IN THE GARDEN TODAY

Ahhh finally a nice end of winter, start of spring day. I started out early this morning with my trusty little helper by my side, weeding and chatting non-stop. We fed the chooks and collected the eggs then picked some yummy veges for dinner tonight.



Here they are all washed up.

We have baby beetroot leaves for a salad, new potatoes ready to be boiled, a few carrots that I thinned out and a beetroot to roast. Not pictured is the asparagus I will also be eating tonight. YUMMY!!!

I also planted out tomatoes in the hothouse today and some pretty flowers in the fairy garden for Sophie.

PREMIERS 2010

This was Daniel's first year at playing Aussie Rules Footy and coming into a team that have been together for 7 years was pretty daunting to say the least. He has thrived and learnt so much about playing this game.

Yesterday we got to witness what a lot of parents don't get to in their children's sporting careers.

UNDER 14 WEST GAMBIER ROOS WON THE GRAND FINAL FOR 2010!!!!


I am so proud of not only Daniel but the whole team. All year they have played with respect to their opposing team and have worked incredibly hard to get yesterday's result. The under 14's haven't won a premiership since 2003.

Talk about nerves, I think I was worse than Dan.

Congratulations Daniel, I couldn't be prouder.

VEGETABLE SPRING ROLLS

These spring rolls are a great way to get those extra vegetables into the kids. No deep frying here either and they taste great.

cooking spray
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
600g chinese cabbage, finely shredded
2 carrots, grated
1 zucchini, grated
1 cup beansprouts
1 Tablespoon soy sauce
spring roll wrappers, thawed
sauce to serve, we used sweet chilli

Preheat oven to 180, spray 2 trays with oil.
Spray a large frying pan with oil. Heat and add onion and garlic.
Cook until soft, add cabbage, carrot and zucchini and cook until cabbage is wilted.
Remove from heat add beansprouts and soy sauce.
Place a wrapper on a flat surface with 1 corner facing you. Place 2 tablespoons of vegetable mixture along the centre of the wrapper.
Roll and fold the wrapper, add water to the remaining corner to seal.
Spray rolls with oil and bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until crisp.
Serve with sauce.

IT ALL GETS TOO MUCH.......

This post has been coming for a while. There is a lot going on in my life atm, the worry for my parents has become a little overwhelming, I never thought it would happen but I'm feeling quite anxious about turning 40 next month.

I am trying to fit way too many things in my day and some changes need to be made.

Bare with me while I nut this out.....

* scaling down to 2 jobs
* spend more quality time with the kids
* spend quality time with my ever patient husband
* create because I want to, not because I have to
* create what I want to create not follow trends (I've found myself caught up in wanting to have the latest fabrics and now half of them just sit there and I wonder why I even bought them in the first place.)
* become more focused on simplifying my family's life
* learn to appreciate what I have a little more
* be grateful
* take a step back from my other blog
* post when I want to not because I feel I have to
* practice yoga daily
* smile
* make lists to keep me on track
* find my own style and embrace it
* do not re-list products to sell, just start making for family, friends and our home.
* stop the blog hopping, concentrate on my own life, not people that I will never meet just because I think they live a better life than me or are more creative than me. (this probably sounds harsh but it is so easy to be caught up in this cyber world.)

wow, that's enough to work on for now I think, sorry for the ramblings, amazing how much clearer it all seems when you write it down.

CHICKPEA PATTIES

This recipe comes from Annette Sym's new book "Symply Too Good To Be True 6"

500g sweet potato
2 x 400g cans chickpeas
1 egg white
1 tsp crushed garlic
2 tsp green curry paste
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp reduced-salt vegetable stock powder
2 Tbls fresh basil
1 cup dried breadcrumbs
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
pepper
cooking spray

Peel and dice sweet potato, microwave for 10 minutes, drain and mash.
Drain and rinse chickpeas. Add half the chickpeas and egg white in a food processor and process until smooth.
Add sweet potato, garlic, green curry paste, cumin and stock powder, process until smooth.
Put in large bowl and add basil, breadcrumbs, onion and remaining chickpeas, combine well and add pepper to taste.
Divide mixture into 6 patties using your hands to shape each patty.
Spray frying pan with oil and cook patty for 3 minutes each side.

Serve with salad.

mmmmm what a yummy dinner.

NEW YUMMY BOOKS TO SOAK UP

I have wanted Sally's books for ages and since I sold a couple of items on my Madeit site, I used the money to finally get them.

I've had a quick flick through and hopefully tonight I will sit and have a proper look.

I've spent the day weeding and planting today, photos to come.......

FOOD, FOOD, GLORIOUS FOOD

Lachie loves his pasta, infact he would eat it for every meal if I let him.

We have owned these wide mouthed flasks for a few years, they are perfect for hot lunches at school especially in winter.


Our weekly delivered organic produce is certainly not disappointing us. I haven't had to visit the grocery store for fruit or veg since we started. I love coming up with new recipes using in season and preserved produce.
On the menu tonight was something I made up to use the cooked pumpkin I had in the fridge from the other day that was supposed to be ravioli.

I cooked up onion, garlic and mushrooms in a little olive oil, then added the cooked pumpkin, feta cheese and toasted pine nuts.

I wanted to have fettucine but didn't have time to make it, so I opted for some penne in the pantry.

After the penne was cooked, I added some pesto and the rest of the ingredients.

It was really yummy, it won't make it into Masterchef but that's okay with me.

COOKING CAN BE THERAPUTIC, RIGHT?

Hmmm, that was debatable today.

Darren has been hounding me to make ravioli for probably 6 months or more (since we got the pasta machine actually). So today to get my mind off of other matters, I decided to make it for dinner tonight.

I went to our local kitchen store and purchased one of these nifty moulds

and started with the pasta machine. I don't have a love for this little machine, I just can't seem to get it to work and instead of making pasta in minutes, it's hours for me, hence why I haven't made the ravioli before today.
Do you like my clean workspace?

So after about 2 hours (I kid you not!) It was time to prepare some filling and try out my nifty new purchase, well lets just say the first attempt was a complete disaster and after much scraping, it all went in the chook bucket. You see, not having my mind on the job, I put warm mixture into the pasta which of course made the pasta stick to the metal ahhhhhh.

Second try worked better, infact I managed to make the rest up quite easily but then ran out of time to make my pumpkin and fetta filling as I don't eat meat, looks like it's a vegemite sandwich for dinner.

Total time taken to make dinner, 4 hours. Yes you read it right, 4 hours and I haven't made the sauce yet.



Will I attempt to make this again? Yes, because I really need to work that pasta maker out.
Was it theraputic? Actually yes, I had P!NK and Glee blaring from the ipod dock and with the cooking, it did take my mind off of things.