Another Easy Slow Cooker Soup

Another quick and easy soup in the slow cooker - with hardly any chopping!

Corn and Leek Soup

Add to slow cooker;

• 2 leeks chopped very fine (pale part only)
• 1 can of corn kernels (or two corn on the cob's worth of corn kernels)
• Chicken stock (3 cups+)

Cover and cook for 6-8 hours on LOW or 3+ hours on HIGH. 

In the last hour, add 1-2 cans of creamed corn (depending on how thick you like your soup). 

When cooked through, blitz with a stick blender or put batches through a food processor for a smooth finish. This stores well in the freezer - simply heat up in microwave or stove top. 

GF with GF stock and vegetarian/vegan with vegetable stock. 

Nom.nom.nom. Have I mentioned I love my Slow Cooker?

How I Made 3 litres of Winter Soup for under $5

My Mini Kitchen Garden

Colds. They are annoying.

Home sick today and thought I had better get some cooking done to get ahead in case its one of 'those' winters. I thought I would get my appliances working for me and make some soups for the freezer.

I think this one is my favourite - it was super cheap!

While shopping at Aldi last night I noticed Soup Packs of veggies for just $1.99. The pack contained two carrots, one swede, one parsnip, one potato, and two sticks of celery. bargain.

I chopped all this up and added;
- 1/2 cup of red lentils
- 3 teaspoons of crushed garlic
- A sprinkle of sea salt
- 1.5L of chicken stock (you might need more to cover the veggies)
- Some leftover BBQ chicken I had in the fridge
- A handful of chopped basil and oregano from my mini kitchen garden.

5-6 hours on LOW or 2-3 on HIGH in the slow cooker. Way. too. easy.

Use GF stock and its a GF soup. Vege stock and minus the chicken and you have a vegetarian/vegan option. Everyone wins! The principle for the slow cooker is the same. If you have one and are scared to use it, give this a go. You will not regret it.

Someone who is much much better at cooking than I am, and whose recipes are somewhat more accurate, check out my beautiful friend Jessica's blog home.

Feeding Time at the Zoo

polkadotmom.com

I reached breaking point one night when Awesome scraped most of his dinner into the bin. Again.

"Any chance we could have some time to plan decent meals for a change?" He asked. I wasn't offended. It was an honest question, and he was right, we had been eating a lot of toast, and throwing out a lot of perfectly good food that I hadn't taken time to cook. But that night, I knew I needed to make some changes to save us from eating over/under cooked creations of who-knows-what mixed together and called Dinner.

printable.tipjunkie.com

So I did what every modern wife does when trying to come up with a plan. I hit the 'net. I know how to cook. So that wasn't the problem. I own a large collection of pristine-looking recipe books. So that wasn't the problem either. It was planning. Or rather, failure to plan.

Someone should coin a saying about that.

Anyway, I google searched "menu planner printable" and there are a LOT to choose from. There are some very creative people out there with expensive publishing software. I graciously allowed them to do the hard work for me. I searched until I found something that met our needs exactly.

Here are our exact needs;
- One week at a time. Monthly planning scares me. And I already tried it and it just didn't work for me.
- No amount of colour-coding, or fancy scrapbooked tags that you stick up with blutac, is going to make me try harder in the kitchen. At the end of a long day at work, I need two things, a clear picture of what I want to achieve, and everything already in the fridge. I hate to shop on the way home from work (I'm allergic to people), so I have to have everything already in the house. Or we eat toast. I picked a simple planner that just covered the basics.
- Dinners only. Awesome gets his own food during the day, as do I, so I only wanted a dinner planner. I have a problem with empty boxes and lines. Its an Type A personality thing. Deal with it.
- We are not home every night, and frequently only one of us is home, and it can change, so a pen and paper list was not going to work for us, and I really didn't want to have to print a new one each week.
I picked a list that could be printed A5 and stuck it in a frame with glass - I use a whiteboard marker to write out the menu and make any last minute changes by rubbing it out with my finger. Classy.

Here's what I do;
1. We shop on sundays on our way to church. I'm not sure why. It's habit.
2. Because Awesome sleeps in on Sunday mornings, after quiet time in the morning, I grab my diary and menu planner and plan for the week. I work out what nights we are out and how many dinners need to be made at home. I also update the Google calendar (which IS colour-coded - see not totally slack) for Awesome so that he knows what is happening during the week.
3. I plan out what meals we are having, and then adjust my weekly vege and fruit box order online (it gets delivered to my work on Tuesdays so I plan around that and can tailor the order down to the last carrot, which is helpful for minimising waste.
4. I write out the meals and a quick shopping list for later reference, so that I know what to pick up and so that we don't spend one zillion dollars at the supermarket. It works well - I rarely spend over $80-$100 a week at the supermarket. Keep in mind that that is mainly dinners, lunch fixings and some minor breakfast foods - we do eat out of the house 1-3 times a week out of necessity, so that's where the balance of our grocery budget goes.
5. I then put it all away and move on with my day and don't have to think about planning a meal for the rest of the week.

Working full time in a job that has variable hours, and with a number of outside committments, I can safely say that I could care less most days about cooking when I get home. But I have been using this system now for three months, and most of the weeks have been so easy. Some times things come up, sometimes I'm just too exhausted to cook and we eat toast, or order-in. That's life and we are ok with that. But I can understand the kajillion women on the internet who post their meal plans each Monday. It actually does make sense. 

Because I'm sure that you care (!) here is this week's menu for us.

Monday: Polenta chicken homemade 'nuggets' and salad (the link is to Alana Chernila's website Eating From the Ground Up - but her recipe is in her book The Homemade Pantry - which I purchased recently and I am in LOVE with).
Tuesday: Baked zucchini and sweet potato chips with steak
Wednesday: Greek Turkey Meatballs with tzatziki and vegetable sticks
Thursday: Slowcooker Minestrone
Friday: Leftover night
Saturday: (store bought) Veal ravioli and napoletana sauce
Sunday: Cold wraps

We are actually home most nights this week, so this is a very 'fancy' week for us. Usually you would see a steak and salad, a chicken dish, a beef dish, pies made in the pie maker and toasted wraps. That's a standard week for us. This week I am also moving back towards a low GI diet and so I am including more low GI meals. 

Can you see how much I love food? How crazy long is this post????

Sadly I can't locate the exact printable I am using, but its best to find something you love any way, so get googling!

Did you know you can freeze...?

"Oh Lord Girl, your freezer looks amazing." ~ Why thank you, but its not mine - its from  myrecipes.com

A few days ago, I was chatting to someone about an apple sponge cake I had cooked that had turned out rather well. I mentioned that the apples were frozen.

"Hold up.  You mean pureed?" The friend asked. (Okay, they didn't say "Hold up.").

No, no, they were just chopped and frozen.

She looked incredulous. She didn't know that. I looked incredulous. I thought everyone knew that.

It was awkward.

But it did make me think for us busy working and non-working wives, there are some extreme freezer shortcuts that you can take to make life much, much quicker.

For me it started because I was always throwing so much food out as it spoiled. For the two of us, it is a balance between buying smaller quantities of, say, tomato paste, at ridiculously inflated prices (why do you have to pay more for less??) or buying the bigger jar and throwing half of it our because we can't get through it. Not ideal.

What you need: an ice cube tray (or two) that you don't use for ice - you can buy cheap ones at the dollar store, ziplock bags, freezing containers (I use tupperware Antarctica or rock n' serves), glad wrap.

Right, so here are some things you can freeze that you might not know about.

Tomato paste, fruit purees, vegetable purees - freeze in ice cube tray and then place in ziplock bags. An awesome system we use at Kindy for bubbas who are starting solids is to freeze stacks of cubes of different types, like say pumpkin, rice, cooked meat, etc, and then when you need a meal for a bub, create a combination of cubes and reheat. It works a treat and makes feeding stacks of bubbas in one day just a tad easier. I use this for pumpkin puree at home to make pumpkin scones. E-asy.

Cut vegetables - we eat capsicum, just not stacks of capsicum. So I chop the whole thing in one go (one takes and extra minute or two) and freeze the rest in ziplock bags for use in stir-fry and pasta bake. We do the same with onions, broccoli, carrot, beans, cut corn (you can apparently do it on the cob too, but I haven't tried that), and even canned beans like four bean mix or kidney beans that have been washed of all their brine and then transferred to a ziplock bag.

The secret is that the less moisture goes into the bag before freezing, the less things clump together and stick. Now I can simply tip a bit of veg into a pasta bake or whatever and I don't have to use the entire bag.

The apples. Yes, just chop them into cubes and whack into a freezer container. If you don't have any, wrap a few layers of glad wrap to protect them from freezer burn.

None of this stuff would be ready to eat fresh after this, you understand. Its for use in cooking okay? It's not going to taste the same. Its just supposed to make life easier. As much as pre-cut vegetables can...

So tell me - what do you freeze for later?

From the Recipe: Slow Cooker Potato Bake Review

Cookbook: Australian Women's Weekly Slow Cooking

Recipe: Potato Bake

Method: A simple potato bake flavoured with dijon mustard and chicken soup mix. 

Prep Time: I measured out all the ingredients, cut up the leek and bacon and left everything out on the bench for Awesome to put in the slow cooker. Unfortunately it took about and hour to cut up the potatoes apparently so the prep time took longer than an ordinary oven potato bake... 

Cooking time: Our slow cooker is ... slow... meaning that I add 2 hours cooking time to every recipe, and most things are only just cooked at that point!  This dish should have been 4 hours but was still a little crunchy in the potato domain at 6 hours. I think I used the 'wrong' kind of potatoes (I don't know much about potatoes...) so my own tip would be to slightly pre-boil the potatoes... or otherwise leave the cooker on longer. There was enough liquid still in the mix to make it work. 

Verdict: The cooking to a recipe thing was actually counter-intuitive for me... I felt as though I could have tweaked this recipe to make it easier to cook. Having said that, the flavour was amazing and much tastier than most things I prepare (as Awesome likes mainly plain foods.)  

We liked this and would make it again, but even though I halved the recipe (and yes, still had to increase the cooking time!) there was way more than we could eat. So I would use this a s a side dish for guests rather than a main for us. 

From The Recipe: Making A List

   Sometimes when I go to the supermarket, I walk out wondering where that extra $20 went. I didn't really need 4 bottles of orange and lime juice, but they were next to the apple juice and they were on special for a $1 off. So I only wasted $6, not $7...


I am a pretty conservative shopper by conventional standards, but I have found that even I have difficulty ensuring that I only walk out with what I intended. Being a working wife, I find that I have a haphazard approach to shopping. I only get groceries when I have to, or when I have a large block of time. But this means that I often don't have on hand everything I need to make an entire meal.  So I get creative and that's where I fall down. 

Enter the Shopping List


The shopping list can save you money. IF YOU STICK TO IT!  There is no point having a shopping list that you see as a basis for buying other things. That's how you will come unstuck. 


There are some awesome resources for menu planning and shopping lists. 


I bought myself an A5 folder and printed out a bunch of free menu planning and shopping list printables. You can find some of my favourites below.

For this week, I sat down and picked the recipes I wanted to cook. I wrote out a list of the ingredients I didn't already have at home. If one recipe called for mushrooms and another recipe also needed mushrooms I would just write (times 2) next to the item on the list so I knew to buy more. I'm sure you could get technical with quantities, but its only early days for me! 


Then I organised my list. I shop at two different supermarkets. Aldi because the staples there are cheap, and the big supermarket down the road for the 'other stuff'. The simple way to do this is to go to Aldi first and cross off what you can get there as you go, and get the other stuff afterwards. But if the idea of that does your head in, then stick with the one supermarket. You pay for convenience these days! 


To make the Aldi portion even easier, you could use their phone app to plan, or their online shopping tool to pre-prepare your list. 


Once you are at the supermarket - STICK TO YOUR GUNS! I find it helpful to organise my list in sections in the order I will walk through them at the local supermarket. That way I feel like I'm buying things in order and don't get side tracked. What ever works for you!


The goal is to use up what you have, to focus on only buying what you need and to make a system that works for you. For me, the extra 30 minutes planning (even less as time goes on) is well worth the $20 saving each week. 


For more info on menu planning: 


Organizing junkie has great info and a weekly link up
Info on menu planning and batch cooking from Simplemom.net
Free printable pages for menu planning and shopping lists - Organised Home.com
More Free Pages from The Household Planner
If you want to get serious, pay for a membership here - I had one for 6 months and it was great - Listplanit.com

Disclaimer: This is an unsponsored review and link up, I do not have any affiliations with any of the above companies or pages.

From the Recipe

Dear Readers, 


What kind of cook are you? 


Are you a peel and press, microwave-loving kind of person?


An exact-measurement-to-the-letter chef?


A we'll-just-chuck-it-in-and-see-how-it-goes type?


I am of the latter variety. I love to look at a bunch of ingredients at the last minute and make it up as I go. If I was a cooking show, I'd be Ready, Steady, Cook. And I thought I was pretty good at it. 


But after yet another hmmm.... not so good meal, Awesome pointed out that perhaps it was time for a change in strategy... 


So, I began to look through the 30 or so cookbooks I have on my shelves. I thought about great websites I have read like http://www.bfeedme.com/ and http://www.101cookbooks.com/ who cook and review recipes from cookbooks they come across. 


I'm not aiming to attain their status by any means, but I have decided, that for the next couple of weeks, I will try to plan the majority of our dinner meals at home from cookbooks. And, I thought you might like to join me :) 

My Cookbook Collection

Here's the rules:
- Plan 1-4 meals per week from cookbooks you already own
- Create your shopping list and stick to it
- Cook your meal following the recipe
- Blog your experience and then come back to Eyes Above to share your success (or area of potential growth!!). 


You can blog and post as many meals as you like, but try to aim for at least one meal a week for the month of June. 


I'll be back on Monday to share how I went with my slow cooker Potato Bake recipe!

No S[ucess]Diet

So I thought I'd try the No S Diet.  Its pretty easy: No snacks, no seconds, no sweets except on days that start with 'S'. 

It was going very well. Until Awesome dropped home for lunch today and mentioned the packet of choc chip cookies he had in the cupboard.

I knew they were there. I knew they were his. I was avoiding them and do very well at it thank you.

But then... I caved. And I opened the packet.

And I ate... well... ok I'm going to be honest here in the privacy of the World Wide Web... half.the.packet.

That's 11 biscuits for those playing along at home.

For the statisticians among you, I have consumed my entire daily quota of kilojoules in 20 minutes.

That's ridiculous.

I'm calling today Sunday and starting fresh from here on in.  No more.

And instead of going and buying a replacement packet of biscuits and hiding the other packet and pretending that I didn't open them ( not that I have done that in the past or anything...) I will fess up when Awesome gets home and apologise for eating his stash.

I am going to last until Saturday and then I am going to weigh myself and see if four and half days without snacks makes a difference.

Peppermint Bark Tutorial

In the spirit of Making Shorter Lists, I am not going to share my tutorial for peppermint bark.

Courtney at Women Living Well has already posted hers, complete with photos! So head over there to check it out!




Right, I can cross that off the list for today then :)

Christmas Recipe Highlights

All my favourite blogs are sharing beautiful Christmas recipes.

Here is some link love!

Laura at Heavenly Homemakers shares her Gramdma's recipe for Peppernut Bites 

Lindsay at Passionate Homemaking shares a recipe for Cranberry Orange Coconut Cookies

Courtney at Women Living Well wins the prize for me - these Soft Sugar Cookies look fantastic!

Share me some link love!!

Yummy Christmas Food!

Why is it that we wait until Christmas to bring out all the yummy stuff?!!


Here is the recipe from taste.com.au that I am making this year. 


Christmas Cookies

Makes

24

Ingredients

• 125g butter, at room temperature
• 1/2 cup (115g) caster sugar
• 1/4 cup (60ml) milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups (225g) self-raising flour
• 1/2 cup (70g) custard powder
• Silver and gold sparkling cachous, to decorate

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Line two baking trays with non-stick baking paper.
2. Use an electric beater to beat the butter and sugar until pale and creamy. Beat in milk and vanilla extract. Fold in the flour and custard powder.
3. Press the dough into a ball and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 30 minutes to rest.
4. Divide the dough into manageable portions. Roll out one portion on a sheet of non-stick baking paper to about 1cm thick. Use Christmas cookie cutters to cut shapes and place on the trays. Decorate with cachous.
5. Bake for 10 minutes or until light golden. Cool for 5 minutes on the trays before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Repeat with remaining dough.

Notes

• Children cooking should be supervised by an adult.
  
  
  The rest of my Christmas cooking plan looks like this:
  - Jars of homemade Lemon Curd 
  - Peppermint rock (this was such a hit with everyone last year and so, so easy.  Tutorial to come!)
  - My very special version of Rocky Road
  
  
  Notice how the recipes are simple and I won't be slaving for days on end. I'm looking forward to a relaxed cooking day! 
  
  
  What are you making this year?

Homemade Sugarless Tomato Sauce

This sauce has a think rich texture and is suitable for using in baked dishes such as lasagna and spaghetti bolognaise. It is suitable for freezing and you can substitute whatever vegies you like to use up left-overs in the fridge. 


Ingredients

- diced or grated vegetables - I used carrot, onion, celery 
- 4-6 very ripe to over ripe tomatoes
- 500ml of gluten/sugar/dairy free vegetable stock
- 1 bottle of passata (check the label for one with no sugar added. There will be a small amount of sugar in the percentage box as tomatoes contain natural sugar. 
- handful fresh chopped basil


Method

1. Heat a little oil in saucepan, add hard vegetables and sauté until soft
2. Add herbs and tomatoes, cover with stock, reduce to low and allow to sweat with the lid one for 2-3 hours
3. Remove from hotplate and allow to cool
4. Put vege mix into a blender and add 3-4 cups of passata, one cup at a time as you mix, until desired consistency and colour is achieved. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
5. Store in an airtight container for 3-4 days. 
6. Store in freezer for 2 months in zip lock bags that can be thawed in the fridge overnight. 

A yummy alternative to commercial tomato sauces. 

Super Easy Cheater's Sugar-Free Spinach and Ricotta Cannelloni

I left the generous gift of spinach that a friend gave me at their house, but still wanted to go ahead and make this!

Ingredients
2 cubes frozen spinach - reheated according to packet directions
1 small tub of smooth ricotta cheese
Cannelloni tubes to fit your small baking dish
Homemade sugar free tomato sauce (recipe to come)
Parmesan cheese

Mix the ricotta and spinach together in a small bowl
Use a small zip-lock bag with the corner cut out to make a piping bag. Fill with spinach mixture and pipe into tubes, laying them flat in your dish when each is done.
Cover with tomato sauce
Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and pop in over until pasta is cooked through (depends on size of dish - around 35-40 is a good guide) on 200 degrees C.

Enjoy some now, some for dinner and some in the freezer for later :)

No Sugar Challenge Update

Well we are entering day 3 of my No Sugar Week. 


How am I doing?


I think I'm actually doing pretty good! There have already been a few set backs like a virus I have picked up and the crazy last minute take out dinner (that turned out quite well) last night, but on the whole I am feeling good (except for the flu and the sore neck...). 


The first day I went through what I normally would take to work and realised that most things had no sugar at all! Its the things I go and buy at the shops on my lunch break that let me down!  So I decided not to take any cash to work this week and instead took lunch and snacks from home. 


My favourite are these: 

From www.chicnuts.com

They are deeeelicious and sugar free! Don't worry I am not getting paid to recommend them - I just really enjoy them!

I did start to get a bit hungry last night and realised I was having sugar cravings, but a big glass of milk helped that!! 

As I have been sick, we have been relying on the freezer meals I have stashed away to get us through - with the exception of a last minute drive through run for fast food last night, which actually didn't turn out so bad as they forgot the sauce on my burger and the bun was stale so I just ate the meat ( maybe it was payback for being slack about the challenge!). 

No major changes as yet, but I'll keep you updated!

Nourish: favourite places for good mood food

Here are some of the places I regularly visit for good food ideas and recipes

Taste Website Australia: thousands of searchable recipes from recipe magazines. This website has got me out of trouble on more than one occasion! (Plus the measurements are all metric which eliminates having to have the converter website open on the computer).

Keeper of the Home: I am a better cook and budgeter for the information I have learned from Stephanie's website and ebooks. It was tripping across this blog while searching for information on PCOS that got me into real food, healthier eating and blogging!

Passionate Homemaking: Lindsay's recipe section is full of tempting recipes and her techniques

Naturally Knocked Up: For lots of info and ideas on a more natural and health friendly diet. Donielle has battled PCOS too so she's a "cyster"!

Jamie Oliver's Website: I am blessed to own two of his beuatiful cook books and I LOVE what he is doing with his Food Revolution campaign. I love that he will freely give away so many recipes just because he is passionate about people eating well.

July At Our Place

Here are some of the July Happenings from our place. 

White board messages from my guy :)

Awesome Ironing while we visited a friend in the country 

Visiting Western Plains Zoo

Little Friends at the Zoo

Baking

More Baking

Love

Happy half-year! Can you believe its has gone so fast? 

Completing Him Challenge Week 6

After an accidental week-long blog hiatus, I am back and ready to move on to week 6 of the Completing Him Challenge. 


This week:Make your husband a priority. Ask him what his favorite dinner, dessert and drink are. Be sure to serve him all three one night this week. Bonus: cook his favorite dishes all week long!


Well, I am going to take up this challenge this week and I decided last minute to have a spontaneous Husband's Day!

When Awesome got home from work there was a printed tag that said:


"Surprise! Today is Husband's Day!  Today you do not have to do any house work, will have one of your favourite meals prepared for you and will have complete control of the remote and your activities!  I just want to celebrate you! With love, Your Wife"


He thought it was fantastic!  I have decided to do each part of  the meal (dinner, drink and dessert) separately across the week as we have a bit of a busy one and I thought it might be fun. 


I started tonight with one of Awesome's favourites: Mini-Sausage Rolls! 


Here is the recipe:

8 Beef Sausages

2 Sheets Frozen Puff Pastry, thawed

1 Egg Lightly Beaten

Sesame Seeds to sprinkle for the “gourmet look”

Tomato Sauce to Serve

1.   Preheat oven to 220◦C. Line baking tray with non-stick paper.

2.   Cut each pastry sheet into quarters.

3.   Please sausage in centre of each square. Bring one side over to enclose sausage. Brush opposite side with egg and bring over to completely enclose sausage. Place seam side down on tray.

4.   Brush tops with eggs and sprinkle with sesame seeds.

5.   Bake for 30-35 minutes until golden. 

They are not quite as good as his Mum's but they do the trick! 

Thanksgiving Tuesday - December 2009 List

121. Inquiring minds focused on God's plan
122. Faith that God works through all things to His glory
123. Sweet Christmas foods
124. Thoughtful encouragement from a Pastor
125. A reliable car
126. Cooling summer rain
127.Wonderful friends at church
128. Satisfaction in knowing God is at work
128. Bosciola chips!
129. Nacho pizza
130. Date night with my boy
131. Wise decisions from my husband
132. Prayers committed to faith in God's plan
133. Sleepless nights
134. Early nights
135. Wisdom of older women
136. Soft spikiness of his cheek
137. Firm touch of his hand
138. Dinner date night
139. Chilled out music
140. Moisturiser for dry hands
141. The will to study the Word
142. Made-up bed
143. Wonderful moments to treasure
144. Lifetime friends who know
145. Thousands crowding for carols
146. Candle light in the night air
147. Bat silhouettes
148. Clothes that still fit
149. Deep kisses
150. That last deep breath before their tears stop
151. Time to explain
152. Family loudness
153. Quiet fishing

Link Love...

I read a lot of blogs, and I am always loosing track of inspiring links to posts that motivate me.  So I am putting them all down in one place as a ready reckoner for me to come back to time and time again. Things I have been encouraged and challenged by lately...

Spiritual Discipline


Occasionally it all gets a bit much and I need to take some time to focus. From The Worn Out Woman I learnt about Retreat Days, and now every 5-6 months or so I use my RDO to take a little time to retreat and reflect.
Recently I also tripped over here and here and have been very encouraged - thank you ladies!

Marriage
Sometimes its really hard to trust that things are in someone else's control... especially in marriage. This post helps me think on this...
All of Ann's posts on marriage have spoken deeply to me and help me to focus on what's important. Each post is listed at the bottom of this one.
There are many things we are concentrating on to build our marriage and we have been trying to organise semi-regular date nights.

Nourishing Foods and Dealing with PCOS Naturally

Because Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome is often linked to Insulin Resistance, food plays an important part in managing the issues involved. I am starting to make some very small inroads with looking at Nourishing Foods. These websites have helped me get my head around the basics:
http://www.keeperofthehome.org/
http://www.naturallyknockedup.com/
http://www.thenourishinggourmet.com/

In preparation to see a Naturopath about the symptoms of PCOS, I realised I needed a way to chart my cycles and be specific about what I was seeing and experiencing each day. I have read Taking Charge of Your Fertility and am now using their software to chart my cycles so see if there are any patterns. I think its worth the fee. I am also considering taking this e-course towards a more natural approach to life. I think this also helps when it comes to the real matter at the heart of it all...

Organisation?

Do I really need to be more organised? Maybe I'm making this too hard on myself...
I recently "made under" my closet in a similar sense to this, and I am loving the easiness of putting things where they belong each night! Only days before this post I did the same thing and asked Mr. Awesome to be my "eyes" - and it was soooo much easier to part with things when I had someone else saying "Ahhh.... no."

Living in an apartment - space is at a premium - so I am so thankful I'm not the only one who struggles a little to give stuff away I might need later - its good to know that there is no shortage of so many items....

What is it that is taking up your headspace today? Do you need to write out some link love to help you clear it?

Slow Cooker Vegetable Soup Recipe

A couple of nights ago I experimented with my slow cooker to make a vegetable soup. I struggled to find a recipe for a basic vegetable soup with no meat in it (mostly because we didn't have any!). So here is my basic slow cooker vegetable soup.  If you use a gluten and dairy free stock, then it is also dairy and gluten free!!  If you substitute vegetable stock for the beef stock I used, you will also have a vegetarian (and I think also vegan?) soup!

Ingredients I used:
- 2 carrots diced
- 1 swede diced
- 2 small parsnips (these were tiny tiny so maybe 1 bigger one) diced
- 2 cups dried soup mix - lentils green and brown, yellow and green split peas, kidney, broad and bortolli beans, soaked overnight and rinsed
- 2 litres (depending on size of your slow cooker) of beef/vegetable stock or water and stock cube equivalent
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon mixed dried herbs
- 2 cloves garlic crushed
- 1 bay leaf
- 1-2 sticks celery chopped
- 1 cup rice vermicelli

Method:

Add all ingredients except for the celery and rice vermicelli to the slow cooker, turn on and thats it!

My 2 litres of soup (I had to top it up a bit as my beans where not soaked so they soaked up a lot of water) took about 6 hours on High but another hour or two on low would have reduced it a bit an enhanced the flavour even more. I added the celery and vermicelli in the last 2 hours.

Very yummy, and we had lots of soup to freeze for later :)