Berries....

My new garden at Lorea House has provided a few lovely little surprises.  Berries being an especially delicious one!

One of the first jobs I completed when I started tidying the garden was to remove an awful weed mat type product from around the strawberry patch. Underneath I found hundreds of snails. Oh yuk!!

A big tidy up and a big dose of sugar cane mulch and a drink of liquid thrive and my strawberries took off. Big lush healthy plants.  Flowers followed and then of course the best part. Strawberries!  So many strawberries. At the moment there's a big bag full waiting in the freezer that I will make jam with soon.

The other berries have been a little bit of a mystery to me. I really haven't had a clue!  But I'm told they are Boysonberries. Whatever they are, they are certainly delicious. 

How delicious they have been.  On pancakes with the strawberries with maple syrup. With yoghurt and a little granola sprinkled on top but my favourite, on a little pavlova nest with some beautiful fresh cream!  Heaven!

Berries are something I've never experimented with before in the garden but I must say it's been worth dealing the the spiky canes to enjoy the delicious fruit. 

What a lovely thing it is to enjoy fresh berries right from my own sweet garden.  

Oranges in Springtime ..... And a little Marmalade

  

I finally picked the oranges!  What a harvest it was.

Beautiful sweet, juicy oranges.  Right at my back door.

I doubled the recipe which called for 1kg of oranges.  Hmmm, that took care of three of these large beauties!

The need for four cups of orange juice took care of a lot as well.

Sixteen beautiful bottles of orange marmalade.

I also boiled some of the oranges and pureed them ready for the freezer for future use to make Orange and Almond Cakes.  Five of them!  

What a wonderful morning of finally enjoying my little home.  I just love to create and I think that making jam can safely come into the category of creating. 

To grow produce and use it is a most satisfying feeling.  I just love it.

Not only to be able to use my own produce in my own home, but to be able to share it with family and friends is truly something that I enjoy.

This part of my life is certainly nothing new to me.  I have lived my whole life watching the women of my family make and bake not only for our immediate family but to share with the community in which we live.  Whether it was our immediate family, our neighbours or our extended community in which we lived.

I feel truly blessed to have been part of this wonderful experience of learning from my Mother and my Grandmothers. The gift of giving of ourselves however large or small the gift, whether it is a physical gift or just a thought, to be able to be a blessing to others is truly something wonderful we can share.

I will hopefully continue to share myself with others through my creating. 

With Spring finally here comes the promise of a new crop of beautiful oranges.

My garden smells delightful!

Pink Custard Kisses....

Oh my, this heat wave is unbearable.  I am so thankful for my air conditioning in extreme weather such as this.

It is so very quiet here today, so a little baking filled my morning. 

Mr Buble and I in the kitchen.

Kisses....        With love.....

 

Don't forget my little giveaway in the last post - at the moment there's one entered.  Lucky lady if she gets all three!!!  Draw in a few days.

For the love of Vintage.....

 

I've been on the hunt again.  A little spare time on my way home and I find myself finding my favourite vintage treasure shops.

 

I have had to put my love of old and interesting bits and bobs on hold while our budget was so tight.  Thankfully, we are blessed with a little more in our budget through our newest work venture.

 

 

 

This little grouping is particularly lovely.  Two beautiful handworked pillow cases and a wonderful small table cloth.

 

I love to wonder at those whose hands have worked these beautiful items.  How does anyone part with them.

 

 

 Stunning hand crochet edging and tiny, weeny stitches.  So much love and thought. 

 

 

 

My fascination with hand towels continues - I must count them one day - or maybe not!!

 

I was on a mission for more - the ones above have been saved, too precious to cut up - only the raggy ones get cut and made into something else.

 

Old linens are a little hard to find where I live and so I continue to look and hope.

 

I did find some lovely ones in a condition not really worth saving and have had a lovely time creating once more. 

 

It was wonderful to be in my sewing room and just creating.  Yes, some late nights but oh so worth it.  You see, I am taking part in a market in a couple of weeks.  We are doing a joint stall with our bakery.  Beautiful Christmas food - cakes and puddings, white Christmas, rum balls, apricot balls and of course we will do some macarons. 

 

 

 

Three years between markets for Eleanor and Ruby.  I am quite looking forward to it.  However, the unknown side is a little daunting - maybe it will all come home with me!!

 

 

 

 Bracelets made with buttons made with vintage stitching.

 

 

Vintage stitched magnets.

 

 

 

Pushpins (thumbtacks) for the notice board.

 

 

 

Now to just get the next idea on the go - all in amongst the Christmas cake making!

End of Year Harvest.........

Where to begin with the happenings of the past weeks.  I haven't updated here for weeks - school finished, dance concert over for another (the 10th) year and Christmas has been and gone.

I am now on a 10 day break from work - less than a week left now unfortunately. 

 Christmas was a lovely time shared with family.  It went on for a week!  Busy but lovely - tired now!  I am so enjoying my time at home.  Not achieving anything really - but lovely nonetheless. 

Today I felt as though I am starting to surface - but not enough to have achieved any more than the drudgery of catching up and doing housework - I long for some time for me.

Today I spent a little time picking some lovely veges from my Potager - I then prepared them for the freezer.  So lovely to have some home grown back in the freezer.  My lovely trug was a gift from my Mum & Dad - I don't think anyone "got" it at all - too bad - I love it!

I cut our Christmas cake for morning tea- it was very enjoyable!

The year is almost at an end - I almost feel as though I need to do a catch up post to document some very important family occasions this year - maybe I will get that done in the next few days.

I hope my friends have all enjoyed a lovely Christmas time. 

I'm hoping for a much more enjoyable 2012 - but I somehow don't see it happening!

Christmas Cake...........

It is just so hard to believe the first week of November is almost over.  The year has flown.  I guess changing jobs a few times did not help..........all settled now - thank goodness.

Mitchell has just two weeks of school left.  I can't believe that either.  But I think after 15 years of formal education he certainly deserves to be finished.  It is exciting for him to be finishing off his Apprenticeship in a full time position next year.

Mixed fruit was on special at the supermarket, so I actually got organised and purchased the ingredients required to make some Christmas cakes.

I was going to leave it for a couple of weeks, but today was free to be at home so I decided to make a start.

I just love making rich fruit cakes.

It is just out after four hours in  the oven and the house smells wonderful.  My cake looks great. 

Looking forward to more Christmas cakes! 

Lemon Meringue Pie...........

Life is just so busy right now and has been for a long time.  I guess we all are.  The weekends are mostly a blur of cleaning and washing and food for me and I guess most families.  I just want some time to be me.

So today after all the beds had been stripped and all the towels changed and the clothes line full to the brim with probably another full line tomorrow and the bathrooms were cleaned and the house vacumed.........

I made a pie.  A lemon meringue pie with eggs and lemons from my garden.  It was delicious.

This followed some beautiful steak which Mitchell had marinated this afternoon and then cooked on the barbeque.  What a delicious meal to end the day with.



This week Masterchef winner Julie Goodwin came to our town.  Cameron was there to film the story for the news and got to meet her.  Cameron bought her newest cookbook and had it signed for me.  It is a really lovely book.  Cameron was very impressed with what a lovely lady Julie is. 

Thank you to my two lovely boys for a couple of bright spots this week.

Pasta fun...........

A new toy in the kitchen for us.  A pasta machine.  We so enjoyed making our own pasta.  It was delicious.

Can't wait to play again. 

The Carnival.......a project by Mitchell & Amie

My middle son, Mitchell is in his Senior year at High School and studying Hospitality as a subject. He is already studying to be a baker through a school based apprenticeship. Mitchell teamed up with his friend Amie and together they had to create a table centre piece focusing on sweet food for part of their assessment for this year.

They chose the theme "Carnival". 

Persian Fairy Floss - yum

Funny little clowns

Two stands full of fun cupcakes..........



Popcorn and bunting...........



A wonderful carnival centrepiece.  I am so proud of them.  All the hard work paid off.  Not bad for two 17 year olds.

Another weekend...........

Another weekend has disappeared.  Not fair.  I would like it to go for at least another two days I think.

It's Eistedfodd time of year, which adds more to an already busy life.  It is lovely though to see the children perform.  Another night to go tomorrow night. 

In between kids and washing and groceries and food I had a busy time in the garden this weekend.

10 punnets of foxgloves together with some other assorted lovelies and 320 bulbs were planted.  Oh my aching back!  But, so worth it for the beautiful Spring garden I will have.  A couple more weeks and we will plant up some pots. 

The vege patch is quite lovely at the moment with cabbage, beetroot, broccli, cauliflower, lettuce, spring onions, assorted herbs, spinach and some late tomatoes (which are very slow in ripening).

I really enjoyed preparing some yummy food today, quiche for lunch made with eggs, spring onion, parsely and tomatoes all from our own garden! 

Pizza for tea - I love making yeast raised pizza dough - it was delicious too. 

I can't believe it is Sunday night already - that weekend passed all too quickly.

Oh to have some more time to potter in my garden.

Marmalade and more..........

Last weekend I had the most wonderful time in the kitchen!!  As you can see above I picked from the vegetable garden spinach, spring onions and chinese cabbage.  These were turned into some very yummy spring rolls and also spinach and feta triangles. 

I was also able to pick the very large harvest of five oranges from our tree.  They are never very sweet so it was the exact measurement for a batch of marmalade.  I am so pleased with how it turned out.  It of course looks wonderful in some recycled Bon Maman jam jars.  I got seven jars altogether. 

Unfortunately, this weekend hasn't been as productive in the kitchen as I have had a large amount of laundry to wade through due to a damp and drizzly few days this week. 

Off to raid the freezer now for some Spring Rolls and Spinach & Feta Triangles for our dinner tonight.

Pesto.........

Basil from my garden........

Made into

Pesto........

I have been wanting to make some Pesto for so long. 

So long, in face that my first crop of Basil had well and truly run up to seed and was finished. 

I planted a new crop a few weeks ago and it has grown beautifully.

I've had a lovely time in the kitchen this weekend.  I helped my sister-in-law with food for a party and have stocked the cake containers here for my family.

Off to stitch some now, I think.......