A lovely weekend

I had a lovely weekend.

Friday night was dinner with work colleagues at The Sussex Hotel where I was very pleased with my dinner choice from a typical pub fare menu – Salt & Pepper Calamari with fries, salad and aioli.

Saturday was a drizzly day but thrilled that we got our game of netball in. Pity we got absolutely slaughtered! Training is booked in for Tuesday night! Japanese for dinner from Sushi Joy at Northbridge (always outstanding chicken teriyaki). The day was finished off with meeting a few friends for some drinks.

Today was lunch at Crinitis at Parramatta with my family – a celebration for my sister’s birthday tomorrow combined with Mothers Day for next weekend. At $100/couple we were served meals that were so large but delicious. Bruschetta crust to start, then we shared a Parpadelle Al Granchio (blue swimmer crab with asparagus and papardelle pasta) and a De Vito Calzone (meatballs, oregano and mozzarella folded over pizza) along with a few soft drinks. Service was efficient and friendly and overall I was very impressed. Better still, I’ve got a doggy bag with half of my pasta for lunch tomorrow 🙂

Sunday night in our household usually means there will be a dessert in the oven. Normally this is a Sara Lee apple or apricot crumble or a danish. I, of course, love the smell of a fresh cake being baked in the oven so instead of purchasing a frozen dessert to reheat, we opted for the 2 for $8 White Wings cake mix deal at Woolworths. A chocolate heaven cake has now been baked and ready to serve!

Friendly competition

On the weekend in my house we have a competition of who can score the highest in the Stuff Daily Trivia Quiz and today, I won! I won not only in the daily quiz, but also the ANZAC quiz. 10/15 in the daily and 6/10 in the ANZAC quiz. I’m rather chuffed! They were decent wins too in comparison to the other results today where everyone else completely blew out.

A pity the weather is so dreary today as I was looking forward to another nice park day and lunch outside. I’m really enjoying this extra long weekend for Easter and ANZAC Day. I took Thursday and I’ve taken Wednesday off work as well to give me seven days off. Leisurely. The weather was gorgeous on Thursday but I spent half of it shopping in Oxford at Chatswood Westfield. I love that shop! I bought a skirt suit and matching pants, a dress and a blouse.

Friday we enjoyed the beautiful sunshine at the park and that night we had a birthday BBQ. I made a potato bake and my legendary rhubarb, apple and berry crumble – both of which worked an absolute treat!

Saturday was a lazy rainy day with two DVDs (only $2.99 each from our local Oovie) – Machete and The Social Network – and home made chicken burgers for dinner. Sunday we had brekkie, coffee, run at the park and lunch at Pattisson’s Patisserie at St Ives then home made pizzas last night, yum.

So what to do today? On this drizzly day? Perhaps some more DVDs and baking later in the afternoon.

Snickers Slice and ANZAC Biscuits

Two of my favourite sweet treats are Snickers and home-made ANZAC Biscuits. Every year I would count down to mid-April when I’d expect Mum would be ready to prepare some more ANZAC Biscuits (and lots of them!).

Although I’m not a huge chocolate fan (put a piece of Cadbury chocolate in front of me and I will never touch it), I have always loved Snickers. It’s that irresistible combination of peanuts, nougat and caramel with a light chocolate coating that gets me every time. What better idea then, than to make a Snickers Slice rather than a Mars Bar Slice.

So on this rainy day, I’ve paid hommage to my sweet tooth and satisfied my Snickers craving with a delicious Snickers Slice and a double batch of home-made ANZAC Biscuits. The biscuits are in the oven and they are creating the most amazing scent wafting through the house.

I obtained these recipes from Exclusively Food, one of my favourite websites for reliable and delicious recipes.

ANZAC Biscuits – Dry ingredients

ANZAC Biscuits – Wet ingredients

ANZAC Biscuits – Wet ingredients with bi-carb soda, about to add to dry mix

ANZAC Biscuits – Mixed and ready to roll

ANZAC Biscuits – Fresh out of the oven, YUMMY!

Snickers Slice – Some in the tray and some in patty cases

No such thing as free money

There was a link I saw on facebook today to get paid while working part time from home and that all you need to be able to do is type. Of course I was intrigued! So I clicked on the link and perhaps no surprise that it was a US-based site whereby you pay a minimal US$1.95 fee to start and thereafter, you will be charged US$29.95/month to keep your website active. From what I could understand, you basically get paid to post links on websites. Hmmm … seems all a bit too dodgy to me!

A cake for a new day

I’m thrilled the painters finished their work today! We’ve had a massive clean in the townhouse this evening but still have to mop the floors and vaccum the lounges tomorrow. A good effort already though. Concrete dust remains in the rear courtyard and that work won’t be finished for potentially another two weeks … and so the wait continues.

Tomorrow is set to be a great day: playing netball, umpiring netball, playing netball as a stand-in player for another team. Looking forward then to heading out to a lovely wine bar to catch up with some girlfriends.

Dessert tonight is Honeycomb Bavarian Cheesecake – another little goodie from my Sara Lee Factory Outlet shopping spree. The Choc Caramel Bavarian was great but I must say I was a little disappointed in the Strawberry so hoping this will impress more. Although they were a bargain, I’m not yet convinced they were the best buy.

For work this morning I had to do a training session and although it was my shout for coffees, I was treated to cake by my trainees. Their team manager who had purchased the cake said it was just to celebrate it being a new day. What a great idea! Not so sure I was keen on cake for breakfast, but it was a nice touch 🙂

Dust, dogs and desserts

I have been away in Canberra the last three days for work. Returned home today to a dusty and dirty house. Not due to it being neglected while I was away, but rather from the major works still being done under our townhouse, as well as painters spreading plaster-dust everywhere. I don’t think there’s anything worse than dust from concrete and plaster.

Hopefully by the end of tomorrow it will all be finished and we can do a thorough top-to-toe clean to start the weekend and have a sense of normality again without contractors hovering in and out of our space.

What else has happened whilst I was away? Well, my little man Beau decided to go for a wander. He was taken out the front to run around in the little park and decided it was time for him to go on his own adventure. It doesn’t help that he’s a black dog and so gets lost in the shadows of the night, but while I was working on my laptop in my Canberra hotel room, I received a call from an unknown number on my mobile. This was about 6:30pm so it was an unexpected phone call and it was a lovely lady from the Woolworths Northbridge across the road calling to say she had my dog, Beau!! Hamish was straight across the road to collect him and apparently he was fairly sheepish for the rest of the night!

I bailed on touch rugby tonight, which I perhaps should have gone to play, but after a few nights away I am just keen to relax at home. I’ll go for a run at Tunks Park tomorrow with Beau and then I’m playing as well as umpiring netball this Saturday, so that’s still good fitness for me.

Contemplating making Mars Bars Slice and Snickers Slice tomorrow as sweet treats for the weekend ….

Extracurricular activities

I enjoy extacurricular activities after work. It’s a way for me to enjoy some ‘me’ time and do something for ‘me’ that I can express myself in.

I have previously enjoyed courses such as :
* Beginners Salsa
* Easy Entertaining Cooking
* French Taste – cooking recipes from the Champagne region
* Guitar – Stage 1
* Kickboxing for fun & fitness
* Meditation

The time has come again where the Mosman Community College course book arrived in our mailbox. Everyone knows that I’m the only one in the household really interested in this otherwise piece of ‘junkmail’ so I am pleased it was left on my desk before being sent to the recycling bin, especially since we have a new flatmate who seems to have taken it upon himself to decide what is ‘junk’ and what is not!!

There are a several courses I am immediately interested in and pages are ear-marked. Although upon further reading this morning, I have narrowed my choice down to just a few:
* Cupcake Tier Workshop
* Bake It, Bottle It, Sell It
* Mindful Marketing Plans
* Amazing Cup Cakes
* Great Dinner Parties
* Fusion of Eastern & Western Style Home Cooking
* Grape To Glass Wine Appreciation
* Firm up! Fitness Class
* Fabulous Abs!
* Global Dance Exercise and Zumba Fitness
* Kickboxing Fitness Intermediate
* Latin Jazz Hop Hop & Zumba Fitness

Ok, so maybe that was more than just ‘several’ course I am interested in …. the decision is so difficult!

It is a shame that there are a few other one day workshops that interest me, however they are on a Saturday so would clash with netball and you know how important fitness is to me!

I think the easiest thing for me to do will look at timing of each, as perhaps I can do two whereby they may both be on the same evening at the same location with one immediately following the other. Hmmm … decisions decisions.

Oh and this morning, home made crepes for brekkie with lemon, banana and honey …. yum yum 🙂 Coupled with a coffee from Gloria Jeans across the road in Northbridge Plaza. Perfect way to start my Sunday. We’ve since taken Beau for a run at the park and plan to have a late lunch at Not Bread Alone.

I feel like chicken tonight

Today was the first game of netball for the season.

I felt match fit and ready to go, especially after bonding with the team at Monday night’s Round Robin. Wearing my new uniform (unflattering cut and rather short!) and new Adidas Net-burners we were ready to go get ’em! Unfortunately we had two mediocre umpires who missed many calls and even when they did make a call, most of the time it seemed the incorrect decision. To the point where it resulted in me getting a warning for contesting an umpires’ decision in the last quarter …

We lost, although it was a close, competetive game and we played well as a team.

A quiet night in tonight with a DVD – Matching Jack. A pizza to be ordered from Pizza Tutti’s at Northbridge- I’m going to try their Smoked Chicken pizza tonight and very excited about that. Their pizzas are amazing. Good size, very reasonably priced and fresh, well proportioned ingredients. My preference to date has been the Tandoori Chicken so I’m tryign something new tonight.

Dessert tonight? I shouldn’t. Perhaps a little tub of yoghurt but nothing more. I say that as I munch on a handful of Red Rock Deli ‘Lime & Black Pepper’ crisps 😉

Everyone seemed to love my Lemon & Coconut Slice last week and the chocolate crackles were a real hit at the party too.

Northbridge, 2063

As I browse through my House & Garden this month, I noticed that the Insider; Shopping By Postcode features Northbridge, 2063. It gives me inspiration to go and peek through some shops in my neighbourhood that I have not yet ventured into –
Portobello Rose: a beautiful florist
In Residence: everything required for interior design
The Cookery Book: books on all things food & drink
Tolle ‘n Crowe: French inspired homewares

It also features Morning Tea and Quintessence, both of which I have already enjoyed browsing.

On the same page, a feature on stunning ceramic dinner plates from Until. These will definitely be on my birthday wish list, I think they’re gorgeous!

In the same magazine, there is a reference to the event ’30 Days of Home, Food & Wine’. I have just registered myself and a friend for the ‘Ultimate Entertaining Workshop’ which I’m already looking forward to!

Now if you’ll please excuse me, I’m off to watch a chick flick – Going The Distance. Perfect for a chilly, windy Saturday 🙂

Happiness

I came across this quote today and love it:

“Slow down and enjoy life. It’s not only the scenery you miss by going too fast – you also miss the sense of where you are going and why. ”
Eddie Cantor (1892 – 1964)

Hope it strikes a chord with you also. Reminds me of my Two Beautiful Butterflies post where sometimes it is nice to enjoy the little things in life, nature at its best.