and the winner is ....

Congrats Hey Mickey ... send me your address details during this week and i will get the box of goodies out to you :)  If your name is Jen W, please also send me your address, we picked up an extra sheep for you and Luis as well!  Thanks so much for playing along, i had lots of fun putting this box of goodies together, I plan to do a green themed one near St Patrick's Day.

Can you both email me at kahoonz@clear.net.nz  :)

the last sneak peek

this is the last sneak peek at what's in the box of goodies to be drawn tonight, so get your comments in and we will have a winner very late this evening ... why late? well i want to give you as much time as possible and also my creation for today is a quilt and so i will be finished that very late tonight :)

sneak peep number 4 for the new zealand goodies give away

there will be one final sneak peek tomorrow ... or maybe two ;)

ok, here it is as promised sneak peek number four ... if you are new, HI! you have come over at a great time as i am doing a new zealand box of goodies give away :)  all you have to do is leave a comment to enter and we are drawing the prize tomorrow night ... so get your comments in! 

day 255: muffin success with cinnamon muffins!

the finished cinnamon muffins :)

day 255 and i have finally had success with muffins for today's creation.  these muffins from king arthur flour are the muffin version of a cinnamon roll/scroll/thing.  has anyone else noticed the HUGE amount of cinnamon thingees rolling around pinterest?  i have so many versions of them pinned to my recipe must do's board i figured i had better get to and make at least one of them :)  i chose the muffin because i am, if nothing else, determined to conquer this humble baked good.

this recipe has layers and requires three bowls for each of the layers.  i followed the recipe exactly except for adding the cinnamon/butterscotch chips ... i couldn't find any so i added 1/2 a teaspoon of extra cinnamon to the batter instead.  apart from that, the recipe requires no heavy machinery and while it is more time consuming than a one bowl wonder because of the layers, i can promise you it's worth it ;)

the bottom and third layer

the middle layer

the topping

these ones had the bottom layer, the middle layer, and then  in the process of putting the third layer

and finally the top layer is added and pressed in.

and finally the finished muffins, complete with a yummy glaze :)  SO very very GOOD!

outcome: when i read the comments on the website for this recipe i felt sure there was going to be some disaster but this was a TOTAL muffin success.  i was so proud of them i felt some for the real estate agents who had an open home at our place today.  even they left a card to say they were "beautiful" ... yes, people i have had a muffin success ... now i can try out jen's pumpkin recipe during autumn without fear :)

my biggest thanks to king arthur flour for providing me with a muffin recipe i could serve up to people without fear of ridicule!  even if we sold our house today, this would still be my one one moment of the day, hey maybe even the week :)

sneak peek number three ... new zealand goodies box give away

oops, totally forgot to put this up yesterday i was so excited about pizza sauce!  so we will have to have two sneak peeks today :)  look for another later today and the final one tomorrow :)  remember all you have to do is leave a comment to go in the draw for a box of new zealand goodies ... prize drawn tomorrow night!

day 254: the BEST pizza sauce

it was a pinterest day for the pizza ... and the results were outstanding

day 254 and it was a stunning day here ... it seems summer might have finally arrived just before it leaves for autumn :)  most saturday's we heat up the pizza oven and have home made pizza's.  we have had the pizza oven (built by my sweet husband) for a couple of years now and have never made our own pizza bases or sauce :( shocking really, so today was the day we did both thanks to pinterest.

i love home made pizza's and we have tried all sorts of store bought bases to find the best ones.  steve wanted to see if the pita recipe we made on day 226 would work for pizza bases if we rolled it really flat.  since making those pita's that day we have made them twice a week, every week ... they are that good, perfect for lunches and easy to make.  let me tell you, they also make the best, YES, the BEST pizza bases.  these were hands down the best bases we have ever tried in the pizza oven!

ready for the pizza oven with the best pizza base we have ever used

as for today's creation, it involved making a sauce to go with our home made bases.  we went with a new york style sauce as we wanted something that was similar to a marinara sauce.  this one from the pizza lab at serious eats looked ideal so i pinned it to my recipe must do's board on pinterest.  i followed the recipe according to the instructions without changing or adapting anything.

the ingredients for the world's best tomato sauce recipe

reducing down the sauce and adding in the basil

the finished pizza sauce

my mum making her pizza :)

and in it went to cook ...

and out came the most delicious, unheavy, fresh tasting pizzas

outcome:  this is a serious pizza lover's sauce ... it was outstanding.  the hardest part was waiting for it to reduce so we could add it to the pizza bases ... the reason it was so hard waiting was the smell, it filled the house with the most amazing smell that just made you salivate!  it was the absolute bomb on the pizza.  even the peeps thought these were the best pizzas they had ever eaten ... high praise, very high praise indeed.

an enormous thanks to the pizza lab at serious eats, this tomato sauce will be made over and over again, and not just for pizzas ... it really is that good and i really did need to gush THAT much!

day 253: truly, madly, deeply.

i am truly, madly, deeply ... and now i know it all started in 1997 :)

day 253 and i am catching up on a creation i planned to do before valentine's day but never got to it!  does anyone else have issues remembering when they were married?  my husband and i are both born on the 6th of months, so when we got engaged we decided to get married on the first saturday that was on the 6th so we would both remember ... it turned out that saturday was in september.  do you think either of us remember it?  i have clean forgotten (and i mean completely) at least twice, we have both forgotten MANY more times and neither of us know how long we have been married.  we both do things for valentine's for each other but that's because the worlds advertising is there to remind us of that date!

we had some very dear friends over last weekend and they have been engaged for over 20 years (so cute), one of them asked how long steve and i had been married ... neither of us knew, talk about embarrassing and we couldn't work it out because neither of us knew the year we were married :(  it's not that we take our marriage for granted, quite the opposite.

i decided it was time to put a permanent reminder in our bedroom so we would at least know the year we were married. i loved this pillow that was posted on french-knots tumblr page from etsy.  it is also pinned to my master bedrooms page on pinterest.   i actually wanted to buy it for steve for valentine's but i couldn't find the original maker or the actual pillow.  i then decided to make it for him as a gift for the 14th but that too went by the wayside ... so today's the day it is finally going to be created!  i am truly, madly, deeply .. with my sweet and after some research i can also tell you we have been since 1997 :)

once you have done your research, for this creation you need to make or purchase a pillow and you also need a sharpie.  then you simply use your handwriting (this part scared me senseless) to add the words to the pillow.

pillow inner, cover slip, and a sharpie required for today's creation.

i inserted some card into the cushion cover so the sharpie wouldn't leak through to the other side of the cover.

finished, and happily at home on my bed as a constant reminder of how lucky we are :)

outcome:  i love that this pillow has now made a home on my bed, i will always know i was married in 1997 .. i hope!  i wish i had beautiful handwriting ...  but this pillow means more to me that just the handwriting and for that reason i love it, imperfections and all.  and as for my sweet, he arrived home to say "well, that's a good idea" ... couldn't have said it better myself!

my sincere thanks to the very creative person that made this pillow and sells them on etsy (if for some reason you find yourself on my blog, please send me your details as i would still love to buy one for me and one for my sister's bed with her anniversary!).