Keep On Keeping On

Beautiful song.

A Simple Living Movie

I had the joy of watching the Hannah Montana movie last night. My husband has been to Tennessee so that is part of the appeal I suppose. Recently I was talking to my daughter about ferrets. She wanted to get one. I am wondering now if it was because of the movie.

Anyway, I loved the theme of the movie, not so much Life Wasn't Meant To Be Easy of our former Prime Minister, but

There's always going to be another mountain
I'm always going to want to make it move
Always going to be an uphill battle,
Sometimes I'm gonna to have to lose,
Ain't about how fast I get there,
Ain't about what's waiting on the other side
It's the climb

The struggles I'm facing,
The chances I'm taking
Sometimes might knock me down but
No I'm not breaking
I may not know it
But these are the moments that
I'm going to remember most yeah
Just got to keep going
And I,
I got to be strong
Just keep pushing on, cause


I was impressed by the canning jars in a carrier unceremoniously dropped by Miley's Granma. There were lots of things I liked even the reference to Hip Hop in the following video, since I love Justin Bieber's song, which I think is hip hop and play it in the car, all related to seeing dance concerts and competitions. I think the trailers don't do this movie justice.



Anyway, the ferret in the movie did exactly as expected from my experience with ferrets and what I told the girls they were like!

Lets Talk About Menu Planning

I was reading Mum's copy of Australian Good Taste July 2010 and came across an article called It pays to plan which you can read by pdf on the link. It had at the start of the article "Those who do it swear by it, but those who don't see it as a bizarre ritual..."

My immediate thoughts were that the same people probably collect tax receipts? What do you think? Anyway maybe it is hard for us to do all the rituals we are supposed to be doing. I definitely fall down on keeping receipts, or throwing out excess paper, but love menu planning or writing down a rough budget. I used to love recording things online, like blessings and stuff like that. It all depends how much energy we have I suppose.

There are a few parts to these articles and Part 2 which I have linked to has some good ideas on menu planning, that also fit in with my recent menu plans and their themes.

Review Recipes+ Magazine

When I went to Melbourne early this week, we stopped by my Mum's to drop off the girls as I was having surgery. On the way home Mum gave me a magazine stack including three copies of Recipes+. If the recipes are as good as the ones we usually use, these are a gold mine! They are similar to the recipes I used before our vegetarian super budget kick, which were budget already. Familiar ingredients are chorizo, chipolatas and different sausages. Also my favourite types of dishes, but different to the ones we already have, which I am getting sick of really because I like to find new exciting recipes with those ingredients, as they are a limited set of ingredients in some ways.

You can have a look at what it looks like here.

You all know I am very dependent on the Taste site and love it as well. I love the magazine too. But I find the recipes+ magazine better in that it is less offensive by the way of materialism. Also everything is very positive and doesn't favour any particular type of people. Very practical, helpful, and uplifting, and cute. The ads are even nice. As I said, they are not materialisic, they are for everyday things, not too many and entertaining in a nice way. Thank you recipes+ for brightening up my week. Only trouble is that when I take all my favourite recipes out, I may as well just put the whole magazine in the marbig, there won't be much left, or much room left in my marbig.

New Menu with Soft Food

I don't know where my brain was when I made up the menu except I didn't want to be having to do it after surgery. I had surgery yesterday and I am supposed to be doing the fruit and vege order now. Well I won't order yet, I am going to make up a new menu tomorrow. It should be OK, my internet is fast, though it seems like my girls seem bent of fixing that lol. I know what we are having tonight, as I have pesto which was bought for a rainy day, and left over pumpkin. I just hope it is soft enough. Really I just don't want food stuck on my teeth, hopefully if I avoid greens and some meats?

Wednesday ~ Roast Pumpkin & Pesto Risotto
Thursday ~ Savoury Mince with Soft Polenta (maybe we can puree the sauce)
Friday ~ left-over risotto for me, and Bacon & Cheese Burgers for those who are home this Friday night
Saturday ~ Chili Con Carne
Sunday ~ Spaghetti Bolognaise (maybe I could have mine with cous cous?) or Savoury Mince & Potato Wedges
Monday ~ Cauliflower Soup
Tuesday ~ Curried Sweet Potato Soup
Wednesday ~ Spicy Pumpkin Soup
Thursday ~ Smoked Cod & Mashed Potatoes
Friday ~ Thai Sweet Potato & Lentil Soup
Saturday ~ Pumpkin & Asparagus Risotto
Sunday ~ Smoked Fish Risotto with Poached Eggs
Monday ~ Oven Baked Tuna & Tomato Risotto

Swap recipe: Tuna Mornay with Cherry Tomatoes
Cherry Tomato Bologanise with Tagliatelle
Tomato Soup with Parmesan Meatballs

Interesting recipes: Mushroom Rosemary Polenta Bake
Perfect Pumpkin Soup (includes homemade pesto)
Tray backed Sausages with Potatoes & Cherry Tomatoes (uses pork sausages)
Potato & Egg Bake (uses pancetta)
Tunarani an Indian meal made from tuna and cherry tomatoes!

I can see there are lots of fantastic new recipes using ingredients I haven't bought for awhile on the Taste site.

Cleaning Out the Pantry Menu

You will notice some repeats from last week. One night we had left-overs and another night Mushroom Burgers as we got mixed up with the list and didn't get ingredients for what we had planned. This came about by the late night my husband was working and couldn't get to the shop, to plan out work for someone else to take his classes while we are away, which we had tea out.

My menu seems very heavy on feta, three recipes.

Tuesday ~ Japanese Pancakes (another new recipe with BBQ chicken & canned prawns)
Wednesday ~ Turkish Pizza
Thursday ~ Sausage & Egg Muffin Burgers
Friday ~ Bacon & Cheese Burgers (uses stuffing mix)
Saturday ~ Easy Chicken Chow Mein (uses Singapore styled noodles I have already, still cleaning out that pantry and chicken mince)
Sunday ~ Zucchini & Bacon Slice with Chips
Monday ~ Zucchini Burgers and maybe Savoury Mince & Potato Wedges
Tuesday ~ Pesto Pasta with Zucchini, Feta & Tomato
Wednesday ~ Pumpkin & Silverbeet Penne
Thursday ~ Spiced Beans with Roast Pumpkin Wedges
Friday ~ Tuna & Corn Burgers with Olive & Parsley Salad
Saturday ~ Lentil & Spinach Lasagne
Sunday ~ Thai Sweet Potato & Lentil Soup
Monday ~ Spicy Meatlovers Pizza with Salad

Possibly next pay I can shop in Coles and try something different, if I feel I can lift things.

Success from last week:

Polenta with White Bean Salad I can't say enough good things about this recipe, great if you love basil fresh from the garden!

Japanese Pancake (with bacon) gorgeous like going to a cafe (an old-fashioned one)

Simple Fun

My girls got this trampoline at the tip, so it was free fun as well.

Melinda Schneider Does Doris Day

Japanese Pancakes, Tonkatsu Sauce & Our Fortnightly Menu

Tuesday 10th ~ Chicken, Corn & Risoni Soup (uses silverbeet)
Wednesday ~ Bacon & Cheese Burgers (uses stuffing mix)
Thursday ~ Easy Chicken Chow Mein (uses Singapore styled noodles I have already, still cleaning out that pantry and chicken mince)
Friday ~ Greek Lentil Soup (uses left over dill)
Saturday ~ Vegetarian Pancakes (for left over cabbage)
Sunday ~ Corn Quesadillas with Bean Salad (hopefully I will get the tortillas this time)
Monday ~ Japanese Pancakes (a new recipe includes bacon & potato)
Tuesday ~ Polenta with White Bean Salad
Wednesday ~ Japanese Pancakes (another new recipe with BBQ chicken & canned prawns)
Thursday ~ Sausage & Egg Muffin Burgers
Friday ~ Zucchini & Bacon Slice with Chips
Saturday ~ Zucchini Burgers
Sunday ~ Savoury Mince & Potato Wedges
Monday ~ Spicy Beef Noodle Stir Fry (uses rice stick noodles which we have)

My son offered to go to the Hub while he was practising taking the bus to uni. He is buying me some Kewpie mayonnaise and hopefully will be able to find some Tonkatsu sauce which we haven't tried. But unfortunately the shop was closed. We usually use Worcestershire sauce for our Japanese Pancakes which we love. We love the pancakes and the sauce lol. Tonkatsu is a Japanese Worcestershire sauce. We tried something like HP Sauce once and it was very nice, which makes sense as Tonkatsu seems fruity as well. Here is a place to buy it online. Buying one or two or three items online like that has worked well for me in the past. I found two new recipes for the pancakes, which I will add to my post on them here. Here is the basic idea behind Japanese Pancakes.

My son was making a family recipe of zucchini slice and has left over bacon which he bought English muffins for. Hence the recipe for muffin burgers. He only wants bacon and eggs, but I thought I would try this for a meal.

Swap recipe: Stir fried Beef & Vegetable Chow Mein (uses Singapore styled noodles and mince, in case we can't get the chicken)

Success from last week: Beef & Vegetable Bolognaise still rich like normal bolognaise

Bacon & Avocado Burgers, we did this on the fly, I think to use up the avocado. One of the best Turkish bread burgers we have made, I love them!

Frekkah

This health food was mentioned in the August edition of the Australia Woman's Weekly along with quinoa in an article on fibre, which I forgot to show my husband last night as it relates to cholesterol amongst other things. I have had quinoa twice. I thought I'd do this post as the actual spelling is Freekeh. I found this Australian video about it.

Laura's Crocheted Winter Bonnet

LI think at one stage I wanted to make one.