Tag: children

Cookies and cream ice-cream

This is a very simple recipe for cookies and cream ice-cream.  Mix and freeze! It is very important all your ingredients be cold to start with if you want to churn it on the day. If you have time, mix the ingredients (see recipe) and churn it the next day. I didn’t invent this cookies and cream ice-cream recipe, it comes from “Chew Out Loud“, here adapted for metric measures.

Note that I use an ice cream machine for making my ice-cream.

Makes about a one litre container.

Ingredients
  • 250 ml (1 cup) whole milk
  • 150 g (3/4 cup) of caster sugar
  • 500 mL of thickened cream (2 cups)
  • 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
  • 1 cup coarsely chopped Oreos

Note: this is quite sweet, you can reduce the sugar to 100 or 120g if you prefer it a little less sweet (I wouldn’tgo lower)

Method:
  1. In a large bowl combine together with a whisk, the milk, the cream, the vanilla and the sugar. Mexi well. Check the vanilla level for taste, adding a little bit if desired.
  2. If you have been using cold dairy ingredients, you can churn it straight away, else, allow it to cool down overnight in the fridge and churn the following day.
  3. Once churned (use your machine instruction), roughly cut the Oreos into small pieces (5 mm to 1 cm) and while transferring to the ice-cream container, mix the Oreos through. Make sure to keep a few of the broken cookies for the top!

Gluten Free Porridge Cookies

I made these gluten free porridge cookies (and the recipe) one day as I had enough of seeing left over porridge go to the compost bin.

Now, if you are coeliac, you may need to be careful, this recipe contains oats, which has a protein that can trigger an immune reaction (but not always).

GF porridge cookies

Ingredients:
  • 1 egg
  • 230 g of porridge with sultanas.  If you need to cook the porridge, use 1 volume of oats for 2 volumes or water or a mix of water and milk (I prefer a mix).
  • 100 g of white sugar
  • 100 g of butter
  • 1 tsp of raising powder
  • 230 g of brown rice flour
Method:
  1. Preheat the oven to 180°C
  2. Melt the butter and mix it with the leftover porridge to loosen a bit the mass.
  3. Add the sugar and the egg.  Mix well.
  4. Then mix in the rice flour and raising powder.
  5. Place little mounts, about the size of a tablespoon on a lined baking sheet.  Bake until light brown.
  6. Cool down on a wire rack.

Note: the dough is quite wet and sticky but not runny, it keeps its form when spooned on the tray. If your porridge is quite runny, you will need to increase the flour a little.

GF porridge cookies GF porridge cookies

Foraging for mulberries

Today, when we went back to our car after a few hours spent at the beach, we saw three young girls rushing away from a front yard with something that appeared to be very precious in the hands.  They were mulberries. The careful attitude had a lot to do with avoiding having blackened hands and squashing the fruits! This did it for us, it was time to go and check our neighbourhood trees and go foraging for mulberries!

Mulberry Trees

Mulberry trees are not an Australian native tree species and because of that, many councils have simply cut the mulberry trees over the last five to ten years.  In our area, this has not yet been the case.  The tree we went to is quite large, the season is just starting.  The fruits this year do not appear to be very big but there are plenty.

mulberry tree

 

A child’s adventure

This foraging expedition is best shared with children.  The children love it!  They get really excited, so I got them to gather our “kit” and we were ready.  We took boxes and a stool and off we went.

The first berries are easy to get to…

Then, a bit more strategy and skills are required…

20161003_152516

The other solution? Shake gently one branch and gather the fallen fruits, it is quite effective.

Now, our rule is to gather just what we need and no more.   It is a lot of fun and a great adventure!

After that, when we got home, we washed the fruits and removed the stalk. As a result, we did end up with fingers very purple, most of it has not washed off.

Mulberry Pie

The end purpose of collecting mulberries was to make a mulberry pie.  It is after dinner now and the left over of our pie is standing on the dinning table not far from me, I can smell its distinctive fruit and buttery aroma!

The full recipe can be found on its page HERE.

mulberry pie

mulberry pie

mulberry pie