Coq au vin.

On Saturday night Michelle and I donned our gingham aprons and decided to try out our first ever Julia Child recipe. Michelle has the cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child, and we decided to make her classic Coq au Vin (literally translated to Chicken in Wine).

The recipe was very complicated and involved using every frying pan and saucepan I own. We followed her instructions to the letter, even the part where we boiled, iced, fried, then boiled white onions! It seriously took almost an hour from beginning preparations to serving on the table, but oh it was worth it!

The dish has chicken and bacon - yum!

A printed copy of the recipe...

In the middle of the cooking, we had to flambe! This is when you pour in brandy (or any alcohol) and set it alight! You can see we are exploding with excitement!

A classic French dish, complete with bread, white linen table and French candles.

If you would like to try making this dish yourself, either purchase Julia's book, or visit this link below for the recipe:

http://whatscookingamerica.net/Poultry/CoqAuVin.htm

Sam xox

Liberty of London.

Yesterday I had a sewing day with my Mother-In-Law. I can't reveal (yet) what we made, but I wanted to share this photograph with you. Her mother recently got back from a trip to London, and brought my MIL this bundle of Liberty of London fabrics - and they are just divine!!!

We had a great time playing with them and considering what kind of quilt she could make with them....

Sam xox

Sewing day.

Last Saturday my friend Mel and I got together at her house for some sewing and craft. She was keen to make a foot cushion that she had seen my pattern for a while back. I arrived bright (but not so early) to her home. We decided a trip to our local fabric store was in order, so we jumped in the car and went.

We spent the afternoon sewing and chatting, and managed to come up with a few nice things...

Mel made this foot cushion...

I love her fabric choice.

I spent a few hours playing with buttons: Check out Buckingham Road to see what I came up with!

These are some amazing water colour paintings Mel has done over the past few weeks. I told her that our next craft day would involve her teaching me how to paint like this! I think they are beautiful!

Sam xox

Grand cooking plans.

First things first!

I had to buy a new rotary cutter today as I trod on my old one, and managed to snap it in half! Fortunately it was closed so no damage was done to my foot. I have a quilting plan up my sleeve... thats all I will say :-)

I had a nice dinner with Michelle at her place last night. She made a Garlic Butter, Prawn and Bacon Pasta, and it was delicious! She found the recipe on the Taste website.

After dinner we watched P.S I Love You (cried most of the way through it) and read some of her Julie Child Mastering the Art of French Cooking cookbook she was given for her birthday last October.

Last weekend Michelle had a sleep over at my place because Jamie was away, and she insisted she bring Julie&Julia for us to watch. I felt it had a similar feeling to Devil Wears Prada, what with Julia and her husbands relationship dramas, but ignoring that I thought the film was really good. I didn't realise Michelle had the cookbook, so I was super excited to see it sitting on her bookshelf last night.

She is yet to cook anything from it, preferring to read through it first (I think she is up to page four hundred and something of the total seven hundred or so pages). We think the first recipe will be the "Duck boning one" - more for the experience rather than how it will taste! My brother (who is the master chef) assures me it is totally easy, I think his words were something along the lines of "You just rip the bones out of the little *** and then chuck the whole thing on the hot plate..." Right Tom ... I'm sure that is the impression Julia Child wanted to get across too.

Michelle did point out one problem with our goal .... we don't actually know where you can buy a whole fresh duck...

Lets hope we don't try the mature partridge recipes!

Sam xox

Renae's cross stitches.

On Saturday night my good friend Renae came over for dinner and some craft. You see, Renae has been bitten by the cross stitch bug, actually, more than bitten, I would say more like gobbled up by it! She has many projects on the go at once (don't we all) but what impressed me most was how quickly she gets her stitching done!

I was lucky enough to see a couple of her pieces, and I took some photos so I could show you all too.

This is a cross stitch of an elephant and its baby. Renae has only just started this one.

This cute little possum (I hope) is a native Australian cross stitch. Renae spent hours trying to figure out how to make the French knots for his eyes!

This masterpiece is a gift for Renae's Grandmother for Mothers Day. I love this piece ssooooo much! Can you see all the cute little quilt blocks?

I have one very clever friend!

Sam xox