My Fave Quick, Easy, Complete Vegitarian Meal

I'm not a vegetarian, but i don't like eating meat every single day. So I'm on the hunt for some good vegetarian recipes. The thing i don't like about a lot of them is that they just look like glorified side dishes or they don't contain very little protein.

I'm not sure where i found this recipe but i love it, ok, so the picture doesn't look fantastic but it is yummmmmy! Its also great because it doesn't have many fresh ingredients so i can keep everything i need for it in the pantry & have it as a back up meal. The only fresh ingredients are basil, which we have an abundance of in the garden & tomatoes & there are always some of them in our fridge. Best of all it only takes about 30 mins to make! So here it is:

Chick Pea Curry


Ingredients:
* 1 1/2 teaspoons Massaman Curry Paste (or red curry paste)
* 2 Onions, chopped finely
* 5 cloves of Garlic, crushed
400g Coconut milk
3 tablespoons Soy Sauce
1 can Chickpeas (approx 400g)
2 Tomatoes, cut into 1cm cubes
1 1/2 cups fresh Basil
3 tablespoons Sugar

Instructions:
* Heat oil in a large saute pan, Add the curry, onion & garlic & briefly saute.
* Add the coconut milk & soy sauce then bring to the boil. Simmer for 5 mins stirring occasionally.
* Add the chickpeas, tomato, basil & sugar then bring back to the simmer for a few minutes
Serve with Jasmine Rice

If anyone has any other recipes to share id love to hear them & if you have a go at this one id be interested to hear how you liked it.

Home Made Playdough

Today i made some playdough for Jet. I used a recipe that i received by email from Emma at Brindabella Baby - i love receiving emails from her because she always puts something fun or interesting on them. She stuck a fabulous muffin recipe at the end of one of her previous emails & now its one of my faves! ill have to take a pic of the muffins next time i make them & post the recipe for you all - they are sooooo yummy!!!

Anyway, today i thought id give playdough a go, ive never made it before but it worked out really well. Jet's probably a bit to young for it, but he had fun mushing it with this rubber hammer thingy he nicked from granddad's tools & one of my kitchen utensils (actually, its one of his, since that's really all he likes playing with i bought a set for him!)

Here's the recipe for anyone that's interested:

Ingredients
1/2 cup salt
1 cup flour
1 tbsp oil
2 tbsp cream of tartar
1 cup cold water
Food colouring

Method
1.Mix everything together in a non-stick saucepan, adding the water a little at a time.
2.Cook over low heat while stirring. When the mixture starts to congeal and leave the sides of the saucepan, turn out onto a floured board.
3.Knead until smooth.

It will keep in the fridge in an airtight container for a very long time.

Just a tip, don't do what i did & make it then separate it into batches to colour, cause you end up with....well...this:

& food colouring takes quite a while to wash off, my hands were that colour most of the day :D

Dont you just love a bargain!

I love perusing the baskets of stuff outside my local lincraft store, they often have some form of yarn out there that they are trying to get rid of. Recently while delving into one such basket i made a rather pleasant discovery! They were getting rid of some stuff called 'big wool', its just lincraft brand 100% wool & it varies in thickness if that makes any sense, ie it has about an inch of really thick stuff then gradually over 2 inches or something goes to about an inch of thin stuff.

Initially i bought 6 balls, they were only $1.50 each. Then a week later i went back & in the bottom of the basket i discovered they still had some so i bought another 6!!! Its great for making scarves & beanies out of so I'm going to make a couple for friends & me ofcourse :D

The first set I've made took 2 balls for a scarf & 1 ball for the beanie. Here's some pics:


Think I'm going to pass this one onto a friend who's having a birthday soon.

The scarf pattern i just made up, its basically just CO 14, knit in stockinette stitch until you've gone through 2 balls, on the last row k2, drop 1, k2, drop 1, k2 drop 1, k2, drop 1, k2. Cast off very very very very loosely. Unravel the dropped stitches. Put tassels on the ends in the dropped stitches bits. I really like the look of it, its not all neat & pretty, its all a bit uneven & it curls in on itself but i think its really nice!

The beanie pattern went something like this: CO 48 stitches. Do 1 inch k1 p1 ribbing. 5.5 more inches in stockinette stitch. then start to decrease:
1. k6, k2tog - repeat for entire row
2. knit all
3. k5, k2tog - repeat for entire row
4. knit all
5. k4, k2tog - repeat for entire row
6. knit all
7. k3, k2tog - repeat for entire row
8. k2, k2tog - repeat for entire row
9. k1, k2tog - repeat for entire row
10. k2tog - repeat for entire row
break yarn with a 6 inch tail & thread through remaining stitches. that's it! :D

The yarn is really really chunky, 50g ball approx 50m, tension is about 10st x 15 lines per 10cm x 10cm. I used 8mm double pointed needles for the beanie & same size straights for the scarf.

Simple Reviews

Simple has two fantastic competitions running at the moment. The first is for a cloth diaper pail liner from Kidalog & the second one is for a Me4Kidz meddibuddy ...i just couldn't help entering them both :D

- how true is their slogan!!!!!

Happy Easter Everyone!!!

i logged on today & realised this post was empty, it was just displaying a heading, which is weird because i definitely wrote something in here...oh well, think it was just me blabbering on about eating WAY too much chocolate & finding aluminum foil in jets poop because he nicked a couple of those little eggs when i wasn't looking & evidently doesn't think the taste is spoiled with the wrapper intact.

Anyway...i hope everyone had a fab Easter & didn't put on too many chocolate related kilos :D

If you like me...

& you have Technorati - can you favorite me pretty please! The top 100 women bloggers thing (of which i am number 100) uses Technorati as one of their tools & I'm scared ill get kicked off their list next month so i thought id do some groveling to all of you - so if you've taken pity on me then please click the little button thingy:

thanks :D

Sleeping Success Finally!!!

Jet has never been a good sleeper. Until recently he was waking every 2 or so hours & most nights he would just end up in bed with us because i was sick of constantly getting up! I wouldn't have minded that so much except that once he started crawling at around 10 months, he would just roll over in the middle of the night, pull his hands & knees up under him & crawl around the bed banging his head into everything including us & none of us got any sleep! Once he reached that stage we decided it was time he went back into his cot. But Jet of course has other ideas!

He is still breastfed which kind of aided the sleep problem a bit, because he just wanted to feed constantly through the night, which can be quite draining! Also we currently live in a one bedroom apartment so we cant put him in another room & i do know that's part of the problem to because he always sleeps better if I'm not in the room.

Anyway after 15 months of sleep deprivation, hardly ever having more than 3 hours sleep in a row & not once in that 15 months getting an 8 hour sleep i finally cracked it after one night around two weeks ago. That night Jet fed 2 hours straight, wouldn't settle in bed with us, kept tossing & turning & crawling all over, wouldn't sleep in his cot, he'd just wake up & scream a blood curdling, attention seeking scream. Not because there was anything wrong but because he just wanted to feed & i didn't want him to. He wasn't happy with just cuddles, he wanted booby & he wanted it NOW! Id had enough! honestly, i tried the whole attachment parenting, co-sleeping thing, but Jet just doesn't seem to be a very 'attached' kinda baby. Neither of us wanted to go down the whole controlled crying path either though.

So, the next night while Rocky was working in Sydney i slept in the lounge room on the couch. Expecting many many wakings & very disgruntled screaming. But...he only woke up twice & even more incredibly all i had to do was go in there & explain to him that there was no more booby at night & that it was time he went to sleep. I had to go back in & give him another cuddle or two but he did go to sleep on his own. The second time he woke I only needed to give him one cuddle. This pattern continued for a couple of nights, when rocky came back he slept in the room with Jet which didn't seem to affect him either way. Then mysteriously after about a week, he must have realised that if there was no booby he couldn't be bothered getting up & he just started sleeping through. We have had a couple of good nights since then & a couple of not so good ones, but I'm back sleeping in the room & jet is (more often than not) sleeping from around 7.30-8ish to 6-7ish in the morning!!!!!!! OH JOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We now give him a sippy cup with water in it in his cot which i think has helped allot, i hear him grab it & suck on it in his sleep & its always pretty much empty by morning. I'm hoping this change will last, he knows he can still have cuddles through the night but I'm refusing to breastfeed him because I'm to scared we will slip back into our old pattern. Besides, when he wakes up in the morning he comes into bed with us & feeds for about an hour straight...so I'm sure hes not missing out on too much nutrition wise!!! So here's to a restful nights sleep :D

Im Loving Pay Per Post this month!

Since my page rank mysteriously rose from n/a or 0 to 3 virtually overnight for no apparent reason, there's heaps of paid posts for me to do at pay per post & I'm loving it! The past 11 days Ive done about 8 posts which will earn me over $90! not bad for a couple of minutes work :D

I highly recommend PPP to anyway who has a blog. Just for signing up you get to do a $20 post. you can just write a short post on your experience with PPP, even if you haven't done a post before & earn yourself a quick $20 - who couldn't use that, its practically free money.

It took me ages after i signed up to actually do a post because i was a bit scared what people would think. I do all my paid post in grey so people can tell whats a paid post & what isn't. Because I'm not in north America allot of the post options were not available to me when i started, but even with a 0 page ranked blog in Australia i still managed to earn over $160 which is pretty good (that's not including the $90 Ive earned since my page rank increased). Anyway, if your interested click on the link below to find out more, go on - give it ago!!!

Personality Test

I saw this over on Tracy's blog & thought id give it a go - we actually got the same results! The test seems kind of familiar so hopefully i havent done it before (life is always exciting & new when you have a bad memory!!!). Anyway, here it is:

You Are An ISFP

The Artist You are a gifted artist or musician (though your talents may be dormant right now). You enjoy spending your free time in nature, and you are good with animals and children. Simply put, you enjoy beauty in all its forms and live for the simple pleasures in life. Gentle, sensitive, and compassionate - you are good at recognizing people's unspoken needs. In love, you are quiet and sweet yet very passionate. You love easily. You have an underlying love for all living things, and it's easy for you to accept someone into your heart. At work, you do best in an unconventional position. You express yourself well and can work with almost anyone. You would make a good veterinarian, pediatrician, or composer. How you see yourself: Sympathetic, kind, and communicative When other people don't get you, they see you as: Incompetent, insecure, and overly sensitive

What's Your Personality Type?

Tagged again - its been a while!

I was tagged by the loverly Ying :D

Firstly, here are the rules:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog
2. Share seven facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird
3. Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs
4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Righto, 7 random and/or weird things about me

1. I would definetly call myself an Aussie...but i was actually born in New Zealand (shock horror - lol). i only lived there for the first 6 months of my life though & have only been back a hand full of times...not even that. the last time was when i was about 13 i think!

2. I eat pretty much anything & i tend to excesses. Chocolate is a bit of an addiction for me & the only way ive ever managed to really dislike a food is to eat so much of it that it made me throw up (happend once when i was a kid with baby frozen carrots, cant stand them now!). Anyway, a couple of years ago i decided i was going to cure my chocolate addiction once & for all, so i bought stacks of chocolate & decided that would be all i would eat untill it made me sick...i lasted 3 days eating only chocolate, & it still didnt make me sick...so i gave up!

3. I am just a little bit weird! (see the last point for confirmation)

4. One of my favorite things in the whole world is lying under a tree staring up at the sky through its branches, not sure why, just love it!

5. I like eating frozen stuff - mainly berries, banana & peas (definetly not baby carrots!)

6. Im currently studying to be a breastfeeding counsellor with the Australian Breastfeeding Association (ABA) & i havent done any study for a week & a half now, very naughty!!!

7. My favorite hobby at the moment is reading, i think thats mainly because i get to sit still & do pretty much nothing while letting my imagination take over.

Now for the unsuspecting victims im going to tag: April, Petula, Pinay Jade, Mel & Carrie - ill try & come up with another two soon!

Jet's First Ice Cream

We had quite a busy weekend (so busy that I'm only getting around to writing about it on wednesday!). On Saturday i went to a hens party, it was an all day winery tour in the hunter valley which was really lovely. I was a bit scared about going for two reasons - 1. I think since i got pregnant with Jet the total amount of alcohol i've drunk wouldn't be more than 3 glasses of red wine & 2. Ive never spent a whole day away from Jet - i know, i know, he's 15 months already, but he's still my baby *sniff*, that & he is still breastfed so i wasn't really sure how he would take it. It all went really well though, I stopped "tasting" when the room started spinning at around 3pm & by the time we got home i was sober (lol, think it only took 2 1/2 glasses over 5 hours to get me tipsy!) & jet was fine without me ofcourse, although he was a bit clingy the next day.

Sunday we went to Jet's cousin's (well, rocky's cousins son) 1st birthday party which was great fun! There were loads of kids there, a jumping castle, a little kiddy's pool & a play gym thingy with a slippery slide. Jet had an absolute ball! We generally don't like Jet eating junk food or fizzy drinks. He pretty much survives off breast milk, water, fruit, veggies, bread & meat with the odd cracker thrown in here & there. But having said that, I'm ok with him having less than healthy food at birthday parties, so in the spirit of partying, jet managed to get his hands on his first ever ice cream - do you think he liked it?

He did learn a valuable lesson though, while everyone tells you sharing is good, sharing with daddy is most definitely not good - he steals half your ice cream!!!


He also managed to score some birthday cake & a couple of smarties which he was very pleased with, ofcourse he is well aware how yummy chocolate is because he was introduced to the flavour in utero & receives it often through breast milk :D

Jets Second Hair Cut

Just before Christmas Jet got his first ever hair cut. We took him to a hair dresser & it was just a basic trim, i had to stick him on the boob to finish it, was the only way to keep him still!!! (yet another fantastic benefit of breastfeeding!). Last week we decided to give him another one, we used the clippers (you know...so we didn't end up stabbing him with the scissors or something horrible like that) & i had images in my head of him cracking it half way through & having this awful hair cut that he wouldn't let us fix....but he was actually really good.

He seemed quite intrigued by the feel & sound of the clippers buzzing away on his head, he just leaned his head forward a bit & stayed really still, for most of it anyway! i didn't really manage to get his side burns short enough. I didn't want to take of the clipper head in case i ended up taking a whole section out of the front or something & i definitely didn't want to use scissors, so they are a little long. But since his hair is blond you can only tell when your up close, so...I'm just going to leave it!

I gave it a second go a day or so later because the clippers didn't do a very even job the first time, i guess because his hair was so fine & it wouldn't go through them properly. Once his hair was shorter (& spikier) the clippers did a more even job. Anyway, here's some before & after pics.

A couple of days before:
















A couple of days later:













Its amazing how much difference a hair cut can make, he looks so grown up now (& like such a cheeky little ratbag!). I cant believe my baby is growing up so quickly!

Home Grown Watermelons

We decided to plant watermelons a while ago & have been eagerly watching them grow. Then the other day Jet was stomping around the garden & he broke one of them off the vine. Its quite small & we cant quite remember what type of watermelon we got, but it is possible it was a baby watermelon plant because the stem bit (is that what its called???) was all wizened & brown so maybe it was ready to drop off anyway? Regardless though, it was ripe & very, very yummy!!! Here's a pic of it, you can see how small it is compared to the size of my hand - not quite the size of a regular watermelon hey!

It was even going a little brown around the edges which makes me think also that it had reached its full size & maturity. Jet certainly enjoyed it:

We have so many yummy fruit trees in the garden now. We planted orange, lemon, mandarin, lemonade, lime, cherry, blueberry, raspberry, blackberry & passion fruit about a year ago now. We picked all the fruit off most of the trees for the first 6 months or so because the place we bought it from told us the trees would grow more if we did (wouldn't have to put all their nutrients into growing fruit i guess). Unfortunately, maybe because of the odd weather. We also have 2 mango trees that are about 7 years old now. We got quite a few mango's from them last year but unfortunately something went wrong this year & all the buds went black & fell off. Bugger!!! Hopefully next summer we have more fruit than we know what to do with - YUMMY!!!!!!

Breastfeeding in Literature

I'm currently reading a book from the a trilogy called The Nightrunner Series by Lynn Flewelling called Stalking Darkness. Ive read 4 of her books previously which i borrowed from the local library's & i LOVE them all so far.

Anyway, while reading this book i came across a couple of paragraphs where a woman breastfeeding is mentioned, you just don't seem to come across this much anymore. On TV soaps women are almost always bottle feeding & i don't remember any other fiction books Ive read that even does so much as mention breastfeeding. So i thought id share the passage with you all:

The door between the kitchen and landing room was open. Through it he could see
Cillia serenely nursing Luthas in the middle of the dinnertime bustle, sorting
through a basket of apples with her free hand as she did so. The baby sucked
greedily, tugging at the lacing's of her open bodice. Her exposed breast throbbed
gently with the rhythm of his demand.

then a couple of paragraphs down:

"Could you hold the baby a minute before you go?" she asked, pulling Luthas off
the nipple and holding him up. "My arm'll break if i don't shift over." Taking
the child, Alec held him while Cillia moved her baskets and uncovered her other
breast. It was swollen with milk; a think stream jetted from her nipple as she
moved. Alec was close enough to see the pearly drops that fell across the deep
red skins of the apples. He looked away, feeling dizzy. Luthas let out a sleepy
burp and nuzzled at the front of Alec's cloak. "The way he eats, you'd think I'd
not have a drop to spare, but just look at me!" Cillia exclaimed merrily, taking
the child back and putting him to breast on the other side. "Maker's Mercy, Ive
got more milk than Grandmother's goat".

What emotions do these words illicit in you? I bet some people may think that parts of the passages almost sound pornographic (definitely not "that" type of book i can assure you). Its sad that breastfeeding isn't considered the "norm" any more, seeing a woman breastfeeding in public always seems to provoke some responce, whether it is "YAY - its fab to see someone breastfeeding in public" "ohhh, how sweet" or "Boobs!!!...don't look!!!" or "OMG - is that woman breastfeeding?!?", ideally we would just walk past without a second thought, just simply viewing it as the normal thing to do, as if you were strolling past a toddler drinking water from a cup - why should breastfeeding be viewed any different, it is after all the most natural way to nourish a baby.

I'm in the Top 100 Australian Women Bloggers

....well, just anyway. I'm actually number 100, but that's kinda special in itself don't ya recon? I'm stoked anyway! Its really weird, i spent about 6 months & one or two hundred bucks (that i earned from paid posts mind you) on trying to increase my blogs popularity & page rank, & while i made quite a few new blogging buddies my page rank didn't budge at all. Now all of a sudden my page rank has jumped to 3 (was lucky if it said -0 before) & Ive been mentioned on a couple of other fantastic sites which is just amazing. Now i have a whole lot more paid post opportunities that have opened up to me too which is great too - more money to spend on eBay & cloth nappies!!! :D

I'm also very honoured to be listed as one of Jodie from Nappies Covered fave blogs! She runs a fantastic online store where you can buy anything you could ever want related to making cloth nappies all in the one place. She has lots of really cute fabrics that i often drool over. Unfortunately i haven't had much time to get my sewing machine out lately, but I'm hoping that ill get a bit more sewing done soon.

So anyway thanks to everyone that has linked to me, i greatly appreciate it. I'm not sure how long my google page rank will stay at 3 for, lol - i keep looking at it expecting it to drop back to 0 any minute, but ill enjoy it while I'm here!

Nappy Review - Bubble Bubs

Its been a while since i did a cloth nappy related post - so for any of you that are wondering, yes, I'm still a cloth nappy nut!!!

I thought id share with you my experience with my most favorite cloth nappy. Let me start by saying that i have never found a cloth nappy that everyone loves or one that suits everyones needs or bub. But...my fave nappy would have to be Bubble Bubs!!!

Why you ask? (well, if you were bored with the whole nappy talk you would have stopped reading ages ago!). There's lots of reasons. I think Ive used at least 20-30 different varieties of cloth nappies (its what us cloth nappy nuts do) & there are different things i like or dislike about each of them. Bubblebubs are an All in One nappy (or AIO) which means that they are kinda like a disposable. There's no folding to be done & no inserts to clip on or stuff in - which for one thing makes it easy for the main victim of the average cloth nappy nut - the husband or partner, who has no idea which insert goes with what nappy, what needs a cover & what doesn't etc. Basically they consist of an inner layer of suede cloth or flannelette (with very cute designs might i add), an absorbent layer of bamboo (or hemp if you have the older variety) & an outer layer of PUL & fleece (or even cuddlefleece, minky or shag material).

Bubblebubs are the most absorbent day time nappy i have tried & the only ones i will trust to put on Jet when we are out & about because i know i will never have a problem with leaks. I prefer the regular fleece variety than the minky (or other type), partly because of the price but i also personally find they perform just a little bit better. The other reason i like them is because they are so frickin cute!!!

Breastfeeding in the News...

Unions press for more paid leave to breastfeed - Article in the Sydney Morning Herald