Tuesday 31 July 2012

100 New Recipes ~ Pesto & Cheese Scones

Part of my Life List challenge to try 100 new recipes ~ #4 Pesto & Cheese Scones

YUM!

If you live in Wellington you've most likely heard that the annual Wellington on a Plate foodie festival is happening. One of the events being held is the Wellington Bake Club, where teams of four or more complete weekly baking challenges. I couldn't get a team of four together, but my sister-in-law & I are following along with the baking challenges anyway, just for fun.

The challenge for week one was savoury scones.

I used this recipe but added cheese, naturally. About a cup in the mix & some sprinkled on the top too. Next time I think I would double the recipe & double the thickness of the scones. Other than that this was a pretty easy recipe that turned out great. Delicious!

Friday 27 July 2012

Wilder & Tamer

WILDER

~ My new breakfast craze ~ Fresh fruit salad, greek yoghurt, ground LSA w/ super grains, raw mixed nuts. Yum!

~ My friend Naiomi is awesome. Proof:

She bedazzled her ukulele...

...& also her kettle.

~ The Olympics starts tomorrow!!!!!!

~ Kowhai has been particularly lovely this week. It is such a pleasure to be her Mama. I really got a good one.

~ People with great infectious laughs.

TAMER

~ My lovely Apa works super hard. Which is awesome, don't get me wrong, but it would be cool if we got to see a bit more of him. He had a couple of days off this week but Koko & I already had things scheduled. Boo!


Wilder Web

Vic Books linked to this list of top ten non-fiction books for the novel lover, & my reading list instantly grew.

Something pretty exciting happened this week; the Marriage Amendment Bill was drawn from the ballot at Parliament. Sarah-Rose's response to this is pretty great.

Hello, Book Shelf Porn! (Totally Safe For Work.)

A fascinating dissection of the TomKat split, that is incredibly thought provoking & at least ten times more considered & intelligent than anything you will read in Women's Day. Worth the read. Trust me. (via Blue Milk)

Apparently the CEO of Yahoo is The Most Powerful Pregnant Woman On The Planet, & she's not planning on taking any time off work when her baby arrives. But what does it mean for families in general when someone like her says something like that? (also via Blue Milk)

As a feminist & an unabashed Huge Fan of the spectacle that is The Olympics, I like this piece on Time magazine's covers featuring women athletes as, well, athletes. (& again, via Blue Milk)

That's it; I'm moving to a treehouse community in Costa Rica.

The cuteness ~ a six year old judges classic books by their covers. (via Morgue)

Cue the happy tears ~ it's The Best Graduation Gift EVER!!!!!! (also via Morgue)

This guest room is gorgeous. (via Gala Darling)

I've been wanting to get a rug for Koko's room. Maybe one day I'll be brave enough to attempt this DIY braided rug.

Eep! A life sized Doll House! (via frankie)

I got to pick The Best Song Ever Written on Afternoons with Jim Mora this week.

Further proof that The Roots are one of the best bands ever ~

also via Morgue (thanks for all the links!)






100 New Recipes ~ Meatloaf

From my Life List challenge to try 100 new recipes, here's #3 ~ Meatloaf.



Not the most appetising of pictures, I know, but trust me - this was delicious.

I've never been a huge meatloaf fan, but when I heard this recipe on National Radio I thought I'd give it a go, & I knew it would please Apa. And please him it did. He scoffed a generous portion of it and then spent the next half hour or so moaning & sighing & whinging about how full he was. Success!

Here's the recipe:

MEATLOAF
500g sausage meat
500g beef mince
1C fresh breadcrumbs (I used packet breadcrumbs)
1 large onion chopped
2 tsp curry powder
salt and pepper to taste
2 tbsp chopped parsley
1 egg
1/2 Cup milk

METHOD
Mix all together and shape into a loaf - cook for 30 mins at 180 C. Drain off excess fat and pour sauce over, bake for a further 30 minutes.


SAUCE

INGREDIENTS

1/2 C water
1/2 C tomato sauce
1/4 C worcestershire sauce
2 tbsp malt vinegar
1/4 C brown sugar

1 shot espresso coffee (I left this out)
25 g butter
2 tbsp cornflour

METHOD

Mix together and simmer for 5 minutes.


We served ours with garlic mashed potatoes & baby carrots. The sauce is the selling point in this particular recipe - it really made all the difference.


Sunday 22 July 2012

Wilder & Tamer

WILDER

~ Overcoming food phobias. Coffee, eggplant, bananas, kiwifruit...I don't think I'll ever be brave enough for swede though.

~ Donovans Feijoa Milk Chocolate. Yes, I'm still loving chocolate. Yes, I'm still breastfeeding.

~ Sharks.

~ The Roots.
TAMER

~ Kowhai has reached the age where she gets distracted while feeding. Not cool.

~ Kowhai deciding 4.45am was playtime. Also very uncool.

Thursday 19 July 2012

Wilder Web

Remember the utter peanut butter nutter ad? Here's an amzing cover version.

A book I did some research work on was released recently, & a there was a review in the Sunday Star Times that was written by someone who had very obviously not read the book. So this article about a New York Times review with a major plot mistake was pretty interesting. (via Nubby Twiglet)

A list of Disney Princesses ranked from least feminist to most feminist.

And a nice follow up to that ~ a list of non-sexist films for kids.

Def Leppard played & I fucking owned it. Hilarious. (via Dooce)

Funny descriptions of news interview subjects. (also via Dooce)

Okay, so there was the whole Daniel Tosh rape debacle floating around the internet this week. To be honest, I tried to avoid most of it, because it's all just the same old story repeated on all sides, & can get pretty depressing. But I did read & like this response.

Time Out New York's list of the 100 best films made about NYC. Looks like I've got some serious movie watching to do. (via Gala Darling)

A great piece on slut shaming. (also via Gala Darling)
"I don’t care how much sex anyone has, how often they do it, or who they do it with. I’m much more interested in the consent, pleasure, and well-being of the participants and the people affected by it."

I LOVE this article about the axing of the Dolly model contest. (again, via Gala Darling. She had some good links this week)

An open letter to teenagers wanting babies. (via The Bloggess)
"When your baby finally falls asleep you’ll try to take the first shower you've taken in days but then you’ll wake up the baby by thinking too loudly. Nice try, lady. Back to work."

Prepare for some major house envy over this gorgeous tile work.

Pretty much the sweetest tribute ever. (via Tangerina)

And Then She Saved has 5 great tips for controlling impulse spending. So useful!

Terry Serepisos' house is up for mortgagee sale. The first word that comes to mind is monstrosity. And I don't often use that word. (via The Wellingtonista)

Tuesday 17 July 2012

Wilder World of Books ~ Afghanistan

The Kite Runner ~ Khaled Hosseini


On my Life List I wrote 'Read a book from/about every country in the world'. It doesn't matter if I've already read a book from or about that country; for the sake of this list I'm starting again. So Afghanistan is the first coutry to be ticked off.

I'm not sure it would be right to say I enjoyed this book. The subject matter is pretty unsettling. The writing, however, was great, & I always like to be transported to a particular time & place when reading. I guess that is the purpose of this exercise ~ to learn more about the world. Before I read The Kite Runner I knew nothing about pre-9/11 Afghanistan, & very little about contemporary Afghanistan, so this gave me a little (very little) background info on the country.

I'd love to include my favourite quote from the book here but I forgot to make note of it while I was reading, & hell if I'm gonna go through the entire book just to find it for you, sorry.

As part of this exercise I am going to learn where each country is located on the world map. This is where Afghanistan is, if you didn't already know.

Monday 16 July 2012

Wilder Woman of the Week ~ Dawn French




There's been a lot of press recently about the fat positive & health at any size movements, & the backlash that goes along with such things. I've avoided as much of it as possible, because it just makes me a wee bit angsty, to be honest. Then, by sheer coincidence, I started reading Dawn French's memoir, Dear Fatty. And a mere 22 pages in there was this:

"That's the key, you know, confidence. I know for a fact that if you can genuinely like your body, so can others. It doesn't really matter if it's short, tall, fat or thin, it just matters that you can find some things to like about it. Even if that means having a good laugh at the bits of it that wobble independently, occasionally, that's all right. It might take you a while to believe me on this one, lots of people don't because they seem to suffer from a self-hatred that precludes them from imagining that a big woman could ever love herself because they don't. But I do. I know what I've got is a bit strange and difficult to love but those are the very aspects I love the most! It's a bit like people. I've never been particularly attracted to the uniform of conventional beauty. I'm always a bit suspicious of people who feel compelled to conform. I personally like the adventure of difference. And what's beauty, anyway?"

Amazing. I had this crazy surge of emotions. I wanted to cheer, to laugh, & damn near burst into tears. I had to put the book down without reading further so I could digest that gem of a paragraph. And that, folks, is why Dawn French is my Wilder Woman of the Week.

Sunday 15 July 2012

Seven Days of Koko








Kowhai needs your help! Please head over to Oh Baby! & vote for her. She's on page 9. Thanks!

Friday 13 July 2012

Wilder & Tamer

WILDER

~ The new flanellette sheets on the guest bed at my parents' house. Lovely.


~ Season one of The Wire. And can I just call special attention to the soundtrack, please? Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Mos Def again, Roots Manuva. Nice.

~ The Miss Wilson Maria Heel. Want!

~ Winter hibernation, when the cold weather totally justifies your decision to stay home eating comfort food & watching endless television.

TAMER

~ Blog posts with numerous footnotes. Do you really want me to be continually scrolling up & down, trying to keep up with what's going on? Annoying.

Thursday 12 July 2012

Wilder Web

The music choices that make you undateable. I was congratulating myself for not having any of this music on my ipod...until I reached Red Hot Chili Peppers. In my defence, I have nothing that came after Blood Sugar Sex Magik.

For the rich survivalists out there ~ real estate to help you survive the zombie apocalypse.

Maggie from Mighty Girl has some pretty stylish friends.

Yes, it's another dream wedding. I'm particularly fond of the bride's shoes.

I did a guest post over at Mrs Blacksmith on turning negative poverty into positive poverty.

Oh, how I wish I had read this before I submitted that guest post earlier in the week.

Kris Atomic's Things to do on a Sunday evening on Brighton Beach is super cute. As is everything she does, really.

Got tattoos? Then you must check out Nora Flanagan's amazing poem over at Oh Sarah-Rose.

Nubby Twiglet has pretty impeccable styling, & this collaboration with solestruck & TBA  is no exception.

The art of Mica Still. Amazing. I'm pretty sure I was admiring her work on the walls of the Newtown Opporunity for Animals shop recently. (via daisy & zelda)



Wednesday 11 July 2012

A Wilder Shade of Nail

Revlon Red



This is my absolute favourite classic vamp red.

It should be worm to a cocktail party with a long black gown, as styled below.

Tuesday 10 July 2012

100 New Recipes ~ Afghans

One of the entries on my Life List is to try 100 new recipes.

Here's #2 ~ Afghans


Apa's been hassling me to bake him some Afghans for a while now, so when I saw Cornflakes on sale at the supermarket I figured it was time. I used the Edmonds Cookery Book recipe, & they were delicious. I don't put a walnut on mine, because I'm not that keen on them. Which reminds me of a major gripe ~ don't you absolutely hate it when you buy an afghan at a cafe and they have only put a small dollop of icing on the middle of the biscuit, just enough to hold the walnut in place? That bugs me big time.

Monday 9 July 2012

Wilder Woman of the Week ~ Emma Watson




Wilder Women ~ Salt-n-Pepa/Spice Girls/Kim Wilde



Wilder & Tamer

Wilder

~ Apa took a morning off work so we could have our favourite Maranui brunch to celebrate our ninth anniversary. Lovely.

~ My friend Frankie May wore her Black Lodge camouflage to lunch on Sunday. Too cool.


~ One of my bestest ever friends, Noush, is back in Wellington! Huzzah!

Tamer

~ Tuesday night's earthquake. So epic I actually dragged my sleeping baby out of her cot. She was also unimpressed.

~ The Divide. Quite possibly the most disturbing movie I have ever sat through half of.

Wilder Web

This open letter to Colin Kane is full of so much Yes!

I'd really, really quite like an R2D2 skirt.

And a fox dress for Koko!


So, all the American blogs I follow were pretty heavy handed on the Fourth of July posts this week. Here's one I was actually kinda interested in: The Best Songs about the Fifty States (via Mighty Girl).

A wonderful art project full of fake apologies (via Dooce).

14 First World problems from the nineties (also via Dooce).

I relate to so much of this article on the writer's discovery of queso (via Yes and Yes).

When Dawson's Creek started my friends & I would get together every Friday night to watch it. Here's Morgue's take on season one. Pretty spot on.

My Crushes ~ The Intermediate Years

Following on from My First Crushes, here's round two of the men I've been mesmerised by:

Skid Row's Sebastian Bach


I didn't know who he was & I never listened to his music, but for some reason I was compelled to rip his poster out of my Smash Hits magazine & stick it up on my bedroom wall. I'm sure my mother was thrilled by this.

Mark Wahlberg aka Marky Mark

                                                

In his CK underwear campaign. Not bad, little Gem. Not bad at all.

Johnny Depp ~ the early years.

                                             

21 Jump Street, Edward Scissorhands, Benny & Joon, What's Eating Gilbert Grape...it was all good.

 Kris Kross


At my Taita school you had two choices ~ Chris "Mac Daddy" Kelly or Chris "Daddy Mac" Smith. I chose the Daddy Mac (pictured on the right).

Blossom's Dad



Most of my peers were going nuts over Blossom's brother Joey, played by Joey Lawrence. Personally, I thought Joey was so dumb he was practically retarded. Give me tall, dark & handsome solo dad Nick Russo any day. He was a musician! I also had a bit of a thing for Blossom's alcoholic brother, Tony.

Friday 6 July 2012

100 New Recipes ~ Pumpkin & Halloumi Salad

Remember my Life List? One of the things on it was Make 100 New Recipes.

Here's #1 ~ Pumpkin & Halloumi Salad.


I based it on this recipe but changed up a couple of things. It consists of baby spinach, red onion, roasted walnuts, roasted pumpkin, eggplant, capsicum & halloumi that were grilled in the sandwich press, & an olive oil & red wine vinegar dressing. And damn, it was delicious! I'll definitely be making this again.

Monday 2 July 2012

Wilder Woman of the Week ~ Nancy Sinatra





Confession ~ One of the reasons I love Nancy Sinatra is because she looks like she could be the long lost sister of my best friend or her Ma.