Banana Bread

I'm exited to be joining in the #shelftember Challenge that Jordan from Fun Cheap or Free is running.

The idea is that for the month of September instead of spending what you normally do on groceries per week, you shop your food storage, i.e your pantry, freezer and fridge to make meals from. Then you have a $25 budget to spend per week to stock up on any fresh food or anything else that you need. Is it a tight budget? Yes it is! But if your anything like me you go every week and buy new groceries but you have a huge stockpile already on hand. So it's a great opportunity to clean out your stock pile and save some money for something fun. 

Today I had some bananas that were on there last legs, so I took to pinterest to to find a recipe for Banana bread. I always love giving new recipes a try but you never know if it's going to turn out, so I'm excited when they do. This banana bread was delicious and definitely worth making! And best of all, only uses ingredients that are likely to already be in your pantry.

 BANANA BREAD 

(Recipe slightly adapted from http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/banana_bread/)

Ingredients

•  - 2 to 3 very ripe bananas, peeled
•  - 1/3 cup melted butter
•  - 1 teaspoon baking soda
•  - a pinch of salt
•  - 3/4 cup sugar 
•  - 1 large egg, beaten
•  - 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
•  -1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour

Method

1 Preheat the oven to 175°C (350°F), and grease a loaf pan.

2 In a mixing bowl, mash the ripe bananas with a fork until completely smooth. Stir the melted butter into the mashed bananas.

3 Mix in the baking soda and salt. Stir in the sugar, beaten egg, and vanilla extract. Mix in the flour.

4 Pour the batter into your prepared loaf pan. Bake for 45-50 minutes, or until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean.

5 Remove from oven and let cool in the pan for a few minutes. Then remove the banana bread from the pan and let cool before serving. Slice and serve. 

Enjoy on it's own or warm with a spread of butter.

Kylie xx

Vegemite Scrolls

My boy has been begging me to take vegemite scrolls to School for lunch. I have heard that they are super easy & cheap to make and I have been meaning to try them for ages, and I finally did! They really are super easy to make. They also freeze really well. I have been taking them out of the freezer in the morning and they are defrosted and ready to go by lunchtime and still really yummy. So it certainly makes for a super easy lunch and I don't have to make sandwiches in the morning.

The recipe I used was from The Stay at Home Mum

Ingredients

* 3 Cups Self Raising Flour

* 1/2 tsp Salt

* 50 grams butter, at room temperature

* 1 1/2 cups Milk

* 200g Cheese, grated

* 2 Tbls Vegemite

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 220 degrees

2. Sift flour & salt into a mixing bowl.

3. Rub in the butter until the mixture looks like fine bread-crumbs. 

4. Stir in enough milk to make a soft dough.

5. Knead for a few minutes in a mix master (or knead on a lightly floured board).

6. On a lightly floured board, roll to form a rectangle that is roughly 40cm x 25cm. 

7. Spread the vegemite over the dough using a blunt knife.

8. Sprinkle 3/4 of the cheese over the top.

9. Roll up the dough starting from the long side. 

10. Cut 10 x 4cm pieces from the roll. 

11. Place pieces on a lined baking tray and sprinkle the rest of the cheese on top.

12. Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes, or until golden.

Enjoy, 

Kylie xx

Soft Sugar Cookies

Yesterday I made a sugar free cake for my sister’s birthday. It was terrible!! I mean seriously bad lol! We all had a good laugh about how bad it was. Clearly I don't have a  knack for baking without sugar!  Anyway, the cake (that got thrown in the bin) needed 12 egg whites….That’s right, 12!!!! So I then had 12 egg yolks I needed to use. So I went on the hunt for some recipes. I was trying to find things that used more than 1 egg yolk, otherwise I was going to be cooking all day!! I tried 3 different recipes…one was shocking (homemade mayonnaise), one was ok (breakfast burritos, but I used Turkey mince & I didn’t love it) but the other 1 turned out great. To make up for the disgusting no sugar cake,  I made naughty but very delicious “soft sugar cookies”. Butter...yum! Sugar...yum! So without further ado, here is the recipe….

Ingredients:

* 2 ½ cups plain flour

* ¾ tsp baking powder

* 1 tsp baking powder

* 160g butter, softened

* 1 ¼ cups sugar

* 3 egg yolks

* 1 tsp vanilla extract

* ¼ cup sugar, for rolling

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

2.  In a large bowl, cream together butter & sugar until combined.

3. Add egg yolks & vanilla extract and mix till combined.

4. Add flour, baking powder & baking soda and mix until just combined. Don’t overmix it.

5. Roll into balls (I got 42) and roll in the remaining sugar.

6. Place onto lined baking trays and flatten slightly with palm of your hand.

7. Cook for 15 minutes or until the tops of the cookies slightly crack.

8. Store for up to a week in an airtight container.

Enjoy the rest of your day,

Kylie xx

Crunchy Honey Oat Muesli Bars

A few weeks ago I made some "muesli bars". Now I say "muesli bars" because that's what they were called but I am warning you now that they are far too delicious and naughty to use as muesli bars. Really I would class it as a delicious slice, posing as a muesli bar. In fact, next time I make them, they won't  be going in lunch boxes as a semi healthy treat! Instead I will make it when I'm looking for a delicious slice to feed the masses, as it creates a large quantity. It is deliciously chewy and sweet! 

So here's the recipe....

CRUNCHY HONEY OAT MUESLI BARS

Ingredients

-7 cups of old-fashioned rolled oats

-1/2 cup vegetable oil

- 1 tsp salt

-1.5 cups of choc chips/peanuts/walnuts

-3/4 cup honey

-3/4 cup brown sugar

-1 Tbl vanilla extract

-2 tsp ground cinnamon

Directions

1. Set the oven to 190 degrees Celsius

2. Line a large baking tin with baking paper.

3. Combine the oats, oil and salt and choc chips/nuts in a large bowl mix until evenly coated. 

4. Combine the honey & brown sugar in a saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring until sugar is      dissolved (about 5 minutes).

5. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla & cinnamon.

6. Pour the honey mixture over the oats mixture in the large bowl until thoroughly combined.

7. Pour into large baking tin and flatten with a spatula until you have a nice even layer.

8. Bake for 35-40 mins, or until golden brown.

9. Remove the baking paper with baked goods and allow to cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes. 

10. Cut into desired size.

 My cute boy helping mumma stir.

Enjoy

Kylie xx

Gluten Free Choc Chip Cookies

I have always thought that gluten free baked goods were gross. But it is really just a matter of finding the right recipes. One problem that I have found with gluten free recipes, is that they have so many ingredients and therefore they end up coasting a ton to make and your not even sure if it's going to turn out well or not. This Choc chip cookie recipe is delicious, cost effective and one that the whole family can enjoy, whether they are gluten free or not.

Here's the recipe .......

Makes 35-40 Cookies

Ingredients

* 2 cups gluten free flour

* 1 teaspoon baking soda

* 1/2 teaspoon salt

* 113 grams butter (at room temperature)

* 3/4 cup brown sugar

* 1/2 cup sugar

* 1/3 cup applesauce

* 2 teaspoons vanilla

* 1 1/2 cups choc chips

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 195C

2. In a large bowl, mix together gluten free flour, baking soda and salt.

3. Mix in butter, brown sugar and sugar together, until light & fluffy.

4. Stir in applesauce and vanilla

5. roll into balls and bake for 8 minutes. Don't over bake, or you won't have the soft, chewy center.

Recipe found but slightly altered from miloandoats.com 

Enjoy your cookies

Kylie xx

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

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

Rainbow Cake

A few weeks ago we had a family get together for Miss 8's birthday. She requested a Rainbow cake. Now I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with birthday cakes. I have made quite a few over the years and I've had some that turned out ok and some more interesting one's. Unfortunately (fortunately!), I don't have photo's to show you. I found this cake on Pinterest and Miss 8 loved it!

                                 

We both fell in Love instantly. 

After falling in love with it, the 1st thing that I noticed was that it was made with fondant icing. I've never used fondant icing, but here's the thing, although I think it looks great, It just doesn't have the same amazing taste that butter cream icing has. Mmmm mmm butter cream!! I knew that I wouldn't be able to roll butter cream icing, so just decided to wing it and see how it turned out. 

For the general instructions on how to make the cake, I followed the recipe and the photos from this site  -http://www.tablespoon.com/recipes/rainbow-pinata-cake/5795d355-a6a5-4030-

b414-235fe9b750bb?nicam4=SocialMedia&nichn4=Pinterest&niseg4=Tablespoon&nicreatID4=Post

However, here is what I did differently:

*I used 2 butter packet cake mixes for the cakes, just making them up as per their instructions on the packet. I just used the cheapest ones from the supermarket, which cost 80cents each. 

*I filled the inside of the cake with M&M's only.

*I used butter cream icing both for sticking the layers together and for the decorating. 

I made up 4 batches at once with this recipe:

125g Butter

1 1/2 cups of icing sugar

1 Tbls milk

Leave the butter to soften at room temperature, then beat together with the icing sugar and 1 tablespoon of milk, until smooth and light in colour.

Once made up, take half of the icing mixture and colour it sky blue. Then cover the entire cake in this colour. Once covered, smooth over with a knife. If the icing sticks to the knife, dip it in a glass of boiling water and continue the process until the cake is all smooth. 

This picture is before the smoothing out process.

Next, divide the remaining icing into 5 separate bowls, colouring each bowl of icing with the desired colour. I used red, yellow, pink, green & purple.

Next, take a piping bag with your desired piping nozzle attached. Fill with red icing and starting from the bottom left hand corner, slowly sqeeze dots of icing onto the cake. Repeat the process until you have followed the top of the rainbow down to the bottom right corner. Follow up with a 2nd line. 

Repeat the process with the leftover colours, as seen in this picture, until you have finished.

You can use 1 piping bag and clean it out in between each colour. Or do what I did, which was use disposable piping bags (that I purchased in bulk for dirt cheap off ebay) and just clean & use the same piping nozzle for each colour.s

I just used a cake board that I already had and stuck some marshmellows around the edge to form cloud. 

I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out, but I was really happy with it. And most importantly Miss 8 loved it! 

Kylie xx

Weetbix Slice

I love browsing recipes on pinterest! If your anything like me, you have a thousand pins and not enough man hours in your lifetime to do all the things that you pin! Anyway, I have seen this recipe floating around pinterest for a while now and finally decided to make it. Let me tell you, It did not disappoint! The ingredients are mostly things that you would have in your pantry and I got a whopping 28 slices out of 1 batch, so it's a really low cost slice to make. But most importantly....It is delicious! I can't believe I waited this long to try it! below is the recipe I used, but there are many other variations floating around pinterest, if your interested. 

WEETBIX SLICE

 (recipe adapted slightly from http://laughingkidslearn.com/2014/08/weetbix-slice-kids-can-make.html/)

Ingredients:

1. 3 WeetBix crushed
2. 1 1/2 cups plain flour
3. 1 cup desiccated coconut
4. 125g butter or margarine
5. 3/4 cups brown sugar
6. 1 1/4 cup milk chocolate melts (for icing)

Instructions:

1. Grease and line a tray with baking paper
2. Combine all dry ingredients with butter or margarine
3. Press mixture into a tray with a spoon and bake at 180C (356F) for 25 minutes
4. When slice is cool smooth over melted chocolate and refrigerate until set 
5. 
   

 When I spread mine out in the tray, I felt like it needed some more butter to hold it together, but resisted the temptation to put more in and it turned out perfect!

This recipe is super easy to make and the perfect one to get the little kids in on helping you make it

Enjoy,

Kylie xx

Chicken slow cooker meals

This week at the meat market they had chicken breast for $4.99 a kilo (2.2 pounds)! Boy was this frugal mumma excited!! I bought 5 kilo’s, but at that price I’m thinking I should have bought more.  Normally I just break it up into 500g bags and freeze it, but I thought I would try some pre-bagged slow cooker meals. I’m sharing 2 recipes with you today, found at  https://kleinsis.wordpress.com/2013/03/01/its-nearly-time-lets-pepare/ , but have adapted them a little to suit us a little more. Please visit the site for the original recipes and double the batch for larger quantities.

Teriyaki Chicken:

( https://kleinsis.wordpress.com/2013/03/01/its-nearly-time-lets-pepare/)

3 Carrots

½ red onion

½  Can chopped pineapple

1 Tbls minced Garlic

1 Potato, diced

500g Chicken breast

½  Cup Teriyaki Sauce

Put all ingredients into a ziplock bag and freeze.

Completely thaw and cook on low for 8 hours or high for 4 hours.

BBQ Chicken:

(https://kleinsis.wordpress.com/2013/03/01/its-nearly-time-lets-pepare/)

1/3 large Green capsicums

1/3  large Red capsicum

1/2 Onion

2 Potatoes

2 tsp minced garlic

500g  Chicken breasts

¼ cup Tomato sauce

1 Tbsp. Worcester sauce

½  Tbsp. Sugar

1 Tbsp. Mustard

¼ tsp. salt

1 Tbsp BBQ sauce

Put all ingredients into a ziplock bag and freeze.

Thaw completely, and Cook in your slow cooker on low for 8 hours or high for 4 hours

Learn from me and buy some large ziplock bags. I only had sandwhich ziplock bags & they are almost bursting at the seems. So excited that I have finally made some of these!!

That’s it for now friends.

Enjoy your day,

Kylie xx

Cinnamon Sugar Apple Slices

Wow, It has been a month since I posted anything on the Blog! And what a crazy busy month it has been. With the crazy business over for the minute, I have time to get back into everything:) 

Today I'm sharing one of my favourite, super easy snacks.

 A few months back my friend told me that she makes cinnamon apple crisps for snacks. You slice up your apple, lay it on a tray, sprinkle with cinnamon or cinnamon sugar and bake for 2 hours. After cooking it for 2 hours, I discovered that I didn't actually like the taste. However, after sneaking some cinnamon sugar apple slices before they were cooked, I discovered one of my new favourite snacks.  So all you need to do is slice up your favourite apple, lay it on a plate, sprinkle with cinnamon sugar and enjoy!

Baked Beans with Toasted Herb Lebanese Bread.

Hello!

 I have been meaning to share some of the recipes that I am using on my journey of getting rid of this baby weight. But in all honesty, I haven’t been very good at it lately. In fact I’ve put on 2.5 kilo’s (5.5 pounds) in the last few weeks...eek!! I am still breastfeeding (ALOT) and I am just hungry all the time. With the school holidays almost over, I have a refreshed desire to finally get this weight off. I would love to be one of those people that desires to eat healthy, but I am not! In fact, I could happily swap eating lunch for a block of chocolate. It’s not that I don’t like healthy food, but I don’t Love it. Now I have no desire to have abs or be super slim. What I do want is to fit into my clothes. At the moment, I have 1 pair of jeans (with major muffin top) & about 3 tops that fit me....and I am absolutely refusing to buy new clothes.

With my renewed desire to be “good”, I avoided the chocolate and made something that I do love and that I knew would keep me full for a while. I had baked beans with toasted Lebanese bread. This is super yummy and you avoid having toast that goes soggy.

All you need is tin of baked beans, heated; a piece of Lebanese bread, sprinkled with Italian herbs & a dash of chicken salt; and an oven. 

                       

Toast the bread in the oven & break into pieces. Serve with a bowl of baked beans and enjoy!

And hey, If I keep it up then there will be lots more easy, yummy, frugal recipes up on the blog!

Kylie xx

Chicken & Vegetable Soup

It's time to finally kick the last 10 kilos (that I have been trying to loose since having our bubba) in the butt! Over the next few weeks I will be posting some yummy low calorie, low cost recipes that I'll be making to try and keep me on track.

Today's recipe is one that I have been making for years and is perfect for a rainy miserable day like today!

It is Chicken & vegetable soup. The great thing about this recipe is that you can put whatever veggies you want in it and it's thick, so you don't need to have bread or rolls with it.

Ingredients

1 chicken breast

3 potato's

1 sweet potato

1/4 pumpkin

2 carrots

1 onion

1/2 litre liquid chicken stock

1 bag of soup mix lentils

Instructions

1. In a large pot, pour the bag of soup mix lentils and cover with water.

2. Simmer until lentils are soft.

3. Place chicken stock, vegetables & chicken in pot and allow to simmer for 1.5 hours (or until chicken is         cooked & vegetables are soft)

4. Remove the chicken and shred into a bowl.

5. Mash vegetables whilst still in pot.

6. Return chicken to the pot & stir.

7. Add salt, pepper or herbs to taste.

My pot of soup made 15 serves and freezes perfectly. So cheap, hearty, healthy and yummy!

Kylie xx