Taste Testing

I attend a cooking class with year eight's and last week after a demonstration of what they are cooking next, the teacher has a taste test. As the kids were at tables of four, she had a plate for each table and each food.
First food was strawberries. the kids were to taste and write down what is was in they knew, the flavour, sweet or savoury, they liked it and would they eat it again. Strawberries were easy and they all knew that, all but one student ate one and said that they would eat it again.

The next tasting was purple cabbage, the class was mixed on that one and there were only a few kids who knew what it was.

We tasted about eight things altogether all fruit and vegetables.Parsnip and asparagus they had been lightly cooked were two that none of the kids and even the other teacher aide, a guy in his sixties knew what it was.

Day five of nanowrimo and I am up to 7651 words, I have written 2000 so far today and hope/plan to do another thousand or so. At the end of day five should have 8334 under the belt.

Hot Cross Buns

I know lots of people complain about these being available very soon after Christmas. I am not one of them as hot cross buns are one of my favorite snacks. I am pleased that they aren't around all year.

I went to the shops yesterday for our groceries and spent a grand total of $10.19, a packet of muesli, a pack of Hot Cross buns and some broccoli (the buns were not on the list!)

My pantry seems to be full and so is my freezer so this month I am doing cheap shopping by only buying what I really need. Warren has muesli for breakfast and I have gone back to just plain oats and his cereal was empty. We are still getting the organic fruit and vegetables each fortnight and I think it is good value so I won't stop that but greens were a bit light on so I picked up some broccoli.

The buns were out the front of the store and I figured that afternoon teas for the week was done with them. I did put them in the freezer so they last the week.

I think it is the cinnamon and the fruit, I also like the fact that there is no icing on them.

Of course they are probably not good for us but a warmed bun with a touch of butter with a coffee is my idea of bliss.

Sizzles for lunch

We had Christmas lunch at Sizzlers and at the end of the meal, we were given vouchers to use for a lunch meal any day in January and February. I put them on the fridge and promptly forgot about them as we had plenty of time to use them.

Wiping over the fridge the other day, I looked at them and realized that we only had three weeks to use them and there were four of them. We used one today.

The vouchers were buy two lunch time salad meals and only pay for one, by the time we did that and bought a drink, it still cost us $24. We had a great many salads to choose from plus soups and pastas.

I didn't see their potato skins and figured that maybe they didn't make them at lunch. The cheese bread was brought out and of course was yummy as usual.

I only wanted fruit for dessert so got pieces of watermelon, rock melon and honey dew, then I saw the potato skins, they were on a side table along with the pastas. Couldn't go past so grabbed two and put on my fruit plate.

We sat and had our dessert, Warren had pavlova as well and a nice coffee with it. Very nice but don't think we will use the others before they run out so I will offer them to friends on face book.

Two hours later Warren is driving down the rod and got a fit of the sneezes, I asked him what had he been eating as everything eemed to be alright I thought. He said that it was probably the cheese bread, he chooe to eat it anyway. The sneezes only lasted a little while thank goodness.

Freebies

Just love freebies. In the last week we have been given two hands of bananas, a pawpaw a couple of tins of coconut milk and mushrooms.The fruit needed to be left to ripen, our last house sitters are sitting a place with lots of fruit and they cant keep up with it so they brought us some. We sat them out side and I had one just now, wow, they are a different taste than the shop bought ones.

The pawpaw is still green and will probably take another couple of weeks to be ready to eat.

Tonight I didn't feel like cooking so I suggested we go to the club for a meal which left the sausages that  had taken out of the freezer to cook for tomorrow nights dinner so maybe a curry using one of the coconut milks.'

Microwaves (as in ovens)

In one of the magazines that I buy regularly, either That's life or Take five, there was an article about using your microwave. It said that most homes have them but don't use them to their full potential, I can put my hand up for that one.

The article went on to list some ways that microwaves can be used and this is one that I particularly liked and have done it a couple of times since reading about it.

An easy dessert. I sometimes think that we don't eat enough fruit, its there in the fridge but snacks are usually some cheese and biscuits, or a slice of bread, even cereal in Warrens case, rarely do we grab a piece of fruit so I am trying to incorporate fruit into our meals or desserst. The dish in the picture was our afternoon snack yesterday, thanks to the idea in the magazine. Peel and slice an apple and place in microwave until it becomes soft, should only take a minute or two, best to do in one minute bursts, sprinkle with cinnamon and some sugar, I added some Greek yoghurt and a passion fruit on top. Warren was impressed and it only took a few minutes and there is our recommended two fruits for the day. While I was in the kitchen and because it was Anzac day I also made these

Anzac biscuits, the batch made 24 so after sampling a couple, the rest went into the freezer. another use for the microwave was to put dirty socks into some soapy water and place in microwave, I think that is not one idea that I will not be doing.