How to post a recipe with print option, without a wordpress plugin

I've just joined my local community garden. I went to my first meeting yesterday and planted out a couple plots with the girls. I am really excited about it, and can't wait to be involved with, hopefully, making the gardens a success.

One thing I have volunteered to do, is set up a website for the gardens, which I have. You can have a sticky beak here. I have thrust myself into uncharted territory and gone with using wordpress, something I have no idea about. 

I am enjoying the challenge so far, not too much swearing, yet. One thing I am anticipating and hoping for lots of input from my fellow gardening members, is sharing recipes. The goal I am going for in the long run is to have enough recipes, to compile a cookbook we can flog online and in print. A cookbook of recipes from our community garden.  

Even though I don't do it on this site, I wanted to kick off from the start on the gardens website, to present recipes with a print option right there on the page.

I did lots of googling (as you do when you need to know something, you have no idea about), and realised that because I haven't registered a domain name, and am using wordpress free, I don't have the plugin option.

I had to find another way, and I found it here.

There is a short code, you can easily use, that presents your recipe in a pretty package with a print function bow tied on top.



[recipe title="name of recipe" servings="a number" time="length of time" difficulty="easy, hard"]

type recipe here as you would normally

[/recipe]


As long as you add just one the servings, time, or difficulty options after the title, the print button will automatically appear to the right of the recipe, after the heading.

Where there is red in the above short code, add your own text according to your recipe. 

Try it next time you want to publish a recipe on wordpress and you don't have a plugin. You don't need one!

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Ant's Redgum Gallery

My place in time #36 - One kilometre from my house


I am ashamed to say, this is one of those place that I really should have been to, way before now. It is usually the places that we see everyday, the local attractions, that we should support, but don't.

I am so glad I got myself off the couch and went to have a look.

Ant's Redgum Gallery is situated on Williams Road in Millicent. I was interested to find out the building originally started life as an engineering shed, owned by the McCourt family. It was then home to a roller skating rink and squash courts. I can't remember this, but I do remember when it was Bondy's second hand bazaar, that's what I would have called it. After Bondy died, the building was bought by a local business woman and used as a place of business and held markets on a Sunday.

Ant and Hat Martin now own it and have made it their home, studio and gallery.

His work is phenomenal and has taken him to Adelaide to do commissioned works on three occasions. He has carved wood sculptures made from old trees, in Brighton, Victoria Square and the Glover playground in North Adelaide. A real achievement. The all have plaques with his name, and he proudly says you don't get them unless "you're really good or dead!".

He's just really good at what he does. I was blown away by Ant's wood work and the detailed work that he does.

I learnt something about feng shui, and this frog is supposed to have three legs. His name is Jin Chan, and is supposed to bring fortune. Hat says it's not working for them yet, as they would love to have more visitors to the gallery.

Here Ant is putting the finishing touches on his latest piece, The Lion. It is just amazing to think that this was just a huge tree trunk to start with.

March #52weeksofmemories

9. Fun

10. Outside

 11. Hug

A make up hug, after a fight, because apparently Summer wasn't helping to clean up. 

 12. Playing

Summer like to watch princess play doh tutorials on youtube, while she plays with hers. 

Izzy playing with her 'Ipad'

It's been dropped and the screen has cracked, still works fine. I put a film of clear contact over the screen and it has worked a charm.
I use an app called Kid Mode, I really like it. It's great for phones too. 

Meals for travelling workers

My hubby is a truck driver. In a twelve hour day, he could be travelling at least 600 kms delivering wood chip to the Portland wharf.

He could take sandwiches every day, which would get boring. He could buy his lunch from one of many takeaway outlets along the way, which he does on occasion, but all the time can get expensive not to mention, unhealthy.

Some days, he takes a foil container of leftovers, to warm up in his 12 volt oven. That's right, he has an oven in his truck. 

It's no bigger than a small esky, and it plugs into the lighter socket(12 volt plug) in his truck. It fits a foil container in it quite nicely, and warms up in no time.

This way, and I guess it what a lot of travellers miss when they work on the road a lot, he gets the equivalent of a home cooked meal, when he is not at home.

Any leftovers we have, I put into a foil container, label it and chuck it in the freezer. All is has to do is choose his frozen meal for lunch, out of our own freezer, and chuck it in his work esky. It goes in the oven and come lunch time is ready to eat.

Meals that are easy to make more of and freeze, that I pack for the freezer include:

• spaghetti bolognaise
• bangers and mash, with gravy
• casseroles, with mash
• curries, with rice
• leftover chicken with mash, gravy and veggies(meat and 3 veg) 
• soup
• pizza
• lasagne
• pies/sausage rolls

The 12 volt oven is very handy to if you're travelling, to go camping for example, and you want a warm meal when you get there.

We drove a couple hours to meet friends who were camping in the middle of nowhere, this trip in fact. I put sausage rolls in a foil container, and warmed it up on the way, so our lunch was ready when we got there. Handy when the kids start whining they are hungry.

Brett has also wrapped cheese sandwiches in alfoil and they've come out just like a toasted sanga.

We bought our 12 volt oven from Ebay. We also have a 12 volt kettle, it lives in the boot of my car. It boils two cups of water. In my case, all I need to do is take a tea bag, some water and a cup and this black tea drinking mumma is set.

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Sports day preparations

I turned up at 3:15 Thursday arvo last week, to pick up Izzy from school. I could hear the war cries of school kids, practising their songs for sports day. 

It was loud! 

I could just make out what they were yelling chanting. What I could make out was the word 'banksia'. Izzys team!

There is nothing like hearing the joined chants of a team song, to bring a feeling of pride and belonging, a feeling that swells in the middle of your gut. I couldn't see her, but I knew Izzy would have been there, practicing along with her team mates. I hope she was excited, and happy. She seemed to be when I mentioned it to her when she came out of class that day. They each had a piece of coloured paper, coordinating with their respective team colours.

 Banksia war cry 1

Banksia, we are the best

Banksia, will beat the rest

Banksia, we're fast in sprints

Tabloid games and long distance

Banksia, will be on top

Banksia, will never stop

B-A-N-K-S-I-A

BANKSIA WHOOO

Banksia war cry 2

Running down the sprint lane,

In first position,

We are the best team in the competition,

We run strong, jump long

Listen to our mighty song

B-A-N-K-S-I-A

BANKSIA WHOOO

Sports day is not for a week, Izzy is in the red team. If they keep up the loud chanting on sports day, I think I may need a panadol and a lay down afterwards, considering there will be three teams altogether yelling chanting at the same time! Come to think of it, she might too. I hate to think about the teachers. I wonder whether or not they look forward to sports day each year!

Whatever happens, I will be cheering on team Banksia, quietly though, with fingers crossed hoping they win the day!  Moreover, I hope Izzy has fun and is proud of her team mates, no matter how they go. 

A new use for baby wipes

For the last five and a bit years, I have used baby wipes every single day.

Now that Summer is toilet trained and wiping her own rear end, I still have a packet of wipes in my bag. They are still good for wiping dirty hands and faces. I have however found another great use for them, so I may not have to give the habit of, and the feeling of not being ready to stop, buying nappy wipes.

For the last week or so, I've been wearing make up, EVERY DAY! Who is this person?!

I guess I was inspired by Jess, and her post on #openslather, explaining her four and a half minute makeup routine. 

I used to wear makeup every day when I went to work. I haven't worked at any sort of job for just over three years, and well motherhood(which is a job in itself) and a busy life has just got in the way.

Now the girls are a bit older and I seem to have a morning routine pretty well down pat, I am getting about twenty minutes, sometimes less, to shower and now, put a face on.

At the moment the girls are my alarm clock, they wake up always about 7 am, so I get them dressed, put the kettle on, drink tea and make everyone's breakfast. I don't always get breakfast in this time. So it's usually fruit for me, something quick. I try to get in the shower about 8, and everything is dandy. When it is not dandy, a shit fight breaks out and one of them is crying down the hallway and totally ruins my peaceful drying time. This sees me traipse out, still wet, with a towel wrapped around me yelling bloody murder.

I find putting my make up on, easy to do, straight after I get dressed after my shower. And it is only taking me about five minutes! Maybe longer trying to get Izzy to leave my make up bag, the hell alone! Luckily this doesn't happen all that often. Mainly it is not in the morning, and other times when I catch her with a stool, trying to get the make up case down from the top of the wardrobe, where I have to stow it.

Some BB cream, a swipe of shadow, some mascara and lipgloss and I am ready to go.

In the attempt to not wake up with panda eyes, is where the baby wipes come in. Not only are they great for wiping crap from infant crevices, they are great for wiping makeup from ancient crevices, that being the lines and pores of my aging face!

Do you wear makeup much? How do you clean it off? Or do you go for the morning panda eyes look?

A family drive through Canunda

Creamy pumpkin pasta

If you follow me on Instagram, you'd see me posting of my lunch quite often. If you haven't, search #onemotherkitchen and see all the yummy stuff for yourself. 

Nothing like making my own pasta in the morning, and eating it for lunch. Just have to knock up an easy sauce. This one is made in one dish(if you don't count the pot for cooking the pasta). 

Pumpkin creamy pasta 
400 grams pumpkin, cubed into 2cm pieces
4 or five garlic cloves
dried mixed herbs*
salt and pepper

1/2 cup of thickened cream
cooked pasta of choice( I used 400 grams of cooked spaghetti) A pasta like penne, would be great too to hold all of that wonderful sauce.

Place pumpkin and garlic in a baking tray. Drizzle with a tablespoon of olive oil and mix all together.

Sprinkle with dried mixed herbs and bake in a 190 degree oven for 15-20 minutes.

Remove the tray from the oven. Grab a fork and press down on each cube of pumpkin. Some will collapse and some will still be a little firm. That's ok. You want the different textures.

Mash the bits of garlic with the fork, so it will incorporate with the sauce.

Pour the cream into the tray and stir to combine it through the pumpkin and garlic. Season with salt and pepper. Put back in the oven for five minutes to warm through the cream.

Throw cooked pasta in the pan and stir through the creamy pumpkin sauce. Serve with parmesan and crusty bread if you like.

*Now is a great time to pick some herbs from the garden, hang them up somewhere like you're kitchen, it looks great. When they dry out, chop them finely and keep in a jar in the pantry. Try rosemary, thyme, parsley, sage, whatever you have. Even though I have rosemary in my garden already, I have just discovered rosemary growing in the carpark in our local Woolies. Sucked in to anyone silly enough to buy it in store!

Do you grow your own herbs? 

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Apple puff dumplings in cinnamon syrup

Apple trees all over the country are bursting with fruit at the moment. As I type this, I can see the neighbour's tree across the road, it's limbs sagging under the weight of juicy ripe apples.

Monday while I was on a walk after dinner, I passed a tree next to the old tennis courts. There were apples hanging off it, and the smell was delicious. I was amazed I'd never noticed it before. The tree was growing right through the tennis court fence, where probably, a discarded core had been tossed.

Apple trees dot the sides of the road about the place. I can imagine these too have grown from an apple tossed out the window of passing cars. There are free apples to be picked everywhere if you keep your eyes open.

On they way to Mount Gambier, on the grounds where the old forestry headquarters used to be, the houses are long gone, but the fruit trees remain. Apples, peaches, walnut and lemon trees still bear fruit, and unless you knew they were there, driving past, you'd have no idea. Just a tip, if you're not sure whether an apple is ripe or not, cut it in half, the seeds should be dark.

An older couple from our cul-de-sac brought over a box of apples in the last week from their trees. It was so nice of them. We've lived here for over 10 years, and it's the first time we've really interacted besides a smile and the odd wave.


Morning tea a few days later were a couple of these apple dumplings. Crunchy on the top and soggy on the bottom. Perfect for the cooler weather we are having. The afternoons and mornings have been a bit nippy. I do hope there are a few more warmer days coming though. I was so not ready to say goodbye to Summer. Not yet.

Apple puff dumplings

Dough: 
1 cup self raising flour
10 grams butter
1 egg
2 tablespoons milk

3 apples, peeled, cored and quartered
1 tablespoon white sugar

Syrup:
2 cups boiling water
1 cup brown sugar
60 grams butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
White sugar

For the dough, rub butter into flour, until there are no more lumps of butter.
Mix egg and milk. Add to flour and combine to a soft dough.
Roll out into a rectangle on a floured surface, and cut into 12 long strips.

Wrap a strip of dough around each apple quarter and place in the fridge.

For the syrup, melt butter and cinnamon in a saucepan. Add sugar, vanilla essence and boiled water. Stir until sugar is melted. 

Pour the syrup in a casserole dish big enough to hold the 12 apple dumplings.

Drop the wrapped apple quarters into the syrup and sprinkle over with white sugar. Bake for 20 minutes.

Serve the dumplings with cream or icecream.

Sometimes you just have to laugh.

I had a doctors appointment last week. I hate going to the doctors. I will confess I have been an extremely naughty lady healthwise, in that it's been 10 years since my last pap smear.

With being preggers or just totally avoiding that dreaded cervix scrape, it's been too long.

I feel ashamed that I'd tried to avoid it like the plague, which is crazy, because the alternative is much worse than the plague. It's cancer. If not caught early, it means death. Kaput. Goodbye all the people I love. I have been such an idiot.

I turned up just wanting to get it over and done with and to just get out of there. Just my luck it didn't turn out that way. Murphys law and all.

The doctor was a man, and young man. I had no problems with that. After three kids, I have no reservations about medical professionals poking about my nether regions. The doctor that the appointment was originally booked with, wasn't available and was changed a few days before. He seemed quite surprised and wasn't expecting me to say I was there for a pap smear. A deer in the headlights would be my analogy.

Anyhoo, what I thought would be over and done with quickly, wasn't. It seems that my cervix decided to become hard to find. As far as I was concerned, it was there last time I needed it.

The last time I had a smear, the contraption was metal. This time it was plastic, and see through, the doctor had a 360 view of my fanwa, but couldn't find the cervix to save his life. I could feel his flusteredness, as he went back in for the third time to seek out my elusive cervix. I was a bit over it and just wanted it done, so I could get dressed and leave with some dignity intact. I could sense he felt the same!

If I knew it was going to be such a big production, I would have made more of an effort to landscape the old growth forest. I just assumed it would be over in no time and the blanket of modesty would see me through. I was left wondering, beside being a tad cold, what the point of the blanket was?

The moment it turned into a comedy was when the chaperone nurse adjusted that table and remarked, "Just like being at the dentist". My quick wit kicked in and I replied, "Well if I was a the dentist, there wouldn't be any problems finding my teeth!".

It turned an uncomfortable situation, into more of a light hearted one. The young doctor commented that he really shouldn't be laughing. I thought there's no point in seriousness or airs and graces, when you've got your legs spread wide open, showing a doctor what you had for breakfast!

Turns out the pap pillow was useless and was a hindrance to finding my cervix. The pillow is a new invention, to replace the patient having to put her fists below her hips. Apparently some women feel like it is a restraint. The doc also said that after 2017, you only need to have one every 5 years. I read once that you should have them every year, but the government would only subsidise it every two years. I have to wonder if this new time line is government cost cutting or better pap smear testing.

When was the last time you had a pap smear?

Please don't be a fool like me and leave it so long between smears. I have to say, that if you are dreading it, it couldn't be any worse than my last visit!

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Getting out of the house. Making it my mission.

Brett took the girls for a drive yesterday, about lunch time. I sat and watched Landline on the ABC. I am never disappointed when I watch that tv show, always an interesting story. 

After Landline had finished, I took a walk around the yard. To be quite honest I got a bit bored. 

Shame on me, I am always whining about not having time for myself, to do the things I want to do. I am pretty lucky, I always find time for a cuppa tea and a flick through a foodie mag. I used to be so into gardening mags, but nowadays it seems to be food mags, It probably explains my widening girth too. Something about my eyes being bigger than my belly. 

It may have a big thing to do with my depression pills too. The doctor did warn me that my appetite would increase taking them. The urges to stuff my face with ALL the food, are getting harder to ignore, my will power is definitely struggling. 

I too, am kicking myself that I haven't taken more advantage of the longer evenings of daylight savings, and gone for walks after dinner. Last year I remember taking off immediately after dinner, leaving Brett to take care of the kids, so I could get out for a walk on my own. Major doh! 

Autumn has come all too quickly, and the shorter days are creeping up, along with the season of comfort food! My stretchy pants are becoming so more comfy and I fear half of my wardrobe is becoming obsolete.  I need to give myself a major kick up the fat arse! I think I need to make a point of taking young Summer for more bike rides during the day. Getting of the house more is going to be my mission, and not in the car! 

I did however, when I should have been enjoying some time alone, mow the lawn. As you do. Well I am guessing most of you don't!

When I finished mowing, they weren't home yet, so I took myself off to the local Plants Plus. A wonderful one it is too, I wish I had more money to spend there. 

I spent $20(my budget) in no time, quite happily, and left with a renewed skip in my step. 
I bought a packet of 30 ranunculus corms and a few plants from the bargain bins, that just need some love by getting them out of the pot and into the ground! I am so looking forward to those Ranunculus flowering in Spring. They are so awesome as a cut flower.

What are you regretting not doing over the Summer?
What are you getting excited about for the coming year?

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