Monday, 31 January 2011

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.

Sunday, 30 January 2011

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.


Friday, 28 January 2011

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.

Thursday, 13 January 2011

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.

Wednesday, 12 January 2011

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

Tuesday, 11 January 2011

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.

Saturday, 8 January 2011

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.

Thursday, 6 January 2011

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.