Chocolate & Hugs

Chocolate

Best Friends

The weekend was...

 A friends 40th where I was in charge of making chocolate mousse

Continuing to paint the front room

Catching up with friends 

Sunday sleeps

and a bit of sewing. 

Knitting & Sunday Mornings

I have had a lovely weekend shopping with a dear friend that was over for the weekend. We started the morning at Calico&Ivy and I purchased a few more pieces of Liberty for my stash and a couple of balls of wool to continue my learning to knit. I am making a knitted cushion for my bed and attempting 82 stitches at once ! the wool is by Rowan and the most divine colour which I have been advised is discontinued so I hope I have bought enough.

Sunday morning was so warm that we made pancakes with warm berry compote and sat outside in the sun. A lovely way to start the day.

Favourite Finds

I love when I stumble across a coffee shop that I have not ventured into. Lucy is equally as excited when we find somewhere groovy to hang out, have a coffee, colour in and watch the world go by. Today we stumbled across Stimulatte, cute name and the coffee was good. The food looked great but we were just after a quick coffee. The service at first was somewhat muddled but they were smiley and there was a lovely vibe so I was not bothered at all. There were lots of groovy people sitting around enjoying their morning fix and with the sun just starting to appear it was nice to sit in the window and people watch. I would go back, and take friends with me or a magazine and sit, in the window... on my own.

Mandarin Jam

With too many mandarins to eat on our tree I decided to have a go at making Mandarin Jam. For my first try it has turned out really well. It is such a beautiful colour, tastes sweet, gooey on the spoon and smells lovely when cooking. I am looking forward to trying it on some crunchy sour dough toast.

The recipe I used is here.

Produce and Flowers

Lemons

Mandarins

Flowers

Macadamias Drying Out

Now the weather has cooled down we can concentrate a bit more on our garden. To our surprise whilst beavering away on the inside of the house there were all kinds of fruits and nuts growing magically outside. We harvested the macadamia tree last week and now these wonderful nuts are going through the drying process before we can cut them open and roast them.

The mandarins are still a bit sour but every now and then we get a nice sweet one. The lemons are just starting to come out which is great because my most favourite desert to make is lemon tart.

Over the winter we plan to build some vege beds and really start being able to eat out of the back yard, instead of the vege store.

Dust & Macaroons

We are still plodding away with Lucy's bedroom makeover and this weekend we created a lot of dust. Darren got the sander out to neaten up the walls ready for painting.

On Saturday night we had friends over for a bbq and they bought these lovely macaroons to share, everything from champagne to blackberry flavours, they we delicious.

Fig and Walnut Tart

I had coffee at one of my favourite haunts called Boucla with my lovely friend Jill earlier this week and tried a piece of this fantastic tart. It was a gluten free recipe and melted in my mouth. It just looked so pretty and said 'eat me'. Now the challenge is to reproduce it.



I found this recipe that sounds close to what I had, I am not sure about the whiskey though, might be easier just to have coffee and cake at Boucla again.

Bread in a Pot

I had my second attempt to make bread today and it is wonderful. Crunchy on the outside, soft in the middle. My Mum put me onto this website with a really easy recipe from The Sullivan Stret Bakery of making bread in a pot. I put my in my Le Creuset and it works like magic.

Footy Fever

I am not, nor will I ever be a footy fan but today I did make some home made sausage rolls for my hubby and his Dad. I love Grand Final because it marks the end of the season and the noise that goes on, with the tv being on during the middle of the day, on what would otherwise be a peaceful weekend.
Having said all that, if the Dockers ever make it to the finals, I would cheer (silently).

My Cousin Rosa

I received this book for Christmas from my brother in law (he loves my cooking). I put it on my Christmas wishlist after I had baked 4 of Rosa's recipes from an issue of  House & Garden magazine for a dinner party one night. We had lamb shoulder, potatoes with chicory, lentil salad and a cherry and walnut tart ! - probably my most successful dinner party ever, the only problem was there was no lefovers!... the book was a must have. Since then I have baked a few recipes and they have all been sensational.
This book is full of beautiful stories and easy recipes to impress.

Chilli Jam

My friend gave me a bag of chillis grown in his garden so I searched the net for a Chilli Jam Recipe. I made a few alterations as the first batch was way too hot, so I added more tomato. This recipe is hot but sweet and so good with steak or on a ham and cheese toastie !
Recipe
6 ripe tomatoes - chopped
1 tablespoon of lemon juice
1 cup of raw sugar
2 green chillis and 2 red chillis
1/4 cup of white vinegar
1 clove of garlic, crushed
Making it: Mix Sugar with tomatoes and leave for a few hours to soak. Once done, heat on the stove, add the rest of the ingredients and bring to the boil for 5 minutes. Reduce and simmer for 45mins, or until reduced and a little bit sticky. Cool and put into sterilised jars. Makes a great gift for foodie friends.

Banana Muffins

Bananna Muffins are next best to Raspberry. This morning I whipped up a batch to share with my good friend Lindy over a cuppa and a chinwag. These are the basic Wholefood Muffin Recipe and the topping is a mixture of coconut, raw sugar and cinnamon - it makes the tops of the muffins very crunchy !

Raspberry Muffins

These delicious Raspberry and Coconut Muffins were made at 5.30am this morning. The basic muffin recipe is from one of my new favourite cook books - Wholefood, by Jude Blereau (heal ... nourish ...delight). I have adapted to Raspberry and Coconut. Perfect with a cup of tea or a long black.

Grape Jam

On the 2nd of January we harvested the grapes from our garden vine, they are dark seedless and full of flavour, we made jam. A fun day, picking, sorting, mashing and waiting for the jam to set so we could spread it on our toast the next morning.

It is a simple recipe of grapes, sugar and lemon juice... delicious.