Fab dinner

Ok so I'm old school meat and a starch it's a downfall I can't seem to think of meals that don't involve rice pasta or a potato it just feels wrong most of the time. So this leads me continually with the what do we do for a side dilemma. I've been experimenting the last couple of weeks tonight's dinner was deemed a glorious success and my husband requested it to be a five star menu and to please repeat.

We had roast pork tenderloin with peppers and an avocado mash. Yum tons of food and didn't miss a thing. It's a nice lean meal too great for a diet and will go on our good list.

I did a little Pilates again this morning, and I did a little jog around the park as well. I cheated a bit by having a burger at McDs for lunch but I had a single burger and the three of us shared 1 large fry. I splurged a little on a soda but am not feeling too guilty over that I didn't over do it and go the whole hog as I'm often tempted to do.

We shall see if my efforts get me anywhere by the end of the week but let's hope these small changes make a difference.

Not 100%

Alright so last night after dinner and getting the girls down I was fighting the chocolate urge. It wasn't an easy battle so I opted for a cookie and a couple of slices of toast, this was probably not the wisest of choices...this morning it is all still laying on my stomach, yuck! On the bright side dinner tonight is a bit healthier consisting of tomato soup although not sure what I'll do for lunch yet but I am considering rice as I've not eaten at all yet today.

On the positive side I've been religious about taking care of my skin since my Xmas gift from my hubby and I'm loving the feel of the moisturizer it feels so light and non oily my skin does feel better for it.

I've also done some Pilates and yoga to help stretch out my spine seems to have helped a bit. My resolution is to do some form of exercise via on demand daily. We shall see if I can keep up with that.

I have other things I would like to do as well but one thing at a time one thing at a time, I think my main focus is diet exercise and getting well right now. One step at a time one day at a time. Today I've been good pilates and yoga although my diet has a lot to be desired but at least I'm not eating as much.

One way to kick start diet...

Have a stomach bug over the holidays...I seem to have lost 4lbs so far. I'm over the worst of it but I have no appetite I did keep down some chicken noodle soup for lunch but only ate a small portion.

I've also been crazy active cleaning bathrooms, doing laundry and other jobs that have cropped up over the day. However at this point I'm exhausted! I did purge the fridge of the left overs intended for tonight's dinner as I wasn't sure if they might be contaminated or even cooked right as
I made the meal when I started to feel sick. Seriously bummed tho that was my bubble and squeak! But the wonders of a banana and a single cup of herbal tea for Xmas instead of packing on pounds lol.

Oh those cookies!!

I am trying so hard to forget there are cookies in the cupboard and it's not easy lol. Just been thinking about next weeks menu plan...alright so we need some essentials, orange juice, eggs etc and I'm shocked when I see my grocery bill will easily be over $100 even with using lots of ingredients I have on hand. Grr how annoying! I've been trying so diligently and I'm not gonna lie I'm bummed!

Also I've been trying very hard to minimize the calorie intake for the next week urgh not so easy! But I am really not starting my diet plans till the first.I have my handy dandy menu planner and shopping tools and plenty of recipes to choose from.

Lol still have plans for doing cookies Xmas Eve and we will be leaving them out along with a carrot for Santa. Now all I really need is a good night sleep! Let's hope Abi's stomach cooperates tonight.

Exercise..

It's gonna be a problem I tried today had to stop to prevent child from taking a nap. I'm thinking am might be better I just need to handle my time better. We shall see then again doesn't help after a long day the day before. I will work on it!

I'm not watching everything right now we are in the holiday season but New Year I will be paying close attention to what I eat rather than quantity. I'm not going to sweat over broccoli!

Gonna really get healthy and loose weight

I'm angry at cancer. I'm angry that it doesn't discriminate against anyone or anything. It's a sneaky bastard and more recently I've known people that deserve better. So for them and for me I pledge 2012 to be a life changing year. My goal, get healthy, loose weight, my pledge for every pound I can shed I will put aside at least 1 dollar and will donate it to charity. That is the very least of it. I may also contemplate a walk or a run later in the year depending to raise money we shall see but for now I'm going to concentrate on weight. I'm not going to start properly until the New Year. But between now and then I'm going to make some small changes. This includes the way I cook things and just trying to make healthier choices for lunches etc. I'm also going to try to not finish my girls dinners when they don't eat it...(that's a big downfall for me it really is!). I'm going to go for the fruit and veggies for snacks. I'm going cut way back on drinking. I'm going to figure out a way to incorporate exercise into our daily lives.

This is for my friends and family to better myself and try to make a difference in other people's lives, to direct my anger into something productive that may help. I no longer wish to be angry and feel helpless I wish to try to do something even tho it's very small. I call on help of my friends and family to try to support me in my efforts. Help me try to stay on the straight and narrow and not to stray. If you feel like trying to help maybe pledge a small donation for every 10lbs I loose maybe donate a dollar for the cause. I will post regular updates in the New Year as to my progress.

I want to be able to look good feel fit run after my kids. Not feel tired run down. I want to be an active Mum. I want to refind me!

Eating out and other musings

Ok this isn't a post about one of my meals but about eating out and other general parenting trials.  I was reading an article just now and some comments about a restaurant banning kids in it's dinning room and it had me thinking.

Now my two aren't angels but they are relatively well behaved for 2 year olds and now and then we like to eat out.  This gives me a break from the kitchen and gives them lessons on how to behave.  Now here's my two cents.  Yes I think a restaurant should have the right to ban kids.  Honestly there are certain restaurants I wouldn't dream of taking my kids to because I don't think it's appropriate specially the higher end places.  My reasoning, as an adult and parent of two wonderful twins there are times I want to eat kid free.  It's a treat and a pleasure to sit have an adult conversation and not have to worry about unruly kids running around the place who have a hard time sitting still.  To this end I will not take my girls to certain places until they are older and know how to sit at a table and not act up, it is a common curtesy.

However I will take my girls to kid friendly places and casual dinning places because I need a break from the kitchen and clean up at home.  I probably manage to eat out maybe once a month and most times it's a lunch at Chilis and the difference it makes for me on those days is night and day.  However as any parent knows dinning out comes with it's own challenges.  I promise you any time one of my kids really starts to act out I will remove them and we will go home end of story because I am stressing out more than the person next to me I can assure you.  In terms of service, honestly give me good service and I am more than generous specially at lunch time I often leave a 20 to 25% tip for good service.  However give me lousy service and you will barely make the minimum.  I had lunch with my neighbor a couple of weeks ago and the server was distracted and a ditz, we asked for a split check before placing our order...which didn't happen, he barely showed up, food took forever, and for a change I had to split the shared meal, neither of us were happy and figured he hadn't taken his happy pills or something she said he was normally better than that, so he got the 15% and the headache of working out his own tip, thanks to his screw up, and no it wasn't that busy.

Now this had me all thinking about kids and public places.  The other week Mum and I were in Costco the girls were in a great mood, so much so they started yelling out whilst sitting in the shopping cart Miskamouska Mickey Mouse with gusto.  Now we are talking about a warehouse store not a quiet department store here most people were amused and smiling at the happy girls however my Mum did get some stoney looks from others.  It's a store people, they weren't crying they weren't really screaming and they were happy so what is your problem?!  You get your item you move along in less than a minute you won't hear them.  Oh and we were trying to get them to be a little quieter about it but sheesh that annoyed me.

BBQ Time Yay!!

The weather has finally turned this means grill time!  Given the climate here in Northern California, we cook out most days during the summer to keep the house cooler and save energy costs.  Last year I managed to cook out nearly every day so I'm trying to emulate it again this year.  It also means the return of last summer's favorites, tea-soaked chicken breasts, red pepper pesto and shrimp pizzas.  I'm also constantly looking out for new ideas, and we tried last night chicken with balsamic bbq sauce, I paired it with a home made Caesar salad, YUM!  I am going to try to get about a months worth of recipe ideas into my hand dandy mealboard app on my ipad so that meal planning should be a breeze.  I have to say despite the effort it takes to set it up the rewards of this program are huge, I think my only gripe is not easily being able to change the quantities for each recipe as I select them, and I get lazy just getting the basic ingredients in so I can do my shopping list, but it works for me.  I generally then double check the recipe on line anyways and read from the original rather than what is in held in the app.

I think the absolute hardest thing for me is veggie night in general, I'm limited somewhat by James's tastes and what the girls will or won't eat so it's always a challenge, kebobs seem to be more often the fare of the day on those nights and I keep looking out for other ideas, but they just seem to be the easiest as a lot of veggies need to be cut up small and often fall through the grate without the skewer.  Oh which reminds me portabello mushroom burgers!  Great for James and I not so much the kids but will come up with something for them one of these days.

To Laos and Back in One Night

As anyone that knows me or follows this irregular blog knows, every so often we visit a country at random and I attempt to transport us via cooking to that country for the night.  This is a challenge as there are some items that simply are not available from time to time and then there are the palates of the subjects for these experimentations to consider as well.  The last random country that was picked was Laos, it's located out by Vietnam, Thailand, China so in general you are looking at an Asian inspired menu.  The wonders of the internet means you can find a treasure trove of information on line for the selected country of choice.

Laos's biggest challenge oddly came from dessert, a lot of which contain coconut in some form or another, not a good choice given my dinning guests, this was solved in the form of a cake although I was missing starfruit.  So the menu...(take out egg rolls and thai iced tea) as much as I would have loved to do the whole meal I know my limitations when it comes to juggling the kids and cooking and their toleration for how long I spend cooking.  I followed this up with Laos Style BBQ ribs and Koua Khao (fried rice).  I was a little worried about the chili sauce that was to go with the ribs as I'm still always put off by the smell of fish sauce and not sure about the heat level either, however I figured it's a sauce if we don't like it we don't have to use it right?  I was surprised!  It was in fact a wonderful accent to the ribs and I was not the only one to enjoy it, in fact the only complaint was there not being enough, good for me.  The ribs however I didn't plan well and should have had on much sooner so I ended up par boiling them which just added to my kitchen pain, however the end result were great well cooked ribs so I'm not going to complain.  Fried rice, I didn't have enough chili's so I used sirracha hot sauce instead, not the best substitute but it worked, somehow I pulled off a great dish despite a few challenges which I will not go further into other than to say when my girlfriend showed up and saw my frantic state she just leapt straight in and helped get the meal onto the table.

So having indulged in the ribs and rice and egg rolls we moved onto dessert.  This was a Fresh Fruit Cake - Laos recipe and instead of adding starfruit I just added extra mango and bananas in to make up the difference.  Can I say YUM?  The cake was heavy and moist from the fruit puree and I was given an A for presentation.    A great finish to a fantastic meal and I will have to remember these recipes for the future.

Oh and my lesson for the day?  I finally figured out the best was to handle mangos!  You can still teach an old dog new tricks.

Yum o!!!

Monday we had a brief change in plans, our Loas extravaganza will now take place next week.  Tuesday we had an incredibly easy dinner great for the grill ( if it ever warms up here) Chicken-Tikka with Indian style sweet potatoes, YUM O!  I actually modified the recipe a little and added little tandoori spice blend to the chicken marinade although this can be a matter of personal taste I personally just love Indian spices so I am apt to add em when I can and penzey spices has a really great blend available. Now be forewarned this dish whilst easy needs extra time to allow the meat to marinade, I actually put mine in about 3 hours before we cooked the chicken up. Read ahead of the recipe tho as I didn't set aside the extra marinade before adding the chicken, however I had some luck as I still had extra yogurt to make additional batched for the salad and topping. Definitely adding this one to the must keep recipes.  We also used chicken breast rather than thighs as we had it on hand and we had to do everything in the oven and on the stove top.  Not a big deal just bake the potatoes at 450 f for 20 minutes turning once, and pan cooked the chicken.

Oh and have I mentioned how much I love MealBoard? It's the perfect app for me allowing cloud sync so I won't loose any of my data, now it doesn't have many preloaded recipes which works for me. I can create my own custom menus and delete things as I go along. I often have recipes worked out about a week in advance but I also have the ability to save menu templates, which is a great function. I love being able to keep track of my shopping list and it makes it a breeze to alter days and redo the shopping list if gets too expensive as I can enter in prices for food, given today's economic climate that is not a bad thing believe me. Love it love it and get better and better the more I use it, I now have 84 recipes saved and I often add at least lone new one a week so food in this household is never boring.

Wednesday we had Meatloaf Patties with Carrot Slaw.  Now they weren't bad and the whole meal was a good combination, but for my tastes I need to add some spices / flavoring to the patties.  I think I'll be adding some garlic granules and onion to add a bit of something I'm sure I can raid my pantry for appropriate seasonings to add that zing.

Interesting week of meals

Memorial weekend, well the last week we have done a lot of take out / eating out, mostly due to time constraints whilst trying to construct a new shed in the backyard for the girls toys and misc stuff.  This week we are back on track last night we topped off the end of the weekend (yep hubby working Memorial Day) with a Bistro Steak-Egg Salad, YUM!  I am taking a chance with this weeks meals and decided to use the meal planner for a lot of the delights for dinner this week.  Now the draw back of the planner is it only does 5 days of meals that leaves me to muddle through for 2 days, as it's our turn to cook I decided to finally do our trip around the world.  This time we are flying off to Laos (figuratively speaking), I will spill the full meal plan tomorrow and let you know what our taste buds thought of the experience.

Getting up to date

Had a blip the last time I tried to make a post due to the site being down, I have to admit that was very very annoying!  So it has been longer than I intended since I last posted something useful.

The big event since my last post was a three day meal extravaganza involving a standing rib roast, sherry trifle and yorkshire pudding.  A few months ago whilst at my girlfriend's salon (Beautiful From Head To Toe) my husband noticed a meal in an issue of Wine Spectator.  We have been planning ever since to attempt this gourmet delight inviting said girlfriend and her family over to partake in the feast.  I started on the Saturday making a pound cake for the sherry trifle continued through to Sunday by making the gelatin and custard layers and having my husband aided by the 2 1/2 year old daughters peeling up the sprouts.  Monday rolled around and 3 hours before putting the meat into the oven I took dutifully took the meat out of the fridge to come up to room temperature.  Now before we go much further I should mention the meat was a 14 lb rib roast from the local butcher not the local supermarket, the difference?  HUGE!  The butcher recommended meat from Painted Hills, and I can say it looked amazing before cooking.  I did a little research and when looking at my recipe decided to go for a rosemary garlic rub omitting the salt so as not to draw the moisture out of the meat.  The roast was place on top of a bed of carrots, celery and onion, toped with some thyme and rosemary.  I seared the roast at 450 for 30 min then cooked it for a further 3 1/2 hours, then let it rest for 40 minutes while we waited on the yorkshire pudding.  The end result a perfect roast with meat that you could literally cut with a fork.

The sherry trifle, tasted great but I think I needed to thicken the custard a little more and whip the cream a tad more too but hey I've not made too may from scratch of those either.  So we have been enjoying the left over beef this week and even the next day the meat was just as tender and flavorful.  Ah not something we do very often but oh so worth it and imo almost as good if not better than what we could afford in a restaurant.

One of the better successes

A few weeks ago I made a three meal rollover, turning roasted pork tenderloin and veggies into a veggie curry the following night, and a black bean chili soup the night after that.  We also had enough left overs to freeze another 2 meals with the curry and chili.  Tonight, given the lack of husbandly assistance I reheated the chili and was reminded again as to what an awesome recipe and how it actually makes the girls want to eat it with the addition of crushed tortilla chips.  Thank you Rachael Ray!  The recipes can be found on the show website if you look up pork tenderloin rollover.  Now note that my hubby is acutely anti beans so I made a smaller portion for him substituting hominy for the beans, it still worked tho my preference is the black bean variation.

We had a trying day with one of the warmer days of this year and me trying to potty train, I got to 3:30 then I just flat out gave up.  I will try again tomorrow, this time I'm going to work with Isabel then on Abigail.  I think Isabel can get it much faster than Abi and who knows maybe Abi will end up learning from her sister.  I hate holding Abi back but she really was having issues, and trying to watch for signs of potty on two kids will cleaning up accidents so wasn't working.  I really was hoping I could do them both at the same time but I think I'm going to just admit defeat and do it at their pace for my own sanity.  Or by the end of the week we are going to be having a very very grumpy Mummy and two confused kids.

Yesterday we did a trip to the Discovery Museum in Sausalito.  I discovered a fantastic drive, Dad I may point you in that direction, by accident...best not to ask really.  Anyway, packed lunch and stroller and we did OK.  I think Jennifer had a better time of it, but I'm still trying to learn and figure it out.  I really could use a small cooler bag that fits in the stroller for these kind of outings.  I love my Costco one but...it is large bulky and just doesn't fit with the stroller, and the stroller is a must for these kinds of trips when solo outing with the kids, I could have omitted the diaper bag but I was just not entirely comfortable with that idea for this outing but the reality is I could have gone back to the car for extra clothes etc if need be.  I guess I'm still a Mum in training...maybe I should get some L plates for my back when out and about hehe.

Tour de local parks

Recently I've been stuck in a rut with parks, so I'm now making it my mission to try a least one new park a week.  I have to say parks vary greatly...living where we do on the border of Pleasanton I allow myself to use parks in both Livermore and our neighboring city.  Some designers need to be stuck in their head...seriously rocks and water in a play area with tots?!!!  Yeesh 101 NO HARD SURFACES!! However when I reflect on the playgrounds of my youth, kids today have it positively cushy, so maybe I should relax a bit more when we are there and let the girls be girls and get their scrapes and wounds.  But as a mother of two I cringe.  The problem when you have multiples and at such a young age, they want to explore, they still have a had concept of coming to Mum when asked and I worry that if an emergency were to happen I could be in real trouble.  Maybe I should get a single seat stroller or something to strap a child in I'm in debate on that one as one stroller means I have to still push and have hands free for the other child.  When I figure out the solution I'll let you know, but I think a stroller is going to be a must soon for a time out, at least I can put them in there strap em in for a time out while I deal with the other, maybe...

My favorite weather...

It's finally perked up here weather wise over the last week and we have had an absolutely stunning weekend.  One of the major advantages of the climate here, great weather lots of sun, a lovely shady backyard, what more can we ask for?  Oh yes did I mention free afternoon concerts while the 'boys' next door practice with their band and a glass of pima and lemonade.

Dinner this next coming week posed a challenge as James will be working a modified swing shift for four days, it means dinner without Dad for those days and not sure how much he will see of the girls during that time, however we do get a three day weekend...fortunately I need to run my freezer down big time as it's groaning at the seams, so left overs and quickie meals will be the order of play, on top of that the weather is warming up so as much as possible I don't want to be using the oven, another challenge.  I'm lucky I guess at least my girls love salad!!!  Yay, makes life easy as I can throw that in for a couple of meals, oh and whatever I cook has to be heatable up by James as he will need to eat when he gets home.

Now right now we are in the process of renovating our back garden...it's a slow process as James is doing the work himself, the plan is to level off the area by the side of the house and pave the area so we don't have to spend a few weeks every spring pulling weeds before we can use the space.  This will also provide a flatter surface for the grill, and we plan on locating it out there permanently.  We would also like some room for a chair or two so however has grill duty can sit down and relax in the shade of the house, we might as well make the most of the weather here during the summer right?  I cannot wait till the space is done and I can start my summer grilling ideas.  I will be using a lot of last year's favorites, and trying to find new ones for this year.  For those that missed it last year I was able to cook nearly everything outside last year from meats, veggies, fish to desserts, the endless possibilities really took hold, so as the outside is more or less my kitchen for half the year it only seems prudent to make it more habitable for outside use.

Oh and soon we are going to be doing research on freezers.  I hate my freezer design...I really do, shelves blow chunks as you have to stack things, and it makes it impossible to get to items in the back.  Seriously stop putting shelves in freezers!!  Let's go baskets so I don't have an avalanche every time I want something.

Rhubarb and Strawberry Crumble...

Growing up in Sutton, I have fond memories of going out and picking fresh rhubarb from the garden, mostly I remember the massive leaves but I do remember going to pick it up for Mum.  So I was excited to see a recipe for a pork sandwich that used rhubarb jam as a topping and had been eager to try it...this week I finally had the perfect opportunity to add it to the meal plan, in addition strawberries were on sale so I picked up some extra stalks, this then turned into a crumble.  Isabel helped by adding ingredients into the bowl and then did a great job rubbing in the butter...and I mean a great job.  She is so good in the kitchen and I mean good, they both know to not touch knives, often put ingredients into bowls and I've often had her add spices etc to the meals.  Now if only I can get her to actually eat more veggies everything will be perfect!

Oh and farewell to one of my RR bubble and browns...it had a cracked handle and really fell apart last night.  Guess we will be looking to get a replacement /sigh.

The foods that baffle me with my girls...

So I am always struggling with Isabel to get her to eat veggies, and I mean always.  People suggest a lot of tricks to me but I can tell ya a lot of those ideas just won't fly with her.  Puree you ask?  Nope tried that makes not difference, pureed carrot, cooked carrot she will not touch, however peel a carrot for dinner and she will steal it off the counter and eat it, shred it put it raw in salad and again she is unlikely to touch it, stir fry, not a chance...potatoes, only way she will eat them is as fries...no mash, no potato salad not mixed in and hidden in stews, this goes for sweet potatoes too.  Red cabbage, again like carrots same deal.  A lot of times I will just put some salad on her plate just to get her to eat something green.  Yet she eats the plants from my garden go figure.  Then again she will eat poppadoms, cilantro chutney, and tamarind, date chutney that makes even my tongue tingle!

It just boggles my mind it really does but it makes life interesting.

Trying to get organized!!!

It's been crazy since my last blog posting, and this week has been particularly trying.  We are in the throws of work for installing central air in our house, can I say YAY!!!   However, weekend work to prepare for the arrival didn't quite go as planned and we have a hole that needs stuccoing, oops, that repair has been a challenge due to the wonderful CA spring weather, i.e, rain rain and more rain.  Tuesday in other prep work (I was weeding, I discovered a bumblebee colony under the 'man cave'...joy that meant on the one dry morning of the week we had to vacate the garden due to wildlife, the nest has been removed (thank you!) and the side is a bit wild still but in good enough shape with a little weeding work they should be able to do the work necessary down there (I hope).  I also have this problem of being routinely interrupted whenever I try to do something productive.  Ah well, such is life.

Anyway tonight I get to try a new recipe from a wonderful cookbook all about clay-pot and one pot cooking, sausage potato casserole, looking forward to it as we get to try the butcher sausages I purchased from a local shop in Pleasanton, I'm hoping...I am going to try to use this store even tho it's pricey but at least I get the meat I want!  A nice change from the stuff that we have to use from the supermarket.  I'm thinking special occasions and nice cuts of meats I'll try it, plus I can get speciality meats rather than the chicken, pork, beef and lamb.  They also tend to be organic and locally raised which is a nice plus, I'll reserve judgement but every so often I think I will try to indulge just to support local business like this.

Rekindling the blog

I've let the blog wane recently, mostly I've been catching up on reading in my spare minutes so I've let the blog slide...shame on me, especially as I know I have missed some fantastic meals that I would love to share.  Too late now to cry but I will give a shout out to my latest masterpiece...chicken and 3 chili soup, my husband is in awe of this one its got a kick to it but for our heat tolerance it was just right.  As I forgot to deseed the ancho chilis I knew it would be too high for my children so in the end I did them a separate meal and just went full out on the heat level.  It was a nice change for us :)  Last night I did the old bangers n mash which was a huge hit pared up with my famous bread and butter pudding, yum.  Tonight was have left overs I do believe it's the lentil chili soup with quinoa instead of lentils (really it makes no difference).

I'm slowly becoming a polenta fan as well and honesty prefer it over couscous as it isn't as messy when the girls eat it.  I am also going to be happy when RR goes on her summer break...woman I love her cooking but it's hard to like keep up with new favorites and old ones too!  Then there are still my good old go to recipes as well from childhood, there just never seems enough days in the week to do all this yummy goodness and soon oh so very soon we will be switching up to our summer menus and cooking in the garden yay!