A slow Monday

Rambles ahead ....

This is the unfortunate reality of my life today. Laundry is an inescapable fact of life -- I ignored it over the weekend, and am doing penance today. Thankfully it's a beautiful day to be outside, and the clothes are drying quickly. Still, it's definitely not my favourite job, so I'm totally pretending it's not there and posting a whole bunch of random snapshots from the day instead. 

 I was devastated when my favourite magazine, Notebook: was discontinued late last year. Devastated! It was so fantastic. I loved that it had a bit of everything -- food, clothes, interiors, interesting reads etc. I'm trying out a few new ones (two were given to me by a lovely friend), but nothing else is coming close. Most magazines are too niche. Don't they understand that we are fabulous women with many and varied interests? *sigh* I'm trying out some new recipes from "delicious" though. 

My husband bought me these pretty field carnations last week. My favourite type of bouquet is something garden or market fresh -- no fussy, mixed bouquets with lilies and gerberas for me thanks. Loving these. 

We are FINALLY moving into our new home on Friday, and the first job on the agenda is some serious paint. Serious. Wait until you see the pictures! While I love neutrals and whites, I'm considering whether to break out of the box and try some colour this time around. It sure can't get any worse. 

Have been coveting my mother's furniture the entire time I'm here. I especially love this old cabinet that she did up herself. It now houses her china and doilies. Gorgeous. 

Am also coveting her gardening skills and motivation to make the yard beautiful. The iceberg standard roses out the front are my favourite. 

Finally: my little girl is oh-so-precious. I look at her every day and think how blessed I am to have her. Her dad is pretty great too. 

Chicken with Cherry Tomatoes

We have an over-abundance of cherry tomatoes at the moment, thanks to a bush or five that has taken over an enormous section of Mum's garden. I was searching for a good recipe to use them in and came up with this recipe. Cooked it tonight -- it was good, good, GOOD! I replaced the marjoram with oregano and basil, and used thigh cutlets instead of breast (more tender for oven baking).

Books for 2011

I spoke back here of my love of reading and the books that I had read during 2010. Well, I have a bold plan for reading during 2011. I emailed a bunch of friends who seemed like they had literary taste and asked them to recommend their top 2 books of all time, in order to compile a reading list for myself. I got many and varied answers. I have also recently joined a book club, each member has chosen a book for the group to read. Some of the ones that I am most looking forward to (from both areas) can be found below:  

1. The Elegance of the Hedgehog -- Muriel Barbery
This one is 'witty fiction', one of my favourite categories! It often pops up as a recommendation when I buy books online, so it might be a winner. We'll see. 


2. Major Pettigrew's Last Stand -- Helen Simonson
Described as a love story between two elderly people -- loving that! 


3. Hospital By The River -- Catherine Hamlin
I've actually read this one before and loved it, and I've really like to read it again now that I've had a baby myself. It's written by an Australian woman who, along with her husband, began a hospital in Ethiopia for African women who suffered trauma while giving birth. 


4. Peeling the Onion -- Wendy Orr

Story of a teenage girl who remakes her life after a car accident. Recommended by a fellow book lover. 


5. The Sparrow -- Mary Doria Russell
I'll copy and paste my friend's recommendation: 

A good book should change the way you think and that's what this one does. As a novel it deals with the questions of pain, suffering, and purpose better than any treatise on the subject will by continually asking, where is God?

6. Ice Station -- Matthew Reily

Because Difff thinks it's impossible to put down -- what's not to love about that?

7. The Book Thief -- Marcus Zusak 

EVERYONE loves this book. Everyone is talking about it. Gotta read it. 

8. The Piano Shop on the Left Bank -- T.E. Carhart 

Love the title to start with .... also love that it's set in Paris .... also love that it's about pianos, and might give me something to talk to my musician husband about!

9. The Count of Monte Cristo -- Alexander Dumas 

Already part-way through this novel and boy oh boy is it LONG! As in, 1000 pages of tiny type long. But, it's a classic, one of the most popular novels of all time, and rather enjoyable. It's good for me to keep stretching my mind with the classics. 

10. Another Dicken's novel. Any one I haven't read. Perhaps David Copperfield. 

What about you? What are YOU reading at the moment? What would you like to read?

** No idea why this post is so bizarre in its formatting -- I keep trying to fix it to no avail. Must go fix dinner now **

One-Dish Chicken

You are looking at one of my new favourite meals.

I have been making this probably about once a week or so since my lovely sister-in-law passed her recipe along. She made it for us during the week after baby was born and it was delicious! I'm a big fan of recipes that make use of chicken legs, because they're such an economical cut of meat, but not always easy to know what to do with.

This is a rough take on her recipe, because I'm not an exact cook and I've been throwing stuff in for a while now and I'm pretty sure you can't ruin this!

Ingredients:

• required amount of chicken legs (the quantities below probably work for about 4 people)
• required amount of potato/pumpkin/sweet potato in whatever combination you like
• 2 or 3 Tbsp of tomato paste
• 1.5 cups chicken stock
• 1 or 2 cloves of crushed garlic
• paprika to taste
• salt and pepper
• rosemary
• oil and/or spray oil

Method:

1. Arrange your chicken legs and cut up vegetables however you like in a casserole dish (no need to grease). I like to remove the skin off my chicken legs, but that's optional I suppose.
2. In a jug or bowl or something, mix up your chicken stock with the tomato paste, and crushed garlic.
3. Without pouring ON the chicken, pour into the base of the casserole dish.
4. Sprinkle your paprika, salt, pepper and some rosemary over the chicken and vegetables.
5. Pour a bit of oil over the top (I probably use about 3 or 4 T). To make the vegetables and chicken go nice and crunchy, I also use an olive oil spray to coat the top of things.
6. Bake in a 220 degree oven for around an hour. By the time your potatoes are cooked, the chicken should be too.
7. Serve with greens of your choice, and dish some of the yummy sauce over the top of your chicken and potatoes. I love lots of the sauce.

Seriously, the sauce in this is genius. Who would have thought such simple ingredients could taste so divine? Definitely one worth trying.

Two birds .... one stone

Hey all. Just checking in with a very quick little before and after. Actually, it sort of doubles up as TWO before and afters.

I picked this clock up in my local St Vinnies for just $10. Excuse the crappy picture (more on that later). It was entirely made of plastic (!!!) and covered in the most hideous faux-wood paint design. I'm annoyed at myself for not getting a better shot of how heinous it truly was.

So, a few coats of spray paint later and voila! I love it! It will be perfect in our new place -- we only had one clock in our unit and the house will be too big for just one timepiece :-)

Secondly, I have a new camera! You can see the obvious limitations from my old point and shoot in the first piccie, and the amazing abilities of my new Canon 550D in the second. It's truly magnificent, and I love it to bits already.

Anyway, must go, baby is awake early from her nap and whinging like you wouldn't believe.

A Valentine Freebie!

I have been busy this morning .... creating a little fun countdown to Valentine's Day for my sweetie. We don't normally celebrate Valentine's (being Australian it's not a high priority holiday!) However, we are staying at my parents' place at the moment, and life has been pretty hectic and not-so-fun, so I thought I would make some effort this year to make things a little sparklier.

Hence my countdown!

I printed it out on some shiny metallic card. The less sleep-deprived ones among us will notice that my garland looks slightly ...... purple ...... compared to the original version below. It seems that our printer is low on red ink! Oh well, the best laid plans often go by the wayside and I'm too busy and tired to go get some more!

Each day I will fill out the category for that day -- starting today with 5 days left (I should have got my act together and counted down for the week, but that was never going to happen). Here's a little preview of what it looks like:


If you like the idea and would like to use it, you can find the PDF file for download right here. While I did make it with Valentine's Day in mind, it's probably generic enough to use for any special occasion (perhaps a birthday or anniversary).