Pretty pictures from days gone by...

I was browsing through folders of old photos from when we lived in Central a few years back...such a beautiful place. I love the way the lake mirrors everything, it always reminds me of one of those paintings you do at kindy - paint half a butterfly & fold the page over :)

Hmmm...however did you end up there?

The things Jarvis gets up to when he thinks nobody is looking...

Playing in the Garden.

Springtime

I love springtime :)

A Butter-Chicken-ish Recipe

My friend Belinda had a conversation thread on her facebook the other day where Butter Chicken was being discussed - mostly the way it makes you feel horribly ill afterwards, even if it does taste sinfully wonderful at the time.

I'm a crazy compulsive Mistress of Spices amongst other things, and have an addiction to Indian food - the preparation of it as much as the consumption.

I make a Butter-Chicken-ish thing, it has the same spices, a lot of the same cooking technique, but no cream & no butter. And it tastes wonderful (in my opinion anyway!). Give it a go, I promise you'll like it! And try to get hold of the methi leaves, they make such a difference! Apologise for the randomness of my recipe, I tend to go with the flow in my cooking rather than follow any particular structure...

The Recipe:
Marinate boneless chicken (for an hour to a day) in: Puree of 6 garlic cloves & about an inch of ginger, 1t chilli powder, 1/4t ground coriander, ½ t ground cumin, ½ t ground garam masala, ½ t salt, 2 t lime juice, 400ml or so natural yoghurt (fat content of your choice!).

Take a can of crushed tomatoes, put them in a saucepan with cinnamon sticks, a few cardamom pods, & as many dried chillis as you desire. Bring to the boil then simmer until they’ve reduced by about half. Strain through a sieve, keep the lovely rich spicy tomato sauce.

Grill the chicken, bake the chicken, bbq the chicken. Cook it in some way. Shred it or cut it into pieces.


Put the cooked chicken into the nicely reduced sauce. Add ½ a teaspoon of Kasuri Methi (dried fenugreek leaves) if you can get hold of them, they really make the whole thing amazing. Add another teaspoon of garam masala.

Take the whole lot off the heat. Add a little of the SAUCE into another 100g of yoghurt. NOT the other way around or very bad things will happen, especially if you’re using low fat yoghurt. Add a little more sauce into yoghurt, mix it up, add a little more, this way the yoghurt gets gently heated. By the time you’ve added about half the sauce/chicken mix into the yoghurt you should be safe to mix the whole lot together.

You can heat it VERY gently if it’s cooled down too much, but don’t let it boil or the sauce will separate. Yuck.

Such a yummy meal, and won’t make you feel like you’ve eaten a brick afterwards.

Anniversary Wine

Our third wedding anniversary called for a lovely wine. Best when sipped under the walnut tree in the late afternoon sun. Wonderful :)

Fun with Balloons.

I can see you all now...flinching in advance, waiting to see if it's going to pop!

Today

Today Jarvis & I are :

• Listening to Bob Dylan, Blonde on Blonde. His favourite song by far is 'Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again'. He's totally crazy for it.
  
• Drinking homegrown chamomile, mint & lemonbalm tea. It's wonderful & he rather likes it in his sippy cup.
• Cooking a most delicious chilli. Will post the recipe later so long as it tastes as good as I anticipate it will.
  
• Planning to spend the afternoon under the walnut tree watching the clouds go by and the branches swish in the wind. That's if the predicted thunderstorms don't turn up! Looking pretty good so far.

It's a perfect day!

This is what happens when the highchair is being remodelled...

Highchair in many pieces on the deck

Boy who has had dinner without a high chair

A Picnic at the Duck Pond

What on earth are those things?

Ducks! Ducks! Ducks!

Mummy, look at the awesome ducks!

A Bicycle Ride

My first ride on a bicycle in many years! I used to cycle everywhere when I lived in Korea, but if I tried to do that here I would have been crushed many times over. The driveway was a pretty safe bet, my mammoth journey involved cycling to the letterbox and back...