Saturday, June 23, 2012

Dude Food

Are you watching Masterchef? I love watching the challenges. Not so much the eliminations or even the inventions tests but I happened to see the adds for the "Dude Food" Invention test  that's coming up on on Sunday night and I was reminded of my husband a few months back. I was about to make my usual Spaghetti Bolognaise when my husband gave out a huge 'man' sigh.  Knowing this was his way of saying, "Not Spag Bol again!", I asked him what he would like for dinner. His response, "meatballs?". Phew! I thought he was going to say somethng from here!


Sorry about the meatball pic! It's not the best and I completely forgot the parmesan cheese! So forgive me! Also, the pic above is a little 'man corner' I created for my husband. How cool is the He-Man cake tin?



Spaghetti with Meatballs and Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

1 onion, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
10 ripe cherry tomatoes, chopped in half
salt and sugar

500g beef mince
1 carrot, grated
3 broccoli spears, finely chopped
1/2 large or 1 small corn, kernals removed
salt and pepper

250g Egg pasta Vermicelli

Method

Fill a large pot with water. Pop the lid on and put over a high heat.

In a small saucepan add a good dash of extra virgin olive oil and pop over a low heat. Add the onion and garlic and a touch of salt. Sweat over a low heat for 5 minutes.

In a microwave dish add the corn kernals and broccoli and microwave until done (about 2 minutes) Set aside

In a large bowl throw in the mince and add the carrot and salt and pepper.

Add the cherry tomatoes to the small saucepan along with a another dash of salt and a sprinkle of sugar. Add a touch of water. Raise the heat to medium but keep an eye on it that it doesn't catch on the bottom.

Add the corn kernals and broccoli to the large bowl and give it a good mix through. Get out a large saucepan, add some olive oil to cover the base and pop over a medium high heat.

meanwhile, make your meatballs. If you make them small then they are easy to eat bite-size morsels and they will also be quicker to cook too! Have them all ready to go so they will have the same cooking time. When your pan is hot enough, add all the meatballs, starting with the centre of the pan and working your way out. Adjust heating if need be. You don't want to nuke them!

Add salt to the large pot of water and throw in your pasta. Pop 10 minutes on your timer.

Check your meatballs. Start with one of the outer ones. They should turn over easily with out breaking. If they do fall apart then they need more cooking on that side. If they are ready, turn over and pop the lid on. Cook for a few minutes or until cooked through. When ready, place on absorbant kitchen paper.

Drain pasta and place in bowls. Top with meat balls and tomato sauce. Adding fresh ground black pepper, a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and a huge amount of shaved parmesan cheese. Hopefully the dude in your life will be happy with this!

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

more weddings!

I really do love weddings! as you are all well aware ;-) we hit the road to Kiama on the weekend, amidst the rain and bitterly cold breeze, to attend my Cousin's wedding. Saturday was such an awful day but Sunday, though still a tad breezy, the sun was shining and everything glistened like it was Spring or as a wedding day should!
Here we are, me and the hubby at Peace Park, Kiama, just after the nuptials (My daughter thought it was called Pizza Park.....te-he.)  Don't tell anyone but this is the 3rd time I have worn this dress! It's a Diana Ferrari and I fell in absolute love with it as soon as I laid eyes on it. When I tried it on, 1) I was in disbelief that this beautiful garment even fit me and 2) I discovered that it was an extremely flattering style; big arms! - not a problem;  pot belly! - where?; no boobs! - hello ruffles! and how amazing is that green tone? As my friend Caroline said, "You must wear that colour from now on!"......so, do you want to know how much this miracle dress cost me?............$6....yep, I know!


I go here at least once a week. I discovered it about a year ago while getting myself completely lost but that's when you happen upon amazing little places and knowing that the money they make is doing good things is a nice little bonus......it doesn't make me feel so bad about buying a brand new Diana ferrari dress with the original tag on it for $6......(!!!!!!) My most recent purchase, a stunning summer evening dress in  dark purple by Jacqui E with the original price tag of $149.95, I paid - $6. yep. Majority of  the clothes are 2nd hand but there are these little hidden gems with orginal tags in there if you have the time to look. Just remember to save me a dress or 2!.....size 10 please ;-0

back to the wedding!  here is the wedding cake. A beautiful orange and poppy seed cake that looked classic and tasted delicious! How cute is that little topper? To put it into perspective my Cousin is extrememly tall. He's like 6ft 4. His bride is tiny or just taller then my 6 year old! So I thought this sweet little topper was them all over....




Happy Weddings! oh and I should just mention that my husbands 3 piece suit cost $25. yep.

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

weddings and other happy things

We have had an old PC kicking around in our garage since 2003 (!) It had some photos on it, like our wedding photos and baby photos of our first born.......eeep! It was one of those things where we both kept saying, we'll transfer all that to our laptop when we get a chance....well, 9 years later I finally found the time ;-)

I LOVE looking through photos. Any photos. Even 1000 photos of you on holidays in {insert dull destination here} . I will look at every one; I just love it! The photos, Oh, they took me back. We had such a wonderful time organising our wedding. Every little piece of it. Since having the fox & the spoon on Etsy, I have had a number of lovely ladies purchase vintage pieces for their own weddings which I think is SO exciting. I love to see photos afterwards too and hear their ideas. They are all so clever and I guess these days there are so many more options online too. One of these lovely ladies now runs her own wedding and event planning business in Perth. You can see Kristy's wonderful work here. Her own incredibly beautiful wedding (and I am not just saying that!) was featured on Style Me Pretty which you can view here. I hope you take a look as I think she just has a wonderful style and well, she's an all-round lovely person too.





I thought I would share 2 photos with you from my own wedding and our engagement party. The cakes! At the time of our wedding I was working full time and selling my own cakes  at markets on the weekends. I was pretty busy! Everyone told me and my own soon to be husband warned me, not to make my own wedding cake (or else!) so I didn't.....even though to me, a wedding is all about the cake!.....Luckily, My Mum knew a lady she use to work with by the name of Renee.  Similar to me, she was making cakes at home but was looking to open her own shop. So we gave Renee the opportunity to make our engagement cake and I was so incredibly happy with the look and the flavour I also begged her to make our wedding cake!  She opened her shop soon after our wedding and she has since opened 2 other stores in Sydney. She is of course, Renee from Babycakes and you can see more by visiting her website here .


Happy Weddings!

Saturday, June 2, 2012

home.

I thought I would share a few quick photos from our home. This is the second place we have owned and we have been lucky enough to have bought places that have only needed a lick of paint! This house had a different colour in every room and when we moved in we painted everything in ocean pearl and had the ceilings professionally painted in a crisp white. Nearly 3 years later, everything still looks lovely and fresh and I'm so happy I went with a neautral tone. In our previous home we painted a feature wall in the loungeroom an apple green. I loved it for the first year but then it kind of took over. Because it was  a small unit it felt like everything had to revolve around this green tone. It really became a headache after a while! Needless to say, it's nice to add colour through pillows, artwork and all those little treasures we find along the way....


 A little rustic collection above the stove


 I bought this old frame at The Bower years ago, attached hessian to the back
and now it hangs in our kitchen with recipes I use the most.


I bought these old hessian sacks only recently. I've kept 2 for us
and the other 2 are in the shop. Perfect seating for little people!




Here's our lounge room. Not sure if you can see it but there's a round mirror
in the bottom left cabinet. We used them as platters at our wedding.


another view. To the left is a metal tissue holder that I bought for 55c!
The lamp at night gives a beautiful soft light and during the day the sun
shines in. I found the olive toned floral fabric in Vinnies and my Mother
in law made them into pillows for me!



The lounge looking through to the kitchen.The beautiful mirror was a gift
from my Mum's friend Louise and to the left is a page from
an old german cookbook that I bought from Percival Road   It's a picture of a woman in an apron, I call her the domestic goddess, who welcomes  all who walks through the door.....

home.  :-)