Happy New Year!

Wishing you all a wonderful 2014!

Pansies...

Just love these bright little faces on a winter's day.
Hope these make you smile as they did me!

Enjoy your day!

Shaped vases...

Ohh, what fun containers these are!

New Zealand Christmas Tree...

They're simply stunning at this time of the year!

Is the pohutukawa tree (Metrosideros excelsa) with its crimson flower has become an established part of the New Zealand Christmas tradition. It often features on greeting cards and in poems and songs, has become an important symbol for New Zealanders at home and abroad.

In 1833 the missionary Henry Williams described holding service under a ‘wide spreading pohutukawa’. The first recorded reference to the pohutukawa as a Christmas tree came in 1867 when the Austrian geologist Ferdinand von Hochstetter noted that settlers referred to it as such. The pohutukawa, he observed, ‘about Christmas … are full of charming … blossoms’; ‘the settler decorates his church and dwellings with its lovely branches’. Other 19th-century references described the pohutukawa tree as the ‘Settlers Christmas tree’ and ‘Antipodean holly’.

In 1941 army chaplain Ted Forsman composed a pohutukawa carol in which he made reference to ‘your red tufts, our snow’. Forsman was serving in the Libyan Desert at the time, hardly the surroundings normally associated with the image of a fiery red pohutukawa tree. Many of his fellow New Zealanders, though, would have instantly identified with the image.

Today many school children sing about how ‘the native Christmas tree of Aotearoa’ fills their hearts ‘with aroha’.

Pohutukawa and its cousin rata also hold a prominent place in Maori tradition. Legends tell of Tawhaki, a young Maori warrior, who attempted to find heaven to seek help in avenging the death of his father. He fell to earth and the crimson flowers are said to represent his blood.

A gnarled, twisted pohutukawa on the windswept cliff top at Cape Reinga, the northern tip of New Zealand, has become of great significance to many New Zealanders. For Maori this small, venerated pohutukawa is known as ‘the place of leaping’. It is from here that the spirits of the dead begin their journey to their traditional homeland of Hawaiki. From this point the spirits leap off the headland and climb down the roots of the 800-year-old tree, descending into the underworld on their return journey.

The Other Half of Me

What good can the past do the living? What harm?” Growing up in their family’s ancestral home in Wales, Jonathan Anthony and his little sister, Theo, are inseparable. Together they explore the wild acres of Evendon, inventing magical worlds and buttressing each other against the loneliness of life with their alcoholic mother, Alicia, and a shifting cast of gossiping cooks and maids. When a family tragedy brings their glamorous grandmother, Eve, home from America, Jonathan and Theo are initially elated by the attention she lavishes on them. But soon it becomes clear that there is more to the Anthony family history than either Eve or Alicia will acknowledge, trapping Jonathan and Theo in a web of dark secrets that have haunted Evendon for generations. Written in luminous prose, with richly endearing characters and a profound appreciation for the rustic beauty of the Welsh countryside, 
The Other Half of Me is a darkly wise coming-of-age novel and a masterful portrait of a family and the burdens of the past.

Wishes ...

What do you see?

Christmas shoes

Oh yes! Nothing like alittle glitter to enhance your day...

Carrot soup ...

Carrots are popular, inexpensive and are available all year round and what's more they can be made into a cheerfully bright and creamy soup.

You can easily add your own gourmet touches with herbs, cheese and even orange to enhance its flavour.

2 cloves garlic
2 large onions
50g butter
500g carrots
2 tsp sugar
4 cups vegetable stock
1/4-1/2 cup milk or cream

Chop the onion and garlic finely

Cook in the butter without browning

Add the chopped carrot, sugar and stock and simmer until the carrots are tender then puree

Whisk in the milk/cream and adjust the seasonings with salt and/or pepper

Variations:

Add fresh thyme as the carrots are cooking

Add the grated rind and juice of an orange when you add the milk or cream

Even try replacing the milk/cream with 1/2-1 cup cheese sauce

This is a lovely soup on a wintery day

Enjoy!

Christmas stockings ...

While there are no written records of the origin of the Christmas Stocking, there are popular legends that attempt to tell the history of this Christmas tradition. One such legend has several variations, but the following is a good example:

Very long ago, there lived a poor man and his three very beautiful daughters. He had no money to get his daughters married, and he was worried what would happen to them after his death. He thought they would become prostitutes.  Saint Nicholas was passing through when he heard the villagers talking about the girls. St. Nicholas wanted to help, but knew that the old man wouldn't accept charity. He decided to help in secret. After dark he threw three bags of gold through an open window, one landed in a stocking. When the girls and their father woke up the next morning they found the bags of gold and were, of course, overjoyed. The girls were able to get married and live happily ever after. Other versions of the story say that Saint Nicholas threw the 3 bags of gold directly into the stockings which were hung by the fireplace to dry.

This led to the custom of children hanging stockings or putting out shoes, eagerly awaiting gifts from Saint Nicholas. Sometimes the story is told with gold balls instead of bags of gold. That is why three gold balls, sometimes represented as oranges, are one of the symbols for St. Nicholas. And so, St. Nicholas is a gift-giver. This is also the origin of 3 gold balls being used as a symbol for pawnbrokers.
A tradition that began in a European country originally, children simply used one of their everyday socks, but eventually special Christmas stockings were created for this purpose. The Christmas stocking custom is derived from the Germanic/Scandinavian figure Odin. According to Phyllis Siefker, children would place their boots, filled with carrots, straw and even sugar, near the chimney for Odin's flying horse, Sleipnir, to eat. Odin would reward those children for their kindness by replacing Sleipnir's food with gifts or candy. This practice survived in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands  after the adoption of Christianity and became associated with Saint Nicholas as a result of the process of Christianization. 

Recently read this ...

When a white servant girl violates the order of plantation society, she unleashes a tragedy that exposes the worst and best in the people she has come to call her family. Orphaned while onboard ship from Ireland, seven-year-old Lavinia arrives on the steps of a tobacco plantation where she is to live and work with the slaves of the kitchen house. Under the care of Belle, the master's illegitimate daughter, Lavinia becomes deeply bonded to her adopted family, though she is set apart from them by her white skin. 

Eventually, Lavinia is accepted into the world of the big house, where the master is absent and the mistress battles opium addiction. Lavinia finds herself perilously straddling two very different worlds. When she is forced to make a choice, loyalties are brought into question, dangerous truths are laid bare, and lives are put at risk.

Pumpkin Soup

Mmmmm... 

Found this recipe and decided to try it. Love the touch of honey

2 tbsp butter
2 chopped onions
2 tbsp chopped oregano
3 cups roasted pumpkin
1 tsp honey
6 cups vegetable stock

Saute the onions and oregano in the butter.
Add the honey and the stock and simmer for about 15 minutes.
Add the roasted pumpkin (to warm)
Cool alittle and mix well in a blender

Enjoy!

Christmas sea glass angels

While walking Friday morning on Long Island, I found some sea glass and today decided to make angels... so cute!

Egg Nog!

Nothing beats homemade egg nog!

1 dozen egg yolks

1 cup brandy (I used Gosling's black seal rum)

1 can evaporated milk

1/2 cup sugar

3 cups milk

Pinch of nutmeg

Cream the egg yolks and sugar

Slowly add the brandy, nutmeg and milk

Mix well and store in the fridge until required


Enjoy!

Christmas cake

I fell in love with this recipe years ago and now I remember why!

125g shelled whole brazil nuts
125g shelled whole cashew nuts
125g shelled whole walnut halves
1/4 cup chopped dates
2 tbsp chopped mixed peel
60g glace cherries
125g dried pineapple, apricots or peaches
1/4 cup sultanas
1/4 cup seeded raisins
1/3 cup flour (or slightly more)
1/4 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
1/3 cup castor sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
2 tbsp brandy (or sightly more)
2 beaten eggs

Combine the fruit and nuts
Sift the flour, baking powder and salt
Mix in the sugar and add the fried fruit and nuts
Add the vanilla and brandy to the eggs and then stir into the fruit
Mix well, yes, it's quite stiff

Line an 18cm ring pan or 22cm x 8cm loaf pan
Place the mixture into the pan, smooth and bake

140 C for 2.5 hours
Cover with foil after 1 hour if it's browning too quickly
Stand for 10 minutes before turning onto a cake rack

When cold wrap in foil and store in the fridge

Great served in fingers or slices with coffee.

Enjoy!

The Garden of Burning Sand

Have just finished reading this book-and loved it!

Zoe Fleming is an American attorney working with an NGO devoted to combatting child sexual assault in Lusaka, Zambia. When an adolescent girl is raped in the dark of night and delivered by strangers to the hospital, Zoe’s organization is called in to help

Working alongside Zambian police officer Joseph Kabuta, Zoe learns that the girl’s assailant was not a street kid or a pedophile but the son of a powerful industrialist with deep ties to the Zambian government. As the prosecution against him grinds forward, hampered by systemic corruption and bureaucratic inertia, Zoe and Joseph’s search for the truth takes them from Lusaka’s roughest neighborhoods to the wild waters of Victoria Falls, to the AIDS-ridden streets of Johannesburg and the splendour of Cape Town.

As the rape trial builds to a climax and sends shockwaves through Zambian society, Zoe must radically reshape her assumptions about love, loyalty, family—and, especially, the meaning of justice.

Lily of the Valley

Love this older image of Lily of the Valley which is a sweetly scented (and highly poisonous) woodland flowering plant.

Succulents

Loving these!

Succulents (Echeverias) are arguably the most attractive of all succulents, highly valued for their amazing colours and variation, with the stunning leaf colour of many varieties at its most brilliant in the cooler months. 
Their rosettes range in size from 2cm to 50cm in diameter. They generally flower in the warmer months with colours ranging from white to orange to pink to red.

Yellow poinciana

Yellow poinciana (Peltophorum pterocarpum)  is a species of Peltophorum, native to tropical southeastern Asia and a popularly ornamental tree grown around the world. 

There are two trees known to be in Bermuda, this one is by the Bermuda Aquarium. A stunning splash of yellow next to an orange/red poinciana.

Amazing scented blooms!

Frangipani (Plumeria) is a genus of flowering plants in the dogbane family, Apocynaceae. 
It contains seven or eight species of mainly deciduous shrubs and small trees.

Here in Bermuda we have white, varying shades of pink and sometimes you see a deep orange pink with yellow centres.

There is nothing that compares to the beautiful perfume of these blooms!

Beneath the Marble Sky

My other favourite book ....

In 1632, the Emperor of Hindustan, Shah Jahan, overwhelmed with grief over the death of his beloved wife, Mumatz Mahal, commissioned the building of a grand mausoleum to symbolize the greatness of their love. The story surrounding the construction of the Taj Mahal occurs, however, against a scrim of fratricidal war, murderous rebellion, unimaginable wealth, and, not least of all, religious fundamentalism ruthlessly opposing tolerance and coexistence between the disparate peoples in the empire. At that time, Hindustan comprised all of modern Pakistan and Kashmir, most of eastern Afghanistan, and two-thirds of the Indian subcontinent (roughly north of Bombay to the Himalayas). "Beneath a Marble Sky," narrated by Princess Jahanara, eldest daughter of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal, recounts their story, and her own as well, a parallel tale of forbidden love enduring censure and extreme deprivations. "Beneath a Marble Sky" brims with action and intrigue befitting an epic era when, alongside continuous war, architecture and its attendant arts reached a pinnacle of perfection. 

Enjoy

Good morning ...

One of those ...

Hobby ....

Remember ...

Pink-Funhouse

"Glitter in the Air" is my new favourite song ...

Happy Monday ...

Caramelized Bermuda onions ....

Slow cooking in my crock pot, they're impossible to overcook and are a beautiful shade of mahogany! 

Bermuda onions have a certain sweetness about them in their raw state, even sweeter after cooking for 12-14 hours.

Butter (relatively large amount)

3 large Bermuda onions

Crock pot 12-14 hours

I enhance lunchtime wraps, savory crackers, cover chicken, toss through pasta and add to a simply spinach salad.

Red flowers ...

Love! 

I don't take the credit for this sketch (don't know who did it), just had to share as it's fun, look at the varying shades of red ...

... wild!

Creativity ....

another fun flower project

Borscht ...

Have just made this easy recipe for the traditional Russian beetroot soup, it's delicious, nutritious and the most amazing shade of crimson ...

25 grams butter
1 medium onion
1 small potato
450 grams raw beetroot
1.2 litres vegetable stock
3 tablespoons cider vinegar
1 teaspoon yeast extract (I use marmite)
Salt and pepper to taste
Nutmeg to taste

~Sour cream or yoghurt along with chopped parley or chives to garnish.

Melt the butter and saute the onions, then add the potato, beetroot and stock, bring to the boil then simmer until the vegetables are soft.

Allow to cool then blend. Return to the pot and as you reheat add the remaining ingredients and seasonings.

~Just before serving stir in the sour cream or yoghurt and sprinkle with your chopped herbs

Recipe compliments of John Duguid from the Matakana School Cookbook.

Smile .....

Camellia

In woodlands of New Zealand, Japan and Korea, evergreen wild camellia bloom beneath the shelter of tall trees.

I love the slightly shining leaves.

"Believe"

Even more of a reason to plant your herb and flower garden today or this weekend ..... why put it off to another time!

Today's motto ....

Paperwhites ....

an unmistakable clean fragrance which brings a welcome breath of spring

Pick your colour

Green, soft blue, blue, royal blue, blue/purple, purple and hot pink the colour spectrum of hydrangeas are amazing ...

These remind me of a rainbow

"Spring"

Today is the first day of spring and wanted to share these helleborous blooms~ many sport distinctive markings on the inside of the flowers and are available in varying shades of ....

                                   soft green~white ....

                                   green ....

                                           purple ....

                                  pink ....

                            black ....


All are simply beautiful

Tillandsias ....

displayed as jellyfish~ what a great idea.

Sweetcorn fritters

a perfect light dinner on a wintery evening ....

3/4 cup flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 egg

large can of cream-style corn

salt and pepper

Sift the flour, baking powder, salt and pepper into a bowl. Add the egg, mixing to combine then stir in the sweetcorn.

Place alittle oil or butter on the flat side of your reversible iron griddle then drop a tablespoonsful of the corn mixture onto the griddle. 

Cook until golden then turn and cook the other side.

Yum yum!

Cheese Cake

.... what a great alternative to the cheesecake we know ....