Monday morning means 3 hours alone, to myself, sans kiddies! Oh how I relish those 3 hours once a week & oh, how they fly by in a blink of an eye!! I think I do more in those hours than I do in an entire day. I always try & get at least one thing done that I know is impossible when I have the boys nipping at my heals & today was no exception. The mission…repaint the wooden oven I got the boys last week. It was a little tired looking & just needed a bit of a face lift.
- Before…Hubby had taken it upon himself to rewrite the numbers BEFORE I repainted!
Needless to say I had to paint about 12 times over those numbers!! And then I decided to replace the milk bottle lids, make them more uniform (‘coz I think I have a touch of OCD, it’s been bugging me that whoever made this used 3 different types of lid & the nails didn’t match either!) Of course I had a slight ‘blonde moment’…how was I going to get a hole poked in the middle of the lids? Dare I try out Hubby’s drill???
I was momentarily distracted as I snooped in his garage…how many screwdrivers could you possible need!?
I found where all the Sharpies(permanent markers) have disappeared to!!!
Located the drill without a problem but was faced with this! After a quick debate with myself (yes, I actually had a debate with myself, out loud!Hey I’m used to always having little ones around) I phoned Hubby to get his opinion on the likelihood of my success. He was ever so nice , yes seriously, & urged me to have a go but did suggest I could probably just use a sharp screwdriver with a bit of pressure! I went with that..turns out those many screwdrivers above came in handy
Did the job brilliantly. hmmm seems in all my excitement of getting it all uniform, I forgot to take a photo!I’ll do it tomorrow…
As the boys slept for 3 hours this afternoon (yes, you read that right, that’s THREE hours) I got time to make hummus
- Not very pretty but it tastes good
1 tin of chickpeas
0.25 cup olive oil
1 tbls lemon juice
1 teaspoon cumin
Wizz together & keeps in an airtight container for 3 days
I didn’t have any tahini which most recipes require, so went with this version & it came out fine.
Next on the list was Thin Mint Brownies (the recipe below is directly off Chocolate Covered Katie’s site)
Raw Thin-Mint Brownies
- 1 cup walnuts (120g)
- 1 and 1/3 cups pitted dates (230 grams) (I highly recommend Sunmaid, because they’re softer.)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 5 tablespoons cocoa powder
- A few drops pure peppermint extract (depending on how minty you want them… Start with less; you can always add more.)
- Optional: for even more chocolate flavor, add chocolate chips. Or add cacao nibs.
- Optional: tiny dash of salt (I always add this and recommend it.)
Directions: Combine all ingredients, using a food processor. (No need to blend the dates first; I just blend everything all at once. But if you use a Magic Bullet, you might want to do it in batches. I’ve not tried this in a regular blender and therefore can’t vouch for it.)Form into brownies or balls or bars… or even cookie-cuttered shapes!
I didn’t have walnuts so I subbed in salted peanuts. I only put in 2 teaspoons of cocoa powder as the boys don’t like it too bitter & next time I may leave out the peppermint as I only had the essence not the extract & I’m not a fan (after an unfortunate reaction to cheap-ass peppermint liqueur a few years ago!) Other than that, I loved them! Master 2 was a massive fan too! I was so busy trying to keep his fingers out of the finished paste that I couldn’t take any photos of his chocolate covered mouth! Who knew dates could have so many uses?!
- Not pretty but I was too lazy to artfully plate them up…
All in all a very productive day…I even managed some sewing(will post about that ordeal adventure soon) & the hoovering!Yay me!
AfricanKiwi 