Roly-Poly's - Savoury & Sweet

First of all, I would like to thank everyone for their wonderful comments and thoughtful suggestions, I will take them all into consideration...and now that I have vented I am feeling a whole lot better. Things certainly have gone back to the way they should be around here, it seems I wasn't the only one in a rut. 

Communication is the key! 

After taking mum to the doctors Saturday morning, I came home to washing on, dishwasher packed and running...and the sound of the vacuum cleaner....(a not so familiar sound around here lately). I was pleased that everyone was pitching in, and I would be able to spend my time working on organising the kitchen again.


I am at my best when I am creating! This is what I do...This is what makes me me; and when I don't have time to create, whether it be food, or experiments, or gardening, or even time to make my washing powder......I feel like I am letting both myself and my family down....It goes against all that I believe and am working towards...Hence the rut!

As a mum, I do what I need to do, often putting aside my own needs, but I am sure I'm not the only Mum who has done it. So we do what we need to do...and we get on with it. Today is Sunday, a sleep in, I'm thinking...but nope....I had to get up at 4am today to take DS19 to the train station, as he had rostered overtime. It is too far to ride to the train station, and I'm not sure it would be that safe anyway around here. While I don't enjoy the early morning starts, I take pride in seeing him grow into a very responsible young adult who is saving for a house deposit...Did I tell you he is an Apprentice Overhead Linesman Electrician for RailCorp.....I'm so proud, he amazes me every day......(Without me asking, He even cleaned out the bathroom yesterday after spring cleaning is own room).

On the way to the train station this morning, we noticed a shopping trolley in the left lane on the road.....:That could cause an accident!" says DS19....I told him not to worry as I had already decided to stop and put it up on the footpath, on my way back home. It bugs me that it was there probably due to a Saturday night hooligan...But it would bug me more, if I had left it there, and found out later that it had caused an accident. There is a duty of care there, that I am only too pleased to put right. At that time in the morning there aren't many cars on the road, so with my hazard lights on, I locked the car and went and removed the trolley from the road.

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It felt fantastic yesterday, being back in the kitchen, creating, baking, experimenting......The lovely aroma's that filled the house.....hmmmmmm ...This is how it is meant to be!..I drained my water Kefir Grains, and the milk ones too. I also put up a batch of yoghurt. Things were back to normal around here.

Jar Set Yoghurt...I used this jar as my culture for the next batch.

So here is our lunch for Saturday......A Ham & Cheese Roly-Poly.....I had some ham that needed to be used  up before making the weeks lunches again with fresh ingredients.
The dough I used was taken from the 2 ingredient dough that I used to make our pizza's...but as I had used my last jar of Yoghurt to set the next batch...I used my drained Kefir milk instead, which gives a lovely light dough as well. Sorry; I didn't take any photos of preparing this lunch....But I can tell you it was delicious.....
The gap in the tray....that turned out to be the 'cooks treat', which we used/tasted to see if the dough had cooked in the middle...I did give it an extra 5-10 minutes in the oven.

Flour, Kefir milk, Ham, Cheese & melted butter...YUM!

I left aside some of the dough to make a dessert for after our evening meal......Hubby's two favourite fruits are Apricots and Pineapple...he reckons a pizza isn't a pizza without pineapple....lol.

Apricot, Pineapple & Ginger Roly-Poly 

Drain the Pineapple rings, and cut into small pieces....you could also use crushed pineapple for this recipe.....or use fresh pineapple if you can source it cheap.
Cut up some dried apricots, and leave to soak in the reserved juice.
Add half a teaspoon or more, of powdered ginger to the juice.

I used 3 rings of pineapple for this recipe.

To make the dough for both Roly-Poly's I used

3 cups of Self Raising Flour and 3 cups of Kefir Milk...

You can replace the Kefir Milk with home-made yoghurt if you like....I used white flour, but kneaded it on a wholemeal floured bench.
To roll the dough, it works best if it has had time to rest in the fridge for half an hour or so. Roll the dough into a large rectangle, leaving the dough about a third inch thick.
Sprinkle some brown sugar over the entire dough...that you have added some mixed spice to. Even just cinnamon would work great too.
Then spread out the mixed fruit onto the slab of dough....be sure to go right to the edges.
Now roll up the whole mixture......like below.....but roll it up completely into a log.

Once rolled into a log, cut into thick slices and working quickly, add them to a well greased cake pan.
Drizzle the rest of the juice and any remaining fruit over the rolls....

 And bake in a moderate oven until golden brown.

Delicious Dessert
Apricot, Pineapple and Ginger Roly-Poly 

Serve alone or with ice-cream...We went all out and had ice-cream with it....It was sooooo delicious, it has already been requested again.

Today, I hope to put down some Sour Cream using my Kefir Milk.... My yoghurt will also be ready to go in the fridge.
I will also grate a batch of soap that didn't turn out so well...Nowadays, I use the whizzer to grate my soap, then while the whizzer bowl is soapy, I make my powdered soap for the laundry. Then when I wash the whizzer bowl...I wash some dishes too. In that order, it's very efficient.
It's also mushroom time around here again...that means picking mushrooms from our mushroom farm under the house every few days....(I have recycled the old mushroom compost bags into the garden, and now have new bags from the mushroom farm.)


Some other ways to enjoy this quick easy dough.....

• Cheese & Vegemite..... 
• Ham & Pineapple with cheese...... 
• Tomato paste followed by basil, chopped tomato, bacon and cheese....
• hmmm Pizza Roly-Poly's .....Yummm
• Your favourite Jam.....
• Blueberry and Cinnamon Sugar or Nutmeg.....

What ingredients would you use for a Roly-Poly?