A Summers' Day

     It is a bright sunny summers day here in Brisbane today. So I have taken the opportunity to wash all the bedclothes and air out the pillows and doonas. It feels really good to have a chance to have freshly cleaned and dried-by-the-sunshine bedding again. With so much rain about recently and with often being busy on the fine days, I haven't been able to do this in a while. Mostly the bed clothes, (on the occasions when I remember to wash them), are having to be dried by the electric dryer and the doonas & pillows don't get a proper airing out in the sunshine, but just kind of get aired out in the lounge room or the bedrooms.   I am really looking forward to tonight when I go to bed.  I could just replace the sheets that are out on the line with ones from the cupboard, but I am going to wait until these ones are dry and put them back on the bed, so I can enjoy the sunshine smell and feel in them.

   My knitting has not gotten anywhere since yesterdays' post.  I had hoped that I would get some done at Spinners last night, but I ended up helping a fellow spinner with some serious spinning wheel issues she had, which took up most of the evening.  In return for my offering to help her though, she shouted me dinner and gave me some lovely, gorgeous & soft fibre from her stash.  I did feel that it was a bit too a generous gesture for the task, but after some small protest on my behalf, I gladly accepted the gifts. Hey, I'm not silly enough to fully turn down Thai food and beautiful fibre (that I can't usually afford) when it is offered! ^_^

Another Day

Today and yesterday were good days. Very productive. 

Currently I am knitting a dress for my niece Sophie. The pattern I am using is called "Sally" by Sarah Golder and is just great so far.  Yesterday I did the colourwork pattern on the bottom of the dress and considering it is my first time doing two tone colourwork (other than plain stripes), I am quite happy with it.  Half way through it I found I had made a major mistake, so had to frog that section and restart it, but the second time was successful.  Last night I went to Brisbane SnB and knitted a few rows, including starting on the decreasing section.  I hope to do more tonight at QSW&FA. Here is a pic of my colourwork. It's not great, but apparently pretty good for my first time and considering it is in cotton (that's what my knitting friends told me anyway).     

Hopefully it will look even better once it's washed and blocked.

For the last few mornings, I've been really trying to get up early and do the small jobs around the house early while it is still cool(ish), so that I can spend the rest of the day doing whatever I like (knitting and resting mainly).  This morning I was very proud of myself.  I got up at 6:30am and got dressed, had breakfast, put on and out a load of washing, washed up from last night and this morning, (oh, crap, in writing that, I realised I have not brought in the washing, and now it is raining!) tidied the lounge & dining area, cleaned up the Buffet where we keep the phone & usually dump paperwork and other junk, wiped down the bathroom sink and gave the bathroom a general tidy, and looked after my sick boy & called school to tell him he wouldn't be there - all before 9:30am. That is pretty impressive for me. Usually I manage to do maybe one or two of those things in a day.

During today I also made a few important phone calls and have sorted out quite a lot of official stuff, like paying some overdue accounts and ordering myself a Medical Alert USB dog tag necklace (how cool is that?)  and getting our phone number put onto the Do Not Call register.  Am sick of getting telemarketing calls all the time and usually at really annoying times of day - like when I am getting dinner sorted. Have continued to watch over my son, who is now fine & will be going to school tomorrow (he just needed a rest day - it's been a big couple of weeks) and had some rest myself.

I am now playing around on the computer, catching up on emails & facebook and might even have a bit more of a rest before heading to Spinners this evening.  A friend has offered to shout me some dinner from the local Thai place, so I'm going to be a happy camper. :)

A New Year (better late than never!)

Well, it’s been a while, but I am finally back.

It is now the new year (actually, more than a month into it – where did January go?) and things are starting to go back to normal after the holidays.

Christmas was a quiet one, and in the beginning of this year we had a really lovely holiday at Golden Beach at Caloundra on the sunshine coast.

Both my knitting and my cooking nice foods for lunch went by the wayside while I was busy with summer holiday activities with my boy, but now that he is at school again (Grade 8, first year of high school – eek!) I am getting back into both.

The last few days I have had lunches such as gourmet sausages with vegies, sushi rice with seaweed, shitake mushrooms, miso paste and rice seasoning and satay noodles with vegies.

For the last few months of 2011, my knitting motivation seemed to disappear for some reason.  I hardly knit or crocheted anything and even when I wanted to, I couldn’t decide on anything decent to work on.  Finally, a little over a week before our family Christmas parties, I decided to crochet washcloths and handtowels for my sister and my mother-in-law. Amazingly, I managed to finish 4 washcloths and 2 handtowels in the space of less than two weeks. 

Then in January, my motivation returned in full force and I have been knitting fairly tirelessly since.  I have knitted a cotton bag to put my plastic supermarket bags in and have completed about 1/3 of a shawl made from 2ply lace weight yarn  - so pretty.  I have put that project aside for the moment though, as I realised there are about 4 projects I need to do in February and March, for gifts. As it is already a few days into February, I thought I’d better get a start on them. 

The first gift I need to have done by the beginning of March for my niece Siennas’ first birthday. I had to purchase yarn online for this however, and so while I am waiting for the yarn to arrive, I have started on my niece Sophie’s’ present for her birthday near the end of March – a dress that I can knit out of yarn that I have in my stash.  I did a tension square last night and have cast on today. 

I also wish to knit something special for my sister and soon to be Brother-in-law, as they are moving back to Brisbane at the end of March, very shortly after their wedding in Scotland (where they are living now, and he is from). I would like to make them a wedding present and since it is my sisters’ birthday in early March as well, I would like to make her a small present too. What they will all be remains to be seen, if I get them done in time at all!

It is so hot in Brisbane today that although I have air conditioning in my lounge room, rather than have to pay for using it on such a hot day, I got the jobs I needed to do around the house done early, then have come to the local library to knit and write / play on my computer. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to get the public wifi working on my computer, so I am writing this up on Word now, and I will cut and paste it onto my blog later this evening.........

 

Right, home again now, and uploading this post! Hope you have all had a great day (or if on the other side of the world, I hope you have a great day!) Until Next Time! :) 

Slacker & Beef Strog.

So, it's been a bit over a week since I last posted. I will admit that I have been a little slack both in updating the blog and creating fancy dinners and lunches. 

For lunches I have mainly been sticking to a simple Thai inspired green salad or toasted cheese and ham sandwiches and on Friday made a chicken Larb (Larb Gai) to share with a friend who came over to help me clean my house a bit.

Today though, I was a bit naughty and bought lunch down at the local shops.  You see, a new seafood store opened down there last week and so I thought I'd try out their fish and chips.  I had whiting fillets, chips & a greek salad and included  either a normal tartre sauce, a seafood sauce or a garlic and herb aioli (sp?).  I went for the garlic and herb - soo yummy. 

For dinners I have been doing our fairly standard dinners of things like spaghetti bolognaise, beef curry made from a curry paste, beef mince nachos and a couple of"make your own" nights. We have also had one takeway of Hungry Jacks and I have had Thai from the Thai place near QSW&FA (Qld Spinners, weavers & Fibre artists) where I am a regular one night a week.

One of the other reasons I have not been so busy in the kitchen is because I am in Queensland Australia. And if you have been watching the weather channel lately or live in QLD yourself, you will know that it has been very hot and humid. I do not cope with heat at the best of times, and so standing in a kitchen over a hot stove or near a hot oven is not the ideal thing to be doing.  This also means that over the summer I will probably not be posting about a lot of cooking - probably more of salads or my other and first passion Yarn and knitting and spinning and things like that.  It was probably a bit silly of me to start a food blog so close to the beginning of summer!

Tonight's dinner was something I haven't done for a long long time, and that was a Beef Stroganoff.  I tend not to make this because the recipe usually calls for sour cream. As I cannot eat sour cream, this makes it difficult to make a proper beef stroganoff. In the past I have done two batches - one for me with a bit of evaporated low fat milk with a touch of vinegar and one for my hubby with sour cream. I have also cheated a little by using the beef stroganoff meal bases found at the local supermarket. They are nice but not great.  

However! I recently was going through my recipe books and found an awesome recipe for Beef Stroganoff that uses yogurt rather than sour cream. As I can have low fat yogurt and especially love greek yogurt I thought I'd give this a go. It was a success - both hubby and son scoffed it down and I really liked it too. :)

The recipe was found in a booklet called EasiYo Yogurt Cookbook that comes with the EasiYo homemade yogurt makers that you can buy from the supermarkets and places like Kmart.  So unfortunately you can only get the cookbook when you buy the yogurt maker and due to copyright laws, I am not going to risk typing up the recipe. If I had changed anything about the recipe, I would let you know, but I have done it all as directed.  So, either buy yourself an EasiYo yogurt maker, or find a friend who has one and still has the little cookbook.  I will admit that I used pre-made store bought yogurt on this occasion as I have not made up any yogurt for a while. I used the Jalna set-in-pot low fat greek yogurt.

So, that is about it for the moment. Talk To Ya Soon!

Thai inspired Green Salad Recipe

Thai Inspired Green Salad.

Serves 4 as a side dish

Serves 2 as a main meal

Salad Ingredients;

3 large cos lettuce leaves, chopped coursely

1 handful chopped coriander

1 handful chopped mint

½ - 1 spring onion, chopped diagonally

2 handfuls chopped cucumber

¼ - ½ red onion (depending on your taste)

Handful of cherry tomatoes cut into halves

Handful of crunchy fried Asian noodles (optional) OR

1 cup of cold cooked jasmine rice (optional)

Dressing Ingredients;

1 tbls vege oil

½ tbls fish sauce

½ tbls soy sauce

½ tbls lime juice

Pinch of dried chilli flakes or chopped fresh chilli to taste

½  tsp ginger paste

1 tsp caster sugar

Method:

Mix salad ingredients in a salad bowl. When just about to serve, mix dressing ingredients in a small cup and drizzle dressing over  the salad. Toss salad well. Enjoy!

Larb Salad Recipe

When I posted my Larb Moo Salad on Facebook, my friends suggested I put up my recipe on my notes page.  This I did, but now I think I might share it with the rest of the world. :)

Thai Larb Salad with pork (moo) or chicken (gai)

Ingredients:

2 1/2 tablespoons Sticky (glutinous) rice (I used Sushi rice)

2 teaspoons or so of ginger paste

500gm minced chicken or pork

2 heaped tbls chopped red onion

2 tbls fish sauce

1 tbls soy sauce

2 tbls lime juice

Dried chilli flakes to taste

2 tbs coarsely chopped fresh coriander

2 chopped spring onions

2 tbls coarsely chopped fresh mint.

 Method:

1.  In a wok or small fry pan, stir rice (uncooked)  over a low-medium heat until golden brown.  Transfer to a mortar and grind to a course powder with a pestle. 

2. In a medium bowl, combine ground chicken or pork, 1/2 the ground rice, ginger, red onion, 1/2 the coriander & mint, 1/2 the spring onions, fish sauce, soy sauce and chilli flakes & lime juice.  Mix thoroughly.  Heat a work or large heavy frying pan over medium heat and add chicken/ pork mixture all at once, stirring vigorously to keep it from sticking into lumps. cook until pork / chicken is cooked. 

3. transfer to a bowl and mix in the rest of the ground rice, coriander, mint and spring onions. 

4. serve & garnish with extra corianda, spring onion and or mint and accompany with vegetable crudites such as cabbage, carrot, cucumber, lettuce and or long beans.  I also usually serve it with Jasmine rice.

Lunch and dinner today Mon 07/11/11

The photo on the left was my dinner. Doesn't look very appetising, but was very yummy.  It is a teriyaki chicken stir fry on a bed of rice.  To make the stir-fry, I used 1 large chicken breast (sliced), 2/3rds packet of Birds Eye Thai Style Stir-fry frozen vegetable mix, 1 pkt Masterfoods Teriyaki chicken stir-fry sauce base, 2 large mushrooms, 1 medium brown onion and chopped Pak Choy. 
Even Rory liked this one!

The photo on the right was today's lunch. Another Asian Salad (am loving my asian salads!) This time I mixed up some mint, corianda, spring onion, nastursium (sp?) petals from my mums' garden & cucumber.  I then placed this mix into some baby cos lettuce cups, topped it with crunchy asian noodles, cherry tomatoes sliced in half and a few more petals.  I then drizzled some lime juice and soy sauce over the top.  Delicious!!