The Weather For It

...reading, that is.  With the change and chill in the air comes an increased love of curling up in one warm spot and reading, reading, reading.

 

A seasonal favourite of this family's is stewed apples.  It's a great way to use up those half-eaten apples one may find around the house as well; just a little peeling of the exposed bite edges, pop it in the twirling corer and soon you have a pot filled with ready-to-stew apples.  This is my method:

Stewed Autumnal Apple Delight

* Peel and core loads of apples (I highly advise investing $15 in a spinning coring peeling machine of awesomeness)

* Throw them into a pot and just cover with water (the apples will bob up to the top so don't be tricked into putting too much water in)

* Season the water with loads and loads of cinnamon, cloves, allspice and a couple of spoonfuls of rapadura

* Bring to the boil

* Leave that baby to simmer until everything has dissolved into a darkened mass of about a third the size

Now eat that deliciousness with a dollop of natural yoghurt (homemade of course is best!).

I've also recently made use of a load of nicely mushy bananas to bake the seriously most perfect banana bread EVER!  Occasionally I wish I kept to a recipe when I bake and one of those times was when I made this, because the proportions were just right. 

Sure, you might be able to espy some little bits of chocolate in that photo.  Totally unnecessary as it turned out because it was YUM in every way. 

 

Ever looked at a custard apple and thought "Huh?!".  Yep, me too. In fact I'm sort of scared of them. So I did what any baking-lovin' woman would do when presented with one in her organic mixed box.  You mash that thing up and bake it into muffins!  And hey presto, no need to be scared any more.  Also, no need to know what they actually taste like.  Because once a mushy fruit has been mixed in with some spelt, rapadura and an egg, there's not much more you need to taste.  Devoured by all, even the custard-apple-terrorised amongst us.

And the best thing is to eat any or all of these whilst reading under a warm blankie.  Here's our current list of books for enteratinment and eddification:

Cass - Questions of Travel by Michelle de Krester and Writing Hannah by Libby Gleeson

James - just finished The Great Gatsby

Harriet - just finished The Happy House Children by Enid Blyton and is now reading That's Me, Lucy Rose by Katy someone-or-other (whoops)

Teddy - he found a copy of The Wizard of Oz that I received as a gift at the age of about ten in the attic

The objects in our attic aren't in any way 'stored' - they live a pretty active life in rotation with what is downstairs that I would never think of the attic items as 'not played with'. However he did manage to find this book when I had forgotten about it, so there you go.  Ted does love to potter about up there.

 

And in celebration of our marshmallow-roasting from a little while ago, we purchased a brazier.  It was a huge hit and I anticipate autumn will now be marked with its emergence from the shed at the first sign of a cool still evening.