I just had to put a couple of photos of Missie here for you.
She has decided that she really likes the vege garden, and on a hot sunny day I saw her sheltering under the leaves of the Rhubarb plant.
She looked so cute that I couldn't resist getting the camera out. She didn't like the flash and the noise of the camera though, and almost seemed to frown before going back to sleep.
As most of you will know, we have a creek that runs around 3 sides of our property. The kids enjoy exploring this creek, and we see small fish, freshwater crayfish and eels in it.
Braden, Jordan and Josiah love fishing in the creek, trying to catch the eels. So far the eels have managed to avoid getting caught, and just getting a nice easy meal instead. That is until the day we went to Muriwai Beach (as per the previous post).
After enjoying ourselves at the beach, we headed back to our house for a sit down and a BBQ dinner. The boys begged to go fishing in the creek, and so off they went, with a hand line, hook and scraps of meat for bait. Now, you need to understand that this is not the first time they have done this, and we are quite used to a very pleasantly quiet afternoon as they try unsuccessfully to catch the eels.
This time things went badly wrong (from the eels point of view). We heard yelling of "We've got it! We've got the eel!" At this point we looked out the door, and sure enough, they had hooked the eel.
Now, months earlier (in anticipation of the possibility of this very moment) we had made a couple of rules about eel fishing.
1. No eels in my kitchen.
2. The father of the successful fisherman has the privilege of dealing with any catches.
Lucky Phil - Josiah was holding the line, and taking responsibility for the catch. We hustled a slightly reluctant Phil out the door to deal with the eel, and grabbed cameras, knowing the boys would want proof of this momentous occasion.
And here they are with the 
poor eel that was then released to fight another day. The boys really wanted to bbq and eat the eel, but Phil convinced them that it really needed to be properly smoked to be palatable. Phil then spent the next several minutes rubbing mud on his hands in an effort to remove the slime from the eel!
Now my problem is, where so I begin?
I have just been downloading a whole lot of photos off my camera, and thought that I should really post something, as apparently there are people that read my blog! Who knew?
I have a few photos of Muriwai from when a small group of us went there one Sunday afternoon a few weeks back. It was a fantastic sunny day, so we made the most of the opportunity to enjoy the fresh air and have a little fun.
Here is a great photo of Lauren posing for the camera.
Jordan was clearly exhausted by the picnic lunch.
Tiffany did not take her swimsuit with her, 
figuring that she would just have a little paddle in the water. How naive! We will let her off this time for not knowing what a west coast beach can be like - dry sand one minute, and thigh deep water the next. Needless to say she was still slightly damp when it was time to leave.
Part of the getting wet was her own fault, although she tried to blame Kyla. Her side of the story is that she got wet when Kyla tried to splash her or some such nonsense. Here is photographic proof that she got wet trying to push Kyla over! Clearly she is not to be trusted! ;)
Jordan, Josiah and Braden spent most of the time either playing games with the Dads or digging in the sand. They appeared to be having fun.... if the amount of sand on them was anything to go by.
Lauren, Zach, Annelise and Jayna spent a 
crazy amount of time jumping over waves... refusing to admit that they were cold. Apparently their lips turning blue does not in fact mean that they are cold. Neither does shivering. We learn something new every day.
And then there were the ones who were
stuck to the picnic blanket. Still, they appear to be having fun too, and I did see Rachel walking at one point!
So, a great day had by all.
Duck is something I have only ever cooked once before, and not overly successfully when I did. I decided to tackle duck again when the poultry (including duck) theme was listed. After eating a duck dish at a restaurant in Rotorua on the weekend, I was convinced that I must be able to do a better job than they did! (They did not really do a very good job of their duck dish, so it wasn't that difficult of a target really.)
I had a look on the very useful internet, and found this tasty sounding recipe for Duck with Pears
When I went to the vege store to pick up some green veges, I was appalled at the price of broccoli - $3.50-$4.00 for one head of broccoli! What has happened in the last couple of weeks? I am sure it was bout $2 when I last bought it! This exorbitant price left me with a bit of a dilemma as to what veg to serve with the duck. After another look on the internet, I found this recipe for Peas & Spring cabbage with Pancetta.
As cabbage was one of the few reasonably priced green veges, I decided to try it.
It was really tasty, and we will have it again I am sure.
So, the final dish, served with mashed 
potatoes:
The duck was a bit overcooked, but even so, was still tender and very tasty.
The pears and sauce were good too, and the veges went really well as part of the dish.
4/5 from me - will try to leave the duck a bit pinker next time... if I can bring myself to cook duck again, having seen the crazy amount of fat that comes out of it - still, I suppose the fat is better out of it than in!
On a completely unrelated note - for any of you who do not follow Kyla's (normally inactive) blog, check it out. She is updating it while she is on holiday in Japan.
As I mentioned in the previous post, this weeks challenge theme was chosen by someone in Christchurch, finding that cooking after the earthquake posed new challenges in itself.
I chose to cook a recipe that Jill cooked for us a couple of weeks ago, called Chicken and Coconut Quinoa.
This is where she found the recipe.
It is a really nice dish, and at the end I 
added broccoli, cauliflower, beans and sugar snap peas to make it a truly all in one dish.
It was very tasty, although a bit of heat would have been nice. I only had smoked chipotle chillies rather than the chipotle in adobo that the recipe called for. I will try sourcing the correct chillies for another time.
Verdict: 4.5/5 - will definitely do this again as it is easy, tasty and everyone liked it!
Well, Kyla went to the Auckland Champs for cross country, back at Woodhill Sands. This time though, the course was shorter at 2.5km instead of 3.5km that the Kaipara and Norwest races were. It was a very fast race, and Kyla did amazingly well, finishing 19th out of 127 in her race! We are hugely impressed by her ability and stamina!
Food Challenges - Week 27 & 28
The challenge for week 27 was to use rice - 
either a variety we hadn't used before, or in a way we hadn't tried before. I had some cooked rice in the freezer, and found a recipe in the Australian Women's Weekly Rice Cookbook, that used the rice and rice flour in a kind of pancake. This was then placed over an ovenproof dish, and baked until crisp.
In these rice pancake bowls, we had a vege stirfry topped with pork fillet marinated in soy, honey, garlic and ginger. It was very tasty, and everyone enjoyed it. Score 3.5/5.
Week 28's challenge was to use Browned Butter.
I have never tried to use browned butter before, but saw Raymond Blanc cooking fish in browned butter, and then using the remaining butter in the pan to make a light sauce. So, that is what I tried to replicate.
I bought Gurnard, and cooked it in the browned butter, then removed it to make the sauce. I finely chopped shallots, and then added lemon juice, parsley and a little water to make the sauce. Salt and Pepper and the sauce was ready. We had the fish with homemade oven chips and a pea puree - basically fish, chips and mushy peas!
I would give this a score of 4.5/5
It was really tasty, and didn't taste overly rich considering the fish was cooked in butter and the sauce had butter too. The browning of the butter definitely gives it a very nice taste.
Next weeks challenge has been posted by "Cantabcook" who lives in Christchurch. She has decided that "One pot/pan meal" is the challenge - particularly relevant to a lot of people down there at the moment who are trying to minimise dishes!
After a couple of fairly slack weeks, I have completed another challenge.
This week I used fish - gurnard was available at a reasonable price, and looked fresh so that was the fishing done.
I smeared a paste of basil, coriander and chilli onto the fish, and wrapped it in rice paper rounds that were soaked in water to soften them. These rolls were then fried in a little oil, until the fish was cooked, and the rice paper lightly golden.
We had these served on stir fried greens (cabbage, broccoli and bok choy) and drizzled with a sauce made of sherry, soy sauce, ginger and sugar simmered together until thick.
The meal was extremely tasty, and low fat as it turned out! The kids loved it, and asked for more - so I think this meal gets a 5/5 from us. Even better, the whole meal cost about $20 to serve the 5 of us.
For dessert, I made a recipe that I fist made several years ago, and then forgot about. It is called apple couscous pudding. Apple juice, raisins and cinnamon are brought to the boil, and couscous is then added. This mixture is layered with sliced apples, and finished with more sliced apple, and sprinkled with a little raw sugar. The pudding is then baked until browned. It was really tasty - alas no photo of this one. The kids loved this too, and again it is a very cheap dish - total cost about $5 for the whole dish!
So, an economical and well liked dinner. A win-win situation I think.
I have been having a bit of a bagel making session today, after making a batch of 12 yesterday that the kids practically demolished, leaving only 2 in the freezer for school lunches.
Bagels are very expensive to buy, at around $4 for 4 bagels, but very cheap to make as I worked out yesterday. The cinnamon and raisin bagels work out to about $2 for 12 regular or 16 smaller bagels, and the plain ones at around $1.50 for the same quantity. So they are well worth making if you like to eat them.
I made three slightly different batches today. One plain, one cinnamon and raisin, and one wholemeal cinnamon and raisin.The dough for the cinnamon and raisin batch was made in the breadmaker, and the other 2 batches were done in the Kitchen Aid mixer. Both machines coped fine with what is really a fairly stiff bread dough.
Here are the bagels shaped, and waiting to be boiled.On the left and half of the back tray are the plain bagels, with the cinnamon and raisin at the front, and the wholemeal cinnamon and raisin variety on half of the middle and back trays. I made 16 of each - they are slightly smaller than bought ones. A batch of 12 gives a bagel more the size of a typical bought one.
After the bagels rise for around 15 mins, 
they are dropped into a pot of boiling water with a tablespoon of molasses added to it. They are only boiled for around 30 seconds on each side. They puff up a bit during this stage, and look sort of lumpy when you take them out.
This is what they look like after boiling, ready to go into the oven.And the final product:
Back left is the wholemeal cinnamon and raisin, Back right is the regular cinnamon and raisin, and the Plain Bagels at the front.
Needless to say, the kids were very pleased to see them when they arrived home from school. We gave a lot of the plain ones to Sandra and the kids for their lunches, and Jordan,Zach and Jayna were all very impressed and happy to try one straight away.
Having never been a cross country runner myself, I am continually amazed that all 3 of our kids manage to perform very well in this sport.
This year has been no different.
Last term, Lauren's syndicate at school had their cross country, and Lauren placed a very impressive 2nd place in the year 4 girls race. A great effort.
Earlier this term, Kyla and Braden's syndicates had their cross country races. Braden placed 2nd in his, and Kyla 3rd in hers. We were very impressed!Last Monday saw the Kaipara Schools Cross Country being held at Woodhill Sands. This is an event which has about 8 schools participating. Both Kyla and Braden went to this, and did well there too. Braden placed 5th, and Kyla 4th.
Thursday last week was the Norwest Cross Country, involving schools from Kaukapaka down to Swanson and Massey - around 22 schools this time.
Braden placed 11th in his race, and Kyla an impressive 2nd place!!!
We were very proud of them both,
and look forward to seeing how Kyla does at the Auckland Champs on 2nd September.
Week 18 - Polenta or mussels
As nobody in our family likes mussels, the choice for this week was limited somewhat. For the polenta, I decided that having made soft polenta and set polenta on a couple of occasions, I could not really do either again.
I really ended up running out of time a bit on this one, so in the end made an Orange syrup Polenta cake. I was a bit disappointed with it, as I was hoping for a reasonably dense moist cake, and it was really a bit too spongy and dry for what I wanted.
Verdict 2.5/5
I wouldn't bother with that recipe again, but will try to find one that is more to my liking sometime.
Week 19 - Potatoes or Kumara
This was my week to choose the ingredients. I chose potato because I thought it would be fun to try making gnocchi. I did try making it once, about 15 years ago, and it was dense, doughy and stodgy. In other words a dismal failure.
This time, I made sure I kept the potato very dry by cooking them in their skins in the microwave. I then peeled them, and used the potato ricer to mash them. Then it was time to add the salt and knead the flour in. The dough still felt very light, but given my previous experience I was hoping this was a good thing.
The dough was rolled into long ropes about 1cm thick, then chopped into 2cm pieces. The recipe said to drop them in boiling water, and that they are cooked when they rise to the top. This only took about 2-3 minutes.
We had the gnocchi with a sauce made from fresh Italian style sausages which I took out of their casings, and browned with onion and garlic before simmering with tinned tomatoes. A bit of parmesan cheese on top, and dinner was ready.
The verdict? 3.5/5 from me
4.5/5 from Daryl
The gnocchi was light, not doughy but seemed to me to be lacking in texture. This may be right however as smooth potato mixed with flour is never going to have a lot of texture, I suppose. The sauce was great, and I will definitely do that again.
One recipe for gnocchi that I saw added parmesan cheese to the dough. I would like to try that some time as the flavour would be good. The gnocchi really didn't taste like much... but then I suppose that is reasonable given the ingredients.
All in all, not a dismal failure like my first effort 15 years ago, so maybe I have learnt something!
Kyla chose the ingredients for the food challenge this week - Pasta and Eggs.
it would seem that Spaghetti Carbonara would be the obvious choice for this challenge, but I have made that several times before, so it was really out of the running. Kyla will make it later this week however as she has never made it before.
I chose to make fresh pasta. Technically I have made it once before, and all by hand which left my RSI prone arm very sore for a couple of days afterwards. This time I used the Kitchen Aid (it has to earn it's keep) and Jill's pasta machine, which to my knowledge has been used only once before.
The difference in the ease of making is just phenomenal when you use a couple of machines to do all the work! The resulting fettuccine was great. In fact, Daryl assumed it was bought fresh pasta until he spotted the pasta machine on the bench, and was genuinely surprised that I had made it!
We had the fettuccine with a pork, paprika and sour cream sauce. Very tasty and a little bit different. I have made the sauce before, although in a slightly different way, so that was not a new recipe, but still very tasty.
The pasta gets a 5/5 and I will be regularly making fresh pasta from now on. I plan to try making lasagne sheets to make a spinach and ricotta cannelloni next.
Yes, we did actually get around to choosing a name for the kitten, and it didn't actually take us this long!
So Missie has settled in well, has used the litter tray well - no accidents, and is gradually learning not to bite and scratch us. She has some odd habits - particularly with her sleeping. 
She likes to sleep in odd positions - often with her head lower than her body, which surely is not that comfortable. This is Missie sleeping on Kyla's legs - a prime example of a strange place to sleep.
Here is Missie with her very first kill.
Clearly she is not going to be a very talented hunter - given that the fly would have already been feeling a little woozy from the insect spray dispenser we have!
We have mentioned to a few people, the mystery of where Missie was hiding while we were out.
We would come home, and walk through the house looking for her, often without being able to find her.I was gradually able to narrow it down to somewhere in our bedroom. One day I came home, and went quietly down to our room, determined to work out where she was hiding. I looked under and around everywhere, including our ensuite, and all with no luck. Then I found her sitting next to the towels on the shelf in our vanity. I had already checked there, including behind the loose panel that covers the waste from the vanity. I also knew that she had not sneaked in there past me as she has a collar that rattles when she walks. This left me very confused, as the only other option in the vanity was inside the drawers. To get in there she would have to climb over a panel next to the drawer, through a gap of around 40-50mm. We found two cat hairs in Daryl's vanity drawer one day, and a warm moisturizer bottle in my drawer over the next few days, convincing us that we had indeed found her hidey-hole. Now to catch her in the act!
A day or two later, Daryl arrived home 
before me, grabbed the camera, and went to see if our theory was right. Here is the evidence, although some of the photos are blurred.
Here she is in the vanity drawer.
And here is a very blurred photo (but the only photo we have) of Missie getting out of the drawer, via the open shelf that the towels sit on.
She is very definitely an odd kitten!
It is hard to believe that it is over a month since I last wrote anything here, but we have been fairly busy.
I will catch up on what has been going on, but will probably do it in more than one post so it doesn't get too long.
Lauren turned 8 on the 21st May. She chose to have a birthday party at home, and had about 8 girls over for it. Her choice of a swimming pool birthday cake this year was somewhat simpler than last years fairytale castle, for which I was very grateful.
If the amount of giggling and noise that there was is anything to go by, then a lot of fun was had by all.
We have finally got our new kitten!
Some of you will realise that there is a remarkable resemblance between Cara (our previous cat) and this one, and you would be right.
The new kitten (as yet nameless) is also a seal point Birman. The brown markings on her face, legs and tail will darken as she grows.
We picked her up from her previous home last night after the kids had swimming lessons. That was an adventure in itself as the house was in Papakura, and not in the township, but out about 10km into the surrounding farmland. We had very good directions to get there, although the part of the directions that we got off Google maps was the windier route to get there.
She managed well on her first night here, sleeping in the family room in her bed, although not all night... she came out from under the couch this morning. Still, I had half expected her to cry all night and wake me up, so in the end I was very pleased. It was actually Daryl that woke me up with a text from London at about 3am that said simply "miaow". He was in a painful mood it seems. I have however had my revenge, by texting the very same "miaow" back at around 2:00pm this afternoon, which converts to around 3am in London.
She has quickly decided that she likes her bed, and like this evening, will just wander over and hop in to have a sleep.
Sorry about the quality of the photos, she is too curious for easy photographs!
We will be sure to tell you her name.... once she has one.
Well, we survived the craziness of last week, and now I have time to give a brief summary of how it all went.
The "Kids for Kids" concert at the Bruce Mason Centre was pretty good really. There were 450 children from various schools across Auckland in the choir, with Suzanne Prentice singing the solos. It was well done, and Kyla had a great time.
On Friday, Kyla took part in the Kiapara
Schools Triathalon. She chose to enter as an individual rather than as part of a team, and so she did all three parts herself.
In the swim leg, she swam at a steady pace, but was not fast and was 3rd to last out of the pool.
On the cycling leg, she did well, passing several other competitors.
This left her in a good position, and on the run she passed more competitors to finish in 2nd place!
Well done Kyla! (and she looked like she could have just kept on going for a while longer.)
After competing in the triathalon during school, she had her birthday party on Friday night. She chose to take a few friends to West Wave to the pool, and so they spent about 1 1/2 hours swimming and going on the hydroslide. Following this, we went across to West City for dinner. We gave the girls $10 each, and let them decide what to buy for their dinner. They had a lot of fun doing this. After dinner, they went for a short wander to look at shops, and eventually spent some change we had given them on lollies. They all seemed to enjoy the whole evening, and I think Kyla really enjoyed the freedom and feeling a little grown up.
On Sunday we got together with the extended family for Mother's Day, and to celebrate Kyla and Jayna's birthdays.
Kyla had a birthday cake which she kindly shared with Jayna. And so, Kyla is now 12! We are feeling a little old.
Oh, and they did all play soccer on Saturday again. 3 more wins, Braden's team won 6-0, Kyla's won 2-1, and Lauren's team also won, but I am not sure what the score was.
This is a crockpot recipe I have been meaning to try for a long time. It reminds me of being in the US last year where we tried a BBQ pork bun at one restaurant chain.
The basic idea is that browned blade steak (or some other cheap cut of beef that needs slow cooking) is dusted with a little flour, and browned. It is then put in the crockpot with 1/2 c water to 1.5kg of beef, and cooked on high for about 4-5 hours, or until you can shred it with 2 forks.
The liquid is removed, and the shredded beef is returned to the crockpot. To this you add a sauce of 130g tomato paste, 1/2c tomato sauce, 2T molasses, 2T balsamic vinegar, 2T worcestershire sauce, 1tsp mustard powder, 1tsp chilli powder, and 1tsp salt, along with as much of the retained meat juices as you need to get a nice consistency.
The beef is then reheated on low for a couple of hours.
This is served in rolls with red onion slices (the recipe says raw red onion, but we decided to be less odourous and cook it). Really tasty, and easy. I think that I will give it a go with pork some time, and see how that goes.
The kids loved it, and the 1.5kg of beef gave us enough for dinner, Daryl's lunch the next day, and a little bit to go with our wraps for dinner last night. Not bad for $15 of meat.
So, tonight we are off to the Bruce Mason Theater in Takapuna to watch the Kids for Kids choir performance.... a bunch of kids choirs from various Auckland schools singing with Suzanne Prentice to raise money for World Vision. Kyla is part of Waimauku School's choir. That is after the kids soccer practices that start at 3:30. Braden's team has a practice game this afternoon, finishing at 5:20. So after that we will head home to get them changed, then get to Takapuna by 6:30-6:45 when Kyla is supposed to be there. Something is missing from this plan? Oh, that's right... I need to feed them. Hmmm, not sure when that will happen.
Tomorrow Kyla has an inter-school Triathalon, and after school her Birthday party down at West Wave pools. Then soccer Saturdy morning for all 3, pick up a new bed (off trademe) for Kyla on Saturday afternoon after Daryl's soccer game at 12:30, bake dessert for mother's day when we get home, then church Sunday morning, ice birthday cake for Kyla on Sunday afternoon, dinner with the whanau Sunday night...
Time for a lie down I think.
It does indeed seem that all I ever do is cook and take kids to soccer at the moment, or it may look that way as that is about all I manage to write about here. There is indeed more to my life at the moment, some days I clean or work too.
Anyway, the soccer results for this week (minus details as I was not there for any of them)
Kyla's team: won 1-0
Braden's team: won 6-1
Lauren's team: won 6-1
And the food challenge for the week? 
Kyla had the privilege of choosing the ingredients for this week, and chose pumpkin, marshmallow and passionfruit.
Kyla decided to make baby pumpkins stuffed with tomato and bacon risotto.
She scooped the seeds out, and roasted the pumpkins, then filled them with the risotto, and topped them with parmesan cheese before popping them under the grill to brown. We had them with lamb and salad (the garden is still producing well). Score: 4/5 - the taste was great, but the texture of the pumpkin was not very good - the variety was the issue here, not the cooking.
Yesterday afternoon I made mallowpuffs for the first time. They were not particularly difficult, although I was amazed how sticky and messy you can get trying to get marshmallow mixture into a piping bag! The chocolate dipping also proved to be slightly messy.
The score: 4/5
Very tasty, and I think nicer than bought ones, especially as they have dark chocolate on them and the biscuit is nicer. The kids seem quite happy to eat them.
(and no, I didn't eat both of them from the picture!)
Squid, Chickpeas and preserved lemons....
These three ingredients were those chosen for the foodlovers challenge this week.
We had to immediately exclude preserved lemons from consideration as we didn't have any and it takes a few weeks to make them.
Kyla decided to make Salt and Pepper 
Squid.
We have had this a couple of times when we have been out for dinner, and all the kids love it, so were very pleased with Kyla's choice. She made a tempura batter, and dipped the scored squid pieces into it before deep frying it. I did help at this point as the thought of leaving Kyla to it (capable though she may be) was a little too worrying.
I chose to use chickpeas this time.
I don't normally buy pre-prepared food, but one that I have been buying lately is Lisa's Felafel Mix. It is really tasty and convenient as it stores in the fridge for a few weeks in it's nice little plastic pouch, just waiting for a busy day.
So, I thought I should give felafels a go myself. I did cheat and use tinned chickpeas as I did not have time this weekend to soak and boil the dried variety.
It was easy to make as you just throw everything in the food processor, then chill for 2 hours. I think that I pureed them for a little bit long as they were a bit smooth in texture, and should have had a bit longer in the fridge... It was getting a bit late to wait for them to chill fully. They tasted really good though, and I will definitely make them again. The garden is still producing parsley, tomatoes and lettuces so they were nice and fresh for this.
Last weekend Sandra and Craig took the kids to the Dad's soccer game while I did some work. They dropped into the Swiss bakery on Rosebank road, and bought some pretzel rolls. This afternoon we were at Nosh, and we got the kids a soft pretzel from there. So, the next thing to do was to see if I could make them.
Kyla had described these little rolls to me, and so after a look on the very useful net, I settled on a recipe to try. After a bit of further searching, we discovered that the caramel/brown colour on the rolls was dur to dipping them in a lye solution.... which seems slightly alarming when it comes with a warning about how caustic the lye solution is! Due to not having lye on hand (surprise, surprise) I had to do a bit of trial and error.
I did half the rolls dipping them in a cold baking soda solution (on the right of the photo), and the other half (on the left) were dipped in a boiling baking soda solution for about 30 seconds.
Kyla snuck out of her room (she was supposed to be going to sleep) when she heard the oven beep, and was quite impressed with my efforts. She tells me that the ones on the left (boiling baking soda solution) look the most like the ones they had. She has yet to taste them, but we have tried them and they are really nice.
This weeks soccer scores:
Kyla - her team had a bye
Braden - his team won, 6-1 (the 1 was actually an own goal scored by another defender - not Braden)
Lauren - her team drew 3-3 against a team called The Champions. They are actually really good team, so they did well.
Daryl - the old boys won 2-1, a hard game, and apparently it was supposed to be one of the easier teams in the league!
You could be forgiven for looking at the title of this blog and struggling to find a link.
There really isn't one.
So the soccer bit first.
This weekend saw the start of the kids soccer season, and Daryl managed to miss it by being in Singapore. He ended up arriving home today at about lunchtime due to the Icelandic volcano with the unpronounceable name preventing him from catching his flight to London.
But I digress, so back to the games.Lauren's team was the first to play, and given that they only had once practice together beforehand, it was interesting to see them play and see who was good at what. All in all it was a good game, and they are learning to pass well now. Lauren had a great assist, where she was at the back of the field in defence, and kicked the ball over everyone's heads, and it landed neatly in front of another player from her team who slotted it into the goal! Final score 5-0.
Kyla's team was second to play, and that was a great game to see. Everyone played well, including the 2 new girls who had never played before. Kyla scored a cracker of a goal from about 10m back, and was justifiably pleased with herself.Final score 4-0.
Braden's team was the final game for the day, and due to the game being at Shepherd's Park in Beachaven, I was only there for about the last 10 minutes of the game. I did notice that Braden (who is a defender) was playing well into the opposition's half, and it soon became clear. He tells me that his team's goalies (one for each half) did not touch the ball as goalie. It really was a bit of a walkover - and the score would have been much higher if the goals had been the proper size instead of the tiny ones that were being used.
Final score 7-0
So , a successful day of soccer, and apparently Daryl's team won too, 1-0, even though Daryl was not there to help.
So, now to the Cabbage.
The foodlover's challenge for the week was to use cabbage or almonds (or both) in a recipe we had never cooked before.
I did Chinese steamed pork and cabbage rolls.
This gave me a chance to use my Bamboo steamer for the first time, which was fun.
The kids and Daryl all liked the rolls, which we had with rice, Andrew's sprinkles from Japan, and soy sauce.
The verdict was a 4/5, I would probably do this one again. A good way to use a vegetable that up till now I have tended to only use in coleslaw or sauteed or in colcannon (once).
Kyla chose to use almonds, and due to the fact that we had been to Blossoms for lunch and had cake today (we met Daryl there after he arrived home from Singapore) we didn't need another cake. So she made Praline, which we had with cream/vanilla yogurt mixture, and peacherines.
This was also voted 4/5. Very yummy indeed.
We have done a few more food challenges over the last few weeks with varying results, but then I suppose the whole idea of it is ti try new things, and some are bound to be better than others.
There was the chocolate and peas week, where I tried a recipe for pumpkin and chocolate loaf from the Green and Blacks Chocolate book. Daryl was not convinced, and even less so when he found out that it had pumpkin in it. A bit too close to pumpkin pie taste for his liking.
One week we had fruit as the ingredient, which left things wide open, and in the end I made an upside down peach and almond cake which went down a lot better with Daryl.
Last week the ingredient to try was dates, which left me with a bit of a problem as Daryl does not like dates, which meant I really was destined to fail. He likes sticky date pudding, but as I have made that many times before, I could not make it for the challenge. I made a Chicken Tagine instead, and have to say that it was actually really nice. We had it with Couscous, and the kids ate it well. Daryl maintained that it would have been better without the dates. Aaargh!
Kyla had never made a sticky date pudding before, so she made it for the challenge.
Check out the photo of her dish.
I would have uploaded the photo to the blog, but it was put onto the other computer, so the link was easier this way.
The ingredients for the challenge this week are Almonds and Cabbage. Mmmm.I am thinking of trying asian pork and cabbage rolls, cooked in the bamboo steamer I bought a while back and have yet to use. I have found a recipe, so may try it tomorrow night, or on the weekend.
Apart from cooking, life goes on pretty much as usual. Soccer season starts this weekend, and we have had the great result of ending up with all 3 kids soccer teams practicing at the same place on the same day! Fantastic! That will make life a little easier.
Daryl leaves tomorrow for his yearly jaunt to England, via Singapore. He will miss the kid's first games of the season, but at least this time he is only away for one weekend, although he won't be much use next Saturday for Soccer as he arrives back in the middle of the day.
Well, that was a blog that doesn't really tell you much, so I will try to make the next one a little more interesting.
Oh, I will add one photo that may interest you...
This is what you get when kids slide down the hill at Tawharanui on an old inflatable mattress when the grass is damp. They only stopped because they hit the fence at the bottom, leaving them with bumped heads and ears, and wire lines on shins and shoulders.
They were actually very lucky they were not badly hurt as the next day Annelise ended up with a concussion after going down the hill with Jonathan and a few kids.
Camp was great fun, as usual, with lots of boogie
boarding, fun and food. We even got up early enough to watch the sun rise one morning.... actually wasn't really very early as it was before daylight savings ended, so sunrise was a bit after 7:30 in the morning.
This weeks Recipe Challenge ingredients were mushrooms and lemons. Due to the fact that the recipe has to be one we have not done before, and we use a lot of lemons, I decided to use Mushrooms. This had the added challenge of cooking something everyone would like as the kids are not all keen on mushrooms.
Having never made fresh pasta, Kyla and I decided to have a go at this.
I made Mushroom and Pancetta Ravioli, 
with a goats cheese and basil sauce.The filling had onion, garlic, pancetta, fresh oregano, portobello mushrooms, porcini powder, and a little goats cheese to bind it.
The sauce was made of a stock of porcini powder and water, with goats cheese and a dash of cream, and fresh basil added just at the end.
The ravioli were taking ages to make, and
as time was marching on we became very hungry and decided to make half my dough into fettuccine, which we tossed with the remaining ravioli filling thinned with a little cream.
The verdict: taste 5/5, presentation 3/5, texture 3/5 the pasta was a little bit tough.
Making fresh pasta was fun but very time consuming... we did it the hard way, on the bench and hand rolled, while the Kitchen Aid languished on the bench watching wistfully. Jill's pasta machine stayed at her house as Kyla insisted that to use either would be cheating. I believe that next time we will cheat, twice.
While I was completing the mushroom challenge, Kyla was hard at work next to me, making her first batch of fresh pasta, also the hard way.
She made Pumpkin and Bacon Ravioli with Tomato sauce.
The verdict on Kyla's pasta?
Taste 5/5
Presentation 3/5
Texture 4/5 her pasta was better than mine, but the filling needed a little more moisture as the pumpkin was a fairly dry one.
All in all, we had fun and would try our hand at pasta making again, but like I said before, I would try it with the mixer and pasta machine next time!
Kyla is still claiming to be a hand made pasta purist... we shall see.
She has decided that she really likes the vege garden, and on a hot sunny day I saw her sheltering under the leaves of the Rhubarb plant.
Lucky Phil - Josiah was holding the line, and taking responsibility for the catch. We hustled a slightly reluctant Phil out the door to deal with the eel, and grabbed cameras, knowing the boys would want proof of this momentous occasion.
poor eel that was then released to fight another day. The boys really wanted to bbq and eat the eel, but Phil convinced them that it really needed to be properly smoked to be palatable. Phil then spent the next several minutes rubbing mud on his hands in an effort to remove the slime from the eel!
Here is a great photo of Lauren posing for the camera.
Jordan was clearly exhausted by the picnic lunch.
figuring that she would just have a little paddle in the water. How naive! We will let her off this time for not knowing what a west coast beach can be like - dry sand one minute, and thigh deep water the next. Needless to say she was still slightly damp when it was time to leave.
Jordan, Josiah and Braden spent most of the time either playing games with the Dads or digging in the sand. They appeared to be having fun.... if the amount of sand on them was anything to go by.
stuck to the picnic blanket. Still, they appear to be having fun too, and I did see Rachel walking at one point!
potatoes:
added broccoli, cauliflower, beans and sugar snap peas to make it a truly all in one dish.
either a variety we hadn't used before, or in a way we hadn't tried before. I had some cooked rice in the freezer, and found a recipe in the Australian Women's Weekly Rice Cookbook, that used the rice and rice flour in a kind of pancake. This was then placed over an ovenproof dish, and baked until crisp.
I have never tried to use browned butter before, but saw Raymond Blanc cooking fish in browned butter, and then using the remaining butter in the pan to make a light sauce. So, that is what I tried to replicate.
We had these served on stir fried greens (cabbage, broccoli and bok choy) and drizzled with a sauce made of sherry, soy sauce, ginger and sugar simmered together until thick.
Here are the bagels shaped, and waiting to be boiled.
they are dropped into a pot of boiling water with a tablespoon of molasses added to it. They are only boiled for around 30 seconds on each side. They puff up a bit during this stage, and look sort of lumpy when you take them out.
This is what they look like after boiling, ready to go into the oven.
We were very proud of them both,
We had the gnocchi with a sauce made from fresh Italian style sausages which I took out of their casings, and browned with onion and garlic before simmering with tinned tomatoes. A bit of parmesan cheese on top, and dinner was ready.
We had the fettuccine with a pork, paprika and sour cream sauce. Very tasty and a little bit different. I have made the sauce before, although in a slightly different way, so that was not a new recipe, but still very tasty.
Yes, we did actually get around to choosing a name for the kitten, and it didn't actually take us this long!
She likes to sleep in odd positions - often with her head lower than her body, which surely is not that comfortable. This is Missie sleeping on Kyla's legs - a prime example of a strange place to sleep.
before me, grabbed the camera, and went to see if our theory was right. Here is the evidence, although some of the photos are blurred.
Lauren turned 8 on the 21st May. She chose to have a birthday party at home, and had about 8 girls over for it. Her choice of a swimming pool birthday cake this year was somewhat simpler than last years fairytale castle, for which I was very grateful.
We picked her up from her previous home last night after the kids had swimming lessons. That was an adventure in itself as the house was in Papakura, and not in the township, but out about 10km into the surrounding farmland. We had very good directions to get there, although the part of the directions that we got off Google maps was the windier route to get there.
Schools Triathalon. She chose to enter as an individual rather than as part of a team, and so she did all three parts herself.
This left her in a good position, and on the run she passed more competitors to finish in 2nd place!
This is served in rolls with red onion slices (the recipe says raw red onion, but we decided to be less odourous and cook it). Really tasty, and easy. I think that I will give it a go with pork some time, and see how that goes.
Yesterday afternoon I made mallowpuffs for the first time. They were not particularly difficult, although I was amazed how sticky and messy you can get trying to get marshmallow mixture into a piping bag! The chocolate dipping also proved to be slightly messy.
Squid. 
This gave me a chance to use my Bamboo steamer for the first time, which was fun.
The kids and Daryl all liked the rolls, which we had with rice, Andrew's sprinkles from Japan, and soy sauce.
Kyla chose to use almonds, and due to the fact that we had been to Blossoms for lunch and had cake today (we met Daryl there after he arrived home from Singapore) we didn't need another cake. So she made Praline, which we had with cream/vanilla yogurt mixture, and peacherines.
This is what you get when kids slide down the hill at Tawharanui on an old inflatable mattress when the grass is damp. They only stopped because they hit the fence at the bottom, leaving them with bumped heads and ears, and wire lines on shins and shoulders.
boarding, fun and food. We even got up early enough to watch the sun rise one morning.... actually wasn't really very early as it was before daylight savings ended, so sunrise was a bit after 7:30 in the morning.
with a goats cheese and basil sauce.
as time was marching on we became very hungry and decided to make half my dough into fettuccine, which we tossed with the remaining ravioli filling thinned with a little cream.
