I had a fantastic yarn swap last night, with my knitting group. It was based on 'kiwiana' and I got some amazing yarn (and gifts). But I can't find my USB cable so no photos are as yet forthcoming. However, you can read all about it, and see wonderful photos of it here

We have a glut of grapefruit at the moment. There were really high winds in the last couple of weeks and heaps of our fruit fell off the tree so I've been trying to make something with them. I've got a grapefruit cake recipe, but the juice of 2 grapefruit isn't going to cut it. So far I've made grapefruit cordial.

Grapefruit cordial
3 Grapefruit
1 1/2 C sugar
25g citric acid
1.2 L water

Dissolve sugar and citric acid in boiling water. Stir in juice and rind of the 3 grapefruit. Dilute to taste (about 3 parts water to 1 part syrup).

This cordial is great, because it doesn't have any artificial colours or preservatives (the citric acid is a preservative, but its natural).

So that has knocked off a few of my grapefruit, and I have tried my utmost to foist them on everyone I know, but most people have their own trees, or don't like them. I'd just eat them all the time, but they give me hives (I still love them, they just don't love me back).

If anyone has any other grapefruit intensive recipes, please let me know.

Baking

The weather this morning was pretty bad, just overcast and miserable, so P and I spent the morning baking. P loves baking, well actually she loves eating but when I bake she gets her own little bowl with ingredients to 'mix' and eat. We made some lactation cookies so I could freeze the dough for after the new baby arrives and then we made muffins. My muffin recipe is really easy and very versatile.

Basic Muffins
2 C flour
2 t baking powder
1/2 C brown sugar
2 t mixed spice
1 C wet fruit (grated apple, grated courgette, mashed banana, berries etc)
1/2 C dry fruit (sultanas, raisins, dried apricots, chocolate chips etc)
1 egg
2 T oil
1 C milk

Mix all the dry ingredients together and then add the egg, oil and milk (you should really mix all the wet ingredients together in another bowl and then add them to the dry ingredients but that's just another bowl to wash later). Pour into muffin tins and bake for approx 15mins at 200degC.

I know the muffins in the pictures are pink, this is because I used beetroot rather than apple for my wet fruit ingredient. We had some that went to seed and needed to be used up. I'm happy to report that the muffins tasted fine - a little beetrooty, but still yummy. The recipe is really really versatile, just use whatever you've got on hand.

I'm due with my second child at the beginning of December, and I think I have spent the last 7 months nesting. I've been frantically sewing clothes for P, my daughter for Christmas presents.
My mother in law gave me a bag full of scraps of fabric and it included some with elephants on it. P's all time favourite animal is the elephant. Anytime we turn the computer on, she demands to see elephant photos on it so I thought that the elephant would make a perfect applique for my one and only top pattern. Its the first time I'd ever appliqued anything, and I'm really happy with how it turned out. I backed the elephant picture with fusible interfacing, and then did a really tight zigzag stitch all the way around it. Its not quite straight but I don't think P will mind. I actually had some trouble putting it away for Christmas since I'm sure she'll love it.