Pantry Challenge Menu Plan (Week 4)

Another week, another menu plan! Last week was a bit hit and miss. After coming back from holidays, my husband had a work trip and then a business dinner, so wasn’t home for dinner 3 nights. The menu plan got pushed aside for meals that my kids will definitely eat (pasta). The plan also got rearranged due to the Australia Day holiday.

It’s hard to tell if I’m making any progress in the pantry and freezer. I have managed to empty the freezer of the second fridge, and my grocery bills are down. It still feels like the pantry is full of random ingredients though, so I’m going to keep the challenge going!

The plan this week is to keep running down the meat in the freezer, with a vegetarian brown rice recipe thrown in too. Here’s my plan:

Monday: Tasty Brown Rice

Tuesday: Chicken Parmigiana

Wednesday: Tasty Rissoles with Salad

Thursday: Chicken Kievs

Friday: Pizza (the usual!)

Saturday: Steak and Salad (the usual!) – might try a fancy sauce for a change!

Sunday: Burritos (from a kit – the lazy way!)

Do you revert to the kids’ favourite recipes when your partner is away?

Fav Fabric Friday – Mod Tod

As a new feature, the last Friday of every month will be Fav Fabric Friday where I’ll showcase a fabric collection (or maybe 2 or 3…) that I’m dreaming about. (Hmmm, this needs a button – maybe next month…).

For the first Fav Fabric Friday, I’m featuring Mod Tod by Sheri McCulley (formerly Sheri Berry) for Riley Blake.

Three different colour-ways (blue, cream and green) in lovely (but not so obvious or bright) boy colours. The different colour-ways all go together for lots of variation.

Cogs, animals, spots and stripes – very boy-like, but not cutesy and babyish. I can see my little man in a nice button-up shirt, or using the fabric for the trim on a pair of pants. Here’s the display from Quilt Market with more ideas (photo from Riley Blake Designs Blog):

Available in Flannel and Laminated Cotton as well as Quilter’s Cotton, I’m imagining snuggly flannel pyjamas for my little boy as well as a messy mat and chair cover in laminated cotton.

What would you make with this handsome fabric?

Smiley Face Cake (Chocolate Cake Recipe)

When I asked my son what cake he wanted for his third birthday, he told me a smiley face cake. After the choo choo train cake from last year, my first thought was “Woohoo! Too easy!”. I didn’t know whether to believe him, so I asked him a few more times, and it was always the same (actually, it became “a chocolate smiley face cake with Smarties!”)

Note: Australian/Canadian Smarties that are a bit like M&Ms, not the US-style Smarties ;)

Since we got home from visiting my family the day before his birthday, I made and froze a simple chocolate cake ahead of time and just had to decorate on the day. It’s an easy recipe, but the cake is wonderfully moist and with a nice richness.

Icing was a standard buttercream, using Wilton gel colouring. It turned out a little more orangey than I would have liked, but not too bad. I’m also hopeless at getting buttercream smooth, so I fluffed it up a bit (to make it look like my son’s Mr Happy stuffed toy…hmmm, clutching at straws?). I used large Cadbury buttons for the eyes and cut a strip of Willy Wonka Fabulicious Raspberry Twister for the mouth (tastier than liquorice!).

My son loved it (but then, what 3 year old doesn’t love cake)!

Here’s the recipe for the chocolate cake (from Australian Women's Weekly Kids' Party Cakes):

Pantry Challenge: Week 3 Menu Plan

After a week visiting family and friends, it’s time to get back in the swing of the pantry challenge (and that’s why I’m calling it week 3!). It’s nice to go out for meals and have others cook nice meals, but I’m glad to be back home in my own kitchen again.

I still feel like I’ve got a pantry full of miscellaneous ingredients and haven’t made much of a dent. Maybe I’ll continue the pantry challenge on into February! Here’s the plan for this week:

Monday: Homemade Chicken Nuggets (a recipe I’ve been meaning to share!) and Chips (Special birthday dinner!)

Tuesday: Ham and Split Pea Soup (and maybe some fresh bread)

Wednesday: Thai Chicken Curry and Rice

Thursday: Soup Leftovers (more fresh bread?)

Friday: Pizza (as always)

Saturday: Steak and Salad (thanks for cooking hubby! (yes, he does read my blog!)

Sunday: Sausages and Salad

Whenever I plan something fancy for Sunday night, it never happens. I always end up exhausted at the end of the weekend. Must be that extra baby around the house, wearing me out! What is your go to Sunday night meal?

Linking at:

Sweet Mermaiden

The mermaiden pattern has been on my list of projects since the book Wee Wonderfuls was released. After making the felt cake for my niece, I had to sew something for her baby sister too. Mermaiden looked like a fun and easy sewing project.

I used wool blanketing fabric for her hair (which I’d bought for another project and never got around to it!). Her face is a cream quilter’s cotton and her tail is scraps of River View in Candy Store Pink from the City Weekend range by Oliver and S (from one of these baby tunics).

I didn’t follow the pattern exactly for how I quilted her hair, but tried to make it look more  like a part and a crown.

I haven’t done a lot of embroidery, but am quite happy with how her face turned out. I just used 4 threads of normal sewing thread rather than embroidery thread because that’s all I had. Looking at the photos now, I can see her mouth is a bit lop-sided, but I’ll call that part of her handmade charm!

I also only stuffed the end of her tail (and her body) so that her tail could swish about.

My sister-in-law sent photos of her little one playing with her mermaid, so I hope she likes it as much as I liked making it!

You can download a free copy of the mermaiden pattern here.

My Mum’s Recipes

This week is all about visiting friends and family, so I don’t have a menu plan to share today. Instead, here are some of my Mum’s recipes. They are comfort food for me, taking me back to my childhood.

Tuna Mornay	Creamy Tomato and Bacon Pasta
Flummery	Pineapple Platter

It will be a quiet week here at Cook Clean Craft, but I look forward to sharing more fun projects with you next week, and maybe even a tutorial. I hope you have a great week!

Pretty Pink Felt Cake

The next Christmas present I have to show you is a Pretty Pink Felt Cake made for my 2 year old niece.

It’s from the book Big Little Felt Universe, that has the cutest felt toy patterns (and something for everyone).

I’m not a big fan of hand-sewing, and there was no way around it with this one. It was too cute not to make. The book is a little light on details for the inexperienced hand-sewist, but thankfully there is the blogosphere to help me out! After I’d sewn for a while, I started to get my rhythm and it went quickly.

I have enough felt to make one for my kids too, but at the rate I’m going, it probably won’t be done until my daughter’s birthday in October (actually, that sounds like a reasonable goal with everything going on in my life at the moment!).

The cake from the book included almost every fruit under the sun to top the cake, but that was way more than my crafting time allowed. I think my niece likes the cake though - she brought every piece over to show us the last time we chatted on Skype!

What is you favourite felt food creation?