With winter in full swing here in Tasmania I thought I’d share some of my favourite soup recipes – Mum’s Pumpkin Soup & Mum’s Carrot Soup
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Category: Our House
Life at home at Nightwolf’s Den, sharing family moments, food, celebrations, routines, and the everyday magic of lived-in spaces.
Of blankets and being comfy {Review & Giveaway}
GIVEAWAY FINISHED
Disclaimer: I was given a Laila cushion and throw to review. All wording (unless noted) and opinions are my own.
Now that we’re into winter again it’s time to dig out the comfy, warm blankets. Things that make you feel good when you snuggle up in them on a cold winter’s evening, or day if you’re like me. What? I’m pregnant, don’t judge me :p If your snuggly blanket looks great even better and another upside is it makes you feel good too.
I was recently sent a gorgeous Laila throw and cushion by the lovely people at Angads.
Now I’ll be honest and I wasn’t really sure I liked them to start with. Red really isn’t a colour I’ve used in our house BUT after snuggling up under the throw in bed one day when I was feeling a tad rubbish I realise it goes with the colours in our bedroom really well. The 150cm square, 100% cotton quilted throw is really warm despite it’s light weight. The ruffle is really cute but not too girly (ie hubby won’t mind having it on the bed). The 45 cm square decorative cushion cover is also 100% Cotton.
After spending that day snuggled up under the throw I decided to check out the Angads website and make a bit of a wish list, as you do.
For the bedroom I’m quite partial to :
L-R: Geisha, Lush Plum, Embroidered, Richard
For the Kids:
L-R: Laila Cot set, Tara Cot set, Twinkle Cot set, Snoopy Sean
L-R: Happy Daisy, Laila (what? I really like this one, so does Miss K), Princess Tara, Alex
Other bits and pieces I like:
I love masks and the Lucy Low, Feather & the Joker are my favourites and I’m partial to the small Buddha.
There are soooooo many pretty things in the ceramics section and I really love the Peacock Jug & Bowl, Topino Bird Leaf Platter, actually most of the Topino Bird series and the Nadia Tea Pot
I’m not even going to go into the sleepwear section LOL. Do yourself a favour though and have a look!
To feed your love of gorgeous things I have a throw and cushion pack to giveaway to one lucky reader. If you’re not lucky enough to win though there is a sale on at the moment. For your chance to win, please enter via the Rafflecopter below.
PLEASE NOTE – ENTRY OPEN TO AUSTRALIAN RESIDENTS ONLY.
14 days of cooking with the Thermo #2
The current challenge (9/6-22/6) is
Who has an enormous “TO DO ” list – or a folder of recipes you have printed off to try one day …….or heaps saved to the computer somewhere ?
Your next 14 day challenge is to work through that list !!! Go on …. give some new recipes a try – and don’t forget to share a pic – and where the recipe was from .
For all of our very new owners – just keep working your way through your EDC ( everyday cookbook)
I have a huge list saved of recipes to try and my Thermo Pinterest board is growing daily AND this fortnight falls during the ThermoFun Week Cook Along so there are some new recipes to try there too.
I will be totally honest, I’ve had my Thermo nearly a year and I still haven’t made everything in the EDC cause a lot of it we wouldn’t eat so therefore not cooking it 😉
Monday 9/6 – Lemon butter tea cakes – converted from this recipe & using ECD Lemon Butter (p47)*
Tuesday 10/6 – Confetti Cookies
Wednesday 11/06 – Shepherd’s Pie
Thursday 12/06 – cinnamon scrolls
Friday 13/06 – yoghurt (this is my second time trying yoghurt, last time was a failure)
Saturday 14/06 – best ever chocolate milkshake (so rich but soooo yummy)
Sunday 15/06 – mayo from EDC (p40) + curried eggs
Monday 16/6 – Pikelets (for the Thermomfun Cook Along)
Tuesday 17/6 – Chocolate-Orange Shortbread Pinwheels (forgot to take a pic but where yum)
Wednesday 18/06 – Sweet & Sour chicken with vegies (Thermofun Cook Along recipe)
Thursday 19/06 – Honey Lime Prawns & noodles (done with chicken) (Thermofun Cook Along recipe)
Friday 20/06 – Mars Bar Brownie (Thermofun Cook Along)
Saturday 21/06 – Passionfruit cheesecake (except I made mine with raspberries)
Sunday 22/06 – Choc-chip cookies (Thermofun Cook Along)
Really enjoyed the Thermofun Cook along and am looking forward to the next one in July. I’ve also enjoyed trying some new recipes – there are a few that will go in our favourites book, some need to be tweaked to our tastes and others, not so much for us. That’s the joy of trying recipes out.
*I’ve blogged this recipe if anyone is interested 🙂
Lemon Butter Teacakes
I’m doing the next 14 days of cooking with the Thermomix challenge and on Monday I converted this Lemon Butter Teacake recipe.
Here is my conversion if you want to give it a go 🙂
The road to our new bathroom pt 2
We started the new week with our new bath in and the plaster up. The tiler came in and did the waterproofing (which Miss K thought was awesome as we had an orange bathroom!) while the builders put in our new toilet window.
Tuesday was floor tiles and our new hot water cylinder
Wednesday through Friday was more tiling and grouting.
Another couple of days and I’ll be back with the finished bathroom.
14 days of cooking with the Thermo
I joined a group on Facebook that challenges you to cook something new with your Thermomix for 14 days. The latest challenge for 26/5 to 8/6 was…
1. – “I’ve had my tmx a yr and I still haven’t made…..” that thing everyone raves about that you keep meaning to try, something that’s so simple but you haven’t got round to it yet, that thing that’s been on the to do list for ages or something you thought you would make in the first week that you just never got round to!!!
2. – winter warmers – hearty nourishing winter meals
With that challenge I decided to make a list of things I’d like to make and thought I’d blog about it.
- Monday 26/5 – Yummy Chicken Pasta (recipe community)
- Tuesday 27/5 – Pikelets (TM31 Everyday Cookbook p57) and lemon butter (TM31 Everyday Cookbook p47)
- Wednesday 28/5 – Tomato Soup (TM31 Everyday Cookbook p 78)
- Thursday 29/5 – Impossible quiche (Devil of a cookbook) – first time doing quiche in thermo
- Friday 30/5 – Chicken Stroganoff (Devil of a Cookbook) – a family favourite
- Saturday 31/5 – Raisin bread (from Thermo Affairs)
- Sunday 1/6 – crumpets (recipe community) – a bit of a fail, not sure what went wrong 🙁 and I forgot to take a photo
Week 2
- Monday 2/6 – Super simple sausage rolls (recipe community)
- Tuesday 3/6 – converted mum’s one egg meringue recipe – still working on tweaks
- Wednesday 4/6 – Apricot Balls
- Thursday 5/6 – taco mince (using the packet stuff)
- Friday 6/6 – Parmesan Garlic Bread Wheel
- Saturday 7/6 – i was out all day so didn’t make anything
- Sunday 8/6 – Chicken Cashew Nut (TM31 Everyday Cookbook p111)
Overall I think it was a pretty good 2 weeks. We’ve found some new recipes we’ll add to our family favourites, some that will need a bit of tweaking before we decide and a couple that won’t get made again. I’m looking forward to the next challenge 😀
The road to our new bathroom
As I mentioned in the Home Sweet Home post we’ve recently started renovating out bathroom. We looked at doing it ourselves then decided too hard and after a few quotes decided to go with locals, 2am Construction & Plastering.
When you look at the before pictures you can see why we needed to renovate – wood panelling – everywhere. Old bath. Old sink. Nearly no storage. Mould. And I hate it with a passion. It’s not somewhere I can go to relax and unwind. That & I think it was making us sick 🙁
We had no real idea of what we wanted to do except get rid of all the wood panelling and maybe use our awesome cast iron claw foot bath we’d been given. Sadly after much discussion with the builders and plumber it worked out we couldn’t really use (or afford to use) our bath. Boo. On the upside we have a bath for when we win Tattslotto and build up and get an ensuite on our new bathroom. Hey a girl can dream, right?
The first couple of days was gutting the bathroom completely, plumbing, moving power points and light switches, putting in the new bath and bathroom window. Then it was plastering the walls.
Having no bathroom has been fun but thanks to the in-laws we’ve been showering there.
I’ll be back in a couple of days with the next stage – waterproofing and tiling.
Soft drinks while pregnant? You bet! {review}
Being pregnant means you should watch what you drink. I had gestational diabetes last pregnancy and really wanted to do whatever I could this time around to reduce my chances of getting GD again this pregnancy.
One of the things I did when I first found out I was pregnant was to stop drinking Coke, well to tell the truth I had to stop because it was making me sick – hello morning sickness!!
Thanks to the morning sickness I was a bit limited to what I could drink without feeling ill – water, sometimes juice, the occasional water cordial. No milk and nothing of the fizzy variety.
Enter the 2nd trimester and the end of morning sickness (yay!!) and I slowly introduced milk back into the diet and was ok. There was a definite craving for something fizzy but the amount of sugar in soft drinks is a bit frightening – 28g per 250ml in lemonade and 27g per 250ml of cola. Before you ask no I don’t do diet drinks or no sugar drinks, for one thing I’m not convinced that fake sugars are good for us and secondly I’m not a huge fan of the taste.
When I was offered the chance to try a low sugar, organic alternative I must say I was extremely curious. BIONADE (pronounced Bee-oh-nah-deh) is a range of organic fermented and carbonated beverages from Germany.
On first glance, you could be fooled into thinking it’s a trendy new post-mix alcoholic drink but no it’s a tasty low sugar drink that looks as good as it tastes.
So what is BIONADE and what makes it different from your average soft drink?
- it’s 100% certified organic
- it’s low in sugar (15.5g per 330ml serve)
- Brewed like beer, but non-alcoholic
- No colourants! No preservatives! No artificial flavours!
- Gluten free. Suitable for vegetarians and vegans.
There are 4 flavours – ginger & orange, lychee, elderberry and herbs.
First up in my trial was the ginger & orange. Ginger is meant to be pretty good when you feel ill, be it from morning sickness, travel sickness or maybe just feeling a little seedy after a night out. I thought it might taste a little similar to IronBru (it’s a Scottish citrus, slightly gingery, soft drink, often described as “Scotland’s other national drink” (after Scotch whisky) and is the number 1 selling soft drink there closely followed by Coke) but it was more gingery with an nice orange aftertaste. Quite nice. I imagine it would make a good mixer.
I tried the Herb flavour and really wasn’t sure. Don’t think I would drink this one again.
Now I’m not a fan of lychees at all so was pretty hesitant about trying this flavour. Pleasantly surprised! It was sweet and a little tangy. Again it would probably make a good mixer.
I’ve left my favourite til last – Elderberry. It is super yum, sweet, fizzy and very moreish.
Hubby wasn’t taken with any of them but he’s pretty fussy. Miss K loved all of them and they are something I’d be happy to give BIONADE to her as a treat over lemonade or cola.
At this stage BIONADE is available online from http://www.drinks-logistics.com.au/ and selected retailers
And cause I love my readers I have a mixed case of 24 bottles of BIONADE to giveaway to one lucky Nightwolf’s Den reader. Leave us a comment with what you loved to drink when you were pregnant OR what you’d miss drinking if you were pregnant. Entry is open to Australian residents only. Winner will have 1 week to respond once the giveaway is drawn. Giveaway closes 26th March 2014
Creating Your Goddess Haven
A six-week adventure for when you’re wanting & needing & craving a space that is a true haven for your the Goddess in You! You’ll use space clearing techniques to make your space’s energy sparkle. You’ll learn how to divinely declutter. You’ll dive into inspired interior design. You’ll be empowered with all of the wisdom, tools & techniques you need to make your space feel & look amazing to you. And you’ll end up with a home that is a sanctuary just for you.
That’s the description for Leonie Dawson’s 6 week e-course Create Your Goddess Haven. I’ve decided to give it a go (again) so this week is week 1. I’ll be blogging my results here each week. A bit for myself and as a bit of a motivator.
If you want to join in you can sign up here or join the amazaballs Amazing Life & Biz Academy and get access to this course, a HEAP of other goodies and a great group of wonderful Goddesses.
So I’ll see you back here in a week with a wrap-up of week one.
Big news
Yes that is what you think it it.
We’re expecting bub #2! Due August
I had lots planned for the blog over the Christmas/New Year period but I am suffering through morning sickness (well all day sickness some days) so that all went out the window. Hoping to be back into the swing of things soon.
Hope everyone had a great Xmas & New Year *mwah*