Sponsored by Suncoast Gold Macadamias

I’m always confused by oils. I can never remember which ones are good for you, which ones to avoid, which ones are the best for frying etc. I always thought extra virgin olive oil was the best and used it for everything until Mr Monkey told me that it wasn’t the best for cooking with and we switched to canola oil.

So, when I was approached by Suncoast Gold Macadamias to try their new Australian Macadamia Oil I had to consult with Mr Monkey first. When he very excitedly replied “awesome!!” I knew we’d have to give it a go.

Suncoast Gold Australian Macadamia Oil. Goodness in a bottle!

Suncoast Gold sent me all of the ingredients to make the below recipe for Noodles with Chicken & Macadamias, including their oil and a pack of roasted macadamias. We cooked it last week while Mr Monkey was home from work (ok, he cooked it while I settled Chloe) and it was super yummy! Mr Monkey was incredibly impressed with the smell of the oil as it started to heat in the pan and it gave the chicken a lovely, nutty taste.

Suncoast Gold Australian Dry Roasted Macadamias. Sooooo delicious.

Suncoast Gold Australian Macadamia Oil is the only macadamia oil that carries the Heart Foundation Tick, meaning it has met the Heart Foundation’s strict nutritional criteria. It also has one of the highest levels of monounsaturated oil when compared to other popular oils; monounsaturated fats deliver benefits for heart health and diabetes management. Our families have a lot of history of heart disease and type 2 diabetes (including my recent bout of gestational diabetes) so anything that can help us avoid or manage these diseases is very important to me.

The recipe

Macadamia has a high smoke point so it’s great for shallow frying (like this stir fry), barbecues, baking and roasting. It can also lend a nutty flavour to salad dressings or just simply use as a dip for bread. It has already joined our collection of oils and I can’t wait to try new and different ways to use it.

Showing off his impressive, cheffy knife skills.

Our cat Mikka had to come and have a look at what was going on.

I was wearing my new ugg boots that the girls gave me for my birthday. Uggs and macadamias – can’t get more Australian!

See? Super cheffy knife skills.

I wish I got a better photo of this – the girls watching their parents cook.

Preparing the noodles

All the colours in the wok.

I love watching Mr Monkey flip food like this – I can do it except our wok is too heavy.

Sweet chilli sauce drizzled on top

All done. Mmmm.

Lily’s serve. She ate all of the noodles and some of the rest.

Our serves. Quick, easy and yum!

Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post. All ingredients and the recipe were provided by Suncoast Gold and I was paid to write this post. However, as always, all thoughts and opinions are my own.

Yes, I am being rather optimistic by posting this plan this week. It’s our first week with Mr Monkey back at work so it will be my first week with just me, Lily and Chloe for some days & evenings. I’m going to have to re-learn how to do everything with one hand, or at least with Chloe in the Hug-A-Bub. She’s a clingy baby, a real snuggle bug, so I don’t think I’ll be able to leave her in the bouncer while I clean or cook dinner.

We’ve managed to keep the kitchen, lounge room, dining room and bathroom reasonably tidy the last few weeks but have basically neglected the bedrooms. As they are the only rooms upstairs we basically only go up there to sleep or get changed. I have to make a special effort to go up and clean, instead of just cleaning as I walk through, so more often than not it just doesn’t get done.

We swapped beds with my brother last week – he wanted a double bed for when they move in to their new house and we wanted a queen bed because with both Lily and Chloe in our bed some nights it gets rather squishy. So my parents and my brother brought his bed up last week and swapped them over. It’s been great so far but does take up a little more room in the bedroom. As we have Chloe’s bassinet (which she doesn’t use) and her set of drawers in there as well any mess just seems amplified. So I need to put all of the clean washing away and possibly rearrange things a little so it doesn’t seem so crowded.

However, to put my clean clothes away I really need to organise my wardrobe. I’m back in regular clothes (yay for Gestational Diabetes and hardly putting on weight while pregnant!) although I’m only wearing black tops at the moment to minimise the obviousness of leaking boobs. So I need to get rid of the maternity jeans and start working out what of my old clothes still fit me. The drawers are broken and need to be fixed so at the moment everything has just been put in the top drawer. Or just left in the basket on the floor. I need Mr Monkey to fix those drawers and then I need to sort through my clothes. But I’m not sure if I’ll get that done this week.

The plan for this week’s cleaning zone;

♥ Clean balcony doors
♥ Clean mirror
♥ Clean wardrobe doors
♥ Clean window
♥ Clear bedside tables
♥ Dust
♥ Fold clothes
♥ Rotate Toys
♥ Tidy nappies
♥ Tidy under beds
♥ Vacuum

Click here to download my Weekly Meal Plan Template.

Please let me know if you use it and what you think! If you have any requests or suggestions I’d love to hear them.

Meal Plan:

——————
♥ Monday – Steamed Fish on Kale
♥ Tuesday – Penne with broccoli, feta & kale almond pesto – Super Food Ideas Mag, Feb 2013
♥ Wednesday – Smoked chicken macaroni and cheese – Donna Hay Magazine, Apr/May 2013
♥ Thursday – Roasted Parsnip Soup with Bacon and Shallots
♥ Friday – Dinner for Uncle Jarrod’s Birthday
♥ Saturday – Spanish Beef with Chorizo – “250 Must Have Slow Cooker recipes”
♥ Sunday – Dinner at Grandma & Grandad’s house

Sorry it’s been a little quiet around here lately. We’re still getting used to being a family of four and are taking it fairly easy most days. This week will be getting back to “normal” – Mr Monkey goes back to work on Tuesday and it will be time for me to work out how to do everything with two children. I’m envisaging the Hug-A-Bub getting a lot of use as Chloe is a snuggle bunny and doesn’t like to be put down. However, she will sleep for an average of 3 hours at a time during the day if she’s held so I will be able to get a lot done. So, in theory I should be able to keep the house tidy and manage to cook dinners as long as she’s snuggled up in the Hug-A-Bub.

So yes, this means I will be cooking dinners this week. I had planned to cook a few over the last few weeks but Mr Monkey ended up cooking them all. He’s good like that.

A couple of meals have come over from last week’s meal plan due to changes in our plans but they are fairly simple and I should be fine to cook them.

Mr Monkey is home on Thursday so he can help me with the soup – it looks fairly simple but as the parsnip needs to be roasted and the bacon cooked separately before making the soup it is a little bit more involved and may be a bit harder for me to do.

Friday night is my brother’s birthday and we will most likely be heading down there after I pick Lily up from school then pick Mr Monkey up from work. We’ll have to be back fairly early on Saturday as Saturday night’s dinner needs to go in the slow cooker around lunchtime. It will also be my first time doing the trip with Chloe and Lily by myself. We drove down last week but Mr Monkey was with us. Chloe slept the whole way (both times) then so hopefully she does that again.

So fingers crossed for my first week as a “single” 2 child mother!

Linking up with:

Click here to download my Weekly Plan / Meal Plan Template
Please let me know if you use it and what you think! If you have any requests or suggestions I’d love to hear them.

Meal Plan:

——————
♥ Monday – Dinner at Granny’s house
♥ Tuesday – Leftovers
♥ Wednesday – Risotto with chorizo & herb crumbs *
♥ Thursday – Chicken kiev with beans & potatoes #
♥ Friday – Pork & Apple Meatloaf with Sage Crumbs *
♥ Saturday – Penne with broccoli, feta & rocket almond pesto +
♥ Sunday – Smoked chicken macaroni and cheese *

* from Donna Hay Magazine, April/May 2013
# from Healthy Food Guide Magazine, April 2013
+ from Super Food Ideas Magazine, February 2013

Slowly getting back in to the swing of things. Chloe is now a week old and settling in to the family really well. Lily is besotted with her and I constantly hear “can I have a look at my sister?” She loves to just look at her and touch her head and so far has been really good with her. It took her a little while to realise that Chloe can’t do all of the things that she can do – “do we give her food? Does she have a little highchair? Can she play with my toys?” But now she has realised that she has to wait until Chloe is “bigger” to do some of those things.

This week’s meal plan is probably a bit more adventurous than what you’ll see in the coming weeks as Mr Monkey is still off work this week and will hopefully be doing most of the cooking, or looking after Chloe while I cook. The recipes have all come from magazines that we’ve picked up the last few weeks – Donna Hay, Super Food Ideas and Healthy Food Guide.

It’s nice not having to focus so much on the nutritional content of each meal any more – yay for no more Gestational Diabetes! But I am making sure to be a bit “better” than what I was before, although I’ve been craving pasta like crazy.

It’s actually my birthday today and we’re about to head down to my parents’ house for a special dinner. It will be Chloe’s first really long car trip so it will be interesting to see how she goes.

Cassie, Mr Monkey and Lily are proud to announce the arrival of…

Chloe Grace Emma

Born…

10.42am
5/5/2013
3.6kg
50cm long

I’m taking some time off at the moment. Either I’ve had the baby by now or am just about to so am not really up to blogging. I’ll be featuring a few guest posts from awesome bloggers over the next few weeks.

Today’s post is from Shari from GoodFoodWeek. I only recently came across Shari’s blog and love it – she shares some great, simple recipes as well as her musings on motherhood and life in general. Today she shares her tips for cooking after having a baby.

It’s 4.30pm in the afternoon and I am struggling to decide whether or not I should smash out the post or prepare my dinner for this evening. You see, I have a small infant now in my possession – and when I say small infant, my son in just 4 weeks old.

I’m a food blogger and cooking is my passion. But it is a struggle to stand over a stove and lovingly stir a risotto for 30 minutes when you have a screaming child in the background who also wants to be fed! (Although if you clicked on the risotto link you’ll know that I’m a fan of oven baked risotto that doesn’t require stirring…)

So I have come up with some top tips for cooking with a newborn.

Tip number one: BE PREPARED!

That’s right, it may be 4.30 in the afternoon, but it is never to soon to think about getting dinner prepared. I have all of the ingredients for a quick and easy stir fry in the fridge, so why can’t I pre-chop everything whilst baby is sleeping? That means that it will take me a minor 15 minutes to cook everything and have something on the plate when hubby arrives home from work.

Tip number two: TRY FOR ONE POT WONDERS

Who likes washing up at the best of times? Not me! But when you have a baby on hand, think of ‘one-pot-wonders’ and you’ll probably also be thinking of dishes that require little preparation and can often cook on their own – like a roast dinner for example.

Place all your veggies and your meat in a roasting dish, put into the oven and then get everything else you need to get done (like feeding your baby – because they seem to be feeding all the time).

Tip number three: THINK FAST OR SLOW… REALLY SLOW

The key to cooking with a newborn is to either whip something up really fast – like a stir fry (think less then 30 minutes to prepare) and then try and eat it as quickly as possible before the next feed.

Or to whip by something that requires low heat for a very long time – like something in your slow cooker or oven like lamb shanks. This is something that you can prepare either the night before (when your husband can hold a crying baby) or in the morning whilst baby is taking a nap – and then put on to cook later in the afternoon.

Tip number four: ORDER TAKEAWAY

Take away is your friend – you don’t have to be super women. So if you have had a crappy day and you are still sitting around in your p.j’s at 4.30 in the afternoon then ask your husband to pick up some take away on the way home from work – who doesn’t like a pizza now and again?

Good luck Cassie with the birth of your newborn – it is a wonderful experience and will bring joy into your life like you could never imagine!

My name is Shari, I’m in my mid-to-late twenties and I have just entered the greatest journey of all … motherhood!
My blog GoodFoodWeek started in 2008 as a way of sharing recipes with uni friends and family who were spread near and far.
It has evolved over the years to contain my ramblings as I’ve searched for a house, planned the perfect veggie patch, stumbled through farmer’s markets with my eye half open (because you need to be there at 6am to get the fresh eggs), gathered family and friends around a shared table, laughed out loud and enjoyed life to the fullest!
GoodFoodWeek now covers four main topics: RECIPES, GARDENING, MOTHERHOOD and LIFE.

I’m taking some time off at the moment. Either I’ve had the baby by now or am about just about to so am not really up to blogging. I’ll be featuring a few guest posts from awesome bloggers over the next few weeks.

Today’s post is from Denyse from Ready Set School. I’ve “known” Denyse for a few years now. She’s a gorgeous lady, always has a kind word or a hug for everyone. She is a retired school principal and her blog aims to educate teachers and parents on the different aspects of guiding children through school.

She writes today about reading with children – Lily is a big reader (like her mum!) and it’s a habit I hope to continue with this baby as well.

When I saw how Lily was ‘reading’ her books to her mum, Cassie, via photos on Instagram I ‘knew’ that Lily was literacy-ready. She knew what a book is, that a story is told, that it’s predictable and familiar, that it’s a wonderful experience to share with another.

My post for Flying Drunken Monkey is about how early reading can commence for your child. I am a mother of two adults, a grandmother to almost 7 grandchildren. One due in June. And the eldest granddaughter is in Year 11. I have the ‘range’ of experiences with, so far 4 girls and 2 boys. I have not seen discernable differences in the love of books and reading for the boys and the girls. All kids love to snuggle next to you and be read a book.

Read To Your Kids.

Read to Your Kids…every night…

WHY?

♥ Every child loves to hear the soothing tones of a parent’s voice.
♥ There is comfort in the coming together of a child, an adult combined with a book.
♥ The book that appeals from the ‘looking’ at scenes and characters, and from ‘listening’ to words and expression.
♥ It’s a loving ritual.

WHEN?

♥ Start reading the same book or three to your child, inside Mummy’s tummy.
♥ It is a bonding between Daddy and the child in particular as Mummy’s voice is familiar.
♥ It also means that when Mummy says “come and talk to our baby” Daddy doesn’t have to decided whether to use baby words or just become …ummmm silent?
♥ Daddy reading to the baby inside (day or night!) is reassuring to Mummy as well.

WHAT?

♥ This is not as hard as it might seem.
♥ But, there are recommended books I would start with.
♥ In fact, the ones you begin reading before the child is born, will be the ones you read afterwards and there’s a bonus!
♥ The child’s reactions. Familiarity. It really is beautiful to watch.

BOOKS TO START YOUR CHILD READING.

♥ My Mum by Anthony Brown

♥ My Dad by Anthony Brown

♥ Where’s Spot by Eric Hill

♥ Peepo by Janet Ahlberg

♥ The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

♥ Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown

♥ Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell

♥ Brown Bear Brown Bear by Bill Martin Jr. Eric Carle

♥ Polar Bear Polar Bear by Bill Martin Jr. Eric Carle

♥ Where Is the Green Sheep? By Mem Fox

Books in the photo are some that formed part of a recent promotion from a newspaper. They are in a small version.

WHERE TO BUY THEM.

♥ Local Post Offices often have ‘book packs’ of quality picture books. Look for those by Pamela Allen.

♥ I recommend Large Chain Stores, and Dymocks as well as the Large Department Stores.

BUT, bargains are more likely via on-line sites such as in Australia:

♥ Booktopia (max postage is around $6.50)

♥ Book Depository in UK (free postage)

WORD OF CAUTION.

Parents may be tempted to buy books which ‘teach reading’. Please don’t. Teach your child that as you read, reading is a loving and wonderful activity. Oh, and the books above I have chosen are the wonderful classics recommended for decades. Please, no Golden Books unless you like being slowly…never mind.

YOUR child, YOU and a GREAT BOOK = QUALITY TIME.

Wishing the little family all the best as they await baby makes 4…

Denyse Whelan is a retired K-6 Principal who found she missed kids, teaching and school-life so much she began to write a blog. Denyse’s blog and website for families where kids are already at school or who are about to go to school is called Ready Set School. Follow her tweets as @readyset2school. Her Facebook page is www.facebook.com/denysejwhelan.
When Denyse isn’t on the internet she is interacting with her family and friends from teaching. She remains keenly interested in schools and education and works as an K-6 Schooling Education Specialist to 8 Early Childhood Learning Centres.

I’m taking some time off at the moment. Either I’ve had the baby by now or am about just about to so am not really up to blogging. I’ll be featuring a few guest posts from awesome bloggers over the next few weeks.

Today’s post is from Alison from Talking Frankly. I LOVE the way Alison writes! Although, if you read her first paragraph you might find that she is a bit delusional.

I am fascinated by The Flying Drunken Monkey. On the surface of it, I have absolutely nothing in common with somebody that not only possesses such an incredible organisational streak that she can blog about it, but is also a self confessed foodie and generally rather clever cook. And she doesn’t even realise how extraordinary she is which makes her blog so much more enjoyable.

To set the scene, this is where I sit in relation to housework.

I’m not going to even start on my culinary expertise except to tell you that I have come a long way from having to ring a friend to find out how you can tell a potato has boiled. But not so far as to be into reality cooking shows, or buying cook books for bed time reading. I have standards you know and they are absolutely nowhere near Cassie’s.

But despite my own domestic short comings, I’m always looking for food that will tempt my small people into loving food. And so I find myself on the blogs of good parents squirreling away ideas and filling my diary with scraps of paper, and my iphone with photos of recipes. I write meal plans I forget to take to the shops, and I buy vegetables for recipes I never get around to trying. I’m an aspirational mother rather than an inspirational one. And I’m dead okay with that.

Case study: I bought a small muffin pan to make little meal time muffins stuffed with vegetables to tempt fussy carnivore. Small muffin pan excellent for sorting shells in. Unsure how yummy the muffins are as I’ve never actually gotten any closer to the actual baking and I’ve discovered she never says no
to corn on the cob! (cue smug bad mother fist bump).

My parent ethos is that bad parenting results in independent and innovative children and thus far, I’m being proved right. However, I do feel that aged 1 and 2, they may be a little too young to take full responsibility for feeding themselves. Well, not all the time. It’d be popcorn, rockmelon and milk 24/7.

But I can’t be the only parent that finds food preparation a chore? I love the temperament of a well fed child and to be honest, they love the temperament of a well fed mother, but we go to vegetable risotto, sauces and vegetables and the fish finger baked bean combo more often than it’s politically correct to
say.

So before I pick up the meal plans once more and put on the heavy vest of paternal guilt that I’m permanently damaging their chance of becoming president of the world by failing to provide interesting meals – is there anybody out there that has a cheater’s good to quick and easy meals (in which I will recognise all the ingredients) for the domestically challenged?

Because if you’re out there – I totally want to be your best friend!

Alison Hallworth likes to have a say about everything from housework to human rights She is an admirer of wordsmiths, quirky thinking, equality, chutzpah and kindness. She is actively opposed to apathy, an imperfect parent to two perfect children and wife of the world’s most beautiful man. Check her out at www.talkingfrankly.net.

I’ve had my Weekly Meal Planning Template available for free download on here almost as long as I’ve had the blog. I first put it together in April, 2011 as part of the Fly Lady Baby Steps and it has changed a lot since then. It has evolved and been updated as I’ve worked out what works best for our family.

But it is still one thing that I use every single week. On Saturdays I sit down to work out our meal plan and plan the week using the template and my google calendar. Once I’ve finished I print it out and it goes straight on to the fridge with all of the recipes I need for the week (on a separate spreadsheet, also included in the template download). I cross everything out as we go – I find this is the easiest way to draw my eye straight to the day and what needs to be done.

Yes, printing it out each week does use a lot of ink and paper but so far it has been the easiest way to use the planner. Each week the old planner gets put on the computer table to use as recycled paper and quite often Lily uses it for her drawings.

This is one habit I am hoping to keep up with after this baby is born. I think I’ll need the reminders of what is happening, especially through the first few weeks/months of baby brain fog. The hardest part will actually filling it out each week.

The template includes the Zone Work, Daily Tasks and Weekly Tasks for all of my cleaning. I would love to say that I cross all of these off each week but it basically never happens lately. I’ve gotten so slack with cleaning and decluttering and although I’d love to get back in to it properly I know it probably won’t happen once the baby is born. But I’m hoping that having the reminder there will help me get back in to it once everything has settled down.

Click here to download my updated Weekly Meal Plan Template

The template includes the Weekly Plan as you can see in the photo above. You are able to type in the dates, activities and “to-dos” for the day, plus the meal for dinner. Next to that is the zone work section (more to come on that), the weekly tasks and daily tasks. These are all editable so you can change them to suit your circumstances.

On the next spreadsheet (click on the tab on the bottom) is the cleaning zones. Here you will find the tasks for the Zone Tasks section. Once again, these are editable and you can add and delete any tasks that you want. Then just copy and paste the tasks for the week’s zone over to the first spreadsheet.

The third spreadsheet is “recipes” – here is where I copy and paste the recipes that I need for the week so that they are all in the same place. Since I’ve started organising my recipes using One Note I’ve found this even easier as I can just copy and paste them over. However, if I am using a new recipe from a magazine or cookbook I need to type it in. Once I’ve done that I can copy and paste it in to my One Note and it’s ready if we want to use it again.

So, there you have it. Please let me know if you download the template and if you use it. I’d love to know if there is anything that you love or anything that you’d like to change.

Yes, that’s right! We have a kitchen floor that doesn’t have a big hole in it! (Click through if you’re reading via RSS if you want to see what I’m talking about).

I think I’ve been nesting a little the last few days. Saturday was a productive day – I tidied downstairs and after washing the dishes after dinner I swept and mopped the bathroom and kitchen. It doesn’t sound like much but it’s more than I’ve been doing lately.

Sunday would’ve been the same but I had a really bad sleep Saturday night and I just didn’t have the energy. I kept trying to force myself to do stuff but it felt like I was dragging my body through quicksand. I ended up going back to bed and sleeping for a few hours in the afternoon and felt a bit better after that. I didn’t end up getting much more done after that but we did cook a really lovely dinner together, had a dance while dinner was cooking and then I washed half of the dishes after we had finished. I would’ve liked to finish the dishes but was having trouble standing due to baby deciding to drop down a little while I was standing at the sink.

So, I’ve been trying to keep on top of the dishes at least and keeping the kitchen fairly clean. I’ve also been trying to keep the lounge room and dining room tidy but it’s hard when I have issues bending over. I’d love to say Lily’s been helping me but… yeah, not so much.

The plan for this week’s cleaning zone;

♥ Clean big appliances (outside of fridge etc)
♥ Clean cupboard doors
♥ Clean microwave
♥ Clean out fridge
♥ Clean small appliances
♥ Mop floor
♥ Scrub stove top
♥ Sweep floor
♥ Scrub benches

Click here to download my Weekly Plan / Meal Plan Template
Please let me know if you use it and what you think! If you have any requests or suggestions I’d love to hear them.

Meal Plan:

——————
♥ Monday – Grandma & Grandad coming for dinner – Tortilla Pizzas
♥ Tuesday – Sausages, Mash & Veggies
♥ Wednesday – Takeaway with Granny & Poppy
♥ Thursday – Ginger Chicken & Rice
♥ Friday – Tomato Basil Parmesan Soup
♥ Saturday – Tofu satay noodle salad
♥ Sunday – Chorizo Carbonara & Salad

When planning everything at the moment I seem to mentally add an asterisk – *on condition I don’t go in to labour. I think this is the worst part of the pregnancy – the waiting, the not knowing when it will happen. Although I don’t want to be induced, at least it would actually give me a date. Same with a scheduled c-section. But I can suck it up and deal with it, and hopefully go naturally.

So, this week’s meals are planned but if anything happens… well I suppose the meat will just go in the freezer and Mr Monkey will have to ensure the vegetables can used up.

Not much planned this week. Monday we have Lily’s swimming lesson – she wasn’t able to go last week has she had been a little sick the day before and we didn’t want her to risk passing it on to anyone. Then it’s grocery shopping time and then Mr Monkey’s parents are coming out for dinner. Normally we’d go out there but I don’t really feel like sitting in a car for 40mins to get there and it’s probably a good idea to be closer to the hospital. Mr Monkey will be cooking and he wanted to make pizzas but they don’t work too well in our oven. So I suggested making pizzas using tortillas – we’d only need to grill them instead of baking them.

Wednesday I have my appointment at the Low-Risk Diabetes Clinic. Mum and Dad are coming up to take me/look after Lily and will most likely stay for dinner. I’ve just planned takeaway but we might end up at the local bowling club.

Trying a new recipe Thursday night with the Ginger Chicken & Rice. The only sugar/carbs in the chicken is the honey (I might replace the sake with mirin or something similar) which means I can have more rice.

Another new recipe on Friday night – Tomato Basil Parmesan Soup. It’s a slow cooker recipe which means I can put it on while Lily’s at school and have it ready for about half an hour after we get home. I’ve been trying to eat more soups, especially now as we’re getting in to the colder months, and I also want to try using the slow cooker more.

Saturday is the Tofu Satay Noodle Salad from the Healthy Food Guide Magazine from the March 2013 edition. We’ve had it before and it was nice, and easy. I will probably put extra tofu in and more veggies to fill it out without having too much noodles.

Sunday I’m trying this Chorizo Carbonara & Salad

recipe from Actually Amy. I will probably take out the cream – I know from making Heston’s Carbonara that just the egg yolks should work fine and I don’t need the extra carbs from the cream. Unfortunately, I will have to buy the chorizo from Woolworths as our butcher only stocks a rather spicy sausage which I can tolerate but Lily doesn’t like. I also make a big salad so that I don’t fill up on the pasta.

I tell you what, I’m looking forward to having this baby so that I don’t have to keep following such a strict diet! I’ll of course keep trying to follow the basic principles but having to carb-count and figure out every single meal is tiring and frustrating. I definitely couldn’t live this way forever!

What’s on your meal plan this week?

As you have probably gathered I am due to have our second baby in the next few weeks. Due to having Gestational Diabetes I will probably be having the baby around my due date – either due to “speeding things along” naturally or through an induction.

My mum is coming to stay with us just before my due date (she’s my second labour support person) and will stay at our house while I’m in hospital. Knowing Mum she’ll probably keep the house to a much better standard than I normally will – i.e. dishes done every day and vacuuming done a lot more regularly. So, I’m sure I’ll come home to a tidy house (no Mum I’m not expecting it, I just know how you are!)

Mr Monkey is hoping to take 2 weeks off from work once I have the baby but it is hard for him to organise – as he can’t actually give any notice he’ll most likely have to call in sick on the day I go in to labour and then hope that the other chefs can then cover him for the two weeks. I would love for him to be home for those two weeks but I can’t guarantee it.

So, what do I need from you? Tips. Lots of tips!!

What did you find to be life savers in the first few months after having a baby, when you already have a toddler at home? What are your tips for making sure everyone is happy, that the house stays in some semblance of an order, that the toddler actually gets fed?

Most of what I can remember from those first few weeks and months with Lily as a newborn was doing… well not much. Sitting on the couch feeding a lot, late dinners of toast because she wouldn’t settle, sleeping whenever she slept. I know it’s going to be so much different having another little person to feed and entertain.

So, if you’ve had more than one baby please let me know how you coped!!

You may remember that last month I decided to tackle the Meat Free Week Challenge.

I had quite a few reasons for doing so.

1. We already try to eat at least one vegetarian meal a week. I wouldn’t mind having more but haven’t gotten around to it yet.

2. After reading about the health issues that eating too much meat can create I decided it was probably a good idea to cut back on our meat consumption. I have a family history of heart disease and type 2 diabetes so anything I can do minimize the risk to my health is going to be helpful. Especially after being diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes only a week or two before Meat Free Week, this was very important to me.

3. I have always struggled with the ethical side of eating meat. I have always tended to “turn a blind eye” to how that meat has come to my plate and disconnected the meal in front of me with the animal it came from. In recent years I haven’t eaten veal as I that is one meat that I simply can’t disconnect from. I also don’t really like eating venison (Bambi!!) and don’t like eating quail or spatchcock. I can’t eat whitebait because of the little eyes staring at me and have issues with eating whole fish for the same reason. Mr Monkey finds that all a bit silly but as I said before, for him taste always comes first. He’s one of the most empathetic people I know but his training as a chef always wins out. However, he is very much interested in sustainable and ethical meat and definitely interested in using different cuts of meat so that the “whole beast” is used. There is also the issues involved with how the animals are kept and treated and then killed.

4. I am always interested in ways of being more environmentally friendly and it is quite well known that the production and consumption of meat can be quite harmful to our environment.

So, how did I find it going meat free for a week? Honestly, not as hard as I expected.

The hardest part I found was putting the meal plan together. I think this would have been quite a lot easier if I hadn’t had the GD diagnosis – it’s quite hard to meal plan when you are having to count carb serves as well. I also think I should have been more organised. I had planned to get a whole heap of vegetarian meals together so I just had to choose some when it came to completing the meal plan.

However, if I hadn’t meal planned I’m sure I would’ve found it much more difficult. I tend to only eat meat at dinner so lunches weren’t too hard (especially as I can’t eat ham etc while pregnant) and having dinners planned meant I wasn’t struggling to come up with something at dinner time. If I hadn’t meal planned (and didn’t have GD) I’m sure we would have eaten a lot of risottos and bowls of noodles and steamed veggies.

The other thing that made it difficult was having the Digital Parents Conference in the middle of the week. There were limited vegetarian options at the lunches and as I was having to watch carbs as well it was quite difficult, especially as the main options were pasta or sandwiches. I didn’t end up going to the Gala dinner on the Thursday night as I was so tired and it would just be too hard for me to work out what to eat.

The recipes that I chose also made it quite interesting – this Roast Red Capsicum & Tomato Soup was delicious and a great way to finish off the week.

Otherwise, I found it really quite easy to eat meat free. So easy in fact, that I got towards the end of the week and thought it had been too easy and I must’ve slipped up somewhere. As much as it kills me, I’m going to be completely honest. I did. I slipped up. On the second lunch at the conference there was a “make your own Caesar salad”. I was concentrating on what I could eat GD wise – skip the dressing (too much sugar), skip the croutons (was going to have pasta so didn’t need extra carbs), ok that left lettuce, parmesan and bacon. Yes, I ate bacon. It just completely slipped my mind. Even though I went straight from the salad to the vegetarian pasta option! To be fair, it was less than half a handful of bacon pieces but still, it was meat. As soon as I realised I immediately felt sick with guilt. But I’ve been trying not to beat myself up too much about it – it was a very small slip up, I had a lot on my mind and am also suffering from “baby brain”. It’s not as though I deliberately set out to eat meat!

Where to from here?

I’ve had a few people ask if I was going to become a full time vegetarian after Meat Free Week. That wasn’t really my aim of the challenge. Although I did find it quite easy, it is a very major lifestyle change. Instead I’m going to be much more thoughtful about our meat consumption;

1. I am working on finding more ethical and sustainable meat to purchase. Urban Food Market have some great produce (and I love connecting with them on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram) but being on one income at the moment means that we can’t really afford to pay that little bit extra for our meat. As much as I really want to, money is simply too tight at the moment.
One change that I did make about a year ago is that I stopped buying meat from Woolworths and started buying from the local butcher. I’m not sure how much more ethical or sustainable their meat is but I am fairly confident it is better than the big chain supermarkets. It’s not ideal but it’s slightly better.
We also buy seafood from a local wholesaler instead of the chain supermarkets. And of course, I have been getting our fruit and vegetables from Andy & Ted instead of the supermarket.

2. When buying meat and meal planning I have been looking at using different cuts of meat. Not only is it often cheaper (as they are often not as popular) but it means that the “whole beast” is being used. This is, obviously, Mr Monkey’s influence and something he has been helping me with. For example, chicken breast is much more popular than chicken thighs which means birds are starting to be raised simply to have “better” breast meat, which is often detrimental to the bird. Of course, we aren’t going to make much of a difference but I feel better knowing we might have made a little difference. Mr Monkey has also showed me ways to use more unusual cuts of meat, generally slow cooked.

3. I am looking at cutting back our meat consumption by having more vegetarian meals each week. At the moment I try for at least one but I think I will extend that to two meals a week.

These may seem like only small changes but I think just thinking about our meat consumption more should make a big difference. My aim this year was to be more mindful in everything we do, so this is definitely a start.

Do you think about your meat consumption? Are you vegetarian or have you considered it? Do you try to source ethical and sustainable meat?

If you read my meal plan post yesterday you’ll know that our kitchen floor is currently (finally!) being fixed. I’m hoping it will be fixed this afternoon as we’ll be heading home tomorrow. I’m very much hoping we will have an accessible kitchen and bathroom.

At the moment half of our kitchen is in our dining room – we had to move the fridge in there and the tradesmen moved the oven, we had to empty out the pantry and it is currently in boxes and all over the dining table and we also had to empty out the pots and pans cupboard and the first aid cupboard.

The dining room looks like a cluttered mess at the moment but with the above put away it’s not too bad. I’ve been meaning to clean out the pantry again so this will be a good opportunity to do that. It’s also great because, besides actually putting things away, it’s a job that I can do sitting down (sorting through and organising). Mr Monkey can do the actual putting away for me. At the moment, being 38 weeks pregnant, any job I can do sitting down is a good one!

So once the kitchen is all put away I’ll hopefully get some of the Dining Room zone done. Mr Monkey will have to do the vacuuming and things like picking stuff up off the floor but I should be able to tidy the bookshelf and do the filing.

The plan for this week’s cleaning zone;

♥ Dust
♥ Filing
♥ Tidy desk
♥ Tidy table
♥ Tidy Bookshelf
♥ Vacuum

Click here to download my Weekly Plan / Meal Plan Template (It’s slightly different this week).
Please let me know if you use it and what you think! If you have any requests or suggestions I’d love to hear them.

Meal Plan:

——————
♥ Monday – Staying at Granny & Poppy’s house
♥ Tuesday – Staying at Granny & Poppy’s house
♥ Wednesday – Staying at Granny & Poppy’s house
♥ Thursday – Giovanni’s Sausages with Potatoes & Rosemary
♥ Friday – Chicken & Veg Risotto
♥ Saturday – Spring Pea Soup
♥ Sunday – Steak with Béarnaise Sauce with salad and chips

Yes, this post is up rather late this week. We met up with our Mums Group for lunch on Sunday and then celebrated Mr Monkey’s birthday on Sunday night with family and friends. I had the meal plan mostly ready by Saturday night but hadn’t put the post together.

We also weren’t entirely sure what was happening this week – it had been organised for tradesmen to come in Monday to Wednesday to finally fix our kitchen floor. The original plan was for Lily and I to go down to my parents’ house for those days, just because it was easier. But then we realised that Mr Monkey had to work Tuesday and Wednesday and there would be no one there to let the tradesmen in and out of the house. So Lily ended up going home with my parents on Sunday night and I was going to stay home those three days.

However, that all changed on Monday morning when the tradesman let himself in to our house, with a key given to him by the landlord. After finally getting hold of the real estate we discovered that they assumed we wouldn’t actually be in the house for those three days. I’m not sure where they got that idea from as nothing was actually mentioned about it in the *minimal* planning that was done in the lead up. They had given us a week’s free rent while the work was being done but had told us it was for the “inconvenience” – we took this to mean the inconvenience of having tradesmen in our house, no access to a kitchen, having to move our fridge and possibly not having direct access to the bathroom (we can access it by going out on the street and coming in the back gate). However, they seem to have meant the inconvenience of having to find somewhere else to stay for those three days.

So, I ended up catching the train down to my parents’ house and we have gone back to the original plan of staying here until we go back up on Thursday for my midwife appointment. Mr Monkey is still staying home but shouldn’t be much of an inconvenience to the tradies as he’s only there before work in the mornings and after work late at night.

So we weren’t sure what was happening for those 3 days/nights but now that we know we can plan the rest of the week. Of course, that is assuming that the floor will be finished tomorrow and we will have access to the kitchen on Thursday.

So, I’ve planned the old favourite Giovanni’s Sausages with Potatoes & Rosemary. I love how easy this meal is – you just chuck everything in a pan and then in the oven, serve with a simple salad. I will just have to make sure to include heaps of veggies and make a bigger salad so that I don’t have too many carbs.

Lily is at school on Friday and while she is given dinner there she sometimes is still hungry for when we have dinner at home. I try to make something that I know she’ll eat for that reason, although I tend not to do pasta as she normally has pasta for lunch. So, a simple chicken and vegetable risotto it is! We actually haven’t had risotto in ages and Lily loves it. Once again, lots of veggies and perhaps a side salad for me as well.

On Saturday I’ll be making the old winter favourite Spring Pea Soup. I’ll hopefully make up a double batch and freezing serves to have easy meals after the baby is born. It’s such an easy, yummy meal to reheat with a piece of toast.

On Sunday I’ll hopefully be at the Buddhist Centre in the afternoon so Mr Monkey will have to organise dinner. I’ve planned Steak with Béarnaise Sauce with salad and chips. I had this meal on the meal plan the week that I was diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes and without really thinking about it I automatically took it off the menu. However, looking closer at the recipe it seems that the steak and sauce themselves actually have a very low amount of carbs and I will just have to be smart with how much chips I have and obviously a bigger salad. It’s probably not a meal that I could order when eating out at the moment but as long as I am smart with it at home (especially with Mr Monkey to help) I should be ok. But I suppose I’ll see what the blood sugar levels say afterwards!

Well, this was a long post! And a late one at that!!

What’s on your meal plan this week?

Linking up with:

Remember on my last cleaning zone post (2 weeks ago) I said that I was determined to get some cleaning done that week? Well, as always life got in the way. That very night my grandfather passed away. I headed straight down to my parents’ house the next day and there we stayed until mid-last week, except for one night at home when we went to the aquarium.

When we came home last Thursday the house was an absolute mess. Friday Lily was at school and I should’ve been using that time to clean the house but I had come down with a cold and really wasn’t feeling up to it. I had also spent the morning walking around the shops to find Mr Monkey a birthday present and so was in a bit of pain and bending over was a bit of an issue. When I walked in the door from the shops and saw the complete mess of a lounge room I almost started crying. So much mess, so much to do, so overwhelming. So that afternoon I made an effort to at least tidy up the lounge room. Lily came home from school, walked in the door and exclaimed “oh! It’s clean!!” But of course, she also noticed that I had failed to put a few things away that were still on the floor and took her shoes and socks off and through them in the middle of the floor too. Sigh.

Of course, the lounge room is a mess again. Yesterday Mr Monkey and I spent the morning trying to tidy and finish off the dishes that had been sitting on the bench for way too long. But standing for too long is difficult for me now, I have issues bending over to pick things up and Mr Monkey had a sore neck. Add to that an extremely uncooperative 3 year old and we didn’t get much done. At least the dishes got finished, the lounge room was semi-tidied and some washing got done.

But I have to remember to take it easy on myself and not get too worked up about it. I’m due to have this baby in a few weeks and I’m still grieving, Mr Monkey is working and I have a 3 year old that still doesn’t get that she has to put things away – she prefers to keep everything out just in case she wants to play with it. I desperately want to do an entire clean of the whole house before the baby is born (nesting?!) but I know that if I attempted it I’d either only get halfway through and give up or I’d do the whole thing and not be able to move for days afterwards.

So, I’m going to pick up my game but take it easy at the same time. I want to get all of the dishes done each night, make sure the lounge room is tidy before we go to bed, keep most rooms generally wiped down and cleaned and then go from there. Basically make sure I get my daily tasks done and if I can accomplish that then move on to the cleaning zones and weekly tasks. We’ll see how that goes!

The plan for this week’s cleaning zone;

♥ Clean Couches
♥ Clean window
♥ Declutter TV cabinet
♥ Dust
♥ Filing
♥ Mop tiles
♥ Sweep outside
♥ Tidy off top of bookshelves
♥ Tidy shoes
♥ Vacuum

Click here to download my Weekly Plan / Meal Plan Template
Please let me know if you use it and what you think! If you have any requests or suggestions I’d love to hear them.

Meal Plan:

——————
♥ Monday – Dinner at Grandma & Grandad’s house
♥ Tuesday – Tarragon Chicken Linguine
♥ Wednesday – Slow Cooked Corned Beef, mashed potatoes and veggies
♥ Thursday – Roasted Salmon & Mexican Salad
♥ Friday – Dinner out for Mr Monkey’s birthday
♥ Saturday – Vegetable ‘fettuccine’ with fresh tomato sauce
♥ Sunday – Dinner out for Mr Monkey’s birthday

Busy couple of weeks coming up. Which is great seeing as this baby is due at the end of the month! We really didn’t plan things well…

This week starts with my Mum’s birthday on Monday, however we’re celebrating with her today with a late lunch. We’ll be heading out for our usual Monday night dinner at the in-law’s house after Lily has her swimming lesson in the morning.

Tuesday is just a quiet day at home and probably doing the grocery shopping. I decided to try this Tarragon Chicken Linguine – I will just have to limit how much actual pasta I have.

Wednesday I have my appointment at the low-risk Diabetes Clinic. Hopefully it will be better than the utter mess that last week was – long story but it involved being at the hospital for 4 hours, seeing 4 different people, being told different things by everyone and then them losing my sheet with all my blood sugar results on it. Mum and Dad are coming up – Dad to look after Lily and Mum comes to the appointments with me. I’ll put a piece of silverside in the slow cooker before we go and we should have a yummy meal by that evening!

Thursday Mr Monkey should be off work. I try to make our “fish” meal on his days off – I’m not overly confident cooking fish and I know it isn’t too nice when reheated for his dinner later in the night. We’ve had the Roasted Salmon & Mexican Salad from the March 2013 edition of Healthy Food Guide before and I really enjoyed it. Plus, it’s fairly low carb and easy for me to work out.

Friday is Mr Monkey’s birthday. He’ll be working during the day and Lily has school, then we are planning to go out for dinner with just the three of us. We haven’t done that… well, in a very long time, if at all and I’m really looking forward to it. It will probably be the last chance we have to spend some time just with Lily before the baby comes.

Saturday is another quiet day at home. I’ve heard a lot about using zucchini as “pasta” so thought I’d give the Vegetable ‘fettuccine’ with fresh tomato sauce a go. I love pasta but of course can’t eat too much of it at the moment so this may be a better, and healthier, option.

Sunday we are meeting up with our Mums Group for a picnic lunch and then heading out that night with family and friends for dinner to celebrate Mr Monkey’s birthday.

So, that’s our busy week. What are you up to this week?

Don’t forget to enter my giveaways to win one of 5x 1 year subscriptions for Microsoft Office 365 Home Premium! or a Family Pass to SEA LIFE Sydney Aquarium

Linked up with The Organised Housewife:

Last Saturday I was invited by Hausmann Communications and SEA LIFE Sydney Aquarium to attend a special event for the opening of the Seahorse Safari. Lily was very excited to go after receiving a soft toy seahorse with the invitation and I decided to bring my Dad along as Mr Monkey was working. I took lots of photos on Instagram and my Dad took a few with his camera so I decided to share our day with photos. Be warned, there’s a few!

It was a really great morning and I highly recommend it. Even if you have been to the aquarium in the past few years (as we have) you will probably notice that a lot has changed, especially with the new Seahorse Safari. There’s still the great Dugong Island with the beautiful and graceful dugongs and so many wonderful types of sea animals in the exhibits.

As part of the Seahorse Safari each child gets a safari hat and a “passport” – there are stamping stations around the aquarium where you have to complete activities before stamping the passport. There’s a special surprise in the gift shop for anyone that gets all of the stamps!

Giveaway

To celebrate the opening of the Seahorse Safari, SEA LIFE Sydney Aquarium have given me a family pass to giveaway to one of you! That’s entry for 2 adults and 2 children, worth $120! Simply fill out the form below, making sure to answer the question and I’ll get Mr Monkey to pick a winner.

Giveaway is now closed!

Terms and conditions: The Flying Drunken Monkey’s SEA LIFE Sydney Aquarium – Seahorse Safari giveaway will be judged on creativity and originality. The competition opens Friday, April 5th at 10.00am AEST and closes on Friday, April 12th at 10.00am AEST. One entry per person only. Australian entries only, sorry. There is 1 family pass to be won worth AU$120. The winners will be notified via email and published on this blog. Entries remain the property of The Flying Drunken Monkey and may be republished. For full competition terms and conditions, click here

Disclaimer: I was invited to attend the aquarium for the PR event, my transport was paid for and I received a goody bag on the day. I was under no obligation to post and the prize will be sent directly to the winner. All opinions are my own.

Don’t forget to enter my giveaway to win one of 5x 1 year subscriptions for Microsoft Office 365 Home Premium!

In 2011 Mr Monkey brought home the above soup for me to try – it was a special he was putting on at work. It was simple red capsicum soup, and pea puree with crumbled goat’s cheese. I remember I was home alone one night with a young Lily (as I was a lot) and simply reheated each separate container in the microwave, ladled it all in to a bowl and enjoyed one of the easiest and yummiest meals I had had in ages. I asked Mr Monkey for the recipe for ages but as always, it just got forgotten.

The other week for Meat Free Week I was looking for meals that were vegetarian and also low carb (because of my Gestational Diabetes). Soups seemed a good place to start as most are fairly low carb and can be bulked up by adding a bread roll or piece of bread.

One of my fantastic readers, Traci, sent through a scan of her CSIRO Total Wellbeing Diet Cookbook. One recipe was for the Roast Red Capsicum and Tomato Soup.

I’ve never really been a fan of soup and definitely haven’t liked tomato soup but thought I’d give it a try; I’m trying to be more adventurous, especially with soups, and I thought the addition of the capsicum should hopefully make it more palatable.

I scheduled the soup for the Sunday, our last Meat Free meal for the week. I spent a few hours that afternoon at the Buddhist Centre and Mr Monkey and Lily prepared dinner so it was ready when I got home. So yes, I didn’t actually make this one myself but I asked Mr Monkey lots of questions and ate it so I think that’s fine!

He said it was very simple and quick to make and it tasted really, really nice. I easily ate my bowl full and so did Mr Monkey. Lily wasn’t very interested but that’s fairly normal for her lately.

Mr Monkey realised that the addition of the tomato in the base soup would be great for his original recipe. So he put together the below recipe for me. It’s all really simple to put together and tastes amazing – the pea puree is wonderful with the capsicum and the goats cheese or feta adds just the right amount of creaminess and saltiness. As you can see in the photo, I didn’t have basil in the original soup – this has been added from the CSIRO recipe but I think it will just add something a bit more special.

Don’t forget to enter my giveaways to win one of 5x 1 year subscriptions for Microsoft Office 365 Home Premium! or a Family Pass to SEA LIFE Sydney Aquarium

This recipe is linked up with Veggie Mama’s Meatless Mondays. Head over to find some more great meatless recipes!

Sponsored by Microsoft Australia

For quite a while now I have been meaning to organise the recipes I use for meal planning. Each week I write my weekly plan up, using the template I created in Excel. On a separate spreadsheet I then copy in the recipes I need for that week – either from a website, magazine or cookbook. This way I can put all of the recipes on the fridge next to the meal plan where they are easy to see and they are all in a similar format which I find easier to read – especially when I am checking what ingredients I need to add to the shopping list. I also make sure to include where the recipe came from. You can see the spreadsheet below.

Click on the image to see it larger.

This works great, however I am noticing that I’m quite often copying in recipes that I have used before. I also quite often look for new recipes when I could use recipes we’ve used before. I’ve been wanting to collate all of the recipes we use for a while, so that I can just search for a recipe and copy/paste all in the one area, but it always seems like too big a job.

At the recent Digital Parents Conference we were able to meet and chat with the team from Microsoft Australia and have a play with some of their new goodies. I also had the chance to win one of their HP Envy’s (a tablet slash laptop) but unfortunately missed out.

One of the Breakout Sessions on the first day was titled “Time is Money: Tech Tips for Getting More Time in Your Day.” I went along and listened to Priscilla del Castillo as she showed us how to use the Microsoft Office suite to make life easier.

One thing that stood out for me was the OneNote program. I’m fairly sure OneNote has been around for a while but I hadn’t heard of it before. It is quite similar to Evernote but I actually like the interface a lot more.

As soon as Priscilla started showing us the different way you can use the notebooks I immediately thought “recipes!!” This was a perfect way to organise my recipes, especially as I could organise them by type (vegetarian etc).

I was given a code to download a subscription from Digital Parents Collective & Microsoft in order to complete this review. I excitedly downloaded the suite (yes I’m a nerd and get excited by new software) but unfortunately discovered that while the Office suite works on Macs it is not the 2013 edition of the software, only the 2011 which we currently have. We also don’t get OneNote! I do probably 99.9% of my work on my MacBook (on the couch) so this was a major disappointment. I’m also down at my parents’ house for the past week and most of this week but they were kind enough to let me download the suite on to their desktop PC (your subscription can be used across 5 devices). This way I was still able to play around with the new editions and OneNote until I can get home and put it on our desktop PC too.

Click on the image to see it larger.

As you can see in the above image I started collating my recipes in to a OneNote Notebook. It is only a very small portion of the recipes I use as I only had the recipes from the weekly plans I had saved on our DropBox plus a few I had pinned on Pinterest.

I created a Notebook called “Recipes” and then created category tabs for each “type” of recipe – vegetarian, beef, fish, side dishes etc. Under each category I can add each recipe as a new page and I can see the list of recipes (pages) on the right.

Adding the recipes is easy. I simply copy the recipe name in to the title section, then copy the ingredients and method underneath. A great feature of OneNote is that if you copy text from a website it automatically adds the link to the website at the bottom. You can also copy images from websites or insert images from your computer.

Click on the image to see it larger.

Another great feature of OneNote is the ability to “dock” the program to the side of the screen to allow for easy note taking or copying and pasting. This is great for copying recipes from webpages – I simply open the page ready for the recipe, dock OneNote to the side, open the recipe and copy and paste over to the page.

I was able to copy all of the recipes straight from my weekly plan spreadsheets and keep the formatting. This means when I want to use the recipe again I can easily copy it back over.

I can easily find a recipe in the future – either by a quick glance through the categories or even searching for a specific ingredient using the search function. Now I just have to work on getting all of my recipes in the notebook (and adding new ones as I find them) and I will have my own fully searchable cookbook!

Now, as I’m not able to get OneNote on my MacBook and I normally do my weekly plan creation and recipe research on the MacBook I was a bit stuck as to how I would able to use it most effectively. I found a way to export the OneNote notebook to Evernote, however this doesn’t keep the categories making it harder to keep track of everything. Also, I wouldn’t be able to add any recipes using my MacBook.

However, I also discovered that if I save the notebook to my Sky Drive I can access it online and use a web version of OneNote. Of course, it is not quite as useful as the PC version but will be enough for me to access and copy my recipes and also add in new ones as I come across them.

All users of Sky Drive get 7GB of storage – with the yearly subscription you get an extra 20GB of storage! I don’t think I have 27GB worth of recipes so I should be ok…

There is also some great new features in the other Office programs. In Excel, Word and Powerpoint you have access to a whole new range of templates in the program, instead of having to search online for them (only when you have internet access). There’s also lots of new features to make your spreadsheets look prettier, as well as easy ways to create tables and graphs from data. Lots of nerdy things that I know I won’t be able to stop playing around with!

Giveaway

Now, the part that I’m sure you’ve been waiting for! Microsoft Australia and Digital Parents Collective have given me 5x 1 year subscriptions of the new Office 365 Home Premium to giveaway to you! That’s 5 subscriptions that can each be used across 5 devices!

If you’re a Twitter user you may have seen the hashtag #OMGTips lately. Microsoft has asked people (including those at DPCon13) to share their best tips for using Office to make life easier. You can see a great selection of tips here.

Obviously my #OMGTip is to use OneNote as a recipe collator. I also shared this tip at the conference:

#omgtips I use Excel for everything! Easiest way to lay out everything logically. #dpcon13 @msau

— Cassie – TFDM (@FlyDrunkMonkey) March 20, 2013

To go in the running to win one of the five subscriptions all you need to do is fill in the form below, sharing your best #OMGTip. How do you use Microsoft Office to make your life easier?

Giveaway is now closed!

Terms and conditions: The Flying Drunken Monkey’s Microsoft Office 365 Home Premium giveaway will be judged on creativity and originality. The competition opens Monday, April 1st at 10.00am AEST and closes on Monday, April 15th at 10.00am AEST. One entry per person only. Australian entries only, sorry. There are 5 subscriptions to be won worth AU$119 each. The winners will be notified via email and published on this blog. Entries remain the property of The Flying Drunken Monkey and may be republished. For full competition terms and conditions, click here

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary subscription to facilitate this review. Digital Parents Collective also covered the admin cost involved in hosting the giveaway. All opinions are my own.

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