Day 16 - shopping, cleaning, baking, eating

Yesterday was my artists date as Effy talked about in this blog post and as written about by Julia Cameron in the Artists Way. It is a day to yourself that you spend doing something related to art.

My artist date was to one of my favourite art store Artshed. I wandered around here for ages and this is only half of the shop.

It is huge and full of so many, many things that I love. I do a fair bit of online shopping for art supplies but nothing beats going and seeing, touching, smelling, feeling art supplies. Well that sounds a little creepy but my art friends will vouch for this fixation and addiction to art supplies. I already have so many brushes as seen here in a recent blog post but a girl can never ever have TOO many can she? 

 Apart from paint, I think my favourite art supplies that I just keep buying are brushes, canvases, and pencils of all sorts. What are your favourite art supplies that you cannot resist buying even though you have a healthy stash at home already?

Due to my shopping trip and a bit of housework that needed to be done I didn't put brush to canvas.

Although I may not have put paint to canvas yesterday but , I did pick up a lot of canvases, quite a few new paintbrushes, cans of picture varnish and fixative and some charcoal pencils, and a few other little bits and pieces, all essential to my creative pursuit.

Today is our art society's AGM so no painting until tomorrow but I did do a bit of baking this morning and just have to share this recipe. Those close to me know that I have cut out sugar in my diet over the past 18 months and have been gluten intolerant for the past 8 years so it is always a bit of a challenge to find something tasty for afternoon tea. Usually when you go gluten free you find that all the products available substitute sugar for the gluten so you end up giving up one thing and eating too much of something else that is bad for you. 

I recently came across this recipe and I recommend it to anyone. I replaced the raisins for dates and will be making it regularly. I also used "fake" maple syrup as it has 1/2 the sugar of real maple syrup - go figure! I have decided that I will be cutting it up and freezing it so I don't eat it all in one go. Even though it is low carb, low sugar, gluten and lactose free it is still a treat.

Here is the recipe from the Simply Living Healthy Blog and here is how mine turned out. 

My drizzle isn't as white but it tastes fantastic. I even made my own coconut butter to use in the drizzle, which was easier that I thought too. You can find those instructions here.

Have a yummy weekend everyone. Hope you are spending it with friends and loved ones

Namaste

Lee

Christmas cake

 How is everyones week going? all your shopping done? all your presents wrapped? the Christmas Day menu is worked out and ready to go? Christmas Cards sent?

If  you answered no to any of the above questions you are not alone. I have done a bit off all of the above but just can't tick them off my list yet. I have just written my last Christmas card, still have a couple of presents to buy and then wrap and still can't decide what yummy recipes to use on Christmas day. It looks like we will have seafood and salads.Which leads me on to dessert.(no matter what I am talking about I always end up talking about food!! Didn't I start off with Cards and present wrapping??)

Anyway, a couple of years ago I made a frozen ice cream Christmas cake.....

 

.....full of yummy goodness including marshmallows, chocolate, ice cream, maltesers, and frozen raspberries and it was great on a hot day. 

The weather forecast is for a sunny 32 Deg C on Sunday so this might be the ideal dessert. 

For my northern hemisphere friends I hope this doesn't make you feel colder than you are right now.

Here is the recipe for you to try.

Ingredients

• 1 x 2 litre tub of vanilla ice cream left out to soften a bit for about half an hour
  
  
• 1 165g packet of Maltesers , cut each malteser in half with a very thin sharp knife. We tried smashing them but they ended up too crushed
  

•  250g pink and white marshmallows (ours are raspberry and vanilla flavoured) cut into halves or quarters depending on the size you prefer

•  2 handfuls of pistachio nuts lightly smashed but not finely crushed
  
  
• Half a 450g box of frozen raspberries, used whole and still frozen.

Method

Put the chopped marshmallows and maltesers in a big mixing bowl with the smashed pistachios and the raspberries, stir a bit till mixed.

Then scoop the ice cream on top and stir well till combined with the other ingredients. Try to be quick about it so the ice cream doesn't melt too much or it will be icy when re frozen.

Push the mixture into a round springform cake tin (I used the 20cm diameter size) so there are no gaps and smooth out the top a bit.

Cover the top with foil. I put it in a large kitchen freezer bags and then wrapped it in plastic cling wrap to stop any leakage dripping in my freezer and then froze overnight.

We served ours with a nice thick store bought choc orange sauce.

Enjoy!

I also finished some more bags. Trying out different colours and patterns, doodling and stamping.

 

For this bag I used Jo Sonja Pthalo Green, Pthalo Blue, Yellow Green, and Brilliant Green and Titanium White. Crafters workshop stencils Harlequin and Flower Shower

For this one I used Jo Sonja Prussian Blue Hue, Pthalo Blue, Diox Purple, Brilliant Violet and Titanium White. Crafters workshop stencils, Cosmic Swirl and Daisy Cluster

For this one I used Jo Sonja, Diox Purple, Brilliant Magenta, Brilliant Violet, Titanium White and Ultramarine Blue Deep. Crafters workshop stencils Cosmic Swirl, Daisy Cluster and Flower Frame.

Now how about this fabulous photo I found at Streetartutopia. How cool is it? This site is well worth a look.

Streetartutopia

The quote also comes from the same site.

“There´s tools and colours for all of us,

to lend from nature to make the world

more understandable and beautiful”

Have a lovely week everyone.

Namaste

Lee 

Best GF muffins ever!!

Over at Shabby Art Boutique, Kerryanne is having her weekly Simply Christmas link party. It is for everyone to link and share there Christmas crafts etc. Now I know this does not look very Christmasy but I thought with all that crafting you needed some sustenance. So here is my contribution to the link party to keep all you all happy and well fed while you get ready for Christmas. As my family has 6 birthdays in the first couple of weeks of December we are a bit late getting into the Christmas decorating mode but tomorrow the tree goes up so I will be able to post a real Christmas link during the week.

So, you remember in my last post I teased you with a picture of a Banana Choc Chip muffin that I had made. Quite frankly it was the best Gluten Free muffin I had ever had. It was soft, fluffy and lasted for more than one day, which is more than other Gluten Free muffins or cakes. Well shortly after that photo, this was all that was left of the whole batch.

So of course, before I gave you the recipe I had to run it through my test kitchen again. 

Alas, this batch didn't rise as much as the last ones so maybe another batch over the weekend is in order, hehe. 

I originally found a recipe for Gluten Free Banana choc chip muffins here and then modified to account for my Lactose Intolerance and my love of dark choc chips. 

Anyhow, I promised you the recipe so here it is. 

Ingredients

1 3/4 cups plain gluten free flour. (I used the new Donna Hay White Wings GF flour and  I  must say it is a standout above the others.)

1/4 cup dark brown sugar

1/2 cup white castor sugar

1 teaspoon GF baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 egg

1/2 melted butter

1/2 cup milk (I used low fat Lactose Free milk)

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

1 cup mashed ripe banana

3/4 dark choc chip bits (the Nestle ones don't melt when you cook them)

Method

In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

In another bowl combine the egg, milk, vanilla and melted butter. Stir into dry ingredients only until just moistened. (stir too much and the muffins will be tough)

Fold in banana and choc chips

Fill greased or paper lined muffin tins two-thirds full.

Bake at 160 dec C for fan forced or 180 deg C (350 deg F) for normal ovens.

Leave in tin for a couple of minutes and then put onto wire rack.

Just try to leave for a minute or two before breaking open and eating. 

Go on I dare you to last more than 2 minutes....

They are best eaten warm, well as hot as your hands can stand with a nice hot cuppa.(careful the hot choc chips don't burn your tongue) Just reheat in the microwave for 10 sec and they come up just as fresh as when you first baked them.

Of course you could use normal wheaten flour and normal milk.

Enjoy and have a lovely weekend.

Of course I can't leave you without a quote

"Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all. "

Harriet Van Horne

Namaste

Lee