The good, the bad and the bitching!

I wasn’t the biggest fan of this – but Ben loved it. I think it was the citrus flavour – I really shouldn’t pick recipes with it in it, but I cant help myself! Eating this as leftovers, I actually got the worst case of hiccups – they lasted about 8 hours. a good sign my body does not want me eating citrus!

But if you are into your citrus – make this, because its quite nice.

Ingredients (serves 4)

• 3 (200g each) chicken breast fillets, trimmed
• 3 teaspoons cajun seasoning (see note)
• olive oil cooking spray
• 3 oranges
• 1 brown onion, finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 2 cups long-grain rice, rinsed
• 3 cups salt-reduced chicken stock
• 1/4 cup currants (omitted. I was being tight with money.)
• 1 cup frozen peas (I added corn too)
• 2 tablespoons slivered almonds, toasted (omitted because I thought I had them at home, then didnt.)

Method

1. Coat both sides of chicken in cajun seasoning. Heat a large, non-stick frying pan oven medium heat. Spray both sides of chicken with oil. Cook chicken for 5 minutes each side or until cooked through. Remove to a plate. Cover and stand for 5 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, grate rind from 2 oranges. Juice all 3 oranges. Spray a large saucepan with oil. Heat over medium heat. Add onion and garlic. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 3 to 4 minutes or until onion is tender. Add rice and stir to coat. Add stock, orange rind and 1 cup orange juice. Increase heat to high. Bring to the boil.
3. Reduce heat to low. Cover and simmer for 10 minutes. Stir in currants and peas. Remove from heat. Stand, covered, for 5 minutes or until rice has absorbed stock.
4. Slice chicken. Add chicken and almonds to rice. Stir to combine. Season with pepper. Serve.

Super Food Ideas – June 2007, Page 36

Look at that Turkish pizza – all messy in the pan! I made mine with a few substitutions because of Bens hatred of feta, but it was still soooo good! Just watch out – Turkish bread does not keep longer than two days, so if you shop ahead like we do, put it in the freezer because ours went off and I had to go buy a new one!

Ingredients (serves 4)

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 tablespoon ground coriander
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 350g lamb mince (used beef mince)
• 2 tablespoons pine nuts (omitted)
• 1 loaf Turkish bread
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 150g feta cheese, crumbled (used regular, grated cheese)
• 1 large tomato, quartered, seeds removed, diced
• 1/4 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves, chopped (omitted, but sprinkled dried basil into the mix)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200°C. Line a baking tray with baking paper.
2. Heat oil in a large, heavy-based frying pan over medium heat. Add onion and garlic. Cook for 3 minutes or until soft. Add coriander, cumin and mince. Increase heat to high. Cook, stirring with a wooden spoon, for 5 minutes or until browned. Add nuts, and salt and pepper. Cook a further 2 minutes, stirring. Cool.
3. Place bread onto baking tray. Spread with tomato paste. Sprinkle with half the feta. Spoon over mince. Sprinkle with remaining feta. Bake for 15 minutes or until warmed through. Top with tomato and parsley.

Source

Super Food Ideas – September 2003, Page 67

This is sooo easy and delicious! We ate the leftovers the next night for dinner and it was still so good!

With my life in the burbs about to start, I thought I’d take a look back at some of the suburbs I lived in, and what I loved about them. First up: Middle Park.

This was my first share house and I loved one street back from the beach:
Pretty!

But – I can’t say I ever utilised it! Apart from my first "catch up" with Ben – where we sat on the beach at Port Melbourne (a suburb up) and chatted.

My favourite place in Middle Park:

Santiago! This is a wonderful tapas bar with yummy spanish food – I’ve eaten here quite a few times, but it is also where Ben and I had our first dinner date here – we strolled up from my house (a 5 min walk) and got a table outside. We shared some lovely dishes, and I made the discovery that he did not really like dessert! SHOCKING I know, but I kept him anyway.

I also remember taking a walk or two with my friend Kylie from Middle Park down to the St Kilda Pier on evenings when it was nice and warm! We didn’t get much exercise because we were too busy chatting, but very nice at sunset!

I also spent a day with my old housemates at the St Kilda Street Festival – it was a windy day so when we got sick of dust and dirt blowing in our eyes, we holed up at a bar in St Kilda and drank on their deck all day.

I also remember this evil thing:

Our place was right on the tram tracks and during the day and evening this rickety old tram car – turned restaurant would jangle past my window! We were on a corner so it would screeeeeeeeeeeech its way around and it usually made its last trip past right as I was falling asleep of an evening!

And the best part of all? 5 minute drive from work! I would wake up at 7:45, realise I was late for work, scramble and be there right on time for an 8am start!

Most importantly though – Middle Park was the place where one chapter of my life closed and another, wonderful one opened. I moved out because I felt I needed a clean start on this new life with this new boy of mine (and one of my housemates had started being a bit stalky) and so I said goodbye to Middle Park!

With less than a month left until we move to the burbs, I am starting to grieve for the end of my inner-city living life.

Goodbye to the great bars!

I’m sure I will still visit, but it will never be the same. Each trip in now is either going to be tainted by catching the last train home, or an expensive cab ride, or crashing at a friends house!

Vanilla cupcake with cookies and cream frosting! YUM!

Make any plain vanilla cupcake recipe…

and then!

• 250g package of cream cheese, room temperature
• 1/4 C butter, room temperature
• 3-4 C powdered sugar (use more or less depending on how stiff you want the frosting to be)
• 1/2 t vanilla extract
• 3/4 C crushed Tim Tams – if you arent australian, you are missing out! Best cookies ever. Or if you want, just use Oreos.

1. Whip cream cheese and butter until light and fluffy.
2. Mix in powdered sugar one cup at a time.
3. Add vanilla extract.
4. Gently stir in crushed Tim Tams.

and done! these tasted even better the next day too!

I really hate it when people are making a turn… but instead of merging completely into the turning lane, they leave themselves hanging in-between the two lanes. Stopping the person doing the right thing in the turning lane from turning, and stopping you who is driving behind them from getting past them.

So you slow in an 80km/h zone righttttttttt down to like 5km/h – because those people are also notoriously slow turners!

This happened to me three times on the way home last night and I got verrrry frustrated! JUST GET IN THE LANE YOU IDIOT! NOBODY NEEDS 2 LANES TO TURN, YOU ARE NOT A BUS!

OK… Im calm now.

They say third times a charm – and it certainly was when we put down an offer for our new home! It felt different to the other times – and we certainly filled out more paperwork than before!

But by Saturday at 5pm, our offer was in. And then we waited. And waited. Finally on Monday I was told they were seeing the vendor at 7pm, so 7pm came and we waited. We nervously chewed on our dinner, and waited. And then my mum called to see if we had heard anything, and we screeched at her to stop tying up the line!

At 7.30pm I started telling Ben we didnt have it… and we got depressed and at 7.45, they FINALLY called. And I braced myself. And then they told me the place was ours! I looked at Ben and asked the agent "Youre serious??" and hes like "why, arent you happy?" "No Im very happy! I just thought we didnt have it because of the time!" hehe

SO yes. We are now the (almost!) proud owners of this beauty:

Aint it pretty!

Things to in the front: Finish landscaping, close in the fence so we can use it as a backyard

Open plan living space!
Things to do: paint the red wall. I do not like it! Ben does!

The lovely lovely kitchen!

Things to do: Nothing! look at it!

Our future bedroom

Things to do: buy bedside tables, possibly paint that blue wall. Its an odd shade of blue.

Splish splash – that bath is HUGE! and I LOVE that grey colour

Things to do: Aside from hanging prints to give it some personality, the shower head may need to be changed to be bigger for Ben. Its quite low.. and he is quite tall!

And the backyard! Not as pretty as the front… but it is wider than it looks!

Things to do: buy bbq, build a little shed to house a lawnmower, plant some trees to screen off the neighbours, plant myself a lemon tree because I really want one! and plant some grass.

So that is the house! How pretty is it!

The main thing is – for now we dont have to do a THING. We just move in, live with the red paint, scope out how much a shed costs and all that, and do it bit by bit.

I am hoping in the first few weekends though I can plant some trees because I want to get them on their way and establish them a touch before it becomes hot hot hot again this summer!

6 weeks after my surgery and I still feel the effects – still sore in the stitches, still hurting in the same way before the surgery, still unable to do a full session at the gym. But for the last 6 weeks Ive been telling myself, at least when I get the results I will know whats up. Have a plan. Get rid of this pain.

Yeah. Not so much. Saw the surgeon today and on top of him sounding like a bad german cliche and him asking me “have you had the sex yet?” and then asking how was it then correcting himself to say, did it hurt?

so the results: mild endometriosis and they removed some scar tissue also. (my theory though is removing scar tissue will just create more scar tissue.) and the treatment? keep taking the pill and skipping my period. Oh, you mean exactly what I have been doing since 2002? thanks medical science for that.

I am a bit peeved. Because after the surgery and finding out there was something there I felt relief, like the pain I suffered would all be worth it. But now, its not. I havent got a treatment option – I just keep doing what Ive been doing and hope that the pain wont be too much. Oh and when the pain gets bad again in a few years more surgery. woo.

I also gathered that if I wanted to be pregnant in a few months the treatment would have been different, but you know, since Im still having the sex and taking the pill, thats not in the cards.

Funny thing you may not realise about me. I do not break the rules… not even a little bit. I really struggle to do anything that is not the right thing to do – case in point. Driving to the supermarket yesterday I told the boy I’d like to go to the bookstore first. Well we got caught at a stop light right outside the book store, and after a while he said why dont I jump out now and he will park the car? But, by then, the light was about to change and so I said "no, the light is about to go green!" "so?? just jump out" but then I freaked out and couldnt move! and so the light changed, and Ben creeped forward the one metre we could move because the traffic was banked up! I felt a little silly.

There was one time where I flagrantly flaunted the rules however! We were in Vegas (of course!) and had just enjoyed a leisurely late buffet lunch with our group of 6 backpackers! So we then decided it was pool time. Only at 4pm, they were closing our hotel pool to get ready for the luau (classy). So we decided we would sneak across to another hotels pool. We went next door to the Pink Flamingo, and we casually strolled into their pool area. We even stole their complimentary towels! Only  problem – the pool was closing in 5 minutes, but the spa was staying open until 7. No problem we told them, we will just use the spa. Except – the spa was hot and eventually the creepy guys in the other spa came over to ours to try and sit next to the girls.

That is when we decided to go in the pool. The guys and I (the other girls stayed in the spa) snuck over, and firstly just sat on the edge to see if anyone was paying attention. Then we got in, slowly. Still noone said anything. So we started to swim around and it was only when the boys started splashing did someone come and tell us to get out. We feigned ignorance about the pool being closed and went back to the spa.

Best swim ever. I am a total rebel.

But seriously – whats up with the pools closing early? We were all under the impression that in Vegas – the pools stay open!

I am not having a great week this week. Since we found out we didnt get the house on Monday night I have been in a funk. Monday night was spent being angry, Tuesday was unproductive and angry, Wednesday was OK but I was just lethargic and we had some family dinner to go to so I was exhausted by that, Thursday I am angry again because we have just discovered the real estate agent did something illegal with us and I spent all day trying to stay awake! Then our house inspection for another place we were thinking of putting an offer in on got cancelled, so I went to the gym and came home expecting a messy, empty house but instead my boy was still here waiting for me so he could say hi before he went to training! So I got a cuddle and a kiss, then saw he had done all the dishes AND then saw he had folded up his clothes (that normally float around our house) and placed them neatly on the bed. very sweet!