Dreary skies and cold, wet days.

Too many loved ones in pain or in grief, sick or suffering.

My spirit has felt heavy this week.

I look for beauty in daily simple things as a way of keeping my eyes focused ‘upwards’ despite grey skies.

My front path. I call this a ‘cheerful mess’ as it brightens my day, until it’s walked all through the house!

Brighten up winter with lemons in a bowl

Fresh herbs in jars can make lovely table decorations

Imperfect lemons from my tree sit on my table in a ‘slightly off balance’ fruit bowl I found in an antique store and just had to have.

The only flowers I can find in my garden are edible ones, so a bunch of flowering rosemary sits in an old vegemite jar on a table.

And on the days I find myself at home, I light a candle in the day time. I’m not sure of the science behind it, but candles just make people feel better, don’t they?

And I bake.

Oranges from my neighbours tree, if not eaten by the cockatoos, are lying all over my back lawn.

One of God’s gracious gifts in winter time is Citrus. I could not live without lemons, limes and oranges in my cooking and eating at this time of year.

This recipe is from the cookbook Weekend, simple food for lazy days by Banbury and Lewis.

On a side note, not every cake needs or wants to be iced. In this case, a dusting of icing sugar and sprinkling of edible flowers such as nasturtiums and rosemary flowers made this cake pretty as a picture.

Ingredients

175gm unsalted butter, softened

1 cup self raising flour

3/4 cup castor sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup almond meal

juice and zest of 1 orange

3 eggs

100gm pistachios, shelled and chopped

Icing sugar and edible flowers to decorate (use pansies, nasturtiums, rosemary flowers etc)

Method

Preheat oven to 170 degrees celsius.

Place all the ingredients except the pistachios, in a food processor.

Process until smooth.

Fold the chopped pistachios through the cake batter.

Pour into a greased and lined 20cm cake tin and bake for 55 minutes, (or until cooked when tested with skewer). If browning too quickly, cover loosely with foil for the remaining cooking time.

Cool in the tin for 10 minutes or so and then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.