Green Chandeliers and Lemon Delicious

As I write this post tonight, I can hear the crowd singing Advance Australia Fair at the British Lions vs Australia game at Suncorp. My husband is watching the game at a hotel just up from the stadium, along with some of the other hood husbands.
Work is progressing very nicely downstairs. Remember, last update it looked like this?

It has suddenly turned a corner and is become much more exciting. The walls are being sheeted and now we can see proper rooms forming.

We are building in bookshelves on either side of the french doors, you can see them coming together.

We're currently looking into what to put on the floor, but more on that at a later stage.

We really want to use green somewhere in the main room, whether in a floor tile or a light. I've come across some very beautiful green chandeliers.

I love these beaded styles.

I found this chandelier at Recollections. Could I possible change the colour? Probably not.

Tonight I made one of my most very favourite old fashioned puddings, Lemon Delicious. A perfect hybrid of souffle and self saucing pud.

I use a recipe from The Australian Women's Weekly Original Cookbook, first published in 1970.

To make Lemon Delicious separate three eggs and beat the yolks with half a cup of caster sugar. Beat in a cup of milk and a tablespoon of self raising flour, a tablespoon of lemon zest, pinch of salt and half a cup of lemon juice. Meanwhile, whisk the egg whites with a tablespoon of sugar until peaks form. Fold through the lemon mixture and pour into an oven proof dish. Stand the dish in a pan of cold water and bake at around 180 degrees for 50-60 minutes. Serve immediately with a little dobby of vanilla ice cream on the side. It will be meringue-y on the top half with a lemon sauce underneath. You'll love it. Guaranteed.

I have all manner of sewing/crafty odds and ends. A burglar breaking into our house would think he'd arrived at Martha's house, but alas, my hand skills do not match my ambition. Having said that, I had some success recently and I thought I'd share with you in case you are in the same boat.
I got this idea from a beach towel I saw at a shop at The Barracks, possibly Robe?
All one does is take a non descript towel, in my case, a child's beach towel, and cut a piece of complementing fabric which is the same size.
You then stitch the two together, with the fabric's right side facing out. Then take some bias binding and sew it around the edges - I'm not sure how that stuff is meant to go, but I managed to sew it in a crude fashion. Then to finish off, sew some pom poms or other trim onto the ends. It becomes a beach towel slash picnic rug, and it looks like this.

I think even if you're a faux-sewer like me, it's pretty self explanatory.

Hey presto! A monkey could do it.

Thinking about the design of your new house? Have you heard of Twigitecture, probably should be a small 't''. Twigitecture is the art of building nests for humans. This one is for rent at Big Sur in the US for US$110 per night. We may now call that AUD$121 per night. Spectacular, but very uncomfortable looking. You can read more about them here if you really want to.

  I got these cane stools recently. They're the same style as our lounge setting. It's all getting a bit matchy, matchy, but don't fear, I'm onto it. The stools are a bit high and bulky to fit under the bench, but they'll be ok. For now. The stool cushions are getting a Hawaiian style makeover. Stay tuned.

Did someone mention pineapple? I thought so. Have a look at this gorgeous lamp. I think it's at Pad in Sydney.

Now I'm off to make the most of having the television all to myself. This is a rarity, we're a one-tv-household. I'm going to watch Karen Blixen and Dennis Finch Hatton running around Kenya together. That move gets sadder and sadder every time I see it.

'I had a farm in Africa, at za foot of za Ngong Hills.....'

One pot wonders

Here's a one pot wonder for you. It's my own invention, a Frankenstein dish that's been influenced by a dozen other recipes. It's delicious and easy, in fact a monkey could do it. If you're capable of putting things in a dish and turning on the oven, grab a pen and write down this recipe.
It's all in the layering. Firstly, get a large baking dish and put in some chicken pieces. I bought a whole chicken and cut it up, so some pieces had bones and other's didn't.
I then tucked some little peeled onions and sweet potato in the gaps, along with some garlic cloves. I cut up a couple of chorizo sausages and sprinkled them over the top. Splashed it with some olive oil, threw in some lemon wedges and layed some sprigs of rosemary on top. Voila!

Then bake it at 180 for about an hour. About 10 minutes before it's ready, add some chunks of sour dough bread. I half dip my pieces in the pan juices then throw them on top.

Serve with a very simple green salad.

Over the weekend I also caramelized some onions. Finely slice about three large onions and cook them over a low heat with a little bit of olive oil for about 20 minutes, until they've gone very soft. Then add in two tablespoons of vinegar (red wine, white wine, balsamic, whatever) and two tablespoons of soft brown sugar, plus half a cup of water. Cook for a further five minutes and bottle. It's great with roast meat and on sandwiches.

To finish my bake off, at the recommendation of a blog reader, I made Donna Hay's Lemon Yoghurt Cake. Delish! It's very easy, and refreshingly, it doesn't have half a kilo of butter in it.

Ingredients
3/4 cup vegetable oil (I used olive oil)
2 eggs
1 tablespoon finely grated lemon rind
2 tablespooons lemon juice
1 cup thick natural yoghurt
1 3/4 cups caster sugar
2 cups s r flour

Set the oven at 180. Place the oil, eggs, rind, lemon juice, yoghurt and sugar in a bowl and mix. Sift over the flour and stir til smooth. Pour into a greased 24cm fluted ring tin and back for 35 minutes (mine had to cook for closer to an hour), until a skewer comes out clean.
You can make an icing for it by gently stiring together 3/4 cup sugar and 1/4 cup lemon juice and pouring over the cake. We had ours plain though with a little double cream.

Speaking of olive oil. We buy ours in bulk like this, which is great if you make a lot of houmous or pesto or tapenade, etc. I know this is Spanish and you should buy Australian, but I was highly motivated by the tin, which I want to eventually put a plant in.

Last night while we were waiting for the dinner to cook, the girls and I made this garland. We used a thousand pieces of fabric and tied them onto  piece of string. Then we tossed it over their curtain rod. It turned out quite nifty I think?

What a difference half a litre of cream makes

The cake was adequate to ok. Just as a good make-up primer can cover a multitude of creases and divets, so too can a thick layer of cream over a lumpy, less-than-perfect birthday cake.
Looking at the positives, I don't think anyone would have mistaken it for a professional job. It had obviously been made by a mother in the confines of the domestica galleria.

..and some layering to delight and surpise.

And in one of life's twisted ironies like Nigella marrying a man who's uninterested in food, I went to the doctor's on Wednesday, perfectly well, and now I have a bug!

Ai-Crumb-Ba!

Yes, it's that magical time of year again when I have to make a birthday cake. I'm going to reserve judgement until it's finished this afternoon, but to be honest, it's not looking great. This is the beast with just the 'crumb layer' done. For those ignorant of what a 'crumb layer' is, that is the layer of icing which serves to cement any crumbs to the actual cake, so the final layer of icing can go on without being compromised by wandering crumbs.
Let's not panic just yet. Let's wait til it's complete.

And again.

The year begins

Please learn from my mistake. Ever since the house over the road burnt down on Christmas Eve, folks around these parts have been rather uptight about their electrical goods. This new found neuroticism led me to, one day last week, switch off my computer at the wall before it had properly shut down.
The poor dear never got off the ground again, and I had to do the recovery thingy which restores it back to its factory settings, thus losing everything on my hard drive; photos of the children, the renovation befores and afters, work, everything.  Of course, nothing was downloaded onto disks. If you're not a backer-upperer, then start being one today because this could happen to you. Be warned!
On a more pleasant note, we have pretty 'local' views and often see some beautiful things looking out over the hood. A few days ago, prior to the wet weather setting in, I snapped these sunsets. I know how twee sunset photos are, I always imagine them painted onto the side of a panel van, but these were spectacular.

We also spotted this balloon on Saturday morning. The fact that it wasn't plastered with advertising made it particularly romantic.

I think the balloon may have taken off from Davies Park at West End? We were over there on Saturday morning at the Green Flea Markets. I got this posie of roses for $5. You can have a lot of fun for five bucks I find. The roses opened up, and they're fragrant, just like grandma used to make.

This is my friend's Christmas puppy. Her name is Evie. She's a black cocker spaniel. It was almost impossible to photograph her on our black floors, but you should get the idea.

 It's obviously exhausting being this cute.

Let's talk dirtballs. For many years now, about 25 in fact, I have been flicking through and occasionally reading, the book by Leslie Kenton called Raw Energy. I think it was her first book about living on raw food. It's quite hard core, and her consecutive books have been less and less radical. The premise of her thinking, and something that has been proven again and again, is that a high raw diet is good for you.
Occasionally, I make something from the book. These little things are fudgey sort of balls. They look like rumballs and it's quite fun to watch people's faces when they bite into them, only to discover they're not what they thought. They're good for, and they taste like it, but we love them. The first time my husband had one he said they tasted like dirt, but in a good way.
My dirtballs are based very loosely on a recipe in Raw Energy. They change each time depending on what's in the cupboard, but generally I include about 2 cups of dried mixed fruit, a couple of tablespoons of tahini, a couple of tablespoons of honey, a tablespoon of cocoa and maybe 3/4 cup of coconut. Wizz it all up in the food processor, roll into balls and then into more coconut. If the consistency is not good for rolling into balls, add more dried fruit or coconut. Other great things to include are fresh grated apply, glace cherries, dates, figs, prunes, nuts and seeds and dried papaya and pineapple.  My girls love them.

I am practically an empty nester. Peaches started school yesterday. We were all very brave and not a tear was shed.

I'm sorry but cyber safety prevents me from showing you their angelic faces. I can only show you them in disguise. They're a couple of cool cats. Mims can even pull off a toothless smile with style. 

Meanwhile, over at Cattle, Kids, Chaos, my cousin's eldest child has just left for boarding school. They seem to be coping ok, although I'm sure there's been many a teary moment of late. You can read about it here.
I have been getting organised for the year with list upon list of course. Nothing says 'everything's under control' more to me than lots of loo paper. I find it very reassuring, as though we'll be ok no matter what....because we've got lots of toilet paper.

May I remind you that we are almost due for another birthday here, so it is time for me to get back on the horse and whip up another birthday cake. Remember last year's fiasco? You can recap here.

Yayoi Kusama

We went to the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) this morning. They had drawings of Matisse as their main exhibition, which we didn't both with, sorry Henri.
Instead we went to see Japanese artist, Yayoi Kusama, who I have never heard of in my life. The lady loves colour, so I loved her.

It's a beautiful exhibition, especially if you're taking children. The highlight was the spotty room, which was originally completely white, but every child who enters gets a sheet of coloured dots to put where ever they choose, so the result looks like this.

There's giant flowers....

...and stunning canvases...and more, but blogger is driving me mad so I can't upload them. Safe to say, if you're a fan of colour, see it if you can

I thought the State Library is looking great, as is our fair city.

Thought I'd drop this in as an aside. This is a healthy snack that my girls love, and your children may too if you're runing out of ideas. It's natural yogurt with raspberries and honey drizzled over the top.