Winter's still here..

You know how I said a couple of weeks ago that the winter hadn't been too wet?  Well we had 30 mm of rain two weekends ago....

The creek flooded and we had to rescue some horses and move them to a drier paddock:

which they were very happy about.

An old elm tree split in half and fell over...

The new pup is settling in well..she enjoyed her first paddock picnic:

Her companion was wary to begin with, but it was only a matter of time..

Lots of cooking has been going on, it's just finding the uninterrupted time to tell you about it.  I made my own celery salt the other day, which I saw on 101 Cookbooks.  It is so easy...I have loads of celery in the garden so it is a great way to use some up.  You just wash and dry the leaves, dehydrate them on a tray in the oven (180c for about 5-8 minutes, don't let them burn), cool and crumble the leaves and mix with an equal quantity of your favourite sea salt.

It is wonderful on a poached egg, and I am finding myself adding it to all sorts of dishes.

I made chocolate afghans for the picnic the other day...these definitely fall into the oldie but goodie category.

This is Mum's recipe.  These biscuits have a lovely light crumb, thanks to the addition of cornflakes.

CHOCOLATE AFGHANS

200g butter

1/2 cup castor sugar

1 teasp vanilla essence

1 cup SR flour

1/2 cup plain flour

2 level tblsp cocoa 

3 cups cornflakes, lightly crushed

2 tblsp desiccated coconut

Preheat oven to 180c.

Cream butter, sugar and vanilla till light.

Sift flours and cocoa and add to butter with the cornflakes and coconut.  This is how I crushed the cornflakes:

and this is how crushed they need to be:

Mix thoroughly, roll into balls and place on a baking tray lined with baking paper.  They may seem a bit crumbly, but they hold when baked.

Bake for 15-20 minutes.

Remove from the tray and leave to cool.

CHOCOLATE ICING

1 cup icing sugar

1 1/2 tblsp cocoa

30g melted butter

Mix the above together and add about a tablespoon of boiling water and stir till you have a nice icing consistency.  Ice the afghans and if you want them to last more than five minutes, you can freeze them in a bag.