Mondays Menu...

Today I thought I would share my latest menu with you.  I have blogged before about how I write myself a menu (with 15 meals to cover 3 weeks) before I do my groceries and I then shop to the menu.  This works for me, it saves me lots of money as I am not throwing away food I did not need or use and it makes life easier not having to think of meals on the run.  I only shop every 3 weeks so I write out 15 meals and find that works because we have days where we eat left overs or a toasted sandwich or we may go out or have take away.


We have a really busy week in our house, we are out four weeknights each week at sport, dancing etc so I  make my menu with meals that are quick and easy to prepare but are mostly pretty healthy.  This is what is on our menu right now.  

• Vegetable pasta (made with a tomato based sauce)
• Sausages with vegetables
• Steak and salad
• Roast chicken
• Roast beef wraps (made with a marinated roast beef in the slow cooker)
• Roast Beef  (also made with a marinated roast beef in the slow cooker) with vegetables or salad
• Tray baked chicken with tomatoes and bacon (Jamie Oliver recipe)
• Thai red prawn curry (Jamie Oliver recipe)
• Satay chicken with rice (Jamie Oliver recipe)
• Pasta bake
• Sweet 'n' Sour pork with rice
• Lamb chops with vegetables or salad
• Roast beef and salad
• Steak and salad
• Quiche and salad

We also added and extra this menu - Leek and bacon pasta. We also use a few Jamie Oliver meals from his 30 Minute Meals book which are super easy to make.

If you have any favourite meals for your family I would love to hear them, I am always up for new ideas and variety.  I find it really hard to vary our menu each time with new and different meals.

A simple Christmas treat to make with the kids...

While reading my very favourite blog today I saw this cute idea for making mini Christmas puddings with the kids.  Super easy and something I wouldn't mind a nibble on myself, so I thought I would share.  Link HERE

A Christmas Cookie Link

When I read other blogs I really love when they share great links that they have found.  I know that I don't have the time to go searching all day for links to share but when I find good ones I think I'll share more often.  


Christmas really is my family's favourite time of year we all really get into the festive season and we all enjoy doing Christmas stuff together.


Today I'm sharing a link for Christmas Reindeer Cookies which would be so good to make with the kids at home and I think my preppies at school may get a go at these too.  I'm going to make mine with normal pretzels but I think they will look just as good.


The link is here.





They look so good.

At our house...

Today we are just getting stuff done, gardening, washing, cleaning the car etc etc.


BUT, we are enjoying yummy home made Anzac biscuits...

And my favourite, delicious home made marshmallows while we work (while working, in between working, all the time really)

I love making marshmallows at Easter (and I don't mind eating them all either). 


I've also really enjoyed this past week, sitting up late reading lots of different books.  Emma has been sitting with me and looking at the books as we talk about all the fun stuff we are going to see and do when we go away.  I have my novel to read as well and my favourite magazine.  Does anyone else have big piles of books on their bedside like this?  I like to keep them all there so I can just grab what I want when I get into bed without searching on the bookshelf.

Some little people are very excited about the bunny coming tonight, I am just hoping I can stay awake longer than Emma to put eggs out!


We are off to see Hop tonight to get us in the Easter spirit.  Have Fun!

Gingerbread House...

It has become a bit of a tradition over the last few years to make a gingerbread house at Christmas, they look so nice and we use it as our table centrepiece.  I have to be honest I have looked for gingerbread house cutting kits but have not found one in our budget (yet!) So I usually buy one from Aldi.  We did that this year too, I was not so impressed this year, they have changed from the ones they usually have.  Anyway I thought I would share how it came out.

I am kicking myself, I saw the cutting kits about 2 weeks ago in house for $16.95 and should have bought it but now it is gone!  I'm still looking though.

A Christmas Favourite...

Today I thought I would share a favourite Christmas recipe that I have made for years now and it is absolutely delicious.  It is also great for presents and I use the Christmas trees cookie set (that I just purchased today) from Kmart to make the trees (actually last year and years passed I only had 3 cookie start cutters so this year I upgraded to 5 star sizes) The cookie cutter set is in Kmart right now for $5. 

So here it is.  I know this is from a magazine but I have no idea which one so I can't help you there. 

Pistachio Shortbread trees

Ingredients

250g unsalted butter, softened

1 cup pure icing sugar

1tsp vanilla extract

2 cups plain flour
½ cup cornflour
80g packet of pistachios, finely chopped
Extra flour, for kneading
Extra 125g unsalted butter, softened
Extra ½ cup pure icing sugar, sifted
Finely grated rind of 1 lime and 2tsp juice
Extra pure icing sugar, sifted for dusting
Edible silver dust


Method
Preheat oven to 160 C. Line 3 baking trays with baking paper. Beat Butter, icing sugar and vanilla in the bowl of an electric mixer until light and creamy. Using a wooden spoon, mix in the flours and pistachio.


Gently knead dough on lightly floured surface until smooth. Divide the dough in half and pat into 2 discs. Put 1 disc between 2 sheets of baking paper and then roll out until 5mm thick. Repeat for other disc. Use small, med and large start shaped cutters to cut out 16 of each size. Put stars on prepared trays, one size per tray and bake for 10-15 min or until biscuits are golden. Stand trays on a wire rack for 5 min then transfer biscuits to a wire rack to cool.


Put extra butter, extra icing sugar, lime rind and juice in the bowl of the electric mixer and beat until the mixture is light and fluffy. Put 1 tablespoon of butter mixture in a small bowl and reserve.


Spread a little of the butter cream on 1 side of 8 small, 8 medium and 8 large start biscuits. Top each star with a matching biscuit and press gently together. TO make the trees, put a large joined biscuit on a flat surface, put ½ tsp of the reserved butter cream onto the centre of the star, top with a med joined biscuit. Put a little of the butter cream on the top and then add a small star biscuit. Dust each tree with icing sugar and a little edible sliver dust.

Easy to make, super yummy to eat and a really nice handmade present for anyone!

Enjoy...

Sunday and sewing

We've had such a nice day so far today.  Emma and I have spent the afternoon in the sewing room, me sewing something special and Emma scrapbooking (Emma style) and both of us watching Mamma Mia!  I love that movie and singing along as we go but nothing is cuter than watching Emma scrapbook at the end of the table, wiggling her bottom as she sings along to the music.  Adorable!!

I have made a few things these last few days.  We all went to see Eclipse on Friday night for Kristie's birthday.  It was a damn good movie, would watch it again and again happily.  Anyway I made this for Kristie for her present.

A buttercup bag and a little zipper purse to match.

I have been on a bit of a finishing off roll at the moment so when I realised I still had something from last years scrapbook show to make I got onto it and finally made it. 

And I have started sewing my knitted blanket together AND I finished my book, The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner (another twilight book).  I am feeling happier not having so much unfinished stuff around.

I am now off to pick some fresh rhubarb from my garden and make a rhubarb, pear and raspberry crumble.  I've never made it before so we'll see how it goes, I've been searching for a while for a recipe to use the rhubarb in my garden.

Happy Sunday!

A winter favourite

It's been cold at our house, the wind has been blowing and we have been in our closed up house with the heater on of an afternoon. 

We've been eating lots of homemade pumpkin soup for lunches and afternoon tea.  Yummy!

Here is how I make mine..

• Soften an onion and 200g diced bacon in a large pot with some olive oil.
• Add 1/2 pumpkin, 2 medium potatoes and 1 medium sweet potato and just cover with water.
• Simmer until all ingredients are soft
• Blend in the food processor to make smooth
• Add cream (or if you are watching your figure, low fat milk works just as well), salt and cracked pepper and simmer for a little bit.
• Serve with yummy fresh bread.

Very easy, super yummy and really filling! 

New goodies

Well, because I worked extra days these last two weeks I decided I needed a treat.  So when I saw these in the shop I couldn't resist.  I have wanted these for ages and I know a few people have them already but now I am super happy because I have them too...

How could anyone resist measuring cups as cute as these!

Yummy new books

As many know I really love books, you can never have too many nice books right?  Even if you don't read them all they look gorgeous on the bookshelf for one day...  so I saw a couple of books I liked and they were buy one get one free last week in Coles so I indulged and here they are

I wonder what I will cook first?  I have looked through these books about 5 times so far dreaming of what I would love to cook.    A great little Mother's Day treat for me (although at $6 each I think I would of had them anyway!).

Oh, and our first postcard arrived in Germany today, yeh, now we can get one back from somewhere, I wonder where it will come from?  We are sending our next one to Netherlands.

Happy Saturday tomorrow!

Vanilla slice recipe

When Tracey came to visit from N.S.W earlier this year we shared some recipes and this is one that she gave me for super easy but delicious vanilla slice.  I made them after she had left and YUM!  So I hope you don't mind Trace if I share the super simple recipe.

Vanilla Slice

Ingredients:

• Sao biscuits (1 packet)
• Cottees Instant Vanilla Pudding mix
• 600ml Cream
• Stuff to make icing for the top including coconut essence and coconut

Method:

1. Lay the sao's out in a slice dish
2. Mix the pudding mix and the cream together with electric beaters
3. Spread the mix over the sao base
4. Lay another layer of saos over the top
5. Make icing however you like it to be and add to it a few drops of coconut essence
6. Spread over the top of the saos (I sprinkled some desicated cocount on the top of mine)
7. Refrigerate until set, cut up and enjoy!

Once again, YUM!

Happy weekend everyone!

Twas the week before Christmas and all was crazy...

So, has this week been super busy for you? It has for me. I am really looking forward to a few days of doing not much over Christmas. I am all ready for the big day to come... the baking is done, the house is clean and the crafty things that go with Christmas are complete. I thought I would share some photos from what we have been up to. First, we had our Christmas play date with my girlfriends and their kids on Tuesday, we had a great time as always. Here is the card I made them (I made them all the same), I know the photo is bad, sorry.


I also made them all a fabric basket each and inside were these each, a pistachio and lime shortbread Christmas tree. Here is a photo of them all lined up ready for wrapping. I did save some for myself too, they are too delicious to give them all away!

One of our advent activities was to do some Christmas craft on Sunday so we sewed these little penguins

And we made shrinky dinks to put on the tree, this is Emma's one.

Today our Advent activity was to make a gingerbread house. We used a kit because this is something I have never done before, while I made the icing Nathan and Emma danced around the kitchen (this is becoming quite a thing to do in our house).

And then they got to lick the beaters.

And after decorating (which was very very easy with the kit) we ended up with this.

This is Nathan with the house before we put the snow on. A really nice photo.

And a close up of the little people.

Have a fabulous day tomorrow everyone, and don't run around too much with last minute things to do, relax and enjoy!!!!

Photos from today

Melting the chocolate for the rocky road.

Can you see that delicious macadamia brittle cooling in the background?

Why not dance while waiting for the treats to set? I'm sure you do when you're all alone in the kitchen!

Have a wonderful Sunday tomorrow.

Gingerbread Recipe

Every Christmas the kids and I make gingerbread. We have stars, gingerbread men and Christmas trees that we bake together and then decorate, ready for Santa's plate as well as for us to eat on the big day. Today I thought I would share the recipe as it is super easy and delicious.

Ingredients

• 100g soft margarine
• 100g Castor sugar
• 2 tablespoons black treacle (I use golden syrup)
• 250g self raising flour
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 2 tablespoons ground ginger

Method

• Mix margarine and sugar
• Add the black treacle and mix
• Add the self raising flour, ginger and milk and mix well
• On a floured surface shape the mixture into a ball
• Roll out to preferred thickness
• Cut out shapes using cookie cutters and place on a baking tray lined with baking paper
• Cook in a 180 degree oven for 15 mins on the top shelf
• Cool on a rack before decorating

I put mine on all the shelves as I usually double the mixture. They still always come out fine.

Have a fabulous Tuesday!

A productive day

I had a great day yesterday I really felt like I had achieved a lot by the end of it. Love days like that. I sewed up a some pencil rolls for Embellish and I came up with a few new ideas for the stall. Here is one of them, my little baking set. You can find more pictures and information on the Embellish blog (link at sidebar). I am going to make a few different little sets for the stall, a mini travel set, a sleepover set and this baking set. I've got a few more ideas but I'm going to start with these few. They are a great gift ideas for kids parties etc.

I also made passion fruit melting moments yesterday (and there are only a few left!). Baked a roast for dinner and got all my washing put away.

Anyway, enough from me today, have a great end of the week!

Sunday

Today was another good day for getting a few things done around here. We went and bought some plants this morning and planted our triangle garden (on our driveway) with some flowers. They look nice, lets just hope they survive, I haven't had much luck with that little garden so far.

We also planted a row of strawberry plants in our vegetable garden. All the veges from last week are still OK so that is a good start there. We don't know if we have planted our strawberries in time to get fruit this season but we will see.


As always I had the camera out and about with me today, below is a photo I just like of our Lemongrass (which smells divine in the vege garden). Just thought I would share it.

And of course I couldn't be down at the paddock without some photos of our new baby cow. She is still so cute, and it is hard to think that she is only 5 days old.

The day finished off with watering in our new plants, the kids playing so nicely together in the sandpit and me baking some really delicious scones to use up the buttermilk I had in the fridge.

Hope you had a great Sunday too! Lucky all us teachers, back to work tomorrow!

Menu

As many of you know these days I always have to write a fortnightly menu before I shop. This organises me a bit and saves me money while shopping because I only buy ingredients that I need for the fortnight. So today I sat and wrote my menu and did my groceries so I thought I would share what we are having over the next two weeks. Very wintery food.

• Beef & beer pies with vegetables
• Mini chicken meatloaves with vegetables (maybe salad)
• Beef casserole
• Risotto Milanese
• Potato, bacon and leek gratin
• Burritos
• Lamb chop casserole
• Hamburgers
• Hot Dogs (on soccer practise night)
• Vegetable pasta
• Lamb chops and vegetables
• Roast silverside and vegetables
• Mince chow mein
• Sweet chilli pork triangles

Not in any particular order. I usually find I miss a few as well by being lazy or eating out so I roll them over to next fortnight. I pick my dinners by going through my recipe magazines and finding things I fancy at the time.

On a separate note, I made Emma's pants and top last night. I have decided that I really don't like making clothes and I will not be making any more for a while. I found it totally frustrating. The clothes look odd, I don't think I can make Emma wear them. I'll post photos later tonight when she models them for photos. I am going to stick to making things to use, not wear!

I hope everyone enjoyed their Monday!

OH - Suzanne I really like the look of that coupon holder, I am going to have a go at that myself.

Nigella here I come!

What a night! Organised or disorganised, I haven't decided what I am yet in regards to scrapbook weekend away. I have spent all afternoon and evening baking goodies for all us girls to enjoy. I have made chocolate slice, Raspberry and coconut cupcakes, Pecan pie and a lemon cheesecake. I was going to make passionfruit melting moments too but I ran out of butter so that will have to be for tomorrow night.

Let's hope they are all edible after my baking frenzy. I actually haven't made a cheesecake in years and I didn't taste it so we'll just have to hope for the best where that one is involved.

I have planned my pages for the weekend and packed up the papers etc I need. I have found some things to sew while I am there too for something different. I found a really gorgeous duck pattern but can't seem to get it to print properly. If I do work it out I am going to make one, they are gorgeous.

Anyway, won't be back until after the weekend, tomorrow is going to be crazy, I can already tell. I need to pack my craft supplies as well as clothes and bedding etc and also stuff for the kids as they are off to Suey's for a sleep over on Saturday night.

Have a good few days everyone!