*RECIPE* - Macaroni Beef

Hello again. I didn't get around to putting up the recipe for Macaroni Beef yesterday, things got a bit busy around the house and running children to appointments. So I'm trying again. 
This recipe is so, so easy. It has very few ingredients and you can cook the meat sauce in the slow cooker to save you even more time, but it works just as well on the stove top. This is a great meal to have prepared in advance, you can make up the bake the day before and just take it out of the fridge and put it in the oven when it's dinner time. My kids love this recipe, it's kind of like a mixed up lasagne, but easier to make! Plus you can grate as many 'hidden' vegies into it as you like.

INGREDIENTS

500g Minced Beef

1 zucchini, grated

2 carrots, grated

Cup of frozen peas

Tin of condensed tomato soup

Macaroni (or pasta of choice)

Cheese (for topping)

METHOD

Brown mince in pan, add zucchini, carrot and peas. Add tin of soup, cover and simmer until vegies are tender and meat is cooked (about 30 mins). Or if you're slow cooking, just throw all the ingredients in the slow cooker pot and cook on  low for 8 hours or on high for 4 hours. No need to brown the meat if you're slow cooking!

While meat is cooking, boil a pot of water and add macaroni to cook. I use about 250g (which is half a packet). But you can add as much or as little pasta as you like. Adding more is a good way to bulk it up and make the meal go a bit further.

When the meat and pasta are cooked, stir the macaroni into the meat mixture and put it in a baking dish. Top with grated cheese and bake until cheese is browned. 


That's it! Sometimes I make a white sauce and spread it onto the bake before I put the cheese on, but it's not necessary if you want to save time. I'll include my recipe for white sauce in case you decide to use it.

WHITE SAUCE

1 tablespoon butter

2 tablespoons plain flour

500ml milk 

Melt butter in a saucepan and add flour to create a roux (which is just the butter and flour mixed together). Add milk and whisk until it comes to the boil and thickens up. Simmer for a couple of minutes, whisking often. Season to taste. 


I hope you enjoy the recipe, let me know if you try it and what you think. It's a favourite in our house and there's rarely any leftovers!
I just realised I don't have a photo of it, but I'll take one the next time I make it, and will update this post then. 


Happy Cooking!


Nadia
xxx 

Weekly Meal Plan #5

Checking in with my weekly meal plan again. There's a few family favourites in there and some quick and easy ones too. My meal plan doesn't run Monday - Friday as many do, and I've explained my reasons for my odd meal plan structure here. Hopefully you get a bit of meal time inspiration :)

Friday - Macaroni Beef 

Saturday - Sausages with corn on the cob and salad

Sunday - Cheese toasties

Monday - Slow cooked beef stew (double batch for meals next week)

Tuesday - Roast chicken and roast veg 

Wednesday - Baked beans on toast

Thursday - Honey baked lentils and salad

BEEF STEW

I'm going to put up the recipe for the Macaroni Beef later today. It's a fabulous recipe that kids love and you can grate as many vegetables into it as you like! I'll also feature a couple of other recipes from my meal plan as the week goes on. I'm also linking up with The Organised Housewife this week, so feel free to click on the button below and join in the fun :)

Have a lovely week,

 Nadia

xxx  
 

Slow Cooking

There's been a bit of buzz in my little world lately about slow cookers. It seems many people are either new to the world of slow cooking or they're rediscovering the joys of having dinner done without feeling as though they've cooked it. I adore my slow cooker. I use it often and it saves me so much time. With four children, things get a bit wild at our place by the end of the day, especially when they're all tired and hungry. By making use of our slow cooker, I can focus on slowing down our routine and getting them settled for the end of the day without having to spend an hour in the kitchen. So I thought I'd compile a blog post about slow cookers with some handy tips and tricks to make your evenings more peaceful and just plain easier.

Slow cookers come in all different sizes. I personally think it's better to go all out and buy a larger one from the get go. I know of many people who have started out with a small one and upgraded to a larger one to make big batch cooking easier. They are relatively inexpensive as far as appliances go, so starting with a larger one may not be too expensive and it will save you money in the long run - especially if your family grows. But by all means, pick up a small one if that's  your preference. 

There are about 3 or 4 settings on a cooker. Low, High, Auto (and some have a 'Warm' function). But these settings can vary between models. Mine doesn't have a warming option, which I find fine as the heavy ceramic dish retains its heat for quite some time, so I just turn it off when it's done. 
Generally, cooking on low will take about 8 hours, whereas cooking on high will take 4. The auto function usually goes for about 6 hours and starts it off on low then finishes cooking on high. The setting you choose will depend on how early you start cooking. 
I have found that most meals will still be fall apart tender when they're cooked on a high setting, but if I'm cooking something like a roast (I'll explain how later) I choose to cook on low, so that big piece of meat really has time to get nice and tender.  In fact, I prefer to cook on low most times, as it will reduce the risk of your meat drying out (depending on the cut you've used). But sometimes my day just won't run as planned, so it's good to know I can pop it on in the early afternoon and still have dinner cooked at a decent hour.

You can cook almost anything in a slow cooker. I think a good way to start (especially if you're new to the world of cooking) is to pick up those little recipe sachets you find in the supermarket near the spice section. Some of those are specifically designed for slow cookers, although I have found that if you go to the Maggi website you can look up specific recipe mixes (even ones designed for normal cooking) and it will give you the instructions on how to cook it a variety of ways - including in a slow cooker! McCormicks and Masterfoods are the other brands that I've used. They do slow cooker specific ones, which are really yummy. 

In most slow cooker recipes (including the recipe sachets) it will tell you to brown the meat and onion before you put it in the slow cooker. I know lots of people do this, but after doing it both ways, I have to say I much prefer to just throw everything into the slow cooker pot raw and let the slow cooker do it's thing. I haven't noticed the slightest difference between browning and not browning the meat, and really, who wants another pan to clean? It almost defies the reason for using the slow cooker in the first place! Put it all in together - trust me, it will be great. 

I'm not going to post recipes for the slow cooker in this post now. I may do some in the future, but there is a whole world out there of recipe books dedicated to slow cooking, recipe mixes in the supermarket and the internet has thousands of recipes at your fingertips. But, some of my favourite things to cook are -

• Stew. Beef stew, lamb stew, pork stew.....you name it, I'll slow cook it. There's nothing like melt in your mouth meat and veg swimming in thick gravy. Yum.
• Curries.
• Soups.
• All the meat mixtures for shepherd's pie, spaghetti bolognaise, chilli con carne, lasagne...etc.
• Roast beef.

Now, you'll notice I just said roast beef. That's because when I roast a chicken, lamb or pork I love the crispy fat and skin on top. With beef there never seems to be much of it, so it's a prime candidate for the slow cooker. 
All I do is put 2 cups of beef stock into the bottom of the slow cooker, put the roast on top and leave to cook on low for 8 hours. The meat will fall apart and be divinely tender, and you can use the residual stock and beef juices to make a delicious gravy. 
ALWAYS put liquid of some kind in the bottom of your slow cooker when roasting. Using a dry slow cooker will risk your ceramic dish cracking...and you don't want that. 

Also, when you're adapting  a recipe you would normally cook on the stove or in the oven, make sure you cut your liquids back by about a quarter. Liquids don't evaporate in the slow cooker, and some extra liquid will be generated too, so make sure you put in a bit less. If you're following a recipe designed for a slow cooker, just follow the recipe normally. 

You can also cook puddings and things in the slow cooker, but I have to say I never have. I'm usually too busy cooking other things, but I will have to try it one day. I'd love to hear if any of you have ever done one, and how it turned out!

I can promise you this. Slow cooking will make your life easier. Defrost your meat the night before, get dinner cooking in the morning and your whole house will smell delicious all day. You'll get home from work/picking up kids/after school activities and dinner will be done. At most you might need to put on some rice or mash or something to have with it....and that's not hard to do at all. 
It will save you time and also money if you do some big batch cooking and freeze the leftovers for dinner another night. Slow cooking will change the way you think about cooking dinner. It won't feel like you've cooked at all.

Hopefully you've enjoyed my tips on slow cooking, I hope they've helped!

Happy Slow Cooking,


Nadia
xxx

 
 

Big Batch Baking

I love big batch baking. It makes my life so much easier. I only seem to do it when I'm organised and the house is organised, so I figure that is saying something! (Thankyou lists).
I usually bake for the kids school lunches and freeze them so there's always something ready to go. I decided to get stuck into it today and get a heap of baking done because otherwise I seem to reach for pre packaged snacks...something I'd prefer not to do. Big batch baking is an economical way of making sure there are some treats on hand for school lunch boxes and after school snacks. 

Today I made Peanut Butter Rice Bubble Slice, Chocolate Chip Cookies and Apple and Cinnamon Muffins. The muffins I freeze in either freezer safe containers (like the Tupperware Antarctica containers) or I've also been known to freeze them in clip seal bags, which makes it easy to see what's inside. If you're using the bag method, make sure they're spaced evenly in the freezer until they're frozen, otherwise you'll end up with squashed muffins.  I made a double batch today, which gave me 36 muffins in total.

The Chocolate Chip Cookies were made from the 100 biscuit recipe. It's quite a well known recipe, but it's the cheapest way I've found to make biscuits. And lots of them. I made up the batch of plain cookie dough then mixed the chocolate chips in. Of course you can make any number of flavours - the possibilities are endless really - and I often make a few different ones from the one batch of dough. 
I normally split the dough into four parts and cook one batch then freeze the rest in logs so I can reach into the freezer when I want to bake more cookies and all I have to do is cut the logs up into little discs then bake them. Today I baked 2 trays of cookies (which made about 28), then split the remaining dough into three sections and froze them in logs. I think each log will still make about 18 cookies when I bake them next. 

The peanut butter rice bubble slice won't be frozen. I've stored it in an airtight container in the fridge. It probably won't last long as the kids love it, and I haven't ever tried freezing a rice bubble slice, so I'm not sure if it would lose its crunch. Hmmm.....I might just have to test a piece and see.

Clockwise from left - Peanut Butter Rice Bubble Slice, Apple and Cinnamon Muffins, the cookie dough logs for freezing and Chocolate Chip Cookies.

I hope I've inspired you to do some big batch baking of your own! Not just for school lunches, it's also a great way to stock up on treats for hubby's lunch, when friends drop by for a cuppa unexpectedly or when you're heading out to a morning tea. How great to have some home baked loveliness ready to go when you need it.

I'd love to hear what you'll be baking!


 Nadia
xxx 

 


 

What's on those lists anyway?

Following on from my post on routines yesterday, some of you may be wondering exactly what is on all those lists I have stuck up everywhere. I love those lists. I can't believe how much easier they are making my life. I used to think there just wasn't enough hours in the day to do the Mummy thing, school runs, washing, cleaning, shopping etc that needed to be done. I felt like I was run down and just running out of time. 

 

My first list is my daily routine. I think at the moment this is the important one for me. It spells out my day in black and white, from the time I wake up at 6am (my designated wake up time which guarantees me my morning cuppa!) right through to making lunches for the next day before I sit down for the evening. 

I think it's important for school mornings to run smoothly. It gives your children a better, more peaceful start to their busy day and you don't feel like your  nerves are shot by 8am. So that means being organised the night before with lunches and uniforms, not just being organised in the mornings. My basic daily routine goes something like this (an abbreviated version) -

 

6am - Get up, shower, coffee. Empty dishwasher from the night before while the kettle boils.

6:45am - Wake kids, organise breakfast. 

7am - Breakfast time. Put load of washing on while kids eat.

-

9:30am - General housework....(see list)

-

-

11:30am - Get ready for preschool 

12 noon - Preschool drop off

-

-

-

 

And you probably get the drift by now. It all fits on one A4 size piece of paper, but it's quite detailed with little reminders to make sure things get done. 

I have no idea how I functioned without it. Actually, it's fair to say I didn't . My house certainly didn't stay clean. 

 

So next we have the daily cleaning list. This is on a separate piece of paper stuck up above the routine. These are all the jobs I do in a day around the house. And I do them all every day. I've learned not to stress myself out by doing a full spring clean within every task, which just takes way too much time and I'm exhausted by the end of the day! Because these are the things I do daily, they don't take much time and we're talking about doing them as quickly as possible.

It looks a little like this -

 

- Clean kitchen, stack dishwasher and wipe down benchtops/cupboards

- Laundry - Wash, dry, fold and put away

- Vacuum floors

- Wipe over bathroom vanity and toilets

- Dust

- Tidy playroom 

- Sweep back verandah and tidy toys in yard

- Make beds

- Check bins and take out if needed

 

That's pretty much it at the moment. Doing these few things every day keeps my home looking clean and tidy. And because it's done every day, none of these things feel like a big job at all. Good, hey?

 

The other list I have up is a weekly cleaning list. I've allocated one 'bigger' task to be done each day of the week (Monday to Friday - on weekends we all pitch in and we're generally busy so things get done differently). My weekly list looks like this -

 

Monday - Mop floors (I know some may mop more than once a week, but I find by vacuuming daily I can avoid this as it's time consuming with the floor space in our house. I do spot clean throughout the week though and if it's looking untidy towards the end of the week I'll do the kitchen/living areas again).

Tuesday - Spot clean walls. (We have a 3 yo boy. Enough said? LOL! He puts his hands and feet on the walls and it's impossible to stop him. It would also be impossible to clean if it wasn't done regularly. So it is.)

Wednesday - Strip beds and wash linen. 5 beds. It's a big job.

Thursday - Give bathrooms a really good clean. This means besides the quick clean done daily, on this day I also scrub out the bath, clean all the glass shower screens, mirrors, around the taps...etc.

Friday - Grocery day. I actually only shop once a fortnight, so this gives me every second Friday free to do something else that may need to be done. When I do a monthly cleaning list I'll probably utilise this second Friday to get that task done. 

 

So there you are! I've totally swamped you with lists, but I hope someone out there will find this post useful. I've used a few cleaning systems in the past (Flylady being the most recent one) but I like this system. It's simple, it's clear and it tells me what needs doing and when. I imagine it will evolve over time (as lists and routines tend to do) but for now this is good for me. 

 

I'll put up the monthly and annual lists when I get around to doing those.

 

Until next time,

 

 

Nadia

xxx 

 

Weekly Meal Plan #4

Friday - Marinated chicken wings and salad

Saturday - Take away (we had pizza)

Sunday - Snack tea (cheese on toast)

Monday - Slow cooker creamy chicken casserole and rice

Tuesday - Tacos!

Wednesday - Oven bake fish with chips and salad

Thursday - Eggs on toast

Hi there! It's been quite a while since I did a meal plan on the blog. I'm hoping to get back to doing it weekly again - it really helps future meal plans to be able to go back for ideas. There's a bit of a difference with this one though (and all future ones will be the same). Instead of doing meals from Monday through to Sunday, like I was doing previously, I've now done it from Friday through to Thursday. This actually suits me better, as our pay day is on a Thursday. So I shop on the Friday morning and structure my weeks meals from there. 

If you're wanting to use this meal plan, feel free to close your eyes and pretend it starts on a Monday if that suits you - or start on whichever day you like! This meal plan is a bit late, as it's already Wednesday, so expect a new one this Friday!

Happy Planning~

Nadia 

xxx  

The Virtues of a Routine

 

Hello again! It's been a loooong time since my last post. Life has been hectic in general and I, um,  became disorganised (yeah, yeah, I know. Shock horror, huh?). So I'm left without a doubt that when my home is disorganised, my head is the same. I run late, the place looks a mess, the children are irritable, I find myself yelling and well, let's just say chaos reigns supreme. 

So I sat and had a think. Obviously I have some defective gene that prevents me from naturally being organised and getting things done. I remembered back to the days of my first baby and the huge lists I'd write down so I didn't forget anything. And then it struck me. Routine. Things seemed to run smoothly when I had a nice structured piece of paper telling me when baby was meant to be sleeping, when I was going to do the shopping, when I was setting aside cleaning time - etc. Yep, I was once one of those 'list' people. And you know what? It worked for me. Well, at least I seem to remember it working. Of course you allow for some flexibility within your routine but it was somehow reassuring to see there was a plan for how my day was going to go.

So, now that I'm the mother of four children, it stands to reason that I probably need that little piece of paper more than ever. I don't have a baby anymore (my youngest just turned 3) so there's no longer naptimes etc to contend with. But I do have a preschooler who does 4 half days a week, 2 big kids who have drop off and pick up times for school, a big house that just won't clean itself for some reason AND I'd like to maybe get some baking done some days. 

I was also just getting tired and fed up. Tired of not being organised in the mornings, rushing to sort out uniforms and school lunches, telling kids to hurry up with their breakfast because we're running late - all of which was my fault. Not theirs. Surely my children deserve a mother waking them up with a happy 'Good morning!' as opposed to a quick 'Get out of bed we're going to be late!!!'.

Okay, so it wasn't quite that bad, but it wasn't the peaceful start I wanted. Plus, there's coffee. I was missing out on my morning coffee! It just wouldn't do. So I got to typing.

Don't laugh. But I've pretty much outlined everything I do in a day. With times. But, like I said above, flexibility is key. That doesn't mean I can just ignore the routine and carry on my merry disorganised way, but if I don't get that load of washing in the machine while the kids are eating breakfast because I'm cleaning up spilled milk then that's okay, it can be done later when I get home from the school run. I use those sorts of things as little reminders of what I could be doing when my brain is frazzled from having an in depth conversation about what the smallest planet is at 7:00 am. It keeps me on track.

 

As a result, my days are peaceful. They flow. I have no excuses for forgetting to stop at the supermarket because it's right there in black and white reminding me to do it. I've stuck this up in the kitchen where I'll see it all day. Just above it I have a daily cleaning list and a weekly cleaning list, to remind me as well. And of course I have my trusty meal plan stuck up inside my pantry door. I'll let you know how it all goes. But for now, I sit here in a clean and tidy house, with dinner started, a cake baked for afternoon tea, washing done, folded and put away and I have a quiet moment to blog.

I'll do another blog post some other time that details my routine and cleaning lists I've got going on at the moment. I'm more than happy to share if it helps others!

But for now, life is sweet.

Have a happy day,

Nadia 

xxx