Tag: family

Slow Cooker Coconut Beef Madras

For a number of reasons; holidays and a technology meltdown, Slow Cooker Sunday had a break for a couple of weeks, but we’re back.  Feel free to share your own recipes by either linking to an old or new recipe on your own blog, a recipe on the net that you love or you can also leave your recipe in the comments section.

Unfortunately, my hubby has deleted the photos of this recipe.  However, we all really rated it and it was incredibly easy to make.  One of the things I like most about slow cooking is that it allows you to use cheaper cuts of meat, and we’re always looking for ways to pinch the pennies, as it cooks slowly all day even the toughest cuts of meat melt in your mouth.

Serves 4

Slow Cooker Setting: Low

Cooking time: 6-8 hours

Ingredients

  • 2 TBSP of vegetable oil
  • 500g of stewing beef or similar, cut into bite sized cubes
  • 1 Large Onion, chopped
  • 2 tsp of Lazy Garlic or 4 garlic cloves, minced
  • 5cm piece of ginger, finely chopped
  • 2 green chillies, chopped
  • 4 TBSP Madras Curry Paste
  • 400 ml of Coconut Milk
  • 1 Large cinnamon stick broken in two
  • Salt, season to taste

Method:

Heat the oil in a frying pan and brown the beef until it’s sealed on all sides.  Transfer to slow cooker with slotted spoon.

Put the Onion, Garlic, Ginger and chillies into a food processor, and chop finely.  Squeeze out the excess liquid and transfer to frying pan, sauté for a few minutes until onions start to soften.  Add the Madras paste, mix well and fry for a further minutes, until it’s fragrant.  Add the Coconut Milk and Cinnamon sticks and bring to a boil.  Season to taste with salt.  Pour over the beef in the slow cooker.

Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours.

Remove the cinnamon sticks; serve with Basmati rice, yoghurt and Naans.

Do check out everyone elses recipes and like and comment.

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We are family!

My mum comes from a family of nine.  I have 22 cousins on one side and we’ve lost count of how many great-grandchildren.  However, the oldest great-grandchild is 19 and the youngest is 3 months.  Like most families we only ever get together at weddings and funerals but this summer we had our first family reunion ever and it was brilliant.

Seven out of the nine families were represented.  It as held at my aunt’s rather large house in Aldergrove, BC, Canada which is just outside of Vancouver.  They opted to keep it fairly simple and we had a BBQ, each adult threw in a tenner.  One of my aunts had the genius idea of each family wearing a different colour shirt.   This was a godsend as you could work out who belonged to whom and check out the apple tree my aunt and cousin did!

My family, as you have guessed, are slightly mad so there were loads of laughs.  At one point they used a rope and tied one of my aunts into the port-a-potty!  Everyone enjoyed it so much they are threatening to do it again next year.

A big thank you to my Auntie Mary, Cindy and Marg for all of their hard work.

A Swiss Army Knife isn’t just for Christmas (Competition)

I’ve always been a life-long lover of Swiss Army knives; it’s not just a boy thing.  However, I don’t own a pink one.  Currently, I have two knives; one in my first aid kit and the other in our ‘man drawer’ in the kitchen.  Plus, I also have a Flight Safe Pendrive on my key ring.  It has a pen, LED and a 2.0 USB device.

So, I was thrilled when we were offered £100 worth of vouchers to spend in Victorinox, the original makers of Swiss Army Knives, which we could use in a giveaway.  It’s perfect timing with Christmas around the corner and those difficult people in your life to buy for.

1.) I’m going to make the competition as simple as possible.  To enter all you need to do is reply in the comments section of this post stating what your favourite Swiss Army tool is and why.  For example, for obvious reasons my favourite tool is the cork-screw.

2.) The competition will close, Sunday the 14th of Nov at 6 pm.

3.) This is a UK based competition.

4.) The winner will be chosen randomly.

5.)  Please leave me some way of identifying you whether it’s a your Twitter Username or use a valid email when commenting.

In addition, to this give-away.  You may also be interested in Victorinox’s Family Project.  Are you brave, bold, intrepid, true? Have you ever dreamt of sharing a family adventure together? Do you have grand ideas on how to make our world better?  The winner’s will receive 10,000 euros to fund their project!  There are four categories you can enter which reflect the Victorinox brand – functionality, innovation, design and quality.  Competition is open to families in the UK and will close on January 31, 2011.

While you’re giving it some thought, I’ll leave you with this…..

Thanks everyone for entering the competition and the winner is….according to Random.org

Congratulations @Hairyfarmer!

Ski Holidays for the Family

Yes, this is a sponsored post but it’s a genuine question.  A group of our friends are going on a Ski Holiday in Austria in Feb and have invited us along.  This particular group of friends are a great laugh but the majority of them don’t have kids.  However, they’ve always been brilliant with our daughter.  In fact, she thinks one of them is her second dad but that’s a whole different story.  There is one couple going who have a daughter but they’ve managed to find care for her for the week, lucky so and so’s!  However, this isn’t an option for us.

The idea would be that our friends would stay in the main hotel partying till silly o’clock and we would get something self-catering nearby and possibly take turns joining them at night.  Originally, I discounted it straight away but after seeing how much Madame enjoyed her ski lesson a couple of weeks ago I’m now toying with the idea again.

I’ve never been skiing in Europe nor have I ever been skiing for more than a day at a time.  When I was growing up in Canada we’d just drive up to the ski hill in the morning which was only 45 minutes away and would return in the evening.  The thought of skiing for a whole week sounds like it could be hard work.

I’ve also spoken to another friend who has taken her 3 year old skiing and she raves about it.  She said ‘if you’re inclined, the crèches/ski schools are so good that you don’t even have to see your kids all day if you don’t want to!’  Not sure if I’d be up for that but the option is tempting.

The last thing we need to consider it the cost.  I haven’t quite worked it out yet but a week for the 3 of us isn’t going to be cheap (hotel, flights, food, drink, lift passes, equipment).  Would I be better off killing two birds with one stone and investigating Ski holidays in Canada so I could combine it with wwvisiting family?

So, my question to you is ‘have you ever been skiing with a 3 year old and if so, would you recommend it?’

Let’s Table it!

Photo Credit

Tonight we ate around the kitchen table as a family for the first time in a very long time.  Unfortunately, my husband works in the city and normally doesn’t get home till after 7 or 8 so it’s a little late to make Madame wait for her dinner.  So, she often eats on her own in the kitchen with me busying myself in the background.  Then her father and I eat on our laps in front of the TV much later.    I have a feeling that this is the norm for most families.  Sharing meal times seems to be a thing of the past.

I’d be interested to know how often you eat together as a family.

[polldaddy poll=3425898]

I’ve been doing a bit of reading and it seems that the benefits of eating together as a family is ten fold.  I’m in no way preaching or trying to make you feel bad, I was just curious. According to the articles I read, families who eat together have a stronger bond, children do better at school, they eat more nutritional meals, they learn how to cook, have better table manners and communication skills and you can save money.

I can’t change my hubbies work schedule and I’m sure this is only going to get more difficult when Madame starts school and a zillion other clubs and activities. However, I’m going to make an effort to eat together as a family on weekends.  I’ve also toyed with the idea of having breakfast together but I’m not a morning person.

Can someone remind me about this post the next time I order a Curry on a Saturday Night?