Have I done the Right Thing?

I'm in the process of transferring over to Wordpress. It's still a bit confusing but I like that I have so many options. Still waiting for my adsense account to be approved over there though so if for some reason that doesn't happen i'll come crawling back to good ol' blogger.
Check it out so far www.kylieroars.com
Love Kylie

They Always Look So Sad

Does anyone else think that? Every time I wash plush toys and hang them on the line. I just think they look so sad hanging there with their little eyes staring at you begging for help.


Just look at these poor things hanging by the ear.

Maybe I'm crazy but how could you not feel sorry for the poor little critters?
Love Kylie

They Always Look

GRRRR What Is Happening To My Titles?

The title of that last one was supposed to be 'Some Pics I'm Proud Of'
*shakes fist at Blogger*

I got my brand spankin' Nikon D60 DSLR camera back in May. After lots of dreaming and researching and more dreaming, I finally had it, my new baby and I treasure it every day. Well almost every day. At least every day I have the time.

Anyway, when I firt got it I promised myself that I would not shoot in Auto. I just pretended it wasn't ther. I convinced myself that there was no point in owning a DSLR if I was only going to use it in auto. If that was the case I may as well go back to my point ans shoot. So for three months i've been playing around and learning more and more. Slowly getting better and now i'm starting to take some pics I can be proud of.

Until a couple of days ago i was only shooting JPEG files, but I went and bought myself an 8GB memory card so I could make the jump to RAW and i'll never look back. I love how I can fix little exposure problems with just one little click instead of playing around with lighting levels for ages and still being unsatisfied.

Here are some photos I took of Harrison yesterday. They were all taken in manual using my 50mm 1.4 lens.
Let me know what you think. I'm a big girl, I can take it :)

I love this last one in black and white, but I'm a sucker for black and white images.

Love Kylie

Pumpkin Feta Pasta

That's what the title of the last post should have been :)

Here’s what you’ll need:

*500g of dried pasta. I chose Penne. Also I feel the need to say ‘Hello my name is Kylie and I buy Home Brand Pasta’
*About ¼ of a Kent pumpkin or ½ a butternut
*One red onion. Yes I know these are for salads but rules are made to be broken.
*200g block of Feta
*A few cloves crushed garlic
*125g grated Parmesan
*Two tablespoons dried rosemary
*Extra Virgin Olive oil
*Salt and pepper

First of all, chop your feta into small squares/rectangles cover and put in the fridge for later. Preheat your oven to 200 degrees C then get to chopping up that pumpkin. You can peel it if you like but you don’t have to. The skin really softens when cooked. I like to chop the pieces to be roughly 1-2cm squarish. They don’t have to be perfect.

Now that looks like a lot of pumpkin doesn't it? You should end up with about 1/2 this much. I was making a double batch because I had people coming for dinner. Next chop your onion in an Asian vegetablish style, (that’s a technical term you know) and add it to the tray of pumpkin.

Peel and chop up your garlic nice and small. You can use a garlic crusher but I prefer to chop it. Add it to the pumpkin. Again, there's a crapload of garlic in this photo but I'm making a double batch remember.Season the pumpkin mixture with salt and pepper and add the rosemary. Drizzle with olive oil and mix it all together.

Bake in the oven until the pumpkin is tender and the onion has started to caramelize. Boil the pasta until tender. Drain and add it to the pumpkin mixture. Stir in the feta and Parmesan and another little drizzle of olive oil.

This is delicious and truly is a family favourite of ours. All the kids love it and I hope you do to.

Love Kylie

Cake Addict

What can I say? My boy loves cake. Ever since he first tried it he's been obsessed with it. If he sees cake, if someone mentions cake it sets him off ' Have cake Mum. Have cake mu-u-u-u-um'.

Cake is one of 'those' words in our house. You know the ones that have to be spelled out. I swear C A K E will be the first thing he learns to spell. This is a child who once ate about 1/2 a cup of pureed broccoli and carrot because he heard the mixer in the kitchen and thought I was making cake and wanted to taste it.

Unfortunately I'm one of those mean Mum's who only lets him have it his beloved cake on special occasions.

He near starved himself the day after his birthday because all he wanted was cake and I wouldn't let him have it. The child has an iron will. I wonder where he got that from?

Love Kylie

My Week in Cake

Ever had trouble finding time to scratch yourself? That's been me for the past little while. It's been great having my Mum visiting but all good things must come to an end. She's gone to stay with my sister for the next week before going home. She must to divide her time evenly you know.

(Seriously Mum, we're not six any more. I really don't think Michelle's going to care if you sleep here the whole time. Besides you're the best baby sitter ever! Love you xo)

I've baked so many cakes recently I couldn't care if I ever saw another. Don't think that's going to happen somehow since my friend Rain who decorates cakes for a living has asked me to take photos of her cakes for her. Pretty exciting huh? Someone thinks my photos are good enough to display!! I'll post a link to her blog as soon as she gets it up and running. She promises me she's started. I think maybe she needs a few more gentle nudges. People should see her cakes. They're amazing.

So what have I been creating? So glad you asked.

Harrison is so into cars at the moment I decided I would attempt a car cake. It wasn't that difficult in the end and I think it turned out alright. Some blue butter cream, a little bit of piping, some licorice wheels and windows, lollies for the lights and Bob's your uncle!

Jesse requested Pokemon cake this year. There was no way I was trying to create a Pokemon shaped cake so I enlisted in the help of my trusty cake decorating friend (everyone should have one) who gave me a few pointers and let me borrow some of her stuff. I ended up painting a picture of Jesse's favourite Pokemon onto royal icing on the top of the cake and slathering the sides of it in Red butter cream. The kids all loved it. I was pretty proud of my effort although believe me it looks alot neater in the picture.

I normally always make the kids a cake for their party and a little cake on their actual birthday. I got away with one for Jesse this year because his party was on his birthday. Wish we could do that every year. Harrison however got two. His second cake was so easy. I cheated and bought some of those ready made icing decorations. Thomas The Tank Engine this time. One for the top and a border for the sides. All it took was to pipe some of my leftover butter cream around the edges to hide the joins and it came out as good as a bought one. Almost.

So that's it for cakes for me until January. Well the fancy ones anyway.

Til Next time........

Love Kylie

Visitors YAY!

Just for the record, in that post down there when I said "There's no black and white'" I meant, ' It's all black and white', or 'there's no grey area'. Either or, you take your pick , they both make sense unlike what I originally wrote. You know what I mean. Just had to clear that up.

For the next week and a bit my Mum and step-dad are visiting so I've got limited time to spend blogging and browsing the net. They're sleeping in our office and I feel like a bit of intruder barging in to sit at the computer. Of course I also don't want to waste the precious time I have them here.

I'll be back with plenty to say soon. We had two birthday parties on the weekend which means two cakes I had to decorate and lots of photos taken!

I'll be back with the details
Love Kylie

When I Grow Up

Meet Jesse, my almost 10 yr old step-son.

Jesse has Asperger's Syndrome so life with Jesse can be very challenging. He can be sweet or he can be so frustrating I want to tear my hair out. He loves computer games and would play them all day if we let him. Just check out the look on his face.

The way his mind works fascinates me. I would love to know the thought process he goes through to get to the conclusions he does. Everything is so definite with him. There's no black and white.

The other day we had a conversation that went like this.

Jesse (quite concerned): Kylie, I don't know what I want to be when I grow up

Me: Well Jesse, your not 10 yet so that's OK, you have plenty of time to decide

Jesse (pauses to think for a minute): Are paleontologists the one's that dig up dinosaur bones?

Me: Yes

Jesse: A paleontologist then. Or an archaeologist. That's what I'll be.

And he walks away satisfied. One more decision made. One less worry.

If only everything was so easy.

Love Kylie

By Request - Mini Quiches

Remember me talking about how I don't measure? Well this was one of those times. I made them last Thursday night for a High Tea I was going to on Friday morning. I promised my friend I would make something to contribute then forgot all about it til the last minute. So I perused my ingredients stash and came up with these. I had planned to make mini quiches or something similar anyway. I was just lucky I already had the ingredients.

So here's my impromptu recipe:

Ingredients ( From what I remember) Makes 24

• 2 sheets of pre rolled puff pastry
• 4 eggs
• 1/4 cup of milk
• 4 or 5 cherry tomatoes diced
• A couple of tablespoons of fresh thyme
• Grated cheese
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Method

1. Using a small glass or cookie cutter, cut 24 circles from the puff pastry sheets. They need to be big enough to shape into a pie case in a mini muffin pan. I think I got about 9 out of each square of pastry then had to re-roll the scraps.
2. Whisk together the eggs and milk. Then add the tomatoes, thyme and salt and pepper
3. Spoon the mixture into the prepared pastry
4. Add a couple of pieces of grated cheese to the top of each quiche. They're so tiny I didn't add the cheese to the mixture because more than a couple of pieces of cheese in each one would make them too cheesy.
5. Bake at 200 degrees C until firm.

Of course there are lots of other things you could add. A bit of ham would have been nice and maybe some spring onions, but these were really simple and delicious.

I also made another 24 cases with a different filling. Not an egg filling but these were yummy too.

Filling ingredients:

• 250g creamed cheese
• 1/4 cup thickened cream
• About 4 tablespoons of chopped spinach
• 1 sachet of dried cream of chicken soup mix
• Salt and pepper

These ones got eaten really quickly so they must have been good.

Enjoy!

Love Kylie

A Few of My Favourite Things

Harrison - and the rest of my family and friends but especially Harrison. There is just nothing like the love I feel for him. I love him snot, dirt and all. Now that I have him I can finally understand the way my mother feels about me. This wasn't meant to get all emotional and mushy so lets get on with it shall we.
Orange blossoms - They're just starting to bloom and I love them. Not only are they pretty but they smell delicious. The best thing is our orange tree is right next to our clothesline so the smell makes hanging out the washing almost enjoyable. Note I said almost. I can't think of anything that would make it fun save watching someone else do it.

My camera - It's a Nikon D60 and I've only had it for a few months. I don't claim to be the worlds greatest photographer but I like to practice. Take the above picture for instance. Looks like a bunch of twigs right? Well essentially it is, but to me it's practice. A very generous friend let me borrow her 70-300mm f4-5.6 lens. It doesn't autofocus on my camera so I was practicing manually focusing. True I could have chosen more interesting subject matter but these twigs were really far away and that, in itself was cool. To me. At the time.

Baking - I do so much of it I have to love it. I made these little mini quiches for a high tea I attended on Friday morning. They were completely impromptu (I remembered Thursday night I was supposed to be making something something) and turned out great. Thank goodness because I didn't have time to make anything else.

I'm sure that there are many many more, but right now today, these are my favourite things.

Love Kylie

Vege Quiche

I have to say, the one thing I really should have considered when I decided that I was going to blog some recipes was that I'd have to measure. Me? Measure? So many times I've taken pictures of things I've cooked and gotten all excited about posting the pictures and recipes of this yummy food and then realised I have no idea exactly what quantities of ingredients I put in it. How am I supposed to post a recipe? It's not like I can get on here and type 'well just throw in a dash of A and about so much of B. So this morning when I decided to make this quiche I made sure to pay attention to what I put into it. And TA DA, we have a recipe.

It's not really a traditional quiche, more like a mutation of a quiche since it doesn't have any crust to speak of and I cook it in a lasagna dish, but it's the way I do it and it's yum!

Ingredients:

• 3 Zucchini's grated
• 2 carrots grated
• 1 onion finely chopped
• 1 small red capsicum diced
• 2 tomatoes diced
• 1 cup of grated cheese (any kind of tasty hard cheese)
• 1 cup of self raising flour
• 1/3 cup of olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste
• 3 egg whites
• 4 eggs

Now I forgot about the cheese and the onion when I took the picture but as long as you don't forget to put them in the quiche you'll be OK. I like to add some corn kernels as well but I didn't have any.

Something else to note it, the reason I used egg whites is because I had left over from a salad dressing I made. Normally I would just used 6 whole eggs.

OK, I think that's it. Moving on..........

Method:

1. Mix the veges and cheese together in a large bowl
2. Next, add the flour and salt and pepper and stir it through making sure to coat everything in the flour
3. Mix the olive oil through
4. And now the eggs
5. Mix it all up with a wooden spoon making sure all the ingredients are well combined
6. Line a lasagna dish with baking paper and pour the mixture in. (Baking paper is my saviour. It's so much easier to line everything with baking paper than to grease the dish only to have something stick anyway. Plus, it makes washing up alot easier.)
7. Bake at 180 degrees C for approx 45 Min's

It's that easy and great for lunch boxes.

Enjoy!

Love Kylie

A Small Confession

Sssshhhh, don't tell anyone but I actually enjoy mowing the lawn. Does that make me crazy? I have friends who've never even started a lawn mower and they sure think I'm mad but there's just something therapeutic (and maybe a little obsessive compulsive) about seeing those nice neat lines on the lawn when I'm done.

Do you know what the best thing about it is?
The kids can't run out into the yard and make the grass grow by running on it. So I'll take cutting the grass over cleaning the house any day.

A Bit from the Bush

Like I mentioned in my previous post, every winter holidays while the older kids go to their Mum's, Dan and I toddle off to spend a couple of weeks at our bush getaway. It's in one of the wettest places in the country so normally it's freezing, raining and dismal but this year we were blessed with fantastic weather. Sunshine every day and we even managed to wear shorts without freezing our butts off!

Since we only get there once a year it's always terribly overgrown and we spend almost the whole time we're there on the brush cutter slashing back the guinea grass while getting eaten alive by mossies and having our legs carved up by those horrible, prickly, feral wild raspberry bushes. The fruit is lovely but if you've ever had the pleasure of dealing with the bush you'll know what I mean.

But...........

This year we had this!

Oh yeah baby!! *sings 'She thinks my tractor's sexy.......'* (I don't really but I get that stupid song stuck in my head every time I see one. Needless to say I was singing it alot these holidays.)

This dinky little tractor with a slasher on the back saved us hours and hours of backbreaking brush cutting and Dan cleared the whole area in a couple of days. The best investment we ever made!

So with the work out of the way we had time to play. We took Harrison to the Malanda show. He loved seeing all the animals.

He especially loved the cows.How could you not? Check out these beautiful bovine creatures.

Dan's family have a beach house at Russell Heads so we spent a day there too. Geez it was hard going. What an horrible place hey?
Other than that, we did alot of relaxing. I took at couple of trips to the nearest town to shop up a storm. I replenished my scrapbooking supplies because I needed to. And bought some new clothes of course.

By then end of the trip as usual I was eager to get home. Can you believe I was actually bored? A rare and unusual phenomenon. But damn it felt good.

Here are a few more pics. Enjoy!

One foggy morning.....The only picture of me from the whole trip and I had to take it myself.Our humble hideawayHarrison pretending to drive the tractor
A tea plantation on the tablelands
Those pesky wild raspberries. Harrison ate hundreds!Look who I found lurking on our car tyre on day
This poor butterfly must have been at deaths door to be so obliging to a curious little boy and an amateur photographer
The Langoleers are coming! And that's all I have to say about that.

Love Kylie

And You Thought I'd Abandoned You

I'm Back!! Long story short, I've had no internet access for the past couple of weeks. We've been on a break in the bush. I meant to make a post before we went away but technology failed me and I didn't get the chance.
I hope you can forgive me. I'll try not to let it happen again.
I'll be back tomorrow with more.

It's All About Me

What is this, blogging day 4? And I realise I really haven't shared anything about myself. So lets get that over and done with. Long story short:

I live in a very small town. I am a lucky enough to be a stay at home Mum of 4 children. My three step-kids who are 14,12 and almost 10 and my almost two year old Harrison who keeps me on my toes. My partner Dan works too hard but it allows me to do what I do and I appreciate it every day.

I moved here from the city for a six month break from the hustle and bustle. That was 6 1/2 years ago and I don't think I'll be going anywhere in the near future.

I love my family and couldn't live without them and my friends. I love to keep busy but that's not hard. You already know what I do in my spare time.

That's pretty much me in a nutshell. I won't bore you with the finer details. Now we can concentrate on the important things.

Love Kylie

The Yummiest Crumbed Steak EVER

I have to credit my fabulous mother-in-law for this one. Yes you did read correctly. I did just call my mother-in-law fabulous. And that's because she is! I know it's a rare thing to get along with your mother-in-law but I do, and I'm so glad. It makes life much easier. Of course it also helps that we live approx. 1000km away from each other but I like to think it would be the same if she lived right next door.

I made this for dinner tonight and everyone devoured it. The main reason home made crumbed steak is so much better than the pre-prepared stuff is the meat you use. Alot of butchers like to hide cheap cuts of meat under those crumbs and there's nothing worse than taking a bite of steak to find nothing but sinew and fat. Blech!

On with the recipe..........

First, ask your friendly butcher to slice you some rib eye fillet nice and thin. You want to be able to cook it nice and quick so you don't burn the crumbs. Unless of course you like rare steak, then you can go ahead and use the thick stuff.

The Coating: This quantity will coat enough meat to feed my family of six with leftovers so if you're only cooking for two you'll need to reduce the quantities unless you want to eat steak all week.

• I can of evaporated milk
• 2 eggs
• about 1 cup of all purpose flour
• approx. 2 cups bread crumbs (packaged not fresh)
• 2 tspns garlic salt
• 1 tspn dried oregano
• cracked pepper

1. Start by pouring the can of evaporated milk into a mixing bowl and whisking in the two eggs.
2. Dump your flour into a separate bowl
3. In a third bowl mix together the bread crumbs, garlic salt, oregano and a few good grinds of pepper

Now set up your production line. Starting with the flour, then egg mixture, then the crumb mixture. Have a plate ready at the end with some paper towel ready for your freshly crumbed steak.

Start by coating your steak lightly in the flour. It helps the egg mixture stick better. I can't explain why but it does. Trust me.

Next coat it liberally in the egg and milk mixture.

Then of course coat it in the crumb mixture and put it on the waiting plate.

Repeat with the remaining steaks. It should look something like this.

I always find it's best to refrigerate it for at least a couple of hours before cooking. It helps the crumbs set and hopefully they won't fall off during cooking.

When it's time to cook, heat your pan to just over medium heat. Anything too hot will burn the crumbs before the steak is cooked and we don't want that.

Melt a good amount of butter in the pan. Now you could use any other kind of oil but lets face it, butter tastes better!

Once the pan is heated, pop your steaks in there and cook them until the crumb mixture is nice and golden, then turn them over and do the same to the other side. It's as simple as that!Don't do what I did and take leave to write the kids permission notes for school while it's cooking or it might end up a little past golden like this.
But it was still yummy!

I served it with whipped potatoes peas and corn on the cob. Simple, hearty and delicious. I hope you like it.

Love Kylie

Scrapbooking and Sugary Treats

Last night was good. I really feel like I've achieved something. I finally completed my baby's 1st year album!!!! I've been piecing together his 1st birthday party page for what feels like forever and now it's done. Sure maybe I mixed and matched some embellishments that should probably never be seen together and sure there are a few things that are slightly skewiff (is that even a real word?) but it's done. D.O.N.E and I'm so happy!

Will I be posting pictures of this final page achievement? Ummm, the answer to that would be a firm no. No-body need to see that. I do have a couple of pics to show you though.

The title of this page is 'Come On Mummy'. Early one morning my sister MRD( I'll explain another time) and I were out on an early morning photography adventure and of course Harrison (my almost two year old) was tagging along. It didn't take long before he got sick of watching us taking photos and he kept grabbing me by the hand trying to drag me away and saying, 'Come on Mummy, come ON'. So I turned and snapped a one handed photo of him trying to pull me over to where ever it was that he wanted to be. Here is the result.

Before......... Papers chosen but still no real idea of what I'm going to do with it

And............TaDa! The finished product. Nothing too fancy. Nice clean lines. I'm happy with it. And I just LOVE The photo. The photo on the page I mean. Not the photo of the page.
What do you think? Don't hold back. I can take it.

Now as promised.....the cupcake recipe. They are so delicious. So moist and sweet. So PINK! I love hot pink icing. There's just something about it. Of course you can make yours any colour you like but seriously, after seeing the hotness of the pink, how could you resist?

Enough babble and on with the recipe. I found this recipe on a website a long time ago when I was looking for a different Vanilla Cake recipe to make a birthday cake for a friend. I would love to credit the site but alas, I copied it by hand and have no idea where it came from now. If anyone does feel free to let me know. What was that I said about not babbling any more?

OK the recipe - Vanilla Cake

• 2 cups of sugar


• 4 eggs


• 2 1/2 cups of all purpose/plain flour


• 1 cup of milk


• 3/4 cup vegetable oil ( I didn't say there was anything healthy about it did I?)


• 2 1/4 teaspoons of baking powder


• 1 teaspoon of vanilla

1. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees C (350F). Line your muffin tins with muffin papers or if you're making the cake version line two 9x13 inch rectangular baking pans


2. In a large mixing bowl, with an electric mixer, beat sugar and eggs together until they're slightly thickened (about 1 minute). Add flour, milk, oil, baking powder and vanilla. Beat for another minute, just until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Don't overbeat. Pour batter into prepared pans.


3. Bake in the preheated oven for 30-40mins (for the cake version) approx 20mins (for the cupcake version) or until the tops are golden brown and skewer poked into the centre comes out clean. Let cool completely before covering with frosting.

And that's it, How easy is that? And so delicious.

Now as for the frosting, I just used a simple icing/powdered sugar, butter and milk combo. I'd like to give you the recipe but the simple fact is, I didn't measure. I'm going to have to start measuring if I want to share recipes aren't I? So go ahead and use your favourite frosting recipe. If I have enough butter in the house I love to make this butter cream frosting

• 2/3 cup of butter (room temperature)


• 4 cups of powdered sugar


• 1 tsp vanilla


• 2 Tablespoons milk

1. Beat butter until creamy and light in colour


2. Add powered sugar about 1/2 cup at a time and beat well


3. Add vanilla, milk and your chosen colour and beat well. This should make about 2 1/2 cups of frosting.

And here's that picture again, just so you don't have to scroll all the way to the top to have another look.

Enjoy!

Now I know this post has been hideously long. Perhaps it would be a good idea in future to stick to one topic per post. But I did promise. And a promise is a promise. I'll be back with more soon.

Love Kylie