Chocolate Chip Cookies

125 gms         Butter (unsalted & softened)

1 ¼ cups         Brown sugar (tightly packed)

1 tsp                Vanilla essence

1                                            Egg, lightly beaten

1 ½ cups         Flour

½ tsp               Baking powder

1 ½ cups         Chocolate bits

A pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 180ºC.  Place butter and sugar in a bowl and beat until light and creamy.  Add vanilla and egg and stir to combine.  Stir in the sifted flour, baking powder and salt until just combined.  Fold through chocolate chips.  Place spoonfuls of cookie mixture on a greased and lined baking tray, allowing room for spreading.  Cook for 15-20 minutes, until they turn pale gold.  Allow to cool on the tray for 5 minutes before placing biscuits on a wire rack to cool further.  

Crunchy Lemon Muffins

2 cups   Self-raising flour

¾ cup    Sugar

75 gms  Butter

1 cup     Milk

1            Egg

Grated rind of 1 large 
or 2 small lemons

¼ cup     Lemon Juice

¼ cup     Sugar              

Mix flour and sugar in a bowl.  Melt the butter, add the milk, egg and lemon rind and beat well with a fork to combine.  Add the liquids to the dry ingredients and combine only until the dry ingredients have been lightly dampened but not thoroughly mixed.

Place mixture into 12 medium-sized muffin tins.  Bake at 200ºC for 10 minutes.

Stir together lemon juice and sugar without dissolving the sugar, and drizzle this over the hot muffins as soon as they are removed from the oven.  Leave to stand in the tins for only a few minutes (otherwise the syrup may harden as it cools and will stick to the tins).

Beef & Pineapple Casserole

750 gms         Steak (can be more)

2                      Onions 

1 cup              Tomato Pulp (or1 tin whole peeled tomatoes)

2 Tb                Flour (to thicken)

1 Tb                Sugar

1 tsp                Mustard powder

1 Tb                Vinegar

2 Tb                Worchestershire sauce

¼ cup             Cold Water

1 small tin      Pineapple chunks

Mix together in Crock pot and boil as a casserole on slow for one day.  Before serving add 1 small can of pineapple pieces (if added too soon the pieces will lose their flavour). 

For variation, you can add chopped kumara, courgette or carrot.        

Alison Holst's Birdseed Bars

1 cup sesame seeds
1 cup sunflower seeds
1 cup chopped roasted peanuts
1 cup coconut or fine rolled oats or crushed cornflakes
1 cup sultanas
100g butter
1/4 c honey
1/2 cup brown sugar

Line the ase and sides of the pan about 18x28cm with baking paper.
One variety at a time, watching carefully to prevent over-browning, lightly toast the sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, chopped nuts, coconut and rolled oats or crushed cornflakes, under a grill or in a large heavy-bottommed frypan on moderate heat. Sitr so that the contents brown evenly and lightly. (Do not mix before heating, since they brown at different rates.) Mix them in a large bowl after they are heated, and stir in the sultanas.

Put the butter, honey and brown sugar into the large pan and heat gently until the sugar dissolves, making a toffee-like mixture. Heat until a drop forms a soft ball when dropped in cold water, then tip the toasted ingredients back into the pan. Stir well to combine, then press the mixture into the prepared pan . Leave until lukewarm, then turn out onto a board and, using a sharp serrated knife, cut into bars the size and shape you like.

Variation: Replace peanuts with walnuts or almonds

Store promptly when cold in an air tight container or carefully wrap pieces individually.

Honey Garlic Mayonaise

Jackies favourite mayonaise recipe

1/4 c of runny honey
2 cups of oil
4 cloves garlic
2 eggs
handful parsley
1/4 cup malt vinegar
teaspoon salt
teaspoon mustard powder

Blend salt, egg, mustard, garlic. Pour in the honey, vinegar and blend. Add parlsey. Pour oil in slowly at a fine trickly until thick blending the whole time.
Store up to 2 weeks.

Best Ever Pumpkin Pie

Some people wanted Trina's Pumpkin Pie recipe, so here is - only the best 'pumpkin pie' recipe!

Start with a biscuit base (recipe uses a pastry base but I don’t think as nice, but up to you) (Pastry one does require cooking first though)

Biscuit Base:
Packet of biscuits
50-100g butter (melted)
Mix together and press into a tin

Filling:
1 cup mashed pumpkin
1 cup heavy or whipping cream (I can only find double cream here but that will do)
3 large eggs
1 cup light brown sugar
1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon of ground cloves
½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
¼ cup brandy
Whipped cream

1. Preheat oven to 400’F
2. Measure the pumpkin into a roomy bowl. Add the heavy cream or evaporated milk (I use the cream) and the eggs, and beat thoroughly with a whisk.
3. Combine the sugar with the spices. Toss then together well, and then beat them into the pumpkin mixture. Add the brandy, and mix thoroughly.
4. Put filling on the base
5. Place the pie on the lower shelf of the oven and bake 8 minutes. Reduce the heat to 350’F and continue to bake until a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean, another 35-40min.
6. Serve warm or cold with whipped cream I find the times are off, I think it doesn’t cook as quick from the bottom because I use the biscuit base. But you get the general idea, I def don’t eat till next day or day after, keep in fridge and have cold! I am a bit of a lover of fine pumpkin pie, so would definitely recommend trying my way first, but up to you! Enjoy

Spray'n'Wipe - kills ants dead

I like using natural products, it’s no secret, but when the ants started invading my kitchen in force I resorted to the chemicals. It didn’t matter if I left crumbs out or not, they were there… everywhere… the place could be spotless and still they’d come in. The NO ANTS option worked for a while… then I swear they became immune to it. Last summer I had the ceiling sprayed by a pest controller for flies and while he was there he also threw down a barrier around the house - barely a dent. Then I tried Trina’s option… ant sand… but because the chickens still get out and we have a dog and cats and ducks, I didn’t want to throw too much of it around outside. So I put it on the holes in the grout… I swear my walls are full of ant sand. Go figure, I don’t want the animals to eat it but I put it on my bench for us to slowly ingest. Sadly, the only thing that achieved was for the ants to find a new entrance, just a little ways down. Grrr. Now, I’ve been using a vinegar, water, essential oil combination for some time, but that never kept the ants at bay. Recently though, I was given a concentrate recipe for a spray and wipe by an old friend Johanna. Her parents have been using it to kill the little blighters – on contact. At first I thought, well it’s the same ingredients roughly that I’m using plus a few other things, we’ll see… at least I’d get satisfaction from frying their little arses, I thought. So without further ado, here ‘tis (I made up a double batch) Ant-Killing Spray ‘n Wipe 40ml eucalyptus oil 200ml water 2 dessert spoons washing soda (use a funnel - I learned the hard way) dissolve in water add 200 ml white vinegar 200ml Ecostore dishwashing liquid (gonna try a sugar soap solution next) This is concentrated so dilute according to requirements. Roughly 1 part solution to 2 parts water for general use. Use neat for ants. contact only spray. use a bait like raid ant killer for the nest. Can be used on all surfaces, and given all the vinegar and eucalyptus oil would work well on the toilet to boot. The recipe states it is a contact spray only – as in spray them dead. However I have since learned that ants not only are repelled by vinegar (which wasn’t working) but also eucalyptus – and lets face it the washing soda probably doesn’t help them much either. So although the vinegar didn’t seem to be doing the job, the combination is successful. Now, I’m not saying that my problem is gone completely. I still need to attack the nest, but I can see a lot more of my bench now when they do come out. And I hear a sugar/water/borax solution works well for the nest that’s obviously still lurking in my wall... best get googling ;)

What's a cake decorator to do...

... when there's too much chilli in the garden????

Well put two and two together of course :)

Chilli Chocolate Cake and Chilli Brownies.

I found Jamie Olivers Chocolate Chilli cake recipe and from now on that is my chocolate cake recipe (minus the chillies), and for the brownie, I converted Trina's Best Brownie Ever recipe by simply adding freshly bashed chilli juice to the mixture.

It is still baking right now, but I just had to share this fabulous story of making them with you.

So I started off making the chocolate chilli cake. The cake part was of course straight forward, but having never pulverised chillies before I took a couple of tries. Firstly I opted to cut it, then realised that would take forever. Second, I thought I'd use my fancy Tupperware onion dicer... it got it a little smaller, but still too chunky. So next I thought - blender - yeah, we got them a little smaller again. Lastly, I just had to give up an do it in the mortar and pestle. I'd been avoiding that, thinking it was just too time consuming. Actually bashing it to bits was rather fun.

Taste testing my favourite part - the batter - as we went along was rather pleasant, even after the chilli paste went in. Into the oven goes the cake, (double mixture - naturally).

Next on to Trina's fabulous brownie recipe, got it all together, poured it into the tray and then remembered I'm doing chilli brownies.

Bugger I thought... oh, no big deal, I'll just bash it straight from a chopped up chilli. BASH, SQUIRT, AAARRRRGGGH... you guessed it, fresh chilli juice in the eye. It was already a irritated and puffy from a piece of grit that I'd got stuck in there two days ago, as if that wasn't enough.

It appears that when you use the tupperware slicer and then the blender, that half the juice actually leaves the chilli before you start bashing it, and that infact there is a LOT of juice inside a medium sized chilli.

Geez... how am I supposed to fix this. Having been to the chemist this morning and sold a simple bottle of Johnson & Johnson's baby shampoo sensitive for eyes for my already puffy eye I ran to the bathroom, filled the sink with warm water and semi-blindly squirted some shampoo in. Grabbed a flannel, dipped it and threw it at my eye. AAAARRRRRGGGGGGH, WORSE... so it appears that water makes chillies more intense when its in the eye too.

Well if milk works in your mouth, why wouldn't it work for my eye. Completely blind by now, scrounging around in the fridge to find the milk, not thinking particularly well and taking what seemed an eternity to realise that the milk was on the bench in anticipation of being used in the cake (which didn't call for it). Finally, remembering and finding the milk I grabbed the nearest measuring cup (previously used for cocoa and sugar). Lucky for me, a little cocoa and sugar doesn't hurt the eye too much.

If you are ever in this unfortunate situation, please heed my words and use milk the first time around... for around 15 minutes... and then do what I am doing now. Sit down and relax your eyes, think of the battle you just fought and the victory over chilli you achieved. Then, email me and commiserate and share battle stories...

PS, when you finally look at your eye and see a whole pile of white stuff on it, don't stress - its not puss... remember, you just used milk on your eye... LOL

Actually, its hard to even see in the picture...

Beetroot Chutney

3 lb Beetroot when cooked
1 1/2 Apples
1 pint Vinegar
1 1/2 lb Onions
1 tsp Salt
1 lb Sugar

Cook beetroot in salt water for approx 1 hr (until cooked)
Mince beetroot and put aside!
Put Apples, Onion through mincer and cook with other ingredients except beetroot. Boil for 20 minutes and add beetroot. Cook for a further 15 minutes.
Thicken as like & bottle while hot and seal

(Mother in-law thickens with about 1 teaspoon of cornflour (mixed in water first) repeat if needed!)

Bottling Beetroot

Cook beetroot and slice (slow simmer until you can put a fork in. Aprox 1hr)
Cool beetroot and peel
Slice into jars

Put the following together, then boil stiring regularly.
When boiling pour in jars of beetroot then seal!

1/2 cup sugar
1 cup vinegar (if spiced vinegar 1/2 and 1/2)
1 cup water (water from cooking the beetroot above is best)
Salt and pepper to taste

Best ever 'Chocolate Brownie' recipe!

300g butter
3/4 cup NESTLE baking cocoa
2 1/2 cups brown sugar
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 packet NESTLE milk CHOC BITS

1) Preheat oven to 180*C
2) Line the base of an 18cm x 23cm slice tin with baking paper
3) Place butter and cocoa in a large bowl and heat in the microwave until butter is melted, then stir
4) Add brown sugar and mix well
5) Add eggs and flour - 1 egg and 1/2 cup flour at a time - making sure to mix well between additions
6) Add CHOC BITS and combine
7) Bake for 30-40 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean
8) Cool in the tin for 10 minutes before turning onto a wire rack

PERSONAL TIP: I slightly under cook as its nicer when cooled and doesn't go as hard.

Brown Rice Salad

Boil:        2 cups brown rice (should be firm)

Soak:      ½ cup dark soya sauce.  (Should soak at least 2 hours - best overnight)

Chop:      3 spring onions, 1 red capsicum, ½ medium onion

Roast:     1 cup peanuts (or cashews), ½ cup sunflower seeds

              Mix with above.  Add ½ cup raisins, dried apricots optional

Whisk:     ¾ cup olive oil (or ½ cup cooking oil)  

              Juice of 1 lemon and 1 tsp grated rind, 1 crush clove garlic

Pour:       Oil mix over rice and mix well

Then:      SERVE AND ENJOY!!

Russian Fudge

675g (1 1/2 lbs) Sugar
1/2 cup Milk
1/2 tin Sweetened Condensed Milk
125g (4oz) Butter
1/8 tsp Salt
1 Tbsp Golden Syrup

Put sugar and milk into a saucepan, mix, cover and slowly bring to the boil.  Add condensed milk, butter, salt and golden syrup.  Boil until it reaches soft ball stage, about 30 minutes stirring occasionally.  Cool then beat until thick.  Pour into sponge roll tin or shallow tin, mark and cut when set.  Vanilla and nuts may be added if desired. OR MY OWN PERSONAL PREFERENCE... 3tsp Ground Ginger added to the mix!!! YUM

CHICKEN ENCHILADAS with SOUR CREAM

This is a recipe from one of the Indian reservations that I visited in the States, I change it a little but essentially this is perfect. Enjoy

CHICKEN ENCHILADAS with SOUR CREAM

12 TORTILLAS
2 cups cooked CHICKEN
1 pint SOUR CREAM
3 GREEN ONIONS, chopped
Shredded LETTICE
1/2 pound grated CHEESE

SAUCE for ENCHILADAS

2 cups TOMATO PUREE or SAUCE
2 cups WATER
4 teaspoons DRIED ONIONS
2 BOUILLON CUBES
1 1/2 teaspoons SALT
1 teaspoon GARLIC POWDER

1 teaspoon OREGANO

Combine sauce ingredients and simmer about 5 minutes in pan large enough to hold a tortilla flat. Fry tortilla lightly in a little oil (I avoid this step personally!) Dip tortilla in sauce, remove and fill with cooked chicken or other filling, onions and lettuce. Roll up and put in casserole, seam down. Repeat until all tortillas are filled. Spoon additional sauce over top. Dollop with sour cream and cheese and heat in oven at 350 about 20 minutes (makes 6 servings). (If tomato sauce is used, omit salt.)

Lotion Bars

I found this on http://swiftcraftymonkey.blogspot.com/2009/03/lotion-bars.html and am dead keen to give it a try

EVERYMAN’S LOTION BAR RECIPE

1 part vegetable shortening
1 part vegetable oil
1 part beeswax

Melt the shortening and beeswax a double boiler or a little pan in a bigger pan of simmering water. Stir in the vegetable oil. Pour into cups/molds and let cool. Pop out of “mold” and it’s ready to use. The beeswax will fragrance the bars with a nice, light honey smell, or you can stir in a little essential oil before you pour it into the molds.


LOTION BARS!
What exactly are lotion bars? They are solid, oil and butter based (anhydrous) bars made with beeswax, liquid oil, and butter. You melt, fragrance, then pour them into a mold or something like a deodorant container or tin and use them to seal in moisture wherever you need it. I think of them as giant lip balms for your body!


A basic recipe for lotion bars...
33% beeswax
33% liquid oils
33% solid butter
1% fragrance oil


Weigh all three ingredients in equal amounts in a Pyrex jug, then heat until all the solids have melted. Add 1% fragrance oil (by weight) and pour into a mold or deodorant container. Let set. Use. Rejoice.


This is a fairly basic recipe and the lovely thing is that you can tweak it to your heart's content, using a variety of oils and butters. (Check out the posts on oils and butters to see what would work for you!)


For your first bar, try something really basic and use that as an example bar of what you want. Try sunflower, safflower, or soy bean oil (all available at the grocery store) with cocoa butter and beeswax. This will give you a good baseline for what a basic lotion bar feels like.


TWEAKING THE BAR!
The hardness of your butters is important here. If you use all cocoa butter in your lotion bar, you're going to have a very hard bar. If you use all shea butter in your bar, you will have a softer bar. So consider how soft you want your bar to be. A softer bar will be squishier, but will definitely melt at body temperature (great for a massage bar).


For an after bath bar, I'd choose...
sunflower oil - a great emollient (about 20% of the bar)
hempseed oil - I can use this in a lotion bar as I'll be using it quickly, and it is fabulous for my skin (about 13%). I will need to add 1% Vitamin E in this bar for sure!
cocoa butter - it lays down a protective barrier to trap in moisture
For a foot lotion bar....
avocado butter or avocado oil - a heavy oil great for really dry and chapped areas
mango butter - if I use 33% mango butter, it'll be quite soft, but very emollient
avocado butter & mango butter (equal amounts) - a quite soft, but emollient bar
For my lips...
olive oil - a great humectant (draws water from the atmosphere) about 1/2 the oils amount
aloe oil - a great healing oil (not making a claim here, but it is awfully good!)
aloe butter - the goodness of aloe in a butter - but very very soft (about 15%)
cocoa butter - to harden the bar and offer great emolliency
You can add anything you like to a lotion bar recipe, as long as it is oil soluble. So hydrosols, water, aloe vera liquid, and other water soluble ingredients are right out! Hunt around for butters and oils. I've recently picked up aloe butter and aloe oil, so I can have the goodness of aloe in an anhydrous bar.


MY FAVOURITE LOTION BAR RECIPE
28% beeswax - to harden the bar
10% fractionated coconut oil - this is a very light oil, very emollient
25% sunflower oil - conditioning for the skin
3% rice bran oil - high in Vitamin E
30% mango butter - creamy and emollient
2% IPM - (an ester) IPM helps greasy things feel less greasy and sinks in quickly
2% cyclomethicone - this silicone helps with the glide
2% vitamin E - to prevent rancidity and good for my skin
1% FO



Melt all but the cyclomethicone and fragrance oil in a heat proof container in your double boiler. When all the ingredients have melted, add the cyclomethicone and fragrance oil, then pour into a mold or twist up deodorant container. Let set. Use!


This is a bar intended to start melting at your body temperature, that's why I used all mango butter.


SOME TIPS
Packaging: Wrap them in foil and label them, then present in a nice cellophane bag.
Chocolate molds and silicone ice cube trays are great for molding lotion bars!
Packaging: Find some nice tins for portability!
Make sure you label your lotion bars so you know which one you loved best or so your giftee knows what they are getting! Please note on your labels that these are NOT EDIBLE even if they are adorable and smell great. (A co-worker tried to eat one I scented with pecan praline!)
Lotion bars are incredibly easy to make and wonderful to use. They're portable and non-liquid, so they're great for long flights or camping trips. Play with the butters and oils to find a recipe your skin loves!


This is the first in a series of posts about anhydrous products. What are anhydrous products? It means "without water", and they are products made with oil soluble ingredients. Because they don't contain water you don't need to use a preservative (although I suggest 0.5% to 1% Vitamin E to keep the oils from going rancid), and you can usually package them in something other than a bottle (like a chocolate foil, bag, or tin). You also don't have to worry about emulsification (bringing oil and water together) because all your ingredients are in one phase (oil being one phase, water being another).


Oil based ingredients are pretty obvious - oils, butters, essential oils, fragrance oils - and include silicones, as well. When buying an ingredient, check the INCI or the information from the supplier to see if it is oil soluble. Water based ingredients would be things like water, glycerin, aloe vera, hydrosols, and surfactants. So you can't include those things in your anhydrous products. (Again, you can find oil based aloe vera oil or butters, so that's not to say you can't find things that might work well with an oil based product.)


What happens if you mix a water based thing into an oil based thing? You will get separation. Oil and water don't like each other (check your salad dressing to see this in action). If you add a water based thing - glycerin - to an oil based thing - shea butter - it will eventually seep out as the water and oil repel each other (this isn't exactly true, but it's easier to explain it this way...)


As I've noted above, you can include essential and fragrance oils into your anhydrous products without effort, but colouring can be a pain. (I'm doing a post on colouring in the future, but you will need to use oil based or powdered colours. Food colouring or icing colouring is right out!) So if you use water based colours, they will sit there in little watery balls in amongst your whipped butter or lotion bar - it's not pleasant to look at, and when the watery ball touches someone's skin, it's going to leave a big mark.

Homemade Toothpaste

I am curious to try this one from LuSa Organics

Homemade Toothpaste

2 tsp Natural Liquid Soap (try unscented Dr. Bronner's or similar. We've used our bar soap grated into water but it makes too thick of a toothpaste for my squeeze bottle.)

4 Tb Coconut Oil

1 Tb Water

2 Tb Xylitol (optional)

1/2 tsp Stevia powder

10-20 drops Peppermint Essential Oil

5-10 drops Spearmint or Sweet Orange Essential Oil

Boil a small pan of water. Measure out 1 Tb and stir into it Xylitol (optional). Stir to dissolve. Melt coconut oil and add to water mixture. Measure in soap and stevia and blend (a stick blender works well if you have one. Otherwise use your regular blender or whisk by hand like mad). Blend while the formula cools enough to stay combined. Add essential oils and transfer to a clean squeeze or pump bottle. Cool completely, shake well.

Braised Radish

Just love this recipe by Rachel Ray on Food Network. I reckon even Jason will try it, despite not having radish before, simply because it's from Rachel Ray's website :)


2 bunches radishes, about 1 pound, trimmed of tops and roots
1 1/2 cups chicken stock
2 tablespoons butter, cut into bits
1 large shallot, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
Salt and pepper


Place radishes in a skillet with stock, butter bits, shallots, sugar, vinegar, salt and pepper. Cover the pan and bring to a boil. Uncover the pan and reduce heat to medium. Cook radishes 10 to 12 minutes and if the stock has not cooked away, remove radishes and cook down to 1/2 cup, about 2 minutes.

Garlic Preserves

Courtesy of The Great Garlic Cookbook - by Sophie Hale


Garlic Puree or (crushed garlic alternative)

Takes away the acrid flavours that crushed garlic can have. Delicious spread on toast under eggs.

4 heads of garlic (50 cloves)
2T olive oil
salt and pepper

Simmer the unpeeled garlic cloves in lightly salted water for about 20 to 25 minutes, until soft. Drain and cool.
Peel or squeeze the garlic cloves out, cutting off the tough root end and any discoloured patches
Mash to a smooth paste with a fork (I did it in the blender)
Pack into a glass jar and cover securely

This puree will keep in the fridge for 4-5 days and can be frozen in cubes, using an ice-cube tray reserved for this purpose.


Garlic Pepper Essence

10 garlic cloves
5 small chilli peppers
Cooking Sherry

Peel and halve the garlic and prick the peppers all over
Mix them together and pack into a wine bottle.
Cover with the sherry and fill the bottle leaving room for th ecork.
Cork the bottle securely and leave, undisturbed, for a couple of weeks
the sherry can be topped up from time to time.

A few drops really perk up soups and stews, but because it is very intense, it should be used with caution.


Garlic Vinegar

8-10 Cloves garlic
coarse salt
2.5c / 550ml white wine or tarragon vinegar

Crush the garlic finely with the salt and put into a large, heat-proof jar.
Bring the vinegar to th boil and pour over the garlic
Allow to cool and then cover. Leave to infuse for 2 to 3 weeks.
Strain and bottle for use.

Variations - red wine garlic vinegar, for use in strongly flavoured marinades like those for stewing beef, pot roasts and game is made by saving red wine bottle ends and letting them 'turn. Use 10 cloves of garlic to 2.5 c of liquid, and warm the vinegar until hand hot before pouring over the crushed garlic.


Garlic Honey

30 cloves of garlic
2 cups clear honey

Put the garlic cloves in a large, screw-top jar an dpour the honey over them. There should be about 2.5 cm in between the honey and the top of the jar.
Cover the jar tightly and leave in a warm place for at least a week, turning upside down occasionally.
The juices released by the garlic will begin to turn the honey syrupy, and the goodness - not to mention the flavour of the garlic will pass to the honey.

This is great in salad dressings and marinades. Also a traditional remedy for coughs, cold sores and acne. Or try it over ice cream?!@#

BEST EVER BROCCOLI RECIPE

Broccoli is a favourite in my family, we usually have it simply boiled with cheese sauce. However, here is a REAL DELISH way - I doubt we will ever have it just boiled again.

Two large heads of broccoli, cut into largest florets. (make sure they are dry, if you feel you must rinse them first make sure you dry them really, really well) Pop them in roasting pan and drizzle over about 5 T Olive oil, 1 big teaspoon salt, and half teaspoon black pepper, and 4 cloves peeled slice garlic. Now give them a good old stir up so they are evenly coated, then make sure they are pretty much singe layer and pop in preheated oven of 425. Roast them for about 20 minutes (they will caramelise and tips start to brown) When you bring them out, add the zest and juice of a lemon, another couple tablespoons Olive oil, and about a third of a cup of parmesan cheese. You can also add a wee handful of toasted pine nuts if you have them, and a ltlle fresh basil is good too, but still delicious without them.

Dog Food

After feeding our dog dry biscuits for years and watching her age has made her teeth 'soft' and getting overweight she has developed arthritis etc. we decided to try dog roll and she got eczema, and of course fleas are always a problem in the country. So after dog roll and dog tins didn't do anything for her, we decided to make home made dog food. Here is roughly what we do and it lasts almost 2 weeks. Not only has the eczema gone and she's lost weight but she is excited about being fed nowadays too :)

Chicken frames or necks - 3-4 (keep the ones from your roasts or cheap ones from the supermarket)
Any giblets if you are inclined
Veges (onions, left overs, tops of carrots, celery leaves)as much as you can
Rice 5 cups
Garlic powder reasonable quantity

Boil up the chicken, veges and garlic powder for hours
When you are close to finished throw in the rice

pack it in small containers and freeze until needed