Fresh, totally organic and straight from the garden, just beautiful! Gardening has been such a tough slog here, trying to grow things in a drought with water restrictions and horrible, horrible clay soil. But we have our small victories and these are one of them. Husband has just put in a plum and a persimmon tree as well as a couple of climbing roses. Planting anything is a gamble here without the free use of water (even with our own water tank, its uselss without rain to fill it!)
We have so many plans for gardening and growing when we get our “dream” acreage, and for the time being we live in hope that the drought will finally break.
Saturday
Saturday.
As you can imagine, most of my time lately has been spent “just being a Mum” and squeezing in a little crafting time wherever possible. Juggling feeds, nappies, baths, toddlers (and their often unruly behaviour), meals and all my duties doesn’t leave much time for anything else, but despite all this, I really feel happy and grateful. I’m doing what I’m supposed to do and I’m pretty good at it most of the time!
So, I thought today I should bring you a little eye candy lest you grow tired of my rambling text.
This is a shot of the wee bairny (now all of 12 days old!) in the Hugabub I previously mentioned.
Note the small observer to the side.
I managed to fit in some baking time yesterday using the dough hooks on the new mixmaster.
The bread rolls became garlic bread to accompany the anchovy, zucchini and onion creamy pasta we had lastnight.
The loaf is a lovely fruit loaf, for which I will give the recipe for you to try. Although it ages quickly, it makes a great next day toast. We toasted slices for morning tea with melted butter and strawberry cream tea from T2tea (delicious served hot or cold).
FRUIT LOAF.
First stage of dough:
100g plain flour
7g sachet dry yeast
1 tsp muscovado or brown sugar
250 ml warm milk
2nd stage of dough:
350g plain flour
half tspn salt
50g butter
1 tspn mixed spice
50g muscovado or brown sugar
225g mixed, dried fruit
1 beaten egg
Method:
1. First stage ingredients.
Mix flour, yeast and sugar, beat in the milk slowly. Cover with cling wrap for 20 minutes or until frothy.
2. Second stage ingredients.
Put flour and salt in a bowl and rub in butter. Stir in the spice, sugar and fruit. Add egg to first stage dough, then add flour mixture. I did this with the dough hooks, then continued to allow the machine to knead the dough. If kneading by hand, do so for about 10 minutes. Cover dough and leave to rise for about an hour.
3. Grease a loaf tin. Give risen dough a quick knead. Cut into 3 pieces and shape each into an oval to fit across the width of the tin. Leave to rise again for about 45 minutes. Preheat oven to 200 degrees (C). Bake loaf for 20 minutes, then loosely cover with foil and bake for another 15 – 20 minutes until the base sounds hollow when tapped.
Enjoy!
Saturday
I rarely buy magazines, however, a hospital stay is a worthy excuse for buying not one, but three of your favourite magazines! I’ve had these sitting and waiting, so very tempting to peep, but no! I loooove craft and lifestyle magazines, every visit to the library sees me with at least a handful, but naturally, competition for new editions is fierce.
Check out the cover of this months Homespun, wouldn’t you be tempted to peep?!
Grass Roots – essential reading for suburbanites craving the country life!
I couldn’t go past Handmade, especially when I spied the “triple pack”. Who says clever marketing doesn’t work?I’m signing off for a little while now, those of you who visit here regularly will know our new baby is arriving on Monday. I’ll be back as soon as I can manage (with baby pics of course!)
God bless you all and thanks for reading š