Starting A Cooking Club

Happy Monday everyone! Hope you've all had a wonderful weekend. I was just about to sit down and email my friends about the Cooking Club I am starting up when I thought that perhaps I'd do a quick post about it first and see if any of you have participated in something similar and have any suggestions or advice on things I should consider.

My idea is to get together a group of friends who are all interested in cooking so that we can share recipes and get ideas for new dishes to try. We will actually be tasting the recipes we are sharing but not judging or critiquing or anything, just sharing. Here are my thoughts so far:

• Meet every two months - we are all busy with either work or children and I feel that monthly meet-ups would come around too soon.
  
  
• We would alternate the days and times we meet - for example, one month we may meet up for a Friday night dinner, the next catch-up might be a Saturday morning tea.
  
  
• Stick to six to eight girls, enough to be able to chat comfortably around a table.
  
  
• There would be a 'theme' for each Cooking Club - so far I've listed a salad/dessert one, sweet treats and Christmas goodies. Does anyone have any more suggestions for this?
  
  
• Everyone would bring along a dish to share along with enough copies of their recipe for all the girls.

I'm really eager to get my Cooking Club up and running, particularly because I can't wait to have an excuse to decorate the table prettily. I have so many images like the one above saved in my 'Entertaining' inspiration folder and I can't wait to try and recreate something similar.

Have any of you tried a Cooking Club before or do you have any suggestions for me and my friends?

Source of image above unknown

Stationery Finds

GimCarry

As a little girl, my favourite part of the school holidays (once Christmas was over) was choosing out all my stationery for the new school year. A new backpack and pencil case were chosen and I would eagerly browse through the 'back to school' catalogues for the bits and pieces I required, my favourite thing to choose being patterned contact to cover my school books.

With the 2011 school year here in WA starting next week, I thought I'd share a few cute stationery finds on Etsy that I'd be more than happy to have in my collection.

everyjotandtittle

crabappledesign

decoylab

lettergirl

weheartpaper

Proud To Be Australian

Happy Australia Day to all my fellow Aussie bloggers! It's days like today that make me reflect on how blessed I am to live in 'the lucky country' and how proud I am to be Australian. I am grateful for living in a country where...


...there is relatively little pollution in comparison to many other parts of the world. We can swim at our rivers or beaches, breathe clean air and drink water straight from our taps.

...we have a health system which provides us the luxury of taking Grace to a doctor and knowing that most times, we will not have to pay for our visit.

...space is abundant. I love that I live in a home where it doesn't feel like our neighbours are 'on top of us' and where we have a big backyard. We have many national parks and in the wild, there are big expanses of land left untouched.

...we have breathtaking natural features. From our beaches with clean white sand to our lush forests, there is much beauty to be seen.


Watching Oprah's Ultimate Australian Adventure on television this week really brought home to me the values and lifestyle we Australians have that many other cultures find so appealing - our friendliness, our 'work to live' ethic (as opposed to 'live to work') and the spirit of mateship are all aspects of our culture I hope remain for many more years to come.

Recent Blogging Awards

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been kindly passed on some blogging awards from some lovely ladies and have yet to post about these or say thank you, so today I thought I’d put them together in one post...


Melissa from Undomestic Mumma, Chrissy from A Country Wife and Steph from Bondville all passed on the Stylish Blogger Award to me recently. Their blogs are all ones that I really enjoy reading and so it makes me very happy that these ladies have such kind things to say about my little blog.

To accept this award I am to share seven random things about myself and pass it on to some fellow bloggers…


1. I am currently reading a book called ‘Toddler Tactics’.

2. My least favourite household chore is handwashing.

3. Raspberry, cranberry and strawberry tea is my favourite herbal tea.

4. Tuesday is grocery shopping day in our household.

5. I can't remember the last time I indulged in a nice, relaxing bubble bath.

6. There are only six weeks until my birthday.

7. “Doing my hair” in the morning literally takes me ten seconds.


I’d like to pass this award on to…

Stephanie Sue from The Merry Way
Sharyne at The Views From My Valley
“MB” of Mama Bear’s House
Sonia of Raine and Sage
Emma of The Adventures of Baby Pirate and Captain Nicholas
Bron at Baby Space




Also, Anna from Around My Table recently passed on the award above to me too so a big thank you also to her.

Hope you all have a wonderful start to the week!

Top image from Papermash via Suziebeezie

Cupcake Making Day

Morning! Thanks for all your advice in regards to bathroom towels on my last post. I bought some yesterday but will wait until I have the other final touches in place before I reveal some photos. I was going to do a post last night, but we found ourselves without power from about five o'clock onwards. I'm not complaining though when so many in Queensland will be without power for weeks and to be honest, reading by candlelight was quite fun.

On Tuesday, my friend Kylie and I decided to have a 'cupcake making day' - a day to try and compare various recipes and to perfect our buttercream frosting to achieve the 'slightly set on the outside yet still soft and creamy' affect. Kylie and another friend of hers Krystie came over with their stash of cupcake decorations, trays and Kylie's red Kitchenaid and our 'assistant' Grace was more than happy to help out (especially when it came to licking the bowl). Our huge kitchen bench was perfect for spreading everything out and having the room to all work away together. Three batches of cakes, several cups of tea and a few taste tests later, we think we have decided on our favourite cakes and frosting.

Next time we have a cooking day, we've decided we're going to focus on the decorating side of things so we can perfect the 'piping technique' and try out some different pretty combinations. Here's some photos of our cupcake making day...