Lightening Online

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I’ve been busy over the last 2 days making slices for the afternoon tea after Poppa’s funeral. There’s something about actually “doing” something that I think helps at a time like this. And cooking brings with it a certain level of comfort - at least for me.

Anyway, I’m making an assortment of slices which should do for the funeral plus some other things we have going on. And if my family is lucky, maybe a few pieces for them too (actually, they’ve already started cleaning up the bits that aren’t quite the right size or don’t look as good).

I thought some of you may be interested in the recipes I’ve been using.

Lemon Slice

An old family favourite and one I’ve put on here before. This is enough to fill a large tray (rather than the regular slice tray). Halve the recipe for smaller quantities.

1 tin condensed milk (see below for condensed milk recipe)

250g margarine

2 pkts milk arrowroot biscuits (or any plain biscuit - 250g packets)

2 cups coconut

Rind of 2 lemons

Juice of 1 lemon

Crush biscuits and mix with coconut and lemon rind. Melt margarine and add margarine, condensed milk and lemon juice to dry mixture. Stir together and press into a tin or container. Refrigerate. Ice with lemon icing (using juice from second lemon) and top with coconut

Condensed Milk

I don’t keep condensed milk on hand and this recipe is so simple and cheap to make.

1 cup dry milk powder

2/3 cup sugar

1/3 cup boiling water

3 Tbsp margarine

Mix together until smooth. Equal to 1 can of condensed milk

Easy Chocolate Slice

In the past, I’ve not been a big slice maker because I thought they were too time consuming or expensive to make (or both). This one is SO easy and reasonably quick. My kids love it and I usually have all the ingredients on hand.

3 weetbix (crushed)

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup SR flour

1 cup coconut

4 tsp cocoa (or more if you like it very chocolately)

125g melted butter/marg

Mix dry ingredients together. Add melted butter and mix. Press into slice/lamington tin. Bake 180C (350F) for 15 minutes. Ice with chocolate icing while still warm.

I always make a double mix and cook it in the same tray I use for the lemon slice. Usually I leave the top plain but this time I added sprinkles as I was looking for something with a variety of colour (to balance up the plate of mixed slice). It looks good.

Mars Bar Slice

I was toying with the idea of making a double batch of this one but refrained because I know I’ll end up eating too much myself if I do that. Thankfully, Mars Bars were on special for 99c each this week. It can end up being a reasonably expensive slice otherwise.

3 Mars Bars

3 Cups Rice Bubbles

90g Butter

200g Chocolate

Melt Mars Bars and Butter together then mix with rice bubbles and press into slice tray. Top with melted chocolate (you could add 30g butter to chocolate to make it a little softer).

Banana Slice

With 2 over-ripe bananas in the fridge, this one seemed like it was worth a try. I doubled the recipe to use up the 2 bananas. It’s in the oven right now so no comments on how it’s going to turn out yet.

1 cup SR flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

3/4 cup sugar

1/4 tsp bicarb soda

1 beaten egg

1/4 cup milk

1/2 cup mashed banana (this is usually 1 banana)

60g butter

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp cinnamon

Sift dry ingredients (LOL - I very RARELY sift ingredients and no, I didn’t here either)

Melt butter. Mix everything together and bake 20-30 minutes in lamington tin. Top with lemon icing and sprinkle with coconut.

Chocolate Mint Slice

This one looks quite effective with the green peppermint cream in between the chocolate base and chocolate on top.

Base:

4 oz butter (125g)

1/3 cup sugar

1 1/4 cups SR flour

1 Tbsp cocoa

Cream butter and sugar then stir in SR flour and cocoa. Bake 15-20 minutes in a moderate oven. Leave to cool.

Peppermint Cream:

2 Tbsp butter

2 tsp peppermint essence

1 Tbsp milk

1.5 cups icing sugar

green food colouring

Cream together and spread on base.

Icing:

2 oz copha

2 Tbsp icing sugar

2 Tbsp cocoa

Melt copha. Mix together, cool slightly then pour over peppermint cream.

OR

Melt chocolate with either copha or marg and pour over top.

Chocolate Caramel Slice

Base:

1 cup plain flour

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup coconut

125g butter, melted

Combine dry ingredients. Mix in melted butter and press into tin (18×28cm). Bake 15-20 minutes until lightly browned. Cool.

Filling:

60g butter

1 can condensed milk (see recipe above)

2 Tbsp maple syrup

Stir over low heat until smooth (or shove in the microwave like I do). Pour over base. Bake 15-20 minutes until golden. Cool.

Topping:

200g chocolate

2 tsp vegetable oil

Melt together and pour over slice. Chill until set.

I may yet also make Marita’s Anzac Slice depending on how energetic I feel once I’ve finished icing the others.

Hopefully there isn’t too much left after the weekend or my waistline is going to be in BIG trouble!!!!

Last night, Farmboys Grandfather passed away. He’s been very ill for a few weeks so it was really a matter of time rather than it coming as a surprise. It’s one of those situations where it really is a blessing. He’s at peace now, free of pain and frustration and going to a much better place than earth could ever offer him. He’s lived the past 11 years without the love of his life which hasn’t been easy on him.

Of course, there is still the grief and sadness and loss, no matter how much of a positive spin we put on things. We were hoping to have a big family celebration over Easter to celebrate his 90th birthday. He has 5 children, 17 grandchildren and possibly 30+ great-grandchildren (I’m not sure on the exact figure but he always knew. Trailer Boy was number 21 and I know there have been quite a number born since then - guess I’ll find out the figure at the funeral).

Lleyton was the first male Great-Grandchild bearing the “family name” (same surname) so his birth was quite special to Poppa. We have photographs of the 4 generations of males. Even now there are only 5 great grandchildren who are male with the “family name” and 2 of those are my boys.

Poppa’s legacy will remain in our family for more than simply our boys carrying on his name. The farm we live on was owned by him. We had the opportunity to buy it with very reasonable terms some time back. If it weren’t for this opportunity, we wouldn’t still be farming. It has really been a huge blessing in our lives and from the day we found out he was going to sell to us (which was a few years before the paperwork went through).

He wasn’t an easy man to get to know. A man of very few words who worked hard right into his 80s. He only fully retired 3 years ago although leading up to that he was gradually cutting back his workload and responsibility.

I remember the early years of our marriage when we’d have nights where Farmboys father would wake us up after we had gone to bed and his grandfather would wake us up before we got out of bed. It wasn’t that we slept for long hours, just that his father and grandfather seemed to operate at the extremes.

In an interesting final legacy, the phone call that came this morning to let us know he’d passed away last night woke us up. Farmboy had a good chuckle that Poppa’s final legacy was one that we’ll remember him well for - pulling us out of bed way too early!!!!

Our plans for the long weekend have now changed but that’s really the least we can do for the man who has given us the opportunity to be where we are today (in more ways than one).

R.I.P Poppa. We love you and will be forever grateful for all you’ve done. Your legacy will live on in our hearts, minds and lives.

This is one of those eclectic posts ( a mish-mash of topics) you can really only get away with on a personal blog. But hey, this is a personal blog, so why not?

I have a cold. It’s knocking me about a bit. I started on some natural stuff on Saturday and while I already had the cold by then, it has crossed my mind that some of my symptoms might be related to the detox process. Either way, I’m a total grump to be around right now (Farmboy would laugh at that because my style of grumpy is a little different to other people’s style of grumpy). I hate feeling so weary.

I feel like my house is a dump. It’s not. In fact, in a different mood, I might even consider it to be “reasonable”. Problem is, in this kind of mood, I want everything to be perfect. And let’s face it, no house is EVER perfect right? Not if you actually LIVE there.

I did do some more decluttering which I’m happy about. I figured if I could work on a garbage bag or equivalent leaving this house each week, we’d eventually get on top of the clutter, right? Today I have bagged up some clothes to go to various sources. Now to actually get them OUT of the house (my biggest challenge when it comes to decluttering).

I’m also getting rather frustrated with the fact that my life is so busy. I was planning all these achievements around the house now that all 3 kids are at school. Problem is, I seem to be spending half my life AT SCHOOL. LOL. Or somewhere. Not here. Not often enough anyway. I know, we were away last week. That’s part of it. But I’m out nearly every day this week and then we go away for the long weekend.

Okay, this isn’t really a brain dump is it? It’s just an almighty big WHINGE!!! And I’ve just noticed the last 4 paragraphs have begun with “I”. Oh, that’s right, it’s MY blog so I guess it’s alright to be a little self focused, yeah? LOL.

On a more positive note, I found out yesterday that netball training begins on the 19th. Yah! I can’t wait! Wonder if I can still throw and catch a ball???? I didn’t do the “preseason” stuff last year so this will be another new experience for me. This year I leave half way through instead of starting (not quite) half way through. Bit of a bummer but I’m determined to enjoy what games I do get to play.

I’ve noticed that my blog comments have dropped off quite a lot (but not my stats). Was it something I said or is everyone just as busy as me?

Oops, the bus has just pulled up. Better go greet the kidlets.

Mwah to anyone who has read this far. It really was a brain dump wasn’t it? Now I’m officially an “air-head” (oh yeah, I’ve been one of those for a loooonnnggg time - twas even my nickname at one stage).

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We’re now into the 3rd month of the year (although only the 2nd month for my “budgetting year”) and I’m yet to decide on our weekly grocery budget for the year. Fortunately so far (for February) I’ve spent less than $100 a week on groceries so there’s no real panic but it feels strange not to have a set “budget”.

Part of my problem is I’m torn between taking the “easy road” or the more “challenging” road.

The easy road would be $150 a week. It’s not excessively high and I can easily justify it given my children are growing and eating more and that I now have 3 at school and therefore it would be nice to have some room for those hideously expensive, yet very convenient, prepackaged lunch box snacks (at least some of the time). It would also be a way of “cheating” on my BHAG and leaving more room for savings - and therefore more to be put aside for our trip.

The more challenging road would be $130 a week. Given in 2007 we spent under $100 a week (all tracked and accounted for - so our actual “expenses” rather than simply a “budget”), $130 should still be reasonably comfortable.

I went up to $130 a week in 2008 due to rising grocery costs and the fact that I needed a break from the effort of being too frugal. I enjoyed my $100 a week challenge while I was doing it but it does take a lot more time and thinking to achieve that.

That extra $20 a week equates to just over $1000 over the course of the year. If I was budgetting and tracking properly, that could make quite a difference to our budget and overall savings for the year. The thing is, I’m not. I have NO budget for 2009 and no plans at this stage to even try and create one. Which means the $20 is likely to just get eaten up by some other spending anyway.

Mind you $50 a week (jumping from $100 to $150) is $2600 a year - OUCH!

It does feel kind of backwards for me not setting a budget but it’s a complicated year with our trip and all. It seemed like a good year to take a bit of a break from the figures. I’ll still work to keep our expenses down but with a lot of unknown health expenses cropping up lately, I’m finding it hard to put a figure to categories like I usually would.

What do you think?

$150 - easy road, feels a little bit extravagant but would allow for some bought lunch box snacks, few more expensive cuts of meat and some cash in hand savings for our trip.

$130 - feels more frugal. Might lead to $1000 in savings but then again, might not.

$100 - Nah, that would send me insane, even if I do believe I could do it if I wanted to!

I’d like to use cash for groceries so that I’m at least budgetting and tracking in this category (in a simple kind of way) and it would be good if I could make a start this Wednesday (being the first shopping day in March).  I just need your help and input in making a decision.