I have been a little slack when it comes to planning our family menu. The past two weeks, we have really been spontaneous when it comes to dinner time. My excuse… Um… I was sick, and I haven’t gotten much sleep. Ok. Fine. PMS. Whatever.

What I have come to realise though is that there has been quite alot of wastage. Food and money. You see, this blog started of really good. So did I. It was about how to save money where and when. But lately, I’ve gotten complacent about our finances (BAD) and just been winging it. REALITY check hit when I finally had a look at our bills. GAS bill particularly, and yes my bank account in regards to transactions at Safeway and Coles.

SO anyway, I have a point. You’ve heard it, and you’ll hear it from me. You would save some mmooolars if you just PLANNED your weekly groceries, rather than purchasing as you go day by day.

Sorry, I digress…I hate wasting food. So this week, it was all about trying to use what was there…and finnishing it…

HAINANESE CHICKEN RICE RECIPE

NOTE: There is a proper way to do this, as in cooking the chicken and then removing it and dumping it in ice to stop the chicken from cooking… etc….etc… but this is a SIMPLIFIED fuss-free version.

Day 1: Chicken Rice. Ahhh… my hubby is a Chinaman so he likes his Chinese food. I can only cook a handful of asian dishes and the rest, so where there is luurrrve, there is a way and Google is my friend.

My mum did own a restaurant and I’ve seen my granmama cook this lots of times so here’s a quick cap of what I did. NOTE: I am not a proper cook  chef, nor am I intending to write a cookbook , so why the heck am I writing recipes???  so bear with me with the instructions.

FIRST: prepare your chicken by chopping off as much its fatty bits as you can. I just use a pair of scissors and cut around its bottom, and around its neck of all the excess skins and fat. Then set aside about 4cm lump for the rice.

1) Boil water in a kettle. Put your chicken into a pot. Once the water is boiled, pour over your chicken until it is covered with water by 2 cm. Drop in a lump of garlic, and some ginger. Switch on your stove, and boil away for about 10 minutes. Put the lid on. Boil for another 3 minutes, then switch off the stove. Leave the chicken in there while you wipe and bathe poopy bum  for about 40minutes.

2) The pot should be luke warm to touch. Remove the chicken, rub a generous amount of salt over the whole chicken, glad wrap it and set aside. Season the stock with 1 tsp of salt, and 1 TBSP of chicken stock powder.

3) In a pan, heat up (2tsp) oil, and fry (3 cloves) garlic, (sliced 3cm)ginger and chicken fat. Stir in 2 cups of (uncooked) rice, and fry it for about 1 minute. Remove and place into a rice cooker. Then pour into the rice cooker about 3 cups of stock, stir and season to taste. Set the rice cooker to COOK!

If you really wanted… make your own chilli sauce by blending:

10 red chillies (seeds and veins removed)

3 Birds eye chillies

7 cloves of garlic

2 TBSP of ginger

Juice from 2 limes

1/2 tsp of salt

1/2 TBSP of sugar

1 TBSP of chilli sauce (Sriracha)

Then when its time to eat, chop up your chicken and serve with a bowl of stock and garnish with white pepper, coriander and spring onions.

We had some stock left over so over to the next day.

PORK BALL NOODLE SOUP

I got inspiration from MyCookingHut, but like I said, I made a simplified version.

1) Mince up in a food processor the pork ball paste- (300g )minced pork, (1TBSP) oyster sauce, (1TBSP) fish sauce, (1/2 tsp) salt, (1TBP) sugar, (1/2 TBSP) sesame oil, (1 TBSP) Cornflour, (1 tsp) baking powder and (1/4 tsp) white pepper. Finely dice some water chestnuts, and mix with pork paste.

2) In a pot, bring some water to boil. NOW, grab a fistful of paste in your left hand, and squeeze it so that it pops up through the gap between your thumb and index finger. AND using your right hand, with a spoon, cut off the ‘ball’ and drop it into the boiling water. As the float up, give time about 2more minutes and take them out.

3) Boil up yesterdays stock. Put in 1/2 can of quail eggs, and 1/2 can of straw mushrooms. Prepare noodles as per the packet instructions.

4) Put everything into a bowl and serve.

YES I had to slot in a pic of Missy A into the background just incase you didn’t think my noodles look appetizing.

Refridgerate left over pork balls for tomorrows dinner…

DAY 3: Tom Yum fried Noodles

OK, this was it. All the left overs needed to be used up.

I soaked some vermicilli in luke warm water. Heated up the pan, fried some garlic and ginger. Added the noodles, added bit of oyster sauce, fish sauce, soya sauce, dried shrimp, and grated carrot. Dropped in a TBSP of Tom Yum paste, stirred, and served.

THE rest of the week…

Well, I planned it well because my hubby got his Chinese food fix, and we will be heading out to the in laws and out laws for dinner, and somewhere in there, we will be hosting a birthday dinner for my brother-in-law.

Plans for that is Alvin’s DRunken and Bruised from Masterchef, and ok I’m done.

MAN, that was exhausting to relive…..

Stay tuned for coming posts on :

• Alvin’s drunken and bruised recipe
• some other money saving tips
• what I learnt at School Craft Group …
• …and yes maybe even a pic of me.

When I had baby Missy A, I was given a list of things to bring to the hospital. This time round, I had to ask for the list again because I was just getting so overwhelmed with the amount of baby clothes I had accumulated, and I was … well… just making things complicated. How? Well… before Missy A was born, she was scanned to be a girl. BUT EVERYONE had predicted that she’d be a boy. So I was alittle worried in terms of getting the colour of the baby clothes right. Can’t possibly pack all PINK stuff… just in case. BUT at that time, given the circumstances, Dave and I were in … well.. not exactly superly prepared to have a baby so we had hand-me-downs from very generous and lovely people, and to us… we had not much choice as to what Missy A would wear. Just wear whatever we have. It was simple like that.

NOW… not that we are super choosey, or high-class now, it is atleast at a time when I have alittle bit of choice. Not a stretch for us, but I can afford to buy a $2.30 baby jumpsuit t-shirt from Big W… that Missy A has happily chosen.

ANYWAY… my point being… is now that I have all these things in my head that has made things complicated like… OH WHAT size do I bring?? 0000? Oh better bring some 000 just in case is a big baby. Oh what colour then? Yellow is a nice choice. But Oh… when people visit… it may make it uncomfortable for then to ask whether its a girl or boy? Oh then, her gloves, and booties… what size again!? OH and its winter! How cold would it be? Long sleeve? Short sleeve, and layer? BLAH!!! hehehe… ok… anyway… because of how complicated I made it… FINALLY I just put ALL the questions aside, and stuffed it. Too bad, if baby is going to ’swim’ in her clothes…. be it. If its too small… then… Be it. If its cold… I’m sure I can change the thermostat in our room warmer… and well… if gloves are too BIG, then… BLAH… We managed with Missy A… we can manage with baby #2.

In the end… I packed all the essentials on the list.

Hehehe… ok maybe I’m taking a few more extra stuff…. I couldn’t help it.

Just a bit of advice, pack exactly ONE set of everything: Singlet, wondersuit, gloves, booties, hat and bunny rug… all in a zip-lock bag so that it makes it easier for hubby to just pull it out when you’re in labour for the nurses/midwives to put the clothes in the warming cupboard .. all ready for baby. This way… one less thing to think about. Make sure to brief the hubby what he’s suppose to do. I.E TAKE this out and give to midwife when baby is coming. SIMPLE instructions.

Don’t forget to pack for yourself. Hehehe… with Missy A… I did. So lets just say I learned my lesson. One other thing… in-regards to undies… honestly, I just found that buying a cheap set from BigW, or Target 6/7 pack is the best way to go. That way, you could really just throw them out a month after….. hopefully along with the bad memory . When I had Missy A, I requested for a few disposables from the hospital… hehehe…

If you’re planning to breast-feed too… I didn’t exactly leak within the first few weeks, or have any accidents BUT no harm in prepping for that.

RITE AID was my besty. It will serve as my besty… and the value 60 pack is only $8.30 at BIGW.

Despite feeling like a walking mushroom, there is always one easy fix to feeling all girlie…

It is… PAINTING your toenails… PINK!

OK first I had to get past the fact that my feet look like Ogre/Hobbit feet, and also get over the experience of painting them from an arms length because Baby #2 is in the way…

Other than that… when I squint my eyes, everthing is blurry so all you can see is pretty pink rather than the messy brush strokes… ALL IS WELL AND GIRLIE! Woot woot!

Pros of being pregnant… your home pedicure looks great because its just impossible to inspect your toes up-close anyway!

I was thinking of making a video about my trip to NZ… but then the more I think about it… it may be more effort filming, and editing…something I haven’t done before… so maybe another time eh??

Well, our little trip to NZ, Auckland was purely because we had a wedding to go to, and when we booked our flights, we didn’t really plan on doing anything other than to help out set up the wedding. Such a waste to fly across an ocean, but we were trying to be so called ’self-less’ and just be and do what we can eh?  Hehehe… well we did manage to squeeze abit of a getaway but… in hind sight, that caused more stress than anything else. Still… NZ was beautiful.

I’d lived in NZ a while back, studied there even so it was really nice going back, and seeing how things changed.

All aboard the airplane!

We travelled with Qantas as they had a promotion where kids fly free. You pay for the taxes ofcoarse, but it was kinda still affordable. There’s a great selection of ‘new’ movies on the entertainment-thingiemajig BUT as the system was only fixed 1 hour into our flight… I was too scared to watch the good ones (like Benjamin Button or that….indian millionaire one… ) knowing I won’t get to finnish it. Missy A didn’t mind. She watched half of Madagascar 2 and switched to watch half of High School Musical 3. I watched part of… 4 holidays. Review of movie…. Bleh.. only so so.

Anyway, we arrived. First couple of days was wedding stuff, like ordering food. YUMMO cakes at the Cheesecake shop! But shocking shocking customer service. I sweat I think I knew more of the cakes on display than the poor pimpled face 13 year old boy behind the counter.

Aunty asked ” So, could I order a tiered wedding cake, does it get delievered and set up at the venue?”

Boy’s answer ” Um… I don’t know.”

Me trying to sound understanding “Ok… can you find out?”

Boy’s dumber answer ” Oh no, coz the boss isn’t in”

Me speaking really slowly  SO …THAT…HE…CAN…UNDERSTAND… “WHAT? Can you call them to find out as its pretty important…”

Boy’s even super duper answer ” Oh yeh but they are not working”

GGGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRR!!! I had to step out and jsut let Aunty handle it…

ANYWAY… then we headed off for a break to smelly Rotorua. The drive was really pretty. Picture perfect pretty. Everything was green… and clean… and just… pretty…

The weather was really pleasant in Auckland, so we expected teh same. YES and NO when we got to Rotorua. Each morning it rained, and then only later in the day it cleared up which really limited what we wanted to do… OR atleast what the boys wanted to do which was most of the advernture stuff like dirt biking and fishing.

Still… we do with what we have eh? Pregnant woman and kid friendly activities…

First stop… Waitomo Caves to see glow worms. Because mum and I had already been (yonks ago) and we were on a budget trip… Dave took Missy A while we sat at the cafe for a cuppa.

You get to take a boat ride into a pitch black cave where the tour guide aparently sings songs, and tell you all about the glow worms while you stare up into the cave ceiling to witness these odd little bugs.

Missy A had been looking forward to this the whole trip and she carried with her for the wholeday the brochure that also showed parts of other caves that you can walk and tour around. Again, budget trip, we only bought tickets for the Glow worms, while Missy A expected to see all the other cave stuff… when she came back from her 45 min boat ride, a sad sour little expresssion was left on her face.

I didn’t realise that she had expected more from the tour because of all the pictures that were shown on teh brochure. SO NOTE TO SELF and future trips : Must explain to kid exactly what they will be doing and what they could expect.

She was so sad I couldn’t heck it. I felt so bad. Anyway… so Daddy had to take her aside to explain to her that although she may be disappointed, she should be happy that she got to see the glow worms, and think about that instead.

ANYWAY, the trip goes on… The boys book themselves a fishing trip in Lake Rotorua.

While we went to the Agrodome which is again… kid and pregnant woman friendly.

Aparently this is on of the tastiest sheeps…

…19 sheeps later, 2 sheep dog demos, one shaved sheep…

…and 4 baby lambs later…

The boys came home with BIG SMILES on their faces, a wealth of knowledge on lake trout fishing…

…and dinner ofcoarse!…

I don’t know if this is exactly pregnant-friendly… but SO YUMMO! We can’t eat raw fish because… I think its because of the bacteria in case the fish we eat wasn’t stored properley and not fresh. BUT knowing that it was just pulled out of the lake… it can’t hurt right??

Lemon Cooked Chilli Trout Recipe

Heaps of fresh lemon juice

Fresh chill and garlic sauce (bought stright from supermarket)

Onions

Mix all ingredients, make sure all the fish is coated. Set aside in fridge for 30-40 mins. Serve COLD.

In Rotorua there’s a famour Polynesian Spa – Voted top 10 in the world aparently. BUT sadly.. not preggo friendly, so we decided to do our own spa treatment at our motel.

Hahaha… this was really fun. Even Missy A got abit of a treatment.

lol… try laughing but not…hahahaha…

The next day, all cleansed pores and fresh faced… we headed to The Luge.

Took a gondola up a mountain…

…and those who were ‘able’ (hence NOT pregnantand old) geared up to slide down the mountain while the rest lazed it up in the cafe and cam-whored.

A couple of hours later, all luged out, weather cleared up, full of tea and back down the gondola…

We headed back for Auckland.

On the way back, we spotted a ‘park’ that showcased Rotorua’s natural…ness. I magine… a walk in a park… and you come across natural volcanic activity. HOW EXCITING!

ANYWAY… back to Auckland after a nice 2 days of good ole Family time.

Dimmey’s recently had a sale on their bedsheets. It was something ridiculous like 375 thread (I know not much but better than nothing) Egyptian cotton sheets for $4, no matter what size.

I bought a few considering whenever I change the sheets it takes me like another 3 weeks to get them washed, so I usually get stuck with not having many sheets to change to.

ANYWAY… I was excited… but all was left was flat sheets. No fitted sheets for a queen size. . Oh well.. they were so cheap anyway, I bought the flat sheets. I HATE flat sheets. You sleep in them once, and when you wake up it is usually sprawled around your feet or bunched up into the corner which makes ME agro because I have to make the bed again. Then the next few nights, I get crappy sleep because I’m too worried I’ll mess it up and try to sleep as super still as possible. ANNOYING!

SO I have thought of a simple solution to change your flat sheet into a fitted sheet – NO SEWING required. I did think about buying elastics and seriously sewing them on to convert them… but this solution has proved to be MUCH easier.

SAFETY PINS!

So just lay out the flat sheet as even as possible. Start at the ‘head-ends’ and stick a few pins into each corner. Mine are up against the wall so it doesn’t matter if they are visible.

Then pull it firmly and while lifting up one side of the sheet, secure the corner with another safety pin. When you put that corner back down, you can secure a second pin but this time on the underside of your mattress so that the pin is not visible. Repeat this on the other corners… and…

WAH LAH!

I actually did this last week but wanted to test drive the sheets first before I uploaded this post. To make sure it actually works… AND I am proud to say… THIS IS ONE OF THE BESTEST IDEAS I HAVE COME UP WITH!!!

Lol… The things I think about….I need to get out more often huh?? Seriously though… the price difference for a fitted sheet and flat sheet at some places is quite different… so you’d seriously be saving heaps with this idea.

Zack and Miri make a porno
Only at the Movies! February 19
http://www.zackandmirimakeaporno.com.au/stickpornogame/

Movies with this sort of title make me curious. No I’m no porno person, BUT Doesn’t it make you want to find out what this movie is about?? Hmm… probably not openly… but I did anyway. I YOUTUBED the trailer… and it looks really funny!

Its basically about two people strapped for cash who come up with an idea to make a porn… to make money. It looks like there’s a love story in there…. entangled… somewhere… (so something for the girlies too…)

ANYWAY, I know that crappy feeling of having no money, or that state of desperation when all you’re thinking about is… HOW or what could I do to make money. (STORY OF MY LIFE) …

Hmmm… table top dancing has once crossed my mind… then again, I have no boobs when reality struck…which would make me not a very good one.

Then there was the idea of of selling 2nd hand clothes… which is still viable BUT at that very moment, I was actually thinking of just taking the clothes from the clothing bins (the clothes that are NOT in the bins – because this is considered rubbish, and will fine up to $200) and reselling them… and then it appeared on current affairs that this was considered THEFT. Ekk… lucky it was a thought that only remained a thought. It then crossed my mind that these people are donating for charity… and I would be stealing from them. WRONG.

AND then… there was the ‘Herbs in a tin’. Dave and I thought about selling herbs in tins. I still think it is a great idea (SO DON’T STEAL IT)… only thing is… until NOW… I have not yet grown anything from a seed. Even Missy A has had better luck than I growing plants. I can take care of them once they’ve poped out from the seed… BUT no… NOTHING… (Remember that seedling project I did with Missy A?? … well… nothing has sprouted from it… )and I think that the seedling packet even had a GUARANTEE that it will grow… sigh… I did try.

ANYWAY, so yeh I’m going to watch this movie… hopefully… IT WILL NOT spring any inspiration but it will surely be a funny night out. THANKS TO NUFFNANG!

WOOT WOOT! More free stuff from NuffNang.com

There are two movies coming up sometime soon. BOTH I’d like to go to watch but more so… BOTH I’d like to go watch for freeeeee…. (hehehe FRRREEEEEE *said like Adam Sadler in Bed Time Stories*)

BUT in order for that to happen… I need all you bloggers for help! I need a blogger who is not with nuffnang to sign up to nuffnang and use me as a referral… THEN… its FREEEEEE for me and YOU!! Yah, you get the movie ticket too! Hmmmm then we could watch it together! Ok maybe not… but it was an idea…  so yeh…. shoot me an email if you’re interested in scoring! Woot woot! I AM! SO HELP!

Hehehe… I had such a random day today!

My mother was scheduled to have a medical procedure today at 10:30. The plan was to take everyone along i.e. my sister and Missy A, drop mum off, hang around for an hour or so, pick her up, drop Missy A at school, and then go Yum Cha. However, mum’s appointment was pushed back 30 mins, so we decided to stick around anyway, rather than to drive up and down. We got hungry, and well instead of stopping by at a restaurant or a cafe, we decided to have a picnic instead. The weather was beautiful, so why not? We dropped by a grocery store, pick up some crackers, tuna, jelly, juice, and fruits. All up probably costing only around $12 (where will you ever find such a cheap meal?). Anyway…problem was… we had never been to this area so we had no idea where the local parks were.

So after a quick drive around… we decided to stop in a service lane, under a the shade…

…opened up the windows…

…and had a picnic in the car.

Hahaha… how random! I love love it!

We, as a family LOVE Boost Juice. I would normally order Janine’s Favourite in a large and get them to split it into a Medium cup and a kids cup. That way, Missy A gets her own cup and also because it is in two cups, there’s no wasting. Have you noticed that when they pour it into the cups after it is blended… there’s always some left over BUT if you order it to be in two cups you get every drop! hehehe… ok abit of a tight ass but hey, I also find it that its cheaper than to get an individual kids cup for Missy A and a Medium cup for myself.

Anyway… I spend my $5.80 each day for Boost rather than coffee. Multiply that by the week, then month… then year!! OMG… it is alot of money! So today… we made our own.

I froze those Tetra juice packs in the freezer instead of using ice because 1 – Our freezer is full of meat so whenever I try to make ice, it tastes like raw chicken (not good). 2 – we don’t really have juices at home.

So, I chopped up the juice block into 8s so the blender won’t die… mixed in a bottle of Yakult, put abit of yoghurt, and then some water (I find the tetra juices too sugary and sweet)… and BLEND. “Order for Grace & Missy A!”. Our own little boost. When I get some banannas tomorrow, I’ll try blending that too. Oohh and strawberries!!

Missy A is happy… Mummy is happy… and Daddy’s bank account is happy!

We had a fair bit left over so I put that into a bottle and kept it in the fridge which worked out really well because with the ice, it stayed mushy for a good 3 hours.

HAH! I have never really used liquid eyeliners before only because… Hmmm.. I dunno… they just seem so daunting to use. I have been using Revlon, or was it L’Oreal??? Um.. I think Revlon… eyeliners only because it had this sign that said “The World’s most popular eyeliner”… and well, ofcoarse I have to be part of the so called ‘popularity’ and well because it costs alot… you’d think that they would be good right? (lol… don’t worry… I don’t understand my logic sometimes either…)

Anyway… just before the Nuffnang meet-up, Alethea and I decided to go search for a liquid eyeliner… from KMART. All the convenience of having all the off the shelf, cheaper range cosmetics all in one section.

I’ve never heard of Prestige before but because we just wanted to play around, we tried ALL the liquids we could try. So you can imagine… my hand looked like a mini zebra at the end of the exercise. hehehe… we tried on so many that even the stupid Kmart lady looked around the corner and decided to tell us off thinking we were opening the packages just to try them out. Seriously… I was fat, pregnant, with my 4 year daughter and sister…. I was so pissed off that she’d think of telling me off!!! BLEH! … Grrrrr.. COW! I’M NOT THAT DUMB TO KNOW THAT YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSE TO OPEN THE PACKS JUST TO TRY!!!!!

Woooosssssaaaa….

Anyway… FOCUS!

OK…. Liquid liners are not too bad I have to say. It makes so much more of a defined line and its just seriously so easy to apply. Its like hmmm compare using a crayon compared to a texta.

Woohoo… I’m glad to then announce that I now have my liquid eyeliner license. Like a pen license. I’ve been upgraded from pencil/crayon to pen! Woot Woot!

Mind you… I find that liquid is great for the top but too harsh for the bottom – hence the cotton bud in the pic. With Prestige… its not exactly waterproof, so it rubs off… kinda like a 6B pencil lead, so I used a cotton bud to soften the line for the bottom lashes (my non-existent ones…).

Lol.. ok its not very even but you get the point right?

I like it anyway. It has been so easy that I ALMOST… I say ALMOST put it on everyday.OH… and it only costed $14.95 ( I think… its mid-range anyway so it won’t blow your wallet up).

Note to self: Time to get your eyebrows managed….. BLEh….