Our NewTown - Mad Pizza

The other night we were walking down the street to drop a dvd back. We were stopped by a guy who gave us a voucher for free pizza at a new restaurant in town.

Mad Pizza replaces the popular Ice n Slice which closed a few weeks ago.
Never ones to turn down a free meal we headed over and abandoned our home cooked meal plan.

Mad Pizza is much more our style than Ice n Slice was. The decor is bright and retro. Red and white checked table cloths, shelves lined with Italian kitsch and cheeky posters. The table was covered with brown paper and a bowl of crayons, perfect for one little fussy diner.

We chose two pizzas. One with meatballs the other with prawns. They were traditional, tasty, crisp and fresh.
Lucy liked the meatballs. Not on the pizza, just the meatballs picked off. I'm calling that a win.

The ambience was cheery, the music straight out of a club ((!?) Lucy liked the beats) and the staff were very friendly. At mostly 19.5 a pizza the prices are about the same as any other place in Newtown.

I'd go there again with friends and will probably be back for the $10 lunch pizza and kids meatballs.

Other than the free pizza, I was not paid for this review. All opinions are my own.

tea for the tillerman

We have all had bouts of the snotty in the last few weeks.
Luckily it seems to hit one of us at a time so we can play nurse.
When it hit Myl I made him a special cup of tea with
honey
lemon &
ginger.
It worked a treat and was tasty too.

We've been cuddling the little one, using vicks on a tissue, sleeping in and keeping warm.
Being sick would be lovely if it weren't for the sick part.

How do you get rid of a cold and flu?

Clickerty click?

Our NewTown - grub and tucker

We have walked past this place loads of times and seen in the window a meal called the Lucy breakfast. As the cutest member of our family also bears that name and we love going out for breakfast, we decided to give it a try.

I can safely say the Lucy breakfast is a tasty treat. Lots of different parts and tasty flavours. Even Lucy herself shoved it enthusiastically down her gob. However I don't think we will be visiting grub and tucker again. Lucy likes to wander in cafes and do cute things like say hello to the other cafe goers. We were (politely) asked to keep our wandering daughter at our table. Fair enough. But an upset and restrained toddler is not our idea of good cafe times.
Also, our coffee was burnt. Badly. So badly that I could tell and I'm the furthest from a coffee snob you are likely to get.

Tasty food, cute cafe, not big enough servings for Myl, not child friendly and terrible coffee. A bit average all round but not a waste of time.

Our NewTown - urban bites

This is our go to cafe.
It's close enough that Lucy can walk there, tasty, friendly staff and not too expensive. It's the go to cafe for people from Myl's college and our old church so it's nice to often see a familiar face.

We went last week for a little family breakfast. Is breakfast not the finest meat to dine out for?

We ordered Lucy her first baby cino. She ate one tiny spoonful of froth, screwed her nose up and had no more. Oh well. We'll embrace cafe culture together another day.

Stuffed capsicum

Made this little recipe up. Caps with rice,pumpkin and tomato. Tasty dinner served up at 9 30 after our little miss teething finally went to sleep.

sweet eats - open sarnie

This is what we eat for dinner with the last vegis in our fridge.

capsicum
mushroom
cream cheese
bread

tiramisu!

I thought I'd share the recipe for Myles birthday tiramisu cake. Even though it looked like a massive snowy landslide it tasted yummy.


Step 1 - Make this cake. Mostly because I didn't have any eggs in the house but it turned out to be really tasty and quite perfect for a tiramisu.

Step 2 - Pour 1 cup of coffee and liberal amounts of tia maria onto cake. Leave for a few hours so that the coffee and booze seep into the cake.

Step 3 - Whip 500ml of cream with 1 tsp icing sugar and 1tsp vanilla essence.

Step 4 - Place one cake on your plate. Cover the top with chocolate sauce. I used good ole Cottees chocolate topping but you could use anything. Topping, ganache, whatever you like.
pile on top half the cream. Add the next layer of cake and do the same.
Sprinkle some nuts on top and sift cocoa on top.

Add candles and start to sing.

i -heart- curry

I've been taking part in a Heart Foundation program called "Mums United." It's all about educating families about healthy eating.
They have some really fabulous recipes on their site and all have the tick of approval.

Here is one that I made. It was really tasty Vegetable and Chickpea Curry
This mild curry has the added benefit of fibre and protein and lots of vegetables to help on your way to five a day.
Serves: 4 Preparation time: 30 minutes Cooking time: 25 minutes
Ingredients
2 tablespoons soybean oil 1 brown onion, thinly sliced 1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger 3 cloves garlic, crushed 3 long green chillies, finely chopped 1/2 teaspoon dried turmeric 2 teaspoons ground coriander 2 teaspoons garam masala 2 potatoes, cut into large cubes 2 carrots, cut into thick slices 2 zucchini, cut into thick slices 425g can chopped tomatoes 250ml reduced salt vegetable stock 400g can chickpeas, rinsed and drained 200g baby spinach leaves, washed 1 cup fresh or frozen peas Poppy seed rice: 1 1/2 cups basmati rice 2 tablespoons poppy seeds microwave poppadoms to serve   Remember all fresh fruit and vegetables automatically qualify for the Tick.
Instructions
1 Heat the oil in a large pot, add the onion and ginger and cook over a medium heat for 5 minutes or until soft. Add the garlic, chillies and spices and cook for 2 minutes or until fragrant. 2 Add the potatoes and carrots and cook until the vegetables are coated in the spices. Stir in the zucchini, tomatoes and stock and simmer. Reduce the heat and cook uncovered for 15 minutes or until the vegetables are tender and the curry has thickened slightly. Add the chickpeas and stir. 3 Add the peas and spinach; cook just until the spinach wilts and the chickpeas are soft. 4 To make the poppy seed rice, put the rice and poppy seeds in a pot, add 450ml of water and bring to the boil. Cook over a high heat until tunnels appear in the rice. Reduce the heat to very low, cover and allow to steam for 10 minutes or until the rice is tender and all the liquid is absorbed. 5 Serve the curry on top of the rice and accompany with microwaved poppadoms.

solid

Lucy has started eating solid food.

 
 

So far she has tasted banana, pumpkin, apple, carrot, spinach/pumpkin mix and avocado in a mixture of spoonfed pulp (with added mama milk) and softened finger food.
Not to mention cream (thanks nana) and custard tart (thanks dad). Oh, and yesterday she ingested some paper.

So far banana and avocado are wins and packet foods are not. I must say I agree. I had a taste of the packet spinach and pumpkin mix and it tasted pretty average.

We have been at it for a week and so far it seems to be going alright. Lucy hasn't quite got the hang of the whole opening your mouth thing but I'm not sure if that's because she doesn't know how or she doesn't like the food being offered. She manages to gulp down a few spoonfulls each time and gets her body covered in tasty goop.

We are starting off with lunch. I give Lucy some food, she starts to fuss when she has enough and then I give her a breastfeed.
This week we have started fruit and veg and next week we will start cereals and grains.
After a month we are going to start breakfast and lunch and then after another month breakfast, lunch and dinner and then drop the middle of the day feed.

Well.  That's the plan.

It is a little sad to not be full time breastfeeding my little girl anymore but at the moment I'm still getting all her meals and she hasn't dropped any feeds. It's fun watching her explore food. In her mouth, in her fingers, on the table. It's a messy but fun little time of life.

winter warmers

pasta a la Jamie

 

lemon-meringue

I love lemon-meringue pie.
It's always been one of those things that I thought was too tricky and fiddly to make but I got a new cookbook called puddings and pies and decided to give it a go with some shortcrust pastry I had in the freezer.

It's actually a great recipe in that there are only a few moments that you actually need to be cooking. It took me longer than a day to finish these which was really convenient.

Makes 12


pastry
Cut circles out of shortcrust pastry and stick them in a muffin tray.
Put it in the fridge. I left mine in overnight but 30 mins is fine.
lemon
Put 1/2 cup cornflour, 1 cup caster sugar in a saucepan.
Add 1/2 cup lemon juice till it becomes smooth.
Stir and boil till the mixture thickens. This will happen pretty quickly so keep an eye on it.
When thick, take it off the heat.
Add to this 60g butter, 3 egg yolks and the rind of your lemons.
Cool the mix for 10 mins.
Spread the mix into the pastry cases and leave for 2 hrs. I left it overnight again.
meringue
whip up the egg whites till soft peaks form (I never knew what this was till I made these. It's really obvious when you do it.)
Add 1/2 cup of sugar gradually till it dissolves.
Spoon onto your tarts and bake in a HOT 240' oven for 2 mins.

Off to Nana's house

 

Source: notsohumblepie.blogspot.com via Sarah on Pinterest

There's this story in our family about how my older sister tasted her first solids.
A sweet little babe of a few weeks old was given rum and rasin ice cream by her adoring Nana as a disapproving daughter-in law looked on.

So, when visiting my nana with my own sweet babe and hearing her almost five month self offered cake, I was more than a little concerned.

A pinky finger of sweetened, whipped cream was offered and then thrust into her untainted mouth. She licked her lips, smiled and tasted with joy.

Another pinky was offered but a disapproving granddaughter was at the ready to block all sweet substance to mouth contact.

A whimper and a cry was heard from both Nana and the babe.

orange + poppyseed muffins

 Here are some muffins I baked using this recipe.

I changed it a little by using butter instead of oil, raw sugar instead of brown and instead of cream cheese icing I used a bit of brown sugar mixed with oats for a crumble topping.

The recipe says it makes six but I got 18 muffins out of it.

Pretty tasty and extra good heated up in the microwave after they have gone cold.


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went out for a hot date sans baby
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Ended up at maccas...

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winter warmers - easy roast

As I write this I'm wearing a summer dress. It's probably not quite warm enough but it's cclose. It doesn't feel much like winter today but it did last week. Here's what I made for dinner with a little help from Jamie Oliver.

Faux Roast chicken + veg

Get a whole bunch of vegetables. I used potato, sweet potato, carrot + zuchini.
Cut them up any which-way.
I pre steamed the potato + sweet potato in the microwave.
Put them in a tray with a few cloves of garlic, rosemary, thyme, olive oil and saltnpepper.
Pop in the oven at 200'C.

Make a little bag out of foil. 2 sheets with three corners folded over.
Add a chicken breast, mushrooms, bit o' white wine and the rest of your herbs with a spoonful of butter.
Close up the other end of the foil bag and put in the oven in a tray for 30 mins.

After 30 mins rip open that bag and salivate over the tasty steam and juices pouring outta that baby.
Plate up your chicken n veg and pour over the tasty bag juice.

I like it because there are  no bones. I've never liked bones in my meat.

laksa

Source: myrecipes.com via Eloise on Pinterest

It's getting wintry here in ole Sydney town.
We have had lots of rainy days that Lucy and I spent indoors watching the rain splatter on the windows. It was actually flash flooding outside and poor Myl was drenched coming home from college but we were nice and warm!

So along with wintry weather comes wintry food.

Myl is a big fan of laksa. It's what he gets whenever we go to $6.50 thai.
Even though it's so cheap I thought I could make it cheaper at home. Here's how.

Ingredients (serves 2)
1 chicken breast
1 carrot
2 small bunches of choy sum
3 mushrooms
1/4 packet of rice noodles
1 tin coconut cream
2 cups water
1/2 tin of laksa paste

you could use other veg if you like or add bean sprouts.

Chop chicken into strips and fry in a large saucepan with cooking oil.
Chop carrot into rings. Chop mushroom into slices. Chop choy sum and leave green leaves to the side.
When chicken is brown add the carrot, mushroom and white parts of the choy sum.
When that is slightly soft add laksa paste and coconut cream. Stir till the laksa paste has mixed into everything.
Add 2 cups of water and bring to the boil.
Add the noodles and simmer for at least 5 mins or until rice noodles are cooked.
Divide into two bowls.
Rip up the choy sum leaves and sprinkle on top.

Enjoy!

no, the picture is not of the laksa I made. It looked pretty similar. I couln't find my camera and the picture I took with Myles' phone made it look like creepy death laksa so I cheated. Hope it inspires.

the waiting game

nope, no baby yet...

Still no obvious labour signs yet either.
I'm getting pretty keen for this little one to come.

While I have been waiting this is what I've been up to.
Yipee found the camera!

 Found this tutorial and decided to juj up a onesie.

 I know it's going into winter but these could be fun for a sunny day.

 It's a bandanna bib for my little cowgirl.

 I made monte carlos. They look similar to these but they are oh so different. I've been having very strange desires to bake.

I've been doing lots of itty bitty laundry. It's pretty cute.


We have been going on so many dinner dates because 1. This might be our last chance!! and 2. Impending baby has meant I haven't gone for a proper grocery shop in some time. eeek!

Come on baby girl! We are so ready to meet you.


If you vote she might come quicker?

i could eat a horse...

this picture actually makes me want to hurl... it's not horse

...in small ammounts over the course of a whole day. But a horse it would be.

I'm so HUNGRY. All the time.
When I eat something I get really full and can't eat much but then about 30 mins later I am hungry again.

The worst part is that it is 10:50pm and I am absolutely starving but it is time for bed and not eating. I need to wait for breakfast.


Man I could really go some chicken nuggets right now.

Image Credit : This is why you're Fat