Lime Cream Cheese Frosting on Carrot Cake

While I was visiting last week, I was lucky enough to take home some limes (thankyou H).  Tonight I used them for a recipe and emailed:

I decided I would have to recipe hunt to figure out what I wanted to make with them.  Tossed a few ideas around and then today decided that I had some Philly cream cheese in the fridge so I'd make a carrot cake with lime cream cheese frosting (instead of lemon cream cheese frosting).  Suffice to say if the cakes don't hurry up and cool there won't be a lot of icing left... taste testing, you see ;)

Milo Bars, Blueberry Mini-Breads and L.O.Quiche

Despite the several hours of baking already this week, most of it wasn't for us and the rest that was was gone so it was time to bake again for the freezer.  I like to have muffins, biscuits and slice in the freezer ready for school lunches, impromptu visitors/afternoon tea etc.

Milo slice coming out of the oven

Uncle Toby's Porridge 'Quick Sachets' - Home Made Version and Costing

Brooke bought the Uncle Toby's sachets to take on camp with her.  They are little single serve sachets, six to a box.  These are a new thing for us.  We usually do porridge the the 'old fashioned' way as opposed to sachets, and I get my oats in 25kg bags.  In winter time this just means getting up a few minutes earlier and put the porridge on the stove (make enough to serve 6 people), or Brooke gets up and makes it on the stove top and stir stir stir.  Otherwise it's toast or Weet-bix for breakfast, sometimes poached eggs or pancakes or home made muesli (Michelle Bridges recipe).  Now and then we get a 'weekend breakfast', which is a box of Sultana Bran, or Sports Plus or whatever, and they can have it on the weekend.  Mostly it's because otherwise the cost is a bit nuts so this way they still have the variety (and appreciate it) without it breaking the grocery budget.

Uncle Toby's on the left, mine on the right

Home-made Plum Jam via the Breadmaker

Having previously done mulberry jam on the stovetop and with Master 4 asking could we make jam, I thought hey, let's give the breadmaker a whirl.  I don't like how the breadmaker makes bread, instead I ask it to make dough and I finish the bread by hand and then into the wall oven... and I intend to have a go at sourdough by hand ... but I didn't know what I thought of how it made jam so thought it time to give it a crack!

Meet 'The Girls' (the chook ones)

Here's the girls as the current flock stands.  Our shire regulations permit a maximum of 6 chooks, so 'come on down' girls and let's meet the people!

Comby/Combless (Leghorn).  So named because compared to the other girls she has much less of a comb. A middle of the pecking order kinda gal who just goes about being a chook with the occasional 'reminder' to a lower order chook.

Another Way to 'Keep' Food

Or should I say, another way to 'deal' with food.  We can keep food in the ground in the garden, in the fridge or freezer, we could possibly 'can' or bottle our own, we can air dry things like herbs, and we can bake but the other thing I never really paid much attention to is drying food, as in, with a food dehydrator.

This post on the Milkwood blog got me thinking and then oops I clicked on this link and I was stuck.  Exacalibur indeed.  Another thing to add to my 'dreams are free' list.  With the Excalibur, such a short use of resources (electricity, which can be offset somewhat by grid solar) in a long term use machine (the dehydrator) using food you are happy to use (organic apples, say) and that results in a much more economical outcome - for example instead of $40 a kilo for shop bought dried apples (and their numbers in them) you can pay even maybe $10 a kilo for organic apples and you still come out waaaay in front even if you include the electricity cost.

I would probably have a crack at fruit leathers, dried apples, prunes, semi-dried tomato and whatever else I think we would eat.  My only question is how to store the dried foods for, and how long they store for?  Do you dry foods and if so how?

New Chooks & Extended Yard... and a few issues.

But not the kind of issues you'd expect, when blending in new chooks to a current run.  The most recent chapter in the chook story goes like this.  About 4 weeks ago, we were down to 4 girls after losing Bacon (Isa).  Left were; Nicoal (Australorp), Comby/Combless, Spots and Snow White (all Leghorns).  I was making the decision on what breed to choose for the new chooks.  We were adding to the chook family mostly because the laying was almost non-existent for the last 6mths or so, so I figured they were getting on a bit but also because I thought it would just be good, and the kids were looking forward to it too.

Mud (Isa) and Comby (Leghorn) in the new 'chooky garden' part of their run

Our First Pinkerbelle!

After I tried picking the first Granny Smith (so tart that Brooke's face almost inverted when she tasted it) Grandad's advice (Husband's Father) was to leave the apples on the tree for as long as possible.  Having a busy schedule helped with this as I wasn't out there looking at them every day.  After the recent storms, I found one of the two Pinkerbelles left on the tree, on the ground.  I hoped this was a good sign.  Took photos of it and then cut it and... it was delicious and even smelt like a real apple!  Hooray!

the best side of the Pinkerbelle

Pinkerbelle #1 and very pleased with it.  There is one more Pinkerbelle on the tree and there is one Granny Smith on the other tree.  I am trying to be vewy vewy patient.  A good apple is worth the wait so that's what helps me!

Hooked on Sourdough

Yep.  That's it.  I'm hooked... and I didn't even know I liked it.  Always liked the idea of making the 'one dough for seven days' kinda thing but wasn't sure if I liked sourdough (and now I can't find the blog link for the 15mins a day for aritsan/sourdough).  After trying it by chance I now know I do and pretty much am not interested in buying much else.  So now I want to make my own.

sour dough with lettuce from the garden, tomato, cucumber, split green olives and Australian fetta.  Y-U-M.

Bathroom Reno Installment #2 continued...

continuing on from the previous post... With the help of my good friend N this morning, we did the final filling, sanding and two coats of stain block/sealer.  Which got us to this point (see pic below) which is a far far cry from the original bathroom (scroll down further for 'original' bathroom pics)...

Bathroom Reno - Installment #2

Installment #1 began a while ago with a $25 basin top find at the local 'recycle yard'.  The reno got to that point and paused (that's a nice way to say, ground to a screaming halt).  Except to say by chance, that a storm meant water damage to the ceiling (the light became a water feature) and via insurance the light was fixed and the ceiling repainted.  Which is what insurance is for I gues, when there's storm damage but it also means no 'before' and 'after' photos of the ceiling which was pretty horrid... and one less (very major and icky) job to do on the 'to do list'.

I've been prepping on and off for the last two weeks and hopefully tomorrow get some paint on the walls.  There was a fair bit of prep work to do.  Still more tonight but that's for a little later on.  A few 'before' and 'current' pics - because the 'after' pics haven't had work finished for them yet.

One Happily Confused Lioniger Complete

My first real knitting project... well, unless you count 'fart filters' knit when I was in Year 1 - a rectangle of knitting and a string on either side to put it on your face with... anyway, this first real knitting project was begun only two and a half to three years ago.

Well... to be fair it was begun then, done in earnest for a week or two in the evenings with a small person and then it went to Broome for a holiday and returned sometime ago.  It sat and was patient... and then lo and behold it was finished in two nights. Ha!

Empty Beds + New Baths - What To Plant?

Now is a bit slow in the garden.  Well, not slow I guess but a bit empty.

One bed was pulled because the tomatoes had something nasty and were karking it.  The second bed might go the same way but they are holding on and still producing.  The third bed I pulled because I wanted to put something else in and what was there was really an excuse for anything productive.  I left the spring onions and alyssum in there.