A Week with Nigella

seafood and avocado sushi

I'm back to work tomorrow, sans children.  I am always terribly grateful for the fact that we have a couple of days to get brains back into work mode before adding children to the equation.  With the return to work comes the return to frenetic activity and less time to cook elaborate meals.  But I still want tasty and interesting.  Where does one go for inspiration within those parameters?  Nigella, of course.  She is indeed the queen of practical, time efficient and satisfying.  Sprinkled between a clutch of Nigella's recipes are family favourites like pasta bolognaise and a lamb roast.  But on all the other nights of the week I'll be spending some time with Nigella.

Crisp Chicken Cutlets need to be steeped in buttermilk and worcestershire sauce to create a lucious, silky crumbed chicken fillet.  I already have them getting cosy with one another in the fridge ready for tomorrow night's meal.  (Nigella Kitchen, p. 28) click here to go to the recipe

Teriyaki Chicken is a meal we enjoy from a recipe I garnered along the way from "The Chicken Plan" a few years back.  It's delicious but full of sugar.  Nigella's recipe contains a smaller quantity and has mirin in it, so I thought we should give it a go.  (Nigella Kitchen, p. 40) click here to go to the recipe

Recurrant Lamb Chops have been taste tested before now and found to be delicious.  I have some redcurrant jelly tucked away in my pantry so I'm all set to go without the panic of wondering where to get my hands on it.  I don't think any Woolworths store stocks it now so it's a half hour drive to find this ordinarily easily acquired ingredient.  (Nigella Kitchen, p. 67)

African Drumsticks have become a recipe we enjoy immensely, so I could not go past the page when I came across it without writing this one down as well.  (Nigella Kitchen, p. 46)

Where do you go for weeknight meal inspiration?

Celebration Feasts

 
Miss Mischief turned 15 this week.  Fifteen...I simply cannot imagine how that happened.  As with all birthday's in our home the right to choose the menu becomes yours for the day if you're the birthday person.  You know how I said that I was looking forward to having time to cook time-consuming meals?  I think Miss Mischief sensed that!  Here's her day-long menu:

~ Breakfast ~

Cinnamon Bagel

~ Lunch ~

Hot Chips

Salad

~ Dinner ~

Chicken Wonton Soup

Sushi

Dim Sum

Black Forest Cheesecake

Pretty spectacular isn't she.  It has been such a beautiful couple of days that we decided a picnic in the backyard would be the perfect way to enjoy our lunch.

Then of course, as if that weren't enough, she had a couple of friends sleepover for a movie marathon last night and had a specific idea of what we should eat for that too.  Of course, all of this was sandwiched between generous helpings of movie food.  Like coconut M&M's and chips.

~ Sleepover Menu ~

Bacon Wrapped Chicken

Fresh Corn Salad

Potato Salad

Asian Salad

Dinner Rolls

Chocolate Ripple Cake

I forgot to make the chocolate ripple cake the night before.  It really needs an overnight in the fridge so I spent an hour thinking about how to speed that process up.  At 6.30am I got up and began making it - I dipped the biscuits into milk before sandwiching them together with the cream.  It worked perfectly.

After all that feasting my brother and his family came for lunch today.  My 6yo niece had wanted to know why she wasn't invited to Miss Mischief's birthday party because they are best friends.  We laughed - who said Miss Mischief was having a party on her birthday?  And who said a 6yo could cope with it?  So we had a cousin birthday lunch.  With all the leftovers.  YES!  And after a rather significant and very entertaining meltdown on my SIL's part over cheesecake two weeks ago, she was finally presented with a slice.  Better late than never.

And now I'm returning to my almost sugar-free life....

What's your favourite menu for family celebrations?

By the Way Honey....impromptu dinner guests

Do any of you know what it is to be an introvert married to an extrovert?  An extrovert whose mother could cater for any number of people at the drop of a hat?  Let me tell you, it's been a nearly 22-year training program for me to be able to accomplish what my amazing mother-in-law made to seem effortless!


My husband is one of those incredibly generous people who loves to be spontaneous and spend time with friends.  It's been a challenge, over the years, for me to figure out how to cater for the likelihood of his spontaneity without getting myself in a bother.  I think I'm getting better.  Now I only panic for the first five minutes!  So after yesterday's mid-afternoon I've-invited-friends-for-a-barbeque phone call I determined that it wouldn't actually be a barbeque.  It would be dinner based on what I already had planned...and fancied up a bit.  A quick stop at Safeway after a dash down to pick up a new (our first) Myki card for Miss Mischief netted all that I needed to have a plentiful meal on the table.

The kids cleaned the bathroom, toilet and swept the floors - they're getting good at that basic list of chores required before visitors arrive.  I worked on dinner, which was always going to be the vegetarian rolls with vegetables.  I used Maggie Beer's sour cream pastry recipe and brushed egg wash over them before baking.  Oh my they were good!

Nigella's Ginger & Mustard Chicken Drumsticks

Vegetarian "sausage" Rolls

Jacket Potatoes with Sour Cream

Cauliflower & Broccoli Au Gratin

Honey Carrots

Buttered Dinner Rolls

I used Nigella's recipe for cocktail sausages on the chicken drumsticks.  I've always found the marinades she uses on sausages to be quite chicken worthy, and this was no exception.  I had some ginger, lemon and lime marmalade from our trip to Queensland, so I used that.  It was delicious!  The dinner rolls were marked down to $1, hence their last-minute inclusion.  Our friends brought dessert, and everyone walked away contented. 

Best part?  There are some leftovers for lunch today....very surprising considering the appetites seated around our table last night.

How do you cope with last minute dinner guests?  Do you have a favourite stand-by menu to get you through the panic?

A Nice Mid-Assignment Surprise

I am in the middle of semester-end assignments again and am only now, as the semester is nearing its end, receiving feedback from assessments completed 4-5 weeks ago.  It feels like 'too little too late' in many ways.  Getting the mid-semester assessment results gives me a bit of a guide as to how I'm going and an opportunity to see how I need to improve or what I need to focus on.  Mental note for assessing my own students in a couple of years time - quick turn-about times are very important!

Anyway, you know that horrible assignment that required semiotic analysis of a printed text compared with its movie counterpart?  The one I was stressing over?  The subject that saw me have a little meltdown as I began the second assessment task with no knowledge of whether I understood anything?  That one?  I got a distinction.  A DISTINCTION!  Really?  I have no idea how.

As I opened the returned document I was just praying that I'd passed.  That's all I really wanted...just not to fail.  And there was - that beautiful little DN sitting at the bottom of the marking table.

You cannot imagine how excited I am.  It feels like the first time I got a High Distinction.  I may as well have for all the anxiety this assignment caused!

I'm thinking something special for breakfast must surely be the first order of a celebratory day!

Frugal Files: Stopping Wastage

Last time I was in Costco I decided to give Dawn dish-washing liquid a go.  I have to say I absolutely love it.  It works well, smells nice, has great suds...what more could a girl want?  Because when it comes to washing up I'm all about the smell and the suds.  If it smells yuck or it doesn't stay sudsy then I try to find ways to get rid of it.  Or I shove it unceremoniously to the back of the cupboard for use in emergencies.

My one problem is that I don't do the dishes all that often because the girls share the task on alternating evenings.  And my how they go through detergent!  A 350ml bottle was lucky to last two weeks.  How on earth do they do that?!  When I began using the Dawn I decided I didn't want that enormous bottle being emptied in the space of but a few weeks so I came up with a plan.  The ultimate "reduce, reuse and recycle" plan....for my little world anyway.  I foraged about in the cupboard beneath the sink and pulled out this pump dispenser that came home with who-knows-what in it (Dh often brings home samples of things).  It had been emptied, cleaned and awaiting some important future task so I filled it with Dawn and put the big bottle away again.

The girls have been happily using the pump dispenser which delivers a metered dose.  The three of us decided 2-3 pumps was plenty for a sink full of water.  Each smaller bottle full lasts a few weeks and we're all happy.

What have you done to "reduce, reuse or recycle" lately?

Bunyips and Other Mysteries

photo credit:  booksdirect.com.au

I bought this book the other day.  My Yr1 student has a bit of a 'thing' for bunyips at the moment.  And the Loch Ness Monster.  And Pacman.  And sharks. And Battleships.  And Traffic Rush on my iPad.   Anyway, the day he asked about bunyips we googled a bit to see what they looked like.  When I came across this book I knew it was a 'must have'.  Really....Jackie French and Bruce Whatley...it's going to be good!  I ordered the book and it finally arrived so I took it to school and we read it together during 'silent reading'.  Our reading isn't so silent, since I'm reading out loud.  And the other kids on the table are often listening in and peering over pencil and texta pots to see the pictures. 

Emily was a hit.  The big bad bunyip was super duper.  My student was a happy boy.  I might have even won a few brownie points that day.  That might have also been the day I declared myself to be Steve Irwin and that I needed to wrestle a crocodile off to the safety of the teacher's desk.  I haven't seen the crocodile hat since.  It had been on this boy's head for two solid weeks, apart from when we wrestled it off him during class time.  Thank you Steve Irwin!

Emily and her bunyip have also entertained my nieces, who were here for the day last weekend.  Really....it's a great book.  A bit of a Christmas theme runs through it, but none of us really cared!

As for the next two weeks....no bunyips, emus or crocodiles will cross the threshhold on this side of my picket fence.  We're on holidays.  I have two full, whole, blessed weeks.  To study.   And spend time with the children.  The thing I'm looking forward to most?  Having time to enjoy cooking really yummy and meals that are perhaps time consuming in the preparation.  And I'm looking forward to just being able to take my study at a slightly slower pace.  I'll only have two weeks of the semester left when I go back to work so I might even be able to get a little bit ahead.

The best news of the week came when my boss announced some new teachers joining our Secondary school next year.  One of them is my sister-in-law.  She'll teach Miss Sunshine and Mr Busy.  We're all incredibly excited.  Four months until the beginning of next year seems a long way off!

Cosy Corners

We've been doing a fair amount of furniture moving lately.  Shelves from Dh's office have come home.  Miss Sunshine wangled an old desk along with the shelves.  Her desk was homeless.  A cute little thing, just about my size.  So rather than settling into a comfy lounge chair with my feet on the coffee table this has become my corner.  The shelf houses my Uni paraphernalia and the desk is just the right size for the space.  And it's better for my shoulders.

And one of those days I'm going to get that quilt hanging over the bannister custom-quilted.  I made it a few years ago now and have never managed the time to get it quilted.  One day.