More Pony Rides

My little pony and I are doing well. Of course, now it has a few more trims, we are even happier. Fancy like.

Leather grips (and pretty ribbon).

A nice, well sprung leather seat.

And a bit of woolly-ness for the basket

What I haven't shown up close is my new Pannier. It is a deep cherry, woven straw affair, and ever so roomy. Fits all the important bits, like library books, bread and a bottle of wine.

And of course a bit of riding gear was in order. None of that awful clingy, lycra stuff here. Instead I have invested in a reversible riding cape. When turned around the other way it has reflective strips for safety.

Despite my rather buxom appearance here, it is quite flattering, and very warm. With spring just a day away, I'm sure it will still get plenty of wear before being packed away. 

Anyway, hoo-roo for now. I am off to start putting pen to paper and getting a letter or two off in the mail.

Snail Mail

While moseying around, I came across this. A project designed for PenPals! Cool huh?

Anyway, one day in and I now have a penpal. So does Poppy. I can't wait to start. If you're interested, pop on over for a looksy, but don't forget I'm friendly too. If you'd like a bit of old fashioned snail mail, send me an email and we can get stared. The more the merrier I say.

Pen Pals

Did you have a Pen Pal when you were a kid? I did. A fabulous one. Mine was a air-hostie for Singapore Airlines and her name was Sheila (I kid you not).  Anyway, having a pen pal who was a world traveller was a definite plus. Younger, nerdy me was a reasonably avid stamp collector, and boy did I score big time in the stamp department. I had stamps from everywhere winging their way to me. We kind of lost touch in the last few years, the correspondence trickled down to an annual Christmas Card, and then eventually even that ended. But I will never forget the thrill of receiving mail addressed to me.

So. This is what I am doing. With my daughters class, we are embarking upon a letter writing mission. Inspired by this, and this, we are decorating envelopes, and writing a note to a fellow class mate. While I would have loved to have done this as a project involving another school, the privacy issues raised by the school made me half cranky enough to abandon the idea. Don't get me started....

Even as a somewhat downgraded idea, I think this will be great. 

The kids will learn how to correctly address an envelope, different ways to write a letter, the workings of our postal service (stamps, posties, letterboxes etc) and we will have a little mini excursion out of the school to drop all of our letters off in the nearest post box. 

Just to make the excitement of receiving mail even greater, each kid will enclose a trinket or two in with their letter. Nothing too big, just teeny things that I had lying about.

Who wouldn't want to open a letter and find a pair of googly eyes falling out?

Or some colourful yarn?

Or a scary tag?

After they have all been sent, and duly received, the envelopes will be brought back in to school, and the kids can display them in the class room. The letters will then be read out to the class by the recipients.

Tomorrow is stage one, envelope decorating. I'll have another update in a couple of weeks time, and let you know how it all went.

Cooking Styles

Do you like to cook? As you might know, I love to. Everything about it, and the more obscure the ingredient or technique, the better. 

We love spicy (I say we, but really the smallest likes baked beans and little else), and luckily we have fabulous fresh markets nearby. 

Mostly I cook asian food. Indian, malaysian, vietnamese, cambodian, thai, chinese. All good. 

Loads of herbs and lots of chilli. Mmmm.

Here are some of the more challenging things I have made recently.

Vegetarian sticky rice parcels, wrapped in bamboo leaves.

Bhel Puri, an Indian snack food, with green mango and lots of crispy things.

Green Papaya Salad. An all time favourite.

Rojak. A Malaysian salad with jicama, pomelo, green mango, pineapple, served with a tamarind/peanut sauce.

Caramelised mackerel, cooked in a claypot.

Chargrilled goat in white bean paste.

Roti Jala, for which I bought a fancy, perforated cup for $3.

Cashew and potato samosas.

Naan bread with nigella seeds.

Homemade tamarind chutney.

What are your favourite things to cook? Fast and easy? Old faithfuls? Challenging new things? I'm always on the hunt for something different to cook, so if you have a good recipe, send it my way.

Random Monday Images

Blue sky. At last. 

Smoochy cats.

Bike riding for the essentials.

Beautiful trims.

Marble cake

and classic movies while I iron.

Lotus Leaf Rice

Righto. Recipe time.

One of our favourites when we meet up for Yum Cha. My version features chicken, lup cheong, lotus seeds and shiitake mushrooms.

Lotus Leaf Rice

Serves eight (or four really greedy people)

500g sticky rice, soaked for 2 hours then drained

500ml water

2 tsp salt

4 lotus leaves, soaked until pliable

300 g diced chicken fillet

8 dried shiitake mushrooms, soaked, then quartered

1 small lup cheong (chinese sausage)

4 tbspn oil

4 big cloves garlic, crushed

4 tbspn oyster sauce 

1 tsp ground black pepper

2 tbspn sesame oil

6 tbspn water

40 dried lotus seeds, soaked

Put the soaked rice in a steamer, add water and salt and steam until cooked (I do mine in a rice cooker and it takes about 20 minutes). Cool.

Heat the vegetable oil in a wok, fry the garlic, then add the chicken and stir fry for a couple of minutes. Add the sausage, mushrooms, oyster sauce, lotus seeds, pepper, sesame oil and water and stir until chicken is cooked through and sauce reduced slightly. 

Gently squeeze excess water from leaves and lay flat. Divide rice in to four and place on each of the leaves, flattening with damp hands. Top with chicken and mushroom mix.

Firmly fold the leaves in, making a parcel.

Kind of like this.

Place in a bamboo steamer, and steam for roughly five minutes, or until heated through.

Slice open, and serve.

Domestic

I never thought I would end up a housewife. Truly. I majored in Psychology at university and did a half dozen units in Women's Studies. Yet here I am. Educated, but so not a career woman. Instead I am lucky enough to be doing exactly what I want. Every day. I guess I never had a passion for any particular career, instead I filled in a few years doing various things before I really discovered what I wanted to do.

I'm not a Lady Who Lunches, one who spends days at the beauty salon, or am addicted to shopping. 

I do what I love, which is making a home.

I do ponder the worthiness of this occasionally, and I was accused of creating work for myself the other day by another stay at home Mum. But the things that I do to fill my days I don't really see as work, just extensions of my creativity.

Like sewing pretty aprons that match my shoes.

Learning a new craft

and baking cakes.

I mark the seasons by the preserves I make, rather than counting down the days worrying about sales targets or performance reviews.

So I'm very rarely bored, and every day I get to do something I'm proud of. Something that makes me feel fulfilled. I get to express myself in so many ways, and challenge myself by continually learning new things.

With both kids now in school (in fact one heads off to secondary school next year), I have even more time to devote to my own interests, and I love it. I really am blessed.

I hope you are all having a lovely weekend, and I will leave you with one last shot.

All finished!

My little pony

Well it has finally arrived. No excuses now. Time to get out of the house, stop driving the car, and experience fresh air and wide open spaces.

But not today. Too windy.

Instead I am powering on with the wretched scarf that I think I will never finish.

Three more to go, and I almost can't bear the thought of sewing in all those whispy mohair ends. Looks pretty though and I must say I am looking forward to wearing it. The weather here is still very nippy and scarves are a must. Hopefully in the upcoming week I will have a few more bike excursions around our area, and perhaps I will be wearing the fancy scarf before spring arrives. 

Acrylic Vs Natural

Never really been a lover of acrylic, yet the colour choices just seem to pop a little bit more.

I was wanting yarn to complement the lovely Green Gate cups I have, and at $3 a ball, the acrylic was hard to beat. My new project is a Granny Square Rug, and if I ever finish the scarf from hell, I think this will crochet up pretty quick.

It is fast and neat to use, and unlike the mohair, cotton and pure wool I am using for the scarf, it doesn't split. 

I think the end result will be worth it, but these flowers have been a bugger to make. I'm still struggling with the tension, and am only 13 flowers in. I need to make a total of thirty two to complete the scarf. 

The green mohair is my favourite, despite it's trickyness.

Please don't look too closely at the dodgy stitching!

Given our awful wet, windy weather, I haven't ventured too far out in the garden, but things are continuing to astound me. Despite it's neglect, bulbs all over have multiplied and are flowering. The aeonium is blooming for the first time, and poppies are popping up, competing for a spot beneath the Queen anne's lace and snapdragons. For once the weeds are mostly under control, and if we have a break in the weather I might even get out and pick a few flowers for inside.

But for now, it's time to stay indoors, feet up, and finish a few more crocheted flowers.

Ten Things About Me

That you could probably live without knowing....

1. I am currently obsessed with nail polish. Bright, colourful, non-nail polishy colours.

2. My one personal rule is no day time TV (for me it would be a slippery slope towards soapy addiction and thus never getting dressed).

3. I have a new bike, that hand over heart I promise to ride.

4. I hate making Chicken Stock, yet I make it every fortnight.

5. I have an irrational fear of going to bed with my cupboard door open. Also extends to drawers. Who knows what might jump out and get me.

6. While I love the classics, I also read an unhealthy dose of trashy chick-lit. Shhh. Don't tell anyone.

7. Even though I am allergic to cats, I let him sleep on my bed.

8.  After one week, I am a crochet nut, but promise to draw the line at clothing.

9. I LOVE white chocolate. But not just any white chocolate. Organic Valrhona is my current fave.

10. I have a girl-crush on Poh Ling Yeow, and who wouldn't? So, so talented and as cute as a button.

Now you can all rest easy knowing ten more obscure things about me,