Homemade Vegan Spread

Spreads like margarine

I saw a video on YouTube where a lovely lady made a vegan spread (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvEjvPVbjrs) using Coconut oil, olive oil and water.

So I thought I would give it a go, But, it didn't turn out so well for me, and being unwilling to throw anything away, I decided to try and make it better.

 The problem seemed to be that it was separating and causing the spread to kind of crystallise, which really was not at all appealing.

So this is how I make my vegan spread, it has worked really well for me.

Ready?

Firstly you need your ingredients:

1 cup or 8 fl oz of melted Coconut oil

1 cup or 8 fl oz of Olive oil

1/3 cup or 5 tbsp + 1 tsp filter water 

You will need the following equipment:

Hand blender

Measuring jug

Glass jar

Small saucepan

Spoon

Firstly, I should mention that I use pure unrefined organic extra virgin oils, I buy them from here 

 http://www.realfoods.co.uk/shop?Search=oil

It is a great shop, but more of that another time.
(check out the update at the bottom of the post)

The Coconut oil is solid, but melts easily at room temperature, take roughly 6 large tablespoons of the solid oil and pop it into either a glass jar, or a bowl, this will melt into a liquid, so make sure that it is big enough to hold the melted liquid,

See, it's melting! I did not need to turn the heat on, as the water was hot from the kettle, (this water is not in your ingredients as it is not going into your margarine) pour hot water slowly into the saucepan to gradually heat the glass jar, or alternatively you can just put some boiling water into the pan and pop your bowl over the top and wait for it to melt the oil.

Almost melted, just a little left to go.

Once it is all melted, grab your measuring jug and pour in your melted coconut oil, it should be 8 fl oz, you might not get the measurement right the first time, so just pop some more oil on to melt and top it up to 8 fl oz. 

Add your Olive oil and water.

Now it is time to get your hand blender and blend them all together, BUT, you have to be gentle to start with, I know a lady that hit the blend button and the whole mix went all over her and her kitchen, Ooops!

So, put the blender right to the bottom of the jug, and pulse the mixture, a tiny blast at a time until it is happy to be blended, you only need to blend it until it is all mixed together. It will be a nice margarine colour.

Now cover it and pop it into the fridge for a couple of hours.

At this point the lovely lady in the video said that it is ready, BUT this is where I found that it separated and was not very 'spread' like.

So, once it is solid, take it out of the fridge, 2 hours is plenty of time, and give it a stir with a spoon, it really does not look too great at this point, but don't worry, it will.

Not looking too nice hmmm?

Time to blend again, don't worry it shouldn't spray everywhere this time, give it a good blend to give it that 'margarine' texture.

A bit more....

Lovely! Now you need your jar.

Spoon the mixture into your jar, pop the lid on and into the fridge, and that is it!

You just made your very own vegan spread.

It will need to be kept in the fridge as it will melt if you leave it out.

If for some reason the spread does separate, water will be at the bottom of the jar, just put it all in a jug and blend it again, but it shouldn't happen. 

Hope you enjoy your spread making and eating, let me know how you got on.

xx

Update:

I recently tried a new recipe, using REFINED coconut oil in place of unrefined coconut oil, and grapeseed oil instead of olive oil.

I also added 1 tablespoon of nutritional yeast and a half teaspoon of sea salt.

If you don't like the taste of coconut oil, this recipe is much nicer, there is no taste from the oils.

It is the closest I have got to the taste of butter.

Changing a Facebook Tab Image 111x74

Changing your Tab images on Facebook to 111 x 74 Pixels

Using Paint on your computer

I have a Facebook page for my little online shop and I wanted to add an image to my tabs for various links I have, but I needed to add 111 x 74 pixel images, which I had no idea how to make from my existing images.

And so with a lot of frustration and determination, I finally did it, and as there were no clear directions online, I thought it would be nice if I did a blog with images to try to help you to do your own.

So here it is......

Firstly, go to your page and click on the tab button to edit your tabs, it is shown here where the number 5 is...

When you have clicked on that, you should get all of your tabs shown on your page, in each tab top right hand corner is a pencil icon, choose which tab you would like to add your image to and click on the pencil icon for that tab, you can see the pencil icon in this image below. It is in the tab with the 'mailing list' title and 'notes' underneath it in my page.

Obviously your tab will look different and have a different title to it.

Once you have clicked on the pencil icon you will be given options, select 'Edit Settings'.

A new screen will open...

On some of the tabs you do not have and option to change your settings, the only option is to delete a link, do not do that, just leave it as it is, I am sorry but I can't help you with that.

But, with this tab here you can see that you can customize your tab name and your tab image, for the image we need to select 'change' highlighted in blue in the above image. This will open a new page like the one below...

Here you can see in my image for my blog tab is a 'Edit' icon, click on that,

You now have the option to choose an image from your computer to add to your tab, but here is the tricky bit... you are only able to add images that are 111 x 74 and less than 1Mb, so here we go with the editing of your image...

First, go to your files and choose an image that you would like to use, right click on it to bring up options...

Can you see here in mine, I have the option to 'open with' which opens more options and I want 'paint'.

Click 'paint' and your paint program will open with your chosen image loaded.

In your editing bar you have the option to 'Resize', select that....

The above image shows you the window that will pop up, in the top right hand corner of that box you can see I have selected 'Pixels', do that and then where it says 'Maintain aspect ratio' you need to UNTICK the box just like the image below...(are you still with me, or have you lost the will to live yet?)

See, no tick in the 'Maintain aspect ratio' box...good, now.....

Type 111 in the 'Horizontal' box and 74 in the 'Vertical' box and click 'OK'

Now to save your new image...

Your image will now be changed, click on the icon in the top left hand of the page (dark blue in the image above) which will open up the selection page as in the image above... click on 'Save as' and save it to a file that you have your images in. If I were you, I would save it under the name '111 x 74' just to make it easier to find for the next step.

Ok, Back to your Facebook page, you should still have this 'Upload Page Tab Image' tab open, now click on 'Choose file'.......go to your file named '111 x 74' and select it...

There is my image, under the file name '111 x 74', once you have selected it, you may have to wait for a moment while it is uploaded to your tab editor.

This is what you will see, not with this image of course as this is mine, but with your lovely new tab image, now you can go to your page and see your new image on your tab.

I hope this helped, please let me know if it did or did not, nice comments only please, I am trying to help, and as I am new to this, and by no means an expert, I hope that you will take this into account before you comment.

xx

I am new to this

Blogging and me.

This is me and my Moo Moo (and a cuddly elephant named Elli)

Well, I have had this blog for quite a while now, and I thought I would give it a proper go. 

If you look back through my previous blogs, you can see that I just have no Idea of what to do!

Is it a photo album, or a diary or a recipe book??

I just had no idea.

And now that I have had a good look around at other blogs, I see that I still have no idea!  But I do want to share, be it photos, recipes, craft ideas, poems and anything else that I am interested in.

So I have decided that this page is just dedicated to everything that I love, I have no idea if I will get any followers or not, as I don't know if my life is really that interesting, but we shall see.  I love what I do, and even if this may end up just being a little insight into who I am for the children when they get bigger, who knows, I am just happy doing this, it seems a little like therapy!

So, join me in my future blogs, and we can share this journey together 

xx

Golden Wedding Anniversary Card

I love making cards

PICTURES AT THE END

I was recently asked to make a card for somebody, it was for her grandparents golden wedding anniversary.

I thought I would share it with you.

I really enjoy making things for special occasions, and cards are one of my favourite things to do. So here it is.......

I took a piece of gold card first, decided which way round I wanted the finished card to be, and then looked through my card and paper stock to find some inspiration regarding colours and textures of card and paper.

When I had found a number of pieces I was happy with, I placed them on top of each other to see which pieces went well together.

While I was looking through my paper and old cards, I found a lovely picture of quilled flowers, which got my creative juices flowing.

I wanted to keep the card quite simple but pretty.  And of course, as it is a special day, I wanted the card to reflect that.

I started to make small flowers and leaves using cream, brown, gold and peach paper.  I then chose a nice piece of card to mount them onto, and started to lay them out to see what sort of arrangement I wanted and decided that I didn't want to use the gold and brown ones.

The next step was to hand emboss a cream coloured piece of card on one side and lay a white card over it with an oval cut-out to get a few ideas of layout for the writing or printing I was planning on putting on the front.

I didn't really like the regimented look of the card and so I placed all pieces of card 'on the wonk', just to see what it would look like, and I liked it, and so, taking my laptop and printer I chose which font and words I wanted and printed them onto some wonderful water colour paper, I loved the fantastic texture it had to it, unlike the smooth card I was using throughout the rest of the card.

I popped the printed piece into the oval card and mounted it onto the embossed cream card 'on the wonk' using double sided foam pads to give it some depth.

Once I had done that, I turned my attention to the flowers again, and while I was making them, found that I had made a butterfly, which I thought would look lovely on its own on the opposite side to the flower arrangement that I had in my head, so I set to placing the flowers to see what came out of my head to the card.  I dobbed a little pearl paint onto the edges of each leaf and flower, and the butterfly, and tried it with gold paint too, but wasn't happy with that look, so I put those to one side and just used the plain and pearl ones.

It needed more, and scratching my head I came up with the idea of using wire, which I had done on previous cards. I used a gold plated jewellery making wire, but you could use any really.  Gold looked good, so I used my round nosed pliers to make swirls on the ends of the wire and glued them to the card using my glue gun, but only in the areas that I knew I would be placing a flower, to make sure it would cover up the glue. 

Next I popped the flowers and leaves in place using either my glue gun or diamond glaze, depending on the size of the piece and the place I wanted it to go, if I wanted the flower to sit on the two different layers of card I used my glue gun as it gave the back of the flower a bit of depth, but if it was a delicate leaf and I was using it on just one level, I used diamond glaze.   I added a few gold beads here and there and trimmed the corners of the card.

Once the front of the card was done, I put double sided tape on the back of the cream card and mounted it 'on the wonk' to the gold base card and put some pretty paper inside for the person to write in.

Onto the box, I used heavy cardboard from and old diary I had, and covered it with tape to strengthen the joins, and then covered it in card stock. dressed the inside and out with ribbon. and made a bow to put on the top, I made a gift tag from gold card, embossed it and mounted it onto some lovely paper I had and then trimmed it into shape and edged it with gold paint. Popped a piece of gold cord into a hole I made using a hole punch, and boom, done.

As always, I had to add a bit more bling, and so I added an elasticated sequin ribbon to finish the box, this is just used as a closure for the box, like a ribbon but without the need to tie and untie it each time you open it.

I was going to add four pieces of embossed gold card to the lid, but I thought it was too busy, so i left it as it is. I like it.

The card was wrapped in gold tissue paper and topped with a piece of protective packaging to prevent the flowers from being squashed.

Let me know what you think, I loved making it, and I think I may make some more quilled flowers to add to my collection, as I think I need more practise. I might even get myself a book to learn some more techniques.

Hope you enjoyed this, next time I will either do a video or take a few more pictures, I didn't think about it until afterwards, sorry.

Have a great day what ever you are up to, I hope I have inspired you to get crafting.

Soup in summer!

A wonderful friend of mine, who happens to live next door to me, recently passed over the garden fence a load of courgettes of varying sizes and shapes.   Knowing that I, and I alone would be the only one that would enjoy them in our household, I decided to make what us mums call 'cover up' food; a healthy, veg packed sauce for pasta, that the kids would love and eat, and then hold their mouths open in disbelief when I announced AFTERWARDS that they had indeed just eaten a ton of veg and loved it!!
Once I had made it into a sauce/soup, my 4 year old daughter walked into the kitchen and to my amazement said 'mmmmm! that smells yummy, can I have some please', well when I had come round and picked myself up off of the floor, I gave her a taste, and she loved it! 
When tea time rolled around I gave both the kids and the hubby the choice of spag bol or soup, (incidentally, the spag bol had a good 2-3 ladles of the soup in it), my daughter chose the soup, as did the hubby, and my teenage son chose the spag bol.
Both my daughter, age 4 and my hubby said, without being blackmailed, that they loved it, and my son, well he didn't say anything, he is a teenager! but he ate the lot.
So, as you do, I skipped into the kitchen and wrote the recipe out,this is one I want to remember for sure!!
I wanted to share it with you, for a couple of reasons, 1 - it was a hit with the kids and is full of goodness and 2 - it is a recipe that I have NEVER seen before, so I think you may like to try it.... so here it is, my home made SPICY COURGETTE AND COCONUT SOUP!!!

2 x Garlic cloves chopped
2 x red onions chopped
1 x medium potato chopped
8 x courgettes chopped
1 teaspoon mint
half teaspoon chili powder
pinch of salt
pinch of pepper
half teaspoon paprika
half teaspoon turmeric
half teaspoon cumin
2 x teaspoons of Marmite or 2 stock cubes
2 x tablespoons oil for frying
boiling water
6 cubes of home made coconut milk or 1 tin of bought* 
2 tablespoons of honey or sugar

Heat the oil in a large saucepan and add the chopped garlic and onion first, fry for a few Min's and then add the rest of the veg. Fry for a good 5 Min's or until tender then add the seasoning, herbs and spices. Stir well and pop the kettle on to boil, you will need enough water to cover the veg mix. Add the Marmite or stock cubes to the veg (not the water yet) and stir well, leave to cook for 1-2 Min's and then add the water and half of the honey or sugar. Bring to the boil then reduce the heat and simmer for 20 Min's until the veg is very soft.  Remove from the heat and with a hand blender or a liquidiser pulse the veg mix to a smooth consistency with no lumps.  Stir well and add the coconut milk.  Now taste the soup and add any further honey or seasoning to taste, you may want to add more boiling water too if you don't like your soup/sauce as thick as it is at this point.

Break up a fresh loaf of bread and enjoy with your soup, or add this soup to your favourite pasta sauce for a healthy boost.

Well I do hope you enjoy it, but more to the point I hope that your family do too and come back for seconds!!

*To make the homemade coconut milk simply buy a pack of dessicated coconut and put into a liquidiser and pulse until it turns into a liquid, yes a liquid, and it will, without adding anything else, when it is in liquid form, pour into ice cube trays and freeze, use in any recipes that use coconut milk, or to soups/sauces or curries that turn out a little too spicy for your taste buds.

Thought I should show you a few of my items for sale, only a few though, if you would like to see more please take a look at my Etsy shop http://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/monkeymaid 

A happy little poem I wrote

IT'S JUNE ALREADY!!

Can you believe it!? I am going to risk sounding very old now and say 'where has the year gone?'

I don't know about you, but I am ready for some sunshine!

I have mixed feelings about the 6 week holiday fast approaching, yes, I will get to spend lots of time with my fast growing children, but I know that it will go much to fast and September will rush in, and that is when my little girl starts school!!!

OH MY GOODNESS! is she really ready for school now!!!?

She is too small surely!  My little girl, school, NOOOOOOOO!!!  Am I being too clingy? I really do not want my sweet innocent little squidgey to start school yet, just a couple more years at home with mama!

She is growing too fast, I can remember when she was just a little dot in my arms, watching her little face look up at me, as if I was all that mattered in her little world, boy I don't want that to ever change, but alas she must grow and spread her little wings, and I will have to be here to let her grow and fix those little wings when they get singed.

I am sure all of you Mums out there must feel the same, and so I will take comfort in that fact, and know that when September does come around, and I am walking empty handed from the school playground holding in the tears until I get home, that you have all been there and done that, and you survived!!

I am silly aren't I!!  She is my last little baby though, I have to treasure each day and make sure I enjoy every little step she takes in her development, as the time will flash by and before I know it she will be a grown woman with a family of her own.

What a blessing they are hey!!

Yes even when they are driving you mad with the noise and the mess, and the constant 'but why mummy?', yes they are wonderful, and no, I would not change a single thing, and I hope that my memory lets me recall every little precious moment.

When my son was the same age as my daughter is now, I wrote him a poem, and one day I would love to get it published to a book or even just see it in print somewhere, maybe I should get my act together and get it sorted. 

I recite it to my daughter so much, she loves it, see what you think xx

THE BIG BALLOON

by Mary Wright

High up in the sky,

One sunny afternoon,

Where the birds all fly,

I saw a big balloon.

'Mummy LOOK!' I shouted,

And pointed in the air,

'Up there, can you see it?'

People stopped to stare,

'Mum, I want to reach it, 

And hold on to it's string'

"You're not tall enough" said Mummy,

"You silly little thing"

'Mummy where's it going on this sunny afternoon?

Is it coming downwards or upwards to the moon?'

Mummy said she didn't know

And we should soon go home,

'OH NO! we can't leave' I said,

'Balloon will be alone!'

Well balloon it must have heard me,

On that sunny day,

Because it ended up at my house,

Where we both now play.

It still makes me smile, every time I read it.

Let me know what you think, and read it to your little ones, maybe they will love it just as much as mine have.

Right I am off for a cuppa now.  Lovely to chat with you for a while, have a wonderful day.

Me xx

Facebook page 'Monkeymaid'

Did I mention that I have a page on facebook now?

 www.facebook.com/monkeymadeit

 And did I also mention that I have a competition running at the mo?

 Do you like freebies?

 Are you any good at drawing?

 Or do you leave the drawing to the artists among us?

 Either way, you can get involved with this giveaway,

 I need a LOGO for my new shop,

 I sell all sorts of things handmade,

 And I would like to give my followers the chance to design or just vote on a LOGO,

 So here is the link, why not get involved and be in with a chance of winning any item off of my page if you win

http://splur.gy/r/jZybf

My Chocolate orange cookies

MY CHOCOLATE ORANGE COOKIES

150g Plain Flour

1/2 tsp Baking Powder

1/2 tsp Salt

75g Rolled oats

125g Soft Butter

75g Dark brown sugar

100g Caster sugar

1 Egg

1 tsp Orange flavoring

Grated zest of 1 large orange

Juice of 1 large orange

75g raisins

200g dark choc drops

Preheat oven to 180'c/gas mark 4 and line a baking sheet with parchment or a silicone mat.

Measure the flour, baking powder, salt and oats into a bowl.

Put the butter and sugars into a bowl and beat until creamy, beat in the juice and flavouring, and then add the beaten egg.

Add the orange zest to the dry flour mix, beat into the butter mix and then fold in the choc drops and raisins.

Place a teaspoon of mix onto the tray, evenly spaced to allow for spread.

Cook for approx 15 Min's, they will be golden brown when ready, and very soft, so allow them to cool for a couple of Min's on the tray before putting onto a cooling rack with a spatula.

Now make a cuppa and enjoy!!!