Chocolate friands for afternoon tea!

One of our friends bought us back a friand tin from Aus, so that, plus scoring some imported
frozen raspberries, made for a decadent afternoon tea...

(Look what's underneath!)

Recipe for Chocolate Raspberry Friands

Makes 6

100g butter
1/2 cup white chocolate buttons
3/4 cups ground almonds
3/4 cups icing sugar
1/3 cup plain flour
2 tbsp. cocoa
6 egg whites
6 raspberries

Preheat oven to 150 C fan bake. Melt butter and chocolate together over a low heat. Combine the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. Add the egg whites and mix until smooth with an electric beater on low speed.  Stir in melted chocolate mixture until combined.  Fill greased friend moulds or a muffin pan and top each one with a raspberry.  Bake for 25 minutes or until an inserted skewer comes out clean.  Cool before removing from moulds.

Hey! Who's eating our apples?

Yes, we have a kind of apple here, but as you can see by the leaves, not the same variety as NZ.

By the way, many of the kids learn to climb from tiny and are experts at climbing anything
vertical, especially if there is a food reward at the top!



Apples at the market

Fish bowl!

This is the beach we go snorkelling at sometimes, just outside of Honiara.
One of our friend's took these photos, and kindly let me have them. 

Look what's under the water...

Something from home...

We had a bit of a party with some friends coming and some friends going.

There was pavlovas and Tip Top Icecream...

enough to make a grown man cry!



Handmade!

• Finely woven bag
• Hand cut shells for necklace, bracelet and earings,
• Fan
• Panpipes (a local musical instrument made from bamboo)

Innocence...

 

Our favourite granola...

Granola Recipe

2 tbsp vegetable oil

125 ml maple syrup (or honey, golden syrup, brown sugar/water syrup- or 100 ml and 1/3 cup brown sugar)

2 tbsp honey

1 tsp vanilla extract

300g rolled oats (2 cups)

50g sunflower seeds (1/3 cup)

4 tbsp sesame seeds

50g pumpkin seeds (1/3 cup)

100g flaked almonds (2/3 cup, or other nuts)

100g dried berries (2/3 cup, eg apricots, dried strawberries)

50g coconut flakes or desicated coconut (2/3 cup)

Method

Heat oven to 150C/fan 130C/gas 2. Mix the oil, maple syrup, honey and vanilla in a large bowl. Tip in all the remaining ingredients, except the dried fruit and coconut, and mix well.

Tip the granola on to a big non-stick baking tray and spread evenly. Bake for 15 minutes, then mix in the coconut and dried fruit, and bake for 10-15 mins more. Remove and scrape onto a flat tray to cool.

Serve with cold milk or yoghurt. The granola can be stored in an airtight container for up to a month.

Caviar of the Pacific - Balolo!

Yep! I ate these (worms)!

 

 

We were "fortunate" enough to be visiting a village when these were "in season."

If you really want to be grossed out, check out more about these things (g02 9/8 - Balolo)

Cool clouds...

 Sorry, there's loads of cloud pictures.  I just couldn't seem to choose which ones to get rid of...