The week began with a Monday at home, and the joy (?) of fridge cleaning and ironing, before moving onto a very busy week at work and then a lovely quiet weekend when I actually accomplished a fair bit in the house. Anyway, let’s have a look at this week’s small pleasures, which I have to say, revolve around food and flowers.
Food
First up, I made this absolutely gorgeous kale salad from Smitten Kitchen. I know – kale salad – but this one is full of flavour and was so good I intend on making it again this week, and got myself a lovely big bunch of kale to do that very thing.

As well as picking up some more kale, I also saw this lovely looking purple sprouting broccoli. There are some good veggies around just now: aubergines for a moussaka, silverbeet and red Swiss chard.
My favourite Saturday morning cafe, Squirrel has added an ‘avocado mozzarella smash’ to their list of toasts, so, of course, I just had to have one. Possible contender for my new favourite toast there? It really depends on my mood which toast I go for each week!

One of the things I managed to accomplish on Saturday was bake this cake, a variation of Julia Turshen’s yoghurt cake using raspberry jam instead of fig preserve. It was a good substitute, and made a nice Saturday evening dessert served with more Greek yoghurt.

Flowers
The other theme of small pleasures this week is flowers (see also Saturday’s post). First up, these daffodils spotted walking to work one day were absolutely stunning and made such a gorgeous display.

I was lucky to catch this tui feasting on kōwhai flowers outside Old Government Building in town. Such a wonderful sign of spring!

Meanwhile, indoors, I picked a couple of the hellebores, and, as advised by someone on Instagram, put them into warm water. They are still looking fresh a couple of days later. I also picked up some supermarket flowers, but they look really pretty, and brighten up the room.


And that’s it for this week. What were your small pleasures?
Thanks to Mani over at A New Life Wandering for the original idea.
You can find Thistles and Kiwis on Facebook, and also on Instagram@thistleandkiwis. As for Twitter….am totally inactive these days. If you want to get in touch, email me on thistlesandkiwis@gmail.com
The hellebores look lovely.
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They are stunning this year.
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I really like Smitten Kitchen. Her quick stove-top Mac and cheese has become a staple in our house. As for that toast…yum! No wonder it’s an instant favorite.
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Yes she often has good recipes. As for that toast…it was so good!
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so many beautiful flowers! & that toast looks DELICIOUS
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That toast was really delicious!
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