Seachange - moving for a simpler life

I just dropped Pickle at her orientation for occasional care - a two hour session in preparation for one day in care a week.  

I'm sitting in the library next door thinking what should I do with my time?  

I have a long list of things that need doing, but the thing that crosses my mind most days, that I never seem to get to, is my blog. 

I thought I’d be able to update it at least every month – which is how often I update the blog I maintain for Pickle and her Grandparents, but something always seems to take precedence.  And then I thought I’d have time to do a ‘what happened in the last year’ post last month, but ended up being even more overscheduled than usual.  I cannot believe its been over a year since I last wrote, nor how much has changed since then.

Last January, when Pickle was nearly 8 months old we took a ‘holiday’ to Auckland to see family.  It was the usual pressured trip with lots of running around to try and spend time with everyone.  The last three days we drove to Tauranga to spend time with a family friend and have a couple of days relaxation by the beach.

We had originally decided to move to Melbourne and got the visa before I became pregnant with Pickle and our choice of Melbourne was mainly for the job market. When he announced we were moving to Australia, Mr Duncan’s employers declined his resignation and asked if he could just work for them from there.  And with Pickle coming along, I never started looking for clients in Melbourne and started slowly working on some small online businesses.

When we returned from our trip to New Zealand, Mr Duncan and I started discussing the idea of moving out of the city.  

The housing market in Melbourne is extremely expensive and given we didn’t need to be close for work reasons maybe we should consider a seachange.  

I remember Bits And Peaces making a similar change, for similar reasons and it seemed to offer so much – more time for both parents to spend with the baby, more affordable housing, more stopping and smelling the roses…

So the end of last April, Pickle, Mr Duncan and I flew to Brisbane, rented a car and did an 800km road trip along the coast south to Coffs Harbour and back – checking out all the little towns that met our criteria of near the sea, with good schools, a good library, hospital and some level of tertiary education close to town.

We found one village that really felt right and after re-examining similar places and property prices closer to Melbourne decided to bite the bullet and move again.  At the end of June Mr Duncan and all our stuff drove North for two days to move into a rental we took sight unseen over the internet.  

Pickle and I flew up.

Its been nearly a year and we definitely are enjoying a slower pace of life with lots of building sandcastles and swimming in the sea.  Pickle is thriving and we've settled into a routine centred around the beach, local shops, playground and library.  We only get out the car for the weekly swimming lesson.

What else has happened?

• We went to the UK for a month for Mr Duncan’s work and to see Pickle's grandparents.  This was an exhausting trip, totally not worth it and I don’t want to travel long-haul with Pickle again until she’s at least five - although it was nice to briefly meet up with some old friends.  We all got badly sick with flu from the return flights and spent a month recovering.

• Not long after we returned from the UK, our landlords announced they wanted to move back into their house so we had to find a new place to live and move house again just before Christmas.  The property market is more expensive than our research had suggested and there is little supply so its taking us a lot longer to find a house to buy than we expected.  I’m simultaneously not looking forward to and looking forward to our next move.  At least the next move will be to our own house and we can stay in it for decades.

• Mr Duncan’s parents came out to visit for a month in March.  I thought this would give me some respite – some time to update my blog maybe?  No.  Although they wanted to spend time with Pickle every day, they weren’t willing to do it without myself or Mr Duncan present – so we just ended up really over-scheduled trying to fit in all the social stuff.

• My Mum is coming to visit for a week next Tuesday to celebrate Pickle’s second birthday (and my fortysomethingth).  I just hope this trip goes more smoothly than the last one.  

Pickle updates

The speed at which these small people learn and grow is mindblowing.

• Pickle started walking at 14 months, 2 days.  It was kind of unexpected as she hadn’t really been practicing walking.  She just stood up one day and took 14 steps across the back yard.  By the end of the week she’d stopped crawling completely.

• We did baby sign language with Pickle from the start, and she was pretty good at letting her needs be known with her hands – “more milk” “up Mummy”, “finished”.  But in the past couple of months her speech has jumped from one-two word sentences to ten word sentences and decrees.  ‘Pickle wants Pickle’s daddy come home to Pickles house where he lives’ is one recent statement that sticks in my mind. 

• And in news it feels hard to write down, Mr Duncan and I decided at the beginning of the year to see if we are lucky enough to give Pickle a brother or sister so have been working on clean eating, stress reduction etc.  I’m back on pre-conception supplements and seeing an acupuncturist.  I know our chances are not high, but they’re not impossible either.  

• Or thats what I keep telling myself.

Home is the smell of cooking coming from the kitchen

 Cashew Chicken stir fry

Our furniture finally arrived two weeks ago.  

I heard the truck backing up the driveway and was surprised to see they had an enormous truck carting a entire container on the back!  

In London, they had just loaded our stuff into a medium-sized lorry.  

We didn't even have half a container's worth, it was a bit tricky figuring out somewhere for it to park while they unloaded it, but we managed to squeeze it between the tree and the letterbox.

The delivery team were great and worked really well together.  One guy unloaded the truck, calling out each box number and description for me to check off the inventory.  

Another guy took each box to the room I specified, and the third team member unpacked the contents of the boxes in the rooms (somewhat haphazardly) and returned the empty boxes to the container.

By the end of the weekend our furniture had been assembled and arranged and most of our things had found a home.  

But it has taken until today to get really settled - what with TVs not working and needing to change power plugs and clean everything.  

I still have a drawer of plastic storage containers in the kitchen that needs washing and organising but that can wait until a rainy day.

********

I'm really enjoying having a properly equipped kitchen again and have been cooking up a storm, though haven't really tried cooking anything particularly new or adventurous.  I'm sticking to my healthy food for pregnancy principles and doubling up on recipes to stash food in the freezer for when I am too tired to cook. 

Unpacking our books, I came across Nourishing Traditions which I bought just before we left the UK.   I plan to start making some fermented foods and using my own pastry from the recipes in the book.

I keep forgetting to take pictures...  here are a few I remembered to take before we ate.

Spanakopita

In honour of having baking dishes again, I bought some phyllo pastry and made double lots of spanakopita which I served with homemade falafel and humous and beet/carrot salad.

The recipe is basic - sweat onion and spinach over a low heat until well wilted. Squeeze out moisture, mix in feta and spread over pastry layer.  Pour over a couple of beaten eggs.  Top with more pastry.  Bake at a medium heat.

Meze plate with spanakopita, humous and falafel

Bacon and Egg Pie

With the leftover phyllo pastry I made this Kiwi classic. 

Use middle or back bacon, rather than the rashers you get in North America.

Evenly spread finely chopped onion over the base pastry layer and sprinkle with chopped bacon.  I put mine under the grill for a few minutes before chopping as it was quite fatty, but raw bacon or even some ham works just as well.  

Crack five or six eggs on top.  Some people like to ensure the yolks remain whole but I use a fork to prick mine so they run a bit.  

Top with pastry.  Bake for about 35 mins in medium oven.

Its just as delicious served cold and can be eaten with the hands, so is an easy dish to take to a picnic.

Bacon and Egg pies, fresh from the oven

served with spinach and orange salad

I made a batch of granola but used blackstrap molasses as the sweetener, in place of honey, which made it a lovely rich brown colour.  

We eat this for breakfast several times a week with fresh fruit and plain yoghurt.

Home made granola

My friend gave me a couple of kaffir lime leaves from her tree, so I was excited to use them somehow.  

I've never made my own yellow curry paste before but this Thai Yellow Curry recipe was much easier than I expected and turned out to be so tasty.  

I added chickpeas and cashews but went easy on the chilli.  Cold leftover curry piled onto rice crackers made a great lunch the next day.

Yellow pumpkin and sweet potato curry

I'm loving the fresh produce available in Melbourne.  

The other day I found a bag of ripe tomatoes and a bag of ripe avocados for only $3.00.  They needed using immediately, but that was okay, I had just soaked some mixed beans - so a Mexican evening it was!

Veggie beans, guacamole and salsa

Its been a while...

Pumpkin and Green Bean Salad with Tomato Basil Couscous

Although I compose a half paragraph or two in my head nearly every day, I've not found the motivation to actually commit any of them to a post.

If I started this blog to foster and record my creative efforts with some vague ideas about correlating creativity in general with creating new life, now I'm pregnant and living in a mostly empty house I find myself at an all time creative low.

We moved to our new (rental) home a few weeks ago.  

It is lovely and spacious with big windows affording lots of natural light and only a 20 minute walk to the sea.  

I love it!

Our furniture being shipped from the UK, spent an unscheduled two week stopover in Singapore, so we had to rent a bed/couch/table and buy some pillows and a blanket to make do until our shipment turns up.

I thought the cooking situation was bad in the serviced apartment.  Now I have only a camping set of two nesting pots to cook with.  This severely limits my options.  

I feel like I'm making the same meals all the time.  

Our dining set consists of some plastic plates we brought in our luggage and a backpack picnic set we bought once we found out the shipping was going to be so late.

It feels the most creative I've been lately is with some old telephone books we found in a cupboard - I tore off the covers to use as placemats to keep the rental table in good condition and I'm using some of the books piled up under the bed to stop the rental bed from rolling around the bedroom as its castors don't have any locking mechanism.

Same old, same old but on plastic plates.

It took two weeks for the internet to be connected so I had lots of catching up on other blogs to do, but feeling so blah haven't had anything positive to comment. I am still reading though and thinking of you all.

Tomorrow our shipment is due to be delivered.  

Unfortunately no one involved in shipping/removals here seems able to provide confirmed dates/times in advance so I haven't been able to sequence the pickup of the rental furniture before the delivery of the shipment from the UK.  Both sets of companies will phone me with a 'window' tomorrow morning.  

I am expecting some level of chaos to ensue.

But it heartens me that as of tomorrow I'll have my kitchen stuff back... and my desk... and my sewing machine and with any luck my motivation and creativity will come back too.  

I have an essay I need to write and submit to complete a course I did last year and there are some things I want to sew for Pickle before he/she is born.

And on the Pickle front...

The fetal anomaly scan was, in the words of the technician, 'as expected' so that is probably good.  

Pickle was extremely active, wriggling away from the ultrasound wand as much as possible and frustrating the technician to no end.  

I am definitely getting rounder and living in the clothes I altered while in Brisbane.  Although I do worry that I'm not putting on enough weight.  In the UK I used to weigh myself on those machines in Boots but haven't been able to find any public weighing machines here so I guess I have to wait until my next hospital appointment in two weeks.

I now have the reassurance of feeling Pickle kick to let me know everything is okay with this pregnancy. Pickle is pretty inactive in the day but come 10.30pm, tap-dances up a storm.  

I try not to worry but its hard not to.  And I know it seems crazy, but I still fearfully check for blood every time I use the bathroom.

I tackled the tricky problem of how to tell my family... 

There always seems to be lots of feuding in my family.  I am the only one who is always talking to everyone else.  

I was worried about triggering accusations of favouritism if I told one family member before others.  

So I sent them all a card with the same information - our new address and that we were expecting an addition to the family in June.  

My mother and sister seemed to think we were getting a pet. 

My Aunt and Father both sent notes of congratulations.  

No word from my younger sister, but that is to be expected.  I work on the premise that no news is good news with her.

I've added a new pic to Pickle's page for those who want to see baby bumps.

L.
xx

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Ho hum, not Ho Ho Ho.

New Years Breakfast - buckwheat pancakes

It's been a few weeks since I last posted and to be honest its because I've been in a bit of a funk.  

While its true I'm not the biggest fan of Christmas (I'm more "ho-hum" than "ho ho ho" due mainly to the commercialism and saccharine idealism of family life in the media) Mr Duncan and I enjoyed a picnic in the park on the day and it passed uneventfully, so its not that.

I have been spending a lot of time on the internet trying to figure out where we should rent, and Mr Duncan and I have pounded the pavements relentlessly evaluating different neighbourhoods.  The rental market is quite tight here and most properties have only a 10 minute inspection window once a week in which all prospective tenants visit the property and then run to be the first to get their application in.

I'm pleased to say we signed a lease on Monday and will be moving on 18th January.  I'm less pleased to say the container of our belongings (which I'd been enjoying tracking on the internet) has been offloaded in Singapore and is now scheduled to arrive three weeks later than originally planned so we wont have any furniture until February at the earliest.  I need to sort out renting some furniture temporarily and buying a fridge and washing machine but I'm pretty uninspired to get on with it.  I've not even been motivated enough to read the blogs I follow (sorry guys, I'll get to you, I promise) or the library books I have borrowed - and I know I still have the Creme waiting for me.  I need to be in the right frame of mind, but I'm not sure how to trigger it...

This is probably the longest period of unemployment/inactivity I've had since early in high school. You know that saying 'if you want something done, give it to a busy person'?  That busy person is usually ME.  I actually enjoy juggling tasks to meet deadlines, but the less I have to do, the less I actually do and the more flat I feel.  Its a bit of a vicious circle.

I think I'll probably look for some work once we move - if they'll have me. There is a lot of competition for jobs here, especially at this time of year and I'm not sure anyone is going to want to employ me at five months pregnant.  But I have to do something or I'll end up going insane with self-inflicted boredom/churn.

I have also been slightly anxious about Pickle.  Its been ten weeks now since any concrete evidence of a growing baby, although to be fair, my belly has definitely been growing. We have the anomaly scan next week, maybe that will help kick-start me into some activity and enthusiasm again.

We have signed up for an organic veggie box service and I've been cooking to the best of my ability with the limited tools available to me in this apartment, but its just the same old stuff.  I can't wait to have a proper kitchen full of my own cooking gear again.

Tortilla

Thai Beef Salad

Egg fried rice with green beans

Beef and noodle stir-fry with beans and red pepper

Roast root vegetable salad with feta

Butternut squash soup

Chicken and green bean coconut curry

Picnic tortilla

Another Thai Beef Salad

Roast summer veg couscous salad

Barramundi on ratatouille with broccolini

Progress with Pickle

Railay Bay, Thailand ~ June 2009

Once we received Mr Duncan's visa grant and were working out the details of our move to Australia, we thought we'd spend a month or so experiencing the good food, weather and laid back lifestyle to be enjoyed holidaying on an island in Thailand.  While we waited for our stuff to be shipped to Australia.  After all, Mr Duncan only needs a fast internet connection to be able to work.

Then we found out about Pickle and decided it was better to come straight to Australia.  I was concerned about continuity of maternity care and had no desire to be somewhere I didn't speak the language if something went wrong like... um, before.

We travelled when I was 11 weeks pregnant.  I really wanted to be here by Pipkin's due date.  And I skipped the 12 week scan completely.  I didn't want the test results last time, and after what happened that was doubly true this time.

I registered with a doctor the week we got to Melbourne who referred me to

• a pathology clinic to have blood taken and tested
• a radiology clinic for an 18-20 week ultrasound and to 
• the local hospital for pregnancy care

I had the bloods taken on the same day as my doctor appointment.  I haven't had any results so I assume they went to the doctor and everything is fine.

I received a letter from the hospital I was referred to saying they accept me as a patient for pregnancy care.  Thank you.

They have scheduled two appointments for me on 7th January.  One for the booking clinic, the second for the doctor clinic.  

The hospital website says the booking clinic appointment is usually held between 14 and 18 weeks and mine is scheduled for week 19, so just a little late.  

I have no idea what happens in the doctor's clinic.

I hadn't heard back from the radiology clinic as them so made a follow up call and they have booked my 18-20 week scan for 13th January.  After checking my dates I called back to check the appointment has been made for the right time - it is scheduled for 20 weeks, 6 days.  I was told that the doctors there don't want to see you for the scan until you're at least 20 weeks. It is a different hospital to the one I have been accepted at, (I have to get the ultrasound done privately) so maybe they do things differently there.  Except even their website refers to it as "Mid-trimester scan (18 to 20 weeks)".

So I'm a bit confused.  If anyone reading this has any experience of the Australian (Victorian) system for pregnancy care, I'd be very interested in any comments/advice/feedback.

I am slowly getting bigger and now look pregnant enough for someone to offer me a seat on a crowded tram yesterday.  

I'm also experiencing some growing pains in my belly, which in the absence of any other confirmation, is mostly reassuring.  

Whew!

Bok Choy and Stir Fried Noodles

While it is great to have access to a kitchen again, the kitchen here is pretty limited in its equipment - it has one pot with a lid, one pot without a lid, a frying pan and a casserole dish.  Sigh.

I'm reluctant to fully stock the kitchen with staples and spices as we'll have to move it all again in another six weeks, so I've been trying to keep my meals simple and not go crazy on the ingredient buying.

This was supposed to be a Chicken and Bok Choy Stir Fry to use up about a cup of white meat we had left over from a roast chicken, but I completely forgot to put the chicken in.  

Oops!

Never mind, it turned out to be just as tasty.

Fertility Focus

Bok Choy (Chinese Cabbage) is nutrient dense and a good source of vitamins A, C, K and folate.  It is also a good source of calcium as its oxalic acid is low and the body is able to absorb the calcium more easily.

Ingredients

• coconut oil
• onion
• garlic
• ginger
• chilli pepper
• egg noodle nest (1/2 per person), soaked for 5 minutes in warm water
• soy sauce
• bok choy (1 per person)

Method

1.  Place the egg noodle nest in a bowl and cover with boiling water and a lid (or a plate) to keep the heat in.
2.  Chop the onion into wedges

3.  Melt some coconut oil in a wok (or frying pan if that's all you have, like me) at medium high heat.  

4.  Add onion to pan with finely chopped garlic, ginger and chilli.  

5.  Stir fry until onion is soft.  

6.  While the onion is frying, wash and slice through the bok choy lengthways so each leaf is at least halved.  

7.  Add softened egg noodles and a little of the egg noodle water to the pan along with the bok choy.  

8.  Splash in some soy sauce. 

9.  Saute until the bok choy is wilted and the noodles have separated.  

10.  Serve hot.

If I'd remembered the chicken, I would have added it before the onions were completely soft and tried to brown it a little before adding the noodles, water and bok choy.

Australia - summary of the first couple of weeks

Although technically I have more time on my hands than usual, given I'm not working, time has been flying and I just feel tired all the time. 

 I've been trying to figure out why. 

 I don't think its just the pregnancy. Or just the heat (which is lovely).

Moving to a new country, no matter how well you speak the language, is an exercise in non-stop information processing and decision making: Where to go to get or do this? Where is it?  How to get there? How to pay for the transport? How do things work here? 

All new rules and ways of doing things.

Then there is the food. Where to eat if we're out? Where to buy ingredients if we're cooking at home? I take a while reading food packaging when I shop normally, but in a new place everything is new and each option needs weighing up and deciding upon. 

Its exhausting.

I've been extremely neglectful of this blog so I'll just summarise the past couple of weeks to get up-to-date.

Brisbane

We enjoyed a couple of weeks staying with friends in Brisbane.  

While Mr Duncan was working each day, I sorted out flights to Melbourne, somewhere to stay while we look for a rental, health insurance and insurance for Mr Duncan's expensive work computer kit which was a condition of his new employment contract.  

We both swam in the pool a lot.

I also borrowed the sewing machine to alter some of my clothes to fit my expanding waistline. I have a draft post on that I'll try to get up this week.

Brisbane was lovely and sunny and we were there just in time to enjoy some amazing tropical storms after they had endured nine months of no rain. Here are a few shots inspired by Marcy who always has such great pics in her posts.

Ben and Jerry's Open Air Cinema on the Southbank.  The bean bags are extremely comfortable.

View of the city from Southbank as the sun starts to go down.

View of the city from Southbank after the movie finished.  

Melbourne

We arrived in Melbourne last Monday.  I accidentally left my glasses case on the plane.  

At the 11th hour our serviced apartment was upgraded from a one bed to the originally requested 2 bed with balcony.  

It is great.  Spread over two floors it is larger than our home in London.   And about the same price, which puts the expensive glorified bedsit we stayed in for three nights before we left to complete shame.  

It is big enough for Mr Duncan to have his own work area and we're not in each other's pockets which is good, because he's been pretty tetchy of late.  I put that down to all the uncertainty - he prefers to be settled and surrounded by all his 'stuff'.  

The apartment is located next to a large park and only a ten minute walk from the city.  

It has a 'full' kitchen so I'm back to cooking, but with limited equipment and ingredients there is only so much I can do.  

We spent the weekend charging around lots of different areas trying to get a sense of where we might like to live.  We have until the end of January to sort it out but the rental market here seems to be quite competitive, so I'm a bit concerned our belongings will arrive and we'll have nowhere to put them.

Just before we left Brisbane I developed eczema on my inner arm for the first time in about ten years.  

I guess I've been eating less well than usual - its tricky when you're eating out or a guest at someone else's table.  

It could also be due to moving stress or the increased dairy I've been consuming because of Pickle as both stress and too much dairy are known triggers for me.  

I'm making a concerted effort to cut down on both and now that I have a kitchen, return to healthier eating habits. I've also been lavishly applying coconut oil to the eczema. 

Something is working as I've seen some improvement in the last day or two.

Pregnancy

Not much to report, but no news is usually good news.  

I registered with a doctor last week.  I kind of expected her to take my blood pressure and weight etc but she just referred me to a hospital and to a radiology clinic to book my 20 week scan.  She told me I should hear back from the hospital with an initial appointment date in a week or so.   

I sorted out medical insurance when we arrived, but there is a 12 month waiting period for maternity related services so I'm with the public system whether I like it or not. Which is actually fine with me.  The Australian health system is of a high standard and must be on a par at least with the NHS in the UK.  

I joined the library and got out a book on pregnancy in Australia, so hopefully that will tell me what to expect here.

Today I am 15 weeks, which is the time we lost Pipkin.  

As far as I can tell everything is okay, though thats how I felt with Pipkin until it wasn't okay any more.  The nausea has abated which is to be expected and I am bigger than I was with Pipkin which is reassuring.  

I had to give up on the hairband trick last week, so its just as well I put in the sewing time I did while I was in Brisbane!

Dates

82 boxes.

Today was Pipkin's due date.

We arrived in Australia to start our new life today.

I've always had a head for dates - remembering birthdays and anniversaries without any effort.  I'm glad that I can make this date dual purpose - and bring some positivity to an otherwise sad association.

I hope I can do that with Poppy's due date too.  

Although it was the middle of freezing cold January, we took the day off work for a trip to the seaside at Brighton.  It was good and healing to spend that time together and acknowledge what might have been.  

I hope the next time it comes around we can start something positive in Poppy's memory.  

In summer.

Its been an exhausting and busy week. 

I'm looking forward to a couple of weeks downtime in tropical Brisbane before attending to the graft of finding a job and a place to live in Melbourne.

L.

x

And we're off!

Update - moving to Australia with a baby on board

Outback sunset

Tomorrow I will be ten weeks.  

I had a scan today and we have a heartbeat and a little dancing embryo.  Cue a huge sigh of relief.  I don't think I'll feel confident about this pregnancy until this little Pickle is actually born.  Pipkin was also fine and dancing at ten weeks, but its progress at least.

I wanted to keep myself busy to keep my mind occupied and... be careful what you wish for Lisa.

Time has flown what with the new job in the mornings and co-ordinating this move.  I've been busy 

• sorting and 
• cleaning and 
• packing and 
• freecycling the various random items we are not taking to Australia with us.  

I've also sorted out the paperwork for the import application for the Land Rover and sent it off with the 15 additional documents required to support the application.

Fingers crossed.  

The Landy enjoyed Australia the first time and will be much happier having adventures there than sitting parked outside a London flat.  

I'm still working on coordinating final readings and cancelling various services and regular payments.

We check in to a hotel this weekend, the movers come on Monday for the furniture and we fly a week from today.  We'll spend a ten days or so visiting with friends in Brisbane and then head on to Melbourne to find a place to live.

Before we found out about this pregnancy we had intended to spend a month or so hanging out in Thailand while we waited for our goods to sail from one end of the planet to the other.  Mr Duncan can work from anywhere he has access to the internets.  But I'm anxious to find a new doctor and get in the 'system' as soon as possible, and for that we need a proper address in Melbourne.  I just hope we can get one and move in before the whole country shuts down for Christmas.

I'll be without a kitchen until we find a place to live - and without my kitchen things until probably February when our shipment should turn up - so it may be a while before I post any new experimental recipes.

Chicken Liver Pate with Apricots

Very proud of my home-made chicken liver pate

As a relatively new meat-eater, offal and liver have never really been on my list.

I've tried pate a few times but found it either extremely fatty or quite bitter tasting. 

I can't even imagine trying liver and onions!  

So in order to add some liver to my diet per the dietary guidelines I'm following in this pregnancy I thought I'd better try making my own liver pate.

I know when you're pregnant you're advised not to eat pate due to risk of listeria.  I reasoned if I made my own, I could keep the equipment and work surfaces boiling water clean and ensure all the ingredients were thoroughly cooked.  

So I did.

I went down to our butcher and bought some organic chicken livers with no problems.  I thought I'd have to order them in advance.  Man, I'm going to miss our butcher when we go to Australia in a couple of weeks.

It took me quite a long time to find a recipe I liked the look of.  

Most of them required loads of butter or cream, but I wanted to avoid that fatty taste.  Lots of them also included some form of alcohol to balance out the bitter rich flavour of the liver.  While I definitely wanted that balance, even the smell of alcohol is enough to make me want to puke at the moment so I needed an alternative.

I finally decided on the Chicken Liver and Apricot Pate recipe from Kavey Eats. It was absolutely delicious!

I made a half recipe, with double the onion and when I discovered my thyme plant completely dead in the garden, substituted dried mixed herbs for the thyme.  I also soaked the dried apricots in hot water before using.  This was more for the benefit of my hand blender than anything else.  I had enough to completely fill two cling-film lined ramekins, one of which went into the freezer after cooling.

The servings were quite big and the pate just a little too sweet for my palate so next time I'll find smaller containers and reduce the number of apricots.  

There will definitely be a next time.  

I just have to find a decent butcher in Australia...

*************

For other meals I've mainly been using up store-cupboard staples and repeating my favourite recipes.

Blackbean, Butternut and Corn Chili Sin Carne

Red Lentil and Sweet Potato Soup

Sweet Potato, Basil, Feta and Avocado Salad

Homemade Granola - Does it help prevent morning sickness?

Homemade granola

I spent most of my life skipping breakfast.  

I'm not a very morning person and I find it hard going just dragging myself out of bed, into the shower and out the door in time for work.  

When I eat immediately after waking I feel weighed down like there is a lump of stone in my stomach.  

During the past several years of trying to conceive, as I learned about the importance of maintaining stable blood sugar levels, I have made more of an effort to eat within an hour of waking.  

Mr Duncan, aware of my disinclination to get up eat early, sometimes made me a breakfast parfait to take to work and eat at my desk.  He'd just throw some chopped fresh fruit topped with a dollop of yoghurt and a handful of granola in a travel-friendly container.  

Yum!

Since reading this article by Karen Hurd on the cause of, and solution to preventing, morning sickness (which has since been removed, but here is another one based on her advice) I've been eating even more beans than I usually eat.  Which is saying something.  Because they are a staple in my usual diet.

And I think its working.  

I've been getting bored with beans though, so thought I'd try branching out to other sources of soluble fibre. Now that I'm working again, it seemed to me a daily breakfast parfait is the perfect solution.  Just fill it with fruit and oats full of soluble fibre.  The yoghurt adds to my dairy count for the day.

We used up the last bag of granola a month ago and now we're only a couple of weeks away from moving I wasn't about to buy a new one.  Granola is expensive and I find even the low sugar shop bought options to be very sweet.  

Mr Duncan has mostly replaced his toast-based breakfast habit with porridge as part of his blood pressure lowering efforts so we have lots of organic steel cut oats in the house which need using before we move.  We also have odds and ends of nuts, seeds and dried fruit...

First I thought I would make muesli and serve it with fruit and yoghurt. This brought back vague recollections of my mother making homemade muesli.  

Then I remembered how much I always disliked it.  

The oats became all soggy, tasted like raw flour somehow and I felt like I was eating paste. It was improved a little by cooking like porridge on the stove for a warm winter breakfast but always left me feeling weighed down and stodgy. 

Maybe this is the source of my distaste for breakfast?  

So granola it had to be.  I based it on a granola recipe by Elizabeth Rider, but replaced some of the honey and coconut oil with fruit juice and omitted the salt and vanilla extract altogether.  

It was so much easier, and tastier, than I expected.  

I wish I'd started making it years ago!

Ingredients

• Whole rolled oats
• Nuts and seeds
• Dried fruit
• Fruit juice
• Honey
• Coconut oil

Method

1.  Set oven to 150 degrees celsius.

2.  Mix a spoonful of honey and a teaspoon of coconut oil in quarter of a cup of organic apple juice until dissolved.  I actually only had an empty jar of coconut oil with scrapings left so I poured the juice and honey into the jar, screwed on the lid, ran the jar under some hot water and gave it all a good shake.

3.  In a large bowl, mix a couple of cups of rolled oats with several handfuls of roughly chopped nuts, seeds and dried fruit.  

4.  Pour the liquids over the oats mixture and use your hands to ensure the oats are evenly coated.

5.  Spread the mixture evenly in a single layer over a clean baking tray

6.  Bake for 15-20 minutes until oats are dry and toasted.