Friday Round-up

Hallo every-one and thank you for all the good wishes for dear Twitch. I've had a much more productive week, I do love the cooler weather.

I've made ANZAC biscuits, here is my ANZAC slice recipe and I always use Sue Webber's biscuit recipe which you can find here , I always double Sue's recipe and freeze some. There are lots of ripe chillies on the habanero bush so I thought 'chilli jam'...oh heck, the fumes nearly killed us and it's more sauce than jam but lovely tasting...

I used 5 habaneros with their seeds, thinly sliced...would only use 3 next time!
1300gms tomatoes
500 gms sugar
3 tablespoons of lemon juice
2 teaspoons of salt and 2 tablespoons of Thai fish sauce

simmered until thick but it didn't reach a jam setting point...still will be very useful, the colour is beautiful...

I've also made 3 jars of plum jam and will make some mandarin orange marmalade next week.

I finished the little jumper I was making for a friend's new baby...she loved it, I do enjoy knitting baby clothes...

Yesterday I popped into a new local candle shop and bought some wicks for $4...I melted down all the stubs of the candles we've used and produced all these for next to nothing...I bought a small saucepan from the op-shop for $2 and keep that for candle melting, because it's small it's easy to pour into the jars...the one at the back is a 300gm salsa jar so you can see they are quite large. I also added some sweet orange essential oil...

Tomorrow is ANZAC day and we'll be going again to Medina to watch Dad march, Caleb and David are looking forward to that very much and Caleb is going to borrow Dad's medals for 'news' at school next week...

I wish you all a wonderful weekend where-ever you may be
Love from Sue
xxx

Up Close and Personal With Brer Rabbit

We've been indulging in lots of cuddles and bunny massages the last few weeks as Twitch continues his recovery from EC as reported earlier this month. Now I'm going to indulge myself again and share these close pics of the sweetest face there is!

 Finally, what Twitch would look like if he wasn't a lop-eared rabbit lol

Hope you're having a happy weekend,
Love from Sue. Joe and Twitch!

Cooler Days and Warm Dinners

This is warm and thrifty soup born of the need to use up all the celery stalks we have left after feeding Twitch Rabbit the leaves lol

It could be cooked in the 

slow cooker/crockpot 6-7 hours, 4 cups of stock
pressure cooker 7 minutes, 3 cups of stock
stove-top 1 hour, 3-4 cups of stock

a whole bunch of celery, sliced
2-3 large potatoes, chopped or sliced
1 white onion, chopped
2-3 cloves of garlic, crushed
3-4 cups of chicken stock
half a cup of cream or sour cream

Usual way, fry off onions, celery then garlic
Add potato and stock, season well.
Cook as above
Blend or puree the soup and stir in cream

Serve with croutons/grated cheese/fried crispy bacon

We've also had a thick minestrone soup this week as well as lots of chicken based meals all from one half of a rather chubby free range chicken that was slow-cooked with lemon juice and peri peri sauce. I want to make my own sauce for the next time and will try this recipe. I love the look of the Chickpea recipe too!

Filling, delicious and nutritious.
Have a great weekend every-one
Love from Sue

Noumea Photos

So Twitch is a million times better now but still wobbly and will need the panacur for another 2 weeks...it's a miracle to us as we were sure he was not going to recover...he's been out of his box and is able to sit up to groom himself which is great. Thanks for all the love and support this last fortnight xxx

Now here are the few pics I took from the ship of Nouméa in New Caledonia. The reason there are no photos from off the ship is that on the first night I stood up in the dark at 2am to go to the bathroom, my knee gave way and slammed into the hard beading around a full length mirror. The pain was appalling and I spent much of the next two weeks in bed...more anon.
Joe went ashore as he was keen to buy a bottle of French wine, Gaillac, which we first had in Paris in 2007. Mission accomplished he also came back with a large square of beautiful fabric for me...it was called a coupon in French! Next to the docks is a large nickel mining plant which doesn't enhance the view but provides work for the local people.

My photos...


the first is my curry and chips...obviously comfort eating that lunchtime..

view from the table at the back of the ship

the nickel plant is a blot on the landscape, I would have loved to get up into those mountains on a tour...

Now this is Joe queuing to get back on board taken from Deck 12...it really is a massive ship...he's in the middle about level with the back of the right-hand bus...

Our steward was most attentive and enjoyed surprising us with animal created from the towels...this bunny was our favourite of course...

  Monkey was cute too lol

The next stop was Fiji and the photos are pretty similar but will share one or two, then we visited 3 ports in New Zealand.

Love from Sue
xx

PS have recently bought this book about our ancestor Jennet Cragg, most enchanting story telling from 1877!