Showing posts with label kitchen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kitchen. Show all posts

09 August 2014

A Week of Toddler Lunches

I wanted to document what we are having for lunch lately. It's been a pretty awesome change over the last year. There is something so cool about when your kids start eating "people" food. Or grown up food. Or at least a variation of it. Here is what they had last week ...

Tuna Melt on Vogel's Bread with baby cos and capsicum.
Hard boiled egg, hummus, carrot and capsicum, and an apple.
Couscous Fritters, baby cos lettuce and carrot 'slaw' with balsamic, and blackcurrant jam
Curry Kumara Puffs, pear, mixed beans and lettuce
*Mousetraps, mandarin, edamame, and mixed beans
Please note the *. This was a very, very special meal. The mousetraps were made by the boys. Mostly. They spread the vegemite on the bread with actual knives, placed the cheese on top, and only ate a few bits of it. They were so interested and excited when I took them out of the oven! It made my day! Also, this was their first day with edamame in their pods. They loved it! It was a bit of a challenge at first, but even today, Willem had the technique down pat! Totally aced it! 

I love that they are so keen to help and watch what is going on in the kitchen. I never remember being that excited, but then again, when I met met Jacob, the only thing I could cook was pasta and red sauce. True story. 

The more I involve them, the more interested they are. The mousetrap making was just awesome to watch. They are naturals in the kitchen! 

xx

28 February 2014

The Great Pantry Purge of 2014!

Happy Friday everyone! 

Slowly, oh so slowly, I have been TRYING to declutter the house. Yeah, very slowly. But in an afternoon, mostly while the boys slept, I was able to clean out our pantry and it was so satisfying! 



First task : Empty it! Granted I had hoped to have a completely empty pantry, but had to go halves as I didn't have enough bench space to keep everything. There was that much chaos!

Second task : Clean it. Get rid of cobwebs. Dust. Wipe it all down. CLEAN!

Third : Get rid of the things that were past their use by date. Which surprisingly, wasn't as much as I thought. Good to know we have a decent pantry rotation! 

Four : Make a list of the things going BACK in and find a way to have it all make sense! Spices and jars of bulk goods in alphabetical order. Baking things together. Noodles and pasta, canned goods. Excess bulk out of the way... 

Five : Start again from the other side!  

And the finished result.........

27 December 2009

*finally. on holiday...

I hope everyone had a beautiful Christmas! I've chatted with the family back home, and yes, I am jealous they had a white Christmas - Jacob and I had our first Christmas alone... with Timmy of course! It was lovely!

My stay-cation started with a new van Hulst Christmas eve tradition... Tandoori Chicken that Jacob marinated for 2 days and popped on the BBQ. Very nice! We decorated our mini-tree and watched National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (one of the 2 best Christmas movies ever, only tied with A Christmas Story). We were also visited by the Christmas Huntsman... Bahhh!!!(Apologizes for the iPhone pics on this one... )

And sweet little Timmy fell asleep waiting for Santa....

Christmas morning is for sleeping in. But saw my xmas pressie from Jacob. Yay!!! New big canvases! And some adorable artwork he mastered on the plastic covering. I almost don't want to use them and ruin his artwork!! I crocheted him a neck warmer with some nice merino wool and some sweet old vintage US Navy sailor buttons I had. I'm going to make myself one. I love it!

We had a few soy flat whites, a few mimosas with super freshly squeezed orange juice (thanks to Jenny's xmas gift from about 10 years ago, yes, my fancy 1950's orange juice maker..), a couple crossiants with my homemade cherry plum jam.. and then Jacob went nuts in the kitchen... Eggs with Gravalax and onions and chili. Oh goodness - Yum!!!



They rest of the day we lounged, went for a walk around the park with Timmy. Then came back to make dinner, Bugs!!!! I made some potato salad and peach salsa. Yes, we basically just pigged out all day!
 



Yum!!!

I spent some time later in the day with my camera around the house. The light was perfect and I couldn't resist.



 
Jacob scored heaps of fruit from a friend... Fruit salad, stewed applesauce, and the cherry plums from the tree in the front yard...


 We played Rummy on Xmas Eve - proof I won!


Timmy's new hobby. Chewing books. Ugh.


 
And my catching up on the crochet projects. Including Jacob's xmas gift.

Anyway. Back to doing some domesticness that is catching up on laundry and grey-watering the garden.
xo

29 October 2009

*more seaport photos

Hi hi!

I've just posted a few more prints on Etsy.

Sometimes, I really miss Connecticut. There is this amazing history that just seeps through the ground, into your toes and through your fingertips. Everything you touch has a story of at least one hundred years. The colonial way of life burns bright in the sunshine. The mysteries of those lives lost in wars and lost out to sea lurk in dark cemetaries and the dark corners of your mind.




xo