Saturday, January 26, 2013

Carnation Delight

A very simple and economical dessert that Mum used to make quite a lot is called 'Carnation Delight'. It is a lovely melt in your mouth light dessert that you can accompany with any fruit of your choice.

All you need is:
1 tin of chilled Carnation Milk
3/4 cup of sugar
4 teaspoons of gelatine dissolved in ¼ cup of hot water

Simply beat the milk until it bulks up, add the sugar and then the gelatine. Keep beating until all has mixed well.
Pour into a slice container and set in the fridge.

These aren't very exciting photos, but believe me it tastes really good!


It's Australia Day here in down under. A day where us 'Aussies' celebrate all things Australian!
The most common being throwing a chop or sausage on the BBQ!
Whatever you're doing, I hope you enjoy your weekend. I found the below phot on on facebook last night...quite an interesting pic!

 Happy Australia Day!


Wednesday, January 23, 2013

My first BellaBox arrived!

Not sure if you have heard of BellaBox but you pay a monthly subscription of $15 and receive a box of goodies in the mail each month of new sample beauty type products.

One of my friends has been receiving them for quite a while now and the products she was receiving were awesome. They range from new products in makeup, skincare and lifestyle.


So, I signed up in December and received my first box yesterday...very exciting!!


You can earn reward points to spend in the BellaBox online store by referring people and signing up yourself.

One little gem that my friend received in her box the other month was a packet of 'zipettes' which are designed to hold the zip up on your pants...brilliant! She gave me one and they are just the best...I didn't realise how many pants I wasn't wearing because the zip kept coming down. I will be buying a pack myself.
You just cliip it onto the top of the zipper and hook the rubber part over the button and then just button up as normal. How clever!

A Bellabox subscription would make a great gift too for any girl who loves trying products and getting surprises in the mail.

Anyway if you would like to discover BellaBox for yourself click here
As mentioned if you sign up through that link I do receive reward points or you can just go to their site direct.



Sunday, January 20, 2013

Bathroom reveal - Before and Afters

Yay, finally we have finished renovating our bathroom. We started nearly a year ago with the painting of the wall tiles. Our son Daniel built our vanity and the shelving and installed the big mirror. We had the floor tiles laid while we holidayed in Launceston last year. Paul painted the walls last weekend, so it's finally finished, just a few touch ups here and there to be done.
Here are some photos to show the results.


All in all we are really pleased with how it's turned out.





 


Friday, January 11, 2013

I did it my way!!

On Monday night the kids come for tea and I quite often experiment with recipes I haven't tried before...most times they turn out good, sometimes I get "mmmm, not your best meal Mum!!"

I decided to try 'Bacon wrapped chicken stuffed with spinach and ricotta'. Once I had sliced the chicken breasts and combined the mixture I started to roll the breast, but had trouble with it.....so as I often do, I improvised and decided to line a slice tray with alfoil and lay the fillets out, then spread the mixture over them and topped it all with sliced bacon pieces.

I then covered it with alfoil (sprayed the alfoil first so the bacon didnt' stick to it) and baked in a moderate over for 1½ hrs. When I took it out the oven I had to drain juice that had accumulated but it was cooked beautifully and sliced really nicely (a bit like slicing lasagne!).

Everyone enjoyed it, so I thought I'd do a post about it as I find it's a good way for me to keep track of recipes I make!




The original recipe I was using can be found here. However I made some changes to the ingredients as well. I didn't cook the spinach first, just chopped the fresh baby spinach. I also didn't use the garlic, onion powder or garlic salt, instead I substitued it for a packet of french onion soup. Maybe because I didn't cook the spinach first I had some excess juice, but it still worked out ok and it tasted good.



Interesting picture I'm sure you're thinking!!  At Christmas time, I spilled some oil on my top (pictured). As it was only a couple of weeks old I wasn't impressed, so I googled how to get rid of oil stains from clothes and 'eucalyptus oil' seemed to be the popular problem solver, so I tried it and was really pleased that it worked!  I have many t-shirts with oil stains from cooking splatters, so I might give them a whirl with this too.

I don't particularly like the smell of Eucalyptus as it reminds me of 'Vicks' baths we used to have when we had colds. Fill a large bowl with very hot water, place a teaspoon of Vicks Rub (basically Eucalyptus oil) into it, place your head over the bowl and a towel over your head and the bowl and inhale. It actually worked wonders to clear your nasel passages and I used to use if for our kids as well.


Yay, our locally produced orange juice was back on the supermarket shelves today after their Christmas break. It tastes just like you've squeezed it yourself mainly because they don't add all the extras into it. The shelf life is only a couple of weeks and you have to shake it each time before you pour from the carton as the pulp settles, but it's healthy and not packed with sugar like so many others.

Hope you enjoy your weekend



Sunday, January 6, 2013

Just enjoying life!

I enjoy the period between Christmas and New year, where everyone seems to be in chill out mode and there is a lot of the spur of the moment social catchups.

It has been a month since Dad passed away, and life is starting to get back to some sort of normality. There will always be the sadness and my eyes well up with tears when I look at photos of him, but his life was good and we are to be thankful. Mum is doing really well, she is surrounded by lovely people at Resthaven who are keeping her company and involving her in the activities that go on, and she is receiving quite a few visitors too. Such a blessing.

Our newest Cafe in town is within one of our wonderful gift/home shops called Lavilla. It's a great place to catch up for coffee and light lunches with friends, which I did last week. I ad a delicious Turkey baguette and iced coffee.
On boxing day when Daniel and Telesha announced their engagment, we went around to their place at night for pizzas and drinks with both families. It was a fun night. One of Telesha's nieces kept coming over to my hubby Paul to get her head rubbed...she loved it.
Paul and I headed down to McLaren Vale for a couple of days and stayed with good friends. One of the nights we got Barnacle Bills and took it down to the beach, we haven't been to the beach for so long. The photo is of 2 of our friends daughters, Lauren and Hannah.
Back in my teenage years I loved reading the Sue Barton series of books by Helen Dore Boylston, which followed the life of 3 friends who started nursing together. There were 7 books in the series. I managed to find the 'Visiting Nurse' book at an opp shop recently and enjoyed reading it. I have the 'Superintendent Nurse' and am now on the lookout for the rest to make up the series.

My favourite find on Pinterst this week was this coffee table made out of wooden crates. How clever! Might keep an eye out for wooden crates now too!!
We are experiencing very hot weather here in Australia, with temps in the 40°C's. Nice and cool inside though which is where I plan to stay!!


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