There's rice.... and then there's Rice.

Here's a bit of trivia :
What do rice and wine have in common? They both taste better with age.
Welcome to the world of rice... there's a bit more to rice than just white stuff you bung in the rice cooker and voila, carbs for the meal. As I sit here writing, there's some wild weather happening outside, rain, gusty winds, hail... its been going on n off all day. Now in the middle of all this, my darling grandma got me to take her to the Indian grocery for... rice. She has bags of the stuff at home. But no, she has visitors soon, and only the best rice will do. The premium brand basmati rice currently being sold is no good because...its too fresh!!
You have to be Persian to get this, the significance of the Rice, or Polo. Its what makes or breaks a meal. A decent platter of rice should have rice grains that are long, drenched in butter and oil, cooked but not sticky. Heaven forbid 2 unfortunate grains of rice stick together....the hostess will spend the rest of the meal appologising for the mishap. By the same token, I've heard family talk about a dinner party long afterwards because of the length and perfection of the rice.
Years of living near my grandma (The Expert Ricecooker extraordinaire) hasn't helped me much in perfecting this essential skill of Persianhood. I blame that partly on a certain genetic tendency I inherited - if I don't see the point of doing something, I simply won't even try. White rice is a simple starch which after being eaten, turns to sugar. It has very little nutritional value. Now add huge amounts of oil to this and its basically like eating cake or donuts...for lunch and dinner, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. I kid you not. Brown rice and parboiled rice are a different story, they contain a lot of fibre and Vitamin B among other things. They don't taste the same, but its the story of white bread again.
Having said all that, in the interest of serving people what they like, I do cook rice once in a while, but at home, poor rice-raised hubby has to put up with a whole bunch of experimental meals with different grains and carbs. There's a whole world of unpopular grains out there that people mostly discover when they have health problems, but which have been the staple of humans for thousand of years. There's corn, millet, quinoa, buckwheat (its not related to wheat), chickpea flour etc. It really comes down to habits, because taste is an acquired thing, and some of these other grains taste a lot better than rice if prepared well. The quest for alternatives and recipes continues...

School holidays

This is long overdue, but here are pics from a fabulous day out with the kids. 3 moms + 7 kids = loads of fun.

The Adelaide hills have a lot to offer. We went to a place called Fairyland, with little huts that represented different fairy tales. The whole thing was rather old and very much in need of renovation, so it wasn't worth the entry fee. But the kids really enjoyed the playground, designed to make you as dizzy as possible cos everything spins...

 Then we drove down the road to the Big Rocking Horse, the highlight of which was the free park with animals that you can get really close to...too close for some, like poor Bayan who got too close to a Shetland pony and had his hand sampled - ouch.

The final stop was Melba's Chocolate factory. We were too  late to see chocolate making demonstrations, and basically had a warehouse full of sugary treats that the kids all wanted to sample and i had to keep saying no to. the scenery and drive were just beautiful. Makes me want to move there every time I go to the hills...

Rainbow rice

This activity was inspired by Pink and Green Mama who's blog is full of fun rainbow things to do.
Be prepared for a mess. I laid a sheet down before putting the tray on, but we still had rice all over the floor. Great for summer outside.

I put equal amounts of rice into zip lock bags, added a few drops of food colouring into 2 tablespoons of vinegar and mixed in with the rice. Pour into bowls to dry. There are different ways of doing this.

great sensory activity

the kids added some little wooden toys, cars, etc to the tray.

Aprons, aprons

We've had weeks of wintry cold weather and the accompanying flu season, which meant hours and hours at home, hence - sewing spreee!!!
Here are some aprons I whipped up, from a pattern i sort of came up with, inspired by a few different blogs. They are easy to put on by younger kids  all by themselves because of the velcro tab. I've also slipped elastic through the neck piece so the apron covers the child's chest, again this applies mostly to the under 5 crowd.

This apron has a plastic lining because the owner has recently decided that helping mummy with washing the dishes can be a lot of fun (and very wet). I used a new plastic mattress protector as the inner lining.

I absolutely adore this one, and the 2 year old friend who now plays tea parties with it.

Gotta have one for my little baker boy, he mainly makes an appearance in the kitchen when something sweet is cooking.

Grocery bag tutorial

In South Australia, the local government has banned plastic grocery bags, so we have to take bags shopping (very green thinking here) and its so easy to forget, but these fit easily into handbags and even your pocket. I made a few of these bags last year out of polyester lining scraps, and haven't looked back since. They are so handy because they fold up really small, but they are also extremely strong an durable, I've even filled it up once with cartons of milk with no trouble. Here are some sketchy instructions, you need basic sewing skills to do this.

sew in a piece of elastic so it sticks out on the right side of the bag

Turn bag right side out, fold in corners back into the back, about 10cm and pin. Then stitch all along the bottom of the bag.

It's a lot roomier than it looks, as the folds at the bottom open out when filled.