Recipe box

I have wanted a place to store my recipes for years. I’ve looked at buying index card boxes and decorating them, I’ve looked into making a book and decorating that. I’ve had all kinds of ideas.

Then I found this file at svgcuts.com And the rest was history. After years (quite literally, years) of planning and indecisiveness, this box took maybe an hour to make!

Had I given more thought to it, these aren’t the colours I would have chosen, but I was moved to make it and so used the paper my grubby little hands pulled out of the pile first. (Mostly it’s from Die Cuts with a View). I’m quite ready to call it done!

Next I went looking for a cute ‘index card’ template to print my recipes on. Couldn’t find one I liked so I made my own – you can see a peak of one in the bottom picture. I think I spent longer making the card template than I did actually making the box. Now all I have to do is type up the rest of our favourite recipes!

Cooking a la Jamie

Are you a fan of Jamie Oliver? We really enjoy his tv programmes and I’m fond of his cheeky, no-fuss attitude. Today we tried a recipe from his book ’30 minute meals’.  We made cauliflower and macaroni cheese, salad and stewed fruit for dessert. Jamie’s book assured us that it could be made in “well-under half an hour”. We are obviously the slowest cooks in the world as it took us 60 minutes. However, I’d still recommend it as we did make a 2-course meal that comfortably fed 5 adults in that time and it was absolutely delicious! Just don’t hope the results will be fast!!

The tale of the ham (better late than never)

I’ve been meaning to write about this ever since I made it. I even took photographs specifically to do so. However life got a little crazy. We moved. I didn’t know where any of my possessions were for a while. (Think my sanity is still in a box somewhere!) But here is the post about the baked ham!

D loves ham. And I was determined to cook one. We bought one on special offer, and went looking for recipes. We settled on this one from Alton Brown. We changed the recipe slightly as we didn’t have any bourbon and decided to use Dr. Pepper instead.

The cooking went well, probably because I had some helpers as you will see…

The ‘before shot’

Monkey helpers spreading mustard

Monkeys spreading sugar (and apparently diving in head-first)

Helpers looking cute 😉

Cooking is hard work!

Ham enjoying it’s 4 hours in the oven!

Monkeys were very proud of all their hard work

D carving

The fruits of our labours

All in all it was a lot of work, but it was delicious. And fed us (and others) for lots of meals. I’m looking forward to making another one! I’m sure Monkey’s are ready to cook. Perhaps I should make them some aprons?

I’m working on some scrapbook pages, some paper-crafts and some cross-stitch at the moment. (As well as working at my ‘regular’ job and trying to find my possessions!) When I get any of finished I’ll be back with an update!