School holidays may be interesting

I checked the weather forecast this morning and it is forecast to rain for the whole two weeks basically.

It was raining this morning, so we stayed home and I sewed the bunting for Naomi's party - it was great to be able to get it out of the way. And with the weather forecast in mind, we went to the park this afternoon to run off some energy while it wasn't raining - although it was pretty windy, cloudy and a little cool.

My other defence against total madness due to wet holidays is that I have organised some of the kids friends to either come here to play or go to their houses to play, so even if they are stuck inside the whole time, there is a chance for a change of scenery/play mates.

Feeling productive and on top of things....kind of!

Yesterday, Peter and I had a list of things we wanted to get done around the house/garden:

• weed the strawberry patch (if you didn't know it was a strawberry patch, you would have just assumed it was a large patch of weeds - couldn't see any strawberry plants for all the weeds)
• mulch the strawberries, raspberries and garlic
• plant the potatoes (that I had bought before going to Brisbane and had sprout about 10cm long on them!)
• oil the deck f
  urniture (table and chairs hadn't been oiled for at least 12 months)
• replace the toilet tap (it was old and stuck, we couldn't turn it off)
• make a batch of coconut ice cream

The amazing thing is, that unlike our usual Saturday to-do lists where we only get 1/2 the stuff done...we got all of it done! Plus we had extra time to do a couple of extra things - I planted some seeds in the garden (carrots, beetroot, rocket, parsley and chives) and Peter

started constructing the Ikea wall mounted clothes airer that I'd brought back from Brisbane.

I still have things to do like making the bunting for Naomi's birthday party, writing kids church Christmas program, organising advent calendar, working out what I'm going to do to celebrate my 30th Birthday...

Athletics athlete

Last night I went and checked out one of the local Athletics clubs. They have a club meet every Wednesday night which is a combination of competition and training. I am going to join for the season as I feel I need a goal/motivation/direction to my gym sessions, plus I will enjoy getting back into some competitive sport. Most the people there are either a lot younger or older than me, but I had been warned by a friend that this was the case.

School production

On Tuesday, Ben performed in his first school production. The production was titled 'Stories of Aotearoa' and was a collection of Maori legends (the equivalent of Aboriginal Dreamtime stories). The way it was put together reminded me of the Opening Ceremony to the 2000 Sydney Olympics...an overarching story line which linked the individual stories/performances together.

Ben did very well and enjoyed the experience heaps. His class did a dance to a song entitled 'Cheeky little fantail'. He has a reasonable sense of rhythm so was able to perform the right dance moves at the right time and in the right order. I thought it was very cute when the turned around and wiggled their bottoms/fantails every time the phrase 'Cheeky little fantail' was sung in the song.

You can go here to see more photos.

Brown bread ice cream made

The ice cream tastes almost like cheese cake mixture and the crispy bread bits are just like having biscuit crumbs in the ice cream...We are really looking forward to trying this one!

Here's the recipe, if you are interested.

Pumpkin Ice cream made!

There is 2L of pumpkin ice cream now sitting in the freezer. We all had a taste at breakfast (licking the churn bowl and blade) and everybody liked it. It doesn't have a particularly strong pumpkin flavour - it might be because the type of pumpkin I used isn't particularly strong or it might suppose to be like that.

Using leftovers/surplus

On the topic of ice cream, the two flavours I'm in the process of making are both because I have ingredients that need using...pumpkin and bread.

The pumpkins that we stored from autumn are coming to the end of their shelf life, so need using really soon and if you're having trouble imagining pumpkin ice cream, think american pumpkin pie type flavour.

And we always have bread crusts floating around, about 1/2 end up being chook food and about 1/2 get made into bread crumbs. And there is only so many dinners you can put breadcrumbs in, around or on top. So when I came across a recipe for brown bread ice cream, I just had to give it a go.

How many flavours?

Yesterday, I borrowed my friend's ice cream maker again. We have 4 x 2L ice cream tubs plus a 1L ice cream tub to fill...and an endless possibility of flavours. So far I am in the process of making pumpkin ice cream and brown bread ice cream. We are thinking of making the coconut ice cream I made last summer again and I will not get away with not making a batch of peanut butter ice cream!

Chinese fish and chips?

One of the things we noticed when we first moved over here, and haven't yet commented on (I don't think) was how you don't get fish and chips quite like you do in Australia.  In Oz, your local fish and chippie generally sells fish and chips, burgers, potato fritters etc and not much more.  Here in NZ, it seems that every fish and chip shop is also a Chinese takeaway (they do seem to be mostly Chinese owned for some reason).  So, our local fish and chippie has a special on currently: you can get $3 of chips for free with your sweet and sour pork.  Dunno about you, but I still find that kind of weird.

My favourite part of a MasterChef series

Is the trips away.

When I travel, one of the things I really like to do is to eat. To try the local produce, the local cuisine, to visit the original source of some of my favourite products. And I love to be able to bring some of the produce and ideas home and try and recreate some of the food I have experienced. A lot of my best travel memories are associated with food/drinks and I have made some great discoveries.

So I get really excited when I watch the episodes where the MasterChef contestants are doing just that. I feel like jumping on a plane and going somewhere myself. Unfortunately both money and season of life prevent me from doing that. But at the start of next year, we have planned a trip to the north part of the South Island of NZ, so I'm going to concentrate my excitement of the MasterChef contestants experience into researching opportunities to have some great food and wine experiences on our holiday. We have already specifically planned to spend a couple of nights in the Marlborough region, as well as a day in Wellington and I have also suggested we drive home on a slightly different route so that we can visit the Wairarapa region too. We are planning to camp the whole time (to both save money, as well as to be able to stay in some pretty amazing natural places), so hopefully I can find some great food to glam up the camping experience a bit, as well as some produce that we can bring home to enjoy over the following months.