Baking Day...

Last Saturday I had a baking day with a couple of neighbour friends.  What a great day it turned out to be.  First let me tell you about the girls, Mary-Jane is a great cook and makes her own bread, she has a great vegie garden and Vanessa too is a good cook and has a great vegie garden and some chickens. They always have fresh produce ready to be cooked into a great meal!

When we were talking one day MJ said that she will teach us to make bread, after having some of her bread I thought no way will I be able to make it as good as her.  So, Saturday was the day, MJ said that we would make bread then she would bake a roast for dinner that night and in between that I would teach them to make my Florentines.

This is our bread rising near the fire.

While the bread was rising I gave the girls a gift of Florentine ingredients to make their own. They loved the idea.

This is the girls making the biscuits, I forgot to take a photo of their finished product...sorry girls!

This is Jake, Vanessa's little boy, having is baby cino with a muffin for our afternoon tea.



MJ made 2 loaves, a plain one and a herb one to go with our dinner, the herbs were freshly picked from the garden.

Ness turned her dough into a plaid.

I decided to cut my dough in half and make a plaid too and small round loaf.  The round loaf I took to share with my Dad. Once we put the flour over the tops of them, into the oven they went.

While we waited for the bread and roast to be cooked we went for a long walk, with Bailey too which he was excited about, as we knew all the lovely food that we would be eating that night!

This is the herb loaf MJ made and was so yummy.

Ness' loaf to the left and my 2 at the right.  Not bad for our first attempt and they tasted good too!

The roast on the table ready to be eaten...it was so good!  For dessert we had apple crumble that Ness made but I forgot to take a photo of it...very slack of me...sorry Ness!

What a great afternoon and night we all had and the girls hubby's enjoyed the feast as well.  Hopefully there will be many more days like this.....thanks girls!

Enjoy your day!

xx



Mini Makeover...

I decided to change the cupboard in the bathroom that I store my old bottles and boxes in. The real reason was the old cupboard was too small for all of them as I had been collecting more....good enough reason I think!

I had an old metal meat safe that I had displayed on the fridge, so i thought that it might look alright with the collection in it.

(Before photo, sorry it's a bit dark)

(After photo, sorry this one is dark too)

(close up photo)

I think it still needs some tweaking as I am not quite happy with it.

Enjoy your day!
xx

Market Day and Around the Garden...

Last Saturday I had my first market stall with my good friend Chris.  Chris currently does her own market stall at another market and said that she would do one with me so I could have a go at selling my biscuits.

We had a table either side...Chris had wax melts that she had purchased from the USA and room sprays that she makes herself.  OMG....the wax melts smell just divine....the smell was drawing the people in.  Some of the scents are vanilla pound cake, maple syrup, apple pie etc, we said you can't eat this side of the table but the other table has the biscuits to eat!

I wanted to have the display as old style homebaked cookies. So we had the cookies in baskets, had old scales with cookies on them, my old small cupboard with cookies in it etc.

This is how I packed them up. I made Jam Drops, Freckle Cookies, Choc Chip Cookies, M&M Cookies, Cherry Shortbread and Florentines.

This was my side of the stall.

This was Chris' side of the stall.

We both had a great day chatting away sitting in the sun.  We also made a few dollars out of it too, which was good.  I sold just over half of my biscuits, so guess who has been pigging out over the last few days....oh, I also gave some to Chris to take home....I didn't eat them all!!

We are talking about maybe doing it again in September but after that it will be too hot with sun as they will melt.

Around the garden......I have started to put an edging around the front garden as I have been having a continuing fight with the blackbirds, who are looking for food and they dig up the garden and throw the sugar cane mulch out of the garden onto the path.  The edging is like a mini corrugated iron and I think it looks great and makes the path more defined.  And guess what.....it has worked, I have only had a tiny bit of mulch on the path.

I have done one side of both gardens and hope to finish off the other sides this weekend. Then when it gets warmer weather I will be getting the path and driveway dug up and putting pebbles down to make it look better.

The daffodils in the back garden have started to flower and they have multipied this year and look great!

My vegies are doing well too, the spinach I have already picked some and it was yum!  The sweet peas at the back are starting to grow up and hopefully will look great in spring.

The beetroot is growing well too...but the spinach behind it isn't growing as good as the other ones.

I am planning on a weekend in the garden this weekend, some friends are helping me trim the branches on my crepe myrtle trees tomorrow....can't wait to get stuck into the garden!!

Enjoy your day!

xx

Treasures from a Girly Day...

Last weekend I had a day out with my good friend Chris.  We once again headed up the mountains to our usual places.

Our first stop was to our favourite anitque store in Hazelbrook.  I bought some old medicine bottles and ointment containers.  I just love old bottles and boxes.

In the photo is  Empirin Compound tablets bottle, Cod Liver Oil tablets bottle, Eucalyptus Extract bottle, Nasal Balm box which still has the cream in the box, a bandage still in the pacakage, 2 cream containers.

The bottles are so cute and they still have some tablets in them...not that I will be trying any!!

The cream containers are handwritten on the top, the one on the right has St. Vincent's  Hospital, Sydney on it.

There is also a bottle of Cutex Nail Polish.  At the end of the cork top is a small brush. It is so cute.

On to the next antique store to pick up my layby...an old Butter Churn.  I have always wanted one of these and I just love it. It is slightly damaged but hey I'm not going to use it!

We had a great day out chatting and laughing as we always do!

A couple of weeks ago I bought the book The Contented Chook.  It has some very interesting homemade chook pens in it for different size yards.

I would really love to have some chickens in my backyard.  My yard is not very big so I would only be able to have 2 chickens. I have been trying to work out how I would be able to incorporate them into my yard.  The pen would have to have enough room for them during the day when I am at work as they would have to be locked up and then they could free range when I home.

The other problem that I have is Bailey, as he likes to chase anything that moves.  My neighbour has some chickens so I am going to take Bailey up there and see what he does with them (with him on the lead of course).  My neighbour said that he will get used to them being around after a while, but I am not so sure especially when I am at work.

Anyway, still a lot of research and thinking to be done...I will let you know the outcome!

Enjoy your day!

xx