A Visit To The Pool

Here is dinner tonight. No recipe, as I just went through the fridge and grabbed anything that might either go into a stir fry or looked like it needed to be eaten sooner rather than later. We had rice, stir fry vegies with a homemade honey and soy sauce mix and I fried some chicken tenderloins to go with them. The kids weren’t overly impressed but I guess you can’t impress the critics every time. Hubby and I enjoyed it, especially with sweet chilli sauce over it. I’m having a ‘thing’ for sweet chilli sauce at the moment and have cooked a few things lately just so I could have it over the top! I think it’s just that I’m getting a bit sick of eating meals that also suit a one-year-old, ie low salt, not too spicy/rich/etc. It might be time to cook a few meals for the freezer for Offspring #2, buy some baked beans for #1 and make something seriously yummy for the grown-ups in the house.

It's heating up up here. I think it was about 35˚C (95˚F for my non-metric friends) today, and it was the last couple of days too. The kids and I met a friend at the local pool this morning. We got there about 9am and it was already warming up. The kids had a great time playing in the kiddie pool, #2 thought it was great fun being swooshed through the water. She is fearless, unlike her big brother who was, and still is, a big chicken. #2 got completely soaked by a 'tidal wave' when another kid jumped in the pool and she sputtered a couple of times then laughed herself silly. #1 got splashed to a much less degree and screamed blue murder. He was unable to open his eyes because water was on his face and felt his way to me so I could brush the water away and save him from danger (or melting, I guess LOL!)

Dumb me forgot the camera! But just imagine a chubby one-year-old in her pink spotted rashie and little swimmers laughing wildly as the water gets splashed near her and a four-year-old, who is so pale he’s almost neon, in his boardies and rashie dodging every droplet of water while earnestly telling me how much he loves the swimming pool and how he can’t wait for his swimming lessons to start. After 3 years of swimming lessons Mummy can definitely wait – the deathgrip and screaming being the most positive features – but if he’s looking forward to them that’s great. We are planning to visit the pool at least once a week, partly because it’s fun and partly to get him nice and familiar with it so that lessons might go a little more smoothly.

Not a huge success

Quick Vegie Slice
from the Savoury/Main Ugly Binder

1 small zucchini, grated
2 carrots, grated
1 brown onion, grated
2 sticks celery, finely chopped
1 parsnip, grated
1 turnip or swede, grated I used a turnip
1 potato, grated
2 cloves garlic, crushed I used minced garlic from a jar
1 tablespoon chopped parsley I used mixed dried herbs
1½ cups cheddar cheese, grated
4 eggs, beaten
¼ cup milk
½ cup wholemeal self-raising flour
2 tablespoons sesame seeds
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Combine all ingredients except sesame seeds
2. Turn into lightly greased loaf tin. Top with sesame seeds. Bake at 200˚C for 45-50 minutes.
3. Let stand 20 minutes before slicing

Variation: Line the tin with short crust pastry. Add 4 rashers chopped bacon.

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This recipe originally came from a leaflet of recipes inside a soup starter vegetable pack. I have tried a few of the others and had some good successes so thought I would give this one a go for dinner tonight. While this wasn't too bad I probably wouldn't bother making it again.

This was a quick vegie slice as far as preparation goes. I threw everything into the food processor for grating so that took no time at all. Lots better than grating it all by hand. But I found that it took an extra 15-20 minutes to cook through, so that stopped it from being quite as quick as I had anticipated. Maybe the eggs I used were too big and made the mix sloppier than it should have been (Yes, sloppier is a cooking term. Well, in my kitchen anyway LOL). I just remembered that the carrots were small-ish and I was deciding whether to add another one but decided to stick with the recipe - obviously I should have gone with gut instinct not tried to be good and follow the recipe for a change. When I tried to take the “loaf” out of the tin the whole thing split in half so while the photo looks okay they were the best slices. The other plate looked a little bit messier. It was quite tasty, definitely needs salt and pepper though.

Both kids tucked in although Offspring #1 tapered off halfway through. I think this had less to do with the slice and more to do with the end of term party at kindy and total 4-year-old tiredness. I had a little bit of left over mince, not really enough to do anything with, so I made some meatballs to go with this.

Meat + vegies + hungry kids fed = happy Mummy!

PS: I did try to blog last night but Blogger had gremlins and wouldn't publish. I didn't forget!

Anyone for golf?

Here is a photo of the local golf course. You can see some of the fairway and the 'green' (more on that later) and the track around the golf course for buggies. It is in much better condition that it was when we lived here 10 years ago. The fairways are actually grass now whereas they used to be mown spinifex, ie spinifex that had been mown 'flat' . They were really rough and your golf ball didn't exactly glide across them! The course does still have it's sand 'greens' though. You know how in a normal golf course the green would be smooth, perfectly level, perfectly manicured turf? Yeah, that's not gonna happen here. Instead we have sand for the 'green' that has to be smoothed before you take your shot and then raked when you have finished. It's all very technical (NOT!). In this picture you can see where Red Dirt Central takes it's name. The sand is not the normal white beach-type sand one would expect, it is dirt. Red dirt. The redder, the better!

A Splash of Colour

Our backyard is bare. Barren. An empty wasteland.

Okay, it's not quite that bad. The house that Hubby's work has rented for us is on a small suburban-type block with a small rather bare yard. It has some, very patchy, lawn, one bottle brush, one nice big tree (unusual for up here and very much appreciated), a clothesline and a couple of sparse shrub type things along the back fence. Nothing will grow under the nice big tree so that is just bare red dirt that the kids think is their sandpit. The harder they play, the more the 'sandpit' encroaches on the patchy lawn. Now that we live here the yard has a trampoline, a swing set, assorted bikes and cars to ride in/on along with a multitude of balls, toy lawnmowers and general outdoor toys.

The fence itself is interesting. It is made of wire, interlocked, very strong and sturdy. To afford the occupants some privacy there are lengths of timber woven into the wire (hmmm, probably the wire is woven around the timber... dunno!) . If the timber was in good condition it would be semi-private as there are gaps of about an inch between each board. As is our case, the timber is rotting and falling down so there are great bigs gaps where you can see straight into the neighbours yard.

But... with time, patience and little coaxing we are getting somewhere. I have potted up some herbs - cannot live without my herb garden! I have basil, mint, rosemary, dill, coriander (not doing too well), oregano, chives, garlic and marjoram. They are coming along nicely and I should be able to start using them in another month or so. The lawn is getting a regular watering and fertiliser and when we haven't mowed it, it almost looks decent. When it is mowed it still looks patchy and pretty horrible. The showpiece at the moment is the splash of colour along the back fence. I didn't really notice the shrub-type plant initially but as my pots of herbs sit along the back fence I started giving this plant a drink when I watered my herbs. What a difference a bit of water makes.

Apparently it is a native bouganvillea (according to those in the know up here). It certainly has the bouganvillea-type flower but doesn't appear to creep and take over like all the bouganvillea bushes I have seen. Here is a close up of the flower cluster.

I am going to chop off some of the dead-looking bits towards the ends of the branches and see if we can get the whole thing to green up a bit and produce some more colour.

"This is nice. Where did you get it, honey?"

Chicken and Leek Roll
from the Main/Savoury Ugly Binder

















1 tablespoon oil
2 medium leeks, finely chopped
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
½ cup shredded fresh basil leaves, couldn’t get any so used the squeezy tube blend stuff
300g minced (ground) chicken
1 cup stale breadcrumbs
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed
Extra 1 egg, lightly beaten
2 teaspoon sesame seeds
extra fresh basil, to garnish

1. Heat oil in a large pan. Add leeks, onion and garlic; cook, stirring, until onion is soft. Cool
2. Combine cooked onion mixture, basil, chicken, breadcrumbs and egg in a large bowl. Mix well, using hands.
3. Spoon mixture down one side of pastry, leaving a 2 cm border, to form a log-shape, Roll pastry, folding in ends to enclose filling. Place seam-side down onto a greased oven tray. Brush extra egg over pastry; sprinkle with sesame seeds.
4. Cook in a hot oven, 200˚C, for about 30 minutes or until pastry is browned all over and the filling is cooked through.
5. Serve with garden salad. Garnish with extra basil.

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I have made this a couple of times and it has turned out great each time. I think that it does need salt and pepper and would add it in the chicken mix if it wasn’t for the kids. Instead, I leave it out during the cooking and Hubby and I add at will on our plates. Usually I do serve it with a salad but since Offspring #2 has begun eating (mostly) what we have for dinner I cooked vegetables to go with this tonight. Yeah, I was feeling lazy and couldn’t be bothered cooking her veges and making a salad too. #2 is doing really well with her eating – she’ll demolish just about anything I put in front of her - but I don’t think she is up for salad just yet. I figured that if I was cooking veges for one person I may as well cook them for four.

An aside – Hubby was halfway through his dinner when he said, “This is really nice, honey. Where did you get it from?”

Me: “Umm… the kitchen!”

We live in Red Dirt Central, no butcher, no specialty shops you big dope! Anything ‘special’ that I serve up, I make!