I can’t believe another weekend is over. I always feel like I need another day especially when we pack so much in. Netball in the freezing cold at the crack of dawn, rugby in the mud, swimming lessons, laundry, trips to the shops, more swimming lessons and then the weekend is over. But this weekend we had no birthday parties or events so made the most of some home time. We picked loads of mandarins and some oranges off our trees. It was always my dream to move from a concrete backyard to having more space and some apple trees. For some reason I always imagined my kids picking apple trees but citrus is close enough.
We’ve ordered our first communion dress, decided on a simple headband for the hair and went looking for shoes but need to go again somewhere else. We got on top of the laundry (for like 2 days) and Sunday afternoon I got down to some baking. Pioneer Womans’ Chicken Pot Pie and her oatmeal crispies. I just love making pie from scratch. Instead of a whole chicken I use chicken thighs and poach them on the stovetop. Then chop up and add to the pie filling. I doubled the filling recipe, chucked in some zucchini and oh it was delicious. The pastry was made by following her flaky pastry recipe and absolutely delicious. I managed to get 2 rectangle pie tops out of the 1 dough recipe which was great and froze the 2nd pie to give to a new mum at school. You need to set aside some time to make this for dinner but it is worth every minute you put it into it.
And the cookie dough I froze in logs and popped in the freezer too. This recipe is delicious and you can leave out the pecans for a lunchbox treat or add more pecans for a home treat. These are so good hot out of the oven.
I hope you had a great weekend. I always feel the need for a 3 day weekend……………………..oh and there was knitting! I have 63cm of stocking stitch to knit and am really on go slow mode. I’ll get there but every time I sit down to start something needs to be done.
Looking at your children picking oranges it has brought back a memory of when my girls were little and we had a ritual. Every morning during the colder months we would go out back to the orange tree where they would pick their own orange to have with breakfast, it was always so much fun to see how quickly they could put on their coats and boots before running out the door. Thank you for the memory, best wishes Wendy
Beautiful photos of the kids in the backyard. We’ve planted a few fruit trees but it will be a while before we get a haul like yours. What are you planning to do with all the citrus, other than eating them fresh? Any orange/mandarin recipes you have waiting to go?
Your weekend sounds very pleasant. I would love a weekend with no netball but Isabelle has games on both days, or sometimes only 1 day. It would be lovely to sit and smell the oranges and mandarines. I love orange scents as they are supposed to represent happiness. Your cookie dough and pies look fantastic. I might need to put some cookie dough in the freezer.
Quite a busy home weekend. Love these insights in your life.
Lovely sounding weekend. They do go so fast these days, I agree. We have footy for both boys now and swimming lessons too…so before we even start we are busy. What a glorious backyard for the kids, picking fruit is just so much fun, I used to love doing the same in my grandparents backyard as a kid. They had passionfruit, grapes, lemons and oranges, fantastic memories
xo
I notice you have added the Australian measurements next to The Pioneer Woman’s American measurements in her book. Have you found a quick way to make these changes? I also have her book called A Year of Holidays. I’m being slack I know, but changing the measurements has put me off cooking anything from the book!!