Quick & Easy Cinnamon Cookies

These soft, buttery cinnamon cookies melt in your mouth when you eat them ..... mmm !

This is a quick and easy recipe for a deliciously soft and buttery cinnamon cookie that is crumbly and melt-in-your-mouth delicious when you eat it …... mmmmmm ! It comes from one of my Granny’s old recipe books, which was published in 1929.

If you need to convert the measurements into ones which are more convenient for you, simply scroll to the end of this page and click on the ‘Conversion Calculator’.

(For my 'Cottage Cheese Cinnamon Biscuits' recipe click over here.)

Quick & Easy Cinnamon Cookies (from ‘Anyone Can Bake’, published in 1929 by ‘Standard Brands Incorporated’)

3 tbsp Butter
3 tbsp Sugar
1 Egg, beaten
6 tbsp Flour
1 tsp Baking Powder
Cinnamon & Brown Sugar for dusting

Cream the butter and sugar together. Add the beaten egg. Sift in the flour & baking powder. Roll into walnut sized balls, then roll the balls in a mixture of brown sugar & cinnamon and place on a lightly greased baking sheet – no need to press them down as they will spread out nicely as they bake. Bake at Gas Mark 5/190’C/375’F for around 25 minutes. Makes 18.

School Run

I get up at 5 am (a real killer !) ... padding around the house with a torch (flashlight) as the generator is not yet on & there is no electricity for another hour or so .... put the kettle on and feed the cats. Take the ice packs out of the freezer and put them into the coolerboxes. Check school bag, sports kit, music stuff - whatever lessons my daughter has that day and that all is there. Take our breakfast out of the fridge (packed the night before, to eat on the road) aswell as my daughter's school lunch and snacks. Put everything in the dining room, ready for us to leave. (Can you see who's hiding under the dining room table ? I only saw him when I downloaded this photo !) Take coffee through to hubby and wake him up. Get myself dressed and do my make-up and hair, then wake my daughter up with some tea.

Just before 7 am, everyone is bundled into the car .... thermal mugs of tea/coffee at the ready - and we're off. As hubby drives I give my daughter breakfast in the car - usually cereal, yogurt, fruit and perhaps a boiled egg. The kids then both usually fall asleep !

At around 8.15 am we turn off the main tar road and on to the (very, shockingly, horrendously bumpy) school dirt road .... I wake my daughter up if she is still sleeping .... we dodge pedestrians and people on their way to market with bunches of bananas on their heads .... as this road also leads to small local farms where many bananas are grown.

We finally arrive at the school .... a privately owned/run school in a converted house, on the edge of a small coffee 'shamba' (farm). I get my daughter out, smarten her up and neaten her hair ... and take her in to school. Say hi to the teachers and to other Mum's and Dad's dropping their kids off - many of whom are friends of ours we've known since we first moved here over 12 years ago - when we were all unmarried and childless still ! I catch up on a little gossip, too .....

Then head on another half hour or so into the city, where I have a day of shopping ahead. Banking, chemist, dry goods, butchery, bakery, fruit and vegetables - and grab a quick bite to eat at one of our favourite restaurants for lunch - before making it through the (constant !) traffic to fetch our daughter from school .........

We arrive back home just after 4 pm usually. (5 pm if there are extra mural activites that day). It's a long day. Everything is unpacked from the car and into my store/pantry .... my daughter peeking in the boxes to see what treats I've bought for her .... and I often have a little helper (pictured) who kneels and helps us to 'unpack' the boxes - with the vegetables being a favourite !

Oh - and look who's also always there to help with the unpacking ! He waits to see what special cat treats and meat I've brought home .... of course I always have a little something special for him .....

So - that's what a school run is like for me in my part of the world. We do this twice a week but hubby does many of the trips whilst I stay on the farm with the baby, as he is usually in the city for work related stuff (collecting chemicals, seed, spares etc) anyway - and trips like this, twice weekly, are quite tiring - especially with a baby in tow !

Quick & Easy Tomatoe-y Chicken Curry Casserole

Great served on a bed of rice, you can also serve this curry with naan bread and 'sambals' of chopped tomato, cucumber, onion & coriander

Years ago when I was still living in South Africa, I saw a similar recipe to this one on the back of a jar of curry spices I bought one day. I tried to remember the recipe from memory, and came up with my own … so here it is !

It is a really quick and easy recipe for a deliciously tomatoe-y chicken curry. After quickly pan frying the onion and chicken pieces to brown them, you simply put all the ingredients into a casserole dish and pop it in the oven for just under an hour until it’s done – hardly any work … and no fuss at all !

Whilst the curry is cooking in the oven, you can throw a pot of rice to cook on the stove top, and quickly chop some small cubes of tomato, onion, cucumber and a bit of fresh coriander together to make ‘sambals’ to scatter over the top of the curry when it comes out of the oven. If you have naan bread in the house (which you can buy from many supermarkets these days), you can serve some of that on the side, too.

You can adjust the ‘heat’ of the curry depending on what type/strength of curry powder you use, and how much you put in. I keep this one quite mild, so that our 5 year old daughter can eat – and enjoy it – too !


Quick & Easy Tomatoe-y Chicken Curry Casserole

6 chicken pieces (thighs/legs & drumsticks work well)
2 large Onions
Oil for frying
1 x 240gm tin tomatoes, in juice (don’t drain)
1 – 1 ½ tbsp Lemon Juice
2-3 tbsp Curry Powder (I use a mild one) – to taste
4 cloves fresh Garlic, finely grated
1 tbsp fresh Ginger, finely grated
½ cup Water
Salt to taste

Lightly pan fry the chicken pieces & the onions to brown them. Set aside. Mix together the tinned tomatoes (& their juice), lemon juice, curry powder, garlic, ginger, water and salt to blend. Place the chicken pieces/onion into an ovenproof dish and pour the mixture over them, turning to baste. Cover, and place in the oven at Gas mark 5/190’C/375’F for about 45 minutes until the chicken is done. You can turn and baste the chicken pieces a couple of times during the cooking process if you like.