1. Friday night dessert night
We don't usually eat dessert in our house but (at Henry's suggestion) we started Friday night dessert night a few weeks ago and it's a highly anticipated new addition to family ritual. Here's tonight's: the recipe is at the end of the post.
2. School
or: Breaking in the new school shoes.
I've done a lot of reading about homeschooling in the last few weeks which I'll definitely talk about in a future post, but Henry is enrolled at our local school and due to start next Thursday. All very exciting. We've done a lot of preparation (particularly for a kid who doesn't transition well or 'do' change very well) and I'll tell you all about our school prep next week. He is super excited though. Me too.
And still on schools, of all the conversations I've had over the past two days, hardly one does not involve some discussion about www.myschool.edu.au
In Australia, the federal government has created what amounts to a 'league table' on school's performances. From a parent point of view it's very interesting seeing how your local school ranks (incidentally ours ranked very highly) but the rural and regional schools I suspect must be hating this system, and there are many issues with comparing apples with bananas (as my sister Suze, a teacher, described it.)
For New South Wales our main broadsheet The Sydney Morning Herald actually provided school's rankings from 1 to about 800. A tough business. Great if you're in the top 20, not sure how the teachers in the smaller schools in the 700s will be feeling about this. Or the parents of the children at those schools... Very interested in your thoughts on this!
3. Artificial colour in the garden.
I have somehow managed to kill the majority of my herbs in the past fortnight. Not from neglect, but perhaps too much water and/or fertiliser (from the worms). Very disappointing. Resorted to spinning cheerfulness to inspire the geraniums not to die too.
4. Beloved neighbours back home
Gosh we missed our lovely neighbours next door when they went away for two weeks! We do see quite a lot of them, most of all this family member above ('Cow') who has spent this week almost entirely at our place. I think she missed us too.
5. Sleeping!
Thank you you beautiful people for all the emails and suggestions about sleeping issues in our house. We are now (touch wood!) all good.
6. Proud mum
Henry and Tilly made some chocolate chip cookies this afternoon almost unsupervised, and gave a little visiting playmate jobs to do that they thought he could manage. Henry retained the egg-cracking responsibility and only Tilly is allowed to handle the vanilla. I'm really so proud of my budding cooks.
So what should we call this? Peach and blueberry pie, I think.
Peach and Blueberry Pie
You need 1 portion of short crust pastry, I always use this super quick and easy pastry recipe.
I then used half a portion of this recipe: PLEASE NOTE, Estelle's Mum's recipe, NOT mine... ie the one with the milk powder and water. If I want cold custard, this is the one I make. It sets really well, unlike mine. I used half the recipe because I made it a few days ago and that's all that was left!!
I pressed the pastry into the dish, spooned the custard on top then sliced fresh plums and peaches on top and sprinkled with blueberries.
Bake for 20-30 mins (my oven was quite hot because I was cooking roast beef and baked potatoes at the same time.)
Anyway, it was delicious. Perfect with a spoon of good greek yoghurt. Yum. I love Friday night dessert night.
xxx
