It's The End-Of-Year Concert

School finishes next week and we have the end of year concert and awards tonight. It starts at 6pm and is expected to go until about 9pm. Luckily the kindy kids are up first and are allowed to leave when they have done their piece. The two kindy classes are presenting their piece together and are doing a dance to the Hawaii Five-O music. #1 has shown me bits and pieces of the dance so I'm looking forward to seeing what order it all happens in. Their teacher is a bit concerned that the kids don't really know what they are doing (they have been working on this for about 4 weeks LOL) but I figure that even if they did know what to do once they get on stage they'll either forget, do their own thing or burst into tears anyway!

Anyway, I'm sure it will be very cute and I'm planning to take hundreds of photos - aahhh, I do love my digital camera.

Well That Didn't Work

I tried a new recipe last night. Nothing odd there. At the moment I try three or four new recipes each week. It sounded good - chicken breasts stuffed with ricotta and prunes. Nothing odd there. It had quite normal ingredients - chicken, ricotta, prunes and some balsamic vinegar and maple syrup for basting. Nothing odd there. It wanted a couple of things not in my fridge so I substituted, just using parsley instead of chives and simple stuff like that. Nothing odd there. Then it cremated itself. The outside was charred - it was bitter and burnt and truly horrible but the inside was still raw. So then I sliced it up and cooked the inside and tried to feed it to everyone for dinner LOL! To their credit every member of the family tried it. Funnily enough we all declared it a flaming failure and decided that it tasted (a) disgusting, (b) a little bit burnt, honey but I'm sure if you did it again it would be terrific, (c) bery yukky and (d) well, no words do justice to the face she pulled but it was a great 'YUK' face.

On the plus side of this, I coped with the failure extremely well and even offered them grilled cheese on toast if they were still hungry (they decided the mashed potato and steamed vegies followed by yoghurt for dessert was fine). Not so long ago I would have been very upset by my failure and probably have burst into tears and yelled at everyone. Last night I just shrugged and gave them more vegies instead. Yay for me.

More Fish!

Well it was tuna from a can but I'm sure that still counts as fish!

As some of you may have noticed I have been working my way through my Quiches and Flans cookbook. I have always liked this little cookbook but generally made the same things over and over, like Quiche Lorraine and Vegetable Slice - both firm family favourites. One of the reasons I started my blog was because of Paula aka The Cookbook Junkie, who has so many cookbooks that she decided she should put them to good use and cooks something different just about every single day. I thought I should take a leaf out of her book and start trying some of the other recipes that I had always said, "I'd like to make that one day" or "that looks nice".

I made this Tuna Flan a couple of nights ago and I have to admit that I quite enjoyed it. Hubby thought it was great (gee, it's nice to cook for someone who loves just about everything I make) and #2 polished hers off in record time although #1 was a more difficult critic. Hubby won him over by telling him it was tuna in a pie so this has now been dubbed Tuna Pie!

Tuna Flan (AKA Tuna Pie)
from Family Circle Delicious Quiches and Flans








6 sheets filo pastry
60g butter, melted

Filling
425g can tuna, drained
½ cup mayonnaise
4 spring onions, finely chopped Didn't have any so about 12 chives
4 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup cream
½ cup grated cheddar cheese I used closer to 1 cup
1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill

Preheat oven to moderate 180˚C. Lay out oshe sheet of filo, brush with melted butter. Place another sheet of filo over the first, brushw ith butter. Repeat until all sheets are used.

Brush a 21 x 29cm oblong flan tin (I used my round flan dish instead) with melted butter or oil. Place the prepared pastry sheets in the tin, tucking in the edges.

To make filling: Combine ingredients in a large bowl; mix well. Pour the filling into the prepared tin, bake for 35 minutes or until ightly browned and set.

PS: It is stinking hot up here. Last night it was still 35˚C (that's 95˚F) at 11pm!

To Market, To Market

I had the Christmas Craft Market today. After a slow start and a higher cover price than I had been told I was feeling a little disappointed (okay, pretty fed up actually) but I ended up doing quite well. I sold a bunch of star albums, some card packs and all of the Christmas Embellishment Packs that I had made up (on the spur of the moment and at the absolute last minute!). I gave out lots of business cards and might even get a workshop booking out of it.

So, after a frenzied fortnight of making stuff for the market I'm sitting back and relaxing tonight. Then I have to finish the rest of my Christmas cards so I can get them posted out.

An Unexpected Dinner Guest

Time: Yesterday afternoon, about 4.45pm

Place: My kitchen/dining room

Scene: #1 and kindy friend are playing in the lounge room, #2 and kindy friend's older sister are playing in the dining room, kindy friend's Mum and I are fighting to be heard above the ear-drum-shattering noise when the phone rings. It's strident electronic tone silences everyone... momentarily!

Brrring Brrring, Brrring Brrring (that's the phone ringing!!)

Me: Hello?

Other end: It's me!

Me: Hello me. What's up?

Other end (who I now know is my old friend and colleague, T, currently living in Port Red Dirt): I was wondering if you wanted to drink champagne with me?

Me: Absolutely! Where are you?

T: At the (name of motel accomodation). I'm down for a conference. I thought you might feed me dinner too????

Me: Absolutely! What time?

T: Hmmmm, I'll be with you in about 45 minutes.

Me: Excellent! See you then.

Current guests realise the time and decide to head home to start their dinner prep and then I make a mad dash through the house depositing bucketfuls of toys in their sort-of rightful places.

Luckily I already have dinner cooking on the stove - spaghetti bolognaise - and it's easy to stretch to feed an extra one or two people. I phone Hubby who is at the shopping centre having a haircut and request garlic bread and a bottle of champers and I'm ready for the next sitting!

The funniest part is that when we all worked together at Red Dirt Tiny Town, 6 hours away and 9 years ago, I used to feed T (along with several others) spag bol on a quite regular basis. I could cook many other things but it was always so easy to whip up a big pot when everyone decided to come to our place for dinner and it didn't matter if 4 or 24 turned up to eat, I just added a few bits and pieces and dinner stretched - although some nights there was rather more spag and rather less bol LOL!

Anyway, we had a really nice evening. The kids were on their best behaviour, dinner was good, the champers was better and we caught up on all the news. Yay for unexpected dinner guests.