Recipe: Bloody Mary Oyster Shots

There were some Birthday celebrations in the Jarrah Jungle this weekend and what better way to get a party started than with some Bloody Mary Oyster Shots!

These little morsels were fun to drink but you really only need 1 or 2 max per person as they are pretty strong.

Bloody Mary Oyster Shots

12 Serves (Allow 1-2 per person)

Ingredients

1 doz fresh oysters

2 cups Tomato Juice chilled

2/3 cup Vodka chilled

2 tbs Worcheshire Sauce

6-8 drops Tabasco Sauce

12 x 8cm long celery sticks
Salt & Cracked Pepper
12 shot glasses (about 30ml each)

Method

• Combine the Tomato Juice, Vodka, Worcheshire Sauce and Tabasco together in a jug
• Taste and season with Salt and plenty of Cracked Pepper
• Put your shot glasses onto a tray or plate
• Place a celery stick inside each glass
• Then an oyster
• Top with tomato mix
• Carry down to your guests and say Bottoms up everyone! Cheers!!

The mix can be made hours beforehand and kept in the fridge to chill.

The oysters of course need to be assembled and served straight away to maintain their freshness. This is one for the seafood lovers I know not everyone likes oysters la natural but with the tomato mix they really do taste amazing.

What's your favourite beverage shot?

Playing along with linky parties:
Goodbye City Hello Suburbs
Savvy Southern Style

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[All images my own]

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Lemon Tree

I love the saying when life throws you lemons make lemonade ... and so I went and bought myself this little Eureka Lemon Tree so I can do just that!

Does anyone know how long I have to wait for the lemons to start growing? I could do with a bacardi and lemon right about now!

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Book Club Book Review: Holding the Man by Timothy Conigrave

The August read for my Book Club was Holding the Man by Timothy Conigrave

This book is a true story written by an Australian author, set in the 1970s in Melbourne. 

A boy who realises at a young age he's gay, falls for the captain of the football team at his all boys catholic school, and they both end up in a life long relationship with each other.

To be in the mind of someone who is gay, to grow up with them, how their friends and family react to them, I found so interesting because it's not something that is often talked about, nor something I would ever understand (being a straight female!). 

The book takes a sad turn when both characters develop HIV and they then battle with the severe sickness that comes with this devastating disease.

I would recommend this book to anyone with an open mind and heart, this book is confronting it has a lot of sex scenes and is not for the faint hearted. So if your brave enough then go on, live a little, and read something totally different.

I give it 4 out of 5 stars

Jarrah Jungle's Star Rating:

1 Bad - I'd rather eat brussel sprouts topped with anchovies than read this again
2 Not Good - I'd rather watch re-runs of Neighbours than read this again
3 Ok - I'm sitting on the fence - its not great but not terrible either
4 Good - I'd pass up a pack of tim tams for this read
5 Great - I'd pass up a date with Johnny Depp for this read

 

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[Image and book from Dymocks]

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Tiles Tiles and More Tiles

I've been thinking about tiles lately and which tiles to lay in the Kitchen and Bathroom and Laundry and Powder Room. Renovating all of these rooms makes me wonder if I'm meant to be matching up tiles in some way or if they can be as different as each other.

I was also thinking if I make the Kitchen and Bathroom the priorities and picked out some really special tiles for these rooms and then I could go for cheaper tiles or even use any leftovers for the remaining rooms Laundry and Powder Room. Except that I love shimmery tiles in the Bathroom - but not in the Laundry. I love patterned tiles in the Laundry - but not in the bathroom. Agggh what to do?!

[Images via Kitchen 1, Kitchen 2, Bathroom, Girl, Laundry, Powder Room 1, Powder Room 2]
 

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Plant Tags + Markers

I've been trying to come up with a cool idea for plant tags and markers for the herb and vegetable garden.

The plastic tags you get with plants are ok but they do get weathered eventually, the seed packets don't have tags and also some of my herbs are from cuttings so they aren't labelled either.

So I've been getting some great ideas from Pinterest (after finally getting my invite today, you can find me here!) some are DIY and some from Etsy stores.

Here's some of my favourite pins ...

So how do you label your plants in the garden?

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[Image 1, Image 2, Image 3, Image 4, Image 5]

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I'm Finally Growing My Own Veggies

The vegetable garden has been planted, its watering itself thanks to the reticulation setup and the little veggies are sprouting and growing. I've wanted to grow my own veggies for such a long time and can't wait until I can pop outside for some rocket to put on my home made pizza or leek to make my favourite potato and leek soup or tomatoes and spring onion for my Mexican salsa .... Guess I have to wait for them to grow first before I get too carried away!

After spending the other weekend pulling weeds and clearing the space, we spent last weekend laying the reticulation with little sprinklers through the beds and little drippers in the pots under the patio. This means I don't have to remember to water the plants anymore which means they might actually have a chance of surviving! Once the retic was in, I got stuck in with a big pick and mixed into the soil some manure (how did I get the stinky job?!) and soil improver. I made little raised beds out of potting mix and then the bed was ready for the vegetables to be planted.

I went to Bunnings and bought some plants - tomato, leek, spring onions and rocket seeds. I had some cos lettuce seeds in my stash already. Now for the job of planting out these babies, it was harder than I thought you have to be so careful with them and plant them into the ground delicately, then put a top layer of mulch. I've planted ...

Tomato 'First Prize' (hybrid bush tomato)
Came in a tray of 6 and I planted them in a staggered row

Leeks
Came in a tray of 8 and I split them up as there were heaps in each and planted in 4 rows of 5

Spring Onions
Came in a tray of 8 and I planted them in 2 rows of 4

Rocket seeds
I put 3-4 seeds in each hole and kind of spread them everywhere in the corner so there might be a bit of a wild rocket corner here ... I was so impressed that they sprouted after about 5 days

Cos Lettuce seeds

 I planted like the rocket with a few seeds in each but they still haven't sprouted yet ... c'mon guys you can do it push through that soil!

It's such a good feeling to have the garden established, now I just have to wait for these little veggies to grow so I can eat them!

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Book Club Book Review: Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason By Helen Fielding

It was my very first turn to pick the book for my August Book Club meet up and after the heavy reads so far of Room, Atonement and Cockroach I decided it was time for some lightheartedness Bridget Jones style!

So I picked Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason by Helen Fielding. This is the second book of the Bridget Jones Diary series with a third book rumored to be in the making as well. 

This book had me both laughing out loud and cringing at the situations Bridget gets herself into.

I've watched the movie a dozen times but never read the book so to be able to actually picture the characters as I read - her loopy friends, her crazy Mum  and her sexy squeeze Mark Darcy - made for a really interesting read.

I'm not usually a movie buff, preferring to read the book wherever possible and this is about the only book I can think of that I've watched the movie and read the book.

It reads as comical as the movie and many situations that women (and probably men, oh how we confuse the poor buggers!) can relate to in new relationships.

I would recommend this book for any woman who needs a laugh and also any man who is brave enough to step into the mind of a woman ... I can assure you, you'll be surprised and might even learn a little something about the opposite sex!

I give it 5 out of 5 stars

Jarrah Jungle's Star Rating:

1 Bad - I'd rather eat brussel sprouts topped with anchovies than read this again
2 Not Good - I'd rather watch re-runs of Neighbours than read this again
3 Ok - I'm sitting on the fence - its not great but not terrible either
4 Good - I'd pass up a pack of tim tams for this read
5 Great - I'd pass up a date with Johnny Depp for this read

 

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[Book and image from Dymocks]

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Blooming Good Week

The geraniums we transplanted recently are such hardy plants not at all fazed by being dug up and moved they've started to bloom and have bright red flowers popping up on them. What a pretty sight to see first thing this morning.

Hope it's a blooming good week for everyone!

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My Bar-FishTank

Since I moved the fish tank into the dining area I've been keen to do some aquascaping and give the fish tank a bit of a theme. As the fish tank sits on a wine buffet I thought a bar theme was very fitting! So after weeks and weeks of scouring the op shops looking for the perfect pieces that were safe to put into the water, so only glass or ceramic - no wood or metal or anything that was going to flake off and poison the fish. I'm pretty happy with how it looks but it still needs a few more ornate looking bottles ... I guess that means I have some drinking to do!

Before it was a pretty standard fish home with pebbles, shells and rock caves ....

After with Beer Steins $5 each; Gold sippers $2 each; Wine glasses from Swan Valley tastings, bottle, shot glasses and swizzle sticks already had ...



Joining up to linky parties Goodbye City Hello Suburbs and Savvy Southern Style why don't you head on over and see some of the amazing features they have this week.

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Gallery Inspired Pin Up Art

I went to a few art galleries on the weekend on the hunt for some art for the master bedroom - I want something a bit sexy and cheeky with a bit of red colouring to match the red accessories in the room.

There were a few prints I liked at Outre Gallery that looked gorgeous all framed and ready to go but for $500 was a bit out of my budget.

But it gave me the bright idea of looking for some prints and frame them myself to get the same look for a lot less.

So it was back in the car and we headed to Beaufort Street, Moutnt Lawley which I hoped would have a few arty type shops to check out.

First stop Planet Books was a winner ... there was a table out the front with a heap of art posters and I kid you not they had the exact style I wanted ... sassy retro pin up girls with red backgrounds ... can you believe it?

I picked out these 4 prints for a crazy $11.95 each. 

Now to find some sleek black frames for that gallery look and the master bedroom will finally have some much needed art on the walls.

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[Images from Outre Gallery by Angelique Houtkamp and Niagara
Pin up girls my photo]

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Weekly Menu Planning

This is how I plan my what the heck are we going to eat this week menu ...

Sunday afternoon on the couch, watching cooking shows, a stack of cookbooks to flip through for inspiration, bowl of warming soup because I get hungry seeing all the yummy pictures of food!

How do you plan your weekly menu?

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A Day Amongst The Weeds

I actually got my dainty little hands dirty and spent a day in the garden weeding and planting. Bear in mind this is the 3rd time in my whole entire life I've done this gardening thing and it was raining on and off. Shocking I know! But it was worth it we made heaps of progress - 2 garden beds are cleared ready for a herb garden and vegetable garden, the back fence garden and the garden between the house and patio got a bit of pimping and planting too.

Proof I'm not a princess ALL the time!





Herb Garden - This bricked up garden bed is going to make a perfect herb garden as it's right alongside the patio so I don't have to wonder too far from the house for more mint for the mojitos! The big Geranium plant was dug up and planted elsewhere, the bed was weeded and it's now ready for some herbs to be planted.

BEFORE

This is how it looked when we first moved in and the grass hadn't yet been killed by the scorching hot summer

DURING

This is how it looks now ready to be filled with lots of my favourite herbs

Patio Garden - This garden is where the future deck will be built so we don't want anything too permanent here but an attempt to disguise the pipes and hot water system and a bit of greenery to look at. The big Geranium plant was split into about 10 smaller plants and transplanted around the Monstera Palm type tree that was already there.

BEFORE

AFTER

Vegetable Garden - This larger bricked up garden bed is going to be the vegetable garden - the Dietes plants amongst these weeds were pulled out, split into about 20 plants and transplanted along the back fence. This bed is now ready for some vegetables to be planted.

BEFORE

DURING

Back Fence Garden - This was weeded enough to fit the row of Dietes and I must confess it was getting late by then and I was getting a bit tired so coming up with all sorts of excuses to finish weeding for the day ... the bins are full we can't fit anymore weeds in ... I better go put the roast in the oven or we'll be eating at midnight ... nobody will see behind the tree can't we leave that bit .... eeeeeek a sorpion (ok so it was an earwig) - you get the idea!

BEFORE

AFTER

Transplanting the plants we already had means we didn't spend a cent but the making of these gardens is coming along nicely. Can't wait to get the herbs and vegetables planted so they can start growing so I can eat fresh goodness straight from my own backyard!

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