Easy Pleased!

I bought a Chef's Pan!


OMG, *squeal* .. this simple kitchen utensil has been something i've wanted for ages. 





So the story is .. every time i've wanted to buy one, i've also technically needed other pots,
so i've walked in, price checked, wavered, worried, nail-nibbled, and ended up buying one
of those bulk home-starter packs with a few pots, a steamer, roaster, frypan etc. 

For the same price.  ish.

Those sets never, ever come with a Chef's pan. 


If you're friends with me on facebook, you'll know the Drama of the Gift Cards ..
basically a little stockpile of cards we'd been saving for housey stuff, that I lost, then
presumed threw in the bin (  I actually dumped the contents of our outside recycling bin
on the grass in our backyard and fossicked through it ), and felt sick and stupid for a
few months. 

Then I found them wedged between some CD's as I was packing up the flat to move back
a few months later.. 


Plastic money.  Yay!



I waited for the David Jones Half-Yearly Clearance and whacko.
Chef's Pan.  Mine.


I've cooked with it most nights this week - we've had Spanish Paella, and Spag Bog,
and an asian-style chicken & veges.  I love it! 

None of my pans are as deep or solid or come with a lid.  I know it sounds weird,
but this one pan RRP's at $250.  That's a lot for one saucepan.





I'm pretty basic in the kitchen .. I like things like .. pots .. and .. pans .. knives.. spoons..


I don't own a breadmaker or a  Kitchenaid or a food processor or an icecream maker or juicer
or any of those other things a Thermomix replaces.  Ergo: I do not own a Thermomix. 
Do not get that particular brand of hype.  I also don't like Tupperware. 
But I like home demo parties for some reason.  At other people's places, not mine. 


Probably because of the wine. 




So what have I been doing?

Moving house, and cleaning the flat etc, and then sorting through boxes etc .. SOLO,
because my husband like, left town, conveniently, and I was starting to feel like one of
those peasants from Horrible Histories, spotted with dung and the pox.

Then it was green bin night and I started on 6months of weeds and raked all the autumn
leaves until that bin groaned.  I've been making trips to the Salvos, filling the new fridge
and pantry, and sleeping with the lights on as I revisit old Stephen King novels. 
I've been washing clothes only to donate them to charity ( honestly, I still have skirts
I wore to a desk job a DECADE ago that don't even fit anymore? ), and trying to sort
the crap in the garage.


And i'm pretty well tired :)
But happy, very very very very very very happy  ( and tired )

So How's that Mini-Fridge Situation Treating You?

Me?

Oh hai, well, i'm glad you asked.

It's .. been ... a bit annoying frankly .. but not so much for me to whine .. i've been using it as a ..
character building excercise.

And of course, i've offset the UGH! by shopping for a new fridge for the new house with
all the bells and whistles, which has been fun and involved a salesman writing up a docket,
which was later cancelled, then making my mind up FOR SURE and telling my cabinetmaker
the dimensions .. and then buying a completely different fridge.

In fact, a fridge I refused to even look at or entertain the notion of originally. French Door?
What a load of saleswallop. Add some ooh-la-la, it's Frunch, darhlinks and the punters will come.

Well, I sneered. Then later had to eat my sneer.
Sneerlicious.


What I wanted:

 A side-by-side with water & icemaking facilities in the door.
 My family crunches ice like frozen crack.

When we go to the 7-11 in Summer for supersized slushies ( $3 a pop ),
the youngest selects instead a bag of PartyIce for the same price.
It's weird, but his stash lasts longer than ours.

Oh, and please don''t tell me you shouldn't eat ice out of the esky.
I'm sure it's made with carcinogens and stuff, but hell, it's hot, and I don't like arguing
with 4yr olds in the heat.


What I don't like:

Freezers on the bottom. I just don't.
I don't think they're smart with young children, and I just don't like them.

Deep ugly baskets remind me of fishing in the deep freeze for the last Bubble-O-Bill 
in your ill-stocked and probably ill-kept corner store.   All crusty and use-by-date of 1976.

No.


BUT .. what happened is this:  i'd picked my side-by-side .. the widest in the land.
Oh I was chuffed with myself. I was simply in at the Good Guys  to battle out the price.
I'd done my research and our budget was tight. I was going to make back the money
I had thrown in the recycling by being a bitch in the sales arena.

But I arrived at lunchtime, obvs.

Other times i've had to kick away salesdudes, but today, there was just one..
helping another couple looking for pretty much the same things as I.
I kind of hovered and looked over their shoulders and was introduced to fridges
i'd refused to look at.

 Then I felt a bit creepy and backed off.

And that's how I ended up in the Frunch Door area.






My friend Kelly, who isn't really a friend because i'm scared of her,  teased me once
about Les Mis  and I sniffed I wouldn't go see it with her because I felt Les Mis 
was something to be watched on SBS, in French, with subtitles.
Of course, she mocked me mercilessly about oh it's not in FRUNCH, and I laughed,
and now I think of her when looking at whitegoods that are actually silver.

Hi Kelly.

And I kinda liked them. And the 'down below' freezers are much better now,
with magic slidey-outtie shelving and lots of ooh-la-la.





And the fridge part isn't compromised in width. So all those imaginary parties
I fantasised about catering will be just fine. Turkey platters, sushi platters,
my famous Croquembouche....

Yeah, kidding, I only do savoury, and I order in my sushi platters.
I do bake a nice ham at Christmas though...


So yeah, bought a Frunch Fridge. Made in Korea. It's quite spesh.

My side-by-side I originally was going to purchase was Made in Australia.
When I looked at the Frunch-Door equivalent in store,
the handle fell off and it seemed quite .. clunky.

I feel both bad and good for my choices, don't sue me, ok? ok?



YES, BUT HOW IS IT GOING WITH THE BAR FRIDGE, LEANNE?


Yeah, ok, not good, not bad, you know?

It's been SWELTERING here in Melbs, and we're here in a top story flat with no A/C.
We should be totes skinny just from the sauna effect. However, people still need to be fed,
and even if you're doing a simple salad, there's still a component to be boiled/fried/cooked,
or maybe just for a change of pace/texture .. which left me hot & sweaty & resentful.

I googled fridgeless households which led me on a merry journey of discovery ..
but most of the fridgeless blogs/sites I found belonged to self-sufficient/off the grid type people ..
milking their goats and creating their own sub-floor cooling chambers etc etc ...
The only trick I learned for apartment living was to invert my lettuces in a glass of water
to keep fresher longer. Which is cool.. but .. not enough..

So the tiny fridge is hard work.
For one, it freezes nothing, which means I have to shop daily
really, and in miniscule quantities .. which isn't great.
Too much food and I can't store leftovers, too little and everyone is hungry.

It's a fine line.





^
Unrefrigerated carrots develop black mold spots in only a couple of days.

It's hard.  A's kinder has a kid that is allergic to his own shadow, which means most foods are out
and carrot sticks are a healthy lunchbox staple I can guarantee being eaten.
Anything that can last 1000 days in a pantry, or the apocolypse, is not to be packed.
NOT COMPLAINING .. geeze, poor kid, poor parents .. my setback is but an annoying interlude
in an allergy-free life.

Not complaining.


Over the weekend, my everlovin' husband offered to do a shop. 
That would be lovely, I said, but remember we can't store anything fresh,
You can really only buy food for ONE dinner! 
Be careful on the PERISHABLES!

Well, he found some ready-made meals, for $6 a pop discounted,
and By God they were yummy.


Small, but good.
I love it when my husband shops because I do not entertain ready meals.
I cook from scratch mostly, using fresh ingredients. A set list of things to get,
and I do not deviate into dangerous territory ( the lolly aisle, the frozen food aisle )..
but it is such a relief he shops guileless, wandering about.

Thus we ate from Emily's kitchen this week. It's a Woolworths thing.   
An abundance of packaging isnt cool .. but .. oh my .. two nights this week,
we all ate different meals and tasted from each other's plates and not one was a dud ..
they were small .. but .. pretty much like my own cooking .. but without the PITA!

We tried:

Chicken Korma with Indian Style Pilau Rice
Angus Steak in Ale
Chicken Tikka Masala with Rice
Spanish Chicken & Chorizo with Rice
Chicken Moroccan Tagine & CousCous

and they were all YUM!

Please keep in mind however, I cook every night, so for me, this was like going to a restaurant -
ha ha! It also made eating in front of the tele ( Masterchef Professionals ) not such a sad experience
( I don't know about you, but looking at edible art on the tele while eating something less impressive
always makes me left wanting :)

I also enjoy eating on planes, and in hospitals.
Yes I do.

Again, someone else cooked for me.
And that's like a holiday unto itself.

Xx

A Glimpse of my Future...

Where do mothers of teen boys shop at ?

Because I just made a catering-size batch of meatballs, and Daddy's not home yet, and my boys are wolfing them down
( with some help from me ( yum ).



One of said boys only has 2 teeth.

Jaysus.

The Mentalist

Or: I don't bake much.

Soooo, after buying a yuge bag of overripe bananas, the boy and I set out to making a banana loaf. I googled something with the words "moist" and "easy" in the title ( I should have just asked Summer Pickles for her delicious recipe ( with dates, yum ! ) which I was lucky enough to sample recently - yummo )

Anyway, as I was pouring it in the pan, 1 step away from the oven, my mind was ticking slowly - 'this looks weird' .. tick.. tick .. tick .. OMG - no flour ! ( duh ).

I wonder what happens when you bake bananas, sugar, eggs and butter for an hour ? Hmm ?
Lucky I won't have to find out.




( oh, and in case you missed it in the comments - that last post wasn't supposed to be a 'quick snap' brag .... it didn't look like that straight from the camera ... there's a fair bit of post-processing magic going ohn there... )

And the Winner is...

mealopedia


Thanks Mary, 'friend of sister K'

( I didn't even know you read the blog ! ;)

This site is awesome, and ticked all those many boxes I asked for.
For those of you that suggested the excellent taste.com.au, yes, I use that a lot also, and have never had a dodgy result ... but the mealopedia tells me what to cook for a week, and prints me out a list to take shopping.

I.don't.have.to.THINK .. which is just bliss considering how crammed my head is at the moment.

You can modify it to your preferences ( lacto-ovo vegetarian ? allergy to nuts ? ), or simply keep the omnivore default .. but if it suggests salmon, and it doesn't appeal, you click the little 'refresh' button for that day, and voila .. whole new meal, shopping list modified - it's THAT EASY.

It will also suggest a meal to go with whatever you have in your pantry or fridge .. there's beverage tips, wine notes, storage ideas .. forums if you're so inclined ... just brilliant.

It juz might make a Goddess out of me yet !

Dreams

I've always had pretty wacky dreams that stick with me.
I used to mull over them on the drive to work, then relay them for the interest ( ? ) of other workers in my area.

Well, it was probably better than some of the phonecalls we got.

Anyhoo, i've been offline battling being in a bad mood due to not getting much sleep, and conjunctivitis in the bigger boy, and perhaps a little in the smaller boy, and being stuck indoors because of it, and cleaning out my junk room to make way for the NEW BATHROOM ( yes, it's booked in ! ), and the onset of Spring always makes me antsy about how weedy the garden is, and how the pantry needs a scrub, and the linen press, and how i'd love to organise the garage, but we're financing the bathroom - so no.

So yesterday, I had a serious chat with the older boy about how.mummy.needs.some.sleep - and he let me sleep in until 9am this morning. So.needed.it.

And i've started ( and abandoned ) a few blogs - about the boy's first ever football (AFL) game as spectators, and then coming back from Geelong to have a quick warm shower and head off to a blog-meet in Richmond ( apol's if I seemed a bit out-of-it ) with Stomps, Fairlie, M from Sydney, Suse, and Frogdancer. Frogdancer actually works at the High School my boys might be attending one day and knows half the people in my street as she used to live across the road. Bizarre.

Other things: well, with the eye-goo level of contagiousness, and the cold weather, and me with a serious case of the BLAHS, the house soon depleted of food as I couldn't be arsed going to the shops. So I ended up getting a Coles Online delivery, and instead of ordering 4 apples for the fruitbowl, I ordered 4x 1.5kg BAGS of apples.

I wondered where that $$ discrepancy was. Oops.

So, being the half-arsed kind of person I am, I started googling for recipes where I didn't have to peel, slice, dice, puree, stew, or basically stuff around with. I found this:

Grandma's Apple Cake

All my apples were Pink Ladys .. which technically aren't cooking apples. Being lazy, i didn't even peel them, and the blush red looked fabulous in the end result. Tasted fabulous too - we had it hot with cream and icecream on the first night, and it was equally as divine cold for breakfast the next day ( *ahem* )

Added bonus: there is a lot of hands-on satisfaction if you have a child like me that lives to cook. He calls me "Chef" in the kitchen, as in "what's next, Chef ?", and "Yes Chef!". He wears his little Chef uniform at all times, and I have to also call him Chef. If I say his name, I get "I not MC, I Chef !". Yes, Sparticus.



It makes cooking a bit of a pain, so I am always trying to think of recipes that involve him as much as possible.

Speaking of recipes, thanks for all the links - I am yet to click on them all, but will let you know how I go and what works best for me, as it seems there's a lot of other people wanting the same thing. It's the Spring thing again I think - time to reinvent, to rejuvinate


What else ?

ah - my dream. The one involving a Willy-Wonka -like ride with The Who and Ringo Starr ( I don't even know what the Who look like ?!?? ), in order to see Macca-Pacca in real life. At one stage, the ride stopped ( no, we weren't on the Ninky-Nonk ), and we excitedly watched a car pull in with a trailer, with an obviously Macca-Pacca shaped form squirming under a drop canvas.
It ended up being some fat guy dressed for a Mardi-Gras ( he looked a bit like David from Little Britain ), and I recall his jubblies being a little too jubblie ( hello, it's a dream, and i'm looking at the crotch of a fat guy wearing leathers .. freaking unreal )



In fact, i'll just stop here to embarrass a real life friend whose workplace doesn't allow her to comment:
I still remember your Gareth Sandwich.
That is all.

And it's ok for me to say that, as no-one else knows the story, the reader, or the guy in the sandwich.
Man, that was a top dream - he was so the last guy you'd want in your sandwich.

That is all.

Not Quite the Brady Bunch

or: fun with a 6-pk of funny teeth from the local $2Shop

what a hoot.

Stacey came over later ( to see my screwdriver-operated toilet! ) and MC offered her a goo'ed-up pre-saliva'd set. She declined the invitation.
No idea why.

Actually, she was just dropping off these:

Purdy.
( and yes, that's my hair, and no, it's not grey, I just wanted to show off the vibrant deliciousness of these hair clips. )

Later on, we had chicken & bean enchiladas for dinner. MC complained of a sore tummy ( probably from eating 12 cupcakes earlier ), but seemed fine.

Today I am washing a doona, and 2sets of bedlinen, some pyjamas, and assorted other vomited-on items. GAK! And it's lightly raining outside, so there's laundry everywhere inside.

And I tell you what: I was *not* impressed after all this malarky ( although AB did all the spew-scraping ) to come into my bedroom and find myself UNABLE TO BREATHE due to noxious bean fumes. And a muffled, laughing apology from under the doona.

I mean, I had to put the young one into that bed, and there's only 8kgs of him.

He could have died from the lack of oxygen.

Disgusting.

Auction Day !

Here at last ;)
Would have started 30mins ago .. so I guess we'd be all done & sold by now ?

I am making lasagne for the first time ever tonight, can you believe ?
I'm not really a fan, to tell you the truth - it's usually too rich for my taste, but i'm adding in a layer of veges to 'tone it down a bit'. Should be yummi, hopefully.