Passionfruit Butter

Is ridiculously easy to make and tastes really good on scones. Why have I never made it before?

The Kite Runner

Wow this is a good book. Such a sad story.

I read this after seeing the movie though and I think it would be much better the other way around. Of course, the book has much more detail in it and more parts to the story but because I'd seen the movie I got a little impatient to get to the bits where I knew what was going to happen.

I think I may have liked reading A Thousand Splendid Suns a little bit more but that's hard to say too because I read that book in 3 days while on holidays and this book took me much longer to read in normal day to day life.

Definitely a book everyone should read though.

Now for the big decision - do I read the Friday Night Knitters Club or trashy Twilight next??

What a difference a nap makes

I've had the best day today, I actually got some stuff done!

I made soup for lunch - Moroccan Sweet Potato, Carrot and Chick Pea, quite yummy really. The recipe is from here, I found it after buying a couple of massive sweet potatoes the other day for 69c/kilo, so cheap.


Matilda also enjoyed some for lunch.


I made some passionfruit butter from some passionfruits Matilda collected with Grandma in her back yard. This is for mother's group tomorrow with some fresh scones I think.

I started and nearly finished making set of cot sheets for Matilda.

And I even got all the dishes done, a couple of loads of laundry and we ate dinner before 8pm!

All of this because the little munchkin had a sleep today for nearly 3 hours... so amazing. I can't imagine how much I'd get done if this was a regular occurrence.

Fingers crossed for tomorrow (but I'm not getting my hopes up, Matilda is normally a 2 x 45min naps/day kinda gal).

The Hallway

When we moved into this house I wasn't going to hang up any pictures until we had it painted. But we've decided to get the house painted professionally and I am not sure how long it will take us to save up the money so I couldn't wait any longer. I figure they can just paint over the picture hooks anyway.

So this is our upstairs hallway without pictures...


And now it's our family photo wall (although most of the frames are still empty, still working on that)...



You'll have to excuse the bad photos, it was very overcast here today.

I can't wait until it's all nice and white!

Tumblr

I've started using Tumblr. I decided mainly use it because I think it will work better than the millions of bookmarks I save when I see something I like but then never look back through. Here's a link to my page. I think that's enough technology for me though - this blog, tumblr and flickr - more than enough.

I've tried Twitter but I don't really get it so I'm going to give up on that one, who wants to hear about what I'm doing that often anyway? Plus with Matilda I only get stolen little moments on the computer these days, and night times when I'm not falling asleep myself.

I suppose I do use Facebook too, but that's more to check out the photos of all the cool places my friends living overseas are visiting while I settle into suburban life with a bubba :)

I don't know how people keep up with all of this stuff?

Little Drummer Boy

Because of the crazy weather we've been having up here Matilda and I planned to spend the entire day at home today - no errands, no shopping no getting out of our pajamas. It is so nice to spend a day like this every now and then. And because I could hand out no washing in the rain + the house isn't too untidy + Matilda had 2 day time naps I finally made something again.

Admittedly, all I had to do was cut out the fabric, sew around the edge and stuff him but still I did it and I love him. I had bought the panel of Kristen Doran fabric at the Stitches & Craft show intending to make a little toy for a new baby in Melbourne and now I can finally send him on his way.


I also managed to get our kitchen table nice and tidy so my flowers look pretty rather than just part of the clutter.

Sunday Brunch

It was one of my cousin's birthday's on Sunday and her partner is in Dubai and her parents were also away so we had a little celebration over Sunday Brunch.

Which of course requires a little decoration.


And setting the table up prettily.


It didn't look quite so pretty once everyone got there and started to bring the food out.


We had soooooo much food...
Bacon, eggs and garlic mushrooms
Pancetta and goats cheese tarts
French toast with spiced pears and vanilla yoghurt (recipe from here, they were so yummy and easy to make)
Lots of beautiful fruit
Apple & Cinnamon muffins
and, Berry Teacake


It was such a nice relaxing way to spend Sunday morning. I love brunch.

The tragic tale of Crochet and I

Not long after starting this blog, I decided that I wanted to learn how to crochet. I bought all the books, taught myself a few basics and picked a pattern. I decided to try and make a pair of crocheted baby bootees for one of my cousins who was about to have a baby girl.

They didn't work out. My stitches got so tight that I could no longer get my hook in so as to continue. The little girl was born and then got too old for bootees so the idea got shelved.

By next winter I had another pregnant friend so I thought we'd give it another go. Failed.
We went away for the Easter Long weekend. I thought it might be nice to crochet a throw rug. Failed.
I got pregnant, found out I was having a girl, tried the bootees again. Got further, but still Failed.
Thought maybe another rug would be easier. Failed.
Now I have a bag of sad crocheted bits of tortured wool.


You see the pattern? My half trebles and double crochets all seem the same. Everything gets way too tight. I lose count, actually I don't even know if I'm counting the right thing. But I WANT TO CROCHET!!

Then, June's Better Homes & Garden has a nice pattern for a rug made from crocheted flowers (I'm actually not sure about the rug bit, but as a throw blanket for the bottom of a little girl's bed I thought it would be cute) and my Aunty showed it to me and told me she was going to start it at our next craft night. Perfect, I thought. We can turn craft night into a crochet lesson and everyone can crochet a flower.

So the table was set. We had blankets that had been made by our grandmas and great aunties lined up for inspiration (well, mainly warmth) and there were a few people there who actually do know how to crochet.



Most people did pretty well, my Aunty with the magazine is full steam ahead (I'll have to show you a photo of her flowers - yes plural! next time). Me on the other hand, I need remedial classes. This is how far I got. I guess it's kind of looking flowerish. It has remained untouched since craft night, 2 weeks ago now. My mum even had to do the first bit for me because I couldn't understand it.


I am not deterred though, I will crochet.

At least we had a nice meal, cooking I can do.


(White wine risotto cake with smoked chicken from a Women's Weekly cookbook, The New Classics I think)

Hello Blog

I've missed you.

And now that camera is home, I'm making a come-back.

Tonight

We've got the camera back from being repaired (finally!!) and Eurovision semi-finals are on tv. I'm going to make a hopefully nice dinner from my new cookbook (mother's day) and it's cold enough to wear good pjs. Does it get any better?

Long weekend lunches

I'm feeling very full and lazy. The long weekend this week to for Labor day provided the perfect excuse to invite some friends around for lunch and try out some recipes in my Movida cookbook which I got for Christmas and still hadn't got around to using.

We ate garlic prawns with chorizo for starters (not from the cookbook). Then Pyrenees lamb with white wine and paprika sauce, salted potatoes and spiced carrot salad with fennel seed, oregano and mint.

And to finish it all off, churros with chocolate. Of course.

Now we're all very full and can't move off the couch for the rest of the day, the dishes may have to wait a while.

I love long weekends.

My Kitchen Cupboard

Right next to our kitchen is a cupboard that I am not sure what it's intended purpose was. I think it is probably meant for airing clothes etc (it's also right next to our European style laundry) but I have been using it to store baking stuff since I don't have enough room in our real kitchen cupboards.

The milk crates weren't really working out for me so after a trip to Ikea my kitchen cupboard is now a usable extra bit of space for all my baking stuff.

You can see how close it really is to the kitchen so I think this will work out ok. I'm so pleased that now at least all this stuff has a spot to be put 'away' once the washing up is done.

We covered the top of the trolley with some oilcloth from Funky Fabrix so I'll be able to wipe it over after it's been used.

It's nice to actually get a project finished on a weekend for once, I've been meaning to do this for awhile now but Sunday night always seems to come around too quickly!

And we still have tomorrow off (yay!) to get some more stuff done around here or maybe just cook a nice lunch and enjoy it with a few friends/family.

I love long weekends.

Rachel Castle

I love this artwork from Rachel Castle. Such a simple idea but really beautiful.

I love the colours.

Images are from the website.

Stitches & Craft

We visited the Stitches and Craft show yesterday, unfortunately we only had a little bit of time though so I didn't get to watch Handmade Nation or do any of the workshops but I was able to spend. I am pretty good at spending.

I bought a few cute fabrics from Amitie, I have no idea what for but it's fun to be able to buy 'for real' rather than online every now and then.

I also picked up a drummer boy panel from Kristen of Cheeky Beaks. I'm going to turn one of these into a toy for a little boy in Melbourne.

Next, some fat quarters from Ink & Spindle. I even said hi to Lara, I was pretty pleased with myself for doing this because I am not really a chatty person. Well done me :)

And then to finish off my spending frenzy, some wool stuffing and a really cute little make your own deer family kit from Winterwood.

Oh and the June Real Living magazine, for $3.50.. bargain.

Hopefully during the long weekend I might get some time for a little bit of sewing. Hope G doesn't really have any plans, because I have baby sitting duty lined up for him :) I've already mucked around this week redesigning my blog so I can't procrastinate much more surely.