Monday Suppers

Well it wasn't Monday. But the cooking did begin on a Monday. The eating happened on a Tuesday. To tell the truth since the arrival of Baby No. 3, and especially since the beginning of school holidays, the days all blur into one. It's hard to keep track of where we are in the week.

We have not had to cook almost at all since we brought Kyah home. We have been blessed with an army of dinner angels who have brought dinner to our door almost every other day for 3 weeks! What a blessing in the early days of having a newborn in the house.

Nonetheless, last night we had a delicious 2 course meal cooked by my hubby. First course was an Asian style pumpkin and coconut soup.

The ingredients:
1.5 litres chicken or vegetable stock (we used homemade vegetable stock)
1tbsp fish sauce
4 kaffir lime leaves
1.5kg pumpkin, seeded and coarsely chopped
1 1/4 cups (310ml) coconut milk
1/2 cup coriander leaves
lime wedges and chopped chives, to serve
finely sliced long red chill, to serve

The recipe:
Place a large pot over medium heat with stock, fish sauce, lime leaves and pumpkin, bring to the boil and cook until pumpkin is tender (8-10 minutes). Remove from heat and discard the lime leaves. lLace pumpkin mixture in the blender and process until smooth. Return mixture to saucepan over medium heat, add coconut milk and heat, without boiling, for 3 minutes or until soup is heated through. Divide soup between bowls, top with coriander and serve with lime wedges, chives and chilli.
Can freeze soup in an airtight container for up to 3 months.

The result:
Delicious! Surprising flavours, light and fresh. Yet so comforting as the colder lights start to roll in with autumn. We both thought the soup would be better if it was thicker, and discussed cooking the pumpkin mixture for longer at a simmer before adding the coconut milk to thicken the soup. We will try this next time.

The second course was steak and salad. We don't often have steak and so this seemed like a real treat. We used a new marinade recipe from allrecipes.com and the result was great.

The Best Steak Marinade:
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar*
1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tsp Dijon mustard
2 tsp minced garlic**
salt and pepper to taste

* After reading the reviews of this marinade we cut down the balsamic vinegar by about quarter.
** Approximately 2 cloves garlic
Marinate steaks for at least 2 hours.

The result:
A delicious steak that even the kids loved! Win!!

So, what did you eat for dinner?

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Easter Activities

A couple of weeks before Easter my big boy and I set out to decorate some eggs for Easter. I had of course been madly pinning lots of ideas for egg decorating on Pinterest, but in the end we returned to the old favorite of silk-dyed eggs. These looked so spectacular last time I did them, and I knew Noah would love watching the colors transfer onto the eggs. I had a willing egg-blower and we enjoyed some scrambled eggs for lunch after this activity. We had fun wrapping the eggs in the silk ties and Noah even assigned names to each of the eggs.

Whilst we waited for the silk eggs to boil, we attempted to melt crayon shavings onto hot eggs. Unfortunately, we had limited success, with large globs of melted crayon forming on the eggs. So we decided to just scribble different crayon colors onto the hot eggs instead. A much more pleasing result.

Together with the eggs the boys proudly painted with their Nan, we had a nice Easter display for our entrance table.

A few days later, my little boy and I made some Easter sticker garlands. Basically we stuck Easter stickers onto a piece of embroidery wool and then strung the garlands up over the boys door and on the bookshelf. They were super easy, and quick - ideal for keeping the attention on a 2 year old. They are small and unobtrusive, but added a little Easter spirit to our house along with the boys' Easter hats which they decorated at preschool.

With Baby No. 3 arriving just before Easter I was glad we managed a few Easter crafts before her arrival, as Easter was celebrated amidst the fog of having a newborn in the house.