A Happy Easter

I don't like Easter much, I'm never sure what I should do.  Especially now the kids are older and Mr Bunny doesn't visit. 
On Good Friday we had a really nice lazy day, watching tv and just being together.  We cooked salmon and garlic potatoes with salad for our dinner and the kids made crispy prawn tacos. 

Yesterday we took a drive out Narrandera way to check out possible fishing, picnic and camping sites.  We are going to get a tent and gradually add to it till we have enough gear to try camping out.  Typical us, leaving it till Winter is approaching.

We stopped at a dam at Bethungra to try to catch some yabbies for bait.  No luck.

We love the waterways around Narrandera, Australia at its best.

Phill threw a line in but the flies were awful, I couldn't get near the water due to a very sloping bank, there were no loos and nowhere to sit.  Next time we'll go to Five Mile.

 

 Our maiden voyage in the boat was made in the middle of July in the pouring freezing rain.  Intrepid explorers we are.  We didn't find anything nearly as nice as Five Mile Reserve so I think we'll stick to that, and now we know why it's so popular for boating, camping and fishing. But it was a lovely drive and I found myself thinking again how lucky we are to live in this place, for all its drawbacks.  Phill grew up in a country town but I didn't, I grew up mostly in Sydney so it was a big change for me when we first moved to Junee in 1999, but now I wouldn't go back to city living.  Last night we bbqed, big rib eye steaks on the bone, pork ribs and lime chilli chicken for Em. 

Today we were going to have a roast chicken lunch as we normally do on Easter Sunday.

This is what the EB left for me, one mint flavoured, one chilli flavoured and one something else I can't remember.

 

Phill got called into work early, it's his RDO and a public holiday so a nice little earner but it meant lunch was off.  I'd already put the chicken in the oven, so I cooked it and got Em to turn the oven off after half an hour then finished roasting it when I got home from taking him to Junee.  I made an amazing Lemon and Pine Nut stuffing.  Sautéed onion, celery and carrot, then added pine nuts, garlic, nutmeg, parsley, dried sage and lemon zest and added it to torn up leftover French stick from yesterday's bbq and whacked it into the chicken.  So much easier than getting out the food processor and blitzing stale bread like I normally do and it tasted great, both kids even loved it and the chunkiness of the bread was better than the gluggy breadcrumbs.

I put wine and chicken stock under the roasting rack, and smeared butter all over the chicken with some black pepper.  I did roast vegies and peas and corn for Phill and me, I made him up a plate to have when he gets home or tomorrow and the kids came out from playing their games together, and stood in the kitchen eating chicken and saying how this was the best Easter ever.

They had their egg hunt, Josh insisted on it.  Phill and I went out and hid a bunch of little eggs.  I got the bright idea of putting some in a floating container in the pool and saying they had to get in the water to get them, but it floated to the side.  Emily has an eagle eye like her father and found most of the eggs but they divied them up and shared them.

Scouty found the eggs in the (dirty) pool before the kids did!

 

I made a cake out of a little book that came with the Womens Weekly this month, it is a Chocolate Golden Syrup Cake with Fudge Icing.  Talk about rich, I used 350g of butter in the cake and the icing, a cup and a third of golden syrup as well as brown sugar and caster sugar!  I have a really dodgy oven in this house, worst one I've ever had, and the cake burned a bit, but I think I saved it, I just cut the top off and iced it upside down.

 

Em made red velvet cupcakes, she doesn't care for chocolate cake and the kids sat and decorated them together, I didn't get a photo but they were very pretty.

I also made a casserole for Phill to take to Victoria with him next week, Beef in Guinness with Garlic and Shallots.  I made it up so hope it's okay, just browned cubed gravy beef, carrot chunks, whole eschallots and whole garlic cloves, then added a can of Guiness, some beef stock powder, fresh thyme and bay leaf from our garden, chilli flakes and freshly ground black pepper.  I put some halved button mushrooms in later and when it's cooked I'll thicken it with cornflour.  Should be interesting.

So now I'm chilling with the cooking shows on tv, kids are fed and happy and all is well with the world.

We booked our little holiday for next month, we're taking four nights at a resort on the coast, taking the boat and are determined to catch some fish.  They caught some when we went down to Husky last year for the family reunion and they were so excited, and the fish was so good.  We can't get fresh fish here except for Tasmanian salmon so it's a real treat when we go to the coast.  The cabin is lovely, right on the beach.  We are all looking forward to it.  We will put the cats into the boarding at our vets, so long as they can stay together, and we'll have someone come and feed Maxy.

I've also booked two nights in Canberra for our 20th wedding anniversary in November.  I got the honeymoon suite in a big hotel and we're going on a dinner cruise the night before and a bit of sightseeing the next day.  I never thought we'd make it this far, we've had more than our share of problems and dramas over the years but we've hung in and we are getting on really well the last few days, I think the blood pressure meds kicked in.  Now the kids are older, they call Phill out on a lot of his behaviour, so he knows it's him and not just me being a bitch.  Emily is very forthright with him, which is good, he needs to hear it sometimes.

I daresay there will be more arguments, we are both very strong willed, passionate personalities, both youngest children, both self centered, but in different ways so we're bound to clash.  I couldn't imagine life with anyone else though whether that's right or wrong, but it just is.

Happy Easter to all my readers.  All three of you. ;)