Hotel hilarities

So last week I was staying in Darwin in a hotel which shall remain unnamed. I just wanted to say that really – there was no problem in the hotel. It was nice enough. Who can argue with a king size comfy bed?

Anyway, I used to be excited about those little bottles of shampoo, conditioner and body lotion and collect them to take home. I’m over that now. I have discovered it’s not nice shampoo and they just tend to sit in my bathroom cupboard for years. They are cute – but that is ALL.

My new thing to do is to order breakfast and ask for extra jams, vegemites, peanut butters and honey. I love those little mini packs you get. I accidentally got about 20 of them once and so now I am hooked. They are great to pack in my lunchbox with some crackers. The last time I was at this hotel I felt a bit silly because I was ordering something completely different for breakfast but asking for these extras.

So yes I am weird!

But I will leave you with this clip from Friends which shows that I haven’t gone too far really!

Tea….a drink with jam and bread

Over the last few weeks I have gone away from my “no hot drinks” lifestyle and incorporated a cup of tea into my breakfast routine. This often happens during winter months. Must be something soothing and warming about a hot cuppa in the morning. But I will never go to the dark side and have coffee! Ergh!

So I have a whole range of teas that a friend of mine bought but didn’t end up using. He was going to go through a tea drinking phase or he just liked the lovely coloured boxes they all came in – I don’t know.

There is Russian, Earl Grey, Lady Grey, Peppermint, Lemon, Prince of Wales and a whole lot more. And I am discovering that tea really does have some quite different tastes. One of them I didn’t get past the smell – did not drink it at all!! It was a smoked flavour. Seemed like I would be drinking a cup of meaty tea and it went down the drain immediately. However, the lemon one came in handy when I had my what-felt-like-a-3-month-cold.

My latest discovery is that Early Grey and Lady Grey have citrus favours in them. I’m not sure if I like them or not. It feels like I am drinking perfume so I am erring on the side of not being a fan.

Perhaps I am a straight Tetley or Liptons girl? Or maybe I really should have jam and bread with it?

What are your favourite tea flavours if any?

Awesome things

I have become aware of a blog by Neil Pasricha where he posts one thing each day that is AWESOME. It’s 3 years old. He started this blog when he was down in the dumps following a series of horrible things that happened to him. He decided to write about things that made him happy. Now his blog has been made into some books as well.

So it got me thinking about what things I find awesome.

Here are some of mine, in no particular order:

1. When you hear the whole church congregation joining in and worshipping which just makes me think what it will be like in heaven
2. The feel of hot water cascading over you and waking you up in the morning
3. Making a great move in Words with Friends (Scrabble) and beating someone who is so hard to beat
4. Stormy days when you are tucked up inside with a hot chocolate and warm slippers on
5. Running through a sprinkler on a hot summer day or that first wave of cold when you dive into a pool
6. Finding a special at a clothes store and then getting even more of a saving when it scans through at the check out
7. Autumn leaves
8. Laughing til it hurts and you have tears in your eyes
9. And one taken from Neil’s blog: when little kids give you their art work
10. Macaroons

What sort of a list would you make?

 

New soup recipe to try

I am strangely interested in making soups at the moment. Strange, because I am not a big fan of soup. Pureed or liquified food doesn’t usually appeal to me but as winter is now settling in there are a few soups I don’t mind. Especially if they have some crusty white bread on the side. Last week I made pumpkin and sweet potato which was absolutley delish!

I found this recipe from Coles Online that I am keen to try.

Red Capsicum and Tomato Soup with Pesto Dumplings

The ingredients are:

• 3 Red Capsicums, remove seed
• 6 Tomatoes, quartered
• 1 large Red Onion, quartered
• 3 cloves Garlic
• 1 Tablespoon Oil
• 1 teaspoon Cumin
• 1 teaspoon Paprika
• 3 cups Vegetable stock

Dumplings

• 1 cup Self Raising Flour
• 1/2 teaspoon Salt
• 1/2 cup Milk
• 1 Tablespoon Tomato Pesto

1. Place capsicum, onion, tomatoes and garlic cloves on a baking tray.  Drizzle with oil.  Sprinkle cumin and paprika over the top of the veggies.  Cook in moderate oven for 40 minutes.
2. Place veggies and stock in blender and puree.  Return the mixture to pot and bring to the simmer.
3. Make the Dumplings: Combine flour and salt in mixing bowl.  Blend in milk, oil and pesto until just combined.
4. Drop tablespoons of mixture on top of the soup.  Cook covered for 10 – 15 minutes.
5. Spoon soup into bowls and serve immediately.  Do not leave soup to sit as it thickens with the dumplings. If the soup is too thick add a little water.

What soups are your favourites in winter?

Despite popular beliefs I do actually cook!

Mic and I have a lot of vouchers for various restaurants and we do eat out a lot more now than when we lived in Perth. Food is good, fair priced and there are so many places to go. But I do still cook at home 4-5 nights a week at least. Really, I do!

Here are a couple of my favourite things I have tried lately:

Pear, raspberry & coconut bread

Recipes from Fab Food for Family & Friends by Janelle Bloom

2 large pears, peeled, quartered, cored

1 lemon, juiced

3/4 cup caster sugar

1/4 cup cold tap water

2 cups self-raising flour

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3/4 cup flaked coconut

1 cup milk

2 eggs

125g fresh or frozen raspberries

1 tablespoon white table sugar

1. Combine pears, lemon juice, 1/4 cup caster sugar and water in a saucepan over medium-high heat and bring to the boil. Reduce heat to medium and boil gently, partially covered for 10 minutes until pears are just tender. Set aside to cool for 30 minutes in syrup (see jb tip). Drain and roughly mash the pears with a fork.
2. Preheat oven 180C no fan/160C fan forced. Grease and line 7cm deep, 13.5x24cm (base) loaf pan with baking paper.
3. Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda and cinnamon into a large bowl. Stir in the coconut and remaining 1/2 cup caster sugar. Combine the milk and eggs in a jug and pour into the flour mixture. Add the roughly mashed pear and stir gently to combine.
4. Spoon batter into loaf pan, scatter over the raspberries and poke then into the mixture using your fingertips. Smooth the surface and sprinkle with white sugar. Bake 45-50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Stand in the pan for 10 minutes then lift onto a wire rack.
5. Slice and serve warm or toast and serve with butter.

Chilli Prawn Pasta

200 g diced bacon
1 large brown onion, sliced thickly
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon olive oil
250 g fettucine
2 small chillies, sliced
250 g raw medium prawns, peeled
250 mL thickened cream
6 medium mushrooms, sliced

1. Saute onions, bacon and garlic in olive oil in a wok until onion is translucent.
2. Boil pasta until cooked al dente.
3. Add chillies, prawns and thickened cream and cook on medium heat until prawns are pink.
4. Add mushrooms, and stir to mix well until mushrooms are cooked.
5. Add cooked pasta and heat through before serving.

Yum!

Crazy May-zy

When you don’t blog for a long while it is very hard to get back into it again even if it is something I still want to keep up with. Someone reminded me of my blog today and so here I am. I have no excuses for my absence. I often think of things I want to share but they are never when I am at my computer. What I should do is get the hang of jotting those ideas down on my phone when I think of them because it is always within reach. Or I can even blog from my phone if I really want to get into the habit.

I guess it’s like most things….the gym, bible reading….in fact those things have gone on the backburner for me too lately and I am finding them hard to get back into as well.

Just time to bite the bullet. As the song says “I get knocked down but I get up again, aint ever gonna keep me down”. So I got back into bible reading a few days ago and I will go to the gym once I get rid of my asthma and cough. I’m not giving up on any of those things. Daily bible reading and prayer, exercise and blogging are all very good for my health!

The month of May got so crazy with work trips to Perth, Adelaide and Sydney I fell into a heap at the end of it all with a chest infection of some sorts and a cough that is lingering. I feel pretty fine though. But I let a lot of things go by the wayside for many weeks.

So if you do still happen to read here, make me accountable, ask me where I am…..

Computers: can’t live with ‘em and can’t live without ‘em

Lately I have felt that sometimes I would love it if computers did not exist. But I write this – whilst on a computer, in a blog, I have facebook open and my emails coming in in the background and I sit with another computer next to me and my iPhone and Android work phone on the desk also!

I saw this cartoon by Dave Walker who writes The Cartoon Blog

Yes I know I can’t do without computers. I love the connections I can maintain more easily with friends and family. Information is so much easier to access.

But I have also realised that I need to prioritise what I do on my computer. Some things I can do without! Some things are just too much….yes really!

So I have culled some blogs in Google Reader and I am going to pull out my scrapbooking gear and instead of sitting glued to You Tube or Facebook I might just get back to my favourite hobby.

He holds the future

I was reading one of my favourite blogs by a Mum in the US somewhere. We’ve exchanged the odd email. I think I’ve been following her weight loss blog and her general Mum blog for over 3 years now. I know that she has 4 children. She has a husband who is a minister. And currently her husband has moved ahead of her and the family several hours flight away to a new job. She is packing up, selling the house and bringing the kids over in the middle of the year when they finish school. How hard would that be?!

Today I read an exciting post from her as she reflected on the unknown in her life in the past few months which was triggered by a question her daughter asked at bed time.

You can read it here.

I like that she has recognised who can comfort us when we are unsure.

“When I don’t know what the future holds, I know Who holds the future”.

Amen to that!

I resolve to…

This year I deliberately avoided making new year resolutions because I think that most of the time I break them in the first few weeks. I like to look at resolutions being more of a any-time-of-year kind of thing. I always have 2 main things that I like to develop as good habits and they are the 2 things I struggle most with keeping up consistently.

1. Daily bible reading and time spent in prayer
2. Exercise

So you could say that they have been my resolutions for this year. But I did hear someone say that the best way to get into good habits is to RESOLVE to do something. Not just say I will do this but make an effort to DO it. And to continue on as you fail – get up again and have a go again.

I get knocked down but I get up again….so the song says!

Am I my mother?

Apparently when I am on trips with my boss I frequently talk to complete strangers. This is something my mother does which frustrates me no end. And now I hear that it is something I do? Actually I was aware that I do speak to people more than I ever used to and I have had the odd thought cross my mind that I’m being just like my mother. Ah well. It’s nice to be friendly. And I refuse to think that I do it as much as my Mum!!!

On that note…my boss was telling her family about how I speak to strangers and her husband said I was probably talking to them about God. And her nephew (having met me a few times) chimed in and said “yes Cha is really nice…is she one of those evil-angelists?”

I laughed at loud at that one!