BONUS

One of the bonuses about winter is that a lot of Australian Native plants begin to flower and as our back garden has quite a few of them it looks great.

A lot of our native plants have flowers that are shaped like this

and they're full of  honey.

 

So if you have flowers...

and honey....

you have birds that LOVE honey.

 Cheers

ps. Sorry about the misty photos. It was raining !

pps. The tarts tasted better than they looked !!!      

MIXED RESULTS

Tomorrow (Wednesday ) I am expecting guests for Morning Tea.

Nothing fancy just a chat and a cuppa.

So this morning I set about making something to have with that cuppa.

Thought I'd make some little passionfruit meringue tarts.

Do you know passionfruit?

Australians in general  love  passionfruit.

Fruit salad isn't fruit salad without passionfruit.

They grow on a very vigorous vine with a very pretty flower.

 So I set about to make these tarts without a recipe to follow!!

First I used frozen pastry to make the tart cases.

The result was not great!!

Then I made the passionfruit filling.

mmmmm ... tasted good.

I added a meringue topping and cooked them.

Not  great.

Luckily I had one of my favourite standbys on the go too.

 5 Cup Cake.

This is a gem when you hear that visitors are on the way and the cake tins are empty.

There are only 5 ingredients:

1 cup of sugar

1 cup of coconut

1 cup of self-raising flour

1 cup of mixed fruit - your favourite combination of sultanas, apricots, dates etc

1 cup of milk

That's it!!

Mix them all together and cook at 180C (350F) for about 45 minutes.

Test with a skewer to make sure it is cooked.

Lovely plain or, if you want to be really decadent, buttered with a smear of cold, real butter.

Now ...... I wonder if I should make something else to replace those tarts?

You win  some, you lose some.

Cheers

SUNDAY NIGHT DINNER

I don't know about you, but at our house Sunday night dinner is a very easy going affair.

Not a proper dinner with veges and so forth.

Something easy  

and    ...quick .....

Not too much preparation....

Not too much washing up......

Soup...

Toasted sandwiches....

Omlette......

Baked beans on toast....

But tonight I thought I'd try a new recipe for an old favourite.

Bacon and Egg Pie

I'm afraid this was all that was left by the time I thought to take a photo !

Recipe:

8 slices multi-grain bread, crusts removed

250g chopped bacon rashes

1 small onion chopped

4 egg whites lightly whisked

4 eggs

half cup grated mozzarella cheese

quarter cup grated tasty cheese

• 
  
  Preheat oven to 180 C ( 350 F). Grease a 3cm deep flan dish and line with flattened bread ( flatten with a rolling pin ) Bake for about 10 minutes till lightly toasted.
• 
  
  Cook bacon for 5 minutes then add onion and cook further 5 minutes till onion is soft
• 
  
  Spread half the bacon mixture over the base of the pie. Pour egg whites over bacon mixture.
• 
  
  Crack remaining eggs over mixture ( I put the other yolks in too !!) then sprinkle with remaining bacon followed by the combined cheeses.
• 
  
  Season with pepper
• 
  
  Bake for about 20 minutes

                ....................................................

Not too much fiddling around and tastes pretty good. 

Just don't expect this sort of thing every Sunday night !!!!

Cheers.

MOVIES

Letters to Juliet

Today I went to see this movie with a good friend.

It's set in Italy - in Verona and Siena with some beautiful countryside and vineyards as well as charming villages......

.....with a cast which includes these two timeless stars.

Beautiful scenery.

Lovely story.

A pleasant way to while away a couple of hours with a good friend.

Cheers.

MAKING PROGRESS

At my last patchwork lesson the very patient Linda taught me how to make two new "blocks".

The first was a heart block and once I managed to get my quarter inch seam going properly this is what it looked like.

So two of them sewn together with a border for a tablemat looks like this.

The next block was a Shooting Star block.

It looks like this.......

and the tablemat looks like this.

Although these are very simple blocks I can tell you that I am doing plenty of " sewing backwards" ( unpicking ) while I learn the importance of quarter inch seams and careful pinning and matching up of seams.

So now I have three tablemat fronts completed. I'm making progress !!!!

Once you start to learn the precision processes of patchwork it makes you appreciate the work and talent that produces beautiful quilts like these.

Clever ladies.

Hope I can do something as lovely one day.

Cheers.

TALES OF WILD GARLIC

Recently  I've been reading here and here about Wild Garlic so I thought I would tell you about a lovely walk Tony and I did in the Peak District in England last time we were in the UK in 2008.
The walk we did began and ended in a place called Monsal Head.

 You begin at the top of a ridge looking down into a pretty valley through which winds the Wye River.

First you cross the valley by traversing a disused railway viaduct then descend into the valley and walk along the pretty river.

The walk follows the river for a way then climbs through a wood and it is here we came upon this delightful sight.

This, we learnt, is Wild Garlic.

How gorgeous is that ???

After that you follow the river again till you come to a delightful village called Ashford -on-the-Water.

This pretty village still practises the ancient ritual of Well Dressing at this time of year.

We felt very privileged to witness this snapshot of an old English tradition.

 

As the village has six wells there was plenty to see

There are so many of these lovely walks in the UK.
You are very lucky to be able to roam freely over the pretty countryside.

Cheers.

WORLD RECORD QUILT

Late last year Kath over at Railway Cottage mentioned in this post that she was making tiny hexagons to send to Australia for an attempt at the World's Largest Hexagon Quilt.

It so happened that the quilt was being made and exhibited at a town called Gatton in Queensland which is a forty minute drive from where I live.
I promised her then that I would go and see it and take photos to show her.
So Kath, here it is in all its glory.

It went down the hall......

round the corner....

round the next corner , then up and down and around and up again!!!

It is enormous!

Want to see a close up?

Wouldn't it be amazing if I happened to take a photo of Kath's contribution?

What an achievement!

You must be proud to be a part of it , Kath.

Loved this sign on it .

There were lots of other lovely quilts on show.

Here are a few.

There are lots of talented people around aren't there?

Cheers

BACK IN THE GROOVE

Time to get back into my old groove.

As you know I am a beginner quilter. Each month my CWA group has a patchwork day where we all get together . Some of us are beginners and we are taught some quilting skills by the generous ( with their time and knowledge ) quilters who come along and work on their own projects.
As a learning exercise we are being taught a range of different blocks and I have decided to make a set of tablemats, each one incorporating the block of the month.
When finished I will have a set of eight tablemats.

My dining room has a display of pretty blue and white china most of which is very inexpensive stuff collected after I was inspired by a picture in a magazine.

This blue and white china is the inspiration for my choice of material for the tablemats.

The first block was a nine patch block.

Two of them sewn together make the centre of my mat with a border of the third material to complete it.

Front finished now there is wadding and the back to put on to finish it before adding a little stitch-in-the-ditch.

Tomorrow is lesson 2 , 3 &4 ( got to make up for time lost galavanting around France !) so hopefully I will have three more placemats to show you soon featuring hearts and stars and bowties!

Cheers.