An Amazingly Beautiful Bathroom in Kawakawa (in the far north) of New Zealand

Cool ideas from the web

The quick and dirty method for separating worms from compost of your worm farm.

A quick way to separate worms from their compost is to dump a whole entire layer into a large vessel, like the one pictured.  Then I then fish the worms out (not as hard as you think, you can feel them and grab them from the brew) and pour and use compost water on garden.  I use this method when I don't have time to fuss around, and would like to clear some room in my compost bin fast!  Also, seeds float to the top, so you can remove future sprouters.  

How to fish them out?  Any utensil - they really grab onto any object which passes through the water they will cling to.  Truly, my rubber gloved hand passes through at the end to make sure I have got them all out (or most - as long as you return as many as you can, they can only assist in the garden - dead or alive...)

I deposit them into a separate bucket which I have ready before I start, then when I am done I throw them all back to work in the worm farm.  I had started initially by using colanders, but they get clogged up and are unnecessary.  With worm farming, your rubber gloves are your best friend (and tossing around the layer you are adding to each time - and adding lots of paper!)

I also have a bucket ready to throw all the crap like seeds, and another for uncompostable crimes of humanity - plastic bits.  The seeds and bits can be composted, tossed somewhere to rot, or perhaps planted.  

This method allows you to clear what you are throwing in your garden from rubbish, or unwanted things - and since you are adding the compost with water, the plants can access the rich brew just fine!  A wonderful method.

For the usual method - which I finally realized how to do easily, go here.

Honey toffee in moulds shaped like animals and flowers and tikis

I started experimenting with making caramel and hard toffee candy after my son Luke asked me how candy is made. Of course the kids all loved it, but I felt bad about how much sugar they were eating. 

I had read a great article on how much better for you honey is than sugar - it is a far more complex food. I did a search. Did you know you can make candy using only honey and butter? (Usually it's made with sugar.) A French recipe makes honey butter candy by boiling equal parts of both to 150 degrees C / 300 F (upper limit of hard crack stage).  Then nuts and dried fruits are added.  

So you can make pure honey candy, which is the healthiest.  For the candies above, I used some sugar.

Mix and boil 

230 g butter
500 g honey
1 cup sugar

Boil candy to 135 C / 275 F.  (You need to use a candy thermometer.)

It turned out great, but a little too much sugar - a few pieces and my blood was racing. I actually wished I had just used honey alone as the French recipe said.

Blueberry Pielets - with my Mom's recipe for the pie crusts

I have been on a pie rampage these last few weeks - I am a novice, but it's a fun new treat (which can be fairly healthy if you use honey instead of lots of sugar).

Blueberry pie-lets:

BLUEBERRY PIE FILLING

3/4 cup honey (that's a guess, 1 tablespoon per pie-let)
¼ cup flour
4 cups blueberries
lemon juice (one drizzle per pie-let)

Using a muffin tray, cut out circles about 2cm larger than a mug. Set into each muffin shape on the tray. Fill with blueberries which have been rolled in some flour (I had to dump out the ones in the photo to do this step, do it first). Add a tablespoon of honey, and a squirt of lemon juice. Top with another circle of the same size as before. Squish the top roof of crust to bottom crust decoratively. (I use first two fingers of left hand and right thumb inbetween, the left fingers push crust edge down, thumb opposite, up - and go all around making this pattern.)

*Obviously you can just make a blueberry pie - the filling is enough for 1 PIE.

I just discovered that my mom's crust recipe kicks butt on the other dumb one I was using. It is amazing! Even if you are half dead it makes great pastry.




AMERICAN PIE CRUST

Combine:

454 g / 1 lb. margarine or butter -- both is the best
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp baking powder
5 cups flour
1 egg
2 tbsp vinegar
¾ cup cold water
Mix together and roll out.

I put the dry ingredients together, then added the egg, then squished in butter and marg (454g total) with my hands until uniforms. Then I added the wet.

Primal wool knitted hat and scarf - made by interspersing fur effect wool with real wool

When you knit a hat, you can mix a type of synthetic wool called Primal wool (fur effect wool) with regular real wool, and it makes this lovely effect. On its own, the Primal wool when you knit it makes a surface like a soft, plush teddy bear. For Phoebe's hat I actually just added lengths of it until they ran out, knitted a few rows without, and added again.

The idea came because I was short of the pink wool - my friend had made the scarf for her daughter, and I was making the hat out of a limited amount of wool that I was given by another friend. But I ran out of wool and had to completely unravel what I had done. As it was hard to unravel, I had to cut it up - thus the lengths. Then I came up with this idea which is so fun, and better than just the Primal wool alone.

Idea of buying reconditioned appliances - give it a go they are great value.

This is so cool. You can buy refurbished (repaired) kettles and appliances for a fraction of the price from Trademe. Applianceoutlet is the repair shop for Breville. After they fix a return, the appliance is tested and resold.  We gave this a try and got an awesome kettle we wouldn't have been able to afford.

Give it a go, get a a better model than you can normally afford while helping to preserve the environment by preventing waste!