Chocolate Chia Seed Cake

We found out not so long ago that Danger Mouse, whom is madcat crazy, might not actually be as mad as we thought.  That he is in fact dealing with a heap of food intolerance's, which could be attributing to his behaviour (I am claiming its the food, otherwise its genes.  Definitely his Dad's ....). 

So my cooking and baking for him is slowly evolving.  He is intolerant to sugar, wheat, dairy and a heap of preservatives and colourings.  Not to mention a pile of randoms, including dust mites, perfumes and pyrethrins.  I am trying hard to eradicate the food intolerance's from his diet.

Its not easy.  Its not that fun.  Its proving to be expensive.  But its worth it, in bucketfuls. 

I've decided sugar is going to be the hardest intolerance to deal with.  It comes in lots of processed and natural forms.  So the first thing I am doing is getting rid of the processed forms, then will go from there.  I am hoping the naturally occurring sugars in pure food have no effect on him.  Fingers crossed.

Thankfully there are a heap of brilliant blogs out there written by mummies with a heap of experience in food intolerance's, who love to share their recipes.  Otherwise I'd be stuck!

Which is how I came across this Chocolate Chia Seed Cake recipe.  I didn't add cranberries and used organic coconut palm sugar for my sweetener.  Yes, still sugar, but I'm hoping because its not highly processed, is preservative free, unfiltered and is low GI it will be OK.  As I am still a bit green on this whole healthy thing, I used raw cacao instead of raw cocoa.  They might be the same thing.  I haven't bothered to research it to find out.  I also used pure virgin olive oil instead of the butter.

The kids loved it.  I had an argument with them because I wouldn't give them thirds.  An absolute winner.  It has an amazingly moist texture, is oddly grainy, yet has a lovely rich chocolaty taste.  Definitely not your traditional cake, but lovely all the same.

Homemade Crayons

I can finally now tick this off "I Want to Try This" List.  I made my own crayons.  I have had a bag of broken crayons that I've been adding to for about 2 years.  Yes, sadly, its taken that long for me to get around to trying this craft.

The Girl likes to snap crayons.  And then painstakingly peels the paper off them and leaves it all over the house.  Then she eats them.  Then spits them out into a big sticky colourful disgusting mess. 

No chance now kid. 

The verdict?  She tried to snap them but couldn't.  She likes to use them as pretend glasses.  And stack them and put them in a row.  And look at the pretty mottled colours on the bottom of them.  They were a bit hard (as in solid), so she had to press really hard to get them to mark.  Danger Mouse had more luck using them as crayons than The Girl did.  She had a tantrum that I wouldn't let her carry them to school to pick up Sprat.  She likes them.  Possibly just not for the use they were made for. 

I have ordered some different shaped small silicone baking trays, and when they arrive I'll make some more in smaller shapes.  I have plenty of broken crayons to melt.

Pinterest is full of pins about homemade crayons.  Or if you Google homemade crayon it'll come up with 2,880,000 results.  I don't need to add yet another blog post on how to make these.

Markers on the Rampage

I thought I had learnt years ago to get rid of all markers from our house that were not washable.  Crayola Washable Markers are the only ones allowed through our front door.  So far, I haven't found anything they don't wash off.

One Christmas a few years back, we were given 3 of those artwork sets.  You know the ones, they have crayons, markers, pencils, paints etc all in one handy carry case.  Knowing the markers were almost permanent, I packed them away in our craft corner, well out of sight, waiting until the boys got old enough to be trusted not to draw over the house with them. 

I took them away with us to the beach this summer deciding they would really handy for rainy day entertainment.  And with 11 cousins all together, they were brilliant.  Apart from when The Girl got hold of a few markers and drew on the dining room table, and we had to scrub it for half an hour to get the pen out.

Problem is, I should of left them at the beach.  When we got home, I dumped them in the office and thought I'd get around to putting them away properly later.  And as the story usually goes, that 'later' never came.  The Girl found them didn't she.  And this is the fun she had in the space of around 13 minutes while I was cooking dinner and not really watching her properly ..... I am extremely grateful that she was outside with them.  I cringe to imagine the damage if it was inside.  I might add that she had some help in the form of Danger Mouse.  But so far he is denying all damages and claiming it was "nobody".

The trailer took the first hit, and was obviously the marker hide out.

The house had a turn.

The concrete has some lovely new features.



Summer Fun

These school holidays I have totally neglected Facebook, my blog, housework and any kind of baking or crafting.  I have instead spent as much time with my children as possible, as the holidays are short and I miss the kids when they get caught up in the rush of school and kindy.  School goes back at the end of the next week, so I have just over a week to cram a whole lot more fun in.  So I will focus back a bit more on the blog once the kids are back into the school routine. 

Until then though, I thought I would share some of the adventures we have had so far.  We've had so much fun, and most of it free or very minimal cost.

Santa found us on holiday, and visited us at Christmas

And the kids got spoilt.

We spent two weeks at the family bach, which was full of days spent on the beach, a heap of swimming and fun times with all 11 cousins together for the first time.

We've done lots of local walks around our area, discovering a heap of stuff on our doorstep we never knew was there.

Parana Park has been visited lots, making full use of the free paddling pool facilities.

Waterslides have been overused and destroyed.

We discovered the wonder that is the Pirongia Forest Park.

We've found creative ways to cool down on hot days.

And enjoyed morning tea picnics at the Hamilton Gardens.

I will be treasuring the next week and hope it drags along slowly.

Sharpie Pen Plate Decorating

Stuck for a last minute gift idea?  These are so easy to make, they need no step by step instructions.

I brought 4 white mugs from the Dollar Value Store.  Decorated them with a sharpie pen and then baked them in the oven at 150 degrees for half an hour. 

Great idea for an under $10 gift, or for that person who has everything.  I love them.

Activity Advent Calander - Day 17

Today we decorated plates as gifts.  They will go to the hubby.  I brought the plates from Dollar Value for $2 each and the kids decorated with Sharpie pens.  They then went into the oven for half an hour at 150 degrees.  Nice easy present!

Sprat was determined to get a helicopter, aeroplane and a tractor on his plate. 

Danger Mouse surprised me.  He is drawing forms of cars and tractors, and I thought that's what he would go for.  But instead he drew a 'Circle Rainbow'.

And The Girl of course drew scribbles ... all over the plate, herself and the bench top!  Next time I must put newspaper down - this stuff is hard to remove from the bench top.

Activity Advent Calandar - Day 13

The activity today was to decorate ice cream cone Christmas trees.  What a sugar high after they ate them.  Good fun though, and totally worth the mad behaviour afterwards!

I made a simple buttercream icing and tinted it green.

I 'glued' an ice cream cone to a plain biscuit using the buttercream, and then covered the cone in icing.

I provided the kids with a small bowl each filled with a selection of sprinkles and small pebbles and let them go for it.

The boys were quite focused on their decorating.



The Girl not so much.

Then the eating and sugar high began.  Good fun.