Friday, September 24, 2010

Salad Dressing

We've had glorious weather this past week with maximums in the mid to high 20s. Today I was making a batch of vinaigrette to take on holiday for a week camping at Esperance, when I was hit with guilt as I promised this recipe to a dear friend a long time away, who has recently moved to England. So I thought if I type it for her, I might as send it out to all of you, particularly those who are finishing up their summer.
This and balsamic and olive oil dressed at the table are the two dressings we have most often with a green or garden salad. I keep a jar of this in the fridge and simply shake before serving. It should keep indefinitely, though if you are keeping for a while it might be worth boiling you jar and lid for a few minutes before adding the ingredients.

1/4 c white vinegar
3/4 c olive oil
2 T lemon juice
1 garlic clove (crushed)
1 t seeded mustard
a generous grind of salt and pepper

The recipe also includes 1 shallot (which I've never added) and 2 T soft herb. I've never added the herbs preferring to add them fresh to the salad. You could actually put whole branches of herbs in the mix and the flavour would permeate.

I'm hoping to be a better 'blog friend' soon.
Hope you're well.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

A Rainbow Day

Hi all,
Sorry I've been away. My day time recreation has been dramatically cut by a little one with back to back colds and in the evening the computer is being used by my husband who is completing some post grad study. This is actually about two weeks old. We haven't had any playdough around here for a long long time but we finally got around to making a batch. This is the usual recipe. I don't add the food colouring until after it's cooked then Rainbow and I knead different colours into each portion. Rainbow requested we leave one portion white this time.

This is actually Moonshine's very first ever play with playdough. You can see how fascinated she was. I can't believe she's already rolling it (with chants of 'roll roll roll')!

Then as we already had the food colouring I decided to dye some new pasta for threading. Big pieces for Rainbow and little ones for Moonshine. Normally I put it in a jar and shake it but we didn't have any with lids so we ended up stirring it in a bowl. In this picture Rainbow is painting the food colouring onto the pasta. I did hear later, from Rainbow's grandmother (who is a kindy teacher) that they dilute dye with water and briefly immerse before spreading out to dry.


This is Moonshine having her first attempt at threading, onto a chopstick standing in a lump of playdough. A stationary pole is a good starting point. With Rainbow we then proceeded to the stiff texture of pipe cleaners (chenille sticks) before moving to shoe laces (or wool with tape wound around one edge)