DIY Terrarium

After reading Little Eco Footprints post about how important indoor plants are I finally decided to get some supplies to make a Terrarium.  I purchased a glass bowl from what is affectionately known as the $2 shop, the Reject shop or similar and some little stones from there as well.  The glass bowl was $9 and the stones were $2 and then I went to our local plant shop and bought the little plants.  It was just a matter of ensuring that you bought a bowl/jar that you could actually fit your whole hand into and then I popped the plants in and sprayed them with a little bit of water.  I realize that this is not a whole lot of indoor plant but it's a start and I think it looks really nice.

In the Garden

It was a lovely sunny day today so I took the opportunity to photograph our little veggie patch.

Home made Tortillas

In the last couple of weeks I've seen a few posts on home made tortilla's and then yesterday I saw this post on making home made tortillas and wanted to give it a go.   The kids loved them and they were easy to make.  I used home grown wombok and coriander and bought some red cabbage and shallots.  All around this meal got the thumbs up.

TORTILLAS (MAKES ABOUT 16-20)

4 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon salt
1.5.cups water
6 tablespoons olive oil

Put all of the ingredients into a bowl and mix. When it’s combined transfer to a floured surface and knead for a minute or so. Divide the mixture into about 16 serves (I reckon this would make about 20 though as you want them quite thin). Roll out thinly (don’t worry about the strange shapes you make, it’s character). Heat a fry pan with a spray of oil and cook for a min or so each side. Simple as that.

Sticky Date Pudding Muffins & Butterscotch Sauce

Last week Emma posted this Sticky Date Pudding Muffins recipe which looked amazing including her photography.  All the ingredients are things you have in your pantry and fridge and we just happened to have dates as well which is my kind of recipe.  I really wanted to make this however didn't want to have 12 delicious Sticky Date Muffins in the house either (as I would eat them all) so decided to make them and take them on our family BBQ.

James with my help made the muffins and butterscotch sauce which I just left in the saucepan to transport to our BBQ so I could heat it up on our little gas burner.  The muffins were at room temperature but once you put the hot butterscotch sauce on top...well let me tell you it's just delicious.

When I was packing our things for the BBQ I grabbed out some paper plates for the dessert as it needed a lip for the sauce and I noticed that the only ones I had like that were Christmas Plates so we just called our dessert "Christmas in July Dessert".

The weather was funny yesterday and when I woke up at 7am it was raining and overcast so thought we would change the venue to our place however when I rang my brother in law to tell him it was sunny again.  By the time we were headed to our BBQ destination the sky was grey again however it's great to get outdoors and since it wasn't actually raining it all went ahead.

That was great for lunch however right after I had served up our Sticky Date Pudding Muffins with hot Butterscotch Sauce it started raining, not spitting but raining which mean we ate those beautiful desserts in about 2 minutes flat instead of taking our time to enjoy it slowly.  As you can see the kids took cover underneath the table to eat their puddings and were quite happy.  The verdict for the dessert (thanks Emma) is a 10 out of 10 from everyone.  The muffins are lighter than I thought they would be in terms of Sticky Date Pudding is so rich it can be heavy and make you feel a bit sick (from self indulging of course because it's so yummy) but these were beautiful and flavoursome and totally delicious. I think my favourite photo is the one of the kids underneath the picnic table to get out of the rain while they have their dessert.  Love it !

New Green Cleaner

I have been wanting to mix up a new "green cleaner" well it's actually an "orange cleaner" cleaner for a while now and since we had some oranges in the fridge finally did it this week.  I got the recipe off this Little Eco Footprints blog and popped the orange skins in a jar with some vinegar and have stored it in a dark cupboard for the next two weeks.

In two weeks time all I need to do is stain the liquid and add water in a ratio of 1:1 and put it in a spray bottle and label.  I'm looking forward to trying this one on my kitchen benches now that my Aldi orange cleaner has nearly run out.  I didn't want to waste what I already had however I'm now getting to the bottom of this cleaner and hoping my green orange cleaner will be it's replacement.

New Home for Bees

The kids and I went to Regional Flavours at Southbank over the weekend which we have been to for the past three years and we always look forward to it.  While we were there we purchased a little home for the bees which now proudly sits on top of my retractable clothesline ready for some bees to nest.  We purchased it from Ingrid at City Chicks where we bought our chickens from.  Ingrid has all sorts of things now like soap making, cheese making, yoghurt making etc. which I think is great.  She also sells native bees and hives which one day would be great to own however they are out of our price range at the moment so for now we'll provide a little home for bees that visit our place.  Here's a few pics from Regional Flavours and our new home for bees which is made locally.

Home Grown Potatoes

Last year we grew some potatoes and we were so excited about it that we grew a few more this year.  Not a huge harvest but enough to have a few potatoes and rosemary on the BBQ grilled.  The kids had fun digging around in the tubs to collect their little potatoes.