the fifo wife

I first made this recipe last swing when husband was home. January is a notoriously frugal month for us and so I was doing my best to stretch the dollar and fridge contents further the first batch, however, a disaster. Although they tasted okay husband didn’t come for dinner as soon as I had called so the dumpling dried out in the oven as we waited and waited and waited. I served them out of stubbornness.

I made a second lot this past week just to try them again and they were good especially for someone who is not always a dumpling fan. It’s the bread fried in butter that makes it so good, but butter like bacon makes everything better.

This is a Rachel Khoo recipe and can be found in her little french kitchen cookbook.

Bread Dumplings

How to:

• 200g stale baguette or other bread (crust included)

• handful chopped parsley

• 250ml milk

• pinch of nutmeg

• salt and freshly ground black pepper

• 1 free-range egg

• 1 tbsp plain flour

• butter, for frying

What you will need:

1. Cut the baguette into small cubes and place in a bowl. Add the parsley. Bring the milk to a boil and pour over. Stir so that the milk is absorbed evenly, then cover and leave for 15 minutes.
2. Season with nutmeg, salt and pepper, stir in the egg, and mix in one tablespoon flour. If the mix is too wet (it should be moist and only slightly sticky), add a second spoon of flour. Wet your hands a little to help stop the dough sticking to them, then make 12-14 dumplings (smaller than a golf ball).
3. Meanwhile, heat a knob of butter in a large frying pan and fry the dumplings on a medium heat for five minutes or until golden-brown and crisp, then drain.
4. Serve the dumplings with a stew perhaps beef bourguignon.

My husband will always say to me is her name Jacinta or Julie. Which is fine we all can forget someone’s name except we have known this girl for two years. So now when I hear him use her correct name I am not sure who he is talking about Jacinta or Julie.

Studies show that hearing our name activates our brain, even when it’s spoken in a noisy room. Not only that but remembering someone’s name is so important it makes people feel good to hear their name. They pay greater attention like when your mother no matter your age will say Debra Anne without fail you will stop and pay greater attention to her.

Personally I have a way with names {usually}. But then I use the association method. You associate something you learn about them  with their name such as Julie likes to scuba dive so she becomes Julie Scuba; how can one forget?.

My method is associating something random with them. A friend had a new girlfriend named Dina without fail I would always forget her name until I met her. Naturally on meeting her I associated her with a Dinosaur for no other reason than my sons were going through a dinosaur phase, and it fit. Naturally she became internally to me as Dina Dinosaur and later on the girl from Canda, who went on to break my dear friends heart. Double dates were never awkward again.

So whatever the first thing is that comes into my mind about the person I am meeting and their name they are stuck with internally, of course. I would never tell my friend Colin he was first Colin Cat.

So do have any tricks?

xx Deb

 

 

I’m sure I will forever be known as the woman who can only get a few things out, but I have a good excuse seriously I do. Not only has my sweet town has become an island and, therefore, no internet {I know the pain} but my old nemesis anemia has come back with vengeance and well driving and parenting correctly are real issues currently so getting a post out and the stress of wanting to but not having the energy is overwhelming.

But I am alive and I should be grateful for being able to whinge about it in the first place.

So the few things running through my head this very wet second week of February 2015.

1. I have no internet its like losing an arm 😉

2. My B1 said the sweetest thing last night after coming home from a sleepover..I was having fun mum, but all I wanted was my family. He went on to say that’s the only important thing in the world is my family. I wish I could take credit, but he worked that out all on his own.

3. I cooked a week’s worth of food on Saturday because I thought I would start work again; turns out rain = no work in mango packing land and so here I will sit twiddling my thumbs.

4. I stopped taking my meds. So far so good. I will let you know how I go managing the anxiety that comes with my ‘you know what’.

5. Am I the only one thats not only counting down the days until the see their husband but the vikings series three? so sad amd.

Thats it lovelies no links today..my ‘personal hot spot’ aka my phone will not like the download. I just wanted to say hello how are you tell me what you have been up to?

xxD

It’s Wednesday and I’m doing Mondays now post but with the cooler weather school back we have just only found our groove and well the year officials commenced – she says so quietly to herself in case not jinx the self-expectation.

I have actually lost my glasses and so working on the computer hurts a little I even asked husband {who is at work} where they were; how would I know was his unhelpful answer. Little does he know that I rely on him for just that one thing well that ordering our food when we eat out but he is like a beacon of knowing when I’m on the computer and that I don’t have my glasses on and so will find them and gently place them in front of me. It’s one of those little things he does for me that I miss the most out of everything when he is at work.

Anyway so how has your week so far been? Mine busier than a midwife in Summer we have had tantrums, negotiations and ah-ha moments if I was to be paid for all the ah-ha moments I was having I would be a lot less thrifty but anyway the heat has broken, the kids are at school and I’m day four or is it five? of no sugar and reduced caffeine and these are the few things running through my head.

1. B3 broke his arm last Friday and on knowing and seeing he was okay all I could think about was bugger I will have to cancel my beauty therapist appointment. I think its called having boys, but I actually was a little disgruntled at him. It was, however, a clean break plaster only and the only dilemma was whether to have a red cast or green one.

2.  I told someone else child off at the gym yesterday he was just being destructive his mother deaf he stopped she knew little else it was win-win.

3. I am reducing my sugar intake. It’s in an effort to control my ‘hormones’ which may account for my weight gain because the Freddo Frogs have nothing to do with it; after all I run, right?

4. My blind dog Josie on Monday had surgery to possibly give her some sight in her remaining eye. Turns out she had a dislocated lens – who knew you could dislocate a lens? So Monday was a good day that she made it through the surgery well, I escaped a speeding ticket; I did not know it was a 60 zone. I saved myself $10 at SuperCheap Auto $10 bucks is $10 bucks when paying a vet bill like that. The credit card handled the vet bill otherwise it would have been an awkward negotiation and to top it off the neighbours had my babies for the night. It was a good day.

5. It’s a year today that we flew out to Paris for 17 days of just me and him. I want to do it again. Just me and him. 17 days in a cozy little apartment eating butter by the ‘stick’ and bread by the bag full with only having to find more to interrupt us.

6. Magic Mike XXL- only the poster I’m afraid  the trailer isn’t released until tomorrow, but I will get that for you. The things I must subject myself to.

7. To much jogging is bad for you..

8. I am loving I’m a celebrity get me out of here..I’m not normally a reality fan but I was never a GOT fan either speaking of which here is the trailer for season five and Vikings lets not forget about Vikings…I’m a lover of history and men in leather it would seem.

9. I love fashion I’m just not very good at being ‘fashionable’ nor ‘stylish’ myself I prefer to smell good; the memory of smell everlasting..but here is autumn 2015.

10. Movie theaters prepare? Why you ask well here.

xx Deb

{Image with thanks to here}

‘Thursday you can go to Myers I will look after the kids at the concert while you go get your bag’ he said.

Nah its okay I said I had wanted to stroll through Myers but then said okay Thursday.

I didn’t plan on going back to the city and wanted to use my gift vouchers before November came back around and they were no longer valid because I know myself well; I’m that important in my own opinion.

So Thursday came along with him going back to work and so to the city.

Arriving at the shops he said you go into watch the concert I will meet you there after I have parked the car.

Okay I said.

The concert came and went he still wasn’t there. I called his mobile, he did not answer. The boys and I walked to Kmart, the optometrist and back again where we could see him standing looking down into the concert hall.

Where were you I said?

I had to go to the optometrist and the chemist he said.

You want to go to Myers he asked.

You want to get to work on time I said and we headed to the car to get to the airport so he could make his flight.

Initially I got angry at him for being a ‘selfish so and so’. Always doing what he needs first or so it seemed at that very minute.{says now the wife of the husband who leaves the home for a month a time all awhile putting what he wants on hold for a month}. And it was in between getting into the car and driving to the airport that I got angry not at him but myself in fact I had a- aha moment although I did fail to tell him that.

Me; I will put everyone else before me. Always. I’m not a mater, depressed, low in iron, salt, sugar or vitamin B it’s just the way of the world and being a parent who likes to make sure everybody is happy; except herself. The side effects of no self-worth is bad haircuts, holey knickers, an over love of freddo’s, missed gym appointments, occasional bouts of self loathing and being last in line for the what ever you’re in line for. And yet just like the tale of most parents’ lives it’s not always been the case. Pre kids I was strong independent and to a degree sometimes detrimentally selfish but kids marriage are good for strangling that out of you for me it was a god send but perhaps god got overzealous. And yet I’m not sure when I lost it – this self worth I know I had some at some point during this parenting ‘journey’..

So it was watching him walk into the terminal did I stop being angry at him but at myself for losing/loathing myself so much that I would put off getting stuff done for me because I didn’t think it I was important enough. I was angry that my self-worth on how I saw myself, how I treated myself was that low that I realised I hadn’t brought a new pair of underwear for over twelve months, I hadn’t had a hair cut in seven but hadn’t said something nice to myself in so long. I was angry because I liked myself once. I thought I was ‘alright’. Yet this still happened despite my husband saying to me do you need anything but me saying no because it meant the kids would have to go without something when the reality is they didn’t need it in the first place.

I got angrier realising he wasn’t being selfish because reality is that not him, it’s just that if he didn’t go do those things then and there. Get the things he needed he would never get the job done and god help our kids two have two parents with zip self worth. Putting himself first was a necessity on so many levels.

So what was the difference between us?

Nothing but me myself and I. And that is set to change my friends because the only one that can do it is me.  And yes I will be the woman chanting silently to herself {or not} as she sashes through Target you need this, you deserves this because your a nice person you really really you are.

Convinced? Yes I know habits are hard to break things are easier said than done but something has to give otherwise I will be my mother and whilst I love her to the moon and back there is not room in the universe for two of us.

Xx Deb