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.
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.
