Mystery Dinner

I mentioned yesterday that Miss Mischief enjoyed her belated birthday party.  Indeed all the girls who came seemed to enjoy themselves.  Miss Mischief chose to have a Mystery Dinner this year and it went beautifully.  Lucky for me I will not have this requested for her friends again because now they know.  My feet are very happy!

The Mystery Dinner involves a menu of 20 or so items from which to choose.  You end up having all 20 items served to you over the course of the evening, but the menu is in 'code' so the guests have no idea what they are ordering.  Even the cutlery is on the menu list.  We had five courses, and for each course the guests chose four items.

So the way it works is that the guests choose their four items, one course at a time, and their named menu sheets go back to the kitchen.  The kitchen 'hands' put all the bits and pieces together and take the guests' orders back to them.  We did this in rounds all at the same time so that everyone was always on the same course.  The guests may end up ordering dessert, a knife, beans and an olive for their first course.  They have to eat whatever they've ordered with whatever implements they have before the next course is ordered.  A clever guest might order all their cutlery first which they get to keep all the way through the meal.  I did wash some things and return them throughout the evening.

Over the years we've tweaked the original menu to suit ourselves.  For example, Miss Mischief preferred beans to peas, and wanted golden syrup dumplings instead of individual pavlova nests for dessert.  And we were able to accommodate her.

It was a long evening for Miss Sunshine and I.  I was in the kitchen at 6am preparing as much of the meal as I could before work.  After school I went straight back into the kitchen to get things on the go and ready for quick reheating.  Miss Sunshine did a lot of the going backwards and forwards to collect the next course of orders and deliver the requisite items.  Do not be misled - this is a time consuming meal.  We managed to do it in three hours.  Any less would be impossible, I suspect.Miss Mischief also sprinkled the evening with rebus puzzles, having separated the girls into two teams.

Following are hopefully links that will take you to PDF documents for the menu and the key to all the items, plus some extras to choose from:
Mystery Dinner Menu
Mystery Dinner Code!

This a great, novel way to have a dinner party.

Monday Menu Plan: Week Beginning 21 November

So we're up to graduation season at Our School.  After a depressing shopping effort looking for wedding attire a month back I managed to find two suitable dresses on Saturday for two separate graduation evenings.  The girls were wonderful for objective opinions.  I keep telling my brother it's worth keeping your kids alive so they make it to be teens - my children give him hope.  In any case I'm all set to go with shoes and jewellery organised as well.

Miss Mischief enjoyed her belated birthday party on Friday night.  After having spent a weekend with her class at camp the weekend before, it was lovely to have all the girls (bar one) over for dinner.  I'll have to post about that separately, such was the magnitude of the evening!  I was struck again with how lovely Miss Mischief's school friends are.

This week's meals are as follows:

Monday:  Roast lamb, vegies
Tuesday:  Vegie burgers
Wednesday:  Oven fried chicken, vegies
Thursday:  Frittata, salad (and me at our Yr12 graduation)
Friday:  Stuffed Cypriot Chicken (thanks to Jamie Oliver)
Saturday: Chicken & Dumplings
Sunday:  Homemade pizza

Today my blogging friend Frances posted about roasted beets.  I'm not a fan of beetroot myself, having been brought up on the tinned variety.  Blech.  However, I do love roasted vegies.  While we were with my parents a few weeks back Mum did roasted parsnips with one of our meals.  Oh my, they were so good.  Only Mr Busy rejected them, and the rest of us were keen to have his.  It was not quite a brawl....but there was healthy debate as to who would get them!  Mum par-boils her parsnips before roasting.  They were lovely and moist on the inside and crunchy on the outside.  I think parsnips will have to find their way to my table more often.  I don't often buy them because I thought noone but me like them.

Monday Menu Plan: Week Beginning 14 November

The title of this post is really a misnomer.  In the flurry of preparing for the weekend and shopping to feed 40 people I did not plan nor shop for us.  "I'll do it on Monday", I foolishly thought.  My achy, tired muscles simply won't allow it.  And I just don't want to go very fast at the moment.  So I've planned to have roast chicken on Wednesday night and to do a mystery dinner for the Year 8 girls to celebrate Miss Mischief's long-past birthday.  That's it.  That's all there is.  I'll have to take my achy self to venture through the cupboards and freezer to see what I can find.  Truthfully this might be a quick trip because my knees are not happy.  And that makes me sound far older than I truly am, but netball in my young adult years was not kind to me.

Dh, Miss Mischief and I spent the weekend with her class and quite a few other parents and a couple of teachers on the annual 'Man From Snowy River' camp. Our Year 8's study 'The Man From Snowy River' as one of their English texts and an elective camp is part of the package.  They camp in tents with no power or shower block, although there are well-maintained drop loo's.  Meals are all cooked over a camp fire and you have to take everything you need in with you, and everything including your rubbish out at the end.  Throughout the camp the kids get to see and experience some sights from the movie, such as horseriding around the area where that magnificent downhill ride scene was filmed.  They got to see that hill and hear the story of the filming of that scene.  They also hike to the top of 'The Bluff' - an arduous and challenging trek for those of us who are uphill-walking challenged.

The kids were fabulous all weekend long and we all had a lovely time together.  My most memorable moment?  Getting to the top of that silly Bluff and looking over directly at Mt Buller.  Incredible!  Worst moment?  Getting to the top of that silly Bluff.  And walking along the ridge and down to Bluff Hut was pretty tough too - just because it wasn't straight up didn't mean it was easy walking.

Alright.  I've put dinner off for long enough. Come along achy muscles and cranky knees, it's time to find something for dinner.

Daily Blogging

I'm definitely not in a daily-blogging place right now.  Time, energy and the lack of something interesting to write prevent it.  Or maybe I'm just not imaginative enough? Whatever the reason, I can barely scrape together a couple of posts a week.

My dear blogging friend, Frances, has challenged herself to blog every day for a month.  Now that's a brave challenge in my book.  I'm glad she decided to challenge herself right at the moment.  Frances makes me laugh and I need to laugh.  Her posts are always witty, humorous and beautifully written.  Of course, she is a writer so that's probably a given, but it makes the reading all that much more enjoyable.  Her take on life always makes so much sense.  To me.

I've discovered over the years that her son Will and my Mr Busy are practically twins.  If you ever see posts about messy bedrooms these two boys are truly soul mates.  I also discovered this week that we have twin bathrooms that seem to become messy all by themselves.  And Frances makes beautiful quilts. 

Daily blogging is beyond me right now, but I'm really enjoying the fact that Frances is in the zone.

Monday Menu Plan: Week beginning 7 November

You know those mornings when you don't have the energy to get up, let alone for what is to come throughout the day?  I told DH I didn't have the energy for two particular students today and God must have heard - neither were present today.  We have a busy week ahead at our place so the meals have become really simple.  But tasty.  You can't sacrifice yumminess just because you're busy!

Monday: Redcurrant lamb chops, vegies
Tuesday:  Satay chicken stir fry, rice
Wednesday:  Honey mustard chicken, vegies
Thursday:  Quick chilli, corn chips
Weekend:  We'll be hither and thither with meals to match! 

I'm off to do something about dinner and then relax with my stitching. 

Good Things

I've not been posting much.  Put it down to having lots unblogable (is that a word?) things on my mind.  In amongst the things that occupy vast amounts of thinking time I'm seeking out the blessings to be celebrated and enjoyed.  I'm so grateful that God scatters difficult days with little rays of sunshine.

• A distinction for Human Development and a high distinction for Music & Visual Arts assignments.
• Warm sunshiny days.
• BBQ with friends.
• Opening up the cooling vents for the first time this season.
• Finding time to stitch.
• Preparing for a 'roughing it' school camping trip for Miss Mischief.
• A car that runs well, having been loved back to full health.

When things are difficult do you focus on the dark clouds, or look for the sunshine peeking through?

Post Cup Day Menu Plan

We've just returned to normal after a long weekend thanks to the Melbourne Cup.  Both Our School and Dh's business take the extra day off leaving us free to enjoy a four-day weekend, unlike many others who are required to work on the Monday.  For our family this usually means that we get out of town.  A double blessing when halloween coincides with the long weekend.  We were able to avoid trick or treaters who are inclined to continue knocking on our door well after our children are all tucked into bed. 

This long weekend we spent our time with my parents at their home in regional Victoria.  I'm sure my poor mother will never cook again, as cooking for a family of 7 must surely stretch one who does not enjoy the task so much.  However, we felt spoiled and not just because of being fed, although that always goes a long way.

The week ahead for our meals looks a little bit yummy:

Tuesday:  Honey mustard pork scallopine, vegies
Wednesday:  Chicken teriyaki, rice, vegies
Thursday:  Freezer meal
Friday:  Spanish chorizo & potato chicken, vegies
Saturday:  BBQ pork & chicken wings; corn, potato, tossed salads
Sunday:  Gnocchi with roasted tomato sauce

Spring always brings a wide variety of seasons with its weather here in Melbourne - winter and summer with everything in between all in one week.  I love that our weather allows for wide variety in our meals as well.  BBQ's and warmer embracing meals all in one week.  Perfect.