Showing posts with label Monthly luncheon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Monthly luncheon. Show all posts

Saturday, 19 November 2016

Everythings Super....!!

A weekly catch up of all things super....firstly that amazing super moon...unfortunately it was pretty cloudy where we are so viewing wasn't the best....but there were amazing images circulating...It really looks spectacular....


The Spring garden is going 'super'....so many beautiful colours in the yard which seem to have popped up from nowhere...the bees are loving the flowering sage, borage and lavender ..


Picked most of the broad beans...still a few left in the vegie patch...and also dug up the rest of the potatoes...a couple of artichokes which I am going to practice on ...rhubarb and a little cauliflower.

This year I am growing beans between the corn.....supposedly they will use the corn stalks to grow up alongside of them....will see how that goes....some early zucchinis popping up too.
Little blue thing on the bottom is a sprinkler head...should make things easier
 My hardworking man has very kindly installed a watering system in the top garden to save me having to drag the hose through the garden beds to get there...hopefully it will also reduce the water usage as he has put drippers on the fruit trees and tomato plants and little spray heads in the garden boxes.
Drippers on the root line of this apricot tree.
 But the really super exciting thing is I have some tiny little apples on a couple of the apple trees...and also both pear trees have quite a few baby pears on them. ... they are mature trees but have only been in the ground since the start of the year so they may fall off before they ripen...fingers crossed I get a couple to keep growing....even just one would be fabulous.

Tiny little apples appearing on the apple trees......

Also baby pears have popped up on both the William and Packham pear trees....fingers crossed
The weekend also saw us attending our usual get together for a 'Super' Asian style luncheon...J & A stole the show with a fabulous chicken satay entrée that was voted 'dish of the day'. ... the Big K & Robbie provided all of the main which was Changmai slow cooked pork (fabulous) and a chicken dish with Asian greens, rice and Roti bread...the delightful J&M provided a lovely rice pudding dessert with lychees, lemon curd & passionfruit.
 

 
The super spread from the Big K and Robbie.
Hoping things are just 'Super' for everyone out there....happy gardening !

Tuesday, 25 October 2016

Trying To Catch Up......

So much has happened over the past few months and so much of my life wasn't my own......the responsibility of looking after elderly parent's is often overwhelming and can become all consuming.  Things are slowly getting back to normal and I am starting to relax and get back into the swing of things.....the things that form the simple life that I want to lead....I'm getting the Spring garden planting going so next post will hopefully be a garden update. 
 
Over the last two months I tried my hand at making Kombucha....I purchased the mother scoby at the Warragul Farmers Market and followed the instructions and made Kombucha tea and produced a "son of scoby".  I passed the "mother" onto my daughter and then started a second bottle with "SOS".  Next time will try a second ferment process by adding fruit which will give the Kombucha a fizz. 
My homemade kombucha tea....mother scoby in the bag to give away... the gift that goes on giving.
After Dad's funeral my husband took me away to Lakes Entrance for the weekend. ..... It was a wonderful break...so relaxing.  .... The weather was ordinary but everything else was lovely.  Lots of delicious food and great cafe's.... Boat trip to Metung in the morning and AFL Grand final on Saturday afternoon and lovely market on the marina on Sunday morning.

Always a great surprise to see how cafe's serve up the green tea.....although milk was an odd accompaniment .
The boat trip to Metung was a real surprise...... it's a great spot and the pub had a fantastic outlook over the water and great food.  They also have a pet pelican in the yard who was incredibly tame.  .
 
This guy was so tame he walked right up to you...could have watched him all day.
 End of September saw us having our usual "monthly" luncheon with friends.  It was at our place this time and the theme was casual and bring a one pot dish to share....we had some fabulous food and Janine's chicken was absolutely amazing.

Dinner in our al-fresco with the gang....a great afternoon of delicious dining as always.
My man and I went shopping in Warragul to get goodies for the luncheon as we provided a starter (crumbed flat head fillets) and a cheese platter.  .......off to Stella's Pantry for some amazing cheeses and also stopped in at the Bean Scene to get some freshly ground coffee. ......  we stayed for morning tea and I ordered green tea (no surprise there as I don't drink coffee)...and it was served in the most amazing tea device......I love how serving tea has come back to being the pleasurable experience it once was....call me old fashioned but for me it's all in the presentation....although nothing beats a fine bone china cup .
 
Have to admit I had to be shown how to work this gadget ....but what a great idea.
 Most importantly .....this month my GBoy lost his first tooth.....so much excitement....the other kids at school told him you get $5 from the tooth fairy....Wow when did that happen ??

My gorgeous little guy...so excited because 4 more teeth are wobbly... !!
On the subject of teeth....the fluffy girls had a trip to the vet's for their injections and the vet advised they both needed their teeth cleaned....Daphne has been the first to go and have a clean....which turned into "13 teeth needing to be removed"....she is only 7 years old ....poor girl...thankfully dogs have 42 teeth so she still has some left... Maltese x are prone to tooth decay...Daisy is going next week...she is only 4 so fingers crossed not too much damage already done.
 
Daphne giving me a look....I already feel guilty !!.....she is still cute
...even though in front she has one tooth up top and two at the bottom

Wednesday, 3 June 2015

The Dirty B Word.....!

Yikes....Budget......We have been to see a financial advisor recently and yes the news is out...I spend too much money...no surprise really, I've never been much of a saver.  We are however needing to prepare ourselves for retirement in the not too distant future....my man is 61 this year.  Sooooo the dirty B word has raised it's ugly head again and yes we are putting ourselves on a budget....we have a plan to get out of our mortgage...sell up ...move a bit further out and buy a home mortgage free. Get completely out of debt and try to live on the weekly $figure that the financial advisor has set for us.  If we do things according to his plan in 4 years we should be able to have a comfortable retirement.... I know I will struggle on a fairly tight budget but there are heaps of blogs out there with good advice...fingers crossed and see how we go.

Meanwhile the garden is still producing a little....

broccoli , mixed lettuce, lemons and my first Protea flower from the garden...they are really lovely.

Managed to get a few figs off the tree before the birds consumed them all....
Now I just need a recipe to use them in !
One of my few remaining pumpkins grown this year....it was huge and tasted delicious.


We had our monthly luncheon catch up with friends and I had to bring soup....naturally my home grown pumpkin made a delicious soup...... that was budget friendly !

Pumpkin soup with caramelised onions ... garlic croutons and a little cream.

We ate outside as the weather was quite mild...even little Charlie joined us under the table.

Pork fillet inside whole pineapple wrapped in prosciutto........from the big K

Fondant Potatoes...there was also a lovely brussel sprouts dish. 
What can I say.....Lemon Meringue Pie from J&A....Yum.
Lastly it was so cold this morning that I spoilt the ladies with a warm breakfast of porridge....yes I can hear you saying that isn't in the budget.....still got a lot of lessons to learn.....but they were pretty happy.
Rolled outs and my homemade yoghurt for the girls.....probably need to get no-name brand oats now.

The feathered girls were very happy with breakfast today.
Winter is well and truly with us....my days will be spent trying to keep warm as we prepare to put our house on the market....watch this space.

Monday, 9 February 2015

It Was All About the Nuts....

The February Sunday luncheon with the same group of friends transpired into the Saturday night Soiree which had a theme of "we are all going nuts!".. nuts to be in every course.  As usual everything was delicious, food and wine flowed and between the 8 of us we managed to polish it all off.

Almost too pretty to eat...
 Robbie and the Big K had entrée and we began with a delicious starter of Chicken and Cashew patties with a Thai dipping sauce.
Scrumptious dukkha and nut crusted lamb
 J & A our host's prepared a stack of nut and "homemade dukkha" crusted lamb cutlets .... they were so tasty ... served with a side of boiled potates with pine nuts and a lovely creamy aioli ....I was asked to bring a side dish and provided a beetroot and cashew cheese salad...it was from Wellbeing magazine so was a very healthy option but could possibly have benefited from a delicious goats cheese or feta as the cashew cheese was a little bland I thought..
Yummy potatoes and pine nuts with a tangy dressing.

My baby beetroot salad with cashew cheese, walnuts, cranberries with a red wine vinegar and oil dressing

It goes without saying that this was ......decadent and delicious.
Janine and Michael were bringing up the rear with dessert...... wow it was delicious...hazelnut merengue base with a chocolate ganache layer, filled with cream, strawberries and another merengue layer, topped with more cream, strawberries and encircled with nutty Ferrero rocher chocolates....scrumptious.
March should see us back at the home of  Robbie and the Big K....always something to look forward to.