Our House – Page 3 – Nightwolf's Den

In the Den Kitchen – YIAH Choc Chip biscuits

You can now find previous In the Den Kitchen posts here or on Pinterest. Clicking Recipes in the menu above will also take you to my In the Den Kitchen Pinterest board. I’m slowly reworking some older posts so they will show up there too.
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Today’s recipe is a yummy snack or a great addition to your kid’s lunchbox 😉

You can make this with any of the YIAH chocolate powders – this time I used Choc Orange and the dark mint chocolate. Chocolate raspberry would be yum, as would Salted Maple or Chilli-Chocolate.

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In the Den Kitchen – Chocolate Cake

Last week I mentioned I made chocolate cake. This is a recipe I’ve made for years and came from an Australian kids cookbook called Clarry’s Kitchen Capers (I think, it was in a blue plastic folder, designed for kids.) The recipe was called Mother’s Day Chocolate Cake. Anywho here is my Thermomix conversion

[yumprint-recipe id=’22’]To make it without a thermomix, chuck all the cake ingredients into a bowl, mix then pour into your cake tin 😉

In the Den Kitchen – First birthday edition

Miss A turned one (!!) last weekend so this week I thought I’d share some of the food I made for her party. We themed it around the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar so food choices were pretty easy (You can read more about the party over at From the Wolf’s Den)

Starting with the egg on the leaf I made Devilled Eggs using YIAH Bay of Bengal Curry dip mix

Then apples, pears, strawberries, grapes (instead of plums), oranges and watermelon on a fruit platter

And the Saturday foods….

chocolate cake and cupcakes (orange and banana) – I’ll be sharing the chocolate cake recipe next week. You can find the orange cake recipe here, I iced them using some YIAH Choc Orange chocolate powder and my banana cake recipe here

Ice cream cones. There’s a bit of a story here… we started off thinking we’d use ice cream lollies, then I found a recipe that was choc filled cones with a marshmallow on top but we couldn’t find mini ice cream cones, so, I trawled Pinterest and saw marshmallow cones. Perfect. Found a recipe for sherbet and a recipe for marshmallow. The sherbet tastes like Wizz Fizz and the marshmallow was soft and fluffy. I did learn a lesson from this adventure – make it on the day you want to serve it otherwise things go soft and the 100s and 1000s loose their colour.

Swiss cheese and salami, a glass full of lolly pops, mini savs for the sausage and mini cherry pies (which were made in paper gelato cups with a square of puff pastry filled with tinned cherry pie filling).

The green leaf was represented by a green salad. Cocoons were made by cutting puff pastry in half then cutting those haves into 2 triangles. Spoon a blob of nutella on the long end then roll up towards the point (like a croissant). Bake for 30 mins in a 180C oven. Butterflies were a last minute decision – fairy bread cut into butterfly shapes.

So there you have it. Food fit for a Very Hungry Caterpillar.

I’m konverted, I think

So. If you’ve been anywhere on the interwebs recently, you’ll probably read about or heard people talking about that book, or things that spark joy. No idea what I’m talking about (where have you been :p)? It’s The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo

(From Amazon)

This #1 New York Times best-selling guide to decluttering your home from Japanese cleaning consultant Marie Kondo takes readers step-by-step through her revolutionary KonMari Method for simplifying, organizing, and storing.
Despite constant efforts to declutter your home, do papers still accumulate like snowdrifts and clothes pile up like a tangled mess of noodles?
Japanese cleaning consultant Marie Kondo takes tidying to a whole new level, promising that if you properly simplify and organize your home once, you’ll never have to do it again. Most methods advocate a room-by-room or little-by-little approach, which doom you to pick away at your piles of stuff forever. The KonMari Method, with its revolutionary category-by-category system, leads to lasting results. In fact, none of Kondo’s clients have lapsed (and she still has a three-month waiting list).
With detailed guidance for determining which items in your house “spark joy” (and which don’t), this international bestseller featuring Tokyo’s newest lifestyle phenomenon will help you clear your clutter and enjoy the unique magic of a tidy home—and the calm, motivated mindset it can inspire.

Mum bought me the book & I’ve read it, twice and I have started to KonMarie my clothing. So far – 3 bags to donate (admittedly some of the clothing was the girls) and the way she suggests folding and storing your clothes seems to be working well for me. Lots f the book really resonates with me and how I’d like our house to be.
I’ll be interested to see how it goes in coming months and see if I personally can stay decluttered and organised. I’ll keep you updated.

Have you read the book? What do you think? Have you been Konverted?

In the Den Kitchen – Mars Bar Slice

So what do you do when you want something a little (hell who am I kidding – a LOT) sweet. Maybe something like Mars Bar Slice (YUMMO!) BUT, oh no, no Mars Bars in the house 🙁 and the shops are closed/you can’t be bothered going out 🙁 🙁 Well don’t despair! You can make Mars Bar Surprise Slice!!

This wonderful recipe I found one night while reading a great little book by the name of The $21 challenge. My whole family loves it and when my daughter asked me to make it for school the next day, just as she was going to bed I thought I’d see how well it converted to Thermo. So here it is – Thermo Mars Bar Surprise Slice (if you want the original non Thermomix recipe go here – page 6)

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From the Den Kitchen–Marbled Chocolate Cheesecake Slice

This is a family favourite slice. I have fond memories of my Godmother or my Mum cooking it when we went away for family holidays.

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In the Den Kitchen–Chinese Chicken & Corn soup

This recipe is a family favourite. I often remember having Chinese Chicken & Corn soup especially of a weekend. The recipe comes from the Women’s Weekly Chinese Cooking Class cookbook (I LOVE this recipe book – I cook so many recipes from it) but the recipe below is my modification to it.

It’s a winter warmer and so easy to use leftovers from a roast chicken or buy a roast chook from Coles or Woolies.

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Home Sweet Home pt 2 #BEDM

I looked back at what I did last year and big surprise the house looks like a bomb hit it again cause we’ve just done more renos (new front door & window and new shelving in the hall this time). This time around I thought I’d document my plans for the girls room reno.

As much as I love the furniture we’ve got (a wardrobe from hubby’s grandad plus a bed and chest of drawers that are mine) nothing in the room looks cohesive or organised. There are toys everywhere and it looks like chaos and truth be told I hate it. Now that Miss A is getting older and transitioning from the bassinet in our room to the cot in the room with her sister we’re looking at ways we can change the room around.

There’s an alcove on one side of the room which is more of a pain than anything else at the moment. Solution – turn it into floor to ceiling wardrobe! Something along the lines of this. Looks super easy and we can DIY.

We’re thinking bunk beds when Miss A is older (like these maybe)

Small Shared Kids Bedrooms Design, Pictures, Remodel, Decor and Ideas - page 3 I'm pinning bc I wonder if something like this would work for two boys sharing a room, one who needs a little nightlight and the other who needs dark....hhmmm..... curtains like in the trains of old :) Great for shared bedroom spaces.

but I love these ideas too…

oooooohhhh! I think I might do this for my girls' bedroom. maybe a surprise Christmas gift bedroom makeover! Kids Crammed In? 10 Great Ideas for Your Kids' Shared Bedroom. Except with a trundle of course :) double loft beds

For the studying and reading

great idea for reading area in child's playroom - just hang curtain rod in the corner with some shelves, pillows, and a rug. Kid's desk pulls down off wall---great space saver. Front is chalkboard framed in white.

Colour wise I’m guessing Miss K will want pink or purple and for decorations and other storage…

Get a cheap bookcase. Attach a mirror and cork board and put it on top of a lazy susan. --- I love this idea! I ABSOLUTELY love this - If I ever have a daughter, I want to have this free nursery print Genius! Use simple black out roll blind and cut shapes out. Makes daytime naps feel like night time stars.

In the Den Kitchen: Anzac Biscuits

Tomorrow is Anzac Day. A national day of remembrance in Australia and New Zealand that broadly commemorates all Australians and New Zealanders “who served and died in all wars, conflicts, and peacekeeping operations” and “the contribution and suffering of all those who have served.”

It’s also a time when we make Anzac biscuits (these are NEVER to be called cookies). You can make these any time of year but they always seem more special on the 25th April.

ANZAC Biscuits

A little history of the Anzac biscuit (thanks to Sky News, you can read the whole thing here)

The first known Anzac biscuit recipe appeared in The War Chest Cookery Book, which was published in Sydney in 1917, but this recipe was for a cake, not a biscuit.

It is said that biscuits with a similar recipe to the one we knew today appeared in magazines under different names, sometimes called “Rolled Oat Biscuits” or “Soldier’s Biscuits”. The current name only came about after the legendary ANZAC Gallipoli Campaign.

Anzac biscuit recipes, in the form we know them today, began appearing in cookbooks in the 1920s. They were sometimes called “Anzac crisps” or “Anzac crispies” (but not “Anzac cookies”) in reference to their hardness. The earliest recipe for these “crispies” found to date is from a New Zealand cookbook published in 1921.

There’s hundreds of recipes out there but I’m sharing the recipe I’ve made for years. We also now make the Anzac biscuit recipe in the Thermomix Everyday Cookbook but this one is my favourite.

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In the Den Kitchen – Happy Easter

Slightly belated Easter greeting. Two things I love about Easter -it means it’s time for Hot Cross Buns (yay) and Cadbury Creme Eggs. But as much as I love these buns I’m not a fan of them appearing in the stores in late December/early January – I mean, really? And, I might get heaps of hate for this, but I’m not a fan of those which are full of fruit. Me, I prefer simple – sultanas and currents (or craisins) or choc chip.

The last couple of years I’ve been making my own. I’ve been using the recipe in the Thermomix Everyday Cookbook. I modify it every time I make it. This year I’ve added a little YIAH Pumpkin Pie baking spice. I thought I’d also share with you my choc chip modification of the original recipe. This is hubby’s favourite – he doesn’t like dried fruit (strange man LOL)

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And the best bit – leave off the cross and they are yummy choc chip buns to eat any time of year!