In The Kitchen - Round-up 16-22 November

Whip-around my kitchen...

On Friday 16th, Darren and I went to Radiohead and had a quick takeaway dinner with friends beforehand. Miss 1.5 was with Grandma and I made them both garlic roasted chicken with potatoes, red onion, carrot and mushrooms from allrecipes.com for dinner. I had a quick sample: tasty.

Saturday 17th, Miss 1.5, Darren and I went down to Glenferrie and had dinner outside on the street, watching the trams and trains go by (Miss 1.5 loves large transport vehicles).

 

On Sunday 18th, Darren cooked up tasty seared pork skewers, in ginger, garlic, fish sauce and Chinese cooking wine, using the recipe from 'The Essential Asian Cookbook'. This was really good - make again!

Tuesday 20th was tuna bake, cooked up on Monday and reheated. Wednesday 21st was grilled chicken seasoned with cashew za'atar and bush tomato and served in wraps with salad and chutney and cheese. Last night, Thursday 22nd, was a beef korma curry in yoghurt and sour cream with potato, spinach, zucchini and cauliflower.

Beef korma curry.

Countdown to Christmas

There's little more than a month until Christmas and with all this renovation and packing, I have not even started Christmas shopping! Very boo!

The countdown, however, is on. Here are some madeit and Etsy advent calendars to help me take the impending festive season a bit more seriously.

Advent Christmas Snowman Calendar by Joy Sisters

Christmas Advent Calendar by Enchanted Creations

Christmas Advent Calendar by Tied With A Ribbon

Christmas Advent Calendar Bunting by Bekahdu Handmade

Advent Calendar Timber by Modern Malady

Christmas Advent Calender by Gozi and Pop

Moving House - Weeks Five and Six

I have been slack in updating you about how our house renovations are going. We had the whole house rewired and networked, which made an awful lot of mess and meant that the interior was pretty much out of bounds for two weeks.

In the meanwhile, Darren and our neighbours from our old house dug a trench along the fence and lined it with chicken wire, before refilling it. This should slow down our dogs' attempts to visit the new neighbours.

I attacked the out-of-control roses a bit more. My neighbour, obviously not feeling used enough after taking four loads of green waste to the tip and digging a trench, came over to help me devise devious plans for removing roots.

Miss 1.5 is exploring all the new parks.

And now we are plastering and sanding and prepping for painting in our last week before the official move! It's not going to be finished before we move, or for another 5/10/500 years, but it's going to be home!

In The Kitchen - Round-up 9-15 November

Quick whip around...

Friday 9th was shakshuka (Israeli eggs poached in spicy tomato sauce) from 'SBS Feast Magazine.

Shakshuka.

Saturday 10th was chicken soup made from all those carcasses of roast chickens, with lots of vegetable and we had that again on Tuesday 13th. On Sunday 11th I made prawn pilau from Bowl Food and on Wednesday 14th I made the prawn heads into prawn stock and turned that into soup with udon noodles, vegetables and prawn and chicken dumplings.

Yesterday, Thursday 15th, some mice (two small children) got into my defrosting pastry...

... but I still made some successful pasties, filled with potato, spinach, carrot, salad onion, leek, zucchini and curry powder.

Pasties.

Toddler Art - Sticky Letters

We revisited the sticky window, but this time with letters. I cut a 'C', 'J' and 'A' out of paper and put them on contact, sticky side out (there would have been more letters, but I ran out of contact). Then Misses 1.5 and 2 stuck coloured paper on the contact and we talked about which letter they were sticking them on.

Miss 2 is still not convinced about sticky windows. She opted for putting stickers on the coloured paper (which Miss 1.5 pulled off).

Miss 1.5 favoured the letter 'J' and left the other letters quite empty.

Washi Tape Letters

I haven't sprooked my wares on this Blog for a little while. These are my newest creations: little canvases embossed, painted and embellished with washi tape. So cute!

In The Kitchen - Round-up 2-8 November

We've eaten a lot of beetroot this week. Interesting...

On Friday 2nd, I cooked caramelized ginger chicken from Pauline Nguyen's 'Secrets of the Red Lantern'. This is chicken and onion (and other vegetables) in fish sauce, ginger, garlic, sugar and stock. Very good.

Caramelized ginger chicken.

Saturday 3rd, Darren barbecued some lamb and I made a potato and pumpkin salad with spinach and roquet and croutons, dressed in a sour cream and mustard dressing. Beetroot on the side. Summer must be coming - I can tell because Darren is getting attached to the barbecue again.

Lamb and salad.

On Sunday 4th, Darren roasted a pre-marinated lamb shoulder on the barbecue, along with a lot of vegetables, since we had both my parents and his mother over for dinner. It was a great feast.

On Monday morning, I had a SMS asking if I was interested in a bag of lettuce and a bag of spinach from a friend at work. People ask me things like that. This worked out perfectly becuase I was lucky enough to have my mother-in-law come over on Tuesday 6th to cook dinner for us. She made delicious san choy bow, using some of the aforementioned lettuce.

Wednesday 7th, I made salmon kedgeree using the recipe from 'Home Food'. Although the recipe calls for a salmon fillet, I always add tinned salmon to my rice that has been cooked in onion, curry paste and stock. I also throw in vegetables - in this case mushrooms, the spinach and broad beans from my mother-in-law's garden. This version was topped with boiled eggs and sour cream.

Salmon kedgeree

Last night, Thursday 8th, we had people over for dinner again and Darren and I cooked roast chicken. I marinated the chickens in lime juice and jerk seasoning, and Darren then barbecued them. There were also wedges of potato and mushrooms stuffed with mushroom stems, garlic and parsely, cooked on the barbecue, roasted beetroom in cumin, coriander, garlic, balsamic vinegar and brown sugar, asparagus with grated cheese, and a salad of the lettuce, tomato, cucumber and capsicum. Yay for barbecues.