Taken from Hawaiian Airlines flight just before landing back @ Sydney
Snoskred Loves
Confessional
There is something you don’t know about me. I figure I should just come clean and admit it.
…………. drumroll
I secretly hoard recipes on the internet in my bookmarks folder.
Currently I have 170 of them.
And this does not count recipes I have printed and stashed in the kitchen in various locations.
I know. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. You probably bookmark recipes in your travels too.
What *is* wrong is, I rarely make any of these recipes.
I am essentially bookmarking them in the event that *one day* I might get around to it. Some of them are extremely complicated and demand kitchen skills I do not possess.
But one of the blogs I read – Casual Kitchen – posts a lot of easy to make, quick and simple recipes that I have made and do make. Today Daniel posted links to two really awesome posts which contain 25 recipes each and if you cannot find one thing there to try, then you are probably a kitchen wizard or a TV chef. :)
The 25 Best Laughably Cheap Recipes at Casual Kitchen
MORE! Top 25 Laughably Cheap Recipes at Casual Kitchen
Chicken Mole has been on my list for a while, I’ll give it a go and let you know. :)
Food Prep & a special note.
Coconut mango chicken in the pressure cooker, cooking?
Check.
So far that is all I have achieved today. It was meant to be a big day of cooking but it turned into a huge day of sleeping in because I was so tired from the past 2 days and turning my body clock back around to regular day time – for 2 work shifts this weekend then I go back to vampire mode for 2 shifts from midnight to 6am!
I’m going to make the chocolate chili next, I’ll go and get some fresh meats for that, and see if I can hunt down the cauliflower and broccoli.
If I am going to do one big day of cooking per week, I may well need 2 slow cookers.
On a completely different note. Jo Abi wrote this post today about toilet roll holders. I can understand immediately the problem and it is a problem we once had in a couple of the rental houses we lived in because when you move in you take what is there. Some of these things are more complicated to work than flying the space shuttle, and they train 6 months to do that.
Then we moved into a rental house where they had one like this –
No more hassles! No more thoughts of “it is easier to just let this sit here on top of the toilet roll holder than to try and put the toilet roll *on* the toilet roll holder, so I’ll just put it here”. No more arguments “the roll ran out when you were sitting there so it is your turn!”
And so we never run out of t.roll to put on the holder –
While writing this, I thought I would show you my stash of paper products – t.roll and p.towel.
I have to say it is the most enormous mind relief to buy these products in bulk. There is nothing I hate more than running out of t.roll or p.towel especially as you will usually run out of it in the middle of the night. And not to have to lug this stuff constantly back from the supermarket – one trip, one lug, lasts 6 months or more for us. :)
Long day..
What the?
No, I’m sorry, we need the fuel guzzling turbo section. WHERE IS THE SPECIAL CARPARKS FOR THAT? ;)
We visited both Ikea and Costco. Found perfect sized wire baskets at Ikea for the deep freeze (so you don’t have to be an archaeologist to find stuff) as well as a bunch of great candles on sale..
Then off to Costco, where we spent about 3 hours. And $849. On mostly fresh food as well as a lot of nuts in bulk – without added sugar which is relatively rare, for Costco at least.. We did pick up some frozen stuff as well. Unfortunately I did not get much meat. I think I’ll try to source that locally.
I have to find cauliflower and broccoli tomorrow as they did not have much in the way of that. If I go to Aldi super early I might manage to find some decently priced. With all the tourists down here at the moment it goes very quick.
Probably you will ask why go all that way to buy fruit and veg – the fruit and veg available here is not good and it is costly. The apples at Costco are twice the size of the ones sold here. In the trolley below the capsicums you see are 6x 3 different colors for $5.99 – you would pay $5.99 for one orange one here. You can get green ones cheap sometimes. The massive thing of 1kg baby spinach for $9.99 – you’d probably get 200g for that here unless you lucked out and found it at Aldi.
Here are some trolley shots. Yes, we had two trolleys in the end. How it all fit into the one originally I have no idea.
I’d like to have taken some more here it is at home shots, but I came home with a shocking headache so I’ve had to invoke the Forte. Panadeine Forte, that is. I did manage one.
Going to catch some serious zz’s before the big cooking day tomorrow.
Desserts & Substitution
When you visit Costco, there are usually people giving out samples of the items of they sell. Sometimes they are awesome, sometimes not so great..
Today I found something awesome.
Smooze!
This is going to be the perfect summer treat for me. It is basically coconut milk and fruit juice frozen. Under 70 calories per serve and you only need one. With some of the fruits (seasonal fruit for example) being rated at 76 calories, this is a great one to swap.
A pack of 35 Smooze was $14.69 at Costco which works out at 41 cents each. I saw them today in Woolworths for $4.99 for a pack of 10 which is not quite as good value but still worthwhile.
On the slightly more high calorie dessert front – going in order of low to high calories – the good thing about both of the options I am about to mention – you can eat half and then put the lid back on and back into the freezer for another day.
Gelativo Frozen Yoghurt
Tangy, zingy, good for you and your internals.. this is a decent option. More about Gelativo
I forget how much these cost me unfortunately – got them from Woolworths a few weeks ago to try and still have not got around to eating them though I have tried a spoonful from each to get an idea what they taste like. Honey = 138cal Strawberry = 132cal there are other flavours as well.
Tartufo
Found this one at Costco as well – there are 9 of them in the packet, it was really good value at just over $13 for the box, and hello, made in *Italy* the home of gelato.
Quite high at 201 calories and extremely rich, this will be a once a fortnight kind of treat I think.
Costco was quite an expensive trip this time – The Other Half got himself a tent which was incredible value and I found a lot of things there which fit in with substitutions. EG a big pack of 4 different kinds of the same kind of wafer crackers you get on Lite N Easy for $6.69. They were sampling these with tuna which had been mixed with tabasco sauce – awesome stuff and something I have already replicated here at home.
Substitution
JM mentioned it here in this blog post – Substitutions, Weight Loss & Lite N Easy – substitutions are not cheating. It is a perfectly ok thing to do and in some cases is quite necessary – eg food allergies.
Unfortunately Lite N Easy do not cater for people who have food allergies. I’m lucky because the two things I have unpleasant reactions to if I have too much of them – tomato and chili – can easily be swapped out.
There isn’t much chili in anything I have eaten so far and when they gave me sweet chili sauce I just went without the sauce.
There is a lot of tomato included in the diet but this is easily swapped out – so far I have swapped it for avocado, pineapple, tuna and beans. The chooks get to eat the leftover tomatoes. They are a huge fan of this!
I’m still looking for gluten free options – I bought a bread mix to make gluten free bread today which I will try this week. The gluten free bread which you can buy in the supermarket is *so* expensive. :(
There are some fruits missing from Lite N Easy which I miss – strawberries, bananas, mango.. I am always happy swapping a fruit for a different fruit. I also miss mushrooms a lot. I would like to add more mushrooms in – I guess they can be swapped for tomatoes too!
Summer Menu Day 5 – Lite N Easy
Today was not a normal food day for me. It is the first day that I’ve not stuck with the Lite N Easy breakfast/lunch plan. I’ve had a couple of non Lite N Easy dinners, though..
So the menu today was meant to be –
Berry Wheat Bites (100Cal) with skim milk*
Wholegrain & Oat Toast (166Cal) with Honey (47Cal) = 213
Seasonal Fruit (76Cal)
Chicken Burger (80Cal) with Tomato (10cal) and Mayonnaise (15Cal) on a Ciabatta Bread Roll (155Cal) = 260
Red Apple (75Cal)
Popcorn (84Cal)
Fishermans Pie 457cal
= 808
I ate –
Berry Wheat Bites (100Cal) with skim milk*
Popcorn (84Cal) (only half of this)
I do enjoy the popcorn, I like it a lot.
Fishermans Pie 457cal
I can now confirm for JM’s benefit that although the listing on the website says there is corn in it, and possibly the photos for Fishermans Pie shows corn, there is absolutely NO corn in this. As always this was gorgeous and awesome.
3/4 of a slice of Costco Combination Pizza (680cals MAX)
Looks good, yeah? It sure is tasty, but it is also huge. I did not get any further than 3/4 of the slice, going from the bottom up. Not a great fan of crust.
I got me some strawberries and made a tasty soda water drink. This cost me 12 calories.
I’m gonna return tomorrow with a post about substitution and desserts. :) Absolutely exhausted from a big day out of shopping and general insanity at Costco.
Room With A View
I love the Sydney Airport Stamford. Truly, I adore it! I have stayed there many times over the years and it never gets old. They have fantastic bathrooms with Aveda toiletries. They have comfortable beds. The furniture is tasteful and solid. They offer excellent food. The parking is excellent and they have many single parks surrounded by concrete, perfect for those of us who own performance vehicles and might find our sleep interrupted by thoughts of “is someone too close to my car”. But above all else, they have one thing which is rare when it comes to a hotel.
Brilliant views with extremely comfortable chairs to sit and watch the view in.
Of course this is not something everyone appreciates but for those of us who are plane enthusiasts (read, plane geeks) a 5 day stay at the Sydney Airport Stamford in which you never leave the room would be the perfect holiday. As long as you have an airport view room. And you need to ask for airport view because sometimes they put you on the other side of the hotel. I’ve never had a problem getting the room with a view yet and we have stayed there *a lot*. Including several long stays where we rarely left the room. ;) Here is a panorama of the view from the room – click for a larger view.
However you will have to do a little moving the chairs around, because for some unknown reason the hotel puts them away from the window. This is fine, it doesn’t take a lot of work and once you’ve done it you can sit down with your scanner flicking through the air control frequencies and enjoy the view. In fact you might not leave the room at all. Why would you go outside to watch planes when you can do it from the hotel? The only possible *better* view would be sitting in the control tower..
There is one small problem. If there are two of you, there is only one chair. However we share nicely and there is the ottoman at the end as well. Planes fly right over the top of the hotel – and you can barely hear them thanks to some amazing double glazing. It is quite the experience.
We stayed there with my parents who had the room next door. It is times like those when you realise how nutty they are. We’d parked in the carpark and The Other Half got a brilliantly fantastic park in between the concrete poles I mentioned. Then we decided we wanted to go out for dinner, but we did not want to lose the park. What to do? My Mum suggested we “borrow” one of the big witch’s hats and put it at the entrance to the park – she meant it as a joke, but Dad and I decided it was a brilliant idea and picked one up. They were incredibly heavy so the two of us had to drag it halfway across the carpark giggling the whole way. It worked too – the fantastic park was empty and waiting for us when we returned. There was heaps of spare parks, no harm done but we were happy. ;)
The next morning we had breakfast in the buffet for the first time. We did not know they had an egg chef. But they do. :) Good to know! I had me a nice omelette. We saw the Singapore A380 for the first time. Amazing.
BYO binoculars, scanner and bottles of water. Remember to put the “do not disturb” sign on the door. We almost had a visit from housekeeping before we got out of bed. Use the door chain as well, just in case. Of course you do that anyway when staying at a hotel, right?
No, the Sydney Airport Stamford did not pay me for this post however if they happen to be reading this I will happily accept a free stay or something. Because I love ya’all. And your hotel ain’t cheap, but it *is* worth it. And I didn’t roll the housekeeping carts and steal a shedload of Aveda toiletries, however sorely I was tempted.
Nobody Likes Spiders In Their Shoes.
I live in Australia. We have some of the biggest, ugliest, most venomous and scariest spiders in the world. Do not fear, I am not putting photographs of them here. :) But I did want to mention that I have found a great solution to something many Australians have experienced and tend to fear quite a bit.. spiders climbing into your shoes.
This has happened to me a few times. There seemed to be no solution to it. There never seemed to be any easy way of putting shoes somewhere that spiders can’t get into them. I tend to bang my shoes on the ground so that if there’s any spiders inside they would fall out.
Long time readers of the blog know that I am a major fan of IKEA. The last time I was there I saw these shoe cabinets that you attach to the wall and I thought that was an excellent idea. I couldn’t find a price on them and I thought they would be hugely expensive but today I was at their website and I thought to look for them. I nearly fell over when I saw how cheap they were, only $79! I also found that they have this gorgeous shoe cabinet which will fit in my hallway perfectly. I just have to double check to make sure my shoes will fit. I have huge feet for a woman. :)
Why am I suddenly worried about this? Eeek it is too scary to link to it, but last week a woman here had a Funnelweb spider in her *towel* which bit her. Funnelwebs are big, black, ugly, and VERY poisonous. Don’t do an image search, your skin will crawl for hours. I had been told they were only to be found within a 20km radius of Sydney, but the local hospital here treats several cases of funnel web bite each year. Wonderful! We have them here too. So now I think I need to get me a shoe cabinet.
And believe me, I am carefully checking my towel like my life depends on it every morning. I’ve held myself back from going into a major vacuuming and cleaning everything to make sure there’s no evil creatures fit, but only barely. The urge is growing. If I vanish for a couple of days you’ll know the urge took over.
Meeting A Fellow Blogger, Ikea, Cameras, Insurance.
Yesterday we took a little trip to Sydney. Our camera lens was finally ready to pick up. Canon had called us earlier in the week and let us know.
I’ve been on the internet since 1992. Some of the best people I have ever met I originally got to know via the internet. I used to be a part of an IRC chat group in Adelaide and they had meets all the time. I met The Other Half that way. We have ICQ text logs of our early chats that go on for pages and pages.
One of the other people I met, Simon, became our house sitter. He is the most beautiful person, inside and out. He went on to meet himself a girl who is also just as beautiful inside and out. Then they would both house sit for us. When we left Adelaide, we left them a lot of our furniture – and our fish tank!
Internet VS “Real Life” –
Always whenever we moved, our internet friends were the ones who showed up to help while the “real life” friends had excellent excuses. I soon learned I would rather have an internet friend than a “real” one – especially when we went through the difficult times with the other half’s ex wife. My internet friends stuck by me, the real life friends were nowhere to be seen. Not a one of them, and I’m not joking about that.
Plane Crazy –
We also met a lot of plane spotter friends online, some of whom became very dear friends indeed. One of them was a mentor to many of the younger plane spotters and encouraged them to go after their dreams, whether it was being a pilot, whether it was photography, or working as a plane engineer. Many of his mentees now work for Qantas, Virgin Blue and other international airlines. On top of all that, he was just the best bloke, funny and great to be around. People gravitated towards him. He was a magnet.
He also had cancer but he never complained about it, in fact a lot of people had no idea. When he died, we drove all the way from Adelaide to Sydney in order to be at the funeral. We felt like we had to be there and I am so glad we made that effort. I still miss him very much. His absence is noticeable in the community. He kept the egos out of it and since he left us to go to the great airplane spotting mound in the sky complete with beer and comfortable recliners the egos have got a bit out of control, sadly.
Scambaiter = Paranoid –
Then in 2004 I became a scambaiter and I suddenly became a bit.. paranoid. Well not exactly paranoid, more like determined to be anonymous. I was happy to be friends with the internet people we knew but I became a lot less open to meeting new people, especially people who knew about the baiting. I did meet with some scambaiters here in Australia, one of whom I adore (yeah that’s you Dbest03, and when are you coming to visit us on the South Coast?) and have met again since. Since moving to New South Wales we had not met anyone from the internet at all.
But Not Anymore –
All that changed yesterday. Meg from Dipping Into The Blogpond had invited us to drop in when we went to pick up the camera so right after Canon called I sent her an email and arranged to visit on Friday. We had a lovely time and Meg and her Other Half are wonderful people. I am hopeful the visit will be returned soon – and perhaps some of the Canberra bloggers might venture over to join us as well. Facibus, that means you!
Mild Confusion Reigned At Canon –
There was one unhappy moment in the day – when we got to Canon, there was some confusion over who was supposed to pay for the lens repair. Canon had not sent an invoice to the insurance company – which the insurance company had requested in their fax when they approved the repairs to go ahead. I don’t know how they expected to get paid if they didn’t send the invoice! We had to find a couple of grand on the spot in order to take our lens home with us – I’ll take the receipt into the insurance agency on Monday to get reimbursed. Yes, you heard it right – the repair was just under $2,000 – which is why we have specified insurance for that lens, for accidental damage as well as theft. I can tell you an iron grip will be kept on that camera lens from now on. We don’t want to go through that again!
People, insure your stuff –
It’s worth it. Our policy covers us to go anywhere in Australia with that lens and be covered for any event that might happen with it. It costs us the grand total of .60 cents a day to have four items specified – two laptops, the camera and lens. On top of that our policy itself covers us for unspecified personal effects up to $2,000.
A Pit Stop @ Temporal Vortex –
That unhappy moment was soon forgotten when The Other Half announced he was taking me to Ikea. YAY! All I wanted was a timer which would sit on my desk and chime when 55 minutes was up – then I can reset it for my 10 minute break. I almost got sucked into the temporal vortex when a chandelier called my name and told me to buy it. I was drawn to it and found myself standing there, holding the price tag ($29AUD, how reasonable) looking up at its brilliance, going all deer in the headlights. The Other Half did not notice I was missing because he was looking at computer chairs. When he spotted me he knew what was going on and he rescued me quickly, gently leading me away from the brilliance I wanted to buy. Unfortunately they did not have any left to sell. :(
But he did find me a springform cake tin, and a set of in trays which I wanted. It was a cheap Ikea trip at just under $50 and it was superfast, too. We were there for less than an hour.
Music Played –
Before we left we quickly created two cds – one each. It was a lot of music we hadn’t heard in a while and we totally rocked it out in the car, singing along. Neither of us can hear each other singing in the car – now that is a sign of a good car stereo! At least I always thought it was because I used to have a friend who was totally tone deaf who liked to sing.. ;)
Happiness Reigns –
Since moving in here – both the house and the new blog – days have been joyous. I have a lot of organization going on and it feels wonderful. I’ve been cooking some great meals. We had a week of cheesecake last week. I also have some fantastic incense and new oils for my oil burner which are keeping the house smelling amazing. The chores have been cut down because I am keeping on top of them. The kitties are happy, I’m happy, the other half is happy. I know that me merely mentioning this may cause some to dislike me or be mad at me purely based on my being happy, but I figured I should share it. Those who are my real friends will be happy for me. ;)
Madonna – Confessions On A Dance Floor
It is not often that I buy a CD and like every track on it. In fact it is incredibly rare that I like a CD enough to want to write about it on my blog. Even with a favourite artist there is usually something which doesn’t sit right or something I don’t like. How many times do you buy a CD and find out later you only like 2 or 3 tracks? I hate that. That is exactly why so many people download music these days.
A couple of months ago we bought some CD’s. For long drives The Other Half likes something with a beat, something that keeps him awake. We had a few Madonna tracks on our compilation CD’s and I have always liked her music but I had no idea what a treat we were in for when we bought Confessions On A Dance Floor. If you like your music without all the ho’s and beeyotches that you find in (c)rap these days and you enjoy dance music, you will enjoy this cd.
You may recall a couple of the songs from this album – if nothing else you may remember the film clip where Madonna was dancing in a pink leotard. Yes, the outfit was just wrong for several reasons, not the least of which was the tan panti-hose which ended mid calf. However it is mesmerizing to watch precisely because it is so wrong.
This was soon followed by the track “Sorry” which contained a couple more equally wrong outfits, namely a purple leotard and silver leotard. The ugly tan panti hose was thankfully nowhere to be seen.
Every track is wonderful but my favourite would be Future Lovers which is like taking a bath in bass when it gets played in the car, and I love the “Give me evidence of his brilliance” lyric, and the harmonies. There’s no official film clip for this track but I found the song on you tube anyway. ;)
The bottom line is simply this. When I have to do housework I like to put music on that makes me move and this music is exactly that. It’s just over 55 minutes long and that is the perfect time – you do chores till it’s done, then you take a break for 5-10 minutes. This CD has been played over and over while we moved, at least once a day for almost two months. I still enjoy it as much as I did the first time I listened to it.
Madonna has always been a controversial strong female artist. She doesn’t do those silly high notes like Mariah does. Her voice is much more sing along and Confessions On A Dance Floor is much more dance along than any of her other albums that I can recall. If you don’t have it and you like the tracks posted as videos above? Keep an eye out for it because if you liked that you’ll enjoy the entire cd.
Obviously this was not a sponsored post – I wish it could have been! I wonder why music artists don’t seek reviews from bloggers because if we like something we’re going to tell everyone. ;) Maybe there’s not enough money in music these days with all that downloading.