Monday's Menu

Thank you for all your lovely congratulatory messages on my last post. We chose to keep the sex a surprise (Friday's scan was the big 18-20 week morphology scan), well I did, Rob did peek, but couldn't really tell!

Unlike some of my Monday Menu posts from earlier this year when I felt ill just looking at some of the food, I am now enjoying most foods (just not spicy food or too much of any one thing).

Monday: Pumpkin, bacon and pea risotto with toasted walnuts and crispy sage.
Tuesday: Home grown broccoli frittata with a side of cheesy cauliflowers (again from our garden).
Wednesday: Creamy bacon, pea and pecorino penne.
Thursday: Nigella's one pan sage and onion chicken and sausage, with steamed new pink eye potatoes. We used chicken wings instead of a jointed chicken, which we love.
Friday: Egg and bacon pie- used Annabel Langbein's recipe but with puff pastry not shortcrust.
Saturday: Lemon, thyme and chilli chicken wings cooked on the Weber along with BBQ'd asparagus.
Sunday: Oxtail stew with rice and peas.

And those pancakes- a special request for the show day holiday, Rob's American style pancakes with buttered pecan ice cream, whipped cream, maple syrup (the real stuff a friend bought back from Canada) and toasted pecans.

What's been on the menu at your place this past week?

One of life's surprises

If you've followed my blog for awhile you'll know we surprised our family and friends at Rob's birthday by getting married.
Seems the universe, fate or someone else had a surprise in store for us.
I've heard many people say that seeing your baby on an ultrasound for the first time is an amazing, life changing moment.
I doubt that Rob or I will ever forget the moment when our Dr congratulated us, and showed us not one, but two babies on that little screen.
We have since found out our babies are identical twins, a one in 300 chance event.
I have now gotten through 10 weeks of all day nausea and sickness, and am starting to grow a nice round bump.
We saw them yesterday in one of their big scans, a marathon 2 hour session of finding organs, legs and arms to measure. Somehow our lovely radiographer was able to keep track of which limb belonged to whom. It is amazing to see how close they get to each other in there. Apparently our 3D pictures were keeping the other staff amused in the other room (I didn't realise they had an audience) as baby A's legs suddenly turned up in front of baby B's face!
Our babies technical due date is in mid March, but twins tend to be early, so we expect them sometime in late February. Life at the hut will change, but it is a very welcome and happily anticipated change.

Monday's Menu and snail mail

What an odd weekend weather wise, windy on Saturday (but sunny) then on Sunday we had rain/hail downpours every hour, so we kept trying to do stuff outside before scurrying inside to hide (especially Nigella and Claudia!)

We visited the Woodbridge Nursery and picked up some flowering plants for my garden and some lettuce and broccoli seedlings for the veggie patch.

On Sunday we took delivery of two round bales of pea straw and lucerne hay for mulch.

Menu wise-

Monday: Salad with carrots, cheese, broccoli, cauliflower and potatoes.
Tuesday: Chicken breasts with crispy sage on a bed of rice and peas.
Wednesday: Broccoli and chorizo frittata
Thursday: four bunches of asparagus steamed, prosciutto, fresh sourdough bread and a few slices of parmesan cheese (and soft boiled eggs for Rob.
Friday: Barbecue sausages and silver beet.
Saturday: An aged piece of porterhouse beef on the bone, roasted with onions. Our first harvest of some cute little parsnips and carrots, more silver beet and some steamed new season pink eye potatoes (not ours).
Sunday: As we ate some leftover beef on fresh bread for lunch, Rob just fried up the leftover pink eyes as chips with some parsley. Oh and we had an apple and raisin crumble for dessert (I always double the crumble recipe which means we have frozen crumble topping ready to go!)



I got busy stamping some parchment writing paper, putting my Webster's dictionary stamp set  and Kikki.K to good use. I have written most of my letters as part of Sarah's Good Mail Club, and it's quite satisfying to see the pile of fat creamy coloured envelopes pile up on the table.



How was your weekend? What have you been eating recently?

Friday Flowers

Today has been a long day.
Claudia woke us at 5am with persistent whining. This is not totally unusual, she jumped up on Rob, yet we still ignored her. She even tried to wake me (this is unheard of, she knows I won't usually get up). Rob looked out the window and saw some wallabies on the lawn in front of the hut and we assumed she wanted to chase them.
The next thing we heard as we tried to fall back asleep was Niagara Falls. Poor Claudia must have been absolutely busting! Luckily she picked the dog bed in our breezeway (with a concrete floor) as a spot to christen when her silly humans wouldn't let her out. We felt so mean.

Then we had to take our car to be serviced, something we always put off as long as we can (maybe we have learnt our lesson here), the brakes haven't been all that great recently. Sure enough they needed replacing, ahem as well as all four tyres. Hmm. An expensive day out for the commodore wagon.

So I wil distract myself and you with pretty photos of the block and garden.

Rob took these last weekend, while I was still snoozing.

I have saved the best tulip to last, the Queen of the Night has just started to flower.

The ranunculus is just starting to get going too.

And these two? They love their early morning rambles in the wet grass, wrestling with each other and munching on fresh wallaby poop.

This weekend I need to get writing, I'm joining in with Sarah's Good Mail Club, so I need to decorate some envelopes and write a few notes. Also on the agenda is spring cleaning the shed and the pantry, both of which have gotten out of control over winter.
What do you have planned this weekend?

Monday's Menu

The curry from last week kept on giving this week. I think Rob would have eaten it one more time, but I'd had enough!

Monday: Beef curry with rice, steamed broccoli and yoghurt.
Tuesday: Beef curry with yet more silver beet and Naan bread.
Wednesday: Bacon, asparagus and pea risotto.
Thursday: Silver beet and parmesan omelette.
Friday: Porterhouse steak on the bbq with wilted silver beet.
Saturday: The first Lamb souvlaki mini Lebanese feast. We found some turkish bread from the newish Turkish cafe down the road, Rob slow cooked a lamb shoulder with rosemary and garlic, and we made hummus, cacik, sliced some tomatoes and lettuce. It was delicious.
Sunday: We ate leftover lamb at lunch and Pigeon Hole sourdough and cheese for dinner.

What's been on the menu at your house?



I don't want to but I think I'm going to have to turn on comment verification, I am getting totally spammed via the comment section, and whilst they don't show up on the blog it's getting really annoying. I hope blogger sort out the commenting thing soon, cause I admit that the fuzzy letter/number thing isn't the best option is it? Has anybody else been experiencing issues?

Snap it {breakfast}

Those of you who follow me via Instagram will know that Saturday and Sunday at the hut usually start with breakfast in bed for me.
I know I'm spoilt rotten. I do appreciate it. Rob will surprise me with a tray including orange juice or coffee, and depending on his mood/inclination:

• thick pancakes with fruit and yoghurt or maple syrup
• sourdough toast/home made bread/crumpets with honey or jam
• muffins (he I have to say makes the BEST muffins, Baklava, raspberry, jam doughnut, orange, the list could go on)
• home made granola with poached fruit and yoghurt
• a full cooked breakfast.

Whilst I love pancakes and muffins, I have to say I think if I had to make a choice for my last breakfast ever, it would be something savoury. My all time favourite breakfast? Is left over spaghetti and meatballs on toast. 

If anything this collage demonstrates just how much I love our red plates and red gingham doona cover (which is fading because we wash it so frequently!)


Playing along here.

Monday's Menu

Loving daylight savings, but I struggled this morning to wake up.

This weeks Monday's Menu collage looks a little bare.

Monday: Mushroom, asparagus and bacon risotto.
Tuesday: Broccoli and potato frittata (our own broccoli) with a side of wilted silver beet.
Wednesday: I ate so many left overs for lunch I just snacked on some nuts for dinner. Rob, having been to the gym tucked into a big plate of you guessed it, cooked greens from the garden.
Thursday: We had dinner at my parents, my mother had made lasagne.
Friday: Rib eye steak with baked potatoes and asparagus.
Saturday: Beef curry with chickpeas, lentils, silver beet and carrots, with pappadums.
Sunday: Curry take two, with added steamed pumpkin and little waxy potatoes.

The curry is a winner, and I'm pretty sure we'll have it for dinner tonight, if not tomorrow night. I may sound like I'm sick of silver beet, but we're not. Harvesting greens just prior to eating them has totally changed my appreciation of them. They taste so much better. I know everyone tells you that, but it's true. Try it.

What's been on the menu at your place?

Friday Flowers

Tasmanian spring weather - I don't know how we forget it from year to year. Yesterday was warm (well for Tasmania) but the wind picked up early. I found out via the ABC news website that power went out at the hut at about 10am. Luckily we'd already been invited to my parents for dinner- as a hut without power wasn't that appealing!
The wind hadn't died down much during the day, when we drove home at 8pm we came across the electric company work team dealing with a tree and power lines just down the road from us. The hut was in darkness. After Rob rescued the Weber bbq (it had travelled around the side of the shed on it's trolley!) and some seedlings growing in trays we lit some candles and headed to bed.
This morning we were able to survey the damage. One tray of seedlings (quite sadly some Tangerine fluff poppies I'd won from Phoebe) had flown off in the wind, a few of our eucalypts had been damaged on the fenceline, and most distressing was our big eucalypt we'd been growing near the dam for the last 5 years has lost a significant amount of the main leader trunk (it had already suffered in the terrible wind a few weeks ago, but it's height has been reduced by half now!) The broad beans and peas look a bit worse for wear too, but hopefully they perk back up.
Somehow my tulips survived. Which is something, as a few warm days had brought on the flowering. Thankfully Rob took these photos last week in some morning sunlight.

The vegetable garden is looking so promising, everything is so green.

With any luck the weekend will at least be less windy, and best of all daylight savings starts this weekend!

Monday's Menu with a side of our Spring garden and Cinnamon tea cake.

I like the ying and yang of this weeks Monday's Menu photo collage. Chocolate cherry cupcakes made with a jar of Bonne Maman cherry preserve right next to a very virtuous meal of steamed greens from the garden. The greens are starting to get going now, we ate three types of broccoli in our soup on Saturday, the ever present silver beet, as well as the tops of the Savoy cabbages.
I can not wait for the broad beans and peas to start. Yesterday we planted some more seedlings and seeds: lettuce, chives, sweetcorn, beetroot, rocket, radishes, and parsnips.

Anyway the menu:

Monday: Baked ziti with silver beet.
Tuesday: ahem, baked ziti with broccoli.
Wednesday: Steamed broccoli, silver beet and cabbage tops with soy sauce.
Thursday: Pork and fennel sausages on silver beet and fresh sourdough bread with home made tomato sauce.
Friday: Decided to live in the moment and headed down to Cygnet for dinner at the Red Velvet Lounge. Rob enjoyed a rump steak, with old-school chips and salad. I had the famous pork cotoletta. We shared a dessert of cherry ice cream and chocolate sauce, and we were back home by 8pm.
Saturday: The big grand final day with our annual consumption of footy food. We ate the footy franks in white squishy buns with mustard, tomato sauce and butter (that sentence confused a few of my international Instagram followers- they eventually worked out I was talking about a hot dog!) I'm afraid that they didn't make for a very photogenic food picture, but they were tasty. We used the remainder in a tomato and vegetable soup.
Sunday: Rob cooked us Patricia Well's Chicken breasts with sage and potatoes (parboiled, then sliced and cooked in butter).

My sister, her husband and my niece visited for afternoon tea yesterday, we had chocolate caramel and almond slice (similar to this recipe but with almonds), those cherry chocolate cupcakes and a simple cinnamon teacake. Which was probably the most popular! See the very simple recipe below.

Cinnamon Teacake {From Women's Weekly}

Ingredients:

60g butter, softened
2/3 cup castor sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup self-raising flour
1/3 cup milk
15g butter, extra
3 tablespoon castor sugar, extra
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Method
Preheat oven to 160deg C (fan-forced oven)
Grease and line a 20cm cake tin.
Beat butter, sugar, egg and vanilla until light and fluffy (about 5 mins).
Stir in sifted flour and milk with a wooden spoon, beat lightly until smooth.
Spread mixture into the tin, bake for approx. 30 minutes.
Turn onto wire rack, pour over extra melted butter, sprinkle with combined extra sugar and cinnamon. Serve warm with butter.

Finally Rob headed out when it wasn't blowing a gale or pouring with rain (not many opportunities over the weekend!) and took some photos of the flower and vegetable gardens with a real camera. I'll share them on Friday, but in the mean time I'll leave you with a photo of the dogs in the flower garden. Everything is starting to look very green and lush.