Kitchen Kapers Week 16 & 17

Thought I would combine these two Kitchen Kapers weeks!

Monday

Creamy Pumpkin Soup - I had two pumpkins in the fridge so used up one on this soup.

Tuesday

Pancakes for Breakfast.

Lots of Roasted Vegetables and home-made Chicken Dippers, with creamy mustard dipping sauce. Jasmin helped out by making the chicken dippers.  We had a build up of vegetables, it was a big meat week last week, so we needed a big veggie hit this week - Jasmin even got Brussel sprouts which she loves!

Wednesday

In the morning I took the girls to a Cupcake Decorating Class at Jazz Apple Cupcakes in Belconnen Mall, they had a lot of fun decorating 6 cupcakes each including cutting the fondant decorations as well.

Here are Eliza's cupcakes:

Here are Jasmin's cupcakes:

For dinner - Tuna Casserole, by Jasmin's request. She actually made it, so I only had to cook the veggies.

Thursday

BBQ at the coast.

Friday

Easter Friday so we BBQ'ed some salmon - I marinated one lot with soy, garlic, brown sugar and olive oil, and left the other one nakie! We served it up with some tossed salad, as well as a roasted beetroot, rocket, baby spinach and feta salad.

Saturday

We made a huge batch of spaghetti bolognaise and ate leftovers for lunch the next day.

Sunday

Another BBQ dinner with some salads, wombok and tossed salad.

Monday

Pizza Night - I could not be bothered cooking after we got home from the coast.

Tuesday

Soup Night on Tuesday Night instead of Monday, I made a spiced carrot soup with coconut cream (I have an oversupply of carrots once again - three bags!). This recipe had some lovely asian flavours including lemongrass, lime leaves, fish sauce and lime juice.

Wednesday

Eye fillet steaks with a peppercorn and whisky sauce (and vegetables of course!). I made some potato crisps in the oven, to serve the steaks on.

Thursday

We used a voucher Dave got at Christmas to go to "Legends" Spanish Restaurant in Manuka.  We decided on Banquet #1 which was a selection of Tapas, garlic breads and salad, and then we finished off with Churros, a Lime Custard Brulee with Limoncello ice-cream and some Gelatos (vanilla bean, chocolate and caramlised fig), which we all shared for dessert.  The tapas included chorizo, salt and pepper calamari, garlic and chili prawns, tortilla, meatballs, chicken tenderloins with a creamy sauce, potato wedges and marinated mushrooms.

 

Legends is worth a visit if you haven't had Spanish before, although I will say that it is quite pricey. They have a Tapas menu as well as a range of Paella and other spanish dishes. It's located in Manuka - next to the cinema.

Friday

Massaman Roast Chicken with Edamame Beans and potatoes. Vietnamese Affogato for dessert (the girls had the icecream without the coffee). The icecream is made by whipping together a can of condensed milk and 600ml of thickened cream, and then freezing for about 4 hours. It is delicious (but very sweet), I need the coffee with it, but Dave also likes the icecream without the coffee.

Saturday

Back to Goulburn for the ordering .... So pizza for dinner.

Sunday

Lunch to celebrate both Mum and Aaron's birthdays, so we each brought an Italian dish. We enjoyed meatballs, lasagne, cabonara, roasted vegetables, tossed salad, garlic bread, pasta and cheese.

So - that completes the last two weeks of food.
Di :-)

Scrapbook Layouts - Eliza in New Zealand

On the Easter Long Weekend, we had a wonderful four days at Long Beach with our friends (I will post some pictures of the quaint house we stayed at a little later on). I also took some scrapbooking with me, and managed to get through it all. My aim was to finish some New Zealand pages to go in Eliza's albums. I create a photo book for each holiday that we go on, but I also like to add some pages to the girl's albums which focus on pictures of them doing different activities in the holiday location. I had previously finished the Auckland and one other page, but have also included them here for completeness.

So here they all are (in order of the holiday locations):

 

Next job will be to complete the pages in Jasmin's album!

Art Share

Eliza was in the mood for some art this week, so we pulled out the paints and did some masterpieces LOL!

Eliza did this piece which we have called "Poppy field at Sunset":

While Eliza was busy with her impressionist painting I painted a contour still life of some fruit. I'm not a big painter - more a drawer, so I was pleased with the results.

The next day Jasmin also did some painting with us. Jasmin and I decided to do some scribble drawings/paintings. This is where you do some random scribbles on a page, and then look for a shape in the lines - and paint based on this.

Here is Jasmin's - she found a swan in hers:

I managed to find two ducks in mine:

Eliza decided she would try a still life like my still life of the previous day, less ones piece of fruit - the Granny Smith Apple, as it got eaten that day!

Also managed to complete a couple of layouts this week, doing a short four week stashbusters course over at Big Picture Classes.  The first challenge was to use a geometric shape to create the background for the layout. I did two layouts. This first layout is of our "Our Kitchen's Cool" cooking afternoon - I used a square punch and flipped the shapes around to form diamonds. Made it into a quilt pattern using buttons on the corners.

 

The second layout is of Jasmin representing her school at the swimming at the AIS in the zone swimming carnival, in the 50m 12 years girls breaststroke. I was so proud of her, and even though I had two exams that morning I managed to get there on time as I did both exams in a short amount of time. It was her first time diving from the blocks - so she froze when the start buzzer went off and lost a couple of seconds, but she completed the race and I was just so proud of her (being the hopeless swimmer I am, it's nice to see someone in the family with some swimming talent).

Hoping to get some scrapbooking and more art done down the coast this long weekend!

Happy Easter

Di :-)

Kitchen Kapers - Week 15

Monday

Dave and I had a homemade Chicken Laksa, and I made a simple Chicken Noodle Soup for the girls (on account that the Laksa would have been too spicy for them).

Tuesday

A simple pasta dish of kale, brocolli and bacon.

Wednesday

Slow Roasted Pork and Red Wine Ragu with Fettucine (meant to be Pappardelle but couldn't find any!)

Thursday

Moroccan Lamb Couscous with crusty bread, lime olive oil, blood plum vinegar and dukkah.

Friday

I took the girls to see "Interplay" by the Sydney Dance Company at the Canberra Theatre, so we had an early dinner of pizza before we left.

Saturday

Dinner was at Chang Co Thai restaurant in Belconnen, after we saw "The Winter Soldier" at Hoyts.

Sunday

After spending the day out, we had an easy dinner of bread, oil, vinegar and dukkah, followed by chocolate fondue with strawberries, bananas, marshmallow, pear and pineapple.

Happy Eating!

Di :-)

Kitchen Kapers Week 14

Monday

Guess what? Another pizza night as I had another exam!

Tuesday

We have an oversupply of carrots in the household this week - three 1kg bags in fact! We get one almost every week with the Aussie Pack, and then occasionally they catch up with you - so we ate like rabbits today, it was carrot everything.  Carrot and Chorizo Soup for dinner with garlic bread.

I also cooked this delicious carrot cake with cream cheese icing, which we didn't start eating until Wednesday.

Wednesday

Slow Braised Lamb - this was delicious, and will be written in "the book", to cook again. Made with lamb shoulder, it is braised with a mixture of beef stock, soy sauce and oyster sauce and other asian ingredients.

Thursday

Eliza helped me make the San Choy Bao from Adam Liaw's "Asian After Work". The girls loved this one.

Friday

Sausage sandwiches at the school disco!

Saturday

Chargrilled Capsicum and Lamb Burger, with Cucumber Raita.

Sunday

Sunday the girls and I had a great half day of cooking - we decided to do our very first "My Kitchen's Cool" competition at home.  We have really been getting into watching "My Kitchen Rules" together.

Eliza elected to cook entree (which she spells ontray), I did the mains and Jasmin did the dessert.  I let the girls cook whatever they wanted.

Eliza decided to do a tossed salad (arranged in a smiley face) with a honey and soy dressing (healthy - I know!)

I stretched myself and did something completely different. I made a beetroot and apple risotto, with smoked duck breast (which I smoked myself - first time ever for smoking as well as cooking duck), with a orange glaze (a sauce made on oranges, brown sugar, orange peel and sambuca).

Jasmin did an unusual dessert - grape jelly, kiwi and apple puree, vanilla yoghurt, chocolate dipped strawberries and chocolate chips.... quite a mix LOL!

Anyway - take a look at this trailer for our cooking day!

Next time
Di :-)

March Project Life

Well, I am back on track with my Project Life now, with a brand new sparkly Epson PictureMate photo printer.  I'm yet to do my food pages, but thought I would post the rest now anyway.

The cover page.

The Calendar Page:

Week 10 - the big event this week was Jasmin's school camp at Borambola - which is apparently about an hour out of Wagga Wagga. Although she had a head cold when she went, she had a great time. She enjoyed a few different activities including rock climbing, archery, raft building, kayaking and swimming. Jazz and Eliza normally sleep together every night, so Eliza was very sad to go, and volunteered to be her teddy bear, if she could hide in Jazzy's suitcase :-). While Jazz was away Eliza craved our company - I spent some time watching her bounce on the trampoline, as well as Dave and I playing many board games with her.

At the end of Week 10, Dave had his fourth operation, and Eliza was only too happy to hang out on the bed with daddy watching you tube videos!

Week 11 - taking it very easy, with Dave recouperating from his op the previous week. We managed to catch up with our friends Mel and Kate with a lovely lunch at Cafe Injoy at Federation Square. It was a bit cold and windy so instead of going to Cockington Green we decided to have a play-date at home instead.

Week 12 - our new dishwasher arrived - YAY! I have been handwashing dishes for the last month, and it's wearing a little thin, as is doing everything around here at the moment! On Saturday we went over to the Gold and the Incas exhibition at the Art Gallery with Aunty Margaret - there was a lot of gold!  Saturday night Eliza went for a sleepover, so Dave, Jazz and I went to dinner at the H2O restaurant in Nicholls (it has replaced the Italian restaurant).

Week 13 - Not a lot happened during the week, except for hair appointments to het our hairs cut (and mine coloured). We drove back to Goulburn on Saturday for Darien's birthday and to meet our new nephew Hugo. Afterwards we had to drive right back to Canberra to take Jazz to a birthday party and sleepover, which meant that Dave and I had to play with Eliza - Pictionary Man to be precise.

Exams finished this week, and I had a spare two days - which were not spent lounging around like I would have liked, but spent catching up on housework (half the house anyway!) and trying to put together last year's tax (Yes, last years! Which is still not finished).  No rest for the wicked!

Well, that's another month in the Turner household. Just have to do the food summary when I have a spare moment...

Di :-)