Weekend Wonders - In preparation #2

Another weekend has flown by...

It was wonderful to attend the first birthday party of a special little girl. Her mum was extremely organised and creative! She had colour coordinated everything beautifully - decorations, glasses, plates - with pink and white. She made gorgeous pink and white tissue paper pom poms to decorate the party room. The party food was an array of home made cakes, sweets and savouries, complete with an exquisite cake. Craftiness at its best!

I, too, have been busy baking for an upcoming holiday. I tried combining 'goodies' and 'decadence' with some form of healthiness. Therefore I made some chocolate cupcakes that used ground nuts as the 'flour' and honey as the sweetener. Mr T and I tried some last night and were not very taken with them. Not to be beaten, today I made some chocolate brownies that had ground nuts as the 'flour', real dark chocolate and rapadura to add sweetness. Mr T and I had some after lunch and were a hit! Hence, I made another batch. I have a big container full to put in the freezer in readiness. If you are interested in the recipe, click here. I follow 'Quirky Cooking's' blog as her recipes are healthy (and I also have a Thermomix). Her recipes are also delicious!

I did do some craft. On Friday night, I managed to sew all the limbs onto my newest set of dolls and I have started to stitch around the girl. Getting closer to stuffing! I also visited my local craft store and bought quite a bit of tulle fabric. I spent a little time rolling it up in readiness for my newest project. I hope to do more tonight after I have finished some prep work for work tomorrow.

I hope that you had a lovely weekend!

Wonderful Wednesday - Time to eat

I've had one of those weeks that has been busier than usual. When things 'busy' up, it is more convenient to take short cuts, particularly with food, hence the takeaway containers seem to pile up.

One good point is that tonight we met up with some friends that we haven't caught up with for ages and shared a very yummy meal with them. Food for the body and food for the heart, rekindling friendships and sharing memories.

Therefore, this week, I thought that I would pick some food oriented inspiration...

Chocolate heart earrings by 'Rainbow Lollies'

This is where I wish that I had pierced ears. These chocolate heart earrings look so realistic and delicious. They would make a perfect gift for a friend (or treat yourself).

Kids Meal Soaps by 'Bubble Lane'

Believe it or not, this meal is actually made out of soap. 'Bubble Lane' make the most realistic soaps concerning food including cakes, biscuits, donuts... but they also make other items including lego, pebbles, teddies... you name it!

Tea towel by 'Kookery'

After doing a bit of browsing on Madeit, I came across 'Kookery'. This sounds like a great shop if you have a passion for cooking and linen. 'Kookery' has simple but gorgeous images and quotes on their tea towels. This tea towel particularly took my fancy, as no-one can have too much ice-cream! I will keep this store in mind for the 'foodie' lovers that I know.

I hope these items inspire your gift giving and creativity!

Weekend Wonders - Relaxing, Chatting and Munching

It is nice to sit down and relax for a bit...

After a few weeks that were very busy with work, I decided to have a weekend where I could relax and catch up on a few things...one of them being my craft! I managed to finish of my latest little doll. He is such a cutie. I plan to show him off with some photos posted of him tomorrow. He is also one half of my design. I started cutting out the pieces for his crime fighting partner and hope to get some more stitching done tonight.

It was also lovely to catch up with friends that are part of my Bible study group. We had an 'Indonesian Night' - cooking up some Indonesian inspired food and sharing a meal together. It was delicious and it was great to chat the night away! My contribution was some 'Mie Goreng' (Fried Noodles). Mr T and I spent a few weeks over in Indonesia a couple of years ago and this is one of the dishes that I lived off of, as I am vegetarian. My version was quite tasty, but not exactly like how they make it in Indonesia. I also have a problem that when I cook a noodle dish and try and mix the noodles with the vegetables, my noodles end up in one big clump. I tried very hard to disperse the noodles and the vegetables evenly.

Even though it has been rather cold and wet this weekend, I managed to get outside for a little bit to plant some crysthanimum plants that were given to me. I also tried to tidy the veggie patch a little by pulling a few weeds. The weeds seem to love the cooler weather and grow like mad. It is an effort to keep up with the weeding.

I hope that you all had a lovely weekend!

Friday Thoughts - Traffic Light Cakes

I feel very blessed to live where I do...

I live in a regional centre in Southern Australia. It has all the shops that you need. I can drive from one side to the other in around 10-15 minutes, compared to some cities where it can take an hour or so to cross the city. Some people may argue that the weather here gets rather wet and cold over the Winter...but I love it. We end up getting a beautiful mild Summer, as opposed to the searing heat that I grew up with.

This week, the children that I work with and myself have been focusing on what makes up our community. We had a 'fun day' during the week, where the children dressed up as someone who works in the community. There were quite a few doctors, a police officer, a waitress, a forestry worker, a transport inspector, just to name a few. We also made some 'Traffic Light Cakes'.

What is needed:

• sponge cake
• icing sugar
• baking cocoa
• colourful candy coated chocolate buttons (I picked out red, orange and green coloured buttons)
• popsticks

What to do:

• Cut the sponge cake into rectangles. We cut ours into rectangles approximately 8cm x 5cm (adult supervision is required for this step).
• Mix around 2 cups of icing sugar with 1/4 cup of cocoa with enough warm water to make an icing paste that can be easily spread on the rectangles of cake.
• Place one red, one orange and one green button on top of the icing.
• Insert a popstick into one of the short sides of the rectangle for the 'post' of the traffic light. Note: the popstick is not a handle as the cake may fall off.
• The 'traffic light' is now complete.

The children loved making these and this activity is quite easy for five year old children to do. They can spread the icing, add the buttons and insert the popstick.

Yum, yum! Have a lovely weekend!

Friday thoughts - Tomato sauce

As I didn't have to work on Wednesday, I put the day to good use by catching up on a few 'home' jobs. One such job was making tomato sauce. We like to have home-made sauce instead of shop bought as a condiment to a few of our meals. The latest stash was getting a little low, hence, out came the stock pot and away I went!

We bought saucing roma tomatoes a couple of months ago and I weighed them out into 3kg lots and placed them in the chest freezer (in large snaplock bags), ready for such a moment. I've used frozen tomatoes before, placed them straight into the pot, cranked up the heat and let them thaw and cook down. There is a little more juice, you just need to be prepared to cook the sauce a little more. Cook the sauce on a day that you are at home, pottering around the house, as it does take some time.

Here is the recipe, if you are interested. The recipe is sourced from a book of recipes that were collated from a church ladies guild. Unfortunately, the original creator of this recipe is unknown and I cannot give them credit. I've tweaked it a little to suit my tastes...

Ingredients:

• 6kg ripe tomatoes
• 4 large apples, peeled and chopped
• 2 large onions, peeled and diced
• 5 cups sugar
• 4 cups white vinegar
• 4 tsps salt
• 1 tsp ground cloves
• 1 tsp allspice
• 1/2 tsp curry powder
• 1/4 tsp garlic powder
• 1/4 tsp black pepper

Method:

In a large pot, place the frozen tomatoes in and let them cook down (I use a high heat, but once the mixture starts to boil, turn down to low/medium heat). Once cooked down add the apples and onions. If not using frozen tomatoes, place them in a large pot with the apples and onions. Cook until soft. I then get out my stick blender and blend it until there are no more chunky bits. If you are a sauce connoisseur, you could put the mixture through a food mill or sieve to get rid of the seeds. Take the pot off of the stove and add the remaining ingredients, making sure that the sugar is last and well stirred through. Place back on the stove and cook for at least 3 hours or until the sauce is to a desired consistency (it should be starting to thicken up). Pour into clean, sterilised bottles/jars. I 'water bath' the jars for 12 minutes to seal and extra sterilise everything.

Do you have any favourite recipes?

Have a great weekend!

Weekend Wonders - Stepping into the kitchen

I'm back... sorry I have neglected my blog over the last week, but it was rather busy and I quickly ran out of energy for anything.

Thank goodness for weekends to have a bit of catch up time and rest and relaxation. For us, we even had an extra hour of sleep as Daylight saving ended and we had to wind our clocks back an hour, recapturing a precious hour.

I spent time this weekend finishing off 'Leah' (she is now in my MadeIt store if you want a sneak peak, but I will be posting her on my blog tomorrow) and I have begun a little Easter project to give to a special someone this weekend. I hope to show a finished photo on Wednesday.

I also spent some time baking on Saturday. It was all a bit of a spur of the moment thing...I checked up on my blogs Saturday morning and found this yummy looking truffle recipe. As Easter is closing in quite quickly, I thought that these would make nice Easter gifts. So I gathered all the ingredients together and set to work. Mr T was quite happy as he hasn't had the job of 'cleaning up' (ie eating any little bit of mixture left on spoons or in the bowl) in a long while (lots of ingredients on the 'do not eat' list).

A little fiddly and messy, and not very professional looking, however, very delicious!!

Whatever you did this weekend, I hope it was relaxing and enjoyable!