Silent Sunday

Day 9: Eyes (or in this case, eye).

Things I'm Loving

I wholeheartedly believe that no matter what is happening in your life, there is always something that you can be thankful for... no matter how simple it is.

To be honest I've had a really crappy week. Feeling sick, having a sick bubba and some other home problems meant a fairly sad mumma.

Thank goodness for my lovely husband, wonderful mum who helped out so I could go to work while Leah was sick and the beautiful rottweiler smiling face that's always waiting for me at home. Not to mention the gorgeous little girl who's been so happy despite the sore ear and constant coughing.  What a wonderful family I have.

Hugs to all <3

Only one photo today.  Not the greatest photo but it has two of my most favourite 'people' in it. My best mates <3

Things I'm Loving

 I wholeheartedly believe that no matter what is happening in your life, there is always something that you can be thankful for... no matter how simple it is.

 

 This week I'm thankful for work! I didn't think I would enjoy going back but I really have. It's been busy and full on but a great start to the term.

 

Loving 'the thinker'....

 

...and her new party trick.

Loving friends who send me cute things that go with my new collection - BABUSHKA!

 

Loving doggy birthdays. Our eldest had his 2nd birthday this week.  Happy birthday Jake!

Loving a lovely Aunty that gave me a voucher to get this for FREE.  Only catch is that I had to put it together in one night - challenge accepted! 50 full photo pages of our Leah <3.  Also, thanks to diamondphotos.co.nz for the speedy delivery! 3 days to be printed, shipped and on my doorstep, ka pai!

 

And lastly, I'm loving that my educational blog is up and running and in it's first week.  Have a wee squiz if you like :) educationgold.blogspot.co.nz

What are you loving this week?

Silent Sunday

Week 8: Water

I shot this awhile ago but never did anything with it.  Voila for 'water' :)

Gotta love the holidays

For providing me with time to finish 101 challenge projects.

I bought the photo album when we were leaving phuket but actually wanted to do a scrapbook scrapbook when I made this challenge.  The cool photo album won out and I just made sure I added some special touches to it.

And three guesses on where I saw this idea... lol.

Chicken Dippers and Avocado Dip

Chicken dippers are made in the normal flour, egg, bread crumb manner and then shallow fried. I zhuzh up my breadcrumbs a bit by adding parmesan, paprika, oregano and chives - makes them super yummy.

The avocado dip is a bit of a frankenstein.  I looked all around the internet at different recipes and took bits and pieces here and there.  I didn't follow one recipe exactly and my quantities weren't measured but it was YUM!

Mashed up one avocado, half a package of cream cheese, grated a small onion (with it's juice) into it, added garlic salt and normal pepper and lemon juice.  Mixed it all up and voila.

Sure is fun to play around with recipes. The more I look through the net and recipe books the more confident I feel to change things up.  I'm a bit of a 'rough as guts' cook - chucking things in here and there and not really measuring exactly right but it seems to work.... or at least it did this time!

"Today I have grown taller from walking with the trees."

Yes that's right...I completed this challenge a month ago.  Just haven't blogged about it. In fact, I decided to register to plant a tree for Leah on the suggestion of one of our lovely coffee group ladies and at the time of registration I thought 'woohoo, another thing to tick off my list'. Then after doing it, I promptly forgot that it would tick this off. Whoops.

Not to worry, here I am! Leah was lucky enough to receive a Matai tree to plant in the Children's Forest in Papakura. I didn't so much plant it as Damien did (more daddy kinda work) but it's the thought that counts.

Can't wait to come and visit it when Leah is older. We might make it a yearly thing to see how much her tree grows each year.  Such a cool idea! <3

Well looky here!

Two 101 challanges I'd completed but hadn't got around to blogging about.  Gotta love that!

I'm going to blog about the other in a seperate post because I love it.

This one...

...was very therapeutic. To be honest I didn't think I had that many bad memories but once I got started I seemed to get a fair amount out I think.

I must admit, I didn't bury so much as put them in the document shredder, but the purpose was served me thinks.

Silent Sunday

Week 7: Animal

Little Cheesecakes

My husband loves these.  My mum always used to make them after making Fish Pie (very similar to my CCC pie - just opt out canned chicken and cranberry with canned tuna and chives) with the left over puff pastry. Easy to make and uses basic ingredients that should always be in the pantry. Thought I would share the recipe with you all.

You'll need;
1 sheet of puff pastry (or adapt the recipe for as much pastry as you have)
Jam
125g butter
3/4 cup sugar
1t vanilla
1 egg
2 cups flour
1t baking power

Cinnamon
3t sugar

Grease muffin tins (however many you need).

Cut circles out of the pastry (big/small enough to fit in the muffin tins) and place in the tins.  Put 1/2 - 1 teaspoon of jam in the centre of the pastry circles.

Cream butter and sugar in a bowl, add vanilla and egg then mix until light and fluffy.  Add flour and baking powder, mix in well.

Make small balls of the dough, flatten them and place on top of the jam.  Ensure you press around the edges to create a seal.

Mix together cinnamon and 3t sugar and sprinkle on top.  Bake at 180 degree celcius for 10 minutes or until tops are golden brown.

Enjoy - Yum yum! 

xoxox

Things I'm Loving

 I wholeheartedly believe that no matter what is happening in your life, there is always something that you can be thankful for... no matter how simple it is.

Loving my time with my friends from uni yesterday. At uni (those 7-10 long years ago) I had a small group of close friends who still get together every school holidays and they're great! 2 of us have had little people now and we spent a lot of time yesterday boggling our minds over this fact.  And might I add that they are 2 of the most gorgeous babies EVER.

Loving our dinner on Wednesday night. My stomach (and def not my waistline) is still thanking me. You can get the recipe here.

Loving the holidays and that I get to both do lots of things I have put on the back burner for a while and completely blob out and read books/watch crap/play temple run all day. One of those things I've been putting off is getting my new tattoo, which I also love.

For the first time in a few months I actually love all 3 of the photos I'm entering into photo club for next week.  Fingers crossed for a good outcome!

What are you loving this week?

“Sometimes you can't see yourself clearly until you see yourself through the eyes of others.”

Isn't that true?  The two things I managed to cross off my 101 list today were an interesting exercise.

I've been working on this for weeks.  Yes, weeks.  It took me that long to finally agree with myself that I had some things that I do really like about myself and that that is OK. I would write something down and then think... "isn't that a bit up myself to think that?" and delete it. All out of the printer in ink to go up on the mirror now so there's no turning back!

The second was similar in nature but again very difficult.  I had to be very selective.  There's so many things I would love to be and be thought of as.  These are what made the top ten.  Let's see if I can live up to them.

Cream Cheese & Bacon Chicken Parcels

This recipe is another pinterest inspired one.  Is there anything that site can't do?

There are heaps of variations of this recipe on the net but the original recipe I was inspired by can be found here. After trial and error on my part I do do things a little bit differently. 

Here's my take on it.

You'll need;
2 chicken breats
125g cream cheese
Spring onion
2 Rashers bacon
3 sheets of puff pastry
1 whisked egg for brushing the pastry before cooking.


Method;

Cook the bacon to your liking.  It's probably best you make it crispy for this recipe but as you'll see, we like ours only just cooked.

Chop the spring onion finely and dice the bacon into small chunks. 

In a bowl mix the spring onion, bacon and cream cheese.

Slice the chicken breast down the middle about 3/4 of the way through.  I cut my chicken breasts into two portions before doing this as I was using premade sheets of puff pastry and being square it doesn't fit the breasts properly.

Pile the cream cheese mixture in the cuts you have made in the chicken.

Using the puff pastry encase the chicken in small parcels and seal.  It doesn't matter how you do this so much, as long as they're sealed.  This is how mine look :)

Be careful you don't leave the chicken for too long. It might come across danger....

Whisk the egg and brush over the pastry before cooking at 160 degrees celcius for 45 mins - 1 hour or until golden brown. 

Yum Yum!