Sentimental

Aw, I'm feeling a bit sentimental tonight. Three years ago I was lumbering about like a pregnant elephant seal, putting things in a suitcase and making final preparations for the following day's scheduled induction. It didn't quite go as planned. But look what I brought home!

I remember during those final swollen, aching weeks feeling with absolute certainty that these babies were going to be easier out than in. Almost three years on, I still smile wryly at that one.

7/52

"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013" via Che and Fidel.

Lola: Unprompted (and with very little enthusiasm on my part), she made Valentine's cards for everyone in her class.

Pearl: Her latest trick - climbing onto the kitchen bench and running along it, giggling.

Stella: I rolled over this morning and found her sitting next to me eating cereal straight out of the box.

If you're a Sunday-only visitor, you might have missed this. As one lovely customer recently said, "You can never have too many hats."

Previous 52 Portraits here.

You Say Pissaladiere...

Is it right to call something something even if it's not exactly the something, but takes that lovely something as its inspiration? This is definitely not a pizza. In fact, it's really just a tart. And a pissaladiere is also just a tart. A tart at heart. With no tomato sauce or cheese in sight, it's more tart than pizza. But they put tandoori chicken on pizzas these days, so...

A traditional Provencal pissaladiere is topped with caramelised onions and decoratively placed anchovies and olives. I used the onions, but added sauted mushrooms and goats cheese.

I've seen a lot of pissaladiere recipes that use puff pastry, but I think it's meant to be a bread or pizza dough. This is an olive oil shortcrust - the first time I've made one - and I was delighted with how beautifully it handled and tasted. I also liked how virtuous I felt to skip the butter.

I love caramelised onions. Making this recipe reinvigorated my love for them, slow-cooked in a little oil over the lowest temperature, helped along towards the end with a dash of balsamic and a sprinkling of brown sugar. I made them again a week later, adding some to a frittata and turning the rest into onion soup. 

French onion soup, perhaps? Perhaps no more French than this pissaladiere. But entirely delicious and entirely worth making for lunch this weekend.

You can find my recipe for this tart here.

Bookless on a Wednesday

It's Wednesday and I've nothing to read. Who am I kidding? I've been bookless for months. Novel-less, at least. I'm not sure what happened, but I've stopped reading. I'm still dipping into the best food book I've ever read most nights. But what's sorely lacking is a novel, a really good novel. Any advice? I can't do anything too challenging, or that requires too much of my brain. It must tolerate being read in bursts, sometimes only a page or two a night. That said, it must be beautifully written and tell a ripping tale. I certainly won't say no to un-put-downable, and while a slow-burner is fine, I have to be grabbed from the get-go. If the book calls out to me all day long, so much the better. I don't mind being taunted if the story is worth it.

I'm being taunted by this yarn. Beautiful, beautiful Quince Chickadee in richest Honey. I've enough to make myself a winter cardigan - this one, this one and this one stand out - but I need to find a break between hats to get serious about it. Winter's a few months away, and I know myself well enough to realise it might end up being for the winter after this one. But for the sake of balance, and all things good, I will cast this on before the month is out...once I decide what it will be.

I'm joining in with the Yarn Along despite the distinct and glaring absence of a book.

Also, please check out my very woolly giveaway. Two of my handknit hats are up for grabs - winners choose colour/style/size.

A Very Woolly Giveaway

Rumour has it it's still summer. I've been waiting for the cooler months to tempt you with a bonnet giveaway. But what the heck - there's enough of a chill in the air in my neck of the woods this evening to warrant some wintry fun.

I've had such wonderful feedback since opening my shop late last year. A gentle, steady start to the sales, but an overwhelming number of clicks. Every day, it seems, a hat of mine features in at least one Etsy treasury. (Don't know what a Treasury is? Here's a beautiful one.) It seems people like to see colourful wool atop cute little heads.

So thrilled am I with how it's all going, I'm currently waiting on a very large yarn order. Very, very large. There will be a few new colours, as well as the lovely wool/alpaca blend I need to finally launch the range of newborn hats I keep talking about.

But in the meantime, let's give away a couple of hats. Two winners will each choose the style, size and colour of their prize. They are available in baby, toddler and kid size, and currently two styles - the Chubby Pixie and the Bumpy Bonnet. I will happily post anywhere in the world.

So if a little head you know needs warming this winter, all you have to do is be a follower of this blog (over there on the right with Google Friend Connect), check out the shop, then come back here and leave me a comment to let me know what colour you would choose if you won, or what colour you think is missing (yes, I know there is no pinky pink there.)

For extra chances to win:

1) Like Typically Red on Facebook

2) Share this giveaway on your blog, Facebook page or even Twitter, I guess, though I still don't know what that is...

Leave a separate comment for each entry, please. I'll draw the winner by random number thingo at the end of next week.

Good luck! 

Entries have closed. Thanks to all who entered. The winners are number 44, Little Wild Moose, and number 8, Bettina Rae.

Sunday Lovelies

Another week down, a big week indeed. Here's what was most lovely:

1) Our school is within walking/scooting distance. Hooray!

2) Morning sunshine in the garden.

3) Late afternoon picnic right before the storm.

4) Sneak peek at a new colour (I'll be updating the shop in the next few days).

5) Grow, babies, grow. My home-grown bruschetta's last hope...

6) Tiny pastry chefs.

Wishing everyone a lovely week x

6/52

 "A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013" via Che and Fidel.

Lola: An exhausting end to her first full week of school. She's been 60% excited and enthusiastic, 38% cool, calm and collected. This picture describes the other 2%.

Pearl: She seems so much older this week. Our conversations are hysterical.

Stella: (Almost) always giggling.

Catching Up

Hello.

I feel like I've been a little absent in the past few weeks (and they have been some crazy weeks). I've been filling space here with food and hats and portraits of my children, but in the background there's been a whirly-gig of wild activity which leaves little time for much more. My ideas and thoughts and inspiration levels are near to overflowing, but I've lacked the space to turn them into anything.

But soon, but soon. Nearly a year's worth of plotting and planning is about to fall into place. This week marks 11 years in my job, which means it's been a year since I've been eligible for long-service leave. Some people would plan an extended break to allow more family time. I'm sure you won't think me crazy (do you?) to know I've timed my extended break to coincide with one child starting school and the other two preschool. I've spent almost every day of the past three years with the darling little creatures. Because I work from home, even when I'm working, I'm with them. If they're not knocking the door down for a cuddle or to give me a drawing or to ask for a bandaid, they're right outside the office where I can hear and feel their every move. The ways in which the "work from home" dream didn't quite meet my expectations are the stuff of another blog post. Suffice to say, when my part-time job goes into a two-month hiatus in a few weeks, it will be all about me. Me, me, me!

Thank you for your sweet inquiries about my big girl's first week of school. It has all gone wonderfully so far. Her energy and excitement after day one was incredible, and though the tiredness is beginning to show, it's clear she's loving every bit of it. And she seems to have grown up so much in the space of a few days. I'm so proud.

And I've been having such lovely days with my babies, just us three. It's such a different dynamic when big sister is out of the picture. They miss her like crazy, and run to grab her when she gets home, but in the meantime they play beautifully, dare I say quietly, and things seem to be in a happy rhythm for now.

In other news, I'm currently doing Stephanie Levy's Creative Courage e-course. Have you heard of it? I had wanted to sign up for some sort of online course to do during my long-service leave (remember, me, me, me!) and while this one fell a little early (I'm struggling to find the time to complete the exercises at the moment), when I saw the starting date was my birthday, I took it as a sign. Many years ago I did The Artist's Way with a group of girlfriends, and it was such a great experience to allow ourselves the time and space to just be creative. I remember doing a visualisation exercise where I imagined myself one day living in a house in the country with a gaggle of beautiful babes, writing every day. If you squint your eyes a bit to make the vision blurry, it sort of came true.

Well, that's a lot of information for a quiet Wednesday evening. I'm off to knit a hat, plan a double birthday bash, pack a lunch and contemplate just how much knitting, writing, photographing, recipe-inventing and blessed silent nothingness I can fit into the coming months.

Late Summer Tart

After all our efforts last spring, we haven't harvested a single tomato. That's if you don't count the funny, knobbly little green one Pearl picked yesterday with the greatest of glee. Which leaves the total number of tiny green fruit left on the few straggly, surviving plants in the patch at about four. 

But summer equals tomatoes, even if they have to come from the greengrocer. I made this delicious little tart for Kidspot recently - I hinted at it here - and promised you the recipe. The tomatoes are slow-roasted. Herby ricotta is smeared onto puff pastry, then topped with the tomatoes. It's baked till puffed and golden, then drizzled with a simple thyme oil.

You can find the recipe here.

5/52

 "A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013" via Che and Fidel.

Lola: What a week.

Pearl: Imp.

Stella: Dimple.

February? Week 5? I have a feeling this project is going to magically speed up the passing of time,