Autumn Produce

This little guy is almost 8 months old !  Can you believe it ?  Seems like just a few months ago he was born.  In readiness for his mum going back to work I have been having him for 1 full day a week to get him used to being here more frequently come July.  He is the most placid little guy and is quite happy to sit in the pram whilst I get a few chores done around our little property.

This week we picked apples from one of our trees.  Henry and I gathered the ones the birds had  partially gorged on and fed them to the pony and sheep but the ones that were unspoiled all came inside and were stewed slowly with a tiny bit of water on the stove top.  The hens loved the big bucket of peel and cores.

One of my favourite sweet treats is Little Apple Cakes but they are time consuming to make so I rarely go to the trouble.  I understand completely why they are so expensive to buy at the bakery.

First I made a sweet shortcrust pastry

250g Sugar (1 Cup)

250g Butter (1 Cup)

and mixed until creamy.  I then added 

2 Eggs

1 Teaspoon Baking Powder

2 Teaspoons Cream of Tartar

and

500 g Plain Flour (2 Cups)

Form a dough and chilled for 30 minutes.

You can then roll it out onto a floured mat and cut rounds.  I use a big cutter for the base and a smaller one for the top and a greased small muffin pan.  Once I place the bottom inside I then spoon in some apple to fill and then place the top on and press the edges down to seal.

I bake in a moderate oven (180 degrees celcius) for around 20 minutes.  I leave them in the pan to cool slightly so that they are easy to lift out.

Once they cool I give them a little icing and sprinkle with cinnamon.  Be warned they are

 just delicious !

Autumn is always such a time of abundance in the garden and is a great time to stock up on homemeade tomato paste which I use all of the time as a base in my recipes.

The thermomix makes the process so much easier as I can cook a batch and leave it to do it's thing.

There is nothing better than homemade !  It is totally worth the effort.

Our hens are keeping us well stocked in daily eggs and currently I am picking a healthy handful of mini peppers and chillies every day.  This coming week I will need to process these. Then in the coming weeks it will be time to strip out the garden beds and plant some autumn/winter crops.  No doubt Henry will enjoy helping nanna do some of this next week.

Hugs - Fee x

 

Tilda Lover's Club

On the 24th March 2020 when lock down begun here in Australia I started a TILDA Lover's Challenge through my facebook group (TILDA Lover's Club) and shared a video tutorial every week along with a pattern and challenged members to play along.  Each week we award prizes given to us by TILDA Australia and we have loads of fun !  We have done a quilt along, A Christmas in July Tablerunner, Fabric Line stitchalongs and much more !

Every Sunday I do a sit and chat video with the week's news etc on my channel - CRAFT WITH FEE

At the moment we are doing week 7 of the Woodland Stitchalong.  We have done so many beautiful projects that I will show you in a seperate post.  This week we are doing this gorgeous Woodland Cushion.  The downloads each week includes a step by step pattern and are just $3.00 Australian so amazing value !

We have pattern downloads HERE

or

Paper Patterns HERE

or even a Full Kit to make one HERE

 

It has been such an inspiring year within the group - So many beautiful friendships made and so much TILDA Inspiration.

I will show you some more projects later this coming week.

Hugs - Fee x

Life ......

Well what a funny old week it has been.  I had such BIG plans and then things happened which changed my plans completely.  As you know I love to cook and like to think I am pretty good at it !  I have had lots of burns over the years and just apply burn cream and soldier on.  Which is what I did this week when I burnt the inside of my arm but it seems it was a lot deeper than I first thought.  AND it is in a very awkward spot that is very hard not to knock !  So it needs to be dressed and I need to learn to not KNOCK it as it is extremely painful.  Of course it is my right hand which limits me quite a bit.

But there is plenty to smile about including this 7 month old bundle of yumminess !  Meet Henry.  He is the son of our middle daughter Kaitlin and her husband Nick and is the sunshine in my day !  He adores his Nanny Fee and the feeling is very much mutual !  He will become my right hand man a few days a week very soon and I am very much looking forward to it.

This weekend I will be cutting all of the kits for my monthly papercraft club.  It is so much fun !  I send members 6 kits every month and then do a video class for each project.  They get to learn new skills and get 6 finishes every month.  You can read all about it HERE if you like.

Before I head off into the studio for a much needed tidy up I wanted to show you these gorgeous mugs our youngest daughter Amy brought home from her holiday on the gold cost last week.  Bugs for dad and Tweety for mum.

They are more like tankards and we only make a half mug at a time as they are so BIG but so cute !

Have a wonderful weekend.  It is going to be 29 degrees Celsius here today which is amazing for autumn so I intend to enjoy some of it and might just curl up with a good book in the filtered sunshine.

Love and Hugs,

Fee xx

 

An eternity

 

Well it has been an eternity since I blogged.  I didn't think that I missed it but I do .......  I think I started blogging 15 years ago ?  And have not been around very much for a number of years but I intend to be much more frequent to this form of journaling. Hubby and I are still doing ok - We have enjoyed 27 blissful years of marriage this year and still love to spend time with one another so that has to be a good thing !!  

I still love to bake and cook and just last night made home made pizza's for us both to enjoy.

Making our food from scratch is something that has always made my heart sing.  No matter how long it takes for a dough to prove - It always tastes better than picking up the telephone and dialling for a home delivery pizza.

We can put on it no matter what we want including home made tomato paste

And of course enjoy it straight from the oven !!

On the crafty front I have been super busy doing what I love the most and that is stitching.  I will fill you in on what I have been up to on my next blog post.

Hugs,

Fee xx