Night in the kitchen

Have you ever had those moments where you feel inspired to grab a recipe book and make something a little more interesting then the same old chicken and salad dinners? Yes? Well that was me tonight.

I must admit I do enjoy cooking. Particularly if it turns out deliciously tasty...... and I think I find it relaxing in an odd kind of way!

I had some apples that I wanted to turn into a dessert for the little man - and B and I had forgotten to take out any meat for dinner. So I grabbed a few cook books and after about 5 minutes of flicking through, decided upon a Beef Vindaloo from the CSIRO cookbook. I have made it before (burnt the bottom though) and decided it might be a better idea to stay close by this time :)

Concurrently I decided to whip up an apple and oatmeal dessert using a recipe I found on the wholesome baby food website. There is some really good stuff on there so if you are into making the food for your bub I recommend hitting it up!
So I sent B to the supermarket with the little man in tow and while they were gone I started on the apple dish.

 

Apple pieces and oats cooking slowly

With cinnamon added

Served up ready to go!

Then when B returned from the shops I started the 80 minute cooking process of the beef vindaloo. I took my laptop into the kitchen and cooked/facebooked/blogged all at once to pass the time. A tiny bit of 'me time'. Here are the results

simmering away

almost cooked and ready to serve

The finished product



B and I sat down to eat and he was suitably impressed. The taste was sort of sweetish with an added spiciness (if that is even a word).The two empty bowls proved the meal was a success. Cooking a meal from scratch did however make me realise that I'd like to try and do that more often, less processed and less preservatives - but also good for the soul...

Anyone else been on an adventure in the kitchen lately?

xx

Eeerily quiet in here tonight....

Wow - so tonight is the first night our little man has slept away from us. It's so quiet in this house that it is scary ahaha.

My sister turns 21 tomorrow - and what did she want? A day with my little man :) Seriously I can understand that! He is tooooo cute. He usually spends tomorrow with my mum anyways so instead of her coming here to look after him he is staying the night there and my sister will bring him back tomorrow afternoon.

B and I are kind of lost without him. 8 months of putting our little man to sleep and going through our nightly routine it feels so strange not to have him in the house. B even emailed me from work today to say 'What are we going to do tonight? I  miss him already!'. I thought that was really cute!

So at work today people were asking what I was going to do with my night off and B got the same questions. So when we got home we decided to go out for dinner. Not because we wanted to really - just so as we'd have something to say when people ask tomorrow. How strange is that!

I cannot beleive how much stuff I had to pack for him for a one night stay! Food, clothes, bottles, bedding, bath stuff, nappies, toys..... it was like 4 bags worth!

So here I am feeling lonely in this big house and wondering... What do you do when your kids aren't around?
xx

My Place & Yours

One of my favourite games to play along with :) Each week Danielle over at Hello Owl announces a theme and anyone who would like to play along gets snapping around the house and posts a couple of pics.

This week  - "Where you sit down to eat?"

B and I try to sit down to eat every night - but the little man often has an 'intuition' around dinner time and chooses to wake - in which case one of us will eat and the other will resettle the little man. Then we swap! The joys of parenthood :)


This is our dining table - We eat here 90% of the time...... the other 10% on the couch!

and FYI we don't usually have this guest at the dinner table with us...... It seems since the little mans arrival I have loosened the discipline reigns for Miss Roxy....

N.B - she was removed from the table as soon as I had taken this pic!

So play along and share with us  - where do you eat?


xx