Peanut Butter Cookies

This week's recipe ..... Peanut Butter cookies- yum!

Yet another experiment for me, I made this up from a variety of recipes I found online. They all sounded almost what I wanted, so I took bits from each and I have to say I think these are lovely.

This recipe makes a rich crumbly cookie, lots of nutty flavour and not too sickly-sweet.

I got approx 45 decent sized cookies from this lot, obviously will depend how big you make them, and they do spread quite a bit on the tray.

Peanut Butter Cookies

125g softened butter
½ cup brown sugar
½ cup white sugar
1 egg
1 ¾ cup SR flour
1 cup crunchy peanut butter

Cream butter and sugar together
Whisk in egg until smooth
Add flour and peanut butter, mixing with wooden spoon
Flour hands and roll mix into small balls onto greased trays
Flatten slightly with fork making criss-cross mark
Bake 15 mins till light golden brown

Some of the recipes I searched added crushed/chopped nuts or choc chips as well. I don't think this recipe needs them but might be nice for a change.

Enjoy with a nice cuppa!

RIP Rosie

Young Rosie when we brought her home last October

A sad weekend here- Rosie, one of our Rhode Island Red hens, died on Saturday. We are not exactly sure what happened but she somehow got out of the chook house when our dog Tommy was still in the backyard (they usually take turns having free-roaming time). The first I knew was when I saw our dog carrying her in his mouth across the garden. We are assuming he got her but he didn't seem interested in doing anything awful with her, he was just carrying her around. The other 3 chooks were huddled up in their house and seemed a little shocked (who wouldn't be?) Luckily our children didn't see what happened, they have accepted that she got out and has gone now, and won't be coming back

Poor Rosie, such a short little chooky life! She was only 8 months old and we only had her for 4 months. It may seem strange to some to miss an animal after such a short time, but she was one of our pets and will be sadly missed.

Grown-Up Broody Rosie just over a month ago

I can't believe its been 2 weeks since I blogged last! I've been so busy with other things .... at the moment I'm cleaning, sorting and organising things for a market stall this Sunday at the Baby and Kids Market I haven't been before so I'm hoping to convert some clutter into cash! It is hard to let go of baby things but really we don't have the space and they're all just gathering dust, I'm sure someone could use these things, and of course cash is always welcome in return!

Other recent happenings .....

Well, this has got to be the smallest egg I've ever seen .....! One of our superchooks laid it last week. Only 35mm long and barely registers on the scales. The kids thought it was hilarious and enjoyed playing a 'trick' on Daddy telling him he was going to have an enormous egg for his dinner ....... :-)

Other news from around the home... veggie patch looking green and healthy again, though not much edible at the moment. The big greens here are eggplants and pumpkin plants - looking great now (however I doubt whether there is enough warm weather left to grow and ripen anything on them). Still, I'll leave them for now, the weather is so weird you never know. Also planted out a little basil patch in the front, and since the photo was taken also planted out my flat-leaf parsley that I saved seed from a couple of months back. Very proud that has worked!

Also recently planted out some more Cherokee Wax beans I had germinated in pots, the last lot didn't do well so I've tried a different spot and these ones are happy! They are supposed to be bush beans so I'll see how they go without stakes.

Yesterday I caught the bowerbirds back again (those who demolished much of the patch before I surrounded it with wire and netting!) I have about 15 or so pots on the back deck with various herbs and plants in them, and I caught the bowerbirds eating our chilli plant! They've been eating the ends off all the chillies and banana capsicums then leaving the rest (gee thanks) for us. Well at least I can stop blaming the chooks now! I can't believe we spent years encouraging the native birds into our garden, and now I'm chasing them out with a broom !

Tried my hand at baking bread from scratch recently too- in a readmaker but all I've used so far is the ready made breadmix. First I tried a wholemeal loaf as thats what we usually eat, which was ok but a bit sweet, so when I made my first white loaf I tweaked the recipe and hey presto! Perfect! White bread is a rarity in our house, so the kids thought it was great. I was pretty pleased with it- tasted good, quite dense and heavy but baked perfectly. Might get a bit more adventurous witht recipes later, but it does feel good to achieve another of my goals for this year!

:-)