Witch senses

I have to write this down so that I can remember it and one day when Madeline is older, she's going to read back on this and laugh. I have this weird witchy sense of knowing when things are going to happen. Lots of random, strange things. But my specialty is knowing when people have split up or when they are going to split up.

I have predicted 14 (I think? At last count...) couples splits in the last 6 or so years, more often as the years go by. Even Doug thinks it is crazy, I have said to him on multiple occasions oh I think so and so have split. He's always like noooo they haven't and always within a week he's like what the heck Jade, HOW did you know?! 

My mother says it's my powers of observation, that I notice little things that give it away. I have always been super observant, so I wouldn't argue that, but it is definitely freaky that I manage to do it over and over again. I've got people convinced now that I'm a witch. Baha. I hate it, but it keeps happening. Please make it stop. It's the worst "gift" to have.

Covid in the house

Well, we managed to escape the Rona for a very long time, but as of today, our winning streak is over. I didn't sleep well last night and my I could "feel" my throat this morning. It wasn't sore, but I could feel it. I had been at work for all of an hour when I got a message from my friends husband telling me he had tested positive to covid this morning on a RAT test. He had been at our house yesterday delivering some scones for my parents, who had allowed the youth from our ward to camp on their property over the weekend. 

Because I could feel my throat, I thought I had better be safe, especially that I work at a school... and there was no way the test could possibly be positive, until it was. Craaaaaaaaaaaap.

The lightest line ever, but sure enough, it was positive and I am now in isolation for a week. So far everyone else in the house has tested negative, but I guess we wait and see. Ugh.

Other than being able to feel my throat, I had no symptoms, but by this evening, I had a scratchy throat, a cough and I was a bit achy and very ready for bed. Let's hope it doesn't get any worse!

 

Macarons

I have always wanted to try making Macarons. I know they are fiddly as anything and a pain in the bum to make, but a few weeks ago I saved a recipe that actually looked reasonably easy, so I decided it was time to actually attempt them.

I have had this kit sitting in the pantry for so long that I can't even remember if it was from one of besties throweverythingihaveaway cleanouts, or if it was a gift at some stage, either way, I am glad I kept it as it made things so much easier.

The included silicone tray had a template for the piping of the shells and it really helped a lot. They certainly were not perfect, but it was a fairly decent first attempt, as I got 8 pairs from it that were clean and edible.

Filled with the leftover chocolate cream cheese icing from Jonas's birthday cake last weekend, they were pretty flipping tasty and I was very, very proud of myself. Take that Barbara who mocked and asked me I was crazy when I decided to attempt them. Boom. Not bad at all.

Big thanks to Preppy Kitchen for your very simple and easy to follow recipe. Please find below, with conversions for Aussie bakers like myself.

MACARONS 

Ingredients 

For the Cookie: 

100 g egg whites room temperature (3 large eggs)

140 g almond flour (1 1/2 cups)

90 g white sugar (just under 1/2 cup)

130g icing sugar (1 cup)

1 tsp vanilla (5mL)

1/4 tsp cream of tartar

 

For the Buttercream: 

226g  unsalted butter softened 226g

5 egg yolks

100g white sugar (1/2 cup)

1 tsp vanilla

3 tbsp water (30mL)

1 pinch salt

 

Instructions: 

For the Macarons:

Sift the icing sugar and almond flour into a bowl.

Add the room temperature egg whites into a very clean bowl.

Using an electric mixer, whisk egg whites. Once they begin to foam add the cream of tartar and then SLOWLY add the sugar.

Add the food colouring (if desired) and vanilla then mix in. Continue to beat until stiff peaks form.

Begin folding in the 1/3 of the dry ingredients.

Be careful to add the remaining dry ingredients and fold gently.

The final mixture should look like flowing lava, and be able to fall into a figure eight without breaking. Spoon into a piping bag with a medium round piping tip and you’re ready to start piping.

Pipe one inch dollops onto a baking sheet lined with baking paper (this should be glued down with dabs of batter). Tap on counter several times to release air bubbles. Allow to sit for about 40 minutes before placing in oven. 

Bake at 150C for 12-15 minutes, rotate tray after 7 minutes. Allow to cool completely before removing from baking sheet. 

 For the French Buttercream Filling:

Combine sugar and water in medium saucepan. Heat over low heat while stirring until sugar dissolves. Increase heat to medium- high and bring to a boil

Put egg yolks in a stand-mixer fitted with a whisk attachment and beat until thick and foamy.

Cook the sugar and water syrup until it reaches 115C degrees. Immediately remove from heat. With mixer running, SLOWLY drizzle hot syrup into bowl with yolks.

Continue mixing until the bottom of the bowl is cool to the touch and the yolk mixture has cooled to room temperature.

Add in butter one cube at a time allowing each piece to incorporate before adding the next. Add vanilla and salt. Continue mixing until buttercream is smooth and creamy. (About 5-6 minutes.) Add food colouring if desired.

 For Assembly:

Pipe your filling onto the back of half the shells. Form a sandwich and repeat. Macarons should be aged in the fridge for 1-3 days for best results. This allows the filling to soften the shells inside.

The attic!

It has always been my dream to have an attic. I grew up reading any book I could get my hands on and most of them featured fabulous attics full of antiques and sloping ceiling beams with dusty windows. Look I'll take what I can get, considering my attic is solely for storage, but I am thrilled with our first addition to the Kendall Dream House. Our first tradie in was Ben from Aussie Attics to fit this amazing ceiling space, which is about 16m x 2ish m high in the middle - perfect for all my storage needs considering I don't have a shed (yet!) 

There is a staircase/ladder leading up from the entrance in our bedroom and light switch on our wall courtesy of Tom our resident electrician right next door. He simply disconnected the light that was in the entry and reconnected it in the roof. Bingo.

The entire room is dustproof and capable of holding plenty of weight, I am really stoked with the finished product and well intend on storing all my party supplies in the roof. So much room for activities hahaha.

Looks a-maz-ing and I am beyond happy.

Thank you Aussie Attics! 

Whiteman Park with the Niupalau's

School holidays are not complete until we've had our date with the Niupalaus. This time round was a trip to Whiteman Park for a ride on the Bennett Brook Railway.

It really is a fun time, a nice long ride through the bush of Whiteman Park in big open carriages.

You can easily move around and enjoy yourself.

The best bit is, once you have paid for your ticket, you can ride as many times as you like during the day!

This guy loved it!

When we were done, we went over to Pia's place on the other side of Whiteman Park, which is the most amazing playground! Gated around all sides, it's safe, but still huge. I am obsessed with the lighthouse in the middle. I love that playgrounds have gone back to nature and have so much wood and natural play areas now. It's the best! If the kids can't play in the bush like we did... we bring the bush to them. I'm so grateful for these wonderful playgrounds near us. 

 

Take a hike

We had the wonderful idea of a family hike out to the Swan View Tunnel today, being that it was a public holiday and everyone could join us. 

It was great. We got out to the tunnel, everyone was happy... having a good time...

Then we got out the other side and Alex happened.

This was my last piece of enjoyment. To my right, Alex has thrown himself on the ground and yelled, "I don't wannnnnnt to." No amount of love and cuddles or anyone else offering could convince him otherwise. It was game over.

We had to go back to the car, I had to carry him and he was not walking for anyone or anything.

Fun times, fun times.

So please, with my compliments enjoy everyone else's photos that I got to see afterwards when they returned an hour later, after I had been sitting in the car with a disagreeable toddler. So fun.

Jonas' Baptism

Today Jonas was baptised a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and my aunty heart could not be any more proud! Seeing my brother baptise his oldest son filled me with so much joy.

They are so adorable and I am so so glad that they chose to do the baptism here and not in QLD as I would have been devastated to not be a part of it.

So cute!

My brother and his little family.

It was another wonderful selfie opportunity with the boys while we waited outside afterwards.

Jared had organised for a friend of his to take family photos and they took another snap of all the available grandkids with my parents. Love it.

I then had the joy of driving all the boys back to Jared and Donna's for lunch. They were so funny, with so many giggles.

Because it was Easter Sunday as well, we had these gorgeous Slovenian traditonal dyed eggs that Katja and her mum and the boys had painted the day before. They looked so good! 

My offering for the day was this Minecraft (by Joseph's suggestion) Birthday cake for Jonas. The drip sure as heck wasn't perfect, but it was perfect enough to make this eight year old happy!

Look at that smile! It was worth every second of work that went into it.

Happy baptism day to our fave little dude. He was so happy.

❤

Best day.

The Perfect Pumpkin Pie - Chowhound recipe

The most devastating thing happened to me earlier this week. Aaron and co are here from Queensland for Easter and he has been at me the whole time they have been away about how I better make him a pumpkin pie the minute they arrive. Obviously it made sense to make one for Good Friday seeing as Donna loves it too and all the family would be there.

Since I began making pumpkin pie many years ago, I have always used the same recipe, the "Perfect Pumpkin Pie" recipe from Chowhound. I, of course, thought I had the recipe saved somewhere, but I was rudely awakened to the fact that I did not, when I went to their website the day before to make it. The site that has been closed down after 25 years. Suddenly, just days before I needed the recipe again.

Now, I have truly made this pie dozens of times. I sell them every Thanksgiving and sometimes in between, but did I have the recipe written down, printed, saved, other than the link? No I did not. Cue panic.

After hours of attempting multiple ways to get it (or remember it perfectly, which to be honest I was too frightened to do, what if I got the number of eggs wrong or something?!), I finally came across a tutorial of someone making it on YouTube here, so I watched it and thankfully she not only showed it step by step - all the measurements were shown on screen. I won the recipe lottery today! The Chowhound Perfect Pumpkin Pie recipe will live to see another season, at my hand. To the people at Chowhound, thank you for giving me what truly is - The PERFECT Pumpkin Pie recipe. I will cherish it for always.

THE PERFECT PUMPKIN PIE 

Crust:

113g Butter

1 Tablespoon vegetable oil

1 Tablespoon sugar

1/4 Teaspoon Salt

1 1/3 Cups plain flour

Filling:

1 Can 425g pumpkin puree

1 Can 397g condensed milk

2 Eggs

1 Teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 Teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 Teaspoon salt

1/8 Teaspoon ground cloves

Crust:

1. Melt butter and cool slightly, before adding oil, sugar, then salt. 

2. Mix together until well combined, then add flour and stir until a soft dough is formed.

3. Scatter the dough into a deep pie dish (or I use a tart dish with a removable base) and press the  dough into the base and up the sides until neatly in place. 

4. Use the bottom of a measuring cup to press the dough flat and smooth. 

5. Cover and place in the fridge for 1/2 an hour, while making the filling, at this stage, preheat the oven to 160 degrees celcius (fan forced).

Filling:

1. Whisk together all filling ingredients until smooth.

2. Pour into the cooled base and bake for 50-60mins. 

3. When the pie is cooked, it will puff up and be slightly brown on top. The base will be firm, with a little jiggle in the centre. 

Serve with fresh whipped, or canned spray cream if you want it the real American way hahaha.

Honestly I am so grateful to have found this recipe. Never letting it go! 

Thanks for the memories Chowhound! ❤

Good Friday - the BEST Friday

I love a good day at my parents house in the country. Today was the best one I can remember in years, because all of us were there together. All their kids and partners and all the grandkids except for one. It was so loud. It was loud when we were kids, but this was next level. Yelling, laughing... full blown riot. You couldn't wipe the smile off my parents faces for the entire day and I loved it.

I brought along a cookie decorating kit that my best friend sells for Easter and Christmas from her cookie business @baked.on.benrua on Instagram and all of the grandkids got right into it.

The older kids were hilarious, scoring each others creations and commenting on them, oh that's the Gucci of Easter eggs, ooooh that's a Chanel. Nope, that one is The Reject Shop. Oh check out that David Jones!

Ben's was a solid Myer.

Joseph was so proud of his and was thrilled to pose for a photo with it.

Jonas loved his too. Look at that little smile!

Marshall was all smiles today too. Such a cutie!

The Chanel of cookies according to the judges! Baha.

Love it!

I love watching all of these guys together. They have the best time.

So, Aaron and Katja put in their order yesterday for a Banoffee and a Pumpkin pie for desserts today. Once mum heard that she said she wasn't making any dessert at all as that was more than enough, especially when I turned up with cookies too!

The last six grandkids in a row in our family have been boys. The girls are totally outnumbered, there are twice as many boys - and there hasn't been once since Madeline arrived! Watching the younger boys (Joseph down as Madeline can somehow slot in with the older ones even though she is 3 years younger than Emma) was hilarious. They were the noisy ones!

There was plenty of laughs amongst the siblings and partners and a whole damn lot of cheating from Jared while we attempted to play Uno. Honestly, every single turn he played he was throwing down cards that didn't belong. Nut job. Dad did always say the biggest cheaters names start with J.

Alex as usual marched himself down to the monkey bars as soon as no one was watching and climbed up out of reach. I swear that kid has a death wish and he was promptly dragged back down to the ground and brought back to the supervision of his older cousins.

And as always, the highlight of the day was Uncle Isaac's quad bike train. All the kids loved it and had the best time. The carriages just live at my parents now and the bike gets brought up for family days and parties like Alex's last year.

There you have it. 10 out of 12 grandkids. That's a damn lot of noise in one shot.

This was the best Good Friday of all.

But here was the very best bit. Getting all my siblings in one place. Here's all the boys with dad.

My favourite human...

and the best thing that has happened to me in years. Finally getting my boys back

and all in the same place.

 I love them so much it hurts. Even if I do want to punch them on the daily. ❤