Yay for new couches

They're here! They made it! I am mad for getting 2 couches before we move interstate but I say if you find something you love then you just have to go for it. Now I'm just getting more impatient to start building (or at least) planning our new house. Here they are..



Bad photos, but as you can see I don't have a lot of space in this little house at the moment and the light is terrible. You get the idea though :)

At the moment they spend their days covered in blankets because I don't trust the dog with them yet. After this weekend they should be allowed to see the light of day.

2 days of work left!

Busy Busy

Sunday already :( Here's a rundown of our busy weekend...

Friday night:
Dinner at Madam SouSou (cassoulet, yummo) with G's sister - another thing crossed off the Melbourne list. Then on to the Evelyn to see G's little brother's band, Walking to Winter at their first ever EP launch. How good is the album cover? (I took the photo a little while ago, so I'm a little biased perhaps).

My brother-in-law, the rockstar -


Saturday:
Brunch with a friend (the goodbyes have begun) at my favourite cafe in Melbourne - Richmond Hill Cafe and Larder. I'd love if my cafe ended up even half as good as this place. They serve grilled cheese on toast here that they are famous for.. it's a secret blend and it's hard to beat. Out of all the times I've been here for breakfast I've only been able to order something different once or twice. G loves their Baghdad eggs (fried eggs on pita bread with lemon, mint and cumin) and it is also hard to pass up. We did ok this time though, the 3 of us ordered different dishes and then got some grilled cheese to share - good plan!

Corn and coriander fritters with smoked salmon, Baghdad eggs, Spinach, tomatoes + mushrooms on multigran and grilled cheesy toast. Mm mmm -


They also have a great cheese room, this time we came home with some Saint Agur blue and some Piano Hill Ironstone which we ate on Saturday night with a couple of other friends who had come around for (1 last) dinner. Dinner menu: Moroccan roast lamb, Za'atr chicken, Roasted root vegetables, fatoush, smoked eggplant salad and chickpeas with toasted bread and yoghurt. So far my weekend seems all about the food...

Cheese room (photo from yourrestaurants.com.au) -


Moroccan roast lamb (pre-cooking) -


Sunday:
Called into work for a couple of hours (boo to work) as the project I've been working on was deployed last night. This means I'm almost finished, the hard stuff is now all done! Then a friend came to pick up our old couch and coffee table to make room for the new one that comes tomorrow (yay for new couches). My living room looks very empty at the moment (until tomorrow anyway...).


We finished the weekend with a walk around the park where Charlie got to meet a new friend, Rupert, and because we've eaten so much food this weekend a nice and easy pumpkin soup for dinner. It's definitely cold enough.

Rupert and big, scary Charlie -


Oh and I have still been very good and not shopped much, but I did buy this little pattern at Meet me at Mikes. Only because it's up the road from the Richmond Hill Cafe so I just had to have a quick look. How cute is it?

Tomorrow I start my last week at work!! Scary. I've been working at the same place for 6 years now, and it was my first job out of Uni so it's going to be very strange to not be working there. Especially since I'm not really going to another job.

Stuff and things

I made this for dinner tonight, it's from a Delicious magazine from ages ago. I love weekday dinners that don't take too long to make but have heaps of flavour.


Last night I tried a little experiment - I tried to turn a quick hand drawing into a toy. It needs some work in the neck region, but I think it has potential. I like her face.


I got an exciting phone call today too (well exciting to me), my new couches are being delivered on Monday. Yay!!

And in more exciting news, I'm doing my first swap! Donna Hay will soon be on her way to Itziar. More yay!!

Oh and one more thing or two really, I found a couple of new blogs to read (new to me anwyay)... from this photo on Vessel Wednesday I searched for Mel Robson and found her blog - Feffakookan and Black White Bliss from America. Finding new blogs is fun.

This is a very random post.

My first commission

I sold my first cake today!

Lately I've been baking lots and taking it into work for my team to test out for me. One of my colleagues then got upset about his team's performance and decided that from now on his team would also have to bring something homemade to their team meetings to share for morning tea.

So one of his team members paid me to make a chocolate cake for her morning tea duties today. I've been a little unorganised lately so I had to find one I could bake quickly and Donna Hay came to my rescue again. You can get this Chocolate Coconut cake in the oven in about 10 minutes. Seriously - throw all the ingredients in a bowl, add some melted butter and then pour it into a cake tin. So easy!

It had the added bonus of not requiring any icing - just dust with cocoa and serve with cream. (Upon trying it though I do think some chocolate ganache on top would be very yummy).

I forgot to take a photo of the finished product, but here's one straight from the oven ..


And licking the bowl... yummo!

Bits and pieces

Last night that I finished the duck started on craft night, for a girl at work who wanted one. Lulu is pink, as requested.


Tonight I flicked through some old magazines looking for apple recipes to use all the apples I bought on the weekend. Here are the options so far (from top left) Apple and blackcurrant pie, classic french apple tart, apple and vanilla custard cake, apple and vanilla bakclava, apple and cinnamon teacake or baked apple and cinnamon custard? Decisions, decisions.


For now they're good like this...


And oh my goodness I just found out that they're making Nancy Drew the movie... I loved these books when I was a kid. I just might have to go and see it.

Countdown

I have 2 weeks left of work in Melbourne and then another 2 weeks after that to pack up before we move to Brissie. So I've started trying to cram in every Melbourne thing I love to do before it's too late. Today was a visit to the Yarra Valley Farmer's Market - it's particularly nice out there in Autumn and Winter.

When visiting the Famer's Market it's important to take a few friends along, so this morning I picked up a few girlfriends and we headed out to the Yarra Valley. Girlfriends are mainly important so you can sing along to bad 90s music while making the 1 hour-ish drive out to the country. It's also important to go with an appetite beause there is lots of yummy food to try.

We arrived at the farmers market and started our taste-testing with locally brewed beer, jams, chutneys, relishes, mustards, olive oils, spice blends and honey. Then we moved onto the fresh produce and cheeses. Finally a few flavours of fudge, some chocolate and ice-cream (mmm passionfruit).

The farmer's market is held in a historic barn at the Yering Station winery -


Local olives and olive oils -


Kennedy & Wilson chocolates. I always wondered how they got graphic prints on chocolates and now I know. They put the just prepared chocolates on these sheets of paper and the image is transferred onto the warmer chocolates. Doesn't it make you want to try it?


After stocking up on some goodies we moved onto Yering Farm winery for some lunch and a glass of yarra valley chardonnay. Lunch was a tasting platter of some local goods, yummy.

Apples and good strong cheese goes so nicely together, and these apples were amazing - you forget after eating supermarket apples for awhile how much different fresh apples are. So sweet and juicy and crunchy.


Final stop was the Yarra Valley Dairy, this place is a must stop if you're ever in the area - best Persian Fetta ever and you get to see the little guys that are growing up to make the cheeses one day.


So all in all it was a good Melbourne day - friends, good food and wine and beautiful scenery. At the end of it all I got to come home to eat some cheese and have a glass of wine with G while waiting for our roast beef to cook (finished with some red wine jus from the markets). Now all I need to do is work out what to do with the 2kgs of apples I picked up at a road side stall.

Here's my haul from the day... red wine jus, cabernet, persian fetta, ashed goat's cheese, raspberry jam, pink lady apples and some fudge.



I'm going to miss this place...

I love to sing-a

This is the cutest cartoon ever, I love it. I want to see if I can make a whole family of stuffed owls with little tux jackets to match. Including little Owl Jolson with his red and blue. Cute!

New toys

G bought me home a surprise present from work today, how exciting. I got a graphics tablet for the computer... just to play with. Handwriting and freehand straight to the computer, could be fun.

Craft nights

Growing up, we were lucky enough to have a stay at home Mum. She was always busy though - helping at school or church events, baking for someone or other and crafting. We went through all the crafting trends with her (fabric-covered everythings, candle making, stained glass windows etc) and she used to teach groups of her friends or church groups as well. These are the craft nights I grew up with. I remember in high school thinking how embarrassing and old ladyish it all was.

Actually I think I thought of craft that way until about a year ago when I started noticing some amazing handmade goods and then through all of the incredible craft blogs out there. Then I started thinking that I would love to try out some of this stuff and that perhaps crafting wasn't something just for old ladies and maybe didn't have to involve yellow and blue and countrified pictures of roosters, pigs and cows. So I started buying bits and pieces and eventually started to try a couple of things out. And.. I really enjoy it - it's fun, takes my mind of work stuff at the end of the day and you do get a sense of accomplishment out of finishing something. And even though things I have made aren't even close to well-made, people still appreciate the time and effort that have gone into them.

After making a couple of things and deciding the results weren't too embarrassing, I showed a couple of my friends and a few expressed an interest in trying it out. I thought they were just being polite but they were serious.. so a couple of weeks ago we had our first dinner + ducks night. It was fun, we had a few glasses of wine, worked on a duck or two, ate nice food and had good company and conversation. Last week people were asking when the second one was happening so we did it all again last night! I can't believe how many closet crafters there are in the world, last night we even had a couple of boys hand sewing cute little animals and people bringing their half finished projects from home to work on. Good food, good friends and little crafty projects - what could be more fun?


A giraffe WIP -


Working on another duck -


Finished space boy going home to his new little owner -


Craft Night III coming soon...

Oh and I got some more fabric in the mail today. That's it for me though, nothing else is allowed to be purchased until I have made a good dent in the existing supplies.

Yay for holidays

No work today, I love long weekends. Weekends should always be 3 days long I think - you need 1 for doing all the running around, house work, laundry etc; 1 day for all the fun stuff like shopping, meeting friends, getting out and about and then 1 more day for resting and playing house.

We went for a drive today up to Mount Dandenong - had some lunch, took the puppy for a walk, there are a few photos on flickr but I had to talk about this one.


Every time we go up there I have to check out this house. I love it, it has a kind or mysterious but old world charm to me. I can imagine it being an old fashioned guest house up in the hills where you play croquet on the lawn during the day and have devonshire teas on the verandah in the afternoon. It would be a fun place to restore.

Tried a couple of things, suggested by Charlotte to improve the elephant (who G named Elvis), but he's still going to be given to the dog... More practice required!

Elk Accessories

I've seen the name in a few magazines lately, so I checked out their website.

I love love love these brooches for winter (how cute is the moose?) and this lambswool hood/scarf.



Photos from Elk Accessories

Cancelled

We were meant to go out for dinner with some friends on Friday night, but it was cancelled at the last minute. Even though it would have been great to catch up with them, sometimes it's also great when your plans get cancelled and you have a few hours free that you weren't expecting. We spent them very lazily - tried out a new recipe, watched a James Bond movie (Roger Moore, of course - they are so good in a completely corny and bad way) and I *tried* to make an elephant.

Recipe worked well. Braised borlotti beans and grilled polenta from the latest Donna Hay magazine (the polenta was yummy too but didn't look as good as the one in the magazine so it got missed from the photo).


Elephant didn't work so well, think I need to try a couple more before he is mastered. He does have a cute tail though, I think. He is meant to have eyes too, but I gave up on him before then - he can be a toy for our puppy. Poor little fella.

I'm a snapdragon

"Mischief is your middle name, but your first is friend. You are quite the prankster that loves to make other people laugh."

I am a Snapdragon What Flower Are You?

Framed

I picked my pictures up from the framers tonight. I love them!


Now I just need a new house to hang them in... 12 months and counting.

Baking

I'm using work to test out recipes for the cafe these days. Works for me and no one there seems to be complaining too much either.

Today's samples were spiced apple muffins and white chocolate cake. Both went down pretty well I think and I got to use these pretty muffin papers that I've been saving for decent enough occassion. The papers were a bit too big for the tray I have though, so now I need a bigger tray - then I'll be able to fill them up properly and get some proper cafe sized muffins going.




The white chocolate cake is another Donna Hay recipe and I actually made this cake for my little brother's wedding a couple of years ago. This cake is so buttery and chocolately that when it's cooking the edge caramalises a little bit almost like a crust, you only need a little slice! I wish I could get the icing more white but there is a fair bit of butter in it so I need to find some whiter butter.

New Month = New Magazines

I got my new Donna Hay magazine in the mail today. I love this magazine. This edition has lots of yummy winter recipes in it, just in time too as Melbourne has got cold this week. Tomorrow is going to be 14 degrees max, so it will be perfect weather to try out one of the recipes - Braised borlotti beans with grilled polenta. Yum.

There is a beautiful story inspired by spoons in this edition also. I think my favourite might be this spoon shaped biscuit - such a simple idea, but it looks so good. I also have to try and make the Poached meringues with caramel custard - G is Chilean and reminisces about a desert his Dad used to make growing up and this looks a lot like what he describes. Although he calls it Leche Nevada.


I'm also noticing a bit of a navy blue/gray and lime theme going on with magazines lately...



I like it.

Pink and white

Seeing photos of peonies on lots of blogs from America reminded me of our wedding. We picked our wedding date based on when peonies are in season in Australia and everything else in our wedding had to match the flowers.

They are my favourite flower ever. Even our invitations and other stationery included them (and we had pink and white heart shaped sugar cubes to match)...

Found (at Mum and Dad's)

I come from a family of hoarders, we can't throw out anything. I'd love to be one of those clutter free people whose house has nothing on any of the surfaces - but it's never going to happen.

Every time I go back to Brisbane I have a bit of a poke around and find something that my Mum has saved from one of my Grandparents or her friend's Grandparents. This time it was this cute vintage book of evening games. I can just imagine having a bunch of friends over for dinner and selecting a few little games for some evening entertainment. I'm going to give it a go, I think.



I also raided Mum's craft stash and grabbed a couple of cute fabrics and some buttons. I love the label on the first one, it's my Grandmother's handwriting and she's a very neat and organised person. Who records the size and price of fabric?