Gratituesday: It's All In The Timing

This week it's all about oven timers. Though not using them for their actual intended purpose. Oh no, no, no. Why waste a perfectly good oven timer on timing food that's cooking in the, you know, oven. No my friends, you should use it to threaten your children. Use it to enforce the time limit they have to clean their rooms before you'll go in with a garbage bag and toss everything away. Use it to make sure they stay in the bathroom and clean their teeth for a FULL two minutes. Use it to threaten a girl-child who will remain nameless that she can't have toasted marshmallows for dessert unless her dinner is finished inside the time left on the timer. And now? Now I just have to ask them to do something, wait for the mild dissent, grab the timer and voila... they can't do their jobs fast enough.

So to whoever came up with the grand idea of oven timers that ring/beep/otherwise announce that time has run out, I say a hearty, and heartfelt, thank you. You're making my life a whole heap easier in ways I'm sure you never foresaw.

On OCD, Being a Capricorn and Menu Planning

My fridge, or more specifically my fridge door, has been a source of great mirth amongst my friends of late. They have recently discovered the extent of my weekly menu planning and, for reasons that totally escape me, think they are hilarious. I'm not a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kinda girl. My husband jokes that I can only be spontaneous if I'm given two weeks warning and some sort of hint as to what direction the spontaneity might be heading in. I laugh right along with him on that because, yeah, he's pretty much right. I'm heaps better now that we have the kids than I used to be. But still not great. Part of my need to know what's happening, have a routine and be super organised comes from sheer genetics (hi Dad!!). Part is from being a Capricorn - look it up, it's me to a T. All list making and routine oriented. And some is from the OCD too - when things aren't 'under control' I don't cope so well, so being organised helps me keep it all under control.

So why the menu planning? First off it does help me get organised. I use the plan to write up my shopping list then I know that I have everything I need in order to make the week's meals, it reduces waste and helps cut down on unscheduled trips to the shop where I end up spending another fifty bucks of stuff I didn't actually need at all.

Also, by jotting down what else is going on for each day I have a better idea of what I need to work around. For example, #1's football practise is on Friday afternoons and he and his Dad rarely get in before 6.45pm. #2 can't wait that late for dinner so I need something that can either be reheated easily or served an hour apart and still be edible for both parties (the slow cooker comes in super-handy here).

And finally, by sticking it on the front of the fridge I live in hope that if Hubby gets home before me he might start dinner. Or that the kids (okay, only the older one can actually read it) will see it and stop asking me "What's for dinner?" all the time. Wishful thinking on both parts but worth a try!

I also tack on the plan whatever I'm planning to bake for the week. For this week I'm hoping to whip up some min-quiches for the kids lunchboxes and I found an apple cake that I'd like to try.

The thing that really made everyone laugh is that I also note where the recipe is from. As far as I'm concerned this makes perfect sense. I have close on 80 cookbooks and about the same number of foodie mags. If I don't write down where the recipe came from I'd have to spend hours searching for the darn thing!

Amid the laughing at my menu-planning and then generally picking on me for my anal-retentive, OCD, crazy ways a couple of friends did agree that the menu-pan was in fact a good idea and few even went so far as to ask me to post up my plans so they can get some meal ideas too. So, here's this week's menu-plan.

Monday: Cottage Pie

Tuesday: Herb Crusted Fish with Roasted Asparagus

Wednesday: Chicken, Leek and Mushroom Casserole

Thursday: Fish Pot Pies

Friday: Sausage Sizzle

Saturday: out (or if we get home and need dinner, leftovers from the freezer)

Sunday: Slow Cooked Beef Hotpot

Do you menu plan? If you do, do you just jot down a bunch a meals to make in the week or do you plan what day you'll be having them? C'mon people, I need to feel not so alone in the crazy here!

Kids In The Kitchen

Offspring #2 and I had our second cooking session tonight. He'd leafed through the Ugly Binder and found a recipe that took his fancy. I'd made it before, though  not for some time, and was happy to add the necessary bits to the shopping list.

He did a great job tonight, especially as I wasn't super organised and we had a few things on the go all at the same time. Lesson learned there. Mum needs to give the recipe a wee bit more thought and do a bit of prep before we jump into the cooking. This week he felt a bit more comfortable wielding a sharp knife, loved the importance of switching on the gas hotplate and oven, and got a thrill out of testing the cooked-ed-ness of the pasta.

We again praised his efforts with lavish compliments - his sister even scored him 'infinity out of infinity" and ate all the pasta as well as all the broccoli from her serving. High praise from her. She left the chicken in a pile but luckily he knows of her extreme fussiness and the escalating problems we've been having with her at meals in recent times and didn't take offense.

Chicken and Broccoli Pasta Bakeadapted slightly from a recipe in Australian Table, Nov 2006

300g rigatoni, penne or macaroni

1 head broccoli, cut into florets

half a cooked chicken, cut into bite sized pieces

1 1/2 tablespoons cornflour

1 1/3 cups low-fat milk

3/4 cup grated low-fat tasty cheese

1 tablespoon packaged breadcrumbs

1.  Preheat oven to 180C.

2. Cook rigatoni in a saucepan of boiling salted water according to packet direction. Add broccoli for last 4 minutes of cooking time. Drain.

3.  Combine cornflour and ¼ cup of milk in a jug. Place remaining milk in a saucepan and bring to boil. Whisk in cornflour mixture. Cook for 2-3 minutes, stirring, until sauce thickens. Stir in 1/2 cup of cheese and season to taste.

4. Combine rigatoni, broccoli, chicken and sauce. Place in a 20cm square ovenproof dish. Sprinkle remaining cheese and the breadcrumbs over the top. Cook in oven for about 15 minutes until golden and bubbly. Serve with a garden salad.

The Biggest and Best Morning Tea

I played hostess to a group of friends for morning tea today as part of Australia's Biggest Morning Tea. Sixteen lovely ladies came out to play, bearing delicious baked goods, and we gathered on the gorgeous new decked area that my ever-lovely husband spent the summer building.

To say I was fretting about the weather was an understatement. I also had my usual pre-function panic - Would people come? Would there be enough food? Had I bought enough tea/coffee/juice? What if the sky fell in??? Pleasingly the weather was delightful: cool but not too cold and sunny enough to be bright, cheery and warming. Friends from my neighbourhood and the kids school as well as a few old buddies arrived and we had enough food and drinks to feed three times our number. We also had a door prize and lots of raffle prizes - a nice way to raise a few more dollars and thank everyone for coming all at the same time!

I got a wonderful surprise when my friend Donna arrived. (Remember her? She lured us to Red Dirt Central then left after her hubby got another job offer. I cried. A lot.) She tells me she'd left a note on facebook but I hadn't seen it. Anyway, Donna drove three hours to come have morning tea with me. I was blown away when she walked around the corner. Truth be told, I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry but settled for smiling like a lunatic and feeling so incredibly lucky to have such an awesome friend. I think I might even have been speechless for a few seconds, and anyone can tell you that never happens!

Anyway we ate,we drank, we laughed the day away and in the process we raised $120 for the Cancer Council of Australia. And I got to spend the day surrounded by a fantastic group of friends and feel good about it. I'm going to have to pull out my favourite word here. It was... Awesome!

Gratituesday: All The Kids Are Doing It!

Hubby called out to me tonight and asked if I'd seen what my cat was doing. (Don't you love that he's my cat when he's doing something stupid?). I looked over at Spike, then at Hubby and we both cracked up and then yelled out "Planking!"

Yep, my kitty is soooooo cool he's joining in the newest craze. And that's what's making me smile this week.