Ikea, Nibbles and Butchers

I've been trying to bake 'healthier' sweet treats lately, since Tabitha is keen to scarf down anything in sight.  Pumpkin scones, apple cakes and I've been baking a date loaf quite a bit.  It's a pretty healthy option, since it only has a smidge of butter, and plenty of dates.  It keeps well, and even after it's past its prime, is nice toasted with butter.  Sometimes I include walnuts, sometimes not.

The recipe is from Ladies, A Plate.  Soak 125g chopped dates with a cup of boiling water and a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda.  Let sit for 30 minutes, and then either blast in the food processor, or mash well with a fork.  Add 20g melted butter.

Meanwhile, measure out 280g plain flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 1 teaspoon ground ginger, 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon and a pinch of salt.  Sift them together.

Beat an egg with 200g sugar until smooth - around 30 seconds in a standing mixer.  Add the dates/butter mixture to the sugar/egg mixture, then add the dry mixture, stirring to combine.  At this point, you can add a handful of chopped walnuts if you'd like.

Spread into a prepared loaf tin (i.e. greased and floured, lined at the base with baking paper) and bake at 170 degrees for 35-45 minutes or until just cooked.  I like to serve hot slices with plenty of butter.

As much as I love to bake, I do have a soft spot for some store-bought biscuits.  Some of them are quite delicious, and since Tabitha and I often have 'drop-in' visitors, I hate to be without something sweet to offer with tea and coffee.  I am rarely without a packed of Chocolate Hob Nobs in the house - buttery, rich, like an extra-buttery butternut snap dipped in chocolate - and I am newly enamored with Custard Cream biscuits, after I read that they are the most popular biscuit in the UK.  I grabbed a packet the next time I was at the supermarket, and fell in love with the vanilla-rich, custard flavour and the pretty swirl pattern on the top.

Generally, I don't buy 'homemade type' biscuits because I prefer to bake those styles, so I am more likely to buy things like the above, or even chocolate ripple biscuits, Scotch Fingers or Tic Tocs (which I think are actually kind of foul, but every few years I forget this, and buy a packet in a fit of nostalgia).

I also like to keep these in the house - thin, crispy and very spicy Ginger Thins:

I tried to take some photos of my pet lizard Atticus the other evening, but she kept scooting off.  I think she was cross because I'd been trimming her toenails!

Eventually, she settled down into my lap - here is a photo of her, and the mustard colour of my skirt brings out her yellow eyes and face so nicely.  She is a lovely lizard. Tabitha thinks so too - when I feed her, with Tabby on my hip, she grins and points at her, saying 'Lizzz!!'  Atticus is a girl, but has a boy's name, because you can't tell what sex bearded dragons are until they are around 6 months old, and I brought Atti home when she was just a tiny baby of a few weeks old.  In case you wonder, she eats fruit and vegetables most days (chopped up capsicum, apples and pears, carrot, bok choi, watermelon, all sorts of things) and woodroaches (a sort of harmless bug) every few days.  She is lazy, and likes me to hand-feed her the bugs one at a time with large tweezers!

One of my favourite things about my local butcher - apart from the very friendly young butchers - is the 'chicken nuggets' they sell.  They call them chicken nuggets, but what they really are is cold, palm-sized pieces of chicken, crumbed in a highly seasoned mixture and fried to golden perfection.  They are so good, I am not joking when I say that I find myself thinking about them almost every day.  I have to limit myself to buying just a few at a time, because I will eat them all, no matter how many I buy.  I have eaten 8 or more in one day before.  Dangerous - I call them my 'chicken crack'.  The butcher normally hands Tabitha one as we walk out, for her to nibble on in her pram on the walk home, and it keeps her perfectly happy while I finish my shopping.  They are also excellent in a sandwich with cheese and green tomato pickles.

Dinner last night included a great big pile of crispy roast potatoes and sweet potato, with plenty of salt, lemon and rosemary:

If there are roast potatoes, I am happy with nearly anything on the side.  Some barbecued chicken thighs (which come marinated, from my lovely butchers) often do the trick if the weather is nice.

One of Tabitha's current favourite lunches is spinach and cheese scrambled eggs. I'm thrilled, because it's such a nutritious meal - 2 eggs, 2 'cubes' of spinach (from the freezer boxes), a small handful of grated cheese, some pepper, a dash of milk.  It looks a little ghostly here, but it sure is yummy.  I can't believe how much of it she can eat!  If you served ham on the side, it would be Green Eggs and Ham.  I'm sure she'll like that in a couple more years.  Of course, you can also make Green Eggs and Ham with pesto scrambled eggs.  Yummy either way.

Yesterday, Tabitha had a good 3-hour nap, so I used the time to get organised.  Do you keep receipts?  I generally do, which means that once a year, I have to do a little clean out, going through them and throwing out ones no longer needed.  It's a pain of a job.  Here are the ones I threw out:

The small pile of ones I still need to hang on to:

And I finally took the time to open all the tiny envelopes, containing buttons, from clothes I've bought for Tabby and myself over the past few months.  I always hang on to spare buttons - although I rarely need them, I love having a big jar of buttons.  Some are so pretty, and I hope that Tabitha one day enjoys sorting through them.  I used to love sifting through button jars when I was small, sorting them into various categories.

This week, I took Tabitha to Ikea.  I had heard a rumour that they sell great play food, and I was not disappointed!  There are sets of fruit, vegetables, breakfast items and a cake-and-ice-cream set.  I bought the fruit, veg and breakfast ones.  Each set was less than $15, and the items are really gorgeous.  Sure, they aren't as incredible as the hand-made, wool felt food available on Etsy.com, but for a young toddler, I think they are a good option, since they are bound to get lost and/or chewed.  The Ikea sets are all machine washable too.

Here is the fruit - the banana even peels!

Here is the basket of veggies - the leaves of the lettuce ate attached with velcro, so you can pull them off just like a real lettuce:

The breakfast items come on a 'wooden' chopping board, and include 4 pancakes with jam splodges, a fried egg, some really adorable bacon, a couple of sausages, 2 slices of bread, some cheese, salami, lettuce and capsicum slices, along with a felt knife:

We also picked up some cheap-and-cheerful finger puppets, which will be useful for distracting Tabitha on the plane trip to QLD on Saturday:

We grabbed a stack of plates and bowls, too, since she is eating outside in the back yard more and more, now that the weather is warming up.  Less than $4 for all 10 pieces, BPA free:

Tabitha had a grand old time unpacking all her new Ikea items, and scattering them around the house:

Tabitha had a brilliant time at Ikea, exploring all the 'home scenes', climbing all over the sofas, and playing in the children's section.  She loved sitting on a toddler chair, just staring at all the other children, watching the world go on around her.  There was so much to see, do and touch, plenty of room to run around, and some tasty meatballs thrown in for good measure.  I think she preferred our trip to Ikea than any trip to an indoor play centre!