ruth plus two

Out for a scratch with Betty, Ada and Maud

Posted on February 23, 2014 by Ruth

We’ve had our chickens for a week now and things are going well. We’ve solved our problem of not being able to tell the two small hens apart from each other by putting a poultry leg band on one. Now that we can tell who is who, the chickens have been named – Betty is the larger, lighter coloured bird; Ada and Maud – or the twins, as Alex calls them – are the other two. Ada’s the one rocking the funky green leg band.

Having kept the girls locked in their run for a week, we let them out for their first scratch yesterday and again this afternoon. I was slightly nervous we’d not be able to get them back in. It turns out I was being silly.

We’ve been enjoying sitting out and keeping an eye on the girls, though. ‘Chicken watch’ is kind of fun.

They are certainly enjoying exploring the back yard, especially all the undergrowth. It leads to some pretty funny pictures.

When we want the girls to go back into the run, we throw a small handful of scratch mix into the run and encourage them back in. They’re not that worried about heading back in, and are pleased for their treat. I guess it means they’re happy in their home, which is nice.

The other big development of the weekend is the girls learning to head up the ladder and into their coop to in the evening to roost for the night. We went out last night to do our usual catch-the-chickens-and-put-them-to-bed routine, only to find they’d gone up themselves. Hurray!

Our next challenge will be eggs – making sure the girls have the right dietary mix to lay well, and teaching them to use the nesting boxes. I wanted them to learn to roost on their perches, not in the nesting box, so we’ve blocked off the nesting boxes for the time being. I’ll unblock them in a week or two, or as soon as we see an egg…which ever comes first.

Have a happy week!

Posted in chickens | 11 Comments

{Gluten-free} passionfruit cake

Posted on February 22, 2014 by Ruth

So it turns out if it’s not bronchitis this week, it’s gastro. And, if you’re Hugo, you get lucky with both. It’s a good thing he’s a trooper. Needless to say, we’re sticking close to home at the moment and hoping the children are better soon.

In the meantime, I thought I might share my final holiday passionfruit exploits – a gluten-free passionfruit cake and passionfruit syrup.

I adapted this cake from a Women’s Weekly recipe I found online. I made it for a little afternoon tea gathering and it disappeared like hot cakes (erm…or just like…cake?). A definite winner! If you don’t need to exclude gluten from your diet, just click on the link and use the original recipe.

Wait for the cake to cool completely before you make the icing – it starts to set very quickly and you’ll run into trouble if you make it too early. So speaks the voice of experience.

When the icing’s ready, drizzle away to your heart’s content.

ready to go It didn’t last long. There were only six adults present…everyone had seconds.

Another basket of passionfruit found themselves made into lovely passionfruit syrup. I found the recipe over at the aptly named Passion Fruit Garden and followed it to a tee. Go check it out! I hope it will brighten some ice-cream or fruit salad when there’s not so much sunshine around.

{Gluten-free} passionfruit cake

Servings: 10+
Time: 2 hours, plus plenty of time to cool
Difficulty: Medium
Print

Ingredients

250g butter, softened
1 cup caster sugar
3 eggs, separated
2 cups gluten-free plain flour*
4 tsp gluten-free baking powder
1 tsp psyllium husks (optional)**
3/4 cup buttermilk ***
1/3 cup passionfruit pulp

Icing
1 1/2 cups gluten-free soft icing sugar
1/3 cup passionfruit pulp
lemon juice to taste

Notes:

* Feel free to use gluten-free self-raising flour in this recipe. To do so, use self-raising instead of plain flour and leave out the baking powder.

** The psyllium husks are optional, especially if you use a commercial gluten-free flour, but I find they help gluten-free baking hold together.

*** You can substitute 3/4 cup milk mixed with 1 tablespoon lemon juice or vinegar and left to stand for 10 minutes.

Directions

Preheat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan-forced). Grease and lightly flour a 24cm bundt tin or a 20cm baba cake pan; tap out excess flour.

Sift flour, baking powder and psyllium husks together into a spare bowl and set aside.

Beat the butter and sugar in a small bowl with an electric mixer until light and fluffy, beat in the egg yolks one at a time, beat until combined.

Transfer the mixture to a large bowl, fold in half the sifted flour mixture and half the buttermilk, then fold in remaining flour mixture, buttermilk and passionfruit pulp.

Beat the egg whites in a clean small bowl with an electric mixer until soft peaks form. Fold lightly into cake mixture in two batches.

Spread the mixture into the prepared tin. Bake in a moderate oven for about 1 hour, or until golden and a skewer comes out clean. Keep a good eye on your cake from the 30 minute mark – ovens are so variable, as a gluten-free flours, so you need to be aware your cooking time may vary.

Allow cake to stand in pan for 5 minutes before turning onto a wire rack to cool.

Passionfruit icing: When cake is cool, sift the icing sugar into a small heatproof bowl; using a wooden spoon, stir in enough passionfruit pulp to form a firm paste, adding lemon juice to taste (I added around 1 tblsp, but it will depend on your lemon and personal taste).

Stand the bowl over a small saucepan of simmering water, stir until the icing is a pouring consistency (do not overheat).

Drizzle warm icing over cake.

And with that, I have bid farewell to my holiday cooking posts! Until next time, Norfolk Island.

Posted in baking, gluten-free, preserving, recipe, sweet | 10 Comments

Blogging from bed

Posted on February 19, 2014 by Ruth

Things have been a bit quiet this week because I’ve caught myself a nasty case of bronchitis. It’s the same deal as Elena had last week. We like to keep things in the family around here. Anyway, my doctor has prescribed lots of sleep and not much of anything else – and that’s why I’ve not been around. I know I’m sick because I can’t even face picking up my knitting! Fingers crossed it all improves soon.

Before I got sick, we had a pretty quiet but good weekend, with a lovely first birthday for a friend’s little one, a fun dinner out with girlfriends (my first in waaaaay too long), the arrival of our chickens and scoring a Fowler’s Vacola preserving pan on gumtree.

I picked up our three new chickens on Sunday morning and they’ve settled in well. I haven’t taken lots of photos because I don’t want to stress them out. They’re red/brown Rhode Island Red x New Hampshire. One is a little larger, but the other two are pretty much identical so I want to spend more time with them (and learn to tell them apart!) before we go naming them. They are around 20 weeks old and the breeder says we should expect eggs any time soon, so we’re keeping our eyes peeled.

They were (quite understandably) a little scared of us when they first arrived, but are quite happy around us now. They’re calm and seem happy in the run, scratching around. They’ve worked out the automatic drinker we’ve made them, and haven’t been spreading their feed too far. I’ve been popping green treats and vegetable scraps into them every afternoon to compensate for being locked up for the first little while.

They’ve not quite worked out how to put themselves into the coop for the evening yet, so I’ve been going out and catching them each night. They don’t mind, and even let me give them a bit of a pat without struggling or stressing out. I have high hopes of having affectionate chickens, so this is a pretty good start.

Two of the three did manage to escape the run yesterday evening – which was entirely my fault. Alex helped me, though, and we got them back in without too much trouble. They actually walked themselves back into the run when they found it so I don’t think we’re too far from being able to let them out safely. Maybe we’ll give them some supervised free-range time on the weekend and see how we go.

The children are entranced – Elena likes to chat to them, and Hugo just squeals with excitement and waves.

The other excitement of the weekend was scoring myself a vintage Fowler’s Vacola preserving pan on gumtree. I was a bit hesitant to spend the $35, but it was just too good of a deal to pass up (and two have since appeared with asking prices of $50 and $90, so now I’m extra happy about the price). It was a good week for Fowler’s stuff on the classifieds – I also managed to snag some (ummm…40…) jars for $2 a piece.

I’ve emailed Fowler’s with the sterilizer’s serial number to see if they can give me any idea of its manufacturing date.

The preserving pan arrived just at the right time. Our tomato plants have been producing well and we had several kilograms of ripe tomatoes to deal with. We’ve been growing a heritage variety, Rouge de Marmande, which is very firm and fleshy with few seeds. They have been growing in rather weird shapes but taste very good!

Wanting to make some tomato relish, I found a promising looking recipe online. I peeled and chopped the tomatoes by hand, but ran the 1.5kgs of onions through my food grinder – I just couldn’t face the tears! I took this photograph during a break in the rain – this is what three kilograms of chopped peeled tomatoes looks like…

I didn’t have the time to leave the chopped tomatoes and onions sitting overnight, so I reduced the salt to half a cup (and probably could have gone as low as one third of a cup – I suspect a lot of the salt is supposed to be lost when you pour off the liquid) and cooked the mixture down slowly for about three hours.

I ended up tripling the corn flour too – I thickened it until it was just slightly runnier than I wanted, on the understanding that these things continue to thicken in the jar. My only other variation to the recipe was to process the sealed jars in the Fowler’s pan for 15 minutes to ensure they were sterile and to lengthen their shelf life. The recipe made a huge amount – I ended up with 13 jars worth and even had to pour the last bits into an unsterilised jar for the fridge (so, if you’re a Canberra friend and like tomato relish, be sure to let me know…). I think I’ll halve the recipe next year!

The relish tastes great with cheese and ham, and I’ll happily endorse the recipe. I expect it will improve over time, too, as I think it’s best to let relishes sit for a month or so before eating.

We have more tomatoes on the vine, so I suspect I’ll have more preserving to do in the coming weeks. I think I’ll put up some more whole peeled tomatoes, and maybe a jar or two of pickles. Food in Jars has some lovely looking tomato sauce recipes too, so I’ll have to make sure I try out a few. We’ll see.

Posted in canning, chickens, garden, pickles, preserving | 10 Comments

A Hudson hat for Elena

Posted on February 10, 2014 by Ruth

When Elena saw I’d finished a hat for Hugo, she wanted in on the action. Luckily, I started this Hudson hat way back in November. I had all the knitting done, all that was left was to make the tassel and weave in my ends. It was languishing in my knitting bag – and Elena’s pleas for her own new hat were just the motivation I needed.

It’s a bit on the big side, but that fits in with my current bent – I want these things to get as much use as possible! I haven’t blocked it, and I don’t think I will. Some people add a row of single crochet or similar around the brim and earflaps to stop the rolling, but I kind of like it as it is.

This hat, too, is knitted from Bendigo Woollen Mills Luxury 10 ply – although I hand dyed it using Ashford acid dyes. The pattern is an easy enough knit, but next time I think I’ll leave removable stitch markers in at each decrease row in order to make sure I end up with a long enough hat. I used this tutorial (recommended in the pattern) to make the tassel.

I was playing yarn chicken with this one, so it’s not quite as long as it could have been. Just as well Elena’s not as picky as her mother, huh?

I didn’t think I’d get any photos of this one in use for a while but Elena’s home sick today and was quite happy to model it for me. She’s a sweet one. It won’t be properly cold for a month or two, but at least we’ll be ready when our first frost rolls around.

In other news, I think I’ve finally sorted out our chicken situation. Again. Who knew finding ourselves some suitable girls would turn into such a saga? I had had my heart set on getting some Australorp or Australorp crosses but there just aren’t any around at or around point of lay – and I looked as far as Sydney! So, I’ve had to abandon that idea.

I’ve arranged to pick up 3 Rhode Island Red x New Hampshire girls on Saturday. They should have a lot of the characteristics I was attracted to in Australorps – good layers for a long period of time (ie: don’t lay themselves to death over two or three years), quiet temperament and tolerant of climate extremes. Fingers crossed this lot works out!

Posted in Bendigo Woollen Mills, chickens, clothes for children, hand dyeing, knitting, stash, yarn | 2 Comments

A warm head for Hugo

Posted on February 7, 2014 by Ruth

Reading northern hemisphere knitting blogs during the Australian summer prompts some odd behaviour. I recently spied the garter ear flap hat pattern on the gorgeous Purl Bee.

How could I resist?

Elena is the most frequent recipient of my knitted goods so I decided that the first of these little hats should be for Hugo. I knitted him the toddler size. The yarn is Bendigo Woollen Mills Luxury 10 ply in Lake. I had some left from some of last year’s projects – you can’t argue with stash busting. My Ravelry notes are here.

I had very few problems with this pattern – my only real difficulty was with the sskp in the decreases for the crown. Somehow I read the pattern to mean I should mark the stitch by putting a marker on my needle, rather than using a removable marker to mark the actual stitch itself. I ended up with the decorative lines of stitching going every which way and had to rip it back.

As luck would have it, the next day I found a great tip reblogged over at not your average crochet on how to insert a lifeline into your knitting – a thread pulled through your row of stitches every now and again which protects you from disaster should you make a mistake or drop a stitch. Definitely check it out if you’re a knitter. Definitely.

Needless to say, I made myself a lifeline before attempting my decreases again.

I blocked the hat gently by spraying it with water and stretching it over a balloon inflated to the same diameter as Hugo’s head. I find Luxury 10 ply grows a lot with a firm blocking and I didn’t want to make it too big. I’ll save that for when Hugo grows and I want to stretch the hat out a bit.

I think, because I blocked it over a round balloon instead of flat, it’s not as pointy as it could be. I don’t mind. It suits him.

I was really happy with how this little hat for Hugo turned out. It must be pretty comfortable – he happily wore it for me despite our warm afternoon.

And, of course, Elena wanted to join in the photo fun. She wanted to know why the hat was for Hugo, not her. I guess I’ll be casting on another soon enough!

Have a restful weekend. We’ll just be hanging out, doing more chicken preparation, probably some knitting…and lots and lots of washing.

Posted in Bendigo Woollen Mills, creating for boys, knitting, stash, yarn | 6 Comments

Preserving

Posted on February 6, 2014 by Ruth

While we were on Norfolk, I took the opportunity to play around with my mother’s Fowlers Vacola preserving kit. It is pretty old school. Got to love that retro orange!

My grandmother has a taste for spicy and unusual flavours, so I decided to try out some pickles while we were there.

The first opportunity came when my mother and I found boxes of local tomatoes for cheap at the markets. I scoured the interwebs for interesting recipes and found Marissa McClellan’s gorgeous blog, Food in Jars. If you like preserving, you really need to check it out (if you haven’t found her already, that is).

First up, I decided to give Marissa’s pickled red tomatoes a go. I was dreading having to peel so many tomatoes, but the hint about scoring the bottom of the tomato with a serrated knife before blanching them was right on the money.

The recipe calls for slices of ginger along with red wine vinegar and pickling spice.

Pickles and chutneys really test my patience. You’re meant to leave them to sit before cracking them open to judge your efforts. Tantalising. I ended up opening up a jar of the pickles after about five days.

My stomach sank as I tasted my first bite. They were so strong and astringent. For some reason – probably not thinking enough – I hadn’t expected that. I felt awful for wasting so many tomatoes and so much time.

I thought about it for a while, though, and was brave enough to go back for another taste – a smaller amount with some bite-y vintage cheddar. It was perfect. I was so glad. The recipe was a winner and I learned a big lesson. Don’t go eating big spoonfuls of pickles by themselves unless you know what to expect!

I also gave some of the preserved whole tomatoes a go. I found them much easier as you don’t need to worry about squashing the peeled tomatoes as you pack them into the jars.

I love the pretty patterns which form as the tomatoes press against the glass.

Next on my list were some pickled beets with honey. I had to reduce the recipe as we only had 600g (about 1lb) of beetroot – I just kept the vinegar/water ratio the same…except for that moment late at night where I slipped putting the lid on one of the jars and ended up with beetroot brine all over my mother’s kitchen floor and white cabinets. Murphy’s Law and all that.

I also cracked the beets open slightly earlier than I should have – but they were tasty too. We tried them in a salad with grilled haloumi, and also as part of a cheese plate.

There’s something so satisfying about rows of pickles, lined up all ready to be eaten.

Given that each recipe I tried was a winner – and all have been grandmother-approved too – I logged on to our local library network and reserved myself a copy of Marissa’s book, Food in Jars. I picked it up today, and it’s every bit as great as I hoped it might be. I think I might have to make it a permanent addition to my library – as well as the new Preserving by the Pint, which will be released soon.

Have you tried your hand at preserving? I’d love to hear all about your favourite recipes. It’s time to add to my repertoire!

Posted in canning, pickles, preserving, savoury | 2 Comments

Panda pajamas get drafted into action

Posted on February 4, 2014 by Ruth

After all my moaning about our hot weather (Canberra has had some crazily hot and dry weather statistics this summer), I’m curled up on the couch with a blanket. We’re expecting an overnight low of 9°C (48°F). Madness.

Anyway, it means the children are in their winter pajamas – and Elena’s getting the chance to give her panda pjs a run a lot sooner than I thought she would. As I suspected, the size three is very big on her. That’s okay though – winter won’t be here for a few more months and I want them to last a while after all that sewing!

I was laughing as I was loading up my photos. I usually take pictures before we head out the door to childcare. This is what things look like after a day at ‘school’, just before we brush our teeth and plait her hair for bed. Messy and crazy tired.

Look mamma, I’m a bird!

Posted in clothes for children, Made by Rae, sewing | 7 Comments

Some curtains for the chooks

Posted on February 2, 2014 by Ruth

We’ve had another hot and busy day here, and I must admit that it’s sapping my desire to sew for KCW. I think I’m going to pass on my final hour of sewing and try to finish off a little beanie I started a week or so ago instead (check out this Purl Bee pattern – so cute!).

I did manage to snatch a moment to sew this morning, however. Just not kid’s clothes…I finished some curtains for our chicken coop. I know you think I’m mad. For goodness sake, even I think I’m mad on this one…I just couldn’t help myself.

Curtains in a chicken coop? Just far too tempting. I reused a curtain rod from the house, and Alex bought me some little brackets at the hardware store. Anyway, it’s out of my system now – I can move on!

As far as I can tell from my research, the curtains shouldn’t perturb the chickens from using the nesting boxes. If they do cause I problem they’re easy enough to get rid of!

So here you go. The curtains are up, the floor is in. All that’s left is to mount the whole thing on some treated pine, lay my hands on some second hand lino to go on the floor (it’s removable and helps when cleaning the coop out), find some tree branches for perches, and get some waterers and feeders organised. Then, we’ll be ready to go!

Posted in chickens, Kid's Clothes Week, sewing | 4 Comments

KCW makes so far

Posted on February 1, 2014 by Ruth

This has been a bit of a funny KCW. Things have been rather busy, and stinking hot. I’ve been sewing in the evenings – I’ve managed my one hour a day, but not much more! It feels like it’s all going rather slowly, but I think it’s just that I’ve been pretty tired.

It didn’t help that I had a major disagreement with my overlocker on Sunday evening. We’re not talking a small lovers’ tiff here. It was major. I had to rethread the entire thing (which has to be my least favourite activity EVER – you need tweezers…) and not only that, something went wrong along the way rendering the whole machine useless. I was not best pleased. After tinkering with it over a few evenings, I did finally get it going again. And Alex rang on Wednesday and booked me in for an overlocker course in April. On his birthday. He’s so good to me.

Elena’s been very keen on sewing recently. Whenever she disappears I can find her at my machine. Very cute, if not slightly alarming. I’ve taken to turning the power off at the wall!

I did sneak some sewing in on Thursday morning, but I did have a toddler on my lap…You can guess how much we managed. The rest of Thursday was a write off. We’ve (finally) taken the side off Elena’s cot and she didn’t sleep. At. All. Of course, Hugo was disturbed by Elena’s fussing and didn’t have his afternoon nap. I ended up bundling everyone off to the shops for a baby cino and a trip to the library. But no sewing! Thankfully she’s since taken to the bed and we’ve not had many problems since.

Despite the heat, I have been working on winter pajamas for Elena. She’s set for summer clothes, and I think we’ve got enough to get her through most of autumn too. It just seems like a waste to be sewing for now. We’re smack in the middle of summer at the moment, and Elena will be three mid-winter. She’s pretty small for her age, but I decided to sew size three for her. Hopefully she’ll get some wear out of them this winter – and perhaps even more again next winter when she’s four.

I’ve finished three items so far – two pairs of flannelette pajama pants, and one matching tunic top. All of the fabric is from my stash.

The pants are Made By Rae’s Parsley Pants. Parsley Pants is a great, unisex pattern. There are stacks of variations (flat front, pintucks, pockets, knee pads, and tuxedo stripes) and it runs from size 2 through size 10. I made the most basic pants and they were super easy – there are only 4 steps! The legs of the pants were way too long for my little shorty, but instead of cutting them shorter I’ve just hemmed them up. I’ll let them down as Elena grows. There’s a little room in the waist too. I can replace the elastic as she grows too.

The pajama top is another Made By Rae pattern, the Charlie Tunic. Also unisex, you can make it long or short sleeved. The pattern ranges from 12 months to 5T. There’s also a dress add-on that I purchased too. I think it would look super cute in corduroy with tights for winter.

The tunic was easy enough to sew but I must admit I did wonder there, for a moment, if I’d ever get it finished! I could have left the side vents and sleeve facings off, but I think they’re really sweet so I stayed with it. To be honest, I think I was the problem – rather than the project or the pattern. It all came together very smoothly.

The sleeve facings are neat, but also mean you can turn the cuffs down for extra length when your child grows!

The neck facing went on really easily. I had expected it to be a pain, given all the turns.

I used Rae’s hidden button loop trick (on page 11 of the pattern) and it worked a charm.

It’s been so hot that I’ve only got one photo from earlier in the week of the pants on Elena. I couldn’t bring myself to put the others on her.

In non-sewing news, I received a yarn delivery this week (and a new swift, but more on that another day!) – some Skein Top Draw Sock yarn in fig, and two balls of Holst Garn Samarkand in deep garnet.

I have shawl plans for the Holst Garn….I’m thinking of this pattern but I’m having last minute yarn-choice jitters. Any knitters out there care to confirm or assuage my worries? Will I live to regret an Echo Flower shawl in Samarkand?

Hope you’re all having a lovely weekend!

Posted in clothes for children, Kid's Clothes Week, knitting, Made by Rae, sewing, stash, yarn | 8 Comments

And so KCW begins!

Posted on January 27, 2014 by Ruth

It’s after dinner on Monday night. The first day of Kid’s Clothes Week…and I have done exactly…nothing! Well, I have washed my fabric. Does that count? I have grand plans for some pajamas for Elena, and some shorts for Hugo and after that – well, I’m just not sure. So much for a super organised KCW!

I’ve not been sewing because we’ve had a pretty productive day. A play date and catch up with some of my favourite fellow mums and their lovely daughters, more chicken coop building (we’ve finished all the big bits!) and a trip to the shops in the afternoon. Busy.

The coop came together really easily. We decided to add a layer of plastic between the frame and the roof where the coop and run join, and also between the roof and the wooden ridge fitted over the top, in the hope it might make the whole thing a little more water-tight and stop the frame getting wet. I need to run a craft knife around the remaining plastic to remove the excess. I’m hoping we’ll eventually fit a second roof over this one – perhaps a colourbond one – with a greater overhang for even more protection.

We’re going to lay a frame of treated pine along the slab, and then fix the coop and run to that. I’m hoping keeping the structure up and away from the damp will help it last longer. Other than that, all we’ve really got to do is fit the floor of the chicken coop (I need access to, ahem, install the curtain rail and curtains I’m sewing…), and the ramp to help the chickens get up and down.

The coop has lots of easy access for cleaning, and hopefully adequate ventilation. There are nesting boxes you can access from the outside. Now we just need some feeding/watering equipment and some bedding/mulch…and some chickens!