Salt & Butter - Hello Old Friends

If you have never heard of the Pioneer Woman you are missing out. Her recipes are literally to die for (I mean that and you'll see why when I list the ingredients!). Hubby had left chicken thighs for dinner and I remembered I'd put aside a chicken soup recipe from her website. I checked out how long I needed (1.5 hours) and decided that would be our dinner. I am so glad that I did, even Hubby begged for the leftovers (usually he bypasses all leftovers for a roll with tuna!). So without further ado here is my dinner in pictures (with recipe at the end).

Cast of Characters

OMG How many stock cubes!!!???

Chopping up the veggies while the chicken is cooking away

OMG How much butter???!!!

Finally healthy veggies (but wait how much butter is hidden in there...)

Chicken and veggies

The end result - YUMMO

Ingredients
1 pack chicken thighs
1 packet of Pearl CousCous
6 chicken stock cubes
1.5 cups chicken stock
8 cups water
1/3 large onion - chopped
1 large green capsicum - chopped
5 celery stalks - chopped
6 tbsp butter
4tbsp flour

Method
1. Put chicken in large saucepan and cover with water and liquid stock. Add stock cubes and bring to boil. Reduce to medium heat and cook for 20 minutes (or until chicken is cooked through).
2. Take the chicken out and leave them to cool (then cut/shread into bite size pieces)
3. Chop the vegetables.
4. Melt 4 tbsp of butter in a pan and then add the flour. Stir with a wooden spoon until thickened and then add to broth. Stir the heck out of that thing and just keep going so you don't wind up with lumpy yucky flour stuff throughout.
5. Add couscous to liquid and stir. Meanwhile clean the pan and melt 3tbsp butter then add your veggies. Stir it all together and then add the chicken. Cook the chicken and veggies for 2 minutes and then add to broth.
6. Make sure the couscous is cooked (at least 8 minutes) and then serve it up in big bowls.

I guarantee this is worth all the butter and stock! My Hubby who doesn't like capsicum gobbled it up and we both had seconds! 

Bun in the Oven - Part Deux

 

 

 

 

 Pecan and Me :) Forgive some of the dodgy photo effects eg: in the last photo, I was wearing a nude bra and because I've worn that dress to death the fabric is pretty stretched. I looked awesome though because it was paired with a black jacket...and of course that's all that matters ha-ha

You can also notice that I've definitely popped and everyone is commenting on it which is really nice.

Bonding with Bubs - Week 23

Size: approx 29cm

What's Pecan Up To: the new nickname Little Ninja might be introduced soon! It's crazy how it can go from hmm is that gas or baby to OMG stop bashing me up! I can't imagine what I'll be saying when Pecan is even bigger! Apparently our little one can also hear now too.

Symptoms: Dizziness leading to an inability to go shopping or cook :(

Cravings: Coffee and grapefruit, but not together because that's plain crazy

Keep that away from me: Nothing really.

Weight: 76kg I've probably gained a little bit but I hope not! I really need to buy a scale.

Feelings: Enjoying feeling Pecan on the outside and the inside but I'm very over not being able to go out shopping with Hubs.

Random: Mum got to feel her grandchild for the first time last night at Dylan Moran and seeing as Pecan is starting to hear she suggested I read books/play music and keep repeating something so that it calms the baby later. I'm a bit opposed to this because listening to the same thing over and over will drive me bonkers! I figure by now he/she will be soothed by scary loud coughing seeing as that seems to be the constant with me at the moment!

Pretty!

So little Pecan got splurged on...or rather the nursery did, is it wrong that I'm almost finished with the main parts of decorating and I'm only 22 weeks?!

I have a wonderful obsession with Etsy and I can trawl it for ages. It always makes me wish I was more crafty which is why I asked for a sewing machine for my birthday (and why it's still in it's box). I swear I'm planning to make some cushion covers and I've even got the cushion inserts so now I sort of have to! But back to Etsy...

C/O thejoysofjess

C/O thejoysofjess

C/O thejoysofjess

In honour of 'Team Awesome' (my wonderful uni girlfriends) C/O sweetharvey

C/O sweetharvey

My favourite!!! C/O cleverapple

The nursery is a very cool mint colour with accents of red, black and white. It's fun to be able to add splashes of colour yet still have a very gender neutral place for Pecan :)

I'm going to keep adding to these but some I will make myself just using cool fabric to give the wall they'll all be hanging on a bit of OOMPH. The crazy organiser in me is super excited.

Uni

I think one of the biggest complaints I had about uni was the admin side of things and the stupid red tape they had. Sadly it only seems to get worse the longer you're in your degree - we almost didn't graduate ours because they introduced a new compulsory unit. I got very good at arguing with our Psychology department!

Unfortunately it hit Hubby with a big BANG about two weeks ago. He was so excited to get his second last semester marks (this is his EIGHT YEAR) only to be shocked to receive a supplementary for his thesis project. It has been a horrible past two weeks in our house because of this, with him trying to figure out what went wrong (and getting no response) and just the general stress that that bought on. So he handed everything in and re-did his oral presentation yesterday and today uncovered that the person who marked it (who was finally back from holidays) reckons that someone entered his mark in wrong! So he shouldn't have had to re-submit anything. Hopefully he'll finally get this sorted on Thursday and he'll wind up not having his course average destroyed.

GRRR I am so angry on his behalf that I've been wanting to call the uni myself and blast them. It's looking like his Supervisor has been very lazy and dodgy as well which doesn't help matters (in fact he outright lied to Hubby about having not marked his project!). I cannot wait until uni is behind us and I definitely wouldn't be opposed if our kids chose to pursue a job that didn't involve university!

Bonding with Bubs - Week 22

Size: approx 27cm

What's Pecan Up To: moving around, skin is turning from translucent to opaque. Pecan has little eyebrows and is starting to look like a newborn!

Symptoms: Still dizzy but that's about it

Cravings: Coffee, fruit and a HJs burger

Keep that away from me: Chicken

Weight: 76kg - I don't know if putting on 5kg by now is a good thing or a bad thing?

 

Feelings: Really happy! I find out my best friend will actually be able to make it to by baby shower. It means we'll have to hold it on a long weekend but oh well.

Random: my cold came back, luckily not as bad as before but the sore throat is sticking around and my cough is horrible! It was so sweet last night as well, Hubby has been so stressed with a supplementary for his thesis (that's a whole other story) but as we were getting into bed he reminded me I'd forgotten to take a bump photo! So whoops we'll have to slightly cheat for last weeks hehe

Moving Office

Yay!

After almost 16months I'm finally getting a real office. I'm so excited! Being in recruitment (and being the face for all the new employees) it was crappy having to walk them outside the main office and into my crummy donga :( Now I get to zip them straight out of reception and into my office (no more battling the rain either!). I'll also finally be rid of my horrible clunky noisy as anything airconditioner, the only source of warmth I had out there.

I'll sort of have two offices as well, one huge one, which I'll later be sharing with my replacement, and another one which will be our 'interview/meeting' room. So now I can put up photos etc... because I didn't like having personal photos around with some of the dodgy people that I bring in for interviews. It was weird enough when one of them kept commenting on my rings and saying how I must be so loved! Oh how I love recruitment and the fun stories we have.