A frugal (and fun!) way to buy nuts

At this time of year (post xmas) there are whole nuts galore for sale in the supermarkets! I picked up a bag for $2.50 that was at least twice the price before the day. All you need is a nutcracker and a few little willing hands and you have lovely nuts straight from the shell for a fraction of the price of the ones you buy pre-shelled in the packets!

Raw kefir cream cheese

This is one of the easiest (and most delicious!) raw things you can do in your kitchen. All you need is kefir, a linen cloth and some kind of flavouring should you desire.

Kefir some milk, at least 1 litre is probably a good quantity. When it is ready, line a plastic or ceramic bowl with a clean linen cloth (teatowel size). You can use cheesecloth or cotton, both work just as well. Pour kefir into cloth and then gather the corners together and tie up with a piece of string or an elastic band. I then tie the bundle to a cupboard handle and let the whey drip down into the bowl. This takes about 24 hours. When it is dry, strape the cream cream from the cloth and store in a plastic container in the fridge. I stir in sea salt, cracked pepper and chives! Serve on toast, with crackers or just on it's own...it is marvelous!

You can drink the whey, or use it in recipes in place of stock or water, for lacto-fermenting vegetables, making ricotta cheese or as a sourdough starter. Sometimes I have a problem with bugs getting into the whey (especially in summer) so I generally refrigerate the bulk of the whey before I go to bed at night and then give anything extra I find in the morning to the pets or chickens and ducks (they don't mind the bugs!)

I learned all about kefir cream cheese from Abby Eagle at Rejoice in Life

Gluten Free Rasberry Almond Cake

 This is truly delicious and ridiculously easy! I made a cream cheese icing from kefir cream cheese (recipe for that to follow soon!)

Recipe from 4 ingredient Gluten Free

225g almond meal
2 cups frozen rasberries, thawed and pureed
6 eggs
1 cup sugar (I use less, like about half)

beat eggs and sugar together until fluffy, add almond meal and rasberries. Stir in well, pour into prepared baking tin, bake for 1 hour at 160C. When cool ice.

Cream cheese icing - 1 cup (or less, depending on what you have on hand) cream cheese, 2T sifted icing sugar, squirt lemon juice. Spread over cake, refrigerate until ready to eat!