Didn't he do well!

Last week, I started on some more de-cluttering of the house, first doing the storage room and then started on the kitchen/dining, clearing out the fridge, the pantry. On a couple of the days, Mike had come home and reminded me it was after 1pm and to stop and have some lunch. On Friday he went one step better, bringing lunch home with him, from my favourite sushi shop in Birkenhead. Yum! What amazed me even more, that was despite the fact he doesn't eat sushi, he managed to pick out all ones that I love and usually get for myself. Didn't he do well?

Something I couldn't post earlier!

A couple of weeks ago my sister Jo had an unfortunate car accident. She had been suffering from some really bad headaches/migraines for weeks on end and finally decided to go to the doctor to get it sorted out. Her doctor is down a driveway, where it evens out on 3 different levels, with rows of offices on each level. At the top, there is the Chemist. The doctor gave her a prescription and she left the doctor, drove back up the driveway to the chemist and started turning into the chemist car park but blacked out as she turned. She came to with the chemist staff rubbing her arm and trying to turn her engine off. She had driven straight through the chemist windows, leaving only her boot outside of the chemist. No-one was hurt thankfully and Jo herself was not injured in any way but was certainly in shock. The chemist called me and I raced there to meet the ambulance and Police that had arrived. Jo was taken to hospital and ended up staying in for 6 days, while they did a whole lot of test, including brain scans for any bleeds, tumours etc, but finally got the all clear and was released. Her doctor is now looking into treatment for the migraines.

I couldn't post it any earlier, as my parents were overseas and we were trying to avoid the news getting to them, as we knew they would probably have flown home, so we kept the whole incident quiet until they arrived back on Tuesday. Jo also didn't want it to hit facebook etc, so have kept it completely of there, and promised I would only put it on here in my personal blog.

Boy what a week that was!

Cuddles for the sick

Last Thursday I finally succommed to Taryn's sore throat/runny nose. She's had it for nearly 2 weeks, but it hasn't developed into anything else? I'd had it two days and developed a wee cough to go with it. By Saturday morning, I felt 'not too hot' and soon realised I also had the beginning of a sinus infection along with a bout of asthma (which I haven't had in nearly 2 years). Bugger. Straight onto antibiotics.

Around 2.30 Saturday, I was feeling pretty tired. Mike was out and Taryn was off doing her own thing. Jayden was watching TV. I lay down on the couch (a very strange thing for me to do) and asked if he could give me a wee cuddle (facing away from me for fear of spreading the germs...lol). He kindly obliged. I woke up 2 hours later when I heard Mike come in and Jayden was still there cuddled up to his sick mum. I haven't had cuddles like that for such a long time. 5 minutes is usually the max, my boy is usually just too darn fidgety for any longer. It was so nice - pity no-one got a picture of it, but I guess I'm the only one in the family who would think of taking the picture, but I was also the one asleep!

Feeling so sick doesn't seem half as bad when you get scrummy cuddles like that!

Hanging In There

This was the last tomato on this plant. The plant had basically long since started to dry out and the section where this small tomato was had become very shrivelled, with the branches all brown and dried out. When I first saw the last young green tomato, I was going to just get rid of the entire plant, but instead I thought I would just leave it and see how long it took till it went the same way as the branches.

Instead it surprised me and started to ripen. I couldn't believe it. It simply hung in there despite the state of the rest of the plant and drew strength from somewhere to keep growing and ripen. It made it all the sweater to eat this, the last tomato of the season.

Caramel & Pistachio Cake

On Wednesday when I started to feel a little unwell (new head cold), I had a quiet day at home watching TV. Very unusual thing for me to do, although I must say I had it on the Food Channel. During one of the shows (in between a few chores and few naps) I caught the end of recipe on a caramel and pistachio cake. The photo doesn't do it any justice, as it tastes way better than it looks.

Anyway, I didn't catch the actual recipe, but thought I'd give it a go based on what I saw. Mine is a simple vanilla butter cake, with a praline top (made with pistachio nuts), which you basically crush up and scatter over once you have poured a warm thick sticky caramel sauce over the hot cake. The result is a light fluffy cake with a crispy, crunchy topping. It was divine on the day, real crunchy but also good 2 days later (although the topping had crystallised a little), as the girls and I polished it off at last night's Friday night crop Yum!

Basically any cake can be used for this recipe, along with whatever type of nuts you prefer.

To make the praline - simply place 1/2 cup Castor sugar and 1/2 cup water in a thick bottomed saucepan over a medium heat and cook (without stirring) until it turns brown and starts to caramelise. Once the desired colour is reached, remove from heat, tip in the nuts, stir once quickly and tip out onto baking paper and allow to cool. Smash up when cold.

To make the caramel sauce, follow the above with 1/2 cup Castor sugar and 1 cup water and cook slowly till it thickens, then browns slightly, then pour over cake quickly and spread out, then sprinkle the smashed up praline over the top. It will all stick together and form a very crunchy topping. Enjoy!

Flowers in the House

I love fresh flowers in the house and for the past few years Mike has never failed to deliver on any special occasion (as well as the odd occasion of 'just because'). This Mother's Day he let the kids pick them out and they did an awesome job. I managed to fill 2 large vases and also a smaller one from trimmings, which I placed in Taryn's room.

It wasn't always this way. When Mike used to work at the cemetery, he would never bring flowers home for me, stating that I would probably question where they came from!!! He's certainly made up for it in the last few years though.

The kids also bought me the new CD from Train, which has 'Hey Soul Sister' on it. Good score. It's nice and up beat. Then Mike said I should go choose a music stand and a tuner for my Ukulele seeing as I am really getting into it. He didn't have to ask me twice. I went that day and bought them from the Rock Shop. So much easier with a music stand and being able to tune the Uke as I go instead of having to wait till someone else can do it for me. Totally spoilt!

When the universe plays ball

This afternoon I popped into the supermarket to pick up some milk and few other bits and pieces. I saw a loaf of garlic bread and picked it up thinking I might make some garlic bread to have with dinner. Then my mind trailed off to one of my family's favourite meals - Warm winter beef salad. Hmmmm yum I thought, but it is not a cheap meal to make, as it requires quite a few ingredients, including bacon, which I didn't have at home and wasn't planning on buying, so I passed up the thought and headed to the milk aisle.

Just as I got there, the Manager (who I used to go to school with - and dated her brother), asked me if I liked Bacon - yes I said, to which she replied "well I've just marked a few packets down from 6.99 to $2.80, as the best before date is only a week away"

So I went and got some and thought even if we don't have that dinner, this is too good a price to pass up and I can always make another meal with it. I decided to head back past the meat section on the way to the checkout and happened to find a small packet of beef schnitzel on special, then followed on to the vege area and found a bag of mesculan salad on special as well. We were obviously meant to have this dinner tonight. I love it when the universe plays ball!

It was good, real good and I think I might have it for camp dinner on the Friday night.

Warm Winter Beef Salad - 4 servings

1 red onion

3 pieces beef schnitzel

breadcrumbs

olive oil

butter

crushed garlic

1 tspn mixed herbs

3 rashes of bacon

1/2 French stick, or Vienna loaf

salad greens

tomatoes

capsicum

anything else you want for the salad part

salad dressing

Preheat oven to about 200

Cut bread into cubes (about 2-3cms), place is large bowl

In pan, heat 2 tblspns olive oil and then add about 50gms butter, stir till melted over low heat. Add garlic and herbs and cook until is just starts to brown. Quickly remove from heat, pour over bread cubes and then toss them quickly to coat all pieces. Place in the oven to cook and crisp up to garlic croutons. (keep an eye on them - once they start to brown, the keep browning quickly)

Meanwhile, cut beef into small bite sized pieces and toss into breadcrumbs (enough to just lightly coat them. Set aside.

In pan, heat a little olive oil and fry onions (thinly sliced) and bacon until the bacon is crisp. Remove and set aside. Add a little more oil to the pan and heat, then toss in the beef and stir fry until cooked. Add the onion and bacon back into this, turn the heat down and warm through.

Assemble salad greens etc on each plate, then a heap of the warm garlic croutons from the oven, then spoon over the beef, bacon & onion mix. Top with your favourite dressing (I use Italian with a dash of sweet chili added in for bite) and serve immediately. Yum!

Just 1 Photo!

My poor children hate it I'm sure when they see the camera coming, but I usually ask for 'Just 1 photo' and try to get it over and done with - occasionally though, my best intentions are thwarted by the fact that the kids giggle and perform for the photo, so I have to take more than 1 to get a good shot.

So, 4 photos later, I got a semi decent photo of Taryn and Sam as they headed off to the theatre to watch the musical 'Rent".

I did it!

A few years ago, I would never have dreamed about opening up a computer case and tinkering around on the inside, let alone totally replacing a motherboard on a computer, but that is exactly what I just did last week.

With the help of my wonderful brother Bri, (in Sydney) and the technology of skype, we went through all options and he found a 'brand new' motherboard that could fit my machine and all it's existing components, right here on TradeMe. So I jumped on line and managed to pick it up for $45! Yeah, what a bargain. So, we went through all the anti-static precautions when dealing with computer components and then following his instruction, I disconnected everything from the motherboard, realigned the standoffs to fit the new motherboard, inserted it and re-attached all the components.

Then there came a bit of fluffy around for 2 days, trying to install windows on an old drive first to try and recover my data, but as it turned out, I was in the end (after attaching it to another computer to see what was on there), able to just reconnect the 1st IDE drive and run windows. Then installed the new drivers for the new motherboard and I was away. I then connected the 2 SATA drives which had originally been set in a RAID configuration (ready to use a special software to read them) and wouldn't you know it - the drives were being read as a dynamic drive and presto, there was all of my data - I was so happy I cried! 5 years of photos that I thought I had lost, fully recovered - 10 years of financial data, all recovered, along with various other files that were way less important.

I don't wish to do it again any time soon, but at least I am way more confidant now with the insides of a computer and 'could' do it if I needed to. First though - backing up all important files to an external hard-drive.