Weekend Girls' Breakfast

On Saturday morning, Tabitha and I went out for breakfast with my friends Amy and Debbie, to celebrate Debbie's recent birthday.  We went to a brilliant little cafe called Kanteen, which is set right by the Yarra River on a secluded bend, in South Yarra.  Plenty of outdoors room to run around, watch the bicycles and dogs go past, and very kid-friendly.

Tabitha had a ball tearing around and playing in the dirt.  Fun times!

Here is the birthday girl!  I brought along some truffles from Koko Black for her.  Always a good choice for a gift, in my opinion...

Amy bought Debbie the sweetest bow ring from Tiffany.  It was a very nice gift, because Amy has just recently taken advantage of Deb being a flight attendant, using her staff travel for a heavily subsidized business class return trip to New York!  Lucky girl!

PS I am so jealous of those nice natural healthy nails.  My nails are cursed to a lifetime of flaking and breakage after years as a nail biting youth.

Tabitha trying to feed Amy.  I am still loving Tabby's little haircut:

Lucky Tabitha munching away on a biscuit:

Tabby and I shared the most delicious breakfast - black sticky rice with cocoanut milk, bananas and strawberries.

I had to keep retrieving Tabitha, as she ran off to chase a dog or a bike.  Even when she is very wriggly, she will happily sit for a shoulder ride!

Bib on backwards, like a cape.  Baby superhero costume.

Couldn't Debbie easily pass for Tabitha's mother?!  They are both so blonde!

Tabby cried when she had to say goodbye to Debbie, and clung to her like a little monkey.  Too cute.

At any rate, I think she looks more like Debbie than she does me!  Tabby certainly doesn't have my colouring.

But we have the same mouth and chin, and the same frowny expressions.  She has The Daddy's eyes and cheeks.  'They' say that babies look like their fathers for the first year, as a sort of evolutionary, biological safeguard (so the daddy sticks around I guess!).  It certainly seems true with Tabitha - she started looking more like me after the 12 month mark.

Cup Day and Simple Pudding

Last week, we had Melbourne Cup Day.  We had my parents, sister, godfather and godson over for lunch.  I did simple ham and salad rolls, and made a cheesecake.  I am really happy with my cheesecake recipe - I make it quite often.  It's adapted from a recipe from my friend Amy, and is very silky, owing to being cooked slowly in a water bath.  You can find the recipe HERE.

I like a fairly thick crumb base, but the outside appears deceptively thick, due to the crumbs creeping up the sides when I press them in...

I often pile blueberries onto a cheesecake.  It just works.

My godson made a chai cake, which he came up with on his own.  He loves chai - the cake was excellent, nice and spicy with a cup of tea!

Here is Tabitha clutching the name of her horse (drawn from a sweep), watching the exciting race!  It was a photo finish.  She is in her pyjamas, having just woken up - doesn't she look like she's wearing racing silks?  She looked like a little jockey! 

After everyone had left, I made a very large tray of pasta bake.  Tuna with plenty of veggies - the recipe is HERE.  There was enough for 6 very large servings (to the original recipe, I added another medium can of tuna, made the white sauce 1.5 quantity, included a large cup each of peas and corn, and generally bumped up all the other quantities a little too, including another 80g pasta).  This freezes really well.

The next day, we had a visitor - my mother in law's cat, Winston, came for the morning (long story).  I locked up our own cats, so they didn't terrorize him (they happily snored away in our bedroom).  Tabitha followed him around the house trying to hug and kiss him.  He does look anxious, below, but being a British Shorthair, that's just the way he always looks!  He is very soft and cuddly:

I have started making an excellent and easy new pudding.  I must admit that I have NO idea where the recipe is from - I have it hand written (my writing) on a scrap of paper in my recipe book, called "his Granny's hasty pudding".  What a mystery!  Anyway, it is so quick and easy and a new favourite of The Daddy.

All you need to do for this simple pudding is beat together
a tablespoon of melted butter (20g), 1/2 cup of sugar and an egg.  Beat them well, then add a cup of self raising flour, 1/4 cup of milk and a pinch of salt, and beat well to a batter consistency.

Lightly grease a small pie dish (about 2 cup capacity, shallow-ish better than deep, but use what you have.)  Pour in 2 or 3 tablespoons golden syrup, allow to settle evenly, then pour the batter over the top.

Bake for around half an hour at 180 degrees, until a crisp, golden crust forms and the pudding is just cooked in the middle (you can use a cake tester).  I serve it with a drizzle of extra golden syrup, and some cream or ice cream.

There!  So easy, takes less than 5 minutes to prepare, including putting away the ingredients.  Don't even think of bothering to use an electric mixer - it's scarcely worth the effort of twisting out the beater!  I use the same Pyrex jug that I melt the butter in - too easy.

Gardening Time

It's Spring again, and time to get outside and get planting.  Some plants - the passionruit, the rosemary and mint, chilis, hydrangeas and jasmine - take care of themselves, mostly, leaping back to colour and life as the weather warms.  Others - some flowers, herbs and vegetables - need to be re-planted each year.  One day, I would love to collect the seeds from my plants at the end of the season, and sow them the following year, but I'm not yet that organised, so Spring always involves a trip to the nursery to stock up on seedlings.

This year, tomatoes, strawberries, basil, parsley, thyme, corriander, 'ribbons and bows' petunias and some mixed lettuces.  Most of the garden bed is in shade, thanks to the monstrous passionfruit vine, so we plant the seedlings mostly in pots and troughs in the sunshine.

Tabitha loves helping out in the garden, and follows us around with a little trowel or fork, helpfully digging up the just-planted seedlings!

Very excited to be wielding the rake:

Helping daddy with the basil:

By the way, does anyone know how to discourage cats from using your pots as bathrooms?  I'm sure there is some natural solution or herb...?