T Stands for Tuesday-Disaster!! Lemon drink for coughs and colds

 Opps I was setting up my new photographic area and the dowling stick fell down on top of my new saucer. I can still use the cup. Why did it happen to one of the loveliest of cups?

I made this cold and cough drink which consists of slices of lemon, fill jar with honey to cover lemons and about a 2inch size of ginger. Scoop out a spoonful and add hot water. Voila infused ginger, lemon and honey drink to sooth that sore throat. We are coming out of our flu season and going into spring but I drink a cup of this a day to keep bugs away from me and build my immune system up for the next winter season. Store in fridge and keeps up to 3 months if there is any left hahaha.

Come back tomorrow to see my new photographic set up on my WOYWW post

Joining Bluebeard and Elizabeth for her T for Tuesday Meme

T for Tuesday on a Wednesday

For some reason I can't seem to finish the last bite of a Turkish delight choc bar. I've done it a few times now.

Joining Elizabeth and Bluebeard for this Tuesday Meme.

T for Tuesday and Cauliflower Soup another version

Well as promised I made another version of my Cauliflower Soup Recipe, this version is way tastier..ahem I didn't get to taste the first one but I bet this one beats the first. Now in my first recipe I forgot to put the cheese in, this time I remembered but I forgot the anchovy hahahaha. What a dill I am when it comes to cooking. 

So this is what it looks like to start with, hubby and I are trying to lose weight so I found a recipe book that I had a long time ago that cause me to loose 5 kgs in 4 weeks by cooking sensibly. You cook with tomato juice instead of oil. So you can see a tinge of tomato juice in the pot. I added zucchini to the pot after roasting the cauliflower, onion and garlic in the oven (at this point I didn't know I was adding more ingredients so nothing else got roasted. Also added round cabbage, because I had both ingredients in the fridge I needed using up.

I added some chicken salt and pepper but found it still bland, then I found a jar of chilli and lime salsa in the cupboard from Anthony's Sauces in Canberra, definitely going to order some more of this ingredient.

And here you have the finished product, I asked hubby if he wanted it as is or pureed. He does not like his soup pureed lol. Had I known that I would have cut the vegetables up smaller into bite size pieces, so here I am struggling to fit a large cauliflower in my mouth LOL. Luckily it was boiled all day so its soft and I can break it up with a spoon.

Seriously this is one of the tastiest soups I've ever made with so little ingredients, the secret is in the roasting.

Joining Bluebeard and Elizabeth for T for Tuesdays. 

T for Tuesday

Spring is here and what better way to welcome it in than with a wholesome fruit smoothie, which is really just fruit I crushed in my pretend Nutri bullet. I added some orange juice to give it some liquidity. Took the lid off my mason jar so the juice could flow out the straw smoothly and discovered the fruit pieces were too big to come up the straw hahhahaa. I might have to go back to an ordinary glass to drink hey.

Not having much luck with my mason jar drinking glass am I!!!

Joining Bluebeard and Elizabeth for T for Tuesdays

T for Tuesday

I went to my favourite Tea shop called T2 they had this tea for sampling, Of course whenever I go visit them I always taste the tea on offer and inevitably buy something that I have tasted. 

Clever marketing!!

 I also found the perfect lighting to take my photographs...in the bathroom, of all places. The window is really tiny and high up but is enough diffused lighting to make a pretty clear picture. You can see my photographic setup HERE

 I also found this mason jar/glass that is the in thing these days, I dont know if I like the straw permanently in it but for $2 one can't go wrong in experimenting. I added mint from my garden, raw honey (after I tasted it and found it needed something sweet). The sample at the store had ice in it and I thought I'd try it hot as it still abit cool here. Well I prefer the cold version so I popped some water into ice cube trays and will test out the cooler version tomorrow.

That mason jar is driving me crazy, I cant have the lid on to suck out of the straw, its needs air, so off the lid goes. not sure how long the straw will last although it is a good quality one.

This is the Rosehip tea.

Joining Bluebeard and Elizabeth for T for Tuesday Meme

T for Tuesday

I've been living on honey and lemon drinks for a while now that it is winter here. I think between hubby and I we've gone through 4 kgs of fresh honey. It is so different to the honey we buy in the supermarkets. The honey comes straight from the bees and isn't heat treated which takes out the goodness of honey. I read somewhere that the honey in Australia is the best with healing qualities. Thats a 1 litre flask I bought from Aldi. I take it to work and make 2 a day at home.

EDITED: I thought I'd check out some facts about honey, I definitely can taste the difference in honey that is raw and the ones from the supermarket that is heat treated. Honey has antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties and is a cough suppressant.

WARNING: DO NOT GIVE RAW HONEY TO INFANTS UNDER 1 YEAR OLD, ITS GIVES THEM BOTULISM, INFANTS DO NOT HAVE A DEVELOPED IMMUNE SYSTEM TO DEFEND AGAINST INFECTION.

Shop for honey and you'll see that some are lighter, others are darker. In general, the darker the honey, the better its antibacterial and antioxidant power.

Here's a great Article on uses of honey.

Natural honey better at killing bacteria than artificial honey - Kendall Powell wrote in the journal Nature that "natural honey kills bacteria three times more effectively" than an artificial honey solution of the same thickness and sugar concentration.⁷

Bought some of these teas I saw my colleague at work drinking. They are all green teas. And of course I had to have my favourite black tea English Breakfast. I thought I'd try the Irish Breakfast too

Joining Bluebeard and Elizabeth for T for Tuesday Meme

T for Tuesday

Hubby makes the best macaroni and cheese, he added blue cheese from Aldi for this one.

It was absolutely delicious.
Nice with a cup of tea.

EDITED: Due the comments about hubby taking over the cooking in my house.
Heres my secret: I told hubby I cook on weekdays and he cooks on weekends
and if he doesn't cook then we don't eat...and I stuck to my guns hahahaha.
So after a few weeks of no food on the weekends he got the hint!!

Joining Bluebeard and Elizabeth for some T for Tuesday Meme

T for Tuesdays

Apologies for the murky photos, I took them with my phone and always forget that I have to stand still. Just wanted to show the variety of tea we have in our supermarkets.

 This section holds my favourite Twining's brand, I love their teas except for the burnt flavoured ones.

Sometimes I love Bushells too, I call it grandmas tea because it was around in my grandma's time and thats all we drank when I was growing up, and is still going strong.

Joining Bluebeard and Elizabeth's T stands for Tuesday meme

T stands for Tuesdays

Firstly thanks to those ladies last week that educated me on the proper name for my miniature cups that I love to use

DEMITASSE: FRENCH = HALF CUP, is a small cup used to serve Turkish coffee or espresso. In some languages it is called a fincan. In spanish it is called a pocillo and holds about 60-90mls or 2-3fl oz capacity.  It will be my lifes plan to collect these demitasse cups now LOL.

It's soup season here in the Southern Hemisphere so we've been making soup madly, it's healthy, warming and feel good dish. I started out by making stock with 1 corn on the cob, 1 carrot, 1 celery, 1 onion, chicken neck, smoked bacon bones and beef bones, cooked that on simmer for 5 hours. My intention was to remove everything except the broth and add new veges, but hubby came home and said he liked the broth like that and added more veges. Well I must say it turned out awesome.

Now that awful floating stuff in my tea is the tea leaves, the tea strainer has a fine weave but obviously not fine enough. I waited till it settled to the bottom until I drank it. 

Found the cutest bottle of milk at the supermarket, 500 mls. I normally buy my milk in glass bottles but the egg factory doesn't get its delivery of milk until Wednesday so I was happy to get this one to tide me over. 

Joining Bluebeard and Elizabeth for their T for Tuesdays Meme

T Stands for Tuesday

Firstly I feel very honoured that Bluebeard and Elizabeth's has my current 

hometown Brisbane's clock  on her blog.

Today I am show casing my tea implements that I use.

This tea infuser is best for my teapot, I have tried to put tea leaves into this teapot and 

its a pain to take out when I want to clean the pot

These are the spoons I use, the silver ones says A PERFECT CUP OF TEA, the others I use for sugar especially if my sugar holder is deep, this allows the sugar to stay in the spoon unlike normal spoons where it slides off

 These are the many tea infusers I use, the long thin ones are great for Asian teas, as the infusers are very small and you only need a few tea leaves for Asian tea unlike black tea where I like it strong and need lots more tea leaves.

EDITED 23 July : Rita asked what Asian tea was, well I googled it and this site showed me more Asian tea than I knew existed. What I mean by Asian tea are the ones that have large leaves and some are rolled up into balls and these teas don't require milk. It is infused and drunk black.

And lastly my gorgeous tiny teacups, as you can see the size comparison to a normal cup. The purple one is the largest, the black one is the smallest. I love the ridges in the white one

Joining Bluebeard and Elizabeth for T for Tuesdays Meme to see what other beverages hail from around the world.

T stands for Tuesday

 Love my gorgeous cups from Thailand

Had my craft friend Annette Jebb over for a day visit, I found out she loves tea as well so I treated her with my special Bael tea, well I did not toast the Bael as per the link, I will do next time.

I also added some honey and I cooked the water and the bael and honey to infuse it better.

Amazing benefits of Bael

Heart diseases

Gastro protection properties

Cholesterol control

Antimicrobial properties

Anti inflammatory properties

Constipation

Dysentery and Diarrhoea

Cures acidity and mouth ulcers

Controls diabetes

Asthma and cold resistance

4 cups water

2 slices Bael fruit

Toast Bael fruit on grill or in toaster oven for 1 minutes.

Making tea:

Boil hot water and pour over fruit and infuse. 

I boil water fruit and honey until water turns a rich colour. Honey is to taste, I usually put 2 tsp.

Love this tea for its unique flavour and doesn't have tannin in it.

Enjoy!!!

Joining Bluebeard and Elizabeth apparently for a 1 year anniversary.
August 6, 2013 was my first T Tuesday post

This is my favourite T for Tuesday post because I had 99% of the family at our house to celebrate my daughter Emma's 21st surprise birthday party

T stands for Tuesdays

Made these awesome jaffles the old fashioned way in a cast iron jaffle maker cooked in the embers of a fireplace when we went camping two weekends ago. I love creamed corn and cheese and pepper cooked this way. Of course I followed it with a hot cup of tea as it was 3C degrees at 7am in the morning.

This is the original jaffle I had as a kid

Click on the picture to take you to the original website where this photo was taken

Linking up with Bluebeard and Elizabeth's T stands for Tuesdays Meme

EDITED: Due to the many comments about not knowing what a jaffle is.

Unbaffle the jaffle

Is a jaffle a toasted sandwich? Kind of, but not really. A jaffle can only be a jaffle if its edges are sealed, the bread forming a puffy pocket around the ingredients.

Happy campers will remember the original jaffle iron, a cumbersome cast-iron sandwich mould used around the campfire. In 1974, Breville introduced the first electric jaffle maker into home kitchens. Forty years later, more than six million people worldwide have a Breville jaffle maker, according to Breville's Sharon Lenzner.

Lenzer differentiates between a jaffle maker with ''scissor action'', which segments jaffles into triangles, and those that only seal the edges. The latter creates more room for ingredients and is preferred by overfillers such as chef John Lawson, from No. 8 By John Lawson at Crown. Growing up, Lawson loaded up his sandwich press with ''anything you'd have on a jacket potato''.

But Lenzer cautions jaffle lovers to be conservative with fillings, which heat up quickly. ''You don't want to burn your mouth, especially if you're feeding kids.''

Quoted from Melbourne's best jaffle 

T stands for Tuesday and WOYWW #265

T Stands for Tuesday/WOYWW #265

Went camping with the family on the weekend, I was requested to make a damper that wasn't rock hard as we have experienced previously. So I decided to try out a scone recipe that never fails.

Of course there has been no unpacking progress been done so no photos of the craft room to be shared.

Lemonade Scones

1 cup lemonade

1 cup cream

3 cups Self Raising Flour

Mix all ingredients with a fork, gently until they all come together. Pat into a round shape and level off. Use a cup/glass or scone cutter and cut rounds. Oil a diffuser and put into bottom of cast iron pot. Lay each scone side by side touching so they support each other as they rise up. Bake for about 20 minutes or until a skewer poked into the middle comes out clean.

Eaten with home made jam and cream and a nice cup of tea was awesome.

Enjoy!!!

Note: Everyone (almost) takes beer camping so next time I will try using a can of beer instead of lemonade to see if that works. 

Linking up with Bluebeard and Elizabeth's T stands for Tuesdays Meme

and Julia's Stamping Ground, Desks from all over the world.

EDITED: Julia questioned why it was called a "damper", here is the explanation of that word.

Damper is a traditional Australian soda bread prepared by swagmen, drovers, stockmen and other travellers. It consists of a wheat flour based bread, traditionally baked in the coals of a campfire. Damper is an iconic Australian dish. It is also made in camping situations in New Zealand, and has been for many decades.

Damper was originally developed by stockmen who travelled in remote areas for weeks or months at a time, with only basic rations of flour, sugar and tea, supplemented by whatever meat was available.^[1] The basic ingredients of damper were flour, water, and sometimes milk. Baking soda could be used for leavening. The damper was normally cooked in the ashes of the camp fire. The ashes were flattened and the damper was placed in there for ten minutes to cook. Following this, the damper was covered with ashes and cooked for another 20 to 30 minutes until the damper sounded hollow when tapped. Alternatively, the damper was cooked in a greased camp oven.^[2] Damper was eaten with dried or cooked meat or golden syrup, also known as "cocky's joy".

Damper is also a popular dish with Indigenous Australians. Aboriginal women had traditionally madebush bread from seasonal grains and nuts, which they cooked in the ashes of fires.^{[citation needed]} It also became a popular dish for recreational campers and has become available in bakeries. Many variations and recipes exist, some authentic, others using the name to sell a more palatable bread product to the urban public.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damper_(food)

T Stands for Tuesdays

Who said teacups are only for tea or coffee??

Well this proves it, I usually use a teacup for my soups.

Join Bluebeard and Elizabeth for more T for Tuesday posts

T stands for Tuesday

I landed in hospital on the weekend and this is what they gave me for breakfast after I had been starving. I dont eat marmalade and I dont like Equal sugar and the weetbix was bland on their own. So I skipped most of it and waited for a decent meal which I got when I got out of hospital and we went and had some soup at a cafe, was much more nourishing and to my taste

Remember my post with my new Tea Toy here, well curious as I am I wanted to see what those pods held and how they worked so I opened one up 

Hop on over to Bluebeard and Elizabeth's T for Tuesday Meme to see more tea stories

T Stands for Tuesday

Yes I have been missing in action and the reason why is explained in tomorrow's WOYWW post.

Here is my post for Elizabeth's T for Tuesday meme

We have an egg farm near us and I love going there to get fresh eggs, they also stock milk in the 1 litre bottles which I love as they have handles, but today they didnt have my favourite bottle. However I did find this glass bottle with real milk, un homogenised which will only last till 16 May but hey hubby has never had real fresh milk in Australia so  I really got it for him. I use tea in my milk so I didnt miss out.

Then I bought myself a mothers day gift. I had always wanted a tea pod maker like the coffee ones but have never seen any tea pods and the machine was $119 which was too much for me. Today it was on sale for $49 and it was for Breast Cancer fundraising so I got this one , that's what the pink ribbon no the side is for. I also found the pod caddy that turns so had to get that. I will have to get some coffee pods when my craft room is ready for my coffee friends. I will report next week how it is.

Linking up with Bluebeard and Elizabeth's T for Tuesday Meme

T stands for Tuesdays

T stands for Tuesdays

Yes I have been AWOL, found out in December that we are moving interstate

to Sunny Queensland, Brisbane so it's  been busy busy busy organising this move.

Its always sad to say goodbye. This has been the longest state we have lived in, 6 years. 

The fruit is called BAEL, we first tried it at our Thai Massage place, they offer water or tea. I fell in love with this tea, it is so nice and because its a fruit, has no tannins in it.

I just realised you can toast it first, hmmmm here is the Toasted Recipe

Qualities of Bael Fruit

So these are three new mini teacups, the last two I bought I cracked both at work grrr, they are so thick one would think that they would survive a carpeted fall, oh well. The purple one I have bought to give as a present. The other two are mine- hopefully they will last longer than a few months lol.

Each cup holds 110ml or 4fl ozs, just enough to gulp down at work between customers, I love them. I had a client comment that if I didn't keep an eye on it, it would disappear into her bag-hee hee

Linking up with Bluebeard and Elizabeth

T for Tuesday-Risotto recipe-cheap heating

I treated myself to a birthday present I thought would benefit everyone in the house, bought myself an electric Pressure Cooker. The regular ones scare the heebeegeebees out of me. My friend used it the other weekend when we went to stay with them and I was sold. Two days later I went to our local Spotlight store which is similar to JoAnns or Hobby lobby but way way smaller and lo and behold they had one on sale for $75, I snapped it up. They also had a convection oven which I have dreamed of owning but was too expensive, on sale for $85 so I snapped that up too lol. 

So my friend made risotto in the pressure cooker and it took 6 minutes. That's what sold me, now that I am working shift work and full time I need to be able to make nutritious and quick meals. 

So here is my risotto in my favourite cooking implement with my cup of tea, a must have when I am cooking-this flavour is Rooibos which doesn't have any tannin in it.

Linking up with Bluebeard and Elizabeth's T for Tuesdays Meme

If you live in Australia and are a card maker or not a card maker please read my request for Cards for the Troops and if you can contribute I would be ever so grateful.

Risotto recipe:

2 cups arborio rice (the cup that comes with the cooker)

5 cups water (same cup from cooker)

2 stalks shallots

200 grams diced bacon 

1 small carrot diced (or frozen)

100 grams frozen peas

1 leek diced

3 cloves of garlic crushed

50 grams butter

100 grams grated parmesan cheese

1 sprig of parsley chopped

30mls cream

Switch cooker onto sauté  melt the butter and add the garlic and leek, cook, stirring occasionally. Add bacon, carrot and peas, stir. add rest of ingredients. I also add some chicken stock (powdered) to your taste, the first time I cooked this I forgot to add the seasoning but it didn't really matter, the parmesan cheese seems to be enough. Stir all the ingredients until mixed. Shut the pressure cooker lid as per instructions, if yours has a minute timer put it to 8 minutes, my Kambrook one doesn't have minutes it has numbers so I chose 4. When it turns off, switch it off at the wall and wait 10 minutes then release the steam, open the lid very carefully. 

The first time  I gave myself a fright and almost burnt myself from the steam, so use an oven mitt to turn the knob to release the heat and open the lid. Enjoy and tell me how yours turned and what ingredients you used.

T for Tuesday

I have been laid down with a late season flu, only in Canberra do we suffer from flu in the summer months sheesh. To top that off it's hay fever season as well so I had a double dose. So what better way to chase the lurgys away is to make chicken soup with my favourite additions-creamed corn and corn niblets. Threw some fresh parsley from the garden for good measure. That cup of tea has gone cold hahaha you can see the pooling of the milk when it goes cold uuuggghhh.

I am getting too OCD for my own good having to paperclip down the scribble pad under the keyboard LOL

Linking up with Bluebeard and Elizabeth's T for Tuesdays Meme

If you live in Australia and are a card maker or not a cardmaker please read my request for Cards for the Troops and if you can contribute I would be ever so grateful.

T is for Tuesdays

We visited for the first time since we have lived in Canberra a place called Tulip Top Gardens. It only opens one month in the year when the tulips flower. It was a gorgeous place but I didn't think I would find this tree lol so perfect for this meme.

Linking up with Bluebeard and Elizabeths T for Tuesdays Meme

Hubby stood in my photographic way so I took a shot of him lol.