posted by Lily on cooking, homely

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There are some things that can be rushed and some things that just can not.

It is not possible to buy 72 desk chairs, 54 kitchen chairs, 6 Poang armchairs, and 16 bar stools in under 5 hours.  Nope.  It takes a heck of a long time to load them onto 17 trolleys and then push all the trolleys one by one to the checkout.  An endless amount of time.  An “I don’t know if I ever want to go to Ikea again” amount of time. [ only kidding Julian, I'm sure I'll be over it by next week :-0 ]

Thankfully, you can leave the above items at the delivery counter and rush home.  That’s a good thing.  Because the freezer was bare and there were yoghurt iceblocks to be made before school pickup.

And you can rush the chopping of bananas and peaches and watermelon,

… and hurl in the yoghurt, and blend it all up, and slosh it into the iceblock moulds,

… and shove them into the freezer, and then zip off to school.

However, you cannot rush the freezing of said yoghurt iceblocks.  Nope.  If you pull them out too quick, Abby, they will just be slushies!

Oh, she didn’t listen and now the doggles are eating fruit yoghurt slushies from the floor.  Well, at least that means I won’t have to mop the floor.  Do you do that?  Let the doggles mop the floor?  It’s my favourite part of housework.

Now there’s only an hour spare before the annual school Christmas Carol Concert.  Hmmmm …. I don’t really count loading 148 (is that right?  I think so) forms of seating onto trolleys as productive.  The yoghurt iceblocks were sort of productive, except they didn’t freeze in time.  Perhaps there’s some fabric that could be turned into a bit of instant, rushed productive.

The table is covered in scraps from yesterday’s quilty effort, and there’s some funny bits of cardboard leftover from the packaging of the new iceblck moulds from Ikea – the ones we’ve had for 12 years are currently boxed and rolling on down the Newell Highway.

A little bit of this, and a little bit of that and voila!  I have one of my favourite things – a wind fancy to hang in the breeze.  Honestly, it only took 15 minutes.  Talk about instant gratification.

It’s awfully similar to one I had as a child.  That one was made of a soft pliable rubbery plastic fabric.  There was a small carousel at the top, from it hung streamers like these with little plastic petals, and when you wound it the carousel turned – spinning the streamers – and it sang eerie, tinkley music.  I loved it.  I might add some bells to this new version.  And I have another piece of cardboard.  That equals another wind fancy.

What a funny, full day.  Just the kind I secretly like – I always get more done when there’s really no time to do anything.  I do Julian, stop sniggering.

Oh, and the iceblock recipes for those who are hot and need something yummy and refreshing to eat in the shade, quickly.

Minty Watermelon Yoghurt Pops

Ingredients:

2 cups of watermelon, chopped into 1 inch squares

400 mls of apple and mango juice (store bought)

200 mls of natural Greek Yoghurt

2 tablespoons of finely chopped fresh mint

Method:

Hurl all the ingredients into the blender and whizz until smooth.  Pour into ice block moulds, taking care not to over fill (if you do, the overfill will form a little frozen crust/seal and it will be harder to pull your yoghurt pop out!)  Freeze for at least 6 hours, preferably over night. Makes 12 with enough left over for exhausted mumas to sit down and drink as a smoothie before rushing off to perform the next series of remarkable achievements :-)

Banana and Peach Yoghurt Pops

Ingredients:

3 ripe peaches, chopped into 1 inch squares

1 lady finger banana chopped into 1 inch rings

1 tablespoon of honey

200 mls of natural Greek Yoghurt

Method:

Hurl all the ingredients into the blender and whizz until smooth.  Pour into ice block moulds, taking care not to over fill (if you do, the overfill will form a little frozen crust/seal and it will be harder to pull your yoghurt pop out!)  Freeze for at least 6 hours, preferably over night. Makes 10.  These are so delicious, but do have flecky bits of peach skin in them.  This doesn’t bother us at all, but if you are the kind that might be bothered, or your children are, I suppose you could peel the peach.  I, however, don’t know how to do this without making an awful mess and wasting a lot of beautiful peach juice.  If you know the trick, do let me know!