How beautiful is this sunrise! I took this, with my enthusiastic dad watching on, Boxing Day morning. I have been once again enjoying sunrises, mainly due to a sweet little bubby sleeping brilliantly. Thank learning to roll over for that- I certainly am! Now she can get comfy all by herself, with minimal wake ups, if any. Best Christmas present ever :)
I ate way too much over the week. Even healthy food can be heavily calorie laden, and my portion sizes definitely went up. My sweet Dad stayed for 2 nights. He spoiled us with a large leg of lamb, and too much ham. Waaaay too much ham. I have flashbacks of last year while pregnant. Ham nightmares. Thankfully, those days are over. But if I never see ham again, I'm fine with that.
This is our boxing day breaky: leftover ham, smoked salmon, grilled haloumi, pesto, nectarines, camembert cheese and whole egg mayo. So very nice. So very salty.
The next day, hubby got ham for breaky: a ham steak, topped with cheese then grilled, and topped again with pesto. He enjoyed it, even though we were all over ham by this point.
The ham distracted me from the fact we had a huge leg of lamb half eaten. So again, I had to make use of meaty leftovers. Thankfully, lamb is a bit more user friendly, and healthy. The above is a lamb stock base ready to go: Trimmed lamb bone (meat set aside for another dish), spring onions, carrots, whole onions, chopped in half, carrots, fresh rosemary and thyme, salt, pepper and bay leaves. It is just brought to the boil, simmered for a few hours, strained and ready to use o freeze. I have 3 large and 3 small containers of frozen stock now. No waste, great nutrients :)
The leftover lamb meat made a loose style moussaka. I fried the diced lamb with herbs, olives, added a tin of diced tomatoes (no sugar added), a few spoons of gravy powder, pepper, water and then simmered it. That mix was transferred to a baking dish, and topped with grilled eggplant (sliced length ways, brushed with olive oiled then grilled til soft and lightly golden).
This is the dish cooked. I layered the eggplant onto the lamb base, drizzled a little whole cream over the top, and crumbled some fetta onto that, then oven baked until golden- a 200 degree oven for approximately 30 mins.
We all went for a walk Christmas night. We all felt so full and needed to walk in the cool of the evening. It blessed me to have my Dad and girls with me. Its the simple things.
This plant was one I noticed on my walk. I love the colour of the flowers, and also the texture in the leaves- so beautiful.
I really love this picture. It's an enlargement of a flowering plant photo I snapped. It is going to be immortalised in art soon- i love it that much :)
This dish is an experiment with chicken. I cut up one double chicken breast, placed it in an oiled baking dish, then covered it with crushed macadamias (and some whole), salt, pepper, paprika, shredded coconut, some dried apricots and butter. I covered it in foil, then baked for 30 mins in a moderate oven.
This is the result- served with a little rice and steamed broccoli. It was a hit, but next time, hubby suggested that it would taste great with the apricots covering the chicken like the macadamias did too. I agree :)
Before I leave you with the last post of 2014, here are some more snapshots. I love this one above- it looks like an explosion above the house. Stunning sunset to capture.
It's hot, balmy weather. These clouds rolling in on evening look stunning, and are keeping the heat in like a blanket.
This is your last sunrise from me until next year. Taken today, New Year's Eve. Welcome a beautiful day, and a promise of things to come.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
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