Day to Day

Doubling up - do you?

I've only recently discovered the joy of doubling my evening meal for left overs the following night.  I know.  Where have I been?

I can't believe I didn't catch onto this whole doubling up process a little earlier on, it's saving me hours in the kitchen.  Hours.  That's more crafting time, more family time, more fun time!

I'm not baking extra portions every single time I cook, but the other day I had a casserole jam packed with veggies simmering away in the slow cooker while our evening meal was cooking on the stove.  The next day I reheated the casserole and that was my evening meal done and dusted. Woot!

Last night I did a double batch of potato bake - hello tonight's potato.

I've been doubling up on cookies and cakes too - something for the tin and something for the freezer.  I'm feeling quite silly I didn't do this earlier in my 18 years of marriage.

The only down side is that on the day of baking there is sometimes extra washing up, but on the flip side there isn't much at all the following day.  That's a good thing when you don't have a dishwasher.

So tell me, do you double up on meals?  Do you make big batches of evening dishes and freeze some of these for later on?  Do share!

My Mother's Day..

My Mother's day went a little something like this:

8am wake up with two happy smiling faces, cuddles, handmade card and gift.

Home made pancakes for breakfast, cooked by the littlest in the family. Thank you Bella!

Rainy + cold kinda day = inside sofa snuggling.

Housework and cooking taken care of by the rest of the family.  So good!

Plenty of time to soak up my new book, which is full of amazing recipes I want to try.

Enjoying Tasmanian roast lamb and vegies for lunch. 

Watching these two battle it out in a car racing game, while I sat and crocheted.

Crochet.  Did I mention crochet?  There was a whole lot of granny stripe action going on.

Drinking far too much hot tea, just because everybody kept offering to make it for me.

Listening to the gentle clunkety-clank of the marble run.

Munching on meringues for dessert that Mr Goodsell baked - see why I love Mother's Day?!

More crochet. Yep.

Finishing off the day with a glass of wine.

Going to bed with that happy kind of feeling in the pit of my stomach.  It was a good day.

Happy, happy, happy

Yesterday I treated myself to a $12 bunch of carnations, then came home and set them up on our kitchen table, threw on a pretty tablecloth, baked a lemon meringue pie (the second this week!) and admired my new apple cosy that I crocheted the night before.

You know what? It felt so good too!  Sometimes it's easy to get caught up in the 'blah blah blah' of the world, but those carnations really set the scene for my day.

My fabulous vase was just a mason jar from the shed that I wrapped some string around to look all fancy schmancy, the doily was an op-shop find (50 cents), the tablecloth and placemats I sewed myself.  

You know what? I need to set the table up like this more often AND I'm so going to whip up some more placemats too.

If you would like to keep your own apples warm and cosy this winter, then the pattern can be found in issue one of Mollie Makes.  You know what else?  If you don't have issue one, then get your crochet skates on and hop over to the Mollie Makes website - because the issue is now available for electronic download, for FREEEEE! Yippee!

Did you do something this week that made you happy?

Honey cookie recipe

Yesterday I made lemon meringue pie and a double batch of honey cookies.  A few of you have asked for the honey cookie recipe, so here we go....

Ingredients:

• 90 grams butter
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 155 grams self raising flour
• a good heaped tablespoon honey

Method:

• Cream butter/sugar
• Add the flour and honey - mix well
• Form a ball with the dough (teaspoon full) on a cooking tray, press down with a fork
• Bake approximately 12 minutes in a moderate oven

I always do a double or triple batch! The original recipe came from my Mum and used homemade raspberry jam (instead of honey) but one day I was out of jam, so gave the honey a whirl. 

Enjoy.

 

 

Family day out - Agfest

We had a family day out on Friday, leaving home super early and driving to the north of state to visit Agfest.  There was lots to see - farm equipment, animals, local produce, caravans, craft and a mountain of mud on the ground to squish your gumboots through.

We came home laden with local organic honey (so, so good!), an owl beanie (for Bella) and a few other sweet treats for our tummies.

I could have watched these bees for hours - Mr Goodsell said we cannot have bees, or chooks in our back yard though.  Sigh. 

There were two highlights of the day - the first one was signing up for a Thermomix (yes, yes, yes!!) and the second was meeting the delightful Lauren and her Mum, who read my blog and were sweet enough to introduce themselves and say hello.  Girls, I didn't end up finding any wool to buy and I was beyond tired when we arrived home that night - I hope you both had a safe trip home too!!

I have been catching up on housework, cooking and doing a bit of needlepoint since we've been home.  It has been SO lovely to read that quite a few of you have been to Spotlight and picked up your own birdie needlepoint to do.  Go us and our needlepoints!!  I have been working on all of the dark teal bits on mine this week - the bird, leaves and outer edging.  I am nearly done and then hope to finish the stripes along the bottom. It's the slowest process in the world, but the quiet time has been nice.

Tomorrow I am going to bake a big old batch of honey cookies with my honey from Agfest.  Are you baking anything special this week? Do share...

Project Life catch up

I've been a bit naughty keeping my Project Life album up to date lately.  Actually I've been very naughty - when I pulled out the album a few days ago I had only completed up to week 8, which was at the end of February.  That's nearly 2 whole months of ignoring this project. Eeek!

The good news (for me) was that I had pretty much been slotting the photos each week into the Project Life page protectors, and that my friends was a life saver!  It made my catch up a lot easier and less daunting than it would have been if I had needed to print and sort out my photos before adding the journaling. 

The truth is that I'm finding this whole Project Life album a little tricky to keep up with.  I have to remember to take photos each week, I have to remember to print them, I have to remember some journaling for each week and then I have to put it all together in the page protector.  THEN the next week is upon me and it's the same cycle again.

The only saving grace is that every week the album is growing and it really is a beautiful keepsake to look back on.  A few times I've nearly thrown in the towel with it, but Mr Goodsell is insistent that I keep going - he really wants to see the album at the end of the year, all finished and ready to reminisce over.  So, I will continue to plod along! There's nothing quite like your family cheering you on with a project from the sidelines, it's a good feeling.

I think my main struggle has been because I try to squeeze in so many other craft projects each week and sometimes some of these things get squished right out of the playing circle.  With this project, I can't let it get squished out too often, otherwise the catch up is crazy!

How are you going with your Project Life? Still on the bandwagon?

Storing needlepoint threads

This is how I store my needlepoint threads:

Pretty cute hey?! I've had a packet of wooden dolly pegs in the cupboard for a while now but only had the brain wave to use them for my wool thread last night.

On a side note, one of my lovely readers (hi Jodii!!) just found all three of the needlepoint designs from this series in the clearance section at her local Spotlight, for just $20 each!! Bargain!!!

Joadii, you have some serious stitching ahead of you now...  

Needlepoint progress & details

I've been making a nice little dent in my needlepoint project over the weekend.  It's pretty slow going but I'm pleased with my progress so far.  This week I must stock up on a few more skeins to keep me going, as I'm running a little bit low on some colours.

A few people have asked about where I bought the project from and the details, so here we go:

• The needlepoint is called 'Perch Square Panel' by Leutenegger.
• It was around the $40 mark, without any thread.
• There seem to be two other designs in this series - a rectangular design like mine, with two birds and then a floral print called Buds & Berries.
• I bought it from a local art store, but lots of people have told me that it's available at Spotlight in Australia.

There are so many lovely tapestry designs around and I have a couple of favourites that I'd like to do if when I finish this one.  I'm not sure yet if this will be framed or turned it into a pillow, I'll have to decide that when I'm a bit further through the project.

Around the home

Yesterday afternoon I called into the local DVD store and picked up two movies, came home and made apple pie and then pulled out my tapestry from the cupboard ready for some evening craft time.

I put on my pyjamas, warm ugg boots, ate apple pie and snuggled on the sofa for a night of movies and stitching.  

Today I went back to the DVD store and hired another movie.  After dinner tonight I'm going to repeat the same sequence - pyjama snuggling, warm leftover apple pie and tapestry on the sofa.

I think sometimes it's nice to have a little down time, yes?

Delicious coffee cake recipe

A delicious coffee cake recipe for you!  This is a favourite and the original recipe came from my Mum's handwritten cook book.

Ingredients:

120 grams butter

3/4 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tablespoon of coffee essence (or I make a strong coffee solution to use - 1 tablespoon coffee with 1 tablespoon of boiling water - mix well until all the coffee has melted)

1 cup plain flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 cup hot water

walnuts - to chop up a little and sprinkle over the icing.

How to:

Cream the butter and sugar.

Add the remaining ingredients (except for the baking powder) and mix well.  Now lightly mix through the baking powder.

Cook in a moderate oven (180 degrees) until cooked through nicely.

Once cool you can ice the cake.  For the icing I use 1 cup of icing sugar, 1 tablespoon of butter and a splash of vanilla essence.  Then I mixed up 1 tablespoon of coffee in a little boiling water and added to the icing sugar, butter and vanilla essence - stirring through and only adding a little at a time until you get the correct consistency.

Add the chopped walnuts to the icing before it sets.

Enjoy!