Donna Hay Tarts

Ok, so they're not really by the infamous Donna Hay, but that's what I've been calling these for a few years since I first resorted to cutting a few corners in the quest to create some quick tarts to take to a picnic with a vegetarian friend.

I mentioned these to (Donna fan) Angry Chicken a few weeks ago and finally had a chance to make them yesterday (public holiday here- a friend came over and joined me for a sewing bee).

But why Donna Hay tarts? Because they are pretty quick, very easy, exceptionally tasty and rather photogenic.

Ingredients:
[makes 8 luncheon tarts or 18 cocktail tarts]
4 medium tomatoes
100gm fetta (I like Bulgarian Fetta)
Pesto
a splash of balsamic vinegar
2 sheets frozen puff pastry

Method:
Heat the oven up to 220degC and remove the pastry from the freezer to allow it to thaw a little

Chop up tomatoes and fetta and mix together in a bowl with a couple of spoonfuls of pesto (to taste) and a splash of balsamic



Cut each sheet of pastry into 4 squares [or 9 if making cocktail tarts] and gently prod into large sized muffin tray so that the pastry forms folds with corner peaks



Loosely fill them up with the tomato mixture and pop them in the hot oven for about 20 minutes, or until the pastry is nicely puffed and browned



Enjoy for lunch on the front deck, with a good friend and a side salad picked from the lettuce growing in the sun on the porch. They taste especially nice if the aforementioned good friend helps chop the tomatoes and joins you for an afternoon of sewing.



I must say I've never quite managed to figure out how to make the bottoms perfectly crisp, but this doesn't seem to deter the eaters... The secret of the filling and puff pastry method have been shared with many, many friends, who have experimented with the fillings, including tomato, olive and preserved lemon tarts and potato and blue cheese quiches. Please do share and experiment yourself!

More, with lighting

Sorry, the camera is still pretty crappy, but this should give you a clearer idea. Please convey your opinions: someone near and dear has suggested it doesn't look as fine as I may think... (particularly when not pinned). Nicole, if you still like it, I am more than happy to share the recipe.

One year ago today...

Scott and I both went on our first blind dates ever. And hopefully our last :)

We went out last night to Shakahari for dinner to celebrate. We went there for dinner on our third date, just over 1 year ago. It still has delicious food and wonderful company. We wondered if Jo, who set us up, expected it to work out so well?

Thanks Scott- I'm really enjoying sharing life with you XX

All stashed up

I've succumbed to one of the many perils of knit blogging. I'm developing a little stash. I'm really not a stasher by nature, or someone who likes to have multiple projects on the go. But that seems to be changing slowly.

In the last week I've started to acquire a sock yarn stash. It started with a trip to Wool Baa in search of supplies for Spearfish.


I realised I had to have some Opal self striping with silver sparkles. And I also had to relieve them of some handpainted Opal in shades of green/pinky browns/rusts with a flash of yellow, (I'm describing this because the photo doesn't do it justice) possibly to use for Spearfishing. And I may have to make do with a set of 4 bamboo dpn's for Spearfish too.

Stash development continued when I was enabled to find Lorna's Laces on Ebay. Thanks Alison- you are the best enabler I know. I should follow your suggestions more often! I am pleased to announce that I will now be knitting Spearfish out of this:

or maybe this....

I'll probably decide once I've fondled them a bit, but feel free to tell me your preference!

all stitched up

At last I present for you (drumroll please) a finished object!!

Seaming on the felted tweed cardi gradually occurred over the week. I’m a mattress stitch freak but I also used some backstitching on the shoulder seams, after hearing some suggestions re minimising the stretching potential of shoulder seams from Melbourne S’n’B guru Catherine the other week. I don’t particularly want extra saggy shoulders on this garment.


And upon weaving in the last end I vainly attempted a self photo shoot*. No matter how hard I stretched I couldn’t get me in it. How does everyone else manage good looking self portraits? I'd prefer to show the garment to its best advantage! Do I really need to spend longer than 5 minutes on the photo shoot? Do I need better lighting? Do I need to use a better camera? (Hmm perhaps all of the above)


It’s very loose, stretchy and unstructured, much more so than the original garment I was copying. I'm already dreaming about changes I would make next time, but I am very pleased with it I must say. It will be getting alot of wear! The yarn (Rowan Felted Tweed) is gorgeous to work with and has a nice give and feel. The colour (Shade 152 "Watery")is divine also- I'm quite loving teal blues at the moment. I'd love to try something on some of the purples...

*And in order to present these photos to you, I must express my heartfelt thanks to my man, Scott, who has just enabled me to post pics without the frustrations of using Hello! Big smooches Scott XXX. I promise I will get back on to your jumper now… Just as soon as I’ve knitted some socks…

Anyone want to go fishing?

Spearfish-ing to be precise.

I think I've been a knitblogging outcast for too long. I haven't knitted any socks* and I haven't participated in a knitalong**.

Now that I've been inspired by all the sock knitting bloggers out there, and some fabulous knitalongs (such as Sockapalooza), it's about time to rectify the situation. The opportunity and challenge of this knitalong, being hosted by the Spearfish sock designer, Kristi, was too good an opportunity to miss.

I have now procured the pattern. I'm just in need of yarn and I also need to replace my skanky metal sets of 4dpn's with some bamboo sets of 5dpn's. I'm trying to steal visits to knitting shops in between work and other commitments (garage sale, my place this saturday!). So far I've managed to get to Sunspun, who have Opal sock yarn, but not in plain colours (although the grey blue stripes with silver sparkle was tempting... maybe for my next pair of socks?).

*I have actually knit some socks before, for my Dad as a Christmas gift. I was in highschool I think. At least I was when I knit the first one. The second one I finished some time after University. I did a 5 year degree... this was a severe case of second sock-itis. Not surprising really- they were knitted in stocking stitch in a boring, dull grey Patonyle sock yarn.. (Yawn). I'm not falling into the same trap this time!

**I have actually participated in a knitalong, with the Melbourne S'n'B group. We did a felted stuff knitalong. Initially intended as a felted market bag knitalong but there were other items knitted and fulled (ohhh, I love a spot of technically correct term usage).

Just to prove I didn't spend all of Easter procrastinating

I had worked my arse of in the week before easter to enable myself to have an extra day off on the Thursday before easter. Chores lined up included shopping.
Walter noticed that I had not bought easter eggs, and wondered what I was up to.

Over easter he continued to puzzle over it, particularly when he spotted this little bundle lying on the bed on Easter Monday.

Vibrant, textured and soft (he knows- he sat on it and pawed it to check out what the texture and loft of this strage looking stuff really felt like).
It is in fact a scarf

(sorry no photos on me- the light isn't right and the mirror isn't clean enough- and I figure everyone knows what a scarf looks like on, right?).

It is in fact one big cable, configured to form a three part plait. The yarn is from Martas of course, using some of her slubby and flowers yarn dyed in the same colourway.

I used 100gms of slubby and 80gms of flowers, and using 12mm needles (addis with sparkly tips!) cast on 3 lots of 4 stitches and knitted some short varied lengths, which I then combined into a 12 stitch row. Then it was just a matter of maintaining each "strand" in a different yarn as I progressed with cabling each 4th row. I ended up switching from 2 "strands" of slubby and 1 of flowers, to 2 of flowers and 1 of slubby, about half way through, due to the rate of diminishing yarn quantities, and finished it off with some more short dangling lengths at the end.

It was really easy to make (although I did find myself loosing count when I was working on it whilst drinking some very nice pinot at a crafty girly gathering at (non-blogging) Pollock's place on the Monday...) and I think it's pretty cool. There's plenty of scope to play with the basic idea too, using different textures, colours, widths and cable patterns.

I'm quite chuffed with myself as I've never actually made a cabled item before, although I have played around with samples and techniques. And I got some nice comments on it at S'n'B last Wednesday, which was also a nice ego boost!