Meal Planning Monday 5th November 2012

This week we will be having, in no particular order;

• Chickpea and Butternut Squash Curry (slow cooker recipe)
• Thai Beef Salad (recipe from Countdown)
• Butternut Squash Soup (slow cooker recipe)
• Spaghetti Bolognaise
• Pasta, with bacon, basil and pesto sauce and some form of veg
• Breaded Chicken, curried mushrooms and rice or potatoes
• Quick chilli (from last weeks plan, we never got round to having it)

I did have planned what days we were eating what, slow cooker things for days I was working etc. BUT our supermarket didn't have any butternut squash so my meal order was foiled! It looks like I may have to substitute the squash for pumpkin but my cooking crapness means I am worrying probably unnecessarily about wether or not this will be ok and if I will be able to cut a pumpkin up or not!!!!

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Kapiti Island Today 4th November 2012

Kapiti Island Today 3pm ...

Another beautiful day. Today's picture was taken from Whareroa Beach in Queen Elizabeth park. We took the hound for a walk along the inland track. Poor Lovely Hubby was pushing the double buggy with the Cherubs up and down the hilly track. Don't feel too sorry for him (although he did slip slide down one of the gravely hills gripling on to the pram for dear life). I was in charge of wrangling The Hound! I wasn't very good, he ended up in a big muddy puddle and had a roll around in a good few piles of poop.

We walked back along the beach, it's not often The Hound is encouraged to go in for a swim but today was one of those times!

The beach was glorious. The sky was blue, the sea was sparkling all shades of blue and green and the beach was full of shiny, shingly shells and sparkly, bubbly sea foam.

Island Fact For The Day - A vague one today but interesting nonetheless! One of Lovely Hubbies patients told him that there is evidence that back in the day a Tsunami washed right over the top of Kapiti Island! One big Tsunami alright!!!!!! (Exclamation overload justified with such a scary fact)

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Silent Sunday 4th November 2012

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Wine Bottle Explanation

A couple of weeks ago my Silent Sunday picture was of a rather swanky looking bottle of wine. Click here to view

I got lots of lovely comments, some asking if and why it was special.

Those of you who actually know me will know that us Simpsons are wine connoisseurs, connoisseurs of the cask that is! Don't get me wrong we like a good wine but generally if its white and cold we're (mainly me) happy!

Here in lovely N.Z wine is taken a tad more seriously what with all the lovely vineyards across the land! One doesn't go into a bar and ask for a large glass of the house white, you actually need to know what you want e.g a sav (Sauvignon Blanc) or Pinot Gris! And there is no size option!

You would think that the abundance of wine here would mean it was cheaper than the U.K but rather annoyingly this is not the case! Noticeably one in particular, Oyster Bay, that I would class as an cheaper (not in a bad way) wine in the U.K is more expensive here! Go figure!

However you get some good cheap bubbles, YAY my fave!

Before I go into exclamation mark overdrive back to the swanky bottle in the picture...Lovely Hubbies parents have just been to visit. While they were here they visited one of the wine regions, Martinborough. For Lovely Hubbies birthday they bought him some tasty wines. One of them being the one from the picture!

We had it on there last night here. A Bronze Medal winning Pinot Noir from Sei Cento and bottled in 2008. The name means 600 in Italian the wine is produced from only 600 vines and only 600 bottles are released commercially each year. We had no 226 of 600!

It was a lovely treat and I managed to refrain from gulping it down and was able to savour the flavour and admire the fingers on the glass (or some such wine tasting jargon). Looking forward to the next bottle in our wine treat box ...

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Kapiti Island Today 3rd November 2012

Kapiti Island Today 6pm ...

Mr Kapiti Island is looking particularly grumpy in this pick!

Did a drive by to get my picture today! It was peeing down with rain all day. A great excuse to get some cooking done for Second Born Son and laze about in civvies doing blog stuff. The Cherubs obliged by having nice big sleeps this afternoon.

Island Fact For The Day - Wanna see some kiwis in the wild?  Head to Kapiti Island.

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Saturday Is Caption Day 3rd November 2012

****Whoop whoop**** It's the weekend. Thanks to my little sister getting a new job Saturdays are mine again! I loved my mornings working in Porirua East but no Aunty Katy to Cherub watch means no work for Notsosuperscottishmummy on Saturdays!

Never mind the fact that its raining for the first time this week. It's ok we have chilli to make, baking to do and salmon and brocolli pasta to make for Archie Boy! Not to mention playing, blogging and watching junk t.v.

Anyhoo back to the point! Caption photo....or er photos this week ...

Luckily it was a beautiful day on my day off! Nice enough for toggs, sun cream and outside water play! I captured these pictures through the living room window. I love it when The Hound and Maisie interact together! The Hound loves both Cherubs thankfully. Although I'm pretty sure his favourite thing is their smelliness!!!

Caption away folks!

Don't forget to hop on to over to the #SatCap leader at Mammasaurus! Find the link on my Linky Love page.

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Kapiti Island Today 1st November 2012

Kapiti Island today 6.05pm ...

We took a trip to a different part of the coast today. We are lucky enough to be 10 minutes away from the AWESOME Queen Elizabeth park. It's a pretty cool wee (big) national park with loads of different tracks (inland and coastal) for dog walking, biking, running and even horse riding.

It was another beautiful and even hot day today although this picture says otherwise! Would you believe behind the camera there was beautiful blue sky. I found it quite warm on the first half of the walk on the inland track but as we walked back along the actual beach it was a bit chilly alright!

Island fact for the day - Kapiti is currently a bird sanctuary and it has no pests.

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