A Morning Cooking

I took my grand daughter Jasmine and her friend Lotte to have a hamburger after school and then drove them home.  By the time I did all this I was late for the ferry home and by that time in the afternoon all the parking has been taken.  (Even though I have a disability parking sticker there is nothing.)  This meant parking near a bus stop and catching a bus to the ferry and the buses only run every hour so I didn't want to miss it.  In the rush I left my phone in my car, that meant another trip over to the mainland the next day to get it.  

The morning was wrecked so I decided to cook.  I normally cook a large amount and freeze what I don't eat straight away.  On impulse I bought some one serve Dutch Oven pots at Aldi.  They were cheap and I am always looking for this size pot.  I have to say they are great. As I am visiting my son tonight I have our dinner plus 4 other meals for me.  (I also did a big pot of mince in a tomato sauce, mince on toast, spaghetti and sauce, Lasagne.)

As I was in the mood to cook I picked the end of the lemon crop.  I only have the one tree that I have grown in a pot but I always get a good crop.  This is right at the end of the season and I didn't want to throw them away, so, Mary's Lemon Butter, (lemon curd).  (if you have an induction microwave, which has higher heats than the one used in this recipe you may have to play around with the timing in the microwave.)

I will never eat all this myself so I have some for my friends.

I am so relaxed by all this activity that I think I can go back and fight with the computers!

Xmas Holidays

The island is starting to fill up with visitors.  Holiday home residents are returning for the Xmas break, including our neighbours.

Our next door neighbour is the inventor of cyrovacing and always brings us a ham for Xmas, including this one.  I have prepared the ham bag, as this usually lasts right up to and including the holidays.

But it looks so delicious I had to make a sandwich straight away.

And it looks so much nicer with a garnish.

But from experience, I know we will be 'over' ham sandwiches by the time Xmas comes.

It is Lemon Butter time again.

This has been a great year for lemons and everyone's trees have been heavy with fruit, so it's time to make "Lemon Butter" again. ( I wrote a post about this back in 2014.)

 

I am still using Mary's recipe, with a couple of changes.  This is because I have a new microwave which has a higher voltage  (I reduce the 3X 30 second wizzes at the end to 25 secs.)

I also remembered my grandmother's pastry tartlets and have been making lots of pastry cases.

I used the old recipe for the pastry.

Shortcrust Pastry

1 cup Plain flour

1 cup Self Raising flour

250g (real) butter

2 tablespoons of icing sugar.

1/3rd cup cold water

Method

 Sift flours and icing sugar

cut the butter into the flour

Rub in until it looks like breadcrumbs

Mix in water with a knife until the mixture hold together.

(you may need a little extra water here.)

Turn onto a floured surface and knead lightly.

Cover with Glad Wrap and place in the fridge for about 30 mins.

Roll out on a floured surface to size required.

Cut with a metal cutter.  (an egg ring is just the right size.)

Bake in a moderate oven for about 15 mins.

 

I found that I liked a very thin pastry.  This just melted in the mouth.

Every time I make these I think of my Grandmother.  I loved both of my Grandmothers so much.

 

Bright fabric

I was looking for bright fabric to use to make a gift and came upon this Kafe Fassett designed fabric in my stash.  It was called 'Artisan'.  Heaven knows why I bought it, I think it was on sale.

I know I bought it from a quilting shop but it wasn't really suitable for quilting, would have been better to make clothing with but I didn't buy enough metreage.  I have used it to make an exchange gift for a member of my quilting group.

We were given a list of patterns we would like to have made up as our gift and were asked to select one.  This list was then mixed up and we were given another members name and were asked to make what they had selected.  I was given this pattern to make up for a member I know loves orange and bright colours, hence the search in my stash.

I have changed the pattern slightly by adding a thicker and softer interfacing.  Reason?  Well I think it could also be used to store jewelry and for that you need a bit thicker wadding and I didn't think she would use it as a sewing equipment holder and when I gave it to her she agreed.

I just had to work out how to attach the brightly coloured clip that holds the cover together.  I bought a set of plastic clips and a tool to attach them but I just couldn't get them to work.  I had to do it a few times but I finally got there.  This is going to be a useful tool actually and the clips are very strong much stronger than I had thought.  I will be using them instead of the 'sew on' ones in future for this kind of project.

Only three functions this week, as if that isn't enough! At our quilting group we got hit with this horrendous storm.  We could see it building up over the city in the distance and were hoping it would head south.

It just seemed to intensify.

Still, we were all set up on the verandahs and one of our members had stitched bunting with each of our names on them.

Because of COVID we self catered with some of our members doing the cooking, which was delicious.

We had a visit from one of Santa's Elves who was actually my God-son's boy Leo. ( Leo has MS so we all raise money for research into this disease.)

Then the heavens opened and this fierce storm descended on us and we had to beat a retreat inside.  Little did we know, but only a short distance away, at the Hungry Jacks Take-away, which in right in the centre of all the shops where we all had been at some time, a car was washed away from the parking area and a women drowned. This creek also ran through the playground of a school where I taught.   It is just something you don't expect to happen at the local shopping centre and there are many other shopping centres who's car parks border creeks.  I'm afraid that this has shaken me.  I will be very careful in all storms now.

 

 

WIPW

The race is on to get all the gifts sewn for the various groups I belong to.  First will be my quilting group, 25 members here.

Book marks, these take time to make but are good small gifts.  (Here is the link to the pattern.)

Lots of Jam all ready to go.

Drawstring bags.  All made from fabric I bought from the Embroiderers' Guilds, secondhand rose, sale table to put the jam jars in.

I have nearly got these all finished.

I have held on this ribbon for 30 years because I liked it so much.  Time to use it.

And I need to put a clip on this bag.

 

But I have written all the cards to go with the gifts, all 25 of them.

I want all this finished by tomorrow.   I have another  couple of lots to finish for next weeks celebrations as well, but this is the big group and I have another week to finish the rest.

A great cake

I tasted this cake the last time I visited my friend Angela when I was in Toowoomba.  It is delicious.  So, I decided to make it for Maberly Quilters last week when I was on supper.  The great thing about it is that it is gluten free, so all my family can eat it and it is just so good.

The recipe can be found on the CSR website but there are a couple of modifications.  Instead of 2 oranges I used 3 seedless mandarins.  These I boiled 3 times but still found them a little bitter so added extra caster sugar until they were sweet enought.  Because I didn't want to carry a big cake all the way into town I made 4 small cakes which I cooked for about 30 minutes.

Served with a big dollop cream it is delicious.  (I can't stop saying that word.)  But be aware it is also moorish so just one slice is enough at morning tea.  Then you can have another for afternoon tea!

One step back

Two Steps forward one backwards.

The story of my life at the moment.  We had visitors, I did too much, I ended up in bed again and am still recovering.  But I am recovering.

I put together the flyer of the next Children's Class today.  I have sent it off to be  given the OK but I think this will be fine. "embroidery inspired by ethnic designs".

The two designs look nothing alike but they are both based on the Indian 'first mark' design, which is what the Paisley and all those other designs are inspired by.

And aren't the flowers wonderful?  The garden is just blooming at the moment.

The Brazilian Cheery Tree is loaded with fruit and the jams are mounting up.

Last Day

We are travelling home this afternoon and I must say that after the constant go, go, go I will be pleased to get on the plane.  Not that I haven't enjoyed my time here but the constant pressure of people in your face all the time is just getting to me.

I had breakfast at the tea house in the block arcade.  Only eggs on toast and a cup of tea.  I left all those delicious cakes in the cabinet.

Some people actually had cake for breakfast!

I now need to get home and process everything I have seen and done.

 

A bit steep!

My daughter borrowed my kayak and little while ago and took it down the track to the beach which is opposite our house. 

She said there were no problems getting it up and down the track.  So today I though I would try that instead of walking around the road to the barge ramp.  Bad mistake!!  The track is super steep and the local kids have set it up to ride their bikes down so they can attempt to kill themselves.

I wanted to go to the beach this way because I knew I was going to have trouble getting in and out of the kayak and I didn't want people laughing at me.  As it was there was an old boatie who has pulled his boat up on the beach to clean the bottom.  He nearly fell off his boat laughing at me.  I just couldn't get it up the hill and in the end it took 2 of us to get it home.  I will never believe my daughter again when it comes to physical challenges.  Easy for her difficult for me.

I also have been out to lunch with my old teaching buddies.  They served the most beautiful dessert.  It was a Pavlova to share.

This is going to be on the Christmas menu.

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Labor Day Holiday

We have a holiday today so I am doing some cooking and freezing food so that if I don't feel like cooking I don't have to. I have made a big pot of broth.  As I was making it I got to thinking about it's history.   I know that it has been cooked by women in the family for 4 generations and I suppose it might go back further than that.  My Grandmother used to call it "Mutton Broth", but you can't buy mutton any more so it now has to be "Lamb Broth" .

I usually set aside a weekend to make this soup.  I start with about 1kg of neck of lamb chops and use these to make a stock and keep the meat to go through the soup.   (I slowly steam the meat off the bones and then bake the bone to make the stock.)

Next day I finely chop a variety of root vegetable. All on the large size, including onion, turnip, parsnip, swede, 2 carrots and 2 celery sticks.  I add this to the meat and 4 to 6 litres of stock, depending on how much vegetable there is.  Then I add 1/2 cup of pearl barley, salt pepper and Worstershire sauce  and cook on a very low heat for a couple of hours.  As this is a cooking day I will usually bake some fresh bread, but suddenly I am starting to have problems with gluten.   I have had to reduce the amount of yeast bread I eat.

So I bought some of that gluten free bread that tastes like cardboard.  I froze it ,buttered both sides of the bread and cut it up into croutons and baked them in the oven until golden brown.  They taste great and are just right for the soup.

I wonder if my daughter will continue the tradition of this soup?

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