Recycled: Multi-Grain Bread

Old burblings, re-burbled...

So I mentioned a while back that I'd cracked my white bread recipe...

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7 - 15g Fresh Yeast (depending on freshness of yeast and what it has to rise, mostly I use about 10g)
250ml water
480g White bread flour
2 - 5g salt (depending on who I'm making the bread for. Less salt for us, but more for guests as it tastes nicer)

I do the first knead and rise in the breadmaker, then knock down, put in bread tins, second rise in a barely warm oven (be able to touch the inside of the door without burning hand) and cook.

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I'm getting a nicely risen, light white loaf every time with this method.

So, having got that under my belt I wanted to move on to wholemeal and multi-grain.  Wholemeal has caused me many issues in the past (have offered mumndad wholemeal loaves to use instead of bricks for house - they'd last longer).  Multi-grain however has been a complete unknown, and when I was in the health food shop on Monday and picked up some whole grains.

I soaked a cup of mixed grains overnight in buttermilk.  I only used buttermilk because we had some leftover, and I read somewhere it was a good thing to soak them in, otherwise it'd have been water.

I added a (very approximate) cup of soaked grain to my usual recipe above and voila...

A first try, bread baking success.  A light loaf with lots of lovely nutty chewy grains.  Simple and delicious.

Rather chuffed actually.  Bread is not known for turning out well at the first try (or the one thousand and thirty fifth).

A lot of people ask me where I buy my fresh yeast.  At the big deli outside Woolies in Hornsby - which isn't much help to anyone except locals. But fresh yeast is almost always stocked by big delis.  It's very rarely on display, so you have to ask.  Using fresh yeast, that doesn't have a predictable rise cycle like packet yeast, means that you can't really just bung your bread into the breadmaker and forget it.  I find the first rise is a lot slower, up to an hour more, which is why I complete the breadmaking in the oven.

 Still, if I throw everything in the breadmaker to knead and rise before I do the school run in the morning, we will have fresh baked bread for lunch.

:)

Tidy Up - the final result

Observe, if you will, my wonderful clean and tidy house...

Like. Like. Like.

Erm, well except for the Spare Room of Doom...

*crickets*

Excuses for scooping up all the clutter and depositing it in one room include (but are not limited to)...

• Spending Monday morning driving back and forth to school due to Miss 5 and her fake earache
• Having Miss 5 at home with her fake earache for the rest of Monday and confining her to the house in order to hammer home the lesson that sick days are not fun
• Miss 5 having revenge by fundamentally and comprehensively trashing the few untrashed parts of the house
• Having Miss 5 at home on Tuesday due to genuine cold, which obviously caused the earache, which was in fact not fake, and I am a bad, bad mother
• Miss 5 Retrashing the house to prove the point that I am a bad bad mother
• Then on Wednesday... hmm, well I'd had Miss 5 at home for two days and I chose not to spend my few precious hours of peace tidying (she refused to stay home  - heh)

So the tidy up mostly happened this morning.  I got it done, kind of, even though the day started badly due to a bin-juice in hair incident (full story tomorrow).

The Cleaners upped the price by $10 after they saw the state of the place (the dust was pretty spectacular).  Honestly I think they deserve double!

Four day tidy up challenge

Because I've been so busy and so tired lately, the house has exploded into clutter.  It began with a small pile of books on my desk, expanded into this...

My desk (under there somewhere)

Which then took over the dinner table...

We started eating at the table in the kitchen

It exploded into the kitchen, and we had to start eating in-front of the TV...

This is not as bad as it was (that mug says 'Now Panic and Freak Out')

Simultaneously, a laundry situation developed...

Had to find the kids school shoes in there this morning

I discovered hubs had secretly made a man nest in the spare room
Miss 5 trashed her room
Miss 7 was nearly buried under a book avalanche in her room
The dog started eating dust bunnies (and then spends the next half hour coughing and hacking them back up)
And I had to wear the Bra Of Last Resort out of the house (admittedly I wore it to Woy Woy, so nobody noticed, but still...)

Unsurprisingly my head exploded last Thursday. The result of which is we have invited our cleaners back into this pit of dammnation.  They were delighted and wanted to know if I'd had my baby yet (erm, yes).  We told them the house had not been cleaned since we last saw them.  They thought we were joking.

Still.  I need to get this heap tidy before they get here, otherwise they won't be able to see the floor to clean it.  I've got until Thursday.

Will I make it?

Stay tuned!

On My Mind: Electricity Prices

This post is part of Down To Earth's On My Mind

Washing on the line, not in the dryer.  Its been a cold wet winter this year and the dryer has been getting a work out.  But with the massive increases in electricity prices, I know I need to stop using it so much. I'll probably still have to finish these off in the dryer, but I'm getting them as dry as possible before I start chewing up the power.

I wanted to write a post about electricity prices, and the fact they're increasing by 17%.  But Rhonda has done a wonderful post here, that says everything I could have thought of, and more.
http://down---to---earth.blogspot.com/2011/06/electricity-prices-are-rising-lets.html

Rhonda also has a great post on the rising cost of living and homemaking.  If you are feeling stressed or worried about increasing prices its well worth a read (or even if you're not) :)
http://down---to---earth.blogspot.com/2011/06/homemaking-in-tough-times.html

Bubble, bubble...

Parsley Wine

Part One here.

The parsley wine is presently bubbling away in its demi-john.  The whole house smells faintly of alcohol and herbs - which is rather nice - and thus far all seems to be going according to plan.

Parsley wine fermenting in demi-john - day 2

 I did taste it, after we'd stirred in 2.5lbs of sugar. I reckoned it'd be pretty hard for that to taste awful - and I was right - sweet and herby with an underlying dry white wineyness about it.

So, the recipe...

Parsley liquid strained over sultanas

Ingredients:
1lb parsley leaves (no stalks)
2 lemons
1lb sultanas (hot washed and chopped)
1 gallon water
Cold boiled water for topping up
Wine yeast and nutrient (I used champagne yeast)
2.5lb sugar
Campden tablet

Sprinkle yeast granules and nutrient into cup of boiled tepid water, cover and leave for an hour.
Strip parsley leaves from stalks; take care not to include any stalks.
Wash well, chop and put into large pan.
Thinly peel lemons, avoiding white pith and place rind in pan with parsley.
Add gallon of water and heat until boiling, then simmer for 10 minutes.
Place sultanas in fermentation bin and strain over parsley liquid.
Discard parsley and lemon rind.
Top up to 1 gallon with cold, boiled water and leave to cool.
When cool add lemon juice and activated yeast/nutrient.
Cover loosely and leave for 5 days to ferment.

Parsley liquid after 5 days fermenting (sultanas floating on top)

 Strain mixture, pressing sultanas to extract as much liquid as possible, then discard
Add sugar to liquid, stirring until dissolved then pour into demi-john and fit airlock.

Fermenting in demi-john

Leave to ferment at temperature about 18C/64F.
When fermentation finished, siphon clearing wine into clean demi-john, adding 1 crushed campden tablet.
Bung tight and store for 3 months in cool place.
Siphon into sterilised bottles, seal tightly and store.

******

:)

Something is Brewing

I come from a long line of people who are passionate about brewing extremely dodgy beverages.  My English Grandmother's elderflower wine is still spoken of in hushed tones, and has been held responsible for no less than three neighbours driving their cars into hedges (this was before drink driving or even seatbelts had been invented).

So, as is my habit when autumn is upon us, I have been upholding a fine family tradition and getting the moonshine going.

Ginger Beer
Home brewed ginger beer is delightful - am supplier for us and mumndad
Making a ginger beer plant is the first step in the process. Once the plant is going the liquid is used to brew the beer, which is very mildly alcoholic.

Ingredients:
1/2 oz dried yeast
1/2 pint water
sugar
ground ginger

Put the yeast in a jar, add the water, two teaspoons sugar and two teaspoons ground ginger and give a good mix.
Cover the jar.
Each day for 7 days add 1 teaspoon sugar and 1 teaspoon ground ginger.

Ginger beer plant: and yes, my kitchen windows are that dirty

This ginger beer plant is now three days old.  Will be turning it into ginger beer in a few days :) so check back for an update on Monday (give or take).

Parsley Wine
As home brewing experiments go, I suspect this may well be my most horrific so far.  Nevertheless, I found the recipe in a little traditional English brewing book, and in the interest of using produce from the garden, I am diving in, so to speak.
Apparently it will taste wonderful with fish. Hmm.
So I took 450g parsley from the garden and boiled it, which made the house smell like wet wool socks and parsley sauce, yummy, kindof.
I added some champagne yeast and some sultanas, and this was the spectacular result...

Parsley wine in the fermenting bin

 No, I could not bring myself to taste it, in case you were wondering.

Twenty four hours later, its fizzing and bubbling, the sultanas have risen to the top, and the house smells herby and fermenty.   Am feeling faintly more confident about it than I was yesterday. Faintly.

Parsley wine: Day 2 - Sultanas floating on the top

Will be sticking it in a demi-john and leaving it to do some serious fermenting in a few days, so stay tuned for an update, and I'll put the recipe up then as well.

:)

Homebrewed Cider

The shortest route to the shed from the front garden is through the house.  SOMEONE decided that carrying the straw bales through instead of around would be quicker.

Not for She Who Wields The Vacuum Cleaner. sigh.

War On Clutter - Day One

War on Clutter began today.

I'm working from one end of the house to the other, so I started in the main bedroom.

And here is the pile I dragged out of two chests of drawers and a large built-in...

Sewing projects, cushions, blankets, bags, dvds circa 1991 and many many old and unfashionable clothes.

The interesting part is that a lot of this stuff has places that it should be.  Miss 4's cupboard doubles as a place for all my sewing odds and ends, and we keep all our bags in Miss 5's cupboard.  I'm at a bit of a loss over what to do with the DVDs.  There's some great movies in there, but we just don't watch them, or listen to our CD collection for that matter, which is also rapidly aging.

Hubs has a laundry basket of dross that he has to sort through when he gets home, and I'm heading to Vinnies to drop off the first of many loads this afternoon.

There was a lot of dust and I sneezed a lot, but an excellent start.

:)

Good Bread Recipe

Apologies again for photos.  These were taken with lappie webcam.  Only 8 months until my birthday and possibility of new camera. sigh.

Lately have been extremely underwhelmed by the bread I've been making.  Too crumbly, too yeasty, and just not quite what I want it to be.  So have been searching for a new recipe to try out, and today in the Le Cordon Bleu Complete Cooking Techniques recipe book I found the following recipe for a basic white loaf...

15g Fresh yeast (or 1tbsp active dry yeast)
500ml (or 2 cups) warm water
960g (or 6 cups) white bread flour
10g (2 tsp) salt

This gave me enough dough for two 900g loaves or...

 A loaf and some small rolls for the kids.

The bread is wonderful, dense and chewy, not too yeasty, with a great bready flavour.  The recipe differs a lot from the one I usually use, with half the amount of yeast and no sugar.  I made the bread by hand (but did the kneading in my mixer which has a dough hook - the mixer took exception to this and kept trying to throw itself off the bench top, meaning I spent a lot of twenty minutes today leaping across the kitchen to steady it, sigh).

So will continue to experiment this one, and see, firstly if I can get it to work in the bread machine and secondly if I have any success adapting it to wholemeal flour (which I can't get so am presently adding some bran, which is less than ideal).

To go with the bread I made a batch of blackberry and apple jam.

Children overwhelmed with gratitude (not) and acting like its all laced with ant spray.  Bless them.

Tee hee & Sourdough

Had to laugh.  Been out and about this morning - having back to back morning teas actually - my bladder has gone above and beyond the call of duty today.  And damn I have a good pelvic floor even after two kids.

Got home, glanced in the mirror and discovered that I've had my camisole on inside out AND back to front. Yes. Brand name, size and the fact it was made in China on display.

Am still chuckling.

In other news sourdough starter gone wild.  Burst out of jar last night - mostly I think because we're sitting on around 25 degrees inside at the moment, maybe a bit more, and this is perfect yeast breeding temperature.  Threw half away (well kind of) as per instructions.  And added more flour and water

Put it all in a new bowl.

Bubbling nicely.

With the bit I was supposed to throw away - because it was so bubbly and looked like it was doing the right things I decided to try and cook with it.  Thus far? Well, not looking so good actually.  May have made excellent batch of glue though.

:)

Not going to plan

Bad day yesterday.  Woke up crabby - well it'd been a vile week, with massive stress due to our current lack of funds and the very painful decision that we're going to have to sell one of our cars - and yes I know you can survive with one car but living as far from public transport as we do, its going to mean life is just that little bit more difficult.

We've had another sudden hot spell, the last three days have been above 35 degrees.  The chickens had already decimated my leafy greens bed (beetroot, carrots, asian greens, turnips). So, feeling really pissed off about it all, I replanted the lot and put some chard and a few other odds and end around the outside of the bed to distract the chickens.  Six hours later the temperature had hit 37, all the new plantings were beyond dead and the chickens had got through my anti-chicken defences and laid waste to all that hard work.

Hot and crabby I decided to hide inside and read Jackie French, she always inspires me to keep going and keep trying. But not yesterday.

"March is a time of harvest," she said. Oh really, I thought.

• The sun isn't as fierce - oh yes it is
• The weather is cooling - oh no its not
• Tomatos will be glutting - I have a handful of green cherry tomatos to show for my glut
• Melon's will be ripening - I have about seven melon vines they are all dying of mildew (despite spraying with milk) and so far I have one melon about the size of an egg and two water melons about the size of peas
• Pumpkins - not a one, not a single sodding one, they've all rotted off, well the two that even started anyway
• Summer vegetables will be mature - no they won't they'll all be burnt off by the relentless sodding sun and no sodding rain that's dried out all your raised beds to the point where they can't hold water even if they want too

Yesterday I was quite prepared to cover the entire garden in concrete and paint it green.

Today the chickens have been banished to their new (nearly finished) coop.  Something has chewed through all the shadecloth I put around the bottom - already, after less than a week.  YAY.  The leafy green bed has been replanted AGAIN and is covered in wire and booby trapped with hand grenades.  Hubs and I have put in my lattice to provide a bit of privacy and grow something up (grape? kiwi? peas?).

I went around the garden and picked things to prove to myself that this is all worthwhile and I can get food out of my garden - and ended up with a small bowl of chilis and a handful of beans.  It hasn't  helped.

So I retired to the kitchen and made plum sauce, with the leftover plums frozen from spring

And got some sourdough starter started.  Which I'm thinking is going to be a very interesting experiment, in breeding new life forms in the kitchen at least.

Sigh.

Busy in the kitchen and Teacuppery

The thing about all this homemaking business is that you spend a heap of time in the kitchen.  This morning I've made blackberry and apple jam, muffins, dog food and yoghurt.  Still on the list is granola, plus dinner, and by the time that's all finished it'll be time to get the kids.

I also spent the morning doing with weekly shop ($117.20 - woo hoo, the savings there will just about cover a slight pizza mishap midweek -ahem), getting our private health insurance premium lowered (turns out we were covered for hip replacements) and depositing a cheque for $3.29 in the bank. Yes. ANZ could barely contain its delight about that. 

Scintillating, No?

Glanced out of the kitchen window whilst doing load of washing-up number three billion and noticed the leaves of the Liquid Amber across the road have just started to turn, up the top.  Last year they began to turn at the end of January and we had an early but mild winter.  This year they are turning a whole six weeks later, I wonder what that means we've got in store?  Given that its 30 degrees outside right now I'm still having a hard time believing summer is over and the Autumn solstice is in a couple of days.

It also occurred to me that I haven't put up a teacuppery post for forever!!  I suppose that its mostly because I haven't got any new ones for a while, but still, they're so so pretty I should still be putting them up here for everyone to enjoy.

So, without further ado, allow me to present three of my most favorite cups.  They are all by Shelley in the Rosebud pattern.

The two smaller cups are miniatures that Shelley made as teasets for children to play with.  Miniatures are quite rare and I treasure these.

The larger cup is in the shape called Henley.  These type of cups were made from around 1920 until the company shut up shop in 1967.  Judging by the quality of the glaze on this particular cup I rather think it was one of those made in the sixties.

This teacup was one of the first I ever owned and part of the very beginning of my love of Shelley teacups.

:)

Brainfried

My lordy what a day. It began sorrowfully with yet another bread disaster. Loaf on the left was the same as the last three using my new bag of defiance bread flour. Loaf on the right was made with 50/50 bread flour and lauke bread mix (which has extra yeast, bread improver and god knows what else in it).  Beats me what the problem is, but I'm going to use up the defiance flour by mixing it with other flours and not buy it again.  The bread machine hates it as well.

Having dropped my angelic children at school I met up with some of the other SAHMs (stay at home mums) and nannies in a local cafe to discuss the recent spate of parent/teacher interviews, and, much more deliciously, the fact that...

1. My daughter's kindi teacher turned up at work with a HANGOVER on Monday
2. She was dumb enough to tell one of the parents

I KNOW.

Needless to say I'm feeling that there is a situation brewing that is going to end badly.

The whole hangover thing was not helped by the fact this teacher had told most of us in our interviews that our children were average.  Yes. AVERAGE. I was actually fairly philosophical about this, Miss 5 is, well, 5 and being told that she is not going to be an A student this year didn't overly bother me.  No. What mattered to me was that she was a happy, much loved member of the class. Always first to lend a hand and keen to answer a question however randomly.  I mean, yanno, she's FIVE.

Still, listening to the other mums chatting about how much reading and writing work they do with their kids at home got under my skin.  I ended up feeling that I was letting Miss 5 down a little bit but just reading the books that come home from school and then letting her watch Superhero Squad and other drivel. So after coffee I whisked myself into Borders and bought an armload of learn-to-write books.

Then I sped home and spent a few hours polishing an assignment for Uni - oh after a brief skirmish with the snotty man in the hardware shop WHICH I WON and left with the staples I wanted and carried the bag of sugarcane mulch to the car all by myself. Rargh.

Next it was back to a cafe.  Miss 4 had Grandparents day today, and I met up with Mumndad after it was all over for a full report and restorative coffees for them.  Grandparent's Day is something of an ordeal.  If you're not being entertained by your offspring's offspring singing in French and Mandarin, then you're donating books to the library or being chatted up about making bequests.

Then home again with the kids where I presented them with their new books (got some for Miss 4 just so she wouldn't feel left out).

WELL.  They leapt upon them, loved them to bits and it was only after two hours that they started to flag with all the letter copying and matching balloons and playing spot the difference.  I started to flag after about ten minutes, but was kept on track by them both,  answering question after question and trying to explain all sorts of tricky things (like why is that fish purple?) and frankly oh my god it was exhausting.  The moment hubby arrived home I scarpered to water the garden and just give my poor overworked brain a chance to rest for a moment.

Holy hell. It was a nice afternoon, but I'm looking forward to the novelty value wearing off.  Not sure how much more of this I can take. :)

The Kitchen

So I cleaned under the microwave on Sunday morning.  There were Things under there. THINGS.

Then I decided that the microwave was annoying in its present position - it was hard to open the door without swiping, oh you know, a cup, a plate or a stack of pasta dishes off the bench-top and onto the very hard slate floor.

One thing led to another and four hours later I'd re-arranged the entire kitchen and decided on a new colour scheme.  Oh how I am tired of living with the previous owners horrible taste in wall colours.

So now the microwave has a new home, and the toaster is where it used to be.

Have been baking. Lemon cake for Miss 5 who brought a cook book home from school last week and is still miffed that so far I've only cooked macaroni cheese out of it.  Note charred edges on cake on left, will have to use lots of (curdled) lemon curd icing to cover them.

I also realised that I own an unseemly amount of tea.  Every single canister in this picture has tea in it, except for one with hubby's coffee bags.

Work is coming along on the new chicken coop.  We ran out of nails yesterday and after another awful night (involving a husband out partying until 2am and children with nightmares, leg cramps and 'itchies') I am not venturing up ladders or nailing anything into anything else.

Sigh.

I'm Not Sick, But I'm Not Well

I can't decide if I'm ill or not.

For the last week I've been impossibly tired, had a bit of a sniffle, but its refusing to turn into a cold or go away, my back has been kind-of twinging, but nothing that'd make me say I've Got A Sore Back. Throat a bit sore, but might just be too much yelling at the kids, head kind-of aching, but that could just be the x-rays beaming out of my laptop screen and into my eyes.

Universe, I'd like to be sick or not be sick. If I'm sick I'll go to bed, drink lemsip and get over it. If I'm not I'll to stop sneezing everywhere and feeling like I'm about to be sick.  Similarly, back, just aching when I'm driving the car and not aching when I'm slumped on the couch with my laptop setting my legs on fire, is so not acceptable. Just make up your mind already.  If you are going to go, then go, and I'll book the physio.

sigh.

Had a bread disaster this evening - out of nowhere.  Did everything right and used yeast (yes, within its use-by date) I haven't had any problems with.  Just ended up looking like this...

Looks like a brick, weighs as much as a brick, therefore it is a brick and not edible for anyone except hubby and the chickens.

So now we have no bread for lunches tomorrow.  FFS.  AND on a day when my home made bread was being noted and praised by Miss 4s teachers.
YES.
Oh hell yes.
I basked.
"Oh," I said, "I bake all my own bread." In my coolest 'its no biggie but I am, in fact, awesome,' tone of voice. And now they're going to turn up with pappy packet bread tomorrow.  Farking karma (or something).

I've been reading The American Frugal Housewife (its free online as part of the Gutenberg Project) and I'm afraid that Lydia Child (the author) would've been appalled, no make that APPALLED at my housewifely skills, and not only in the bread baking department.

Although, I have been unravelling a decrepit jumper and knitting it into dishcloths. (Look I don't know why, its just chux have always irked me. IRKED.  Actually most things irk me, but chux more than usual).  So maybe I'd be able to win Mrs Child over, well if she hadn't been dead for 130 years.  Anyway I'll do a post on my jumper unravellings when I finish a dishcloth that comes out rectangular, rather than oval, or, well, blob shaped. 

sigh.

Homemaking? I does it well.

Had an absolutely frantic couple of days getting through my lists of ToDos.  I haven't made it through the whole list of course, just been doing the things that will keep this boat afloat, and me not totally embarrassed in my Uni lecture.

Of course it all hasn't gone to plan.  My most major disaster has been bread rolls.  The first batch I made were paragons of light fluffiness which I had to whack into the oven before they rose out of the pan and went everywhere.

The second batch I made yesterday were not.

They were small and bullet like and the best use we could come up with was to put them in a sock and send them into kindi with Miss 5 as a self-defence weapon. Oh kidding. We'd only send them with Miss 4.

My yeast failed.  Well okay, my yeast failed because it was a THOUSAND YEARS OLD and I should've known better. Do not use old yeast people.

My second most major disaster was the icing on the banana cake I made. Goddamm frickin too hard butter going all lumpy in the mixture and then not magically smoothing out when I put it on the cake. Goddammit.

Has enough icing sugar to taste good but.

Cakes have never been my forte and now that I live with an oven which has two settings of Too Hot and Far Too Farking Hot, most of the baking I do requires icing to cover where I cut the charred bits off.  sigh.

Third worst disaster was the casserole I made.  Dragged out the slow cooker and flung in all sorts of things from the fridge - including a little bit of leftover cooked angel-hair spaghetti.  I kind-of thought that after around nine hours of cooking that the spaghetti would've melted away, but NO. It remained and caused the children to screech WORMS, WOOOOOORRRRMMMMSSS.  And then refuse to eat anything.

Also I already blew the weekly budget at the supermarket and now we've run out of dishwasher powder.  Am going to steal money from my children to cover it.  I mean there are limits.

:)

All home made

Afternoon tea at our house today.

Butter - made by me this morning
Strawberry jam - made by me a few weeks ago
English muffins - made by me and the bread maker

The recipe for the muffins is...

• 1 cup milk
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 1 egg
• 0.5 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 3 cups plain flour
• 1.5 teaspoons dry yeast (or one 7g sachet)
• Polenta

1. Put ingredients in your bread machine in the order listed.
2. Run the dough cycle.
3. Sprinkle polenta over your work area.
4. 
Use your hands to pat the dough into a 1/2 inch thick rectangle.
5. Turn the dough so that each side gets lightly coated with polenta.
6. Cut into rounds with a cookie cutter
7. Let rise for 20 - 30 minutes--until not quite double.
8. Heat a big frying pan - I give it a little squirt with canola oil.
9. 
Cook the muffins about 5 to 7 minutes on each side - 
they should be golden brown when you turn them.
10. 
These freeze well and can be reheated in the microwave or toasted if you manage not to eat them right away

Breakfast

Did I say I was tired yesterday?? Ack, its nothing compared to today.  You see Miss 5 decided at 4.30 this morning she'd howl the house down in the hope of getting hold of Hubby's iPod to play Sims or somesuch.  When it was made clear that her cruel and bleary parents were having none of it she proceeded to have a tantrum that then woke Miss 4, the dog, the chooks and the neighbours dog, who started barking which set off all the other dogs in the vicinity.

FFS.

Of course everyone was back asleep by 5am, except for insomniac me. I got to listen to hubby slumbering LOUDLY next to me for an hour before it was getting up time and finally I could have some tea. Thank GOD for tea.

Needless to say the morning did not progress well from that point and I was heartily glad to see the back of my children when I dropped them off to wreak havoc at school today.

So, breakfast.

Breakfast has been bothering me for a while at our house.  Here are our perpetual four types of cereal - they are four that are relatively low in sugar and high in fibre.  We never, ever have anything like nutri-grain or coco pops.  The kids don't even know they exist.  We go through these four boxes in about a week - maybe a bit slower on the vita-brits - and the cost is around $25.

Even so, below is a typical bowl of what I'm throwing away every day.  Yes. I do give them a small amount, which they eat, then they insist they are still hungry, so I give them another small bowl which they don't eat - so usually leftovers amount to about this much.  And I challenge any parent to deny their child's request for "more pweese."

The leftovers go to the chooks who love them, so its not right into the bin, but still I'm not happy with the whole breakfast scenario.  Those cereals are processed and expensive and I think we could be doing better.

So, my breakfast plan for tomorrow is as follows

• Home made yoghurt (which I did yesterday and is in the fridge) with granola (recipe below)
• Blueberries and strawberries
• Home made muffins (which may possibly be made in the breadmaker and then finished off in the oven - unless hubby's company deigns to actually PAY HIM SOME MONEY and then I might buy some, ready made, whee, the anticipation...) with strawberry jam
• Fruit smoothie - milk based or orange juice based with frozen fruit from the freezer (I buy it in bulk from Frozberries in Hornsby - its about 50% cheaper than the teensy weensy packs you get in the supermarket - also their tag-line is We Put The Thrill Back In Chill - which has always caused me much amusement though I have no idea why).

Best Granola Ever
140g/2 cups Rolled Oats (7 points)
110g/1 cup hazelnut meal (9 points)
110g/1 cup flaked almonds (11 points)
50g/0.5 cup sultanas (2 points)
80ml/ 0.3 cup honey (3.5 points) I mean a third of a cup of honey here

Mix all ingredients well (I heat the honey briefly in the microwave so its really runny).
Spread evenly over a baking tray
Spray lightly with canola oil (I often forget to do this)
Bake in a moderate oven for about half an hour (my oven does not know the meaning of moderate so I tend to leave it in for ten minutes at 150 and then get too stressed about it burning to leave it longer).  Basically it needs a little bit of a cook, but whatever you do don't burn it - makes the whole thing taste bloody awful.
Cool
Keep in an airtight container.

Weightwatchers points for 50g of granola are 3 (so I usually have 25g of it on a cup of low fat yoghurt (2 points) which gives me a breakfast of 3.5points).

Also, I use a digital scale and am a capricorn so it all Must Be Precise. However, sometimes when I'm feeling all wacky and out-there, I double the quantities of rolled oats, use dried apricots and even prunes, well once, but it went a bit gluggy and pruney, so I fed it to hubby. I even put in more almonds and less hazelnut from time to time. I know, I can barely stand it.

I'm not thinking this breakfast will be much more trouble than the cereals (other than the children having a fit at something - holy crap - different). I'm in the kitchen doing lunches when the kids eat anyway and the smoothies won't be too much effort and the rest will be ready to go.

So breakfast. There you have it.