Have a lovely weekend

This week has been such a mixed bag, I completed my First Aid certificate, bought a new pair of heels (!) and have been working most nights this week. We have friends visiting from Canberra and Sydney this weekend, which will be a nice warm up before our families and lots more friends visit next weekend to celebrate the end of Tony's exhibition.

Here are some links that kept me entertained this week:

Simple chocolate muffins - perfect for a late night baking.

The crazy (true) story about a couple and a North Korean abduction.

Are some women child less or child-free?

Romance Was Born has just released a May Gibbs inspired collection. Did you know that you can visit her home in Sydney? I'm planning a visit next month :)

And something important, this Sunday is the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia. I recorded this interview with a uni student from my town and was humbled by her honesty and determination to help others who may be struggling their their sexuality. We made a slideshow together too.

Flowers by Little Triffids.

An adventure blog + mini interview

I'm reading the best blog at the moment. Kasey Koopmans is hiking the Pacific Crest Trail and posting an addictive day-by-day account on her blog The Importance of Elsewhere. She started in Mexico in mid April and will hike all the way to Canada, the PCT's northernmost point.

I knew nothing about the PCT until I read Wild a few years ago, Cheryl Strayed's memoir that details her 1995 solo hike. The book divided my friends but I loved it and found it unexpectedly empowering. It also made me really curious about camping - I've never been before!

If you're reading Kasey's blog, resist the temptation to start with latest post and go back to Day 1 and read until you're up to date. I recommend this because it's a joy to follow her progress in what feels like real-time. She posts most days and is funny and candid about her experience of the trail so far. The photos are stunning too and it's amazing how much the trail and scenery can change each day.

Kasey also does a great job of conveying the simple things that make can her day, from encountering puppies to a bowl of homemade spaghetti, which sound awesome, even to non-campers like me :)

There seems to be a lot of generosity, community and trust on the trail. I love reading about the different Trail Angels Kasey's met in the first month of her trip, generous folk who live in towns along the trail and open their homes to PCT hikers. Many of them are happy to cook for their guests, and drive them back to the trail when they're ready.

This family even came up with Kasey's trail name - Double Happiness, or DubHaps as she's now known.

Over the weekend I emailed Kasey to see if I could share some of her photos here, and snuck in two short questions. Here's her reply from somewhere in California:

How are you writing and posting your blog from the trail? 

I take little notes through out the day - funny things I overhear, songs that are stuck in my head, memorable views, run-ins with fauna - and then before I go to bed I string it all together in the comfort of my sleeping bag. Whenever I have good enough service, I upload to the blog which is usually in towns.

What are you most looking forward to at your next town stop?

What am I looking forward to most?! Big breakfasts, pizza and washing my hands in hot running water.

Thank you Kasey! I hope you can check out her blog, and here's something fun, you can send trail mail or virtually shout her breakfast.

Photos by Kasey Koopmans.

Suze's lemon yoghurt drizzle cake

My friend Suze and I did a recipe swap recently and she sent her tried-and-tested lemon cake, which was the first thing she baked for her boyfriend Kasun.

'I baked it for him at his place one weekend,' she recalls. 'When I was there the next weekend, I opened the oven to bake him something else and found what was left of the cake covered in foil. I said "Oh my god, you still have this! Throw it out," and he grabbed it saying, "No! It's still good, don't you dare."'

Suze and Kasun now share a home in Newcastle and have even climbed Mount Everest together. Suze posts all of her baked goods on Instagram under the cute hashtag #suzebakes.

I can totally vouch for this cake, I made it after work one night for some friends who were coming to stay that weekend. We ate it at midnight and it was so light and fluffy that we nicknamed it lemon pancake-cake.

Suze's lemon yoghurt drizzle cake

You'll need:

3/4 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 tbsp lemon rind
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 cup Greek yoghurt
1 3/4 fine caster sugar
2 cups self raising flour

For the frosting
1 cup fine caster sugar
1 tbs lemon juice

Here's how:

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees celsius. Whisk the oil, eggs, lemon rind, lemon juice, yoghurt and sugar until combined - if you use a mixer the cake will come out light and spongey which I loved. Sift in flour and whisk again. Pour into a greased and floured bundt tin and bake for 50 minutes.

To make the icing, mix the sugar and the lemon juice until it looks like wet sand and drizzle over the cake while still warm.

And just a tip:

I forgot to ice mine while it was still warm, so I mixed 100g of icing sugar with 2 tbsp of lemon juice and drizzled that over the top.

More sentimental cakes here, including Jemma's childhood birthday cake and my sister-in-law's apple crumble.

Happy weekend

Hello, it's suddenly freezing in Wagga Wagga, which means it's time to retire these shoes for another season. I hope you've had a good week, we've had so many nice things left on our doorstep these last few days, from homemade cakes to gorgeous flowers, cookbooks and even a fancy fish dinner.

Here are a few links for the weekend, have a lovely one :)

Yum - easy black bean nachos with blue cheese and lime. Emphasis on blue cheese and easy.

A not-too-scary introduction to decluttering and minimalism at home.

These photos are amazing - the Tibetan couple whose wedding photos went viral in China.

I really liked these illustrations of everyday love. I made Tony look at them too.

The worrier's guide to life.

A fun podcast - music and time slowed down.

And from my friend Sophie, empathy cards for serious illness.

Colourful packed lunch

With a tiny bit of planning, I ended up packing a really good lunchbox the other day. It contained:

A zucchini muffin. I make a batch every fortnight or so for emergency snacks, they freeze really well. A friend at work likes to poke fun at me because I need to eat every two hours and tend to dig into my lunch right on noon. Don't substitute the spelt flour in this recipe, it makes the muffins moist.

This cookbook reintroduced me to shaker fries. Basically, you cut up a sweet potato (potato or eggplant) into little strips, chuck the fries into a zip lock bag and add salt and pepper, paprika, olive oil and a few cloves of garlic. Shake well before tipping the fries onto a baking tray. Roast at 180 degrees celsius until they smell done. 

My friend Sophie served some Sunburst cherry tomatoes the other week at lunch and now I'm obsessed. They're Fanta coloured and sweet.

And not pictured is the iced chocolate beetroot brownie that I ate before lunch, it was meant to be my lunch dessert. 

P.S I love this lunchbox interview series, this one is my favourite, although it makes me desperately want a segmented lunchbox to take to work. 

A simple gift wrapping trick

Lately I've been ditching envelopes and sticking greeting cards straight onto presents. It's super simple and makes presents look more festive, especially if you use glitter tape too. It could look lovely for Mother's Day :)

I love wrapping presents and have just stocked up on some supplies from the city, mainly wrapping paper from Kiki K (reversible yay!) and cards from Rifle Paper Co. I really love how Catherine of Little Glowing Lights wraps her pressies, they're always colourful and inviting.

Weekend links

Lately it's been lovely to be outside. In the mornings and at night the coolness bites into my skin and it's a sensation that reminds me that I am very much alive, something I am particularly grateful for in a week that's been marked by tragic loss.

I have a few things to share this week, like this this beautiful cookbook, which I leafed through at a friend's house and bought the very next day.

Friends forever - a group of girlfriends photographed over 30 years, starting from when they were 16.

Why French women don't contour.

A fascinating insight into what it takes to change someone's mind.

I love a classic apple crumble and this week we sent some love to Sydney in the form of a plum and hazelnut crumble. This recipe could be a goer.

And I know it's the wrong season but I'd love to have a window flower box like this one.

Have a lovely weekend.