busy foodie day

and i'm kind of over it now (ok, i'm very over it - we're having leftovers for dinner and the kids are having oven baked nuggets and chips from the freezer lol)

first this morning i tried to turn my favourite muffin recipe into a strawberry yoghurt muffin recipe with dismal results :( i threw them out this afternoon as even *I* didn't want to eat them...

i then cooked the apple for this cake http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/14581/custard+and+apple+teacake though it ended up more like a chunky apple sauce so i hope it works ok.

off to the markets after that to stock up on spices (nearly $70 worth lol) so i can make my own spice mixes, which won't happen til next weekend now. lunch was a treat of homemade nachos and then i made the custard for the apple cake, the cake itself (now cooking) and the thermomix orange cake which ryan loves.

i also need to work out something interesting to make with the humungous pumpkin our neighbours gave to us, which their neighbours grew. it's just not cold enough for soup!

is anyone else a wimp about cutting pumpkins? it's the whole reason i usually buy jap pumpkin *blush* i think this one is a bloody ironbark LMAO!!!

meat at last and dinner tonight...

$200 later and i have meat to last for a while LOL i will probably need to buy more next month, but not too much. i do need to get chicken as that is the most popular meat in teh house and it wasn't particularly cheap today so i only got 2 breasts. i did get a whole scotch fillet as well as a few whole fillets of beef, which is where the biggest cost came from, as well as a roast of every version (except chicken, i always buy the aldi marinated ones. not because i don't think i could marinate my own but because as a teenage i was caught too many times with the giblets etc left in the chicken and i'm too scared to chance it again LOL i hate handling chicken and have no intention of sticking my hands inside a chicken!)

so anyway, dinner tonight was mostly a success. i pounded out some veal steaks i bought and made my own crumbs in the thermomix. $10 of veal seemed excessive (not that we won't spend $10 on a meal's worth of meat every so often) but after pounding it will go far enough for 2 meals :) unfortunately g slightly burned it during cooking :( ryan and emelia didn't like it but rory loved it .

geoff did the sides - mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, carrot and surprisingly the little pale green zucchinis i bought went down a treat. rory ate not only her whole entire plateful but half of g's and then the leftovers in teh kitchen LOL she is an eating machine!!

the kids want strawberry custard for dessert (the thermomix means all natural custard consisting of a little sugar, flour, eggs, milk and fresh strawberries) but i'm too lazy LOL maybe they'll nag g enough to make it instead! mwahahahahhaha