Thankful Thursday #1

My poor neglected blog. Life got busy, crazy busy. My husband and I both had minor, but time consuming, health problems. Work was busy and this blog was just one of many things I let slip. 

But now I'm trying to get into a routine of posting here more regularly. I've always been a list maker and I've seen the Thankful Thursday lists floating around on blogs and knew I just had to join in. So here it goes!

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Cake pics and dinner at Gambaro's

My blog has sadly been neglected the last few months. I'd like to say it's because I've been busy, but in all honesty, I haven't been that busy at all. I've been baking but nothing too exciting. Just a few treats (bribes?) for my parents and their employees in exchange for work on my car. I did make a pretty cute cake for my husband as a Valentines Day treat, but I intended to take photos step by step and completely forgot about it.

Chocolate cake with a cute
 little pink heart hidden inside

But now we're in March and this weekend saw the birthday of my gorgeous, sweet sister in law. Our family did it's usual thing and went out to dinner, this time to Gambaro's in Brisbane. It's a bit of a favourite restaurant, every one seems to enjoy the menu.

Balloon bouquet for the birthday girl,
 inside one was a gift card!

Well, all except me, sadly I'm the only one in the family who isn't a seafood lover. I just wish there were a few more non-seafood options! I know it's a seafood restaurant  but there's only so much seafood I can handle. Two courses of it is too much for me, but the only non seafood choice for main is a steak. And well, I can get a steak at the pub, if you know what I mean.  A steak just doesn't seem fancy when every one else is ordering lovely, well thought out meals. I'm hoping their menu changes before we go back there again. Their old menu, which is the one on their website, had a delicious lamb dish. I know they had a smaller menu while they were renovating and now that the renovations have finished I'm crossing my fingers they go back to the larger menu. And bring back the cocktail menu too! Oh! And bring back the crepes on the dessert menu too!

After dinner we went back to my brother and sister in laws house. We are always too full after dinner to have cake, but I planned for that. I made a cake for her, and with the extra batter had whipped up a few cupcakes for mum and dad to take home. I wanted her and my brother to have enough cake to take to work or share with friends. I think her sister and two nephews were visiting today so I'm hoping she got to play the favourite auntie and spoil the nephews with lots of birthday cake!

Chocolate cake with a cherry tree with one sweet little owl.

The cake itself was chocolate and it was covered in a dark chocolate ganache. The filling was caramel, made the old fashioned way of boiling a can of condensed milk and then when cool mixing in some whipped cream. (Oh boy did I baby sit that can of condensed milk, I think I topped up the stock pot every 15mins, I was not going to have that can explode and cover my kitchen with hot sticky caramel!)

The decorations are all fondant, my local spotlight was out of white fondant so I bought a different brand from Woolworths. Which I really regret. It was super soft, sticky and a pain to work with. It sweated so much! The decorations you see are the second attempt. I had the cake all ready on Friday night, but when I woke up Saturday morning they had melted. I nearly cried! But this tree looks so much nicer than the first one so it was worth it. The owl looks nicer too, the first one looked a bit plumper and more like a cat, whereas this one is definitely owl shaped. 

Closer look at Mrs Owl

But the minute I put a lid on the cake carrier it would start to sweat again. I'm sad to say that when I gave the cake to my sister in law it had started to get a bit sticky again. The luster dust that I'd used on the flowers was no longer sparkly and it looked just a bit wet. Ugh. Not using that brand of fondant ever again. 

Luckily everyone said they couldn't tell that the fondant was sticky, but I could. Oh well, lesson learnt!

Next up is my birthday, but because it's just a few days before Easter we're going to celebrate in April instead. Just to space it all out a bit. I'll still make a cake for my husband and I to have on my birthday, but I'll make a larger one for when I family come to visit too. Plus there's Easter baking as well! I still don't know what I'll do for Easter, maybe some cake pops and a cheesecake.

Macarons

The last few weeks haven't been that great. We've had a lot of sad news, some from Tony's family, some from my family and a few other things haven't turned out the way we've hoped they would. All in all it's been pretty rough.

I was moping and had just popped in to our local Woolies supermarket to pick up the necessities after a bad week (chocolate, chips, popcorn and diet coke) when I wandered down the baking aisle and saw this.

Passionfruit macarons in a box mix? I very rarely buy box mixes, I can't even remember the last time I bought one. I don't even know why I was looking in the packet mix section! Baking is a sure way to cheer myself up. I love baking, it's relaxing and then at the end of it there's a yummy treat to eat.

But here's where I fail at a foodie, I have to admit I've never even tried a macaron before. I'm more of a cupcake girl. I love cake in all it's forms (except trifle, to do that to cake is a disgrace) and truth be told, I really prefer home made cake to other sweets or cakes you can buy at a bakery or cafe.

I also live on the Gold Coast and in my suburb bakeries and cake shops are disappointing so I avoid them at all costs. I have seen macarons for sale in the cold case section at Woolworths, but just couldn't bring myself to buy them. 

So when I saw the box mix I just snapped it up. My husband was a bit shocked that I bought a box mix, he was even sceptical about them. Adriano Zumbo is famous for macarons and complicated desserts, so I wasn't sure I could even get them to turn out and look anything like a macaron. I have spent many hours watching cooking videos on youtube so had picked up a few tips and pointers. I'd also seen a quite a few disasters.

But one Wednesday night after even more sad news I cracked open the box and gave them a try. I'd read that the mix doesn't whip up too well in stand mixers as it's only a small amount, but I had no issues using my kitchen aid. I did a few steps that aren't mentioned on the box. I left them sit on the bench for about 30mins before baking (I got distracted and forgot about them after I'd finished piping, whoops!) and then let them cool completely before trying to take them off the baking paper.

They turned out pretty well and were absolutely delicious! So much so that this week I bought the salted caramel flavour to try! Yum!

Four years ago...

Four years ago I married my wonderful husband. We had a small wedding, just 40 guests, made up of our families and close friends. Our ceremony lasted only 20 mins, just perfect for two people like us who are quite shy and don't like a lot of attention. Our wedding wasn't a flashy, fancy affair. It was pretty casual and laid back, just like us. It was exactly how we'd planned it and how I'd imagined it would be.

While the wedding day itself went smoothly, our first 18 months of married life were a bit more stressful, but they do say that the first year is the hardest! Thankfully that's all behind us and I'm happy to say that life is pretty damn awesome right now. I can't wait to see what the future holds for us.

And now some pics! These were taken by our wonderful photographer Toni Snell!

Christmas shopping and planning

Not only am I a planner and list maker, but I love Christmas. I try and start my Christmas shopping early, not too early, but well before the Christmas rush starts.

I write down present ideas throughout the year, I just make notes on my phone and usually list the what the gift is, where to buy it and how much it is. In previous years we've bought for all of my husbands family, aunts, cousins, grandparents as well as his mum, brother and sister. Shopping for that many people means I need to be organised or it turns into a last minute frantic shopping trip. When it comes to my family there's only my parents, brother and sister in law that we buy for, but they're so hard to shop for!

Wrapping paper for this year and next year!

I've gotten a bit of a late start this year, it's already late October and so far I've only bought one present. But I have sorted out my wrapping paper, gift tags and cards. I like to buy two giant rolls of wrapping paper, I try to coordinate the colours but get different patterns. I'll all of my family's presents in one roll and all of Tony's family's presents in the other roll. They next year I'll use the same wrapping paper but swap the family's around so they're not getting the same pattern as the year before. I hate buying wrapping paper, the rolls are awkward to carry and roll about in the boot of the car. Plus this way it makes it so much easier when it comes to sorting out presents and loading up the car.



We're also crazy and visit both our families on Christmas day. It's a long day that starts too early, involves a traditional cooked Christmas lunch with Tony's family (which by dessert I've usually fielded one or two phone calls from my family asking when we'll be at their place!) then we head out to my parent's place and have a Christmas dinner of cold meats, seafood and salad or some years a barbecue. By the end of the day we've usually driven about 250kms, spent around 3.5hrs in the car and eaten way too much!

Christmas for me, takes some coordinating and planning. One tradition I love is baking Christmas biscuits. Every year I make gingerbread and shortbread. When my grandma was alive she always made shortbread for Christmas and special occasions and it just wouldn't be Christmas without it. I love gingerbread and there's just something about the spicy, gingery biscuit that says Christmas to me. I can't bake the biscuits too early, as my husband has a huge sweet tooth and baked yummies never last too long! I also have to make double batches of both biscuit mixes as there's a lot of people in my husbands family and my family like having left over sweets to nibble on in the days after Christmas.

But this year I've also been asked to bring a dessert dish. Dad asked if I could bake mini pavlovas, I made them earlier in the year and they were a hit. Even my brother who usually hates anything with fruit ate them! Well, he ate them after picking off the berries and kiwi fruit. My husbands family love the dark chocolate cupcakes I make so I'll be making those too.

I've already planned out the things I have to do during the week before Christmas. Luckily, I'm a relief teacher so I'll already be on holidays that week. My husband isn't as lucky, but he does have a week off starting on Christmas Eve. The only thing is, I've already got a list of things he'll have to do on Christmas Eve.  He'll probably grumble but it's Christmas, how can you stay grumpy for long when there's yummy foods, time with loved ones and not to mention presents!

Christmas can be a lot of work and can be totally overwhelming but if I break it down and plan it all out then things run much more smoothly. For now I just have to work on shopping for presents. Once December 1st is here the tree will go up and so will the lights along our balcony. Each year we add more and more lights to our little balcony. I love Christmas lights, one day we'll buy a house and I can be totally obnoxious with the amount of lights we have. But until then we put just a few strings of lights and make sure they're all packed away by January 2nd.

Spring is here!

Who can resist a freckle cone from an ice-cream van?

The spring weather has finally hit the Gold Coast. A few weeks ago I packed up our summer quilt, washed it and replaced it with a light weave cotton blanket, but last weekend it was too warm for even that! I eventually had to give in and set up one of the small pedestal fans in our bedroom.

The spring cleaning bug has hit our household. Tony and I have been working on de-cluttering our apartment. For two people (and two cats!) we sure have a lot of stuff. I think what the problem is, in the past we've always moved about every 18 months and in the past have used moving time as a chance to de-clutter. We've lived in our apartment for three years now and still have moving boxes that haven't been unpacked!

Our little storage shed down in the basement (it's at the back of our car space and is about a third of the size of a small garden shed) is full of a lot of our extra stuff. There's old computer monitors, boxes of spare computer parts, boxes of cd's and computer cords and cables, as well as the usual stuff like eskies, air mattresses, fold up chairs and our Christmas tree and lights. But there's also two cardboard boxes from two moves ago as well as the boxes of books. So many books.

While my husband has a hard time letting go of computer parts and has a large collection of floppy discs, (some from the early 90s!) Most of my boxes are of books.

Years ago when we first moved in together we close to a couple of really great second hand book stores. Twenty dollars would buy me anywhere between four and five books, I was a uni student so would spend my summer and winter breaks reading. We also lived in a much larger place. Our rental was a three bedroom duplex that had separate living and dining rooms. It was easily twice the size of our current apartment, so we had the bookshelves and the room to store a lot of books.

Then we moved in with family to save for our wedding and most of our belongs and all of our books went into boxes and storage. Three moves later and all these boxes of books have never been unpacked because we've never had the room.

Last week Tony brought up some of these boxes from the basement. Three large 60L storage tubs and four smaller 32L ones. We spent some time sorting through them, making toss, donate, keep and give away piles. I kept all the books I know I'll reread as well as the books I know that mum would like. But a lot of them I'll never read again, or I own digital or audio copies of them. A few water damaged books got thrown out (I think they were ones I'd dropped while reading in the bath, or had gotten splashed at the beach) but most of them went in the donate pile.

And after carting around a few hundred floppy discs for the last 10-20 years, Tony went through all of them and the majority of those were thrown out too. It took a few hours but it's great to have that little bit of extra space in the storage shed again! Sadly, there's another six large 60L tubs of books to go. That's for another weekend!

To celebrate starting our de-clutter and spring clean we went out to Swell Sculpture Festival that's held yearly on the beach just south from where we live. We've been talking about going to it each year for the last six years! But this year we finally made it. I have to say, I think we timed our trip well. We went on the last day in the late afternoon. It was easy to get a park and wasn't overly crowded. Plus, the sun was setting so it wasn't overly hot and there was no glare from the water.