Our ukulele group The Flukes gave us an amazing performance at the Alphington Show in March and on Sunday the 28th of June they are back again for a singalong!

Come down to the Centre from 3.00-4.30pm for an end of term celebration. We can’t wait to sing our hearts out to a classic list of songs, including:

-Sunny Afternoon

-Eight Days a Week

-Echo Beach

-Count on Me

-Then I Kissed Her

-I’m a Believer

-Happy Together

-Rhythm of the Falling Rain

-Hit the Road Jack

Book in online here.

It’s long a weekend - so I hope you are taking it easy today and doing something extra nice … and thinking of King Charles? Or more likely maybe not??

We’re in the last month of Term 2 which means it is time for us to be thinking about programs we can run in the second half of the year.

If you have a program you’d like to run let us know!

You can volunteer and run one (like Rosie did with Community Yoga - we love it Rosie!) , or if you have an ABN we can support your small business efforts to run something (like Clare running art classes and Yoyo teaching violin).

Or, you may have been to a great one-off workshop that you think people in our neighbourhood would like … and have a contact for the person who runs it … we’re always interested.

You can email info@alphington.org.au or call us on 9499 7227 if you have an idea!

Looking forward to another great (but short) week at ACC. Please note Kalimna is away for 2 weeks - poor sausage now has her hand in a cast after her operation on her finger.

This coming Saturday 13 June we have the Sewing Machine Maintenance Workshop on from 9.30am. You can check the previous post for the booking link.

See you soon I hope!

Cheers Leanne

‘Tis the season for mushrooms, walnuts, spinach, onion and lemons. Here is the delicious food we cooked for lunch on Thursday at Garden to Plate.

Lemony chicken (using a lemon from Jill and a lemon from Sheryl) … and green onions and spinach from our garden, stuffed mushrooms (cheese and walnuts - amazing) and a roast pumpkin and potato mash. So very yum!

Stuffed Mushrooms (blue cheese and walnuts)

Ingredients

• 4 large mushrooms

• 100g blue cheese, crumbled

• 40g walnuts, coarsely chopped

• 6 fresh thyme sprigs (or dried thyme is ok too)

• 2 tablespoons panko breadcrumbs

• 1 1/2 tsp extra virgin olive oil or butter

Directions

• Preheat oven to 200C/180C fan-forced. Line a baking tray with baking paper. Remove the stalks from the mushrooms and finely dice. Arrange mushrooms on the tray.

• Mix mushroom stalks, cheese, walnuts and thyme.  Fill mushrooms. Top with panko breadcrumbs. Drizzle with oil or a small knob of butter and season with pepper.

• Bake for 20 minutes or until cheese melts and mushrooms are tender.

• Serve sprinkled with baby herbs if desired.

Mashed Potato and Pumpkin

Ingredients

• ¼ pumpkin, cut 3 cm chunks

• 4 potatoes, peeled and cut in 3cm chunks

• Salt and pepper

•  Butter

• Cream

• Nutmeg

Instructions

• Roast the pumpkin in the air fryer for 20 minutes, then microwave with a little water for 5-10 minutes to ensure they are well cooked.  Drain and whizz with butter, cream, salt, pepper and nutmeg.

• Boil the potato in salty water until soft, drain and mash, then add in the pumpkin mash. Add additional cream and butter to get to the right consistency. Taste and season as needed.

Creamy Lemon Chicken with Sage

Ingredients

• 2-4 chicken breasts, sliced in half and pounded thin

• 2 cloves garlic, crushed

• Handful of sage leaves

• Salt and pepper

• Olive oil

• 1 onion, thinly sliced

• 1/4 cup chicken stock

• Zest of 1 lemon, minced

• Juice of 1 lemon

• 2-3 cups packed spinach (or use 1 bag)

• 3 tablespoons heavy cream

Instructions

• Mix oil, garlic, sage and salt and pepper and cover chicken breasts. Marinate until cooking.

• Heat a large, flat-bottomed sauté pan to medium high heat, set aside the sage leaves and fry the chicken breasts for 3-4 minutes on each side, until done through. Remove the chicken from the pan and set on a plate while completing the rest of the dish.

• To the hot pan, add the red onion slices, letting them soften for 2-3 minutes. Pour in the chicken broth. The pan will sizzle. Stir the onions and let cook another 2-3 minutes until they soften more.

• Then add in the sage leaves, lemon zest and lemon juice and mix well.

• Fold in the spinach and cook for 1-2 minutes.

• Turn off the heat, stir in the heavy cream and season once more with salt and pepper.

• Add the chicken back into the pan and reheat in the sauce.

• Serve immediately.

Budgets, grants applications and acquittals, Council submissions … last week was flat out behind the scenes … and busy in person as well.

Lots of people attended the Embracing Life and Death discussions on Thursday afternoon. Crunch was a small group this time (but lovely - we did still life painting with gouache paint), we got a delivery of a couple of cubic metres of compost to keep us busy in the garden on Friday (thanks Nat at Darebin Council for organising this again!) … and two birthday parties were held at ACC 🥳 on Sunday.

This week CWA is meeting at the Gleeson Centre on Monday night, Garden to Plate is on Thursday at 11.30am … and it’s the long weekend … so we’ll see you back on deck next Tuesday.

Hope you make the most of it. I am planning to go to Rutherglen (to check out the wineries) with some of my oldest friends from university. Should be fun!

Cheers Leanne

We’re in round 12 … and a big congratulations to Adopted Crupi (Corrado) … with ‘Soarin’ (Thomas) coming second so far … only one point behind. Then we have a tie for 3rd - Dansuri and Richicog … with Alex and Rose coming a bit* further down the ladder.

However, they (Alex and Rose) are diligently coming in to ACC every week on Friday to update the IRL ladder for all to admire. See below for the latest photo of the results.

I (Leanne) started taking an extra interest in the footy a week or so ago when Jack Ison got his first game with Carlton - he and his family were at Fairfield PS with my kids and he played at Parkside Footy Club etc. So lots of local families were pretty chuffed to see him play in the AFL (I saw posts all over Instagram).

Anyway … I digress. We’re all looking forward to the rest of the season. I am sure we will rustle up a fabulous prize or two for the winners.

And a big thanks to those who are participating. It has been a super talking point through the week for everyone at ACC - particularly on Fridays.

* oops … second last (but they’re taking it in their stride)