Blessed New year

I have been seriously absent these last week or two.. I have my daughter home with us, I have not seen her in 12 months, so it has been special catching up...
I sit and wonder where this year has gone, but not only the year, it is also the end of the first decade of the first century.. *laughing* that makes me feel a little old..
I did want to take a minute to wish you all a safe and happy new year, and to send you a blessing of love, happiness, contentment and abundance of spirit and well being. May the New Year bring ytou everything you need... Bright Blessing and I look forward to being here with you in 2011. Please be safe.. and be good to one another.

Happy Holidays

Well the day is done.. and I wish I could have got here this morning to do this.. but better late then never..
I want to wish all of you, a safe and happy holiday, a Blessed Yule /Merry Christmas.
May the day bring yo you and yours warmth and happiness, joy, peace,  unity and much love.

A Bit Of Baking

I love Christmas baking, and I am playing catch up, with only 6 days till Christmas and my daughter arriving tomorrow and her partner on Friday, there is near nothing done as far as holiday cooking is concerned. Usually by now there are a few tins of buttery, Scottish shortbread, while not traditional Choccie Chip cookies, sometimes German Speculass and/or Stollen, a legacy from my German mother.
Last night, I made up a batch of fruit mince for the tarts, while it has not been left to develop in taste over the last few months, it is equally as tasty used the next day. Tomorrow, I will make shortbread but today I made up the sweet, short pasty, I just can not bring myself to use store bought pastry, for these..

I always double the mixture, not only because we all like the pies, but the fruit mince is tasty mixed into ice cream. Half of the fruit mince makes a dozen pies.

Here they are, straight out of the oven, now I do not know why but there is always one mutant Christmas tart.. my husband always has this one, I wonder if he sabotages one..

Here is the recipe.. firstly make the fruit mince. 

1 cup finely chopped, peeled apple

3/4 cup blueberries ( I omitted these as they were far to expensive)

1/2 cup raisins-chopped

1/2 cup currants

1/2 cup sultanas

1/4 slivered almonds

1/4 cup castor sugar ( I use normal white sugar)

1/4 cup peel

1 teaspoon grated lemon rind,

1/2 teaspoon each of cinnamon,ground ginger & mixed spice
1/2 cup either brandy, port, rum or orange juice ( as I doubled this mix I used port and rum)

Put all this in a pot and cook for 15 to 20 minutes, or until soft and pulpy. Put into the fridge overnight.

Pastry:

1 cup standard flour

75grams butter, 

1/4 cup sugar

1 egg yolk and 1 tablespoon of water

Mix butter with sugar and flour until it looks like breadcrumbs, add the egg yolk and water, Mix to a stiff dough and chill for about 20 to 30 minutes. This makes about 400grams of pastry.

I am sure most folk know how to make the tarts.. after putting pastry into the patty pans, add about 1 teaspoon of fruit mince, pop on the lid and bake at 180c for 15 minutes.

Feels a little like Christmas

Well, it;s raining here again. Which for what has been a drought stricken State, a very good thing, however it is unusual to see so much rain, over in Western Australia, it was hot, very hot and dry..  Today has been the first real potter day for me in our new house.. well 15 year old house, it has at times a cottage-ie feel to it and I love that. This is the day we moved in and the removal guys are required to unpack to the bench the breakables, then they leave and this is what your left with. Chaos. This is the kitchen and family room, the rest of the house looked almost the same.

I have been working really hard to try and make it feel more like home, rather than a house with our stuff in it. I know it is just a time thing really. 10 days later, we are almost there in the organisation stakes.

Before it rained today, I  potted up some Parsley, Mint, Rosemary, Lemon and normal Thyme along with some Basil. It is important to me, to have fresh herbs not just to use but to add to the "feel" of the place. There is not vegie garden but there are little garden nooks, which are very peaceful. I am looking forward to trying to grow a few tomatoes, lettuce maybe some beans as well, I am just looking out for the best place for them.
I also baked my first batch of Anzac biccies today, the oven is a bit, well touchie, temperamental but we managed, it is fan forced and the fan sounds something similar to a single engine plane zooming through the kitchen, I am thinking it needs to be fixed as it made for a fairly noisy afternoon as I also made a good old fashioned Chrissy cake and the rattle and hum continued for a good 3 hours!

I  have just given it a brush with Brandy and the house smells lovely... the Christmas tree was also decorated today, it is starting to feel a just little like Christmas.

After 14 days I am back

Hello folks, well after trying to cram the contents of a large 4 bedroom, doubled garaged house, into a smaller 3 bedroom single garaged house and waiting near two weeks for the Internet to be connected I am here.. Some folks have decided to move on and no longer follow this bloggie and I appreciate that-  me not posting leaves folks in a bit of a blog limbo.. tonight is my first night online. Our mobile stick modem only worked if we went to the wee cemetery at the end of the street..and really we have been far to busy trying to get our home in order and trying to catch up with you all who are prepared for Christmas.. I will post some photos tomorrow of the house when the box's exploded and how the place looks now.
I hope your all looking forward to the holidays.. I know our family is.... it is nice to be back
Bright Blessings to you all.

Think it's gonna rain

Think it is gonna rain, a very strange phenomenon for this girl back from Western Australia. W. A has some amazing storms, but it has been a long time since I have seen storm clouds like this.. and when the skies opened, it thundered and lighteninged and rained, like I have not seen in a good while..and I enjoyed running across the car park in the pouring rain , hair plastered to my face, clothes sticking to me,  my shoes in hands, with thundered crashing above me..made all my twitchy witchy bits tingle..

Awesome don;t you think... Muma Nature at her very best, bless her.