choc-orange self-saucing pudding recipe

Yummmmm. I was craving jaffas this week but as a vegan who doesn't eat chocolate, I can't have them. So instead I invented a jaffa pudding. I have shown you the mainstream ingredients but my vegan carob version is given in brackets.

Sauce
3/4 cup soft brown sugar
1 1/2 Tablespoons cocoa (or carob) powder
1 cup boiling water
juice of 1 orange

Place all ingredients in a greased, high-sided casserole dish and stir until the sugar is melted.

Pudding
1 cup self-raising flour
1/2 cup white sugar
2 Tablespoons cocoa (or carob) powder
a pinch of salt
grated rind of 1 orange
2 Tablspoons melted butter (or dairy-free margarine)
1/2 cup milk ( or soy/rice milk)

Sift dry ingredients into a mixing bowl.
Add remaining ingredients and stir to combine.
Pour pudding mixture into casserole dish on top of sauce.
Bake for 45 mins at 180C (350F).
Serve warm or cool with icecream.

build a fort

To celebrate the upcoming release of the Where the Wild Things Are movie, Booooooom recently hosted a contest asking people to build and photograph their own Wild Things' Fort. The results were so beautiful, and the day was so rainy, that I decided to give it a try. The result was a very fun morning and a cosy place to play.

Would you care for a cup of invisible tea in a plastic eggshell?

These are some of my favourite official entries:






Happy fort building to you :)

apron dress tutorial

How to make a cute dress for a toddler in less than an hour.
Step 1: Purchase a half apron from your local op shop.
Step 2: Remove the ties from the sides.
Step 3: Re-sew the ties on as shoulder straps, removing any excess.
Step 4: Add a button and button hole at the back.

I even managed to do this while my toddler was awake. Amazing!

I'm sure there's a child somewhere under all that hair ...

Microscopic beauty

It's taken me 35 years to find it, but I am now i rapture over the images from Nikon's "small world" microscope photography competition.

doxorubin by Lars Bech

quantum dot nanocrystals by Seth A. Coe-Sullivan

rat retinal artery by Dr Rong Wen

thin nematic film (liquid crystals) by Dr Oleg D Lavrentovich

happy mothers day

Today is Mothers Day in Australia.

As a daughter, it is a day for letting my mum know how much she means to me, and for reminding me to treasure her the whole year through. I hope she likes her present - a hat made using this pattern by Rachel of i dream of knitting. The bone coloured wool was inherited from my mother's sister, who died in a car accident six years ago, and the blue soy/cotton was left over from a dress that I made for her youngest granddaughter.


As a mother, it is a day to appreciate my children and give myself a day off. I love the fact that within Olive's playgroup, every single one of us mums has bought our own Mothers Day present. My gift to myself is this gorgeous print by Tollipop.

I am in love with this painting, which has helped me to do so much more than just make the house look pretty. Immediately after Aggie was born (six weeks ago already!), I became haunted by the number three. I have three children, three daughters, but only two of them are living. Having a new baby is a stark reminder of all that I missed out on when Millie died, and yet there is so little in the material world to reflect her huge presence in my heart. So this simple painting has helped me enormously, serving as a visible and permanent acknowledgement that we have three girls. Later today, we will take some flowers to the cemetery and my family will be together for the first time.

dance

This makes me happy :)
Sound of Music: belgian Train Station

unfortunately ...

I picked this game up from The Lark's blog. Just type "unfortunately, [your first name]" into Google (including the quotation marks) and see what comes up.

Unfortunately, Leona is not going to make it as a singer.

Unfortunately, Leona's uncompromising nature ultimately landed her a long-term stay at a federal facility.

Unfortunately, Leona is required to remain in Verdandi form when using this spell.

Unfortunately, Leona, ticked off many people in her lifetime; she was rather unkind to people.

Our elephant was a little greedy guts, and unfortunately Leona and I had forgotten to bring money to buy bananas for him.

So unfortunately, Leona always misses the office Christmas parties. But why does Leona have to do what her family tells her? Because she still lives at home ...


I can add a few of my own:

Unfortunately, Leona's 3-4 hourly breastfeeding regime with her newborn daughter means that she has plenty of time to browse other people's blogs but none to create anything to post about on her own, leaving her feeling decidedly craft-deficient.

Unfortunately, Leona was too short of time (and hands!) to take any photos when preparing for and participating in her two-year-old's birthday party. All I have is one photo of the cake:

It is supposed to be a teddy bear's picnic, in keeping with the theme of the party, which we held in a park. I decided to go for simple with the cake this year, after viewing all the disasters on the very funny Cake Wrecks blog and thinking about last year's mess.


It was supposed to be Wa Wa, the dog from Japanese kids show Inai Inai Ba. Check out his most famous song here - it's crazy fun!