November Mandalong and a Paleo Pumpkin Pie recipe

Hello and Happy Halloween! I honestly can't believe that we have already stepped foot into November, where has the year gone? Before we know it we will be hanging tinsel and sipping mulled wine (well some of us anyway). 

Earlier this month we took the kids to see Disney on Ice and to be honest it came as a bit of surprise to us all as both hubby and I kinda forgot that we bought the tickets ages ago, don't you just love it when this happens? We didn't tell the kids we were going and it was so lovely to see the excitement and complete shock light up on there little faces as soon as we walked through the arena doors. The show was amazing and the ice skaters did such an awesome job, just a shame that the much loved Elsa didn't make an appearance in the end, one little girl was very disappointed. 

Many of my old readers will know that even though I love a good plan, I also like to wing things, nothing is more satisfying that just going with the flow to see where we end up. When I started this blanket, I made no attempt to try and calculate how many squares I would need, in fact I went and bought 9 balls of wool in colours that I liked and thought that that would do the job. Well, it seems that unless I want a toe warmer I might have slightly misjudged the situation. As a matter of fact it seems I am going to need a great deal more squares before I can call it a blanket of sorts. So I am interested to hear from those of you who have made a blanket big enough for a single/small double, how many balls of wool did you use? So sadly for now, I have had to move it to the back burner to make space for other little projects that I need to work on, but I am still enjoying admiring them from a distance as they do look rather pretty and cheery. 

At the beginning of the school holidays we set off to visit a good friend of mine who lives in Knaresborough. We had such a lovely weekend with them and enjoyed a really lovely visit to the 12th century Knaresborough Castle, which I must say was rather fabulous. I love spending time in Knaresborough, it is such a pretty market town.

Halloween is something my kids, especially little Es talks about all year long, in fact she absolutely loves it, so needless to say this week our house was running high on Halloween fever. 

We had fun decorating the house and ...

a little more fun decorating ourselves before we set off to go and watch The Book of Life at the cinemas dressed and ready to scare. In fact I had to do a little alterations to my make up as I didn't want kids running out of the cinema because they were too scared of the woman sitting behind them, so I opted for red lips rather than stitched up lips in the end. 

The kids had a ball trick or treating and came back with enough sweets to last a month, so all in all two very happy kids. Happy Halloween!!

I even managed to do a little experimental baking on the day and ended up with a grain free and dairy free pumpkin pie, which to be honest was so so easy to make and both me and hubby (who are both paleo now) absolutely loved it, in fact ssh don't tell anyone but its gone. At least this time of year we can blame the ghosts, now who said whooooo?!

I shared the recipe on Instagram, but for anyone interested here goes.

To make the grain free pastry I used

250g ground almonds

4-5 tbsp melted coconut oil (you don't want it too sloppy so start with 4 and then add another if you need to)

2 tbsp honey

1 egg beaten

Simply mix all these ingredients together and then push it into a pie dish, I just use my hands and push it in ensuring that it covers the entire dish. You don't want it too thin or too thick. Bake at 180C for 10 mins max.

For the filling

1 can pumpkin puree

1 can coconut milk

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp freshly grated 

3 tbsp of honey

2 eggs beaten

I popped all these ingredients into my mixer, make sure to mix thoroughly before pouring it onto your pastry. 

Bake for 40-45 minutes and leave for at least 20+ minutes before serving. 

I hope you enjoy it as much as we did. I think we will be making another one very soon.

So before I go, I will quickly share my November mandala with you. This month I made Marinke Slump's 12 Round Mandala as I figured it would be a little strange doing a whole year's of mandala's without using the staple pattern used by the queen of Mandala's right?! 

It is a quick and easy pattern to make and I really like the look of it too. Not my usual colour choices, but it was suppose to be gifted, so I opted for something a little different. Sadly I don't think I can gift it now as I am not very happy with the end result of the use of the standing stitch. It has created some holes in the mandala, which gives it a rather unfinished look. I have used standing stitches on other crochet projects in the past, but I have never used it with a mandala and I am not sure I am going to rush to do it again. I would really like to hear your experiences with using a standing stitch with mandala's or crochet in the round for that matter. Did it create a holes???

Last month I also mentioned that I had an idea and well, I figured a few mini mandala coasters might come in handy. What do you think? 

I really like them and they are so so quick to make. It took me an evening to make all four, so I have a little nifty plan to hook up a few more to slot into some Christmas presents. Speaking of Christmas, this month I decided that we should hook up something in preparing for the big day in  December and I figured if we like it, it gives us enough time to make a few more for presents.  Fortunately the very lovely Annette behind the gorgeous blog My Rose Valley kindly agreed for us to use and share her beautiful Christmas Mandala, so who's playing? It looks like a straight forward pattern to work and I love the Scandi chic style finish that it gives. I can see a few of these scattered around the house at Christmas. So for anyone on Instagram, please make sure to use the following hashtags: monthlymandalong, christmasmandala, myrosevalley and that way Annette can also see what you guys have been hooking up. Obviously I would still like you all to link up your pretties at the bottom of the page, so go on grab your hook and some christmassy cotton, you know you want to!!

So that is it for today my lovelies. I have been thoroughly enjoying some very beautiful sun rises before the clocks went back last weekend. We have been quite lucky that its been quite mild here in the North of England, but its all set to change tomorrow, so get those woollens out and light those fires or if yore lucky enough to live in the southern hemisphere I suppose it's flip flop time. I hope you are warm wherever you are and I also wish you all a beautiful and happy November. 

Make some beautiful memories!

Warm Wishes

Hannapat

xoxoxo

An InLinkz Link-up

Lavender Salt Scrub and fudge recipes - wonderful last minute gift ideas

Hellooo its only one week till Christmas, and I am not sure whether to jump with joy or just feel completely overwhelmed with all the things that I still want to accomplish before the kids break from School TOMORROW. Fortunately I finally managed to finish my custom order yesterday, phew, and it feels so good to be able to completely focus on the things I need to do around the house. I am mostly there with presents, but still have a few small bits to sort out and this morning it was time to tick another one of the list by making another lavender salt scrub, a lovely gift idea.

 

 

 

Recipe:

A Kilner or Mason jar

2 parts rock salt

1 part lavender

1 part olive oil

mix it all together, yip it really is that simple. If you don't have lavender you could just use lavender essential oil and increase the salt to three parts. A five minute job.

 

If you are stuck for gifts for a man or someone who might not enjoy body scrub, then use your jars and fill them with fudge. I used this this Nigella recipe for mine.

 

 

Ingredients

500g caster sugar

50g unsalted butter

100ml evaporated milk

1tsp vanilla extract

20 x16cm tin

 

 

Put the sugar butter and evaporated milk into a heavy based saucepan and bring to boil. Boil it gently stirring occasionally to prevent sticking. Carry on until the mixture holds its shape in water, which should take around 5-10 minutes. Take pan off the heat and beat in the vanilla extract and keep beating until the mixture thickens up to be almost grainy in texture and then add it to your lined baking tin and allow to cool. This should make around 25 squares.

 

 

I will be handing over the teachers gifts today and this year I have filled their little bags with some Christmas Chutney and a bar of home made soap.

Thank you for all your lovely comments on my wreath and input into Christmas movies. This week us grown-ups watched The Holiday, which is just such a lovely Christmas Rom Com to watch and next our line up includes the 1994 adaptation of Miracle on 34th street, followed by Polar Express, The snowman, A Christmas Carol and the more recent and magical Arthur Christmas and finally Santa Claus. I think we might struggle to fit any more in, but there are a few going into stockings such as the hilarious Home Alone 1&2 (can't wait to see them again, I think it might be my sixth or seventh time and it cracks me up everytime) and yes it appears we have ventured into the world of Barbie with Barbie Christmas Box Set (definitely a new one for us).

 

Hope all your preparations are going to plan and that you also find some time just to appreciate the joy and the meaning behind Christmas. I love this gorgeous nativity scene that I picked up from the charity shop a few years ago and I love that the kids play with it every day and ask questions. It is so easy to in today's consumer crazy world to loose sight of the reasons we celebrate Christmas.

 

 

 

 

Wishing you all a lovely week.

 

Warm Wishes

Hannapat

xoxo

Oh christmas tree oh christmas tree ..

.. how lovely are your branches

 

After the School Christmas fair last Saturday where the kids saw Santa and we spent a small fortune in record breaking time , we set off to get our tree.

Historically we have always gone to Macclesfield Forest to get our tree, but last year we tried a different place just on the outskirts of the forest where they cut your chosen tree down for you. I really liked this idea as the kids can play hide and seek and there is no tussle with a tree as one of you, usually the doh, have to hold it up to ensure its branches fall just right (not that I am fussy or anything...ahem aka fusspot fanny). Unfortunately this year the selection was quite poor, so we headed for the Forest again and within minutes we found our tree, which I hasten to add is not usually the case. I think the doh sighed a sigh of relief as his love for intimacy with a Spruce has worn a little thin over the years.

 

 

 

 

 

This year we had such a laugh wearing our Santa hats and giggling about the decorations and who made what and when. We all sang along to classic Christmas songs and it was just perfect! The kids really got stuck in and I was very proud of myself, as for the first time I didn't try and do a little sneaky rearranging when everyone left the room, oh no my dearies I actually left it heavily decorated on one side and smiled a sigh of admiration at the work carried out by the four beings that maketh our family. Once the last baubles were on it was time to get the precious fairy out of her box. She is so beautiful and I love everything about her. She is delicate and serene, but I have been told by two small gremlins that a star is required for next year, but why??? She is beautiful, surely not!! Do share your views, do you have a star, an angel or a fairy perching on top of your tree??

  

It has been a really busy week as I have been working non stop on this custom order that is taking a great deal longer than anticipated. It is largely hand embroidery so it's very time consuming as most of you will know and time is ticking. Yes 12 days to Christmas and I am slowly ticking things off my list. I finally managed to get around to making my usual Christmas chutney this week. This has become a bit of a tradition for our family and if I am honest most of our friends and family love and kind of expect it for Christmas.

This is no ordinary chutney, it is Delia's Christmas Chutney, which is made with dried fruit, onions and Christmas spices. I am not a big chutney lover, largely because I don't eat bread, but this chutney is simply delectable and it makes the perfect accompaniment to any meat or cheese at Christmas. I know for us and most of our friends the jar is usually finished by the end of the Christmas week and I have now learnt to make a few extra jars. 

With the help of my little assistants we made this years mincemeat, again chosing Delia's recipe. I have tried quite a few, but for me this one just has those extra special flavours that makes you appreciate the fact that it is home made and just so much better than anything shop bought. To make it gluten free just ensure that you use gluten free suet that you can buy here, and for the pasty I just use my gluten free pastry recipe. Which mincemeat recipe do you use or do you just buy from the shop? I think these days the shop bought ones have definitely improved, but for anyone with gluten  issues, options are fairly limited.

 

 

I am almost half way through wrapping presents, but more on that another time where I will share a lovely lavender body scrub recipe with you. This is such a busy time of year and I apologise if I am not getting around to everyone's blogs as quickly as I would like. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, its jam packed with exciting things such as X Factor final and Strictly come dancing, drinks with friends, another Christmas fair and then we have a date as family to sit down and watch the classic movie elf with Will Ferrell, life is busy but good. A big and warm welcome to my new followers I look forward to getting to know you a little better.

 

Wishing you all a very lovely weekend.

 

Warm Wishes

Hannapat

xoxo

Weekly Bake - Cookies in a Jar - a Christmas gift

Helloooo. It's Friday again and oh my its less than three weeks till Christmas (did I just say that?, sorry!). Not sure whether I am feeling excited or just an itsy bitsy frazzled by this prospect as my to-do-list is forever increasing, I mean how does this happen? So the plan this morning, once I got over the shock of Mandela passing (more on that later),  was to start getting to grips with this pesky list that clearly seems to be off with the fairies. Not only did I busy myself in the kitchen making cakes for the School Christmas fair tomorrow, I also managed to make three Christmas presents, hooray!! Tick, tick, tick! 

Now these gifts are such a wonderful idea, which I can't take credit for, and seeing that it fits in perfectly with my weekly bake I figured I might as well share the idea and hopefully inspire a few last minute gift ideas. These very simple 'Cookies in a jar' are so easy to make and fairly inexpensive too. Going on the premise that I reckon most kids love doing a spot of baking, I am sure these little gifts will be a big hit. I made three of them, using two different recipes with a few tweaks here and there, so if you want to give it a go, this is what you will need to get started.

 

 

A large jar, I just used some very large old mayo and chutney jars I had in the cupboard

Ingredients

1 3/4 cups flour

1tsp baking powder

1tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 cups brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

1/4 cocoa

1/2 cup chocolate chips

3/4 cup m&m's or something similar. I like the idea of a bit of colour

Mix together the flour, baking powder, soda and salt and set aside

Start by filling your jar with the dark brown sugar as it is the heaviest, then white and then some of the cocoa followed by some chocolate chips. Then start adding your flour mixture and alternate with cocoa powder and chocolate chips till all the ingredients are used. Decorate your jar as you chose and attached the instructions  below.

Hopefully you can just print out the instructions below that needs to be attached to the jar.

Instructions         

1.        Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C

2.      Empty cookie mix into a large bowl and thoroughly

 blend the mixture by hand

3.      Mix in ¾ cup of softened butter or margarine

4.      Mix in 1 egg, slightly beaten

5.      Mix in 1tsp of Vanilla essence

6.       Shape the mixture into walnut size balls and

place around 2 inches apart on parchment paper

7.       Bake for 10-15 minutes

The other two jars were filled with ingredients for Chocolate Brownies, a definite favourite with my kids.

 

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups flour

1tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

2/3 cups of cocoa powder

2 1/4 cups caster sugar

1 cup chocolate chips

To fill your jar, simply mix the flour, baking powder and salt together and fill the bottom of the jar, then add some of the cocoa powder and then the majority of the sugar, followed by the last of the cocoa powder and the last the last of the sugar. Put the chocolate chips on top. Decorate your jar if you wish and add the following instruction for your little recipient.

Instructions    

1.         Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C

2.        Grease and flour a baking pan (9 x 13 inch)

3.        Empty jar of brownie mix into a large mixing bowl and mix by hand

4.        Mix in ¾ cup of melted butter and 4 eggs

5.        Spread batter evenly into prepared baking pan

6.        Bake for 25-30 minutes

7.        Cool completely before cutting into 2 inch squares

 

 

 

Tomorrow is our School Christmas fair and I wanted to make some reindeer cupcakes for the kids that I made last year for our annual Christmas get together as the kids absolutely loved them, but this time I made a few improvements. Firstly I used small marshmallows, which I cut in half and then marked the eyes using an edible food pen.

 

Secondly I used some Giant Buttons for the base of the nose and then made some red noses out of royal icing (using food colouring paste and not liquid) and cutting the shapes with the lid of my almond essence bottle. This looks so much better than the smarties I used last year and it also seems a great deal sturdier.

 

For the cake mix I just used my Gluten and Dairy free Chocolate Cake recipe to make 24 cupcakes, the recipe can be found here. From experience I know now that there are always a need for allergen free cakes at the school and needles to say I am more than happy to supply these. For the antlers my doh came to the rescue and managed to find some chocolate pretzels.

 

This week little Es and me had some special time without the boys so we made the very most of it by unwrapping some baubles..

and putting a few decorations here and there and all this whilst blissfully singing full pelt to Michael Buble's Christmas album without the constant nagging of the boys to change the record 'cos its boring'. Instead we giggled and repeated a few tunes and Mummy even got a little excited that she might just again be kissing Santa Claus on Christmas eve...

 

 

We are off to get our tree tomorrow after the School fair and needless to say we are all very excited.

Before I go I just wanted to pay tribute to the most remarkable man of our time. Not only did he bring a rainbow nation together, but somehow he united the world. We all respected and admired him, and I can't think of another leader that achieved global success in the same way that Nelson Mandela did. He fought for equality in South Africa, but also around the world. He was a beacon of hope and he leaves behind the most remarkable legacy that will continue to drive and inspire many generations still to come. He touched my life personally and being a child of apartheid, I was there when he was released, and there when he was inaugurated in 1994, and today I lit a candle for Madiba for being a saint who brought some level of peace to the world. I will always remember him as a strong and gracious man who wore wonderful shirts, laughed and stood up to the world for what he believed in. Madiba you were a truly remarkable man, may you rest in Peace.

photo borrowed from newsinfo. enquirer.net

Warm Wishes

Hannapat

xoxo