This was another yummy meal we enjoyed last week…. Thai Peanut Noodle Bowl. Unfortunately I can’t for the life of me remember what website I found it on! Sorry!

Here is the recipe… it was super easy and really tasty. And neither Mr Wonderful or I missed the meat at all, and Miss D ate all of hers too!

Thai Peanut Bowl

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon peanut butter
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 garlic clove, minced
1 piece of ginger, peeled and grated
1/2 cup frozen shelled edamame beans
2 cups frozen stir-fry vegetables
1 tablespoon chopped peanuts
2 spring onions, sliced
Rice (cooked)

Directions:
1. Cook rice according to directions.

2. In a pan, saute peanut butter, lime juice, garlic and ginger for 1 minute. Add edamame and vegetables and cook for 12 minutes until vegetables are tender.

3. Pour over the rice and top with peanuts and spring onions.

Note: This could be served with pasta or noodles if you didn’t want to do rice.

I have started my 2012 Creative Challenge… I decided last year that I was going to make something every 2 weeks for the whole of 2012. I scrapped the first 2 weeks of the year because I knew they would be so busy that I wouldn’t get anything done. I have found about half of the items I want to make, but I know that there will be plenty more that I come across over the year!

Anyway.. the first challenge was to make some clear toy storage bags. I followed Ashley’s awesome tutorial over at Make it, Love it.

I love how they turned out.

So far I have made 2, a big one and a small one, and I have enough material to make a couple more! I’m going to use them to attempt to keep Miss D’s toys a bit more organised, and I thought I would turn a couple into “quiet time bags” filled with little goodies/activities that can be played with when I need Miss D to be entertained!!

I still have 3 days left before I start my next project, so hopefully I can get a few more made before then. I was definitely faster on the second bag than the first!

One of the yummy meals we enjoyed last week was Herb Crusted Lamb, the recipe was found at Food In a Minute.

Here it is if you are interested in making it yourself… it was really good!

Herb Crusted Lamb with Roasted Vegetables
Ingredients

Roasted Vegetables
2 large potatoes, peeled
2 medium kumara, peeled
2 large carrots, peeled
1/2 cup Eta Balsamic Vinaigrette

Herb Crust
3/4 cup fresh breadcrumbs
2 Tbsp chopped rosemary
2 Tbsp chopped chives
2 Tbsp chopped parsley
grated zest of 1/2 lemon
1 clove garlic, crushed
2 Tbsp olive oil

Lamb
400g package Silver Fern Farms Lamb Leg Roast (I couldn’t find this so I just bought some lamb leg steaks and it still worked well)
1 Tbsp Dijon Mustard

Directions

1. To make the Roasted Vegetables, preheat oven to 200°C. Cut vegetables into 2cm pieces and place in a single layer on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Drizzle over a little olive oil. Roast the vegetables for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and pour over Eta Gourmet Balsamic Red Wine Vinaigrette. Return the vegetables to the oven and continue cooking for a further 5-10 minutes or until tender. Cool to room temperature.

2. To make Herb Crust, mix all the ingredients together to make a paste. Season.

3. Remove the Silver Fern Farms Lamb Leg Roast from the pack and dry meat with a paper towel. Place in a baking tray. Spread the Dijon mustard on the upper surface of the meat. Pat the herb mixture on to form a crust. Allow to stand for 10 minutes

4. To oven cook: Place in a pre-heated 200°C oven. Cook for 30-40 minutes, until cooked to your liking; for medium rare 30-35 minutes or medium 35-40 minutes. Allow the meat to rest for 5 minutes before slicing.
To BBQ: Preheat a lidded barbecue to 200°C. Place tray in the centre of the barbecue and close the lid. Turn off the two inside burners and leave the two outer burners on. Cook for 30-40 minutes, until cooked to your liking (for medium rare 30-35 minutes; for medium 35-40 minutes). Allow the meat to rest for 5 minutes before slicing.

Serve sliced with the roasted vegetables and a fresh green salad.

Well we are now at the end of Wednesday and I am sore… but feeling good!

I have been working hard this week, Monday evening I went for my first run followed by the push-up challenge. Tuesday Miss D and I walked around the Zoo with friends (we got passes, so will be going LOTS!) and in the evening Mr W and I did our first sit-up challenge. This evening I went out for my second run with a dear friend and then did the days push-ups.

I can tell you now that my abs, my arms and my legs are so so so very sore! I will be surprised if I can walk tomorrow! hehe. But it’s all going to be worth it… I signed up for a Triathlon today! It’s the same one that I completed last year but I am doing it later in the year this time, which means it won’t be here, but we will have to head up to Auckland. I don’t mind though, it means my parents can come cheer me on without having to travel! And this year I have been blessed with a friend joining me, so we can train together and she can get me out when I’m feeling lazy!

So tomorrow I will just do my sit-ups, Friday will be another run and the push-ups and then Saturday I’ll get out for another bike ride. It means that I am doing something every other day, and that will continue for the next 8 weeks!

In other fantastic news, I am waiting to see a specialist about my stomach pains. I had an appointment for the end of May, but today I got a letter in the mail from the hospital asking me to come in early April! So much sooner. It means I just need to get through the next month and a half, and hopefully the specialist will figure out what is going on.

Now I am going to attempt to make my way to the bedroom (very slowly), I’m going to curl up in bed and read one of the 3 books I have to read!

I know that we are well into Summer now, and this may be coming a bit late for some people… but Christmas seemed to distract me from the fact that it was Summer time! So this week I finally got around to making some Summer Subway Art. I couldn’t find any that I really liked to download, so I took a few people’s ideas and combined them to make my own, and I changed a few words as well.

If you want to get your own copy head over here to download it.

Enjoy!

This week has gone rather well, I think! We have managed to eat some yummy low fat meals which is always a bonus and for the most part we have kept sane… although on Thursday I was just about ready to send Miss D home with my parents!

Here is a review of the week that was (if anyone is interested):

God: My quiet times this week have been done in bed, it hasn’t been appropriate to do them while Miss D was around, and I got more out of doing them at night when it is all quiet!

Husband: Still haven’t started on the date ideas but we successfully passed another week of our clothing challenge! We now both have 2 tokens in our jar, so we are off to a good start!

Miss Delightful: This week seemed to be a bit more challenging with Miss D, I think she is getting bored of being at home. Just under 2 weeks to go and she will be back at Kindy! I’m looking forward to having a couple of hours break, and I know she will love Kindy when she settles in. To fill in the time before Kindy starts, I think we will have to plan a few play dates.

Friends: We have some friends who are leaving town this coming week, they have decided to quit their jobs and spend the year working with an organisation that helps University aged students while they are on their gap year (a year away from studying). They will be traveling the country with these students. It means they are leaving their house and families behind… which I imagine is a huge challenge! Mr Wonderful and I have decided that we are going to send them little notes of encouragement during the year, since they haven’t actually left we haven’t started, but we are thinking of things to send!

Eating: All my planning paid off, we had yummy meals this week! I didn’t take any photos but this week I’d like to write up a few of the recipes and share them with you. We enjoyed a vegetarian meal, a lamb meal and a mexican meal, I think those three were my favourites from the week!

Exercise: This week Miss D and I got out for an early morning walk (3kms) and then I went for a 40 minute bike ride on Saturday morning (11kms). So I traveled 14kms this week, not bad, but not quite my 15kms Mr Wonderful and I have started a Push Up Challenge and a Sit Up Challenge, they are both 6 weeks long and the aim is to increase the amount of push ups/sit ups we can do at the end of 6 weeks. It’s going to be hard but it’s something that we can do together, but at our own levels! And a friend of mine has recommended an app for my phone called Ease into 5kms. I have just downloaded it so this weeks job is to start week 1. The aim is to be able to run 5kms at the end of 8 weeks!

Creative: Yesterday I got my sewing machine out and set up my desk! I’m looking forward to getting back into sewing, I have the material for my first item of the year so I better get on to it!

And that was my week! I hope you all had a lovely weekend… enjoy the week ahead!