Baking Experiments

Lately I have been doing a lot of experimenting in the kitchen with baking. It all started the day I started to make muffins and discovered I had no butter. I used canola oil instead and it worked. And a bonus it has less saturated fat!

Now I was onto something. So I started trying with different milks and sugars too. A lot of recipes are still in the working stage but here are my low fat no dairy muffins

PEAR MUFFINS

1 1/2 cups of flour
4tsp baking powder
1tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup linseed meal
1/2 cup of fine or caster raw sugar (make sure it is not the usual big stuff)

1/2 cup of canola oil
1 cup of Almond milk
1 egg (lightly beaten)
1 cup of pear cubed (try different fruit blueberry's work too)

brown sugar for sprinkling on top

• Sieve the first 3 ingredients
• Add the rest of the dry (not the brown sugar) & lightly mix
• Make a well and add the wet ingredients, don't start mixing till they are all in
• Mix together with wooden spoon, DO NOT OVER MIX! YOU WILL GET RUBBERY MUFFINS. Once the mixture is together stop!
• Put into tins and sprinkle a little brown sugar on top
• Bake at 220 Celsius for 12-15 min (5 min longer if fruit is frozen)

Makes about 18 medium muffins

Having a baby....

I always knew I wanted a baby, but never really knew what to expect. I know every new mum says that but it is true.
Having N has been the most wonderful, scary, hardest thing I have ever done. I know that sounds super dramatic but its true, it is a true rollercoaster of emotions.

My story started off very normal, morning sickness, feeling fat etc.... But as a lot of my friend's know that the birth do not go normal at all.  Now I am not going to give you the details but the sum of it is that I got an infection that N also got and we both spent time on antibiotics and a extended stay at the hospital. Now as all of that was dramatic and scary, it was not a the hardest of everything.

That came latter...

Post natal depression SUCKS!!!!!! Things were hard enough then this happened and make everything so much harder. Anyone that has dealt with any kind of depression knows this. I have gone though it in the past but it is so much harder having to look after this little person too. At the same time you are redefining who you are as a person, a mother.

I really had to learn that it wasn't the end of the world if I didn't do things exactly the way I planned. I wanted to make as much as I could (I mean why did I start Olivia Remade if not to dress my daughter) and buy second hand when I couldn't. But life doesn't work that way, when you need something you need it, but I still used to get pangs of guilt when I get something from Target.

This is one of may things I had to learn. I couldn't of done any of it with out help. My support structure is the most import thing that I have for me and N. My husband, my family (both the Kiwi's and Brisbanites), my maternal heath nurse, my new parents group, my friends and the post natal depression play group I have been going to. This is all important even if you don't go though it and even more so if you do. But I am so glad I stuck it out and got though it, the easy option at the time is to hide it from everyone including yourself. And sticking it out is so hard I would just want to stay at home and not face anyone, but I would make myself leave. Feeling so exposed was terrifying. There were times were I would just start to cry in public. But at the end of the day if I am not healthy and happy, neither is N. And we are now and my whole family is better off for it. There are still bad days but thankfully a lot less in between the good.

And when N smiles she just lights everything up