Snowball Progress -Week 4

I can't believe it's week 4 already! This week even with the arrival of my sister , my way over the top shopping expedition and the ongoing kerfuffle with the renovation, I managed to get some snowball heaven happening.
 

I have to say I really get in the zone when I'm making these...it's almost hypnotic. Karen's tip about not cutting the thread after each snowball is sewn on , is actually awesome. Yes- I admit I was a doubting Thomas at  first but you can call me Miss Converted. It really does save time. It cracks me up that it takes longer to press them all nicely than it does to sew them. Wayyyyyyyyyyy longer.

So 168 blocks total...48 already done. This weeks tally ...

46 Snowballs. Ta Dah! (Yes, I'm  showing  off- but not too much because I haven't squared any of this lot up yet )

94 Snowballs done. Yay! 74 to go. I think once this lot  are squared up I need to have a peek at what they're all going to look like when they get put together...

Dining Room Drama

Buckle up for a long , meandering post about renovation and indecision. You can give me your two cents worth at the end. That's why I'm posting. I need help. And you're all smart and will tell me what you really think.

We're reaching the point where I have to make some definite decisions about the kitchen renovation. The kitchen cupboards are going to be plain white and the bench tops black marble etch. I've  chosen plain cupboards because  I don't want the cupboards being the focal point.  All the appliances will be brushed stainless steel.  Our dining room is connected to our kitchen and I want one big flowing space why is why we're ripping out a bench that currently divides the two rooms.

So these are the before and after shots

After 

 Disclaimer: That may not be the actual view I see outside my kitchen window

The dining room is now my biggest headache. Until yesterday that was all sorted out in my mind  and now I am second guessing myself.

The original plan was to take the top off the kitchen dresser  leaving me with  a three drawer cabinet. I planned to buy  some 3D moulded french looking furniture appliques and stick them on the front of the dresser doors and paint the whole thing warm/ antique white and change the handles to something french looking. The meat safe to the right of the dresser was going.   I've been auditioning tables and chairs for a while and  decided on this oval pedestal table. (I have a better picture of that coming up) The plan was to strip it and paint it white , along with these antique colonial chairs and plonk the re-vamped blackwood chair in the corner where the meat safe used to be , with my circle quilt draped over it.

Enter this piece of furniture which I saw a couple of weeks ago after months of looking for something like this for the dining room and finally giving up and coming up with the plan above. I took it as a sign. I called my Dad and asked if I could ESP this piece, prime it  and paint straight over the top in white, because my Dad is the fountain of all knowledge.  I did a happy dance when he said I could. So we bought it and picked it up yesterday and this is what it looks like in my dining room. Notice please that my awful cedar wall is history.

And here is a better picture...because I want you to see the detail in the cabinet.

My question is ...would it be a crime to paint this dresser white? I'll lose a lot of the parquetry door detail if I do. Would having a kitchen table , chairs , and dresser painted white with a black and white kitchen be too much white for these rooms. What would you do?  The alternative is to keep the furniture for the dining room pretty much as is, get black and white chair pads for the chairs and white crystal beaded tassels for the handles of the dresser to tie it all in and put all my white dinner ware in the top of the dresser. The floors will be a light tile by the time we're finished and I'm wondering if I go to town painting everything in sight white I'm going to go snow blind.

OK, so  hit me with your two cents....

200th Post and Spread the Cheer Project.

Yay! I made it to 200 posts, proving that in the blog world as  in real life, I "talk" A LOT! I'm having so much  fun with this blogging lark. I've got to know some fabulous people and made some really great friends. Let the    Love-fest continue.  Thank you all of you who make repeat visits, comment, lurk and tell me what you think about this blog of mine and the inane, sometimes really random stuff that appears here.

Lane over at That Man Quilts? did an interesting post this week about his frustration with some of the less desirable things that occur on our planet.  The comment I left suggested that we should be  the change we want to see in the world. I've been thinking about it ever since. And I've decided that instead of complaining about how awful some things are  (or worse still doing nothing)  I'm going to actually do something. I'm adopting the "Go Big or Go Home" motto Elizabeth often refers to on her blog. And I'm going BIG baby.

Last week  I read about a project called Spread the Cheer , being organised  by Shruti at  13 Woodhouse Road. Shruti 's goal is to be able to give 40 quilts  to an orphanage in Sangli, India by November 2010. Shruti has blogged about how Elizabeth at Oh Fransson  and Valentina of Valentina's Corner are on board and will be donating a quilt each to the cause.

Remember this pile of lusciousness that I showed you last weekend?  This is the girly portion of the Deb Strain Love U Layer cake I bought recently. Don't you think this would be perfect for a baby girl's cot quilt?

And since I don't know any baby girls it seems like providence to me that Shruti's cause needs quilts and I have this fabric laying round and no planned purpose for it. Plus  I think this cause  would make a great home for the vintage sheet quilt I did earlier in the year so I've committed to donating two quilts. 5 quilts down for project Share the Cheer  - 35 quilts to go.

If you're sitting thinking "That sounds like a great idea but I can't commit to a whole quilt" you can help in other ways by donating  fabric (Scraps are welcome) batting (Scraps are welcome) UFO's , blocks,  or binding strips and she will make them into quilts for Spread the Cheer. So if you would like to help head on over to 13 Woodhouse Road and make contact.   I really want to get the word out there about this  because at the moment, all Shruti's really hearing is crickets.

Wow I went link mad today ..I hope you clicked each and every one because there might be a pop quiz in a future post and you'll want to be prepared.

Slack Tea Thursday

What do these two ingredients have in common ? Yes that's  right - they comprise the only two ingredients for tonight's edition of Slack Tea Thursday.

Before I reveal tonight's deliciousness  - I know you all appreciate a good back story so this is what happened today.

SOP(Sister of Pyjamas ) arrived yesterday-(that's why I haven't commented on many  blog posts for the last day and a half - sorry - I do love you all - I just love SOP more and spent yesterday buying cat litter trays and cat litter  - yes that's how excited I was she was coming- I was afraid I would mess myself...kidding - that stuff was for her husband ...I mean her cat,  and then I  spent all of last night at her place. When I finally put in an appearance here later -you'd all gone to bed and turned the lights out- what's up with that?

Because SOP has lived in the god forsaken wild wild Northern Territory for the last goodness knows how long- she hasn't seen or touched wool in the same amount of time, so when she arrived here in a sarong and thongs yesterday she was a mite cold. I suggested we go shopping today to buy her some appropriate attire  because she hasn't seen anything wintery in forever, basically she was freezing, she looked stupid in summer clothes in the dead of winter in a place where it is actually cold plus all the shops where she came from are crap.  

So today we ventured forth to the shops. 5 pairs of shoes, 3 pairs of boots, 3 pairs of jeans, a handbag , a grey wool coat , a  gorgeous purple cardigan , a grey wool tunic and 6 hours later we were finished. I can't remember what she bought - that lot was my haul. (I actually did have to make two runs back to the car to dump stuff because I couldn't  carry it all-that girl is a BAD influence) I am really hoping Mr. P forgets my blog address because I actually don't want him to see this because I only confessed to about half of it. I stuffed the rest under the bed on my arrival home approximately 3 minutes before he also arrived home (Whew that was close)

Anyway ...back to Slack Tea Thursday. So take your yogurt and Chocolate Nesquik and put  them in the same bowl. It is imperative you have enough Nesquik in the bowl along with your yogurt that you can use the legal definition of a mountain (rising 1000 feet above  ground level )  to describe the level of Nesquik-ness. Mine looked like this:

Stir it all together...

 Voila - Chocolate Yogurt

Basically I am eating yogurt and Nesquik  because I spent all our money and this is all I can afford now ..plus I was exhausted from all that shopping.

For those of you that wait for this post every week for an awesome slack meal idea I'm  sorry this is being posted late. You've probably given up by now and made toast .  I was trying to find ways to hide 8 pairs of shoes from Mr. P  places in my wardrobe for  my new shoes.

P.S. Adelaide people you have to try  Dreamy Donuts at Adelaide Airport  - they're just like Krispy Kreme. I can see myself lurking at the airport a LOT in the future.

Translation Tuesday -Dedicated to Bridging (or Widening) the Cultural Divide

ROAD TRIP AUSSIE STYLE !!!!!!!!!!

When I think about other countries there are always landmark images that spring to my mind. Iconic, Beautiful and quintessentially of that particular country. If I ever go to America I’m going to do a road trip and go and check out Mount Rushmore and the Grand Canyon.In France I'd visit  the Eiffel Tower, and vineyards at Bordeaux.And a  road trip in England would have to include  Big Ben and Stonehenge.

Let me tell you what Australians think about when we plan  a road trip. It’s not Uluru or the  Daintree Rain Forests. It’s BIG things. Freakishly big things. We are obsessed in this country with making things big that should be normal sized. And then plonking them by the roadside to scare the crap out of unsuspecting tourists. And then making them buy tacky souvenirs of the BIG thing they've just visited. I know there is some place in America that has the world biggest ball of string, but really our  big stuff beats that hands down.

We are inordinately proud of our BIG things here. So proud in fact that we have about 150 of them scattered across the country. And it is the law that they must be referred to in conversation and in writing prefaced by the word BIG – just like that in capitals. Naturally we have a BIG kangaroo, and a BIG koala and other BIG marsupials  but we also have some other random big things that are pretty darn funny. And some are just plain bloody ridiculous.

Does that koala look like he's about to go postal? Imagine bombing along the Highway and coming across that round a corner in the middle of nowhere.

 
So, grab some beer and a pizza,pack your salty pretzels and come with me on an  Aussie Road Trip to check out some of our BIG things.

First stop is 20 minutes from my house at the BIG rocking horse  which stands 18 metres (60 feet) high. Can you imagine cleaning up poop from that?

What road trip would be complete without the BIG red back spider. Scary shit. Literally.  That's a dunny it's perched on  in parody of a very famous Australian song called "Redback on the Toilet Seat" . Google it...

Next stop is the big rolling pin. I'm seeing giant pies ....Mmmmmmmmmm...Pie.

Yes we have a Big Pie too!

The Big Mower. I have to ask ...why? About now I need to stop for a toilet break and some greasy roadhouse food because I haven't eaten since the big rolling pin.

 
 

 
 

Fruit Salad anyone? The Big Fruit Bowl. I'm driving straight past because I filled up at the big pie.

 
 

 

We also have the Big Banana , The Big Orange and The Big Pineapple.

 
Seafood anyone? ..The Big Lobster reminds me of something  from a  Japanese monster movie from the 1950's. My parents used to live 15 minutes from Larry here. When you've seen him 4 million times he ceases to be exciting.
 
 

The Big Trout  (looks like a dolphin to me )

The big Prawn ( aka Big Shrimp- which is actually an oxymoron because shrimp is small and this is HUGE )

 
 

 
 

Only in Australia can you road trip it  to the big cigarette...seriously. Just looking at it makes me want to smoke.

 
 

 

The Big Beer ...(in Darwin of course)

 
 

The Big Bottle of Bundy (Bundaberg Rum) Imagine the hangover that would give you...

May I present the Big Stubby ( a stubby is a bottle of beer)

The BIG camera.

 
 
 

The Big Poo ..

 
 

 

 We love our big things. And if you laugh at us, we'll kick your butt with our big gumboot.

 

 

 

Good Bye from Australia's Big Things ...all 150 of them.

 

 

There 's nothing like a country with a sense of humour. Thank Goodness we can laugh at ourselves.

A Surprise, A Snowball Update and a Mystery Meal

Confession- I did diddly squat in the snowball challenge  this week except cut those 2 inch squares ( I think I should get extra points since I cut about 260 of the little blighters) 

My plan was to come home tonight and sew up 5 snowballs  really quickly so I had something to show but my real life intruded  so I'm confessing instead. If that's the worst confession I ever have to make  then I should probably be sainted but since it's taken Mother Mary McKillop about 100 years to get there I don't think sainthood is very likely for lil ole me.  Oh and there's the small matter of not having performed a recognised miracle as well.  There is always next week. For the snowballs. Not for performing a miracle. Although if I pull off sanding that blackwood chair ....

My PO box is honestly  the most magical place on earth. Practically every time I open it  awesomely stupendous things  appear.  Fabric, shutters (that was hard to squish in there Mr. Postman but you still managed to deliver it unbroken) , notions and  food from far off lands.I had no idea going to my post office box could be so darned fun. Today's mail was no exception. The delightful Marg of Sunshine ?Paradise ? got fed up with me whinging about how cold it is here in the South (while she basks in the suns rays all year round and tells me about it constantly) and sent me this piece of hand made gorgeousness.

A hot water bottle and hand crocheted cover to keep my tootsies warm . How super freaking talented is she ? And yes indeedy those are my actual tootsies on my actual ottoman in my actual computer room. And there is actual hot water in that hot water bottle. Oh hot water bottle - how I love you so. She also sent me something else that I'll showcase when the new kitchen is finally done. Thank you Marg :)

Beck over at Sarcastic Quilter is on a quilting hiatus (head on over to her blog to find out why ) so she has decided to organise a weekly Mystery Meal Game  so she doesn't go completely crazy while she is quilt-less for the duration. You can play along too. C'mon - it'll be fun.

 I like to torture food in cruel and unusual ways. Unfortunately I inadvertently went too far tonight and the cheesy broccoli potatoes could not be revived.

                         Cheesy Broccoli soup anyone?

And my burgers did kind of explode. I don't know how I made exploding burgers - there was no gunpowder in the recipe but on the positive side I did get to drink some Southern Comfort while cooking because drinking is  part of the recipe people, it's in Becks post , and I couldn't do wine because all my wine glasses are packed away. And a girl can't be classy and drink wine out of a jam glass.

My burgers are not as "well done" as they appear , but that is indeed burger guts. Despite it all - these burgers were honestly the best burgers I have ever tasted. Really. I kid you not. Just call me Burger murderer. I double dare you to join us for next weeks recipe.

And everytime I mention snowballs I want some of those chocolate marshmallow snowballs covered in coconut, so you know what I'm caving in and getting some tomorrow. Why can't someone name a quilt block after lettuce or tofu or something healthy?  

I'm praying for Sunshine (and less boogies)

It has been a very unfunny week  here at Insanity Central. Winter is cold. Not Northern Hemisphere cold- but cold all the same. At least if it snowed here I could have fun making snow angels or snowmen or snow cones.   We just get freezing with none of the associated awesome-ness.

This week  the Pyjamas household experienced something like bubonic plague  because everyone besides Mr. P got  sick, including me. Gordon Gekko said "Green is Good"...but green is not good,  especially when it's coming out of your nose. Constantly. I'm putting the Kleenex heirs through an Ivy league College with my tissue consumption this week. What? Gordon Gekko said "Greed is Good" ? But that quote doesn't work for my post....

I practiced free motion quilting this week and am considering taking up a new hobby like scrap booking  or drinking. Or both. Simultaneously. I really am fated to forever quilt in variations of straight lines.  The sane rational part of me knows that I am not the only quilter in the known universe who is yet to master the  skill of free motion quilting ,  but the sane rational part of me went into hiding on about Tuesday of last week. So I learned that new skills take time to develop and I should stop arse kicking myself because I can't do this yet.

I realised this week,  I will still be sanding the kitchen chairs when I move into a nursing home, if I live that long. I'm not sure what possessed me to think stripping furniture was a good idea. Perhaps I smoke crack without my knowledge and that's when I had the original "wouldn't it be cool to take some old furniture and give it a new life" epiphany. But I'm not a quitter so I'm going to keep going and just keep reminding myself of how gorgeous it will all look when I'm finished. While I look at Early Settler catalogues for french provincial buffets and dining settings. What? I'm just looking. I'm allowed to look. 

This is as far as I've got with sanding the Blackwood Chair,  so I'm making a vow to get this chair finished this week. Then we'll talk turkey on the time frames for the million other things I need to get done for this kitchen renovation. I'm totally in a place where I need to break tasks down into small bits at the moment. If I think about the big picture I am likely to completely lose my sanity.

This weekend I tried spray basting  a quilt for the first time.  Let me just say that's two hours of my life I'm never getting back and spray basting is utter garbage. The quilt, backing and batting stuck everywhere except to each other.  I am  now missing a cat. I heard plaintive meowing coming from the pile of backing that glued to itself and my sewing room skirting boards ,  so I'll try to find  Mordecai later.  And, I'll be on my hands and knees at some point  taping the backing to the floor and pinning the quilt as usual.  Lesson Learned. Now I can check "Try Spray Basting " off my list of things to try before I die.

The postman adored me this week. My shutter arrived and is positively gorgeous in person. I bought my final Hushabye charm pack and it arrived via post in under 48 hours. And Hancocks of Paducah sent me part of an order I did a few weeks ago of Christmas fabrics because people it's June and I have to start thinking about Christmas quilts. Look at this luscious gorgeousness just waiting to be joined by a matching jelly roll and fat quarter pack and some inspiration.

 

It hasn't been a totally sewing free zone around here this week. I did cut some more fabric for my snowballs. More about that tomorrow. And, I started a special project using these fabrics  that I'll talk about when it's a little further on.

Hear me everyone. This week is going to be sunshiney and happy , and I'm going to achieve some amazing things.


P.S. By the way, my gorgeous sister will be here in three sleeps....and I don't smoke crack.

Theme-less in Blogland

I read a blog post recently where the blog owner was talking about her blog theme. The voices in my head started chatting to one another and the conversation got more frantic as each new thought emerged. "I don’t think I have a theme" "Am I supposed to have a theme?" "O.M.G I don’t have a theme" "Would I have more readers if I had a theme?" "Maybe if I had a theme I’d have a squillion readers and be totally famous" "I could win Australian Blogger of the Year, if I had a theme"  "If my blog had a theme we might attain world peace".

My name is Mrs. Pyjamas and I have come to the realisation I do indeed appear to be theme-less.

After I’d recovered from my panic over my theme-less state (Yes I really do need to get a life) I got to thinking about some of the blogs I follow and whether or not a blog theme is an integral part of being an interesting blogger.

There are blogs out there that have become widely read as the result of a particular theme. Bakerella, and Pioneer Woman both cook. Cluck Cluck Sew and Crazy Mom Quilts quilt, Better After and Miss Mustard Seed  renovate and restore. I enjoy reading these blogs but given that I’m pretty average at most things and not particularly brilliant at any one skill  any blog I would write with only one theme would be as boring as bat crap. I’m not a great  cook. You aren’t going to flock here to get my latest recipe. (I'm pretty sure a lot of you keep tuning in to see if SAJ and I have  burned another kitchen down)   My blog title implies that this is a quilting blog. If I only ever wrote about quilting, I’d  do about 6 posts a year,none of which would blind you with my creativity and brilliance.  I’m a fledgling quilter and all my quilting ideas are stolen from  inspired by the big guns.  And we all know how I feel about renovation....it’s a necessary evil. I don’t actually enjoy the process. It’s a means to an end.  And  I'm not a fashionista or beauty expert  ( case in point - I'm writing this wearing my suck your guts in jeans , a white t-shirt and grey Nanna cardigan, and my black fluffy slippers with fake diamantes )  So, I don’t have any singular outstanding talent on which to base  my blog posts.

I'm not sure what this blog is about. I've never been sure. It’s about Translation Tuesday and Slack Tea Thursday, and my quilting misadventures and occasional successes , and ironing board covers, an occasional recipe if my family are lucky enough to have me cook, a run down of what I got up to on the weekend,  random rant posts and whatever else takes my fancy at any given moment. Just like my life - because my life is not about one thing. My life is multi faceted and I want you to share it.  My cakes don’t always rise, and my quilts don’t always work out. My husband isn't perfect and my house isn’t a show home.  I have successes and failures. Some days I'm awesome and some days I'm horrible.   I want you to share all the  aspects of my life. I want you to feel you’re getting to know me. A bit at a time. Just like an actual friendship. Even if some of you do live half way across the world and we'll probably never meet.   And I want for it to be a two way street. I want to know your stuff too. For me blogging is about connection. And there is no single   theme for connecting with the diverse range of wonderful people I've "met " through blogging. And to limit myself to one subject or interest , I feel like I'd be denying myself the opportunity to meet people who can enrich my life and show me new things and different ways of thinking.

So, why do you blog and what's your theme?



P.S. I’m not sure why people read my blog  but I’m totally stoked that people do. ( I swear I nearly peed my pants this week when I saw I have 58 people following me at the moment because never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine that would happen –did 50 of you slip and add me by accident or what? )

 P.P.S. I know I was absent this week. I have a sick  note.

Snowball Night -Week 3-I'm on fire (not literally)

Karen over at Sew Many Ways is hosting a Snowball Quilt Along and it's not too late to join in the fun. If you click the icon below it will take you to all the posts about the Quilt Along including a post that has links to all the particpants blogs. (I'm on there too - I feel almost famous!)  So if you're here as the result of that post-  Welcome!  If you're easily shocked perhaps you'd better only read the Snowball  posts.  Sometimes I have a mild potty mouth. And a minor case of insanity and randomness.

The beauty of this quilt along is that Karen is not a Princess about how many blocks you have to finish in a week or when you have to report back about your progress. We all know sometimes life gets in the way of what we would rather be doing,  like when your  kids are throwing up for days at a time to rival Linda Blair in "The Exorcist".

This is my week 3 report for Snowball Night. (Randomly,  I want some of those chocolate marshmallow snowballs now- I'm highly suggestible - and the shops here are shut. For crying out loud nobody mention vodka...)  It's  ironic that our Northern Hemisphere bloggy friends are making a snowball quilt in summer and here where it never snows it's cold enough this winter  that it probably actually could. It's very considerate  that our weather is helping us fit in with the theme. Thank you Winter.

This week, I was determined to do better than the 9 blocks I did last week....

I managed 24 blocks. 48 blocks down. Whooooooooo Hoooooooooo!  I've decided to do this quilt in a 12 x 14 block configuration which will equal too many blocks for me to tally up right this minute because my maths is bad. Let's just say I have a lot more blocks left to do....It's all good.  I'm not working  to a particular time frame here. I'm loosely envisaging this will be finished in time for our summer. I love that I can fit this in around other quilty projects.

I'm really looking forward to getting round to all the participants blogs this week to see what other people have been doing. And from previous posts I'm seeing so much lovely variation in people's fabric choices that I'm starting to get really excited about seeing the finished quilts at the end.


P.S. I went all Virgo on myself and worked out the maths , I couldn't help it - 120 blocks to go...and I have to find another hushabye charm pack.

The Queen Has a Birthday and the Kitchen Madness Continues.

One of the Uber-Cool things about being part of a former British Penal Colony is that we get to celebrate the Queen's Birthday. And she gives us the day off work, so we can do it properly. Thank you Queen. We  like our public holidays in Australia. In fact we like them so much we spread them out through the year, ever so smartly missing most of winter,  so even though the Queen actually has her birthday in April, we celebrate it in June. (I think someone looked at our Public Holiday Calendar and said "righto then - no time off in June we'll celebrate it then- we already have Easter and Anzac Day in April so it's pretty full")

So Happy Birthday Queen -  I am so glad you were born that I might enjoy a four day weekend.

There has been a lot of creative vision going on in the Pyjamas household lately with regard to our  kitchen renovation. It's at the point where we're having to make actual choices for things like  appliances. I'm pretty much paralysed by fear and indecision  at this point.

In the last couple of weeks the cedar pelmets have come down, the cedar wall has been removed and the new wall has gone up, we now have a huge hole where our serving hatch used to be,  half my cornices are missing, I can feel the wind blowing in to my house and when I stand at the sink I can see daylight from what used to be part of the ceiling.   I've started sanding down the chairs and we've researched, decided on and ordered the new appliances. (Ouch! paying for them hurt - A LOT ) I've also packed up stuff we won't need for the duration. Goodbye nice things , see you in about 8 weeks. And the kitchen looks like a demolition site. Constantly. I've just learned to get used to it. Little P is having a whale of a time eating 30 year old glue from under the floor tiles, some of which have been removed so we could get the skirting boards off. it's probably not that harmful for his insides right? I mean it's green glue so it practically counts as a vegetable.

On a different  note I bought this shutter to put somewhere ..I don't know where - my creative vision didn't extend that far. I just liked it.

And I bought lots of presents for the new kitchen including my personal fave , this  gorgeous cake display stand. Now I just have to learn to bake. Or find a good bakery so I can have cakey goodness on display all the time. Just Like Nigella.

I've had moments of "What are we thinking" and moments of "I'm sure the vision in my head is all wrong and it's not going to come together the way I see it in my head " (which I also did with the master bedroom, guest room and lounge room renovations and they all turned out fine)

I've booked in a session for stressing out about how to antique white all the furniture. The ceiling will be coming out shortly. I will be going to my mothers for the weekend.

I'm off to sand something. Again. 

I have a feeling I'm going to despise sanding by the time this is all over....

Kinda Quick Crockpot Roast Lamb (or beef for those with a sheep phobia)

While by definition slow cooking is not quick , in my mind any meal that only requires 10 minutes of human attention to throw together is a quick meal. Henceforth the title of this post.

So take your meat  (I used a 1.5 kilo rolled lamb flap)  and brown all sides in the fry pan. This is the part that takes 10 minutes.

Side note: Once,  in about 1989,  I cooked a rolled lamb flap in the  oven  and served up a meal  with the same consistency and flavour as old boots. I did not bother buying a rolled lamb flap again until 2005 when I bought my crock pot.  

Throw your  meat in the crock pot and turn it on high. Add whatever roast seasoning you like.  If you're from South Australia you will have access to Nostimini but if  you aren't  from   here I feel sorry for you.This stuff is awesome and you're truly missing out. Marg has some , so if you're at the top of the country go visit her with a little baggie and she may give you some if you ask her nicely. Throw the lid on the crock pot and go away. In the next 6 hours, which is how long you've got until you have to look at dinner again,  you'll have enough time to sew a quilt top or spend a load of time looking at blogs. You can thank me later.

Come back after the aforementioned 6 hours. Pull your roast out of the crock pot. Slice it up. Don't worry if your knife is not sharp because this roast is so tender it practically falls apart. Serve it with whatever you like. I make gravy out of the juices in the bottom of the crock pot which is unhealthy but is seriously the  best darn gravy you've ever tasted. 

After dinner email me to tell me how delicious dinner was - and about how you think I could give Nigella/Donna Hay/Rachael Ray a run for her money. You're welcome.

Slack Tea Thursday

This may be my slackest dinner yet...seriously. (Aside from that time I had a bad day at work and had Southern Comfort and Coke for dinner)

This week I'm bringing you a tutorial so you can all try this at home. I'm worried this recipe while slack is a bit complex without the pictures.  I don't know if this is eaten in other countries, but it's really big here amongst the Primary School crowd. Or at least it was when I went to school in the dark ages prior to the invention of the wheel and fire.

Take two slices of ordinary white  bread. (Dont try to health this up by using wholemeal or grain or your head will probably explode because you'll be defying the laws of nature)

Smother those slices with butter - I didn't say this was healthy.

Add chips...I chose chicken (bascially to annoy Ms. Chicken's Consigliere, who gets very upset every time I mention eating anything chicken...)

Smoosh it all together.

Voila... Dinner! Crunch that sammich!

Alternative dinner: Roll stuffed with twisties . Same principle. Just pull out the roll guts and stuff the twisties in.

Total investment in making dinner. Bread, butter and a pack of chips. Or one roll and a pack of twisties.  Time commitment: two minutes including clean up. How good does this look? How slack !  Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm....

Thanks to Susie who inspired this post with her reminiscing of chip sammiches over lunch last Friday.