White Chocolate ANZAC biscuits for ANZAC day

Today is ANZAC day- Lest we forget. 25th April

I have made my husband's Aunty Evi's ANZAC biscuits today and thought I should share her yummy recipe (hope she doesn't mind). It's a variation on the original as they are softer and contain chocolate!! A luxury that the troops didn't have on theirs.

For any Aussie/ Kiwi readers you will know the story but for everyone else ANZAC biscuits were sent to Australian and New Zealand soldiers by their wives during WW1 as they kept well and would last the long distance it took to get to them overseas. They are still popular today.

A couple of people have commented on not knowing about ANZACS so I should mention that it stands for Australia and New Zealand Army Corps and ANZAC day is a day to commemorate those who fought at Gallipoli in WW1 (and also all those who've served in the armed forces)

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups sugar

1 1/2 cups desicated coconut

2 cups plain flour

2 cups rolled oats

300g butter

2 tbl golden syrup

2 heaped tsp bi-carb soda

1/4 cup boiling water

Chocolate for drizzling

Makes about 24
Method:
1. Mix together all dry ingredients except bi-carb.
2. Melt butter & syrup in a seperate bowl.

3. Dissolve in bi-carb soda with boiling water (be careful!!) then pour this mixture into the butter mixture and stir.
4. Add butter mixture to the dry indredients and mix well.
5. Roll mixture into balls and place on greased & lined trays flattening the balls out a little and leaving a fair sized gap as they expand. You will need a couple of trays or to bake in batches.

6. Bake on 170*c-180*c for around 12 minutes rotating the trays half way. Cook until golden brown- they will harden a bit on standing.
7. Drizzle melted chocolate onto each biscuit whilst still hot. Cool on cooling rack.
8. Enjoy!
Other variations add 1/2 cup crushed nuts
OR
a few raw blanched peanuts each


For futher info on the ANZACS please read:
http://www.anzacsite.gov.au/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anzac_Day
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anzac_biscuits


I'm linking these to:

and:

Made it Monday @ The Persimmom Perch

http://thepersimmonperch.blogspot.com/2010/04/made-it-monday-42610.html

Tasty Tuesday @ Balancing Beauty and Bedlam
http://beautyandbedlam.com/when-did-you-learn-to-cook/

White Chocolate & Gingerbread Slice

My father-in-law and I have started baking together once a week(ish)& he brought over this recipe from a Coles Christmas free magazine that he got last year. It's a White Chocolate & Gingerbread slice.

I'm not a huge fan of ginger, but the ginger flavour wasn't too overpowering so I enjoyed it- if you love ginger you could add some more.

Here's the recipe-

100g Unsalted butter, chopped

3/4 cup golden syrup

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground cinnamon

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1/3 cup milk

2 cups plain flour

180g white chocolate, chopped

Icing sugar for dusting

1. Preheat oven to 180 c or 160 c for fan-forced. Grease & line slice pan with baking paper.

2. Place butter, syrup, sugar, ginger & cinnamon in a saucepan. Stir on med heat for 2-3 mins, until butter has melted & mixture is well combined & smooth. Remove from heat & cool slightly. Add eggs & milk and mix well.

3.Sift flour into a large bowl. Add chocolate. Fold through egg mixture and mix until combined.

Fill prepared pan and bake for 30-35 mins, until firm.

4. Cool completely in pan. Dust with icing sugar and cut into fingers to serve.

Enjoy!

I'm Loving $1 & under Op-shop (thrift-store) bargains

I've joined the bloghop/blog party thingy -I'm loving it & Tidy Mom (one of my fav blogs) If you found me there welcome to my blog- feel free to comment & I'll say hello in return!

I'm loving Op-shopping & Bargain hunting!!!!

I've done some more op-shopping and recycling centre shopping & have found some bargains all $1 and under this week. I'm looking forward to using them in some of my upcoming projects.


This is the garage I showed you earlier this week. It's had a couple of coats of free red paint. Thanks Dad (Great having a Dad that's a painter) It needs another coat and some other finishing touches yet.


These baskets, trays, frames & spice rack were all $1 & under each. Love em'.
The two frames were from different shops but are quite similar (bonus!!) I'm wanting to start a collection of filigree/ fancy frames all spray painted one colour. I've been waiting 4 years for my hubby to build a spice rack he insisted he'd make & since I still don't have it this $1 one will do!

I LOVE baskets- great for storage & I think they've just got a nice look to them.

I also love trays so was stoked to find these (the little one still had a turkish delight tag on it so it's iddy bitty but will look cute painted up) not sure just yet what I'll use them for- maybe on my desk?!

What have you found for $1 or less?

Op shop finds

My husband & Father-in-law both had Monday off so we decided to go op-shopping. Check out the bargains we found.

Cheese Platter $1 at Father Riley's

I already had this lid which fits perfectly-Yay!! I'm going to give it a make-over like this one at House of Hepworths:

http://www.houseofhepworths.com/2010/03/22/cheese-dome-turned-cloche/

Or maybe I'll make mine white like this one at Thrifty Decor Chick...
we'll see

http://thriftydecorchick.blogspot.com/2010/04/before-and-after-party-diy-cloche.html

Found these bargains for our baby boy for when he's a bit older:

This castle was just $5 at vinnies- has a working cannon and 12 knights.

Just needs a bath.

Can you believe this garage was just $1 at Vinnies?
I love it & I'm gonna give it a make-over too.

Paper toys

From time to time we write letters to our sponsor child over in Kenya. I like to include photos of our family and sometimes a small gift. Compassion don't let you send large bulky items because of possible theft and excess postage costs to sometimes very remote areas. So we send little flat items like stickers and bookmarks that fit into a regular envelope.

I've been wanting to find some other items to send & have thought of paper dolls (I remember having a Barbie paper doll birthday card as a child that I loved- I also had given to me one year a birthday card of a little girl that 'walked' as a wheel of feet spun on the inside of the card held on by a split pin- it was very sweet.)

I adore puppets, felt boards, and toys that evoke the imagination and as I have said before I love paper so I got a little carried away looking for paper dolls and the like. Here are some of the things I've come across.

The toy maker

http://www.thetoymaker.com/2Toys.html

Window to fairyland, Bear Wagon, Chocolate Truck & Paper Dolls

Features toys that move, gifts & boxes, learning toys, animals and bug friends plus lots more.

Paper Toys

http://www.papertoys.com/

Big Ben, Sydney Opera house, Harley, Dinoland

Features lots of buildings & vehicles plus more

Toy a Day

http://toy-a-day.blogspot.com/

Mario & Luigi, Sonic, Pingu, Bob the builder

Features Sci-fi characters, cartoon characters, user submitted toys, art inspired toy & lots more

Made by Joel

http://madebyjoel.blogspot.com/

Paper city, sloted building discs, Paper cowboy

Joel also has plenty of other toys & activities not made of paper to check out

and now for the big kids...

Canon creative park- paper craft

http://cp.c-ij.com/en/contents/1006/

Just do yourself a favour and check the site out- they also have other non toy/model printables including cards, callendars & scrapbooking....Loving it!!!

Now this is where I found the Canon site-

Creative Close Up-

100 Exceptional Free Paper Models and Toys

http://www.creativecloseup.com/100-exceptional-free-paper-models-and-toys

Yes thats right 100 paper models & toys...
you better go buy yourself some more ink!

The Easter that was & cheap chocolate

Easter mischief,

food, fun, games,

and ofcourse chocolate

We picked up most of these Easter eggs on sale after Easter. The Lindt bunnies we're $1.50ea & Lindt eggs 40c at priceline- bargain!!! Lindt is THE best.

I've discovered FLY Lady!!

On my quest for finding a way to better organise my days, prioritise and clean the house I've come across the FLY lady website and can I say I wish I'd found FLY lady earlier!!

Starting off with baby steps, decluttering and then progressing into the FLY lady's "zone" cleaning the FLY lady claims to help get our homes & lives organized.

(For those who are wondering FLY stands for Finally Loving Yourself.)

There's a whole online community cleaning in the same zones & developing the same good habits at the same time- and you can jump right in at whatever point they're at! Sounds good to me...

I've signed up for the daily Flymail to prompt me to follow the program.

I've also started making my control journal which according to FLYlady "is your own personal manual for listing and keeping track of your routines"

I had already begun a Home organizer which now I'm adapting into my control journal. I got the original basis for my home organizer from the Executive Homemaker where you can download the Executive Homemaker binder, chore charts and more- check the site out here: http://www.executivehomemaker.com/category/ehbinder/

and of course FLY lady: http://www.flylady.net/

Happy cleaning, I'll let you know how I go.

Eat Drink Chic- One of my favourite blogs

I'd like to share with you some of my favourite blogs.

When I'm having a party, it's the lead up, organising, making invitations & decorating that I get most joy out of add my love of free printables and you get my love of Eat Drink Chic!


Eat Drink Chic.
Stylish ideas and D.I.Y for parties, entertaining, weddings, home décor, gifts, food and fashion.
created by amy moss.
a graphic designer residing in melbourne, australia.
(this info taken from the blog)

The blog is full of fantastic stuff and I'm thinking I may have to throw myself a party just to use some of the adorable free stuff!

If you know of or have a great website or blog on party decor & free printables I'd love to know about it & maybe even feature you- send me an email:

thismumsworld@gmail.com

Easter Bunny Cupcake Mountains

So as a last minute Easter idea I decided I'd make some cupcakes. Bear in mind I'm very much a newby at baking & these are the first cupcakes I've made from scratch in years!

I made bright green ones as I'm wanting to practice making Dorothy the Dinosaur cupcakes for by baby boys 1st birthday, but I didn't want to make 12 Dorothy's at Easter. So I made a quick change to an Easter theme & took them to my parents house as a gift (can you believe that my hubby doesn't like cake?!)

So please excuse the mess as I'm not a cake decorator and I wipped them up in a hurry while baby napped! :)

Here's the recipe I used:
2 Cups SR Flour

3/4 Cup Caster Sugar

3/4 Cup Milk
125g Butter, melted & cooled

2 Eggs, beaten

1 Tb Vanilla Essence

1/2 cup choc chips

Mix flour & caster sugar in a bowl. Form a well in the middle & add wet ingrdients & stir gently. Then I added choc chips (were'nt in original recipe & I think they could've done with more!)

Cook in greased muffin trays (or patty pans) in 200c oven for 12-15 mins (took me the latter)

Icing was just 1 1/2 cups icing sugar, + around 2 tb milk until reached correct consistancy then added food colouring oh and some vanilla essence.

Ice when cool & add choc sprinkles for rabbit poos.

I used easter bunny template from http://www.docstoc.com/search/printable-puppet-template/ for my toppers, but your could choose your own bunny designs. Cut out bunny & tape to a tooth pick. Insert tooth pic & ur done.

These weren't the nicest cupcakes ever (they were ok I think I was just over looking at green!) if you have a great & easy vanilla cupcake recipe I'd love to see it.

Also I'm gonna go more adventurous/tasty with icing next time!

If you make a version of my bunny mountain cupcakes please send me an email/ link so I can check out your handy work & link it to my blog! I'm sure you will all make prettier ones!!

Enjoy your Easter, stay safe & God bless. kt

Hello world

This is my very first blog post ever so I shall introduce myself.
I'm a 25 year old wife of 3.5years, Stay-at-home Mother of an almost 1y.o. I'm a wannabe environmentalist (I try)
I love travelling, walking, hanging out with my family & dog, craft, food, movies, my TV shows (on DVD), stationary, paper, my Christian walk, beautiful things & designs (obviously not in that order!)

I'm still learning how to organize my day/life with a bub & getting most out of life.
So I though I'd share my journey with you all.
I'm aspiring to be that woman who can balance it all (although this probably doesn't exist)I'm trying to cook more- I'm one of those lucky ones who has a fantastic husband who cooks. He's taught me some things but I need to learn more. I'm also trying to bake more, which I've always wanted to do (that and actually wear some of my nail polish one day :) you know all of those 'when I get organised this is the type of person I'll be' things- or is that just me?? )
My biggest goal though is to completely organise my home as I'm a hoarder & a messy person -so thats gonna change!

So enough blabbing- feel free to drop me an email @
thismumsworld@gmail.com if you want to share something from your world
I'll try and add something interesting on here one of these days!!

kt