The barbeque:: Take 2....

WE HAVE GAS!!!!

For the BBQ that is....

Thank goodness because even though it still wasn't quite the same perfect kind of evening it was the night before, it was still a lovely time to be outdoors.

There were some clouds, and a bit more of a breeze....but it was still wonderful.

The kidlettes spent the late afternoon on the water hopscotch or 'opquotch' as Master M calls it.  They got extremely wet and had a fantastic time running around doing it in the process.

It gave me the chance to work on a new project while they were getting as wet as possible but I'll tell you a bit more about that soon (if I remember to that is..you may have to remind me).

Then it was time to try the barbeque.  My gorgeous dad came over today to help me swap the gas bottles over.  It was a very easy and completely painless process which I had pretty well worked out for myself but I decided that I'd better get an 'expert' to help me the first time in case there was one small step that I missed.

Nope.  All was well and fired up just like it should.

This time it's marinated honey soy chicken kebabs so first I put down the baking paper.  I personally believe baking paper is a MUST when cooking anything marinated on the barbeque because it's so less messy.

As you can see by the photo below, this is what the baking paper looked like when I finished cooking. 

 (A note to people about ALDI baking paper.  Lots of things stick to it and it's pretty well crap.  I have similar results with other things cooked in the oven too so I'm putting this lot in the camping gear and getting the better quality stuff for home).

....and the results after the baking paper (even bad quality) has been taken off....

...so nice and clean.  That's something to really love.

I will end by sharing a quote from Little Miss R (age 6 remember) on her dinner...

"...that was BLOODY great!..."

(Oh dear...I really hope she takes after her father and not me with those comments....I really can't be sure though.   On second thoughts, if it was her father maybe it could have been a lot worse....)

The end of a LONG week

This week has seemed to go for a very long time.  It may have something to do with the fact that I haven't been well since about Tuesday afternoon so have spent a few days in bed.

I'm lucky Little Miss R has been at school and family members have done the school run for me or looked after Master M for awhile to help me recover better.

I'm feeling MUCH better now though, in fact I really perked up Friday afternoon and because it was such a lovely day, we spent as much time outside as possible.

I decided to crank up the barbeque to cook some snags for dinner.  We do use the bbq a lot over summer when lovely hubby's home but I haven't used it myself in about 6 years! 

Time to start using it again as I love being outside with the kids and not inside slaving over the stove..it's much more fun.

So dinner's cooking away, the kids are having fun on their scooters.....

...and kickboards on the slippery slide....

...when I realise that the gas has run out with the snags only about a quarter cooked!

I have no idea how to change over the gas bottles so I took dinner inside to finish cooking then brought it back out so we could still enjoy the gorgeous evening.

 

Lovely hubby's not home for a couple more days yet so my gorgeous dad's coming over today to show me how to swap the gas bottles over.  Yay for Dad's!

It's going to be another nice day I think so I'm hoping to be able to crank the barbeque up again tonight and for that we need gas...

Hope you all have a fantastic weekend.

xxx Susan

Mexican and Margaritas

Friday night was just the loveliest night.

It was my friend Jodi's birthday and we were having a girl's night out at Mooloolaba.

Now the last night I had a night out was for Jodi's birthday last year.  Shocking to know it's been a year since I've been able to be free of kids (and husband) and have some time with the girl's.

The weather was VERY different this year though.  Last year it was the most perfect evening and this year it was raining and stormy.  When I say raining, I mean RAINING!  Torrential.  Downpours.  MUST really concentrate on driving or the water will shoosh you off the road type rain.

So where did we go?  Well Mexican was the choice this time so we headed to Montezuma's at Mooloolaba.

A dip and corn chip platter is always good for starters...

...and of course a Margarita had to be sampled.  I didn't even think about a photo until I was nearly finished.  (Oooohhhh it was sooooo delicious!)

Then there was the HUGE meal.  We really shouldn't have had a starter even though we all shared it.  We couldn't eat all our meals so it's lucky they give you a doggy bag if you want one.

As Jodi and Crystal picked the meal I was intending to order, I decided to try something new that I thought sounded pretty interesting and Sandy had the same dish that I did too.

It's called a Mole Poblano and I'll quote from the menu here:

Centuries old chicken dish invented by the nuns of Puebla for the Bishops visit, served with a spicy Aztec nut sauce, 32 herbs and spices, coconut, banana and pineapple.

It was DIVINE!   Then again you'd expect a dish made by nuns for a bishop to be pretty divine wouldn't you?

After dinner (and collecting our doggy bags), it was off for a coffee at a nearby cafe.

More chats and catching up before we decided that the rain really was getting heavier and that we'd better think about heading home while we hopefully still could.

...and home we did get.  We weren't flooded out which was a possibility considering the water laying around everywhere but it was a bit of an interesting drive home.

I'm glad I was in the 4x4 because the water was rushing across the road most of the way and there were a few nasty potholes that we hit because you just couldn't see them in the dark and the rain.

Once snug in my house I enjoyed listening to the rain on the roof and knowing I wasn't going to be dragged out of bed early because the kidlettes were having a sleep over at Nan and Poppy's so I had the house to myself!  Bliss.

xxx Susan

In need of colour

I've found many of my pictures in my recent posts to be a little dull.  That's dull in colour although you may decide that they're a little dull in content too but that's my life...

As the weather has been rainy and stormy, I decided to go through my photos and find some with a bit more colour.

The ones below weren't necessarily the brightest, but they were colourful in their own way and had some special memories attached to them.

Enjoy!

I hope this has brightened things up a bit.

xx Susan

Not quite so spring rolls

I had intended to make homemade chicken nuggets.  Kids LOVE chicken nuggets and I wanted to make some really tasty ones that weren't processed and filled with the vile, don't want to know type ingredients shown by Jamie Oliver.

I started off by putting two chicken breasts, one grated carrot, one egg, 1/4 cup breadcrumbs, 1 heaped teaspoon korma curry paste and a couple of cloves of crushed garlic (or one heaped teaspoon of crushed garlic from a jar), into a food processor. 

I had originally intend to do a more Italian type flavour with mixed herbs, parmesan and sun-dried tomatoes among other ingredients so I don't quite know how the above list occurred. 

Blitz until it's mush.

From here I had decided (many hours before) to make spring rolls instead of nuggets.  Mainly because I remembered I had spring roll wrappers in the freezer and thought I'd do something a little different.

I really should have learned by now to save making different dinners until hubby is home.  It's not a good time of night to be concentrating on wrapping up lots of little individual treats when you have two tired and constantly cranky kids that want your attention.

I perservered and with only a few threats of bed without dinner and finally got all my little parcels wrapped.

I had intended to fry them up in the wok to make them all nice and golden as spring rolls really should be. 

I ended up putting them in the oven because it's a healthier way of cooking them, my kids wouldn't know the difference and it was so much easier being the mediator to the wars between children that were occuring while dinner was cooking itself.

Voila!  Dinner is served.

 I personally decided they were a little too bland and that next time I'd make some other tasty filling.  Master M who is a bit of a fussy eater looks at me and declares that it's 'yummy.. I'm having some tomorrow'.

(Thank goodness for leftovers!)

Little Miss R, who eats at least 85% of foods put in front of her and is not nearly as fussy as Master M declares that....

'...no..  I don't really like it.'

I reply by saying that you can put nearly anything you want in the middle of the rolls and next time if I tried something different I'm sure she would like it.  (Really a pretty silly statement by me.  Much too broad and Little Miss R had something to say about that of course.  I so have to be on my toes around this one.)

Little Miss R's reply:

'If you put ice-cream in it I would eat it all.'

I should have known she would best me....but then ice-cream is the answer to nearly everything when you're six isn't it.

Beef sticks

This is something a little different that you can do with mince if you're a bit sick of making bolognaise, pies, rissoles or any other of those regular things.

You can put in any veges or flavours you want really but for this post I'll just give the amounts and quantities for what I actually made today.

Place the following ingredients in a bowl and mix together:

 500g mince

1 finely grated carrot

1 egg

1 teaspoon beef stock

2 crushed cloves garlic

a pinch of mixed herbs

2 tablespoons tomato sauce

2 tablespoons barbeque sauce

salt and pepper taste

(You could add grated onion, zucchini, mushrooms etc.  List is endless)

Form 12 balls of equal size and roll them in breadcrumbs.

Using moist hands, place a soaked skewer in the centre of each piece and press around the stick until you have a long sausage shape.

Place in the fridge for a couple of hours before cooking.  They can be cooked on the barbeque, on the stove (if you have a long pan) or I sometimes do them under the grill which turns out really well.

Serve with a salad and tomato sauce for the kids or tomato relish for me and enjoy.

I have used smaller paddle pop sticks for the kids before so that they don't pierce their throats with the skewers.  It makes lots of smaller ones that way and can be good if you've got a heap of kids around for a barbeque.

You can also leave the breadcrumb stage until AFTER you've placed the mince mixture on the sticks, especially if you want that really nice crunchy crumbs on the outside. 

I find that when the kids are 'helping' me make these that it's much easier to do the breadcrumbs first.  Mainly because we have a production line and as they have trouble keeping the mixture on the sticks, I do that part and they get to roll the mixture in the breadcrumbs.  I can forgo a crunchier outside for the sake of my sanity sometimes.

Baking cakes

After breakfast and before we head off to school I get a little help.

I'm making cup cakes for Little Miss R to take to school for her birthday as well as a few extras for treats for us.  The kids were kept busy putting the cases into the pans.

Once home from the school run and buying a few more groceries, it was time for a coffee while working out exactly what it was I needed to do.

I like to be organised.

The first double batter batch of vanilla cupcakes is all mixed and ready for the pans.

A taste test is a must.  It passed.

Three and a half hours later, one slightly burned batch because of my tempermental oven, one chocolate batch and another double batch to make up for the first and we finally have cupcakes.

There was of course the obligatory taste test and they are almost perfection.  Melt in your mouth, light as air, dreamy, yummy cupcakes.

About 30 are heading off to school which leaves me with about 60 or so left in my freezer now.  Yes that's right, with the few that were tested after school, I made about 100 cupcakes.  It would have been less if my oven worked like an oven is supposed to!!

For family that are reading, you will be receiving the ones with slightly burned bottoms whenever you visit.  Even so, they're still delicious!

xx Susan

Passata

I've got plenty of tomatoes in a bowl that I just haven't been eating quickly enough. 

I've decided to make a passata with them as it's pretty easy and freezes well so I'll have the basis for a pasta sauce next time I decide to make it for a meal.

I made a very basic passata by chopping up the bowl full of tomatoes that I had (yellow ones included).  I then added a few crushed cloves of garlic and some salt and pepper.

I cooked it all up with the lid off and let it simmer for about an hour until it really reduced down.

(Excuse the steam starting to fog up the camera).

Once it cooled then I put it through a mouli.

This gets rid of the skin and the seeds so all you are then left with is...

...a lovely smooth passata.  I made about 600ml from the bowlful of tomatoes I had so I've frozen them into two 300ml lots.

All that remains now is next time I'm having pasta to defrost one of my containers and cook it up with whatever other veges and spices I want for a lovely pasta meal.

Yum.

Hope you're all enjoying some delicious meals too.

xx Susan

A day in life:: Wednesday

It's the middle day of the school holidays and has dawned a beautiful, clear day.  It is a little breezy which means that the temperature is staying down a little but we're still not exactly rugged up for winter.  In fact, we're all wearing shorts and a long sleeve cotton shirt today!

I decided to try something different for breaky and recently found a recipe for homemade crumpets.  They are sooooooo easy to make, probably easier than pancakes because you don't have to stand there and flip them.

I made the batter, greased the egg rings then into the pan went the mixture..

..they started to bubble up and pop and look a bit more like 'real' crumpets.

Absolutely delicious with butter and golden syrup (for me) and honey or maple syrup for the kids.

 

Then it was off to the front garden for another 15 minutes of clearing.

We headed over to Mum's to do some watering...

 

...and pick some yummy snow peas.

We now have plenty of tomatoes so I may have to make some passata or something.

Then it was home for a coffee and some computer time while the kidlettes had a play. 

I'm tweaking the look of my blog so you may see a few changes over the next little while.

Lunch was some pasta with a little melted butter, fresh chopped parsley, fresh cherry tomatoes and a little grated parmesan.  DeLIciOUS!!

More garden time in the afternoon and it's also been a perfect day for getting the washing dry.

A little hooky time was squeezed in of course.

A yummy dinner of fish and chips before settling in to watch the State of Origin.  GO MAROONS!!!

What a legend of a team!

I hope you all had a great Wednesday too.

xx Susan