Hot Cross Buns

I've been feeling a little under the weather thanks to a flu which is lasting too long! However today I was feeling well enough to do a little baking.

Easter is around the corner so I thought I would bake enough for a few families in the street.

Steve's Eastern Buns (I can't be bothered putting the cross on the top)
Makes 24

8 cups of Plain Flour
1/2 cup Sugar
3 tspns of Dry Yeast
Milk
4 Eggs (lightly mixed)
250g of Mixed Dried
80g Butter
2 pinches of Salt

Put all ingredients together in a large mixing bowl - except the milk. Mix together. Then add milk to make a firm dough.

Cut in half. Then knead each section until they make smooth balls. Place in a warm dry place and allow mixture to double. Approx 1 hour. Then punch the air out of each ball. Divide up mixture into balls approx the size of a tennis ball or smaller. Place on floured tray with 1cm seperation. Allow to rise for another hour. Then bake in oven for 30mins or until brown.

In a pan put in sugar and water. Boil for 5 minutes and then use as a glaze for the buns.

I Hate Mieces to Pieces

 Our Nanny, Loo, hasn't been very well. Worms again. <See multiple past entries> So we have penned her near the house. She has shelter, is given a delicious aray of different foods, and water. I would braid her tail but I think that is going to far. This morning I mucked her out, gave her new food, and just as I was going to change her water I saw something jump. A mouse had managed in fall into her bucket of water.

As I looked down into the bucket I saw that it was actually a pretty cute mouse. DAMN! Too hard to kill myself - they have those eyes. If I let it loose it would just steal more food. So I have left it in the bucket out in the open for the Kookaburra to eat. It's the great circle of life!

Meanwhile I made up this cake - it could also be used as a pudding.

Lemon-Lime Cake with Burnt Marmalade Topping

250g butter
3 eggs
2 lemons
1 lime
1kg self raising flour
1/2 tspn salt
150g sugar
milk
for topping
1 cup marmalade
100g sugar

Preheat oven to 180 degrees

Cream butter and sugar together. Then add eggs and salt, mix well. Add zest of lemon and lime and then add the juice of both. Mix well. Finally lightly mix in the flour. The less the flour is mixed the cakier the mixture - but ensure fully mixed. Add milk to ensure it is a runnish mixture. (soft peaks)

Grease a cake tin and pour in mixture. This amount of batter made two bread loafs for me. Put in oven until brown on top and mixture has cooked all the way through.

On a stove top, heat the marmalade and sugar together. Add water and stir until the mixture is syrupy. I make my own marmalade and usually have a mix of burnt and regular marmalade.

Pour topping over the cake. Serve hot or cold.

Pluck a Duck

I scared it off after it attacked

A few weeks ago, while I was in Sydney on business, Myles called me and asked me if I wanted a duck. I wasn't that fussed and told him if he got one he would have to look after it. When I returned home a few days later someone proudly showed me a HUGE duck.

The Chopping Block

Apparently the previous owner was having trouble with the duck. It had been trying to have too many 'relations' with a female duck - it was also very aggressive towards humans. Myles was keeping it in the unused chicken coop and was feeding it chicken food. A few days later Myles set it free and it spent a few days swimming in our many dams. At night Myles would collect the duck and put him back in the chicken coop - for protection. But then it attacked Myles...

We flipped a coin to decide whether we would kill the duck or just set it free. The duck was lucky and was set free. But then he got hungry...

The duck would arrive each morning and tap on the door - wanting food. Myles fed him each morning but that damn duck would keep attacking us. So we decided that for the safety of visitors, and us, he was going to have to be eaten. Because it was Myles' duck I told him he had to kill it.

So on the fateful day I spent an hour researching how to kill and prepare a duck.  I cut the corner off an old potato sack. The plan was to put the duck in the sack and when he popped his through the opening Myles would chop his head off. So Myles caught the duck and I put the sack around him. His head popped through and Myles placed the head on the chopping block. It wasn't the cleanest chop but Myles managed to do the job. The body was flapping around in the bag - so it was a good idea to place him in that bag. The worst bit was the mouth was opening and closing as though he was still alive. It totally freaked me out so I buried the head quickly.

Myles then hung the bird upside down and allowed the blood to drain. A few minutes later he had stopped bleeding. We had read, and seen, people pluck ducks and there are two methods; a dry pluck, or wet pluck. The dry pluck is more hygienic but more difficult. Basically you just pull the feathers off it. To wet pluck a duck you need to put the duck in hot water for a couple of minutes - then the feathers come off easily. Myles and I plucked the duck and found it wasn't too hard - just messy. But towards the end we realised the down from the duck was going to be a little difficult. So we dunked him in hot water and the down came off fairly easily. I then put on some rubber gloves and gutted the duck - it was not a pleasant experience!

We hung the duck in an old fridge to rest.

The next day we called the neighbours and asked them to dinner - to have the duck. They agreed so I started prepping the duck. It still had some small feathers on it so I got a disposable razor and shaved it. Inventive? It looked ugly so I trimmed off the wings and then roasted it for a couple of hours - chinese style. When it was cooked it looked even uglier. I couldn't serve that. So we sliced it up and boiled the bones to make a duck stock. I then made a duck noodle soup and added the duck meat at the end. It tasted OK but the meat was very dense.

I don't think we will ever do it again. I felt like Hannibal Lecter.

We another another two ducks who run wild on the property - they have only attacked me twice.

"I have taken us so far off our course. But now it is time to return."

The heading has to be my favourite line from one of my favourite movies, 'House of Sand and Fog' and sums up how I am feeling at the moment. In the movie a Persian Military Officer, who escapes revolutionary Iran takes his family to America, he succumbs to greed, and pride, at the expense of his family - naturally it ends in tragedy. A highly emotive and wondrous film - please watch it if you haven't already.

Myles and I moved up this way to start a new life. And over the last few weeks I believe we didn't really change anything. Sure we have learnt so much, and stepped out of our personal comfort zone. But from a personal perspective we didn't change our mindset on life - at least in the way we wanted.

Upon arriving at our house we were befriended by the neighbours. But somehow we were brainwashed into thinking we wouldn't have a life outside our property. That we had chosen a new life that only included staying on the property, drinking, smoking, and gossiping about our new small world. How stupid were we? In defence, having animals does prevent such freedom.

Some tension in the street has re-opened my eyes. Refocused what we need to achieve - what are goals are. The house is almost finished, the gardens basically finished - now it is time to have a life. To learn more about each other, about other people, and enjoy things we have missed out on since moving here. It looks like the DVD player will again be used, the stereo will pump out the volume, and we will visit friends and family.

And I will update this blog much, much more. 6 months with no entry is not appropriate.

The Angel of Death, and Cake

Sadly we said goodbye to Chop Suey, our baby goat. I went down to the paddock yesterday and saw her laying down looking dead. I ran down yelling at Myles for help - he didn't hear. Upon arriving I noticed she was still breathing but looked very sick. I discovered a HUGE tick on her neck. Usually goats are immune to a tick bite but I am guessing because mum didn't feed her all that much in the beginning her immune system was weak.

I picked Choppy up and ran back to the house - again yelling at Myles. He still didn't hear me until I actually got to the house. I removed the tick with a special device and began giving her some water. She threw up on me and then farted. A few seconds later she died in my arms.

So that is that - I am the Angel of Death!

You might be feeling sad so I will share my Cheery Ripe Cake recipe with you. I have been playing around with the ingredients for this Karangi favourite and have mastered it. People may remember my first attempt with this old family recipe - I forgot to cook it! Or more to the point I didn't know I was meant to.

Cherry Ripe Cake
1 Packet of cheap biscuits
100g of melted butter
3 tspns of cocoa
2 cans of sweetened condensed milk
200g of glaze cherries, chopped
3-4cups coconut
dash of red food colouring
50g of copha
1 family size dark chocolate bar

Crush up the biscuits into really small pieces. Add the butter and cocoa to the mixture and then press into a greased spring form round tin. Place in refrigerator until the base has set - add more butter if your mixture is dry.

Mix the condensed milk, cherries, coconut, and food colouring in a bowl. Mixture should be stiff so add some more coconut. Spoon into the chilled tin. Bake in the oven at 180 degrees for 30 mins or until parts of the top are slightly brown and the mixture seems set.

In a double boiler or heat resistant bowl over boiling water add the chocolate and copha until the mixture is runny. Poor over the the top of the cake. Place the cake in the refrigerator for a couple of hours until the chocolate has set.

Remove from the fridge and use a hot knife around the side of the cake and then release the spring form tin.

Dust over some cocoa powder and your cake is done!

The Fritz Video

We said goodbye to our favourite pet on Thursday. Fritz had been struggling with  back complaint and finally became incontinent. I don't want to talk about it anymore but here is a video I made to commemorate my favourite dog

Slip 'n Slide

Slip 'n Slide Karangi style

You may remember that last year during Summer Myles had to brush-cut a bank that was close to the house - he kept falling down the bank and ended up covered in leeches. This year it is going to be different - maybe?

We have decided to cover the bank in weed mat and then grow a native plant from the top of the bank over the top of the plastic. This should retain the bank and mean Myles doesn't get covered in leeches. We bought the plastic and metal prongs to hold the plastic down - from the landscape shop. Myles then poisoned the weeds on the bank. After a day we rolled the plastic over the bank and started securing it to the ground. This was marginally difficult as I kept sliding down the plastic towards the barbed wire fence!

While sliding down the plastic I was reminded of the 80's. At one stage my family lived in Whangarei, NZ. My parents had bought a piece of land on the side of a mountain and set about building their then dream home. This was done over a long period of time because they didn't have all the funds up front - well it seemed like a long time to me anyway! The garden was last to be finished so we kids had nowhere to play. Contrary to belief but NZ does get pretty hot so in summer we had difficulty keeping cool. Mum bought a Slip 'n Slide - the hot toy at the time. It was basically a long wide strip of plastic with a hose fitting on one side. You would put it on the lawn turn it on and slide down it. But we had no lawn!

Myles cuddling Chop Suey

So the ingenious Jones family put the slide in the park behind the house and ran the hose up. The only problem was the hose only reached a certain distance. So the slide was put on a bank a couple of meters away from the main fence. Water turned on, children in togs (NZ word for swimmers), children pumped for some water fun. The first kid had a big run up and slid down - smiles all around until the plastic ran out. There was noway to stop and you would hit the grass that was full of prickles and gorse. Your chest and bum would be scratched, and you would get grass burn. If you were skilled you would have so much speed that only the wire fence would stop you. And that hurt!

So I could recreate my childhood memories on our new bank - but I think I will leave it or now!

And for those following our new goat - she is doing well and loves a few cuddles.