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This dish has already become a family favourite and we've made it at least twice now. We eat lamb a lot! We eat lamb roasts a lot! The problem is that we always have leftover lamb. In Australia we used to make lamb pies with the leftovers. We don't do that much here because 1. pastry is very expensive and 2. the pie maker produces small pies which is kind of a pain. So we've had lots of leftovers and nothing to do with them. Over Christmas I found two excellent recipes that make use of the leftovers and this is one of them.Warm the lamb leftovers, gravy, baked onions and garlic in a pan. Add dried apricots and raisins. Cook for a while. Add cherry tomatoes and olives. Serve with cous cous. So easy, so yummy and no more leftovers!
We spent most of the weekend gardening - cleaning up the garden rather than doing new stuff. Raking pine needles, dumping pine needles on our newly created needle mountain and cleaning up behind the pizza oven work area. It was pretty cold so we all wore two jackets and beanies (toboggans to locals). Lucy helped out with her new rake and wheelbarrow while Henry slept inside in the warmth. On Sunday Andrew headed off to a Super bowl party with all the guys from church. I think they had fun!
This is Chicken Cha Cha Cha. We abbreviate it to Chicken Cha Cha. It is a memory game. Each chicken cha chas around the outer circle but can only move forward if you remember where the matching egg is located in the middle. When a chicken overtakes another chicken the first chicken removes the tail feather of the other chicken and quickly cha cha's on. The winner is the chicken with all the tail feathers. We always ask the winner to do the chicken dance (and Deb's friends were happy to oblige) A very fun game to play and the chicken twist makes it more interesting than regular memory games.
One of my many resolutions this year is to steer away from chemicals. We already do this in food and I thought it was time to do so in regard to what we use on our bodies. For a long time I've wondered what the products in hair shampoo actually are and was always vaguely scared to know the real answer. I still don't know the answer to that question but hopefully soon I won't need to know because we'll have moved away from using such things.My plans in the dental area are big! But given a recent dentist visit I am thinking about the best way forward. In any case I am still going to use the products below but will need to supplement with some other [chemical!#!?] products.Toothpaste - We are using Tom's of Maine Peppermint toothpaste. Lucy uses their Silly Strawberry brand. Henry uses nothing as he still doesn't have any teeth!Dental floss- We are using Tom's of Maine Unflavoured flat floss.Mouth wash - We are using Tom's of Maine Spearmint mouth wash. It's quite a different flavour to what I was used to but after a few uses I am okay with it.PS For some bizarre reason NC residents can't join the affiliates program at Amazon so I don't get any money if you click on the links and buy anything.
As the title tells you there is a lot going on around here. It's mostly planning however plus dentist visits, treadmill workouts and long hours at work. All four birthdays are in the next 6 months, plus Easter, Henry's baptism, and family visits. That means that we're gearing up for these things. We're also planning our garden for the summer and we're starting work again on our recipe database. We're also going to our weekly playdates, bible study and church and hoping to start a small group. It's fairly chaotic but I have a big notepad on the bench to keep track of most of my thoughts. To add to our Kafkaesque nightmare our Australian drivers licences have expired and we're working through that paperwork too. I'm trying to focus on the fun planning. So if I'm not blogging its because there is other stuff going on (or maybe I've drowned in the sea of multiple tax returns, licences and visa) I think I need a secretary. Applications being accepted.
For Christmas Eve breakfast we had grilled mangoes. Mangoes are not easy to come by where we live. They sit in the exotic (ie Mexican) section at the supermarket and are quite different tasting to Australian mangoes. These are smaller, greener and more bitter. In this modified recipe we toasted some English muffins, spread on some ricotta with honey, layered the grilled mangoes and sprinkled with pomegranate seeds. Unfortunately we could not get hold of passionfruit but the pomegranate seeds were a good second choice - but clearly a second choice. These mango treats were gobbled up quickly. This is a very good breakfast that is quick to make. The pomegranate seeds came pre-shelled from Costco which saved a lot of time and effort.
It rained and rained and rained on the weekend. Pretty much it rained steadily for 2 days and it was freezing. Literally freezing!! It is so disappointing to go through winter, for it to warm up and for it to become winter again. Oh well. We are enjoying looking through seed catalogs to find heirloom tomato varieties and dreaming of summer harvests.We watched a lot of Aus Open tennis, played board games and went to dinner at the Lingenfelters (to play Bohnanza). On Sunday we became church members and at night we had a visit from the Atentos. Andrew did some weekend work which made the weekend very unfun. Here's hoping next weekend fares better.
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This dish has already become a family favourite and we've made it at least twice now. We eat lamb a lot! We eat lamb roasts a lot! The problem is that we always have leftover lamb. In Australia we used to make lamb pies with the leftovers. We don't do that much here because 1. pastry is very expensive and 2. the pie maker produces small pies which is kind of a pain. So we've had lots of leftovers and nothing to do with them. Over Christmas I found two excellent recipes that make use of the leftovers and this is one of them.
