A Quaint Garden

I've always wanted to plant a herb garden, and today I did!

My flatmate Scott bought a small greenhouse recently, and had planted about six chilli plants in it.

Six chilli plants and a little herb garden

My herb garden consists of coriander, thyme, chives, and parsley.

It will be so handy to have fresh parsley and coriander on hand all the time! Hopefully I can also make some pesto with the basil. Yum!

Low Carb Maple and Walnut Ice-Cream

I've been hankering for ice-cream lately. It's Summer, and it's hot, and all I want apart from to sit on the deck all day is some gosh-darn ice-cream!

I was initially going to make Keto mint choc chip ice-cream courtesy of Caveman Keto, but then my mind wandered to the sugar-free maple syrup I had sitting in the pantry.

This maple syrup uses Sucralose. After a bit of digging, I found that Sucralose produces pretty much no insulin/blood glucose spike.

Source

That's good enough for me!

I then found a Maple and Walnut Ice Cream recipe. Note how there is no extra sugar - the sweetness comes from the maple syrup. I prepared the custard as per the instructions. I couldn't resist taste-testing it along the way (more than a few times, I'll admit).

However, I still had a conundrum that needed solving. I had no ice-cream maker! A quick Google search led me to David leBovitz' freeze-and-stir method.

This method takes a long time, and it hadn't reached the right consistency when I wanted to go to bed. So the final result was a little icy, but still delicious! I would compare it to store-bought maple walnut ice-cream. Except, sugar free!

Yum!

Christmas and Mishka's Capelet

My last post was a documentation of the capelet I made for my niece, Mishka. Christmas has been and gone and the capelet was well received! She wore it until she started getting grumpy (as toddlers do).

I'm happy to say that it fit well, despite it looking a little askew in the photo. After an adjustment it sat correctly and looked pretty darn cute!

Christmas also meant a lot of baking, cooking, and crochet. I left everything to the last minute (as you do) so didn't manage to make all of my family presents. However, the baking turned out spectacular!

Cupcakes with buttercream icing

Using my birthday present (the cupcake stand),
the cupcakes and ginger slice were
presented beautifully.

My mum (who knows me too well!) bought me an amazing companion cube cookie jar! Naturally I had to make cookies to fill it up with, so I took the opportunity to use a birthday present I got a while ago - a cookie making set with recipe book and cookie cutters. I made some passionfruit snowmen with little apricot noses. Too cute, and sooo tasty! Normally I find cookies made to be cut out to taste bland and awful, but the recipes in the book are far from it.

Weighted companion cube - weighted with cookies!

Dried apricot makes a rather cute snowman nose

Yum!

Ah, I almost forgot (how could I?)! My favourite gift was a Kindle from my boyfriend! It has pretty much increased my time spent reading about 200%, plus I'll get the opportunity to make a kindle case!

Home-cooked Steamboat

Yesterday Willo and Louella had the great idea of doing a Steamboat-style dinner at the flat. Using their camping stove, we'd be able to have a pot of broth simmering away while we add delicious food. Bok choy, tofu, meatballs, dumplings, and spinach were washed and chopped. Condiments were lined up to make some delicious sauce. Once the broth was a-boiling, we began.

Food

I keep taking photos of my breakfast and dinner. See if you can spot what's missing! ;D

Caesar salad, cheese Kransky sausages, and cheese sprinkled on top