From My Kitchen - Sunday 5th February

It's a long weekend in NZ and I am LOVING having an extra day ahead of me before work starts. Last night was our house-warming, and it was so nice to see our new place filled with lots of our most special friends. I love entertaining, and I know that was the first of many, many to come! Today I have had a very lazy day, catching up with friends, and then blobbing out with my favourite TV series'. I don't usually watch TV as a habit, but I do have a few shows that I love. It's my own form of escapism, and a dreary, grey day in Christchurch is a good time to escape.

I'm doing a cooking class this term with a few friends, so every Tuesday my dinner will be something delicious and Asian-inspired from class. I'll be sure to share a few treats!

A new goal for me is to take more food to work. I usually take leftovers for lunch but never any snacks, so by lunchtime I'm starving (I have breakfast at 6.30am) and by home time I'm exhausted (not good when facing an hour long drive home). I stocked up on fruit at the farmer's market this weekend, and I plan on making some bliss balls and taking chopped veges and hummus too. This will be good, as it will also force me to step away from my work for more than just 15 minutes over lunch.

Dinner
Sunday - fresh spring rolls with chicken, carrot, cucumber, capsicum, lettuce, basil and a soy chilli dipping sauce
Monday - roast baby beetroot and feta salad with lentils and greens
Tuesday - cooking class special
Wednesday - garlic and thyme quinoa patties with kale salad
Thursday - spicy pork noodles with green salad

Baking
- wholemeal sourdough (I made new batch of starter for my new house!)
- bliss balls

To Do
- soak lentils
- make hummus for snacking on
- chop some veges for on-hand snacks (carrot, celery, capsicum)

Blogs That Rock My World At The Moment

The title says it all:

ecoMILF - eternally inspiring mummy stuff. I'm not a mummy yet, but when I am one, I want to be just like Meagan.

Whole Promise - great illustrative photos and yummy whole food recipes.

Sprouted Kitchen - yummy yum yum whole food recipes that I will actually make.

My New Roots - more whole food recipes (can you see a theme here), links and loveliness.

Fig and Fauna - I think this one is relatively new but boy oh boy do I love the photos and the stories - this is actually my dream life. Like, seriously. Major swoons every time a new post is up.

What am I missing out on? Fill me in! xx

Edit: ecoMILF is now this whole family.

From My Kitchen - Sunday 22nd January

Well, it's been a long time since I have written a meal plan! Now that I am settled into our new home and the work routine is back up and running, it seems sensible to revive this old regular as well. I've had a busy weekend in the garden, getting a rather spacious herb garden established. It's blissful to have all this space, and I am definitely going to make the most of it! Herbs are so easy and cheap to grow and so very expensive to buy. Anyone, no matter how small their garden is, should aim for at least a few pots of the cooking staples (I love thyme, corriander and rosemary). It will save you a fortune and you won't ever find yourself half way through a recipe, without the herb in question.

Dinner
Sunday - everything-in-the-fridge vege soup with cheesy spelt rolls
Monday - broccoli, mint and feta sauce with penne pasta
Tuesday - satay noodles with seasonal veges
Wednesday - vegetarian Tom Yum soup
Thursday - zucchini and mint fritters with smashed new potatoes and coleslaw

Baking
- banana, chocolate, chia and oat biscuits

House - Installment One

As much as I love our darling wee house, there are things I definitely can't wait to change - like the kitchen! However, this may be a while. So, in the meantime, I am focussing on creating pockets of loveliness around the place. Here are a few:

Half of the lounge

Other half of the lounge

Dining

Part of the kitchen

'Whare Sweet Whare'

Max says 'hey'

The carpet is in a terrible state and the curtains are not my cup of tea, but it will all do for now, as we slowly save up money to renovate.

The master bedroom is actually my favourite room in the house at the moment. It has a huge bay window that the sun streams into in the morning. I can't wait to get a seat built in, so I can have my morning cups of tea there. The garden requires quite a bit of work, and I can't wait to get stuck in! I am going to have to be very careful to balance my time between house stuff and PhD, as both require substantial attention...

New Year

Happy, happy New Year to anyone out there still reading this little corner of blogland. I have been gone for quite a while from this space (although MUCH lurking has been done on other lovely blogs), but living in someone elses house with ALL of your belongings packed in boxes makes it very hard to find a little space to be quiet and inspired. While we were suppose to move into our new house a few days before Christmas, this didn't eventuate, due to paperwork required from a City Council currently snowed under by the ongoing barrage of earthquakes Christchurch is suffering. However, Monday 9th January is our day!

I've been lucky enough to have the keys to our new home for the past few days, so have spent a large chunk of time there, with the help of my parents and a friend (thanks so much!!), cleaning (and cleaning and cleaning and cleaning), and getting some of the larger furniture moved. Does any one have a magic way of getting rid of the smell of cat piss??? That is the only thing I can smell in the new house at the moment... yum. Oh the joys of buying an ex-rental!

Our wee 1920s bungalow is definitely a project and I'm still getting my head around the fact that this will take quite some time to get it how I want it to be... But, patience is a virtue and not a skill I currently have, so it will be good for me! In the meantime, it will be a good challenge for me to find ways to make my current space workable, beautiful and homely.

The start of a new year, while entirely arbitrary, seems a great time to set goals. After the year that was 2011, anything has got to be an improvement. Due to the horrible start and ongoing challenges faced last year, I was treading water for most of it. However, some big decisions were made (selling and buying and starting my PhD), so now it is time to get down to business! Here are some of my goals for 2012:
- get up early - 6am please.
- do more yoga - no excuses now I have a yoga studio directly across the road from my house!
- travel - maybe a big call given the other things I have taken on this year, but it's a nice one to ponder.
- become more self-sufficient - vege garden, fruit trees, bees, chickens and making everything I possibly can myself will help with this.
- focus my eating around whole foods - many of the lovely blogs I have found over the holidays have provided delightful and delicious inspiration for this.
- work my arse off on my PhD, and hopefully see the bank balance grow as this takes up a large chunk of my time...

I'll be back in a few days (my new home's internet is not hooked up until Wednesday) for a few photos of my new house.

Things I Love

Peonies - my favourite flower.

A big bowl of fresh fruit salad - mango, strawberries, apple, nectarine, pineapple and mint, marinated in coconut water.

New shoes!

Treasured gifts from special friends.

Vintage skirts.

A ridiculous, water-loving puppy.

(please excuse the photos, I am stuck using my point-and-shoot until I can find the cable for our dslr camera...)

New house!

I've been making a bit of a habit of these monthly posts lately, but life has been in a bit of disarray, making it hard to find the time and equipment to actually post anything! Since I last posted, a few things have happened. We have bid our first house farewell, and are now living with a VERY generous friend, who has taken Paddy and myself, Max the dog, Fang the rabbit AND the entire contents of our house on as guests. Unfortunately, many of the things I wish I had access to, became packed e.g my camera cable... This makes it tricky to share photos of the lovely bunch of peonies I have sitting in a new hurricane vase in the lounge (one of my favourite flowers) and a perfect Crown Lynn swan, rescued by my dear friend from life as a drip-catcher for an overflowing gutter.

But, what I can share is a picture of our new house!!

Isn't she cute? Settlement day has not yet been decided but I can't wait to get in there and get stuck into the garden! With a massive (for us) 678 square metre section, the possibilities for my vege garden, dwarf orchard, bees, chicken house, cut flower garden and compost heap are endless! Not to mention all the lovely things we can do inside the house too. So, watch this space for lots of exciting developments (just as soon as I've tracked my camera cable down...).