Rag rug riddle

Rainbow rag rug by Waschbear

There's not much creativity happening here this week with the Mr away for work, school starting again, my mum visiting AND the first week of my 'kid swap' happening (where my friend and I look after each other's littlie for one day a week each). BUT there's always some idea that I've squirreled away and am dying to get into...


Festival throw rug by craftzies

When I recently moved furniture around the house I realised we needed another rug or two. I've always found it difficult to find rugs that I like but are not hugely expensive. Then 'ping', an idea popped into my head that I haven't been able to get out - make the rug! Sometimes I curse this 'gotta make stuff' mania, but sometimes it's fun. Hopefully this will be one of those!


Multi-coloured round crochet rag rug by RaggedyAnns

After Googling and Youtubeing (?) 'rag rug making' though, I'm confused... do I weave, braid, crochet, or use the 'toothbrush' method?? If anyone reading has any thoughts, experience or whatever, please let me know. I'm thinking I can buy a heap of old t-shirts at my local thrift shop (the $6 per kilo place) and make this project environment and budget friendly too! I'll let you know how I go. In the meantime, here's some inspiration from some clever Etsy sellers. And this Flickr group is amazing too.

My favourite tofu recipe

Well, if you're reading this then I didn't lose you on the title of this post :-)

A friend recently asked me where I buy my tofu (the ordinary supermarket, sometimes Asian supermarket) and said she wanted to increase the protein content of her meals without solely relying on meat. She won my admiration by saying that her family of meateaters tried to eat small amounts of good quality meat rather than masses of the cheap (ie intensively farmed) stuff. I find the whole arguement going around at the moment about sustainability, health and animal welfare interesting because I've felt strongly about this for years. American author Jonathon Safran Foer seems to have stirred up a bit of a hornet's nest with his non-fiction book "Eating animals" and discussions with friends over his TV interview here on the ABC's Lateline have been interesting.

Right, well, I'm not meant to be changing the world here with this post, just telling you about my favourite tofu recipe - Sesame tofu :-)

Sesame Tofu

Rinse 500g firm tofu and pat dry with paper towel.
Cut into about 2cm cubes.
Place in a shallow dish along with:
2 crushed cloves of garlic,
2 tablespoons of fresh grated ginger,
1 tablespoon of brown sugar,
and
1/3 cup of soy sauce (I like Kikkoman brand)
Cover and refrigerate for about 2 hours to marinate
(or marinate it in the morning and leave til dinner time to prepare).



Combine in a large mixing bowl:
1 cup of sesame seeds,
1 tablespoon cornflour,
and
2 tablespoons wholemeal plain flour
(or just plain if you don't have wholemeal)
Add the tofu cubes and toss to coat in the sesame mix.



Heat 1/4 cup vegetable oil (or any flavourless oil) in a wok,
add the tofu in batches and fry until golden. Drain on paper towels.





I have this with vegetable fried rice, or plain rice and side dishes of steamed broccolini with soy, stir fried snow peas with mushrooms, or even just as a snack on it's own. When I make a bowl it's hard to keep my kids and the Mr (and myself ;-) from eating them all before the rest of the meal is cooked.

* Please cut me some slack with the photography - shooting tofu at night and with hungry children nagging me is not a winning combination for brilliant photography - well, that's my excuse!

Spaces for kids

Our house is pretty small. Not necessarily by inner Sydney standards, but in terms of housing 5 people and 2 cats it is. Which is different to the scenario when we moved in almost 7 years ago and there were 2 people (who were mostly out working) and one sleepy cat. So I'm always looking for ways to rearrange our spaces to make them work better.

Lately I've been thinking about letting the kids take over a bit more space. In the past we've tried to keep the lounge room from looking too much like a kindy, but I decided to add a little 'reading corner' the other day using our existing furniture and giving more space up to the kids' books.

So it went from this...



to this...



I took the rattan circular chair out of the bedroom and put it here, as they love playing in it (it spins right around so they push each other around), added the comfy rug, some cushions and more book storage. They immediately took to it and love having a soft place to lie and look at their books.



I'm thinking of framing more of their artwork and hanging it.



And this is a cushion I made for the big girl when she started to read... 2 more to make now, an "A" and another "M".

Homemade sushi (and 'vegetarian snails')

I'm enjoying these school holidays much much more than the last one. Which is possibly because we'd just had a holiday recently and so are not burnt out, or because the weather is warmer and not so rainy, or a mixture of both. I'd also like to think, though, that I'm getting a bit better at working out how much activity they need to keep them happy without overdoing it and making myself stressed and tired along the way. Do you identify with that?

One organised activity we did have on last week was a kids cooking class run by our local council, which was great fun. They made 3 dishes, including sushi. I'd never made this before but after watching them I thought surely if kids can do it then I can! I thought we'd give it a go as a little holiday activity of our own.

So off we went to the fantastic local asian grocery store I've posted about before for some supplies, including this lot:



It's always an interesting excursion with the kids, who love seeing all the different things including the fresh chicken feet in the butchery section - which I walk past rather quickly! The thing that caught my eye this time was the 'vegetarian' section of the freezer. As a vegetarian, I don't want my food to smell, look or taste like meat, but obviously not everyone shares my view, as the following packs show. I've always found the 'mock' foods fascinating but I thought this took it to another level. I couldn't resist whipping out my iphone "dum-de-dum... I'm just checking my phone, click click click" to show you:









and my personal favourite - vegetarian snails!



Anyway... the sushi making was lots of fun. It was also very, very messy - imagine extremely sticky rice, small pieces of vegetables, bowls of water (for wetting the seaweed sheets) and extremely excited 5 and 2 year olds! The Mr, who is known here for his love and tending of clean floors (an interesting pursuit with 3 kids under 6 - hmm!), would have had heart failure if he'd seen it! But go girls! You did a great job x

Holiday inspiration - tropical flowers

One thing I look forward to when I'm going to a place with a tropical climate is the flowers. On our recent holiday to Fiji we went on a walk through a private garden filled with beautiful plants and flowers.

The colours and intricate designs of the orchids was particularly amazing.







And we always seem to find that a bit of nature has a calming effect on the kids. So, a lovely excursion for all!

Weekend snaps

A cold, grey old weekend in Sydney, but still some inspiration for a bit of photography...


Stormy Sydney harbour, complete with shark-net fenced swimming area


Plenty to explore...


... by a girl as fascinated with detail as her mama

This moment

I'm joining Soulemama (and many others) this week with the Friday ritual of 'this moment' - a moment from the week to pause, savour and remember. Happy weekend to you.