Scrumptious fish pie

I made this fish pie a few weeks ago. It was so unbelievably delicious. It was so moorish I had to lick the yumminess from the plate. So tasty.

The recipe was in a library book I borrowed, and I can't for the life of me remember what the book was called. So this recipe is from my memory banks as I couldn't find the book again!


700 grams fish (this could be a mixture of any seafood. I used Basa and Ling from the deli at Woolworths)
700 mls milk
1/4 cup flour
75 grams butter
1 teaspoon grainy mustard
1 cup frozen mixed veggies or peas
1 tablespoon chopped chives
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
2 sheets frozen puff pastry, thawed
1 egg, beaten well

Pour milk into a large saucepan and heat on a medium heat. Add the fish and poach for five minutes. Do not boil.

Strain the fish, retaining the milk. Break the fish into chunks and set the fish and milk aside.

Heat the butter on a medium heat, add flour and stir for a minute. Stir in the milk gradually. Add the mustard and cook, stirring until it thickens. About five minutes.

Add veggies, herbs and fish. Stir to combine and heat through. Season with salt and pepper.

Place in a pie dish.

Cover the fish mixture with puff pastry. Brush the pastry with beaten egg.

Cook in a 180 degree oven for 25 minutes, until the pastry is golden brown.

 

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Mum's big trombones - love #fmy52weeksofmemories

When I saw them I was astounded at the size of Mum's trombone squash she grew this year. She attributes her success to lots of animal manure and keeping the water up. 

I knew I had to take a photo and share it with our local paper. Locals and their big veggies are a regular sight in it's pages.

The photos turned out great, and the photo with Mum and the girls was published in the South Eastern times yesterday.

In my own garden I've just pulled up my tomato plants. The green ones are ripening on the window sill.

Almost time to start buying them again at the supermarket. Not the same.

I have planted seeds of broad beans, snow peas and beetroot in the spaces left from the tomatoes.

Thai chicken noodle soup - eat #fmy52weeksofmemories

 

Through Best Recipes' Best in Basket, I sampled two Campbell's Real soup bases. The Thai flavour and Spanish flavour.

 

Campbell's Thai soup is chicken stock infused with fish sauce, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, galangal, garlic, coriander and chilli. All you need to make tasty Thai soups.

There is a couple of recipes provided on the packaging, including one for Thai chicken noodle soup, which I made and really enjoyed!

Campbell's Spanish soup base is a vegetable based stock with added flavours of smoked paprika (I love this spice), capsicum, garlic, onion and tomato.

I made a Spanish and chorizo rice dish with this one, and a minestrone type soup. The Spanish soup base packaging provided a couple of recipes to make as well.

A Spanish bacon and vegetable soup. This was made with McKenzies soup mix and the
Campbell's Spanish real soup base

I much preferred the Thai soup base though and will buy it again to make Thai soups. It is really easy to impress your friends and family, and spoil yourself, not to mention it just tastes good.

Thai chicken noodle soup

50 grams vermicelli noodles
1 tablespoon oil
500 gr chicken breast, sliced thinly
1 litre Campbell's Real soup base
1 carrot, cut into matchsticks
65 grams snow peas, sliced thinly into strips
1/2 red capsicum, slice thinly into strips
a wedge of lime
fresh coriander leaves

Soak noodles in warm water.

Heat oil , add the sliced chicken and cook for 3 minutes.

Add the soup base and bring to the boil, lower heat and simmer for 15 minutes.

Add the drained noodles, carrot, snow peas and capsicum. Cook for a further five minutes.

Serve with a wedge of lime and fresh coriander leaves. If you'd like a little extra heat, garnish with thinly sliced chilli.

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Mum #fmy52weeksofmemories

I went into Mother's Day this year not expecting to much. I was pleasantly surprised.

I was excited about receiving the gifts the girls made at school and kindy. They are the most precious.

Summer had a shoe box under her bed, secretly stashed away, with her offerings. It was all a bit too cute.

I loved the way Izzy woke up Summer in the morning saying it was Mother's Day and to get her presents. They were both so excited.

Keyring from the Mother's Day stall at school. A gorgeous card and candle from Kindy.
Isabel's handmade paper plant pot with a bulb in it. We've planted it in the garden, I think it's a Gladi bulb.
 

Breakfast in bed was nice, but seriously Brett needs to improve his porridge making, it wasn't very nice. I usually cook mine. I didn't say anything. I was still in bed! Who was I to complain. I appreciated the $100 hair voucher Brett bought. It shit all over the $20 Target voucher he bought last year. Still haven't made the appointment, probably next week.

We visited my Mum. I was there yesterday and it was lovely to see she was using her new 'Mum' mug, and insisted on me making her cuppa in it. I felt like I was seven again.

Izzys flowers from school.

 

Izzy and I watching experiencing Eurovision for the first time.

This is one I found on Izzys camera.

The video below too! The annoying, brain piercing singing kids instinctively know you want to hear, when you're at the end of your tether. It's funny now.

 

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Everyday #fmy52weeksofmemories

I am falling behind here.

Everyday I struggle to find that balance between having enough down time and staying up way too late. Do I catch up with stuff or sit on my rear watching telly. Masterchef and Gogglebox wins every time. Even those are interrupted by out of bed children who 'NEED' me.

Trying to fit all the things I need to do into a certain number of hours in a day. It doesn't feel like I ever stop.

Mostly I feel I am not achieving anything, yet the opposite is true.

I write lists almost everyday to keep on top of what I want to get done. I manage to methodically cross things of the list and am actually achieving. The list usually goes in the bin and more things get added to the next list, or stacked in my brains memory stores. Stores which don't work all that well.

If I kept every day's lists and looked back over them at the end of the week, I could be quite proud at what I have managed to get done. I am seriously considering doing this.

There are things that I do every single day, that I don't write on the list, because they are automatic. I have been known to write these on the list, just for the satisfaction of crossing them off.

Drink a hot lemon drink
First thing in the morning, before I do anything, I make a drink of hot water and lemon (or lime) juice. If I don't use fresh lemons, I have a bottle of juice in the fridge.

I can't remember when I started doing this, but it's become a habit. Even when we were camping I took my bottle of lemon juice.

Feed the dog and chooks
This is one of those things I will write on the list and cross it off, just for the recognition. I am the animal feeder, hear me roar......
The dog barely raises an eyelid from his kennel as I feed him in the morning. The three chooks come running with gusto as I toss the contents of the chook bucket into the run. I get 2 eggs as my reward. One of the chooks is getting a little long in the tooth and hasn't given me an egg for ages. Maybe chicken soup will be on the list soon.

Eat breakfast
Without fail I make myself breakfast, and eat it. OK, so I forgot one day last week, I did eat something after the school run when I got home like a good little chicken.

More often than not it's porridge. Today it's left over chunky soup I made yesterday.

I have managed to get our routine down pat in the mornings that I have time to sit down to breaky. In between packing school bags and having a shower.

Washing
This is something else I have no trouble putting on the list just because, and crossing off. I am a hard working washer woman. Whether it be dishes or the washing pile of hardly worn clothes and wet towels. I cross that shit off my list bane of my existence of my list.

The bathroom, dunny and floors however are usually neglected. I should hang my head in shame. The trick is not to breathe in or look too hard at the wrong time.

Cook!
I don't mind cooking.  I actually enjoy it. I cook something everyday, so that's probably a good thing.

What really shits me off is when the kids wont eat it. I try.

Bonnie's camping hotdogs

While camping recently, we all took turns cooking for everyone else. We ate pretty well over the three days!

The first night Margi made a delicious camp oven apricot chicken and Brett and I cooked chicken and lamb in the weber on Friday night for dinner.

Bonnie and Ben were responsible for lunch on Friday and made damper hotdogs on the campfire. Bonnie did good, they hit the spot after a morning of rain.

6 hotdogs
2 cups SR Flour
30 grams butter or margarine
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 egg, lightly beaten

Rub butter into flour with fingertips until it resembles breadcrumbs. Pour in milk and mix until you have a soft dough.

Divide dough into six portions. On a floured surface, roll each portion into a rectangle. Place hotdog and one end of the rectangle and then roll up to encase the hotdog. Brush dough with egg.

Place onto a hotplate over camp fire, turning several times to cook dough.

Enjoy with some tomato sauce.


To change this recipe up a bit, you could

• add a little cheese to the dough
• spread some caramelised onion on dough before wrapping hotdog
• spread a little mustard on the dough before you wrap the hotdog
• lay some bacon on the dough before wrapping hotdog
• instead of a hotdog, use a cheese kransky or kabana sticks

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McLennans Punt on the Glenelg River

If you missed my last post, we went camping over the weekend.

The gorgeous scenery made up for the amount of rain we had.

A man from another camp site came looking for me, having seen me taking photos the previous day, to let me know there was a pelican perched on a post in the morning. Just Izzy and I were up, so I ditched making breakfast to head down to the landing.

We toured the Princess Margaret Rose caves also and the first photo is from the lookout on the river view walk.

A weekend camping

Fun - #fmy52weeksofmemories

Thursday of last week we set off on a family camping trip. We camped in Victoria, just over the South Aussie border at McLennan's Punt campsite, on the Glenelg river.

The weather wasn't that kind to us, but we did manage a whole day with sunshiny skies and NO rain.

Despite our weather woes it was fun. The kids had a great time, although Summer woke up the first morning saying she was excited to go home.

There was no phone service, the break from it was nice. The girls played games, me too. They fished, laughed, ran, jumped and were introduced to geocaching by their cousin. They loved 'treasure hunting' and want to do more. Which ultimately means I will be learning how to do it. The nagging started yesterday as soon as we arrived home, to go and find some treasure.

What was not much fun, was packing up in the rain and coming home to the washing. To describe it as a mountain would be an understatement.

It was heaven sleeping in my own bed.

It'll be a while before we go again!

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