What’s your favourite winter dinner?

How the hell was I supposed to put this thing together?

Luckily I had a lifeline, I was going to take ‘phone-a-friend’.  Derek who ran the beekeeping course, seemed like a pretty approachable guy, so I shot him an email to ask his advice.

I needed to find out which screws and glues to use for the various elements.

I got an email back saying that we would be able to combine with building of my first ever super and a couple of frames with my final session of the course.

It was simple enough in the end, we used liquid nails and some treated pine, countersunk self embedding 75mm screws. There was little grooves to help with the construction.  What’s left to do on the box is using a sharp chisel to scrape off the excess glue and then paint it in 3 coats of white water based acrylic paint.

The frames have proven to be a little bit more tricky. They’re small, fiddly, difficult to get square. For these we used 30mm x 1.4mm nails, and wood glue. I snapped one arm, but luckily we had spares.

Have you ever needed to use a lifeline to build something?

It’s time for snuggling up with cups of tea, soups and stews.  I love this time of year, I love rain, I love dressing in layers, and I especially love winter sun.

I love soups, creamy, thick, watery, spicy, they’re the best!

Before J and I had meet, he’d never cooked a soup, can you believe this.  I was quick to rectify this.  And now he experiments with the best of us!

I was so proud to put it in front of those two.

It was buttermilk pancakes, nothing too fancy, in fact I used this recipe.

They were absolutely delicious.

The reason that I was so proud was how much work I had put into this final product.

We had made the butter, the butter milk, and the eggs had come from our chickens (from no effort on my part).

We served them with yoghurt I had made, quinces I had poached and lime curd I had preserved late last year.

It wasn’t the fanciest dish, but I was proud to say that I had made it.

What’s a dish that you are proud to put in front of your guests?

I love Mexican food, so this post was a winner!

Do you have friends that live in your computer?

Celia’s baking is always mouth watering, but these take the cake, I think.

If you’ve ever had an food allergy, you’ll know how tricky it is to bake for yourself.  Have a look at Suzanne’s amazing cookbook. (You can buy it on my sidebar)

What are some fabulous things you’ve found on the internet?

So now that J has figured it out, he knows he can either choose not to tell me (this way I don’t have to prepare a reaction), or he can say, “I’ve got a surprise for you, it’s ______”.

For our anniversary he found the perfect gift for me, something I’d been looking into but hadn’t found the perfect option.  A beekeeping course. His approach was, “I’ve found you the best gift for our anniversary, I haven’t booked it yet, do you want me to tell you what it is?”

Absolutely I did!

And was I ever so excited to find out that it was a beekeeping course.  It was something that I’d talked about having in our backyard. Just another step towards being more self-sufficient.

The course was held in the neighbourhood center in Geelong West, and for only $70, a bargain! Over 4 sessions we learnt about extracting honey, collecting hives, the make up of a swarm, building bee boxes and frames and so much more.

Each day was a wonderful learning experience.  Did you know that the first thing that bees do when they hatch is clean out their hexagonal cell?  If they find something in their hive that shouldn’t belong, they flick it out the front door of the bee boxes?  And a hive is kept at a constant temperature of 38 degrees Celsius?  Rather than talking about an individual bee, people often refer to the hive as the organism, as one bee could not survive without the rest of the colony.  They are the perfect example of a cohesive community, something that we humans could learn a bit about.

Throughout the course I experienced two stings, they happened in the last session, within minutes of each other, and initially I showed no reaction. One sting was on my upper leg and the other on my forehead.  The next day my forehead swelled, then my eyes,  and now, three days later, my cheeks are showing only a slight swelling.  I visited the doctor and was told that although it was a fairly sever reaction, this may have been to do with the fact that I had two stings at the same time, I am still safe to keep bees.  Although I definitely need to be more careful.  I’m now looking into all the protective gear I need to keep myself sting free in the future.

Have you ever kept bees?  Ever seen a hive in action?

… there are two super cute biscuits from Awkward Cafe.  We stopped in there for cake and a pot of Love Chai this morning, and walked out with these lovely biscuits. In my kitchen…

… well right outside the kitchen door and in the hallway there is our first bee super.  It’s half built, in the white bag are the rest of the frame pieces to put together.  I think we’ll end up building about 4 of these, and 8 frames per box before we are ready for bees. In my kitchen…

… there’s a brown paper bag of chilli’s given to me from a lovely twitter friend who I had the pleasure of meeting for the first time over the last weekend.  We talked garden, living more simply and about her amazing pizza oven.  Upon leaving her house I was given this bag full of a variety of chillies.
In my kitchen…

… on the bench, sits these two containers of olives.  They’ve been sitting here for 10 days now, and tomorrow we will bottle them in a brine solution and let them sit for 6 weeks.  When we get home from Nepal they will be perfect. In my kitchen…

… is my first ever rolling pin.  I bought it this morning from the opp shop.  I’ve never owned one before, usually we use a wine bottle, it’s a good excuse to have one on hand.  The sieve would have been fantastic for draining the olives each day, but again only found it this morning in our local oppy.  I can’t wait to put it to good use. In my kitchen…

…we have (had) 73 vanilla beans.  I ordered these off eBay and they were here the next day.  I’ve had the pleasure of using them in so many different things, poached quinces, yoghurt and most to make my first ever bottle of vanilla extract. In my kitchen..

… this is actually in the laundry cupboard, is our first ever bottle of home-made vanilla extract.  It’s only been on the go for a few days and already is a stunning colour and expels a wonderful scent.  I can’t wait to use it in our baking.

What wonderful things do you have in your kitchen this month?

I’m linking up with Celia at Fig Jam and Lime Cordial.

On Sunday we replanted our seedlings that we had planted into polystyrene boxes, as I mentioned here, there were a lot of them.  It was time consuming and fiddly, all our seedlings now look tired and sad.

J and I talked and thought that next year we might just plant the seeds straight into the ground.  We can’t see much difference between growing things in a box on our verandah or only mere meters further away in the garden beds.

My question to you is: do you always follow the instructions on the seed packets? Have you planted straight into the garden instead?  Do you think rules are meant to be broken?

Luckily this breakfast (inspired by my sister), makes me feel good, feel happy AND is a superfood!

Hannah had been going out to a local café and getting Chai Chia Trifle.  She said that she couldn’t believe that she’d go out and buy something so similar to muesli (which she eats nearly daily), so decided to give making this trifle a go.
After her attempt she advised me of what would be her preferred ratios, and so I gave it a go.

I boiled up a pot of stove top chai, milky and honey sweet.

Soaked the seeds in the tea overnight and simply served it up with mixed berries and some homemade yoghurt.

Do you ever try to replicate restaurant meals?