Rad(ius) Birthday!

I do like a birthday outing - and I've had some wonderful excursions in the semi-recent past. Several were enjoyed at various lookouts in the Watagan Forest and in 2012 we ventured about 200km from home to Burning Mountain - with a stop-in at Paradise for afternoon tea!

Last year I was heavily lurgi-ed so the day was spent with a big box of tissues and a blanket.  It was memorable, though not in a good way!

I was a bit stumped for destinations this year.  Somewhere new has a lot of scope given we've only been Victorian residents for a little over 18 months. 

After a fair bit of pondering, I found this online gadget, which creates a circular area around a point on a map.

I used my age to give the radius from home and then selected a starting point more or less on the perimeter.

Some more research revealed a "Wombat Forest Drive" map document that took in my desired destination and a few others as well.  We didn't follow the route exactly. Our first stop was Trentham, to pick up beautiful sourdough bread from the RedBeard Bakery.  From there we back-tracked out of town to Trentham Falls for our picnic lunch and some geocaching.

It was considerably warmer as we wandered around the valley below the falls.  There were lots of huge gums, mossy logs and little birds flitting about the scrub.  Erin and Vaughan spotted a swamp wallaby too.

From the falls, we made our way over to Lyonville Mineral Springs to sample some birthday bubbles.  Hah!  Mineral water straight from the ground tastes nothing like the bottled stuff - sadly!

We didn't stay long at the springs, though noted the picnic area for a longer stop on another occasion.  It was quite pretty with a little creek flowing nearby.  The Garden of St Erth was our next destination.  We are not members of The Diggers Club so didn't tour the garden but rather enjoyed looking at all the many plants for sale.

Our last stop was the Nolan Creek picnic area for afternoon tea and birthday cake(s).  Such a beautiful little spot - we'll be back for sure to explore further and praps tackle the bushwalk in the link.

Although the picnic area was in the Wombat Forest, I didn't hold much hope of seeing any wombats and said as much to Nick when we were heading home - just as one jumped onto the road in front of us! I was too startled to take his/her photo but there was much excitement! I leapt out of the car to get a better look, closely followed by Vaughan. Not surprisingly, our running caused the wombat to run faster!

We headed home under an almost full moon, well pleased with all we had seen and done. The day ended with a fireside finale feast - three picnics in one day has to be a record!

Funny story: as we drove along one of the country roads I spotted a sign advertising Dutch Cream Poffertjes - and although it seemed unlikely, I kept a hopeful eye out for special birthday pancakes. On the return trip, Nick took great delight in reading the Dutch Cream Potatoes sign!

Keep it simple, Stew!

I often use my thermal cookers to make soup - and usually the large volume being cooked means there isn't enough room to use the smaller pot for a separate item.

Today I made a simple beef stew - and remained very mindful of wanting to cook potatoes to serve with it.  Even so there was only just enough space, about 7.5cm, for the top pot - so it was a bit gravied on it's base, when lifted out!  (As thermal cookers work on retained heat, being full to capacity - and thoroughly heated - provides the best energy-bank).

I don't use a recipe for stew, so the ingredients vary according to what is in the fridge and cupboard!  On this occasion I used:-

1 large onion, chopped
1kg gravy beef, cut into chunks
3 medium carrots, sliced
3 stalks celery, sliced
1/2 packet French onion soup powder
1 tin tomatoes, diced
1 tin brown lentils
1 cup frozen peas
1 cup frozen beans
2 cups beef stock (approx.)
1/2 cup red wine (approx.)
1/2 cup dried red lentils

Mixed herbs, salt and pepper to taste

I browned the onion and meat in a little olive oil, then added the other ingredients - in no particular order!  There is no loss of liquid during thermal cooking so I include brown lentils break down to thicken the gravy.  The mixture still looked a bit wet, so I also used some red lentils for extra thickening.  (Dried mushrooms and vegetables are good for the same reason but generally I only have them if camping).

I left the mixture to come to the boil while I prepared the potatoes.  Again, I filled the (smaller) pot as full as I could - and brought the potatoes to the boil.  All up the larger pot probably simmered for at least 30-40 minutes while I was organising the potatoes (and other missions).  The smaller pot simmered for a much shorter time. 

Both pots were put into the outer thermal pot and locked down till dinner-time.  Our stew was thick and steamy hot when we ate it, around 6-8 hours later.  (There was plenty left to freeze as two further family-meal portions for later occasions).

Schmoozing with the sluzzelers!

Hooray for Friday!

We drove to a local(ish) park after school for some end-of-week celebratory duck feeding. It was the first time we've taken these guys chook pellets and as you can see, they were super-keen scoffers! There was much giggling as we watched them all jostling for food.

I'd packed a quick afternoon tea picnic for the rest of us.

We sat for a while, looking over the river - sipping our cups of tea/coffee and munching sausage rolls (reheated at home and kept hot in the thermal cooker, during transit).


While we were chatting, Erin told us that the action of ducks filtering water through their beaks is called sluzzeling.  Betcha didn't know that?!

Snow!

We hadn't set out particularly to picnic at Powelltown, it was just where we ended up at lunch time. Although Nick was non-committal when responding to Vaughan's repeated questions about our destination, we were heading for Mt Donna Buang (or Boing as it was often mis-pronounced)!

The GPS gave two options when we left home. After driving for around an hour, our choice led through beautiful forest - to a road closed for the snow season! For some reason, we assumed that road was the only access point so continued down into a valley and then improvised a new route from there.

After lunch, we turned back toward home but detoured through Warburton, where we spotted signs advising toboggans were available on Mt Donna Buang! 

We set off again, winding our way upward and exclaiming over small chunks of snow by the roadside - as well as some cars heading downhill with small snowmen on their bonnets!  It wasn't far past the rainforest gallery carpark that a line of cars developed, all crawling up the hill.  Vaughan and I got out so he could touch the snow and throw balls of it into the bush!  Nick drove a little further, before parking Elmer beside the road and we all walked along, past the mostly standstill line of cars. 

There was another carpark a bit further up the road - with a lot more snow.  Officials were talking to drivers and there were signs advising the summit was a further 3km from that point, with a two-hour delay before getting there. 

We opted to play in the snow available at the carpark (as did quite a few other families).  Erin was keen to make a snowman and while he wasn't the most traditional of shapes, we found a discarded carrot for his nose to lend some authenticity!  Although we'd wanted to mount a small snowman on Elmer's bonnet, no-one was keen to attempt carrying our creation (or his head) back down-hill!

Understandably, Vaughan wanted to stay longer and praps we'll do that on another occasion, now that we know how to the get there!

Powelltown Picnic

We'd decided on a day's outing as an early celebration of Nick's birthday, so I packed a picnic early this morning.

(As you can see, the red suitcase is yet to be made over - and I managed to leave the apple tablecloth at home, sadly)!

As much as I would have liked to use my new lizard bag and wide-mouthed thermoses, I hadn't pre-made any soup. 

Plan B was to thermal-cook soup en route, which worked out very well - using the slosh-proof method I had developed last year (this time using a rolled hand towel sitting in the top pot of boiling water).

I made this recipe with a few adaptions - an extra carrot in lieu of celery, a tin each of butter and cannellini beans as well as a small amount of mixed herbs.  I'd used the same recipe previously (without additions or substitutions) but had simmered it on the stove-top and it condensed nicely.  There is no steam release during thermal cooking, so the extra beans thickened the soup wonderfully.

Vaughan is not a fan of soup.  He had noodles instead but all enjoyed fresh home-baked scones with jam and cream - along with minion-made beverages!

We stopped for lunch at a small park in Powelltown, where there is a time capsule due to be opened in 2034-35!

Frilled it's finished!

Last weekend I said I planned to make-over one of our small soft-sided esky bags. You can see the bag as it was, here. The pic is flattering, so you can't really tell how daggy the bag looked. Aesthetics aside, it's a great size for our two wide-mouth thermoses - and as my laundry soaker efforts failed, I decided to make an outer cover instead.

The stash yielded some machine embroidery test pieces my mother had donated to the cause quite some time back. I found three small pieces of lizard print too, also featuring a frilled neck lizard.

All the fabric was already on hand, I just needed to design a suitable bag/cover.  The end product isn't really what I thought I would make.  I hadn't previously made a bag with side panels and this one didn't quite go as planned.  There were various adaptions along the way - as well as unpicking, re-measuring and dark mutterings!  It's just about finished now (but for a few more stitches on the esky lid) and I'm very pleased with how it's turned out!

The top of the esky bag is still visible, so I've (almost) sewn a piece of the main green fabric on the lid and created a new handle which matches those of the bag. 

Pre-sizzled sausages!

We have four Stanley thermoses - all purchased new during a clearance sale, around ten years ago.

The two larger 1.8 litre versions are used often for hot water and at least one is packed as a matter of course(with our beverage case) for most trips.


Our smaller wide-mouth food flasks don't get out and about as often.  They are more likely to be used during winter for soups and from time to time I've made thermos porridge in them.  We went out today as a school holiday finale.  I was expecting lots of people and possible difficulty finding a BBQ, so cooked our sausages and onions at home - then packed our pre-sizzled snags into thermoses.  It was mid-afternoon when we stopped for lunch.  Typically the BBQs were deserted and we could have had our pick of them!

Nick was given a small insulated bag (with corporate logo) and it is just the right size for our smaller Stanley flasks.  The extra layer of insulation is great although white wasn't a fantastic colour choice and the bag is looking pretty grotty. Yes, I'm considering giving it a make-over - stay tuned!