Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Domestic Goddess? I think Not . . .

I seem to have somehow established a reputation amongst some of my friends as a bit of a whizz, gourmet, food snob - whatever - in the kitchen. Now I will admit to being a food obsessive, and I love to cook. But I assure you that I have just as many lazy, throw something together or takeaway nights as anyone else :)


Proof? OK. On Sunday I had one of those nights. You know, when the afternoon gets away from you and before you know it, you have precisely 5 seconds to get a meal on the table before utter anarchy breaks out. BUT you haven't done a proper grocery shop and the pickings are pretty slim. So you pull a few random ingredients out of the pantry/fridge/freezer in an attempt to throw a meal together? You been there????

And so Fancy Beans were born . . .


Fancy Beans
Ingredients:
  • 2 cans Baked Beans, (any flavour, but I like BBQ)
  • 250g grams Bacon, diced (when I'm feeling really hopeless I get the pre-diced stuff)
  • 6 Sausages, (Plain old beef, or whatver is lurking in the freezer)
  • 2-3 tablespoons Caramelised Onion, (This is what makes it seem a bit fancy)
Directions:
In a large fry pan, cook sausages until golden brown. Remove from heat. Add bacon to the pan and warm through. In the meantime slice sausages into 1.5cm diagonals (see, a bit fancy!).
Add beans, onion and sausages back to the pan and bring to a simmer.
Serve over creamy mashed potato


(Serves 4)


But the Mash MUST be this:


Best Ever Mashed Potatoes
Ingredients:
  • 250 g potatoes, per person
  • cup double cream, warmed
  • ¼ cup unsalted butter
  • Salt
  • pepper
  • Nutmeg, Freshly grated
Directions:
Boil the halved or chunked (but unpeeled) potatoes in a large pan of lightly salted water. When they are soft enough to mash, drain them thoroughly then push the potato pieces through a ricer.


With a wooden spoon, beat in the warm milk or cream and butter and season with salt, pepper and some freshly grated nutmeg, to taste. Eat alone and straight from the bowl for quintessential comfort food.


(Serves 1)


And then you get this:

I know it doesn't seem like much, but it's pretty hearty and yummy and a kid fave! Try it next time you're having one of those days, you'll thank me LOL!

Monday, March 8, 2010

Inspiration . . . Thanks Kirstie!

I have been loving watching Kirstie's Homemade Home on Foxtel. I had never pegged Kirstie as a handmade kinda girl. But that just goes to show how wrong you can be :)


Just because I'm feeling lazy (and had already typed a lot of this earlier today blogger had a hissy fit!) here is the blurb from Lifestyle channel website:

From Life

"Location Location Location’s Kirstie Allsopp transforms a dilapidated country cottage into the ultimate “homemade” home. Kirstie Allsopp is on a mission to change the way we furnish and decorate property in the brand new series, Kirstie’s Homemade Home.


From Life


Journeying into the world of craft and homemaking featuring old and new, handmade and homemade, antique and bespoke, Kirstie attempts to prove that homemade beats mass produced designs every time. In a dilapidated farmhouse on the North Devon coast ripe for renovation, Kirstie shows how buying wonderful, unique, quality items will not only add character but can be handed down to future generations.


From Life

Over five episodes, she transforms the derelict space into a dream home by visiting auctions, buying bargains, searching out brilliant crafts people as well as restoring and making a number of items herself."



It was Bedrooms in last night's episode, and I got all inspired to make a doona/duvet colour for DD4 with thrifted fabrics. Here's today's haul. Might need to add a couple more patterns though . . . 

From Life


From Life

How cute is that little brodré remnant? I took the colour palete from the hand coloured detail. So sweet! There was actually a whole heap of stuff I put back too. But this happened to slip into the basket

From Life

I'm hoping to convince Rochelle to make a little cushion for me, just like the little ones I saw on Saturday night ♥♥♥♥♥♥


Now, as this will be my first attempt at anything like this, it will not be elaborate. Basically just strips of varying widths, with some fun frays or button details. And I may need to add some of Jodie's pretties too.

From Scrapping Stuff

I'm looking forward to the challenge, and have already got the old Bernina out!

From Life

Saturday, March 6, 2010

I've Been Wrecked!

Cruise on over to Scrap Wrecks and check out their guest wrecker this month (it's me by the way LOL).

If you've not read about Scrap Wrecks before, it's just a really lighthearted look at the creative journey we take as scrapbookers. I'm sure we all have LOs/projects that DON"T get brought out for show and tell. Well, that's what Scrap Wrecks is about. Celebrating the wreckage!

So this month I was brave and shared my creative journey. Here's a little more that didn't make the final edit: (hold on to your hats folks, this could get ugly!)

^One of my very first. Clearly no idea what I was doing!


^The structured, measured approach


^Gaining confidence through scraplifting


^Experimenting with techniques



^Then . . . . .



. . . . And now (a redo of my first submission to Scrap Wrecks :)

This month's challenge is to create a LO using a colour scheme of your choice from kuler. There is a $25 voucher from Mr Turtle for the winner! And you don't even need to bare your wreckage!

I know Shaz will be looking for more guest wreckers. So go on over, enter the challenge and you too could get wrecked!

Friday, February 19, 2010

More sneaky peekies!

Here's another for Buzz and Bloom.


From Scrapping Stuff


Keep an eye on the blog for the full reveal and some excellent scrappy inspiration from the whole team.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Two Become One

Two recipes that is. After visiting the little market gardener this morning (see this post for the whole story) I had a bit of a surplus of fresh produce. I thought it would be a good idea to make this Stuffed Red Pepper recipe. But after the last time we had it I knew it needed a little tweaking.

Then of course I had the 2kg of fresh, ripe Roma tomatoes so I thought I would do a traditional Italian sauce. I Googled for a recipe and found this one at grouprecipes.com Turned out great!

Real Italian Tomato Sauce
Ingredients: 
  • salt & pepper
  • 1 ½ kg ripe tomatoes, quartered
  • 1 cup red wine
  • 2 cups cold water
  • cup tomato paste
  • 2 garlic cloves, sliced
  • 2 tsps brown sugar
  • 2 onions, sliced
  • cup vegetable stock
  • 1 tsp Chilli flakes, (optional)
Directions:
Place stock in saucepan & bring to a simmer.
Add onion & garlic stirring until onion is soft.
Lightly season with salt and pepper now and after each addition.
Add tomatoes & sugar & cook stirring every once in awhile for 10 minutes.
Stir in wine & tomato paste.
Bring to the boil.
Gently boil stirring every once in awhile for 5 minutes until liquid reduces & thickens.
Stir in water & chilli flakes. Let simmer uncovered for 40 minutes.
If you like a chunky sauce - puree 1/2 the sauce only.
If you want a smooth sauce puree the whole lot.
Transfer sauce to clean jars while still hot.

Add the chilli if you like a little heat. I have found the sauce reduces sufficiently that you may not need to puree at all. However, a little pureeing does make the sauce go a long way!

Then onto my tewaked bell peppers. The original recipe was nice but needed a little more OOMPH!

Stuffed Red Peppers



Ingredients:
  • 3 red capsicums
  • 250 g premium beef mince
  • 250 g sausage meat
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 tablespoons flour
  • 2 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese
  • 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
  • 1 teaspoon garlic powder
  • 1 teaspoon onion powder
  • 1 teaspoon mixed Italian herbs
  • 1.2 cup chopped parsley
  • 1 jar Real Italian Tomato Sauce
  • Welly Boot Extra Virgin Olive Oil
  • salt & pepper, to taste
  • 250 milliliters boiling water
Directions:
Preheat oven to 150℃
Cut the capsicums in half and remove the seeds. Put aside.
In a mixing bowl add beef and sausage mince, eggs, flour, parmesan cheese, paprika, garlic powder, herbs, and parsley. Mix the ingredients until evenly blended.
Stuff the mixture into each half capsicum, making sure the mixture is no more than half a centimetre above the rim of the capsicum, and is packed in firmly. Now fry the capsicums Welly Boot Extra Virgin Olive Oil for 5 minutes, with the meat side facing down, until the meat is a reddy brown and completely sealed.
Then turn the capsicum over, and fry for a further 5 minutes, for a bit of a charcoal effect. Add tomato sauce and boiling water to the pan. Simmer for 10 minutes on medium heat, then transfer to oven for 30 minutes .
(Serves 6)

I know it sounds a little fiddly but if you don't want to be a masochist (like me LOL) you could prepare the sauce ahead of time and just pull it out when you need it. Otherwise the peppers themselves are pretty cruisy to prepare - and pretty filling. I also reccoment Rita's rocket salad from the original recipe (see link above), as a side. Yum!

It's Times Like These . . .

I love loving in the "country". I say that in inverted commas, because our town has a poulation of around 50K, but still manages to retain a certain rural charm when you can stop on the side of the road less than 1km from the centre of town and get all of this straight from the farmer himself!

From Life
All vine ripened and bursting with flavour. And that's not even the best part. For the melons, and tomatoes he wanted to charge me $6!!! I only had a $10 note so I said "just call it ten". But he insisted on picking some capsicums - bell peppers to our international readers :) - straight off the bush. What a bargain! And I know that I am providing the very best nutrition for my family as they are all in season, not sitting in cold storage for 6-12 months losing all their goodness.

Local girls: You know the farm right. Just after the Shell service station on the Australind Bypass. And he said if he's not left anything out at the roadside, just toot or call and he'll come a runnin'!

Now, does anyone need any watermelon! What the heck I am going to do with all of that? And does anyone have good authentic tomato/pasta sauce recipe? Or should I just google?

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

More Colour Fun and a Sneak Peek

I am loving colour at the moment. I love putting my little colour schemes together for my LO's and then digitising them at Kuler (I think this appeals to the anally retentive part of my personality LOL)

Here's the latest

From Scrapping Stuff

And the sneak peek is for . . . well a secret! But stay tuned and all will be revealed :)

From Scrapping Stuff


From Scrapping Stuff

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Playing along: "My Place & Yours - Kitchen Love"

I went for a visit to Jodie Z's blog today and fell in love with the pics she posted of her kitchen for My Place & Yours. Check it out Jodie's oh-so-cutsie-cute kitchen here:)

So I thought I would play along too. The theme this week is "Kitchen Love". So basically take photos of what you love in your kitchen and post your link here.

I adore the whole shabby chic thing that many of the girls that have already posted have got going on, but it's not my personal style as you will see. Though I do have a few quirky little pieces from my Grandmother that take pride of place. So here is a little tour of my kitchen:

The Big Picture

From Life



From Life

I love having the outlook from the kitchen to the backyard. Makes it easy to potter about and still keep a watchful eye on the kidlets. When we were looking for a house design to build I used to joke that I wanted a "Command Centre". I think that's what I got :)


Favourite Things

From Life

Recipe Books: Including one very full and disorganised collection of recipes, printed off from the net which I have then stuffed into the purple display folder. What can I say? It's a compustion! I should mention that there are blank sleeves in the back of the folder, but I can't be bothered with that so they just get thrown in the front LOL. One day I will make them pretty and file them in the custom recipe tin I made for that purpose. I'm also considering the irony of having the Nigella cookbook sitting right on top of the CSIRO Total Wellbeing Diet book :$

From Life

iPod (with speakers): Great for dinner parties, scrap nights and just much easier to do housework while rocking out to a favourite tune or three :)

From Life

The Fridge: Always covered with artwork, shopping lists, bills, school notes and fingerprints. But it looks colourful right?

From Life

The Pantry: Could do with being a bit bigger actually LOL. Complete with little person in the shot, and one of the quirky items I mentioned earlier. That step/stool came from my grandmother's kitchen. It was made by her brother-in-law and I remember spending many hours at my grandma's side on that step, watching and helping her cook. And now my kids do the same with me. It's still steady as a rock by the way:)

From Life

Mmmmmm, coffee: Don't get me started. I think every home should have one of these! Bye-bye instant, helllloooo flavour! That said I have been weaning myself off the strong stuff at breakfast and opting for iced water during the summer. But come winter . . . . look out!

From Life

Marble pastry board and rolling pin: Again inherited from my grandmother's kitchen. I had to wait about seven years to have a kitchen with enough bench space to handle it though LOL. Wouldn't be without it. So handy! In fact, just used it for pizza dough on Friday night. Perfecto!

From Life

Loves of my life: Yep! My dishwasher. I seriously sometimes wonder how I lived without it. Absolute torture while we were building this house as the rental that we were living in didn't have a DW, but we bought this one before we moved in. So it sat out in the shed for about 6 months! In it's box! Not being used! Oh and the ridiculously expensive bin. Well, sometimes a girl just needs a bit of bling. Even if it does hold food scraps and smelly cat food tins? Right???

Well, that's about it folks, and if you're still here 'til now you deserve a freakin' medal LOL!

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Oh My . . . What a Find!

I am sooo excited! I have just had a visit to our local little thrift (op) shop! I was in there scouting for materials for my friend Jodie's very gorgeous Etsy shop (you should see what this girl can do with an old lace table cloth!) I digress, while I was fossicking around I stumbled across this board game:

From Life

Not sure if anyone is familiar with this game, but my family were SORRY! mad back in the day. My late grandmother in particular was a board game nut! I can remember spending hours at her breakfast bar or dining table with one game or another (Game of Life, Careers, Ginger Megs to name a few). But this one was the old trusty. In fact I remember Grandma contacting the makers of the game to order new cards and pieces (often!). We just kept wearing them out LOL.

From Life


From Life

And so here am I introducing yet another generation of the family to this fun and - might I add educational game. Just seems so fitting though as this Tuesday just gone would have been Grandma's 87th birthday. Happy Birthday Grandma!

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Monday, February 8, 2010

Blogs Away!!!!

Hey-Ho Lovelies :) Just a bit excited that my very first ever project for Buzz and Bloom is up on the blog! Click here to check out my project, but be sure to browse through the inspiring work from the rest of the team.

From Scrapping Stuff

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Off to the Show!

If you're in the South West today, come and see us peddling our wares at the Donnybrook Food and Wine Festival. We have the best Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Olives and Dukka in town!

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Fun With Colour

I have discovered (through Kevin & Amanda) a really cool site for colour inspiration. It's called Kuler. Check it out, there are literally THOUSANDS of different colour themes to help inspire you. I have just joined up so that I could create and post my very own colour theme, and here it is:

From Scrapping Stuff

I'm using this theme on a layout I'm working on. It's my bandwagon of the month!

Sunday, January 31, 2010

New Year's Mantra

OK, OK so I am slightly behind the times with the whole New Year's Resolution post LOL. But is is still January (for another eight or nine hours)!

While up in the middle of the night with a toothache a couple of weeks ago (that's a whole other story!) I stumbled across a show called "The Perfect Housewife". Think Shannon Lush only British and anally retentive LOL. Anyone who knows me can vouch for the fact that I am the first to jump on any new organisational band-wagon LOL. Now, I believe the show has gotten a bit of a bad wrap for being archaic, sexist or whatever, but I think anyone with at least half a brain can tell that the whole thing is a little tongue-in-cheek. See for yourself:

Anyway, I digress, In the particular episode that I saw, Anthea shared her mantra for decluttering. I LOVE it!

If it's not beautiful, useful or extremely sentimental you don't need it. I was so inspired that I have made myself a little reminder:

From Life

So if you too feel that 2010 is your year to declutter and be free try this little mantra on for size :)

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Guess what, guess what, guess what???????

Got home from swimming lessons with the kids just now to find this on the dining table!





Reckon if Guiness World Records had been here, then there would have been a new parcel opening record! "Lunch, smunch kids - mumma's got a parcel!!!!!

Cannot wait to start creating again!

Monday, January 18, 2010

Woohooo!!!!

OK, I think we're both happy now :) Finally!

Just want to give a big shout out to Amanda (see Kevin & Amanda's button under the "Places I Visit" banner in left column) for the fab tutorial on blog makeovers, and all the wicked fonts!

Thanks so much Amanda, my blog rocks! LOL

Don't Look @ Me . . . I'm Hideous!!!!

My poor little blog is feeling very self concious at the moment. I am giving it a bit of a makeover, and it's not comfortable with the change of style LOL. My apologies if you have visited in the last 12 hours, you may have thought that we had a multple personality disorder :$ Anyhoo, we're getting there.
 Here's hoping we can both settle on something we like real soon.

Saturday, January 9, 2010

Are You Feeling Brave?????

Well, I'm not sure that I am LOL. 


Regular readers may remember this post in which I mentioned a new challenge site (Scrap Wrecks) that has been started by the lovely Sharon. Well the first challenge is up! And if you are feeling brave you should enter a LO that fits this month's criteria (barnacles LOL - see the site for more details). You could win yourself a beautiful RAK from Rochelle. Here is my entry and a little about the LO.


From

It's a doozy isn't it?!


This was one of the first “non-CM” Layouts I ever did. It’s from circa September 2004. At the time I can remember being completely in love with this LO. I spent hours choosing all the materials and pouring over the placement of all the elements. Pith I didn’t think to buy more than one piece of the PP. So I had to be “creative with the background LOL. Let me tell you what I find hilarious about this LO now:
  • First, the photos – Just bath photos. No particular event LOL Some from the first hospital bath, others from random bath times :) 
  • Second, the pearl beads – I thought I was being very clever and creative at the time, they look like bubbles right? But how to attach them to a page in the days where I was using only photo splits?
  • Thirdly, the fact that every photo needed to have the corners rounded or cropped into ovals (BY HAND!!!)
  • Lastly, the overload of stickers and rubons. (Love those little Jolee 3Ds) I’m pretty sure I agonised over where to put every single sticker and rub-on out of the packet. Like that’s the point – Use everything in one go!
Well, this has definitely given me the inspiration to use these photos again in another more modern LO. Hey Shaz, maybe the Re-Do's should get a little mention on Scrap Wrecks too?











From Blog Bits

Sunday, December 27, 2009

My Homage to the Basic Grey 2010 Calendar Kit



Last year I fell in love with the Basic Grey 2009 Calendar Kit.  And what's not to love? Everything you need to complete each little page is included in the kit for around AUD$35. A perfect gift.  Last Christmas I made up three - one for each set of Grandies (yes, three - don't ask!). But it seems so did the rest of the scrapping world. Do you know how hard they were to get hold of this year? I could only get 1!!!


We were going to get some other present for the other two sets of grandies, but then a request came in at the last minute. And how can you say no to a Nana that wants to look at piccies of her grandkids all year long????


So I did what any resourceful scrapper would do . . .  I made my own. That is to say that I made up the Basic Grey kit and sent it off to Grandad Queensland, then used the template for inspiration to make up the remaining two calendars. Sort of like a sketch. The kicker is though, that EVERYTHING WAS FROM MY STASH! Every last strip of paper, embellishment and the like. We didn't spend a cent! Well, we bought the Cardstock from OfficeWorks to print the calendar template on, and $4 at the printer on the 23rd of December for the binding (for both calendars).


I printed the calendars on to A4 210gsm white card (using the automatic Calendar generator in MS Publisher 2007). Then printed an 8"x8" square on the back of each month to provide the "workspace" for the scrappy part. And this was the result. The original Basic Grey image is on the left, and my "homage" on the right.


From Scrapping Stuff



From Scrapping Stuff



From Scrapping Stuff



From Scrapping Stuff



From Scrapping Stuff



From Scrapping Stuff



From Scrapping Stuff



From Scrapping Stuff



From Scrapping Stuff



From Scrapping Stuff



From Scrapping Stuff



From Scrapping Stuff



From Scrapping Stuff

I am pretty happy with the overall result. And they were well received. Nice to know that all the effort that goes into a handmade gift is well received :)


Thanks for stopping by, and I hope your Christmas was truly magical.


See you all on the flipside LOL