Stormy winters day….

posted in: Cooking, home, sewing, Simple living, Weather | 2

So, yesterday actually started out sunny, lulling me into thinking about back-to-school washing and so forth.

However as the afternoon progressed, the clouds started building up from the North-west, big black ones, and I just knew there was something in it!

An intense set of storm cells went through, thunder and lightning, torrential downpour and small hail! It was an impressive sight to witness, from the warmth and security of the indoors. My chooks were a little damp and bedraggled, but none the worse for wear. They didn’t seem to mind the rumbling that continued on into the evening.

Seemed like a perfect afternoon to put on a roast and warm the house and our stomachs! Normally I would pot roast this baby, but I had a craving for the real thing today.

I rubbed a plain beef Bolar Blade roast (a not-so tender, cheap roast that loves long slow cooking) with a Moroccan spice rub. On a bed of onions, garlic and potatoes to add flavour to the juices and keep the roast from sticking to the bottom of the pan. No need for any oil, that fat melted and ran beautifully, keeping the meat really moist. We just cut it off when we were carving.

It only took about 10 minutes in the oven before the smell started to fill the house…. we were pretty hungry by the end of the 2-3 hrs cooking!

Oh my goodness it was worth the wait. A second tray of potatoes, another tray of roasted sweet potato and pumpkin, and a new recipe I’ve been working on, a version of Cauliflower Gratin. Add to that gravy flavoured with the pan scrapings and we aren’t very hungry still today. Funny that!?!

Meanwhile in between all the peeling and cooking, and storm watching, I was playing with paper and sticky-tape.

I am hoping to do some sewing for a friend’s daughters, as I don’t have any girls to sew for, and teenage boys aren’t really good candidates. I bought a downloadable pattern from 5berriessewingpatterns.com (also on etsy at 5berries) when they were on sale last week. I had been hesitating over the downloadable pattern thing for a long time, due to the difficulties in converting patterns from US Letter size to A4 size. I even tried to find US Letter paper here in Australia, but with no luck. So I figured by getting the pattern on sale, it wasn’t a total write off if it didn’t work after all. Although my suggestion to pattern makers would be to make 2 versions for downloading and that would definitely encourage the rest of the world that uses A4 to buy their product!

However it CAN be done!! It was murder on the back and eyes, and I had to split most of the sheets in half in Photoshop, print them on 2 A4 sheets, and then reassemble them once printed. Not so good if you don’t have photoshop or a whole lot of patience, however I have both in spades. What you see here, as demonstrated by the tape lines, is 40+ sheets of paper, and it covered the entire table pretty much.

And so I NEVER EVER EVER!! have to do that again, I am tracing each size onto lightweight vilene for keeping. Because really, I’d much rather spend the afternoon cutting and sewing fabric rather than paper. Right?

I’ll show you some of the dress-making and finished product when I actually get some more time to find fabric, and all that fun stuff. I still have 8 more sizes to trace off first!

So, what have you been cooking up in the kitchen lately? Or sewing or buying or anything really 🙂Happy Crafting - Cassie.

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