Weekend Reading, baking and lemons

I don't remember if I told you about the American magazine Taproot's latest edition. The current edition features four simple living and minimalist bloggers and I'm one of the bloggers 🤔.  It's a truly lovely magazine that focuses on family, food, crafts and the values we hold dear. Welcome Taproot readers as you come through. I hope you look through my older posts too as there's a ton of information there that will help you simplify and live well. Taproot is available in Australia from Lauren and Oberon at Spiral Garden.

This isn't just a head with two legs, Gracie is trying to hypnotise me into giving her a piece of carrot cake.

It's been a busy week here but it's moved along calmly with most things falling into place. I always get more done when I work slowly. I drove Hanno over to see his eye specialist on Monday. He had another bleed into his eye recently and although it required a minor op, during Covid, the doctor is well set up in his rooms to perform these small operations. Hanno's eyes are still not right so I'm hoping another day or so will see improvements.

In my home I've been baking, cooking, putting up a single batch of lemons and making more 'paper' flannel towels, more on that in a few days. Readers sometimes comment that I do a lot of work in my home and I guess I do.  I want to live simply and that, to me, means doing most things from scratch.  I work to my routine, it all flows smoothly and the work is done without resentment. I'm in my mid-70s now and housework gives structure to my days while creating a warm and comfortable home that is a joy to live in. The alternatives for my age group of travelling around in a caravan, shopping and joining clubs I did when I was younger. Now I want to enjoy what I worked all those years for - my simple home at the end of a dead-end street, with chickens and a creek in the backyard. Bliss!

Cup cakes and carrot cake were on the menu this week. Jamie was here on Sunday so I sent him home with vanilla cupcakes with chocolate icing. I like him to take something homemade to school and while his parents are working so hard, it's easy for me to bake a batch of something for him to enjoy during the week. I also made the best carrot cake I've ever made! Is was moist, spicy and delicious. Every time Hanno and I had a slice we both had to say how lovely it was. 🙄. The recipe is here at Grandma's Cookbook. As usual, I modified the recipe to suit us; I added an extra egg and left out the walnuts and sultanas. I also grated the carrot with a microplane to make sure the carrot melted into the batter without any hard bits.

I also made up a jar of preserved sweet lemons to add to drinks over summer.  Generally one jar does us the whole season. It's a quick and easy job that takes about 15 minutes. I used four sliced lemons, scrubbed clean with bicarb water. When I added them to a sterilised jar I poured hot simple sugar syrup over them and sealed the jar. They sat on the kitchen bench overnight and are now in the fridge. If you make them, when the lemons are all gone, use the lemony syrup in icy water for another refreshing drink. With the addition of lemon to the syrup, this lasts at least six months in the fridge.

Have you had a good week too? I hope you enjoy the reading list this week. xx

Weekend Reading

• Chemicals used in packaging may play role in 100,000 US deaths a year

• Household dust is being put under the microscope 

• Japan's independent kids

• The climate disaster is here

• The five biggest threats to our natural world … and how we can stop them

• ‘Waiting for a ghost’: the search for dark matter 1km under an Australian town

• Folding and storing blankets and quilts - Don't forget to turn on the captions

• Alzheimer's: The heretical and hopeful role of infection

• Lördagsgodis: Sweden’s Saturday-only candy tradition

• ‘I’ve learned to see beauty instead of a beast’: the house pests we’ve grown to love

• Taking care of home - I love how Donna modifies her housework to make it meaningful to her

• Why do humans speak 7000 different languages?

• Ten Simple Microgreens & Sprouts Recipes 🤤 | Seed to Table - Don't forget to turn on the captions