Lately

We are spending all our days at home now like so many others all around the world.  There is work and school to do from home throughout Monday to Friday. Our old wooden table is set with schoolbooks and our study is, for now, a makeshift office. Around and in between this different way of working and learning, there is much that is happily and reassuringly the same about home.

 Homemade pumpkin scones with jam & a dollop of thick cream.


  Fresh, spray-free fruit & veg in my custom-order box.

Crunchy cornflake crackles.

As always, there's much home cooking cooling on the kitchen bench. This nourishes us, sustains us and, in the case of these cornflake crackles, indulges us in a little childhood nostalgia when days did indeed seem more carefree than they do just now. While this refined-sugar free version of these honey joys, is far less sweet than those I remember from my girlhood days, they are every bit as yummy and the bottom still sticks to the patty paper case! 🙂

The first eggplant flower.

A delicate little snow pea flower too.

In the veggie patch, the seedlings I planted weeks ago are growing taller and leafier and the first flowers on the eggplant and snow peas have emerged. The buzz of honeybees, blue-banded bees and teddy bear bees, begins early in this north-facing part of our garden. Our own teeny-tiny little native bees are there among the flowers too but they are just quieter. I am harvesting homegrown lettuce, spring onion, herbs, mandarins and spinach and can't wait to pick the first snow peas to munch on!

A novel & one of those cornflake crackles.

Everyday, I find myself with a book (or three) in my lap which is not that unusual in less extraordinary times either. The pile of books I borrowed before the libraries closed is dwindling. Some of the novels have been ho-hum but I am very much enjoying In Love with George Eliot by Kathy O'Shaughnessy.  It's been quite fascinating to learn more about the life of Marian Evans, who wrote under the nom de plume of George Eliot. Perhaps, when there are no library books left on my bedside table, I will seek out one of George Eliot's Victorian novels to read. 

Little blue & cream drawstring bag.

While my bedside table is emptying of novels, my sewing table has a growing pile of old linens from which I am making little drawstring bags. These are my favoured project right now. Each finished bag is tucked into my present box for later gifting. They are perfect for holding a washcloth and bar of soap or a few packets of flower seeds and a card. While I am often 'distracted' by sewing up these bags, I have made some progress on a couple of unfinished garments too. (If I ever finish them, I'll show you! 😄)

Early morning light along the path.

Each and every day too, there are early morning and late afternoon walks, with each other and our lovely Sir Steve dog, along the winding paths of our leafy neighbourhood. The Autumn light at these times of day is gentle and soft. Quite a way along one path, nestled safely into the fork of a tall gum's branches, there is a precious koala. With a handpainted sign at the bottom of 'her' tree, letting us all know she's up there, this fluffy native has become quite a neighbourhood celebrity! Can you see her way up high in these branches?

A fluffy koala in a gum along a neighbourhood path.

Just as this koala is settled and snug in her tree, so too are we in our home. In these uncertain times, I would not want to be anywhere else. 

Meg

Yesterday's Bake

Baking started early for the day was forecast to be unseasonally hot. If I was going to turn the oven on, it was going to be before the sun got too high in the sky. 

Wholemeal Pesto Bread Rolls

As I am trying to bake better breads, I decided to practise with wholemeal pesto bread rolls. I followed this Taste recipe, with the addition of a few scoops of tomato pesto I had in the fridge to use up, and then left my dough to rise out in the warmth of the sun. It doubled in size quickly and from it I made eight little bread rolls. 

Simple Weetbix Slice

While the bread roll dough was proving, I helped my son to bake this simple cereal slice. Just crushed Weetbix, butter and a few other pantry staples make a scrumptious afternoon tea time treat. Icing always seals the deal as far as my son is concerned anyway!

Nutty Choc-Chip Cookies

As soon as the slice was in the oven, I made a batch our favourite nutty choc-chip cookies. I used brazil nuts in these cookies this time but I sometimes make them with cashew nuts or macadamia nuts. I always mix in dark chocolate chips which I buy when they are on special. This batch of cookies went into the freezer to save for later.

All of this baking, and the resulting washing up, was finished well before lunchtime. With freshly baked and soft bread rolls for lunch, full of wholemeal goodness and pesto flavours, it was rather a delicious way to end yesterday's bake.

What have you been baking of late?

Meg

A Little Handstitched Card

With needle and embroidery threads, I stitched a little gift card, with four tiny pink butterflies. 

Little hand stitched card.

On a leftover piece of watercolour card, I drew four floaty butterflies lightly in pencil. Using the point of a needle, I pin punched their outlines ready for stitching. With a dark and a light pink thread for their wings and a chocolatey brown for their antennae, I sewed in simple back stitch to complete each little butterfly.

Stitching butterflies.

One tiny stitch at a time.

Sitting out in the warm shade on our verandah, sewing one tiny pink stitch at a time into the card, I thoroughly enjoyed this process, so much so that I lost track of time completely while stitching butterflies. 

Meg

So Many Butterflies

Flitting through the air around our garden and neighbourhood have been ever so many more butterflies.  These delicate insects are, as always, ever so hard to photograph with their fluttering wings and dizzying flight paths but, every so often, when they alight upon a favourite plant, they stay still just long enough to capture something of their beauty.

A beautiful Blue Tiger Butterfly.

Dozens of Blue Tiger Butterflies, with wings that remind me of stained glass cut-outs, are gathering around one heavenly-scented blossoming tree in the park. 

The female Common Eggfly on a mandarin leaf.

The Common Eggfly and the Orchard Swallowtail are favouring the lone mandarin in our garden. I spot them from our kitchen window as they weave in and out of the glossy green mandarin leaves.

The closed wings of the Common Crow butterfly.

In the warmth of the morning,  Common Crow butterflies flit and flutter around our star jasmine. We often see these butterflies in our garden.

The bright blue wings of a Blue Triangle Butterfly

Flashes of the most exquisite bright blue signal the flight of the  Blue Triangle Butterfly. They seem to like the salvias in our garden. Even when these butterflies are feeding, their wings constantly vibrate so they are rarely still.

A little butterfly bag.

These butterflies, and others of their fluttering kind, bring such a sense of delight and wonder at just how beautiful and perfect nature can be. I even discovered a butterfly, stitched in purples, on a piece of vintage linen. So many butterflies!

Meg

A Quiet Easter Sunday

So much of our Easter Sunday passed as it always does but so much of it was different too.  

A soft felted bunny in a basket.

Tiny sweet eggs and a chocolatey bunny or two nestled themselves into little handmade baskets that I put out, along with our other Easter treasures, atop our old wooden table. This is where our sleepy-eyed son always finds his bounty upon waking and remembering it's Easter Sunday. 

A little woven basket filled with spotty eggs.

After coming in from the garden, where we spent time watering and weeding while our teenage son slumbered on (as they do), we three had breakfast together out on our verandah. Leftovers on toast in the warm sunshine! In other years, our verandah would have seen us sitting and sharing a lovely Easter lunch with my husband's family but this year it's not to be. 

A tiny rabbit on a tiny plate.

Instead, for the Grandma who lives close by, we nestled another chocolate bunny, a handmade washcloth and some soap into a little basket and drove to leave it outside her door. We wished her a Happy Easter from a socially-distant afar which is all we can do right now. For the Grandma and Poppy who live so far away, on a peaceful pocket of land in the far north, we set up a Skype session and were able to see them and talk with them from this distance we all now have to endure. While Skype can't replace the hugs I so wish I could give them, it was something in these surreal times.

A drawstring bag for gathering.

We three had our hot cross buns for morning tea (I did indeed make another batch on Saturday) and a simple lunch of toasted sandwiches which were warm and cheesy and just right for this year's Easter. The afternoon saw each of us absorbed in our own pursuits. While my others completed a jigsaw puzzle, read books, rode bikes and kicked footballs, I gladly curled up and watched Gardening Australia's Easter Special on ABC iview, walked Sir Steve dog and did some more sewing with lovely vintage linens. Perhaps the little drawstring bags I made could hold some of next Easter's eggs.

Three little Easter Bunnies.

In the evening, we shared a meal up at our old wooden table, with its display of little Easter bunnies and baskets beside us. Somehow those little baskets weren't holding quite as many chocolatey eggs as they had been in the morning. Hmmm... I'm pretty sure Sir Steve dog didn't steal any for he knows chocolate is not for dogs! 

This year, it was just the three of us but next year I hope wider family will gather here and we'll be truly together again. How are you spending your Easter time?

Meg

First Hot Cross Buns

Hot cross buns, warm and fresh from my oven, were my Easter imaginings very early on this Good Friday morning. These imaginings ignored my somewhat hopeless record when making breads, rolls or buns that require yeast, kneading and proving. On the very few occasions I have attempted this bread-making caper, I have ended up with a variety of rocks shaped like loaves. Once, when I actually managed to get a dough to rise after placing it in a sunny spot at the top of my front steps, the whole thing managed to roll itself down to the bottom. That certainly knocked ALL the air out of it! But I promptly forgot all this in the midst of my imaginings this morning and this was the result...

A half dozen little hot cross buns.

While one has to ignore the less-than-uniform shape of these little Easter buns and imagine more defined crosses on their tops, made with a paste of flour and water, they are otherwise delicious. They are very light, not the least bit rocky and the little choc-chips inside, which are my substitute for the sultanas and mixed peel that we do not favour, are just sweet enough. With their shiny glaze of a little local honey on top, they are a step in the right direction along my bread-baking road and I couldn't be happier about that given my previous attempts.

 Mixing the dough in my favourite big bowl.

A little ball of dough after kneading on my kitchen bench.

Ready to place in warm spot to rise. 

Light & fluffy dough after hours in the oven.

There could very well have been a different outcome of hot cross rocks. Today is not ideal for baking bread. It's actually overcast, showery and cold so there was no warm sunshine in which to sit my dough to rise. (Tomorrow, it's meant to be 31C, but I could not wait.) I ditched the first sachet of yeast, declaring it dead, and used one that smelt like beer when I opened the packet. It seemed like a good omen. I followed Jamie Oliver's recipe, for if I was going to bake buns then I decided I'd rely on an expert. All was kneading together nicely until the time came to cover my little ball of spiced dough, all round and smooth and sitting in my favourite bowl (that seemed like a good omen too) and find somewhere warm for it to rise. I covered it and carefully carried it downstairs and under the house to sit it on top of our hot water system and then realised there was no heat coming off that towering tank of water. So, in desperation, I put it in my oven. Thankfully, I only preheated it to 30C because I subsequently read, while fretting that it wouldn't rise, that yeast begins to die at around 45C. I let my dough sit in the warmth of the oven, switched off and door closed, for a lot longer than the hour recommended. I left it for more like three hours and, despite my 'best' efforts, it rose!  

Dark chocolate chips instead of dried fruits.

After such a long wait, I very happily  kneaded in those chocolate chips, made six little buns and left them to rise once more which, to my amazement, they did! While they were baking, their scrumptious scent wafted through the house. They emerged from the oven golden on top and all soft on the inside. Enjoyably edible and not in the least bit like rocks. Yes!

One sweet little hot cross bun.

Tomorrow, I am going to bake these hot cross buns again for they are now all gone. I'll see if I can shape them a little more uniformly and perhaps I'll pipe those crosses on instead of painting them on with the edge of a spoon. And, with a 31C day forecast, I should have plenty of warm spots for the dough to rise in though I won't be resting it at the top of my front stairs!

Have you been baking for Easter?

Meg

Sourcing Fresh Fruit & Veg

Judging by how difficult it is right now to buy seedlings or to source seeds, there are a lot of people having-a-go at growing some of their own food. I think that's a really positive thing!  I've always tried, with varying levels of success, to grow some of our own produce in our own garden. Homegrown is as local as it gets, we don't use chemicals or sprays in the garden, it saves us some money and it's super-fresh. A store-bought cucumber just can't compete with one picked off its vine, rinsed under the hose and munched on in the garden. 

Eggplant in the veg patch.

Snow pea seedlings starting to grow.

In our garden, there's always lots of herbs like rosemary, thyme, basil, parsley and oregano to pick and bay leaves too from our tree in its pot. This year, the Ceylon spinach thrived once the rain fell regularly later in the Summer. So too the sweet potato vine which is busy twining its tendrils up and around a nearby grevillea at the moment. (I really must get down and see just what it's up to.) There always seems to be spring onion growing happily in our veg patch and I've recently planted lettuce, rainbow chard, perpetual spinach, beetroot, snow peas, two types of cherry tomato and one lone eggplant in with it. There are mandarins on our one-and-only fruit tree (for I managed to extinguish the lemon tree and the avocado didn't survive the dry months before the rain came) but they are nowhere near ripe yet. This all adds up to the promise of some homegrown produce to come, but even if all this thrives (and doesn't get gobbled up by caterpillars or grasshoppers) we still need to source more fruits and vegetables.

Ceylon Spinach growing well.

(The young leaves are delicious in omelettes.)

 A mandarin beginning to ripen on our tree.

Farmers markets are too crowded a place to be during these times of social distancing and a little local shop, where I used to be able to buy some lovely produce closed late last year. Our dear neighbour, who was the most amazing gardener I've ever known and who would share so much produce, and accept my baking and treats in return, moved away a couple of years ago. It was a sad day indeed when the new people turfed over his veggie patch. I mourned the waste of that rich soil and the loss of such a generous and knowledgeable neighbour-gardener to learn from and trade with. 

Self-seeded sweet basil.

So, when I saw the vibrant selection of spray-free fresh fruit and veg that Kathy, over at Our Simple and Meaningful Life, received in her online-ordered box, I decided this might be a good solution for us and ordered one too.  I picked it up on the weekend, from a collection point a very short drive from here, and brought home my spray-free fruit and veg. Just a small box this week, to supplement what we already had left in our crispers, plus a dozen eggs and one sweet pineapple as extras.

 Fresh & Nutritious 

Everything is fragrant and fresh. It's mostly local produce, picked not long before it was delivered and packed without plastic besides the extra eggs in their carton. The carrots are delicious. (Yes, I taste tested them.) I've never had any success with growing carrots. I don't know why but it means I always have to buy them and I'm rather fussy about my carrots. I am not a fan of limp, bitter or woody carrots. Both Sir Steve dog and I are very enthusiastic fans of crunchy, sweet carrots. 🥕 We are both quite content crunching away like Bugs Bunny on the carrots from the box though only one of us sounds like a sloshing washing machine while snacking  .... and it's not me, folks!

Image sourced from:  http://clipart-library.com/bunny-clip-art.html

While the carrots are for snacking, they'll also be grated for salads made with the lettuce, cucumbers and tomatoes. One of those potatoes was thinly sliced and, together with cream just past its use-by date, made a creamy potato bake for dinner last night.  The other potato will end up roasted along with the pumpkin. The zucchini and the corn will be used up in a zucchini slice later in the week and the large onion will find its way into lots of evening meals. The pears and the apples are for snacks and the pineapple is destined for pizzas.  No waste! Peelings for the compost and the worm farm! 

I'll be ordering another box of fruit and veg soon. It seems to me a good solution for us right now. How are you sourcing fresh produce for your table?

Meg

Saturday's Simple Things

In a world where right now things can feel as though they are constantly changing, I'm glad for some small and simple things, here in the space of home, that bring a little contentment, a little joy, a little comfort and a little peace...

Watering the garden in the early morning light.
(I love the sound of water splashing onto these large Queensland Arrowroot leaves.)

Collecting fragrant Frangipani flowers that fall onto our lawn.
(Free perfume from a neighbour's tree.)

Knitting a few rows every now and then.
(I ❤ the deep sea colour of this simple shawl-to-be.)

 Planting little seedlings in the veg patch.
(The promise of homegrown food to come.)

 Watching the bees  plunder our garden's flowers.

(This is a noisy native Teddy Bear Bee.)

Home baking for now and for later.
(Is there anything more comforting than the scent of a baking cake?)

What are you making, growing, watching, baking or listening to during these rather surreal times? Is it bringing you a little peace too?

Meg