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Snapshot Sunday: Location, Location, Location

The lone Photinia
Photinia Hedge 2018

Four years ago we decided to grow a hedge to screen the house from the road. I chose Photinia as it is a commonly used hedging plant locally so I knew it would have a good chance of growing and I like the colours as the new growth is red. Jason and Brodie, the “garden guys” got the plants for me and Jason suggested buying an extra one and planting it in an out of the way part of the garden in case we needed a replacement.

Over time we did lose a couple of the plants but the hedge was dense enough that the gap did not matter too much so the odd one was left in peace at the bottom of the garden. Some people do grow Photinia as a tree it is not only used as hedging.

Well today it has well and truly overtaken its hedge based brothers and sisters and is now taller than I am while they have not quite reached five  feet.

I was chatting to Jason about this recently and he suggested that it is all about location. It rains a lot here as you know and in summer I water the hedge in dry spells but the soil is relatively dry there compared to the bottom of the garden which in winter is so damp that I nearly got my foot stuck in the mud when I went to the compost bin one day recently. I water the other garden trees but never that one. It has thrived on neglect.

The hedge has been trimmed a few times but only to tidy it up as some plants have grown faster than others and it has not been trimmed for a couple of months. The back yard tree has never been trimmed in any way. It looks untidy because Cindy broke a branch when she was jumping and barking at the neighbour dog who had chewed a hole in the fence.

Share Your World 2018 – 14 May

Sharing My World This Week

Complete this sentence: This sandwich could really use some …

You’ve got me there, I’d only say that if I had run out of cheese at home. On the other hand if we were talking about burgers my answer would be salad. McDonald’s and Hungry Jacks (Burger King) don’t put enough salad on their burgers and I like mine with a bit of crunch not just a piece of cheese, onion and a pickle. A proper burger has meat, lettuce, cheese, tomato,onion, beetroot and sometimes a fried egg.

What is your least favorite candy?

I was going to say liquorice but on reflection I think it has been displaced by the sour tasting candies that seem to have become popular and the even more popular salted ones. Just give me chocolate.

What sign are you? Do you believe in astrology?

I am a Taurus and I do think that I am true to the characteristics of my birth sign. However, I don’t take the horoscopes that you see in magazines or these days online very seriously because of course they are generalised. In order to give a more accurate reading the astrologer would need much more precise details about me than just the month I was born. So yes I do believe but I take it with a pinch of salt, just like any practical Taurian would 😉

Taurus2.jpg
By Unknown – I scanned this image from a reproduction of a (normand?) medieval book of astrology (15th century), Public Domain, Link

What did you appreciate or what made you smile this past week?  Feel free to use a quote, a photo, a story, or even a combination. 

As I mentioned in my Sunday post we had three wet days last week. In fact we had a huge thunderstorm, one of the biggest I can remember and there was flooding in several places, parts of the Huon and the city of Hobart in particular.

I was lucky because I did not receive any damage, lose power or my internet connection so that’s something to smile about. On Sunday the weather was a little better and I was able to plant the bulbs I had ordered earlier. I am going to have pots of daffodils and bluebells, tulips, hyacinth and crocus and hyacinth and freesia. I also got out my kneeling pad and popped a few bluebells into the ground under the apple tree. After cleaning the shed I found a few more stray bulbs. I have no idea what they were, they were from previous years pots I think. I popped them under the tree too. Maybe they will grow and maybe they won’t. It was easy to dig the soil after the rain and there were lots of fallen leaves to cover everything with.  I love bulbs, they are so easy to garden with and you nearly always get at least some flowers. If I am not here to see them I hope the new owner will get a nice surprise.

Of course Cindy and Polly came to see what I was doing. I spent some time reorganising the shed and sweeping out dust, and other accumulated mess. Even Polly who rarely goes to the bottom of the garden came in to investigate.

The old wooden garden shed photographed on my smartphone.
Polly came to investigate
There will be bulbs flowering here in spring I hope.
Cindy and Polly head back to the house.I love the way they wander around together sometimes.

 

Snapshot Sunday: Down in the Garden Shed

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After three wet days the sun finally came out for a while today so I unpacked the box of bulbs I got in the mail the other day and planted them in pots ready for spring. A handful went under the apple tree as a gift to the garden. While I was out there I decided that it was high time that I cleaned up the garden shed so I did. I was proud of myself for completing this chore so I took some photos to celebrate.

Snapshot Sunday – What I Did This Weekend

Hung up my painting shirt for the day.
A well deserved cup of coffee.
Freshly repainted kitchen
Freshly repainted kitchen

No time for photography this weekend. It has been wet outside and I have been busy repainting my kitchen. This is the end result.

Christmas Cooking- My Favourite Recipes Reblogged – Mince Pies

I thought that I would re-run this post again as it is my favourite recipe for mince pies.

DISCLAIMER

I am not a professional cook. It’s not even really a hobby. The main time of the year that I bake is at Christmas because I love all the traditional British Christmas goodies and I get more pleasure out of making them than buying them as it brings back pleasant memories of past Christmases that I’ve shared with my family.

Mince Pies

I love mince pies and look forward to having them every Christmas. The shops usually start selling them months before Christmas but I like to make my own. I do remember mum teaching me to make these when I was in my early teens and I took charge of making them for our family when I was about fifteen. I don’t think I have ever missed a year. I’ve experimented with various recipes. I used to make them with sweet short crust pastry but I’ve never been a very good pastry cook. When I was first married mum gave me the first Margaret Fulton Cookbook and in it was a recipe for mince pies made with biscuit pastry. I liked it so much I have been using it ever since. Every year my battered old book comes out and I make two dozen mince pies which is enough for Hubby and me and for my sister to have a batch as well. They can be frozen if you want to make them ahead of Christmas.

Ingredients:

  • 6 ounces (yes this is an old recipe) of butter. I sometimes use cooking margarine instead.
  • 2 ounces (1/3rd cup) castor sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 10 ounces (2 1/2 cups) plain flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder To my horror when I came to make these this morning I found I had no baking powder so as hubby was unavailable to go to the shop I substituted bi-carbonate of soda. Baking powder is basically bi-carb (baking soda) with some other salts in it so it will work the same way.
  • 1 jar fruit mince. (The book has a recipe for home-made fruit mince but I’m too lazy to make it.)
  • icing sugar

    image ingredients
    What you will need.

Method:

  • Cream butter and sugar well
  • Add  the egg and beat well
  • Sift flour with baking powder and stir into the mixture.

If you are lucky enough to have a food processor or mixer with a dough hook go ahead and use them. I don’t have either so I mix with my old Sunbeam hand mixer which I remember getting for my mum when I was about thirteen. There is a story to that but I’ll save it for another day. I mix the flour in with a knife and then with my fingers. This may be why I don’t make pastry too often. Still I’m better off than my grandmother. She did all her mixing with a wooden spoon or a fork. This Fork.

image bowl of butter and sugar
Cream butter and sugar
image creaming butter and sugar
creaming the butter and sugar
image adding flour to bowl
add the sifted flour and baking powder

After mixing the pastry you knead it lightly on a floured board. At this point Margaret Fulton says chill the pastry for one hour but I have to admit I skip this step. I used to do it but I found the pastry even harder to handle chilled so now I just get on with it. I should mention that Margaret Fulton is an Australian and the recipes in the book are probably designed for Australian conditions so maybe if you are in a cool climate the chilling is not so essential. As I said, I’m not a chef. So chill or don’t chill as you please. If my dough is crumbly I sometimes add a tablespoon of cold water  to the mixture too. I didn’t today though.

Roll out your pastry thinly and cut rounds to fit your patty pans. If you don’t have biscuit cutters a small glass is fine for this. Cut the same number of smaller circles for the tops. I digress from Margaret here and cut all mine the same size.

image pastry making
Roll thinly and cut rounds
  • Place your larger rounds, or just half of them if you made them all the same size, in greased patty tins and moisten the edges with beaten egg.
  • Fill each pie with 1 heaped teaspoon of fruit mince. I like the English-made Robertson’s Fruit Mince best. I’ve tried other brands but you can’t beat this one in my opinion. One jar of it will make 15-20 pies, that’s what the jar says and it is true. Of course if you don’t like them really fruity it  will go a lot further.
  • Make a small slit in each pastry top or cut centre with a small star-shaped cutter and put into place on top of the fruit mince. Press edges together to seal the pastry.
  • Brush with beaten egg to glaze.
image fill with fruit mince
Fill with fruit mince

Cook in a moderate oven, 350 Fahrenheit. I do them at about 175 Celsius for 20-25 minutes or until pale golden brown. Remove from the oven and dust with icing sugar. Depending on how thinly you roll your pastry and the size of your patty tins you should get between 12-20 mince pies from this mixture. I tend to roll mine quite thick and I still usually get about 15.

image ready to bake mince pies
Glaze with beaten egg and bake
image mince pies
Mince Pies

Don’t forget to make a wish when you eat your first one for the year. We did a lot of wishing on things in our family.

 

 

More Mince Pies