My three kids are all obsessed with eating mandarins. One day we’ll have our own mandarins growing in our backyard, but for now we just buy lots! Usually the kids want more than one mandarin per sitting, so I’m always left with a lot of sweet-smelling mandarin skins.
It seems such a waste to throw them in the bin, and they can’t be composted. Today, I asked all three kids to put their skins into a bowl for me, so I could cut them into small pieces with scissors. (Missy Nine would’ve loved doing this, but she was too busy eating).
After this, I laid them flat on a tea towel in my studio. It’s important that they be kept in a dry room…
Once they’ve dried out thoroughly, I’ll be using some of the batch for my pot-pourri creations and some to store in an airtight jar in the kitchen. Dried mandarin peel is delicious for giving an Asian flavour to soups and chicken. You can also make a tea from it.
It would’ve been such a shame to waste something so beautiful…
But it’s not just any box of dirt. It’s a mushroom farm. Missy Nine and Mr Four are fascinated by this. Mr Four keeps telling me that ‘the mushrooms are growed now, Mum!’
We have a dark, dank storeroom coming off from the garage that is perfect for this. Missy Nine and Mr Four have been waiting anxiously the past couple of days for watering time. We dragged them into the garage so we could see, and gave them a misting.
It’s always great for preschool aged kids to have a try of spraying a bottle, as it encourages them to build their fine motor strength and co-ordination.
In three weeks time, we should have our first lot of mushrooms ready to eat! Missy Nine isn’t a big fan of mushrooms, but has agreed she’ll give them a try. She likes them in beef stroganoff, so that might be a place to start.
I’ve tried a few different home-made LCM recipes over the years, but was never 100% happy with them. They were hard to cut, hard to dig out of the tray, not to mention some had too much butter, or too much golden syrup, yech…
Today, I tried my hand at my own, lower-fat, easier way of making them. Yes, they will still be high in sugar, but there are no fats or oils added to this recipe. So, they’re still a ‘sometimes’ food. In much smaller portions than the store-bought ones. I especially wanted to find a quicker way to make them, as the other recipes I tried were time consuming.
This won’t take long to show you what I did.
I popped a packet of home brand marshmallows into a microwaveable dish. I started out cutting them up, then realised they would probably melt anyway, so stopped bothering. Much quicker, who knew?
I then nuked the marshmallows. I wanted to go for medium, but our new microwave doesn’t have a setting like that. Instead, I chose a ‘reheat’ setting. I just kept popping it back inside until the marshies were melted.
Next, I simply mixed in home brand rice bubbles until I felt it was the right amount. Trust me, you’d know…
As you might be able to see, I also added some hundreds and thousands just to make it look pretty.
I spread it into a pyrex baking dish and left it in the fridge. I made a note to make twice the amount next time so it’d fit the entire dish
I was surprised to find that using this method actually made the setting process in the fridge drastically shorter! Love it.
After they were set, I chopped them into the size I wanted (yes, we did steal a few pieces!)
Then all that was left was to seal them in an airtight container and store them in the cupboard.
So easy. Much less washing up than the other ways I’d tried, and much, much quicker. All three kids loved them, in fact preferred them to store bought LCMs. Missy 9 has already put in a request to have some for Monday’s recess. Ok, if they last that long!
