About Me

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Im 30 yrs old very happy married to a wonderful man (Nathan) i have a 7yr old son (Lochlan) and one on the way! We live in a town called Davistown. Im an aussie that use to live in the states! But have recently returned back to Australia! And im VERY passionate about cooking and my family!

Blog Archive

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Honey Soy Roasted Carrots, A1 Teriyaki A1 Garlic Marinated Beef Tips with Sesame seeds, Honey Soy Oven Roasted Asparagus and........

So here it is the recipes for the following:

~Honey Soy Roasted Carrots~

(i dont do measurements remember!)

~What you'll need!~

Large sweet whole carrots

Honey

Soy Sauce

Garlic powder

Fresh ground black pepper

Olive oil

~How to throw it together~

Wash and scrape your carrots, top and bottom them :) and cut em up like your making carrot sticks! Put enough oil in your cassarole dish to coat your carrot sticks. Drizzle honey to taste over the carrots and then your soy as well, toss them around in the sticky mixture :) then sprinkle your garlic powder over the top to taste as well as your pepper. Place in your oven i usually have mine in at around 390ish every now and then im using tongs and tossin them about to keep em coated cuz you want them to get a lil crunchy as well! If you find you have to much liquid please spoon it out other wise you will end up with soggy carrots! Its up to you how long you cook them :) my boys like them cooked till they are almost crispy! Take alook at the pics as our reference if you like!


~Honey Soy Asparagus~

(i dont do measurements remember!)

~What you'll need!~

Asparagus

Honey

Soy Sauce

Olive Oil

Sea Salt and Fresh ground black pepper to taste

~How to throw it together~

Snap the ends off your asparagus and rinse them, place them in he dish and drizzle with olive oil you can toss them in the oil if you like :) then drizzle you honey and soy over the top of em and add your salt and pepper to taste. I like to add them to my already hot oven about 10 mins before im about to serve dinner up! Everyones different when it comes their veggies :)

The BEST dang Mashed Potato's You've EVER had!

(i dont do measurements remember!)


~What you'll need!~

Red Skin Potato's

Cloves of Fresh Garlic

Low Sodium Chicken Broth

Fat Free Cream Cheese

Low Cal Heavy Whipping Cream

Sea Salt and Fresh Ground Black Pepper

~How to throw it together~

Leave the skin on your potatos wash em up good and then cut them into about 1/2 inch chunks throw them into a nice size pot (depending on how many your going to be making i guess!) Add your chunks of garlic cloves to the pot as well. Take our low sodium chicken broth and add it to the pot add enough till the broth JUST covers your chunks! Bring your pot to boiling point, keep them boiling for about 10-15mins, stir your taters and garlic (the smell that comes from this is amazing!) Then turn your heat down to medium, you want the broth to cook down some other wise you will have RUNNY mashed potatos! Stir your occassionally cook for another 10 mins. Turn your heat down to simmer and let it sit there for a few mins simmering you want almost all of the broth to be absorbed but not all of it. When the potatos are tender add your cream cheese not to much though you dont want it to over power the other flavours! Begin mashing your potatos and cream cheese add a lil of the whippin cream just enough to help combine everything! Add your salt and pepper in between mashing!

Your family will LOVE these potatos!!

A1 Teriyaki A1 Supreme Garlic and Sesame Beef Tips

(i dont do measurements remember!)

~What you'll need!~

Beef Tips or Stew Beef

Sesame seeds

A1 Teriyaki steak sauce

A1 Supreme Garlic steak sauce

~How to throw it together~

Take our meat throw it in a ziplocl baggie, get a hand towel throw it on th counter fold your hand towel over the meat so ou have some kind of padding! Being bashing/tenderising the meat! You want the meat almost flat specially if your using stew beef! Open the bag and add a couple of tablespoons of each A1 sauce, zip the bag back up and mix the meat with the sauce open and add some sesame seeds as much or as little as you desire! Toss the mixture into the fridge and marinate for however long you like! Add the marinaded meat to a dish and throw in the oven and cook till meat is tender!


Monday, March 30, 2009

Why is the oven still preheating after an hour and a hlf?!?!?!?!?!?!

Yep..an hour and a hlf dinner was in the oven....before i realised...that my oven was still "pre" heating....thank goodness it was just carrots that had been sitting in there!?! I opened the door and it was stone COLD! After much screaming and yelling and a phone call to the boys......i realised OH crap! What am i gunna do without an oven?!?! Yea yea i know "use those nice pots and pans you got the other day girl!!!" BUT that would mean more dishes for me to deal with...i know i was being lazy! But i had been sick the last couple of days with that nasty puking bug that was goin around and i just didnt wanna deal with dishes! I know im lazy :P Anyway being that i wasnt feeling the greatest i decided hmm ok lets check and make sure the whole entire stove isnt dead... not the case the stove top burners all worked fine....then i wondered hmm wonder if the broiler works??? Turned it on low and what did i do??? Yep i put my hand on it to see if it got hot.......i so had a blonde moment!?! (sorry for the blondes who follow/read this!) yup i burnt my hand...so while i was jumpin around from the burn and cussing myself out i thought well shoot im gunna go ahead n cook in the oven but with the broiler! Mumma came threw! Dinner cooked just fine and tasted delish! Heres the end results and the recipes will follow in the next blog!

Oh My Chives!



Nothing to exciting :) just look at how big the Chives and BokChoy are getting in my garden!

Friday, March 27, 2009

Hmmm Savers?

So thursday i ventured to a store called SAVERS its like good will i guess? It was my first visit and i wanna say it was a great experience? But it wasnt that great BUT i did get some good bargins! So as you all know we got a new table its marble... I know more work for myself BUT its so PRETTY! :) Ive decided we need place mats and coasters so i thought id have a look and see what i could find right? Whether or not it was a real place mat or not i figured if i found a nice curtain or a nice table cloth i could cut it up and make me some unique placemats! But the curtains they had were awful and the table cloths were COVERED in stains..and i had no plans in dyin the material and then cuttin them up! So i moved on and found me a good deal on green apple coloured cloth napkins! Ive been wanting to switch to cloth but just have been to lazy... but they had 9 of these nice napkins and i couldnt pass them up! Not at 60 cents a piece! And then i found a nice well i guess it was a place mat of some sorts but there was only one of then and i was looking for something to place in the middle of the table to place the bread, salt n pepper and what not in the centre of the table with out scratchin up the marble! It was only 90 cents!


So while i was out today i popped into walmart to see what was in their clearance section and i came across this really cute baseket! It was on clearance because one small piece on the bottom was snapped a lil and heck ive been looking for a bread basket! And this would do a perfect job of that! Its the same colour as our chairs and the green napkins look great with the basket!



So i hope uve all had a great wk :) And sorry i havent blogged every single day :) I hate not having my camera! Anyway im sitting here waiting for a loaf of bread to bake and all the boys are off up stairs im down stairs listening to music and enjoying a cup of peppermint tea MMM I hope everyone has a good wkend!

My evening!

So like mentioned before we were over at Joe and Ang's! She grilled tonight which was pretty good (even if the chicken was a lil black *GRIN* i think we all enjoyed it!) But our local icecream place called "HoneyBear" opened up this wk and we can NOT be happier! As you will see from the pics Angie snapped earlier this evening! But a great night was had by all we may have not have played games this wk but the boys watched movies and us gals caught up on girl chat! Which we both need sometimes :)

Spring has Sprung!

:) So we were over at Angie and Joe's for our ritual dinner and games this evening and seeing ive been with out a camera these last few days..... I have MUMMY brains! Ive been loosing things lately! My mum says its what happens when you have kids! (ITS SO TRUE! that and 2 grown men to look after a dog 3 cats a guinea pig and a 5 yr old!) So anyway she took some pics of the newly sprung seedlings that are growing in her basement!


Here i have BokChoy, PakChoy, Leeks, Lettuce of all sorts!, And Lime Basil and Parsely! Woohoo im so excited! Any body else doing a veggie garden this yr?


Wednesday, March 25, 2009

MeatLoaf Maddness!

So last sunday we had Joey and Angie over for dinner seeing we resheduled our ritual friday dinner and games night :) And i decided to make meatlloaf potato bake asparagas and fresh baked bread! My meatloaf turned out to be a MOUNTAIN! :) But i was feeding 3 grown men who love their meat so i wanted to make sure i had enough meatloaf to fill them up and have left overs for lunches! Heres what it looked like!

MeatLoaf Maddnesssss!
(i dont do measurements remember!)
(Your meatloaf will be made up of 80% turkey 20%beef)
Turkey Mince
Lean Beef Mince
1 Large Onion
6 Cloves of garlic
Fresh Ground Sea Salt(to taste)
Fresh Ground Black Pepper(to taste)
A1 Cracked Peppercorn Suace
Rosemary(to taste)
Panko Bread Crumbs
Ketchup
Unsalted Butter
Olive Oil
Eggs


Where to start?!
Take your mince toss it into a LARGE bowl for mixing!
Get your chopping board out and and diced our onion up,
Crush and peel the garlic then mince it up!
Heat your pan up with the oil and butter, when the butter has melted and gotten happy with the oil!
Toss your onions and garlic in! MMM
Now turn the heat down to meduim you dont want the onions to burn!
Sautee the onions n garlic till well cooked n mushie! Halfway to that point sprinkle the rosemary in!
(the mixture smells devine!)
Set aside when all cooked up and let cook you will be adding this mixture to the meat AND you want it to be cool enough that when your mixing your mince it dont burn u!

This is what it will look like when the mixture is cool enough to mix in with the meat! Once this mixture is mixed in added your eggs (depending on how much mince u used depends on how many eggs ull need in all my meatloaf had about 6-7pounds of mince all up so i added 2 eggs!) Mush your egs threw nicely add your bread crumbs mix threw well add your ketchup mix mix :) your goin to add the pepper and salt to the rw meat as well n mix throughly. Toss your mound of meat into a cassarole dish that is big enough to hold your meatloaf! Shape it then take your A1 sauce and spread over the meatloaf. Preheat your oven to 350'F and bake this baby for about 1-2 hours!


~Asparagas Done Easy~

Cuts the ends off your asparagus wash em u know how to pre em right? :)

Get a glass dish out drizzle it with olive oil

Toss your asparagus in and coat with the oil in the dish :)

Sprinkle some garlic powder over them and some onion powder

Crack some sea salt on em and some fresh cracked black pepper

Toss em about and throw in the oven cook until bright green and tender!

You can get the recipe for this Potato Bake in a past Blog Post!


MMM Another version of my Chewy Tasty Yummy (this time pretty dang healthy!) Oatmeal ChocChip Cookies!

So this wk i decided to make the boys cookies even healthier! Ive cut the sugars almost completely out! And i used some honey for a different taste of sweet! As for the choc chips i only added one cup of choc chips as well as 1 cup of cut up dried berries i used blue berries, cranberries strawberries and raspberries! They turned out very nicely and the boys have been enjoying them! Heres some pics of the revamped cookies! (and yes i still added the flaxseed meal to the cookies!)



Check out my older blog posts for this recipe!