Tuesday, July 28, 2009

The fabric has arrived! Sort of...

This is the fabric that I was waiting for about a month or so ago. The parcel never turned up but the lovely seller sent me another batch. Both of the fabrics are from Timeless Treasures Bamboo collection. I just love this kind of green together with pink. I also love the little dragonflies on the pink fabric. I made a dress for the market on Sunday and even though it was a pretty bad day in terms of sales (not many shoppers around) it was the first thing i sold while I was still setting up!




And here are a couple of orders going out tomorrow :)

Good night!

Friday, July 24, 2009

I must be in some sort of a twilight zone...

After the last post and complaining that cooking is not my thing, I have been very energetic with the children in the kitchen. The truth is they absolutely love everything that has to do with cooking, but I always feel so stressed about it. When I get home from work they immediately ask me what's for dinner and I have to get started straight away. The last thing i want to do then is to be teaching them things - it has to be quick and easy with minimal mess.

Yes, some of you are thinking that my approach is rubbish, they can't possibly learn anything if i don't teach them. You are absolutely right! I have come to that realisation as well and have decied to take some time to cook with them. You know, they really prefer cooking compared to some expensive outing so it could be a money saver as well.

Last week we made cupcakes - yes, they were from a packet but it's a start! They couldn't agree if they were to be vanilla or chocolate so we did both and after some serious decorating we have the fantastic results below.




Today when i asked if they wanted to cook dinner they just screamed with happiness (made me feel a bit guilty for not doing it more). I told them it had to be something that they would eat. They decided on Indian chicken with rice and corn on the cob. With a fancy chocolate dessert.
Unfortunately i forgot to take a photo and it looked pretty impressive as well. They used a small rectangular container to shape the rice to create a 'fancy' sort of look. They were so proud of their efforts - and rightly so, it was great! We made chocolate mousse - from scratch! No premade stuff in sight. It was delish! This is the recipe that I followed. (I agree with comments that you can leave sugar out, even though I hadn't made it before I decided to only use half of the sugar. I could have added no sugar and it would have been perfect.)

I have done very little sewing this week, I am so behind on certain things. I think when you just go go go you can't keep it up forever. I'll get back to it though (in about 30 minutes actually) I have to finish a couple of orders.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Vegetarian lasagna, yummmm....

Ok, I am definitely not one of those fabulous wifes that cook and bake up a storm every day. It's not just because I am not very good at it, I don't like it at all to be honest. In our house it's like groundhog week. Same dishes week after week. My husband and I want to be a bit more adventurous but it's hard when our children just refuse to eat it. If i don't like cooking meal no.1 I certainly don't like cooking a second meal for our children. I think that I have lowered my husband's expectations since we met because even on days when i have given our children leftovers from the proper meal from the night before and I tell him we are having wraps for dinner he says "Great, that is exactly what i feel like tonight anyway". He is so lovely :)

After having told you all this I must share this recipe for this fantastic vegetarian lasagna that i made last night. My in-laws came over for dinner for my son's birthday. We ordered pizza for our children as that is what our son wanted for his birthday dinner. Anyway, back to the lasagna. It's not my recipe, one of my friends came up with it.

First i am going to tempt you with the photos of the various stages then you can get the recipe below, yummm....




after baking in the oven for 45 minutes it looks like this

What you need:
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic
herbs - basil, oregano, thyme etc (italian herbs or herbs that you like)
crushed tomatoes 800 grams
lasagna sheets
fresh baby spinach
carrots
grated cheese (I mix mozzarella with normal cheese)
ricotta
chicken stock - I am not actually a vegetarian, I just don't like a lot of meat. If you are a vegetarian you can use vegetable stock
100ml of double lite cream (or you can use the full cream milk)
pine nuts and sunflower seeds


what you do:
cut the onion and brown it in olive oil with garlic and herbs. Then add the crushed tomatoes. Start layering the lasagna with some of the crushed tomatoes followed by sheets - a bit of grated cheese - large layer of baby spinach - ricotta- more sheets - tomato mixture - grated carrots -
more grated cheese - more sheets and the rest of the tomato mixture - grated cheese (your arteries are probably clogging at the thought of all this cheese) - add pine nuts and sunflower seeds to the top - pour 100ml of stock and 100ml of the cream or full cream milk over the lasagna. Bake for 45 minutes in the oven on 200 degrees celcius.
I hope you can follow this but if you can't please don't hesitate to ask as this is one thing that i can really recommend!

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Check out my friend's fantastic paintings

One of my Swedish friends (living in Sydney) makes beautiful childrens' paintings. I have a few samples below but please check out her blog and see for yourself.



Paintings by Charlotta Ward


Don't you just want all of them?

Monday, July 6, 2009

Wow!

I had an amazing day at Mathilda's Market yesterday. Four hours of fun madness! Even though it was great that the morning was fast and furious it was also a shame as i didn't get time to walk around and chat to other stall holders. I managed a quick hello to Wynona from Ivy Design in the morning before setup and she managed a quick hello at my stall right at the end. Apart from the lovely woman next to me (blogless) I didn't have time to talk to anyone else. As you can see from the photos my fabulous son helped me for the day. He was a champion at putting items in bags and I wouldn't have managed so well without him.