Spring Growth

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Sarah

Trouble Leading More Trouble

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Sarah P

A Plateful of Pirates

Youngest Son (J) has his second birthday in November. We had a pirate theme, and a whole bunch of kids of all sorts of ages came along, and had a ball. All the kids were given a cardboard boat and sword, and we had facepaint at the ready. The pride of place definitely went to the birthday cakes!

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Sarah P

Russian Garlic

 I am excited! I am growing Russian Garlic in my garden! There's so many lovely things growing out there, I find the whole thing really exciting.



That is one clove that DS2 is holding. There's maybe 5 cloves in a bulb. It has a mild flavour, and I'm really looking forward to roasting it!

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Sarah

Dragon Tongue Bean Flowers

So pretty!


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Sarah P

Unfriendly Neighbours

We have big plans this year.

One of them is to rip out the ivy next to the house, and replace it with a passionfruit vine. I started snipping cutting and ripping, and then discovered this. I thought it would be better to leave it alone! A few days later they all hatched! EEEEEK! And they don't seem to want to move on.

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Sarah P

Small Child and Victim

DS2 was having a bit of fun in the garden with his sword. He was running around trying to smack the cat with it!

I would have been worried if the cat was actually in some form of danger!


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Sarah P

Forays into Morrocco - Orange Blossom Carrots

I have been getting random vegetable boxes from Coles for some time now, so I have also been trying out their random fruit boxes. This means an influx of things I am much less likely to know what to do with!

I have never been a huge orange eater. I've never been so in love with the taste or flesh that I have bypassed the inherent messiness and sheer annoyance of having to peel and then segment the damned things. However, with four of the blighters arriving on my doorstep every other week, I had to find ways to cope!

Meet the Moroccan Orange and Carrot salad.


This is actually a pic of the left overs, since we ate it too fast to take a picture. This was lovely, and a fantastic way to use oranges! Yum!

Strangely enough, I don't mind prepping oranges to make salad out of it. I just resent it when I intend to eat it. Yes, I am a bit weird sometimes.


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Sarah P

In The Raw

In the Raw!

I had a raw meal. I was fascinated by the idea that we could eat RAW PUMPKIN! I was fascinated and a bit hesitant. Pumpkin is my favourite vegetable, and I love it baked, mashed, stuffed, pureed, and growing. Raw... was a bit unusual.


I have been following a friend's blog as she did 30 Days of Raw. Her recipes sounded fantastic, and I always love to try new things, so I tried this one, which is Pumpkin noodles with a sundried tomato sauce.

Unfortunately, I ended up very sick that night, vomiting and feeling very unwell. The food was Ok - I was hoping to really fall in love with it a lot more than I did. It was tasty, but the textures didn't work for me, and then I was sick all night. Not fun. Not raw food's fault either, so when we hit Brisbane I leapt at the chance to try a few more raw foods.

I tried a raw felafel with raw chutney, and that was ... interesting. It needed a damn good cooking if you ask me! Again, the texture of sprouted chick peas or broad beans then ground into a paste and dried didn't quite work for me. I think my preconceptions were getting in the way of my really enjoying these sorts of foods, so we also tried some desserts.

There was a mint chocolate slice, which was very nice, but my big favourite was definitely some avocado chocolate pies we purchased. And it turns out they were low carbs, which was awesome! I was no-carbing at the time. We loved the dark chocolate avocado pie, and so did our 4yo! Our 2yo loves anything that's edible, so we knew he would love it too.

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Sarah

Autumn!

I AM LOVING THIS WEATHER!

I missed the entire growing season last year, which made me very sad. However I spent a good chunk of it being very distracted by my operation, or by being on the drugs after the operation, or being dreadfully surprised and how much the operation affected me! Then Egoboo hit, then Christmas hit, then our trip over east hit, and then Swancon hit... gosh, this *has* been a very busy six months!

So... what are we up to now?

Well, last week we had a garden party! And not one of those wishy washy garden parties with a nice cup of tea and a biscuit (I've yet to be invited to one of those, so I shall continue to poo-poo them until I get an invite, at which time I shall squeal in a whole new level of SQUEE! and rush off to pick a frock weeks before the party). No. I'm talking about a garden party with poo! (Only one poo. As in, manure. Sheeps' poo, to be precise.)

So, expect some pics of growing, budding, living, unfurling, developing, uplifting stuff, and Saucy Sisters can take off once again!

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Sarah P

Cookie Monster!

I've bought a copy of 'The $21 Challenge' and one of the recipes in the book is the 120 cookies for $4 recipe.

I've been testing it a bit, playing around with the basic idea and seeing what works and what doesn't. I haven't had any misses yet, but have had a lot of fun with the dough.This dough can be frozen and then cooked with minimal thawing. I freeze it in logs, and use a sharp knife when the dough can be cut. My freezer is a bit enthusiastic, and tends to run at -21 degrees C. 

This batch is 108 cookies, roughly in thirds with Oat and Maple Syrup, Date and Walnuts, and Chocolate Chip.

It works really well for a recipe with kids. Because there's so much of it, I find I am less worried if the kids try to eat their own body weight in cookie dough. (They like to try.) And it's a fantastic recipe to use with kids.

500gs Margarine (one tub)
One tin of sweetened condensed milk (440g)
1/2 - 1 cup of sugar (I go with the half)
5 cups of self raising flour

Cream margarine and sugar, add sweetened condensed milk, and then add flour. Add extras as you wish, bake for 8 - 12 minutes until cooked.

This dough is also great in the cookie gun. If you don't have one of these and you make a lot of cookies, then you should buy one. This cookie dough, and the custard powder cookie dough through the cookie gun makes the best cookies to go with a good cup of tea.

This recipe gets the thumbs up, and has become a regular in our household. When we run out of food, we always have flour, sweetened condensed milk, sugar and margarine just in case. You can make this recipe with butter if prefered, the only difference will be the biscuits will no longer come in at under $4!

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Sarah

Friends Who Bring Food

I love to bring food. This brownie tower was brought along for our son's birthday party, and was a complete, and rather awesome, surprise.

Do you like to take food to friends' houses? Do you have a special favourite recipe you like to share, or a family dish you like to give? I love doing a different thing each time, having fun with the recipe and the food. I've learnt a lot about food, and I like to try and make it look as appealing as possible. This brownie tower above had a few simple additions, and it just looks so welcoming!

This is why I love to make cakes for people. I think it's the look on their faces when I make them something amazing.  It can take hours of creativity and work, but it's always been worth it.

I think bringing food also shows you care very deeply about someone. Enough to ensure they have a full belly, and that they share bread with you. It's a sharing of a very special bond.

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Sarah

Growing Season has Passed

I did try this year!

Unfortunately, I had an operation in October which absolutely knocked me about. The weeks before were spent preparing as much as I could, and the weeks after were spent drug hazed and then incredibly busy with obligations. I did start a whole pile of diggers seeds, unfortunately I wasn't able to plant them soon enough, and my 2 year old discovered how much fun they could be! They lasted quite a while, given who was playing with them so much...


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Sarah

Dinner Parties with Friends

Food is an important part of life in many different ways. Most of human life has been taken up with the never ending quest to hunt, gather, and prepare, food.

The other important aspect of food is sharing. Sharing food is essential for survival, and essential for good will and good humours. Food may be a necessity, but it also answers so many other needs in humans such as comfort, security, and well being. We had a dinner party the other day with a slight difference - the guests all helped cook.

I took my friend shopping and let her make all the creative choices, and then when her partner and his boyfriend arrived, we set ourselves to work.

We used a home grown pumpkin to make pumpkin, walnut, goats cheese and sage sauce for the pasta, which was also home made by my husband and our guests. Mynxii's partner and his boyfriend made marscapone cream, chopped fruit and handled some quick and dirty child rearing. I made pancakes, realising only afterwards that we were one egg short, so instead of individual pancake servings we made one huge marscapone cream with strawberries pancake cake. I made sure every one had what they needed when they needed it! Garlic bread went in for appertiser, the kids choose 2 minute noodles, and we were good to go. Our main course was roast chicken with salad and stuffing.

(Picture above shows matching plates, soup bowls, tumblers and champagne flutes with a bottle of Chandon Champagne and the pasta with punkin, sage, goatscheese, ready to serve.)

And the food was fantastic! But I am sure it all tasted better for the experience of cooking, and then eating, together.

(Picture above shows roast chicken cut into peices, served on a matching plate, with a garden salad, and a small bowl of stuffing in an old Chinese rice bowl.)

Food is an important part of companionship, and I really love working with my friends on things like this. I'm hoping we get to do more of it in future!

Picture above shows the layers of pancake, strawberries marinated in icing sugar, and marscapone cream. Hald the cake is cut away so we can see the layers. The juice from the strawberries has escaped the piped marscapone cream and dribbled over the cake plate.)

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 Sarah