The challenge was issued... and accepted

Today a gauntlet was thrown down by Miss Miller at 'Project Elegance'. Start from scratch she says... make something new she says... while ensuring one uses that single magic ingredient that takes the mundane to the sublime - fun!

With a smile of glee I accepted said gauntlet and wondered what I could create. Mmmmm, there are so many things I love to make.

I am a fanatic (or should that be frantic) corn chip eater so that was an obvious choice having never made corn chips before...but.. sadly... I didn't have the ingredients on hand when the cooking muse took me, so decided - after much deliberation - on lamb kofta instead. HoM voted quite strenuously for the kofta!

Now, I have made lamb kofta before, so perhaps this was not strictly keeping within the bounds of the challenge, but I have looked longingly at this yummy looking recipe with pistachios and apricots in it for many a day.

Surely Miss Jenn and Miss Miller wouldn't quibble too much over such trivialities - would they?? ;-)

Firstly I had to mince the lamb steaks... it is a challenge about starting from scratch after all!

I do love my Kitchen Aid and it's very nifty attachments ;-)

The obligatory onion and spice frying came next... I have found that there are few meals in my house that don't start with chopping up an onion! This recipe uses three of my favourite spices, cumin, coriander and cayenne. What glorious fragrant spices they are!

Next came the extra fruity/nutty bits. As promised, chopped apricots and chopped pistachios. Interesting choices to put in a kofta I thought, but so middle eastern.. no?

Next step was to mix it all together with an egg to bind! I love when I must mix all the ingredients with my hands. It brings me such satisfaction ;-)

Seriously the spatula is there only for putting ingredients in the bowl - I promise!

Then again, using the hands to make small sausage like shapes of the mixed ingredients.... voila...

And then under the grill for 10 minutes or so in each side to turn a lovely dark brown colour!

I served my lamb koftas with a quinoa tabbouleh like salad, hummus and pita bread. I would have liked to use tzatzikki too, but it seems the antipodeans in this town have yet to embrace those particular flavours. I guess the next challenge will be to make my own tzatzikki

...from scratch ;-)

Sorry, I don't know why some of the photos are on top of each other. I'm still learning this blogging thingme

Aaaah the excitement!

Guess what arrived at our house today.... more of our stuff!!!

We have made very good use of storage facilities over the years, but we have finally got everything we own in one place - of course, that is apart from the stuff that is at our holiday home in OG ;-)

I forgot to photograph everything before I started to unpack, but here's what my room looked like part way through:

The biggest thrill was when they finally unloaded my antique crystal display cabinet. I have owned this cabinet since 1995 and have had it with me in my house for approximately 12 months in 2004! The rest of the time it has been in storage! Hence my excitement!

Here it is - filled with the enormous amount of Waterford crystal we received for wedding presents (don't ask my why?!)

We also took repossession of a dining table. Now we already have one of these with us in this house, so this one becomes a vehicle to show off my gorgeous family! A girl can't have too many photos right???!

Now if I can just find a home for all the books that came out I'll be happy ;-)

A serious question

Having moved around the world quite a lot in the past 10 years or so, I have slowly become used to continuing most of my friendships by email or phone with the occasional visit thrown in. Friends tell me they enjoy my email updates and are always happy to see me when I come home to visit.

Today however it has struck me that I am the one doing most - if not all - the phoning and emailing.

So, one reads in magazines about how friends can come and go in one's life, how moving on from people is OK and that one leaves a friendship by slowly severing contact.

This leads me to wonder...

'How long does one persevere with a friendship if one is doing all the contacting?'

Are some of my 'friends' trying to severe contact with me, or are they just continually slack about replying to emails??

How does one know????

Thank you all for the thoughts. After trying again with a few phone calls and emails I have since heard from some of the friends I was wondering about ;-)

From little things.... big things grow

Often despite the pain and boredom and angst a stay at the hospital can bring, there can be so much joy found in the simplest of things.

I made origami roses and lilies today with 5 teenage girls and each and every one of them forgot some of their worries - for just that short time - and had fun!

I need to remember and be grateful for all the positives in my life and not dwell so much on the negatives!

I was reminded yesterday just why I became a primary school teacher.

I am now a volunteer at the zoo here in town - apparently the best little zoo in the world - in the Learning unit. I guess I am basically a teacher's aide.

Yesterday as part of the school holiday program I was in charge of a group of 10 children ranging in age from 5 to 9. The children come to the zoo for the day and complete a variety of activities around a daily theme. Yesterday's theme was 'Zoo Keepers'.

Our group was on 'poo patrol'. We were taken into the llama exhibit by Kirstin the Keeper and using shovels and rakes we had to collect all the poo! Took us half and hour!

Then we went up to giraffe exhibit for another activity and lo and behold if we didn't have to do poo collection there too! That one involved not only rakes and shovels but brooms too!

Here we also had to put out the food for the giraffes - smearing peanut butter onto walls and plastic containers can be messy! Wiping peanut butter from glasses, coats, faces and fingers proved it!

The unbridled joy and excitement from the children -not to mention from me - was fabulous. There were a few children who had been coming to the zoo every day of these holidays and even they weren't jaded. Just having fun!

We laughed and joked and walked and ran and played and talked to many animals - we especially sang like kookaburras as the group loved my impersonation so much that's what they named the group!

My hand was held, I got many, many hugs and even a massage given with very small hands ;-)

I have missed that fun interaction with a group of children.

A quick update

After much consideration, we decided to go bowling on Thursday night. It was - as I had feared - a full on hot dog type meal. Not quite salmonella inducing though which was a treat!

I tried to order slightly healthily with a platter of bread and dips, but as the bread came covered in cheese it was less than it could have been ;-)

I'm sure Shabu Shabu has just been postponed though, not forgotten!

'H O M' (husband 'o' mine) was the champion bowler by far reaching scores of three digits, while I languished far behind - with a smile ;-)

A good time was had by all.

A hat trick of success

So I finally got back into baking after some time. I decided to make some biscuits, but thought I'd try a new recipe or two. I have made many choc chip biscuits in my time, but this recipe sounded good so I tried it out. Here's the result:

They actually taste better than they look ;-)

I was on a roll then, so I kept going and made another new recipe. Gingernut biscuits!!! I was really chuffed with this result as the biscuits even cracked on the top just like the ones you buy. They are crunchy and gingery and really quite yummy. Have a look:

To continue my successes I finished off a project I had been knitting for my niece. I found it had been a real labour of love as bamboo is much harder to knit with than it looks. Still despite all the stretching of yarn and hard to hide ends, the hot water bottle cover is complete. It's not too shabby - for an amateur.

Now, what will I do tomorrow?

An epicurean dilemma

Thank you all for your warm welcome to Blogland. It's nice to finally be pulled into this world -albeit on the coat tails of my little sister ;-)

I have a dilemma:

We're supposedly being taken to experience Shabu Shabu 'New Zealand' style on Thursday night by our Japanese friend.

Shabu Shabu is described most easily as Japanese fondue - sans cheese! Basically one is given a communal platter full of thinly sliced food - meat and vegetables - and using chops sticks one dips one's chosen morsel into the communal boiling broth to cook. At the end, noodles are cooked in the broth and then everyone gets some to drink like soup! Chances are you will rarely see Shabu Shabu on a menu as apparently you need to be Japanese and/or know the chef to get them to cook it!

Now my concern is we are in the middle of a swine flu epidemic and it all sounds a little too close for comfort for me!

We have also been asked to go 10 pin bowling with a New Zealand friend on the same night. Usually this night would win hands down, but my concern is, once again, the food factor. All I can envisage being on offer is hot dogs and fries. Not my favourite meal!

So my dilemma is

.... should we go to Shabu Shabu with our Japanese friend - the one we met in Berlin and risk certain swine flu exposure - or should we go bowling with our Kiwi friend - the one we met in the USA - and risk salmonella from the bowling alley foods?

All input welcome ;-)

Day One

It's another lonely day in what some might describe as paradise but I can only call my current home!
It's my first time blogging and I have to tell you all that...my sister made me do this, and I'm a little nervous!!! My sister Trash is the 'wordsmith' in our family and I, clearly, am not!
She is a non stop blogger and has now made friends around the world. She is also quite bossy ;-)
That might be enough for now - don't want to push things on the first day!