Claim It Back!

Want to know something that I've always had a bee in my bonnet about? It bugs me how easy it is for my week days to revolve completely around my job. Don't get me wrong - I love my job! I work in an amazing office, with amazing people (including my husband... totally not biased at all), AND I happen to really enjoy crunching numbers all day - take that every maths teacher I ever had! Did you guys know I failed maths in year 12? I didn't even go to my TEE exam because I'd already failed the course. And now I work with numbers and spreadsheets all flippin' day. Life hey?

ANYWAY. I work for 8 hours a day - that's one third of my day, yes? (Maths, my friend). Then I spend roughly another third of my day sleeping, more or less. And that last third? That should be my time - but how easily it becomes focused on the day I've just had at work, or the day I'm about to have at work. How easy it is to get home from work and spend the night on the couch, recovering from a day at the office. How easy it is to wake up as late as possible in the morning, then rush to get ready for work. And suddenly, work isn't just taking that one-third of the day... it's consuming a whole other third of the day that should be mine! That's 8 hours that I'm not getting paid for, and I am all for claiming it back. And that can happen with the smallest things - getting up an hour early on a sunny morning and doing some laundry, reading something good with a hot beverage, going for a run, making pancakes from scratch, playing piano - these sound like lovely weekend activities, but why not enjoy them on week days too? And after work - what about doing some gardening and soaking up the last couple of hours of sunshine, going out for coffee with a friend after dinner, writing a story, making a special dessert, or doing some craft? Maybe it's just because it's Spring, but I'm feeling ultra-inspired lately!

One of my mini-goals for September is to get back into running, and yesterday was day 1... it was the first time in a very long time that I've gotten up well before I've needed to for work, and it was difficult but good! The air was cold and burned my lungs every time I inhaled, and I'm so unfit that I could only run in bursts, but it felt amazing. I got home, I made eggs for breakfast, I washed my hair, I checked my favourite blogs and THEN I started thinking about getting ready for work. By the time I walked into the office at 8.45, it didn't feel like I was just starting my day - it felt like I was hours into it. I felt good all day - imagine if every day were like that! (All these pics are from my run by the way... Kwinana is pretty in the mornings!)

Roasted Red Capsicum Risotto with Feta and Pancetta

Isn't the power of smell crazy!? Today when I was roasting the capsicums for this recipe, I was bombarded with the most amazing feelings - a combination of Christmas dinner at my friend Pauline's house with some special lady-friends, the moment I bought these gorgeous shoes, and cruisey Summer nights spent with the front door open and the sea breeze sweeping through our home. One of my favourite things to cook in the Summer is roasted capsicum bruschetta, and to me, the scent of roasting capsicum is laced with these amazing memories. Smell is a powerful thing!

Speaking of roasting capsicums, for this recipe you need to roast and peel your own capsicums! Which might sound like a huge extra step, but it's not. Here's how simple:

Step 1: Put halved raw capsicums under your grill/broiler:

Step 2: Grill until the skin is blackened:

You'll know they're roasted enough when you can pinch the skin and it starts to lift off. Then you just refrigerate them in a snap lock bag/bowl with plastic wrap, and once they're cool you can just pull that skin right off! I roasted and refrigerated them when I had a free 10 minutes this afternoon, so they were nice and cool by the time I got around to peeling them. Now we've got that little cooking how-to covered...

Roasted Red Capsicum Risotto with Feta and Pancetta

INGREDIENTS
1 litre salt-reduced chicken stock (I make my own, but you don't have to, obviously!!)
1 tsp crushed garlic
2 tbsp olive oil
3x red capsicums, halved, roasted and peeled
1/4 cup pine nuts, roasted
150g pancetta, thinly sliced
1.5 cups arborio rice
100g baby spinach
100g soft feta, crumbled (my fave is Danish, which you can purchase by weight at the Woolworths Deli!)
1/3 cup basil leaves, roughly chopped
Extra feta and baby basil leaves, to garnish

1. Place stock, garlic and 2 cups cold water in a saucepan over medium heat. Bring it to a simmer, then reduce heat to low.
2. Meanwhile, place one third of the roasted capsicum (two halves) in a food processor with pine nuts. Process until it resembles a chunky paste. Thinly slice remaining capsicum.
3. Heat 1 tbsp olive oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add pancetta and cook until slightly crispy. Remove from pan and set aside.
4. Heat remaining oil in pan. Add rice. Cook, stirring, for 1-2 minutes or until coated. Add 1/3 cup stock mixture. Cook, stirring, until mixture has absorbed. Repeat with remaining stock mixture (1/3 cup at a time) until rice is tender. Stir in pancetta, sliced capsicum, capsicum paste and baby spinach. Season with salt and pepper. Cook for 1 minute or until heated through. Remove from heat, stir in crumbled feta and chopped basil. Serve garnished with extra feta and baby basil leaves.

Note: the feta brings a lot of salt to this meal, so always opt for salt-reduced stock if using store-bought.

Enjoy!!

4 Simple Goals (before 2013)

It's been a super duper long time since I was last typing away on this little corner of the internet! For whatever reason, I let blogging fall by the way-side. This year has been one of my least inspiring of late, in some ways. Coincidence? Probably not! I've stopped making creative goals - any goals, for that matter. I've been a scattered mess! But lately I've been waking up and feeling the urge to kick things back into gear. And this morning, Elsie Larson invited me to do just that with her 4 Simple Goals (before 2013) So here it goes...

(on a side note, I'm horrified that I've deigned to put this photo up... since losing Picnik, the free online photo editing software, I'm at a loss with my photo editing. *cry*)

1. Be more intentional with my friendships: Guys, I'm in a rut. When I was single, I had this massive group of friends and we had a lot of fun. Then Chris and I got married, moved suburbs and moved churches, and for a while we had a community of people who lived near us that we could do life with. Then we moved back to our old church, and we're stuck in this limbo of needing to get to know people again. When you're married, it's easy to fall in the pattern of just hanging out together when you go out, but then one day you wake up and realise that you only have a small handful of friends. Friends are important!!

2. Take loads more photos: Pretty self-explanatory really! There are thousands of moments that have passed this year, that I wish I had photos of. We all take photos of the big things, but the day-to-day stuff, the little things that bring a smile to my face, are often lost and forgotten. Lame!

3. Be a recipe creator, not a recipe follower: One of my "one of these days" goals in life is to write a cook book... or, you know, lots of cook books! Also, I've always intended to be a food blogger. I have lots of ideas for new and exciting recipes in my head, but when it comes to planning the weekly meals on a Sunday night, I generally just go through my exploding recipe file, rather than planning out something of my own. So I'm *tentatively* going to commit to creating one new recipe each week, AND blogging it!

4. Fall in love with craft again: You know what I love? Pinterest! So many inspiring ideas. If there's an amazing DIY out there, you can be sure it's collecting digital dust in my Pinterest DIY Board. I have a whole craft room at my disposal, and the thing has become a dumping ground for every bit of junk we've collected over the last 3.5 years of marriage. While I don't have any crazy dreams of re-opening my Etsy shop, I do want to start doing some craft again, for me. And our home. And hey, maybe for gifts or something.

So there you have it! 4 Simple Goals that I'm hoping to start working towards achieving before 2013. Spring has just rolled around and it's the perfect time to start feeling inspired, so I'm encouraging you to set your own goals too! I'll check in and let you know how things are going on my end every once in a while.

My Birthday Weekend!!!

Yesterday was my birthday! Traditionally I like to plan as many special things as I can for my birthday. This year I decided to make the whole weekend my own! Here's what I spent my time doing...

- Fun times with the adorable besties!

- Tasty breakfast at Xwray in Fremantle
- Beautiful coffee and delectable juice at The Attic in Fremantle
- Hitting up a bunch of op-shops to start my brand new record collection :)
- Receiving my very first gorgeous Petunia Picklebottom handbag!

- Chilling in the aircon at my family's house
- Chicken schnitzel, cauliflower cheese, potato wedges and salad for dinner (my favourite foods, cooked by my amazing Mum!)
- Double choc strawberry pavlova birthday cake (again, made by my amazing Mum!)

- Buying The Hunger Games for my Kindle
- Receiving shoes, perfume, jewellery and my very first record player from my great family :)
- Sunday morning breakfast with Chris at Betty Blue Bistro on the foreshore
- Birthday present mini-shopping-spree at Rockingham shops, where I scored a couple of Body Shop gifts and some iPod speakers
- FINALLY picking up a replacement Kindle for Chris (his broke a few months ago)

Things left to look forward to today:
- Popcorn, Coke, and The Muppets movie
- Grant Nosworthy speaking at Church

It's a good weekend to turn 26!

Chive and Parmesan Crumbed Lamb Cutlets

It's the middle of the week, and as I mentioned yesterday I've just started a new job. Anything that can make life simple and delicious on a Wednesday night in such circumstances is alright by me. Enter these bad-boys. They may not be pretty, but they pack a tasty punch and are super quick to whip up and serve with a little salad.

Before I go on with the recipe though, I want to talk to you about making your own crumbs. Do it. The beauty of making your own crumbs is that you control the texture, and you know they're fresh. Plus, I just freeze the ends of every loaf of bread that I buy and lightly toast a couple of slices when I need crumbs. This handy tip = free breadcrumbs! My crumbing tool of choice is my mini food processor, officially my most well-used kitchen appliance! Making the crumbs for this recipe was easy - I just tossed all the ingredients in the processor and held the little button down. And look:

Rustic, pretty home-made crumbs! You can still totally make this recipe with store-bought crumbs, it just requires a bit of fine chopping. But I'd still eat it, if you served it to me. Even if your chopping wasn't up to scratch. I'm a terrible chopper.

Anyway, I feel like I've diverted enough. Read on for the recipe!

Chive and Parmesan Crumbed Lamb Cutlets

Ingredients:

10 lamb cutlets

1/2 cup plain flour

1 egg, lightly beaten

3 slices bread, torn into chunks (pref not anything with whole grains in it)

Handful of chives, roughly chopped

1/4 cup parmesan

1. To make crumb coating: Combine bread, chives and parmesan in a food processor. Process until mixture resembles fine crumbs.

2. Put flour on a plate. Place egg in a shallow dish. Spread crumbs on a plate.

3. Crumb the cutlets by covering them with flour, dipping them in the egg, then coating with crumbs. Press the crumbs lightly onto the cutlets to ensure they stay put.

4. Refrigerate cutlets for at least 30 minutes.

5. Heat approx 2cm vegetable oil in a flat pan on medium heat (see note). When oil is hot, cook lamb cutlets (approx 3-4 mins each side or until cooked through).

6. Serve with salad.

My notes:

- Your oil must be at a good heat. If it's spitting, it's too hot and your crumb coating will burn and your cutlets will stay kinda raw. If it doesn't even sizzle when you drop your cutlets in, take them outtttt and let the pan heat up some more, or the cutlets will end up oily and soggy.

- For prettier cutlets than mine, strip all the meat and fat off the part of the bone that you hold. They'll look much daintier. I'm just lazy. Like I said, it's the middle of a big week!

Hope you enjoy this simple and tasty dinner!

My New Year Has Arrived!

I know, technically I'm fashionably late. But today, January 10, really does mark the beginning of a new year for me! So much has happened since I last blogged (December 1, seriously!?) Namely, I quit my crazy theme park job. No more answering phones for the craziest place in Perth! Today I returned to my favourite job that I've ever held, at my Church. So while the first few days of the year were nothing out of the ordinary - working Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays, the year has taken a sharp turn in a much better direction. The thing that makes my new job even more exciting is that Chris will be coming on board with me later this month! We'll be working in entirely different fields, and predominantly different buildings, but we'll be co-workers! Yay!

So, happy new year! I've been thinking non-stop about 2012 and all of its promises, and here are a few that I'm personally hoping to see happen...

1. God: He deserves so much more from me than I've given. This year, a life-change needs to be set in motion.

2. Debt-blowing: we have wayyyy too many loans. This year we're seriously focusing on blowing those debts out of the water and getting that little bit closer to financial freedom...

3. Health: I need to catch onto this whole healthy-eating/exercise thing pronto. I want to feel amazing, and I want to be in great shape by the time we think about having babies a few years down the track. Seriously, I need to get my head in the game.

4. Fussy-busting: I'm still growing out of the fussy-eating mindset that I developed as a kid, and each year I like to challenge myself to enjoy a wider range of foods. The last couple of years have seen me master the tomato, the prawn, the olive and the avocado, and this year I'd like to increase my tastes a little more. Maybe conquer a bunch of seafoods? Game meat? Hmmm!

5. Socialise: Since getting married, I've fallen into the trap of spending lots less time with friends. And spending time with my friends is fun. So here's to lots more good times with the amazing people in my life.

6. Craft: I have a whole stinking craft room, and the only reason I've set foot in there at any point over the last year is to hunt for fairy lights, and to store things. Mad. I love craft. I need to do it more.

7. Positivity: I've become jaded over the years. I miss the 18-year-old version of me who was psyched about everything, who didn't get grudgey, who didn't get stressed. She's someone to aspire to.

8. Be intentional: I need to be intentional about spending time and connecting with the people I love (Chris, my family, my friends) rather than taking it for granted that things will fall into place.

9. House-keeping: I'm not the greatest house-keeper, and as a result of this I'm embarrassed to have people in my home. Crazy, since one of my huge loves is entertaining. I need to get in better habits so that I, and my friends, can actually enjoy my home.

10. Dress better: It's time to start putting some effort into my appearance - not just for special occasions or nights out, but for day-to-day life.

Thanks for reading through! I'm hoping this year that my blog can really reflect some of these changes as I bring them about in my life.

In other news, did you know that I turn 26 on Saturday? Old. Old. Old.

Summer

Well, Summer is officially here. I have a bittersweet relationship with Summer. If Summer were a person, I would spend my time avoiding her because I can't stand her in all her hotness. But inevitably I would end up at some party, minding my own business, when people all around me start exclaiming "Summer is coming! Summer is almost here! Ohhhh look! It's Summer!" Then Summer would arrive, and her adoring fans would get deliriously happy about how hot she is and I would grumble and groan because Summer is not, nor will she ever be, my friend. But inevitably, I would also get a little bit sucked in by Summer. I would laugh at her jokes and begrudgingly be psyched that she brought grapes and cherries and mangoes with her. My friends and I would inevitably create the kind of memories together that only Summer can bring. And while I will be the first person to ecstatically wave her off when she decides to leave the party, and I can get back to my love of all things cold and rainy, I can accept that Summer brings some pretty unique things to the party that nobody else does quite as well.

So these are the things that I am thanking Summer for:
- Christmas. The greatest thing in the world!
- Grapes, cherries and mangoes
- BBQs and salads
- Sunshine into the night (now if we could just get daylight savings like the rest of the world...)
- Public holidays
- Shorts, dresses and wedges
- No mud being trudged all over our white floor tiles!
- Herb gardening
- Iced coffees
- Chilling in the aircon
- Sun tanning (not that I ever get much, but, you know...)
- Date nights on the foreshore
- Icecream
- Brunch
- My birthday
- Cocktails

When Summer rolls around each year, these things get me through the sweating and the painfully hot car seats. Just. But talk to me in February and I'll tell you that I'm ready to smack Summer right in the mouth. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to enjoy a morning of eating grapes and decorating for Christmas!!!!