Time to Reflect and Plan

I've been having a little blogging break over the holiday time as it has been busy with travel, family and playing sax.
We have been making room for a family member who is moving in. This means that I have gone from originally having a walk in wardrobe to myself, to a double closet to myself, to now sharing that double closet. Time to organize!
We have both removed a lot of clothing (from the wardrobes) and I have just found this blog with great refashioning ideas and uses for unwanted items called The Renegade Seamstress 

I'm looking forward to some creative sewing and posting the results.

New Year Plans
I'm not big on New Year's resolutions - I prefer to set goals, make plans. You might think that is the same thing, but it is different.
 My plans include giving our old caravan a revamp for some extra chill out space, but also to accommodate family and friends when we have a houseful.

This is the before photo

Before - sad looking interior

The caravan is permanently parked in the garden and in great need of work.
I have just seen a gorgeous caravan revamp in the latest copy of NZ Life and Leisure magazine (which I got a sub to for Christmas)

This isn't the one in the magazine, but we would be happy if ours turned out half this good looking.
I will be posting some before and after photos of that too. I hope.

After the recent rain our courgette plants have gone mad, so I'm thinking there will probably be 365 ways with courgettes coming up too.

Pity I don't like cape gooseberries because there are loads of these ripening now, but we do have family members who love them. Cape gooseberries grow like weeds here, and I'm often pulling them out. I love their little fairy lantern cases though.

Cape Gooseberry plant

Cape Gooseberries

I hope you have a Happy New Year and you come back to visit my blog in 2014. I'm going to be seeing the New Year in playing with the band in Paihia.
May 2014 see you making plenty of deposits into the Bank of Life. 
Cheers! 

Keeping strawberries, Gingerbread Men

Christmas in New Zealand means strawberry season.

A handful of fragrance - strawberries and basil

Our strawberries have done really well this year. I wanted to check that I was keeping them the best way possible so looked on this great website www.stilltasty.com which gives the best way to keep all kinds of foods, and for how long. A great idea to reduce food wastage.
So strawberries will keep in the fridge for 2 days, stored single layer, covered and don't wash them first as the extra moisture could cause them to deteriorate.
Corn cobs are also best kept in the fridge with their husks still on for approx 2 days.

Gingerbread Men
I decided today would be a great day to throw on my Kenny Gee Miracles album of Christmas Saxophone Music while there is no one else around to complain...and cook up a storm before Christmas.
I wanted to make some gingerbread men to include in the girls' Christmas Santa sacks
I'm not sure that anyone else would like to tackle making these at this stage of the pre Christmas rush...but I did today and they turned out great.

Gingerbread People

725 g plain flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp ground cloves (I skipped this as I didn't have any)
225g solid white vegetable shortening. ( I used coconut oil and it worked fine)
225g castor sugar
300g golden syrup
2 eggs, beaten

Into a bowl sieve together the flour, baking soda, salt and spices.
Put the shortening in a pan and melt slowly. Add the sugar and golden syrup and mix until runny.
Pour the fat mixture into the flour and add the eggs.
Mix well together until smooth. Wrap in baking paper until ready to use.
Roll it out between two sheets of baking paper and cut your shapes.
Bake at 180c for approx 8 minutes on fanbake - depending on how thick you have cut your shapes. Thinner = crisper, thicker = chewier texture.
This makes a lot - twice as much as what is shown in my picture, and can be used to make gingerbread houses too.

Royal Icing for piping
175g icing sugar
1 egg white, beaten stiff.

Gradually add in the icing sugar to the beaten egg white until smooth. Consistency should be of soft peaks.
I used an empty icing sugar bag with a tiny hole cut in one corner for piping. 

So Merry Christmas to you. I hope it is a happy occasion at your house. Ours will be a little spread out, with taking several days to catch up with extended family. Hopefully we will dig some new potatoes to go with Christmas dinner...fingers crossed.
Cheers!

Eco Wrap and Gotu Kola

Eco Gift Wrapping
The other day I just popped in to an op shop in the little town of Hikurangi on my way through and was delighted to find a stash of vintage wallpaper - just when I needed it for giftwrapping. 

all this paper for just a $3 donation to a charity

I thought the Christmas presents looked lovely with little added touches from the supply of things I already had.

gifts wrapped in recycled papers

I already had the old sea chart, which makes lovely giftwrap for a coastal Christmas theme.

We needed new Santa sacks for the girls, as red and green ones weren't going to cut it this year. I was pleased to use some old crocheted table cloths and a gauzy food throw - all of which had seen better days and were waiting to be repurposed.

Santa sacks made from old table cloths and food cover.

Gotu Kola

Gotu Kola - wonder herb.

I read about this the other day as being a wonder herb, but nearly didn't buy it as I thought it looked like a weed. However the list of it's benefits goes like this...antispasmodic, antibacterial, anti inflammatory, antiviral, an adrenal strengthener, blood purifier, sedative and tonic, compounds to heal all manner of injuries.
Probably it's best known use is for it's ability to improve memory and cognitive function.
It's also used to reduce high blood pressure and improve cholesterol levels. Numerous studies show that it can improve circulation to the lower legs and reduce swelling.
It also is known to reduce arthritic pain.
Is there anything this plant can't do - and how come the whole world is not taking it?
The comprehensive 2 page article I read is in the NZ Gardener December 2012. It gives instruction on how to use the herb for different purposes, and what time of day is best to take it - as apparently it can keep you awake if taken too late in the day.

Of Aubergines and Christmas Trees

BLACK MAGIC

Our amazingly productive aubergine's 2nd year

At the end of last Autumn I nearly pulled out the aubergine plant that we put in last Summer, thinking that it was looking a bit sorry, and it had already produced 40 - 50 awesome aubergines off the one plant. (I think it's name was Black Magic). I really didn't expect it could give us another good season - but I'm glad I listened when Derek persuaded me to just prune it back, because just look...it is loaded with flowers and dripping with fruit again. Unbelievable! 
The secret is the warm position, plus horse poo, lawn clippings and lots of water (and no frosts here over Winter).

dripping with aubergines

Lovely Old Lady
I'm sure if this piece of furniture was alive she would be a woman - she is so shapely and beautifully proportioned.

After oil and vinegar treatment

But she needed some attention at the beauty salon when we moved her into the house so that we had somewhere to store all our kitchen gadgets, like the pasta machine, juicer, apple peeling machine, and big serving platters. 
I got out the white vinegar and olive oil 50/50 mix, and it has brought up the wood finish beautifully.
The old book sitting on the sideboard is approximately 350 years old. That's really old for something in New Zealand when you consider that Captain Cook was the first European to land in New Zealand in 1769 - 1770, just 243 years ago.

before

Xmas Decor
Just a few pics of the decor which is vintage and coastal themed

coastal themed, with shells and strands of sea glass

Keeping The Christmas Tree Green
It is a dilemma for some people how to have a Christmas tree and be environmentally friendly, so here's my take on it.
These trees are grown especially for the Christmas market. They raise money for St John Ambulance every year and when we are finished with the tree it can be chopped up and used on the fire. Plus I have read that blueberries particularly like pine needle mulch, so that's where some of last year's one went.
As for keeping the tree looking green, I have a pump-misting spray bottle which I spray the tree with - sometimes twice a day when it is really hot - just not when the lights are switched on. Pine trees absorb a lot of their water requirements through their needles.
Having to water the tree so much must seem strange to those in the Northern Hemisphere. 
Derek has also kindly fitted the tree with a large funnel attached to a hose (well out of sight) into the bucket that the tree sits in so we can keep it easily watered. 

A Great Use for Silverbeet

If there's one thing it seems everyone can grow here (at has a glut of) it's silverbeet. At present we have also got lots of both types of spinach too, so I've combined them all to make up this recipe from a great 80's cookbook - Jan Bilton's "The Great New Zealand Cookbook".

SPINACH QUICHE

this is what 500g of spinach looks like - it will take care of the glut.

500g spinach
25g butter
salt and freshly ground pepper
1 tsp sugar
1 cup cottage cheese
3 eggs, lightly beaten
4 tablespoons of parmesan cheese
4 tablespoons of cream (or substitute unsweetened yoghurt)
wholemeal pastry (recipe follows)

Wash the spinach well, drain, trim and chop coarsely. Cook in butter with salt, pepper and sugar.
Beat cottage cheese and eggs until smooth. Add cheese and cream. Combine with spinach then spread the mixture into the prepared pastry case.
Bake at 190c for 35 minutes.

Spinach Quiche. Got all excited and ate half of it before I remembered that I was going to take a photo

WHOLEMEAL PASTRY CRUST

2 cups of wholemeal flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup corn oil (or whatever you have - I used ricebran)
1/4 cup of cold milk

Place flour and salt in a bowl and mix well. Pour in oil and milk. Stir until lightly mixed, pressing any crumbly pieces back in.
Form pastry into a ball and flatten. Roll out between 2 pieces of baking paper to fit a 20 - 23cm pie plate
Now this is where the recipe and I part company...it is one of those bake blind pastries that I can't be bothered with, so I just whack the filling in and cook it immediately and it comes out fine. However if you want to stick to the rules...
Chill the case for 1 hour then cover with tin foil.
Bake 20 - 30 minutes at 200c (really??!) until browned. 

Just a peek at how our potatoes and corn are coming along.

potato and corn patch

We ran out of soil to mound over the potatoes so have piled kikuyu clippings around them. (Those clippings had better not grow)
The corn is mulched with newspaper and lawn clippings. 

There's so much to do at this time of the year that some of my good intentions have flown out of the window. I think from now on any handmade items for Christmas need to be done by August or it's just not going to happen, as I get too busy with the garden in Spring and the band starts to get busy too. Ah well...there's always next year.

Coastal Christmas - a Revamp

Last year we had a Pacifica themed Christmas tree - with mini flax ketes, shells, tapa cloth wrapped little parcels, and we loved the change from tinsel etc. It felt really peaceful. So this year we are going to change it up just a little - to have a "Coastal" themed Christmas.
Now I'm not going out to buy a whole lot of new decorations, so here is some of what I have been doing. The big reveal will come later.

Almost before photo - I'd just started to paint then remembered to take a photo

After

The baubles are supposed to look like mini fishing floats, and there are lots of instructions on Pinterest. But I just wanted to use what I had, so they look like they've been in the sea a while or something, not quite as I had pictured them.

miscellaneous gold decorations before

Ta daa! Fishing floats and neptunes pearls

A can of spray paint (that I already owned) can change a whole lot of random coloured ornaments into a colour theme.

Shabby old wreath before...

Transformed with spray paint, beach combings and a glue gun

Now I am busy gift wrapping. It all has to be recycled wrap for me, plus it has to look beachy and all tone in while it sits under the tree. It takes more effort, but still looks better (I think) than if it was done in a hurry with cheap paper, and is eco friendly.

Drinking Vinegar? Divine!

I had never heard of drinking vinegar until a couple of days ago when my daughter found a recipe and asked if I could make her some.
My daughter, who is 20, just loves vinegar flavoured anything and often uses cider vinegar as a dip for her fresh vegetables.
Well today we made up this recipe for Rhubarb and Ginger Drinking Vinegar and it is divine. You will find the recipe and more info about drinking vinegars here on The Skillet Chronicles.

Rhubarb and Ginger Drinking Vinegar

 It is really an interesting cordial that gets mixed with sparkling water in a 1:4 ratio. My daughter also suggested it would be very nice with ice and a shot of vodka.
I think it would make a lovely hostess or Christmas gift, with a tag with the instructions and recipe.

My Budget Book
I have always said that budget was a dirty word, but because I am naturally thrifty that has not caused me a problem. I am one of those people who can keep a mental tally roughly of income and outgoings.
But this year - my first year of living without a real job, I decided to actually write down all income and outgoings, which I have found interesting to see how well I can live within the smallish amount that I have allowed myself.
At this point I am just looking to break even in the new year. I think that's ok for the first year without trying too hard.

flourish  (flur'ish), v.i. to grow and thrive ; to live, be active; to be healthy, vigorous, successful, or prosperous; v.t. to wave, brandish; to wave about showily, to flaunt; n.the act of flourishing something; a fanfare; an ostentatious advertisement; a fanciful decorative curve or line in writing or printing

Great word - something to aspire to.