Soccer season comes to an end.

Well, we won't know what to do with ourselves on weekends as the soccer season has officially ended (apart from one more tournament for Braden tomorrow), freeing up our Saturdays after months of watching Soccer all day.


Prizegiving was held today, and the Palmers featured well in the dishing out of awards with Lauren taking the Player of the year for the Groovy Girls and Kyla being named Sportsperson of the Year for the Eagles. Both were well deserved and very well received.


Following the prizegivings today, we are due to head off to the Mavericks (Braden's team) end of season do, with a plate of finger food. This became a good opportunity to try making something a little different. Here is what we are taking:

These are from an idea that I saw while looking at cooking websites, and really appealed as a bit of a fun dish. They are in fact cupcakes rather than burgers, and are made from plain cupcakes with a slice of chocolate brownie for the meat patty, with red icing for tomato sauce and yellow for cheese slices. Sesame seeds on the top complete the look. Hopefully the kids won't find them too weird to eat.



Other things that have been happening lately?
Well, further to my last blog entry about Kyla and cross country running, she went to the Norwest regional event where she placed 5th. She was thrilled with this, and it meant that she was also selected for the Norwest team entering the Auckland Champs. This was held in Pukekohe and is for teams from right across the greater Auckland area. Kyla placed a very commendable 32nd in her race (there would have been over 100 in her race), beating Daryl's school days effort of 33rd! She was very happy with that.

Well done Kyla!





I am still making nearly all our own bread, and one day while making rolls for lunches, thought I would try something a bit different for my own lunch.
It involved a small baguette, which I then pressed a wooden spoon handle into to form a groove.










Into this groove went basil pesto, halved cherry tomatoes, then a sprinkling of grated mozzarella, which was baked until it looked like this:












Very yummy, and I will do it again, hopefully in a few weeks it will be my own homegrown cherry tomatoes and maybe even pesto from home grown basil!

Yes, we are still alive!

It has been a month since I last posted, and a busy one at that.
In the past month....

I sprained my ankle helping Daryl move a kitchen cabinet at his parents house, turned out it was a bad sprain too, and 3 1/2 weeks later the swelling has still not completely disappeared. At least I had plenty of work to do, so didn't get bored.

Our dishwasher is working again. You may think this is an odd thing to mention, but it has taken a month of trying for the repairman to finally get it sorted! I was beginning to get cross. It has been VERY frustrating, especially so while I was on crutches due to the aforementioned sprained ankle.

The Prelude is gone, after a very fast Trademe auction where 3 people were trying to do the buy now at the same time. They even drove it away, which we thought was brave considering it's refusal to go over about 50km/h. Now only another 2 weeks to muddle through before Daryl gets his new car.

Kyla is running in the Norwest Schools cross country next Thursday after placing 3rd in her school event, and 6th in the Kaipara Schools cross country last Monday. She is very excited, and would love to make it through to the Auckland Champs as last year she would have qualified for this had she been year 7 instead of 6.

Braden received a certificate today for his result in the ICAS Science Exam, this is the current version of the New South Wales tests we used to sit. He received a High Distinction placing him in the top 1% of his year group across NZ- an impressive result.

We are down to the last 2 weeks of soccer games, which will then free up our Saturdays! As Spring seems to be springing early, there will be plenty to do around the house.

My efforts at cooking new recipes have been pretty much non-existent over the last few weeks, but tonight inspiration struck.... although it was a combined effort this time between Daryl and me.
We have, on a couple of occasions, gone to a Spanish Tapas Cafe in Albany called Bolero. They have a great menu that we have shared various item from, and the kids really enjoy it too. Our favourite desserts are Creme Catalana (like Creme brulee) with Raspberries and
Churros con Chocolat.
After browsing the net for a recipe, we tried making Churros tonight, and they were sooo good.
Basically these are deep fried dough (a very simple dough made of flor, hot water a tablespoon of oil, and a little salt and sugar. They are sprinkled with Cinnamon and sugar while hot, and dipped into a rich chocolate sauce to eat. Yum!

Public Transport

Well, the prelude is dead, or very nearly so. Daryl decided one day last week that it would be okay to drive it to work, and the pleas of wife and daughter went unattended. He drove out the driveway, and we watched him go, shaking our heads and wondering why he thought it was a good idea to drive it to work when it clearly wasn't working properly.
Two minutes later, a very sheepish Daryl appeared back home, and informed us that the car had refused to change out of first gear, and thus couldn't go any faster than 40km/h. He had managed to turn around in a side street along the road and drive home.
Kyla and I did an admirable job of not looking smug or saying "I told you so".

So, one car down, and kid's after school activities means that Daryl has joined the users of Public Transport. I am sure he is really enjoying the ridiculously long travel times. Today he discovered that the bus he had taken (to meet us down at the pool for kids swimming lessons) went via Glendene... not exactly direct.

This foray into bus and train travel is set to last for a while however, as he has decided to buy a Mazda 6 from a workmate who is leaving to return to Ireland. The catch is that she doesn't leave for another 6 weeks, so it is just as well Daryl is good at sleeping on trains and buses, as he is set to spend a great deal of time on them in the next 6 weeks. The kids were a little concerned to hear that he sleeps on the bus/train as the fear he will sleep too long and miss his stop completely. We have reassured them that he cannot really end up too far away from home, and will be fine.

I have yet to make a new dish this week (I have done lots of variations on tdishes I have done before but don't think that counts), so will have to get organised as we are out tomorrow (home group) and Saturday night (Family birthday celebration for Jordan), so I suppose inspiration will have to strike on Friday. Watch this space.

Oops, this one is a bit late

Well, this is actually the new recipe for last week, but I didn't actually make it till tonight.

We have been busy the last week or so. The kids are on holiday, and last week was spent amusing them so they didn't kill each other. We went swimming, roller blading from Mission Bay around to Okahu Bay, and spent part of a day with Nana as the power supply company were supposed to be replacing a transformer and this would leave us without power (and therefore running water) for most of a day. The power company did not manage to do this replacement however (due to weather) so we will have the same problem another day I suppose.

Today, Kyla, Braden and Lauren had their first day of Soccer. They will be at the soccer coaching Monday to Thursday this week, and it runs from 9am to 1pm. Daryl decided to take today off work as his car has been playing up, refusing to go into 4th gear and flaring when it goes over 60km/hr which clearly is a problem when SH16 has a spped limit of 100km/hr. We took his car to a mechanic specialising in Automatic gearboxes, and it appears the news is not good. Now we have to figure out what to do as clearly it is difficult for him to get to work without a car. His choices are limited to a 1 1/4 hour bus trip, 1 1/4 hour train trip or 1 1/4 bike ride. No fast option.

Anyway, after picking up the kids from soccer, we asked if they were tired, (apparently they were not) and gave them the choice of going to Muriwai beach, or mountain biking at Woodhill Forest. They opted for the mountain biking option. We chose the beginners trail, which was only 6km long. It took us 48 minutes, (actual riding time) and by the end Lauren was pretty much shattered. They all enjoyed it a lot, and are keen to make it a regular activity. This is probably going to happen, as on Friday night (with Rebekah and Jeremy Opie visiting) I committed to joining Rebekah and Katie (Jeremy's cousin) as the third member of their team for the Day-Night Thriller . This should be lots of fun, and a good incentive for me to get a bit fitter.

After the fantastic effort put in by all three kids, we came home to have dinner of chilli (meat and vegetarian options) with wraps, salad and corn chips. Having had that many times before, it was clear the new recipe would need to be dessert. Yum.
Last night we were watching Iron Chef America (a slightly over dramatic cooking show, but it still fun to watch) on the Food Channel. One of the dishes put forward by the winning chef consisted of bruleed figs, with mascarpone cheese and sweet biscuits. This looked really good (except the figs which we have tried once and were not inspired by) and the chef mentioned that the dish would be just as good done with almost any kind of fruit. I decided to try this with Tamarillos, there is not really a huge variety of fruit in season at the moment, and the supermarket in Waimauku is fairly limited in it's range.


Dish of the week
Bruleed Tamarillos with Vanilla Mascarpone and Sponge Finger Biscuits. The mascarpone (thinned slightly with milk and flavoured with vanilla) had a sweet balsamic drizzle, however the flavour of the balsamic was overtaken a bit by the Tamarillos. The sugar caramelised on the fruit worked okay, but the Tamarillos were quite juicy, so the crust of toffee was not as obvious as it would have been on something like peach or nectarine. The sponge finger biscuits were good- really nice and crispy and a great contrast to the creamy mascarpone and tangy fruit.
The verdict- very tasty, but would be even nicer with peach or nectarine. Oh well, summer is only 6 months away.

What else can I do with bread dough?

With the bread dough being so easy to make, I have had time to play with new ideas of what to do with it, apart from loaves, rolls and pizzas.

One idea from the ABin5 website is egg in bread instead of on bread. This involves lining muffin tins with bread dough, and cracking an egg into the dough before baking. They are fun, but the first time I made them I found the dough didn't cook enough for my liking, so this time I partially baked them before adding the egg. Better this way I think. Maybe next time I will add some chopped cooked bacon so it is truly bacon and eggs.

Another bread idea I have made lately used the Challah dough recipe, which I

rolled out into two rectangles, sprinkled one with finely chopped chocolate, and topped with the other rectangle. I pressed the two together, and cut into strips which were then twisted and placed on the tray. After they had risen, I brushed them with egg, and baked. Yum! We will have these again. Best warm so the chocolate is melted. mmmmmm.

Dinner time...

Well, I have to say that my self set challenge to make a new recipe each week was a little neglected last week, unless you consider discovering that you can make bread with Feijoa cereal that no-one likes a new recipe.

I had an urgent job come up, which was a challenge as it had a tight deadline, and thus left little room for anything else, much to the kids frustration.

But, it is done, and my attention can turn to cooking once more, and so, a new recipe for dinner tonight.

You would think that with a cupboard and part of a bookcase of recipe books, that the new recipe would be from one of those books. However, I had decided that we should eat lentils

occasionally, and set out to find a palatable way to present them.

I came across this recipe for Sausages with Lentils and Vegetables while looking at the Taste website. It is very useful when you have ingredients or an idea of what you want to cook, but need a recipe or more inspiration.

Then, today a trip to Nosh (to buy a birthday present for Sandra), where I found some Merguez sausages. These are a lightly spiced Lamb and Pork sausage. So, tonight's dinner came together

nicely, using tinned brown lentils (tinned because the recipe said so, not because I couldn't be bothered cooking them for 40 minutes).

Also at Nosh, I sampled a gorgeous Kaimai Brie, which was oozingly ripe. This we had spread on fresh bread (I cheated and bought it at Nosh too). The kids were appalled when Daryl explained that the white around the cheese was in fact mould, but got over it and ate it anyway.

So, the verdict? Would we have the Sausages with Lentils and Vegetables again? Definitely.

The new recipe challenge begins

Daryl has mentioned on at least one occasion that I have too many recipe books. Clearly this is untrue as it is just not possible to have too many!  I have however decided that it is time I tried some new recipes, as I have fallen into the habit of cooking familiar recipes most of the time... put it down to laziness.

So, the challenge is to cook at least one recipe each week that I have never cooked before.

This weeks recipe is Individual Ginger Pear Puddings. 

Daryl (he is so helpful) has pointed out that really this is a cop out, as although technically I have never cooked this before, it is actually very similar to one I have done before, albeit with a different presentation.  Anyway, they were still cute, yummy, and low(ish) in fat, so here it is.

The pears are peeled and most of the core removed, and cooked lightly.  They are then pressed into the ginger pudding mixture, and baked, before finally being glazed with warmed, sieved, apricot jam. We served the puddings with a vanilla, greek yogurt cream.  They were judged by the kids as very good, and worth making again.  We think they felt grown up getting an individually presented dessert.

I will try to make sure the new recipes include both savoury and sweet dishes, and try to do this while staying within a newly set grocery budget.  Should be fun!