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...?

Halloween

Ok so my memory card in the camera chucked a fit, but The Daddy has reformatted it or something, and it is working again.  So I am back on track, with a few photos to catch up on.  Hence the delayed Halloween snaps...

My sister has a friend who used to live in America, so they throw a proper Halloween party each year, and the kids all go trick-or-treating around the neighbourhood.

Tabitha was invited, this year, to come and join in the fun.  Although the party started pretty much at her bedtime, we took her along for an hour - my mother had bought her a fairy costume earlier in the year, and it seemed a shame not to put it to use.  She coped well, considering it was in the evening - she had a brilliant time shrieking and running around the house with all of the 'big kids'.

Here is Fairy Tabitha with my sister, dressed as Dorothy from Wizard of Oz!

Her wings:

She had to wear woolen tights, because it was a bit chilly.  I'm sure if she were 3, she would have fought me on that, but she happily padded around in her fairy suit and wool tights.  Too cute.

Look at those delicious chubby fairy cheeks:

The adults were not required to dress up, thankfully.

The Daddy then supervised Tabitha playing in the yard at the party - look, she can run now!  Here she is chasing after a ball:

Have you noticed that she has had a hair cut?!  She is such a big girl now!  She has a bob and a little fringe.

Did she have a good time?  Yep!

Kaese Spaetzle

Last week I made paprika chicken and spaetzle.  You can find the recipe HERE.

I made double the amount of spaetzle - it freezes really well (just toss them in a little oil after they're cooked, to stop them sticking, then freeze them in snaplock bags.

Because I made plenty, I tucked some away, designated for my version of Kaese Spaetzle, a German dish which is a little like an awesome twist on macaroni and cheese.

To make it (and if you like stodgy comfort food, I thoroughly recommend giving this a go):

Fry a chopped onion and a few rashers of chopped bacon in a little butter, until browned and starting to crisp:

Add a couple of cups of cooked spaetzle, and pan fry until they are also starting to crisp a little at the edges:

Meanwhile, mix together a cup of grated cheese (I used gruyere, but jarlsberg or comte or even cheddar would be fine), as well as a 1/4 cup of grated parmesan, with two eggs.  Beat together:

Remove the spaetzle from the heat, add the cheese mixture, and stir to combine:

Pile the lot into a baking dish, top with a little extra cheese, and bake for around 20 minutes at 180 degrees, or until lightly browned on the top:

It ain't a pretty dish.  But it is really, really good, and - paired with something sensible like steamed broccoli - makes a jolly good weeknight dinner.