Meat-Free Monday (on a Tuesday): Corn and Avocado Salad

Ahoy and apologies for  the lateness of this post! The end of Daylight Savings has wreaked havoc (!!!) with the kids and the last couple of days have been...interesting.

Sleep deprivation aside, this recipe is, strictly speaking, a salad that's a perfect complement to homemade chicken nuggets or pan-fried fish, but Sparky and I regularly have it with just some crusty sourdough for a healthy, quick dinner. Particularly good for a weekend.

You need:

2 avocadoes
2-3 corn cobs
2 tomoatoes
a tin of red kidney beans
lemon
olive oil
salt and pepper
coriander

1. Pop the corn into a saucepan, just cover with water and pop it on the stove. Once boiling, let it cook for around 8 minutes, or til tender.

2. Chop up your avocado and tomatoes and add to a bowl.

3. Drain and rinse kidney beans and pop into bowl.

4. Once the corn is cooked and cool enough to handle, slice off the corn and add to the bowl.

5. Add a squirt of lemon juice and a drizzle of olive oil, plus some salt and pepper. Give it a mix and then add a good handful of coriander (or maybe do this after serving, if your kids are eating it too and are not keen on the flavour of coriander).

6. Eat it as is or add to some crunchy sourdough toast.

Deceptively tasty for such a simple meal. And also really super satisfying. It may be 7:43am right now, but I'd totally eat a huge bowl of this.

Happy-Making: Smalls

The things that make me happy this week are BABES! They're everywhere! I'm in the middle of a delicious baby bloom with about 10 ladies I know delightfully up the duff. Oh, the glow! The shine! The roundness! Love.

And not surprisingly, it's making me clucky. Which, with a 25 month-old and a 4-month-old is where the madness lies. The madness! 

I also loved spending this morning with my nan and the kids. It was so super lovely to see her have a cuddle with both of them. It's not easy mixing the toddler with a nursing home but Isy did remarkably well.

Anyway... Happiness:

It's been pretty light-on here this week and for that I'm sorry. You know those weeks where everything that needs to be done gets done, but everything else is left at some percentage of complete (like, 12%). That's me, right here. But next week is sure to be all kinds of lovely and all manner of awesome, just you wait!

The weekend will hopefully see me get stuck into the painting at some stage, which is, you know, unexpected. I also have a heap of projects I've started or want to start, so hopefully I may get some time to do one or two of those.  I have spray paint and am not afraid to use it.

Hope you have a wonderful weekend!! xx

Homemade, Handmade, Vintage or Repurposed - My Gift Challenge

Last weekend I received one of the most thoughtful and unique presents from my lovely brother- and sister-in-law. I loooove cheese, so they gifted me with this cute-as print above and a small wheel of the most delicious French cheese. Ever.

It stunk out their car on the way to our house, but seriously, it was worth it. Particularly for me, because I wasn't actually in the car. And admittedly, when they first handed me the package I thought, "Why are they buying me manure?"

Anyway, these guys give really thoughtful presents all the time and it has inspired me to a challenge. Every gift I buy for the rest of the year needs to be either:

Homemade (by me or someone in this family)

Handmade (by an independent maker/fair trade/market stall)

Vintage (pretty self-explanatory)

Repurposed/Recycled (either by me or someone else)

I think it's actually going to prove quite difficult, but I'm hoping it will also be super fun and allow me to get creative. Only drawback is it really requires organisation on my part, and when it comes to gifts, that is something I sorely lack.

Case in point: I had the idea to do a cross-stitch for Sparky for Christmas. It's the logo of one of his old favourite bands from back in the day (Swedish punk - super fun!) and while I started back in October, this is where it currently stands:

Wonky and only half finished. And it's not through lack of trying - I spend a couple of nights a week stitching away on this thing, it's just so. time. consuming. Maybe it will be finished for next Christmas.

So I have tonnes of ideas, I just have to, you know, act on them.

And first things first, we have Easter coming up. So I'm going to brainstorm some sweet handmade/homemade Easter gifts for my nieces and nephews. I'll let you know what I come up with.

Meat-free Monday, on a Tuesday: Zucchini Pasta

source

This is one of mine and Sparky's all-time favourite easy vege meals. We would eat this at least once a fortnight because it's simple, quick, tasty and relatively cheap.

You'll need:


3-5 anchovies (optional, but highly recommended. you don't have chunks of anchovy floating around, it just gives a beautiful saltiness to the sauce)
1-2 red chillis or chilli flakes (optional)
olive oil
garlic
kalamata olives
capers
3-4 good sized zucchinis, grated
pasta (fusilli is good for this but any short pasta is a-ok)
parmesan
salt and pepper

1. Heat olive oil in a pan and add the garlic, chilli and anchovies. Break the anchovies up with a wooden spoon.

2. Once the anchovies have broken down (a minute or two) add a couple of tablespoons of capers and a couple of good handfuls of olives. Cook for a couple of minutes.

3. Add some extra olive oil, salt and pepper. Add your grated zucchini to the hot pan and saute for a couple of minutes.

4. Drain your pasta and toss into the zucchini sauce. Stir to coat.

5. Serve with some extra olive oil, salt, pepper and a good bit of parmesan.

Seriously, so so good.

Weekend = Work + Fun

Sorry for the lack of post yesterday - it's taken a bit of extra time to get over what was a massive, yet wonderful weekend. IKEA, bed construction, turf laying, dinner hosting, cuddles = Saturday.

Backyard Before.

Backyard After Turf.

Cuddles!

Sunday we got free tickets to the zoo so decided at the last minute to make the trip in. So so so glad we did. It was such a pleasure spending the day as a family wandering around the zoo. Fresh air, lots of sprinkly showers (meant it wasn't too busy) puddles to splash in, ammools to see. It was memory-making magic.

Happy-Making: Flashmobs

I love a good flashmob. In fact, Sparky tells me that I'm like Cameron from Modern Family, "It's one of my life's ambitions to be in a flash mob," and I tend to agree with him aside from the fact that I am a straight lady.

I get all weepy and goosebumpy watching the good ones, and only mind a little bit that they're getting all corporatised.

This Bondi one is cute and I love love loved the bus driver birthday flashmob in Denmark.

Anyways, we've got a massive weekend planned around these parts. A trip to IKEA, 60 square metres of turf to lay, catching up with the outlaws, maybe some painting...

I sincerely hope your weekend is filled with fabulousity. xx

3 Quick Things To Do This Weekend

Recycle aluminium foil, or, you know, make an elephant out of your scraps.

As you know, I'm all about the "do what you can do, when you can do it" mentality. So here's 3 quick tips you can try this weekend, that actually do make a big difference over time:

1. If you take money out at the ATM, say no to a receipt. Over a year, this really adds up. (Just look at the contents of my purse for proof!)

2. Clean your dryer's lint filter. Apparently a clean filter means it takes 30% less power for your dryer to run (and if you've had damp and humid weather like us recently, that is very good news.)

3. Use al-foil instead of cling wrap. You can recycle al-foil in your council pick-up (just make sure it's relatively clean of food scraps and squish it into a ball so the sorters can find it.) If you want to know what else you can recycle in your council area, check this site out.

Easy-peasy!