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 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.
