A Birthday Bushwalk

On a clear and cold June day, I turned another year older and celebrated my birthday day with a bushwalk in a forest not far from home. With the sun high in Winter's blue sky, we rugged up in several layers against a chilly and brisk wind and set off to picnic in the Samford Conservation Park. Our picnic spot, in a red ironbark forest, is just over the ridge from our place.

Leafy shadows on an ironbark's trunk.

To add something warm and nourishing to our packed picnic lunch, we drove the 'long way round' and stopped in at a local bakery, in the Samford Village, for pies. Mine was fresh and hot from the oven and filled with lentils, tomato, onion and zucchini. Along with the sweet strawberries and other goodies we'd packed, it made for a simple and warming lunch.

Our picnic spot.

At our quiet picnic spot, we chose a table under the trees from where we could hear the whip birds calling and watch the kookaburras perched upon their branches. This fellow kept a keen eye on us as we ate our lunch and we left him in charge of our picnic basket when we headed off on our bushwalk.

Kookaburra keeping a keen eye on lunch!

Along the winding, rocky track we took, the ground was carpeted with fallen eucalyptus leaves. Either side of the track grow the forest's trees, so many being straight and tall and thin like matchsticks in comparison to the older specimens among them with their thicker trunks and their rough and deeply furrowed bark. These are the ironbarks after which the gully we looped around is named.

Two trunks in the forest.

Being Winter, there were very few native flowers in bloom but the forest's foliage, shaded in a myriad of gorgeous greens, was beautiful against a backdrop of barks. 

The green of a young grass tree.

Spending time in the forest, with the high blue sky above, the ground firmly underfoot and tall trees all around, felt the perfect way to spend some of my day. 

Meg

Brown Rice & Vegetable Rolls

A rediscovered recipe, scrawled on a piece of paper and found languishing between pages of a rarely-used recipe book, reminded me of a lovely version of sausage rolls that I haven't made for a good twenty years of so!  Instead of a meaty filling, these rolls are filled with healthy brown rice and lots of nutritious vegetables. They are most lovely, warm from the oven and with a dollop of fruity chutney on the side. 

Delicious!

Brown Rice & Vegetable Rolls

Ingredients:

1 cup cooked brown rice 

1/2 cup corn kernels

1/2 cup frozen peas

1/2 cup grated carrot

2 spring onions, finely chopped

1 capsicum, finely chopped

1 cup grated tasty cheese

1 Tablespoons fruit chutney

2 eggs, beaten

3 sheets puff pastry

Method:

1.  Preheat oven to 210C.

2. Combine all ingredients, except pastry sheets, in a large bowl to make the filling.

3.  Spoon filling along  one edge of each puff pastry sheet.

4.  Roll up the filling inside the pastry and seal by pressing pastry ends together.

5.  Cut evenly into individual rolls.

6.  Glaze with a little egg or milk before baking. (You could sprinkle with sesame seeds too.)

7.  Bake for approximately 30mins or until pastry is golden.

8.  Serve with some extra fruit chutney.

Ingredients for a meat-free meal.

These rolls are a delicious alternative to everyday sausage rolls and have lots of extra goodness wrapped up in them from the brown rice and the vegetables. It certainly won't be another twenty years before I make them again!

Meg

Some Simple Savings

The simple savings we make here don't usually come via a flashy sale with price tags advertising huge discounts. Instead, they tend to reveal themselves in the everyday things we do over and again. These are some of the little savings we've made of late by making, growing, reusing, mending and finding our own:

This plant, grown from a cutting I brought home from my Mum's garden, has filled out its hanging basket. Both the wire hanging basket and its liner were 'rescued' from my stash of old pots that I keep on a table under our house. I am not sure what this plant is called but it has pretty tangerine bell-shaped flowers. A free plant from my Mum's place that's now growing here too.

I stamped a plain piece of brown paper, which came wrapped around a little bunch of flowers I received, with tiny flower heads. I added it to my ''saved" gift wrap along with this silver and black piece that came with flowers too. I think both will look lovely once re-used and tied with black ribbons.

A large dish of lasagne was baked to share as a meal with friends. I used grated zucchini and carrot and pumpkin to add to the very small amount of meat I had to make the filling. I sprinkled the creamy sauce on top with a little parmesan cheese and baked it until golden.  I served it with steamed veg. Warm and chocolatey prune muffins, from a recipe I found in a Grass Roots magazine, with homemade vanilla ice-cream, made a lovely dessert too. As we were feeding two extra hungry teenage boys, this homemade meal saved us quite a bit as I'm sure you can all imagine just how many takeaway pizzas growing boys can eat!

Little harvests from the garden are finding their way into lots of our meals. There are handfuls of crunchy snow peas for stir fries, juicy yellow tomatoes for salads that are also lovely and sweet when roasted. I've made two Silverbeet Impossible Pies now, with silverbeet and spring onion and parsley from the garden, which is just delicious hot or cold, for lunch or for dinner. The little limes, from a tree that I walk past almost every day while out with Sir Steve dog, are destined to become lime curd to dollop onto our homemade scones. At one of the big supermarkets, limes are 72c each. These were foraged and free!

 

One of my favourite op-shops is open again now and I found this black button-up cardigan amongst the racks of clothes. It cost me just a few dollars. I will get a lot of wear out of it because it's lightweight and thus perfect for our mild sub-tropical Winters. I also mended one of my son's favourite t-shirts to extend its life a little longer. 

Making things last that bit longer, reusing what we already have, growing and making our own, buying second hand and keeping an eye out for that which is free or a good bargain saves a little here and there which, over time, adds up to dollars and cents not spent but saved.

Meg

Another Washcloth

It's been a while since I knitted a washcloth. When I first began remembering how to knit, I made lots of different washcloths as they are a simple and practical project for getting back into knitting and practising different stitches and patterns. They also make perfect handmade presents too!

Washcloths from my Mum.

Recently, my Mum sent me a pair of washcloths she made, together with the patterns for them. I especially like the speckled washcloth with repeating diagonal lines running through it. The pattern is worked in multiples of 6. You cast on 36 stitches, or whatever multiple of six you wish to work with, and then knit this pattern before casting off and weaving in the ends:

Row 1:  Knit 5, Purl 1 (repeat)

Row 2:  Purl 1, Knit 1, Purl 4 (repeat)

Row 3:  Knit 3, Purl 1, Knit 2 (repeat)

Row 4:  Purl 3, Knit 1, Purl 2 (repeat)

Row 5:  Knit 1, Purl 1, Knit 4 (repeat)

Row 6:  Purl 5, Knit 1 (repeat)

A handmade gift.

Following this pattern, and adding a border with a couple of extra plain rows at top and bottom and a few extra plain stitches at beginning and end of each row, I  knitted one up too. I used a soft and creamy organic cotton from my stash. With a little gift tag, saved from a magazine, and a bar of soap it became a lovely gift.

What have you been making lately?

Meg