Snoskred Loves

NaBloPoMo Is Done.

6 Comments Posted on December 1, 2014May 31, 2015 by Snoskred

Sunset as seen from the Mauna Kea Summit, HI.

We can call NaBloPoMo a success here at Life in the Country, with a blog post published for every day in November.

How did you go? Did you take part?

The Links Roundup –

Here are some brilliant links I saved – there were a few more but when I went back to the blogs I was going to link to, they had not approved my comment, so a big wet raspberry to you, instead of a link. :)

Crock Pot Pumpkin Butter with Vanilla Bean and Port – I can’t imagine how excellent the house would smell after slow cooking this. :)

Day 14: My Love Hate Relationship With Facebook – I am having my own love hate relationship with it – I’m within millimeters of hitting delete account.. I am so over FB resetting how I see my stories. I do not want top stories, I want most recent. STOP CHANGING IT BACK FFS FB.

knitting litterature – If you love knitting you will love this post. :)

Six Word Fortune Cookies – Pick a number between 1-20, then go to this post to get your fortune cookie. :)

Giving Thanks to the Goose – The turkey was once a goose.

12 Fab Christmas Tree Crafts From Pinterest – This is a super fun post.

The Mother of Mom-Themed Links Post – Some more excellent links.

Favorite Cookboks Written By Bloggers – I already read one of these blogs so I found four more awesome reads here. :)

Leopards of Bera, Rajasthan – Some gorgeous pics and a great story as well.

Saturday Suppers: Corn Chowder – I am so making this. :)

Orange Marinated Chicken with Potatoes and Asparagus – And this – I am always looking for new ways to prepare chicken and this one will be a hit with the other half who loves orange.

Myki for visitors – If you are going to Melbourne, you want to read this post.

The NaBloPoMo Bundles –

You can browse the first bundle of blogs here –

NaBloPoMo 2014

You can browse the second bundle of blogs here –

NaBloPoMo2 2014

There is also my “keepers” – blogs that I connected with right away and know I want to be reading long after November is a distant memory. If your blog is not on this list, do not worry – I just need a little more time to get to know you. :) All the blogs I have added thus far will be staying in my feed reader for now.

You can browse the keepers list here –

NaBloPoMo Keepers 2014 – Updated 23/11/14

If your blog is on the first list or the second list but is not in the first or second bundle, it means I could not access your blog, or that there was no feed associated with your blog.

I have kept a record of each missing blog and why it is missing, so you can contact me and I can let you know why yours is missing.

The Nano Poblano Bundle –

The 2014 Nano Poblano Blogs.

If you did take part but you have not yet linked up, you still have some time to add your link below.

Unlike a regular link up – Please link to your BLOG URL, not to a post. :)

An InLinkz Link-up

get the InLinkz code

Linkage, NaBloPoMo, NaBloPoMo 2014

NaBloPoMo – Half Way Done!

16 Comments Posted on November 15, 2014May 31, 2015 by Snoskred

We’re 15 days into NaBloPoMo.

How are you going? Have you posted every day?

Here are some great things I have spotted in my NaBloPoMo travels..

Taco Mac-n-Cheese Casserole Meal – You can bet I will be making this soonest!

One Pan Wonder – This is such a great idea and my new and awesome roasting pan will be perfect for this. I also think maybe this would work great with shrimp or fish, only putting those things in in the latter minutes of cooking, and I would use white wine, garlic and lemon. Alternatively, par boil the potatoes first which I am wont to do.

De-Clutter: Kitchen Counter – Another one from Angie and I have to say as someone who recently went through this declutter process – the end results are so worth it, so stick with it. :)

Cherry Pie Shortbread Thumbprint Cookies – Yummity yum yum! ;)

Honey Parmesan Pork Roast This is also from Adventures in all things food. I love a good pork roast. :)

Friday Fixins: 6 Kickass FREE Stock Image Resources – This is a handy resource for bloggers. :)

Better Than Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte – Where I live in Australia as I am typing this, it is nearly 100F (40C) outside. So I made this into a smoothie frappe thing, with icecream, instead. :) It works just as well that way!

Spaghetti aglio olio e peperoncino – Super simple but so, so yummy!

Rao’s Famous Lemon Chicken – I love a good lemon chicken. :) Something in me always wants to add lime as well to these things, but I will resist the urge.

Upcoming Projects I’m DYING To Create – The kitty litter box is a great idea though I do think our cats would want more height. We have a screened in back porch on our list of upcoming projects and we will be adding a box like this in there. The Other Half is excellent at making things, as y’all know.

pies: apple cider apple pie – This looks so tasty and I love to combine apples with cheese.

Milky Salted Caramel – Yes, I know, this was from April, but someone linked to it and I love this recipe. :)

Marzipan cake fruitcake tart cheesecake sweet lollipop chocolate cake – Day 5 – I love a text generator and this is much more awesome than Lorem Ipsum.

Pozole Rojo – This blog made me so hungry. :)

Three Recipes I want to Make Right Now – I’m going to add bacon to the baked macaroni thing. :)

This Secret Will Self Destruct in 10 Seconds – I totally have a vault and if you ask me to keep your secret, I will take it to my grave. SRSLY.

Easy Peasy Pecan Rolo Pretzels I love Rolo! This makes me want to go out and buy a few packets. I think combining them with pretzels and pecans would make them healthier, right? :)

And a couple of non NaBloPoMo reads –

No, you are not ‘running late’, you are rude and selfish – I worked with a girl who was regularly 10 minutes late for her shifts. She was sometimes 20 minutes late. She was sometimes 45 minutes late, sometimes an hour. The trouble was, at the time she arrived, if she was not there, I was leaving someone totally alone to handle everything.

When management refused to promote her to a higher level because of her consistent lateness, she went troppo. But you know what? I was always on time. Everyone else was always on time. Myself or other people often had to extend our shift to cover her lateness. She was completely and totally unfair to everyone else in the workplace. I may not have agreed with management on a lot of things, but on that one I was behind them 100%.

Composting With Dog and Cat Waste – I really want to do this – every time I scoop the kitty litter I feel bad about sending that poop to landfill.. I wish councils actually did this. A lot of zoos do this and sell zoo poo..

The rise and fall of John Delorean – The De Lorean was, and probably always will be, the coolest car ever. :)

Here is the NaBloPoMo Link Up –

Unlike a regular link up – Please link to your BLOG URL, not to a post. :)

An InLinkz Link-up

get the InLinkz code

Linkage, NaBloPoMo, NaBloPoMo 2014

Wordless Wednesday – Mountains

Leave a comment Posted on October 22, 2014May 31, 2015 by Snoskred

Mountains on Kualoa Ranch, Oahu, HI

Also, thank the deities, Duchess Kate seems ok. I was starting to get very worried, especially after reading this account of someone who suffered hyperemesis gravidarium at the bottom of this post. it sounds awful and a lot worse than regular morning sickness. :(

photos, The Royals, travel, Wordless Wednesday

The Final Costco Post This Trip.

Leave a comment Posted on October 6, 2014May 31, 2015 by Snoskred

Costco can be great value. To get the most out of Costco shopping, you need to know your prices, and you need to know when something is good value.

The numbers thing is pretty easy for me due to the Aspergers, I have a decent memory for numbers especially when it comes to fruit and veg – I can tell you how much I last paid for avocadoes or potatoes or strawberries.

At Costco they had 1.4kg of super decent looking strawberries for $9.99. I had recently given up buying strawberries here for the most part, after opening too many ok looking punnets to find the middle was mouldy.

Then they had 4x avocadoes for $9.99 – I last bought 6x avocadoes for $6.99 at Aldi, so I passed those by.

Coffee Mate –

I use these for drinking tea because it keeps the drink hot but still gives you the creamy flavour of milk added.

Tea Bag Set

These tea bags are pretty expensive in the supermarkets. I have the orange and cinnamon one and love it.

Pork hot dogs

The very same ones you will find at the food court.

Tony Romas Pulled Pork

I know some people love Tony Romas – I have never been, but if you have a craving for some of the pulled pork you can get it here.

Seaweed Snacks

A Massive Bag-O’-Snakes

Dettol hand wash – they had foaming too

Hair, Skin and Nails –

Vitamins are incredibly good value at Costco. I’ve paid this price for 60 capsules or tablets before.

Multi-Vitamins

These multivitamins are excellent as well. Just a very large tablet. These are larger than the Aldi ones – I did have some trouble but you can always cut them in half if you wanted.

For Costco to be good value, you also need to be able to say no to things, which I usually fail at but on our most recent trip we had a budget of $500 and we came in $25 under it.

Do You Costco?

I would love to hear about your experiences. :) Leave a comment!

Costco, shopping

Costco Part Four

5 Comments Posted on September 29, 2014May 31, 2015 by Snoskred

Now for some random bits and pieces –

There are really big bags of chips.

And huge bags of Cheezels!

Peanuts – 1.13kg for $10.38

Peanuts are not a part of the Paleo diet, which is one reason for all the other nuts listed on the previous post, you can make those into nut butter. ;) Let me just say these Costco peanuts are huge and soooo delicious. ;)

Preshafruit Apple Juice -2 litres for 4.79 great value

American Style Bacon –

Canadian bacon is much more awesome. Costco stock all kinds, including turkey bacon.

Massive Calamari bags, yum!

Sliced lite cheese 3 x 500g packets.

Tasty cheese – even better value.

We love these cheesy pots.

They are frozen, so you can pop a couple into the oven when baking chicken or while you cook up some steaks etc, and have a potato side. There are 10 in a box, so it works out to $1.08 per potato.

Cholula Hot Sauce

Cocoa Butter

Costco, shopping

Costco Part Three – More Nuts.

2 Comments Posted on September 22, 2014May 31, 2015 by Snoskred

Now, more nuts. People love nuts, right! :)

Lets take a look at the Almond to begin with.

Almond Milk – Costco – $2.47 per 1 litre pack.

Whole Almonds – 1.36kg for $18.99

Dry Roasted – 1.13kg for $19.49

Smokehouse – 1.08kg for $20.99

Slivered Almonds – 1kg for $16.49

Flaked Almonds – 700g $11.89

Cashews – 1.13kg for $20.89

Mixed Nuts – 1.13kg for $22.48

Unsalted mixed nuts – 1.13kg for $24.68

Next Monday, assorted Costco pics that have not found a home in other posts yet.. ;)

Costco, shopping

Costco Part Two – Paleo

3 Comments Posted on September 15, 2014May 31, 2015 by Snoskred

One of the not-great things about eating Paleo is that it can be very costly. So, you want to save every cent you can on buying the essentials that you need. There’s a lot of meat, fresh fruit and veg, loads of nuts, coconut oil and flour.. Plus if you want to sweeten anything, you want to use things like coconut sugar or agave.

When I first tried eating Paleo, you had two choices to source some of the items – online, or via health food stores. I’ve paid truly obscene prices for coconut oil and sugar.

Even though I am not eating paleo anymore I much prefer cooking with coconut oil, and sweetening things with lower GI forms of sugar such as coconut sugar or agave so the prices at Costco are amazingly awesome.

Costco coconut sugar 1kg for $7.59.

Costco Agave – 2x 700ml bottles for $11.59

Coconut Flour – 1kg $5.99

Coconut Oil – 900g for $13.59

UHT coconut milk – 6x 400ml for $7.99

Coconut Water – 12x 330ml for $13.99

Pecans – 908g for $16.99

Pine Nuts – 680g for $30.79

Pistachios – 1.36kg for $24.99

Walnuts – 1.36kg for $23.99

If you are eating Paleo you can save yourself money, even with the yearly membership fees of $60 or $55 for a business and you can source a lot of sometimes difficult to find things in one location by shopping at Costco.

More nuts next Monday!

Costco, paleo

Costco Part One

4 Comments Posted on September 12, 2014May 31, 2015 by Snoskred

Those of you in Adelaide might want to pay special attention to this post – you are getting a Costco soon! YAY! Register to know more about the Adelaide store here.

So we took a little trip to a new Costco location at Crossroads out near Liverpool, in Casula. I think this location is larger than Auburn which is our usual Costco.

Plus it has a fuel station where I saved over 20 cents PER LITRE on fuel. But fuel is super expensive where I live, 98 is normally 1.72 to 1.75. Given that the Polo only needs filling once every couple of months, that was a nice $8 or so saving right there. This may be one of the few gasoline stations in Australia – everywhere else is a petrol station. ;)

Oh, it is that time of year again, peoples..

Given that Halloween is a couple of months away, there are more Carters to buy for the quite reasonable price of $49.98. I said to the other half, why is he backwards? The other half said he thinks maybe Carter got into the Costco alcohol section when the store was closed. I said, but how does he absorb the alcohol? He has no stomach! The other half said he soaks it up into his bones. It is good to know you’ll still be able to get drunk when you are just a skeleton, I guess. :)

There was also a great kids costume rack. There were a lot of mermaid costumes in trolleys. I find what other people are buying endlessly fascinating. :)

But then again, the Halloween stuff might have been there for some time, given we arrived on the last day of August to spot Christmas displays, already. The Reindeers come with a sleigh, for just under $300. There’s a nutcracker statue as well, for just under $55.

The Reindeer and sleigh are very sparkly. :)

There is a huge range of ribbon to buy at ridiculously cheap prices. You are getting 45 metres of wire edged ribbon for $9.79.

And even more ribbons!

And that is a closer look at the ribbon display.

And yet more ribbons, this time a Christmas pack.

You can get obscene amounts of Christmas wrap on one roll – 36 metres, apparently. And it is extremely high quality foil wrap, I have bought it before and used it.

Costco have all kinds of things, including designer bags –

The prices range from $149 for the pink Kate Spade bag up the top, most expensive was $499 for the gold Coach bag on the middle shelf.

So one thing that is useful to know is about the .97 cent special. You can read all about it here at The Loaded Trolley – The Costco ’97 Cent’ Special – one of my favourite Costco websites. Basically it means this is a markdown to clear the item, so if you want to buy it grab it now, it may not be there next time.

Look at all these gorgeous little girl dresses! Here is a closer look –

I have no idea how much these were but they are beautiful.

Also too I will like to shout out to Kimberley from Addicted to Costco, my other most favourite Costco website. Sadly, no Burrata was anywhere to be found.

You will really save some money on chocolates here – they have all kinds from Lindt to Cadbury to Nestle to their own brand Kirkland. These Celebrations packages are selling for $30 in Coles and Woolworths – Woolworths just did a “half price special” this week on the Celebrations for $15. I buy these when I am making up my Christmas chocolate bags for friends and family.

Did all that stuff we bought fit into the Polo? You bet it did. :) Just.

Coming up Monday next week – Costco Part 2, in particular, paleo items and health food items.

Costco

Costco Food Court Australia.

1 Comment Posted on September 8, 2014May 31, 2015 by Snoskred

Tiki Town at the International Marketplace – sadly this place no longer exists
I took this photo sitting on the ground with my little Panasonic Lumix on a baby tripod at the International Marketplace on Oahu in Hawaii

A big shout out to Pomai – who lives on Oahu – from The Tasty Island. I love your blog, and you inspired this post with two of your posts, specifically –

Costco Food Court: Eat This, Not That

Costco Food Court Honolulu Summer ’14 Update

Here is what we have at the Australian Costco Food Court, roughly 10 hours flying time from Oahu.

Important note – Costco Australia has recently switched over to Pepsi branded drinks – on our last visit a couple of months ago everything was Coca Cola. This greatly pleases The Other Half as he prefers Solo as the drink. I also prefer Solo, Sunkist or Pepsi when it comes to post-mix drinks, I find those a lot less sugary than Coca-Cola. Our visit to Costco is one rare occasion where I will drink flavoured soda drinks rather than plain mineral or soda water.

Let us go a little closer –

I always get the Combo pizza these days. This is because if I do not get it, I find myself deeply wishing I had got it on the way home. The ground beef on this pizza is seriously awesome.

I have tried the chicken bake and it was pretty amazing but not *as* amazing as the Combo pizza.

Unlike the USA, we have a pork hot dog. The Other Half loves these. I do not think we have tried the meat pie, and why would we when we can get those pretty much everywhere but you can’t get the awesome Combo pizza anywhere else in Australia, or the cheap hot dogs. ;)

The chicken and avocado wrap is seriously delicious and fresh. I’ve had that before a few times and loved it. I have not tried the mango smoothie or the iced coffee but a lot of people were getting the smoothie and they seemed to be enjoying it.

I have tried the frozen yoghurt before. It does not have that typical tang you get with frozen yoghurt and is more like soft serve. The serving size is way too big for me – I’d need four of me to finish it. ;)

A lot of people were getting the chocolate cherry thing, and that looked awesome as well.

Churro, ew. If this is what churros are supposed to be like, you can count me out. Not a fan, at all. But people constantly buy them, so they must like them. Maybe it is just me!

The coffees are made by a machine and beware, they are very, very hot. If you are getting a “soda” as well, you might want to put ice in your cup and then take one or two pieces out to put in your coffee. No joke.

I deeply wish we had brought home a pizza now because I have a huge craving for a combo slice writing this post.

If you are heading to Hawaii anytime soon, you probably want to add The Tasty Island to your feed reader. Then again, if you just like looking at pictures of food this is also a blog you should be reading! :)

Also, you might want to check out this great post – Costco Made in Hawaii Eats – we used this as a guide to what we wanted to buy at our visit to Costco on our last Hawaii trip and it was great.

What do you eat @ the Costco Food Court?

Costco, food, Linkage

Chicken Treats Part 995643

1 Comment Posted on September 6, 2014May 31, 2015 by Snoskred

What do you have for us today, Human?

The girls get spoiled regularly. If you are reading this on the Saturday Morning when this post is set to publish, it is likely that what you see in this post photo wise is what is going on out in the chicken pen right now, although the treats might not be exactly the same..

Strawberries, 2 eggs cooked up, tuna

The Snoskred Chicken Treat Rules –

1. Must be something I would eat myself

– with two exceptions – bugs – Chickens LOVE bugs! and hot mash made from the chicken pellets.

While there is absolutely NO way I would eat eggs, tuna and strawberries at the same time let alone together in the same dish, I would eat every one of these things by themselves. These are the exact same foods I would eat.

The strawberries seen here were from a batch I had been putting in my mineral water that week.

The eggs were two I took out from the laying box that had just been laid, they were still warm. I took them inside, mixed them together, put them in my one decent non-stick frypan and cooked them without oils or fats.

The tuna is expensive tuna that I regularly buy for myself, it is given to the cats and chickens for an occasional treat. The chickens love tuna and will scoff that down before any of the other treats provided, no matter what else is given to them at the same time.

2. Must not involve empty calories.

Terry at Henblog wrote about empty calories here – Thin-shelled Eggs, Old Hens, and The Miracle Diet Cure

If there are leftovers which might be suitable for the girls, fantastic. That would mostly be things like greens in our house. They might get the bits of cauliflower I don’t use. There is a long list of things that chickens should not eat, for reasons. I always check the Chicken Treat Chart before giving them something new, though sometimes other sites give conflicting info on what foods chickens can and cannot eat..

The girls never get bread, or pasta, or pizza crusts. I no longer feed them mealworms because I found red mites in with the mealworms I was buying from local pet stores and those things are not fun for chickens. I do throw them bugs that I find when gardening, and some of the girls find more than their fair share of bugs daily just by scratching around.

The girls eating lactose free yogurt when they first arrived home

They do sometimes get lactose free yoghurt – it MUST be lactose free, this is important, chickens cannot digest lactose – and they LOVE that shit. Seriously. They love it more than mealworms. When I give them LF Yoghurt, the trumpeting and bagerking and happy chicken sounds that go on can be heard for miles.

There is one other important Snoskred chicken treat rule.

Food must be served in two dishes – preferably recycled plastic containers that have been rinsed out and saved for this purpose.

Why two dishes?

This should mean that the hens lower down in the flock will get a chance to grab some treats from one of the dishes when the other girls are busy feasting. It is a nice idea in theory and it occasionally does work out this way.

What usually happens is all the girls flock around one dish, then move to the other dish once they get bored with the first dish.

Rosie Rosecomb is the lowest girl in the pecking order – mainly because she still does not realise she is a chicken most of the time – and while she does get in and grab a few choice treats she usually waits for the others to move to the other dish so she can peck at the first dish without getting attitude from the other girls.

Here are some more pics from this Chicken Treat Moment.

My apologies – the sun was extremely bright that morning even though it was still winter!