Once a year.

In my little recipe book, I have some recipes that have been relabelled with their purposes rather than their names. For example : The devil food cake is titled ' THE cake', the potato and corn pie has 'Mums pie' scrawled next to it, and the zucchini loaf recipe is credited to my mother-in-law, Kaye.

The sub-title for my lemon sour cream cake recipe is ' Abraham's birthday cake'. I'm not sure how it ended up being his cake, but I know I have made it for at least 3 or 4 f his birthdays.And, well, long may it continue.. because it really is quite divine. (I admit, it's not as cute as the robot cake I made him a few years ago, but unfortunately taste has to win sometimes. It seems to be that the older I get, that more often that is the case!)

I thought, seeing as I couldn't share the cake, I would offer up the recipe for anyone who might want to give it a whirl. (Who knows that the subtitle might end up being in your book - 'rainy day afternoon'? 'PMS cake'? 'for the hell of it cake'? )

Lemon Sour Cream Cake - Abrahams Birthday Cake!

185g softened butter (I use marg, because well, that's what we always have.)
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
3 tsp lemon rind
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup sour cream

Glaze:
Juice of 1 lemon
3/4 cup sugar

Pre-heat oven to 160C.
In a large bowl, cream butter/marg and sugar. Add eggs and rind.
Combine the flour and baking powder. Fold both the flour and the sour cream into the creamed mixture, alternatively. (I'm not sure that even makes sense? Basically add half the flour, then half the sour cream, and repeat.)
Mix gently until smooth, and pour into a greased cake pan (I have used both the spring form and a hole-in-the-middle tin. if you use a spring form, it pays to line it with baking paper.). Bake until a knife comes out clean.
Once cooked, wait about 2 minutes. Then pour the glaze over the cake and allow to cool. Apparently this is good served with cream or yogurt. We eat it with soy milk.

NOM.

A reaction and the reaction to the reaction.

There was no rash. No scratching, itching or days of complaining.
Otto just woke up one morning and decided he HATES wool. He despises it like nothing else. I tried to dress him in it he screamed and thrashed around, like I was trying to harm him. After that, the reaction is the same even at the sight of it. He is, somehow, so traumatised that even acrylic jumpers get the no-go.

This posed a slight problem for me. You see, I spent the Summer amassing a huge collection of handknitted jumpers. And whipping up recycled wool pants, too. I think the boy had a total of nearly 20 wool or acrylic garments in his drawers! I had focused so much on the knits that I hadn't really bothered to stock up on anything else.

So the 'operation replacement' sewing has begun. I've got quite a few things done, but there's a way to go.
Want to see? Who am I kidding? Of course you do, it's a blog! Here you go:

There are a few others, but they're lost somewhere in the washing system. Isn't it darn near impossible to get on top of washing at this time of year? Guess that's one benefit to the war against wool.. far less handwashing!

Wardrobe Wednesday.

Let's not speak of my absence. Let's just pretend it never happened, okay?
It's Wednesday. The perfect day to jump right back into Wardrobe Wednesday. So here I am.

From head to toe:
HUGE hair - not really sure. New shampoo?
Brooch - Croutons. (free)
Top - NESclothing. ($120. A million times more than I'd usually spend, but has been worth every penny.)
Grouchy child, who weighs a tonne but won't let me put him down (and is, somehow, smiling in this picture?!) - a nasty ear infection and a virus. (free, unfortunately.)
Skirt- Salvation Army  ($3)
Happy Shoes - The Warehouse. ($6)

So, I'm a week ahead of everyone else who is getting back on the WW wagon. But you should join in next week! It'll be grand!

FFF! #2

Edition number two of Frugal Fashion Friday is here! Not sure where the rest of this week has gone though, I could have sworn it was only Wednesday. Anywho..

I thought I would start with Otto, because he is the hardest to photograph. He doesn't like to stand still and does his darnedest to be without shoes at all times. So, you'll have to just imagine the shoes in. The top is made by me and the shorts were bought for Aesop, from Farmers, many, many moons ago. I love outfits like these, where the most expensive thing Otto wears is his (second hand or hand-me-down) nappy!

Aesop, as you saw last week, is riiiight into the posing. (He also keeps his shoes on!). It's hard to get him to just stand still and not pull silly faces or insist on hamming it up!

This is the outfit he wore to mufti day at school:
Shirt - a hand me down from a friend, with a robot applique by me.
Shorts - $19.99 at Farmers, bought last Summer.
Shoes - $12.99 at The Warehouse.
Tattoo- a gift from his friend Isaac. Aesop tells me it is a 'DN Alien'.

And then there's me. I love love the colour of this dress, but I don't wear it as often as I should. It's one of those colours that takes a bit of confidence to wear, because everyone sees you coming from a mile off. Luckily, it's also a dress that gets me a lot of compliments, so the confidence (bravery?) pays off!

Dress: about $3 at St Vinnies
Silver flats : $6 at The Warehouse
Badge: $8 Cloud of birds. A lovely lass who used to do Craft2.0 and made the most incredible badges, toys, and other bits and pieces. I see her blog hasn't bee updated in years, I would love to know what she is doing now!

We're off to Auckland for the weekend, to celebrate Aesop's birthday. I'm really looking forward to it, but Auckland does always have the knack of making me feel very much like a frumpy, boring, small town girl. I'll be pulling out some of my favourite outfits, in an attempt to feel better about myself , so I'll be sure to take lots of photos for next weeks post!

Recently acquired.

One of my other resolutions for this year was to carry on my de-cluttering. Last year I got rid of over 500 things, but didn't feel that much lighter. This year I want to get rid of at least another 500. I'm up to 360 so far, and feel like I'm getting a bit better at being ruthless now.

The only real problem is that I am constantly picking things up at the op shop, essentially replacing the things I'm getting rid of! Don't get me wrong, I'm getting better at leaving things behind at the oppies too, but by golly it's hard work. I was made to hoard.
These are some of the things that have made it home over the past few weeks.

I don't limit myself on buying fabric. It will all be used eventually and will probably pay for itself in the long run. Plates, on the other hand, won't. I should probably get a handle on that one!
The dress was just too amazing to pass up. It is minuscule, a mere 23" in the waist, and I doubt it would even fit one of my thighs but the thought of someone else buying it and selling it was too much for me. I initially thought I could pass it on to a verrry skinny friend, but I'm just too in love with it. Sorry Rozi!

I should really get motivated and list some of my 'things to get rid of' on Trademe. It's times like these I wish I was fancy and had an assistant. For that, and to clean my shower. Hmm.

Baking day.

(Isn't it annoying how baking is usually all the same colour?)

As part of my attempt to keep our weekly spending at bay, I have been making an extra effort to make sure I bake each week. I try to crank out a few things in one go, put some in the cupboard and stash the rest in the freezer for later in the week (amazing how much longer things last when the boys think there are only a few left!).

For this week I made blueberry muffins, choc chip cookies, and apricot almond cookies. All from the Edmonds cookbook. I didn't have enough margarine to make the crackers yesterday, but I'll make those this afternoon from the usual recipe. Nom!

Part of my resolutions for this year (which I might tell you about one day..) was to start making our bread.
I really dislike the fact that bread costs so much, meaning we can only afford to buy the really budget brands. The cheap-o brands, for some reason, seem so much less nutritious than the other brands and don't really taste of anything much. We eat A LOT of bread in our house, so while it probably still works out cheaper to be buying the packaged stuff, I much prefer the idea of having something I KNOW has at least a little nutrition.

I can't remember where I found the recipe that I've been using (such an out-of-practice blogger!), but it is for a lovely part-wholemeal bread. It's a little bit sweet, and very scrummy. I am using the 'dough' function on the (borrowed) breadmaker, then rising, and baking in the oven. It is more time consuming but the loaf is a nicer shape and it just seems to work.

I should really try a few more recipes, but it's tempting to just stick with what you know is good! Anyone got any tried and true recipes?

FFF!

(I know, it is Saturday. Just play along!)

I'm really, really loving Kristins new wee section on her blog at the moment ' Boy Style Friday'. It's all about stylish clothes for boys, that don't break the bank. It's perfect for me, with two boys and a very small-to-non-existent clothing budget. And Kristin is the perfect woman for the job, being such a stylish lass herself!

So, without stealing  any of her limelight, I'm going to to use this as the perfect way to get back on the blogging horse. If there's one thing that always seems to get me inspired to sign into blogger, it's photos of outfits.
I've decided that I'll include myself in the post too though, just for a bit of difference. I've found myself missing our little 'Wardrobe Wednesday' posts, and neglecting to take so much notice of what I'm wearing. So, hoping noone minds, I'm going to attempt to tie-in with Kristin and do a Frugal Fashion Friday.

This is my outfit today. A fairly standard outfit for me at the moment, it's too hot to wear much else!

Sunglasses - $10 on sale at Just Jeans
Singlet- $8 full price at Kmart
Skirt- $2 at the Sallies
Belt - $1 at the Sallies when I was in high school
Shoes - $6 at the Warehouse

And these are outfits the boys wore this week.
Aesop chose his own clothes, he's getting to be quite the individual when it comes to clothes, his outfits are certainly not always to my taste, but they're very 'Aesop'. His modelling moves are all his own too, I told him I wanted to take a photo and this is what I got! NZNTM as.

Hat- a gift from a friend, originally op-shopped.
Scarf - an op shopped piece of gingham.
Singlet - about $6 at Farmers
Shorts - $17 at Farmers, bought by Nana.

Beads - mine, $2 at St Vinnies
Hoodie - bought for Aesop for a dollar or two at St Vinnies in Nelson
Shorts - bought by Nana, for Aesop.
Shoes - hand me downs from a friend (that stayed on only long enough for one photo!)
He also had a plain grey singlet underneath that was Aesop's.

Sweet! Oh, and thanks to those of you who are still reading! Thanks for hanging around!