The Dress Up Box - Old Fashioned Toys for Today's Families

Sorry LastPenny's been quiet the last couple of days - I've succumbed to a nasty cold! But today things are looking up so we're back to our regular posting schedule :)

Kids today are not really any different from us when we were little. Sure, they've been exposed to electronics and communications from an early age - but that doesn't mean that the only toys that interest them are expensive, flashy electronics.

When kids play, they like to act out their fantasies. And toys that enable them to do that are the toys they'll come back to, time and time again.

The Dress Up Box

If your childhood was anything like mine, the dress-up box got to come out on "special occasions" - and looking back, those "special occasions" were any time our parents wanted us raptly amused for hours at a stretch!

Perfect for rainy weekends, cousins visiting, children's parties, or simply everyday play, a dress-up box costs around five dollars or less to assemble and will provide literally years of fun.

You can work with a simple cardboard box, but if you have an old suitcase, it's even better. I remember ours was in an old-fashioned leather trunk, which added to the air of mystery. If you're using a box, have the kids decorate it with stickers and drawings - you'll love to look back at the box in years to come.

A good dress-up box contains:

• Clothes. Rather than buying kids dress-up outfits from the store (expensive and unnecessary), go to your nearest op shop. Look for items made of glittery or shiny fabric, netting, velvet, corduroy - fabrics with texture and presence. The size and the fit of the items don't matter - kids will wear things the way they want to when they are dressing up, and "grown-up" clothes are half the fun.
• Little boys in general love suit jackets and ties. Look for 80s suits in bright colours, pin stripes and other eyecatching looks.
• If you have access to any kinds of old uniforms, pop them in. Lab coats can sometimes be found in op shops - grab one if they come up!
  
• Add things like old sheets and lengths of fabric (most fabric shops have cheap remnant bins) for making costumes.
• Accessories such as scarves, costume jewellery, handbags.
  
• Have plenty of reds and blacks for witch/wizard outfits.
• Don't include shoes, or bring them out only when supervised - kids can hurt themselves running about in ill-fitting shoes.
• Have face-paint or some cheap make-up for very special supervised play sessions :)

Tofu Scramble

Today we have a great recipe sent in by one of our readers!

Check out her blog at Hooray for Dogs!

Tofu Scramble aka How to Save the World with Tofu

You: 1, Your fridge: 0

Sooner or later, there comes a time when certain horrible forces in the universe combine and descend upon your kitchen. These forces are a) financial crunchage, and b) produce wiltage, and they can be pernicious and frustrating. However! You have a secret weapon in your arsenal that you may not have tried before: the tofu scramble.

Now now, I know what you're thinking. And yet! It is possible to use up all the produce wilting in the crisper like Aunt Gertie on her fainting couch while cheaply producing a tasty meal that feeds many. Including teenagers.

Ingredients:

1 potato, chopped
1 pkg extra firm tofu
1 yellow onion, diced
lemon juice
cooking oil
a fry pan that's seen better days
the spices of your choice
the contents of the fridge and/or fruit bowl

Right. First off, tofu retains its texture best when you squeeze all the water out of it. Easy: de-package said tofu and slice it into two thin rectangles laid side by side on a plate. Put a layer of paper towels over it, then squash it with the giant unwieldy casserole dish you could kill someone with.

While that's squishing, peel and chop the potato into wee chunks and pop them in a good-sized frying pan with a splash of oil. Leave them there and chop the onion, then turn and have stern words with the contents of the crisper. Basically, you're making a scrambled fry-up; the tofu, potatoes and onion will soak up the flavor of the oil and spices, and really, most other vegetables can be tossed in at will, browned nicely, and added to the dish for taste and bulk.

Last week when I made this, my crisper yielded a very suspicious looking kohlrabi, some leftover seitan bits from an earlier meal that were headed for the back of the fridge, green onions and an apple that had gone a bit soft. Normally, these are the types of things headed for the compost pile at speed, but behold the power of the scramble: chop chop chop into a pile with the onion.

Yes, an apple in a savory fry-up. It works really well if you use spicy seasoning such as various peppers, Old Bay or my favorite, Tony Chachere's Cajun seasoning.

Anyway! Turn the heat on high under the potatoes, add some seasoning. Flip flip flip, brown brown brown. I mention using an old fry pan because my potatoes always burn, but maybe you're just better with potatoes. Go with what works.

When the potatoes are translucent, retrieve your drained tofu and crumble it over the potatoes, then dump all your veggies in on top. The mixture will hiss and crackle and just generally make much of itself, so add a splash of lemon juice to keep everyone in line, and stir, season to taste. It's ready to go when the tofu browns and the potatoes are soft.

Enjoy while sticking tongue out at vegetable crisper.

Second hand shopping for the kitchen - even the celebrities are doing it!

Last Night on Campbell Live, celebrity chef Richard Till talked about "retro" baking utensils.

He had a lot of items that many of us still have and use at home, but he also made a key point - the young presenter didn't even *recognise* a lot of the items that our mothers and grandmothers used every day.

Two of the items discussed last night:


These are a flour sifter (left) and a Gem iron (right). (Watch this space - next week LastPenny will bring you Mum's wonderful Gem recipe. It's not exactly healthy eating, mind, but we all need comfort food, right? *vbg*)

Baking at Home

The point of today's post is twofold. The first key point is that baking at home provides a more cost-effective and often healthier alternative to buying snacks.

By looking out those old recipes (or following LastPenny!) you can keep the family in cakes, biscuits, desserts and many other tasty treats, all without spending a fortune.

Here's the SECOND key point. With the busy, instant focus of life in this new millennium, many of us simply aren't set up to bake at home. We're missing a number of the key items we need to get going. But don't despair! Don't put home baking in the too hard basket, or think it will take a lot of expensive equipment to get going.

So what utensils I need to bake at home?

• First up, you don't need a food processor, blender, or any other fancy electronic equipment. While those are nice to haves, your gran didn't have them, and quite likely your mother started without them too - and they all baked, very successfully.
  
• What you do need are a couple of good heavy tablespoons, a set of measuring spoons, a set of measuring cups, a fork, an egg-whisk, a rolling pin and a measuring cup or bottle with a fitting lid (that you can shake liquid ingredients in).
• If you don't have a rolling pin, a wine bottle or something similar-shaped and reasonably heavy will do the trick.
  
• A sieve or sifter for flour is desirable, but you can live without it.
• A rubber spatula for scraping out bowls is a nice to have.
• A set of kitchen scales is helpful, but you CAN do without it - many recipe books including the Edmonds Cook Book have conversion charts at the front, listing the conversions from weight to volume for common ingredients.
• The final key thing you need, especially if you're a new baker, is a RECIPE BOOK. And I don't mean Jamie Oliver's newest coffee table masterpiece, either. Find your mum's favourite old recipe book - I have one of my mother's grandmothers, that gives the method for regulating the temperature in a wood-burning stove. That's the kind of recipe book you need. In the front of those books are a whole lot of lovely tips for the first-time baker - all about what terms such as "cream the butter and sugar" mean, and advice on really how to rub the butter into the flour. (LastPenny will bring you those in due course, too - but having them at your fingertips is a great idea)
  

Now, don't go off to Farmers and spend a couple of hundred dollars in the kitchen department! The VERY BEST THING about all of those things listed above? You can buy them all at your nearest Salvation Army Op Shop, or at garage sales. All those items together will set you back less than $20.00.

While you're there, pick up the other items you'dd need. These vary depending on what you're intending to cook, but will likely include:

• Cake pans*
• Muffin trays**
• Cookie sheets
• Loaf tins

*TOP TOP: If you have a smallish lasagne pan or a square baking dish, you can use it as a cake pan. Many casseroles will also do double duty.

**TIP: You can buy muffin and cupcake papers at the supermarket, and if you don't have a muffin pan, many muffin or cake doughs will hold their shape in a paper receptacle. The key here is not to overfill the muffin or cake paper.

We'll bring you some top baking recipes and tips over the next week :) Look out for them, and if you've got an old favorite, drop us a line in comments or by using the form on our webpage here, and we'll find your favorite recipe for you! Or, if you have a recipe to share, send it in - we'll include it, with a link to your website or blog.