Soupy goodness!

Happy Tuesday, peeps!! I am delighted to report that I am finally over my cold and feeling relatively human again - hurrah!!

I am also happy to report that last night's sausage and bean soup was a total success - hurrah again!! In fact, to quote my wonderful hubby, it was my finest soup to date! :-)

If anyone fancies having a go, you can find the recipe here: sausage bean soup

I made a couple of tweaks to the recipe - I didn't use the celery as I think it is the devil's vegetable and will not allow it in my cooking!! Also, I didn't have any kale so I put a green bell pepper and some fresh corn in instead.

We're quite lucky it tasted good as it makes a ridiculously huge pot of soup (the recipe could easily be halved) and we shall be enjoying it again for dinner tonight!

On that note, I had better try and get my ass back to the gym *groan*

Laters ........ x

Bleugh cont .....

Good morning! How was your weekend? Mine was a bit crap as I was full of the bloody cold :-( I cant complain too much as it is my first bug since we moved across, but its timing was lousy as apparently I missed the best neighbourhood party ever on Friday night *snarl*

Not to worry - despite not being able to get to the gym all week I still managed to lose a pound, taking my total to 5 - hurrah!! I noticed a real difference when I put a dress on on Saturday so I am feeling quite pleased with myself :-) Only 3 more pounds to get to my first goal and just under two weeks to do it so back on the soup and fruit diet and hopefully I'll be well enough to get back to the gym tomorrow ....

I made another stab at cooking something new last week but it was a bit of a fail - a bean casserole type thing with a cornbread topping done in the slow cooker. I thought it had potential but Peter hated it so I shall not be making that again! Tonight I shall be attempting Italian sausage and bean soup, so tune in tomorrow to see how that went!

Finally, I would like to wish my mummy a very happy birthday!! I'm sorry I couldn't be there to join in the celebrations and share in that humongous cupcake - you'll just have to try and finish it without me!!

Well, I suppose I had better go get started on all the housework that's been piling up since I got sick *sigh* See you tomorrow! x

Bleugh :-(

Well, there were no feats of culinary excellence attempted last night as my poor hubby was working late and didn't get in til after 9pm :-(

So, left unsupervised and hubby free for an evening, I decided to  ....... bust out my sewing machine and get some practise in!! Yeah - I'm all about the rock 'n'roll!

Nearly 4 months have passed since I got my sewing machine, which makes it nearly 3 and a half months since it was tidied away in a cupboard and forgotten about! Not good! My friend's mum had given me a pile of scrap material to practise on, so after a few practise straight lines, I made these rather cute yet pointless little pockets.
 

A small achievement, I know, but I was very pleased with my first attempts, and am looking forward to trying the cushion cover in my "idiots guide to sewing" book - I just need to get me to a fabric store .....

No big plans for today as I have woken up with a sore throat :-( No other lurgy symptoms yet, but that doesn't mean they're not on the way so I think I shall have a day off from the gym and curl up with my Kindle and Lord Of The Rings.

Hope you all have/had a nice day!! :-)

Culinary Joy :-)

Good morning! What's new today? I am still basking in the glow of last night's culinary successes!! I made my leek potato and bacon soup, and dear God it was delicious!!!




If anyone cares, here is the recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchens/potato-leek-soup-with-bacon-recipe/index.html
The only thing I would change about the recipe is reducing the liquid a little - it asks for 4 cups stock and 2 cups water, but I think I would bring it back to 4 or 5 cups total.


My second success was my ice cream :-) This was my first attempt at making ice cream with the Kitchen Aid attachment Hubby got me for Christmas, and it was so easy and sooooooooo good!! There's loads left so it's going to be a challenge to stay out of the freezer today and not undo all the hard work I've done at the gym!




Another culinary treat last night was my wonderful hubby coming home with the pasta rolling attachment for Philippa - the one that was missing from Sunday's ravioli experiment!! I now have the ability to make perfect fresh pasta sheets, plus spaghetti and linguine! Hurrah!!




I think I shall have to abandon my original plan for tonight's dinner and play with my new toy!! Something to mull over at the gym while I'm working off last night's second bowl of ice cream .....! :-)

Random updates .......

Hello again!! What have you been up to over the last couple of weeks? I have been ridiculously healthy - living mostly on soup and fruit, and going to the gym just about every day - and am pleased to report that I have lost 4lbs, which puts me half way to my first mini goal of losing 8lbs (the weight I've put on since we got here) by my birthday next month. Hurrah!! :-)




We had a lovely time at a cheese and wine party for our friend Rose's birthday last weekend. They were terribly organised and had planned out which cheese went best with which wine and laid it all out in order. It was a good theory, and everyone stuck to the plan at first, but people soon honed in on their favourite wine, then eventually it was just what was open (or needed to be finished so we could open another!) Good fun was had by all!!




















The highlight of the weekend just passed was getting to play with my ravioli machine and ice cream maker that Hubby gave me for Christmas :-) The ice cream wasn't quite set by bedtime so I'll have to get back to you on that one, but we have high hopes! The ravioli though - well, that was another story ...........

We chose to make sausage and ricotta ravioli and made a wonderful filling for the pasta. The pasta was a little more tricky though!


We had never made pasta before, and the first batch turned out really dry - although I cant rule out operator error! I found a different recipe and this one turned out a lot better. The tricky part, though was the making the pasta in to sheets without a pasta roller! I spent 45 minutes trying to roll out 4 sheets of pasta t0 1/16th inch thick, but the bloody sheets kept shrinking so by the time we were ready to feed them through the ravioli machine they were too thick :-( We managed to squeeze them through and made some pretty authentic looking ravioli, but as they were too thick they just didn't cook properly and were like little sausage filled bricks! But, as it was now 10pm, we were bloody starving and didn't really care so we ate them anyway!!





The verdict? The filling was great, and Hubby's sauce was delicious. The pasta had potential, but it was just too thick, so I will be adding the Kitchen Aid pasta roller set to my wish list and not attempting ravioli again until I have it!!


To finish off today's entry, I'm adding a new goal to my resolutions!


I am an avid collector of cooking magazines and am very bad for seeing things I want to cook, then putting the magazine in a pile and forgetting about it. So, I have spent the last couple of weeks going through the magazines and pulling out all the recipes I want to try, and my new resolution is to make at least 2 new recipes a week.


Tonight's new menu item will be leek potato and bacon soup. Tune in tomorrow to see how that went, along with the ice cream update!!

Happy New Year!!!

Welcome to 2012!! How did you all spend your New Year's eve? Hubby and I ventured up to San Francisco to a rather interesting club night called Sea of Dreams, which was a wonderful mix of awesome music, trapeze artists and other performers, and some of the most eye popping outfits I have seen!



I would dearly love to have more pictures to show you, but after my first couple of attempts I realised that I was missing about five other things while trying to capture one, so you're just going to have to take my word for it!




We were told that most people dressed up for this night, so hubby and I went for a vaguely Victorian theme. This is not my finest photo (although it is a particularly fine shot of my nostrils) but I couldn't resist showing you how handsome Hubby looks in a bowler hat! I'm actually really disappointed that we didn't get a decent photo of us in costume as we looked pretty awesome! :-(




A fun night was had by all, and I have to thank Rod, Jami & co for a memorable NYE , and also for giving us somewhere to crash until it was time to get the train home! We had a lovely sunny walk through the city this morning to get to the train station - the streets were all but deserted but the after parties were still raging and as we listened to the music bouncing off the surrounding buildings we were both wishing we had the energy to start again! We managed to tear ourselves away though, and after a few hours sleep this afternoon we are both feeling vaguely human again.

So, i suppose now is the time to talk about those pesky new year resolutions. I have been been mulling them over for a few days now and this is what I have come up with:

1) Obviously the top spot goes to that age old classic - diet and exercise. *sigh* I have gone up a dress size since I moved over here and am really struggling to shift it. Shopping for my NYE outfit was the final straw so I am aiming to have a super motivational January to kick start some healthy habits and get back to my former fabulousness!

2) Blog more!! This was supposed to be a way to say hi and keep you up to date on all the wee things we get up to and I have been a bit negligent of late - sorry! I will try and do better!

3) Work on my guitar and sewing machine skills, or lack thereof!

4) This is a silly one, but I want to make an effort to look after my nails better! They are always dry and cracked, and I can pretty much guarantee that anytime we have somewhere to go my polish is always a mess and I don't have time to fix it :-(

That should be enough to keep me busy for now - and hopefully give me lots of ammo to keep you entertained and/or bore you silly for the foreseeable future!!

As a little reward for getting to the end of this offering, I will leave you with this pretty picture of some cupcakes Hubby and I made on Friday. Yes, I know my icing skills need a lot of work, but how cute are the fondant flowers?!?!?!




Until next time ..... xxx