It’s been a busy but rewarding week at work this week.
Monday lunch was leftover slow cooker pork congee
Slow cooker pork quinoa congee
Monday dinner was baked salmon
Baked salmon and cheesy vegetables with panko
Tuesday breakfast was rolled oats
Rolled oats with honey and cinnamon
This is a snack from Tuesday
Goggles, chocolate and raspberry soda
This is Tuesday morning tea from a meeting
Scones with cream and jam
Tuesday dinner was flaked baked salmon
Baked salmon with creamy cheesy quinoa rice and vegetables
I received a parcel on Wednesday morning
Coffee and a parcel
Wednesday lunch was noodles with some charity chocolate
Tabasco oriental noodles, chocolate and coca cola lunch
Charity chocolate
Charity chocolate close up
Wednesday dinner was baked Chicken Maryland
Baked cheesy Chicken Maryland with quinoa rice onions and avocado
It was gloomy and cold on Thursday morning
Woden wind tunnel
I received another parcel on Thursday morning
My coffee and a parcel
Noodles and biscuits for Thursday lunch
Chicken noodles with Tabasco sauce plus a biscuit and a can of Coke
Thursday dinner was Chicken Maryland and crispy soba noodles
Baked cheesy Chicken Maryland with soba noodles, peas, corn, cream and cheese
Friday lunch was a salmon, capers and cream cheese sambo
Smoked salmon with capers and cream cheese sambo
Saturday morning I went for a walk around Lake Ginninderra
Lake Ginninderra early Saturday morning with the misty fogLeaves and flowers on Lake Ginninderra early on a Saturday morningA line of buoys on Lake Ginninderra on a foggy misty Saturday morningSpider web on a guard rail on Lake Ginninderra on a foggy misty Saturday morningToilets in the mist near Lake Ginninderra
Saturday breakfast was a cheese omelet
Cheese omelet
A butterflied leg of lamb for dinner
Butterflied leg of lamb roast from Coles
For Saturday lunch I had mac and cheese with cheerios
Mac and cheese and cherios
Saturday dinner was slowly roasted butterflied leg of lamb with potato, beetroot and avocado
Slowly roasted butterflied leg of lamb with potato, beetroot and avocado
It’s been a pleasant rainy day in Canberra. It was nice leaving Brisbane yesterday and arriving to rain in Canberra. It made the moisture transition for my skin so much easier.
Serena made some tasty fritters. Anna is into beer. Michele went to her first Canberra cooking circle. Elissa is using up pumpkins and butternut squash. Shari is pregnant (oops that’s old news). Shari is making empanadas. Rose has been doing some travelling on canals in Suzhou and Wuxi. Bec tells us about the Harvest Society. Liz shares what’s in her kitchen in May 2016. Erin is embedding new habits.
I’m 51 today. It’s been a pretty good day. I woke up at 4.30 with rain falling.
I started the day with my favourite drink. Coffee made with condensed milk.
Happy birthday to me
Breakfast
My birthday breakfast was a simple omelet
Birthday Cheese omelet
Lunch
I had a Yum Cha lunch with Bron at the Dumpling Inn. Sorry, no photographs.
Birthday viewing
The best view today was a FaceTime session with my daughters.
I also watched a couple of my favourite movies, viz., Crimson Tide and The Hunt for Red October. I like submarine movies especially two movies with Star Trek connections. Can you guess what they are?
Birthday exercise
I went for a walk around Lake Ginninderra. It rained three times, only lightly mind you. It was nice getting wet 51 today.
I’ve recently been enjoying some workplace training which has included sessions on persuasion and self awareness. The self awareness session reminded me of the importance of reflection. Birthdays are good for reflection. I spent a good portion of today reflecting on the last year.
Birthday disappointment
My footy team the Brisbane Broncos was defeated by the Cronulla Sharks.
Birthday dinner
I was thinking of making baked salmon but after a huge Yum Cha lunch I settled for a cake. I got the Big Boy from Ricardo’s Cafe and Patisserie.
Other birthday highlights
One of the great things about social media is the messages from friends and contacts.
Slow cooker rump roast isn’t something for every day not even once a quarter. As I was grocery shopping in Coles on Saturday I came across a small roll of rump and through why not. It’s Autumn and the Canberra weather has started to turn cold (as normal). I thought I would add some different flavours just to see how it turned out. I knew I could get at least two more meals from the roll by vacuum packing and freezing the meat after it had been cooked.
Capsicums were going at a reasonable price in Coles so I added the tops and tails plus a potato, a brown onion, some arborio rice and white and red quinoa.
A lump of rump with vegetables for slow cooking Sunday
The nice thing about my Breville slow cooker is that it’s also a pressure cooker. I’m yet to use it as a pressure cooker mainly because I like cooking my meat low and slow. This cooker has a 6 hour and an 8 hour option. I tend to go with the 8 hour option.
I think I added a little too much water, normally the rice and quinoa has the consistency of congee.
Slow cooker rump beef with capsicum, red quinoa, white quinoa, onion, potato and rice
There’s nothing like the fatty goodness of rump. The flavour wasn’t too bad. The texture of the meat was perfect. If I had some beef bones I would have added them for extra beefy flavour.
I do this post whenever we change over between daylight saving time and standard time because this clock defies intuition.
If you own an Ikea VIKIS digital clock and you no longer have the instruction/user manual here are the instructions. I reproduce them here for your information.
VIKIS alarm clock has date, time and alarm functions and background lighting. In addition to the alarm function you can also activate an optional function that gives a signal every hour (chime) and a snooze function that lets you wake up gradually.
FUNCTION BUTTONS
The SET and MODE buttons are used to set the various functions of the clock. Please see below for a more detailed description and illustrations.
The LIGHT button is used to switch on the background lighting.
HOW TO SET DATE AND TIME
1. Press the SET button 4 times to display MONTH. Use the MODE button to set the correct month.
2. Press the SET button once more to display DAY. Use the MODE button to set the correct day.
3. Press the SET button one more time to display HOURS. Use the MODE button to set the correct hour. Note that A P or H appears to the right of the display. A = AM P = PM H = 24-hour clock. (Choose the desired format by pressing the MODE button.)
4. Press the SET button again to display MINUTES. Use the MODE button to set the correct minute value.
5. To save the settings you have entered. press SET and then MODE.
HOW TO VIEW CURRENT SETTINGS
Press the MODE button to see the current settings.
Press 1 time to show current alarm time.
Press 2 times to show current date.
Press 3 times to show current seconds (Press SET to zero the seconds.)
Press 4 times to return to current time.
I’m not a fan of daylight saving. It would be more convenient not to have it. We have this silly situation when in Summer we have five time zones. If anything we should do reverse daylight saving time in the northern parts of Australia in the dry season (but that is another argument for another time). One of my pet peeves is when people use the Australian acronyms for the times incorrectly.
AEST means Australian Eastern Standard Time (you can figure out C = central and W = Western)
AEDT Australian Eastern Daylight Time It is not AEDST nor does AEST stand for Australian Eastern Summer Time
For reasons that escape me, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) a government funded organisation doesn’t follow the Australian Government Style Manual which sets out nicely the proper terms.
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It’s been a pretty good day. I woke up at 4.30 with rain falling. 
