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

Our trip to the Snowy Mountains.

As promised, here are some photos from our holiday. We stayed in a cabin in a township called Jindabyne, with a population of about 3500. It is a small town, nestled at the foothills of the Alpine Region. There is a huge lake in Jindabyne, which you can often catch trout from. Unfortunately, even though we fished every day, we were unsuccessful in hooking a fish... of any kind! The weather was beautiful, clear blue skies every day. But the temperature was quite chilly, only reaching 10C in the day and dropping to zero at night. Hence the campfire on the edge of the lake...

Trying to keep warm whilst waiting to catch a trout.

* * * * *

A 40 minute drive from Jindabyne takes you into the national park and to a place called Thredbo, one of Australia's best ski destinations during the snow season. Actually, the Snowy Mountains are the only place in Australia where you get the level of snow you need for skiing. The highest mountain in Australia can be found here - Mount Kosciuszko - and it sits 2000kilometers above sea level (the highest point in Australia).

Jamie and I sitting on the rock where Jamie proposed two years ago!

A the lookout to Mount Kosciuszko (the blip in the middle of the horizon).

There is a beautiful rose garden in the Jindabyne township.

It is quite spectacular to see Autumn changing the trees in Jindabyne. You see, all of Australia's native flora are evergreen plants, meaning they keep their leaves all year round. That is why it is exciting to see trees like this one...

This photo sums up our holiday - picture perfect.

Sam xox

Home again.

We are back from our holiday in Jindabyne! Unfortunately Jamie's computer is having trouble charging, so I cannot access any of our holiday photos just yet. Instead I thought I would let you know what we have done since we got back ("got back" being arrived at my parent-in-laws place 5 hours ago!).

My father-in-law is an Agricultural Teacher at a local High School. He is an avid gardener and has a vegetable garden that would be the envy of people with the greenest of thumbs. I always get excited when he says "Sam do you want to pick some..." or "Sam did you want to come out to the school". The later was said today. So Jamie, Jamie's parents, and I jumped in the car and went to the school Ag plot. We picked purple, yellow, and green beans from the veggie patch. I collected 2 dozen eggs from the chicken coop. And to top it off, he gave me some herbs and a lavender plant he has grown from a cutting. Here is my box of goodies!

He also grows some of the most beautiful roses, and Jamie's mum was able to bring home a lovely collection. Their perfume is incredible!

Jamie's Mum also showed us a book our wedding photographers are using to show potential customers. It's of our wedding! It is amazing.

Jamie's parents were kind enough to look after Prada while we were away. I think she has had such a great time she won't want to come home!

I will hopefully have holiday photos to show you in my next blog entry!

Sam xox