Green and authentic.

Right. Here's some authentic cut greenery that is residing in our lounge at the moment. From our local Farmer's Market last Saturday. Thought it'd 'go' with the green velvet vintage lounge from my Nan. I'm loving it...

Back by Popular Demand

Why hello! Imagine seeing you here! Or me here... Or anyone here at all!

I'll admit I'm feeling rusty. It's been a looooonnnng time between posts hasn't it?

A new (morning) routine

Well hello! Imagine seeing you here!!! Are you as surprised to see me?! It's been a while hey?

I have my voice back~!

 Have you noticed anything? On this blog? Something has changed!

No replies!

 

Have you noticed that there's been no reply from me on this blog???

A Deliberation...

We are deliberating around here. Well, rather, I am deliberating... about this blog of mine...

Recipes from Life - Scones

Want to see some recipes? Recipes that I use all the time. That are tried and true. But most importantly, recipes that use everyday ingredients and that you can whip up at a moments notice! These are my Recipes from Life. Most of them have been passed on to me from special people like my Nan. Some I've 'found' in moments of desperation. And others have evolved because the original ingredients weren't in the cupboard! They are for everyday life and are used often in my life ;-)  My classics.

Today you're getting this bonus recipe post on a Saturday, 'cos I don't quite know when I'll be back online next week. Remember, we're taking the kids in the car. So I thought I'd pop this post on to fill in the gaps, so-to-speak ;-) Plus, it's a jolly good excuse to take some shots of yummy food!

Right. First up in the Recipes from Life series; that great Australian, morning tea, tummy-filler, the scone. These are (almost) de rigueur for our lamb marking morning tea. Actually you know, us Aussies probably nicked the scone from England, I can imagine it would be great for their high teas. Well, we've certainly taken it to our hearts!

***UPDATE*** A quick google has revealed scones actually hale from Scotland. So there you go, no wonder I love them so much! It's my scottish blood coming through ;-)

Scones have a scary reputation though, well at least the cooking of them does. There are country women, and city ones probably, who spend years mastering their own exact blend of ingredients to create a light fluffy scone. My life doesn't have time (or energy) for that concentration! But I have a secret ingredient that makes enough lightness for the whole world, one those matriarchs would never use, or admit to using. I use a recipe to beat all that down.... then all you have to do is beat the cream up and serve with jam! You'll look like a clever cook and all who eat these will smile. Smile only, cos you can't talk with a mouthful of warm scone, jam and cream. Yum!

So here are the ingredients:

3 cups of Self Raising Flour

300ml of cream

3/4 cup of lemonade

A pinch of salt

And the method is just as simple, the less you do the better:

- Whisk flour into bowl

- Add remaining ingredients

- Mix lightly

- When mixture is holding together pull whole dough onto bench and knead gently for a little bit

- Then press dough out 'til it's about an inch thick

- Cut scones/circles out using whatever u have

- Place on tray and cook in hot oven (200 degrees C) for 15 minutes

Extra Tips from Life:

- Always use a freshly opened lemonade

- Buy 600ml of cream, use half in cooking, whip half for serving

- Add a bit (a Tablespoon) of icing sugar/mixture to cream when whipping

- Serve with some sort of berry jam

- EAT WHILE HOT! Or zap cold scones for 20 seconds in the microwave before serving.

To serve these scones, I load them all into a tea-towel lined basket or bowl. Then I wrap them with the corners of the tea towel, to keep them warm. Onto the table goes a bowl of jam and a bowl of whipped cream, a pile of spoons and knives for spreading. Added to all that are a pile of plates, and everyone serves themselves. 

When you serve yourself you get to spread your own scone while it's hot, and add as much jam/cream as you like! There is something wonderful about splitting open the scone to reveal the warm dough in the middle. Beware the small people though, they like to eat the jam and cream straight out of the bowls or off the scone itself! Check out the spoon all lined up to go in the shot below :-)

So there you go, the first Recipe from Life. And some photos of glistening jam :-) One day soon I will make a link so that we can find all of these recipes easily, in just one click. Until then, I hope you are enjoying yummy things! I'm off to hunt for an amazing bakery in Adelaide next week, will take some pics to share.

What are the recipes you cook over and over, or where are the bakeries you go to again and again? The ones that hold your life together? And make sure life sweet! Tell me, I'd love to add them to my list!

Test Post

If you received an email telling you this post was published then I am sorry (I'm having trouble getting a particular post to load). Here's a pic to make it all better! Emma.

White table = blank blog canvas

It's a holiday here today, so the house isn't very peaceful, but let's go to another world. A world of fairy tales, and white tables.

"Once upon a time there was a little farmhouse built in the middle of a paddock. It was built by a farming family who used pieces of a war barracks building (WWII) that had been demolished and they lived in this house happily sowing and harvesting the paddock around the house. Then times changed, the children grew up and moved away, the parents grew older and moved to town. The paddock was sown by another farmer. The farmhouse did what all old empty farmhouses do and slowly fell down. Just before it's roof fell in a newly married town girl happened to visit the farm and this old house. Inside it were many of the families old pieces of furniture. Including a well-used, round wooden table and a cupboard just like this one. The newly married town girl really loved old furniture but she lived too many kilometres away to take any home. Somehow  she convinced her new husband (they were obviously newly married) to remove the furniture from the old falling-down farmhouse and they both convinced the farmer to find a spot in his shed for a few bits of furniture. And so the furniture was saved from becoming a pile of rubble along with the farmhouse.

Fast forward about 8 years and the newlyweds were no longer newlyweds, in fact they were awaiting the arrival of baby #3. The farmhouse had fallen in, but the furniture was still in the farmer's shed! Plus they had moved house and were now living within a reasonable range of the farm.... ahah, here is where to fairy tale progresses ;-) The baby needed a change table and the round wooden table needed a new home. With a few fresh coats of white paint the table looked MUCH better, and it came to live in the baby's room providing a very valuable service to the new family.

Then the town girl started taking photos inside her home to use when writing a blog. She noticed that she was frequently taking photos on the dining table. And although it's a great backdrop, it's covered in maps and the resulting tones are generally blue. Added to this the baby is now the littlest one and soon won't need a change table.... the fairy tale can have another chapter added. The table can be moved to a new room, the living area, where there is lots of lovely natural light and it can be used for all sorts of new services. And so the furniture re-arranging begins! This is what it the living area looked like on Friday morning:

Basically this is where everyone lands at the start and end of the day. The littlest one has her own chair and book basket here. The cushions get rearranged often (mostly to the floor) and the stack of books/magazines on the basket to the left has to be regularly sifted/sorted/culled. It's a well-used spot in the home. The photos are a collection of our's in a set of $2-shop frames which Mr Accommodating biscuit joined together and I painted many moons ago. The cane lounge was an Ebay purchase, it was cheap to buy but after picking it up from 500kms away Mr Accommodating explained just how much it had really cost me! Though I still think we're getting a great cost/use rate from it.

You might notice that there doesn't seem to be much room for a round table in this set-up. A few things had to change.... so I put my muscles on and shifted things around until they looked like this:

Here's the layout from another angle... Moving furniture around has long been a past-time of mine. It's been happening for longer than my tea habit. Early on in our marriage Mr Accommodating used to state that he wouldn't dare come home after dark for fear that he'd stumble into furniture that I'd re-arranged that day. I still maintain that a change is as good as a holiday plus it's got to be good for a work-out.

The new layout has the gorgeous white table in it. As well a retro old chair that I 'won' at a clearing sale for $10 (there were 2 others and a side table in the purchase too, they are in other places about the house). I was bidding despite some VERY raised eyebrows from Mr Accommodating. I admit that they did look rather decrepit. One even had a circular wine stain on the arm (the clearing sale was an old winery closing down). Amazing what sand paper and some gloss lacquer does! We've had many admiring comments about these chairs, the lovely Mr Accommodating just rolls his eyes and waits for me to tell my clearing sale story again!

But back to the story... The table looks just lovely in it's corner. White against white. So blank ;-) Great for clear, crisp blog images. Gives all the colour to the subject."

And that is the story of the white table. Well at least up unto this day! So good to have a blank canvas to create images for blogging. Funny how such 'whiteness' can make other white things look awesome too. This white 'Fire Stone' vase is a thrift shop purchase from a month or so ago. Just before I started blogging, really it was! I promise to now blog other little finds as they happen! It was a $5 purchase, just like this sweet vintage find of Sarah's. Little finds like these... they make me smile. Why? A number of reasons. The price fits into my aim to not spend much money at all on unnecessary things for the house, yes I'll admit it's unnecessary. Old things seem to have such gorgeous character, what's that saying "they don't make things like they used to", so it just couldn't be left on the shop shelf un-admired. And there's an additional environmental bonus of re-using something, Mr Accommodating and I do try to have a green tinge to our psyches.

So what have you re-arranged lately? Or found for $5? Or smiled about? I'll leave you with a shot that made me smile.

 

The Farm

So. This is the farm. 

My Viewpoint

This is the view from my front window....

Message in a Bottle

 

Last weekend this very normal stay-at-home mum from a country town in Australia got a message in a bottle!