Little Jenny Wren: March 2009

So very busy this week with Kate getting ready to go away on camp and me busy making dolls for a wonderful new gallery that is opening in Launceston on Saturday.

Rachael Hilliard has been working hard to stock her new venture with lots of wonderful handmade, organic, recycled and unique treasures from Tasmania and beyond.

My little dolls are going to be part of the gang.

Very exciting for everyone.

If you happen to be in Launceston at any time the shop is at 102 Wellington Street in a lovely old building just up from Davies Grand Central.
It will be open weekends.

I'm also getting ready for The Niche Market at the beginning of May, also in Launceston at the UTAS School of Architecture in support of The St Giles Society ( my former employer).

Mind you with all this dollying and organising we had just the perfect comfort food for dessert tonight.
With the cooler weather and April knocking on the door we tucked into a big pot of creamed rice: 4 cups of creamy Pyengana milk, 1/2 cup of sugar, stirred together and heated in a saucepan until almost boiling, then 1/2 cup of arborio rice plopped in along with 1 teaspoon of vanilla and left to blub and shimmer over a low heat for about an hour with a gentle every- so -often- stir.
Serve hot with a good spoon of whipped cream and remember why you love the autumn.

Pyengana, is just up the road from where my mother grew up, my Grannie always had a block of Pyengana "stinky" cheese to slice and eat with Thin Captain biscuits.

If you click on the Pyengana link above you can see some of the beautiful countryside and the cows that provided the milk for my creamed rice tonight.

Yesterday , on a blustery but fine day we set off for the annual Heritage Fair at Franklin House.

It's a happy mix of carboot trash and treasure, craft and produce.

My Mum manned the garden stall, there were cake stalls, old books, and plenty of food.

Kate and Ella dressed themselves as turn of the century( 19th to 20th not the one we have just had) college girls,
Kate wore my old school hat and an old shirt of mine from the early 80s.

We were "entertained" by the ubiquitous Longford Morris dancers, a brass band, a Scottish pipe band, some superskippers from Glen Dhu school and a few small musical ensembles.

Have a look at the Austalian Morris website and you can watch the promo for the Morris movie.
Has anyone seen this film, it looks great.
They have a petition to show it in Australia.
Morris people of the world UNITE.

My Mum has been a volunteer gardener at Franklin House for more than 10 years and at 77 she goes there and works very hard every Friday afternoon, whatever the weather.

Kate and Ella bought mostly food, as any good schoolgirl would.

I must say these cupcakes were as good as they looked, and deserved to be scoffed down immediately.

They finished off with a sausage in bread before we headed for home.

I didn't find much to buy, the trash and treasure was either too trashy or too expensive.
I had a good look through all the books though and came up with a Miss Read book for $1.
We also bought a Cherry Cake, with my mother's insistence that she knew the cook and she has a clean kitchen.
My mother would never buy food from a dirty cook.
The quinces are of course beautiful to look at and were only 20c each.
And from the garden stall I bought some parsley, primulas, chives,thyme and a miniature sunflower ready to bloom and was regaled with tales of peoples upcoming trips to the Chelsea Flower Show and to house- and- garden- sit a 2 acre garden in Kent for 4 months!!!

I'll just have to content myself with an episode of "The Darling Buds of May" with my Friday lunch.

The chestnuts have started to fall.

It always reminds me of when the boys were small - the hours we used to spend down the lane at the end of the street collecting baskets of chestnuts, Andy, just a little tacker and Louis, a kindergarten boy. And even before then , just Louis, so intent and deliberate as he collected his treasures.
And then what do you do with them, the endless baskets of nuts, these are horse chestnuts , not for eating.
But they became drivers of little cars and trains, they were boats in the bath and delicious cakes and pies at special afternoon celebrations washed down with little china cups of tea.

They were lined up in order of size, they were sorted by shininess, they were carefully fitted back into their spiky safe beds.

In later years the boys wandered alone up along the street and round the corner into the tree-lined shortcut to the shops, bags and bags were collected brought home and drilled through with an old hand powered drill and threaded with string ready for a game of conkers.
By this time Kate was helping and using the leftover conkers to make nut soup.
A walk to the shops took twice as long as every available pocket and bag was filled with as many chestnuts as mum would allow.
The nature table was decorated with the glorious shiny bounty along side the acorns and gumnuts.

At the end of winter so many were tossed into the garden.
Some ended up in the compost heap where one sprouted and now a chestnut tree is growing at the bottom of the garden

You know I can't walk past the chestnuts as I go to the shops without collecting just a few and instantly being transported back down the years to see my little boys and my sweet Kate so excitedly collecting these lovely autumn gifts so shiny smooth and special.

Done.

8" tall and pretty darn cute.

Maggie's doll

The internet has not been kind this week and decided to absent itself at every available opportunity.
This explains my absence along with a son swimming fast to avoid being submerged in the continuing tidal wave of Grade 11 school work.

When Andy is home likely as not he is tapping away on the computer.

He is doing a great job and showing supreme dedication.

He chose to do Media Arts as a softer subject this year to contrast with the unrelenting subjects of Maths, Physical Science and English Studies.
Media Arts seems to be photography, at the moment SLR photography and he is loving the combination of art and science involved in taking and processing good photos.

Andy was always a very creative little boy, enjoying colour and design but I'm sad to say his primary school experience was that the school required him to let go of his innate desire to decorate and embellish his work in favour of moving more speedily through his written work. Gradually his confidence in his creative abilities disappeared and any encouragement from us for him to explore this side of his personality was ignored.

Now, with photography and keeping a journal of his experiences with the camera he is getting back in contact with this wonderful part of his personality and relishing it.

I am seeing my job of major support person as being so essential to my family at the moment, Stephen is so busy at work, Andy coping with senior studies, Kate entering that bewildering land of the preteen girl and Louis far away and needing the occasional show of interest from the family at home.

Because I am lucky enough to have time through the day to follow my bliss as well as care for our home I also have the energy and time to make sure I am there smoothing the way as much as I can for my little family.

I try to make sure that home is a comfortable and happy place to come back to, that there are decent, maybe even delicious meals to eat, that I am up to date with what is going on at school, that there are clean clothes to wear, that the bills are paid, the house is clean, that I am sticking to our budget and so it goes.
All pretty basic stuff but a solid foundation on which to build our days.

The world of work and school can be stressful with so many competing challenges.
The world of home should be a sanctuary, a place of rhythm and fun, hardwork and rest; a place for dreams and practicality.

I see myself as making the home and managing the people, being aware of the stressors that each one is dealing with, respecting that each has their own priorities and responsibilities and helping to make this family work as a social unit, just like a good business I guess.

And speaking of personal priorities...

The past week has seen Stephen and me camping out in the loungeroom as Stephen pursues his desire for the perfect finish on the bedroom floor.

Our loungeroom is small, and it now contains a double bed smack dab in the middle of it.

As it is a loungeroom the bed has been lounged on, by humans and cats.
With the low autumn sun now spreading into the room through the day the bed is the perfect place for a sun snooze, it seems to be the chosen place for DVD watching, reading the paper, doing home work, hurting your shin as you once again smash your leg into the bed frame trying to get to the windows to let the autumn fresh air in.

The floor has now been declared as close to perfect as my Perfectionist can manage so , fingers crossed here, the bed will return to the bedroom tonight or tomorrow, the new curtains can go up and a new quilt cover made.
The furniture can come back from the garage and the four corners of the house and we can declare the bedroom FINISHED.

I have a special project today, to make a birthday doll for a soon to be two year old.

Now I'd best be off and into it before the day is gone.

SOLD

The last two little things went into the shop earlier today.

Jilly the house pixie

SOLD

and another little springtime dress.

SOLD

There are four little outfits in the shop.

It has taken about two hours to get them there so I am stopping now and will continue to update the store tomorrow.

SOLD

The bunny fabric on this pinafore is very, very special.
My aunt gave it to me when Kate was a toddler.
It was the remnants of a piece she had been given for her daughter, my cousin who was born in 1954.
A friend had brought it to Australia from Scotland when she emigrated.

I made Kate a pinafore with it and I have small pieces left to use for my dolls.
I have Kate's pinafore carefully tucked away for her to hand down to her own daughter.

SOLD

SOLD

If you have the time take a stroll through my little store.

Enjoy.

SOLD

Oh woe is me.
I have been busy sewing for days , making dolls for custom orders and making doll clothes to go in my little shop.

I have had lots of enquiries from loyal customers looking for new clothes for their dolls.

I have been planning on making a selection of clothes for some time now but it has taken me until now to get things underway.

I was already for a photo session and then a quick edit and then upload to etsy but do you think I could get a decent picture.
The one above is the only half way decent shot I could salvage, it's in the shop now.
The camera was playing all sorts of tricks.

So, to everyone who has been waiting , the rest of the clothes will be in the shop tomorrow, Saturday.

There may even be a little doll there too, another house pixie.

She is very sweet, made from all undyed organic materials and as cute as a button.

original picture from www.humblebea.etsy.com

Look at this little fella that I just bought on etsy from a new to me etsarian, humblebea.
Isn't just so sweet, he stands nearly 3" tall and looks like a nice little friend.

He reminds me of this little one that I made many years ago

She usually sits beside the stove to supervise my cooking
but at the moment is vacationing on Strawberry Island

I couldn't get to the computer to write yesterday.
I intended to post late yesterday afternoon but locked myself out of the house and spent rather a pleasant hour in the garage with most of the contents of my still-being-redecorated-bedroom going through old clothes, and sewing baskets and a large pile of Country Living magazines from the past 15 or so years, and in the garden hanging out the washing and doing a bit of weeding.

When Stephen and the children finally arrived home it was time to start thinking about cooking tea.
There were some sausages left over from the weekend and a large bowlful of not very attractive but still ripe and home grown tomatoes, and also some leftover mashed potato from Monday.
First I went out to the shed to get some onions that I sliced thinly and slowly sweated to softness in a splash of olive oil then I added the chopped up tomatoes, some sea salt, freshly ground pepper,a teaspoon of balsamic vinegar and a couple of teaspoons of brown sugar.
I let this slowly cook down in the cast iron frypan and then put it to one side.
Next I fried the sausages and while they were cooking made the mashed potato into patties with some grated parmesan, some flour and an egg from Biddy the hen plus some garlic chives and flatleaf parsley from the garden and some pepper.
I sauted blobs of the mixture in a little peanut oil to give a crisp finish.

While I was cooking Kate was at the kitchen table doing her homework.
She suddenly jumped up because she had seen a large bird go past the window, it was flying around the top of the blackwood tree, a sulphur crested cockatoo.
She went back to her work and so did I and we could hear this cracking sound and then a plop, over and over again.
I looked out the window again and could see Maggie in the old Tamarisk tree under the walnut tree, trying to stalk something.
Kate and I went out to investigate and there were two cockatoos methodically working their way through a tree full of walnuts.
A third one was on the almond tree.
Both of these trees belong to our next door neighbours but gracefully hang over the fence and help to blur the boundaries of the garden.

We've never had birds eating the nuts before.
We have never had so many cockatoos and galahs around.
I think it must be the drought making food scarce in the bushland so they have moved into town.
Beautiful birds.

walnuts in the tree

We ate dinner outside, daylight savings persists so the evenings are still light.

After dinner I went down the garden to our own walnut tree and found lots of nuts on the ground.
The rain of the past few days must have finished ripening them.

There were none last week and now they are dropping everywhere.

Fresh walnuts are delicious, nothing like the dry, sometimes bitter ones they sell for cooking.

Last year was a poor year for the walnuts but as long as the cockatoos leave us some we will have a good harvest.

In other birdy news, when I was sitting at my work table yesterday making some dolls I looked out the window at the soft elegant shrub ( name long forgotten) that grows there and is usually alive with fat buzzy bumblebees.
Not so many with the colder weather but instead, just for me, a jenny wren was there darting in and out looking for bugs and singing the sweetest tune.
Such a pretty voice, such a special treat.

So to end the ornithological news, a recipe for Simple Chocolate Cake as requested, which , if your family manages to leave a few crumbs, will be very much appreciated by the local bird life.

This recipe or variations of it, I'm sure, is found in every school or club fundraiser cookbook throughout Australia.
Certainly all those printed in the 1970s have a version of it.

You will need:

125g ( 4oz) melted butter

1 cup self raising flour

1 cup sugar, any sort but I usually use caster sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

2 eggs

1/2 cup milk

2 tablespoons of cocoa.

Put everything in together and mix.

The original recipe calls for 3 minutes mixing with an electric mixer but I usually mix by hand. Using a mixmaster will give a lighter result but for many years I did not have an electric mixer so all my cake making was done by hand and the tradition, with this cake, continues.
Mixing by hand also makes this the perfect first cake making experience for a young cook.

So I mix it until it looks nice, you know, smooth and all the same colour.

Cook it for about 50 minutes in a moderate oven.

It is delicious warm with a blob of ice cream or cream.

It is great just dusted with icing sugar

It works well with chocolate icing ( frosting).

It is great for school lunches

It is good for chocolate lamingtons if you wait a day before you use it.

You can dress it up or keep it simple.

Sometimes it has a lovely crustiness around the edges that becomes nice and chewy when the cake finishes cooling in the cake tin in the pantry .

If you don't overdo the mixing and use brown sugar instead of white it can be deliciously fudgy.

If is is a hopeless failure in the looks department, serve it warm with a chocolate sauce for dessert and I guarantee there won't bea crumb left for the birds.

Enjoy.

baking day

I spent the better part of today, in the kitchen, baking.

Not my normal Monday but then it seems that it doesn't normally rain on Monday either.
It doesn't normally rain any day but this weekend , Saturday, Sunday and now Monday, we have had buckets and buckets of wonderful rain.

So the washing that didn't get done on Saturday, didn't get done today either.

We started the day with a delicious warm fire in the kitchen wood heater and I have hardly left the room since.

I tried out a new fruit loaf recipe, searching for the ultimate recipe in readiness for hot cross buns in a couple of weeks at Easter.
I tried the recipe from the River Cottage Family Cookbook and it's pretty good, two eggs in it so it has a very dense texture and with our own little googy eggs in it the soft yellow colour of the loaf is very pretty.
I think it will be yummy toasted too if there is any left tomorrow.

I used their white bread recipe too to make a cottage loaf to eat with the pumpkin soup I made for dinner.

I rounded off the session with a simple one step chocolate cake and some melt and mix shortbread.

And I finally put the latest brew of ginger beer into the keg until I get some new caps for our collection of half pint bottles.
Andy refuses to bottle the ginger beer in anything else.

So, with the cooler weather and probably a little late with my planning , but I've started going through and making lists of what needs to be made for winter, what needs to be replaced and so on - a useful thing to ponder while waiting for bread and cakes to cook.
Kate and I both need new cardigans, mine seem to have all gone through at the elbows and hers are just too small.
A very handy thing, a cardigan.

Oh and speaking of ginger beer.
A long time ago someone, sorry I can't remember who, asked for my ginger beer recipe.
Here is a link to the recipe I used this year.
I normally don't add yeast and have no trouble getting a good brew but our early batches this year were a bit iffy so I have now moved on to a yeasted recipe.