Caroline and Josefine's Holiday in Australia -Part 1

It has been a busy couple of months, as we have had family visit from Denmark and also been overseas on holidays. 

We had really been looking forward to our two eldest nieces, Caroline and Josefine, coming down to visit us, and they arrived in early July in the beginning of their school holiday. 

We had a few longer day trips planned, but also had day trips into Melbourne on the itinerary. They arrived Thursday 9th July in the morning, and as we thought, after breakfast, they went to bed to catch some zzzz. I then woke them up in the afternoon, while there was still some sun out, and we all went for a walk around the local area so that they could get some fresh air and sunshine to turn their clock around to Melbourne time.

Friday, Kasper still had to go to work, so all the girls (including Julia) and Oscar then planned a trip to Melbourne to see QVM (Queen Victoria Market) and do some other shopping in Melbourne. 

After a quick cafe pit stop for Oscar's breakfast, we went on to explore Queen Victoria Markets. The market stalls were the most popular and we spent quite a bit of time browsing all kinds of things. We then proceeded into the food area of the market and first had a look at all the fresh fruit and vegetable produce before we went into the deli hall and the meat hall. The girls were gobsmacked at all the massive cuts of meat and large fish everywhere. At one entrance, a fishmonger were doing chargrilled octopus, and Caroline was game enough to try a piece with me (Yasmin). YUM. 

Cafe breakfast for Oscar, and coffees and hot chocolate for the rest of us!

When we were done exploring QVM, we then proceeded to Melbourne Central shopping centre in Melbourne City. We also had a nice lunch here, as it had become lunch time. 

Melbourne Central Shopping Centre, where we had lunch

After some browsing in some of all the stores, we then took the tram back towards docklands, and got off at Etihad Stadium, so the girls could see where we were going to the footy later in the week. 

We walked along the water on dockland pier back to Harbourtown Shopping Centre, where we again went browsing/shopping, and ended up at the coffee club for another hot chocolate before the drive home in peak-hour traffic!

On Saturday, unfortunately Caroline's cold had taken a turn for the worse, so she stayed under her doona all day on the couch getting familiar with James Bond :-)

While Yasmin and Oscar stayed home with Caroline, Kasper, Josefine and Julia went for a walk in Werribee Gorge. I even think they did a bit of "rock climbing". Some pictures below from their trip.

Smart girl brought an umbrella

"off road" rock climbing

Tour Guide "Bear Grylls" :-D

Kasper and Josefine

Julia and Josefine

5 red parrots

Fun in the Jolly Jumper

In the last couple of weeks, Oscar has started moving around a bit more - he is now rolling by himself from his back to his tummy and from his tummy to his back. He uses this technique to roll closer to toys that are out of reach. And when on his tummy he kicks around his little legs in order to try to move forward, so we are excitedly waiting to see when he will start crawling...

He also likes to stand up, so he can look around a bit more. One of his favourite things to do is go in the Jolly Jumper and walk/jump around on his little feet and look at his surroundings. Here is a video of Oscar in the Jolly Jumper:

Last weekend Kasper was on daddy duty during the afternoon, and I heard this out of control laughing coming from Oscar's room, so went in with the video camera to check out what they were doing... sometimes it really is the simple things that keeps Oscar amused :-) Enjoy!

Best Ever Coleslaw Dressing

Last week we tried a different type of coleslaw - as you do when you have leftover cabbage originally used for a Minestrone Soup to use for something else... This coleslaw is called a green coleslaw and is made with savoy cabbage. However, it is really the dressing which is amazing, and I'm sure I'll use this fantastic dressing in the future for all types of coleslaw!

The recipe is for 4 people

1/4 savoy cabbage, finely shredded
3 celery stalks, leaves reserved, stalks finely chopped
1 Lebanese cucumber (or 1/2 a cucumber), halved lengthwise, thinly sliced

Dressing
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 lemons, juiced
1 tablespoon sugar (white)
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 tbsp whole egg mayonnaise

Put all dressing ingredients in a container with lid, close tightly and shake all ingredients together. Pour over coleslaw ingredients and mix through.

Sorry, forgot to take a picture :-(

An Eventful Week

The past week has been quite eventful. 

Friday evening Julia and I (Yasmin) were going to the footy so that Julia could experience Australian Football at the MCG - the biggest stadium with room for more than 100.000 spectators. Of course we had picked a game where St Kilda was playing so that I could go and watch a live game of my team. 

Unfortunately, we arrived a bit late because we had to wait for Kasper to come home from work to look after Oscar before we could leave. However, when we arrived, St Kilda was actually in front (they were playing against Collingwood), so we were quite excited!! Unfortunately, once the 2nd quarter started Saints quickly lost their lead and Collingwood ended up winning :-( 

St Kilda scored a rare goal

But it was fun for Julia to experience the "game day" atmosphere at the stadium, and she was quite excited by the game and the antics of the spectators. As she said, there was lots of action and it was definitely not boring to watch a footy match compared to soccer :-) So I think there is a chance we might go and see a few matches while she is here!

Saturday evening Karina, Shayne and Oliver came to visit to see our new house. We had a nice Mexican themed dinner party with everyone participating - Karina brought a starter platter, then I made chicken and beef fajitas for main, and Julia made some strawberry quesadillas with ice cream for dessert. Good to catch up before Karina is due to give birth again at the end of May and also get the latest news on their new house which they are building at the moment.

Saturday night I felt a little like I was getting a sore throat, and Sunday I was really bad with stuffy nose, coughing and fever - hello stupid flu! So Kasper ended up being on Oscar duty Sunday, follow by Julia on Oscar duty Monday and Tuesday before I was finally in a condition to look after Oscar again Wednesday. However by Wednesday, Oscar had also caught the cold - poor little man! 

Wednesday we were booked in for our passport session at Denmark House in the city. I needed to get my passport renewed, and we needed to get a passport for Oscar. So this was Oscar's first trip to the big smoke - Melbourne City! When a child gets a passport, both parents have to show up, so Kasper met us at Denmark House. Luckily, he was attending a conference in the city on Wednesday, so it was just a short tram trip for him to meet Oscar and I there. A thank you to Daniel is in order for magically fixing up a photo of Oscar we could use for the passport photo! 

Oscar's passport photo :-)

After our applications had been handed in, Kasper suggested we have lunch before he went back to the conference. So we found this nice Japanese restaurant where Kasper could get a nice curry and wifey could get some sashimi and sushi - YUM!

Oscar and daddy at lunch (and some of mummy's yummy food)

After lunch, Oscar and I went shopping in H&M and GAP to find some new clothes for Oscar as he has now grown out of all his 3-6 months clothes, and desperately needed some new bodysuits. Luckily we found some very nice stuff before we legged it back through the city to Crown where we were parked and went back home just in time before peak-hour traffic started!

Oscar with mummy on shopping trip

Then on Friday, Oscar and I AGAIN had to go to Melbourne to see the art performance Rain (for babies) at Melbourne Arts Centre. We had booked a time with 2 other mums/babies from our mother's group, so it was a nice little catch up as well. We left home in good time to have a nice stroll along the Yarra river and have a leisurely lunch before the performance at 1.30PM. 

Here is a link to the performance 
The performance lasted about 45 minutes, and was very fascinating for the babies! Scenary was set up to resemble "rain", and there were 3 performers singing and playing while moving around and touching the babies. During and after the performance all the babies were allowed to crawl around and play with the props (big balloons filled with a bit of water they could push around + stuff hanging from the ceiling that they could play with. Lighting was also a factor with dark surroundings and some "glow in the dark" features. Unfortunately, Oscar got a bit grizzly at the end because he was getting tired, so we left quite quickly as he sleeps best in the pram when it is moving.

By the time we left Melbourne, it was unfortunately well into peak hour traffic, so we were parked for about 15 min just to get onto the freeway :-( That made for one very hungry and screaming Oscar most of the way home in the car.... 

Friday night, and Julia and Kasper now both have a sore throat, so it seems the whole family ended up catching my cold despite my best efforts to avoid giving it to anyone!

Operation Passport Photo

There are many rules that you have to adhere to when taking a passport photo - even if you are a little baby! That makes for some very funny attempts at taking the right passport photo of Oscar, who as the only one in the family (currently) can get both a Danish and an Australian passport. This will of course change when the law of dual citizenship in Denmark comes into action on 1st September this year, when the whole family can then happily apply for dual citizenship and Australian passports.

However, as we are going on holidays later this year, we do need to have a passport made for Oscar.

Back to the passport photo rules...
* the picture must have good likeness to the child
* the picture must be taken from the front
* format should be 35 x 45mm
* head must be between 30-36mm from chin to hairtop
* you cannot have more than one person in the picture, so Oscar cannot sit on our lap to have his photo taken.
* the person must be centered in the photo
* the picture cannot be too light or too dark
* there cannot be any shadows on the face or the background
* the person cannot wear a hat
* eyes cannot be covered by hair or be closed
* the mouth needs to be closed

Well, that's easy!! :-S

Here are some of our (funny) attempts...

Woo-hoo, hands in the air

What's that over there?

Looking right at you mummy! (unfortunately with open mouth)

This chair is moving!!

Ha ha ha mummy :-)

What? I can't talk?!

This chair is not that comfortable...

OK, I'm looking at the camera, closing my mouth - and
mummy managed to get a shadow on the wall behind me!

Is that Bailey over there?

So as you can see, it was a bit of a task. I managed to get a couple of good pictures, but when we tried to transfer to a memory stick so that Julia could photoshop part of the high chair out of the picture, the images somehow got lost :-(

So one of these coming days we'll do a take 2 on passport photo, as we need to have them finished by 22nd April...

A few videos

YES! We're back online with a much better internet connection (back to the 21th century) so now I am actually able to post a few videos we have recorded of Oscar :-)

The first video is from a weekend morning in the old house where Oscar came into mum and dad's bed for a morning nap/talk. Oscar is awake though and telling morning stories...

In this next video, Oscar is playing with daddy at the dinner table.

The last video for now is from our new house with Oscar sitting in his new high chair eating pumpkin :-) Yummy yummy!!

Once we get a bit more time over Easter, we will post some more pictures from the new house.

Molehiya - Turkish Family recipe

Molehiya with chicken

Growing up, there were a few family favourites that we did not get very often (maybe that's why they were extra special), mostly because it was difficult to get the main ingredient - the molehiya leaves - in Denmark. This meant that we would only get this dish if my grandmother had sent the dried leaves to us from Cyprus. However, it was definitely worth the wait, and to this day it remains one of my favourite Turkish dishes to cook and eat.

Luckily, these days I have better access to the molehiya leaves, as they are sold in many Lebanese / ethnic veggie shops around Australia, so I now cook this family favourite a bit more often. I would probably cook it even more often if Kasper liked it as well... however he thinks it smells of hay when I cook it and is not a fan!

I mostly cook the molehiya with chicken, however lamb or beef can be used as well. Serve with steamed parboiled or basmati rice.

Here's the recipe: 

Chicken Molehiya - 4 people
* About 6 handfuls of dried molehiya (fresh leaves can also be used, however I've never seen these)
* 1 glass of lemon juice (if using freshly squeezed lemon, you can get away with a bit over half a glas, which is the juice of about 3-4 lemons)
* 3 tablespoons olive oil
* 1 onion
* 12 cloves of garlic
* 1 can diced tomatoes
* 500 g chicken thigh fillets (no bones)
* 4 glasses of water (enough to cover all the ingredients)
* 2 tablespoons of tomato paste
* 1 teaspoon of hot chilli paste or chilli sauce
* 1 chicken stock cube
* salt to taste

Preparation
1) Place the dried molehiya leaves in a bowl of cold water and leave to stand for 6-8 hrs (if you do this in the morning, the leaves will be ready for when you cook dinner). The leaves tend to float, so use a flat plate on top to keep the leaves under water.
2) Use a strainer to drain the water out of the leaves, and squeeze as much water out of them as possible. The leaves will be a bit sticky, but this is normal.
3) Chop the chicken thigh fillets into 3-4 cm cubes, and fry in a deep pot or wok in the olive oil until browned.
4) Cut onion into chunky boat slices and garlic cloves into 6-8 pieces and add to the pot, and fry for 3-4 min. 
5) Add the diced tomatoes, stir
6) Add the drained molehiya leaves, lemon juice, tomato paste, chilli paste and stock cube.
7) Top up with water to cover all the ingredients and season with salt to taste.
8) Pop on a lid that closes firmly and simmer over low heat for 30-40 minutes.
9) Cook the rice while the molehiya is cooking.
10) Serve rice topped with chicken molehiya in a bowl and ENJOY!