My Ombre Attempt

Reading Chantelle's Fat Mum Slim blog just now, she has posted about her attempt at ombre craft, a 'genre' of craft/art/etc that is going like hot cakes on Pinterest (I'm a Pinterest addict, it's sad!)

Chantelle's post reminded me that I hadn't put my ombre attempt on my blog, I had added it to my Pinterest page, but not here, so here goes!

On the left is my inspiration (from http://www.norskeinteriorblogger.blogspot.com/), on the right is my attempt, for our daughter's nursery.

I decided to start this project 5 days before our daughter was born, which turned out to be the day before they admitted me into hospital, which we weren't expecting, luckily Mr Mel was able to finish the painting for me :)

Green is my favourite colour, and luckily the room was already green so we didn't need to repaint, I thought the greens I went with worked well with the wall colour.

The dresser was originally raw pine, so we painted it with a primer, then the front/back/sides/skirt in an antique white, then the drawers in the different greens, then replaced the pine knobs with crystal ones.  I love it and I hope bubs will too one day!

We have enought left over paint to do the pine toy box we bought also, the pine slats on that are vertical, so we're going to paint each slat a different green going around the sides, with the skirt and border around the lid in the antique white.

Thanks Chantelle for reminding me about my attempt!

One day when I get game I'd love to dye my hair ombre colours, but blonde would look a bit odd, so maybe when I get really game and try a brunette moment!

Till next time,

Friday On My Mind - 4

Another Friday rolls round yay, and another photo for the lovely Rhonda from the Down To Earth blog Friday Photo Feature - 'On My Mind....'

So what is on my mind this lovely mild Friday?.............................

Seeings as Mr Mel and I are wanting to get married later this year (we got engaged on Valentines Day a few weeks ago, yay), I've bitten the bullet and joined Curves.

I need to get healthy and lose weight as a long term goal, but hopefully Curves can help me meet the short term goal of not looking dreadful in a wedding dress!

The ladies at the local Curves seem lovely, altho the lady teaching the Boot Camp class when I was there seemed a bit scary!

So this weekend I'm buying new runners, new gym clothes, and I start on Monday, look out!

Till next time,

Friday On My Mind

The lovely Rhonda, from the well worth a visit blog Down to Earth has a Friday Photo Feature called 'On My Mind...'  after reading through the comments, where visitors leave links to their blogs of what's on their mind, I thought I'd join in.

So what's on my mind, this lovely, if not stinking hot, Friday!

A racehorse working on the beach at sunrise - Warrnambool Vic

When I was a kid, I used to help my dad work and swim our racehorses on the beach at Warrnambool, I have dreams of one day getting back to living by the beach, and high on the list will be riding our horses at sunrise in the water.

Sure it was dangerous, we often saw sharks, but it was just bliss, you and the horse, bareback through the waves, we'd ride them on the sand, then swim them in the ocean behind a rowboat, I'd ride them out till they started to swim, then hold on around their neck floating behind them while they swam.

Nothing like it, and I'll do it again, one day!

Till next time,

40 Clove Chicken - delish

Mr Mel & I love to cook together on weekends, we cook well together, and have had some delicious dishes and some near disaster dishes.

A couple of weeks ago we cooked a Roast Duck, after visiting the Nulkaba Hatchery. On that same trip we purchased a free range chicken. And yesterday we decided we'd cook roast chook for dinner, so I went googling.

I recalled watching a Jamie Oliver show where he cooked a 40 garlic clove chicken, so I searched for it, and one of the links that came up was to a blog I visit daily, Not Quite Nigella, Lorraine from NQN has a brilliant blog, it's so obvious she's doing something she loves, and has found her calling, her niche so to speak.  I find Lorraine and her blog inspiring, and love trying her recipes.

So we got set to cook NQN's Roast Chicken with 40 Garlic Cloves, Mr Mel was a bit dubious at first, thinking 40 cloves would kill the taste of the chicken, but once he saw the photos on the NQN website, he was converted, he is a sucker for cripsy skin chicken.

We don't have an oven proof dish with a lid, so we used a baking tray with foil on top, and cooked the potato, pumpkin & sweet potato separately. We added thyme to the rosemary to pop inside the bird, as our thyme is growing madly, and needs to be used up.

Our oven is very dodgy, we have plans to replace it, but that's another story..... In any case the 1.5hrs cooking time, that I'm sure works perfectly in 'normal' ovens, meant 2.5hrs in our dodgerama oven. Even with adding an extra hour, the chicken was tender and moist, with a lovely subtle garlicy sweet yet earthy flavour.

We poured the juices from the pan into a frypan, reduced them, then added some gravy powder, and squeezed a few of the cloves, mixing them through the gravy. We served some of the roasted garlic cloves with dinner (3 each), and popped them out of their skins, they we scrumptious.  We've put the rest (around 25) into the freezer to use in future meals.

The end result was delicious, thanks Lorraine :)

Recipe - from NQN site with a few of my own tweaks

1 free range chook
1 lemon, halved
1 sprig of rosemary
3 sprigs of thyme
40 cloves of garlic, unpeeled
1 tsp oil
1 cup white wine - we used chardonnay
1 cup chicken stock
salt & pepper

1 - Preheat oven to 180c. In frypan heat oil, brown breast side of chicken until lightly golden. Lift out with tongs. Stuff chicken with lemon, rosemary, thymem and about 8 garlic cloves. Tie up the legs, our cavity was still quite open with legs tied, so we stuck toothpicks through the bum of the chicken into the lemon, to hold it down. Place chicken in baking dish, add wine & stock and remainder of garlic cloves. Cover tray with foil. Bake for 1 hour.

2 - After an hour remove the foil, brush the chicken with a light coating of oil, salt & pepper. Bake for another 30 mins, or until golden & cooked, our oven is terrible, took another hour and a bit, most would take 30 mins.

3 - Remove chicken from tray, pour the liquid and any 'bits' into a frypan, reduce slightly to remove some of the liquid, mix through some gravy powder, squeeze a couple of garlic cloves, and stir well. Reduce again until consistency you want.

4 - Serve with roast vegies, gravy, and a few extra cloves per person.

Till next time,

Mmmmm blackberries - update 6th July with photos

One of the blogs/sites I regularly visit is The Pioneer Woman, I long to one day have a property where we can raise kids and livestock, and I can spend alot more time on things I love, rather than working the 55+ hours a week I do at my job, where I end up squeezing in the things I love in the time left over.

Don't get me wrong I love my job (for the most part), but I do long for a simpler or should I say less job focussed life.

Anyway I digress, I was just looking at Ree's site, and on the right there is a lipsmacking photo of blackberry iceream being made.

Now while I admit to having quite a few weaknesses on the food front (remember I'm a tad over 'ideal' weight!!), I have an absolute obsession with blackberries.

I grew up in country Victoria, we had blackberry bushes on our lane, my sister and I would regularly come home from picking berries for mums jam with 1/2 a bucket and purple faces/tongues/hair (yes I was an albino child).

On the property Mr Mel and I will one day own, I will be planting some blackberry bushes, sure some call them pests/weeds, but I'll have none of it, they are delicious little bursts of goodness.

So the point of this post? On the Pioneer Woman site I've just found a recipe I will be making this weekend:

Blackberry Cobbler - it just looks divine, sure it won't help me with my 'Can We Do It' weight loss, but bugger it, I'm making and enjoying it this weekend :)

Not sure if I can post pics from the PW site, so here's a gratuitous shot of some gorgeously scrumptious blackberries.

I shall be back with photos & review :)

Update 6th July - Well I made the blackberry cobbler, only problem there were no fresh blackberries so I remembered I had a couple of bags of blackberries in the freezer, only to find when I was ready to start cooking, they are mixed berries, oops!

The recipe was ultra easy, I think using the still frozen berries was a bit of a mistake, they didn't sit up high in the batter like in the recipe photos, and sort of mushed and sunk to the bottom while cooking, so my photos look nothing like Pioneer Womans!

I whipped up some cream (yes not great for my weight loss challenge I know), and it was delicious, had a lovely crunchy top due to the sprinkle of raw sugar, and the sponge was tasty, as you'll see from the photos it didn't 'plate up' very appetising, but looks were deceiving!

I have printed the recipe and it's made it to our 'folder of stuff we like'  :-)

The cobbler ready to go in the oven, note the clumps of frozen blue/black/rasp/berries, I think they were the main issue with the end result looking a bit odd, and being a tad messy to serve.

The cobbler fresh out of the oven, it should have had little blackberries poking through all over, but they sort of mushed into the middle and bottom, still tasted lovely!

I actually liked the end look, found it quite organic looking, like a landscape :) A closeup of the centre.

And served up for a special treat for DP & I, the cream took forever to whip, but was worth it!

Thanks Ree, your recipe was delish :)

Till next time,