A Quick Update and a Recipe

Tuesday 4th September

I got a phone call from Emily today wanting to know why I hadn't updated my blog in awhile.  I have been busy helping Ron with the business and haven't really been up to much that is exciting!

One thing for certain is I am REALLY glad that Spring is on it's way.  I hate the cold weather and dark mornings.  I love the sun rising as I get out of bed and as we get up around 5am the sun has to be up pretty early for us! L O V E  I T.

Father's Day was spent with my parents , Bec and Rana at the beach having a BBQ breakfast.  The weather was lovely.  We did spare a thought for those families of the Australian soldiers that were killed recently.  They too were someones father, son, brother, nephew or uncle.

This was the weather at 8 o'clock in the morning!  Bit tough to take.

We have our little dog back with us. It turned out that she was more ill than the vet first thought.  She had a bad tummy bug and along with a sudden change in her diet she became very ill.  We collected her from the vet Friday afternoon and at the moment she won't leave my side.  She probably thinks that I am going to abandon her again.  She lost heaps of weight over the week and only started eating again on Friday.

The above photo is Ron and Cindy having a nap on the deck after lunch on Saturday.  They were both worn out from a huge week!

I did manage to get some time to make some Mixed Chinese Pickles on Sunday.  This is a great way to use surplus vegetables.  I used turnips, carrots, celery and chili in mine, but you could adapt the recipe to whatever you have on hand.

Chinese Mixed Pickles

2 carrots

1 large cucumber

1 red pepper

4 sticks celery

8 shallots (1 onion)

beans

Pickling liquid

2 1/4 cups sugar

2 1/4 cups white vinegar

1 1/4 cups water

Combine the pickling ingredients in a saucepan, stir over low heat until the sugar dissolves, bring to boil.  Remove from heat and cool.

Cut carrots and cucumber into strips.  Cut pepper into 1" cubes,  Slice celery diagonally.  Slice shallots diagonally.  Boil large saucepan of water.  Add prepared vegetables, then remove the pan from the heat.  Leave vegetables in water for 2 minutes, then drain for several hours.

Pack vegetables firmly into jars and cover with preserving liquid.

Stand one week before using.

Awhile ago I decided to paint an old trunk white.  This trunk had been brought over from England when my grandparent immigrated just after WWII.  It belonged to my grandmothers grandmother  and is one of the few items they brought with them.  My grandfather used to keep the tack for his horses in it when I was little and I remember it sitting in the shed.  When my grandfather passed away, my grandmother had the shed pulled down and was going to throw the trunk away.  I was able to rescue it.  It is in very poor condition with all of the paper falling off the inside.  It has had, at some point in it's life, been infested with wood worm, and all of the metal on it has rusted.  I got Ron to make a base for it to sit in and help hold it together and over the years I have had it, it has been placed in many rooms.  At the moment it is living in my "reading room" (Cindy's room, as she is in it the most often) and it has a new lease on life with it's new paint!

Before



After





I hope that it will remain in my family for a long time yet, so hopefully one of my girls would like it one day.

Speaking of girls.  Emily and Dave went to an engagement party on the weekend and when I looked at Facebook yesterday I noticed that Emily had changed her profile picture.

This was taken by a professional photographer and I just love this photo of them both!

On the countdown now to Bec and Rana's engagement party!

Take care
Andrea



 

Church, Camping and Quinalow

Tuesday 12th June 2012

Well my weekend started on Friday when I had to finish work early to go to Church.  My nephew and God son was confirmed on Friday, into the Catholic Church.  I was very privileged to be invited along to the ceremony and then for a light lunch later.  The school he attends is a Catholic school and therefore the Church was on the school grounds and just a short walk later we arrived at the high school home economics building for a lovely lunch of sandwiches and some cakes.

The above photo is of Max and my sister who is directly behind him.  My sister was his sponsor.

After lunch I made a mad run home to finish packing the caravan.  We went camping for the long weekend at Quinalow to see this beautiful girl....

We were lucky enough to spend the entire weekend with Emily and her partner Dave.  It did mean that I had to put the electric blanket on the bed and we took the heater also as they had been having nights of 0 to 2 degrees!  We were lovely and toasty in our van.

Saturday we all piled into our cars and went for a drive to a place call Jondaryn to see a heavy horse show.  They had some beautiful horses there and luckily the rain held off.  While we were there we met Dave parents, Ian and Jenny. 

Wouldn't you love to ride around in this everyday?  I would.  I imagine that the tyres would give you a reasonably comfortable ride, although it would take you ages to get anywhere.

Here are a couple of cowboys looking at the horses.  Only joking this is from the left, Dave, Dave's father Ian and my hubby Ron.  I love this photo of them all.  As you can tell by the jumpers the weather was a bit chilly.

On Sunday we went for a scenic drive into Dalby.  This meant down lots of dirt roads and lots of unhappiness from Emily.  We got to see where she works, although the library was closed.

We had a look around an antique store packed with goodies, where I bought an old lamp.  The gentleman that I purchased it from informed me that it is heavy on the bottom as it has a weight in it.  It is a night light for a baby!  How cute, but I don't think I would like to leave it in a room with a child.

Emily and I went to a couple of plant nurseries where we drooled over the plants and the items in the gift shop.  I have yet to get to my local nursery to buy some fruit trees.  The ones out there where really expensive, nearly $40.00 each!

Back at the caravan park I noticed a lemon tree with quite a bit of fruit on it, so we got a bag and picked some.  I was able to bring them home with me.  The fruit is only small but it smells heavenly.  I am going to have a go at making my own citrus cleaner with the peel.  It should smell great.

For the three days we had been away some of my zucchini had grown big enough to be picked.  I love being able to go out to the garden and pick my own fresh produce.

These zucchini inspired me to make a zucchini pie and some salad.  It was cold outside and a warm meal would've been lovely also, but I couldn't let this fresh produce to to waste.

Nearly everything you see on this plate was grown by me.  The zucchini for the pie, the lettuce and spinach leaves, the tomato and the carrot.  I pickled the beetroot and the pickled bell pepper was grown and pickled by a friend.  The cheese was the only thing not homemade!  I think that is an amazing effort.

Take care
Andrea