Can I turn this day around? The beginning of the terrible two's.

I've been pretty busy and stressed all last week (which is why I haven't posted in a while).

It finally got too much 9:20am and I've given up on today, I put my lovey child in her room with the laptop to watch Yo Gabba Gabba and locked the cat out of my room.

We got up at 7:30 am and said good-bye to daddy as he left for work after a two week sick break and the morning went pretty normal, we ate poached eggs and then washed our hands and mouk wanted to read her book on her own.

I was washing the dishes we just made when she brought me one of the flaps from her 'flip and learn' book with a proud look on her face, I told her she was being naughty and it wasn't long before most of the flaps were on the ground.

The cat kept trying to eat the fish and walking all over the kitchen bench.

The child kept peeing on the ground.

She was drawing on her tongue with a texta. 

Hitting the cat.

All I wanted was to sit down, I felt like a bad mum. I know everyone has bad days, probably worse than this one. Two more years until she can go to school, three before she goes full-time. 

I cant help but fantasise about where I'd be if she was never born, but truth is all my motivation for a better life was born with her. I'd be stuck in a dead-end job, probably living with my parents and partying with my friends every weekend, blowing what money I had left and then just waiting until pay-day to do it all again.

I know I'm a good mum.

I feed my daughter vegetables.

She is learning so much.

I never left her in a play pen so I could do whatever I wanted. 

I toilet trained her and didn't freak out about all the accidents and give up.

She's always clean.

She's healthy.

Everyone is impressed with how well behaved she is. 

Positive thoughts work, but doing something about it works better.

I cleaned the kitchen, mouk 'helped' wipe the cupboards. We got leftover Shepard's pie out of the freezer for lunch. 

And then we went to the park. Yeah I can hear my mother now "you're rewarding her bad behaviour" blah blah, bored kids play up. We had a good time at the park but came home soon after cause she was tired. Nap time is the best time, I'll have lunch, fold the laundry and then relax. Nap time lasted until I was just about done with the laundry. So I gave her lunch; which she spat out and wiped her tongue on a flannel "gross" she says. I know she really didn't hate it, she had it for dinner the other day but you've just gotta pick your battles on a day like this. I made her a cheesie. She tried to pick all the tomatoes and basil from our vegetable garden while I hung the washing. 

We went inside and made a Raspberry Breakfast Loaf and now she's finally decided to have a nap. But it's 4:45pm so we're gonna have a long night ahead of us. I'm making simple marinated steak and roast veggies for dinner and I'm gonna binge watch reality tv as soon as the little one is in bed.

I've come to accept that not every day is going to be good, when we had bad days before I would just write it off and give up. I'd sit on the lounge and let her trash the house but I stay a lot more sane when I keep going. And I keep her busy which i obviously a plus. 

Homemade Sausage Rolls

Now this isn’t the healthiest of meals but I like doing better variations of bad foods because the man of the house lives for junk. I also want this blog to be a true reflection of me and my family life.

Most of the cooking I do is with the “help” of a toddler. Even though it takes way longer and we make a huge mess it’s one of her favourite things to do and now that we’ve added photography, her other favourite thing she couldn’t be happier. 

This is such a basic recipe and is entirely customisable, they’re great with cheese, bacon, more/different veggies, herbs, anything you want.

So, before I keep blabbing, this is how you do it.

You only need 5 ingredients; puff pastry, sausage meat (or mince if you’d prefer), carrot, egg and garlic.

Grate the carrots and crush the garlic and mix all ingredients together, this is the reason I hate making these cause the only way to mix them properly is to get your hands in there, kids are normally a blessing here cause they’ll love to help. But alas, my child inherited my aversion to being dirty so she used a spoon.

Once it’s all mixed in wash your hands really well and lay out the pastry sheets, put the mixture onto the pastry.

And then all that’s left to do is roll them up and poke a few holes in the top for decoration, or let your toddler destroy them with a fork, like so.

Then you just need some eggwash to brown the tops and throw them in the oven for 20 minutes.

Sausage Rolls

Prep: 10mins               Cook: 25 mins                    

Makes:24

Ingredients:

•    5 sheets of puff pastry
• 2 carrots
•  2 cloves garlic
•  1 roll sausage meat
• 1 egg, more for wash

Method:

1. Grate carrot and crush garlic
2. Hand mix all ingredients (except pastry) in a large bowl
3. Put rolls of sausage mix on pastry sheets
4. Roll and hold together with eggwash
5. Eggwash top of each roll
6. Poke rolls with a fork for decoration
7. Cut each one into 5 pieces and bake for 20-25 minutes
8. Let cool and enjoy

Tomato and garlic prawns with steak.

Okay, so this week I made a lot of experimental dishes which actually turned out pretty nice, so keep  a look out for an easy chicken casserole, sweet potato hash browns and many more.

But today I want to share something that I don't usually get to have, my toddler is too little for steak, (although I'm sure she would be over the moon if I gave her the prawn mixture). So Drayce decided to go to bed really early and I hadn't even started dinner yet so she got a quick banana and peanut butter wrap and the adults got a rare indulgence.









Obviously oven chips aren't the healthiest choice but it was what I felt like and turned out really nice.
Also, when you read food blogs they don't tell you how much time you have to put in to take good photos, I took 31 and only a couple of them were even reasonable, now I'm going to show you how I took a few simple ingredients and made a fancy meal in about 25 minutes.

Tomato and Garlic Prawns with Steak

Preparation 5 mins|Cooking 7 mins

Ingredients:

• 2 minute steaks
• 1cup frozen prawns
• 1/4cup pasata (pureed tomatos)
• 4 cloves garlic
• 2 large mushrooms

Method:

1. Dice mushrooms and add to a hot pan, saute with crushed garlic until garlic becomes fragrant
2. Add pasata to the pan with mushrooms and garlic and cook until hot; about 5 minutes
3. Put frozen prawns into the tomato mixture and stir
4. Cook steak in a separate pan for 1 minute on each side 
5. Put steak onto a plate and serve covered in prawns and with a side of your choice.

Also, because this is supposed to be about kids, have a picture of Drayce's cheesy grin from when we were cooking breakfast this morning.

I forgot I even started this blog, I have been thinking over the past few days about what to call my new mum  blog, what to write in my first post etc.. but I guess I'll just continue this forgotten blog.

I have just left my retail job to become a stay at home mum again because my baby girl was missing me and crying when I dropped her at daycare. She still has a few days left in daycare and I am going to use a few of those days to get things organised at home so look forward to seeing some recipes and maybe a post about my first ever meal prep?

My baby isn't in pre school but I like the title anyway.

Ever since having a baby and thinking she had a gluten allergy I had to become creative in the kitchen. It wasn't until then that I discovered my love of cooking, it is no longer a chore, it's a hobby and I want to share the joy of the kitchen with the whole world. Every Friday for the foreseeable future I will be posting a new recipe which is not only kid friendly and nutritious but delicious.