Skip to main content

ABOUT

Hi there! I’m Di.

I'm a 40 something mum living in the suburbs of Melbourne trying to balance the needs of my family, work and spending time on my various passions.

I was born in Norway and raised in Australia. I've always been fascinated with my Scandinavian heritage, especially the baking.

My mum taught me how to bake a cake – the best life skill possible! I'm now teaching my own daughter. We love entering baking contests and have both won prizes.

My Nanna taught me to knit when I was a kid but I never mastered it. At 40 I taught myself how to crochet using YouTube videos.

At high school I learnt how to use a sewing machine and loved it. Of course, not having my own machine, I didn't keep it up. When my sister asked me if I wanted her old Janome, a light switched on and I've been a keen sewist ever since (albeit a slow one).

Growing my own veggies is so satisfying and I love being part of a gardening group. Springtime is my favourite season; planting out seedlings with the promise of homegrown tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchinis.

A backyard plum tree introduced me to the art of jam making and preserving. I'm now the proud owner of two Fowlers preserving units and happily collect jars for jam & pickles. I just finished my second season of home cured olives and I have a sourdough starter called Barry who gives us delicious bread every week.

With so many competing interests, its easy to let things go from time to time.

But that's the dance of life.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

My blog is making me fat

Temptation lurks everywhere. It’s official. My blog is making me fat. It’s also keeping my house messy since I started prioritising writing and baking over vacuuming and putting away laundry. In fact it’s happening right now – I’ve slept in because I stayed up to watch the new Kennedy’s drama on ABC and then wanted to ‘quickly’ check in to see if there were any new messages or comments. Before I know it its really late and that coffee I had after lunch has kicked in, giving me caffeine-induced heart palpitations, delaying sleep even further. Mr Di-licious (bless him) allowed me to sleep in and delivered a latte to my bedside. There’s a bowl of porridge waiting for me on the kitchen bench, ready to be reheated while I turn on my laptop and think about my next post. I used to get up early and go to the gym before breakfast but lately I’ve just been too tired. You know you’ve been MIA when you get notified about a trainer leaving and you’ve absolutely no idea who they’re talk...

Olive's Carrot Cupcakes {Recipe}

"Mummy, I'm hungry. Hungry for something sweet." Sound familiar?  If only it were "Mummy, I'm hungry for green vegetables!" Sometimes getting kids to eat something healthy is a battle.  The harder you try, the more they resist. We've been pretty lucky with Olive - she devours fruit.  And while she's adamant she'll never eat a tomato (too many Charlie and Lola bedtime stories), she will eat green beans, peas and corn (and sometimes raw broccoli!) without fuss.  The one veg she absolutely adores though are carrots. A carrot stick is a great snack for a hungry preschooler but when they're pining for something sweet, why not make them something healthy and sweet and bake some mini carrot cupcakes? These mini cupcakes are based on Stephanie Alexander's Simple Carrot Cake from The Cook's Companion . I like this recipe a lot because it uses olive oil which has lots of health benefits. If you have a food processor, you could ea...

How to make sugar carrot cupcake decorations

The internet gods have not been kind to us this past week.  Apparently a static-y phone line can interfere with our ADSL connection, putting to bed any hopes I had to bring you this tutorial and Mr Di-licious completing an online test for his law course.  Sigh. At least I had my iPhone - I was still connected to the world so to speak, even if in a limited, small screen kind of way. But I digress. As promised, here is a 'tutorial' to help you make the cute as a button sugar carrots for the carrot cupcakes I made last week. They are embarrassingly easy to make.  Before you know it you'll have a carrot patch that's the envy of Don Burke (sorry, Aussie joke). Tutorial: Making sugar carrot decorations To make the sugar carrots, you will need: orange fondant (I used Americolor Orange to colour) green fondant (I used Americolor Avocado to colour) a skewer or pointy modelling tool to make a dent in end of carrot small, fine paintbrush water ...