Linguine with bacon & olives...

This is a tried and true recipe in our house... the healthy(ish) meal we can prepare quickly when we feel like something filling but 'fresh'.  Like many of our staples, it began its life as a Weight Watchers recipe that came from the pantry pull-togethers book (which is no longer available on their website, but you can find still find copies for sale on eBay - its quite a good book).

Since I can't find the original recipe anywhere online to link back to, I will duplicate (my variations are in italics in the ingredients list).

Ingredients
240g dried linguine pasta (I use more like 350g)
cooking oil spray
170g Weight Watchers bacon, finely chopped (I just use short cut bacon trimmed of all fat)
18 pitted black olives (in brine) (I put a lot more olives in!)
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice (I use juice of 2 lemons)
2 tsp finely grated lemon rind (I use zest of 1 whole lemon)
1/4 cup chopped parsley (I use a whole bunch of continental parsley)
4 tomatoes, all seeds removed, finely diced
1 onion finely diced

Method
::  Cook pasta in a large saucepan of salted boiling water according to instructions.  Drain.  Return to pan.
::  Meanwhile in a bowl combine parsley, olives, zest juice and olive oil.
::  Meanwhile spray a large non-stick frying pan with oil.  Add the bacon and onion - cook, stirring, until bacon is crispy.  Add tomatoes and stir until just warm (you don't want them actually cooked, just not cold!)
::  Throw the bacon, onion, tomato and herb mixture into the pasta pan and stir through.  Serve.

When finished, ours generally looks like this:

It's not the super low fat WW version, but its still not bad, and gives us some left overs for the next night and/or some lunches.  I have served this countless times to guests as well - you can tart it up by serving with a fresh salad and some crusty bread.  The bacon makes it taste more indulgent than it is, and the lemon gives it a real punchy freshness - delicious by all accounts!  It always delivers :)

Hope you enjoy it too!

Bye for now :)

Easy lamb cutlets & tabouleh...

As promised, here is another easy weeknight meal I cooked of late. I mentioned in my recent post about lamb cutlets that they are on the expensive side for us (and this is true), however I don't actually eat a lot of red meat other than cutlets, and they're so yummy... so sometimes its worth the splurge! 

Recently I found a lovely tray of cutlets that were just so nice looking and so lean, I could not pass them up! What to do with them? Cutlets with olives again? Tempting, but no... BBQ? No (Boofy had left the BBQ out in the rain and couldn't be bothered cleaning it! Lol) OK so they needed to be cooked inside in a pan... not my favourite way to cook meat, I much prefer BBQ (I'm very fussy with red meat, which is why I don't eat a lot of it).

I recalled that a couple of weeks ago when I was flicking for this cake recipe for Boofy's birthday, I came across a recipe for tabouleh and it briefly crossed my mind that I hadn't made it for ages! Its quick, easy and healthy if you make it yourself - so why not! So here is what I decided on:

EASY SPICED CUTLETS
Ingredients
Cutlets
Olive oil
Ground cumin
Ground coriander
Garam masala
Natural yoghurt to serve (or extra light sour cream if you prefer)

Method
If desired, bash your cutlets to flatten them a little (I would have done this… but my meat basher thingy has gone missing... No idea of its whereabouts!)

Mix together equal amounts of ground coriander and garam masala, and then put slightly more cumin than the others in. Put in only enough olive oil to make a dry-ish sort of paste and mix together. Rub the paste on the cutlets and cook in a non stick pan over a medium to high heat until done to your liking.

Note: I always put more cumin in than anything else because I'm totally addicted to it, but just do it to your taste… I have a thousand packets of ground cumin in the pantry at all times, because my personal opinion is that everything can be enhanced with cumin!! Lol… As an aside - the absolute best way to make a boring vegetable taste exciting and exotic is this… steam the vegetable in the microwave with cumin seeds and a little butter - this works especially well with things like zucchini, squash and choko which are cheap in season but don’t have a lot of flavour. I don't do that one for every night meals (can't justify putting butter on veges every night - eek!) but its nice if you're having a casual meal with friends and just want to tart it up a bit :)

So, onto the tabouleh. There are a million recipes for this - mine is the cheat's version, very plain, because I prefer it that way! I love the flavour of fresh herbs and I want to be able to taste them… Here is my recipe (of sorts!):

TABOULEH
Ingredients
2 decent size bunches of Continental Parsley
2 decent size bunches of Mint
4 small tomatoes
1 bag San Remo boil in the bag couscous
Lemon juice
Olive oil
Salt flakes

Method

Put the bag of couscous into a bowl and cover with boiling water. Leave for about 4 minutes, then empty water out, run under cold water and squeeze as much water out of the bag without burning yourself as you can! Dry off your bowl, split the bag and empty the couscous into the bowl. Give it a quick whip with a fork to separate it and wait for it to cool.

Chop the parsley and mint - I chop it fairly coarsely as I prefer it this way, but you can do it finely chopped if you prefer - throw together into a bowl. Cut tomatoes in half and scoop out seeds (if you are cooking anything in a tomato based sauce in the next couple of days, put in a container in the fridge to use for that). Finely and evenly dice the de-seeded tomatoes.

Combine the couscous with the herb mixture and give it a good stir to combine. Pour over a small amount of olive oil and equal amount (or slightly more) of lemon juice - I use lemon squeeze if I've got no lemons. Put in a generous pinch of salt flakes. Stir to combine and then taste - add more lemon juice, olive oil or salt if required. I don't like my tabouleh too oily so I tend to go really easy with the first splash - you can always add more but you can't take it out!

If you wanted to, you could put some chopped spring onions in your tabouleh too, but I don't personally like the taste of raw onion, so I leave it out - up to you.  This actually makes a huge amount of tabouleh (about 4 serves for us - we had it for dinner, then both of us had a generous amount for lunch the next day).  If you can cope with it for dinner 2 nights in a row, an even easier meal is to shred some BBQ chook through the tabouleh and serve with yoghurt - so yummy!  So this is the sort of amount we're talking about - this is quite a large bowl:

To serve, I put a tablespoon of natural yoghurt (or in this case light sour cream - that's what we had!) on the plate with a mint sprig, then a generous serve of tabouleh.  When the cutlets are cooked, add them to the plate too. 

You could also serve this with some microwaved pappadums, which are very low in fat and would be yummy with this flavour combination.

Bye for now :)

Very Good Friday Atlantic Salmon...

As I'm sure you're aware, traditionally fish is eaten on Good Friday.  A couple of weeks ago I went to the local seafood shop and paid a fortune for bought some nice pieces of Atlantic salmon which I then froze - I tend to eat this whenever Boofy barbecues himself a steak, so I usually buy about 8 pieces at a time.

Boofy is not much of a fish eater (in fact he almost never eats it) and he's not at all religious either, so I was surprised when he said he'd join me in a fish dinner on Good Friday.

We always do our salmon on the BBQ - its pretty easy, just spray the plate with spray cooking oil and then put the salmon skin side down on the plate.  Wait until you can see its cooked halfway through (or a bit less if you prefer your fish on the medium-rare side, which many do) and then turn it over.  Done!

Note: most people I know think we're crazy to cook fish straight on the BBQ plate as it will flavour meat that is subsequently cooked there... not true!  The trick to ridding the plate of all fishy residue, odour and taste is to clean it with white vinegar while its hot...  I promise you this works!  My mum told us about it, and we've never had a fishy piece of meat since!

So, back to dinner!  This is the easiest sauce in the world... just incredible!

CREAMY CUMIN SAUCE

Ingredients
Thomy Mayonnaise
Ground cumin
Lemon squeeze

Method
Put a few good tablespoons of Thomy mayo in a jar.  Add a generous squirt of lemon squeeze for each tablespoon.  Put in a generous amount of ground cumin (more than you think you'd need).  Put the lid on the jar and mix it up til all combined.  Dip your finger in to taste and add more mayo if there's too much lemon/ cumin, more lemon if there isn't any bite, and more cumin if you think it lacks flavour.

Note: don't try this with your average Aussie mayo - our ones are much too sweet!  The European ones are not at all sweet, which really gives this sauce its flavour - it would be awful with a sweet mayo. 

If you were looking for a low fat version (because this is NOT a diet sauce!) you could do it with sour cream, but you need much less lemon juice.. it also doesn't taste nearly as nice - sometimes you've gotta be good, but my advice would be eat less of this one!! Lol

Once the fish is done, add some salad and plate it all up.  I really hate boring salads, so I always add as much as possible.  On this occasion I actually didn't think I really had much of a salad, but it turned out I had quite a bit.  Boofy wanted potato, but instead of serving it on the side, I boiled it, cooled it and put it in the salad, which tastes great, but does make the salad look a bit dull - you can see what I mean in the photo below - it takes that really crisp look off the salad.  Nevertheless, it still taste great.  So in this salad I had lettuce, parsley, Lebanese cucumber, mushrooms, sliced Spanish black olives, red capsicum, grape tomatoes, Spanish onion and potatoes.  I made waaay more than we needed, because its the weekend tomorrow and we have some left over chicken and ham, so this will be a lovely lunch for us Saturday and Sunday with cold meat :)  So without further ado... the salad:

I recently got a really wonderful compliment...  We had some friends over that we haven't seen for ages (hi Bec and Steve!)  It was a wonderful night, and we just had a casual BBQ, but when I served up the salad, Steve told me that he knew he could count on a good salad at our place - I was super chuffed :)  (Although my Mum still makes the best salads I've ever tasted... even her boring ones are better than anyone elses!)

Well I can tell you the whole meal was super tasty... this sauce is great on anything (even red meat).  Almost every time I put it on the table when we have guests over, they end up pouring it on everything!  And here is the amazing part - it has to be tasted to be believed, you will not believe how good it is for something so simple!!

By the way, Alex won't eat Atlantic salmon yet, so we gave him some fish nuggets with a hash brown (just done in the oven) and salad... not the healthiest meal but he rarely eats this type of thing, so I'm sure it won't kill him!  His dinner looked like this:

Yeah I know, it did nothing for me either, but he liked it, so I guess beauty really is in the eye of the beholder!

Bye for now :)

Happy Boof-day...

I'm a bit late with this post, but yes that's right, Boofy had a birthday recently - Happy Birthday Boofy :)  It was mid-week and I was working, so a big elaborate meal was not on the cards!  But compared to last year's birthday, anything was going to be a major improvement... you see on Boofy's birthday last year, I was called into a work crisis and didn't end up getting home until about 10.30pm... by which time Boofy had got Alex off to bed, made himself an exciting birthday dinner of nuggets and chips, and packed himself off to bed as well!  Poor Boofy :(

So I was determined that, even if I couldn't cook Boofy a super special dinner, he would have something cooked with love by me at least!  We had invited over our friends Jackie and Sam for dinner as well to share the celebrations.  Enter 'Nigella Express'  :)

I decided on Nigella's Lamb cutlets with chilli and black olives.  We have had this dish many times in the past, but not for a while since lamb cutlets are pretty expensive these days.  We always enjoy it, so I thought this would be a winner.  Its great too because you can (and should in fact) marinate in advance - so I put the cutlets in to marinate the night before, then all I had to do was prepare veges and cook.  We would normally serve this with sugar snap peas and boiled potatoes - but I couldn't get any sugar snaps at all, and I was making a big batch of mash the night before anyway (for a Shepherd's pie with hidden veges!) so I decided to save myself some trouble!

Anyway, here is Nigella's recipe:

Ingredients
12 lamb rib chops
4 x 15ml tablespoons olive oil, plus 2 tablespoons for frying
3 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced
1 teaspoon dried chilli flakes
1 teaspoon dried oregano
Zest and juice of 1 small lemon
1 teaspoon Maldon salt or 1/2 teaspoon table salt
15 black olives, pitted and sliced
1 long red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped (optional)

Method
Layer the rib chops between clingfilm and flatten gently with a rolling pin or mallet. Unwrap and place the chops in a large dish, so that they all fit in a single layer.

Pour the 4 tablespoons of oil over the chops and add the sliced garlic, chilli flakes, oregano, lemon zest and juice. Sprinkle with the salt and the olives, then turn the rib chops in the marinade so that both sides are coated.

Cover and leave the lamb to marinate for 20 minutes at room temperature.

Heat the 2 tablespoons of oil in a large heavy-based frying pan, and add the chops, scraping off the marinade before you put them in the pan. (Reserve the marinade.) Fry them for a couple of minutes a side on quite a high heat so that they take on some colour.

Turn the heat down to medium and pour the reserved marinade into the pan over the now coloured chops. Add 2 tablespoons or so of water and cook for about 5 minutes for rare cutlets or a little longer if you like your lamb well done (this will also depend on the thickness of the chops).

Transfer the chops to a serving plate, pour over the juices from the pan and sprinkle with the chopped red chilli, should you feel like enhancing the dried chilli with the pep of fresh.

Serves: 4

That is exactly how it appears on Nigella's website - but as usual I do things a teensy bit differently...  all ingredients are the same, I just cook the cutlets for a bit longer (as I prefer them well cooked and a bit crispy).  When I've finished cooking the cutlets I take them all out and then pour in the left over marinade and fry it on high heat...  it does mean the cutlets don't have a 'sauce' as such, but the sliced garlic and olives go really crispy and are so yummy.  I then put the cutlets back in and toss it all together for a minute before serving. 

So there you go - a slight variation - depends on how you prefer things :)  As I said, I couldn't get sugar snap peas, so I settled on some steamed Dutch carrots and broccolini.  Mine doesn't look as pretty as Nigella's, but I can assure you it was super yum!  Here was my finished product:

I know that looks like enough food to feed an army - but I have always been an over-caterer!! :)

Neither Boofy or myself are really big on cakes (although if the right one comes along we can be persuaded!)but as far as Alex is concerned, your birthday is not finished until you've had a cake!  So Alex and I whipped up this little number for Boofy - which has the texture of cake but is eaten like a pudding (ie: warm with ice cream).  Its actually a Weight Watchers recipe believe it or not, and comes from The Really Contented Tummy Cookbook (which is no longer available on their website - but I notice a few copies floating around on eBay).  Anyway, its called a Warm upside-down cinnamon pear cake with maple syrup - here's the recipe:

Ingredients

Cooking oil spray

2 tbs maple syrup

8 (tinned) pear halves in natural juice, drained

3 eggs, at room temperature

2/3 cup (140g) firmly packed brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 cup (150g) self raising flour

1.5 tsp ground cinnamon

2 tbs skim milk

1/3 cup (80ml) maple syrup, extra, to serve

10 small scoops low-fat vanilla ice cream, to serve

Method

Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius.  Spray a 20cm round cake pan with oil.  Line base with non stick baking paper.

Spoon maple syrup evenly over base.  Arrange the pear halves on top, cut side down.

Use an electric beater with whisk attachment to whisk eggs, brown sugar and vanilla essence until thick and pale.  Sift flour and cinnamon over egg mixture.  Pour milk down the side of the bowl.  Use large metal spoon to fold until just combined.

Carefully spoon mixture over pears.  Smooth the surface.  Bake for 1 hour or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.  Remove from oven.  Set aside for 10 mins before turning onto a serving plate.  Drizzle with maple syrup.  Serve warm with ice cream.

According to WW it serves 10, and is 3 points per serve (on the old scale - not the new ProPoints program) for anyone playing at home!

I followed the recipe meticulously, but here are a couple of things to note from my experience:

• I took my cake out after 50 mins and it ended up a bit dry, so I would check it around 40 mins
• I left my cake sitting for much longer than 10 mins before turning it out (a couple of hours to be exact) and it was soggy on top when I turned it out (tastes the same, doesn't look as pretty!)
• Don't cook this in a spring form cake tin - the maple syrup will leak out (do as I say, not as I do! Lol)

But it was a delicious cake... although we probably added a little more maple syrup at the end than what WW recommend!!  Hee hee...

So here was my finished product:

What do you think?  Yes I know, not the most attractive cake - but I think that is largely to do with how long I let it sit before I turned it out.  And I promise you, it does taste really good, and Boofy enjoyed it, which is the main thing!

Bye for now :)

Recipe: Tom Ka Gai...

On the weekend Boofy went away with our friend Tony for a boys fishing weekend... they did the usual boy things (jumped in the boat and went fishing, ate a ridiculous amount of snack food and Hungry Jack's for dinner!) and totally enjoyed themselves :)

While they were away, Julie and the twins came over to our place for a sleepover.  We all had a great time and the kids were beside themselves with excitement!  Julie took care of the kids dinners and I decided to actually pull out one of my old favourites to make something special for dinner (no Hungry Jack's for us!  Lol). 

Back in 2007 when I was pregnant, I was watching '9am with David & Kim' (remember that show?) when a guy called Anthony Telford came on and cooked a Thai soup called Tom Ka Gai.  I liked the look of it so I gave it a go... and it was delicious!  My version of it has evolved over the years, so not exactly the same as the original, but I like it :)  It does take a long time to chop everything, even with our super slick Global knives (and particularly because I am fond of making double or triple batches), but I promise it's worth it!

So here is the recipe....

Ingredients
700ml water
800ml coconut cream
10g sugar
2 lemon grass stalks, cut into 3 lengths
6 shallots (or spring onions - chopped finely, keep chopped white parts and green parts separate)
6 coriander roots (wash well and chop)
Sprinkle of chilli flakes (to your taste)
120g chopped ginger
5 kaffir lime leaf (this is 5 'double' leaves, don't separate them)

60ml fish sauce
30ml lime juice
30ml soy sauce
300g chicken breast, sliced thinly
1 punnet fresh baby corn
1 bunch coriander
150g snow peas, sliced
1 packet bean shoots
Steamed rice to serve

Method
In a large pot, heat the water, coconut cream and all ingredients down to the kaffir lime leaf.  Simmer for around half an hour.

While the soup is simmering, fry chicken in a fry pan until just cooked.  Add to soup.  (You can let it cook in the soup if you like instead, but I am fussy about meat, so prefer to make sure its totally cooked!)

Add fish sauce, lime juice, soy sauce, baby corn and half the coriander to soup and simmer for another half an hour or so.

Just before serving, throw in the snow peas, bean shoots and half the remaining coriander, give it a good stir.  I also remove the lemon grass and kaffir lime leaves, but up to you.

Dish up rice, then soup - sprinkle coriander over the top to serve (and also chilli flakes if desired).

It is lovely to get a small spoonful of rice and sort of sink it into the soup so it surrounds the rice on your spoon... very yummy!

Here is how mine looks:

You can find the original recipe here if you're interested.  It is quite different in method (he only cooks his for about 20 minutes total) and some ingredients, but I stick pretty closely to the ingredients of the base soup, it's so yummy...  the other stuff is just a matter of personal preference :)  (Although I probably would use galangal in place of ginger if it was more readily available).

Hope you give it a go and enjoy it!

Bye for now :)

Happy Holidays... Not!

Sorry guys this is another update post (although there are some pics of our next 'to do' project further down!)  So following on from the last post, our holiday in Noosaville had come to an end and we arrived back home on the Friday.  Mimi then flew home last Saturday, and on Sunday we had Julie and Tony's twins over at our place for the day and that night for a long overdue sleepover so Julie and Tony could have a bit of kid free time.  The kids were very excited and had a wonderful time together...  on Monday morning we gave them all brekky then dropped them all off to Kindy (they all attend the same one).  Tim and I were both still on holidays from work for the week, and with Alex in Kindy all week, we had big plans to get some stuff done around the house, and for me to finally complete some projects and then post them on this blog! 

But Monday morning Boofy still wasn't feeling real well, so we packed him back off to our regular Dr, who ordered tests and chest xrays.... a day later the results were in, it wasn't flu, it was whooping cough!  What the??  We got the results on Tuesday at 9.03 am, at 9.05am I was on the phone to Julie apologising profusely (if I knew it was whooping cough, obviously I would never have had the kids over!) and at 9.15am I was at Kindy collecting Alex and telling them I'd let them know if Alex had it asap.  At 9.35am Alex and I were at the pathologist getting blood tests... I was dreading this, a 3 year old having a blood test?  Oh dear...  I explained to him we were seeing the Dr and there would be a needle, he told me he didn't want the needle it would hurt, we said it would hurt for a minute, but if he was brave he could have a chocolate (I know, my bad!  But I was desperate, people!!  Who wants to see their 3 year old hysterical from pain and terror?  He rarely gets chocolate which makes it a super special treat, and the perfect bribe! Lol)  So he was super brave, I held him on my lap and he whimpered when the needle went in, then Boofy said "look at the colours in the wrapper - is it blue?  Can you see the red?  Do you want to eat it now?" (the wrapper was on the tiny milky way egg we were bribing him with!) and he was sufficiently distracted...  the ladies made such a big deal about how brave he was, gave him balloons, stickers and a bravery certificate (I kid you not!) that he later pronounced to me that he loves blood tests!! lol... at least he will never have my fear of needles (which I only conquered via the IVF clinic), although we're hoping he doesn't have to have too many blood tests in the future, or he may end up a chocoholic like Boofy :)

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were really rainy days, and we were all in lockdown.... let me paint a picture for you - its pouring rain outside (even under our pergola is wet, and the trampoline is soaked, so no outdoor play is possible), the whole family is in quarantine, which means no public outings (for example to an indoor play facility where a 3 year old might burn off the energy they would normally expend) and we are waiting waiting waiting for results.... aarrrgh!!!!  Torture I tell ya!  We ran out of fresh groceries, thank goodness for Julie (who did some shopping and dropped it at the front door for me to get us through - she really is a God-send) and Woolies online, who delivered the big fortnightly shop the next day!  So in the midst of this, and me not being the most patient person, I totally stalked the Dr's surgery for the next 2 days, and finally on Thursday afternoon got the results - Alex and I did not have whooping cough - hooray!!  I called Kindy, called Julie and posted it on Facebook, such was my relief!  I had to take Alex into the Dr so he could look him over and give me a clearance certificate for Kindy the next day, which he did - double hooray!!!!  So Friday Alex went to Kindy and I hit the shops, woohoo!  It was raining again, but I didn't care, so happy was I to be allowed out in public again, lol.  I got some winter clothes for Alex, and some birthday pressies for Boofy - I was only out and about for 3 hours but I felt very free :)

Poor Boofy was still in quarantine, so he spent another day sleeping and watching dvds (he really has been very very sick, so has been resting a lot).  Which brings us to Saturday.  The sun was shining, Boofy is no longer in quarantine (and as such enjoyed some quality time out of the house!) and we've all had a lovely day!

Unfortunately today the sun is no longer shining, which is a bummer as we were planning on heading out into the garden...  The step ladder is currently outside and Alex has this new thing where he likes to climb it and pick imaginary apples... the things that go through your mind when you're 3 years old!  He can probably still pick his imaginary fruit under cover outside, but the subsequent plan to get stuck into the vege garden will have to wait for another day....  You see, our thriving 11 metre long vege patch got totally wiped out in all the rain we had in January....  the only thing that momentarily survived was the cucumber (we thought it was dead, but it resurrected itself, ran rampant, produced about half a dozen mammoth cucumbers, then promptly died again!!) and the chilli plant, which now has a serious lean (must be the weeds pulling it down!)

And the rest of the garden looks like this:





Yes, those are all weeds!  Yikes!  In this photo you can see how the weeds have almost swallowed the gorgeous metal turtle my mother in law Barb bought us as a house warming gift...

It will be nice to give him pride of place again - we love him!  But I think the family day resurrecting the vege garden will have to wait for another day... And secretly I'm not too disappointed... as it will basically be just pulling weeds... not terribly exciting, but necessary if we want to plant some more veges and get this going again in time to harvest some winter veges (which we do!)  Besides, Alex doesn't much care what he does in the garden anyway, pulling weeds is super fun for a 3 year old, even if Mum and Dad are totally dreading it!  I doubt we'll get through them all in one go (I don't even think all of this would fit in the wheelie bin!) but hopefully soon we'll get some fine weather and we can make a start. 

For today though, we might give our pots some love...  you see I was very disheartened with all the rain that demolished our beloved vege patch (I'd put a lot of work into it, and I'm no gardener!) and stupidly lost interest in gardening altogether for a while... so my thriving (most used) herbs now look like this....

Even my beloved Kaffir Lime looks sad (yes those are herb seedlings on the ground in front of it - I bought them to plant in the sad pots above, but never got around to clearing them out... I think the basil might be salvageable, lol):

I'd like to clear the pots and plant whatever seedlings we can...  then we can see what we have and maybe make a trip to Bunnings to get some more herb seedlings to fill them up all lush again (honestly I spend a fortune on fresh herbs, I use them in everything....  I know seedlings is doing it the expensive way, but it will still save money on what I'd spend in the weekly shop on herbs - honest!)  And Bunnings is pretty much Alex's favourite place to go :)

So there you have it - between this post and the last, it's a month in the life of us, albeit an eventful one!  Hope you've enjoyed the epic posts after such a long absence - sorry much of the news was a bit negative, but that's life sometimes isn't it!

And regarding the huge absences between posts... I never intended it to be so long, but life gets busy and I don't have time to complete any projects to post... and bi-monthly posts are never going to sustain a blog!  Lol....  So I've had a good think about it and I will try to complete my own projects, and post about them when I do, as well as details about family life....  but in between I might start posting about other things such as images, projects and spaces that are really motivating and inspiring me.... because there are always lots!  You should see my favourites list - it is positively bursting with inspiration!  I am really excited about this new turn for the blog and can't wait to share this stuff with you - I hope you'll find it as interesting and inspiring as I do!

And just as a last little aside, check out what is passing for fashion in the world of my 3 year old boy these days...  Here he is sitting on the bench, 'helping' Dad cook....  wearing a long sleeve T-Rex PJ top, shorts, gum boots and a spiderman helmet.... and pulling the most ridiculous face I've ever seen!

Bye for now :)

Remember me...?

Well I can't believe my last post was February and it is now April... OMG where did that month and a half go?  Heaps has been happening though....  This will be a very wordy post indeed (and sorry, not much in the way of photos)...  But at least relatives who follow the blog will be happy to catch up on the news!

As I mentioned in my last post (which seems like a former lifetime now!) we have had lots of interstate visitors, a steady stream pretty much since Christmas.  We LOVE having visitors, it's always so nice to spend time with our friends and family who live so far away, and Alex particularly gets soooo excited :)  At Christmas we had my Mum here, and we've since had the pleasure of entertaining my buddy Suz (who I've been friends with since I was 8!), Boofy's Dad and Stepmum, my Dad and Stepmum and one of my Sistas (aka sisters in law), 'Aunty Shez'.  My other Sista 'Aunty Dini' is due to arrive with my beautiful niece and God-daughter Ella Rose on my birthday in May - I can't wait and am counting down the days (49 days to go - woohoo)!!  Its a shame my bro Michael can't make it as well, but he has just got a new job (well done Mick!!! xxxx)

So in addition to being busy with visitors, we have had a bit of drama.  My good friends Julie and Tony decided that we needed a child free weekend to reconnect and chill out, so they offered to have Alex for the weekend (they have 4 year old twins who are Alex's besties, so there was much excitement!)  We were stoked and so grateful - living so far away from our families means we rarely get a break - we were really looking forward to it!  They are mostly in the same boat, so understand what we're dealing with - although theirs is two-fold, having twins!

On the Friday afternoon of the child free weekend, I arrived home from work and was flipping through the archive of recorded TV shows I never get around to actually watching, when I got a frantic phone call from Boofy - he'd been in a car accident.  He told me he'd lost concentration for a second and the big meaty 4wd ute (complete with dirty big towbar) in front of him came to a halt.... sadly he did not!  The towbar in question went straight through Boofy's grille and radiator....  He was in shock and not thinking clearly - the ute driver had no damage so he said no harm done for him and Boofy told him no worries mate, off you go... without getting any details (not even plates)...  Oh well, lesson for next time, should it ever happen again (hopefully not).

So on my way to pick up Boofy, I called our mechanic who recommended a towing company.  Long story slightly-less-long, we got the car towed, called the insurance people, and towing company later got the car to a repairer.  The repairer did a quote for the damage which came in at $3373... with mostly second hand parts!!!  Uh oh... this car is 15 years old, its just a little Corolla hatchback, and is insured for market value....  Anyway an assessor came out 6 days later (still very busy from all the flooding around here) - I told him it was worth so much more to us alive than dead (its a great little car, low kms, reliable, really good nic), pointed out all the car's good points, and BEGGED him not to write it off....  He sat on it for 2 days (he needed to do some research) then called me back and said he was going to authorise repairs - yippee!!! 

In the end, we ended up having to hire a car for nearly 3 weeks (cursing myself for not taking out the hire car option on my insurance now - will be rectifying that very soon!), so with the excess and hire car ended up nearly $2,000 out of pocket, but it was worth it, we got the car back all shiny and new :)  It really is a great little car.

With our car dramas behind us, we set off for a week's holiday in Noosaville on the Sunshine Coast (which we'd been planning for some time).  I had the Friday off work and we were due to leave Saturday, so I spent all day Friday packing, and we put Alex to bed early with strict instructions to have a really big sleep!  We also went to bed early but at about 10pm Alex woke screaming that his mouth was sore - he would not be consoled.  It took a long time of laying with him and asking him to point to where it hurt, etc before I realised it was actually his throat that was sore... and his temperature was rising rapidly.  Straight away we recognised these symptoms - tonsillitis :(  We dosed him up on panadol and nurofen to get his temp under control, shifted him to our bed, and put on a Winnie the Pooh dvd to calm him down and shift the focus (he was hysterical - and having had tonsillitis myself, I know exactly how painful it is, so can't say I blamed him).  Boofy went to sleep in the spare room so at least one of us would be well rested enough to drive the next morning, and I spent the whole night awake with a whimpering little boy sleeping fitfully next to me....  poor little man :(

In the morning, we were due to pick up my Mum (known to most as Mimi since the grandkids came along!) in Brisbane, an hour from here, at 9.35....  so we got up early, loaded the car, and got ourselves to our local Dr's surgery right on opening to beg them to fit Alex in with a Dr asap (I've done a lot of begging lately haven't I?)  Fortunately the Dr's first patient was not there yet so he slotted us in.  He confirmed our suspicions, although he did say the tonsillitis was in the early stages.  We whipped from there straight to the pharmacy for his antibiotics, and hit the (very wet) road.  We arrived with time to spare to collect Mimi from the airport, and then drove through heavy rain most of the way to the (allegedly) Sunny Coast!  Not a great start to the holiday!  Oh well, fortunately things did get better :)  We got the penicillin into Alex early so luckily he did not have a really bad dose of tonsillitis and was full of beans two days later :)

We stayed in a small holiday resort called Noosa Riviera - it was a lovely complex with tropical gardens, and really well situated (park next door, very close to Noosaville shops and restaurants, and very close to the river for Boofy to fish), with only 12 apartments in the block.

(Image from www.noosariviera.com.au)

We stayed in apartment 12 which is a penthouse and was great.

(Images from www.noosariviera.com.au)

It had 2 separate lounge areas and a private rooftop terrace with a corner spa bath (great late afternoon with a glass of wine, and a fantastic way to give Alex an open-air bath without fuss or protest - once we were done with the jets of course!) 

(Image from www.noosariviera.com.au)

Other apartments in the resort looked like they had even nicer interiors (such as number 8 below)

(Image from www.noosariviera.com.au)

But we chose apartment 12 as it was the only one with two seperate living areas (each with its own TV, and when you've got a Boofy like mine who loves footy and doesn't have pay TV at home, but you're staying in a resort that does - this is a must!).  Plus it had the rooftop terrace with spa bath :)

My mum gave us a break overnight for the duration - the original plan was for Mimi to have her own room, but Boofy was quite sick with what we thought was a flu and very bad asthma, so he had his own room to minimise infecting anyone else - and Mimi and Alex shared (which Alex thought was the best arrangement ever... not so sure Mimi entirely shared his enthusiasm, although she obliged without protest, actually I think it was her idea).  Boofy was pretty miserable and had two Drs visits in our week away, but he did manage to get out and fish a couple of days, so it wasn't all bad.

All in all we had a lovely time - we visited the Noosa Marina markets on the Sunday, it was incredibly humid, but very nice.  My good friend Katja, her hubby Adrian and little boy Cooper live in Gympie which is about an hour from where we stayed.  I haven't seen them in ages, so Katja and Cooper paid us a visit at the resort and we had a lovely morning catching up on Monday, it was great!  (And she brought us an awesome organic pumpkin she grew in her yard - thanks Katja, it was delicious! xx) 

The next day we went on the Noosa ferry which was really nice - its a 45 minute round trip so perfect amount of time for a 3 year old attention span, and the skipper, Johnno, was very entertaining.  Mum and I went to Eumundi Markets on the Wednesday, which I still maintain are the BEST markets anywhere... and they didn't disappoint :)  Late afternoon we took Alex to the 'beach' (on the river) and he had a ball swimming and running up and down - the resort also supply sand toys, so he built some sand castles (briefly... in between running up and down the beach like a maniac!)  We followed with fish and chips for dinner.  On Thursday (the day before we left) Tim was feeling really sick, so Mum and I took Alex to The Ginger Factory while he rested.  It was a really nice morning, we went on the Overboard boat ride, and because it was mid week and there was nobody else on it, the lady let us ride twice :)  We also went on the train ride... a little bit lame, and very smelly in parts (a kind of swampy, septic, ginger smell... not pleasant) but Alex got a kick out of it, so that was the main thing.  I was a little disappointed also that when we went to shop for souvenirs, many of the honey and ginger products were actually made in other parts of Australia, some even in NZ!  But I think the highlight of the day was probably this incredible coin operated digger we found while waiting for the train.... Unfortunately Mimi hasn't been able to download her photos (as she has one of him sitting on it), but it was a digger that he sat on with a big sand pit in front of it, and Alex got to operate the controls to dig, pick up the sand, move it and dump it somwhere else (or in the same spot!)  From a kid's perspective it would be enormous (as a real one would be for an adult) and he absolutely loved it.  We've all been through shopping centres and seen those crappy $2 rides for kids, but this is one I was actually happy to put my money into!  Alex had 3 goes (all the $2 coins we had on us!) and he left it kicking and screaming... can't say I blame him, it was heaps of fun!!!

I think the absolute highlight of our holiday, though, was the dinner we had on our last night at Trio's On The River at Noosa Marina.  We have been there before (with my good friends Nat & Steve and their boy Ollie - Alex was about 15 months old and Ollie was about 11 months old) and absolutely loved it, so we were pretty keen to return.  Not only that, being situated right on the Marina, it has a spectacular outlook.

(Image from www.noosaguide.com.au)

We arrived very early, around 5pm, so we could eat early and get our rambunctious 3 year old out before most of the other diners arrived!  As it turns out we were the first ones there (not surprising at 5pm!)  Our waiter, Johnny, was really lovely.  He seated us right next to a little balcony which was over the water, and opened up the big doors for us so we could catch the breeze and Alex could look down at the water.  He also brought out some crayons so Alex could draw on the paper that was covering the tablecloth, and we thought that was really special, but it was just the beginning......  Shortly after that, Johnny arrived with a fishing rod and some bait....  He baited the hook, threw out the line and put the rod in the rod holder on the pylon - I cannot tell you the intense excitement that Alex was experiencing, he was just LOVING it!!  Literally about 2 minutes later the line was bent over and Alex 'helped' Boofy reel in a catfish!  He was just bursting out of his skin with excitement by this stage.... so cute :)  They threw back the catfish and re-baited the hook to cast it out again - 2 minutes later, another catfish.  This time the chef claimed it for his crab pot, so that one didn't get the Rex Hunt treatment!  We didn't immediately re-bait the hook this time (in a vain attempt to get Alex to eat is dinner, lol).  In the end, he ended up eating his nuggets over by the fishing rod, it was the only way he was going to eat them, he just couldn't bear to be away from it.  So the hook was re-baited again... and a short time later that line was bent over once more... this time a little sting ray!  The line needed to be cut, and that was the last catch for the evening, but what a great experience for Alex!  (Although I did comment to Johnny that fishing would be ruined for him forever, as he'd probably never again have so many exciting catches in such quick succession!  Lol).  In between we met David, the owner, who told Alex he would do a magic trick for him...  sure enough a little while later David appeared with little lights on his thumbs, he 'put' them in his mouth, pulled them out of Alex's ears, then his own ears... well you get the picture!  Alex loved it... When we asked Johnny for the bill, Alex was very disappointed he had to leave our table, so Johnny took Alex with him, he sat on the counter while Johnny prepared our bill and 'helped' him welcome some other customers (who recognised Johnny, so I'm assuming they were regulars).  Alex was so excited on the ride home, when he wasn't talking about the fish he caught, or his friend Johnny, he was babbling excitedly about David who "put candles in my ears!"  It took ages for him to wind down, but he was so happy, he'd had such a great night - what a tremendous dining experience for a little boy!  I can't imagine anywhere else going to this amount of trouble - ordinarily our dining experience consists of shovelling food into our mouths at Fasta Pasta so we can get a fidgety, whining Alex out the door as quickly as possible....  we were therefore very worried about how he would behave in an upscale restaurant (the likes of which we had barely attempted since we had Alex!), and we were so pleasantly surprised.... well, I'm gushing aren't I.... but I can't help it... because there was another major highlight... THE FOOD!!!!

That's right, in between all this excitement was of course our meals....  I'm going to make your mouth water here...  For entrees, Tim had five spice pork belly (I tried a bit and it was very good), Mum had sesame crusted seared atlantic salmon which was cut very finely (almost like sashimi, it was only just seared on the outside so was mostly raw) and I had duck spring rolls which were absolutely divine, I don't eat a lot of duck but the last time I had duck that was even comparable was at the Spirit House in Yandina (also on the Sunshine Coast) when I did a cooking course there (again with my good mate Nat... it was wonderful by the way - if you've ever wondered, DO IT!)  For mains Tim had peppered eye fillet cooked in congac and cream, Mum had Moreton Bay bugs and I had red emporer in a coriander and cashew crust on stir fried Asian noodles and julienned vegetables with a tom yum broth.....  All of us left so full and just RAVING about our food... every single morsel we put in our mouths was totally delicious (sorry to the guys at Trio's, my descriptions might not be entirely accurate... I can't recall all the finer details!! But if you'd care to remind me, I'll gladly include the menu descriptions in the post for accuracy... and the rest of you, don't dismiss my credibility either, I know my food and this was utterly fabulous!)  Anyway, sufficed to say, the food was out of this world, the best meal I think I've had in years - and couple this with the excellent service we received, and the attention they paid Alex... well this could be the best dining experience I've ever had - it was a really magical night...  Just perfect! :)

Well in the words of our frightening fearless leader, 'moving forward'.... our holiday came to a close, so we loaded up the car and headed for home.  My Aunty Lynda, her husband Brett and twin 18 year old girls live in Brisbane, so we stopped at their place on the way home to enjoy a beautiful lunch of salad, fresh prawns, sourdough bread and a few crisp glasses of Sauv Blanc under the Bali hut out the back looking over water.  I have always loved their house - it is as beautiful and welcoming as its occupants, and has a wonderful outlook and very cosy, comfortable feel, even though its a quite grand house... and on a beautiful sunny day like that, you wouldn't want to be anywhere else.  We hadn't caught up in a while, so it was lovely to see them and sit down and talk face to face - only one of my cousins, Gabi, was home and it was great to see her (I can't believe they're all grown up... I remember when they were babies!!)  Alex loved her too, but sadly we missed Daina (who was at Uni) :(  Nevertheless it was a really nice close to our holiday :)

Well the next few posts will be in quick succession... as I've finally had a bit of time on my laptop to get it all down!  Hopefully I'll be able to keep up a semi-regular pace once I get back into it ;)

Bye for now :)

PS - One more tiny bit of news...  a strange thing happened while we were on holidays...  I went from Mummy to Mum...  Daddy also went to Dad, and Mimi went to Mim....  we still call each other Mummy Daddy and Mimi but something in my little boy decided it was time to move to the next phase (dragging 'Mum' kicking and screaming, lol....).  I have tried to resurrect Mummy, and he does say it occasionally (usually when he's very tired or wants something REALLY bad!) but for the most part I am now Mum.... it seems its time for me to get with the program.... build a bridge and get over it Mum(my)! xx