Menu Plan 26th January 2015

Happy Australia Day! Busy day weeding, going to work tomorrow for a rest!

Menu plan 19th January 2015

Better late than never!

Peach Wine #3

The wine has sat for a week and it's looking a bit clearer with a fair bit of sediment at the bottom, time to siphon it into a clean and sterilised demijohn, leaving the muck at the bottom behind.

I'll leave it for another week and see if it's clearer.

Menu Plan 12th January

This week's quote is more by way of a piece of good advice, I read it on someone else's blog recently and I wish I could remember who's so I could give them the credit, if it was yours please let me know. I love it though, so simple but so important.

The weather has been so changeable lately that it's very hard to know what sort of meals to plan, we had Tomato Soup for lunch one day on the weekend! Not something we would usually do in Summer but the weather was cool and the tomatoes were ripe!

Peach Wine #2

The Peach Wine has sat on our dining room table for a week now, I've given it the occasional poke with the wooden spoon, it certainly looks smells and sounds like it's fermenting.

I strained it today and poured it into a sterilised demijohn with an airlock on top.it smells quite vinegary but that's pretty normal at this stage, I'll leave it for another week and I might siphon into another demijohn to leave behind some of the sediment if it has settled by then.

Quinoa Salad

I don't usually get excited about salad, I'm just not a fan of raw leaves, having said that, we had this salad with some barbequed chicken last night and I loved it!

It was relatively quick and easy too as it needs to be on a weeknight.
 I started by laying down a bed of Baby Kale, we've grown a lot of Kale lately and it was great to find a new way to use it, I usually cook it.

Next, I peeled and chopped a Mango and a Cucumber,added them to a cup of cooked Quinoa along with a handful of flaked Almonds.

The dressing was simply a glut of EV Olive Oil, the juice and finely grated rind of a Lime and some Salt and Pepper.

I mixed the dressing through the Quinoa mixture and piled it on top of the Kale, topped with a few Basil Leaves. Done!

Menu Plan 5th January

This week's menu is up and as I'm back at work this week, it's a fairly non-demanding meal plan. During my time off from work I had a couple of major power cooking sessions with my daughter who has inherited our small freezer when we upgraded to a larger one, well, when I say upgraded, it cost $60 on Gumtree and it's an oldie, but I hope, a goodie! I'm loving having the extra room and being able to stock up when I see a bargain.

We cooked up a storm with 2 slow-cookers on the go as well as things baking in the oven and bubbling on the stove-top, As a result We both now have ready cooked meals that we can heat up when we get home from a long day at work. Much as I love to cook, it's so nice to have a night off sometimes.