NEW JOB =

us girls will use any old excuse to go shopping. tomorrow is my last day at my job and on monday i start at the new one (eek!)  just doing a little pre-shop online perusal.


blake belted coat $229 at portmans

double pocket blouse $69.95 portmans


jasper lace collar dress $59.95 from dotti

mod pleat peter pan blouse $49.95 from dotti

lace front tee $40.49 at glassons

from forever new

ming blue satin dress $289 from cue. i like the cuffs, anyway.

scarf print top $159 at cue

HOP



If you'd like to get yourself into the Easter spirit then I have just the ticket! HOP starring the voice of Russel
Brand is a superfun Easter movie that's entertaining for little and big kids alike. I imagine this is the type of movie that I would have been obsessed with as a child, happily watching over and over again. For me, that was The Flintstones Meet Rockula & Frankenstone and Pippi Longstocking. Later, Little Women and Clueless. Now: Hop. I jest, but really, it's a great little movie.

I'm enjoying a pretty lovely afternoon off work today. I had to front up for Jury Duty this morning but was excused on account of my new job starting next Monday. I didn't see any crazy antics from people trying to get out of Jury Duty (I've heard stories of people showing up in hair rollers and such), although there was this one guy who showed up with his laptop, who was sitting there with his head buried in his hands trying to look busy  and stressed and fiddling with pie charts. Turn it up, mate. My friend Mel pointed out that he probably just Google Imaged some graphs.

Anyways, after I was dismissed I brought this beautiful ducky chocolate for my niece Isabella. But something terrible has happened. There is absolutely no point in me buying eggs in advance, other than to support my bid for a size twenty-zillion bottom!


Ooopsey, where's your nose? I rest my case!

SAN CHOY WOW





This post is dedicated to my friend Sarah. That is, Sarah-with-a-H Raft nee Dwyer!

Myself, Sarah, and a bunch of friends recently shared dinner at a fusion Korean/Japanese restaurant, where one of the dishes we ordered was San Choy Bow. The dish had been tampered with recreated with a modern twist. In fact, so modern was this twist that the end result was barely recognisable as San Choy Bow. This caused me to advise my adjacent diner, Sarah, that I had access to a delicious and TRUE TO FORM recipe.

Sarah gave me a gentle reminder yesterday that I'd not yet come forth with the recipe, so here it is, pics and all!

San Choy Bow is a family favourite. You can make it with chicken, pork, turkey or beef mince. That list also happens to be in my order of preference. This recipe is foolproof and delish!


Ingredients

100g button mushrooms
500g mince chicken, beef, pork or turkey
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons cornflour
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon oil
2 tablespoons grated ginger
2 tablespoons oyster sauce
1 tablespoon dry sherry
230g can water chestnuts, drained and chopped
2 spring onions, sliced
Iceberg lettuce leaves

  1. Combine mushrooms, mince, egg, cornflour and soy sauce in a bowl, mix well. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
  2. Heat oil in a large wok. Add the mince and ginger and stir fry for 4 minutes of until mince is separated and cooked through. Add oyster sauce, sherry, chestnuts and spring onions. Stir until well combines and heated through.
  3. Serve mixture in lettuce leaves.
ENJOY, MISS SARAH! 

W I C K E D



The town may be awash with a sea of chocolate and tinfoil, but today I have a different kind of egg on my mind.



Without a doubt the comfiest space I have ever curled up in. My sister-in-law has just bought one of Frank's delightful creations for the back veranda at their new place. I wasted no time volunteering myself for any future house-sitting duties, as I imagined days of lazily swinging in the egg with a good book/chocolate bunny/bunny rug. It's a spacious, shaded and comfy cocoon that holds up to 150kg, which, actually, could really come in handy if the sea of chocolate and tinfoil continues to infiltrate my shopping bags.


Had a lovely morning catching up with my bro and co. We walked down to the local cafe for coffees and milkshakes. Here is Little Iz with her Byron Bay Cookie and Babyccino. Five minutes later she was sound asleep with her head on the table. <3




LADY IN RED


Now this is my kind of lip...stick.

You will never catch me wearing a "bold red lip". If I want to add a pop of colour to my face I will find me a Strawberry Chuppa Cup.

Some can pull off the Super Red Lip tremendously well. Others think they can, but they are actually mistaken. I know I can't, so I don't. I'm just not a lipstick kind of girl. On the few occasions when I have been forced to wear lipstick I have come out with sophisticated gems such as, "I feel like a clown" and more recently, "I feel like I have a bowl of jelly stuck to my mouth".

Although lipsticks will always just be fancily-packaged crayons in my eyes, I do have a friend in lip stain. And I'm not talking about Shiraz; I can't deny this method *will* deliver you a lip stain, just in a more Legless Lucy kind of way.

I love lip stains because they give just a hint of pretty mat colour that you can apply and then just forget about. Unlike lipstick, it won't transfer onto your teeth (which is a stupid look, in case you didn't realise) and it won't leave smooshed waxlips on your champagne flute. You can even walk down the street on a windy day without clumps of hair affixing to your gluey pout. And last, but certainly not least, lip stain doesn't taste like a Crayola.

PAY DAY
I first bought benetint by benefit in London and I have gone through a few bottles since then. I love this stuff because it doubles as a cheek stain, for a touch of fresh dewy blush. These bottles cost around $29 and will last for ages. It comes in three sweet shades, and you can find it at David Jones.


PRICELINE DAY
What girl doesn't love a Priceline spree? My new discovery is Revlon's Just Bitten Lipstain, which retails at a slightly more bargain-esque $17.95. This was one of the few non-gluggy lip stains on offer at Priceline. I tried the red one. I liked the colour, and the Texta-like applicator was quite fun. It also has a lip balm on the other end so you can gloss-up if the moment strikes!
POOR DAY
Nivea to the rescue with their Cherry Fruity Shine balm + tint for pre-payday dull-lip emergencies. These contain Vitamin E so they're a good little lip topper for throughout the day, plus you will get change from a fiver. Sorted =)





SUNSHINE REVERIE





















this morning i kind of got up on the wrong side of the bed. one of those stupid moods that comes from a snowball of little things but nothing big in particular. luckily for me, my mum had given me a voucher for a thai massage at cronulla and i'd already booked it in for this morning. i fell onto the massage table as a bit of an oscar-the-grouch, but left an hour later completely rejuvenated. hallelujah. i just realised that being in a 'mood' achieves absolutely nothing and decided to get over myself. done and done. the massage was ah-mazing. i've had a few balinese massages before, but never thai-style. i knew it was going to be a bit different when at the beginning i had to put on these floppy three-quarter cotton giant elasticised pants. very sexy indeed. the massage was all about pressure points and folding the body - which is where the pants came into their own. at times it was a bit like a yoga class, except that i didn't have to do any work. excellent. afterwards i went for a wander and took these pictures. i drove home with the window down to let the hot breeze wash right in. there's some great uncomplicated charm about driving with the window down on a sunny day. happy afternoon. <3 <3 <3

CHAR & IZZY'S APARTMENT: ON DISPLAY

It dawned on me a few days ago, while chasing sweet rugrats down the hall, that I didn't get around to putting up photos of Char and Izzy's finished playhouse. The girls love their special little space at "Nanny and Gazpah's". The first thing Izzy did last week was to get out her toy bucket and mop and give the floorboards a once-over. They sure are house proud. For those who haven't seen the previous posts, this space was converted from a staircase storage area to a cubbyhouse and toy-collection area for the girls. You can see the previous posts here.



Sylvanian Family home, built circa 1988


Still looking good, ladies.


Sometimes the girls prefer to hang out at their Aunty's playhouse instead.


With Nemo being the flavour of the moment.


Gold Class Cinema <3


SHAMROCK SHORTBREAD WITH CHOCOLATE BAILEYS BUTTERCREAM



With St. Patrick's Day tomorrow, I decided it was necessary to turn my shortbread green, shape it like shamrocks and then sandwich said shamrocks together with  Baileys buttercream.

Making shortbread itself is a piece of cake biscuit, but fashioning shortbread mixture (which is a lot less sturdy than your average biscuit dough) into shamrock shapes was a lesson in tedium. I don't own a shamrock cookie cutter (strange) so I made my own cardboard template and cut around the shapes with a knife (crazy).


The three shamrocks you see here are Special Edition, the only ones of their kind. The rest become fast and happy circles. The trouble with offering someone a green circle filled with brown goop, though, is that you feel you have to explain the whole St Pat's concept (i.e. why your shortbread is grasshopper coloured) and quite frankly I think it'd be easier to just eat the whole batch myself. So we shall see how that turns out. Well I can hazard a guess how that would turn out. Fat.


Anyway, then there was the icing. First I tried to make icing out of Nutella and Baileys. Well, turns out Nutella doesn't like being fiddled with because the mixture seized and became hard as cement, I lost control of the mixing bowl and the electric beaters started spazzing out. So I switched to Bailey's buttercream instead.

For the sake of offering an appraisal, I sampled one for breakfast. These turned out pretty nicely, even if I do say so myself. Here's the plain the shortbread recipe, sans green colouring.

Shortbread Recipe

250g butter, softened
1/3 cup caster sugar
1 tablespoon water
2 cups plain flour
1/2 cup rice flour
2 tablespoons white sugar

Preheat oven to 160 Celcius. fan-forced. Grease and line oven trays.

Beat butter and caster sugar in medium bowl with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Stir in the water and sifted flours, in two batches. Knead mixture on floured surface until smooth.

Divide mixture in half, roll out with rolling pin until about 1cm thick. You can either cut shapes out of the mixture on you can roll out two 20cm rounds and pinch the edges of the rounds with fingers to create a pattern. Sprinkle sugar on top. If you make the rounds, bake for 40 minutes. If you make shapes, bake for about 25 mins.

Leave to stand on trays for 5 minutes before transferring to wire racks.

Baileys Buttercream

For this icing I used about half cup of butter and 50mL Baileys, and beated that together with an electric mixture for a minute or two until good and smooth. Then mixed in around about a cup of icing sugar and a few teaspoons of cocoa, plus about half a teaspoon of vanilla essence. Basically just keep adding and tasting til it tastes right.

SOMETHING BORROWED, SOMETHING BLUE

A friend got me onto the Oracle Fox blog and I am enamoured with some of the photography. So I thought I would borrow a couple of pics, as much for my own ease-of-access as to show you what's going on over there. Dreamy dreamy.

From the Urban Outfitters March catalogue, as posted by Oracle Fox.



From the Threadsence Spring look book for 2012, as posted by Oracle Fox.



From the look book for LF Stores and new denim label Car Mar, posted by Oracle Fox.