Cinnamon Choc Oat Cookies

These cookies are the perfect blend of Oats and chocolate, with a hint on cinnamon. They are delicious! The recipe makes 45-50 Cookies and they can be frozen and thawed when you want to use them. Here is the recipe...

INGREDIENTS

* 1.5 Cups Plain Flour

* 1 cup brown sugar

* 1/4 cup sugar

* 1/2 tsp salt

* 1 tsp baking soda

* 2 tsp cinnamon

* 227g butter (at room temperature)

* 250g chocolate chips

* 3 cups rolled oats

* 1 tsp vanilla

* 2 large eggs

INSTRUCTIONS

1. In a medium bowl, mix flour, cinnamon, baking soda and salt.

2. In a seperate bowl, beat butter, brown sugar and sugar with an electric beater, until light & fluffy.

3. Add eggs and beat until fully combined.

4. Add vanilla and beat until combined.

5. Add flour mixture and beat on low until fully combined.

6. Cover the dough in the bowl with a tea towel and place in the fridge for an hour

7. Preheat oven to 170 degrees celcius and line baking trays with baking paper.

8. Remove dough from fridge and seperate into balls.

9. Place on baking paper and flatten with a spatula.

10.Bake for 10 minutes or until slightly golden.

I have recently switched to using Homebrand Choc Chips. At $1.39 a bag, they are 1/3 of the price of the other brands. And they are just as delicious!

 You just cover with a tea towel over the mixture. It doesn't need to be in a nice pretty ball when it is in the fridge.

 The pile after the kids had already gotten to them!

Happy baking!

Kylie xx

DIY Chalk Paint

If you don't already know this little cheap trick than you may be very excited by this!

I have been super keen to try chalk paint for ages but in all honesty I was not keen about the price for a little tub. Not to mention that you have to buy a new tub for every different colour that you want to work with. When I saw this little trick, I was super stoked and hoped that it would in fact work. Well low and behold it did. DIY chalk paint...Here's the recipe...

Ingredients

2 1/2 Tablespoons of Plaster of Paris 

1 1/2 Tablespoons of Cool water

1 Cup of paint

Instructions

Mix the paster of paris and water together and then pour it into 1 cup of paint and stir until fully combined. 

That is it...seriously how easy is that!!!

One 2.5Kg bag of Plaster of Paris cost me $8.09 from Bunnings and I used a cheap $2 tube of paint from Spotlight. So for $10.09 I made the chalk paint that I wanted, plus i still have most of the bag of plaster left! I plan on using it to paint the bottom of my dining table. And the great thing is I can use it in whatever colour I want! You may have guessed by now that I was pretty excited about stumbling across this recipe!

 Here is what I painted...

I had this home sign sitting around that I was dying to give a makeover

Before...

After...

This Chalkboard used to be my Grandma's. It was originally a wooden calender board. So she would hang her calender inside it. Because of this, there are some thumb tac marks in the blackboard section, but I don't notice them when there is something written on the board. I had painted the chalkboard paint last year and had painted the frame a dark turquoise but I had never really loved it . No before photo's sorry. And I haven't cleaned the board very well, but you get the gist. I only did 2 coats of paint as I liked that you could slightly see the turquoise coming through which gave it a weathered look.

 

I'm so happy with how they both turned out! I love the colour and this cheap DIY recipe!

Kylie xx

Cheesy Bacon Muffins

My son is 4 and attends preschool a few days a week. They have some fairly strict rules around what you can send in the kid’s lunchboxes. They are great rules and they encourage the kids to be healthy, but I must admit that sometimes I find them a bit of a pain in the butt! Only because it means that you have to be more organised and it takes a bit more prep. In saying that though, it has definitely made me be more prepared and has encouraged me to start cooking more from scratch. This is a win/win because I find that cooking things from scratch saves me money too. One of the things that he is allowed to take to preschool is savoury muffins. So a few weeks ago I set out to make something from ingredients that I already had in the house. I desperately needed to use some bacon in the fridge, so I made cheesy bacon muffins. They are yummy, cost effective and can be enjoyed by the whole family. I freeze them and can transfer them to lunchboxes. They are also perfect as a breakfast muffin or great for lunch with a salad. If it’s frozen and you want to eat it warm, you just put it in the microwave for 1 minute and it’s perfect and ready to go! You could very easily use the basic ingredients of the flour eggs and milk and then just add whatever yummy meat or veggies you wanted. 

Here is the recipe....

Cheesy Bacon Muffins

Makes: 12

Ingredients:

*2 cups of Self-raising flour

*1/4 cup diced bacon

* 1 cup grated cheese

* 1tsp salt

*1 cup milk

*2 eggs

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven at 190c

2. Place flour, bacon, cheese and salt into a large mixing bowl and stir till all ingredients are combined.

3. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs and milk together.

4. Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour the egg mixture in. Gently mix until all combined.

5. Spoon the mixture into a greased muffin tray and bake for 15 to 20 minutes.

 You can freeze a few batches in a container by putting baking paper in between the layers.

Kylie xx