When I was still living at home, dad used to take the family out for dinner. One of the dishes that was very tasty, but rarely ordered was pea shoots stir-fried with garlic.

With that in mind, I ordered some from my favorite online seed shop (http://www.kingsseeds.co.nz/). They had this variety called Fiji Feathers (Product Code 5525) that I thought I’d try.

So, the peas arrived about a month ago, and I sowed some in 6 small-ish containers and a container each of mustard and cress. Within 2 weeks, I had mustard and cress tall enough to snip with scissors.

Cress and Mustard

Last week, some of the pea shoots were tall enough to be cut to go with the chicken laksa I happened to be having for lunch – and they were soooooo good!

Today, I decided to give the lot a haircut. It was painstakingly slow – maybe because I wanted them all to re-grow.

Pea Fiji Feathers - Before

Pea Fiji Feathers - After

Yummy goodness

This became part of Miss S’s and my lunch today. I know, I know… some people would consider it sacrilege to cook freshly cut baby pea shoots – but I like my veges cooked.

Pan-fried and boiled dumplings & stir-fried choy sum and pea shoots

Miss S was happy, I was happy because Miss S was eating food (she had been sick for the last 4 days) and the dumplings were at her request. It was a very happy lunch.

Now if only the purple sweet basil seeds would grow quickly. I can’t wait to make purple pesto.

More related posts:

1. Spinach and Broccoli

It’s been a while since I last updated the blog. But it has been a while since I’ve been sewing, making crafts or baking. Blogging does seem to take a lot of time and effort when the day is all go between the waking and sleeping hours.

Anyhow, I did get some sewing done in the last few weeks. I had some navy polka dot fabric and thought it would be perfect for the Oliver + S Bubble Dress. I had extra fabric, so I made the Bucket Hat from Little Things to Sew. After I finished the dress, I realised that it would have looked even better with red piping round where you joined the bodice and the skirt. And I had envisioned a matching hat with red flowers or ribbon of some sort – but I didn’t have any on hand. As for the buttons, I only had 2 round ones, the heart button is there only because it was the closest match colour-wise.

Miss S had a ball “modeling” the outfit – she got to prance around on the deck in her brand new red sneakers, you see, and she had a lot of fun. Can’t wait for the warmer months so she can get some wear out of this outfit.

Bubble Dress and Bucket Hat

More related posts:

1. The Shirred Dress
2. The Birthday Party Dress
3. It’s spring… feels like summer though

So, Mr K’s mate at work turned 30 today. So rather than make another dark chocolate cake, I decided to make the Vanilla & White Chocolate Cake found in Baked: New Frontiers in Baking.

I made this cake over 2 days – bake the layers one day and then ice/frost the next day. I read somewhere that baking a day or two in advance helps the cake layers to keep its shape and not crumble when it’s cut.

By itself, the cake tastes… um… well, let’s just say I prefer a rich and moist vanilla pound cake. However – combined with the frosting, it’s just perfect. (I must admit I cringed at the amount of butter in the frosting.)

The White-Out Cake

Will I make this again? I’m not sure… but it sure did look pretty and sophisticated once it was done – even though my attempt at icing was very uneven in a lot of places.

Here’s the recipe on http://sweetapolita.com, if you’d like to give it a try.

More related posts:

1. Sweet and Salty Cake
2. Malt-Ball Cake
3. Another post about blueberries..

So… after lunch today I decided to make a Blueberry Crumb Cake for dessert after dinner. I saw that The Pioneer Woman had a recipe on her site and it was on my list of things to try. After all, we have a freezer full of blueberries and can spare a couple of cupfuls for this cake.

I got all the ingredients ready, but could not find my brownie tin. So I used an 8-inch round cake tin, which meant that it took much longer to bake and it would have overflowed if I didn’t have a baking paper fence surrounding the batter.

The verdict? It was yummy – we couldn’t wait, so Miss S and I had a slice each (that was a quarter of the cake) – still piping hot with a big dollop of vanilla ice cream on top for afternoon tea. Mmmm… cake for dinner?

Blueberry Crumb Cake

More related posts:

1. The WhiteOut Cake
2. Sweet and Salty Cake
3. Malt-Ball Cake

So… Miss S decided that she can’t eat blueberry pancakes almost every weekend and not have a set of felt ones to play with. So, I sewed some up yesterday afternoon.

Blueberry Pancakes in a pan

Here’s how I made them

I used the rice bowl the trace the pancakes, and the coin for the berries

What you need to make 6 pancakes & 18 blueberries

• Trace and cut 6 cream and 6 light brown felt circles (rice bowl size) and 18 blue ones (coin size).
• You need some embroidery yarn, sewing thread and a needle too.

Make the Pancakes

Take 1 each of the cream and light brown felt circles

Sew around the edge, leaving a 1.5cm gap

Flip inside out. Stuff VERY sparingly.

Finish with a blanket stitch or running stitch

• I opted to finish the others off on the sewing machine as it was much faster .
• The blanket stitching does add some dimension though.

Make the Blueberries

Stitch an X with the white embroidery thread. Sew a running stitch around the edge.

Pull the blue thread to gather the edges together.

Stuff the little hollow with some stuffing. Pull the thread tight and stitch the opening closed.

Finished berries

Here's a shortcut I used.

Finished pancakes and berries

This was fun. I think I might try peas and pea pods next seeing that I’ve already got the green felt out.

More related posts:

1. Felt Food – Part Two
2. Felt Dumplings
3. Felt Food – Part One

Miss S started listening to Audiobooks when she was about 18 months old. One of her favourites is Curious George Makes Pancakes.

It wasn’t until she was about 2.5 that she found out what pancakes were. I finally found the most wonderful scottish pancake recipe by Sophie Gray (here’s a link to the recipe on Craving Fresh). Add a handful of frozen blueberries to each pancake, a good pour of lemon honey or maple syrup…. yum… that’s usually what we have for breakfast most Saturdays.

Blueberry Pancakes

When we asked Miss S where blueberries came from, this is what she said:

Miss S: The Freezer.

Us: No.

Miss S: The Supermarket!

Us: No.. we’ll show you.

So, we decided to take a drive down to Ngatea to pick some blueberries.We made a day of it. Miss S was so excited about the fact that she could pick them off the bushes and straight into her little bucket. We all loved it (it was my first berry picking expedition too – the lone raspberry cane in our garden doesn’t count as we only get about 5 fruit each year).

Rows and rows of blueberry bushes

Yummy Fresh Blueberries

Methinks it’s time to make another trip. The 3 kgs we picked did not last very long – Miss S loves to snack on a bowlful of frozen ones every now and again.

And this leads on to the next post… Felt Blueberries and Pancakes!

Last October, I bought 2 coat patterns from Dear My Kids – The Pea Coat & The Double Breasted Coat. Hmmm… coat patterns – in October – in the southern hemisphere. The thought of making a coat during the heat of summer just does not make sense. But as the cooler months start to approach, it was time to get into my first foray of coat-making.

Miss S chose the Double Breasted Coat, so I based this coat on that pattern. Thankfully, Christine at fromanigloo had a sew-along (Day 1, 2, 3 & 4) for the coat, so I had a quick read before starting. She mentioned that they were a little on the small side, so I cut out the size 5 pieces and added seam allowances.

Light Denim Coat

As you can see, what I made is very different from the coat in the pattern. I taped the front and back yokes to the front and back pieces to make whole front and back pieces. It’s not double-breasted as I used large buttons. Hence the row of buttons. As a point of difference, I added some simple pockets – what kid doesn’t like pockets?

The fabric was this weird shade of brown denim that I just had to get as it was only about $4. The lining was a $3 length of quilting cotton. Add some buttons and sewing thread, this coat cost less than $10 in materials to make. This is so very cool.

Fabric

Miss S loves her new coat – even though there’s not a shade of pink in sight. Having said that, she did choose the lining fabric. It fits her perfectly – the sleeves are a little long, but it is a size 5 on a 3-year-old. And there’s room to add layers underneath as the weather gets colder.

"My New Coat"

I think I’d like to make another one with my good felted merino. Or perhaps, I’ll use that for a coat for me.

A few days ago, Annie’s Eats posted this recipe on her blog. Her photos are so incredible, I can almost taste the cookies! Almost, but not quite… so I printed out the recipe and decided to make a batch.

As I didn’t have enough chocolate drops/bits, a whole block of dark chocolate went into the mixture.

250g block of chopped dark chocolate

It was a very simple recipe to make. It wasn’t too sweet (which was great). It was rich and chocolatey, and I would definitely make this again – Miss S sized, so she can have a “whole” cookie rather than a 1/4 of a massive one.

1 large cookie waiting to be eaten

Chomp.. yum.... soft cookie, melted chocolate... you get the idea..

More related posts:

1. Chocolate Oat Cookies
2. Chocolate Chip Cookie Brownie
3. BAKED brownies

Well, it has been a busy couple of weeks. We’ve finally started working on the outside of the house. The deck got scrubbed and painted, The exterior of the house is about 3/4 painted. New baby gifts were made and distributed, books have been read, etc. Now that Mr K is back at work, we have to relegate the painting to weekends only. In which case, I had time to finish a few projects that I had been working on.

1) The ice cream dress:

The Ice Cream Dress

Miss S had been bugging me to make this dress for her since the pattern arrived in October (see post). I’ve since found out the reason why. As soon as I put the dress on her, she said “Where’s my ice cream, Mummy? This is the ice cream dress, so I get an ice cream.” Anyway, she picked the fabrics from my stash – I was a bit dubious at first, but they seem to work well together. I love the pockets, it was the first time I’ve made pockets and will definitely make them again.

2) Toy-sized nappies (pattern by Skip to my Lou):

Lamb-y and her new nappies

When I read this post on Hammer and Thread a while ago, I bookmarked the page. It’s been on my to-make list for a while. Miss S has 3 toys that she plays with often: Dolly, Sheep-y and Lamb-y. Dolly and Sheep-y are the big ones. Lamb-y is the baby. Dolly and Sheep-y wear clothes, Lamb-y goes around with nothing on. So yesterday, I whipped up 3 nappies for Lamb-y and stuck velcro dots on them. And now Dolly and Sheep-y have been relegated back to “babyhood”.

Lamb-y, Sheep-y and Dolly

3) A knitted sweater:

Simple Sweater

A couple of weeks ago, I got this book out from the library called Knits for Children and their Teddies by Fiona McTague. This is such a cool book with beautiful patterns.

Knits for Children and Their Teddies

Seeing that I’ve a stash of wool sitting in the cupboard, I thought I’d make the mini-version of the simple sweater. If Miss S liked it, I’d make the big version for her. There were less stitches to knit, but it was still hard to sew the seams together nicely (this is the part I often struggle with). Which is why I’m trying to learn to to knit with double points (no seams to sew up later!). I’d try circular needles too, but my 1st attempt many years ago ended up being a disaster.

Sheep-y modeling the sweater

So there you have it. Next on the project list…. I’ll have to have a think.

Have a wonderful weekend!

More related posts:

1. The Bubble Dress and the Bucket Hat
2. The Birthday Party Dress
3. The Shirred Dress

I read this post on fromanigloo.com, and thought, hmmm…. I’m going to give this a shot.

It has been many years since I’ve done wood work at school. And let me tell you, trying to saw a bit of wood by hand and have the edges nice, straight and neat is really REALLY hard. However, I wasn’t going to give up. And after a few afternoons in the garage (with Miss S who made lots of chalk pictures on the floor):

I present to you Dolly’s Bed.

It was so much fun, I made 3 more.

3 Dolly Beds, All In A Row

We had a blast, especially Miss S who found out that the 3 other beds were for her friends for Christmas. Mr K thought it was so cool that he started making something too. Perhaps that will be in the next post.

If you’d like to make a bed, here are the plans from ana-white.com. I’ve made some modifications to the ones I made as I didn’t get the exact wood sizes as specified – so the beds I made are single beds for 12-14 inch dolls.

fromanigloo.com have posted a few tutorials on how to make the Pillows & Pillowcases, Fitted Sheet & Quilt.

If you feel like giving this a try, go for it! It’s very satisfying to hammer in nails, to sand, paint, make a mess in the garage and not have to clean it up immediately.