Dot’s Easy apple slice.

 
 

 

On Saturday, I went to a High Tea party where we were treated to some of the most delicious treats.

 

One of the hits of the day was Dot’s easy apple slice. It was that tasty that we all gave Dot our email addresses so that she could share her recipe. And I just had to share it with you all. I know that you will love this as much as we all did!

 

EASY APPLE SLICE

Ingredients:

1 packet Vanilla Cake Mix

1 cup Coconut

½ cup melted Butter

1 large tin of Pie Apples (works with pie apricots or peaches too)

1 large tub of Sour Cream

Cinnamon Sugar for dusting

Method:

Preheat oven to 180C. Grease a lamington tin.

Mix cake mix, coconut and butter together. Press firmly into prepared tin and bake for 15 minutes.

Remove from oven and cool slightly.

Top with pie apples and then spread with sour cream. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Bake for 30 minutes.

Enjoy!

 

I have to let you in on a few little changes that I made to mine. I made this in a square cake pan instead of a lamington tray because the base of this slice is so yummy that I wanted to make it a little thicker.

I also didn’t have any tin pie apples so I used 3 Granny smith apples. It gave a little extra crunch which I loved!

 

Bang & roll Chicken, cheese and chives

So the other night, I tried something new for dinner. In my house we always have chicken & mozzarella so I combined them to make…

Oh it was so good & got 2 thumbs up from Kiara!

All you do is get a chicken breast

{1 breast is enough for 2 people}

& bang it flat with a meat mallet.

I put gladwrap under & on top of the breast.

Then you need to sprinkle some chopped fresh chives & mozzarella on top & roll.

{now do you see why it is called bang & roll?}

Tie it up with some kitchen twine to keep it all together & cook for around 25 minutes on 175 degrees Celsius. I cooked this in the Thermo oven.

We had ours with some creamy mashed potato & peas.

It is a simple & easy meal that is guaranteed to please even the fussiest eater!

Guest recipe, Sponge cake from Just Friends Children's wear

 
 
I put a call out on Facebook for any one with a Facebook business page or blog to share a recipe with us all. The fantastic Julie from Just Friends Children's wear sent me her favourite sponge cake recipe straight away! It was good timing because she had just finished making it for her son’s birthday! Just Friend's Children's Wear is a fantastic page on Facebook where you can find some really beautiful handmade goodies. Did you know that there is a sale going on there right now? It is to celebrate Julie’s birthday {Happy birthday Julie!} & to celebrate the fact that Mothers Day is just around the corner.
 
This is Julie’s fabulous sponge cake
 

 
 
The recipe is as follows; 
3/4 cup cornflour
3/4 cup castor sugar
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 teaspoon of carb soda
1 tablespoon custard powder (or cocoa if for a chocolate sponge)
4 eggs - separated. 
Beat egg whites until light and fluffy, slowly add castor sugar and beat until glossy and stiff, add egg yolks all at once and beat slowly until just combined and mixture is yellowish in colour.  
Add sifted dry ingredients in three lots by folding in with a wide spatula (a Tupperware one is ideal), fold with long high strokes until all dry ingredients are combined, this is to incorporate air into the mixture which makes a very light sponge.
Place in two 8" (20cm) greased sponge tins with the bottom lined, bake at 150 - 180C (depends on oven, I have LPG and use 150C) for 20 mins or until mixture has shrunk from sides a little.  Stand in tin on cake cooler for 5 mins and then turn out. 
Fill with a spreading of strawberry jam and then whipped cream, sprinkle top with icing sugar or ice with passionfruit icing. 
 
 
Thank you Julie for sharing your recipe! I can’t wait to make a chocolate sponge.
 
If you want to share your favourite recipe & tell us all about your business or blog, send me an email with a picture or 2 of your recipe & a little bio about your business or blog. It can be a dinner, dessert, snack, breakfast or even a signature drink! Send your email to sewcooklaughlive@yahoo.com.au

I am on a roll!

This week, I have been sewing! It has been great. I have quilted, I have recovered & I have even sewn pillow covers with zips! I was booked in for a “learn to sew zips” class but unfortunately I had to cancel. Sometimes my life gets a little like that. So I taught myself! The only problem is that now I can’t stop! Here are a few of my projects from the week so far.

So, as you can see, I made slip covers for the lounges. I like my house to have a relaxed feel & my fave way to do that is cover everything in denim!

This was the lounge suite before…   

   

Now it is denim, it just gives the room a more, “come sit & relax” feel. I am really itching to get the floors done but that will be done around July so I just have to be patient.

{is 9 years of waiting patient enough?}

I finally got around to sandwiching & binding the 2 quilts that I had ready. I now have 2 more pined & ready to go. Hopefully I will have at least one of them finished before the end of the week.

I love having my sewjo back!

Have you made anything this week?

Looking for a new iron? I think I found the best!

Product Talk by Nuffnang.

I have found the fairy godmother of all irons!

It is the Tefal Express Turbo Anti -calc Auto clean

This iron is not your ordinary iron. It is a steam generator.

{on the left hand side of this blog you will see a Tefal add, click on it for more info}

As you know, when you do a lot of sewing {as I do} an iron can either be your best friend or your worst enemy. For years, I had been “putting up with the enemy”. I have now found the fairy godmother of all irons & she is my new beat friend.

This beauty is all you could ever want in an iron. When I got this box…

my heart skipped a beat!

The very first thing that I loved was that the water reservoir is in the base, not the iron! And it holds a huge amount of water. 1.8L to be exact! No need to refill constantly, no need to wait for the iron to cool before refilling, no spilling water all over the ironing board! I took off the reservoir & put it straight under the tap.

This to me is simply genius! When I am sewing & need to be constantly pressing seams & hems, the last thing I want to be doing is having to refill the iron a million times. Now, I don’t have to! I have 1.8L of water to generate steam!

The next fabulous thing that I discovered was that the base has a retractable cord! How cool is that! Just like your vacuum cleaner does.

The third fabulous thing was the 8 minute auto shut off. I do not have the best memory (can you call it baby brain when your youngest is 11 years old?) & have often gone about sewing or a cuppa & completely forgot about the iron being on. Now I don’t have to come back to an iron that has boiled dry because it has an 8 minute auto shut off. Simply fabulous! I know it works because I accidently got side tracked on the phone yesterday & came back to find the iron had turned off. Oh Tefal, you designed this baby just for me!

The first thing that I had ready & waiting for this baby was to make bias binding to finish off some quilts. It did the job better than I could have imagined & I may have made a lot more than I intended!

The plate underneath this iron is so super smooth. It glides across the fabric so quickly & with no resistance. It made the perfect binding! I now have enough for the next 5 quilts!

I needed to press the seams on my next quilt in the making.

This fairy godmother of all irons would be perfect for someone who does a lot of sewing. It certainly made my sewing yesterday a lot easier & I finished so many projects that I had on the go because I spent less time ironing. It was so quick & easy to use. As you all may know by now, I love any appliance that saves me time & money. This one does both! It saves me money because I will no longer find scorch marks on my fave clothes. You do not need to sew to need this iron. Do you wear a work uniform? Do your kids wear school uniforms? Does your husband/partner wear a work uniform?

A Current Affair recently did a segment on this particular iron & the results in the ironing challenge were amazing. You can watch it HERE. This steam generator iron is really creating quite a buzz!

My absolute fave part is that you can use this as a vertical steamer. Yep, for those dresses that are nearly impossible to iron on an ironing board, just leave them on the hanger & use it as a steamer. Simply brilliant!

Here are some of the key features of the Tefal Express Turbo Anti-calc Auto clean Steam generator

(all the technical stuff)

*Auto clean sole plate (world patented exclusivity)

*Very high steam performance (5.5 bars)

*1.8L extra large water reservoir (unlimited autonomy)

*Eco energy setting (20%)

* Lock system for safe & easy transport

*Integra system steam cord protective storage

*Automatic cord rewind

*Express 2 minute start

*8 minute auto cut off

*Inox stainless steel

*anti-calc collector for an extended lifetime

I had been on an ironing strike for so long because I hated my old iron. Now we will never leave this house with creased clothes ever again! I may even be nice & iron Mr P’s King G’s again! I will draw the line at ironing his blue singlets though.

I am in love with this fairy godmother of irons & I can tell you that I NEVER thought that I would ever say that about an iron!

* this is not a sponsored blog. It is a product review. All views & opinions are my own*

Help, I am the Mother of a teenager! It’s not so funny anymore and I think it is all my fault!

As you all know, Kiara is a teenager now. She has been for 5 weeks

& she is very quickly sending me batty! My sweet, thoughtful, brilliant child has suddenly become unable to complete the most simplest of things. She has regressed & become a 2 year old again. If you have been following on Facebook, it has become a daily battle between her & I. We are not fighting, we actually have a fabulous relationship, but….getting her to remember ANYTHING other than doing her hair or putting on makeup.

That is how I got these photo’s. My camera was full to the brim the other day & I couldn’t work out why. It was because she had taken a million & one photo’s of herself curling her hair. While she was meant to be doing her homework of course!

2 weeks ago, Kiara demanded that she must have a brand new school jumper that very day. So, I sent her off to school with the money to buy one {I am not allowed to enter the school grounds as that would be deemed embarrassing} & told her at least 10 times before she left that the lady at the uniform shop would put her name on it if she asked nicely.

{sigh} “Yes Mum, I am not stupid you know.” was what I was told as she walked out the door.

Needless to say, 1 week & 3 wears later, the jumper was gone. She left it in the school hall after musical rehearsals. Everyday I would ask if she had gone to get it & everyday I was told that she would get it the next day. On Sunday, I cracked. She admitted that she did not get it named & she had no idea where it was. That was when I completely cracked. I yelled, I ranted, I raved, I rang Mr P who also yelled, ranted & raved. It was like banging my head against a brick wall. She just didn’t get why I was so cranky. A brand new $40 school jumper was missing because she keeps forgetting & yet she couldn’t understand why I was so cranky. I have jackets in my wardrobe that belonged to my Grandmother yet she looses a jumper after 3 wears? I took her phone, I took her iPod & then she realised I was not joking anymore. Yesterday she went to school branded. Yep, I wrote on her hand in pen, “Jumper & musical tickets.” She came home with the jumper & the musical tickets is a whole different story.

Kiara has been practicing after school & on the weekends for months for her High School musical performance of Grease. I have had to pick her up at 5pm every Tuesday & Thursday. Now every time I go to pick her up, she forgets where I am picking her up from.{yes, I am banging my head against a brick wall because it is the same place every day!}I have given up my Saturdays {as all fabulous Mum’s do when we become taxi drivers to teenagers} to drop her off at 10am & pick her back up at 3pm in the afternoon. The school musical rehearsals have become a massive part of all our lives. I even made her outfit to her exact colour specifications. I have not complained once. I have done as I was told. The performances are Thursday night & this weekend. For weeks, we have discussed the fact that we will have to go to the Friday night performance as we have other things on the other times. It had been a constant conversation as Mr P wanted to be able to tell his work when he needed to be home. We planned for weeks. Kiara went to school last week to buy the tickets & came home with ……… THURSDAY NIGHT TICKETS!!!! I told her that she needed to fix this mistake, I need her to learn. I need her to be more responsible & not have Mummy running to the school everytime she does something wrong. Maybe I did that too much when she was in Primary school. 1 week later we still have tickets for the Thursday show. {yep, I am still banging my head against a brick wall} I have begged her to change them today. We will just have to wait & see what happens. I will have to go to the school & change them myself tomorrow if she doesn’t because I don’t want Mr P to miss out.

I am lost with what to do. I tell her to write things in her diary…..she looses her diary. I tell her to write things on her school calendar that was hanging on her wall……it has now vanished. I tell her to use the calendar on her phone……she forgets to charge it. I have now resorted to writing on her hand. I am now branding my child with a pen. I told Georgia that the day she turns 13, she must sick her fingers in her ears until she is finished being a teenager because I am wondering if teenagers brains leak out? I know Kiara is very intelligent. We just had parent teacher interviews last week & all of her teachers told me that. They also told me that she needs to write her homework requirements in her diary {hello? the one that she keeps loosing?} & stop chatting in class. If all teenagers are the same, I am in awe of High School teachers. I used to think that Primary school teachers had it hard, I now know that High School teachers have it harder than I ever imagined. Imagine dealing with all those teenagers every day! I am struggling with one!

I know that I am really lucky that this is the biggest problem that I have with her. She really is a good kid. She makes fantastic choices in her life & does not worry me in any other way.  I just don’t want to be running after her when she starts her first job & saying, “Have you got your lunch? Have you given them your bank details? Did you sign your tax form?”

Oh shit!

As I have been writing this, I have had a light bulb moment!

It is all my fault!! I do that to my husband! Oh no!! Seriously, I do! This weekend when he was leaving for the week, we had a little fight (ok, a big one) & I didn’t do the regular, “Have you got this? have you got that?” conversation. He forgot his weeks worth of work shorts, all of his junk food for the truck & his Crusty Demons DVD’s that I got for him to watch when he was away!

{banging head against brick wall again}

It’s all my fault! Ok, so if I have created people who can’t do anything for themselves, do I now do nothing for them to make them learn?

Finishing things off.

Today has been a really busy day for me. I had to wait at home for a parcel to be delivered so I used this time to finish off a few projects.

I have been wanting to do a series of Lighthouse needlepoints for quite some time & I have finished off my first one. I started it when we took the girls fishing by the river the other day.

I picked up a packet of iron on transfers/stamps from Spotlight when I was on holidays at my Mum’s last year. 

These are great! You just cut out the design that you want & iron over the back of the paper onto your fabric.

I love how the lighthouse seems to pop out from the rest of the embroidery.

I can’t wait to finish off this set. I just have to decide if they should go in the lounge room or in my bedroom.

Churros, oh so yummy!

I have to share.

{image source}

I have to share the Churros love.

I have just made churros for the first time & it will not be the last!

The first time we tasted them, was at the Redcliffe Festival of Sails.

Oh my, they were so good!

Then, I cam across this fabulous recipe over at

Mowielicious

{image source}

Churros are just too good not to share!

Mine don’t look as good as Mowielicious, but they taste so darn good!

Yes, that is a lot of sugar but I just don’t care!

It is not something that will be eaten in my house everyday, it will only be a treat.

You can find the recipe

HERE

{you know you want to!}