Wangaratta is a key regional city located on the Ovens River in North East Victoria. Part of the Ovens Murray region, the municipality encompasses the Alpine Valleys of the King and lower Ovens Rivers and is a gateway to the Victorian high country and alpine regions.

Situated on the Hume Freeway, and the Melbourne to Sydney rail line, Wangaratta is a regional centre that services the surrounding agricultural area and provides strong recreational, commercial, educational, tourism and health facilities.

Wangaratta and the surrounding area are a popular food and wine destination.

A day trip for hubby & myself on a glorious summer day. Main objective being to pick up a vintage ROYAL ENFIELD motorcycle engine.….

Royal Enfield built a series of WD (War Department) motorcycles for the British war Office for WWII. The best known was the 125cc Flying Flea, though one of the bigger options was the 350cc WD/C in front of you today.

After war duty, this bike was turned into a civilian unit and was first registered for the road in 1947. In that year, it was repainted Forest Green/Black over the original British Army green, which is now visible through a few wear spots. The bike comes with a field stand, passenger seat, luggage racks and replica bags.

A bit of history above about the engine we picked up… main objective being to rebuild the motorcycle getting all the parts separately…

A very good excuse to hit the road, and all county towns in Victoria are so beautiful. The roads are a pleasure to drive and the peaceful feeling you get driving these open roads is blissful.

I am addicted to Pinterest …

One of the posts I saw yesterday intrigued me greatly. I love baking and if I find something quick and easy to do them I’m definitely hooked.

Apparently you can make cakes in a pie maker !!! Wonders never cease ! So I set about doing just that …

All you need is a packet of Vanilla cake … make the batter by following the instructions on the back and the preheat the pie maker and put a serving spoonful of the batter into base.

Close the lid and cook for 6-8 minutes & like magic you have these Devine fluffy cakes which once cool you dust it with icing sugar or you can cut them in half and put jam and whipped cream in between 🤩

Now tell me what’s not to LOVE about that 🥰

I’m going to make another batch tomorrow with the jam & cream 😁

And so the next day I decided to make these again for the kids … this time with the jam & cream

Oh the joy 🤩

It’s here again and I love this time of month. It gives me a chance to go through my scraps and have a bit of a clean out.

These scraps are fairly new. I just completed a couple of table runners for a friend of mine which left me with a few odd pieces. My good friend Kate in her previous blog showed us pictures of a countertop protector which she is in the process of making. This gave me an idea to make one for myself and as my benchtop has a pinkish tinge these colours worked pretty well with it.

I used this opportunity to try my hand at a new block which I’ve never tried before and I think it came out pretty well. I love learning new things and when the project is not very large it’s less daunting and as a result I enjoy it a lot more.

Ideally the binding should have been in black to coordinate the colours that are already in the mix. However I have run out of black and being a ScrapHappy post, I rummaged and found the closest thing to pink which was red. I use that as my binding and Even though it doesn’t stand out as well as it would with a black border it doesn’t look too bad. Being a fairly new Quilter my stash of scraps is limited.

The backing is remnants of an old quilt cover and I have done free motion quilting to bind the three layers. And so I present….

Scraphappy Day is organised by Kate & Gun for anybody who wants to make new things from scraps of any kind – doesn’t have to be fabric or yarn. Here’s a list of participants – both regular and occasional – if you want to have a look at the sort of things you can do with scraps.

Contact Kate (first name on the list) if you want to join in.

Kate , Gun,Eva, Sue, Lynn, Lynda,Birthe, Turid, Susan, Cathy, Tracy, Jill,Claire, Jan, Moira, Sandra, Chris, Alys, Kerry, Claire, Jean, Jon, Hayley, Dawn, Gwen, Bekki,Sue L, Sunny, Kjerstin, Vera(me !) Nanette, Ann, Dawn 2 and Noreen

It’s lovely to get up on a Saturday morning knowing there are lots of things that need doing but being a weekend you feel free and know that even though you will get around doing what needs to be done you can take your time about it.

I love Saturday’s coz there’s another day left to the weekend. Even though I don’t really go “out” to work I feel more relaxed and languid….

On that note … here’s what I have accomplished during the week …

HAPPINESS IS…….

Kergunyah is a locality in north eastern Victoria. The locality is on the Kiewa Valley Highway, 353 kilometres (219 mi) north east of the state capital, Melbourne. At the 2016 census Kergunyah had a population of 215

The town is a centre for (mainly) dairy farms and includes a post office agent, caravan park and general store, community hall and Uniting Church. The Kergunyah Streamside Reserve is a popular swimming area on a bend in the Kiewa River.

The town was home to the Kergunyah Football Club which was established in 1923.

OUR HOME FOR THE NEXT TWO NIGHTS 🤩

What I love best …

It’s that time again …. on the road …. on the motorcycle… blue skies & camping gear …

A couple of hours more and we will be there 🤩

Parathas are one of the most popular unleavenedflatbreads in the Indian Subcontinent, made by baking or cooking whole wheat dough on a tava, and finishing off with shallow frying.^[7] Parathas are thicker and more substantial than chapatis/rotis and this is either because, in the case of a plain paratha, they have been layered by coating with ghee or oil and folding repeatedly (much like the method used for puff pastry or some types of Turkish börek) using a laminated dough technique; or else because food ingredients such as mixed vegetables have been mixed in with the dough, such as potato or cauliflower, green beans, and carrots. A Rajasthani mung bean paratha uses both the layering technique together with mung dal mixed into the dough. Some so-called stuffed parathas resemble a filled pie squashed flat and shallow fried, using two discs of dough sealed around the edges. Then by alternatively using a single disc of dough to encase a ball of filling and sealed with a series of pleats pinched into the dough around the top, gently flattened with the palm against the working surface before being rolled into a circle. Most stuffed parathas are not layered.

Parathas can be eaten as a breakfast dish or as a tea-time (tiffin) snack. The flour used is finely ground wholemeal (atta) and the dough is shallow fried.

Perhaps the most common stuffing for parathas is mashed, spiced potatoes (aloo ka parantha) followed perhaps by dal (lentils). Many other alternatives exist such as leaf vegetables, radishes, cauliflower or paneer. A paratha (especially a stuffed one) can be eaten simply with a pat of butter spread on top or with chutney, pickles, ketchup, dahi or a raita or with meat or vegetable curries. Some roll the paratha into a tube and eat it with tea, often dipping the paratha.

To achieve the layered dough for plain parathas, a number of different traditional techniques exist. These include covering the thinly rolled out pastry with oil, folding back and forth like a paper fan and coiling the resulting strip into a round shape before rolling flat, baking on the tava and shallow frying. Another method is to cut a circle of dough from the centre to its circumference along its radius, oiling the dough and starting at the cut edge rolling so as to form a cone which is then squashed into a disc shape and rolled out. The method of oiling and repeatedly folding the dough as in western puff pastry also exists, and this is combined with folding patterns that give traditional geometrical shapes to the finished parathas. Plain parathas can be round, heptagonal, square, or triangular.

My paratas have been stuffed with spring onion, green chillies & fresh coriander..

Food … glorious food !

Bhelpuri is a savoury snack originating from India, and is also a type of chaat. It is made of puffed rice, vegetables and a tangy tamarind sauce, and has a crunchy texture.

How to make bhel puri

1. I usually cut open a fresh pack of puffed rice when I make chaat recipes bhel puri, churumuri or jhaal muri. If the puffed rice is not crispy then dry roast them until crisp. Cool and then add them to a mixing bowl.

2. Add the boiled potatoes. I cube the potato and boil in 2 cups of water until just cooked. Drained the water and cooled completely. Potatoes must be dry and not moist. Then add half a Chopped onion, one chopped tomato, and a few green chilies chopped according to taste. Then add them to the puffed rice.

Toss them well. Then add tamarind chutney. I begin with a small quantity of chutneys as you cannot undo if it becomes too sour or sweet. I also feel too much chutneys or too thin chutneys will make the bhel too soggy very quickly. So add them as needed after tasting.

You can buy both chutneys at the Indian grocery store. Will blog separately on how to make them ..

They age with you but never lose their warmth…

After a week of block making during my spare time ,mainly trying out new blocks as I went along ,I finished both the dining table runner and the coffee table runner.

The colours are bright and beautiful.. I don’t usually use much black but this combination seems to pop . I’m loving the look of it.

I was going to follow a traditional pattern but you know me … I created as I went along… and the results not too bad in my book.

I sent a picture to the friend who is getting this and she absolutely loves them … I’m so happy 🤩

And now without much further ado … I present … Stardust