Moroccan Chicken

A delicious recipe from Alison Holst. The flavours in this dish are amazing!

1 large onion
3-4 cloves garlic
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoons chopped coriander leaves
2 lemons
4 large chicken pieces or drumsticks
15-20 black olives

Chop onion and garlic finely. Add olive oil, tomato paste, cumin, paprika, ginger, salt and coriander leaves. Add the juice of one lemon and mix into a thick paste.
Place chicken in a large casserole dish and spread the paste evenly on all sides of the chicken. Cut the remaining lemon lengthwise into eight wedges. Place between the pieces of chicken, along with the olives.
Cover and leave to stand for 1-2 hours if possible (or leave overnight in the fridge). When ready to cook, cover loosely with foil and bake at 180C for 30 min, then cook uncovered for another 30 min.

Serve with rice or couscous.
Serves 4.

White Chocolate Brownies

This is an Allyson Gofton recipe. I have about a dozen excellent brownie recipes, but this is the only one which uses white chocolate. It’s completely divine.

275g white chocolate
250g butter
1 cup caster sugar
4 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla essence
2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped pecans
1 tablespoon chopped walnuts

Icing:
50g white chocolate
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 cup icing sugar
milk

Chop white chocolate roughly and melt with the butter.
Beat sugar, eggs and vanills essence together until the mixture is thick, light and fluffy.
Sift the flour and salt together and stir into the creamed mixture alternately with the chocolate mixture. Fold in the pecans.
Turn mixture into a greased, floured and lined 25cm square cake tin.
Bake at 160C for 40-45 minutes until top is golden but the centre is still a little soft.
Remove from the oven and cool to room temperature before refrigerating for 3-4 hours. Remove from tin, ice and sprinkle with chopped walnuts. Cut into squares.

Icing: melt white chocolate and butter together. Stir in sifted icing sugar and sufficient milk to make a smooth, thick icing.

Makes 24-30 pieces.

So blessed

I have been reminded lately how blessed I am to have two healthy, beautiful boys. How important it is to appreciate them, because life is short. So often I forget that. I get too caught up in the busyness of life, the same old day-to-day routine, and the noise, mess & chaos that comes with having young children.

But not today. Today I have decided to stop. To focus on them a bit more. I started thinking about the things I love about each of my boys. And as I was thinking, my heart started to melt.
(I need to do this more often).

Ethan Jakob
My firstborn.
My Little Guy.
You are 5 and 1/2 years old.
You are so smart.
I am very proud of you!
Your smile is one of the most beautiful things in this world.
Never will I tire of hearing you say “I love you, Mummy”.
Never will I tire of your hugs & kisses, which you always give spontaneously and generously.
I am blown away by your kindness.
I believe that kindness is your “special gift” from God, and I’ve told you that.
Anytime you are being rude or mean, I remind you of your “gift”. You change your behaviour just like that.
I can’t even count the number of pictures you have drawn me or notes you have written me.
I will keep them forever.
I love it when you sing Matchbox Twenty’s “Hand Me Down” with me, at the top of your little voice.
And I love it when you sing “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.”
I love you and like you (that’s your favourite saying).

Tyler Robson
My baby.
I still call you “Bubby”.
You are almost 3 and 1/2 years old.
I wish you were toilet trained.
But I gladly would wipe your bum for the rest of my life if it would guarantee your happiness.
You are so mischievous!
We should change your middle name to “Cheeky”.
You are becoming more and more affectionate.
I am liking the extra kisses.
Especially the ones on the nose.
We have matching birthmarks on our thighs.
You make me laugh more than anybody else in the world; you have a wicked sense of humour.
You tell the best stories.
You always ask me to sing you a song at bedtime.
You think outside of the square, and it’s very refreshing.
You are starting to get the cutest little freckles on your nose!
Everybody always comments on your deep husky voice, and I just love hearing it!
I love you, “to infinity, and beyond”.

I’m not going to be blogging much or posting comments on any blogs for the next week or so. Instead, I’ll be enjoying the summer sunshine with my boys. And also with my honey, my folks, and my lil’ sis. We’ll be rocking out to some great music here, then kicking back and relaxing at the beach in Hahei. Bliss!

Household tips

Teeni has tagged me for a meme. This time, I am supposed to share some amazing household tips that will revolutionise the way you live. Okay, she didn’t exactly say I had to do that. But I do have to share some household tips.

Okay, here goes …

1) Laundry (or washing, as we call it here in New Zealand) is a chore that many of us love to hate. Personally? I don’t mind it. I would rather do laundry than wash the dishes (especially since our dishwasher broke and Rob we haven’t fixed it yet). Being one of my more preferable chores, I have a couple of tips in this area:

a. Use cold water when washing your clothes. This saves a gazillion dollars when it comes to your monthly electricity bill.
A lot of people use hot water because they believe it will kill the germs in their clothes (more on killing germs & bacteria in point b. below). But did you ever consider the fact that instead of killing germs, hot water actually kills the enzymes in your detergent? Betcha didn’t! But it does. So stick with cold (or lukewarm, if you must) water.

b. It has come to my attention that many people in the Northern Hemisphere do not hanging their washing outside. This amazes me. I understand that if you live in a perpetually cold/wet place, you may need to use a tumble dryer. But I recently found out that most houses in Florida don’t have clotheslines. Um??
Here in NZ, almost every house has a clothesline in the backyard. Most Kiwis hang their washing outside most of the time, unless it’s raining or really really windy. Me? I hang mine outside all year round (we have a covered carport with washing lines).
Something many people don’t realise is that air-drying is actually much safer than tumble-drying. It reduces the amount of bacteria that can still be in your clothes, even after washing. This is particularly true for washing hung out in the sunshine. Better still, often stubborn stains that have not gone away in the wash will be gone after a couple of hours in the sun.

2) This next tip concerns the sneaking of vegetables into your kids’ meals. My kids love broccoli, tomatoes, potatoes, peas, and capsicum (sweet peppers). I do not have to disguise these vegetables; they eat them willingly. Other vegetables fall into a decidedly “grey” area, such as carrots, beans, cauliflower, sweetcorn and spinach. These vegetables are sometimes eaten, and sometimes not (it’s a “mood” thing). However, both my boys have a strong dislike for kumara (sweet potato), pumpkin and mushrooms. Your child(ren) may not like ANY vegetables. If this is the case, you need to try doing what I do.
I grate vegetables into almost everything. When I make lasagne, shepherd’s pie, meatloaf, spaghetti bolognaise (basically any mince dish), I also include grated carrot, pumpkin, mushroom and courgette. Have my kids ever noticed? No. Not once. Even though there are orange and green “bits” which are visible to the naked eye, they have NO CLUE. I also mix some mashed pumpkin and/or kumara into mashed potatoes sometimes. It changes the colour slightly, but you can usually get away with that.
Try it. It might work for you. If it does, you can thank me later.

3) Do you spend 10 minutes every morning running around the house looking for your keys? Or your cellphone? This is an easily solved problem. Simply put your keys (and your phone) in the same place every night. We have a hall table right inside the front door. Above the table is a wall-mounted key rack. As soon as we step foot in the house, our keys are hung up and our phones are placed on the table. Easy.

4) I couldn’t really do this post without mentioning some scrapbooking tips. I’m sure many of my readers will already know these “tricks of the trade”, but I’ll share them anyway:

a. Always store your ink pads upside down. This forces the ink to drain to the top of the pad, and they won’t dry out.

b. Okay, this is more of a “sewing” tip but since I don’t sew clothes (only paper), I am calling it a scrapbooking tip! To quickly thread a needle, rub the end of the thread with a crayon or candle. The wax will make it stiff and easy to thread through the hole.

I don’t really feel like tagging people today. That’s sooooo yesterday (get it? because I tagged people – for an award- yesterday?). But seriously, I’m not going to do the tagging thing this time. However, if you want to do this meme, feel free! I’m sure I could learn a lot from all of you.

Excellent Award

My newest blogging friend, the lovely HippyHappyHay, has awarded me with this:

Thanks, Hay! I think your blog is “excellent” and I really enjoy your writing and photography. Oh, and your 4 girls are the cutest!

By accepting this Excellent Blog Award, I have to award it to 10 more people whose blogs I find worthy. A hard decision, but here are my 10:

1. Kelly Anne, whose mad skillz as a mom, writer, chef, gardener and photographer just blow me away.
2. Anna, who inspires me to start doing more messy activities with my kids (and is one of the sweetest people I have “met” online).
3. Trina, whose scrapbooking is inspirational and whose kids say the cutest things!
4. Kami, who writes with great skill, and makes me laugh with her fantastic sense of humour.
5. Teeni, who also received this award from Hay, but deserves to get it again because she’s one of the nicest people I know!
6. Sharon, who is not afraid to post a photo of herself every. single. day.
7. Angella, whose blog is so warm and genuine that it truly feels like “home” to me.
8. Heather, who inspires me every day with her gorgeous artwork and photography.
9. Christi, who is not afraid to speak her mind on her blog (and is one of my closest friends).
10. Annelie, whose amazing enthusiasm for scrapbooking reminds me how much I love this creative outlet.

Gratitude journal

Inspired by Emily Falconbridge, my fellow DT member Megan started this thread over at Scrapbook Essentials. She challenged everyone to make a “thankful journal” like this one Emily made.

Basically, it’s a hand-made journal with 52 pages made from assorted notepaper, cardstock, envelopes, tags … anything that can be written on! Each page represents a week, and has the numbers 1-7 written or stamped onto it (one for each day).

Emily says, “I am consciously counting my blessings each day and building up a source of inspiration and strength for myself. I decided on one ‘spot’ per day to record a snippet, even just one word – something from THAT DAY, no matter how crazy or busy or depressing. I believe there is always something to be thankful for.”

I couldn’t agree more!! So I made my very own “Gratitude Journal” last week. That name fitted perfectly with this quote on the journalling card which I used for the front cover: “Gratitude is the faithful blossom which springs from the soul.”

I used all kinds of things to make my pages: notepaper, paint swatches, an unused sheet from my address book, a sheet from last year’s Sudoku desk calendar, a blank cheque deposit slip, a page from my Daily Planner pad, envelopes, dividers from my photo boxes, a paper bag, tags, a page from my shopping jotter pad, etc. The most fun part about making the journal was going around the house and collecting all this stuff!
I punched holes in all my papers, and then used a couple of book rings to hold it together.

Here are a few photos of my journal:

And here are a few things that I have mentioned in my journal so far:

1) Seeing my dear friend Christi again after 4 loooong months apart.
She, Hugh and the girls came to visit us on Monday afternoon. And you should have seen the gifts she showered on us! I was completely blown away by her generosity and kindness.
I received a new bag, filled with candy (5 bags of it!), body scrub, 3 bottles of body spray from Bath & Body Works, and a huge pack of scrapbooking goodies.
And the boys? Oh. My. Word. The boys were SPOILED! They got jandals, a T-shirt and 2 pairs of boardies each (I will have to take some photos, because they look SO stinkin’ cute in their new threads).
Ethan got tons of Spiderman paraphernalia, while Tyler got a mountain of Buzz Lightyear stuff. I couldn’t even list everything if I tried, because there were so many things! But suffice to say the kids are VERY happy with all their gifts. Later that evening, they kept saying “we are so lucky to get all these things from Christi, eh Mummy/Daddy?” … um, that would be a YES! And they are both sleeping with their special polar fleece blankets at night, even in this heat!

Thank you Christi, from the bottom of my heart! You are one of the most generous people I know and I love ya heaps!! So glad you’re back. Even if you’re not back on the Coast just yet.

2) My sweet lil’ sister offered to babysit for us last night so that Rob and I could go out.
We have both been so busy lately and haven’t spent much QT together, so it was wonderful to go out for the whole evening.

First, we headed to the Auckland Luge. Rob had already been once (with Ethan) but it was my first visit. We had 2 rides each, and it was awesome!! Probably not as good as the Rotorua one, but better than the Queenstown one. Now we can’t wait to take both boys there, because we know Tyler will just LOVE it!
After that we went to Joust for dessert & coffee, which was really nice.
Got home around 9.30pm and found that the kids had been angels. Perfect!

I am really loving the concept of writing down something I am grateful for every single day. And I have not found it difficult to think of things to write. In fact, some days I run out of room because I want to list so much! Perhaps next year I will have to make my pages a bit bigger, since I obviously have so many things to be thankful for. Not a bad problem to have, huh?

Summer Promenade

It’s now the 15th, so I can share my Scrapbook Essentials Design Team work, using the January “Summer Promenade” kit:

IT’S A BOY THING

The papers in the kit were perfect for these photos, taken at the Army Museum in Waiouru on the way down to Wellington last month. I already had the chipboard “It’s a Boy Thing” title and it just worked for the theme of this page. I used the chipboard star strip from the kit as a template to trace around and cut out a fancy “edge” from the patterned paper.

Journalling: It’s true. Boys are fascinated with guns and blowing stuff up. At the Army Museum in Waiouru, Ethan, Tyler AND Rob ran straight for this cannon and then played “shoot ‘em up” games!

BEACH FUN

I cut a corner design from one of the papers, and copied the flowers & patterns from it to make a co-ordinating transparency for the opposite corner. I painted the flowers onto the transparency with acrylic paints and turned it upside down so the paint wouldn’t scratch off. Then I used staples and stitching (using the Bazzill stitching template) to adhere the transparency to the page.

Journalling: Ethan: loves to get totally covered in sand!

SUMMER 07/08

I used the circle patterned paper and continued with the circle theme by tracing around a sand bucket and cutting out the circle from one of the other papers. I got my photos printed with 4 photos per 6×4, and kept the white borders — I wanted to capture lots of little aspects of our summer. I used some embroidery thread to stitch “accents” over the foam letter stickers.

Journalling: There are so many cool things to love about our summer and living near the beach. We are so enjoying swims, picnics, fish & chips, summer fruit and long hot days!

SWING

I just loved the bright summery colours in this kit, and wanted to highlight them by using B&W photos. I cut some stars from the chipboard strip, and used them at the top & bottom of the page. Also used heaps of the rub-ons. For the title “Swing”, I traced around the foam alpha stickers, and then cut out the letters.

You like?

It’s writing time

Last year, Teeni and I formed the Live Poet’s Society. We assigned each other writing assignments, and you can read the finished pieces here and here.

We had so much fun, we’ve decided to make it a regular gig. After taking a month off over the Christmas/New Year period, it’s now time for us to set the next assignment. And remember, you are all very welcome join in! You can choose to complete the assignment that Teeni assigns me, the one that I assign her, or both!
We have given each other a flexible 1-month deadline, but you can take longer if you want to.

If you decide to take part, please link back to the assignment you have chosen to complete, and take a copy of the Live Poet’s Society badge to display on your blog.

So, without further ado, here is my assignment for Teeni:

Your character is a 19-year old college student named Cassie Kane. She is tall and beautiful, with grey eyes and red hair. She is determined, ambitious and forthright, with a strong stubborn streak. She also has a tendency to be suspicious, and is scared of commitment.
Cassie has a secret to confess (you must decide what the “secret“ is), but is afraid to share it.
Write a series of short diary or journal entries over several days that Cassie would write as she thinks about her secret, why it needs to be confessed, who will be affected if the secret is known, and why she is afraid to confess it.
Cassie’s decision to tell (or not) should be revealed in the final diary or journal entry.

Have fun!!

P.S. Don’t forget to check out Teeni’s blog to see if you’d like to do her assignment!

Delurk, please!

Recently, some of my blogging buddies have mentioned a thing called National Delurking Week. I think yesterday (10 January) was the official National Delurking Day.

For some time now, I have wanted to write a “delurk post”. Because I know there are people who read my blog and never comment. But quite frankly, the whole thing scares the heck out of me. Because what if … shock, horror … I didn’t get any more comments than normal? I’d feel so silly! And unpopular! And unloved!

But I have decided to take the plunge. So here goes:

Calling all lurkers!! Please leave a comment on this post! I don’t care if it’s the first (& last) comment you ever leave for me. I just want to know how many people read my ramblings.

All you have to do is answer this question:
What is your favourite song at the moment? You know the one. It’s on the CD you’ve been thrashing in your car. It’s the song you always choose on your iPod or mp3 player. It’s the catchy tune you sing along to on the radio.

I need to know because I’m trying to update my iPod with some new soundz. I have a long list, but I’m trying to narrow it down, and your opinions will help with that.

And just to entice you all to comment, I have a *little something* to send one lucky person. I’ll do the draw in a few days’ time.

So come on, everyone! Let the delurking begin!

I’ve been busy

Specifically, I’ve been scrapping. That is, in addition to working full time and looking after kids — and not just my own, I might add! I am looking after Ethan’s best friend and his brother for 2 days this week, and 2 days next week (yes, I am insane).

Anyway, I have been having lots of fun playing with the January kit from Scrapbook Essentials. It’s called Summer Promenade. You NEED to buy it.

Want to have a peek at what I’ve been doing?

You can see more on the 15th. Okay?