Weekly Recipe: Tuna Inari

My fantastic workmate's other half caught some tuna on the weekend and gave some to us. Yay! I firstly thought that I would make a tuna and bean salad, but at the last minute wavered and with Darren's support switched to tuna inari.

I marinated the tuna in soy sauce for about an hour and then grilled it. I'm sure that raw would be lovely, but doesn't really suit two year olds.

I cooked up one and a half cups of sushi rice in the rice cooker and then cooled it on the bench with a seasoning made of mirin, rice wine vinegar and a little sugar. When cool enough to touch, Miss 2 stirred in a grated carrot.

Inari pockets are fried tofu in a sweet sauce. I opened up the inari pockets gently (Oh! Look how long my nails are! No good for netball...).

Then Miss 2 stuffed the inari with the rice...

... and I put in some slices of green capsicum and a squirt of Kewpie mayonnaise...

... and added in the tuna.

Miss 2 sprinkled rice seasoning (nori, seasame seeds, dashi and other goodies) over the top and we ate it with soy sauce and wasabi.

Thank you, Paul!

Sellers Picks on Madeit

Madeit has a few different ways of publicising their sellers for free, which is great.

The front page has a different selection of 16 items each day, chosen around a theme (today is Paisley Finds) or randomly from the Gift Guide on the weekend. Newsletters (shopping guides) are sent out three times a week with newly listed items on Monday, a theme on Wednesday and a rotation between the Gift Guide, Undiscovered Sellers and Sale Items on Friday. One seller is featured in detail for a month or so in the Designer Spotlight. The Facebook page has more items as the cover image, as well as promoting the top sellers and new sellers each month and other random items. And then there's the Picks.

Picks is a weekly display of the favourite items chosen by three sellers, as well as a range of items chosen by the Madeit staff, Bec, Tian and Axl the cat. I'm a Picks editor this week and I decide to have a theme to my finds. So I've chosen eight different fantastic brooches, five of which show on the Picks page at any one time. Below are my choices in detail.

Green Silhouette Brooch by Kapalau.

Kimono Tree Brooch by Lauren Williams.

Stunning Red Blossom Brooch by Nomstar Designs. 

Silver Feather Brooch by Oh Deer.

Hand Painted Bird Brooch by She's Crafty.

Floral Heart Attack by Simonette.

Teal and Maroon Floral Tree Brooch by Under The Shade Of A Bonsai Tree.

Tawny Owl Wool Felt Brooch by foxowlroad.

Weekly Recipe: Pizza

Yay for pizza! This week I made two, one "Italian" and one "Argentinian. The dough was whipped up in my bread maker with 1 teaspoon of yeast, 475 g of flour, 1 teaspoon of salt, 1 tablespoon of powdered milk, 1 3/4 tablespoons of sugar, 2 tablespoons of olive oil and 300 ml of water. The same feat could be achieved by kneading, but I'm lazy.

This was enough for two pizzas - I made square-ish pizzas and pricked them with a fork.

The Italian-ish pizza had a squashed tomato, basil and oregano base, layered with very thinly sliced potato, tomato, ham and capsicum and then covered with cheese.

But the Argentinian onion pizza (fugazzeta) was more interesting. I sliced three onions thinly and cooked them in a little olive oil in the frying pan until soft.

Then put them over the base which had been scattered with grated cheese (a mix of mozzarella and provolone works well) and oregano. I put olives on half of the pizza, since Darren doesn't like them.

Bake in an oven at 210 degrees for about half an hour and yum-o. Enough for two nights!

Toddler Play: Driveway Alphabet

We are "blessed" with an extensive amount of concrete at our house. The driveway, which runs the whole length of the property, is two car widths at the top end. Plenty of room for drawing with chalk. I covered the driveway with the alphabet, in upper and lower case. Miss 2.5 is very fond of the alphabet at the moment and Miss 2 is very fond of alphabet puzzles.

We did hunts for letters. Miss 2.5 was right into it. We had long negotiations over what letter certain words begin with.
Me: "Where is M for Daddy Marc?"
Miss 2.5: "No! D is for Daddy Marc!"
Me: "Well, D is for Daddy, but M is for Marc."
Miss 2.5: "No! D is for Marc."
Me: "Um... well, D is for Daddy Darren."
Miss 2.5: "No! D is for Marc."
Apparently I had similar stubbornness levels as a child. Who would have imagined it? I'm *so* biddable now...

Miss 2 thought that finding letters was okay to start with...

 

... but quickly decided that riding her bicycle over the letters was more fun. Not a problem!

New Canvases For May

May.

This month, as well as embossing my canvases, I have been incorporating paper cut-out words into a lot of my work. I like the effect.

My favourite new additions for May are these little square canvases. You can purchase them as one canvas with a personalised name on it, or as a pair of decorated canvases in matching colours. Or mix and match.

Pop over to my Madeit and Etsy stores to see the details for each canvas as they are listed.

Two Years On Etsy

On 26 May 2011, 'kaetoo' Canvas Photo Boards joined Etsy. It wasn't actually until early June that I started listing items for sale, but in my head May is still 'kaetoo's Etsy birthday.

Hurrah!

In celebration of 'kaetoo's 2nd birthday, I'm running a 10% off sale. Click this link to pop over to the Etsy store and at checkout simply enter the coupon code BIRTHDAY2013 for 10% off non-clearance stock (that stuff is already on sale). This applies to any custom orders taken through the Etsy store before 1 June as well.

Enjoy.

Weekly Recipe: Bombay-inspired Fish

The Dory fillets that I bought at the market this week were much larger than I thought, so they made two meals instead of one. For the second meal, I made a Bombay-inspired dinner. I marinated the fish overnight in 2 garlic cloves, 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric, a couple of cloves, 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon, 1 tablespoon tamarind pulp and a tin of coconut milk overnight. The next day I threw in some chopped mushrooms and gently cooked the curry in a frying pan for about 5 minutes, breaking up the fish as it cooked with a spoon.

For sides I cooked basmatic rice, sprinkled a little dessicated coconut on bananas, microwaved a few poppadoms, stirred plain yoghurt through cucumber, and steamed vegetables (yeah, they don't really fit...).

  

Throw it all together with some lime and some mango chutney and there you are. Delicious!