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!
There were lovely pohutukawa trees along the edge of the beach, and I asked the kids to climb on to one flat branch for a photo.
he photo done, the kids decided the easiest way down was to jump... which then meant we stayed there for around 10 minutes while the kids went up the tree and jumped out..... quite a few times each.
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.