Blogtoberfest day 14 - cooking up a ratatouille storm!

Remember the lovely aubergines I was given the other day?  Well, I created up a culinary storm with them tonight and made a yummy ratatouille - here's my version of the classic.

LARAtatouille

Onion
1 large or 2 small aubergines
1 courgette, chopped
tin chopped tomatoes
mixed herbs
1-2 tbs balsamic vinegar
salt n pepper

Firstly prepare your aubergine - chop into chunks, place in a bowl and sprinkle over with salt.  Leave for about 20 mins - this makes the aubergine lose that 'squeakiness' you sometimes get when you eat them!  There will be some water in the bowl by now from the aubergine - rinse the aubergine thoroughly and leave to drain.

Chop your onion, fry until soft, then add the aubergine and courgette and cover and leave to steam over a low heat for 5-10 mins until soft. 

Add your tin of tomatoes and a good splosh of balsamic vinegar (this really adds to the flavour). Add herbs and seasoning to taste.  Add about 1/2 cup water and let the ratatouille simmer for about 25 minutes.  Keep checking and adding water as you don't want it to dry out.

When the veggies are cooked to your liking, serve and enjoy!  This can be a lovely veggie meal on it's own with crusty bread, or served as a side.

Blogtoberfest blogs visited: no's 61-70

Autumn Fair Afterword

What a great community event the fair was yesterday - people as far as the eye can see!  And my little stall a part of it all :)

I was really pleased to sell some of my arty spirit dolls as I enjoy making them, and really put my heart into them.  It was great to see that people enjoyed reading the labels I'd made for them too - I figured if you give a painting a title, you can give an art doll a title too, as well as a little story of its creation and meaning. 

As well as enjoying chatting to friends and other mums, I made a list of things that made me smile and grateful for the day:

My best friend helping set up the stall

Duncan going off into the village to get us coffee to keep us going!

Selling 2 of my dolls to friends who were there to support me xx

Possibility of work in the future helping others with creativity

Encouraging an older lady to go buy some canvas boards, brushes, paints and have a go at painting - she was so lovely :)

Friends seeking me out to give support and have a chat

"You've got really lovely art" - a young visitor to my stall.  Bless you xx

Taking a week off painting, sewing and crochet - I'm going to spend the time spring cleaning the house and making it look a little less like a messy art studio and more like a home.  "Honey, I'm back!"

A room with two views

Oh ... my ... goodness ... have I been feeling strange today!  There appears to be some sort of mutant virus doing the rounds, everyone has differing symptoms though the common ones are feeling dizzy, fluffy headed and vaguely queasy.  So I've been wondering around hoping that no-one would want to speak to me as I couldn't concentrate on anything, and was more than likely to fall over into the bargain! 

Instead I spent my day being kind to myself, drinking tea (but of course!) and being gently creative.  This involved painting some of my spirit dolls which I will be selling at the autumn fair.  I really should share some photos of them belong too long.  Anyway, whilst replenishing my strength this lunchtime I was sitting in one of my favourite spots and thought it would be nice to share them with you too.  They are my creative thinking spots, and I'm lucky enough to have 2 in the same room!

As it's summer and we have no need of the fire, we like to have a change about and move the sofa in front of the fireplace, where I'm sitting now, giving us a view of the outside and my fantastic, oversized red chair which was a Christmas present this last time round.  I've always wanted a really huge chair that I can curl up in with room to spare, and one was found!

Swapping sides and sitting in this gorgeous chair I can now see my lovely fireplace sofa, complete with pile of crafty, inspiring books and magazines.  It's also the dog's favourite spot for a kip.  Can you see the row of tiny, knitted and felted hearts?  They will be for sale on the school's craft stall - I have been very busy!!  They are so cute I'm not sure how many will actually make it to the stall ...

There you have it - a little peak at my little world of creativity and inspiration - where's your favourite place for contemplating the world and what you want to do next in it?

Happy Birthday to me! :) Celebrate with the Super Singapore Sling

Only a little post today, I have had such a lovely day celebrating my birthday, with lovely friends and my gorgeous family, from both sides of the world xxx  So in a minute I'm going to phone my birthday buddy then go to bed!  When I envisioned my day I knew I wanted to have a 'Singapore Sling' and share it with dear friends, which I did.  So as a little giftie to you I'm putting the recipe here for the best Singapore Sling in the world (it's almost a guestpost, as the recipe has been tweaked and perfected by my husband, and typed up by him for our use ...)

Duncan's Perfect Singapore Sling:

5 shots of quality pineapple juice
1.5 to 2  shots of gin (sapphire is great)
1/4. Shot of freshly squeezed lime juice
1/2.        Shot of cherry brandy
1/3.        Shot of Benedictine
1/3.        Shot of Cointreau
1             Dash of Angustura bitters

Shake in cocktail mixer with ice, strain and pour into a long glass over plenty of ice. Add a lime wedge and top up with soda water.

Go on, find any excuse to try one.  Then let me know what you think :)

For the love of tomato sauce ...

Daytime - I prepare 2kg of lovely, juicy homegrown tomatoes

 Oh ... My ... Goodness ... Now I remember why I haven't made this ketchup for such a long time - because it takes over half a day to make!!!  This is a very well rounded bottle of sauce containing tomatoes from our garden, a friend's garden and huge beef tomatoes from Aunty Noelle.  I use the recipe from Jamie Oliver's 'At Home' book.  Only difference is that I add more sugar to taste at the end and I made a double batch so we ended up with a whole litre (learned that lesson from last time!)

Evening - the finished product!

Then tonight, we had yummy woodfired pizza from our local pizzeria, and the beloved Heinz was overlooked in favour of homemade by the whole family :)   It may take an eternity to make, but it does taste soooooo good ....

Baking to relax

Hectic!  But finally a day when I can calm down and do some cooking instead of rushing around doing Christmas things. 

Today I made a birthday cake - a little bit late - but what a cake!  Using my friend's recipe for the best ever chocolate cake, topped of with lots of cream and strawberries.  As it turned out to be quite a light cake I thought I'd go for the torte type.  Really pleased considering at one point the mixture looked curdled at the end and I thought I'd blown it - still don't know how I managed to curdle the mixture when it's an add everything and mix recipe.  Tastes great though and the recipients were very pleased :)

Thanks to my assistant Little Man who helped with cream and strawberries - nothing to do with being able to eat the leftovers I'm sure xxxx

Hearts and words ,,,

Hearts because I love them, blue because that's how I was feeling at the start of the day :(   Better now - listening to my body and having a sleep in the day helped, but my best therapy was writing - the old fashioned way in a journal with a pen :)   Mostly gobbledegook, a list of things, annoyances, feelings and so on, it won't make sense to me, let alone anyone else in months to come.  But wow, did I feel lighter!  I even managed a small sketch for an art quilt I want to make at the end of the blah, finding a way back to my creativity ...  It's something I'd recommend to any of you struggling with what you want to say, how you are feeling - write, write, write ...  It's a great idea to write a letter and put down your thoughts and feelings - you don't have to send it.  It's just important to get the words and your feelings out!

Body Image - journalling

I was given a journalling exercise the other day, asking me to think about my body - all the things it does right, or on its own without being told what to do!

So it got me really thinking.  I usually look at my body and only see what's wrong with it, what I would like to change, and even see it as a separate entity sometimes!  But after brainstorming and putting everything down on a pretty piece of paper I can happily say I see my body as an important part of what makes up me, and that it's not so bad after all!  My favourite discoveries were that I feel my body enables me to experience the physicality of this world, to act out my feelings, to express myself.  Also that I like to move, whether it be to music (belly dancing!) or walking with my dog in the woods.

It's great to look at the same old, same old from a different perspective - it's like a breath of fresh air.  (Try it and see!  xx)

Something Different

I appear to be experiencing carpel tunnel again - too much knitting and crochet!  So I decided to take my creativity in a different direction today - and simultaneously made my kids' dreams come true.  We've been lucky enough to be gifted with a huge bag of lemons by our lovely friends, which resulted in me making a double sized lemon meringue pie!  My offspring's absolute favourite dessert of all time.  We actually, unbelievably have some left, so guess what's for lunch tomorrow!  :)

(FYI - the recipe is from Delia Smith's 'Complete Cookery Course' book xx)

Puddles, strawberries and Eton Mess ... ?

A diverse selection of pics today!

Who'd have thought it after a hot day of 30 degrees +, that today would be like winter again?  It rained so much puddles appeared everywhere - take a look!

Tried to make it feel like summer by buying strawberries and cream and making Eton Mess for dessert.  YUMMY!  And simple too, chop up your strawberries, whip the cream, smash up a few meringues and mix altogether.  Truly decadent and delicious.

Digitally enhanced Eton Mess

And we found a treasure amongst the strawberries - suggestions?  Butterfly, love heart, angel, Isle of Man 3 legged symbol (? how?), moth ... amazing what the eye sees.  Never hurts to have creativity with dessert.

PS  You still have a chance to enter the giveaway - just to remind you, the coaching can be done by phone or skype.  Winner announced in tomorrow's post.



Ship Ahoy!

Still proving that creativity comes in all forms - here is the ship of cards sailing on the Sofa Sea!

Little Man asked me to help build it - he started off really well, sorting cards into piles and stacking them neatly, counting out the required cards for each stage - for about 5 minutes before he became distracted by Lego!  Still, I was glad to see that the Lego people did become part of the crew.  (They can't be seen here as they've stopped off in Port Cushion for supplies).

A great day for making chocolate crispies

We have an extra dog for 4 weeks - our lovely friends who looked after dear old Charlie whilst we were in the UK are now having their OE holiday, so we are looking after their dog.  I feel as if I have two extra children!  This morning I caught them running across our backyard, playing tug of war with one of the kids school shirts.  Managed to get to it when it was just rain sodden and dirty rather than in pieces!

Consequently, I felt a great need for chocolate.  So I made these lovely chocolate crispies, from a recipe given to me by my lovely, lovely friend on the Isle of Wight.  As well as heaps of chocolate there's butter and syrup too.  Not helping me remove those extra kilos I put on whilst on holiday, but needs must ...  do you like the lovely 'Cat in the Hat' fabric used for background?  If you eat too many of these crispies I reckon you'd get hyper just like the Cat ... well, we do already have the Thing 1 and Thing 2 characters running around the back yard ...

Getting creative with Mr Potatohead

Wandering around the house today I found this little masterpiece by Little Man.  I just love it.  Thinking outside the square potato ...

Since my last post, things have been looking up on the feeling normal scale.  I've restarted my beret which I frogged the other night (ripping it out; rip it - which sounds a bit like 'ribbet', hence the term 'frogging' - witty people, knitters :))   Made my dad think jet lag had finally got to me and I was speaking gobbledegook!  Anyway, I will probably finish it as spring approaches and have to put it into storage!

I'm definitely feeling more crafty, even getting out my overlocker and completely re-threading it - not a task to be taken lightly; those of you who own an overlocker will know what I mean.  I can feel some sewing coming on ... 

Lego is the best!

For the past couple of weeks Little Man has been really ill with bronchitis.  He's much better and back to school this week thank goodness.  Lego came to the rescue - at times he didn't just want to watch TV or sleep (or do homework!) and building filled the gap perfectly.  We had such fun.  I think I was mainly there to find required bricks and to make all the boring bits - good bonding time though :)

Our house ...

And what every Lego house needs ...

is a big screen TV ...

and ...

a crocodile in a pen of course!

Love Lego!! 



Gingerbread House

Thought you might like to see the collaborative gingerbread house project between myself and my boys.  Impressive hey?  A lovely rellie sent us a gingerbread kit at Christmas and we thought it was time to make it!

This is my contribution, silver sprinkles and icey icing icicles:

And this is my boys' contribution:

Bless 'em ... 

Look at that - a lovely homemade loaf of bread!  I do like making bread from scratch, but I have to admit that a breadmaking machine is a gift.  Just set and forget!  And the best thing about this machine is that it was found on a roadside collection in full working order.  Remember the old adage - one man's rubbish is another man's treasure.  This definitely gets classed as treasure - the Wombles would be proud.  

Catch up time ...

Oooh - I've been away for a bit.  I had a small panic about finishing things off for the annual Kalamunda Show so have been rushing to complete a jumper and throw all week.  Caught myself getting stressed and was very sensible and decided not to enter the jumper after all and felt enormous relief as soon as the decision was made!  And I did OK - won some certificates, among them first prize for the evening dress I made for my daughter - we were both pleased with that :)  I'll post a photo tomorrow, I feel sooooo tired at the moment and I still have my ironing to do, so I WILL NOT stress myself out by trying the find the camera and somewhere with good light to take a photo.  I've just finished reading a book which told me to take a step back before making a final decision; resulting in less stress and more awareness of what's going on in your life.  Seems like good advice to me!

I've also been decluttering today - changing round the linen and art cupboards, and seriously, I don't know why it's taken me so long!  The art supplies are so much happier in the ex-linen cupboard and I can pile linen much higher in the ex-art cupboard so there is a home for everything in the same place.  That feels good too!  I enjoy decluttering - it's strange how much clearing a cupboard and organizing things makes one feel so much lighter in other areas of life too!

So that's me - what have you been up to?

Strawberries in Rum

This is extremely easy to make, extremely tasty and the recipe ought to be shared - my Christmas gift to you!

What you need:

2 x 250g punnet strawberries, washed and hulled
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup white rum (e.g. bacardi)

Put water and sugar into a saucepan.  Cook on a low heat, stirring constantly until liquid starts boiling.  The liquid will look very white at this stage.

Boil the sugar solution until it reads 110 degrees C on a sweet thermometer or until the syrup turns clear - it should not colour.  It seems to take a long time to reach this point, but when the colour changes it happens quickly - take off heat immediately. 

Allow syrup to cool a little.  In the meantime, fit as many strawberries as you can into your chosen sterilized jar(s).  I found 250g fitted quite nicely into a 1 pint jar.  Add the rum to the syrup and stir.  Pour the syrup over the fruit to the top of the jar.  Cover.

Leave for as long as possible, a week is good, but I bet you won't be able to wait that long!  Yum.

Countdown to Christmas

I like to spread out a bit when I'm baking ...

When I went back to England for a holiday a couple of years ago, I brought back with me some dodgy CDs (mum had been collecting them from a daily newspaper!) and crammed our bags full to bursting with memorabilia from my youth.  Our baggage allowance was 100kg in total, and we reached 99kg.  (Stay with me on this, it is relevant) ...

Ready for the oven

Today I made my Christmas cake, just in time - better than last year when I made it 2 weeks before the big day!  Now I've heard it said that if you want to make a great cake, make it when you're in a good mood.  This is where my dodgy CDs came in!  I defy you not to make a good cake if you're listening to Bananarama!  Whatever you may think of them (if you even know who I'm talking about) their music is of the annoyingly catchy type, and I'll be humming 'Venus' and 'I heard a rumour' for the rest of the day!

Yum - finished - will go into storage until it's iced on Christmas Eve!

The scary part is I was a wee 16 year old when most of these songs were released.  Still I enjoyed my trip down memory lane and had a good boogie all by myself whilst making the cake!  And do you think I scraped the bowl clean with all that brandy that was in the mix?  You bet I did - why do you think I waited until the kids were at school before I made it?  :)

Treasures I find ...

Sometimes when I am walking through the forest, certain pieces 'call to me' and I have to pick them up.  This time it was this partly burned stick, with a wonderful gnarled head.  As I walked along I wondered what I was going to make with it, it even looked like it might become Charlie's chew toy at one point.  It was only as I was approaching home that I was mulling over how it could be a walking staff if it was longer, when my arty mind took over and had the idea to make an art doll who could use it as a staff.  From my medicine doll coursework I still have to make my Talisman doll and this stick is going to be perfect.  So now it sits on my bookshelf and I look at it everyday and spend some time thinking about the creation of my doll.  It won't happen for a while yet - bringing a doll to life takes a long time!

What do you think of my fabric?  The jolly robin fabric is going to be used in my November sewing challenge very shortly.  I was ironing the pieces after washing them for shrinkage allowance when I thought how gorgeous they all looked together.  Yummy colours.  Still haven't worked out what I'm going to make from the troll fabric, but it looked like such fun.  When I was at university I had a small yellow haired troll that I'd bought at a Spar shop!  This fabric was bought through sheer sentimentality!  But isn't it gorgeous!