Quick Apple Tart

This was sooooooo easy, as you will see.

1 sheet of pre-rolled, flaky puff pastry, defrosted
2 apples, peeled and cored
1/2 cup sugar
25g of very cold butter

1/4 cup apricot jam
2T boiling water

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees celcius. Line a baking tray with baking paper and place the cold pastry sheet down. Lightly score the sheet to create a 1cm border on all 4 sides (this will allow the pastry to puff up and form sides to the tart.

Finely slice the apples and place them in overlapping rows on the pastry. Sprinkle evenly with the sugar. Scatter the butter on top.

Bake in preheated over for 25 - 30 minutes until golden. When the tart is nearly cooked, stir the apricot jam and water together. Once the tart is cooked, brush the glaze evenly on top.

I serve mine with whipped cream - delicious.

Sloppy Joes

This was a meal I had heard many times on TV and seen in media, but never tried. Can't go too wrong with mince and bread - oh and it's a slow cooker recipe, bonus!

2T olive or canola oil
1 medium onion, diced
1 medium carrot, diced
2 stick celery, diced
500g beef mince
1/2 cup tomato paste
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup worcestershire sauce
2T wine vinegar or beef stock
1t dried oregano
1t paprika
salt and paper to taste

TO SERVE
hamburger buns or bread rolls
Coleslaw
Sliced gherkins or pickles

Heat the oil in a large frypan and saute the prepared vegetables until they begin to soften.

Transfer to softened veges to a non-stick sprayed slow cooker then add the remaining ingredients, except for the salt and pepper, stir to combine.

Set the slow cooker to high for 4 hours, or low for 8 hours. If possible, check once or twice during the later stages of cooking and add about 1/4 cup of hot water at a time if the mixture looks dry - it shouldn't be runny, but should just hold its shape.

Season to taste with salt and pepper, then serve spooned into a split hamburger bun. A spoonful of coleslaw and a slice of pickle on top.

Auckland City

This is inspired by Mama Kat's weekly prompts.

1.) 5 things to do in your town during Spring Break.

OK, so it's no where close to being spring here in Auckland, but I thought the idea of doing a post on 5 fun things to do in Auckland City would be primo. I wanted to focus on free places, so sorry, but no big touristy places like the Auckland Zoo or Kelly Tarlton's Underwater World (although these are great!).

Source

We've got a tonne of incredible places to visit too - beaches, parks, reserves - you name it, we have some spectacular examples.

If you don't know, Auckland City is an awesome place. We've got around 1.4 million people which is the biggest city in New Zealand. We have a moderate climate, a cool banana sky tower and boast top ten places in the EIU's Global Liveability report, Mercer's quality of living survey and Monocle's most liveable cities index. Now that's some credibility right there!

The Auckland Domain and Winter gardens is a logical start. It is a stunning park on the outskirts of the Auckland CBD set on 75 hectares. There are some fun things to do here - huge sports fields, Winter gardens, lovely picnic areas surrounded by huge, beautiful trees. The jam packed Auckland Museum is also here and well worth a visit.

Here are some more photos of our most recent visit.

The Auckland Botanical Gardens is a park that is close to home for me and I've been there a million times...and I keep on going back time after time. It's a great place for a walk, by yourself or with the dog (huge off leash area),  a super fun kids garden and an incredible assortment of flora and fauna.
You can read about our adventures at the Auckland Botanical Gardens here.

Exploring the children's garden at the Auckland Botanical Gardens

While I'm on the subject of botanical gardens. Hamilton has an amazing example, and for only an hour and a half drive out of Auckland it's well worth the Tiki tour.

There were so many beachy locations I wanted to include, but after much deliberation I finally settled on Long Bay. What I like about Long Bay in particular is that there is ample grassy area and ample beachy area alike - good for those of us who do not like toooooo much sand in their undies when they go home! The grassy area has some picnic tables and BBQ areas as well as sun shades and flat areas shaded by towering trees with giant roots (good for my photography brain!).
I've heard also that the Restaurant is pretty awesome - would love some reviews!

I get to go at least once a year as my dad's side of the family have our family picnic there every February. Awesome place to waste  purposefully relax the day away.

Wynyard Quarter is set on 37 hectares of land and has 3km of water frontage. It was envisaged and created mainly for the Rugby world cup visitors - but lucky us! Aucklanders have got to keep and enjoy it for many moons to come! There are green spaces, an amazing playground, the water front, fishing spots, cafes and restaurants as well as tonnes of places to just sit down, chill out and enjoy the area. There are always things going on there too - two that I can think of, that I've attended or enjoyed in the last little while are the Busker's Festival and the huge Christmas Advent Calendar.

What I like about Omana Beach and Reserve is the variety. You can be on sand and then a quick walk and your petting the sheep up on the grassy area. I love the animals too, they're so friendly and kids love them - well my kid does anyway, pointing at the piggies and oinking, patting the sheep and shrieking with delight. It has a great park and an incredible view at the top of the hill.

Sneaky 6th - Western Springs regional park is a lovely setting. Lots of spots for picnics and wildlife to see - ducks, swans, pukeko, fish, eels, geese. Also host to many cool events throughout the year including this year's Teddy Bear's Picnic.

If you've still got a hankering for more Aucklandy goodness you can check out the culminating post that I did about our Big Backyard here. It repeats some that I talk about in this post but has some other gems!

Pizza two ways

Last week I tried out a new pizza recipe (see below) but had some left over ingredients, so what's a girl to do but make a second pizza from tried and true cobination of flavours.

Smoked Chicken and cashew basil pesto pizza

Base, Basil pesto with cashew nuts, smoked chicken, mozerella, cheese sauce and corriander.

Smoked Chicken, cranberry and cheese.

Base, cranberry sauce, smoked chicken and mozerella.

Beef n' nacho chip pie

Simple pimple three step plan.

1) Blind bake puff pastry in your chosen dish for 10 mins.
2) Make your favourite nacho/bolognaise mince.
3) Put mince into pastry case, cover with nachos and cheese, bake for 5 mins, watching to ensure the chips don't burn.

Voila!

Orange and Cinnamon Mousse

Yummy mousse we had for dessert this evening. The ones pictured are lemon, line and cinnamon (just sub out the orange juice for lemon and lime and the orange rind for lemon rind :)).

1/2 cup caster sugar
1/2 cup orange juice
1 cinnamon stick
1T orange rind
3t gelatine
1/4 cup just boiled water
2 egg-whites
300ml thickened cream, lightly whipped
Ground cinnamon & extra orange rind to serve

1. In a small saucepan combine sugar, juice and cinnamon stick. Stir over a medium heat until sugar dissolves.

2. Bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer, without stirring for 5 minutes. Remove from heat. Stir in rind and transfer to a bowl. Cool to room temp.

3. In a small jug, whisk gelatine briskly into water with a fork until dissolved. Cool to room temp.

4. In a clean, dry bowl, beat egg-whites until soft peaks form. Fold into juice mixture with cream.

5. Spoon into 6x 1/2 cup serving glasses. Cover and chill for 2 hours or overnight, until firm. Dust with cinnamon and top with rind to serve.

Yum xox

Pineapple Pudding

Easy as pie - just the way I like 'em.

Pineapple Pudding
2 cups of crushed vanilla wine biscuits
125g butter
1 cup icing sugar
2 eggs
Chopped Cashew nuts
440g tin crushed pineapple
300ml whipped cream

Scatter half the biscuit crumbs in the bottom of a dish (square or rectangle). Reserve the other half of the crumbs for the topping.

Soften butter and then beat in the icing sugar until the mixture resembles whipped cream. Break eggs in one at a time, beating well after each addition. Drop teaspoon fulls of the mixture evenly over the crumbs in the container.

Toss chopped nuts into the well drained pineapple and scatter over the creamy mixture. Carefully pat this down.

Spread whipped cream evenly over the fruit and nuts. Lightly scatter the rest of the biscuit crumbs over the cream.

Chill for at least 4 hours.

Cheesy Corn Bakes

Simple little recipe and a great addition for the picnic basket for my wee one.

Cheesy Corn Bakes

Bread cases:
To prepare bread cases grease patty tins with butter or oil. Use a round cutter to cut circles from slices of white bread, big enough that they will fint into the tins to come right up the sides. Press them into the tins, brush with melted butter and bake at 180 degree celcius for 5-10 minutes.

12 prepared bread cases
2/3 cup grated cheese
1/4 cup cream corn
1 large egg
2T milk

Preheat the over to 180 degrees celcius.

With breadcases in the patty tins, divide the cheese among the cases and top each with a teaspoon of corn. Beat the egg and milk together and divide among the cases, pouring this mixture over the cheese and corn.

Bake in the oven for 5-10 minutes, keep an eye on them as they cook, depending on your over the timing could be longer or shorter.

Teddy Bear's Picnic (Silent Sunday)

And another one down and another one down...

#37 of my 52 goals in 52 weeks is done. BOOM. Yes, the big enlargement is huge and yes, it's frame is GIGANTIC, we will have an impressive entrance way at our next house (we hope... either that or you'll just be cramped in a weird little space with two giant photo people looking at you).

I must confess, they aren't going up on the walls yet, another new house venture - mum reckons you can sell a house better without your own photos up. Something about making the new people be able to see themselves in the house, go figure. So into the cupboard they go...for now. <3

Things I'm loving

Not every day is good but there is something good in every day...or every week in this case!

I love short weeks! Man it's been a busy one. First week back at work and I'm stuffed! It was so good to have that little mini break on Wednesday for Waitangi day though. We managed to have some friends over, do a special painting activity, get some more wedding photos sorted into frames and photo blocks and get out on the town shopping. Great use of time!

Loving being back at work. It's been hard yakka this week but I'm loving being busy and getting stuck in.

Loving the cool motorbike I got given by one of my students today. Made out of ginger beer bottle caps. How cool is that?

Loving Leah's new Punk Baby dresses. I really have a problem with my coupious punk baby purchases.

Oh oh, and I LOVE piggy tails too!

I love that in my classes class treaty (something that we teacher do to set up a safe learning environment at the beginning of the year) not only had something about positivity but also used the word collaborate. These were both ideas that came from students in my class, not fancy teacher words... the kids in my class use the work collaborate. LOVE!

And lastly, gotta love that ladies can also pick their noses.

What are you loving this week?

x

Zip Lock Painting

Another great pinterest idea came to fruition today on a stunning Waitangi day at home with my favourite people.

This one is pimpsqueak easy - paint, zip lock bag and duct tape.

I know this is very blurry but had to show you that dolly also got a turn.

Then we got out some cotton buds to try drawing and writing in the paint. That was great fun too!

Totally recommend. We'll be doing it again.

Silent Sunday

<3

Things I'm Loving...

Not every day is good but there is something good in every day...or every week in this case!

What a week. Been flat tack at work getting the classroom together, it's been as hot as anything and I'm feeling eregised and ready to get stuck into 2013 like never before!

Loving sharing ideas with a friend and finally making one of these now I have space on the wall in Leah's room to put it!

Also realised that that girl has way too many hair bows. Insane.

Excited that it's February and I'm geared to get into another month of photos. Thanks Fat Mum Slim!

Loving that after a couple of weeks rest work I still have my mojo to purge stuff and get a nice clean bubba bedroom back in order. Look at the difference. So stoked! You can read more about my 14 weeks to an organised home journey, Leah's bedroom in particular here. So awesome to now have some room for Leah to actually play in her room. I also couldn't believe it took me 17 months to get some photos into her cute animal photo frames. Bad home keeper me!

Loving my classroom. It's all done and rearing to go on Monday when the kids come it. Woo hoo! There are some more photos of it here where I've created an activity for my class. Here is a photo looking down on the space and look, I've even made my office pretty!

What are you loving this week?

xox