We eat a lot of pasta in our house. It's my favourite and of course, toddlers pretty much love nothing more than plain pasta, right?!
So it was only natural that eventually I was going to need a homemade pasta recipe that I could fall back on and make with whatever I had on hand.
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Something I have learnt about preserving food over the last few years is that the number 1 rule is to preserve what you will eat!!
If you have a glut of tomatoes but don't like tomato relish, there is no point in making jars and jars of it. But if you use tins of tomatoes in meals all the time, it makes sense to can diced tomatoes (method coming soon!)
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Welcome to the first monthly made from scratch challenge! At the start of each month I will post a new recipe (or project) that you can make from scratch along with me! The whole point of this challenge is for me to learn something new to make from scratch and share it with you and for you to hopefully be encouraged to try something new. You can find all the details in this post.
This delicious strawberry jam is enough to convince any jam hater - and even if you have never made jam before, the step by step instructions should make what can seem like a daunting process, very simple!
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When I first started sharing recipes on my website back in 2015, I set myself a challenge to take something I would normally buy from the supermarket and make it from scratch. One thing per week, for the whole year.
It was such a fun challenge to set myself and some of those recipes have become the most popular recipes on my website, so I thought I would bring back the challenge but with a few changes (one per month because I have kids now!) - and encourage you to participate too!
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I have such fond memories of preserving food with my mum and Grandma when I was a kid. Mum would buy boxes and boxes of Golden Queen peaches, Grandma would come and stay and over the course of a few days, they would work together to put them all in jars, ready for us to enjoy all winter long. And yes, these days you can buy a tin of peaches for next to nothing, but they don't even compare to the homemade version!
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Disclaimer: This post is a paid partnership with Countdown Supermarkets. All content and opinions are my own.
There is nothing like Christmas Day for spending time with family and friends, especially after the year we have had!
But if you’ve just remembered that you’ve forgotten about a Christmas Day appetizer, don’t panic - my Christmas Cheese Ball Wreath is exactly what you need.
All of the ingredients can be bought from Countdown in advance and you can even make the wreath and store in the fridge for a few days before you need it, meaning more time on Christmas Day for eating and spending time with family and friends.
Not only does it look the part, it’s a real crowd pleaser and thanks to Countdown’s great range of own brand products, it is a very affordable and easy way of providing snacks for a big group of people. Perfect for Christmas!
The cheese ball mixture is cream cheese, feta, toasted pistachio nuts, dried cranberries, lemon juice & zest, balsamic vinegar, garlic and pepper.
Mix it all together and form into a wreath using a lined ring cake tin if you have one, or directly on the serving plate with a small bowl turned upside down in the center to create the middle. Chill it in the fridge for a few hours or for a couple of days until you are ready to serve it.
I used chopped fresh parsley and chives, dried cranberries and rosemary sprigs to make it look just like a wreath, but use whatever you like to make it your own. You can also play around with what you add into the cheese ball - I have a sneaking suspicion that a bit of bacon wouldn't go astray!
One of the things I love the most about having kids is getting to experience things like Christmas through the eyes of a child all over again. It truly is one of the most magical things, especially now that Sadie is old enough to understand and be as excited about Christmas as I am!
When Sadie was first born I bought stockings and named them - these were perfect for the first couple of years but last year we really struggled to fit much at all in them! Not that our kids get over the top spoilt at Christmas but bigger items such as balls and books just didn't fit. So this year, I decided to make life easier and make pillowcase sized Santa sacks for the girls.
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This post was originally published in December 2015 – it has been retested, rephotographed, rewritten, and republished (to make it better for you!) in November 2020.
Saturday was our end of year dance show. It was a whole week of dancing every night after work plus late night rehearsals Thursday and Friday and then the 2 shows on Saturday, so by Sunday I was well & truly tuckered out. Especially considering the dressing room FULL of teenage girls I was in! Phew! But after a big sleep in, cookies for breakfast, redecorating the tree because it fell over, catching up on a week's worth of advent calendar chocolate, cookies for lunch and then 1 glass of substantially spiked eggnog (it was the afternoon) I was feeling pretty festive!
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Some of the links in this post are affiliate links, which pay me a small commission for my referral at no extra cost to you! Thank you for supporting The Kiwi Country Girl.
Last year we started the elf on the shelf tradition in our house. I wasn't sure if Sadie would be old enough (she was 2 ½ years old) but I thought hard about it, made it age appropriate and she LOVED it! (As did we!) We bought the elf that came with the story book (affiliate link)
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Over winter and in early spring, about the only thing I usually have growing in my garden is a few brassicas and an abundance of spinach. I tend to let it go wild over winter but come spring when I need the space for summer seedlings, it's time for it to go.
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Over the last few years I have started writing up a garden plan at the end of winter to help me plan exactly what I'm going to put in my garden - while I never usually stick exactly to the plan I find it really helpful in terms of knowing what seeds to start/seedlings to buy, planning for what we will be eating and hopefully preserving over summer and making sure I'm not planting the same crop in the same spot 2 years in a row (crop rotation) It's also great to look on to see what did well and what didn't.
To save money - I get carried away with how many seeds and plants I buy anyway, but without a garden plan in place I am out of control! I like having a clear idea of how many seeds to start or how many plants to buy so that I don't end up with too many plants (or not enough!)
Makes planting easy - I used to buy a bunch of plants and then panic about where to put them! If you have pre-planned your garden space and have bought/planted the right number of plants for the space, when it comes to planting out there is no thought involved, just check the garden plan and put them in the ground!
Crop rotation - this probably deserves a whole post (I will write it one day!) but basically crop rotation is the practice of not planting the same type of crop in the same part of the garden the following year. There a couple of main reasons for this.
To keep it simple, I split my garden into sections and plant a different crop in each section and then shift that crop to the next section the following season eg. tomatoes and peppers in one section, cucumbers and zucchini in one, beans and peas in one and salad greens in one. Planning my garden means I can refer back to where things were planted last season and make sure I move them around.
Companion planting - a goal of mine this year is to learn more about companion planting and do it more effectively, but this is the practice of planting certain plants together that help each other to grow and can also help deter certain pests. Here is a great article that explains it in more detail. Common companion plant combinations are basil with tomatoes, sweetcorn with beans, peas and squash and marigolds with anything that is affected by aphids or greenfly. Bee friendly flowers such as marigolds, sunflowers, borage, nasturtium and calendula (to name a few) are also helpful in assisting with pollination - and they look pretty!
If you are tech savvy, you could draw up a plan on the computer, but I love the feeling of drawing up my gardens on paper and using colouring pencils to make it pretty! It's also handy to have it in a notebook to be able to refer easily to it when planting or buying seeds!
Here's how I do it.
And just like that, Macey has been in our family for a whole year!! And what a wonderful year it has been with her.
To my total surprise and excitement, Macey's first word was "Mum" or mamamamamama! She has started getting really chatty and babbles all the time now. She is also making lots of other sounds - Dad, moo and bok bok for the chickens. She will even say ta and pass you something now which is a fun game for her.
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Our baby girl is 3!! What a huge year for Sadie. Between 2 and 3 is such a huge change - she has gone from a toddler to a little girl!
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For the longest time, if Josh requested a mince pie for dinner, I'd just cook up some mince, throw a few herbs in and put it in some pastry. Nothing wrong with that, but being a Kiwi (and after getting a few requests for pie recipes!) I thought it was time I upped my mince and cheese pie game.
So I got to work, and what I have come up with is probably going to be your new go to pie recipe!
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I remember so clearly with Sadie that everytime she got to a new age or stage I would declare that this one was my favourite - and I am most definitely finding that with Macey too. It's so fun being able to go through these amazing months where they learn so much, so quickly again!
The biggest thing for Macey at the moment is that she's finally found her voice! For 9 months she barely made a peep and all of a sudden, she has discovered that she can make sounds! It's so funny and she is definitely making herself heard now!
Macey is still commando crawling (4 months and counting!) but lately she has been starting to get up on her hands and knees and rock back and forward. I still think she's a while away from actually crawling (if she even does!) but why would you when you can get around super fast on your tummy anyway?! Although, she has realised that there are things above her eye level and is starting to look up and trying to pull herself up to them - still unsuccessfully at this stage but it won't be long!
Sleeping, breastfeeding and eating solids are all going really well for us. Macey has 2 sleeps during the day and goes down for the night at 7pm, usually sleeping through until 8am! I'm feeding her morning, afternoon and evening and she's eating 3 huge meals per day. Her favourite foods are mandarins, banana, pumpkin, avocado and veggie soup but she will eat absolutely anything. She has never turned her nose up at anything and she can put away huge quantities at a time for such a little dot!
The most positive thing is that Macey has FINALLY stopped spilling!! It's been 9 months of spews after every single feed (and in between!) but we have finally turned a corner and I couldn't be happier!!
Macey continues to be a cruiser - she will happily play on the floor anywhere we go or will sit in the front pack or in the buggy and just enjoy her surroundings! She definitely knows our close family and friends and is happy to go to them but still loves mum cuddles the best! She is definitely going to be pretty cheeky too - she has the most amazing, wicked grin and a twinkle in her eye that makes me think she is going to be trouble when she's a bit bigger!
And Macey can wave! It's the biggest wave, most enthusiastic wave in the world and is the cutest thing ever.
She is becoming more interactive each day and it's been really fun watching the friendship between her and Sadie develop. Sadie is really enjoying that Macey can do more with her now and Macey just loves doing anything Sadie is doing!
Out of all the things I use my multi cooker for, rice is one of my favourites (right up there with the best soup recipe!) Back in the day I had a rice cooker that I could never get the hang of so I stuck with my tried and true way of cooking it on the stove.
Once I got my multi cooker, I thought I'd give rice another try and I'm SO happy I did! Perfect rice everytime that can be put on and ignored.
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DISCLOSURE: This post is a paid partnership with Countdown Supermarkets. All content and opinions are my own.
I was challenged by Countdown NZ to come up with an easy winter recipe featuring 5x ingredients from their Great Price range. I was super excited, especially when I saw the list of ingredients:
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DISCLOSURE: This post is a paid partnership with GLAD. All content and opinions are my own.
After getting used to spending so much time at home over the last couple of months and being home to prepare meals as well as spend time with our family, I know it will be hard to adjust back to our new normal once work and school are back which I why I'm so excited to partner with GLAD to bring you this post!
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Who loves the delicious loaves of garlic bread that you buy from the fridge section of the supermarket? Me! But who doesn't love the price tag that often comes along with these "gourmet" type convenience foods? Also me!
So when I perfected the recipe for easy homemade French bread, I knew it was only a matter of time before it was turned into garlic bread. And I'm telling you, it's the best garlic bread I've ever made (and eaten!)
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Baking bread with yeast can be very intimidating but once you have a basic understanding of how it works, it's actually quite simple!
So let's get into it - I want this guide to be the place you come when you have any yeast baking questions!
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Almost as soon as Macey turned 5 months old, a whole lot of new things started happening so there's lots to update since last month! And yes, she is actually almost 8 months already but I figure as long as I post this, it doesn't matter too much how late it is!
At 5 months she was just starting to roll and we were slowly starting the transition out of her swaddle and bassinet. Pretty much as soon as we got back from being away at the beach over summer, I unwrapped her completely as she really got the hang of rolling. We also moved her right into the cot as I was worried she would start hitting her arms into the sides of the bassinet and wake herself!
As soon as she was unwrapped and in the cot she started sleeping on her tummy! I'm super pleased to say she is still sleeping as well as she was, now she just moves around a lot more in her bed. It's taking me a while to get her to sleep at night - she often fusses when I put her in bed and sometimes needs an extra feed but once she's down she is out for the night so I'm happy to spend a bit more time getting her to sleep to begin with.
We are also in a pretty great routine all of a sudden - she wakes around 7.30am goes down for a nap about 9.30am for a couple of hours, another nap at 1/1.30pm and then the last one at about 4.30/5pm before bed between 7.30pm and 8pm. Pretty great if you ask me!
At 5 ½ months she also cut her first 2 teeth - the bottom two. Just like with Sadie she was slightly unsettled one night, I thought nothing of it and then Josh went in, came out and announced that she had cut 2 teeth! Typical! She handled it pretty well and was just a bit fussy for a couple of nights. Not bad at all!
Because of how much she is rolling and starting to try and push herself along the floor I know our days of her being in the same spot we left her are numbered, so I'm enjoying every last minute of this stage! But as always, moving means we enter into another new and exciting stage and I love it!
She is a super happy and content baby but you still have to work for smiles from her - unless you are Sadie who she is just obsessed with! She seems to warm up more as the day goes on and I usually get the best giggles and squeals out of her right before she goes to bed at night...perfect winding down!
Macey continues to be the sweetest, most chilled out baby I know and we are loving every day with her!
I really enjoy how the seasons change. It's always a little bit exciting when there are hints of what is to come in the air, but the season I really could leave behind is winter. It's cold, dark, usually rainy and just not my favourite. The only silver lining in what can be a pretty miserable time of year is that we replace BBQ's and outdoor eating with big bowls of comfort food - like this chilli con carne!
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