My phone and I have been living under a rock.

I have a Windows phone. For the last couple of years I have been using the Instagram Beta app. It is shit, it is not up to date and for the last month it hasn't even been working properly. Silly old me didn't even know there was an alternative, or bothered to look.

So over the weekend I googled an alternative, and there staring me in the face was an app called 6tag.

It is the most fabulous app for Windows phone Instagram users, that has filters I didn't even know existed! I feel like such a nit wit because I have been using a beta version of Instagram all along.

I am in love. I am up to date and in love.

It does have ads though and you have to pay a small price (like a few dollars) to get rid of the ads and be able to post videos (which I could never do with the beta version).

I love Instagram and I love that I can now use it better. I can't believe the new filters,  I know I already said that. I feel I have walked out of a time warp!

Mum had a huge garage sale over the weekend, my sister and I went and helped her out. Her and Dad like to go to clearance sales and they'd accumulated a lot of stuff. Dad likes to collect stuff. Every six months or so they have a garage sale.

Dad was in hospital the night before after a health scare, so he wasn't at the garage sale and Mum a little bit beside herself and grateful for the help. Dad is AOK, he's had a stent put in yesterday, the same time they were looking around inside him with a tiny camera. Pretty amazing what they can do these days. Ever so grateful of what they can do these days. We get to keep him a little bit longer.

I was a bit scared.

Instagram beta kept crashing on my phone and I didn't get to share my photo of later that day, when I was using my tea pot for one. I have a tea pot for one. It was left over from the sale and Mum let me have it. She 'let' me have a few things, I slipped ten bucks in the cookie tin till while she wasn't looking.

I am also loving my Dutch hoe. There's probably a few inappropriate jokes here, bound to insult a nationality and all women at the same time, so we won't go there.

It's a little hoe with a long handle. I've tested it out already in the garden and it's so cool. I can stand up and scratch weeds from the dirt, no bending down, no gloves, I don't get my hands dirty. Who would have thought I would be so excited about an old weathered broom stick with a rusty attachment at the end of it! I know.

Yesterday my sister and I, and our chainsaw yielding partners went and cut a heap of wood at the back of Mum and Dad's yesterday. It would take a load of Dad's worries when he gets back home, which shouldn't be too long now they worked out what's wrong, and fixed it.

An InLinkz Link-up

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.

 

An InLinkz Link-up

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.

An InLinkz Link-up