The annual Christmas gift scratchie has been scratched and … I’ll still be going into work tomorrow. I’ve done my first champagne run to Dan’s ahead of the work Christmas lunch this weekend.
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And the music. It’s been Michael Buble on repeat for me. Mariah Carey and Rod will also be on high rotation around these parts at as well. I’ll also take this opportunity to confess that I have no idea which boy or girl band of the moment has a new Christmas album out this year. Perhaps you could enlighten me on that point if you happen to know?
I’ve also broken down what was a completely overwhelming Christmas lunch grocery list and have gotten all my ingredients for dessert and baking. I’m not going to take any chances with the custard which is why I’ve also already bought my two tubs of Paul’s Premium Christmas Vanilla Custard. Custard’s having its Christmas moment this year. I’ve seen it flavoured with Bailey’s, various premium brandies, spiced brandy, cacao (for babies) and even salted caramel.
Next week onwards is probably going to see every spare moment of mine devoted to Christmas preparations so I decided to do something more child friendly with Toddler SSG today.
We made our first visit to The Australian Museum today and it was more of a success than I thought it would be. To begin with, the entrance is very pram friendly and there’s a well thought out play area which is secure and has rooms for prams to be parked just outside it. The play area is full of interactive exhibits (complete with some live specimens), books, soft toys and crawling spaces.
The Search and Discover room took me back to biology at school. There were taxidermied turtles, block mounted insects, bones, shells and fish tanks. And what’s more, touching the proud kangaroos that guard the entrance to the room is actually encouraged. I was surprised at just how much Toddler SSG enjoyed himself wondering around the exhibits. It pleased him greatly to see how ‘happy’ the prehistoric fish skeleton looked and the teeth of an 8 metre long crocodile elicited a ‘wow’ from him as well.
Entry is $15 for adults who aren’t members and children under 16 have free entry.
It’s the day after another Aldi Wednesday, so you know what that means for the blog. Road tested the seamless gym tank top this morning ($9.99).
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Whilst doing my first cycle of the Five Tibetan Rites. Have you heard of or tried this set of asanas? The idea is to work up to 21 repetitions of each exercise and to perform them daily for overall well being, mental clarity, calm and inner peace. All of which are good things to possess and perhaps even more so for the festive season. I’ll report back with my progress.
There were multiple Aldi finds this week and my second one is the Lumina frozen dessert maker. It was $39.99 and only came in this hot pink or white. Hot pink was all that was left and you have to admit, it does work well on a dark bench top.
The unit is small, compact and light weight. All the components that come into contact with your pre frozen ingredients are easily removed and just as easy to wash by hand.
There are safety markings to tell you how to lock bits together.
As I mentioned earlier, the success of the unit depends on your fruit and dairy being frozen solid before being used. As you can see from the picture below, the food chute is quite small and I was lucky that my bananas were chopped up before I froze them. I also used commercially frozen strawberries but in future, I’m looking at the possibility of freezing my own fresh fruit. Anyone tried this?
When in use, the machine is quite noisy but not unpleasant (don’t know why, I just automatically thought that grinding ice would make an ear splitting sound).
I know what it looks like but my frozen bananas came out with a smooth consistency much like commercial frozen yoghurt. I’m ever so pleased because now I have a delicious use for the half eaten and neglected bananas that seem to be one of the things that happens to your kitchen when a toddler starts being assertive about his diet.
The frozen strawberries turned out nicely too.
The only thing is that because each fruit was individually frozen, you do need to mix them up manually after they are processed through the machine. I might chop up my banana more finely next time and feed the pieces in alternately with the berries to see if this helps. Some recipes provided with the unit also require dairy which again has to be frozen. I’m thinking of using an ice cube tray for this job.
Most pleasing of all, everything is easy to clean.
All in all, I didn’t get a finished product that looked as perfect as the images on the packaging suggested I would but for the price and convenience of use, I’m very happy with what I’ve seen so far.
Saturday week sees Aldi release their own $39.99 ice cream maker if you’re interested. Reviews of previous models haven’t been glowing. Personally, my own experience with home ice cream makers where you need to pre freeze the mixing bowl and have super cold ingredients at the ready has been frustrating. I’ve found it much easier to just feed frozen ingredients into a machine that doesn’t need any pre freezing.
Do you make frozen desserts at home?
What’s the most unusual flavoured custard you’ve seen this Christmas?