Nature paints it own pictures

Saturday was a day where I spent time at one of my favourite beaches watching the Senior State Championships for the final surf life saving carnival of the year, which my 15 year old son was  a competitor. The carnival was held at Southport Beach, Noarlunga under the most ideal weather conditions, not too hot and lovely rolling waves peeling in on the beach. It is a spectacular beach which has ideal fishing, surfing, boogy boarding opportunity as well being very scenic and connects to the Onkaparinga river which is great for kayaking.

Under 17 ski event competitors preparing craft- Doesnt look like much of a crowd but there are hundreds on the beach.

Competitors at the ready for under 17 ski event.

They're off

Under 17 ski event returning to the beach.

Competitors cleaning up craft post race

My bronzed Aussie, Ben.

You can tell I love it. 

On a normal day (when no competitions are held) the beach is never over crowded. The walk over a boardwalk turns a great majority off of enjoying such a spectacular beach.

The view towards Southport Beach and cliff face

Dunes which the boardwalk passes through.

Looking towards Noarlunga Jetty

The Saturday carnival turns the normally limited parking along the cliff face into a premium and only the very eraly birds get a park nearby. Knowing this and arriving late we parked down near Noarlung jetty and walked the distance along the beach to the carnival - far more appealing than parking on the roadside and trekking with the traffic.

Whilst walking along the beach the tide made lovely erosion marks in the sand painting its own scene if you cared to stop and look. Lovely.

This  is the original orientation  with the water/ tide running back down the sand into the ocean  but flip it over and it appears as a grove of trees.

Nature paints its own pictures....

Nasi Goreng

I'm still without my oven! My brother whom is a gas fitter/ mechanic came over to install the gas burner for the oven. I was excited, the thought of caramelised, oven roasted and baked goodies filling the air with wonderful scents filled me with joy. But as it turns out the gas jets need cleaning???maybe, so I need to get in a technician.
Usually I just call the appropriate person but the people whom I am supposed to call charged me extra last time because he bought a long an extra workman, more like trainee, and charged me more money. I rang the company at the time and complained but still ended up paying him and being refunded by the company. Long story short I don't want to use this person and am too lazy to find another, but I will do it tomorrow.

So I'm still cooking on the gas top cooker.
Nasi Goreng was the order of the day last night and I took a few snaps as I went. My mother taught me this recipe, she is of Dutch heritage and her parents lived in Indonesia when they were younger. I'm not sure how authentic it is but it tastes good and is easy to make.

Ingredients
Conimex nasi goreng dried spices
1 bunch spring onions
1 red capsicum
2eggs plus extra to serve
basmati  or long grain rice 2 cups
500-600 grams chicken or pork diced
sambal olelek if you like a little heat
Ketchup Manis - a sweet indonesian soy sauce
prawn crackers to serve, make ahead of time before cooking nasi goreng

Bring water to boil
Dice pork chicken to one inch / 1.5 cm cubes (roughly)

Dice spring onion , use the entire vegetable except withered bits

Dice capsicum

Add rice and cook according to directioons, sont over cook rice or nasi goreng will be gluggy
Add small amount of boiling water to conimex dried spices just enough to wet them to swell and rehydrate

Fry up spring onion till just soft and add capsicum cook further minute and set aside
Fry up meat until brown lightly
Add conmiex spices cook further minute then add vegetable and set aside
Cook and egg omlete in a seperate fry pan and chop up to small pieces to mix through nasi goreng when combined
Drain rice when cooked, add above ingredients without reheating as rice will bring temperature back up, give a good mix.
Add soy sauce to taste or allow individuals to add at table.

 Serve with a fried egg, cucumber and yoghurt salad and prawn crackers.
Add sambal oelek for heat to the rice if desired.

Scoop rice onto prawn cracker and eat..mmm.

Progress Baby quilt no 1 - Daisy crochet blanket

Since taking this photo 2 days ago I have done another 7 squares, almost half way there ! I have to purchase some more green wool.. Back to the chevrons, really should finish what I started.
See you next time, Keep happy and eat heartily

Oops!

Last night I was crocheting in bed just before going to sleep. I just wanted to get a quick row in before turning off the lights and when finnished placed my crochet bag next to the bed so I could hook up again in the morning.

I love getting up in the morning and having a cup of tea in bed and a little crochet time.
Well this morning I made my cup of tea after David and the boys went off to surf lifesaving trials and settled down to enjoy my cuppa. I put my cup down and went to reach for something and threw the cup all over my crochet which was still lying next to my bed, half in and half out of the bag. Disaster! You've never seen me move so quickly. I tidied off the end and whipped it in for a wash, pronto. Hopefully it wont have tea stains all over it.

Well I settled back down for a new cup of tea and decided to commence one of four baby blankets for the pregnant girls at work. Seems to be a rush to get out of that place, cant think of a nicer way of doing it. I don't know whether I will have enough time to make all four blankets but I'll try. If not I can always go shopping.
Leah presented first with her pregnancy and I anticipated commencing  her blanket soon .. At least she has a definite colour choice - green - so it made it easy to decide what type of blanket to make her. I don't particularly want to work in one solid colour - yawn - although that does make it quicker to complete, but decided on a daisy/ flower based pattern with green background. Really fresh don't you think?

Now I have to change and wash my sheets - yawn!!!

Chevron On

I've been busy on my days off, hooking away. I spent a lot of time resting my laurels not doing any of the things that might be expected of me as wife and mother... so sue me! My hooky interest came with me  every where, even on 37 degree days when it is already too toasty warm to be sitting under a crotchet blanket and swelter all in the name of progress. Sometimes things go too slow for me, I just want too get it done. I think I have a little of the mad determination that my mother has and can get carried away with whatever project is my current interest.

People often ask me how I manage to have the time to pursue craft and my answer to that is that it interests me and that I do a little bit at a time, regularly. Nothing will ever convince me, other than complete desperation, to give up my Thursday coffee and craft morning. Coffee to catch up with my very dear friends and craft to quilt and chat. That way no matter whatever else life throws at me I will always get a little done each week. If I don't make it to craft (due to sick children) I'll set aside time during the week just for me. Love being a little bit selfish, but we all should set aside some me time to do the things we love or desire to do.

Self love makes me happy and then I'm more likely to share the love..

I recently have taken a liking to Rob Ryan's fabulous paper cut work. He's obviously has way too much time on his hands. imagine all the work that goes into cutting scenes in whole pieces, let alone designing and evolving concepts to carve. Clever stuff. I was in spired and bought the book of "This Is For You". Besides being a beautiful keepsake, his message was relevant whilst I was writing a letter to my son and also influenced the presentation of the letter to him .. it became more of a collage of thoughts, drawings and feelings. I had to hand it in (I was really late) and havn't photographed it, but will share parts that arent of too personal a nature later.
Anyway enjoy a snippet of Rob Ryans book...
(my apologies for the camera work)

These terraced houses remind me of the dutch apartments sandwiched together along the canals...my dutch heritage sneaking in.

What lovely whimsy and joy in discovering oneself.  You can find Robs web page here: http://www.misterrob.co.uk/

Chicken and Spinach Ravioli

I had been eyeing off a ravioli maker and yesterday saw that the kitchen ware shop had a sale on. Of course the store had sold the ravioli maker the night before as they were half price. Luckily they had another store 15 minutes drive away which had six in stock. So I promptly drove down to pick up my new ravioli maker.

I also bought a few extra ingredients so that I could make spinach and chicken ravioli. I really only  needed chicken mince and some fresh ricotta as I keep strong flour normally for pasta making and had spinach growing in the garden. The spinach looked good the last time I looked at it but we have had some severely hot weather which has wilted my plant. I rescued what I could and will make do.

My ravioli tasted fine but the finished product was very rustic
Anyway here it is...

Filling
300g Chicken mince cooked with chopped garlic and pepper
one cup of chopped cooked spinach
300g ricotta cheese
Mix altogether. My food processor has died but feel free to give it a quick whiz for a smoother texture.

Pasta

Ratio of 1 egg to 100gram of strong flour

I used 500g flour (bread flour) and five eggs

You can substitute water for eggs, 3 eggs and 50ml water give or take a little bit

The dough should form a nice ball after kneading but not be too sticky.

Rest the dough for 30 minutes wrapped in plastic film in the refrigerator

With your pasta machine roll out a sheet double the length of your ravioli tray ( I did mine to number 2 -reasonably thin).

Semolina flour is useful to help dry the pasta as you are rolling it through the pasta machine to stop it from sticking and also helps to stop it from adhering to the ravioli plate. Dab pasta sheet prior to laying sheet on base plate with semolina. Shape base sheet with mould provided and then fill indents with filling.  Fold back rest of pasta sheet to form top and sprinkle with semolina flour and roll with rolling pin to seal and cut ravioli

Mine only were indented by ravioli pattern and required hand cutting (although the instructions on the box said wait an hour for pasta to dry- not very hygienic with chicken in 37C degree heat)

Six minutes in a boiling pan of water and top with prepared tomato sauce. Being so hot I cheated and opened a large tin of diced tomatoes with a tin of pasta sauce added some pepper and smoked paprika and away we went.

I told you it looked rustic - no points for presentation but the children all said it was nice

And after dinner I sat under the air conditioner and did a little more crotchet on the wave blanket.

And then every chance I had over the weekend.

Can you see a pattern developing?

3 rows of each colour x3 colours (blue red white)

Repeat colours with x2 rows of each colour ( blue red white)

Drop the first colour and introduce a new colour at the end of the next block of 3x3 colours (drop blue then do red white -new colour - orange) . Repeat colours in rows of 2.

And plod along until your fingers ache.....

Time for more crotchet... Thanks for joining me.

Writing about those you love

Recently my eldest son has been asked by the school to get his parents to write him a letter that he can read at the retreat that they have organised for year 12 students. The concept of letter writing  is to be a reaffirming and supportive loving gift to our children. It gives an opportunity to express ourselves to our children,  especially at an age where both parents and child struggle with communication and often argue over minor issues which become inflamed because we  lack the skill and pathways to express ourselves without heated emotion. It doesn't mean it will be any easy to say what we really feel via the pen, but it might allow some organized thought and positive affirmation of our love for our son.
My husband suggested that it would be an exercise that I would like to do, sarcastically suggesting that I had so much time on my hands. In fact the more I think about it the more I feel privileged to have an opportunity to express myself to Caleb and hope that both of us will make the effort to scribe a few words to him. It is so easy to say a few negative words, to always be correcting and to not look for the positive aspects of an individuals life.
The challenge and not a hard one will be to tell him of all the lovely things that make up his personality and enable him to shine.
My challenge this week is to say something positive to each of my family members this week and each day..besides writing a letter to my son.

What's on the go?

I never mentioned that since finishing my hexagon rug that I had been hankering to have something to do on the go. I wanted an easy to carry around project that  I could take with me to sporting events and have whilst waiting in the car for school pickups etcetera.

I decided just before leaving for Canberra that I would crotchet another rug and grabbed some of the left over wool and the vintage crochet book and have a go at the chevron stitch- zig zags all the way and I could make it interesting by varying colours - I've decided on orange, red blue and white as being my base colours and we'll see what happens from there.

Today I have attended  my quilting group. I haven't actually worked on this quilt since well before the school holidays, probably early November.. I obviously have an affinity to the colours of red and blue because here it is again- red white blue...a quilt I started at least one and half years ago.

Always plenty to do and not enough time to do it in. Persistance pays and if I plod along I will eventually finish this quilt. I'm half way there anyway.

I'm still thinking about my twenty wishes...