Baby doll carrier

Although my free time at the moment is a bit limited, I have been trying to keep myself busy during the rare moments of silence. In the past this time would have been filled with study, but having graduated in December this is no longer the case. Instead, for the next few weeks at least, I am going to focus on finishing all the sewing projects I have sitting in my sewing room. I am not going to buy anymore new material, or be tempted to buy more patterns off Etsy. Rather, I am going to go through the material and patterns I have and clear out my 'to do' draws. It used to only be one draw but it recently spread into another. And when I finish all that I can go back to doing some quilting, as I have one that I made ages ago, without a pattern or any idea how to make quilts, that needs finishing.

To start off this project, I made this baby doll carrier on the weekend for a little person's birthday. I bought the pattern back in Feb with the intention of making and finishing it for Nicholas before Beth arrived, but as always, this didn't happen. As you can see from the photos Nicholas just loved carrying around the teddy in the carrier, so hopefully in the next few days I will finish Nicholas' carrier off and a few more I have on the go for other people.

In the next day or so I will take stock of all the projects I have to start/finish and will write a list here. Do you have projects that need doing? Maybe you could join me :).

No blackberries today!

Sadly, this Autumn we did not had the chance to pick any blackberries. Dad chopped down all the easily accessible bushes (which always bore a lot of fruit), Daniel works all week, and then I work and play soccer on weekends. Mum went away and I didn't want to leave Nicholas asleep and alone in the house while I wandered around the property picking blackberries, plus the nice Autumn days have been few and far between. I also couldn't imagine carrying Nicholas on my back and walking around my parents very uneven property in the wet and cold, so it just didn't really happen.

I was afraid having kids would somehow impede on the things I enjoy doing, such as preserving fruit. In some ways it has and it hasn't. If I didn't have Nicholas I would have happily walked around picking blackberries alone and in the cold. It's been done before. But because I don't want to risk tripping, for instance, and hurting Nicholas, I just didn't bother. I've also found that before Nicholas it didn't matter if I stayed up late preserving. Now for obvious reasons I want to be in bed before 10pm, which means I have to be a lot more organised, something I am not particularly great at.

Thankfully, the Thermomix makes preserving super easy. I just put the fruit and sugar in, set the timer, turn it to the correct speed and off it goes. All I have to do at end is just pour the jam into the sterilised jars...so easy. So even though I am disappointed that I didn't get my hands on nay blackberries this year, when I saw a bunch of jamming figs going cheaply at the markets I couldn't pass up the offer.

So I got all the ingredients prepared:
Figs, sugar and lemon juice,
Put them into the Thermomix, set the timer and let it go.
When I returned, it was finished :).

I definitely I want to plant a fig tree this winter, but like the mulberry tree it can get huge, so I'm not quite sure if we have the room in our backyard for it. I guess we'll just have to find some!

Thermomix adventure no. 1

So I did something recently that I never thought I would do. I spent an obscene amount of money on a kitchen appliance. But not just any kitchen appliance I might add... a Thermomix. And I must say, this is one of the best decisions I have made in a long time. I think it is fantastic. It saves time when cooking and motivates me try new food, and since it arrived on Tuesday I have been using it two to three times daily.

On Tuesday, after it was dropped off, at 3pm in the afternoon I used it 3 times. I made a carrot salad, cauliflower soup and quince paste, and the quince paste turned out amazingly.

I used some quinces I picked up from the side of the road, and I followed this quince paste recipe I found on the Thermomix community site. Unlike my attempts at making quince paste last year this was surprisingly easy because it avoided all the time wasted in straining the paste to make it fine and smooth. 

Here I am cutting everything up.

This is the core and peel after it had been blitzed, and before the water had been added.

Here it is after being cooked for 25mins, but before being strained to get the liquid out.

After cooking for a massive 50mins it is ready to be placed in the tray to cool and set.

Such a vibrant red colour.

The end product: so smooth and tasty :).

 I am looking forward to all the Thermomix adventures that are ahead of us.

Strawberry and Rhubarb cordial

This week, it feels like I have spent most of my time trying to coerce Nicholas into sleeping. I spent the entire week at home working on it but sadly I am still failing. Things were so bad, that there were times that I even reverted to pushing him to sleep in the pram - I didn't even do this when he was an infant. It feels like we are regressing. I even called the Parent Helpline, but sadly, for a helpline they weren't particularly helpful. The women listened to my situation but really didn't have any helpful tips or advice. I guess I'm on my own for this one.

So to take my mind off the fact that Nicholas doesn't like to sleep and I have to spend all day with him, I have been spending the little free time I do have in the kitchen. With all the plums I picked last week I made a massive batch of plum fruit leather, and am soon to make more because I had the opportunity to pick some more plums on Friday :).

With the rhubarb I made Strawberry and Rhubarb cordial again, and Rhubarb fizzy drink. Both thankfully were quick and easy.

Here is the making of the cordial (a bit different from the above recipe):

500gms of rhubarb; 4 cups of strawberries and 3 large lemons

Everything cut up and placed in the pot ready to go.

With 4 cups of water added I let it come boil and then simmer for 20mins until the fruit was soft and mushy.

I then drained the fruit through the sieve.

And to the one litre of liquid I added 1 kilo of sugar and dissolved it over heat, and then added the lemon juice.

I then poured it into a sterlised bottles using a steralised jug and funnel. Done!

Massive zucchinis!

This week I also made zucchini pickles for Daniel. I'm not a huge fan of zucchini pickles but Daniel loves them, especially on toasted sandwiches and such. Anne (Dan's mum) has been growing these massive 'trombone zucchinis' this summer. You should see the patch, it is amazing. Here are some photos I took to show you just how big this 2.5kg zucchini is beside Nicholas who is almost 9 months old.

If it was straight I think it would be about the same length as Nicholas. Plus, the end (where the seeds are) was about the same size as Nicholas' head!

Plums!

As mentioned sometime last week, I had the opportunity to pick some more plums at my friends 'mini orchard'. It was wonderfully sunny day, and after having a terrible morning with Nicholas it was great to be outside in the sun.

Nicholas tasting a nashi pear for the first time - yum.

 

I knew I had picked a bit of fruit, but when I discovered it was 11 litres worth I was a bit surprised. 

All the pips have been removed.

Blending it all up

All ready to be dehydrated.

The rest of it went into the freezer and will come out when I'm ready to do another batch of dehydrating.

The final product: yummy mixed plum fruit leather!

Beans and Rhubarb!

I planted some broad beans in spring this year in order to put some nitrogen into the ground where I intend to plant strawberries next year. I was doubtful that they would even grow, to be honest, as I didn't tend to them much and only watered them when I had the chance... but they did. And unlike frozen broad beans which I hated as a kid and refused to eat, these are surprisingly tasty, even raw.

As I couldn't eat all of them in one go, I gave half of them to my mum. I will definitely be planting this super easy crop again this coming spring. 

Mum and I also had the opportunity to pick some fruit from a mini orchard in a friend's backyard today. It was wonderful, and while sitting on the picnic rug in the shade of the fruit trees I had an overwhelming desire to live somewhere with a little bit of land (ideally flat), that had an already established orchard, a veggie garden, room for the kids to run around in, and isn't in the heart of suburbia. I know I have discussed this before, and I know that at this time this isn't a realistic goal for us, but a girl can dream can't she?

I'm not sure this picture really captures the dark purple colour of these beautiful plums, but I tried.

Anyway, from this little excursion Mum and I picked a bunch a delicious plums, some massive lemons, a few nectarines, and a heap of rhubarb. I even saw a baby rabbit. At first I thought it was a snake, and so I pleasantly releaved when I saw it bouncing away.

2.5kg of rhubarb - tied up in 500gm bunches.

I'm thinking I might make some more Rhubarb and Strawberry cordial. Yum!

Here is Nicholas surprised by the size of the hardware store.

Dehydrator!

If you know me, you will know how much I love fruit. I love baking with it, turning it into jam and chutney, eating it fresh, dreaming about it (this has been happening the last few days), and now I love dehydrating it. That's right folks, I finally splurged and bought myself a dehydrator for my birthday, and I love it. My birthday isn't until the end of the month, but having had it on layby for a while I couldn't go another month without having it in my life, especially because if I did it would be too late to dehydrate some of the fruit.

So, I have been experimenting. I made mango, and greengage fruit leather. I hadn't had fruit leather since I was a kid and had forgotten how great it tasted.  I also had a go a drying apricots, greengages, grapes and pears. All of which turned out quite well. I am also keen to dehydrate some vegetables, and herbs and spices in the next few months. 

Mango fruit leather before it went into the dehydrator.

I was blessed actually this summer with kilos of greengages from a friends tree. I didn't think I was going to taste any fresh greengages this year after my cousin sold her house, but thankfully this has not been the case. So last night Daniel and I stayed up stupidly late cutting greengages in half, as well as boiling, peeling and blending them together in order to make fruit leather.

I also had the opportunity to make some Greengage and Orange Jam which I have been adding into my porridge on a daily basis. I tried this first time last year and loved it, so I thought I would make it again.

This is what I did:

Greengage and Orange Jam
-2kgs of greengages
-2kgs of sugar
-juice and rind of 2 oranges
-juice and rind of a lemon.

After washing the greengages, I halved and pipped them and placed them in a large pot with the juice and rind of the oranges and lemon. I then let it heat up and continue to do so until the fruit was very soft and the skin had started falling off the plum. This only took about 10-15mins. I then add the sugar and stirred until it dissolved. After this I let it simmer until it reached setting point, and then put it in steralised jars.

I'm not sure if this is the correct way of making jam, but this is how I have been making it for the last few years and it seems to work so I just stick with it. Do you do it differently?

Nicholas was being super grumpy again as I made jam, so I carried him around with me as I prepared the jam. He doesn't really look like he is enjoying it. Oh well!

Apricot chutney!

Nicholas has been super clingy, whiny and awake this week. He is only having two 45min sleeps during the day and then will go to sleep for about an hour in the evening before waking up for an hour or two and then heading back to sleep. If we are lucky he might sleep for a few hours before waking up and needing one of us to go and resettle him. It's been doing my head in, and I am exhausted. I think he might be teething?

To help the situation, I decided that I would spend the day at my parents' place with my Mum and Aunt, so I didn't have to be left with Nicholas by myself all day... meaning that what could have been a really stressful day, because every time I left the room or even turned around Nicholas would cry, turned out to be surprising stress free. As a bonus, I was even able to have a quick nap in the afternoon to rejuvenate for the rest of the day.

Like I have mentioned previously, I love going to my parents' place to get away from it all. It is peaceful, quiet and beautiful, especially on sunny days like toady. 

And even though Nicholas was super clingy, he was happy enough to sit in his chair (in front of me), eating, just for long enough to prepare everything I needed in order to cook up some apricot chutney. 

 Here are the apricots - picked fresh off my parent's-in-laws tree.

Here is a the kilo of onions I cut up in halves and quarters, and then put in the food processor to cut up more finely. I refuse to spend ages cutting up onions. It is so time consuming. This is my Mum's food processor. A bit more advanced than my own, but I use mine for everything I can - cutting up onions, mixing banana cake muffins and dip, chopping up vegetables to make Nicholas puree - I love it.

Adding the sugar - sooooo much!

And the chutney before we spooned it into jars - YUM.

I am so glad the day turned out to be productive, and that I didn't stay at home and mope about!