Heart Felt

Sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll (and champagne)

My doctor doesn't always refer straight from the text book for health care ~ he has a fair respect for alternative remedies and suggestions.  For example his suggestions to bring the baby on is plenty of "Sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll" (his words, not mine) Sex is self explanatory, drugs he refers to plenty of raspberry leaf tea and rock 'n' roll he refers to general physical activity like walking etc.

I took the suggestion of "rock 'n' roll" a little bit further and I have been going for rides on the back of Ian's motorbike.  It certainly brings on the Braxton Hicks and to say the least it's a lot of fun!  We have been going down the bumpy farm tracks slowly ~ just 5 minutes a day.  While out a couple of days a go we stumbled upon some wild elder trees in flower.  Last year I made some elder flower champagne for Christmas.  It was so easy and delicious I just had to make some again this year.

That afternoon I took myself away on my own, basket in hand.  It was lovely to walk and take in the beauty and contemplate how life is going to change for us once again.  While out I saw a hawk flying above scouring for small animals, a rabbit scurrying away into the blackberry bushes and a Rosella parrot flying from one tree to the next.  It was a moment of beauty, tranquility and peace to be on my own surrounded by nature and wild life.

I took just what I needed knowing that soon there will be berries to harvest for jam.





Taking a five minute breather before walking back up the farm track to the house.



I knew I had been been collecting these French lemonade bottles for a reason.  They are perfect for bottling the champagne in.  If you have considered giving it a try ~ please do, it's very easy, labor is minimal and it's absolutely delicious. You will find my recipe here. xx

Cure

A simple cure for feeling run down with colds and flu.....

Picking flowers from the garden.....

Home baked biscuits with a lemon and honey drink.....

Hope you and your family are keeping well. x

Lemons

After a morning exploring Grandma's garden.......

back home, Sadie helped me pick a basket of lemons.

What to do with so many lemons?

Squeeze the juice and freeze in ice-cube trays for summer drinks.....

Make lemon honey and

Preserve lemons in sea salt.....

and of course my favorite, lemon meringue pie.

Lemon Honey

4 lemons 2 cups sugar

125 g butter     4 eggs, beaten

Grate only the yellow part of the lemon.  Squeeze the lemons and strain the juice.  Melt the butter in the top of a double boiler.  Stir in sugar and lemon juice until sugar is dissolved.  Add eggs and lemon rind.  Place over boiling water and cook, stirring all the time until mixture thickens.  Pour into sterilized jars.  Store in the refrigerator.

Makes about 4 x 250 ml jars.

Lemon Meringue Pie

Base

200 g sweet shortcrust pastry (I make my own but you could use pre-made pastry from the store)

Filling

1/4 cup cornflour 3/4 cup water

1 cup sugar 3 eggs, separated

2 teaspoons grated lemon rind 1 tablespoon butter

1/2 cup lemon juice

Topping

1/4 cup caster sugar 1/4 teaspoon vanilla essence

On a lightly floured board roll out pastry to 6 mm thickness.  Use to line a 20 cm flan ring.  Trim off any excess pastry.  Bake blind at 190 .C for 20 minutes.  Remove baking blind material.   Return pastry shell to oven for 1 minute to dry out pastry base.  While pastry is cooking make the filling.  Return to oven and bake at 190 .C for 10 minutes or until golden.

Serves 6

Filling

Blend cornflour, sugar, lemon rind and juice together until smooth.  Add water.  Cook over medium heat until mixture boils and thickens, stirring constantly.  Remove from heat.  Stir in yolks and butter.

Topping

Beat egg whites until stiff but not dry.  Beat in sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, until very thick and glossy.  Stir in vanilla.

It is time consuming with a lot of processes, but you can't beat homemade lemon meringue pie. Not to sweet and very tangy!

Bird Cake

We see a variety of birds in our backyard such as Sparrows, Blackbirds, Thrushes, Starlings, Wax Eyes, Fantails, Swallows and Tui.   Some of them sit in the old bare apple tree and wait for their daily crusts and stale bread.  Today we thought we would treat them and make them a cake.  

I 'Googled' for some ideas to put in our cake, but found that there were so many suggestions using a variety of food and techniques, I decided just to follow my instinct and make up our own recipe.

We used,

Beef & Mutton fat (you can buy it in a container from your local supermarket)

Crunchy peanut butter

Sunflower seeds

Sultanas

and a packet of 'wild bird food' which contained Maize

Sorghum

Barley

Oats

Wheat

Panorama

White French millet and

Hulled oats

We left the fat out in the sun to soften and then added the peanut butter and then handfuls of the other ingredients until it looked 'about right'.

We stuffed the mixture into a netting bag that our oranges came packaged in and tied it up with a piece of string and hung it from the old apple tree.

It didn't take long until a shy little Wax Eye came to sample the delight.

Jam making

With our bounty of Kiwi Fruit we picked over the weekend, many people suggested making jam out of the excess.  To tell the truth I have never attempted to made jam.  Mum use to make jam, pickles, chutneys and preserve fruit.  I have lovely memories of fruit bubbling away on the stove top, jars in the oven - cupboards packed with all her preserved produce.  Ian's mother makes jam regularly and often we go home with a lovely jar of rich red raspberry jam or golden preserved peaches.

Thinking back, Mum use to keep us out of the kitchen when she was preserving or jam making because she thought it was too dangerous to have children around with hot jars and scolding pans of sugary fruit.  Maybe this is why I have never made it myself - until today of course.

I use the jam recipe found in the "Edmonds Cookery Book".

1 kg kiwifruit, peeled and chopped                                          1/2 cup orange juice

1/2 cup water                                                                        3 cups of sugar

Put kiwifruit, water and orange juice into a preserving pan.  Boil until fruit is soft and pulpy.  Add sugar. Stir until dissolved.  Boil briskly for 30 minutes or until setting point is reached.  Pour into sterilized jars.

Makes about 3 x 250 ml jars.

My critics (Charlie and Sadie are both jam connoisseurs) will give it the taste test at breakfast time with their morning toast.

Using the very same kitchen scales Mum use to use.

I got to wear my 'new' thrifted apron - just covering the baby bump! (21 weeks)

The final result - a bit darker than I expected - hope I didn't burn the sugar!

Making some handmade labels - one jar will be going to Grandma and another to Glen and Maureen who gave us the Kiwis.  I still have a basket full of fruit, so if all goes well I will be making some more. xx

Winter fruit picking

I just love the seasons, especially the seasonal fruit and vegetables.  At the moment we are enjoying Kiwi Fruit from a friends garden and sweet juicy Mandarins from Grandma's garden.

The Kiwi Fruit is not a usual fruit you see growing in someones backyard, they are more prolific up north where they are grown on farms.  This is a very old vine, so the fruit are slightly smaller and much hairier than the commercially grown ones found in the stores.  Sadie adores them and she didn't need much encouragement to help in the gathering.

She helped our friend Glen carry the baskets and buckets back to the house.

The little pixie hat Sadie is wearing today is made from a recycled pure wool jumper.  I found this tutorial and it really only takes 10 minutes or so to put it together.  I bought the jumper from a thrift store and I will get two hats out of one $4 jumper.  I have added my own touch with the felt heart and vintage buttons on the side.  With the next one I think I will try an alternative option for the neck ties - these were too chunky for under Sadie's neck.

Later on Charlie and I went to Grandma's to swap some Kiwi Fruit for some Mandarins.  Grandma's Mandarin tree grows down the back of her garden near a stream.  It is laden with fruit this year to Charlie's delight!

I was a a bit camera happy today - so there are a lot more photographs on my Flickr. xx

An epic Meme

The lovely Megan of the Frou Frou kind has tagged me for this rather long but interesting Meme. So here is goes...

What is your current obsession?

Thinking about spring, selling our house and the new baby. 

What was the most interesting thing you did today?

Today I took Sadie to the town pool for a swim, it was a lot of fun.  She calls it the “pool pool”.

What are you wearing today?

A bright red merino top with a thrifted wool grey dress, striped tights, boots, red bead necklace and I have my hair in pigtails.

 

What's for dinner?

Tonight is the day before I go shopping, so it will be whatever I can put together from nothing -  (that’s my specialty).

What would you eat for your last meal?

Anything my mum use to cook for us when we were kids + one of her homemade puddings.  

What's the last thing you bought?

Today I bought an old wire cooling rack for cakes and biscuits and a flour sieve from the thrift store.

What are you listening to right now?

Some obscure band on the turntable that Ian found on vinyl record this morning at the thrift store.

What do you think of the person who tagged you?

Megan is one of the bravest and strongest woman blogging right now. xx

 

If you could have a house totally paid for, fully furnished anywhere in the world, where would you like it to be?

It would be a cottage in the Lake District in the UK

.

If you could go anywhere in the world for the next hour, where would you go?

Somewhere warm –Tahiti would do nicely.  

Which language do you want to learn?

Probably French and Maori would be useful. 

What's your favorite quote (for now)?

The computer says Noooooooooooo (from the comedy Little Britain)  

 

What is your favorite color?

Green, it’s been my favorite color for ages.

 

What is your favorite piece of clothing in your own wardrobe?

My winter coats and right now my maternity jeans.

What is your dream job?

I have my dream job – being a mother and a part time librarian.  

What's your favorite magazine?

At the moment it would be the New Zealand magazine called "Good"

If you had £100 now, what would you spend it on?

Right now it would be gorgeous/funky maternity clothes……..but I'm not sure if the exist.

Describe your personal style?

Ecliptic, this year I made a personal vow that I would only buy thrift or hand made. I love vintage, I love pretty fabrics, I love funky colors – it depends how I feel when I get up in the morning.  

What are you going to do after this?

Charlie wants me to read him some stories.

What are your favorite films?

I love the film Orlando – I could watch it over and over again. 

What's your favorite fruit?

What ever is in season. Berries in the summer, apples in the autumn.  

What inspires you?

Watching my children absorb absolutely everything around them, they are like little sponges and they are fascinated by the little things in life.  I’m also inspired by the seasons and the beautiful country we live in. 

Your favorite books?

The Magicians Nephew by C.S. Lewis.  It was the first book I read as a child on my own.  Also an obscure book called Pippin’s journal, it’s the only book I have read more than once.

Do you collect anything?

Vintage illustrated children's books.

What are you currently reading?

Small Fry outdoors, inspiration for being outdoors with kids by Susie Cameron and its companion book Small Fry – inspiration for cooking with kids also by Susie Cameron. 

Go to your book shelf, take down the first book with a red spine you see, turn to page 26 and type out the first line:

“It was not possible, for the thorns held them fast as if with hands so that the young men were trapped, unable to free themselves, and they all died a wretched death.”  

From a book called The Fairy Tales” illustrated by one of my favorite illustrators, Jan Pienkowski.

What makes you follow a blog?

I follow blogs that inspire me either by their alternative lifestyle or by the area and country that they live in.  If they can take gorgeous photographs – I’m hooked.  

 

What do you love most about where you currently live?

The changing seasons, the beauty of the countryside and the snow on the ranges.

The rules:
1. Respond and rework; answer the questions on your blog, replace one question that you dislike with a question of your invention, add one more question of your own.
2. Tag eight other people.  

I tag: Amy (Seven Stitches) ; Gabrielle (Life in our busy household) ; Julie (Dreaming of Daisies) ; Abi (Little Grubs) ; Steph (Love Stitches) ; Keri (Songs of Light) ; Lucy (Speckled Egg) and Gabes (SweetP Knits)

But only if you want to play. xx

The Feijoa

The Feijoa is a fruit most New Zealanders can identify with.  Many of us have a tree growing in our backyards.   We unfortunately do not, but today we had the opportunity to collect some from a small farm. The children enjoyed not only the Feijoas, but also getting up close and personal with some calves and to feed some roaming chickens.

An impromptu visit meant we weren't quite dressed for a farm visit.

Charlie wanted to 'ride' the calves.

The calves didn't seemed too interested in eating the fallen fruit. {the trees are in the background}

Feijoa's growing on the tree

Charlie and Sadie feeding the chickens.

Having a Feijoa feast

Tomato Soup

With a huge glut of tomatoes ripening on the vines, I thought I had better make the most of it and make some soup.   Here is a recipe for a basic soup, you could add bacon, fresh basil or use it for base for a pasta sauce.  Make double and freeze some for future use.

Basic Tomato Soup

2 tsp butter 1/4 cup tomato paste

1 onion, finely chopped 2 cups liquid chicken stock

1 stalk of celery, chopped pinch cayenne pepper

6 medium tomatoes sour cream

salt

black pepper

Heat butter in a saucepan. Add onion and celery and cook until onion is clear.  Blanch the 

tomatoes and remove skins. Chop the flesh. Stir in the tomatoes, salt, pepper, tomato paste and stock into the onion and celery.  Add the cayenne pepper.  Bring to the simmer, puree in blender. Serve with a swirl of sour cream.

serves 4-5.

Our Sunday

First I have to apologize to everyone for being a 'bad' blogger lately.  I have been feeling quite unwell for a couple of weeks and I haven't had the energy to comment much on your fantastic blogs and the emails have piled up so much to a point where I'm not going to catch up.....Sorry if I haven't answered your questions. I'm feeling sightly better at the moment, but I'm just taking each day as it comes.

Thanks to Kerri who left the 1000 comment on Heart Felt.  I have a set of hand sewn felt patches for you...just drop me a line with your address and thank-you to everyone for their wonderful comments.

Just a few photographs of our lovely Sunday together for you to enjoy. xx

Foraging at our local park for Autumn goodies

Picking grapes off the vine at a friends house.