Washing Liquid

I ran out of washing powder the other day and I was reminded that I had seen a recipe for home made laundry liquid on the Down to Earth blog.  I had all the ingredients needed so made a batch.

Method:

1 cup lux flakes, 1/2 cup borax and 1/2 cup of washing soda dissolved in 1.5 litres of water.  Add that to a further 8 litres of water and mix.  Put in containers leaving room to invert as it separates out a lot.

It is doing a good job of cleaning the clothes, but I do use about 2/3 cup rather than the 1/4 cup recommended by Rhonda Jean.  Maybe my average load of clothes is dirtier?  Doesn't matter, it is still easy, and much cheaper than buying washing powder in town.

Craft Fail

Earlier in the month we had Dye Day where Possum dyed her own wool with food colouring.  I had told her I would knit her something using this wool so I thought I had better hop to it.

I choose the Loopy Pixie Beanie from the Amanda Keeys book.  I love that book!  I was really happy with the way Possum's wool was knitting up and she was getting excited to see the little hat come to be.

The 'Craft Fail' part of this story didn't happen right until the end. I think I should have paid more attention to gauge because it would seem that Possum's Pixie hat actually is a much better fit on me...

What do you think, can I pull off a pixie beanie? Or is it just going too far...?

Horses

Last week the children and I went and got the horses in.  That sounds easy, but the horses were turned out and it was a 340km round trip to get them.  I was home alone too, but it all went well and now we get to enjoy having the horses back with us.

Breakfast Crepe

We discovered a new weekend breakfast treat the other day.

Make some crepes using your recipe of choice while 3 diced apples simmer with some brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and some butter.

Tastes wonderful and is a great way to use up some end of week apples from the fruit bowl.

The Edible Garden

I have already shown some photos of the flowers in the garden, but as I am more interested in the edible side of things I thought I should cover that as well.  Half the appeal in moving to this block was that we would have room to grow as much produce as we could for ourselves.  It is more satisfying, healtier and helps the budget too.

These are almonds.  We have about 30 friut and nut trees here and I am really looking forward to working out what is what.  I think a lot of jam will be made.

The spring onions going to seed are beautiful and delicate looking and I love looking out of the house through the grape vine that grows along our front verandah.  More grapes grow along fences and on the side of the workshop.  I hope there are enough for both us and the possums.

We love rhubarb.  It is not something I had tried before meeting the Mr.  This plant originally came from a crown given to us by my in-laws.  We planted it, and have moved it twice since then. 

I have raided it for the rhubarb and lemon cake since taking this photo, but it is the season for growing so it won't be long beofre we get more.

Our potato plants need heaping already.  This year we have 4 varieties in and I am looking forward to harvest time so I can start cooking with them.

We have more veggies in and growing, but these are my favourites this week.

Rhubarb and Lemon Cake

It is for discoveries like this one that I adore Blogland. 

This recipe is one of my favourite culinary finds for this year!

I stumbled across mention of it while visiting Gina, and clicked across to Owlet to see what it was about (as you do!). 

Rhubarb and Lemon Cake

5 rhubarb stalks cut into 2cm bits

1/2 cup brown sugar

125g soft butter

1/2 cup caster sugar

zest 1 lemon

3 eggs

1 tbs lemon juice

1 cup plain flour

1/3 cup SR flour

100ml sour cream

icing sugar to serve

Preheat oven to 180deg.

Butter and line 20cm pan

Toss rhubarb with brown sugar and set aside

Cream butter and sugar

Add lemon zest, then eggs one at a time.

Stir through lemon juice.

Sift flours together and fold in alternating with the sour cream

Fold through Rhubarb.

Bake 40mins and test with a skewer.

Cool 15 minutes and remove.

Dust with icing sugar to serve.

I listed the recipe here again with the volumes I used, which mostly included less sugar.

Birthday Season

Birthday Season starts today.

First his, and not long after, mine.

Happy Birthday, with love.