A Juggling Mum

Ingredients (serves 4)

90g (about 1 bunch) coriander
2 1/2 tbs vegetable oil
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 tbs grated fresh ginger
1 onion, sliced
1 stem lemongrass, white part only, finely chopped
1 red chilli, seeds removed, finely chopped
1 red capsicum, seeds removed, finely sliced
1 1/2 cups (330g) arborio rice
1 cup (250ml) white wine
800ml vegetable stock
100g snake beans or thinly sliced green beans
100g fresh shiitake mushrooms (optional)
Juice of 1 lime
2 tbs ketjap manis
2 tbs fish sauce
1/2 cup mixed Asian herbs (such as Thai basil and Vietnamese mint)

Method

Separate stalks and leaves of coriander and roughly chop both. Set aside.
Heat 1 1/2 tablespoons oil in a deep frypan, add half the garlic, the ginger, onion, lemongrass, chilli, capsicum and coriander stalks. Cook for 1-2 minutes over medium heat, then add the rice, reduce heat to low, and cook for a further minute. Stir in wine and continue to cook until there’s no liquid left. Add stock 1 cup at a time, stirring continuously to prevent from catching. Stir in beans and cook for 2 minutes. Turn off heat and cover loosely with a lid.
Heat remaining oil in a frypan, add remaining garlic and shiitake and cook over high heat for 1-2 minutes or until mushrooms start to soften. Set aside.
Add the lime juice, ketjap manis, fish sauce and herbs - including coriander leaves - to the risotto, and stir to combine. Serve the risotto in bowls topped with the lightly-fried shiitake.

Recipe and Image Source: Taste.com.au

The first week of the $20 Challenge didn’t go so well for me. I ordered some wax to make wax melts (tarts) but the package never arrived. Thankfully though I was refunded my money but I wasn’t able to make and sell the melts and therefore I didn’t make a profit

How did you go?. Leave me a comment below or you can send me an email if you prefer.

Remember the person who made the highest amount of profit from their $20 gets an extra $20 Paypal credit.

I used to hate cleaning my house, and some days I still do, but with five children, a cat and a husband that works hard at his full time job if I don’t do it, it just does not get done and quite frankly I like my house to be clean. I like to be able to walk through the lounge room and not have to negotiate my way through toys. I like to walk into my bedroom and see my bed freshly made and my bedside table clutter free. I like to be able to walk into the dining room with out food crumbs crunching under my feet and sticking to my toes and I like to see my kitchen sink without a single dirty dish in it.

I don’t know about you but I have noticed that my mood changes when the house is a mess. I become cranky and irritable and snap at my family members if they even glance my way. It really isn’t fair on the family to be snapping at them just because I let the house get into an ungodly mess so I set out to change the way I cleaned my house and to change my attitude towards cleaning the house.

I began by breaking my chores up in to smaller 15 minute jobs that I could do through out the day. For example I now hang the clothes on the line then play with the kids for a while or do some things on the Internet. I usually set the timer for 30 minutes when I’m playing and when it goes off I get up and go and do another job for 15 minutes, maybe I’ll unpack the dishwasher or make the beds or take the rubbish out to the big outside bin and then I get to play again for another 30 minutes and so on for the rest of the day.

If I am feeling really unmotivated I will set a timer for 15 minutes and do as much as I can in the kitchen or in the bathroom in that time and then I stop and either move on to another room or I go and play. Then I set the timer again later and off I go again. I have found that it is usually just that initial chore that is the hardest to start but once you get started housework tends to be infectious and you move on to another area anyway.

I also try to make the time that I spent doing housework special time for me. I like to hook myself up to my iPod and listen to my favourite podcasts while I am vacuuming or making beds or dusting and I have started to fold clothes in my bedroom using my bed as a table while I watch a movie or a tv show. My kids generally leave me alone to do this so it gives me a chance to have some me time in peace and quiet and get my chores done at the same time.

Housework is never going to be my favourite activity but it is an essential part of life so it helps to make the tasks more enjoyable.

Ok people it is almost July and if you haven’t done so already, it is time to take down those Christmas Lights. I was driving through my town the other day on my way to my girls school athletics carnival and I saw three houses (yes three!) with their Christmas lights still up!!! They didn’t have the lights turned on but you can still see them. Take them down people!

Now don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas lights. We put them up on our house each year (ok well Rob puts them up – that’s why I love him). We have the hanging icicle lights, they are my favourites. I even bought an extra set last year to put along the back of our house so that I could see them while I was in the kitchen, dining room and laundry (because let’s face it, that is where I spend most of my time).

See I really do love Christmas lights, but I think that if we kept them up all year waiting for Christmas to come around again, the magic would be lost and it just wouldn’t be as special at Christmas time to see those lights blinking at us.

Image source - Flickr

As promised here is the recipe for the delicious chocolate butterfly cakes I made for Clare’s birthday.

Ingredients for the cakes:

110g (4oz) butter or margarine
110g (4oz) caster sugar
2 medium size eggs
75g (3oz) self-raising flour - sieved
25g (1oz) cocoa powder - sieved

The cream filling:

188ml thickened or whipping cream
1 tspn icing sugar

To decorate:

sieved icing sugar

Method

1. Pre-heat oven to 180ºC (350ºF)
2. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
3. Gradually beat in the eggs.
4. Fold in the flour and the cocoa powder with a metal spoon.
5. Place spoonfuls of the mixture into a muffin tin and bake for 15 - 20 minutes until well risen and firm to the touch. Remove from oven, leave to cool on a cooling rack.
6. Take a sharp knife and cut a circle out of the top of each cake at an angle about 1cm (½ inch) from the edge.
7. Cut each circle in half and set aside.
8. Beat the cream and the icing sugar until thick. Fill each cake with cream.
9. Place two halves of cake on top to resemble butterfly wings.
10. Dust the top of each cake lightly with the sieved icing sugar.

Makes: approx. 16

Today is Clare’s 8th birthday and to celebrate we had Pizza for dinner (Clare’s choice) and I made chocolate butterfly cupcakes for dessert. They were really, really yummy! I will post the recipe tomorrow.

Happy Birthday Baby Girl!

Hallie is running a Photography 101 course over at her blog From The Rubber Room.

Assignment 1 was to read the manual and then take the best photo you can.

I read my manual (although it is still all gobbily goop to me!) and then I took a heap of photos of the kids playing in the backyard and this is the best of the bunch. It’s not a magnificent photo but then if I could take magnificent photos I wouldn’t need Photography 101 would I???

Head over to 5 Minutes for Mom and Wordless Wednesday to see more Wordless Wednesday participants.

This is a pretty simple thing but it works for me so I thought I’d share it with you.

To keep kids drinks cold in their drink bottles half fill the drink bottle with water or your drink of choice. Pop it in the freezer overnight, in the morning top the bottle up with more drink and the drink bottle should stay cold for most of the day.

Visit Shannon’s Blog for more Works For Me Wednesday Tips!

I think there is an igloo in my freezer and there very well may be a group of Eskimos living in there too!

Defrosting my freezer has been on my To-Do List for a couple of weeks now and the ice is getting so bad in there now that I am having trouble getting anything in or out of it. So today is the day that I am going to claim back my freezer space and evict the ice

What are you tackling today? Leave me a comment and I’ll come by and visit your blog

Thanks to Carolyn for hosting Tackle It Tuesday at 5 Minutes for Mom , your motivation to get things done around the house is very much appreciated Go and check out more Tackle It Tuesday participants.

Last Weeks To-Do List

- Defrost the freezer (this is on the list once again - I will do it one of these days
- Prepare and record a podcast (I said I was going to do this last week, but never got around to it)
- Make cookies to have in the freezer
- Plan DD7’s birthday party

As you can see I didn’t do any of the things I had on my list last week so they are back on the list again this week.

This Weeks To-Do List

- Defrost the freezer (this is on the list once again - I will do it one of these days
- Prepare and record a podcast (I said I was going to do this last week, but never got around to it)
- Make cookies to have in the freezer
- Plan DD7’s birthday party
- Make donuts (apparently they are like Krispy Kreme donuts… yum)
- Make cupcakes for Clare to take to school
- Make a birthday cake for Clare.

If you publish your To-Do List on your blog leave your url in my comments and I’ll stop by and have a peek