Upside down tomatoes..

feeds@yuku.com (A and CO) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 14:03:48 GMT

Are SO kewl!!
F and J learned how to do this recently - all you do is cut an "x" in the bottom of a hanging basket and plant your tomato seedling with the roots in the basket and the rest hanging upside down underneath it. Apparently it stops lots of bugs getting to them and they grow really well like this!
The kids have each made one and the novelty is still fresh enough that they water and sing to them every...

The veggie patch

feeds@yuku.com (Lin) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 11:15:50 GMT

... is a bit of a flop! Half of the seedlings got eaten by snails who seem to think the snail trap too good for them. That included our beans, carrots, pak choi, half of our snow peas and one of our basil plants.

Couch grass is rapidly taking over the patch too. It especially seemed to like the mulch I put on a couple of weeks ago. It taunts me every time I water it and there is nothing I can do about it. I regret not trying to kill it by pouring boiling water over it before I...

Grain free cheese crackers

feeds@yuku.com (Lin) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 13:52:23 GMT

As I'm still trying to do these starch-free diet, I made these a couple of times and they are really delicious. Also really easy, but they do take 1 hour in the oven in total. A couple of my friends managed to persuade them to let them taste one (I guard them with my life as it's the only savory snack I can eat!) and they loved them too.

Ingredients:

200g (2cups) almond flour
200g (2 cups) sharp cheddar
1 tsp baking soda
1tsp dried thyme
1/4 tsp...

Ministry of Food

feeds@yuku.com (Lin) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 11:42:54 GMT

Maybe this should've gone in News and Reviews...

I just bought Jamie Oliver's Ministry of Food cookbook from the book club at work. I've just looked at almost every recipe and I haven't felt this excited about a new cookbook for a long time. I have been cooking for 20 years and I do regard myself as a pretty decent cook. But I want to make most recipes in this book and I like the way the recipes are explained too.

It would also be an excellent book to give...

Maybe? Finally?

feeds@yuku.com (Lin) — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 17:50:49 GMT

I actually weeded the grass out of my veggie patch today! Some of it was knee high! It was bloddy hard, but gave me such a sense of achievement.

Now all that's left to do is try and get some of the couch grass roots out of the soil, though that will be a continuing battle but I'm hoping heavy mulching will prevent most of it to start growing back. I also have to try and fix the borders somehow (it's raised). I got some compost and manure today and will apply that in the...

Fan forced oven

feeds@yuku.com (A and CO) — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 14:50:55 GMT

I had a new one put in at the shack (for the lesbians, so they wouldn't keep using my kitchen!) and it won't cook anything! Actually, it does cook things, but very very very very sllloooowwwlllyyyyy......!
If you have it on the setting with the element on, the top burns but nothing else cooks. If you have it just on the fan, it takes FOREVER. The others are all somewhere in between.
Anyone know anything about them?

This is the knobby thing

Lemon, zucchini and chicken pasta

feeds@yuku.com (Lin) — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 12:31:00 GMT

This was just another recipe I got from the Taste website that I am quite enthusiastic about. Though Ella did not like this one at all - apparantly because she doesn't like zucchini. It is an easy dish to prepare and has a wonderful lightness to it. It would probably more of a typical summer dish, but I didn't mind having it on a cold day at all.

Asian glazed pork with orange and avocado salad

feeds@yuku.com (Lin) — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 12:22:25 GMT

This is a Delicious magazine recipe (I got it from taste.com.au) that I made last night. Ella helped me make it and I was quite pleased with it. It wasn't a combination that I normally would've thought of.

Ingredients (serves 4)

1/2 cup char siu sauce - I understood this to be Hoi Sin sauce, but it may be something...

Shopping

feeds@yuku.com (Lin) — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 13:56:51 GMT

Don't you love it when you go to the supermarket for a big shop and almost all (or ok, half maybe) of the stuff on your shopping list is on special? I never look through supermarket catalogues so it always comes at a huge suprise to me. And it's rare.

Today I was especially pleased about the Harris coffee beans being 2kg for $30 again, which means I have NEVER paid full price for them since I switched from ground coffee to beans about 6 months ago!

How to get vegetables into your child(ren)?

feeds@yuku.com (Lin) — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 15:16:03 GMT

Ella has gotten worse and worse when it comes to eating vegies. From liking pretty much all of them as a baby (except tomato) I am now scratching my head trying to find any she likes.

I can still give her cucumber and avocado - which she gets in her salad or wrap for lunch pretty much every weekday!
But the only cooked vegies she will still eat are:
cauliflower
broccoli (I am soooo over bloddy broccoli!)
corn on the cob (and only on the cob)

She did...

Don't know what's got into me

feeds@yuku.com (Lin) — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 14:33:08 GMT

I'm preparing for this art show do tomorrow. There's about a dozen people coming. Most I know quite well, there's a couple that I don't want to see my mess though.

But instead of doing the quick and dirty, I have in the past 2 weeks already:

re-arranged Ella's room
cleaned up my desk (which is in the loungeroom), including sorting and filing papers - hadn't done that for probably about 2 years
tidied up the loungeroom, which wasn't...

Wednesday night dinner

feeds@yuku.com (Lin) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:45:33 GMT

I suddenly decided to make home-made chips last night. And coincidently it was Wednesday night. The night that - all through my childhood - we used to eat home-made chips at home. (Up until my teens that is, when my mum started buying the freezer ones from the supermarket) I made a point of telling Ella this repeatedly, which made me feel like an old bore.

But what I was even more excited about was that I used the chips...

Question about fish

feeds@yuku.com (Lin) — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 18:05:52 GMT

I bought a whole snapper on Sunday (I'm typing this on Monday night) and completely forgot about it! It looked nice and fresh when I bought it in the store where it was kept on ice. I put it in the bottom of the fridge as soon as I got home. I now just put it in the freezer because it's too late to cook it for dinner. So it's been in the fridge about 30 hours since I bought it. Will it still be ok to eat???

Carrot and Zucchini Muffins - not as bad as they sound

feeds@yuku.com (moonchild) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 19:27:53 GMT

the link
http://www.freshforkids.com.au/recipes/pdf/FFKcarrotzuccmuffins.pdf

Just made these and they are pretty damn good!

My own version of Fly Lady

feeds@yuku.com (Lin) — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 11:46:17 GMT

I am really not domestically trained by any standard. So I've finally decided that it's time to make a serious effort to create good habits. And that I should not take too much on at once but start at the very basics. Forget about the loungeroom being spotless let alone the bedroom looking anywhere near acceptable. It's the kitchen where I have to make a start. I am so dysfunctional when it comes to housework, that I still have a bad habit at letting dirty dishes stack up. I...

Casserole

feeds@yuku.com (Lin) — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 10:41:29 GMT

I cooked my first casserole for the season yesterday. I looove cooking them. And it's one of those things I never use a recipe for. Just chuck things in a pot and put it in the oven for a couple of hours. Then I switch off the oven and let the pot sit in it while it cools down. Only, I have now got a cast iron casserole pot and it was still hot when I got it out of the cold oven. But the meat was so tender that it just melts in your mouth. And I just love the slow cooked carrot and...

Mini quiches

feeds@yuku.com (Lin) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 11:54:02 GMT

About once a month or so 4 people at work get the task of doing morning tea for the floor. So each person only has to do it once every few months. It had been about 2 years since I'd actually cooked something fresh for it. Normally I run out of time and get too stressed about it and just go buy crackers and cheese or similar.

But last night I made the effort to cook some mini quiches and I was so glad I did. They were so easy to do too, though it was the first time I made...

Mum's cooking

feeds@yuku.com (Lin) — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 12:55:26 GMT

I have suddenly developed a craving for my mum's homecooked food.

So last night we had sausages with steamed potatoes and cauliflower in white sauce (yum!). And today I suddenly remembered my mum's chicken ragout. Which I always chose for my birthday, with the chicken vegetable soup that produced the chicken meat for the ragout as entree. Real winter food with all that chicken stock. I'm definitely going to make it this week (not the soup or fresh stock: too much work)....

Ha Ra cleaning cloth

feeds@yuku.com (A and CO) — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 08:47:20 GMT

I bought one a few days ago. At almost $50 I was expecting pretty spectacular results - I gave it a go in the bathroom this morning and it now looks worse than when I started! Have just googled it and apparently you need a second, equally expensive piece of fluff to "remove the loosened dirt from the surface."
Does anyone else use them? Is it worth getting the second one?

Kitchen and Compost

Home made Ice Cream