The Good....the Bad....& the Sad...!

 We had a lovely Easter....home made hot cross buns on Good Friday..... a lovely sleep in on Saturday...then an Easter egg hunt in the back garden with the Gboy on Sunday morning, followed by Brunch.....and a visit to our parents in the afternoon....My man having 4 days off in a row....perfect.

All ready for the oven......very wonky but who doesn't love imperfection !!

All brushed with sugar syrup and ready to eat..

This week I got around to making tomato relish from some of the last of the crop......followed the recipe I found on the internet and I did think 1/2 cup of salt into the chopped onion and tomatoes seemed quite a lot.....2 cups of malt vinegar also.... and it took forever to reduce.... upon tasting it is very very salty....I checked the comments on the recipe and they all said way too much salt.....I bottled it up anyway and will see how it tastes in a couple of weeks time...such a nuisance using a recipe that I wasn't too sure of.....would love to hear from anyone who has a great tomato relish recipe!


after a quick dip in boiling water the skins come off nice and easy.

Red and a couple of yellow heritage tomatoes, onions.......and loads of salt !



Will see how it goes, but I think it is going to be a bit nasty ...!

 And sadly the little chicken who hasn't been well for quite a while died yesterday......when I went out in the morning to let all the girls out she was just standing there not moving and let me pick her up.....she was so thin......I placed her in a small cage and put her on the porch in the warm sunshine...she laid with her eyes closed all day only waking occasionally.. and the fluffy girls and I sat with her in the sun for ages....she seemed quite peaceful but I wondered if it would have been more kind to put her down....It is such a dilemma but I let nature take it's course..... she had been eating and running around the day before.......hopefully her last day she was peaceful away from the others who were starting to peck at her....I buried her in the backyard under the lemon tree.

Daisy and Daphne sat with me keeping their eye on the poor thing...she was very weak and listless.

A Really Good Friday.......

While I am not a religious person and Easter doesn't really hold the same significance for me, I do love traditions....my man is from Scotland originally and was raised a Catholic.....he isn't particularly religious any more but still can't bring himself to eat meat on Good Friday...funny how religious traditions stay in your psyche .......so after we polished off a couple of HCB's for breakfast (delicious by the way)..... my daughter popped in for brunch and we had a few more.... then my man had a salmon sandwich for lunch (I had left over beef casserole, I know...seems sacrilegious) .......It was a bit chilly here today so we lit the fire....opened up a bottle of wine... some meat free nibbles and settled down for a lovely late afternoon relax......I cooked up some beautiful fresh flathead tails for dinner....it's pretty easy to keep my man happy .... all made for a really Good Friday.......it's nice in a way to keep his Fishy Friday tradition ....no offence intended to any Christians !!

Thankfully Fishy Friday doesn't exclude wine and cheese....they are my Good Friday tradition.

Hot Cross Buns......

Made my own hot cross buns from scratch....admittedly I used the bread maker to make the dough

....and I still managed to make a big mess when I made the paste for the crosses and the glaze which I managed to flick all over the stovetop....still, you do get a warm fuzzy feeling when you make things yourself instead of buying them from the supermarket....who knows what's in them...I use organic ingredients..same recipe as raisin loaf but added dried apricots......Hope they taste as good as they look and smell.....that's breakfast taken care of....enjoy the Easter break.

Managed to make a mess of the stovetop....ooops !!

An odd assortment of shapes ....but I love that about homemade things...just a little quirky.

What I'm Reading This Month......

Bookclub book for this month is The People's Train by Tom Keneally....haven't had the chance to read anything of his before but I am told he's great and I will enjoy it....I really hope I do as the last few books have been a bit disappointing.

Bookclub book this month....fingers crossed !!

Also in the stack to read....finish the Valley of Amazement by Amy Tan....have read her books before and enjoyed them...this one however is a bit of a poor mans Memoirs of a Geisha....except it's set in China and not Japan...it's an easy read and quite interesting....These few borrowed from the library....Bellagrand by Paullina Simons...enjoyed her earlier books..see how this one goes....Sustainable House...see if I can pick up any more ideas...and lastly Simply an Inspired Life...about consciously choosing happiness...always up for a bit of self improvement...

Books to get through this month....really hope there's a treasure among them.

 Beautiful blue skies and sunshine for the last two days....gorgeous autumn weather...lunch today fruit, cheese and hummus with rice crackers....sat outside in the sun...perfect day !!

Beautiful sunshine and delicious healthy lunch.

The hot cross bun dough is humming away in the bread maker and I will finish off the buns and into the oven tonight....fresh buns for breakfast....wishing a safe and happy Easter to all !!