So my 5 year old told my husband that she knows a LOT - more than he does, in fact. He asked her what she knows, and here is the comprehensive list:
1. Dragons are not real.
2. The husband can have a ring or not.
3. We don't have to bath every day.
4. We must always wear sunscreen.
5. Fruit and vegetables are healthy.
6. Sweets are unhealthy.
7. Children should not drink beer.
8. We must not give mommy a hard time.
9. We must not touch fire.
10. We should not always play with the same toy.
11. We must wash our hands.
12. When we swim, we should close our eyes.
13. We must have a patio.
14. When it is cold we must wear a scarf and jacket.
15. Water is important.
There you have it!
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Junipa's
The best husband in the world took me out for an early birthday celebration dinner (the actual event is on Monday, we went out Thursday night). We went to a small little bistro in Bryanston called Junipa's. And I fell in love.
They do artisan breads, roast their own coffee, and when you order a cappucino you get a cat design in the foam. I had a lovely salad with crispy duck and sour cherries, which was awesome, although the carpaccio salad with blue cheese might have been even better (I scrounged a taste from H's plate). Then a pasta Alfredo for me, pizza with slow roast lamb and olives for H, followed by chocolate brownies. Wow. Their artisan breads are made from a starter that is - get this - 8 years old.
This morning I drove past there again, and bought a sourdough loaf and some croissants, and having tasted it I'm happy to sacrifice the dream of losing weight. I'm in a little bubble of baking happiness. I can't believe this kind of food is available 10 minutes from my home and I never knew!
They do artisan breads, roast their own coffee, and when you order a cappucino you get a cat design in the foam. I had a lovely salad with crispy duck and sour cherries, which was awesome, although the carpaccio salad with blue cheese might have been even better (I scrounged a taste from H's plate). Then a pasta Alfredo for me, pizza with slow roast lamb and olives for H, followed by chocolate brownies. Wow. Their artisan breads are made from a starter that is - get this - 8 years old.
This morning I drove past there again, and bought a sourdough loaf and some croissants, and having tasted it I'm happy to sacrifice the dream of losing weight. I'm in a little bubble of baking happiness. I can't believe this kind of food is available 10 minutes from my home and I never knew!
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Plants vs zombies - the birthday
So the theme for my youngest's second birthday was based on the coolest PC game ever. Not that she plays it, obviously, but if I'm in front of the PC, she generally demands "I want zombies! I want zombies!" until I play a level while she sits on my lap. And since I try to reflect their preferences in the theme for the birthdays, she got a plants vs zombies birthday.
The cupcake-cake:
The cupcake-cake:
The birthday girl:
And her friend eating a zombie (she'll obviously be a major defense factor in the zombie apocalypse):
Sunday, November 27, 2011
My girls
As I write this, the most wonderful girls in the whole world are playing next to me, pretending to be dogs. They're conversing entirely in versions of "woof woof". Except that the baby adds a "braaaaaaains" in between every now and then. She's a plants vs zombies fan.
(Watch this space for her birthday cupcakes).
Anyway, I haven't showed you any pictures of them, so let me just show off for a moment:
Starting off with some old pics, but we had them done professionally so I really like them. The baby was about 2 weeks old here, the older had turned 3 less than 2 months earlier.
Big sister J, very much a girly girl. She loves pretty dresses and flowers and so on. Look at the Justin Bieber hairstyle! (Yeah. It works on 3 year old girls).
Fast forward about 7 months and we have these:
Yes. I am the most blessed mommy in the world.
(Watch this space for her birthday cupcakes).
Anyway, I haven't showed you any pictures of them, so let me just show off for a moment:
Starting off with some old pics, but we had them done professionally so I really like them. The baby was about 2 weeks old here, the older had turned 3 less than 2 months earlier.
That's me and the little one (H), and obviously this one too:
Big sister J, very much a girly girl. She loves pretty dresses and flowers and so on. Look at the Justin Bieber hairstyle! (Yeah. It works on 3 year old girls).
The family. At the back left is my father in law, then the best husband in the world, and then his brother. In front is J on my mother in law's lap, and then me with H. See how tired I am?
Fast forward about 7 months and we have these:
Amazing how quickly they grow up - J almost more than H.
And then in April of this year (so again about 8 months later):
The two sisters just love each other. I mean, they fight and everything, but they really love each other.
Apricot jam
I'm going to let you in on a little secret, one that will help you score many, many points with your friends.
Ready? Here it is: Apricot jam is UNBELIEVABLY easy to make. No, really.
In short:
1. Buy some apricots. Halve them and take out the pips.
2. Weigh them.
3. Mix with an equal weight of white sugar.
4. Let stand overnight.
5. Heat slowly until the sugar is dissolved.
6. Turn up the heat and boil until you have jam.
Voila!
If you'd like a slower walk-through, here goes:
Here I've just halved the apricots. The very first time I was involved in making apricot jam (I was a teenager, and just helped a friend's mom halve the fruit), I was told that leaving a few pips in somehow adds to the flavour; I have absolutely no idea if that's true but I've been doing it ever since.
A few extra pointers:
1. Try to use apricots that aren't fully ripe yet - something about the pectin levels in greenish apricots helps with the jam process. But they shouldn't be green in colour, just firm.
2. If you add the pips, remove them during the cooking process. It doesn't really matter all that much when, but when you're in the quick boil stage and you find a pip in your spoon, just put it aside. To be 100% sure, maybe count them as you put them in to be sure they're all out. Although you will see them in the bottling phase, unless your bottles are huge.
3. I like apricot jam to be medium thickness. A sign of a great jam is supposed to be that it's really light in colour and fine, but I like the thickness of a slightly longer boil. Just boil until it reaches your preference - if that's a deep dark colour, keep going and enjoy.
4. In terms of volume, the batch I made today was basically 2 kg of apricots and 2 kg of sugar, and I got 6.5 bottles of jam, total volume around 1.2 litres.
Ready? Here it is: Apricot jam is UNBELIEVABLY easy to make. No, really.
In short:
1. Buy some apricots. Halve them and take out the pips.
2. Weigh them.
3. Mix with an equal weight of white sugar.
4. Let stand overnight.
5. Heat slowly until the sugar is dissolved.
6. Turn up the heat and boil until you have jam.
Voila!
If you'd like a slower walk-through, here goes:
Here I've just halved the apricots. The very first time I was involved in making apricot jam (I was a teenager, and just helped a friend's mom halve the fruit), I was told that leaving a few pips in somehow adds to the flavour; I have absolutely no idea if that's true but I've been doing it ever since.
Added the sugar. My official recipe says to let it stand for a few hours, but after a few hours it still looked pretty much the same, except the sugar was a little wet. So I left it overnight the way I usually do, and this is what you get:
The sugar and apricot juice do their little hanky-panky overnight and turn into this lovely syrup. Awesome.
At this point, I lit the stove and promptly forgot about the camera, so the next few steps will have to be pictureless. Sorry.
Anyway, keep the heat really low until the sugar is dissolved. I think it will turn into toffee or something otherwise; I've never tried boiling the jam before the sugar dissolves because I don't want to waste a batch of apricot awesomeness - although if you try it, let me know what happens. This took about an hour, probably, over very low heat. I stirred it every 5-10 minutes, more frequently towards the end.
You can tell that the sugar is totally dissolved by watching the syrup on your spoon very carefully, and also running your finger through it; if you feel any grains whatsoever you have to keep going.
Once it's ready, turn up the heat. You want a steady boil but not too hectic. In this last batch my heat was a little high at one point and a droplet jumped all the way from the pot onto my arm which at that point was a good half a metre away. Ouch. Also you run the risk of it burning at the bottom if the heat is too much.
The apricots will slowly disintegrate into the sugary syrup, and the syrup will turn from a sugar syrup into a fruity jam. Keep watching what it does on the back of your spoon when you stir; for the first 20-30 minutes probably it will be just syrupy, and then you'll start to see some texture and thickness. When you think it is starting to look like jam, pour a teaspoon full onto a saucer and let it cool for 5 seconds or so. Then run your finger through it. You'll be able to tell immediately if it's too runny to spread on bread or scones - if so, keep boiling for another 5 minutes and try again.
Then when you're ready, pour into some sterilised bottles and voila! I love apricot jam.
A few extra pointers:
1. Try to use apricots that aren't fully ripe yet - something about the pectin levels in greenish apricots helps with the jam process. But they shouldn't be green in colour, just firm.
2. If you add the pips, remove them during the cooking process. It doesn't really matter all that much when, but when you're in the quick boil stage and you find a pip in your spoon, just put it aside. To be 100% sure, maybe count them as you put them in to be sure they're all out. Although you will see them in the bottling phase, unless your bottles are huge.
3. I like apricot jam to be medium thickness. A sign of a great jam is supposed to be that it's really light in colour and fine, but I like the thickness of a slightly longer boil. Just boil until it reaches your preference - if that's a deep dark colour, keep going and enjoy.
4. In terms of volume, the batch I made today was basically 2 kg of apricots and 2 kg of sugar, and I got 6.5 bottles of jam, total volume around 1.2 litres.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
I did it!
I completed my first 10k run/walk in 1:37 - yes, very slow. But I did it! I probably ran about 4km of the 10, maybe a little more. Last year I walked the whole way, so this is a massive improvement.
Friday, October 28, 2011
Tinkerbell cake
I was on leave for the last two days, to prepare for my oldest's birthday party tomorrow. Here's the cake:
The figurine on top is store-bought and not edible, but the rest of it I made myself and it's all edible. I'm pretty happy with the result.
The other side:
The figurine on top is store-bought and not edible, but the rest of it I made myself and it's all edible. I'm pretty happy with the result.
The other side:
Some of the flower detail:
It's 8pm now, 14 hours before the party starts. It's raining cats and dogs outside, so we may very well be in trouble. At least we'll have cake!
Monday, October 24, 2011
Quick update
It's been a while since I've had a chance to write, and right now I'm pretty swamped too, but here's a quick update.
Johannesburg is in the middle of a heatwave, so I have no energy, and our swimming pool isn't ready for swimming yet. Sigh. At least it's much, much better - it's now a cloudy blue instead of deep green, so all Hanno's efforts have at least paid off. Hopefully by tomorrow night I'll be able to take a swim (of course by then the heatwave will probably be over too).
Most of my free time is going into preparations for Jana's party over the weekend. Watch this space for pictures! The very very very bad news is that we're expecting rain, and the party is at our home which doesn't have that many options for indoor play. How do you entertain 20 kids under 7 without letting them play outside?! We rented a jumping castle and we have a trampoline and jungle gym in the back yard, which was supposed to be enough to keep the little ones entertained. Now it looks like we need to find a plan B. Any suggestions?
Of course Hanno is out of town again - I almost want to say "as usual" by now. It's been every second week for the last decade (at least that's what it feels like). Plus the moment he is physically more than 100 km from Johannesburg, the kids fall ill. It's amazing - it's like he's the immune system equivalent of an amber necklace, and just by being here he keeps them healthy. Then he leaves, and the kids fall ill. Today it's Jana's turn, with a tummy ache and headache and mild fever. I just hope she shakes it off before the party, otherwise it's REALLY going to be a disaster.
So in between arranging doctors visits and creating sugarpaste flowers in a Tinkerbell colour scheme, I'm trying to finish off some urgent work so that I can go on leave for Thursday and Friday. The fun never stops!
Johannesburg is in the middle of a heatwave, so I have no energy, and our swimming pool isn't ready for swimming yet. Sigh. At least it's much, much better - it's now a cloudy blue instead of deep green, so all Hanno's efforts have at least paid off. Hopefully by tomorrow night I'll be able to take a swim (of course by then the heatwave will probably be over too).
Most of my free time is going into preparations for Jana's party over the weekend. Watch this space for pictures! The very very very bad news is that we're expecting rain, and the party is at our home which doesn't have that many options for indoor play. How do you entertain 20 kids under 7 without letting them play outside?! We rented a jumping castle and we have a trampoline and jungle gym in the back yard, which was supposed to be enough to keep the little ones entertained. Now it looks like we need to find a plan B. Any suggestions?
Of course Hanno is out of town again - I almost want to say "as usual" by now. It's been every second week for the last decade (at least that's what it feels like). Plus the moment he is physically more than 100 km from Johannesburg, the kids fall ill. It's amazing - it's like he's the immune system equivalent of an amber necklace, and just by being here he keeps them healthy. Then he leaves, and the kids fall ill. Today it's Jana's turn, with a tummy ache and headache and mild fever. I just hope she shakes it off before the party, otherwise it's REALLY going to be a disaster.
So in between arranging doctors visits and creating sugarpaste flowers in a Tinkerbell colour scheme, I'm trying to finish off some urgent work so that I can go on leave for Thursday and Friday. The fun never stops!
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Permissive parenting
We attended one of Jana's school friends' birthday party today. The little boy turned 5.
Without going into too much detail, I want to say that I've never seen parenting get permissive to the point that I saw today. The mom gave the birthday boy a 20 cm long knife because he insisted on cutting the cake himself, and then left him alone to do so (while he's surrounded by younger kids) - because that's what he wanted. There were plenty of other examples too, but this just boggled my mind. The knife was very close to the face of the kid next to him at times, as he waved it around and explained how he wanted to cut the cake. I just held my baby close and felt thankful that Jana was sitting far away from the cake.
Yeesh.
Without going into too much detail, I want to say that I've never seen parenting get permissive to the point that I saw today. The mom gave the birthday boy a 20 cm long knife because he insisted on cutting the cake himself, and then left him alone to do so (while he's surrounded by younger kids) - because that's what he wanted. There were plenty of other examples too, but this just boggled my mind. The knife was very close to the face of the kid next to him at times, as he waved it around and explained how he wanted to cut the cake. I just held my baby close and felt thankful that Jana was sitting far away from the cake.
Yeesh.
Friday, September 16, 2011
Running update
I haven't posted about my running progress in a while.
It's not going fantastic, just because of time limitations, but I do now routinely run about 2.5 km before I need to take a walking break - I've never been able to do that much. I can also do more than 4 km of running per training session, which means at my 10k run next month I should be able to run about half of it. Not what I was hoping for when I entered, but hey, I'm going to complete a 10k!
It's not going fantastic, just because of time limitations, but I do now routinely run about 2.5 km before I need to take a walking break - I've never been able to do that much. I can also do more than 4 km of running per training session, which means at my 10k run next month I should be able to run about half of it. Not what I was hoping for when I entered, but hey, I'm going to complete a 10k!
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Cake decorating course!
I had my first "advanced" cake decorating course yesterday. It was with Learn2Craft, I've done both of her beginners' courses as well. New for the advanced course were two important aspects: tiered cakes and modelling chocolate. I'm going to show off shamelessly here:
The most time went into the three-tiered one at the back, obviously. We made all the flowers by hand, and the second layer was my first chance to use an impression mat - I love it but it's going to take a while to do it perfectly! Here's a closer look:
Look how the bottom piping on the right melted when I put it in the car! It was literally in the boot for about 2 minutes while I went back inside to fetch the other container with the other two cakes, but in that small time the icing melted and many of the flowers fell off - so I had to reattach them at home. Clearly the car was too hot! My friend Lee held her and my three-tiered cakes on her lap on the way home, otherwise I think I would have had real trouble.
A closer look. I'm proud of how the flowers turned out!
The second cake was my first attempt at making arum lilies, and I think it's the prettiest flower I've made to date:
The stamen in the middle is dipped in egg white and then in semolina that has been coloured yellow, to give it that authentic look. Isn't it beautiful!
Then the last little cake, which arguably isn't as pretty as the other two, was covered in modelling chocolate with a chocolate rose on top. I found the dark modelling chocolate quite hard to work with, you'll see my rose is not perfect by any definition. But the discovery of the day was the white modelling chocolate - it tastes SOOO much better than fondant, you can roll it thinner and other than that you can do pretty much anything with it that you would normally do with fondant. I'm excited to do more modelling chocolate work!
For some reason I can't upload the picture I want to show you - just a close-up of the small cake. I'll try to edit after I've posted this. I'm still too new to blogging to be able to troubleshoot effectively.
A closer look. I'm proud of how the flowers turned out!
The second cake was my first attempt at making arum lilies, and I think it's the prettiest flower I've made to date:
For some reason I can't upload the picture I want to show you - just a close-up of the small cake. I'll try to edit after I've posted this. I'm still too new to blogging to be able to troubleshoot effectively.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
A parent's prayer
My friend Crystal posted this poem on Gentle Christian Mothers, from a book called "The Gentle Weapon". I think it's awesome:
Dear God,
Teach me to embody those ideals
I would want my children
to learn from me.
Let me communicate
with my children wisely--
in ways
that will draw their hearts
to kindness, to decency
and to true wisdom.
Dear God,
let me pass on to my children
only the good;
let them find in me
the values
and the behavior
I hope to see in them.
Friday, August 12, 2011
Week 4, day 3
So yesterday morning I did 5k on the treadmill. I only ran 3k of the 5, but I managed to get through the 5k without dying, which was pretty much impossible not too long ago. So on the one hand I'm very nervous about the 10k run coming up (only 2 months left to train, eek!), but on the other I really do feel I'm making a lot of progress.
I hope to add in a road run tomorrow morning before church - haven't been running on the road for a while, it might be a bit of a reality check.
I hope to add in a road run tomorrow morning before church - haven't been running on the road for a while, it might be a bit of a reality check.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Week 4, day 2
Today's running program was as follows:
10 minutes of warm up walking
7 minutes run, 2 minutes walk
4 minutes run, 2 minutes walk
repeat the run sequence
then 5 minutes cool down walk
It went OK, I guess, but it was my most difficult run to date. Which is obvious, I suppose, since it was the furthest I've run in more than a decade. I'm a little worried about my 10k race goal... but for the moment, I'm taking it one day at a time, and while I'm running I'm pretty much taking it a minute at a time. I just get through one minute, then one minute more, and more and more.
What I'm really really proud of is that I've managed to stick to the 2 minute walks in between run times, instead of going longer. It happens quite often that I end a running sequence and feel convinced that I'll need to do more than 2 minutes of walking before I can run again, but until now I've managed each time to pull myself together by the end of the 2 minutes.
Tomorrow I plan to do some cross-training. I haven't decided what - maybe a bicycle and the circuit strength training. I want to get my heartrate going so I will do something cardio-related. We'll see.
10 minutes of warm up walking
7 minutes run, 2 minutes walk
4 minutes run, 2 minutes walk
repeat the run sequence
then 5 minutes cool down walk
It went OK, I guess, but it was my most difficult run to date. Which is obvious, I suppose, since it was the furthest I've run in more than a decade. I'm a little worried about my 10k race goal... but for the moment, I'm taking it one day at a time, and while I'm running I'm pretty much taking it a minute at a time. I just get through one minute, then one minute more, and more and more.
What I'm really really proud of is that I've managed to stick to the 2 minute walks in between run times, instead of going longer. It happens quite often that I end a running sequence and feel convinced that I'll need to do more than 2 minutes of walking before I can run again, but until now I've managed each time to pull myself together by the end of the 2 minutes.
Tomorrow I plan to do some cross-training. I haven't decided what - maybe a bicycle and the circuit strength training. I want to get my heartrate going so I will do something cardio-related. We'll see.
Monday, August 8, 2011
Road runner
Those of you who have seen me in real life probably won't believe this, but I used to be a runner. Not the long-distance marathon super-fit type, but the run a few times a week and enjoy it type. I remember an 8k run that I did in Nature's Valley when I was 20 or so - on holiday. So I wasn't super-serious about the whole thing but I liked it, and did enough of it to stay fit and healthy.
But of course, since then, marriage and kids and working life happened, and if you'relazy busy like me exercise can be the first thing to disappear off the schedule. Plus running and cake baking/decorating don't really go hand in hand as hobbies, and you know which one I tend to choose.
Pretty much the only exercise I've had in the last few years (apart from running after 2 kids, which I suppose is a good start) was a 10k walk that I did at the Soweto marathon in November last year. And I would probably have chickened out from that one too if my friend Simon wasn't doing it with me. It was great fun though, and Simon and I promised each other that this year we'd run 10k instead of walking it. Easy enough when it's still a year away, right?
So around March this year I renounced my couch potato status and started doing the couch to 5k running program. It went great for the first 3 weeks, I made good progress, enjoyed running and felt good about myself. Then week 4, day 1 of couch to 5k was just too much for my system (going from running either 90 seconds or 3 minutes at a time, to running 3 or 5 minutes at a time was too big a jump!) So the rest of the week I didn't feel up to running, and the next week I got sick, and then the kids were sick, and so on. I'm sure I don't need to tell you the rest.
About 2 months later I went running once, and repeated the 90 seconds / 3 minutes running program with no issues. That surprised me - I thought I would have to go back a week further, but I handled it fine. And yet, I didn't find the time or energy to keep at it.
Then 2 weeks ago, I received an e-mail reminder that the Soweto marathon is coming up. At the same time, my gym membership (which I haven't really used for the last 6 months) was up for renewal. Decision time.
So I unearthed my running shoes from the back of the closet, dug up my exercise clothes (which only fit because I've been doing Weight Watchers, otherwise a shopping trip would have been necessary) and went back to gym.
Here's the pick-my-jaw-up-off-the-floor bit: I got on the treadmill, and ran the program for week 4, day 1 of couch to 5k with no problems whatsoever. After pinching myself a few times, I got very excited, and found a 10k running program. Now I'm back on track, in week 4 of a 12 week program to get me to a 10k race. I even took the stairs instead of the lift at work today!
The big news out of all of this is that I've just thrown my hat over the wall and entered a 10k race on 9 October. That's the end of week 12 of my training program. I'm nervous, and excited, and feeling phenomenal about the whole thing. I'll keep you updated.
But of course, since then, marriage and kids and working life happened, and if you're
Pretty much the only exercise I've had in the last few years (apart from running after 2 kids, which I suppose is a good start) was a 10k walk that I did at the Soweto marathon in November last year. And I would probably have chickened out from that one too if my friend Simon wasn't doing it with me. It was great fun though, and Simon and I promised each other that this year we'd run 10k instead of walking it. Easy enough when it's still a year away, right?
So around March this year I renounced my couch potato status and started doing the couch to 5k running program. It went great for the first 3 weeks, I made good progress, enjoyed running and felt good about myself. Then week 4, day 1 of couch to 5k was just too much for my system (going from running either 90 seconds or 3 minutes at a time, to running 3 or 5 minutes at a time was too big a jump!) So the rest of the week I didn't feel up to running, and the next week I got sick, and then the kids were sick, and so on. I'm sure I don't need to tell you the rest.
About 2 months later I went running once, and repeated the 90 seconds / 3 minutes running program with no issues. That surprised me - I thought I would have to go back a week further, but I handled it fine. And yet, I didn't find the time or energy to keep at it.
Then 2 weeks ago, I received an e-mail reminder that the Soweto marathon is coming up. At the same time, my gym membership (which I haven't really used for the last 6 months) was up for renewal. Decision time.
So I unearthed my running shoes from the back of the closet, dug up my exercise clothes (which only fit because I've been doing Weight Watchers, otherwise a shopping trip would have been necessary) and went back to gym.
Here's the pick-my-jaw-up-off-the-floor bit: I got on the treadmill, and ran the program for week 4, day 1 of couch to 5k with no problems whatsoever. After pinching myself a few times, I got very excited, and found a 10k running program. Now I'm back on track, in week 4 of a 12 week program to get me to a 10k race. I even took the stairs instead of the lift at work today!
The big news out of all of this is that I've just thrown my hat over the wall and entered a 10k race on 9 October. That's the end of week 12 of my training program. I'm nervous, and excited, and feeling phenomenal about the whole thing. I'll keep you updated.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Granola and all that is crunchy
Like I've said before I tend towards the natural, crunchy end of the spectrum. I just took this test and scored in the second highest category. It always surprises me what behaviors end up on these tests though.
For example: The test I've linked before seems to score you as crunchier if you homeschool than if you don't. Now as I would define it, crunchiness is about sustainable living, eco-friendly choices, taking your impact on the earth into account when you make lifestyle choices. By that definition, the "most crunchy" personwould be one who makes significant personal sacrifices in order to have less impact on the planet - for example selling your car and using public transport. Unless a family chooses homeschooling so that they won't have to drive kids to school, I honestly don't see the impact on the planet. I know a few friends who read this are very pro-homeschooling, so maybe you'd enlighten me in the comments?
Don't get me wrong, I don't oppose homeschooling in the least. It's not a choice that we've made for our family for a variety of reasons, but I could see a different life for us where it would be a natural choice, and I support my homeschooling friends (and sister) 100%. I just don't see how it fits into the definition of crunchy. It's certainly in line with the parenting paradigm that I subscribe to, but just like my choice not to hit my kids has nothing to do with eco-friendly living, I don't see how schooling choices are better or worse for the planet.
Same goes for co-sleeping, selectively/delaying vaccinating and extended breastfeeding, all of which I do myself. It just seems to me like these crunchy lists end up being a list of alternative lifestyles that often go together, but doesn't necessarily mean they're all for the same purpose.
Other things on the crunchy list are decidedly eco-friendly (cloth diapering, re-usable menstrual products, breastfeeding) but my choice to do it has less to do with the planet and more to do with common sense. Sustainable living is very important to me - for example for our home renovation I'm planning to use products manufactured in South Africa as far as possible, because the carbon footprint of imported tiles from Italy and an imported stove from Germany can be pretty big. But I don't cloth diaper in the first place because it's more eco-friendly. It was part of the choice, but the much bigger factor is that it's cheaper - and cuter.
The one factor that these tests often ignore (the one I linked to has one question on it) is the food you choose to eat. It's been proved many times that a vegetarian or vegan diet has a lower carbon footprint - just under half a square kilometer of land can produce enough beef to feed 20 people but enough wheat to feed 400. It takes between 3 and 15 times more water to produce animal protein than plant protein. And of course simply taking a stance against factory farming of meat can play a major role in deciding to decrease your meat intake.
I'm reading a lot about vegetarianism at the moment. Some of it has immense appeal to me - so I may be in for an interesting time ahead.
For example: The test I've linked before seems to score you as crunchier if you homeschool than if you don't. Now as I would define it, crunchiness is about sustainable living, eco-friendly choices, taking your impact on the earth into account when you make lifestyle choices. By that definition, the "most crunchy" personwould be one who makes significant personal sacrifices in order to have less impact on the planet - for example selling your car and using public transport. Unless a family chooses homeschooling so that they won't have to drive kids to school, I honestly don't see the impact on the planet. I know a few friends who read this are very pro-homeschooling, so maybe you'd enlighten me in the comments?
Don't get me wrong, I don't oppose homeschooling in the least. It's not a choice that we've made for our family for a variety of reasons, but I could see a different life for us where it would be a natural choice, and I support my homeschooling friends (and sister) 100%. I just don't see how it fits into the definition of crunchy. It's certainly in line with the parenting paradigm that I subscribe to, but just like my choice not to hit my kids has nothing to do with eco-friendly living, I don't see how schooling choices are better or worse for the planet.
Same goes for co-sleeping, selectively/delaying vaccinating and extended breastfeeding, all of which I do myself. It just seems to me like these crunchy lists end up being a list of alternative lifestyles that often go together, but doesn't necessarily mean they're all for the same purpose.
Other things on the crunchy list are decidedly eco-friendly (cloth diapering, re-usable menstrual products, breastfeeding) but my choice to do it has less to do with the planet and more to do with common sense. Sustainable living is very important to me - for example for our home renovation I'm planning to use products manufactured in South Africa as far as possible, because the carbon footprint of imported tiles from Italy and an imported stove from Germany can be pretty big. But I don't cloth diaper in the first place because it's more eco-friendly. It was part of the choice, but the much bigger factor is that it's cheaper - and cuter.
The one factor that these tests often ignore (the one I linked to has one question on it) is the food you choose to eat. It's been proved many times that a vegetarian or vegan diet has a lower carbon footprint - just under half a square kilometer of land can produce enough beef to feed 20 people but enough wheat to feed 400. It takes between 3 and 15 times more water to produce animal protein than plant protein. And of course simply taking a stance against factory farming of meat can play a major role in deciding to decrease your meat intake.
I'm reading a lot about vegetarianism at the moment. Some of it has immense appeal to me - so I may be in for an interesting time ahead.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
4am and the world sleeps
The kids are regularly waking up between 4am and 4:15 at the moment. Yawn.
We've never really had sleep issues, unless you count the fact that neither of them slept through the night before 14 months or so. But my philosophy has always been to make sleep a pleasant experience for them, and it worked out really well - going to bed is never a struggle. It's just the early waking!
Since I'm such an optimist though, I'll share with you what I've found at 4am: There is a certain peace to the world at that time of the morning. The kids are generally cuddly and loving (the super-energetic playtime usually only starts about an hour after getting up), and there is something lovely about how quiet everything is. Having a cup of coffee while the world sleeps, with time to just slooooowly appreciate the start of a new day is actually a blessing. Waking up at 5am means I generally have 15 minutes or so to wake up and then the day starts. We leave home around 6:20. So that extra hour with the kids, while the sleep would have been wonderful, is actually not the worst thing that could happen to me.
We're going to try a few methods to let them sleep a little later over the next few weeks. Most importantly we'll try to move Heike's morning sleep later so that she can go down a bit later with hopefully a later waketime. We'll see - and maybe if it works I'll even miss getting up so early.
We've never really had sleep issues, unless you count the fact that neither of them slept through the night before 14 months or so. But my philosophy has always been to make sleep a pleasant experience for them, and it worked out really well - going to bed is never a struggle. It's just the early waking!
Since I'm such an optimist though, I'll share with you what I've found at 4am: There is a certain peace to the world at that time of the morning. The kids are generally cuddly and loving (the super-energetic playtime usually only starts about an hour after getting up), and there is something lovely about how quiet everything is. Having a cup of coffee while the world sleeps, with time to just slooooowly appreciate the start of a new day is actually a blessing. Waking up at 5am means I generally have 15 minutes or so to wake up and then the day starts. We leave home around 6:20. So that extra hour with the kids, while the sleep would have been wonderful, is actually not the worst thing that could happen to me.
We're going to try a few methods to let them sleep a little later over the next few weeks. Most importantly we'll try to move Heike's morning sleep later so that she can go down a bit later with hopefully a later waketime. We'll see - and maybe if it works I'll even miss getting up so early.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Home renovations
Hanno and I have been planning a new kitchen since we first moved into our house, 2.5 years ago. We had plans drawn up by an architect – worth every cent, by the way. Hanno told me all along that we should get an architect and I resisted because I didn’t want to spend more than we had to, but she came up with such incredible ideas for the house that I can’t imagine doing this without her. So here it is in writing: Hanno was right! Of course our original plan would have been significantly cheaper, but much less awesome and I suppose the trade-off between awesome and cheap is a pretty easy one to make.
Plans were approved a week ago, so now we’re applying for loans and getting kitchen designs and building quotes and deciding on tiles etc. At times I want to postpone the whole thing for a year just so we can breathe for a while, I really dislike it when my life feels this hectic. But on the other hand, the kitchen is going to be FANTASTIC. Now if only we can fast-forward through the next 4 months...
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Parenting - as viewed by my four year old
In the car on the way home this afternoon, Jana and I had a conversation about her friend John who had given another kid a nosebleed. It went on from there to why we shouldn't hit people, and then turned to adults hitting children and parents hitting children. Jana declared self-confidently that mommies and daddies never hit their kids (while I alternate between grinning and wiping away a few tears of joy that I could raise a child to 4 years old without even knowing that spanking exists). She then went on to say that I will NEVER hit her (correct), so I asked "and what if you do something REALLY REALLY bad? Will I hit you then?"
"No! Never!"
"What will I do if you do something really really bad?"
"You'll love me anyway!"
There are some days when parenting is hard work and difficult and tiring and I feel like the worst mommy in the world. Today is not one of those days.
Saturday, July 16, 2011
German chocolate cake
2 weeks ago, my very good friend Lee had a birthday party and I offered to bake her a cake. She's a chocoholic and requested a chocolate-caramel-type cake, so I decided to try a German chocolate cake from this recipe book. The recipe was fairly easy, the filling was special (although VERY sweet and rich) and the end result looked quite pretty. Here goes:
Ingredients for the cake:
100 g (3.5 oz) sweet milk chocolate
Half a cup of water
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
pinch of salt
250 g (8.8 oz or two sticks) butter
2 cups sugar
4 eggs, separated
1 tsp vanilla essence / extract
1 cup buttermilk
Ingredients for the filling:
4 egg yolks
1 1/4 cups evaporated milk
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence / extract
1 1/2 cups sugar
190 g (6.5 oz or 1 1/2 sticks) butter
2 cups dessicated coconut
1 1/2 cups pecan nuts, chopped and roasted
Ingredients for the icing:
250 g (8.8 oz or 2 sticks) butter
1 1/3 cups cocoa powder, sifted
5 cups icing sugar, sifted
2/3 cup milk
2 teaspoons vanilla essence / extract
Preheat the oven to 180 C (350 F). Grease and line 3 round 7 inch cake tins.
I'll walk you through how I did it, not just what the recipe says, which will never be exactly the same thing. So to start off, I didn't have sweet milk chocolate, only dark chocolate (52% couverture) so that's what I used.
Put the chocolate and water into a glass bowl and microwave for about 2 minutes, stirring once. You don't want the water to boil or the chocolate to melt completely, but the mixture should be warm enough that the chocolate will melt when you stir if afterwards.
In a mixing bowl, sift the flour, bicarb of soda and salt together.
At this point the recipe tells you to start beating butter and sugar and egg yolks in your electric mixer, but if you're like me and you dislike washing your mixer bowl, start by beating the egg whites until they form stiff peaks, and tip it out into a bowl. You can rinse the mixer bowl but it's probably not even necessary - and it's far easier to clean out egg whites to prepare batter than to clean out batter so you can whisk egg whites, which needs a super-clean mixing bowl.
Now measure your butter and sugar into the electric mixer.
Then, with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add the egg yolks, one at a time, mixing well in between. Scrape down the sides of the bowl if necessary.
Blend in the melted chocolate and vanilla essence, until has an almost chocolate-mousse like consistency:
Add the flour mixture alternately with the buttermilk, mixing well after each addition. Now mix in the whisked egg whites gently.
Pour the batter into the prepared pans and bake for 30-35 minutes. I had to bake mine a little longer - maybe 40 minutes in total. You'll know they're done when they spring back a little when you press them in the middle with the flat side of a knife or fork. When they come out of the oven, immediately run a small spatula around the edge of each layer. Cool in the pans for 15 minutes and turn out onto a wire rack.
At this point I ran into a bit of a disappointment, as the cakes didn't turn out well at all, despite the fact that I greased and lined the pans really well. It stuck to the greasing paper, which was additionally greased with butter so it really shouldn't happen:
That's the underside which should be flat - so I really don't like the actual cake recipe all that much. In retrospect I think if I make this recipe again I'll use a different recipe for the actual cake but I will use the filling and icing again - this is quite an expensive cake with the chocolate and buttermilk and all that, and while it gives a nice dense cake I think there are other ways of achieving that.
While the cake is in the oven, start preparing the filling:
Combine the egg yolks, evaporated milk and vanilla in a saucepan.
Whisk until well blended. Add the sugar and butter and cook on medium heat for 12 minutes, stirring constantly.
Remove from the heat. At this point you'll need to protect your tongue and waistline because it smells exactly like hot fudge (which it is, mostly) but it is VERY hot so succumbing to the temptation to take a spoonful might give you blisters.
If you bought roasted nuts, you can just chop them up, otherwise dry-roast them in a pan over low heat and then chop them up:
Add the coconuts and pecan nuts to the fudge filling. Mix well and cool until you can easily spread it.
For the icing:
Clean up your mixer bowl, and then mix the butter and cocoa powder until combined. Add half of the icing sugar, followed by the milk and rest of the icing sugar. Add vanilla and beat until fluffy. I didn't take pictures of this bit, sorry!
I used only about half of the icing sugar and half of the milk and it gave a nice dark not-too-sweet icing, which as it turns out was an inspired choice as the filling is REALLY sweet. In fact when we had the cake that night it was actually a bit overpoweringly rich and sweet, which was disappointing. My friend Lee did say it improved vastly by the next day so maybe this cake is best made a day or two in advance.
So, on to assembly:
Spread half of the filling on the bottom cake layer and the other half on the second, and top with the third layer. You'll have quite a high cake:
Choose the layer with the flattest bottom to go right on top, so you can ice the top as flatly as possible. Then spread the icing evenly over the sides and top. I think this goes well with very little decoration, so I just added a candle:
And here's a picture of the sliced cake, from about 5 hours later:
So what I'd do differently:
1. If I use the same cake recipe, I definitely won't use couverture chocolate. I really couldn't taste the difference that actual chocolate makes in this recipe.
2. The filling is perhaps a bit thick, so I might use less coconut so that it can spread thinner. Hanno also doesn't really like coconut, so an alternative is to use just a lot of nuts with the fudge, which would give it more crunch and it could be really lovely.
3. I'd make it a day or two in advance so all the flavours have a while to settle together.
Anyway, so there you have it! Let me know if you've tried something like this.
Ingredients for the cake:
100 g (3.5 oz) sweet milk chocolate
Half a cup of water
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
pinch of salt
250 g (8.8 oz or two sticks) butter
2 cups sugar
4 eggs, separated
1 tsp vanilla essence / extract
1 cup buttermilk
Ingredients for the filling:
4 egg yolks
1 1/4 cups evaporated milk
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence / extract
1 1/2 cups sugar
190 g (6.5 oz or 1 1/2 sticks) butter
2 cups dessicated coconut
1 1/2 cups pecan nuts, chopped and roasted
Ingredients for the icing:
250 g (8.8 oz or 2 sticks) butter
1 1/3 cups cocoa powder, sifted
5 cups icing sugar, sifted
2/3 cup milk
2 teaspoons vanilla essence / extract
Preheat the oven to 180 C (350 F). Grease and line 3 round 7 inch cake tins.
I'll walk you through how I did it, not just what the recipe says, which will never be exactly the same thing. So to start off, I didn't have sweet milk chocolate, only dark chocolate (52% couverture) so that's what I used.
Put the chocolate and water into a glass bowl and microwave for about 2 minutes, stirring once. You don't want the water to boil or the chocolate to melt completely, but the mixture should be warm enough that the chocolate will melt when you stir if afterwards.
In a mixing bowl, sift the flour, bicarb of soda and salt together.
At this point the recipe tells you to start beating butter and sugar and egg yolks in your electric mixer, but if you're like me and you dislike washing your mixer bowl, start by beating the egg whites until they form stiff peaks, and tip it out into a bowl. You can rinse the mixer bowl but it's probably not even necessary - and it's far easier to clean out egg whites to prepare batter than to clean out batter so you can whisk egg whites, which needs a super-clean mixing bowl.
Now measure your butter and sugar into the electric mixer.
Then, with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add the egg yolks, one at a time, mixing well in between. Scrape down the sides of the bowl if necessary.
Blend in the melted chocolate and vanilla essence, until has an almost chocolate-mousse like consistency:
Add the flour mixture alternately with the buttermilk, mixing well after each addition. Now mix in the whisked egg whites gently.
Pour the batter into the prepared pans and bake for 30-35 minutes. I had to bake mine a little longer - maybe 40 minutes in total. You'll know they're done when they spring back a little when you press them in the middle with the flat side of a knife or fork. When they come out of the oven, immediately run a small spatula around the edge of each layer. Cool in the pans for 15 minutes and turn out onto a wire rack.
At this point I ran into a bit of a disappointment, as the cakes didn't turn out well at all, despite the fact that I greased and lined the pans really well. It stuck to the greasing paper, which was additionally greased with butter so it really shouldn't happen:
That's the underside which should be flat - so I really don't like the actual cake recipe all that much. In retrospect I think if I make this recipe again I'll use a different recipe for the actual cake but I will use the filling and icing again - this is quite an expensive cake with the chocolate and buttermilk and all that, and while it gives a nice dense cake I think there are other ways of achieving that.
While the cake is in the oven, start preparing the filling:
Combine the egg yolks, evaporated milk and vanilla in a saucepan.
Whisk until well blended. Add the sugar and butter and cook on medium heat for 12 minutes, stirring constantly.
Remove from the heat. At this point you'll need to protect your tongue and waistline because it smells exactly like hot fudge (which it is, mostly) but it is VERY hot so succumbing to the temptation to take a spoonful might give you blisters.
If you bought roasted nuts, you can just chop them up, otherwise dry-roast them in a pan over low heat and then chop them up:
Add the coconuts and pecan nuts to the fudge filling. Mix well and cool until you can easily spread it.
For the icing:
Clean up your mixer bowl, and then mix the butter and cocoa powder until combined. Add half of the icing sugar, followed by the milk and rest of the icing sugar. Add vanilla and beat until fluffy. I didn't take pictures of this bit, sorry!
I used only about half of the icing sugar and half of the milk and it gave a nice dark not-too-sweet icing, which as it turns out was an inspired choice as the filling is REALLY sweet. In fact when we had the cake that night it was actually a bit overpoweringly rich and sweet, which was disappointing. My friend Lee did say it improved vastly by the next day so maybe this cake is best made a day or two in advance.
So, on to assembly:
Spread half of the filling on the bottom cake layer and the other half on the second, and top with the third layer. You'll have quite a high cake:
Choose the layer with the flattest bottom to go right on top, so you can ice the top as flatly as possible. Then spread the icing evenly over the sides and top. I think this goes well with very little decoration, so I just added a candle:
And here's a picture of the sliced cake, from about 5 hours later:
So what I'd do differently:
1. If I use the same cake recipe, I definitely won't use couverture chocolate. I really couldn't taste the difference that actual chocolate makes in this recipe.
2. The filling is perhaps a bit thick, so I might use less coconut so that it can spread thinner. Hanno also doesn't really like coconut, so an alternative is to use just a lot of nuts with the fudge, which would give it more crunch and it could be really lovely.
3. I'd make it a day or two in advance so all the flavours have a while to settle together.
Anyway, so there you have it! Let me know if you've tried something like this.
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