Spaghetti, Spaghetti Everywhere!

We seem to have a total over supply of tinned spaghetti at present. Like, about 5x more than any sane family needs in one household. So, I am trying to use them up. I am open to suggestions, recipes to try out etc.

Today, I am baking Spaghetti Pinwheel Scones. It's something I often make for the kid's lunches, so thought I would share the recipe with you lot, seeming as I seem to be on a recipe sharing roll. This scone recipe is the easiest scone recipe I have ever come across AND it makes light and fluffy scones, whilst being dairy-free adaptable. Then I have various different fillings I might add to make pinwheels with.

Spaghetti Pinwheel Scones

Scones

125g butter (dairy free marg works fine)

3 Tbsp water

1 cup milk (I find 3/4 cup is plenty, so add slowly! Oh, and rice milk, or other dairy free equivalent is fine)

3 cups flour (I do half/half with wholemeal flour and plain flour, more filling and better for you)

5 tsp baking powder

Filling

Tin of spaghetti in sauce

grated cheese (optional)

Preheat oven to 220*c

Sift dry ingredients together.

Melt the butter with the water (I just bung them together in a bowl and microwave on low-medium heat for 45secs - 1min).

Add butter mix and milk to the dry ingredients (add the milk a bit at a time as to not make the mixture too wet)

Mix to a dough with a knife

Roll out on a floured surface into a long rectangle about 1cm thick

Spread the tin of spaghetti over the bottom 3/4 of the rectangle and top with grated cheese (omit if you want to keep it dairy-free, or use a dairy free cheese/soy cheese... I just used normal cheese as my kids can handle small amounts of dairy)

Roll up from the bottom to the top. I use a bit of the tomato sauce from the spaghetti to seal the top fold down.

Slice the roll into approx 1 inch slices and arrange on a baking tray (I spray the tray with oil first)

Bake for 10 minutes, then remove from oven and allow to cool

Yummy!

Other filling ideas:

Hawaiian Pinwheels

Spread tomato sauce over the bottom 2/3 of the dough. Add chopped onion (optional), chopped bacon and small pieces of pineapple. Sprinkle over grated cheese, roll up, cut and bake (these are my faves!!!)

Cinnamon Pinwheels

Mix 3 Tbsp brown sugar and 1 tsp cinnamon and sprinkle over dough. Roll up, cut and bake (nice for a sweet option - add a little sugar to the dough too if you like)

Vegemite and Cheese Pinwheels

A favourite amongst littlies - Spread Vegemite over bottom 2/3 of dough, sprinkle with grated cheese, roll up and bake.

Citrus Pinwheels (This is a filling I stumbled upon that I am yet to try, but sounds so good!)

Zest and juice of 3 medium sized citrus fruits - e.g. 1 lime, 1 lemon, 1 orange, 1 cup of coconut, 1 teaspoon of cornflour
Optional Glazing: Juice of 1-2 citrus fruits, 1/4 cup icing sugar
Grate the citrus zest into a small bowl. Add the juice. Add the coconut and cornflour and mix thoroughly - it should turn into a paste.
Spread the filling over the scone base. Roll up and cut, arrange on tray

If using the glaze, mix the icing sugar with the citrus juice and brush on the tops of the scones, then bake

Cooking, hmmm

I rarely cook dinner by following a recipe. But I'm also not as good a cook as I am baker, so really, I should follow recipes more often. I learnt to bake when I was a child. I remember my Granny teaching me to make french toast. I then remember teaching a friend's mother how to make it one morning after a sleep over, I was only about 7 or 8 at the time. I couldn't believe they had never made it before!
But cooking meals, dinners, well, I didn't want to learn. Because I didn't want to eat it. I grew up a very fussy eater (my Mum would say that's an understatement). I became a Mum myself when I was young (19), and I still hadn't learnt to cook. When I first met my husband, he cooked more often than me. Now he would have you believe that he can't cook - but that's only because he's out of practice! (He had a stint for a while that him and the kids cooked once a week, I enjoyed that break, I really need to get them back into that!!). ANYWAYS, I do go on. I taught myself to cook simply because I had mouths to feed. It was hard at first, because I was still quite fussy so I was cooking a lot of meals I had never tried before, nor would I try the meals I made.

Obviously, something had to change. I started making myself try the dinners I cooked for my family. I didn't enjoy them, but I forced some down. After a while though, I did start to enjoy the food! And now I really do quite enjoy cooking, and trying new things. But I now have so many old favourites that I keep forgetting to try new ones. Hopefully this whole trying a new recipe every week thing pushes me out of my comfort zone of trying baking recipes and actually try some new dinner recipes too.

But first, an old favourite. Out of a cookbook even. In fact, I have mentioned this cookbook before in this post here - such a good basic cookbook. The other night, I made Saucy Meatloaf. The whole family loves it. The curry powder in it just makes the dish. And the sauce. The sauce, the glorious sauce! You get the drift.

And it's easy. Even Mr7 has made it before, with very minimal help from me (mostly only to cut the onions as he doesn't like the crying effect haha).

Saucy Meatloaf, courtesy of the Watties Kiwi Favourites Cookbook

Takes 1hour 30mins to cook (allow a further 15mins to prepare) - I mention this as I normally only start thinking about dinner with about an hour to spare, this requires prior planning!

Meatloaf

500g beef mince
500g sausage meat
2 onions, diced
1/4 cup milk (I use zero lacto milk, or rice milk)
1 Tbsp curry powder
1 cup breadcrumbs
1 Tbsp chopped parsley
(then I also add grated carrot and courgette sometimes - like this time - as my 2 year old is fussy with his vegies, so it's an easy way to get some into him, but it's nicer without them, haha)

Sauce

1 cup water
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup vinegar
1/2 cup tomato sauce
2 Tbsp flour
2 Tbsp soy sauce
2 Tbsp butter (I use marg)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180*c
2. Mix together all the meatloaf ingredients. Season with salt and pepper. Place in a baking dish and shape into a loaf. Bake for 45mins.
3. Whisk the sauce ingredients together and pour over the loaf. Continue cooking for a further 45mins. Open the oven every 15mins and spoon some sauce over the top of the meatloaf to stop it drying out.
4. Serve sliced, with extra sauce poured over.

The white stuff is the marg all whisked in - you could probably just melt it but it doesn't say to and this works well

The finished product - unfortunately a slightly blurry pic! Nice yummy thick bbq-type sauce over it, mmmmmmMmmmm

Baking with a Hangover

Ok, I wasn't reeeeeaaaaalllly hungover (no headache, just a tad sleep deprived haha). Had a couple of friends over the other night while hubby was out of town - a bit of a girls night... wine, singstar, wine, Just Dance, wine... you get the drift haha. One friend stayed over (as she doesn't live local) and the next morning I had the hankering to make cupcakes.

I thought I would team my urge to bake with my urge to try new recipes each week. Which was great. I found the most fantastic recipe. Like, seriously, amazing. I actually fell asleep dreaming about the cupcakes last night, they were that yummy. And they only use very basic ingredients (I'm all for recipes that mean I don't need a trip to the shops first!). So soft, so moist, so so so delish.
HOWEVER
I have learnt I am a TERRIBLE decorator when I have had minimal boozy sleep. Therefore I cannot show you photos of my work, be too embarrassing haha. We had a piping bag spring leaks everywhere, and in the end I just "knifed it" (spread it on with a knife). My baking is rarely all that well presented as it is, but these took the cake haha.

But I shall share with you the recipe. Again, the only alterations I made were dairy free substitutes in place of milk. This was a Pinterest find... I didn't make the icing on this recipe, I made up a choc-peppermint buttercream icing to go on top. Oh, I lie, I also used less sugar because it felt very wrong using more sugar than flour - and they are most definitely more than sweet enough, I'll add a note below.. And also, these stuck like buggery to my silicone cupcake cups, NOTHING before has stuck to them. Best bake them using paper liners.


The Yummiest Scrummiest Chocolate Cupcakes courtesy of Glorious Treats

BEWARE - this makes 24 -27 standard cupcakes... I wish I had read that first as I would have halved the recipe hahaha


2 cups sugar (I used 1.5 cups)
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup whole milk (Fine with rice milk)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water

Line muffin tin with paper liners. Heat oven to 180*c
In a large mixing bowl, stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla. Beat on medium speed for one minute.
Stir in boiling water (the batter will be thin, don't worry, this is right).
Fill liners 2/3 full with batter.
Bake cupcakes for approximately 22-24 minutes.
Cool completely on wire rack before icing.

Make them. You won't regret it.

Apple Sauce Brownies, low fat, low calorie!

A while ago I made some apple sauce brownies for my brother to say thanks for fixing my computer.... again. I just got a message from my sister in law asking for the recipe as apparently it was really good - and again, it's good for the diet! I put in my www.myfitnesspal.com recipe book, and it worked out to be 117calories per piece (if you cut it into 16 even squares). I however never got around to making a batch for my family like I planned, so I haven't personally tried them. But I thought I would quickly whack the recipe on here for easy finding, and to share with any of my followers that are on a weight loss journey or just simply looking for a lower calorie sweet treat option.


Apple Sauce Brownies

Ingredients

• 1 cup unsweetened apple puree/sauce
• 1/3 cup cocoa
• 3/4 cup self-raising flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips or choc buttons

Preheat the oven to 175°C and lightly spray or oil a 20x20cm baking dish.

Place apple puree/sauce in a medium-sized bowl. Sift in the cocoa, flour and baking soda. Add the sugar and salt and mix until just combined. Do not over-mix as this will toughen the brownies. Gently fold in the chocolate chips. Transfer to the prepared baking dish and bake for around 25-30 minutes or until the centre feels set and fudgy when a skewer is inserted.
Cool in the pan for 5-10 minutes before turning out. Cool completely before slicing into squares. If desired, dust with sifted icing sugar before serving.

New Year, New Recipes

I have decided this year I am going to try a new recipe every week - and blog about them. Well, that's the aim, undoubtedly life will get away on me and I won't do it every week, but I do bake generally at least once a week for the kids school lunches, so that's the aim!

Today I am baking Coconut and Jam Muffins, double batch - one for morning tea at a friend's tomorrow to share with my coffee group, and the other batch to freeze to throw into the lunchboxes for the next few days.

This is the recipe Coconut and Jam muffins, courtesy of Chelsea Sugar

The only adaptations I made was swapping butter for a dairy free margarine, and milk for lactose free milk to make it lactose free for my kids.

Waiting to go into the oven

The end result (haha, that green one in the middle got a lil squashed in the oven, but I managed to fit these silicone cups beside my muffin tin which was baking the other batch, so they got squished in there hehe!)

And the verdict? Pretty good! Next time I would probably only spoon half the mixture in, put the jam in then spoon the rest of the mixture on top so that the jam was in the middle (I did consider doing that today but tried to follow the recipe - "slightly imbedded" was kind of hard!). One I would make again, that's for sure, kind of a muffin version of Louise Slice.

Girly Goodness

I have 3 boys. I don't often get to enjoy the girly things. However this weekend gone we went to two girl's birthday parties. I had so much fun buying girly presents - one I got a bead set and a couple of little things, and the other I got a paint your own ceramic tea set. How cool do they sound?

Anyways, for one of the birthdays I told my friend I would bring a plate. So I made girly cupcakes. Oh I had so much fun! My pink and purple food colourings don't get used all too often, so out they came. I ended up making vanilla cupcakes with vanilla icing. But the cupcakes were pink and purple stripes. They looked so cool. And I shall share with you my vanilla butter cake recipe too because it is a pretty awesome recipe. Nice and moist, not dry like some vanilla cakes can be. AND it can be made dairy free by using a dairy free spread in place of butter. Perfect :)

Vanilla Butter Cake

½ c butter

¾ c sugar
2 eggs
1 ½ c flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla
½ c milk

1. Preheat oven to 170ºc
2. Sift flour and baking powder in one bowl
3. In another, beat butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the eggs and beat.
4. Combine milk and vanilla
5. Add flour and milk alternately to beaten mixture, beating till combined
6. Pour into a greased cake tin and bake for 30-35 minutes

Now, obviously if making these as cupcakes the cooking time will be less. I don't really time them though, I just check on them periodically.


Now, to make the cupcakes all stripey, you take the raw cake batter and put half the mix in one bowl, the other half in the other bowl. Add your colours (I recommend using gel food colouring, need less to get an intense colour), and beat well. Then get a teaspoon and put a teaspoon of one colour into a muffin tin. Then directly on top in the middle of that drop, add the other colour. You can do as many colours as you want, you aren't limited to two - try a rainbow! Then keep repeating, adding a teaspoon of the next colour directly in the middle of the colour before. If you need to, use the spoon to flatten the mix down a bit to spread it towards the sides more, but carefully! You dont want the batters to mix. You can see the one I did first in the top left hand corner got a bit munted. Still look cool, just more marbled.



All baked!

Now time to ice them! I just used a pretty basic buttercream icing recipe, getting the ratios right is a bit of trial and error to get the right consistency.

Vanilla Buttercream Icing

Beat 125g of butter until white (if you have a kitchenaid type mixer, its good to just set it going, and come back later, the whiter your icing, the truer colour you will get if you are adding colours to it, especially if you want red icing!).

Add a cup of icing sugar and beat well again

Add 1 Tablespoon of milk and a teaspoon of vanilla essence, and beat

Then add as much icing sugar as you need to get the right consistency. Start with about half cup, beat that in, then add more slowly till its the consistency you like. I like mine quite thick but not so thick it won't go through a piping bag. So probably a full 2nd cup there but I never do measure...

Oh yeah, add colouring if you want a coloured icing, or you could also change the essence to another you prefer - strawberry is a nice change

Then simply pipe the icing on, and I happened to have been given some girly cupcake toppers you can buy ready made at the supermarket that obviously I would never use on my own kids, so on they went to finish them off.

Breakfast, the most important meal of the day - A product review

Recently I was asked to review some cereals. I agreed then promptly forgot about it. Then one day the courier arrived with this massive mystery package. It wasn't until I opened it that I realised what it was - I was not expecting 3 full sized boxes of cereal plus 2 boxes of trail bars! So over the past few weeks we have been slowly getting through the different cereals. These are my thoughts:

Be Natural Pink Lady Apple and Flame Raisin -

This one was my absolute favourite. I am partial to fruity cereals so it was right up my alley. Nutritionally it isn't too bad either, logging it into myfitnesspal wasn't a concern - this goes for all the cereals I'm writing about today. Just so full of flavour, loved it! It is definitely one I would buy again, so good! I was sad when the box ran out.

Be Natural Cashew, Almond, Hazelnut and Coconut

This one was my husband's favourite. He likes nutty (must be why he likes me haha), I prefer fruity (hmm, I'm not saying I like my husband because he is fruity! hehe). I quite liked this one too, the flavours all worked well together, just lacked the fruitiness I love.

Be Natural 5 Whole Grain Flakes

Ok, I have to say it. This one bored me. Nutritionally it was the healthiest - but that's because it doesn't contain all the yumminess the other 2 have. For a very plain cereal it was good, but it lacked something. It wasn't exciting. I love eating breakfast but I didn't look forward to eating this each morning. I added sliced up strawberries to it, couldn't eat it plain.

Now, the trail bars. I LOVED these. There were 2 flavours, Berry and Nut and Fruit. I especially loved the Berry one, Hubby especially loved the nut and fruit one. Do we see a trend here? I did like both, just preferred the Berry one. Oh, and the best thing is, the berry one is only 110calories per bar, and is quite a nice filling snack. They are on the shopping list!