83 Days of Health: Day 2

1.  Don't expect an update every single day!  I think once a week says 'consider yourself posted'! :)

But I was Google searching yesterday like crazy for some healthy, fun, Halloween party food ideas!  I know most people are rolling their eyes and saying 'Duh - it's Halloween!  It's all about the treats!' and I'm well aware, but we had to take a plate of scary food to a Halloween Mums n Bubs party this morning, and I was keen to find something I could eat when faced with plates and plates of delicious looking goodies!! :)

Anyway, it was amazing how many sites called banana caramel pie 'healthy' when they substituted an ingredient or two for 'lower fat' versions.  I was surprised at how hard it was to find actually healthy, scary ideas! :)  I think the party we did for Tammy for Halloween last year involved more fun, healthy foods than I was finding elsewhere online, but I did find one cute website with some cute ideas! It seems to be some kind of Disney site. But the food isn't Disney - just healthy and fun!  You can find it here :)  I was particularly impressed with idea #6 - brain anyone?!!! :)

Yesterday was great! - Not craving a thing :)  I mean, Milo would be great with breakfast, but you know, I can live without it! (sigh).  I stocked up on nuts, crackers and hommus.  Deep breaths.. :)

LOOONG Catch-Up!!!!!

Hey little personal blog/journal!!

It's been a little while since I've written anything remotely interesting on here, and I'm going to unashamedly blame it on being pregnant once again!!! :)  Yay!! :)  I'm just over 16 weeks now though, and have been getting better over the last 4 weeks - I've been pretty great for the last 2, but I'm tired a lot, the usual :)

Since I've been well again though, I've been spending my more awake time having lots of fun and outings with my fabulous girls, who were so patient with me for all those weeks when I lay on the couch uselessly, asking them to be gentle with me and basically being no fun at all!!  I am so GRATEFUL that James took a month off work completely during uni holidays, and got us through the worst of it, and by the time he started back full time (between work and study) I was getting back into it.

It's funny how hard morning sickness hits.  I guess a lot of people never get it, and if you're not grateful for that, you should be.  Because it's awful! - You just feel like you're dying!!! I kept saying to James "This is MUCH worse than the other two times - I'm dying!  This is awful!  I can't do this for 8 more weeks" and so on, but he just said "It's exactly the same sweetie, you've just forgotten!  But you'll get through it and you'll be okay" :) .  He took care of absolutely everything for us - meals, cleaning, looking after the girls, looking after me, running around town trying to satisfy my horrible cravings (I don't have fun cravings.  I've mentioned this before on this blog.  But it's more like "I need a Red Rooster chicken drumstick now or I'll die!" and less like "Hm... I'm craving chocolate.  Please go and buy me 3 blocks and I will eat them and chill out :)).  I was also probably insufferable to be around.  I devoured I don't know how many books, until I ran out, and became bored and more miserable.  I watched a bunch of movies and then got sick of them all.  I watched the entire first 4 seasons of Chuck.  Bless funny, random, light hearted shows you've never seen before for trying to take your mind off things!!  I felt like such a bad mother.  The girls ran riot if James ever went out, and I just felt sooo bad for them! - Bored and cooped up all the time! I'm so glad James was around to take them out and do stuff with them.  And he and Ana developed a wonderful relationship - the kind he's always had with Maggie but Ana's missed out on a little in her early days, because he was home a lot more when Maggie was born and has been a lot busier since Ana.  But they really bonded and it's wonderful to see now :)  She just adores him, and he her.  And Maggie loved having her main man around all the time!

By the end of the sickness, I started to feel like I was crazy, and maybe it was all in my head?  Maybe I was just lazy?  So I'd try to do more, and fail miserably, and end up in bed, much worse than before.  I just felt like I wasn't being a very good person.  And I never wanted to go out and do anything!  I would make plans with friends and then cancel cause I wasn't up to it, and I felt like such a bad friend!   But then I started to have days where I was actually well, and then you realise "Oh, I'm not a bad person - I'm not just lazy!  I was actually really, really sick!!!  Oh my word I feel great today!! I am going to clean my house and take the girls to the park!!  And catch up with friends!!  And make dinner!!" and it's just the most incredible feeling ever.  I keep saying to James "I just can't describe it.  It's like you're in this horrible black hole and you can't get better no matter what and then you start to doubt yourself and you don't know if you're lazy or what and then suddenly you're better!  And you realise that health is the most incredible blessing, and you don't ever realise how wonderful it is until you're stuck in that black hole for weeks on end, terrified that this time it won't end at 14 weeks!"  I don't know how the wonderful strong women (like my mother, who had 7 of us!) who are sick for the entire 9 months manage!  I find it extremely difficult to get through the first three months.

But as a result of that time, the last few weeks have been absolutely fabulously blissful.  I'm back!! And the girls and I have been having a lot of fun, and making up for all our time lost.  They are SUCH great girls, and I feel so lucky to get to hang out with them all day long!  They are the funniest ages and they have me in stitches all day, and they're so sweet and kind and funny!!!  And James and I have been leaving the house again - we even went to the temple last Friday night, and we're going to our Stake Ball tomorow night! - I don't know how I'll go fatigue-wise, but I'm super excited.

As usual, I put on WAY too much weight during trimester 1, but I've evened out a little just in the last couple of weeks, and I've come to terms with the fact that to help me feel a little better during that time, I just have to constantly eat, and to me it's a LOT easier to work out and lose the weight afterwards, than to try and stop myself from eating whatever I want during trimester 1!!  But hopefully I can repeat Ana's pregnancy, not the 30+kg's I put on with Maggie!!

And I am starting to get INCREDIBLY excited as I enter trimester 2, realising that I'm really going to be able to have another baby!! I'm always a little too nervous during the first 12 weeks to let myself be really excited, in case anything happens, but yesterday I went to the hospital and heard this little baby's heart beating for the first time, and in a few weeks we'll be able to find out whether it's a boy or girl, and I can't WAIT!!! That is my favourite part of pregnancy.  I love knowing what we're having.  It really helps me bond with baby.  We name it and talk to it, and I buy it pink or blue (pink so far, but it could be blue this time?! :)) and get everything ready for it, and it feels so much more real.  I can't wait!! James is pretty excited too :)  And so are Maggie and Ana.

So basically everything is complete sunshine at the moment, especially compared to being so sick - ugh!

Random bits and pieces:

• The fabulous Stacey came over the other week, and introduced us to 'Monopoly Deal', the card version of Monopoly.  Games only take maybe 15 minutes max. each, and it's a lot of fun.  I bought it for James for D.A.D (Daddy Appreciation Day) recently, and we've played it so many times he's sick of it, but I'm totally addicted!! :)
• My friend Estelle came over this afternoon to have some stamping fun with me, and she brought us dinner - uncooked.  I'm always saying I wish I were more confident cooking fish cause I love it, so she brought me the uncooked ingredients, and helped me prepare the fish for cooking, and all I have to do is chuck it in the oven half an hour before we want to eat!! Isn't that sweet?!  Dinner and a cooking lesson!! :)
• My Dad got broken into at his office again the other day.  It's happened a lot in the last year, and caused him a lot of grief and business loss, and it's really upsetting for our whole family I think.  Dad is just such a good person, and he works SOOOOO HARD and has my whole life, to support his family, and to have people just break in and take so much from him, is so hard to see.  They've been installing all sorts of security measures over the last year, and they just keep coming back.  This time, they actually like, dug a hole and broke through the bottom of a wall, and like, climbed in underground?! - Who does that?!!!  Anyway, they've had builders reinforce it all and I think they're putting in a new alarm system this time.  We are all praying that they stay away and that this break-in doesn't cause too much more grief than replacing all the valuable things in the office.
• I had to quit netball when I was only a little bit pregnant :(  I really, really wanted to keep playing, and stay fit during this pregnancy, but even though I switched out from Center and started playing on the wings, I was sick and fainting after games, and then you know, spent a really long time in bed doing nothing but being sick, and now I can't go back during this pregnancy.  I guess I'll save the organised sport for between pregnancies!
• James is in his last 6 months of uni.  Can you tell I'm grinning like a cheshire cat while I write this?!  Who knows where he'll be working this time next year?!!!! He has certainly worked hard for this degree, I'm so happy and excited for him, and for our whole family!!!  He will be so relieved to have a break from assignments hanging over his head all the time - I still seem to remember that feeling with perfect clarity!!
• This baby is due, 4 days before Maggie's 3rd birthday.  I'm guessing we won't be throwing her too big a party this year - I might miss it!!!
• Mum is currently designing her and Dad's new house.  I can't wait to see what it ends up looking like!! I couldn't do all the planning she is.  Well, at least, I really wouldn't want to.  Fortunately James will be just as keen as she is in that department - I'll just give him a list of what I want and let him do what he thinks with the rest of it when it comes our time!  Mum always makes things so beautiful though, so I can see why she'd want to do it herself!!  Meanwhile they're in a cute rental, and our childhood house is long sold to a young couple who are just starting a family.  I haven't driven past since they sold it.  I was so sick I didn't even take photos in every room and do any sort of 'goodbye wonderful house I lived in for 17 years!!' tour - which I SO would have done otherwise!!
• Elders Ben and Oliver have been on their missions for a year and 4 months now.  Isn't that crazy?!  They'll be home apparently before I know it, but it seems to be going awfully slowly!! We all miss them like crazy, but we're so proud of them.  They are working so hard and being so faithful and good!!  They make us smile whenever we think of them.  I still can't believe they haven't met Ana!!
• James is working with Dad at the moment. I like to think of them working together - My two favourite guys!!  :)  He's also coaching 3 teams at JPC and helping out with some of the PE classes there.  He's loving what he's doing, but it's certainly keeping him busy!!
• I lost some of my all time, FAVOURITE maternity clothes, and I'm devastated!! James thinks I must've accidentally taken them to Vinnies, and I just want to cry when I think about it!  Went maternity shopping the other weekend and found nothing.  I wish I had my pretty clothes back, sigh!!! 
• The J's live down the road now!  First I was sick, and since we've all had sick babies, but we're going over tomorow for a fun play (Jessima's put together a 'safari' which sounds fun!) and are happy that they're in our ward and we see them more often!! :)
• Baby Hallie = SO CUTE!! :)  And Beth = earth mother!! : ) We're planning on a visit next week - even though she's a lot closer now, the Gold Coast seems so far away at the moment! - But they do live pretty far south.  Hopefully more catch ups soon :)
• Ana and Maggie are so cute.  Did I say that already?!  They're best friends, they are both chatting (Ana only says a few intelligible words, but she's expanding her vocab rapidly(!) and Maggie will talk your ear off, all day, about everything :))  I'm in parenting heaven.  I'm so grateful for them and can't wait to find out what this baby is and then meet it in a few months!!! :)

Okay, My fish is going in the oven, so I'm going to go and watch it.  Hopefully I'll update more regularly soon, but I'm happy to say our little family blog is going strong, and I've been posting weekly on our new creative blog, so I'm sure enough of our little family history is being recorded - maybe just not giant posts about how awful morning sickness is, and how great life is afterwards :)  

Have a fabulous Thursday!!! :)  (Don't you love Thursdays?!  They're definitely one of my favourite days - so much hope on a Thursday I think!! :))

xoxox

Abby - 1. Fish - 0.

I cooked my first fish the other night!! I know, lame, but I don't really mind if everyone else thinks this is lame and non-deserving of a blog post because it is, and you're not in my head so you don't understand the significance!

Since we got our 'Brenda' cookbook for our engagement, the Thai Soy Fish recipe has looked super good to me. Sadly, I had terribly low cooking self-esteem and it took me about 2 years to even try any of the chicken recipes. Over the last few months I've been slowing down as I passed the fish section of the deli, wondering which ones were 'boneless white fillets'. I should mention that I only remember eating fish once at my parent's house, and it was a couple of months ago - we never had it growing up. Last week, I looked up the recipe, put it in my weekly meal planner, and actually bought 500g of basa fillets. I was crossing my fingers that they were boneless and white, and they turned out to be both (phew), which is lucky, because they were the only ones I could afford (happy sigh).

In the recpie, the fish takes all of 4 minutes to cook. 2 minutes on each side, in the electric frypan, sprinkling them with special yummy stuff inbetween. Super easy, and not all intimidating to anyone who isn't me.

I had the bed of Jasmine rice and other bits cooked and ready when James got home from work, and the fish was out and defrosted. Usually I try to have dinner on the table for him, because he eats crazy amounts, and is always hungry when he gets home (or goes out, or is at home, or at work, or anywhere really..). But because the fish apparently only took 4 minutes to cook, I wanted to wait till he got home, so it would be fresh and lovely. So when James got home, the fish wasn't cooked (seriously, the oil was even in the frying pan), but I was all ready to cook my highly-anticipated-for-the-last-almost-three-and-a-half-years fish dish, so when he opened the fridge and said 'Hey do you wanna put the fish away and do it another night if it's not cooked yet? I'm hungry now - let's just get something quick tonight' I gave him a quick but veheminent version of the "Bite me! - It will be ready in 4 minutes I've been psyching myself up for almost 4 years to cook this fish dish for you!! We are eating it, TONIGHT!" speech, in which time frames are appropriately exaggerated, and sent him off to unpack his uni stuff.

4 minutes later, my incredible first fish dish ever was on the table. It tasted, like fish. It was soft, and white, and moist, and yummy, and it even tasted a little bit Thai. I loved it :) I was so happy - who knew, fish could be so easy and quick to cook?? And double good news! - Next time I'm pregnant and craving fish, I don't have to go to the Coffee Club for their $20 delicious Baramundi fillet, or buy local fish and chips and peel off the crumbs!! This is so much better than that!

I didn't take any photos, because I was trying not to be lame (I know - this post has totally ripped that to shreds!), but I could have, because it looked great too :)

Warning: Cooking Post

I know, I wasn't going to do any more cooking posts for a while because we were all getting a little over them, but I roasted my first chicken the other week (happy sigh). The gravy I made from the 'juices' was AWFUL!!! But after relating the experience to Mother dear we found out why, and I won't make the same mistake twice. On the evening of the meal I made up an instant gravy mix to go with the meal instead, bless Gravox! :)


In other cooking news, I bought oyster blade steak the other day, because it was on sale. Then when I got home I googled 'Oyster blade steak recipes' (because I'd never used or seen oyster blade steak used before - what a random cut of meat!) and found this one, which I made, and it was amazing, and pretty much cooks itself!! I practically did nothing because it just goes in the slow cooker for 6 hours, but it tasted like a real meal my parents would make (the gravy was even slightly reminisce of their roast lamb gravy, silent rapture!). Plus I had I think all but 1 or 2 of the ingredients in the cupboard, so it was quite cost efficient :) Didn't take any pictures because it doesn't look as delicious as it is, haha :) Yummy on a bed of mashed potatoes.

I'm working up the courage to try said parent's roast lamb recipe, went through it with them the other night and got tips, lol :)

Finally a Real Woman!

What could be more housewifey than making chicken pie for dinner?!! It's so delightfully housewifey, I feel like I've reached a landmark in the world of womanhood. Like one of those 'becomming a man' ceremonies some cultures have when boys are 12 and can finally hunt on their own or something. That's how I felt when I placed it on the table for dinner - I made it to womanhood!! Yay! :) Friends of our came over for dinner the other night and she brought an apple crumble she'd made from scratch - I don't think I've ever eaten one with homecooked apple and everything - we're all growing up! :) And now that Maggie's on solids I've been blending all sorts of 'from scratch' baby foods and I get all excited when I taste them and they taste like 'the real thing' :) Finally a real woman :)

Recipes

Here's where I got the choko soup recipe - it's the last thing on the page.

http://www.burkesbackyard.com.au/2001/archives/2001_archives?p=1320

James said to me last night "That choko soup wasn't that great. Next time, let's just substitute all of the chokos for potatos" (sigh). Maybe it was partly the joy of not having cooked or even served it myself, maybe it just blended perfectly with my flu, but whatever it was, I liked it a lot, and I used mostly ingredients from my food parcel.

Jillina - Honestly I've tried hardly any of those 4 ingredients recipes, but one that I've done quite a few times is their Chicken and Rice Casserole on page 114. It actually serves 4 - usually if there are more than 2 of us I have to double recipes because James eats at least 2 or 3 people's portions, but this one is great. It's super, super easy, you just chuck everything in and put it in the oven for 2 hours and it's perfect, and it's delicious. I would definitely recommend adding onion (even though it takes it up to 5 ingredients lol), I haven't tried adding celery. Maybe even adding vegies would work - I usually just cook some on the side. THe downside is that it's not the cheapest recipe because it involves 4 chicken breasts, but I usually bulk buy them on sale at Big Gun which helps :)

I am excited to try the recipes you've tried, and am definitely going to cut down on the sugar in the cake, thanks for the tip!! I also find the sound of the Aussie BBQ Steak with Vegemite interesting lol. Hey have you got a good recipe for a pineapple upside-down cake? I have a yummy one Mum got from Domonique Rolls years ago - I just thought cause you said you often toss in pineapple, you guys might like it. It's also easy which makes it perfect for me, and uses all normal pantry ingredients so I always end up making it when I've forgotten to plan dessert :) If you let me know I can email it to you :)

The Chokos were Lovely Thankyou Very Much!!

Okay family members who have written derogatory things about chokos recently - seeing as Tammy I'm pretty sure you haven't even tried them, and Dad (even though you haven't written I got your feedback through Tammy), apparently (and from my recent experience this seems to be true) they take on the flavour of whatever you cook them with, how can you hate them??!

I am sick at the moment (please send the flowers to my usual address - chocolates are fine, I'm never THAT sick unless I'm pregnant, and it's the flu, so no worries), and I had set my 'making choko soup' adventure for Tuesday night, when I first began to feel sick. James came smilingly in early from work having not eaten his packed food in anticipation of the dinner I'd assured him I was making, only to find me sitting pretty much where he'd left me. I let out a sick little moan just to complete the scene. His face fell a little, but he soon got around to realising I was obviously MUCH too sick to make dinner and he'd better get onto it if he wanted to eat. He asked what I would like, and I quickly pulled out the choko soup recipe at the same time as I sighed and assured him I could just heat up something canned because I was so unwell and couldn't expect him to spend an hour cooking after a long evening at work. Much to my delighted surprise, he decided to make up choko soup! I managed to drag myself to the kitchen to spread some crushed garlic over some bread and toast it - gross, but I really, really hate being sick, and the least I could do was add the side dish to our dinner.

Even though at the time I was being a little bit cheeky, I am beyond grateful that James made the choko soup that night! It was perfectly delicious, and absolutely perfect for a cold night with a flu coming on!! Yesterday I was very sick (I couldn't even talk. Everything's worse when you can't tell people about it) and was in bed all day, and James stayed home from work to look after me and Maggie (I really didn't want to get her sick too) and I had that soup again, for breakfast lunch and dinner, and it was just what I would have wanted if I could have had anything in the world. Sadly dinner was the last bit of it, and today I've had to suffer through alternative foods, but I think it's what I'll make anytime anyone's sick from now on, it was so good! So the chokos were lovely, thankyou!! If you google 'choko soup recipe', make the Burke's Backyard one. Oh, except we only had 2 chokos and you're meant to use 3, so we used 2 potatoes in lieu of the 3rd. Don't know if this helped our cause.

THankyou James - you have been wonderful!! I promise I will get off the couch and start looking after you again soon. Did I mention that yesterday morning he scrubbed out the kitchen including pulling the fridge out and scrubbing the floors and walls behind, the microwave out, etc., and he cleaned out the study, and vacuumed (yes Ma, I never did get onto it that day lol..). Isn't he wonderful?

Making use of the 17 Bananas in our Package

To the banana muffins I added choc chips, to the two long trays on the right I added chopped walnuts, and the two small trays are normal banana cake. It is a good freezer lunch item. James eats a lot though, so it's already almost gone. I wonder if next week's package will involve as many bananas.


I've made 4 massive trays of baked potato pieces (like the ones Dad does with pumpkin too) so far - James eats them as snacks and on sandwiches with BBQ sauce (totally not the way they were intended to be eaten when I made them). I thought of how proud Grandma Taylor would be of me using sea salt in those :)

Tonight I'm making potato bake and choko soup for dinner. I'm learning to be resourceful with the random assortment of foods we've been blessed with. I've been making all our dinners this week with cream-based sauces, due to the million creams lol :) This is kind of fun.

My parents and all my siblings + the niece and nephew have been very ill with a stomach bug this week. I'm giving myself 2 more days before I'm in the clear (I was hanging out with them lots, and it seems highly contageous :S), but I am feeling blessed that none of us here in the little Easthope household have it at least yet, although I feel a possibly vicious cold coming on :S. I hope everyone feels better soon!! xo

I made Chicken Soup!!!

So chicken thighs were on a great sale the other week and Mum mentioned that they make quite a tasty chicken soup. I LOVE my mum's chicken soup, (actually, if you look to last year's Mother's Day post you'll see that Mum made some for me - it's the best thing in the world for if you're feeling sniffly) and I was super excited to try to cook it! Unfortunately I planned my big adventure the same night we got asked over to a friend's for a movie night. James had to work till 7:30, so I figured I'd cook it and we'd eat quickly and rush over. Sadly it (like all of my cooking!) took much longer than excpected!! The kitchen was a pigsty which I hate (I love having everything look lovely while I blissfully cook away lol), but the soup was great. I added a bit of extra cream because James LOVES cream, and when I tasted Mum's the next week I realised I don't like mine as much, but it was okay. Also, I had a bit of a stock mix up with the dumplings. Oh yes - Mum used to make dumplings with it and the recipe was with the soup in the family cookbook, so I gave them a go too. They would have been better if I hadn't overdosed them with stock lol.

Here is our pigsty of a kitchen when I was done. Ew! And we were super-late to go to our friend's place so I left the mess till after, double ew!!! How I love a clean kitchen!


The soup looks kinda yuck. But it was kinda yum :)

I made 'Steak Diane'!!!

Those of you who knew me really well in my early days of marriage will appreciate this more than those of you who didn't, because of how disastrous I was in the kitchen due to a bizzare lack of confidence for something so ... not frightening. Since I have overcome my fear of cooking, I have cooked mostly new recipes. Mum and Dad are both fabulous cooks, so I've 'wisely' avoided cooking things from our family cookbook, because then I didn't know how badly I was messing up :) (I was about to say 'makes sense, right?', then I pictured James' face when I say that about something like this).

The other night I asked James to pick up some meat on the way home from uni 'anything! - I haven't decided what's for dinner yet!', and he got 4 big steaks for $6, which I was very happy with. He even said "And we don't even need to eat them all tonight!" It had never occurred to me that we would.

I used the first steak in a stir fry with veg on rice.

Last night I used the second to make Steak Diane, because I passed the recipe in the book, and realised how EASY it was!!! And I already had all of the ingredients, AND it was QUICK!! Sadly for James I had decided to use only one steak each night, so we shared... but it waaas enormous, and we filled up on bread...and this is terrible but we were out of veggies and I didn't manage to get to the shops, so that's literally what we ate: Steak Diane, and bread. Lucky the Steak Diane was good!! :) You should have seen James' face though, when I put one plate with a lone steak on the table between us. Haha.

Tonight, I think I will make Chop Suey with the third, and I will definitely make sure I stop at the shops and get some veggies :)

Any ideas for steak 4??