Today

On this gorgeous sunny winter's day, I'm loving;

little hands catching rainbows in my kitchen

avocado and tuna for lunch

using my home-made citrus cleaner for the very first time

watching this beauty opening up

washing drying outside in the sun!

almost ready to eat broccoli

water droplets on a cabbage leaf

discovering the first snow pea

freshly spread mulch

time playing outside

a cup of tea and a bit of knitting. outside!

What are you loving today?

Worthy Knitting

Usually my blog is all about what goes on here in our little patch of the world. But today I want to share with you something that I feel is slightly more important.....

While doing my morning chores I was listening to the radio and heard a lovely lady from the Werribee CWA talking about knitting beanies and fingerless gloves for the Australian troops in Afghanistan. They are in need of knitters to knit, or people to donate balls of pure wool - they want to make 15,000 beanies and pairs of fingerless gloves - one for every serving soldier. How kind and thoughtful! 

The ladies have also provided a pattern to use too!!

You can find more knitting for our troops here , there are some specifications so please listen to the audio/interview!

I am off to knit a small handmade item to help keep our soldiers warm during the cold winter,

Now that is what I call worthy knitting.

Weekend

The weather has been chilly and wet, good weather for indoor happenings and not so good for outdoor happenings...(for me anyway)....

I have baked and baked....

Choc Berry muffins

lunch box goodies for the week...

Choc chip and oatmeal slice!

Do you fancy baking this delicious slice?  Choc chip & oatmeal slice

I measured out the ingredients for the bread maker to do its' thing...

Wholemeal Bread made by the bread maker

I finally finished this cardi....

I have been watching this patiently...

Thanks to Christine for the inspiration which originally began here.

In between rain showers, this pile of mulch is slowly continuing to be reduced...

(we are about half way through it) 

This week I will be getting stuck into spreading this if the rain stays away.

I have also been keeping a very close eye on this little beauty...

This orchid has sentimental value that is growing year by year. My dear MIL gifted this to us on the birth of Evie Shae almost 3 years ago. It was flowering at the time and I vaguely remember (having my post birth/baby brain in action) her saying that it should flower every year for Evie's birthday. Well it hasn't until this year.

 I am so pleased! 

I hope you have had a nice weekend! 

Ferry ride

On Friday, the last weekday of our school holidays, we organised a ferry ride from Sorrento over the Bay to Queenscliff. 

Lucky for us we picked the sunniest day of the whole fortnight and had a lovely day together.

The view from the top of the ferry, Sorrento.

It was a little 'fresh' out on the water!

Watching a huge tanker enter the bay.

After the ferry ride, we had a play and lunch at the park.

Back on the ferry for the return trip!

We were fortunate to catch a quick glimpse of a dolphin frolicking under the front of the ferry,  unfortunate to miss the photo opportunity!

The view of the Heads.

Fire Poker Flower
On our walk back to the car we saw these huge flowers!They stand approximately 5 feet tall!

With all of the fresh sea air and sunshine, we returned home happy and tired!!

Hummus Recipe

I made my first batch of Hummus and I am kicking myself for not making it before!!

It is delicious, so much better than the store-bought hummus!

This Hummus is SO good - you really must make some for yourself!!

Ingredients:

400g tin chick peas (I used dried chick peas - soaked and pre-cooked by me - approx 300gms)

3-4 garlic cloves, finely chopped

3 tablespoons  Tahini

1/2 teaspoon cumin powder

salt and pepper

juice of 1 or 2 lemons

1/2 - 1 cup olive oil

Place chick peas, garlic, cumin powder, salt & pepper into your food processor. 

Turn processor on and pour in lemon juice first, then drizzle olive oil in. 

Blend until smooth.

* if your hummus is too thick you may need to add more lemon juice or olive oil. (I tweaked mine with a little of both several times until I was happy with the flavour - I like mine with a bit of twang- and consistency.)

Place into a bowl and pour a little olive oil over to prevent Hummus drying out.

Enjoy!

Chutney Recipes

At the end of April, we had a large amount of green tomatoes that just were not ripening in our vege garden. The only thing to do with green tomatoes is to make green tomato chutney! 

Using this recipe, I set to work.

The chutney was rested in the pantry for almost 6 weeks before the first jar was opened.

We had our first tasting and the chutney is delicious! 

I have never made chutney before as we are not big eaters of it, but after the results of this batch I will definitely be making more!

I also made a batch of Apple Chutney that same weekend.

This one doesn't do it for me as much as the Green Tomato Chutney, but it is still nice!

A Simple Scarf

Another hand-made gift for my Aunty's 60th birthday.

This project knitted up very quick and was super easy!

Ravelled here!

60 Squares

to represent the 60 years my dear Aunty has graced this earth so far.

A mini quilt to be displayed which ever way Aunty chooses.

I selected 15 different charm squares from my stash and cut each square down to 2.5 inch mini squares.

Sewn  and quilted completely on my Noni !! (Janome sewing machine).
I love it and more importantly, so does Aunty!!