DIY

Ok so we've always been a bit thrifty and into making things ourselves but we've taken it to another level lately. There are a few key bonuses to making stuff yourself:

1. It is CHEAP and we're back on a student budget
2. Things taste extra DELICIOUS when the flavours have been wafting through the house for an hour.
3. It HEATS YOUR HOUSE. Dunedin weather is never hot and never freezing, just almost always a few degrees too cold. In ultimate efficiency the oven also manages to bring the house up to the comfy zone.
4. It's FUN! We're still making friends around here so that leaves us with some time to kill, which is great because we're actually doing all those random things we never made time for in Madison.

Kate shaking a bottle of honey and yeast to make some mead. This bottle is now aging nicely in the bathroom cupboard next to the warmth of the water heater.

Some delicious creamy lemon curd (by Kate) on a tasty slice of rye bread (by Justin). Oh the blessed domesticity of it all.

We made pizza dough and had a make-your-own pizza party with a couple friends. We put some left over pizza dough in the fridge but apparently it wasn't ready to stop growing. Mutant pizza danger!
I like the kind of DIY where you ignore the instructions. This hideous beast is a dessert pizza. Word of wisdom: don't attempt to bake anything AFTER applying cream cheese frosting. Surprisingly the cream-butter-sugar mixture melts and oozes everywhere. However, it tasted AMAZING, especially the crusty bits where the butter and sugar caramelized on the edges. So delicious I am tempted to do it this way again.



Non-food related DIY and ultimate cheapskate move: we downloaded a picture of a Scrabble board, printed it at work and cut little letter tiles out of card.