Monday Menu 31 January

It is monday again and I am back with my menu

Monday  Steak and Kidney pie, new potatoes with peas.

Tuesday  Homemade hamburger

Wednesday  steak and kidney crockpot with rice

Thursday  quiche and salad (I will come back and post this recipe with a photo)

Friday  roast vege fritata with salad

Saturday  whole chicken roasted in a bag with potato and salad.  

Sunday  Ratatouille with grilled chicken

So you can see that I have plenty of freshly dug new potatoes to eat in my house.  If anyone has any great ideas on what to do with them then please let me know.

Fit and Healthy

Being a fit and healthy weight is really important for me.  It shows me I value myself...my mind, my body and my soul (well I hope that is helped too).  Without these things then the rest of my life struggles.

This year I managed to start the year at an idea weight for me.  I was working really hard on my fitness through the couch to 5 km programme and even managed 3 christmas days, yes I know 2 too many, and 12 days camping to this day working on a maintenance plan.

I hope that I am setting a great example for my children about eating well not binging or the other extreme of not eating.  Eating a balance of food including treats ocassionally.  Showing my children that exercise is important.  It makes me happier, it makes me more positive about life and ...oh....yes I feel less stressed.

So fingers crossed for the year that I can maintain where I am at.  I can climb back up if I fall off the path I am on.  That I acquire no injuries to prevent me exercising and I continue to love everything I have achieved.

New 52 Weeks 2, 3 and 4

I have been on holiday and so am playing a little catch up with this challenge. 

Week 2

This I did just before we went camping.  Here I am for the first time in my life finishing a 1000 piece jig saw puzzle.  It is not something I had ever planned to do but well I got inspired and it too me way too much time over 3 days.



Week 3

This too was a surprise.  This year I have really taken on the challenge to show my children that it is not  only my Husband who does a whole range of things but I cant do them too.  So here I am just jumping as I swing off a Pohutukawa tree over hanging the beach.  I guess the rope was hanging about 20 m from the sand.  Sun a fun thing to do.  (Not a great photo though)

Just goes to show I can do these things too.

Week 4

Finally just before we came home I paddled a sea kayak about 200 m across an estuary to take this really bad photo of my daughter jumping into the water from a high branch in that tree. Now there is a photo of me paddling but I need to get it off my friends camera so I guess that photo will just have to be for another time.

Enough of the adventure stuff and now onto life back home.

Camping menu

As promised here I am posting my proposed menu for camping.  The only cooking facilities I have are my bbq and gas cooker which are rustic but great to use.  Oh yes lets not forget the chilly bin with ice to keep things cold.

I am trying to use caned food because we have limited access to veges after my fresh supply runs out.

So here we go.

Nachos

fahija with whatever I have handy

Stirfry

pizza along the lines of  this

a noodle dinner that I can whip together with tinned tomatoes and a bit of this and that

sausages and salad.

Thats it and then we will have to see what we have left over.

Wordless Wednesday 12 January

A candid moment in our backyard.  Mckenzie and Andre preparing to camp for the night. 

I am linking to My Little Dummer Boys

Monday Menu10 January

This is a funny week for me to put up a menu.  We are about to go on holiday and I am trying to use up all the vege that I have in the fridge so my apologies because I have no links this week.  Later this week though I will be listing and linking where possible the menu I am thinking of when we go camping.  We wont have electricity just a gas bbq.  Still working on the finer detail for this though

Monday  Lamb steak (hmmmm) baked potato and green salad

Tuesday  Lamb steak with baked potato with frozen vege ( I know we have heaps of aging pototoes so I am working through them.

Wednesday  Wraps with pepers, zucchini and beans in it cooked in a bbq sauce with chilli and cummin.

Thursday  Fritatta

Thats it for this week.  We are off on holiday friday and that requires a whole new approach to meal time.

New 52 Week 1

New to me this week was the fact that I happily posed with my children for a photo.  This is a first from what I can remember and even as I look back through the archives I dont see any like this at all.  Not only that this was a first for something else.  I actually decided to run, as much as possible, some of my hiking trail.  I just don't know what has got into me.

So here is the new me in front of the camera at the start of our hike, just an hour long around the Hunia Ranges.

If you want to read more about this then pop over to Fabulous Adventures of ListGirl



P365 December

So the final month of 2010 project is done here are my final pages

All these pages were all made using SS12 kit from Weeds and Wildflowers.  They were based on a template from the same shop.

Now to go back and check everything and make a front and back cover.  I will be back when it is all done.

Freezer Jam

With strawberries at there cheapest here in New Zealand and I have some time due to holidays I thought that I would would have a go a making some freezer jam.  Now I am new to jam making but bravely set to work.  The strawberries were very cheap, just $5.00 for what I needed.  I used this recipe from Simple Organic.  I could not find any sugar free pectin but went ahead anyway with what I could find. 

So here are my six little jars just cooling on the bench. 

The ingredients I used were

• fresh strawberries  -  six small punnets made the 4 crushed cups I needed bought from the man sitting on the side of the road selling them.
• I packet of jam making pectin
• white grape juice.  I could only find the Grapetiser Sparkling White Grape Juice.
• honey - the runny variety.

I hope it tastes fine when the family comes to give it the taste test.



Wordless Wednesday 5 January

Relaxing....no more to be said

Monday Menu 3 January

Welcome to the New Year.

Monday  Hamburger and salad  ( meat patties homemade)

Tuesday  chicken skewers and couscous salad

Wednesday  Roasted vegetable quiche with salad

Thursday  Spanakopita

Friday  Fajitas

Saturday  chicken roasted, potato and salad

Sunday  left overs

I will try and find some more links for these

Have a great week

Essence - My word for 2011

This year I thought that I would start off with this topic with a group of definition to help me focus on why I have chosen this word...Essence.

• the basic, ral and invaiable nature of a thing or its significant individual feature or features
• the most significant element, quality or aspect of a thing or person
• the curcial element
• the inward nature, true substance or constituatin of anthing as opposed to what is accidental, phenomenal, illusory
• something that exists especially a spiritual or immaterial entity

Sumonyms for essence....substance, spirity, lifeblood, heart, principle, soul, core.

I bought this little book Essence.  Inspiration for a life of abundance and happiness.  Published by Affirmations Publishing House to help keep the focus.

For me I have chosen essence so I can define who I am more clearly.  I don't mean a wife, mother, daughter, etc I mean who I really am deep inside.

Now to reflect a little and get to it.

A New Year and a Fresh Start

So with the first day of the New Year almost over I am prompted to post my challenges I will participate in.  They hopefully will help me achieve my goals and help me stay focused.  So without any drum rolls here they are......

• challenge my self each week to do something new.  This is a life project.  Read more about it here
• as for reading more I thought that I would find an easy to achieve challenge to start with.  I am yet to find one but am happy to have someone recommend one to me
• to add to my Monday Menu planning I am going to regularly add a new recipe to my list comment on it and add to a post "My family loves this recipe'

I  think that is enough of a start and as today is the first of the month here I am picking up the first book I have read for 11 months.  I know nothing heavy but I love escapism in reading so here it is.