Very Vegetable Slice

I'm a chuck-everything-in kinda cook. It serves me pretty well. I haven't yet killed anyone so I'd say that's a positive sign.

This mostly vegetable slice recipe is completely my own. I'd seen a few slice recipes around and just thought "nahhhh I can make a better one"... so I did. I raided my fridge and grabbed what was there and shoved it all in and it was AMAZING. I know, sometimes I even impress myself.

I've made it a few times now, and as with all chuck-everything-in recipes, it varies slightly every time... the first time I made it, I put it in the oven to turn around as see my spinach sitting there waiting to be chopped. Oops.

If you're a quantities person, this probably isn't for you, but if you're happy to go by measurements including 'a smidge' and 'a handful', give it a whirl:

Very Vegetable Slice Ala Glow

• Half a butternut pumpkin
• 1 large capsicum
• 1 large zucchini (make sure it's not a cucumber... not that I did that... *ahem*)
• 6 mushrooms
• 1 handful of chopped spinach
• 1 handful of grated cheese
• 1 red onion
• 3-4 rashers of bacon (leave this out and voila it's a vegetarian slice)
• 4 large eggs
• 3/4 cup self raising flour
• A smidge of olive oil (probably about 2 tablespoons)

Now the thing that makes this slice drool worthy is the first two steps which are a bit time consuming, so if you don't have time, cut corners.

• Cut the pumpkin in to bit sized chunks and roast it - if you roast big bits and cut them after cooking they fall apart a bit when you stir. Still tastes the same but doesn't look as pretty!
• Grill capsicum til the skin blackens, set aside for 10 minutes covered with baking paper, peel off skin then chop
• Fry up your roughly chopped onion, bacon and mushrooms. Add in your spinach to wilt it a bit if you like (or not, whatever)
• Grate your cucumber zucchini and squeeze out the excess moisture (that bit is really important or  you'll have soggy slice
• Once all your veggies have cooled a bit, chuck them all in together, add the cheese and mix it up a bit so it's nice and colourful

Someone's been playing with Instagram

• Add the flour and stir through
• Combine your eggs and oil in a glass and break them up with a fork then pour them over the veggies and stir until they're just combined
• Pop it all in to a lined 18x28cm pan (like a brownie pan)
• Shove it in the oven at 180C (160C fan forced) for 35-40 minutes or until smoke comes out it browns up on top

When it comes out, it should look a little bit like this:

I'll have to check with the Fussy Eater's Mum, but I'm pretty sure this counts as about a billion serves of veggies.

It's really nice straight out of the oven but even tastes fab cold so you can cook it ahead of time and pop it in the fridge.

Wow, that was one of those times when you hear yourself speak and it's scary... did I just say I enjoyed making and eating a vegetable slice? Must be gettin' old.

If you have a go at this, let me know how it goes. Enjoy.

He Did What!? Wednesday - By Calm Blue Ocean

Spew City - By Calm Blue Ocean

Before I start, I probably should put a warning here – that if you don’t like reading about spew, you should stop reading now.

Firstly, I’d like to say that in general, my darling hubby is a smart man. He’s a self-employed sparky, is good at maths and fixing broken things, knows lots of stuff about lots of stuff, and is a great person to have on your table at a quiz night.

However – as seems to be the case with most men (I have discovered, through speaking with friends & reading He Did What? Wednesdays), he quite often is lacking in the common sense department. And he most definitely would’ve failed if there was a subject at school called “How to be helpful in urgent situations.”

Case in point:

Recently, my darling daughter went through a stage where she would wolf down her tea, then scull a bottle of milk & then shortly after projectile vomit it all back up again as a result of being a little piggy.

So one night, she had done the scoffing thing & was playing happily when all of a sudden she stood up, walked over to me (why is it ALWAYS me???), grizzled for a split second & then proceeded to shower me with partly digested dinner & curdled milk. In the split second that she grizzled my Mummy brain had been alerted to the fact that she was probably about to chuck and, as is the natural reaction, I cupped my hands in front of her mouth.

So there I was, sitting on the lounge, holding a cupful of spew in my hands while the rest trickled down my legs and onto the carpet. I look up, wondering why my darling husband wasn’t coming to my aid and find him still sitting on the couch, where he had watched the event unfold, looking at me with his eyebrows raised as if to say “well that was a surprise!”. Yes, that’s right, just sitting there. Looking at me. Holding baby spew in my cupped hands. Doing NOTHING.

At this point I believe I screeched “Get me a GODDAMN TOWEL!!!!!” – which seemed to startle him into motion, but not a quick motion, as the situation called for, No Siree, he proceeded to move at fricking snails pace to the linen closet where he took an eternity to find the pile of spew towels that I place front & centre in the linen closet so they are always handy(yes, we have a specific pile of spew towels in our household, such is the frequency that we clean up spew) and then dawdle back to the lounge room.

By this stage I am on the verge of going postal at his lackadaisical manner, whilst trying not to inhale the foul stench radiating from the contents of my hands when he strolls over to me, and drapes the towel OVER my cupped hands. OVER my cupped hands.

At this point, I’d like you to take your hands, cup them in front of you, and pretend you’re holding a pool of vomit in them. Now consider just how helpful it would be to have someone drape a towel OVER the top of your hands. That’s right people, a towel draped OVER the spew is completely FUCKING USELESS!!!

I slowly raised my glare up to meet his eyes, and given the fury emanating from them, I am quite surprised he did not spontaneously combust at the instant our eyes met. Thankfully, after another eternity, he realised that perhaps his actions weren’t well thought through and lifted the towel off of my hands and held it underneath so that I could tip the offending contents onto it.

Why thank you darling, I will present you with your medal later. Or not.

So tell me, is your hubby a super-hero when it comes to dealing with vomit, or does he sit there like a shocked spectator waiting to see what’s going to happen next?

___ . . . ___ . . . ___

The lovely Fi is the Calm Blue Blogger behind Calm Blue Ocean. She's a 30-something year old girl with 2 beautiful children & a hard-working, self-employed husband.

She confesses to eating badly, yelling a lot, caring too much and swearing like a two dollar hooker. She's a total control freak and makes awesome cakes.

She's also smokin' hawt and if it wasn't for a button that had feet in it, she'd be plastered all over my sidebar.

Next Week: Get Lost in Translation with Glen's Life

Send your S/He Did What!? submission to Glowless@wheresmyglow.com

iCame, iSaw, iConquered... iPad

Apologies to any Julius Caesar fans for bastardizing his famous quote for the sake of an iPad... but, ya know, it's an iPad and with it, all things are possible, including ruining famous latin quotes.

Do you remember waaaaay back when I won a little thing called the Aussie Mummy Blogger with the X Factor Award??? It was a collaboration between Home Loan Finder and Aussie Mummy Bloggers (now Digital Parents). There were caricatures and votes and tweets and Facebook likes...   No? Well, I did. Apparently, I have X Factor, which translated to everyday speak is the ability to get people engaged enough to vote. So massive thanks to everyone who voted!

And my prize was *drum roll* a framed certificate and a personalized iPad2!!!!!!!!! (need more exclamation marks) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

iHave iStuff iNow!

On the back it says:

"Glowless - 2011 Mummy Blogger with

the X Factor Winner - Home Loan Finder"

Which does allude to their being a 2012 version too... hrmmmmmmm.

Until it arrived last week, I was an iVirgin. Before that, the only Apple products I've touched have been of the Granny Smith variety.

Yet here I am, proud owner of a freakin iPad!

It arrived in a massive box of bubble wrap, which I'm pretty sure was an extra prize (who doesn't love bubble wrap?) and I opened it up and discovered that iPads are super thin and light (you knew that though) and that I have no freakin clue how to operate one.

Have you noticed how things don't come with physical manuals any more? I would always read a manual first - well not the whole manual, I'd only read the 'Quick Start' section and get on there and figure the rest out myself. Manuals are inside things these days so I didn't even know how to turn it on and had to confess my iTechnodouchery on Twitter in an appeal for help (thanks, Louisa!)

Who knew you had to have iTunes first?! All I wanted to do was fire this baby up and I had to bloody wait while iTunes downloaded and installed then tried to take over the iWorld.

So after major delays I finally got the thing started and did what all the people who've had iEnvy for so long do... went to the App Store to get me some free shit! As a result I'm now on Instagram and bombarding everyone with photos of Tricky (ooh look, Tricky sitting at the window, Tricky on a swing, Tricky standing up...).

My only problem with the iPad is that it has wooed my Mother-In-Law with it's e-reader and Chicktionary to the point where she has asked for one for Christmas...

Do you have an iSomething? What Apps should I get? Or do you have iEnvy?

My Beanie Baby

It's finally getting chilly in Perth! It even rained over night - that's practically unheard of!

So it was time to get Tricks a cute baby hat from Beanie Designs to keep his funky noggin warm.

Beanie Designs specialises in handmade children's hats and headpieces and their pieces are oh so cute! The company is a SAHM success story, with the creator, Yacine, crocheting to relax (after being taught by her husband!) then becoming obsessed with all the gorgeous things she could make. It's now a much bigger business with the headpieces being made in the USA and some work outsourced to other countries.

I poured through the online catalogue wondering which one to get, they're all so cute it was hard to choose.

I ended up choosing the Lil' Mouse Hat because Tricky wore a very similar hat in his newborn photoshoot but we didn't buy any of the photos that featured it as someone thought it was a little silly. 

So here he is, in all his Lil' Mouse glory:

Nawwww hello Lil' Mouse!!!

It's so adorable. It fits perfectly right now but I'm not sure how much longer that will be the case. It is sized 12-24 months, but kids do kinda grow quickly!

If you'd like to grab a sweet little hat or headband for your cherub, check out Beanie Designs online and on Facebook.

Disclaimer: I received a free hat from Beanie Designs to review.

No monetary compensation was offered or accepted for this review. All opinions are my own.

Dude Where's My Rapture?

So we know there was no Rapture right? Well we're all still here so it's either there was no one worth saving or it didn't happen.

Old news, I know.

But now is one of those times when I wish I was a more organized person because Map Guy actually went out and bought a second hand filing cabinet (so we can become more organized people) last Saturday, but only yesterday did we bother to look in it and find it's hidden treasures (a whole week too late to blog it but I'm doing it anyway).


Unconcerned with all things Rapture, Map Guy ventured over one suburb to pick up a second hand filing cabinet from an elderly gentleman who had white hair, a white beard and small silver spectacles. He would have been a spitting image of Santa Claus if it were not for the wonky glass eye.

So the Santa wannabe offered Map Guy all the manila folders in the cabinet, and since we're tight arses frugal, he jumped at the chance.

The cabinet and all it's folders has sat, untouched, for a week in our junk room study.

Today when we opened it we realised exactly why this guy was getting rid of all his stuff...

Yep... the Santa guy was one of the believers. There were about 50 of these files, but these were the best/weirdest. From top to bottom they are:
Understanding the Apocolypse
Are you prepared?
Rapture of Transformation
Seven things God was doing
The Echad of God
The Early Christian Meal
Origin of the Secret Theory - Rapture

At first I just laughed. Then I cringed. And then... well then I felt a bit sad. Felt guilty for poking fun.

I think Mr Claus was one of the believers; his folders (some of which had a few reams of heavy rapture reading material in them) and the giving away of his possessions kinda point to it. Either that or it was just a freakishly timed bout of generosity. And if he truly believed he was being saved then it must have been a major disappointment when 6pm rolled around and there was no tremors and no big shiny lights (or whatever a Rapture is meant to be like).

What must that feel like? For something you have been looking forward to, praying for, depending on... to just vanish before your eyes. I can't even comprehend it.