Documenting our lives 2015 #1

It's been a while since I have posted anything scrapbook related.Yes, I am still scrapbooking, just not as fast as I used to. There always seems to be something more important to do - eg. paying bills and cooking meals - not to say that scrapbooking and project life are not important, they are.

This week one of my layouts was featured on the new Big Picture Classes blog. A US website established by long time scrapbooker, Stacy Julian. The site has been around for a while, but recently it got a revamp, they teamed with a distributor in the US, and they have moved to a subscription based model. You pay $10 a month, and you can do as many classes as you want, over a range of topics including Scrapbooking, Photography, Digital, Art Journal and Mixed Media, Cards, Mini Books and DIY. I rather like this model, as I can do as many courses as I want, when I want. Keeps me inspired.

Anyway, here is the layout that was featured, and if you want to see the write up, click here. The idea of this layout was to complete it in less than 30 minutes - just what I need at the moment!

Here are some more layouts I have completed over the last couple of months:

The following layout was also part of the 30 minute layout class. The idea was to use a technique you do not often use, and complete the layout in 30 minutes. I chose to use my mists like water colour and emboss some stamped fish on this layout. The layout is of Jasmin representing her school at the AIS in the Northside Swimming Championships.

Another layout from the 30 minute class. The challenge for this one was to just use a lot of bits and bobs. I went back to 2013 to document one of our trips down the coast with friends to put in Jasmin's albums. I have a few layouts in her albums of when she was younger (baby/toddler) and our trips down the coast with friends, so wanted to include this one - where she is a bit older so that she could see that the tradition continued.

This layout was from a rainbow course. Yes - you use the colours of the rainbow to scrapbook some layouts. One of the lessons involved stamping on to rainbow coloured papers. I thought it rather fitting for documenting Eliza's hair on Crazy Hair day at school.

Another Rainbow course layout. This one used the rainbow colours with a circle template and water colours (I pulled out my mists instead - I have a much bigger selection of mist colours than water colour paints!), to which embellishments of the matching rainbow colours were added. Once again - I decided to take the rainbow theme and quote Jasmin who has often said to me - "I hope Eliza dreams about Rainbows and Unicorns tonight Mum!".



You might of guessed already, that the following layout also was from the Rainbow class. I simply used the colours of the rainbow to create Polaroid frames for some pictures of a fruit picking day. - I tried where possible to match the frame to a colour in the photograph.



One of the lessons in the rainbow class also covered using the colours of the rainbow on a Project Life layout. Yes, I am still doing Project Life. I'm often two - three weeks behind, but it's all good. I'm still enjoying documenting our lives in this way. So here is a rainbow version of a Project Life layout:



The following layout was from one of Jen Gallagher's classes. She features tools and products, so that you can use some of your stash. In this particular lesson she covered using paper pads and punches, I used the techniques to complete a layout for Eliza's album of her 9th birthday.

This next one is from a journalling class. This particular lesson was about writing for your target audience. In this case it is a layout for Jasmin's album about this year's school camp - so the target audience was Jasmin.  When she got back from school camp she told me in some detail all about it, so I decided to write the journalling as if she had written it.

I also made these card fronts as part of a watercolour card course. All I have to do is stick them on to the front of a card, as I need.

This next one was from Jen Gallagher's class - this time on using ribbon and rub-ons. I haven't used either of these materials in a while, so it was nice to pull out the stash and use a couple of items.

 

The next couple are monthly summary pages for my Project Life album:

Till next time!
Di :-)

Indian

Jasmin actually pulled Egypt out initially - but we had Yemen the previous week, so we wanted a country that wasn't in the Middle East. So Jasmin redrew and we got Indian.

I don't often cook Indian, on account that the girls normally find it a bit spicy. So this week I kept the chili to a minimum but included all the other spices. I also had some chutneys which I had made from Peaches and Pumpkin which went nicely with the weeks food.

I guess the main feature of Indian food are the spices which are used. This week these included:

• Mustard Seeds
• Cumin
• Cardamom
• Turmeric
• Ginger
• Garlic
• Coriander
• Fenugreek (so last week's Yemen purchase came in handy)
• Garam Masala
• Cinnamon

So as you can see the spice shelf got a good workout!

I cooked with sunflower oil - which is apparently quite popular these days across india. As you can imagine we ate all meals with rice, and a bread of some description - Naan, Chapitis or Pappadums.

Tuesday

We started off with the classic Butter Chicken (also known as murgh makhani) which is from the Punjabi region.  Apparently in India they serve it way more spicy than in Western countries, and the chicken is still on the bone. I kept it quite mild, and even went so far as to use a jar of butter chicken mix which was added to the yoghurt to marinate the chicken. The Jar did cost me almost $10 so it was a quality mix, which was purchased from Ding at the Food and Wine Show in Canberra not long ago.

I served the butter chicken with:

• Pumpkin Chutney
• Kachumber
• Pappadums and
• Rice

I also watched the Indian episode of Food Safari, and picked up the recipe for Kerfi from that. Kerfi are sweet balls made from shredded coconut, condensed milk and pistachios. They were pretty nice, Eliza went back for a few of them.

Wednesday

The menu for Wednesday night included:

• Curry Coconut Beef
• Coconut Rice
• Naan Breads
• Kachumber
• Pumpkin Chutney
• Peach Chutney

The curry coconut beef recipe and Kachumber recipe was from the Indian section of "Love to Eat" (the Delicious Cookbook). In the North of India they typically accompany their meals with bread, in the South they use rice - I just did both for all meals this week :-)

Thursday

The menu for Thursday night included:

• Indian Salmon Kebabs 
• (and Indian Chicken fillets included for Eliza's sake as she's not a fan of Salmon)
• Spicy Green Sauce
• Peach Chutney
• Lettuce
• Rice
• Chapatis

Thursday night ended up being our last Indian night. On account that Friday I had to pick Jasmin up from school a little early as she had an allergic reaction to something. I took her off to the chemist to get some Phenergan with anti-histamine in it, the chemist couldn't find any bites on her - so concluded that it may have been food related. She had a bright red rash from the top of her head down to the centre of her back. Two tablets and six hours later, it had disappeared completely.  We can only conclude that it was one of the many spices we had been using - which we have used before, probably in smaller quantities though. If I had to guess - it would be the turmeric which was included in each meal, and perhaps built up over the three days!

Well - that concludes the brief Indian week we had! Stay tuned for Brazilian and Japanese in the coming weeks.

Di :-)

The Cuisine of Yemen

Back to the Middle East this week with the food from Yemen, which Eliza pulled from the container of countries. If you could compare the food of Yemen to other countries I think you would pick Turkey (for it's grilled meats) and India (they use very similar spices in their foods).

This week Dave had to go on a mission to find me some Fenugreek seeds as they weren't in the regular supermarket (these will also come in handy next week for Indian week). I also made my own Hawaij spice mix (a mix of spices including cardamom, saffron, pepper, caraway and tumeric). Tomatoes, onions and potatoes were the featured vegetables this week, and we certainly ate a bit of bread, including Khobz Al Tawa, which I made myself. Lentils and Coriander also feature quite regularly in Yemeni Cuisine.

So here is the round up for the week:

Monday

Tomato and Coriander Salad (Banadura Salat A Bil Kizbara)
Spiced Grilled Meat  (Shawayuh)
Fried Potatoes 
Greens

The recipes for the salad and meat were from the Complete Middle Eastern Cookbook by Tess Mallos.

For the grilled meat I used some beef fillet steak which had the Hawaij spice mix sprinkled over it - you leave it for about 1/2 an hour before cooking. I also par-boiled the potatoes, and then fried them in the meat pan (after I cooked the meat), using a bit of the Hawaij spice mix. The tomato and coriander salad - is exactly that, with some lemon juice, salt, pepper and olive oil used to dress it.

Tuesday

Qlaba

Qlaba is a dish which usually uses some sort of meat such as beef, lamb or chicken - I chose to use chicken, with vegetables. The recipe I found online, used beans and potatoes. The recipe can be found here. I served it with Yemeni White Rice - basically basmati rice cooked with cardamom, cinnamon and peppercorns. I also made a rather simple Rose Water Lemon Drink, Eliza thought it tasted of Turkish Delight, as it had the Rose Water in it.

Wednesday

Stewed Beef Shank (Hor'ee)

Swimming night, so a slow cooked recipe was in order. Tonight it was Hor'ee, and I got the recipe from the Complete Middle Eastern Cookbook) and although the recipe called for Shank I used stewing beef. The meat was slow cooked all day in a mixture of Hawaij spices, onions and tomatoes. I also made my own Khobz Al Tawa, a bread found in Yemen - there was much kneading, rolling, folding and more rolling! The recipe was from the Queen of Sheba blog.

Thursday

Flat breads with Thick Lentil Soup (Shourba Bilsen)

The recipe for the soup was once again from the Complete Middle Eastern Cookbook, and although I enjoyed it, I don't think this made it to the family's favourite soup list LOL! It looked a bit brown.... I was also feeling a little lazy that night, so instead of making flat breads (Lahuh) I decided to buy them!

We went off the coast, to spend a weekend with our friends fishing on Friday - so that was it for Yemeni food week!

I will be back at the end of this week, with a round up of this weeks food - Indian.

Di :-)

A week in Scotland

Well I got to pick the country out of the container this week - and much to my surprise it was Scotland (Eliza really did do a good job of coming up with country names to put in the container!). I know Haggis and Black Pudding immediately spring to mind - but let me assure you, I do not intend on eating either of these this week (and I don't think Dave or the girls would appreciate them either).

I found a great web-site:

http://www.rampantscotland.com/recipes/blrecipe_index.htm

and I used this site for all of the recipes I made this week.

It was interesting to read the blurbs on all the recipes, I learnt quite a bit. For example, Mary Queen of Scots brought back from France a staff of French cooks, so ever since then, there has been a french influence on some of the Scottish food. The other thing I discovered is that they love alcohol in food - scotch whisky and Drambuie are common additions to both savoury and sweet dishes, in addition to white wine and red wine (and claret in some cases).  The other thing I noticed was that cream is heavily used - and I think most meals this week used cream.

One of the things I loved about this week was that they serve Scottish meals with plain old veggies!

So here is the run down for this week.

Sunday

Scotch Collops with Rumbledthumps and greens
(love the names!)

The word collop comes from the French "escalope", and this dish has apparently been cooked in Scotland for a long time - the recipe I used was first published in the 18th Century. The dish featured both cream and alcohol LOL :-).

Rumbledethumps is also known as Colcannon or Kailkenny in other parts of Scotland. It is essentially potato and cabbage, which you can also add other root vegetables to (I decided to add some carrots).

Monday

Baked Salmon with Tarragon

No alcohol in this one, but it was served with a dollop of cream!

There were quite a few Salmon recipes to select from - I think I picked the only one without Alcohol in it. There were a heap of fish recipes available, but they used cod or smoked haddock - and I wasn't sure of the availability of the smoked haddock in the supermarket (Dave dislikes cod so I wasn't going to pick a cod dish).

Both Jassy and Dave like Salmon these days to I thought this dish would be a good choice.

Dave and I followed this dish up with Gaelic Coffee and Cafe au Drambuie.

Tuesday

Chicken Bonnie Prince Charlie

This recipe of course had alcohol in it (Drambuie) as well as cream (once again). Apparently it is said that this dish was given to members of the Mackinnon clan in gratitude for their help after Culloden (something I have read about in the wonderful series of Outlander books, and now a TV series).


Wednesday

Potato and Leek Soup with Scottish White Rolls

Swimming night - so a great chance to have soup, which is quick and easy to prepare. There certainly was no lack of soups to pick from - you may have heard of cock-a-leekie, cullen skink, Parten Bree and Scotch Broth to name a few.

I decided on Potato and Leek, which is apparently very popular in Scotland. and served it with homemade Scottish White Rolls (which had some brown sugar in them!).

We served this dish with Gaelic Fruits- a fancy way of saying fruit dipped in chocolate :-) The chocolate was meant to have Scotch Whisky added, but when I added this to a portion of the chocolate it made it breakdown and go hard!

Sunday

Scotch Pies and Scotch Mist

We rounded off a week in Scotland with Scotch Pies - originally made as a fast food sold at the half time interval of football (soccer) matches in Scotland. The pastry was made from scratch, and the meat used was lamb mince. My lovely friend Mel, made the pastry for me - I'm rubbish at rolling it out, and getting it to the dish without it falling to pieces! Jassy even helped a bit :-)

We followed this up with a dish called Scotch Mist - and once again some alcohol was added! It was essentially an Eton Mess kind of dish with some crushed up meringues, whipped cream with Scotch whisky added, and chopped up strawberries.

Eliza drew Yemen from the container for next week, and Jasmin drew Egypt, which we put it back in as two middle eastern countries it a row is a bit much, so she did a second draw and drew Indian!

Til the next post
Di :-)