Meadow Kitty

After yesterday's skirt whip up, Astrid is more than enthusiastic about the magic powers of the sewing machine. So this morning she suggested, "let's make a cat for Linus as a surprise" (Linus, it must be said, is Cat-mad...he loves his toy cats more than you can imagine. Yes, we have 3 real cats too and he thinks they're OK, but that's more their cantankerous fault than his . . . more on that later).

Well, what's a person to do? It's so sweet that she wanted to make a present for her brother but this had to be while he was at school and there were some other (house is a tip) work to do too. I thought to myself that I would get shifty and try out a pattern that I want to adapt to make a reindeer for Astrid (more on that later too) but of course it wasn't a quick "whip up" and I took some major shortcuts, so she is also wonky.

So here is Meadow Kitty (Astrid wanted it to be a girl as there's somewhat of a gender imbalance to his toy cats). I used all sorts of scraps that I was given by a lovely woman de-stashing a while ago.

Now to go un-tipify the house!

and she is LOVED

Pink Twirling Skirt

Why do girls go so mad for pink? I've actually made a conscious effort to limit the amount of pink in Astrid's life. It's such a conformist colour and "girly girl" (ooh I HATE that term... ugh especially when grown women use it to describe themselves) is not a box I want my wonderful, assertive, creative daughter being stuck in. Yet it's a force sometimes too big for me to fight ...15 minutes this morning on the sewing machine making a dodgy pink skirt out of the satin she chose and she's delighted! I know she'll wear it getting muddy while planting "forests" for her toy deer and climbing trees while helping her imaginary "silly fruit-eating duck", so I guess she's not totally boxed yet.

WAKE UP AUSTRALIA!

I am fearful Australia (and I know you're all reading this)! Latest opinion polls indicate that the semi-clad idiot I mentioned below may actually become our Prime Minister! Have a listen to his own quotes  and help me make sure he doesn't lead us back to the 50s!

The Aarvark Cottage Beautification Project # 2

KITCHEN

I think I've mentioned that before we bought our house it had suffered a long, long time as a rental property. This area is inner city and has a bit of a seedy past before getting all gentrified (in fact we used to rent around here in our earlier and seedier years).

The kitchen was DISGUSTING and had to be the first thing to tackle (I wouldn't use the oven for fear of  hairy beasts may have been living and toileting there).

I've just discovered that most of my "before" shots are really pretty crappy as I took them on the day we were moving in. Perhaps it was a subconscious act on my part to make the "befores" look even more awful.  Of course the view onto the neighbour's brick-clad monstrosity is still there (sigh...) So . . .

                                                                                                  

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

and AFTER

Family get-togethers

Our neighbour's almond tree is in full swing and a mass of humming bees. That has nothing to do with anything, but the picture's pretty.

We had a family barbecue yesterday, my cousin Jonas is visiting from Sweden and staying with my parents while he does an exchange at a local university for a semester, so it was a sort of a welcome to Australia.

Barbecues can be tricky for us vegetarians (alright we're Pesco-vegetarians, or "Fishocrits" as my eldest, totally vegetarian, son lovingly calls us) and we don't usually do them as a family but they are quintessentially Australian and so the carnivores went to town.

So to cater for our own "peculiarities" I made a Sweet Potato Galatte, a couscous salad and one of my Dad's favourites, Mazarins.













From my absolute favourite cake and biscuit book,  

Sju sorters kakor...

MAZARINS

Preheat oven 175C (350F)
Pastry                                                                       
300ml Plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
3tbs sugar
100g butter
1 small egg
Combine dry ingredients, rub butter into(till resembles breadcrumbs) Add egg, wrap in plastic refrigerate 1 hour.

 Filling

75g butter
3 eggs
2/3 cup sugar
150g ground almonds
Melt butter and cool. Beat eggs and sugar till VERY light and VERY thick. Stir in almonds and butter.
Roll out pastry. Line oval forms (I used a Friand tray) with pastry. Fill with filling and bake in bottom half of oven 15 minutes till tops are golden. Cool and apply icing and glacé cherry halves.

TRIFFIDS

Do you remember the Triffids (no, not the Perth band of the 80s, the killer plants of the movie).

Well, I think we have some growing around the corner from us . . .

Should we be worried?

Seriously, what ARE these plants?


And . . . The house that they are growing in front of is . . . deserted . . .dum dum dum dum!

Lazy Day, Scones and Flat Bread

A really, really, really lazy Sunday after the excitement of Saturday. 

I sat in the winter sunshine for huge lengths of time and knitted (bliss). Linus and Astrid played quietly with not a hint of a "hangover" from the day before and the Historian pottered around in his shed. Oh, the gender stereotypes! Anyway, we had a lovely relaxing day. 

We had scones with blueberry jam and cream for morning tea (A Country Women's Association (CWA) speciality of course. They are perfect looking but can be somewhat rubbery scones (psst. I don't use the recipe in the link, I merely included it for the photo of what a CWA scone looks like for comparison). Mine are rather  ugly looking, irregular, crumbly, crusty on the outside and soft and delicious on the inside...I'm sure they wouldn't pass the muster with the CWA  but am I a terrible person for preferring mine?

Then I made my absolute staple; Crispy Caraway Flatbread to nibble with a nice glass of Sauvignon Blanc  in the late afternoon. I love this recipe and make it pretty much weekly, I found it on Smitten Kitchen but I find caraway far nicer than rosemary. (of course that's because I adore caraway ). The only other thing I do differently is that I roll it out very thin between 2 sheets of baking paper to make things easier. Then I break it into shards when it cools . . .

CHEERS!