Menu planning and grocery list

A bit late due to very bad Internet signal of late. And a kid who hasn't napped in weeks :/

Things as a SAHM (stay at home mom) can be insane. Trying to do the job of many (cleaner, child care, personal chef etc etc) can be incredibly over whelming, trying to do everything "perfectly" is a huge task.

So to try make things a bit easier on myself. I wrote up a menu for a month, and added the grocery list. I did the shopping for all the frozen and store cupboard goods in one big shop.

I only cook on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. On Tuesday and Thursday we eat the double meal I cooked on Monday and Wednesday.

Fridays I rotate between a few easy cook meals ;
Pies with either mash/chips/baked potatoes  and veggies.
Bangers and mash and veggies.
*Wors and chips/mash/baked potatoes and veg. The weeks we do wors is the week we do a **Braai on a Saturday.

Saturday nights are more outdoorsy, I rotate between a braai, seafood and a ***potjie .

Sunday night is Pasta night. I rotate between Creamy chicken, Bacon Carbonara, and Pesto and feta.

So my first week of menu planning which was for first week of February was as follows:

30 January, Monday: Cottage pie with butter beans and mixed veg, topped with a squash and potato mash.We ate it on Tuesday too.

1 February, Wednesday: chicken cordon bleu casserole, and we ate it on Thursday night too.

3 February,  Friday: Ostrich wors with chips (fries) some mixed veggies and gravy.

4 February, Saturday: a braai (barbecue) with the remainder of the sausage, some lamb chops and some chicken kebabs, I also made a potato bake (recipe to follow)

5 February, Sunday: Creamy Chicken and Avo Pasta, topped with feta.

I set a reminder to get the frozen meat out if the freezer the night before I need it, so that it can defrost in the fridge during the day- I will say I learnt this the hard way today when I realised at 4:45pm after coming home from a play date that I hadn't taken the chicken for  Wednesday night out. :/
Never the less I did a quick defrost and cooked dinner and managed to serve it up on time. I earned my cape  that night.

Grocery list for that week was as follows:

Ground beef x 1 packet
9 skinless chicken breasts ( 4 are for the chicken cordon blue, 2 are for the kebabs, 3 are for the pasta)
Potatoes x 2kg bag ( you'll have left over for next week)
Feta
Avo
Baby marrows
500ml cream and a 250ml cream
Can of butter beans
Bag of frozen mixed veggies
Packet of ostrich sausage
Pack of lamb chops
Cheese
Rice
Pasta
Wors
Frozen chips
Gravy powder
Mushrooms
Packet of bacon
(mushrooms and bacon are for the potato bake)

Some of these I had at home in my pantry already but just in case that's the list for the week.


* Wors is a type of sausage/chorizo in a casing, usually ground beef mixed with spices.

** Braai is what South Africans call a barbecue, we cook on an open fire. Things we cook range from wors,chicken pieces, lamb chops,chicken kebabs.

*** Potjie This is a stew type meal cooked in a cast iron three legged pot (like a witches cauldron) Its also cooked on fire.

I really hope to update the menu posts, and grocery posts and actually make it a weekly thing on a Sunday night.Wish me luck ;)

The Evolution of Our Pantry

I'm back after a bit of a break. Between Internet issues and my son not napping all day my time kinda slipped away.

My pantry is up! Not 100% Complete,it still needs doors but I'm taking it as is for now.

Our pantry cupboard next to the back door, before we officially moved in and before we painted.

That's the doorway into our lounge area, and the wall space on the right is where the new pantry is. This is also before we moved in. The peach tiles and peach walls were not to our taste.

 This is the inside of the pantry, well part of it. We wanted a different shelf format and I remembered to take a few before pictures part way through. #facepalm

I hated the narrow shelves that were too closely spaced and staggered. this format gave us very little packing space and the closely spaced shelves meant we also couldn't stack goods.

Excuse the mess, while shelves the full size of the pantry gave us more space accessing things was incredibly difficult and frustrating. The door being quite narrow added to the difficulty.

Here you can kind of see the space and shape we were working with. This was the start of the removal of the entire pantry.

The start of the new pantry using the entire wall space. That is my canned goods stacker ;)

The sides of the pantry up, Can stacker moved so that the drawer shelves can be worked on.

The almost final product. I am beyond pleased with my new pantry!
The drawer shelves mean I can pull them out and access anything at the back without repacking an entire shelf. The chalk board fronts mean everything is labeled and I know exactly where things are ( read as: hubby can find and replace things ;).

2 down 10 to go

Wow! February is over and we're into March. February was a terrible month, I don't even know what happened to it. Our internet is so dippy, most evenings it was almost completely down and I didn't want to risk typing a whole post just have it disappear! We got lots of things completed, some new tasks started and others I'm still progressing with them.

A decided to start a new routine of no napping so 12 hour days started, and that meant less blogging, less crafting. But on the plus side I have been teaching him letters and he's doing amazingly well. This is one proud momma :)

* I said good bye to a good friend who moved to a different continent :( .
*M and I celebrated Valentines day and 9 days later our 4th Wedding anniversary.

*Its 3 years since I finished working at my job and became a stay at home wife/now mom too. And I don't miss it, not even a little. My decision is confirmed each time I set foot in my old work place. I can't say names, but its a place I have to go to on occasion.

Valentine's day dinner, we ate at home because we celebrate bigger with dinner out on our anniversary. But we ate in heart style :)

A valentine from A to his daddy

And the valentine gift I received. I love love love le creuset

Diy  updates will follow in a different post.

L

Creamy Chicken and Avocado Pasta

Hello 
Last night I made this pasta, I seem to make it about once a month or so, It's 'M's'favourite and the pasta he requests it the most. And if 'A' could say it in a sentence he'd also request it. Right now he calls it "hmmmmm mmmmm" 

 Don't you just love the combination of feta and avo? Or  if you're not an Avo fan the Creamy Chicken is yummy all by its self too. I also sometimes swop out the chicken for bacon.

INGREDIENTS:
 serves 2 

250ml cream
2 chicken breasts cut into strips
1 chicken stock cube/ or recommended qty of powder chicken stock.
1 diced onion
some butter for frying the onion
pasta for 2 people
1 whole avo
feta

Fry up the onion and partially cook the chicken strips,season to your liking
Break up the stock cube into the pan and add in the cream.
Simmer gently until the sauce thickens and the chicken is fully cooked. If it needs some help to thicken stir in some corn flour.
Cook the pasta according to the package instructions.
Pour the sauce over the cooked pasta, top with sliced/diced avo and feta.

This truly is the YUMMIEST pasta ever! 

I entered this particular recipe into a magazine pasta competition and actually was selected as one of the top 10, my recipe is in a magazine :) 

L

1 down 11 to go

31 days of the year gone, and in a blink of an eye too. I'm up to date with the declutter challenge (yay me!) And today I was incredibly grateful that I had done the under the sink update.

I had just tapped a sink of water, the dishwasher was running and I heard water rushing, I glanced over at the sink to check that I'd switched it off, I had. I didn't see any thing out of place and put it down to the dishwasher noise. I kept hearing the noise and looked over again. And saw it....

Water rushing out of the cupboard under the sink! I flung it open and saw that a pipe had burst off its fitting and hot water was poring out! All over my clean, organised cupboard! I grabbed the caddy out that I had put general cleaning things into, pulled out the vinegar from the green cleaning caddy and shoved it under the burst pipe and yelled for 'M' to come help.

The water was switched off and it obviously stopped pouring out. I quickly and efficiently cleared the cupboard out. Had this happened a month ago it would have taken me ages to get all the cleaning things, glass bottles and other junk out.

So moral of my story: Do the cleaning challenge, you won't regret it.

On other news, we have our outside lights up, I have my tin pictures hanging in the kitchen. Our fan is working (at last) but it working brought foul weather that doesn't require a fan :/ . I did some spray painting again and did some updates.

 The table was yellow trimmed and now is navy, the final update picture will be when its in its final spot in the house.

 The lamps were the same turquoise as the chandelier and are now the same navy as the chandeliers.

 The picture frames have been sprayed but final picture will be taken when they're in their final spot.

Our lights outside, l love them <3.

The pantry is waiting to be sprayed, so hopefully it will be installed soon :)

L

Easy Chocolate mousse

I have a super easy, super yummy recipe for chocolate mousse. This is my all time favourite dessert recipe. But sadly I only make it about 3 times a year. On my Hubby's birthday, on Christmas eve, and for my birthday. So we have just had it last weekend :) I really should make it more often.

INGREDIENTS

250 g chocolate

250ml cream

3 eggs ( to be separated)

5g gelatine powder

10g water

METHOD

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler. A double boiler is a glass dish that fits into the top of  pot that has water in it. You bring the water to a boil and the heat melts the chocolate without water getting into it, or the chocolate getting burnt. When its melted remove from the stove plate.

Separate the eggs , put the yolks aside for now.

Dissolve the gelatine in the water, it will go spongy after a few minutes,

Beat the egg whites to peak stage.

Whisk the cream also to peak stage.

Beat the egg yolks and mix into the melted chocolate. It will go a weird texture here.

 Stick the spongy gelatine into the microwave for around 10 seconds to melt it.

Mix the melted gelatine into the chocolate mixture.

Mix the cream into the chocolate mixture

Fold in the beaten egg whites, don't over mix now.

Put into a serving bowl ( or individual bowls) and put into the fridge.

I prefer to make it the evening before I intend to serve it, that way it sets properly.

This is the perfect valentines dessert, you even have time to make a practice round before then ;)

My sweet 'A' whisking the egg whites

I didn't get a picture of the completed dessert, it was eaten way too quickly.

Enjoy :)
L
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Effortless way to clean your gas stove grates

Cast iron gas stove grates can be a real problem to clean. I have a sure fire way of cleaning them. But before I get into it here is an embarrassing before picture.

WHAT YOU NEED
An ammonia based cleaner ( we have Handy Andy here)
Black garbage bags
A pressure sprayer ( or regular hose with sprayer attachment)

Put some ammonia cleaner onto the stove grates and place them into the garbage bag, lay the garbage bag outside in the sun for a couple of hours.

Remove from bag and spray clean. Seriously, minimal effort and so clean, it even gets that weird sticky feel them off.

All you need to do now is let them air dry, then put them back, give them a wipe with a damp sponge and that's it. Easy right?

L