Organisation

Recently I became "friends" with my lovely friend Kath on Pintrest.  I was looking at her Boards and found all these inspiring things to do to get organised with, I could unsurprisingly relate to needing many of the ideas. 

This idea for organising all my cotton sewing threads particularly inspired me, so I decided to take the bull by the horns and just do it.......

To start with I raided the wonderful J's scrap wood heap: 

Having selected my piece of wood, I gave it a very (and I mean very!) quick sand.

Grabbing two different sized cottons from my collection I did a rough guestimate of how far apart they should go, and how many could fit along a row.  I marked this up on the wood so I would know where to drill the holes.

So taking my trusty drill I simply drilled 20 hole with my 3mm drill bit (you need to make the drill bit slightly smaller than the nail width that you are going to use). 

Then it is as simple as anything to just lightly tap the nails into the pre-drilled holes.

And there you have it - a simple way to store all those sewing cottons. 

One thing organised down - about 100 to go! 

Chocolate and Hazelnut Tarts

I finally got around to typing up the recipe for the Chocolate and Hazelnut Tart that I made for my Dinner Party a few weeks ago!   So here it is (sorry have no idea of the source of the original recipe!):

  

Chocolate and Hazelnut Tarts

Preparation time: 25 Minutes

Cooking time: 5 minutes plus 50 minutes refrigeration

Tart bases:

Butter for greasing

200g hazelnut meal

125g dark chocolate

60g butter  

Filling:

25g dark or milk chocolate

100g butter

3 eggs (separated)

2 tbsp caster sugar

Tart bases:

Use butter to grease the bottom of the tart tin (you will need to use one that has a loose base).

Melt the dark chocolate in a bowl over simmering water – cool slightly before adding the butter and hazelnut meal and stirring to combine.  Allow mixture to cool sufficiently so mixture can be spooned into the tart tin to line the edges and base.  Refrigerate for 20 minutes or until mixture is firm.

Filling:

Melt chocolate and butter in a bowl over simmering water, using a metal spoon stir until melted and smooth. Remove from heat and allow to cool for 10 minutes before adding egg yolks and combining with a metal spoon.

In a separate bowl beat egg whites until soft peak, add sugar and continue beating until sugar has dissolved.  Gently fold the egg whites into the chocolate mixture and let mixture stand for 5 minutes.

Spoon mixture into the tart bases and refrigerate for 30 minutes to allow to set.

Decorate with Strawberry’s or berries and serve with cream.

Note: This recipe is great to use for little individual tarts as well, however it is very rich, so remember for portioning: a little goes a long way!

Enjoy!

New (temporary) additions to the family

Fostering is something that I have been thinking about doing for awhile now, but it is one of those things that I never got around to and was too hard when I was working full-time. 

However now that I only work part-time I decided it was time to do it! 

I contacted an couple who had just started up a cat rescue called Nine Lives, Four Paws and asked them if they needed foster carers - and they said yes! 

A few weeks later I went and picked up my babies:  Frankie (ginger male) and Honey (black splodgy female).  

They are just adorable and although we are having some toilet training issues they are a true delight. 

I will be looking for good homes for them soon, so if you know anyone....... or if you think that you can foster let me know and I would be happy to help! 

Weekend randomness

I have a few things going on at the moment but I really want to get some good photos before I show you them, so instead of giving you substandard pictures here is some randomness for this beautiful sunny Sunday.......

This is technically the second Spring we have spent in our house.  However, as we were away in the US and Canada for two months this time last year (visiting my wonderful Aunty and her fantastic partner - I can't believe it has been a year already!), we missed all the Spring activity in our garden.

Both our front and back gardens are actually in a terrible state and they are both on the agenda to be completely overhauled in the very near future; however every so often we go outside and find something wonderful happening.... 

Last week after watching and wondering what bulbs (or weeds) were sprouting up throughout the whole garden, we were delighted to see Bluebells come to life.  

And our Lavender is flowering.

And the May Bush, which as has been looking half dead all year, has suddenly turned into a beautiful swan!

It was a big week for jobs last week, and one of those jobs was cooking some more test cakes for my October bride. 

I wanted to try out a recipe for a White Chocolate Mudcake and I also wanted to see if I could flavour it with some alcohol that I had picked up duty free on the way back from NZ specifically for this purpose.

I started with a White Chocolate Mudcake base recipe then split the mixture into three batches.  

Batch one: I left plain

Batch two: I added Kahlua  

Batch three: I added Baileys 

As I didn't have three tins the same size I cooked the three batches in six tins the same size! 

Then I took the finished product to work, where my very helpful colleagues all tasted and voted on the cake they liked the most.  

The votes were cast and the clear winner was the White Chocolate & Kahlua cake, followed closely by the plain White Chocolate Mudcake. 

My  colleagues have kindly volunteered to test and vote on any other cakes I feel the need to test - ain't they lovely! 


I mentioned last week that the wonderful J and I had gone to a fete or village fair last Saturday before we went to see my amazing sister run in the half marathon.

This was one of my (many!) purchases:

Just $20 and she is as solid as a rock (and quite heavy) we are not sure what the base is made out of but it is some type of cast mettle??

When we got it it was filthy! it looked like it had about 20 years of dust on it, but after a quick bath it is looking great and is going to be a lovely addition to my lounge room.

Despite the fact that we have not been as productive as we had hoped this weekend, there have been some projects started and some even completed(!) so there will be updates on those next week...... have a great weekend!! 

A few of my favourite things...

I have bizarrely had quite a few consecutive requests for suggestions/ideas about some interior design things lately.  As I found myself spending some serious quality time on the Internet looking at options I thought that I would share my findings....  

So here we go with: A few of my favourite things....couches  

I was recently asked by a work colleague about couches.  He has just moved into a fantastic new apartment and was looking for something funky and modern with a price tag under $2000 for a three seater.  

Although there are a thousand places to buy couches, and they have price tags from $200 to $20,000, I contained my search to three seater couches that are under $2000 and are widely available to the majority of people living on the East Coast of Australia. 

My top 12 favourite couches (right now):  

The Tatler – OZ Design 

The Spectator – OZ Design 

The Handler – Plush 

The Jazz – OZ Design 

The Chester – Domayne 

The Chicago - Domayne

The Dylan – Nick Scali 

The Phoenix – Plush 

The Hilton – Freedom 

The Oliver - Domayne

The Milson – OZ Design 

The Zara – Plush 

Now I have a disclaimer to add to this post:  I have not seen the couches in the flesh - and that is essential.  You don't know what you are getting until you have seen it, felt it and sat on it!!! 

Just before I put up this post I was flicking through the junk-mail and saw some couches from Fantastic Furniture..... if you are looking for a bargain some of these couches covered with the right fabric could be really nice and the price tags are fairly fantastic..... 

Follow Me By E-Mail

In chatting with some of my friends the other day, they mentioned that they don't have a chance to check my blog every day (and I don't post every day!).  As such sometimes when they jump online to check it out I have posted two or three posts that they haven't seen, and sometimes there is nothing new.

I suggest that they Follow Me By E-Mail.  This means when ever I post something on the blog they will get an automatic notification into their e-mail inbox saying that I have posted something new.

As they thought that this was a nifty idea I thought that I would explain how to go about Following Me By E-Mail. 

To start the process: on the Right hand side of the screen you will see this:

If you write your e-mail address in the box provided and click Submit you will pull up a screen that looks like this:

If you type in the strange word that you are provided (in this case it is slago - but you will be provided with a different one) and click on Complete Subscription Request you will get a window pop up that looks like this: 

And you are done! 

Now whenever I post something new on the blog you will get a notification in your email inbox and you can jump online and check out the post if you want to. 

And don't forget about Leaving a Comment (click here for instructions on how to do that too), I love it when I get comments, no matter how big or small!  

Amazing

We spent Saturday night in Sydney last weekend.

We drove down on Saturday afternoon (having spent the morning buying up goodies at the local fete – more on that to come!) for my amazing sister’s run in the Half Marathon on Sunday morning.  

Fourteen weeks ago my amazing sister Ju - who has never run in her life - signed up to an organisation called Can Too to raise money for Cancer Research. 

Can Too is a non-profit program that matches fitness incentives with a good cause. Beginners and experienced athletes are given professional coaching as part of a team to run in endurance events. In return, participants raise funds that go directly towards funding cancer researchers through Cure Cancer Australia.  It is an amazing cause and she was able to exceed her target and raise $1350.  

After a carbohydrate heavy meal on Saturday night, she left the apartment at 4.20am to make it across to the starting line in Milson’s Point. This is a photo I took of her – in the dark at 4.20am – I am taking this from bed!

Based on a range of complex calculations that involved times and distances and cut off points it was determined that we needed to be standing on Harris Street at 8.30am to be able to see her run past. 

We got there at the allotted time but sadly – although we saw lots of other Can Too runners all in their bright orange vests there was no sign of my sister..... we feared the worst .....

Although Ju was determined to run the whole Half Marathon she had been experiencing lots of ankle, leg and knee injuries over the 14 weeks and it was suggested that she only run the 10km then stop.  So when we didn’t see her coming past we feared that her injuries had got the better of her and we headed into the Oprah House to the finish line to collect her.

As we were walking towards Darling Harbour to catch a ferry we watched as Kurt Fearnley speed past in first place in the Wheelchair Marathon! He is one fast guy!!

It was a truly beautiful day in Darling Harbour. 

And the view from the Ferry to Circular Key was not bad either. 

As we got closer to the Oprah House we could see the crowds. 

Due to the huge amount of people clogging up the transport system it took us over 1.5 hours to get to Circular Key.  As Ju did not run with a phone it wasn't until we got there that we found out that not only had she not been kicked out at the 10km mark but she had made it to the end in the very impressive time of 2 hours and 42 minutes!

She was elated but tired and hungry so we jumped on a ferry back to Darling Harbour where we fed her a big breakfast then took her home to bed!

We couldn't be more proud of her!