Spinach pie in abundance!

Dave purchased a large pie dish and pie bird for my birthday. I had never seen a pie bird before. They are an old fashioned method of releasing steam from pies. The dish and bird are Austrlaian made and beautiful quality! Dave loves pies so I want to get better at making them.

First I pre-baked some shortcrust pastry and placed the bird on top. Then in went the filling . . .

I used the spinach and cheese pie filling and placed puff pastry over the top.I generally avoid ricotta and feta cheese during pregnancy but ensured this was fresh and well cooked. Here is the completed pie . . .

This pie used a huge amount of my silverbeet harvest. I doubled the recipe. As you can see, this is a large pie dish!!  I often substitute silverbeet for spinach. It is good to remember to pre-wash garden vegetables at another time, rather than doing it as part of the dinner preparations. Garden vegetables tend to be dirtier than purchased counterparts. Washing all the silverbeet took a long time and made my back very sore as I did it immediately prior to making the pie. I would have liked to have a thicker, healthier, homemade crust for this pie. Do any of you have tips for homemade crusts? I like the idea of Tammy's recipe as it can be frozen ahead (a must for me as I would probably find it too much physically to make crust and filling on one day). I want to learn to make really excellent pies!! Any tips will be appreciated.

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Spring silverbeet harvest

We recently harvested the remaining leaves from six silverbeet plants, to make room for more crops. They were about to go to seed, and I am learning to be a bit more ruthless with older crops in order to make room for new ones. We ended up with a huge pile of silverbeet! I will share what we did with the silverbeet in subsequent posts.

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Completed garden baby quilt

Our little girl's garden quilt is up on the wall! It will stay there until she is big enough to move into the cot, and Natey will move into the bed. That will not be for at least four months, and it is lovely to enjoy it on the wall until then. I love the way quilts have multiple purposes. They are useful for warmth, make beds attractive, and can be used to decorate walls. Elnathan's room is now full of quilts on his cot, the bed, and the wall. It was fun to use up lots of scrap green fabrics for this quilt, as borders for the blocks. It was a challenge to make them stretch to complete the quilt, but in the end I only had to purchase 10cm of binding fabric! This seemed fitting for a quilt with a stewardship theme.

On the back I have written a special message to our second child:

We were full of joy when we found out about you! We felt like God was blessing us in abundance because he gave you to us so soon after Elnathan. At the same time we were harvesting a lot of food from the garden, and you would be born in Spring. A garden quilt seemed like the perfect way to celebrate God's goodness, and your life. Psalm 65:11 says of our Heavenly Father "You crown the year with Your goodness, and Your paths drip with abundance."


We believe that God wants us to take good care of His world. We are to share the physical and spiritual blessings He gives. We hope that you will join us in this! May God give you every spiritual blessing in Jesus as "in Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace, which he made to abound toward us . . . " Eph. 1: 7 - 8.

I have found it a joy to be able to make a quilt for each child that is not just a decoration or covering but also represents their significance in God's eyes, His plan for their lives, and their place in our family.

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Growing mini-cauliflowers

We have enjoyed growing mini-cauliflowers for the last two years.  I felt daunted when I considered trying to use a whole large head of cauliflower at once. These little cauliflowers are the perfect size for a small family to have as a vegetable with white sauce, or steamed with other vegetables as we enjoyed them last night. So far we have eaten seven or eight small cauliflowers this spring, and have more growing. The seeds are from the Erica Vale company.

It is important to harvest the cauliflowers as soon as possible after they form the head. If you leave them for long the florets separate. The plants require good soil and must be provided with extra fertiliser if their leaves look sickly, or they will not produce good heads. With a growing family I may also try growing full sized cauliflowers next year. Then we can try some cauliflower pie or soup. Planning what to do with garden produce is half the fun!

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Tips for coping with pain and motherhood

I have had chronic pain for over a decade now. A couple of months ago the How to Cope With Pain blog published my guest post Lessons From a Decade of Pain. I hope that it is a blessing to someone! There are many, many other posts on this blog from people in worse circumstances that may be encouraging to those who are suffering.

Another help in coping with pain is to remember that I can't control what people say to me, but I can aim to control my response to it (with God's help). In recent months I have found it difficult again to respond graciously and calmly to people's suggestions and comments about my pain, particularly in relation to being a mother and taking care of my home. My physical limitations mean that I need to mother differently from others.Other mummies may be able to carry their toddlers around on their hips and cart around heavy prams, but that won't be me! Many mothers talk about not sitting down all day, something that would be extraordinarily difficult for me. 

I have found that over years of chronic pain it is necessary to re-evaluate in every stage of life, and to accept my limitations again. There are many benefits that God has brought out of having chronic pain and being a mother. I am sure he will continue to do so. I have recognised more deeply the need to be sensetive to others' situations and to avoid offering unsolicited advice (still working on that one)! My little son has developed lots of physical independence as he climbs into the car and pram himself, walks with me rather than being carried, and no longer has the side on his cot.

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Birthday family picture

This family picture was taken two weeks ago on my birthday outing to the historic town of Richmond. We had a wonderful day as a family. I am 34 weeks pregnant in this picture.

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Easter Scripture Calendar

In recent years I have thought more about using my time wisely to invest in things that will matter in eternity. How can this apply to my enjoyment of craft projects? I realised that I could use my enjoyment of paper crafts to make things for our family that would turn us to the Scriptures or record God's providence in our lives. These paper projects themselves are easily destroyed and probably won't be around in 100 years . . . but if they have been used to point us to the realities of God and His ways, their effect may last much longer.

Compose

I enjoyed creating a calendar to use for family devotions over Easter next year. I cut out lots of pictures of God's people across the world from aid publications (Compassion, Open Doors, Barnabas Fund), which would otherwise have been thrown away after reading.

I used the pictures to make little windows under which I placed a Scripture which can be folded out and read. The Scriptures relate to Jesus' death and resurrection. There are about 30 little windows over four pages. This project was made entirely from what I had on hand, including scraps of coloured paper and cardboard from packages of scrapbooking materials.

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