"Keep it Simple, Sweetie" with Cooking; Lunch box ideas - Hawaiian pizza twists.

I love this recipe. It's super easy and really yummy. I love that you don't have to rest the dough.

Ingredients

1/2  a 440g can of pineapple pieces, drained well.

11/2 cups self-raising flour

1 teaspoon dried italian herbs

50g butter, softened

1/2 cup milk

1 tablespoon tomato paste (no added salt)

70g sliced ham

1/2 cup mozzarella cheese

Method

Preheat oven to 180 degrees

Dry out pineapple on paper towel.

Sift flour into a large bowl.

Stir in dried herbs

Add butter and use fingertips to rub it in until the mix looks like coarse breadcrumbs.

 Add the milk. Using a butter knife, stir until mixture forms a dough.

Place out onto a lightly flours surface. Knead for about a minute.

Split the dough in half and roll out to a 15cm by 20cm rectangle. (As you can see I couldn't find my rolling pin. Where the hell is it????? So I am using a big drink bottle. This is what I am blaming on the lack of rectangular shape. Ignore this).

Leaving a 1cm border, spread tomato paste over the "rectangle".

 Add the ham. (I like to leave the ham whole but you can cut it up if you want).

Add the pineapple. (It looks in the picture as if I didn't use much. The more the better.)

 Add the cheese

 Roll the rest of the dough out to the same shape.

 Place it over the top.

Squash it down a bit.

Fold the sides together so there are no gap. No leaks.

 Cut the lengths along the dough. Keep them at least 2 cm wide.

 Pick up one end and twist one twist into each one.

 Place on a baking tray about 3cm apart.








Woo Hoo. Success. Yumbo.

"Keep it Simple, Sweetie" with Craft. How to wash a barbie presented by a guest blogger, Lilli aged 5 and 3/4.

I am very excited, we have a guest blogger today.
Here name is Lilli and she is 5 and 3/4.
She says,
Turn the tap on about half way full.

Then put some bubbles into it.









Then put the barbie in.

Then you rub her with soap.

Then you rub her hair with shampoo. Then you have to rinse her off.

Then you have to get a towel and bring her over to the towel and dry her off.

Then you take her over to the other barbies that I already washeded.








Then you put the barbies in the barbie box. Thank you. xxoo from Lilli.

"Keep it Simple, Sweetie, with Cooking; Lunch box ideas - Honey and Prune Muesli Balls

These are so simple to make and surprisingly yummy. Try them with your kids.

Ingredients

21/2 cups of toasted muesli (If you are sending these to school, you will need to find nut-free muesli which can be hard to find.) Check the ingredients or you could always make your own. 

1 can of pitted prunes

1/4 cup of honey

1/4 teaspoon of mixed spice

50g of butter, softened.

Method

Place 2 cups of muesli into a bowl. Keep the other half for later.

Add the prunes and the honey.

Add the spice.

Add the butter and stir together.

Place the ingredients into a food processor and mix until well combined. (I only have a small processor so I just did it in sections. Just as good).

 Mix the remaining muesli in the food processor to make it a bit smaller.

 Place the muesli out on a plate and get 1 tablespoon of mixture at a time, roll it into a ball, and roll into the muesli to coat. (I use a small ice cream scoop for this. They are great, you can have the same amount every time and just squash it out into the ball shape. You can get these from kitchen shops and they come in lots of different sizes.)

 Place in the fridge for 30 minutes to firm up.

Enjoy. They are YUMMY. xx

"Keep it Simple, Sweetie" with Craft. No mess paint play.

Here is a great idea for people like me who love painting but hate the clean up. 

What you need is;

Baking paper
Paint; a least three different colours
Non-adhesive cover; so basically some plastic. I used this (pictured) which is like non-sticky contact for books. I bought it from Kmart with all the start of year school supplies. It might be harder to find at other times of the year. I was also thinking about using a piece of laminated paper.

Instruction:

Cut the plastic into a square. (I made it as big as it could be. But you can make it any size you want. Just remember you will lose about 2cm on every side.) Repeat, so you have two squares the same size.

You are now going to seal the edges of the two pieces of plastic together with your iron. Make sure you have something on the ironing board to protect it from the melting plastic. I used a metal baking tray. You then fold the baking paper in half. Have half the baking paper under the plastic then the other half on top. Using a hot iron with no stream, iron the edge of the plastic that is under the baking paper. Make sure you don't touch the plastic with your iron or you will have melted plastic all over it. Do about a 2cm edge. It only takes a couple of seconds to seal it. Just check if it is done properly. No gaps. Be careful not to burn yourself on the hot plastic.

Do three of the edges, with the iron.

Now squirt some paint into the plastic bag you have made. Use a fair bit of paint. I would use a bit more then this next time I do it. Don't mix the paints at this stage.

Go back to the iron and seal the last edge.

Now you have a no-mess painting board.

Mix the colours, Write your name, Draw pictures.

Enjoy. xx

Note; You can use sticky tape to tape it down to the table to make it easier to play with.