The beautiful campus of the University of Cape Town

When my brain is having an "I can't" day(or week or semester or even year), its good to see something pretty. - - Camellia japonica walkway at University of Cape Town

 My life at You Sea Tea(aka UCT, University of Cape Town) started in January of 2014. The campus has so many beautiful spots, and is blessed with the view of the gorgeous mountain in the background. Here are some of my favourite places.

 

 Its always refreshing in the craziness of life to walk through this mini forest. One of my favourite spots on campus.

University of Cape Town, looking onto the Rugby field

Macadamia and Cinnomon ice cream

{ice cream with no milk or sugar}

Ice cream is one the best things in this world! I was devastated when I had to go on a no dairy and sugar diet and could not have ice cream :( So after missing my beloved ice cream so much, I decided I had to try make up a recipe even if it was a flop. I was a scared that using water instead of milk would give me something like poached egg, but to my surprise it turned out to being a really delicious ice cream that has no cream, milk or sugar!
 
 Ingredients:

4 Eggs
1 cup Water
½ whole Macadamia nuts
1-2 tablespoons Honey{to taste}
Cinnamon Stick
1-2 teaspoons ground Cinnamon
½ Vanilla powder
½ teaspoon ground Ginger{optional}
1 ½ cups plain Yogurt{optional}

Equipment: whisk, saucepan and grinder or processor.

eggs and water

Method:

Custard base: In a pan heat the water and eggs continually with a whisk on a medium-low heat. Add the cinnamon stick once the egg and water are combined. Add the honey and spices cook until its thick enough to be a custard or until its starts to boil.

Nuts: {you could use already ground macadamia nuts instead of whole and skip this step}Process or grind the macadamia nuts until they are broken up into chunky pieces. If you would like a crunchy ice cream set some of the chunky pieces of nuts aside. Process the rest until very fine, like flour.

Mix all the nuts with the custard. Add the plain yogurt*, if using.

ready for the freezer

Now its all done and ready for the ice cream maker or freezer. If not using an ice cream maker, you must take it out the freezer and check and stir it every 30 min for 2-3 hours so that it doesn't form ice crystals.

*Note about yogurt: I you can't have yogurt, the ice cream still works without it, as it is the fat in the finely ground nuts in this recipe that substitute the milk. The yogurt just adds to a smoother texture and tangy flavour.

Portable mini-music whiteboard

Its really easy to clean as well

I was wanting a whiteboard with music staves on it, but instead I came up with this idea. Its just an A4 page that I wrote some staves on and covered with with sticky back cover film. You could even make it without the staves to make a plain whiteboard. So this is all you need:

• A4 page(draw some staves)
• sticky back cover film
• A scissor to cut of the extra bits from the cover film and paper punch so that it can fit right into your teaching folder          

I also found a really nice non-permanent marker. Its a Faber-Castell's Multimark non permanent pen that can write on basically all surfaces(CDs,Glass, plastic etc.). It comes off really easily with just a little water.

This has really come in handy over the last year, and it is so easy to make. Hope it works for you :)

Winter bulb planting

gladiolas, various bulbs and last year's Irises

Bulb planting is so exciting! While I plant I am constantly imagining what a beautiful garden they will make in spring. It never turns out how I think... like last year I envisioned profusions of ranunculus and instead my Irises from the previous year gave a gorgeous show! There is only one tedious part to bulbs and that is- preparing the bed.

Preparing your bed for the bulbs can be very tiring, especially if you have stony, rocky soil like we have :( There is always a good side. Once you've dug your bed and replaced it with lovely soil and food you won't have to do it again. If you have perfect soil in your garden already, you don't even need to prepare the bed- unfortunately few people have perfect soil...

                                    

How to have successful bulbs:

• Bulbs need food and good soil. So if your soil is sandy, has lots of clay, rocks, roots (I'm sure there's some others no no soils)-you will have to dig a bed and replace the old soil with good healthy soil(buy potting soil).
• when planting near trees, make sure there are no roots that will interfere and take over your bed. Garden books usually say you should put a plastic sheet at the bottom of the bed, but plastic in a garden is a weird thought for me.
•  I have made new beds with success without bought soil when I thought soil was too expensive. Guess what I had to do?  Dissect the soil of all its stones and rock and that was way too much work! 
• Mix compost or organic fertilizer pellets with the soil
• Plant the bulbs!
• If you don't get winter rain or enough of it you will need to water them(especially if you planted tulips)
• I have found that feeding your bulbs with a liquid food when they start to flower, gives me healthy strong bulbs that will double or even triple the amount of flowers for the next spring. I have had great success by doing this. 
• Enjoy your flowers and take lots of pictures(:

From top left: the kind of stones I have to dig out, anemones the funniest shaped bulbs-they look like stones, and violas(not a bulb, just the only thing that was flowing when planted the bulbs)

Yummy health bread

This recipe is from the packet of the whole meal flour that we get. Its very simple and is so delicious, so here is the recipe:

625 ml (2 1/2 cups) unbleached whole meal flour

10 ml (2 tsp.) salt

5 ml (1 tsp.) instant yeast

125 ml (1/2 cup) sunflower seeds

450 ml (1 1/4 cups) water

1. Mix the dry ingredients (including the sunflower seeds :). Add the water and mix well. Cover the dough and leave to rise for 10-12 hours-overnight (I know that’s a long time, but it makes it taste so good).

2. After rising, knead the dough on a floured surface. Roll it up to fit to tin.

3. Grease your bread tin and place dough inside. Leave to rise for 2 hours.

4. Preheat the oven to 220°C (428°F)

5. Bake for 30 min.

Note: If you don't want a hard crust you might want to either cover if for the first 15 min of baking, or bake the bread at 180°C (356°F). Have a wonderful time eating it :) It freezes well to.

My Amaryllis went for an outing ;)

 I am so happy with this amaryllis, it has given me two sets of blooms with four flowers each! The first set of blossoms had a strangely short stem with huge flowers. It looked father funny. But this beauty is so tall! It is rather nice having it in a pot, as I can move it to different settings and take photos of it with my other flowers.

The other flowers are: a white Lilium(its fragrance is so strong that I sometimes get a whiff of it in my bedroom!), the Lobelia in the pot, and my bright yellow and red Dahlia. The amaryllis(Rosetta) has a really pretty petal, from close it looks like its been sprinkled with glitter.

I was looking through a whole lot of old music that my Granny gave me and found some gorgeous covers! Some of them were even my Great-Grandmother's, including this one from 1937. It certainly was well used, with the sellotape holding it together.

This one is “Ma, He’s Making Eyes At Me”. Sadly the publishers didn't put dates on the music back then:(. The song was a top twenty hit in 1940 and was revived in 1974. I just love the photography style from those days.