Happy birthday to my darling girl

I cannot believe Miss Romily is five! But she is. Such a beautiful, happy, crazy child. I love her to bits.I baked her a cake to celebrate - the Lazy Ladybug from the AWW Bake cookbook. We all sang happy birthday tonight after dinner and she blew out the candle. Here she is with Carl just after we turned the lights back on.And two dozen cupcakes to share with her preschool friends today. Here they are in the Cupcake Courier I bought a while back. How cool is this contraption?! (There's another layer, but I only needed the two today! The lone cupcake without decoration is for one of Rom's friends who apparently doesn't like icing...strange child! LOL)Romily's party is on Saturday, so stand by for more baking and fun photos! I'll also have to post a couple of her riding her new bike - she was so happy to receive her present and said a very genuine thank you. I think at her age I would have been so interested in ripping open my other presents that I wouldn't have even thought to say thank you!

She's such a wonderful kid. Happy birthday my little friend.

All about food

It seems as though it's all about food around here lately! I was lucky again and won a copy of Bake by TV cook Rachel Allen (who I'd not heard of before but you all know how much I love to BAKE!) from Frills in the Hills (Liss), who was giving away three copies.

I collected mine from the post office yesterday and before I even finished flicking through the pages, had baked the chocolate chip version of the Banana Bread (with a little help from Tristan). The house is now smelling totally divine and I now have a whole recipe book full of new yummy things to try. Thanks again Liss.In crafty news, I'm hoping my PIF gifts arrive at their destinations soon - I sent them registered post, having learned from my last disaster (and no, it - missing quilt, see previous post - still hasn't turned up). I also finished piecing the top for my FIL's quilt - I can't show a picture, as he reads Facebook and this post will appear there automatically. If you follow me on Flickr, you can see a picture of it there.

Comfort food

Well it's been a cold and frosty winter here in Canberra; there is nothing better to chase away the winter blues with some home-cooked cupcakes and muffins. Oh and lemon delicious! I recently discovered Frills in the Hills - the food heaven awesome blog run by the baking goddess Liss - just in time for a lunch we went to a couple of Sundays ago.
She had posted a lemon delicious recipe and I thought that would be perfect for the lunch - I was so right! It was an easy recipe with five-star results. Yum!

She also posts lots of other yummies, so I urge you to check her out. I cooked these golden muffins today for the kids. I substituted golden syrup for the honey (hence the lovely caramel colour) and mashed banana for the currants. They were a hit with the kids!

But wait there's more! Romily and I (with some spoon-lickin' help from Tristan) baked some vanilla cupcakes from the AWW Bake cookbook on Friday. Romily's great contribution (aside from sifting the flour and also licking spoons) was choosing the bright yellow colour for the icing. You can see her icing efforts above :)

On the sewing front - there has been action! I finished the three Pay it Forward gifts; they will go in the post tomorrow. I will show a picture or two when they're en route. I have also cut the fabric for my FIL's birthday/Christmas present quilt. Will piece the top tonight after my sad boy (2yo molars are causing a LOT of grief) goes to sleep. Boy, he's been hard work these past three days! Poor kid has had a temp and been grumpy as all get out; walking around like a zombie. Let's hope this stage passes quickly!

And sadly, the Walk in the Park baby quilt I made has gone missing in the mail. I'm hoping Australia Post manages to track it down...it's the last time I ever send anything by ordinary post.

Winnings!

I hardly ever win anything on blog giveaways, but I was stoked to have two recently!

First off, was a fabric giveaway at Emma's place. She sent me some gorgeous fabric left over from the most incredible custom quilt she made.

Then I won a cute skirt pattern from OzMaterial Girls - the City Girl Skirt pattern. I really want to make some summer skirts for myself, so here's my chance!

I also received my Pay It Forward gift from Mands - a cute owl appliqued shopping bag and a very cute notebook - all for my inventions, featuring Bert & Ernie! Of course Romily has claimed both items for herself! Thanks Mands!Thanks everyone for being such generous, wonderful, crafty folk!

As for me, very little in the way of sewing going on - but I did do some cutting in preparation for making my PIF gifts. Soon! I also ordered some fabric for a hush-hush Christmas present I'm making for my FIL. Can't wait to get started on that project - it's going to be an Oh Fransson! quilt. I love her work!

While there has not been any sewing, there has been a little bit of baking :) I discovered, via Corrie from Retromummy, a fab blogger Liss, who has the most amazing, droolworthy recipes on her blog, Frills in the Hills. Go check her out - you won't be sorry! This was the lemon delicious I made on Sunday morning to take to a lunch we were invited to - it was a big hit! (I made a double batch - nom nom nom!)

Picnic by the lake

We've been so busy (and tired) this year that we haven't had much time to catch up with friends. So we invited several groups of friends to a picnic in Weston Park last Sunday. It was a perfect late afternoon, hot but with a beautiful cooling breeze coming up off the lake. Romily and Tristan had a great time grooving around, with Romily taking great delight in physically stopping Tristan from wandering into the ablutions block! She loves that she can pick him up and move him and he seems to find it amusing, so we don't intervene too much. We know we're fortunate that she's only recently started doing this!
Rom buddied up with Charlie and they spent an hour or so climbing on the rope climbing rig in the park. Let's just say that both Romily and Tristan slept very well on Sunday night (Tristan still woke up several times, of course, but what's new?)
I actually baked some yummy treats for our picnic, which we complemented with some lovely Croser bubbly. You'll find the recipes for the muffins and zucchini slice below. They are perfect picnic fare.

Banana-Choc-Coconut Muffins

This is my own recipe and it’s pretty much failproof. It’s also very flexible. You can chuck in whatever you like!

60g butter, melted
2 eggs
½ cup of milk
1 small tub of vanilla yoghurt (I use Vaalia toddler but you can use anything on hand)
2 very ripe bananas, mashed
2 cups SR flour
½ cup of shredded coconut
½ cup of caster sugar
½ to 1 cup of choc bits (milk, white or dark, or a combination)

Preheat oven to 180°C. Line a 12-hole muffin tin with cases.

Sift the flour into a large bowl. Stir in sugar and coconut. In a small jug, combine butter, eggs, milk and yoghurt. Make a well in the dry ingredients and tip in the milk mixture. Combine with a wooden spoon. Do not beat or over-mix – this will make for tough muffins. Once just combined, tip in choc bits and stir in gently.

Spoon mixture into cases – fill to ¾ full. Sprinkle with extra shredded coconut. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the muffins are starting to go brown on top. Do not overcook!

Zucchini Slice

This recipe is from the Homemade recipe book that I have blogged about several times.

1 grated zucchini
½ cup frozen or fresh corn kernels
1 onion, finely diced
Sprinkle of fresh thyme
2 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped finely
3 rashers bacon, finely diced
1 cup grated cheese
½ cup olive oil
3-4 eggs, beaten together
Salt and pepper
1 cup of SR flour

Preheat oven to 180°C.

Place all ingredients, in the above order, in a large bowl and combine well. Pour into a greased slice tray and bake for 30-40 minutes. Cool in tin, turn out when cold and cut into slices. Serve with a garden salad, if desired. Yum.

Granddad's visit means baking!

Granddad's visit over the weekend (he went home Tuesday) was the perfect excuse to bake - more people to eat it, less calories for my hips! I took the opportunity to make a lemon and coconut tart from Homemade. It looked delicious, and it was. Unfortunately, despite baking it for the alloted 40 minutes and allowing it cool, upon slicing it up I discovered that the middle hadn't cooked through. So, we changed the name to self-saucing lemon pudding :D
The kids adore Granddad and he dotes on them. They haven't seen him since out lightning visit to Bendigo in July, so it was great that he could take the long journey from Bendigo to Melbourne Airport by bus and then plane up here. At nearly 82, the eight-hour drive each way is a bit too much. I'm just grateful that he is still able to travel under his own steam. He's a lovely fellow. I'm very fortunate in my father-in-law!

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And in crafty news, this gorgeous Kokka Trefle fabric arrived last week from the Retromummy Shop - it's to become shorts for Tristan, with a matching applique tee. Summer is here and now that he's on his feet (yes, he's walking! Just. Still can't stand himself up - can only pull up, but he's taking steps between close objects), he's getting pretty dirty from lots of time outside - I'm discovering boys need more changes of clothes than girls!

Crazy coconuts

On the kids show Bananas in Pyjamas, the character Rat in the Hat says 'cheese and whiskers' whenever something goes wrong. I started saying this instead of 'shit' whenever I dropped something, etc. When I joined the army ten years ago I found myself swearing A LOT. I've really tried to improve my language since then, but whenever I'm under stress I tend to revert to swearing. With two littlies in the house, this is certainly not appropriate behaviour. As I'm nudging 40, it's perhaps time to learn some personal mastery!

As part of this journey, Romily and I have been making up some crazy exclamations to use instead of naughty words! One of our favourite expressions is 'crazy coconuts!' I use this a lot and I think it's pretty harmless. It's become part of our family vernacular, and I think it's the perfect expression to use about the crazy coconuts weather we've been having in Canberra lately.
Lots of storms, rainbows, electrical storms, huge cloudstacks building almost every afternoon. We've had hot days and cold days. It's even been snowing up in the mountains just south of Canberra. All this in mid-spring!
Cold, rainy days have meant the kids and I have spent quite a few of them inside. What better to do on a rainy day than bake? Romily has been helping me use up our overripe bananas and we've made some delicious batches of muffins (secret ingredient is a small tub of Vaalia toddlers yoghurt) as well as a couple of more-ish banana chocolate cakes. The recipe is so easy and obviously foolproof, since I've managed to make it twice and been very happy with the results. I went off-road (or is that off-recipe?) and added some cream cheese icing. Delicious. If you want the recipe, get yourself a copy of the Homemade recipe book that I posted about here. You can order a PDF or hard copy. The PDF is only AUD$8 and the hard copy $15 + P&H. It's the best cookbook - all of the recipes are easy and most of them were contributed by busy mums so they're good for all the family.

Eggy odyssey

For those of you who have been reading my random writing for long enough, you'll remember that Romily and I kicked of a rainbow egg odyssey nearly two years ago. We usually have scrambled eggs on Saturday mornings as a treat and to give her a super energy boost before she heads off with Carl to swimming lessons. We've been adding a few drops of food colouring - at first it was to make the meal more appealing to a fussyish two-year-old, but it's since become something fun, as well as a basic chemistry lesson! She's learning what colours mix well with others, and what the yellow colour in eggs will do to an otherwise pleasing combination.
Here's some pink eggs we had recently. They looked yummy! We have some rose colour food colouring which holds its colour pretty well over the yellow in the egg.
Sadly, mixing red and blue to make purple did not survive being added to the yellow egg mix! We, of course, ended up with brown. Now brown eggs an appealing meal does not make! Carl had to look away while he ate his. We just stuck with yellow on the weekend while my parents were here. I don't think they would have liked green eggs, for example!

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There has been some sewing going on around here - I've pieced a top for one of the comfort quilts I'm making - this one for my aunt who is just starting chemotherapy after having an advanced breast cancer removed. I've also been doing some handquilting on Tristan's very hungry caterpillar quilt. I'll post some pics over the next day or two. We're going a bit slow here, Tristan has croup again and is very clingy.

Plastic love

I know you shouldn't confess to loving inanimate objects, but I love my new Cupcake Courier! When Novy posted a photo of hers, I knew I had to have one too. Here's mine.The blue is just lovely. Even lovelier modelled by Tristan of course! I also bought a four-pack of the 'cup-a-cakes', which are individual cupcake containers - perfect for lunchboxes.

You can order yours here for Australians and here for international readers.

Handmade Help's 'Homemade' is here

Lots of lovely alliteration! Spotted on Mands' blog, a new recipe book - and one with a great story and a good cause behind it. I put in my order for the Handmade Help 'Homemade' recipe book last week and it was waiting for me in my letterbox when we arrived home from Sydney yesterday afternoon.

With lots of delicious recipes, including one from Mands and a bunch from Pip from MeetmeatMikes (if you read her blog or follow her on Twitter you know she's pretty handy in the kitchen), it looks great. We're going to try a slow cooker chicken recipe during the week to get things started.

The story behind the cookbook is the Victorian bushfires - a bunch of crafters got together after the fires with a bunch of ideas to help those who were affected. One of the ideas was to create a cookbook - the proceeds of which go to the Salvation Army, and a free copy for every copy sold will be donated to a bushfire victim. That ticked all my boxes!

You can order a PDF version or a print version here. And then you too can enjoy the fabulous recipes and know that you're making a small difference too.

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We had a good time in Sydney, although Carl and the kids picked up a 24-hour tummy bug which put a dampener on things. I've also come down with a chest cold just to even things up. I couldn't be the only healthy one in the family now could I? Photos from the Sydney trip are coming soon. Watch this space!

Birthday baking and cutting some grass

Danananananana

They say it's your birthday
Danananananana
And it's my birthday too yeah
Danananananana
We're gonna have a good time
Danananananana
Well happy birthday to you!

(Courtesy the Beatles)

Actually happy birthday to me :)

I had a lovely day. A mini-sleep in (until 7.30am), woken up by Romily, Carl and Tristan bringing me my birthday present - two books: Breath by Tim Winton and The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas. Both much wanted and I look forward to reading them.

Carl headed off to work and after Tristan had a sleep and we got ourselves ready, I took the kids to Monkey Mania at the new DFO in Fyshwick. They both had a great time - so much so that they both had a two-hour sleep at the same time. Anyone who has/had two young kids knows what a blessing this is! A second birthday present :)

I spent some time catching up on blogs and baking my own birthday cake (Carl's done it the past two years, but I was more than happy to make one this year - especially with Romily's help decorating it). It's a Treacle Butter Cake with Coconut Ice Frosting (both from the fabulous BAKE cookbook I posted about here).

Then I put a lamb roast in the oven and spent a little while playing with my two gorgeouses. I also opened a bunch of birthday cards and a couple of parcels. Thank you Bill & Kate for the very generous voucher for a local day spa. Very nice! And a wrap and recipe organiser from Jim & Jacinta and the boys. Thank you!

And thanks to my parents and my father-in-law for contributing to Lily's Overlocker Fund. It's getting closer!

Also arriving by coinkydink today was my subscription to Meanjin. It's the third time I've subscribed and I hope this time I might get up enough courage to actually submit something!

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And I think I mentioned there'd been some crafting going on here (finally). Here is the design for my Spring Blooms doll quilt (excuse the magnets - I had to put it on the fridge to show up the design in the photograph!). I drew the design full size onto sew-in interfacing which I'm using as the foundation. The 'sky' will be foundation pieced and then attached to the grass, with the flowers raw-edge appliqued and the flower stems and petals embroidered. The grass is free-pieced. Here's a sneak preview! I hope to have the piecing and applique finished by lunchtime tomorrow and then to do the quilting and embroidery tomorrow night and Thursday. I should be able to get it bound and labelled over the weekend and then posted by Monday, which is the deadline. Cutting it fine, but with all that's been going on around here, it'll be a good effort!

New York Cheesecake yum!

You might remember my darling husband totally spoilt me on mothers day with a new K Mix...well, his reward was this!
It's a baked cheesecake with berry drizzle and boy it is goo-ooo-oood! You can find the recipe here and make it yourself.

YUM!

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Breaking news:
* Essay is done!
* Romily is getting better thanks to another batch of antibiotics
* I have actually been crafting - I have started piecing the top for the Spring Blooms doll quilt. Woohoo!

Quiche Lorraine anyone?

Actually it's a Smoked Ham and Vintage Cheddar Quiche, but you get the drift.I cooked up this lovely quiche during the week and it was delicious - far nicer than a store-bought quiche. Go on, give it a try. You know you want to.

You'll need:
200g smoked ham (splurge and go for the fresh off the bone stuff - none of that nasty pre-packaged pseudo-ham), chopped
1/2 cup of medium grated vintage cheddar cheese
300g cream (you can use the 'lite, thickened' variety here if it makes you feel better)
2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
4-5 eggs (depending on weight per egg. For small eggs use 5, for big use 4)
1 sheet frozen or fresh shortcrust pastry (or you could be really fancy and make your own)

You'll do:
Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees celcius.

Fit pastry to a fluted quiche baking dish (approx 26cm across). Fill with blind baking bits (ceramic beads, rice, whatever you use) and bake blind for 15 minutes. Remove beans and bake for a further five minutes until pastry starts to turn a bit golden.

Reduce oven to 160 degrees c.

Sprinkle ham and then cheese over base.

Whisk eggs, cream and parsley together in a small mixing bowl. Pour over ham and cheese.

Carefully place in middle shelf of oven and cook for approx 40 minutes or until quiche is mostly set. Remove from oven and allow to stand for at least 5 minutes.

Serve hot, warm or cold (great for picnics) with a simple garden salad and some crusty bread if desired. Serves 5-6. Leftovers should be re-heated gently in a microwave or oven and make an excellent alternative to a sandwich lunch!

Bon appetit!

Valentine's delish

Friday was Carl's birthday and yesterday was our fifth wedding anniversary. *Awwwww*

To celebrate, we had a bunch of Carl's oldest friends and some of their kids around for a BBQ. Of course it was cold, so we had it inside - Carl and the hardier males of the group hunkered out on the balcony and cooked the food trying to make it look like they weren't actually cold at all!

Being Valentine's Day and all, I decided to make a pink pavlova in the shape of a heart! It was hiliarious, but also delicious, as it was eaten super fast! The strawberries were delicious - and such beautiful strawbs were difficult to come by at the moment so they tasted even better.
I made a chocolate sponge cake for the birthday cake - it was filled with whipped cream and topped with coffee icing.And Romily helped me make a lemon cheesecake too.Everyone sang happy birthday to Carl and Rom helped blow out the candles.

Rom was lucky enough to score some more 'loot' (dress-up jewellery) from our friends whose girls are now 'too old' for such fun (of course I reckon you're never too old for dress-ups!). Here she is looking bushwhacked after everyone left around 9pm.
And here's a shot of Tristan earlier in the day. Could he get any cuter?We had a lovely time, although I suffered through yesterday with a corker of a headache. It finally disappeared overnight.

Now I just have to finish the washing up and I am clear to get the sewing machine out and start quilting Daniel and Luca's quilts.

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And if you fancy going in for a giveaway or two this week, head over to Kylie's blog!

First pavlova

I must confess that I have a new toy that is distracting me a little from crafting! It's the Australian Women's Weekly BAKE cookbook. Oh my goodness. I am in love. Although my hips will not thank me!
Anyway, I summoned up the courage on Saturday to have a go at my first ever pavlova. It looked great when it came out of the oven, although I had a problem with it sticking to the foil and it cracked as I tried to remove it. Oh well, as the cook book pointed out, it doesn't matter how beautiful it is, it still tastes fantastic. And it did. Yum to all that meringue, marshmallow, cream and berries!

The book is huge, and includes just about every baking recipe published by the AWW test kitchens. It's beautifully compiled and presented and contains all kinds of history about baking, as well as tips and shortcuts that will either make you a great baker or make you look like one! Thoroughly recommended.

(If anyone wants to buy this, head to Big W, where it's discounted to $45 from the RRP of $75!!)

Waiting, waiting, waiting

What's a girl to do when waiting? Get busy of course! Romily and I made a delicious banana chocolate cake (inspired by an episode of Dora the Explorer, naturally!), which turned out very nice indeed - we finally had our oven fixed and it now cooks at normal temperatures. I might even attempt some biscuits soon!
And I whipped up two pairs of red corduroy pants and matching appliqued tops - one set for my little guy and another for yet another baby boy, born to one of the girls in my online mums' group. The sets are sized for around three months - both Kylie and I have healthy sized babies, so no doubt they'll both be wearing these outfits in no time at all.

I am feeling very full and very over being pregnant. I am having lots and lots of Braxton Hicks contractions - some rather uncomfortable - which is hopefully a good sign that the labour, when it finally gets under way, will be a lot shorter than the 16 hours I endured last time!

I've had lots of comments from other mums who've had multiple inductions - it seems it's a lot more common than I realised - thanks for the reassurance ladies. Let's hope once my obstetrician breaks my waters on Thursday morning it's only a couple of hours before I have my bubba in my arms :)

(Carl is primed to post the good news, so stay tuned!)

Lily's Muffin Recipe

Well something had to get that photo off the top of my blog!

I took today off and Monday is a public holiday, so we're having a lovely long weekend here. Well it would be lovely if I wasn't feeling so disgusting. I have picked up yet another throat infection/head cold and can only take paracetamol for it. I feel blergh, so had a nice two-hour sleep with Romily this afternoon after her swimming lesson. We were both tired - her from being in the pool with Carl and me from...well being just about 7 months pregnant and not 100% well!

Feeling the need for something sweet to cheer me up, we baked another batch of scrummy muffins this afternoon. They're peach, coconut, choc chip muffins and are delicious. So, as long promised, here's the recipe: Lilys Muffin Recipe.pdf
You can substitute the fruit for just about anything that's well ripened. Just give them a bit of a mash first.

Romily is learning lots of new games at the moment. This, is, of course, 'hiding'. She's not quite sure about the 'seek' part yet! She loves hiding though. The seek part will come later :)
Looking forward to an easy weekend, with a bit of sewing, but not too much. I am taking it nice and easy and trying hard not to overdo it!