FAMILY WEEKEND

It's been a lovely family sort of weekend.

On Saturday Sally, Tony and I flew to Sydney for  a quick visit to see Brett and Sarah.
We spent an enjoyable day catching up with them and had a lovely lunch not far from their comfortable home in an outer Sydney suburb.
Sydney turned on a lovely day for us and the beautiful harbour looked magnificent as we flew over it.

An impromptu Sunday morning family morning tea gave me the opportunity to try this Coffee Cake recipe given to me by my friend Ellen.

It is a great favourite with her grandchildren so that sounded like a good recommendation to me.

It's one of those great recipes where you put all the ingredients together in a bowl and beat it until it is just combined.

185g soft butter

185g caster sugar

185g SR flour

3 eggs lightly beaten

1 tabsp instant coffee dissolved in 1 tabsp hot water

Spoon into a lined bar tin , smooth the top and cook for in a moderate oven for about 40 minutes ( you can turn down the oven to 160 C after about 30 minutes if the cake looks too brown)

Turn out onto a cake rack to cool ( funny dint from testing with a skewer !)

Next I toasted some flaked almonds.

Then mixed up some icing.

I used a teaspoon of instant coffee dissolved in a little hot water and a teaspoon of butter, then mixed that into a cup of sieved icing sugar.

That went on top of the cooled cake with the almonds pressed into the icing .

Looks pretty good doesn't it?

I managed to rescue this piece to photograph ...... but only just !

Verdict:  Nice moist cake with a good coffee flavour.

Next time I make it ( and I can see it becoming a favourite ) I will split it and put another layer of that lovely coffee flavoured icing in the middle.

We managed to assemble a quiche, gorgeous strawberry sponge and the coffee cake and then spent four hours chattering, eating the lovely food and drinking tea and coffee (with a couple of refills).

A very pleasant way to spend a Sunday morning.

Cheers.

FAVOURITE THINGS FRIDAY

It's time for Favourite Things Friday once again and for a change I'm ready.

If you'd like to join in just pop over to Quilting in My Pyjamas and link in.

Today my favourite thing is ......

Wattle

I know I have posted about Wattle ( Mimosa to non- Aussies ) here and here before but when it's Wattle Time I just can't resist.

To me, nothing symbolises Australia more than the Wattle.

Our National Colours of green and gold come from the Wattle tree.

When we were out and about on Sunday I took some wattle photos.

In just one small area there were four different types of wattle.

As there are no less than 985 different varieties of wattle in Australia this is no surprise.

The above photos are my absolute favourite -  ZigZag Wattles.

If you look carefully in this photo you can see the zigzag stems and really golden flowers.

This variety growing about 10 metres away has much paler, smaller flowers and small, fine leaves.

This one has lovely silver grey foliage.....

and bright lemon flowers and was only a few steps further on.

I've previously shown you photos of the Cootamundra Wattle that grows in the south where it's colder.

It puts on a spectacular show.

But I don't think any of them smell as good as the old common Mulga wattle that grows everywhere in the bush.

Not at all spectacular to look at,

pale flowers made up of small pom poms,

but oh, the perfume !

Eau de Oz !!

Cheers.

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY - DONE !!

A SEWING UPDATE

Do you remember when I showed you this material?

The technique I was learning is called "convergence".

It involves lots of cutting into strips of varying widths,

matching seams and sewing back together.

Scarey stuff for someone who can't be relied to cut straight

and is pretty hopeless and maintaining a regulation quarter inch seam.

I'm on the final bit.

If you don't look too closely so far so good.....

but the final bit is going to take a miracle ......

and a fair bit of pulling and pinning to get those lines to match up !!

Wish me luck!

Cheers.

A TYPICAL WINTER'S DAY IN BRISSY

This is a photo of the sky in Brisbane this morning !

It is a typical Winter's day here in sunny Brisbane - cool at first (about 12C ) then quickly warming up to about 20 C by 11 am.

Too nice to stay at home so off we trotted to the Chandler Markets.

The parking was insane as thousands of others had the same idea as us.

There were lots of stalls.....

all sorts of food....

like licorice in every colour of the rainbow !!

 and music too!

After we'd eaten a couple of the  best curry puffs you've ever tasted in your life

and some sugar-coated macadamia nuts ( how's that for an early morning combination ???), we drove back into the city for "breakfast " on the cliffs at Kangaroo Point overlooking the city centre.

Everywhere there were people enjoying the Winter morning.

Breakfast picnics were set up in the sunshine ... 

as families enjoyed the lovely view of our modern city.

The cliff climbers/ absailers were setting up their ropes

Can you spot them on the cliffs?

We wandered along till we came to the coffee shop.... 

.... and found ourselves a table.

By now it was 11am and the breakfast rush was just ending.

Tea and raisin toast was all we needed after our exotic snack at the markets.

This cafe is a favourite with the cyclists who ride the city's bikeways on the weekends

Down on the river there was plenty of action too

I'll leave you with a couple more photos of our city.

If you ever think of visiting, there's nowhere better on a Winter's day !

Cheers.

SATURDAY NIGHT COOK

Sitting around in the doctor's surgery waiting for Dad while he had a sun cancer removed has resulted in a chesty cough for me.

So  tonight it's cook's night off and there's a new cook on duty in the kitchen.

Fettuccine Carbonara is on the menu

Ingredients are ready.....

( Enough for a small army by the look of things ! )

Good smells are in the air.

The finished product

Very professional.....

and tastes good too !!

Cheers.