This moment

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

Holiday treats

Hi! How are your school holidays going, if you're on them?

Here there's been the usual holiday stuff - playdates with friends, hours spent at the park, haircuts, trips to the library, shopping etc, and on my part plenty of avoidance of the much needed toy culling (where do they all come from, do they breed overnight?).

Vanilla cupcakes (Inner Pickle) Shortbread animals Golden syrup scones

Banana bread Honey joys Choc chip cookies

And of course there has been lots of snack preparation and baking, which made me think about compiling a favourite holiday treat list, mainly old favourites. Above are a selection of our old faithfuls (all egg-free of course).

Do you have old favourites or are you an experimenter?

Weekend cooking - individual tiramisu's

The weekend's a time when I sometimes get the opportunity to cook something different or fun, a change from the quick and easy routine of weeknights. Come and see what I've been up to this weekend...



This weekend we got to return the favour to the lovely friends who cooked for us recently. We made an Italian inspired meal including roasted olives, sweet potato & fetta risotto and salad.

As our guests are fellow coffee lovers I thought I'd try making tiramisu for dessert for the grown-ups (icecream with sprinkles for the kids). Instead of making a huge tray though, I tried this Gordon Ramsay recipe, which was really easy and quick to prepare. It also needs to be made ahead of time, which helps to avoid the dreaded 'frazzled hostess' syndrome ;-)

We enjoyed it and I will definitely make it again, though I'll drastically reduce the portion size next time - I have a sweet tooth and it defeated me! (I used the recipe below for 4 servings, so have suggested 6 instead may be better).

Individual tiramisu's (adapted from this recipe)

250 g mascarpone
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
3 tablespoons Frangelico liquor
150 ml strong espresso, cooled to room temperature
150 ml single cream
4 tablespoons icing sugar
2 tablespoons icing sugar, extra
18 savoiardi biscuits sponge fingers
bar of 70% chocolate to finish

Whisk the mascarpone with the vanilla, liquor and 50ml coffee, until everything is thoroughly mixed together. Whisk the cream with the 4 tblsp icing sugar until smooth, then whisk into the mascarpone mix.

Pour the remaining coffee into a bowl, add the extra 2 tblsp icing sugar and stir to dissolve. Take one sponge finger and dip it in to the coffee. Set it to one side and continue with the remaining biscuits.

Line 6 serving glasses with 3 sponge fingers. Spoon the mascarpone mix in until you reach the top of the glass. Grate chocolate over the top. Refrigerate for at least 20 minutes to allow the flavours to infuse.

Serves 6

Refashioned skirt

A while ago a friend gave me a bag of clothes she no longer needed (gotta love a bit of clothes passing around!). In it was the skirt below, an A-line in a stretchy cotton blend fabric.

I wasn't sure if I could do anything with it, as I'm feeling a bit over my A-line skirts at the moment. Also the print and colours are not really me so it would have to be a great cut to redeem it, if you know what I mean. But then I spied Kate's gathered twirly skirts, loved her idea and thought this skirt might be a good one to try out a refashion (thanks for the inspiration Kate!).



So I cut it into 3, then set aside the middle section for later (that's the hoarder in me... maybe I can make a fabric belt or tissue holder or zip purse...). Then I sewed a row of long machine stitching into the top of the bottom section and gathered it to the size of the hem of the top section (simple tutorial here on gathering fabric). After sewing them together and overlocking the seam I topstitched the seam down to top layer to make it sit flat. And that's it. As the bottom section was already hemmed I didn't need to do that. Yay!



This is a really simple project but I thought someone out there may find it useful. I get so much inspiration from the great craft blogs that I like to try to pass ideas on. If you try it I'd love to hear. Have a lovely weekend!

Thoughts on motherhood: holidays

Wow, I think I forget from one block of school holidays to the next just how draining they are! I am only increasing my daily kid tally by one, but all that lack of routine, 100% face-to-face time, not to mention sibling arguements and the usual tantrums, does take its toll.



One thing I have been trying to relax about is the kid entertainment issue. I used to feel bad that we don't tend to do fancy holiday courses and workshops or go away on exciting trips. But this week the kids have had so much fun doing normal stuff that I'm feeling good about it all... and remembering to have fun with them. Apparently it's a pretty good thing for mum to join you on the slide or sing and dance to Playschool with you!



We do have a few creative pursuits happening, hopefully I'll get time to blog about them soon. In the meantime, if you're in the midst of school holidays too, here's wishing you a fun and relaxing time... hopefully with some cupcakes ;-)

Giveaway winners

And the winner is (it's a very serious business, you know!)... no 7, KathyB


... and the mystery 2nd prize goes to (no peeking!)... no 5, Adriana

Congratulations ladies! And thankyou everyone for entering, and for your kind words. I wish you could all have won, sook that I am!

- - - -

In other goings-on, I finally made a second cot doona cover for washing rotation, this time using up the last of my stripey Ikea fabric . As there wasn't quite enough, and I wanted to have a matching pillowcase, I put it together with two other orange toned fabrics. I quite like the look, and seeing as I'm still not game enough to try to make a quilt (chicken!) it slightly satisfies that urge! I repurposed a piece of an old worn out queen sized sheet for the underside. That stash is starting to go down!



Have a happy Monday :-)

Friday Photo

I've been looking for an excuse to post pics that I like, with no real story behind them, just because I like them. So I thought I'd start up 'Friday Photo' for anything I'd like to show you just because...



top • Street graffiti taken to a different level • Sneeky window snap. Great zip-up dress, and those pink beads are perfect. I have a nasty habit of snapping shop windows and strangers on the street when they're wearing something I love, in order to remember and sometimes re-create. Sometimes I even stoop to pretending I'm taking pics of my kids when it's the woman in the background with the fab chinese jacket that I'm focussing on (ahem, just for instance ;-) • Grungy streetscape.

bottom • Lichen on seaside rock. Aren't those colours just divine • Grungy streetscape with graffiti • Do you love taking shots of your shadows too, or is it just me?

By the way, my blogiversary giveaway ends tonight, so if you have been meaning to enter, go for it.

Have a lovely weekend.