Thanks Bro!

My brother lives down and inland (quite) a bit. Mum and Dad returned from visiting him and his lovely girls. They came back with what I thought was a little pumpkin but it's a zucchini! Mum took the top and I have the bottom all scooped out and ready to stuff.. haven't decided with what yet.

AND they brought back a bag of peaches they'd scrumped from a road side tree :o) hehe
Organic o'course being abandoned like that, so grubs here and there but OH MY!! What TASTE!
I had just recently decided that I didn't like peaches as the supermarket ones were revolting. I'd totally forgotten what REAL FOOD tasted like. Ahhh! THANKS!

Also dearest brother, you'll be happy to know that it's finally in and doing well. Only a few months late mind :o) Not expecting a huge crop this year ofcourse.

Lemonade

Here's a lovely pic of DH with the boys (and some orange tulips - aren't they divine!!) Everyone is juicing up the early lemons from the tree in the garden to make lemonade.

Here's the overgrown pumpkin vine (well the bit you can see, it goes down the whole side of the house and a bit over the neighbour's side) that has yet to produce any females THIS side of the fence - grr!

It's sad when hope rides on flower that's been a snail's dinner. Fingers, toes, eye all crossed.
This is the vine covering the old potato patch. These seeds came from a cucumber packet (I'm sure) and so I was a bit miffed when I realised it wasn't a cucumber plant.

Ex-spud-dition!

So I had a bunch of kiddie winks in the garden and the only thing I could think of to start off the entertainment was pulling carrots and digging spuds.

Here's my friend's DD1 as I tugged a stalk out of the ground. She couldn't believe her luck! There were the BIGGEST potatoes I've ever grown (even though the photo doesn't really show the size, they're manageable for an adult hand to hold). I haven't seen potatoes this big since I was a little girl on bonfire night when we'd cook them in the coals.

Here's my friend's DD2 and my DS1 (looking like a goofy gum drop -haha), standing in the patch, dirty feet, fingers and faces and loving every minute!

Stuff that big zucchini! (take 3)

Don't get me wrong! The first two takes of over grown stuffed zucchini for dinner have been a GREAT success! it's just that I've failed to take pictures of both meals.

Take 1 - I cut lengthways and scooped out seeds. Then popped the four halves on a foil sheet in a baking tray and baked until done. I ... erm.. can't quite remember what the stuffing was for this one but I know it chopped and fried off a heck load of mushrooms and possibly mixed all the veggie filling with left over sweet potato.. maybe :o/
Then I mixed some breadcrumbs from the freezer with grated parmesan and grated tasty cheese and popped a nice little mound of that ontop.

To my suprise Hubby ate his entire portion! It was rather filling and satisfying, plus the cheesy breadcrumb top was a delicious, crisp finish.

Take 2 - Was the week after Christmas with those scrappy bits of left over (honey and maple maked) ham. MmmmMMMMmm! I hear you say?? YES!

Same method for pre-cooking but baked pumpkin on another tray at the same time. Then when they were both cool I put a thick layer of ham scraps, peas and then smushed pumpkin with the same cheesy bread crumbed top. BETTER than the first effort and eaten faster. 1yr old DS didn't even leave anything on his plate.

Take 3 will be.... I think stuffed with mince. Very boring but I felt like being nostalgic and doing a version of stuffed marrow that we used to have when I was a littlie. With maybe baked peppers and garlic mushrooms. Oh! I could do a garlic mash to go on top with a little cheeeeese.



I knew it was a good idea to grow Lebanese zucchini again this year. :o)

Hubby has also been out catching fish. These were his mates so we didn't get to eat them..bit scared of preparing them anyway! Hubby got a really nice fish (sorry forgotten what it was) that we ate with the first stuffed zucchini. Perfect in the same breadcrumb mix and lightly fried.

Nor-Wow!

Ok so here's the update on the Norwex front. I've been madly trying out the few products I have as I have my FIRST EVER (proper) demo tomorrow. So here's what I've found out:

Enviro cloth (the general all purpose one) used damp

• kicks butt on crusty kid marks left on my t-shirt
• scrubbed off the veeery old marks on the rug with just water
• wipes away snot, dirt, blood, slobber and eye gunk (the kids' okay!?) 
• only needs a warm water wash between all those gross things
• cleans FILTHY bush vehicles - he hem Andy. I hope you liked your clean interior and bug less windscreen :o) - ok it was steve :o)

Dusty Mit

• Dusts for a heck of a long time and the sheets of dust on the boxes under the bed are now "bling!" 
• Heavy dust rolls off like sausages not in the air
• Used wet it whips clean our horizontal blinds and fly screens! 
• GREAT in the shower (this is where you do a darlek impression 'EXFOLIATE' but oooh gentle

Kitchen Scrub Cloth

• No scratches! Cleans all the hard baked on gunk (even those nasty weetbix bowls)
• Great on highchair

Bathroom Scrub cloth (same thing)

• Woohoo! Clean shower - wooops, scrubbed a hole in the darned thing.. got a tad excited that it worked and forgot to move around the cloth and used one spot. Gotta love that 60day return policy - ha!

NOR-WOW of the week.....

The Micropad

• Flippin' amazing at getting texter, pencil, crayon and PERMANENT MARKER off furniture and walls!! Aaaah!
• A whizz on mould with such little effort
• Use with water, sponge dissolves with use, wipe with envrio cloth afterwards to ensure no mould returns

Check this out! This is the boys bedroom wall, mould-o-rama. On the left I cleaned the wall with an Enviro and the kitchen glove (review that next time). It worked but took elbow grease.

The Micropad (thin strip of wall on the right) took 30 seconds and hardly any effort. I felt like turning around and saying, "and that was in real time viewers!" but no-one was there so it would have been a bit silly :o)

Next week I'll tell you about the body glove (no more crying in the bath/shower) and face washers, Suede sports towel, dust mite spray (you myth buster watchers will love that one) and the spirinet - blown away by this one!

Want proof like I did? leave a comment with your email address and I'll send you the lab reports that prove it gets rid of bacteria, viruses, yeasts etc.

Pineapple vineblurgh!

Ok so there I was being all hopeful and excited about my fermented pineapple skins, fizzing nicely, stinking out the kitchen a bit..

Followed the instructions on this blog and after weeks and weeks it just turned out to stink and taste like puke.

So, I'm sorry special one, but that's another present that didn't work out for you :o)

Wishing you Mamma Karries!

This Christmas I pumped out Gingerbread houses for those special ones - camera broke so no pics - and these DELISH ferrero like chocolates for the other 'special to me's'.

A lady in a pilates class made them for end of term nibbles at the end of class and I was BLOWN AWAY!


Recipe


180g soft butter
pinch salt
120g brown sugar - I used rapadura as I was out of brown, that's why mine look speckledy

240g plain flour
3 tablespoons cornflour - I ran out so used custard powder, was great!
1/8 tsp bicarb soda
small chocolate cups
nuts of your choice (raw, they'll get roasted in the cookie baking part)
500g chocolate (plus more for drizzling if you want to do that)

You can see the raw cookie dough around the hazelnut. You don't need to leave much room. If you have put too much dough around the nut it sags when it cooks and you don't have that think wafer like crunch... it's .. well, thicker :o) still yum though.

See some have sagged here. First batch.

Dipped and chilling, waiting for white choc to melt.

IT MADE 130 -ish HAZELNUT chocs!!!!! I was there for flippin' ages! I hope you loved them as much as I do :o)

Merry Christmas. I'm glad it's over.