Chicken & Vegetable Soup

It's time to finally kick the last 10 kilos (that I have been trying to loose since having our bubba) in the butt! Over the next few weeks I will be posting some yummy low calorie, low cost recipes that I'll be making to try and keep me on track.

Today's recipe is one that I have been making for years and is perfect for a rainy miserable day like today!

It is Chicken & vegetable soup. The great thing about this recipe is that you can put whatever veggies you want in it and it's thick, so you don't need to have bread or rolls with it.

Ingredients

1 chicken breast

3 potato's

1 sweet potato

1/4 pumpkin

2 carrots

1 onion

1/2 litre liquid chicken stock

1 bag of soup mix lentils

Instructions

1. In a large pot, pour the bag of soup mix lentils and cover with water.

2. Simmer until lentils are soft.

3. Place chicken stock, vegetables & chicken in pot and allow to simmer for 1.5 hours (or until chicken is         cooked & vegetables are soft)

4. Remove the chicken and shred into a bowl.

5. Mash vegetables whilst still in pot.

6. Return chicken to the pot & stir.

7. Add salt, pepper or herbs to taste.

My pot of soup made 15 serves and freezes perfectly. So cheap, hearty, healthy and yummy!

Kylie xx

Getting Life Organised Part 2!

I LOVE projects!! My problem (which drives my husband crazy) is that I’m not great at just sticking with one project at a time. I start something and then before finishing,  start something else and then something else...well you get the picture. Basically I have numerous projects going at the same time, that I never seem to finish. At the moment this is what our playroom floor looks like.

It is almost finished. We had made a financial decision to do the floor bit by bit, but we could have it finished by now, however we have not. We have lost my floor mojo lol. Hoping to get it back soon.

We also decided to fix up our blinds. We have vertical blinds that are an ugly grey/blue and have creases in them but other than that there is nothing wrong with them. Seeing as we didn’t want to spend $1-$2K on new blinds, I decided to straighten and paint them. A frugal mumma gets unbelievably excited when you can spend $20, instead of a few thousand! I have straightened & painted the 1^st coat of the blinds on one window. They look fantastic, but it’s a time consuming process and with sick kiddies for the last few weeks, I haven’t gotten back to doing them. Here is a comparison...left side is straightened & painted beige....right side is creased & gross! Sorry about the bad pic. It doesn't show the colour change well.

We have also painted a good portion of the house. Walls in most rooms are finished but we are only part way through painting the skirting's & architraves. Or take the back of our front door for example, it’s had one coat. We will finish it one day!

The problem is life gets busy and it may take months before I have time to finish them. When I do finally get time to finish them, I’m not sure where to start cause I have too many things that I want to get finished!

So as part of my “Getting Life organised” challenge, I have decided to only concentrate on one project at a time (I can hear my husband screaming with joy already!).  My aim is actually going to be to get one big project done a month. If I finish a project and have time to go onto another than I will. But I’m starting small. 

So here’s my project goals for the next few months:

June – Finish the floor (and if extra time, continue on with painting)

July- Finish painting the back of the front door and all the architraves and skirtings that we have started.

August – Straighten & paint blinds

Let’s hope I stay organised and start getting these half done projects finished!

Kylie xx

Pasta Salad

I find that I get stuck in a rut and tend to make the same thing over and over again. Last Christmas, I needed to take a salad to 3 different events and for every single event I made potato salad. Now I normally love potato salad but after last Christmas, I was officially over potato salad!! So the next time we were off to a BBQ, I thought I would make a pasta salad instead. This is now my new favourite recipe. Really it's just any normal pasta salad recipe, but the thing that makes this salad is the mayonnaise! In my opinion, a dressing makes or breaks a salad and I have been looking for a good one for a while now. I needed some mayonnaise the other day and bought this from Aldi.....oh my goodness...So super delicious!

 I found it! This is the perfect dressing and makes this pasta salad devine!!

Here's the recipe: Makes a large bowl (enough for a party)

500g pasta, cooked & drained

3-4 slices bacon, diced & cooked

1 cup peas, cooked

1 stalk celery, sliced

1/4 capsicum, diced

3/4 jar mayonnaise

Mix all ingredients together & enjoy.

Kylie xx

Getting Life Organised Part 1!

Hello! 

Well today Monday, it is the 1st day of June and for us here in Australia, it is also the 1st day of Winter brrrr!! And yes, it is cold today!! So what better day to start a get organised challenge!

With Winter upon us, I have to admit that I find it really hard to get out of bed in the morning. In fact, I would say that bed is my most favourite place during winter. So firstly, I want to get organised with my morning duties so that we can have stress free mornings......and maybe an extra 20 mins of zzzzzzzzzz's!!

Here's what I plan to do......

Get organised with lunches

Whether you make lunches for yourself or someone else, for work or for school, your morning will run much smoother if they are prepared in advance. This is something that I have done at different times, but I have never made it a routine. So my 1st challenge is to get more organised with lunches. On a Sunday I will make all the sandwiches for my kids for the school week. Once made, I wrap them in glad wrap and put them in the freezer. 

 Along with this, I will start packing the rest of the lunch boxes each night. I will put the made up drink bottles in the fridge. In the morning, I will just grab out the drink bottle, sandwich and any other fridge items that need to go in the lunch boxes. 

If you are working, then making your lunch at the start of the week, or at least the night before, will give you less stress in the morning or may keep you from wasting money buying your lunch each day. If I get really organised, I might even start making my hubby's lunch!! But i'm not committing to that yet lol! 

Get clothes organised the night before

On the weekends our kids seem to be able to find their own clothes and get dressed quickly. During the week however, they have absolutely no motivation to get ready. In light of how long it takes them (particularly miss 7) to find her school clothes, I've decided to lay them out on the couch the night before. If you are someone that takes too long in the morning to choose what you are going to wear, then you would probably save time by doing this too. This won't only save us much arguing and whinging in the morning, but it will also eliminate those moments where you realise (in the morning) that your child has no uniform to wear, as it's still in the laundry. If you have never done this before, then you are way way way more organised than me...I have done it too many times to remember!

Bags Packed and ready to go for the next day

Any homework, readers, news, spare clothes e.t.c for the following day, get packed in the school bags, which hang at the front door. I hate trying to run around like a mad women trying to find homework in the morning. This is something that I have done for a while, but I would like to be more organised with my own bag too. So I'm going to start packing the baby bag at night with anything I need in it for the next day.

I have done the majority of this stuff before but never kept up with it. Such small things the night before, make for a super organised morning. It also means that if you sleep in, it's no problem. Everything is ready to go!

Kylie xx