Author: Snoskred

Sunday Selections Week 36

15 Comments Posted on September 6, 2015September 6, 2015 by Snoskred

I had zero plans to garden this year. Three Sydney Funnelwebs have been found on this property since Autumn. For those of you not familiar with this creature, it is extremely venomous and quite aggressive. Never fear, there are no spider images here. I would not do that to you! Arachnophobes know better than to post certain pics as a surprise to other people.

But then, I saw these gorgeous gloves at Aldi, and I re-thought my zero gardening plan. Maybe I would feel more comfortable wearing a pair of substantial gloves. We tried them on – The Other Half got large ones, my hands fit perfectly into medium.

My zero plans were quadrupled into “no *#@!&*%$ way am I gardening this year” when two absolute nitwits posted images on a local community group of Sydney Funnelwebs they had found out and about after the floods. UNSUBSCRIBE ME URGENTLY! I left both groups. Life is way too short for spider images on my Facebook feed. The damage was done, though. My skin crawled for an entire week. Not cool at all!

These people had put these creatures into plastic containers with sawdust, which implies keeping the creature long term. That freaks me out. Plus I feel like it is a bit cruel to the spiders. Not quite as cruel as what my chickens do to them which is dead them and eat them. But if they are found on my property, I’m backing the chickens 100% – dead them and eat them, girls!

Gardening this year was back on my agenda despite the images, because the chooks have been getting plenty of free range time and they have been spending a lot of it in the garden bed. I’ve compromised with a – sort of – gardening plan.

I decided to put some baby spinach, silverbeet, and brussel sprouts into the large planter box. I’m not sure how it will go because last year the kale was a massive failure in there – many moths laid eggs on it and they never grew the way they should have. I might end up screening this planter box in, if that happens again this year.

Into the large garden bed, I planted two Nasturtium plants. There is already one Nasturtium down the back and when the chooks are in the garden bed they mostly leave it alone. There are bugs to dig for, ain’t no chook got time to be eating plants! If I pull some out and throw it into the chook pen they gobble it up with great glee, because they have usually already eaten all the bugs in there before midday. I will buy any new varieties that I see of this plant because I love the flowers *and* humans and the chooks can eat it.

The chooks are on the lay again – on average I am getting 3-4 eggs a day. When I make my snacks, I sometimes mix a Manning Valley egg in with the girls small eggs, which are the largest ones they sell.

If I were *not* an Arachnophobe, I would post a picture of this little orb weaver which I see every single day when I check the chook coop for eggs. It has found a tiny home in a small screw hole on the chook pen and every day when the sun rises, it folds itself into this teeny spot.

I’m ok with certain kinds of spider making a home around the chook pen – they help with catching mosquitos and flies. Once I know where the web is, I am not likely to walk into it by mistake. The only thing that spider has to worry about is the chooks, who will eat any spider they see. Luckily they cannot reach where it is, nor could they see it unless he moved. It is well camouflaged. My little friend will find many tasty treats this spring and summer.

If I see one of those scary aggressive venomous creatures, I’m probably going to want to be on the next flight to Antarctica. I’m certainly not going to be putting it into a plastic container, nor will I be trying to kill it myself, and there will be a lot of screaming.. You’ll hear it, wherever you are.. :)

Would you like to join in with Sunday Selections? The rules are very simple:-
1. post photos of your choice, old or new, under the Sunday Selections title
2. link back to River at Drifting Through Life, somewhere in your post
3. leave River a comment so that she knows you’ve joined in and can come over and see what you’ve posted.

Weekly Wrap Up –

Loads of goings on here at home, but nothing especially exciting that has not already been turned into a future blog post. My readers who have zero interest in Mr Robot can skip this next bit because it is a Mr Robot Finale Festival! ;)

The Mr Robot finale was awesome in some ways, but also slightly disappointing in some ways. I think the extra week of waiting meant that my expectations were very high..

Alan Sepinwall said “What a fascinating, off-kilter, 100% “Mr. Robot” way to end this season” and on reflection I have to agree with that concept. I have not re-watched it yet purely because I did not feel ready to – I’m letting it sink in first. One thing I do know, that scene in Times Square was an enormous explosion of colour in a usually quite muted show colour palette.

I’ve collected up a roundup of interviews and linkage for you. SPOILER ALERT – there are spoilers in these interviews. You do not want to click unless you have seen the entire 10 episodes of Mr Robot.

Interviews with Rami Malek

‘Mr. Robot’ Star Rami Malek on the ‘Emotional’ Season Finale (SPOILERS)
Rami Malek of USA’s ‘Mr. Robot’ | ‘The Andy Greenwald Podcast’ – This interview is older but was deeply excellent. Grantland has a lot of Mr Robot content – Grantland – Mr Robot
Rami & Twin Sami on Jimmy Kimmel – Having a twin is a great way to figure out what you would look like with a beard and a different hairstyle.

Interviews with Christian Slater –

Christian Slater weighs in on Mr. Robot twist and season finale
Mr. Robot Speaks: Christian Slater on ‘Mr. Robot’s’ Shocking, Roanoke-Delayed Finale and Season 2

Interview with BD Wong –

BD Wong on Why Mr. Robot’s Portrayal of a Transgender Character Is Radical

Interviews with Sam Esmail –

Sam Esmail Joins Andy Greenwald To Discuss ‘Mr. Robot’ First Season This is an hour long video interview – it was brilliant
Mr. Robot’s creator ‘did everything in my power’ to telegraph the big twist
Mr. Robot finale: Creator Sam Esmail answers burning questions
‘Mr. Robot’ Boss Talks Finale and Season 2: Elliot “Is Past the Point of No Return”
Mr. Robot Creator Sam Esmail on His Plans for Season Two and What the Show Is Really All About
‘Mr. Robot’ Finale: Series Creator On White Rose, The Wellicks & Elliot’s Memory Dump In Season 2
So… what did you think? – Sam Esmail asked what people thought over on Reddit and he also replied to a few of the comments.

Opinion re the finale –

How the Mr. Robot Finale Tumbled Backward into Its Most Piercing Social Message Yet
How Mr. Robot Killed the Centerpiece of Prestige Television: Capitalism
How Mr. Robot Became One of TV’s Most Visually Striking Shows
Mr. Robot had a perfect season on Rotten Tomatoes

About the mail program Elliot uses –

‘Mr. Robot’: How A New Product Feature Was Incorporated By ProtonMail After Discussions With The Producers

Over To You –

Anything interesting happening in your world? :)

Chickens, garden, Happy Snoskred, Mr Robot, Sunday Selections, weekly wrap up

Snoskred Snacks #1

7 Comments Posted on September 4, 2015August 29, 2015 by Snoskred

My friends, it is now Spring here in Australia. This means it is time for Snoskred to break out the spring-y and summer-y snacks.

Over winter, for lunch I want something hot. I tend to get in a little food rut, eating one snack for two weeks at a time and then switching to another snack. This winter I rotated between bolognese sauce over potatoes, various kinds of soup with cheese and crackers, my little Red Curry friends, fresh mushroom soup, Vilis pasties with cheese and croissants with ham and cheese.

Dawn has been talking about finding new snacks over at it just Dawned on me… and I remembered some snacks I ate quite a lot last spring and summer. Then I thought maybe I should make a new – semi-regular – feature on my blog for spring – and maybe summer – where I share some of my favourites with you.

Lite N Easy taught me that bread and I are not especially great friends. I don’t mind the odd sandwich or grill from time to time but I had to find a non-bread option. I find crackers ok but generally dry *and* difficult to fit much onto. I also gave Cruskits another try but found them a bit too crunchy for me.

Someone at work suggested trying a rice cake and YAY I found my new snack friend. After a bit of experimentation, I prefer the thin rice cakes. Aldi makes one which I usually buy.

So if you saw the photo at the top, you might think that was just ham on top of a rice cake. The ham on top is my special secret signature move which I discovered as a surprise to myself. One day, I was making my rice cake snack and totally forgot to put the ham on.. but I still wanted the ham, so I put it over the top.

I discovered that doing this was a great way to keep the toppings on top of the rice cake rather than having parts escape. I have been layering a slice of something – ham – chicken – turkey – smoked salmon – over the top of my snacks ever since. Rice cakes are round, my sliced meatgoods are also round, it is a perfect fit.

Snoskred Snack – Egg & Ham

First up, make some hard boiled eggs. You can do this the day before if you like. If my girls are not laying enough eggs for me, I buy the Manning Valley free range eggs. You can watch the hens online here.

Peel the eggs, and slice them.

Spread cream cheese onto the rice cakes. This part is quite tricky as these rice cakes are very thin and you can crack or break them if you push down too hard. You can choose another kind of spread if you prefer – hommus would be my second choice.

Layer on your eggs. Add salt and pepper to taste – these will really bring out the flavour of the eggs. Above you see the Manning Valley eggs, here is what it looks like with the eggs from our girls –

Then lay your ham on top, and you have your snack all ready to go.

Dawn tried my snack and loved it. :)

Snoskred Snacks

Carter Gets A New Hat

6 Comments Posted on September 2, 2015August 28, 2015 by Snoskred

A couple of months ago, we were sitting down at our local bowling club watching a band (sadly not The Villains) play and there were these kids with sparkly sequin hats. I said to The Other Half – I would like one of those for me!

On a trip to Warrawong to get my car washed and pick up chicken from Lenards, I handed over the car keys and was told to return in 2 hours. We did some serious wandering around and in a shop called either Smart Dollar, Hot Dollar, or some other word I can’t recall in front of the Dollar, hats with sequins were discovered. For the low price of $5, I picked up this gorgeous purple number, and for the time being it resides on the skull of my excellent and quite silent friend Carter.

He was already wearing this purple tee, it is just coincidence that the hat matches it. I had considered a few other colours, silver and pink, and decided that purple would go with the most outfits of mine.

A profile view. Carter suggested keeping his beanie on, and the hat fits better that way. :)

Carter, photos, sparkly

How To: Claim Your Blog At Bloglovin’

5 Comments Posted on September 1, 2015August 31, 2015 by Snoskred

First up, you will want to create an account over at Bloglovin’ if you do not already have one. You only need to enter a name, email address, and password to create your account. You’ll need to confirm your email before proceeding. Make sure to check your spam as it may land there :)

Click on the link and yay, you’ve created an account! Once you have done that, you will arrive at a page asking you to begin creating your feed.

Always, always put your own blog in first, is my advice. :) You want to see how your blog looks and make sure your posted content is coming through as you intend it to appear.

To get past this screen, you want to enter in one blog quickly and then you can click on done and head to your profile which is where you can claim your blog.

Click on the profile picture in the top right hand corner, or select “Profile” from the drop down menu.

This takes you to your profile. Click on Edit Your Profile. In this case I have created a test profile so it will look exactly like you’ll see it. Meet Testy, my tester.

Scroll down the page until you see profile info, and look for the Blogs by me section. Click on Add Blog.

A popup box will appear. Type in the name of your blog, and it will go off and search, eventually coming back with a list like this –

If your blog is listed there click on it and you will end up at a new screen that looks like this –

In a new tab or window, copy and paste the code into a new blog post, and publish the post. When the post is published, click on claim blog, and Bloglovin will check your blog for the post, thus identifying you as the owner of the blog.

I did mine a long time ago so for the purposes of this post, I am claiming a blog I don’t use much anymore, Scambaiter Haven. This is the screen you’ll end up at, once your blog is claimed. You’ll also receive an email. If you already have followers, you’ll see a lovely graph of how many followers you have.

You might want to go into your profile and add in some more stuff about yourself, put in an image, etc. You might also want to add the widget to your blog sidebar, and follow some bloggers over there.

I also recommend checking the settings screen because it has a lot of emails pre-ticked to send to you. I unticked a lot of these, though I do get the daily summary of bloggers I follow, email when someone starts following me so that I can follow them back, and the weekly stats post.

In conclusion –

You might be reading this thinking.. why do I want to claim my blog, I don’t really want to sign up for yet another thing, I already have a feed reader why would I want to use this one, etc.

Claiming your blog isn’t for *you* so much as it is for the people who already use Bloglovin’ who might want to follow you. It is also a way new readers can find your blog.

Chances are you already have some people over there following you, and you’ve got no idea who those people are because you have not claimed your blog. :) They might have a blog, and if they like your blog, maybe you will like theirs.

As I said in yesterday’s post, this month I am doing some exploring over on Bloglovin’ and at the end of the month you’ll hear all about it plus see all the new blogs I found there.

Over to you –

Will you claim your blog over at Bloglovin’? :)

feed readers, how to guides

New Feeds August

11 Comments Posted on August 31, 2015August 31, 2015 by Snoskred

New blogs to the feed reader since 31 July –

Between The Racks
Blargle Fargle
Breaking Well
Chocolate Covered Katie
Dashing Dish
Diary of a Size 22
Diary of an Apartment Cat
Does My Blog Make Me Look Fat?
Feel Great in 8 blog
Happy Food, Healthy Life
Heather Matarazzo
Ordinary Time
Sarah White
Six Inch Heel
Surely Sarah
The Lilac Linnet
The Lion’s Orchid
Thunder thighs, no compromise.

Welcome to my feedreader, bloggers.

There are 18 of you. In my internet travels I found my way to your blog, often because I read a blogger who linked to you. I liked your blog a lot. While there, I probably read back about 40+ posts or so. Then I added you to my feedreader.

Most of you will know what a feedreader is, but in case you do not, click here for info. The quick run down – it is an awesome program which collects new articles that bloggers post. So when you post something new, I get a copy, and if I have the time and something to say, I will click through and comment.

If you want to get a feed reader, I highly recommend Inoreader, which I have been using a lot lately. I wrote this post – how to get started with Inoreader.

At the end of 6 months or so, if I am still loving your blog as much as I did when I added you to my feed reader, I will add you to my permanent blogroll. YAY!

February New Feed Review –

And it has now been six months since February, so this month I have gone through the review process and the blogs which I am keeping are these –

Back Porch Tales
Beautiful, Free and Wonderful
BeautyfulYouniverse
Galla Creek Ephemeris
Going Gently
Practical Parsimony
RecipeGirl
Rosanna’s Kitchen
She Might Be Loved
Tea Was Here
The Adored Life
The Eat More Food Project
The House on the Hill
Velvet Sacks

Why did I unsubscribe from 17 blogs? The reasons are as follows listed in no particular order – taken from my blog posts 14 Reasons and 10 New Reasons I unsubscribed from blogs.

They Went Quiet. I’m Not Feeling It. Blogs With A Partial Feed. Too Many Photos All The Time

Is your blog not listed here but you would like it to be? Email Snoskred via the contact page and Snoskred will add your blog to her feed reader. :)

See previous new feeds for – July – June – May – April – March – February – January – 2014 November – October – September – August – July –

A Note About Next Month

I’m planning to go on a new blog finding spree over the next couple of months. The first month, I am going to find some new blogs via Bloglovin’. This will actually be more difficult than it sounds because I do not read my blogs via Bloglovin’ – I have my own custom feed reader on the home server here which I use for that.

At the moment if I want to follow a new blog, I copy the link and add it into my feed reader. At the end of each month, I copy the blog links into my notepad file, followed by the blog title. This system works pretty well for me.

This month I am hoping to find blogs written by the followers of the blogs I already know, love and enjoy. If they follow the same blogs I do, chances are I might like their blog as well. So I am setting off into an unknown dimension. I’m a little bit excited about it to be honest.

My planned process for September will be – I will follow the blog on Bloglovin’, then copy the link to their blog into my personal feed reader, then add each link into my notepad as I go along to keep from having to double up the work at the end of the month. If all goes well, you can expect the new feeds September list to be fairly lengthy. :)

New Feeds

Sunday Selections Week 35

15 Comments Posted on August 30, 2015August 30, 2015 by Snoskred

It has been quite a rainy week here on the South Coast.

That was our rain total on Wednesday afternoon. Monday we had 107.2mm – Tuesday 254.5 – Wednesday 45mm. I suspect on Tuesday quite a lot of rain ended up not being counted because we had strong winds as well and several times I looked out there to see that it was raining sideways instead of down. Our rain gauge is not equipped for such shenanigans.

The stormwater drains were so full, the water was flowing out into the street rather than into the drains.

The front yard had a swimming pool next to the rubbish bins.

It is times like these I am really glad we put the chook coop and run up on stilts. We did that initially because of our drainage problem out there, but it has been a blessing in more ways than keeping their feet dry in wet weather.

The space underneath is on slightly higher ground and the chooks hang out down there in summer because it is super shady and cool. When it rains a little, it remains dry and they can dustbathe there. When it rains a lot like this, even that area gets soaked but it is from water running across not from being rained on. They still like to venture down there and chase bugs and worms swimming by and have another place to visit without getting rained on.

Their water bowls live under the coop partly to protect them from stuff being blown in when it is windy, partly to protect them from rain and also because they do spend so much time hanging out there, I really want their water to be where they are.

The grassy area is a swimming pool when it rains a lot here. I am writing this on Saturday and all of this area is starting to dry out. When I visited the chooks this morning, I saw they’ve already made themselves a new dustbathing area in the slightly higher ground in the garden bed you can see in the very top left of this photo.

I’m happy to say the concrete is doing very well and in particular the drain by the shed door did a lot of excellent work during these torrential rains. I’m very thankful we had it done before this happened because the driveway would be a soggy pothole covered mess by now.

We certainly did not have the same kind of issues that people in Sussex Inlet, St Georges Basin, Shoalhaven Heads, Callala Bay and around some of the other areas near waterways. There was a lot of very bad flooding in those areas. Here are some pictures taken from a helicopter.

Snoskred Is Superstitious

The whole time my Aunt and Uncle were visiting, our cars needed washing but I was all.. no, lets not do that because it will rain. So I got the car washed, and then we have these huge rains.

And then, I think I jinxed Mr Robot, because leading up to the finale being aired this week I was so excited and the day before I said to The Other Half “This time tomorrow we will know more”. And then they postponed it due to the shooting. On the one hand, good on them.

On The Other Hand –

If television episodes with shootings in them were postponed regularly in the USA whenever there is a shooting, those episodes would never, ever be aired. Seriously, the second amendment was adopted on December 15, 1791. I think perhaps, back in those days, there might have been good reasons to be carrying a gun, like wild animals roaming and in order to hunt.

Wonkette wrote this great piece – Here’s How The Second Amendment Has Prevented Tyranny Lately – remember they are a sarcastic satire site however that article says everything that needs to be said.

Well, almost everything. How about the fact that so far this year, on average 35 Americans every single day have been killed by gun violence.

There is even a site that keeps count – Gun Violence Archive. But hey, it doesn’t matter what I think – I’m not American and there is nothing I can do other than feel deep sadness from afar.

Weekly Wrap Up –

This week I did a lot of writing for the blog. Posts are pre-scheduled into October, at this stage. I also did a lot of drafts – eg I did all my Sunday Selections drafts with the dates and categories for the rest of 2015, all ready for me to put the photos into.

Bloglovin

This week I had set a goal of adding as many of the blogs on my blogroll into my Bloglovin’ as possible – most of them were already on there. If they were not already listed, I did not add them, though as a reader you always can do that. You can check out who I am following via this link or via my Blogroll page, plus new follows and blogs I am test driving get added at the end of each month in my new feeds post.

Have you claimed your blog over at Bloglovin’? I’m writing a post on how to do that, which I am hoping to schedule for Tuesday this week as all the other days are already taken.. :)

Rewatch Breaking Bad

Also this week, I wrote the final posts for Rewatch Breaking Bad. I’ve given one post to Sephyroth who of course picked the best episode ever – Ozymandias – and once that is loaded in, the blog will be complete.

I do not think I anticipated the huge amount of work involved in putting those posts together when I started out. I figured it would be copy and paste the text in, add some screenshots, add a couple of links. The truth of the matter – each show had to be watched and screenshots taken which was quite time consuming.

On average I took around 60 screenshots per episode though I did not use anywhere near that many. A 45 minute episode paused 60 times blows out to about an hour and a half. I know the commands to edit screenshots in Photoimpact off by heart now..

Then I would re-watch the episode to grab extra favourite lines. Then I would watch the episode with the commentary track if it had one, and listen to the podcast. Plus, Sephyroth was proof reading my work, so he’ll probably be glad to see an ending as well! ;)

Finishing that blog is a huge relief and there were times when I thought I would give up and quit. Today it is a year and one day since the first post was published there. This is a huge happy moment for me. :)

Mr Robot

For fans of Mr Robot, you might love this interview with hoodie tidbits and this interview. There is this SAG interview as well. And the people behind the Facebook page are *awesome*. You can get to know Rami Malek some more here, and did you know Rami has a twin brother?

If you can stand Chris Hardwick, there is the Nerdist podcast with Christian Slater and Rami Malek. The interview starts at 5:02 and the first five minutes was *more* annoying than I expected so trust me, skip ahead.

Apparently the finale will be 75 minutes long. It is important to keep watching till the end of the credits. I don’t know if it is apparent or noticeable :) but I am *obsessed* with this show. My apologies for writing about it so much! Never fear, one more episode and it is over for 2015.

Over To You –

Anything interesting happening in your world this week? Let me know in the comments!

Sunday Selections, weekly wrap up

Woolworths, We’re Breaking Up.

18 Comments Posted on August 28, 2015August 30, 2015 by Snoskred

Its not me, Woolworths, it’s you. It has been you for a while now. It began with stock I wanted to buy not being on the shelves even though there was a space and a price ticket for those items. It continued with mouldy fresh food – from the “fresh food people” that is especially disturbing.

Then, you never had enough staff on the checkouts, and after waiting more than 20 minutes to check out on several occasions even though I had less than 12 items each time, I was deeply annoyed.

You kept sending me offers which clearly your marketing boffins are behind which were nowhere near as good as the offers that Coles were sending me – I was offered $50 credit at Coles in return for spending $70 a week for 4 weeks.. which = $280 -50 = $230 @Coles VS $300 -30 = $270 for 3 weeks @ Woolworths. A big splooshy raspberry to that!

At this point I was more than ready to break up with you. The one reason I went back – Coles only stock small Twisties packets and I wanted the larger packet.

But then, the final two straws.

Did you know your catalog now sucks?

Each fortnight, when I shop, I look at the catalog for Coles, then the catalog for Woolworths. I do the main shop at Aldi and then visit Coles and Woolworths for items on special which cannot be purchased from Aldi. Woolworths decided to change the catalog.

With this new catalog, to view *all* of each page, you have to use the scroll bar on the side.

This is extremely annoying, especially when so often the bit you scroll down to see is boring advertising junk that has NOTHING to do with shopping! And then, they fill double page spreads with this junk!

Well, Woolworths, I DECLINE THIS CONCEPT. Even so, I thought I would still give you a chance to earn some of my $$, by using the *paper* catalog which arrives in my letterbox. But no.

You don’t want me reading your catalogs, online, or paper. You had to send me the clearest possible message.

Message received. Content noted. We’re broken up, for good. KTHXBAI.

Annoyed Snoskred, bitches, country life

New Cards for August

2 Comments Posted on August 26, 2015August 21, 2015 by Snoskred

Just two cards added to the collection this month.

Greeting Cards, Happy Snoskred

The Bolognese Of Snoskred

22 Comments Posted on August 24, 2015August 23, 2015 by Snoskred

Otherwise known in our household as “red sauce pasta” or even “awesome sauce”. I’ve mentioned it in the Fake Lasagne post but I have never posted how I make it here on the blog..

Over the years, I’ve made this sauce many different ways, chopping up the various vegetables and so forth. My most recent version involves blending carrot and zucchini in the blender and this makes the sauce extra awesome in my opinion, plus, it is a lot simpler vegetable preparation wise. I’m making it in quite large batches so I can make 3x dinners and 3-4 lunches out of one very large pot of sauce.

I don’t have a strict recipe or amounts, but here is what I usually put in it when making the large batch – I’ve put notes in for how much I use when making a smaller batch.

2 teaspoons minced garlic, 1 chopped onion, 2 chopped leeks – many spices eg paprika, cinnamon, basil, parsley, oregano – sweat these together for 5-10 minutes in olive oil then remove from pan. Remove 1 leek if making a small batch (eg using 500g mince instead of 1 Kilo)

2 red capsicum (pepper) chopped – sweat this for 5-10 minutes in olive oil then remove from pan. (Use 1 if making a small batch)

1kg mince – you can choose what kind of mince you prefer. I like beef and chicken or just beef. I place this in the pan, break it up, then cover with red wine plus a dash of white wine, then put on the lid and allow it to simmer well for 15 minutes. If you have used chicken mince you will find it takes on the colour of the red wine via this method. (500g for small batch)

Add back in the capsicum, leek and onions. Stir well.

Add in 4-5 large carrots and 3 small zucchini – this I puree well in the blender, but if you prefer it chopped you can do it that way. I just peel the carrots and chop them and the zucchini into large chunks and add a little water to make blending easier but if you don’t mind the skins on the carrots, that is your option and you can skip the peeling step.. 2 carrots, 1 small zucchini for small batch.

You can also add other vegetables if you like – me personally I would add mushrooms and olives but the other half does not like them, so I tend to add those in when I am reheating a small serve of sauce for myself.

I find the puree adds extra awesomeness to the sauce. Stir well and allow all of the added ingredients to simmer together for 10 minutes.

Now add –

1 x jar of tomato paste
1 x jar of Basilico pasta sauce
1 x jar of Passata – not for small batch
1 x tin of chopped tomatoes (today I used another jar of passata as we were out) – not for small batch
1 x jar of red peppers pesto – not for small batch

Stir well, then leave the sauce to simmer on a smaller burner for an hour or more, stirring occasionally..

When the sauce is simmered together until it forms an awesome sauce, you can use it however you like.

I will usually prepare this in the morning, have a little sauce over boiled and mashed potato for lunch, and put the rest of the sauce into containers and into the fridge for later use. We would usually have red sauce pasta for dinner that evening. I would also make Fake Lasagne with this sauce, and Ricotta, Spinach and Bacon cannelloni, which will appear here as a recipe at a future time. :)

cooking, recipes, things to remember

Sunday Selections Week 34

11 Comments Posted on August 23, 2015August 22, 2015 by Snoskred

Today I will like to share with you our lovely new vast vista of concrete. It will probably look a bit boring to you. I have to tell you, it is most definitely NOT boring to us. This has greatly improved our life. The area we got concreted was formerly gravel and potholes and one heck of a mess in wet weather.

The concrete was done in 3 separate pours because there is a large rectangular area with a side triangle out the back which needed quite a bit of shaping and a drain put in. In the above photo you can see the triangle, and you can see the area which has some of our old gravel there. I am thinking this might be a great area for a cactus garden – inspired by River.

This is the drain side and you can see my Polo is happily chilling out in her new and much improved home.

There were also two pours for the driveway itself – one for the back half, and one for the front half. This photo shows where the first pour and second pour meet, taken from the laundry door facing the back of the property.

The laundry was a room where gravel regularly got tracked in. This meant doing the laundry 99% of the time you would step on a piece of gravel. I can tell you that stepping on one piece of gravel as a surprise to yourself is akin to stepping on a lego with bare feet, which I am sure has been declared a form of torture by multiple governments *and* is almost certainly used in some cultures as a replacement ritual for the ritual of stepping on hot coals..

This view is taken from the laundry door and shows where the second and third pour meet. Our gates had to have some work done as one of the concrete trucks got bogged out there and ended up hitting the fence, sending everything out of square and the gates no longer met in the middle.

The laundry which opens onto this area is the entrance to the house which we use the most. This is the best place to bring in groceries without worrying about a cat escaping, plus, you can pull the car boot (trunk for our US friends) right up next to the door.

Here you can see the concrete sealer shining in the sun. The driveway sparkles like a *Twilight vampire! YAY!

This final shot shows where the new concrete and the old driveway at the front of the house meet. The old driveway is white concrete with one of those colour spray ons over the top. For the new driveway, the concretor suggested adding some grey colour into the concrete itself to match the spray on – it would last a lot longer and work better for everyone. I think it turned out much better than the original driveway.

Every day this week I have gone out to open the gate for the other half when it is his home time, and every single day, I have found myself trying to step *up* to the old concrete because I am so used to stepping up right there. When I go out the laundry door, I find myself hitting the concrete much earlier than my body expects the ground to be there. It is a massive change and it is taking some getting used to.

Would you like to join in? The rules are very simple:-
1. post photos of your choice, old or new, under the Sunday Selections title
2. link back to River at Drifting Through Life, somewhere in your post
3. leave River a comment so that she knows you’ve joined in and can come over and see what you’ve posted.

* No Twilight vampires were harmed in the making of our concrete driveway. :)

Weekly Wrap Up –

This week I was quite determined to stay at home and go absolutely nowhere, after two weeks of “Toodling” and “Gallivanting” with holidays and my Aunt and Uncle visiting. Don’t get me wrong, I loved having them visit – it is just lovely to sit still in one place after so much travelling about.

Last Sunday we did the fortnightly shop, and I settled back in at home intending to write quite a few posts for the blog(s) and chill out with the kitties, some colouring in, NYPD Blue, a little Lumosity game I have become quite addicted to, and catching up on my reading.

The LCN Jig, It May Be Up.

I spotted this in my feedjit earlier today –

I guess we’ll have to wait and see if they keep using the same name. That particular post continues to get a lot of views and comments here on the blog

Did you miss a post this week?

Monday – I told you about my holidays.

Wednesday – Sipowicz Says #1 – quotes from NYPD Blue will be a monthly feature here on the blog for the foreseeable future.

Thursday – I mentioned that 7 would be airing the first episode of Mr Robot. You might want to circle back and read my angry comments that I left on Friday while waiting for the show to actually air, for your own amusement. :) Can you guess how many minutes it was delayed by? Did you catch the show? If yes, leave a comment over there, I would love to know what you thought of it.

Friday – we revisited the Six Feet Under finale.

Over to you –

Did you get up to anything interesting this past week? :)

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