Adam's 12th Birthday

Wow, I cannot believe how time flies, first you have a tiny wriggly bundle in your arms and before you know it, they are taller than you!
My son Adam turned 12 last week, and he just wanted some friends over to hang out, shoot some baskets and watch movies on the media screen in the lounge.  So we decided to do it over the long weekend, was it wise having six  12/13 yr olds sleep over....ummmm I don't know if any of us got any sleep!  But they had a great time hanging out and being boys.

I love baking cakes for both my children on their birthdays, but I must admit it's getting harder to figure out what they like without being too childish (for a 12 yr old that is!) So when I saw something like this on a fb page, I decided to have a go.

Really simple, I used my no fail chocolate cake recipe ( in one of the earlier entries), made three cakes - using 23 cm cake tins, and sandwiched them with chocolate icing.
I made a simple chocolate icing, using butter, cocoa, icing sugar and boiling water. And crumb coated the cake.  In hind sight though butter icing is also a good option.
After crumb coating I attached the chocolate wafers, and six types of chocolates, jaffas, maltesers, pebbles chocolate covered raisins and some mint balls and white chocolate drops.

 

 

The result was fabulous and the cake went down a treat!  I don't think anyone will be eating chocolate for a while.

 Dinner was chicken burgers and fries ( they said no to salad....) followed by birthday cake and then ice cream.

Shooting hoops....what they do best, four of them are in the school basketball team

The quietest I saw them the whole weekend ;-)

Salmon Parcels with Roasted Vegetables

I honestly haven't dropped off the face of the earth, I am here, and feeling very guilty about not blogging and keeping up with my regular posts.  I do have an excuse, a valid one I might add.  We are in the process of selling our home and buying another one.  A very stressful process, causing me a lot of anxiety and grief, and far too much time being spent in the car going through open homes, hence the lack of posts.

But you have to eat, it really does not matter how stressful your life is,  you need to feed the family, so with this in mind I turn to quick and simple dishes that are nutritious and full of flavour.  I love parcel food, its a great easy concept for a busy life, it's one that I first saw in one of Jamie Oliver's earlier books.  He used chicken, but you can use any meat/fish.  I love this one as salmon is packed full of goodness and does not require too much flavouring.
Here I have used two marinades a simple parsley one ( for the children) and one with chilli flakes for a kick (for moi)

You will need 4 pieces of salmon fillets ( or more depending on how many you are feeding)
4 Foil envelopes (tightly  folded on 3 edges, with an opening)
For the marinade -;
1 Tbl of Olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
squeeze of lemon juice
small handful of parsley ( I use the dry variety)
or 1/2 tsp chilli flakes if you are going for the kick version
Mix it all together
Place the salmon fillets in the foil bag and drizzle your marinade over the salmon, seal the envelope/bag at the top so that no air can escape, this is important, as the fish will cook in the steam created in the bag.
Place on an oven tray in a preheated oven at 160 for about 15-20 min.

Serve with a medley of roasted vegetables  (one of my earlier blog entries has this recipe) or a potato mash.  Delish!

 

Enjoy!

 

Till next time.

 

Ashia