flour

2 tsps cinnamon

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

4 cups of peeled, sliced apples (I used 1 large can of pie apples instead)

Beat the eggs and oil together in a large bowl, until well mixed. Add all other dry ingredients, except the apples. Mix together well - the mixture will be very thick at this stage. Stir in the apples - mixture will soften up nicely now. Pour into a 9 x 13 cake pan, and bake for 45 - 50 mins at 170 deg C (350 Fahrenheit). This does make a large size cake - halve the ingredients for a regular round or square cake.

Serve warm with cream or icecream. Or cold, straight from the fridge (as I am eating it at this very moment!)