It's All About Me

What is this, blogging day 4? And I realise I really haven't shared anything about myself. So lets get that over and done with. Long story short:

I live in a very small town. I am a lucky enough to be a stay at home Mum of 4 children. My three step-kids who are 14,12 and almost 10 and my almost two year old Harrison who keeps me on my toes. My partner Dan works too hard but it allows me to do what I do and I appreciate it every day.

I moved here from the city for a six month break from the hustle and bustle. That was 6 1/2 years ago and I don't think I'll be going anywhere in the near future.

I love my family and couldn't live without them and my friends. I love to keep busy but that's not hard. You already know what I do in my spare time.

That's pretty much me in a nutshell. I won't bore you with the finer details. Now we can concentrate on the important things.

Love Kylie

The Yummiest Crumbed Steak EVER

I have to credit my fabulous mother-in-law for this one. Yes you did read correctly. I did just call my mother-in-law fabulous. And that's because she is! I know it's a rare thing to get along with your mother-in-law but I do, and I'm so glad. It makes life much easier. Of course it also helps that we live approx. 1000km away from each other but I like to think it would be the same if she lived right next door.

I made this for dinner tonight and everyone devoured it. The main reason home made crumbed steak is so much better than the pre-prepared stuff is the meat you use. Alot of butchers like to hide cheap cuts of meat under those crumbs and there's nothing worse than taking a bite of steak to find nothing but sinew and fat. Blech!

On with the recipe..........

First, ask your friendly butcher to slice you some rib eye fillet nice and thin. You want to be able to cook it nice and quick so you don't burn the crumbs. Unless of course you like rare steak, then you can go ahead and use the thick stuff.

The Coating: This quantity will coat enough meat to feed my family of six with leftovers so if you're only cooking for two you'll need to reduce the quantities unless you want to eat steak all week.

• I can of evaporated milk
• 2 eggs
• about 1 cup of all purpose flour
• approx. 2 cups bread crumbs (packaged not fresh)
• 2 tspns garlic salt
• 1 tspn dried oregano
• cracked pepper

1. Start by pouring the can of evaporated milk into a mixing bowl and whisking in the two eggs.
2. Dump your flour into a separate bowl
3. In a third bowl mix together the bread crumbs, garlic salt, oregano and a few good grinds of pepper

Now set up your production line. Starting with the flour, then egg mixture, then the crumb mixture. Have a plate ready at the end with some paper towel ready for your freshly crumbed steak.

Start by coating your steak lightly in the flour. It helps the egg mixture stick better. I can't explain why but it does. Trust me.

Next coat it liberally in the egg and milk mixture.

Then of course coat it in the crumb mixture and put it on the waiting plate.

Repeat with the remaining steaks. It should look something like this.

I always find it's best to refrigerate it for at least a couple of hours before cooking. It helps the crumbs set and hopefully they won't fall off during cooking.

When it's time to cook, heat your pan to just over medium heat. Anything too hot will burn the crumbs before the steak is cooked and we don't want that.

Melt a good amount of butter in the pan. Now you could use any other kind of oil but lets face it, butter tastes better!

Once the pan is heated, pop your steaks in there and cook them until the crumb mixture is nice and golden, then turn them over and do the same to the other side. It's as simple as that!Don't do what I did and take leave to write the kids permission notes for school while it's cooking or it might end up a little past golden like this.
But it was still yummy!

I served it with whipped potatoes peas and corn on the cob. Simple, hearty and delicious. I hope you like it.

Love Kylie

Scrapbooking and Sugary Treats

Last night was good. I really feel like I've achieved something. I finally completed my baby's 1st year album!!!! I've been piecing together his 1st birthday party page for what feels like forever and now it's done. Sure maybe I mixed and matched some embellishments that should probably never be seen together and sure there are a few things that are slightly skewiff (is that even a real word?) but it's done. D.O.N.E and I'm so happy!

Will I be posting pictures of this final page achievement? Ummm, the answer to that would be a firm no. No-body need to see that. I do have a couple of pics to show you though.

The title of this page is 'Come On Mummy'. Early one morning my sister MRD( I'll explain another time) and I were out on an early morning photography adventure and of course Harrison (my almost two year old) was tagging along. It didn't take long before he got sick of watching us taking photos and he kept grabbing me by the hand trying to drag me away and saying, 'Come on Mummy, come ON'. So I turned and snapped a one handed photo of him trying to pull me over to where ever it was that he wanted to be. Here is the result.

Before......... Papers chosen but still no real idea of what I'm going to do with it

And............TaDa! The finished product. Nothing too fancy. Nice clean lines. I'm happy with it. And I just LOVE The photo. The photo on the page I mean. Not the photo of the page.
What do you think? Don't hold back. I can take it.

Now as promised.....the cupcake recipe. They are so delicious. So moist and sweet. So PINK! I love hot pink icing. There's just something about it. Of course you can make yours any colour you like but seriously, after seeing the hotness of the pink, how could you resist?

Enough babble and on with the recipe. I found this recipe on a website a long time ago when I was looking for a different Vanilla Cake recipe to make a birthday cake for a friend. I would love to credit the site but alas, I copied it by hand and have no idea where it came from now. If anyone does feel free to let me know. What was that I said about not babbling any more?

OK the recipe - Vanilla Cake

• 2 cups of sugar


• 4 eggs


• 2 1/2 cups of all purpose/plain flour


• 1 cup of milk


• 3/4 cup vegetable oil ( I didn't say there was anything healthy about it did I?)


• 2 1/4 teaspoons of baking powder


• 1 teaspoon of vanilla

1. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees C (350F). Line your muffin tins with muffin papers or if you're making the cake version line two 9x13 inch rectangular baking pans


2. In a large mixing bowl, with an electric mixer, beat sugar and eggs together until they're slightly thickened (about 1 minute). Add flour, milk, oil, baking powder and vanilla. Beat for another minute, just until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Don't overbeat. Pour batter into prepared pans.


3. Bake in the preheated oven for 30-40mins (for the cake version) approx 20mins (for the cupcake version) or until the tops are golden brown and skewer poked into the centre comes out clean. Let cool completely before covering with frosting.

And that's it, How easy is that? And so delicious.

Now as for the frosting, I just used a simple icing/powdered sugar, butter and milk combo. I'd like to give you the recipe but the simple fact is, I didn't measure. I'm going to have to start measuring if I want to share recipes aren't I? So go ahead and use your favourite frosting recipe. If I have enough butter in the house I love to make this butter cream frosting

• 2/3 cup of butter (room temperature)


• 4 cups of powdered sugar


• 1 tsp vanilla


• 2 Tablespoons milk

1. Beat butter until creamy and light in colour


2. Add powered sugar about 1/2 cup at a time and beat well


3. Add vanilla, milk and your chosen colour and beat well. This should make about 2 1/2 cups of frosting.

And here's that picture again, just so you don't have to scroll all the way to the top to have another look.

Enjoy!

Now I know this post has been hideously long. Perhaps it would be a good idea in future to stick to one topic per post. But I did promise. And a promise is a promise. I'll be back with more soon.

Love Kylie

Baking baking and more baking

Let me start by saying that this is not the first blog I've started. The old one is probably attached to this one in some way seeing as how it was a Blogger blog too and I'm not bloggosphere savvy enough to know how to get rid of it. My point is I tried. I really did. I wanted to keep it updated but when it came down to it, it was boring. I mean, no one really wanted to read about the ins and outs of my life with a toddler. I love him dearly but most people don't want to know what he ate for breakfast. So if you do happen to stumble across to my old blog, don't hold it against me. Please.

This time around I thought I'd shake things up a bit. Instead of just dribbling on about family life, I thought I'd include some things that other people might be interested in like baking. I do so, so much baking and cooking. Maybe someone out there will like what I do as much as I do.

Then there's photography. Oh how I love photography. I'm not great at it but I'm learning and I'm hoping that some of you might like my pictures to look at, or to laugh at. In any case I'm going to share with you.

Scrapbooking was the craft I first loved. It's kind of taken a backseat to actually taking the pictures lately. Tonight though, I'm actually going to a friends house to scrap the night away. Tomorrow I'm going to come back and show you what I've done. See photos of photos!! What could be better than that?

Do you know what else? See those cupcakes up there in the header? Don't they look good? Well right now, I'm going to make a commitment. I'm going to come back tomorrow and tell you all how to make them!