Archive | October 2012
October 26, 2012  

Easy Cheesy Veggie Lasagna

Four Cheese Lazy lasagna 

As some of you guys know, my kids are a pain in the arsehole when it comes to food. I find it even more infuriating than most as my Dad was a Chef who was passionate about food, and the Captain and I love food so much we would actually have sex with it, if we could.

So… on this basis, and off the back of my little monkeys still not eating their veggies … I’ve got creative once again, while swigging a very large bottle of Pinot Grigio (I can’t cook without a drink).

This recipe is enough for 6 grown adults and/OR 12 little people.

Ingredients:

  • One 250g pack of mild blue cheese
  • One 1/2 cups of parmesan cheese
  • One cup of Cheddar cheese grated
  • 1 lb of shredded Mozzarella
  • 250g Cream Cheese (Philadelphia was my preference)
  • Ix large onion
  • 5x chopped garlic bulbs
  • 2 tablespoons ground Nutmeg
  • 2 tablespoons Parsley
  • Up to 12 sheets of dry lasagne
  • 4 Cups of Tomato sauce (shop bought for lazy me, so that was actually 2 bottles of Dolmio sauce with basil)
  • One huge pack (approx) 700g of mixed Frozen organic Vegetables
  • 75g butter (or 3 massive spoonfuls)

For the white sauce:

  • 4 cups of full fat milk
  • 500g double cream
  • 1 tablespoons of ground nutmeg
  • 1 tablespoon of parsley
  • 6 tablespoons of plain white flour (or brown) sieved through before adding to milk
  • 1/2 cup of parmesan cheese

Cooking Method:

  1. Get the oven heated up to 220 degrees while you’re cooking away.  Put all your onions and garlic into a massive pot and start cooking those first with 3 generous nobs of butter (unsalted) until they’re golden brown.
  2. Once golden brown (after approx 5 minutes), add the frozen vegetable and cook for an additional 5 minutes.  Hopefully you were clever enough to have taken the pack out of the freezer at least 45 minutes before so they had defrosted a little.

3. Once you’ve mixed and cooked, add the tomato sauce and stir for another 2 minutes.  Then take off the heat.

4. Get out your blender and puree all the vegetables and sauce until it resembles shit after a heavy night out on the town (yes, literally).

5. Once pureed (my kids won’t eat any vegetables if they know about it so I hide all their veg in most dishes), put aside the veggie tomato sauce and start on your white sauce.

6. Pour the milk, ground nutmeg, double cream and parsley into a pan and start heating up for approx 2 minutes.  Then start adding the  flour through a sieve to stop lumps and keep mixing throughout.  Give it another 3-5 minutes and once everything is mixed (add a longer   timescale if it’s not), then add the parmesan, cream cheese & blue cheese and cook for another 4/5 minutes.

7. Once the white sauce is ready, get a huge oven dish and start layering the vegetable sauce on the bottom (exactly like you would with a normal meat lasagna). Then add a sheet of dry lasagna, more vegetable sauce & a ladle of the white sauce around the edges. While doing this, also start adding shredded mozzarella cheese between each layer.  Yes, its very cheesy but it tastes sooo good!!  So for you idiots out there who simply don’t get it… (a) vegetable sauce (B) ladle of white sauce spread around the edges and, (c) then shredded mozzarella on the veg sauce before adding another sheet of lasagne, (d) start the process all over again.

8.  Once all the sauce is used up (ensure you have enough white sauce left for the very top layer though), put your final sheets of lasagna on top, spread white sauce over it and sprinkle with parmesan and any remaining mozzarella. Also sprinkle some ground nutmeg across the top and some parsley.

9. Pop the dish into the oven at 180 degrees for approx 45/50 minutes (or until golden brown).  See finished dish below……this is friggin delicious!!!

I promise you, the kids will love this and so will any adult who’s a cheese or pasta lover (and doesn’t have issues with calories).  As theres so much of this pasta leftover, I tend to cut it into portions and freeze the remainder.

Now for your prize below……. Job well done Mamma!

October 19, 2012  

Domestic Help…in Hong Kong (or anywhere)

So can I be honest without some left-wing (ok we’re not in the UK) party having a go about what I want to say?  Right now… I have two domestic staff working in my house (yes, how very posh of me) and one of them is doing my fucking head in.

This bird is soooo miserable that she moans all day/afternoon/night, doesn’t crack a smile at all (unless The Captains home) and tells my kids off (in front of me without even twitching an eye brow).

Yes… I’m “lucky” to have someone here to help me in my house.  In the UK, this would NEVER EVER be an option.  Why? Because it would cost an absolute fortune for a start. Plus, you’d get some pike from an unknown Estate in Scarborough who will rob you blind, beat your kids and shag your husband.  If you want to be “safe” in your home…hire OLD (plus 48), UGLY, hairy, women.  Even then, there are no guarantees if your husband turns a blind eye, when “drunk”, and mistakes one for you.  The fact he can mistake a hairy, old, ugly bird for you, is sign enough that there are issues within the marriage.

Yes.  I said it. Why the hell would you hire some young 20 something who walks around in cut off jean hot pants that show her thong, while serving your husband and kids breakfast… with a smile may I add?? While you, lay in bed… exhausted from doing fuck all.  My friend recently hired someone HOT (15 years her junior) as she considered them a reflection on herself.  Mad. The fact, I’m picking old, spinsters says it all about me then eh?!   Why the HELL would you want someone more attractive than you in your home?!?!  Men, are, men.  They are not God.  When I was pregnant with the twins… my hormones reacted like a mans do.  I wanted sex 24 hours a day.  I would have humped a bicycle if it gave me the eye. Apparently it was due to the male hormone in my body.  Jesus Mary & Joseph, if that’s the case…. us women are screwed because they (men) are walking around like this all the time (dogs full of sexual urges they can’t control).  It’s not their fault either…. shame.  Forgivable?  No. Of course not.

Anyhow… back to sleeping…. I’m tired the whole time. I now know why.  It’s because I’m not doing anything!!! I’m bored to fucking death.  I’m sooo bored, I now know how Queen Elizabeth feels…. she’s frigging knackered. All she does is have people wait on her day and night and I BET, all she wants is to be left alone in her palace for a few hours, so she can raid the wine cellars, call her mates without someone listening to her calls (Queen someone in Spain/Nicaragua) and shag Prince Philip on the floor in the stables without being caught (he tends to say some corkers which embarrass the Royals).  Plus she wants to manage her own kids without some Filipino telling her “oh no Maaam…. they don’t like that”. Since when do my kids not like me cuddling them, woman?!  WHO ARE YOU , TO HAVE THE BALLS TO TELL ME THAT?

Its annoying having someone in your home 24 hours a day. AND they think they know my kids better than me.  This is where I have now become a bitch. Yes…. A BITCH.  My face no longer smiles.  It barely smirks in her direction.  I’m fucking annoyed with her.  Who do you think you are?! Seriously?  And yet, the minute The Captain arrives home, there she is giggling away, nothings a problem. Yet, first thing in the midafternoon when I wake and ask for a simple cup of Earl Grey fucking tea, what do I get? Dishwater.  Not proper tea but shit , can’t be bothered tea.  I don’t let her make any food for me out of fear she’ll fuck it up. Plus, I’m a good cook.  I have some new recipes to put up but I’ve been preoccupied lately with my annoying Helper.

So… while the Captain is out at work… I’m busy, doing, nothing really but err.. “mothering” at home… with two women who also try to mother my kids in totally the wrong way (one shouts the whole time it makes me want to punch her, the others smothers).

One is particularly good to the point I may need to kill her and write it off as an accident.  She sings songs, reads stories, loves sitting on the floor and playing with them… has patience with every single thing they do (no matter how annoying).  She listens to everything they say and they LOVE her.  I love her too but because they LOVE her… I’m jealous… so I may need to discredit her somehow… still trying to decide how as she kinda resembles an old Saint.

The other (her Devil, lying niece) has zero tolerance (kinda like me) but as she’s employed by me, you’d think she’d try to hide it… a little.  Nope.  She shouts at the kids, has no idea what the fuck they want. Looks at the baby like she’s an Alien (she’s got 2 kids of her own BTW).  She has no idea. But she’s shrewd.  Unlike Saintly Helper 1, Helper 2 adds things on the shopping list for herself (“Oh sorry” she says, with a smirk).

She hates having me in the house, asking me “Will you be going back to work soon?”  My response “No fucking way”. It took me two years to have twins via IVF, and then number 3 showed up as a massive surprise…. Work?!  Why?  Would that make YOUR life easier if I wasn’t here?  So you could sit around all day, chatting in Filipino so my sons language skills are becoming more stunted (half English/Half Mandarin/mostly Filipino)…..

They hate me telling them “Only English!!” in the house when I’m there.  I dunno what they’re saying?!  They could be saying “Look at that cow just waking up from having 16 hours of sleep while we cook, clean, look after her kids. She doesn’t even smile”!  They are semi correct. I don’t give a shit. Why?  Because since I arrived in HK, I’m still semi-not loving it.  I’m half annoyed to be here but I know we’d be gutted to go back to freezing cold England.  I’ve just never settled here.  I need my friends. My family. Good air to keep my skin clear.

I’m also very fair, don’t let anyone take the piss and to be honest, when Number 2 isn’t here…lifes much easier. It always was.  I lived without help for the first 8 months of the twins life back in London (family BTW is not help…its hindrance).  I cooked, cleaned, washed, fed, shagged husband (see photo below) and did everything else.  I felt good about it too.

Here…. they’re kinda making me feel redundant.  Maybe I need to get rid of one.  The miserable one obviously.  But then…. I’ll never get to sleep or relax. Go to Pilates or have coffee mornings without a kid strapped to me.  Shit.

If we move home…. London….. I will literally be stuck doing what everyone else does…. looking after my kids full-time.  My Mum-in-law will end up moving in….she’s fun. I may need to keep her intoxicated though so it works for us both.

This is not an option…maybe I should go back to work?  Not much call for Middle Eastern Escorts in HK though…

October 16, 2012  

Being a Mum sucks arse

Getting ill and trying to still be a full-time mum….

 

 

As most of us Mums know, getting ill when you have a household to run, is not an option.  In fact, its impossible.  Unless you are actually dead, or in a coma, you still have to get up and do your crummy, painful, groundhog day, monotonous, shitty, underpaid, “is this really my life?”, how did I age so quickly(?),  job.  WE GET NO BREAKS!!! We’re Mums.  It comes with our thankless, shitfull (my new swear word of the month) kiss-my-arse, no one gives a crap, job.

Can you lay in bed, drinking hot lemon tea (with a shot of Whisky) and recover in peace while watching crap “E Hollywood” TV? Nope.  All you can hear are your children running riot outside your bedroom door while your TWO Domestic Helpers and husband (who is gutted you’re ill for selfish reasons) chase after them screaming at the top of their lungs.  What can I do, aside from step out of my bedroom, looking like the Devil himself, with tissue stuffed up my nose, eyes streaming, and a look that says “FUCK OFF”.  I hide under the duvet and hope everything just goes quiet…. even 30 minutes…. 30 for fuck sake!!!?Q!

Yeh, a great way to sleep off a bad cold.  I would rather be given some sort of “pain-killer” to help me doze off but as my Doctor has decided to become bloody conservative lately (maybe I pushed it asking for Morphine), I now have to buy Panadol Extra like every one else and live with the noise/toys every where/moaning husband/miserable Helpers/hairy legs that haven’t been shaved due to a runny nose.  What a shame… it sucks arse.

Drug dealers are also selling aspirin/baby laxatives for coke. I’m totally destroyed as there is nothing to alleviate my pain. Being ill in a house with three small children (under the age of 2.5), a husband who resembles a cavalier teenager and two unintelligible domestic Helpers who need constant management/English language courses, getting ill is not an option.

The minute I step out of my bedroom, the chaos stops in a millisecond.  Why? because I decided a loooong time ago, to rule MY household by fear.  YES, fear.  I’ve read my latest parenting book on my beloved Kindle and it was the only one that worked for me. The title …. “Is Beating the kids wrong/really that illegal?”

Basically it said… “DONT TAKE ANY SHIT FROM THOSE LIL’ CUTE MO’FOS!”  My kids get one warning and then that’s it. “Time out”, toys taken away for the day, and basically nothing they want to do for a certain amount of time, equivalent to their age.

I don’t scream… All I say is “What a shame? What a bummer!” (American Book obviously, because us British would be saying “What the FUCK is wrong with you kid? Get to your fucking room now and piss off while I drink my can of Stella and decide what your punishment is”)). But they get it. They HATE hearing those words “What a shame” (the Captain & and I actually say it to each other now which is a bit sad but fuck it) and plus it keeps me cool (ish).

Yes they react with statements like “Nooo Mummy…no “What a shame!!” but it’s too late. One strike and your out.  There I am, clucking around like Queen Bee on friggin Prisoner Cell Block H (if you don;t remember that Aussie prison show…you’re too young to be reading this) showing them how crap life can be… .  It’s either that, or me going fucking mad and screaming at them to go to their rooms for “time out”…. long enough for me to open a bottle of cheap white wine (used later in the evening for a domestic fight with the Captain).

Bringing up kids is hard work people.  I am basically talking and explaining things, non-stop, allll fucking day long.  Do you know how mentally exhausting that is??? Talking all day to someone who doesn’t even pay you a bonus for your good work?!  I HATE talking.  I hate the phone for fucks sake and now I have to talk allll day long?!!  To people who barely reach my hips and don’t give a shit what I’m saying. Yes, I love them to bits. BUT, they’re driving me mad. Gone are the days of lunch-hours and frivolous bar crawls.

Everything now is about teaching my kids. ie. “Dont lick the floor!! 

“Why Mummy?”  “Because you’ll injest crap from outside which will make you ill and will inevitably involve me having to drive you to the hospital.. which doesn’t work as ive had an afternoon drink… actually a bottle of wine” . Selfish friggin kids.

“Dont bite you sister?”  “

Why? Because I said so…. you irritating fucking monkey (yes, Mummy loves you)”.

“Dont tear your books?  Why? because they cost money you annoying little person who I gave life to!”

‘Dont shit on the floor.” “Why? because I’ll rip your head off if you do!! Plus,your nanny will have to clean it up while giving me that knowing, irritating look that says…”You’re his mother…you clean it up“. Yeh…right. Next I’ll be making dinner.

In Hong Kong…Not only am I now feeling and looking like complete shit, but my weight loss regime which was pretty much sorted (drinking booze, zero food and working out, the Rachel Zoe way) has gone down the shitter.

Why?  Well, after being on holiday with The Captain and kids in Bali a few weeks ago…. my body (and mind) decided “Fuck it!! Enjoy yourself! Where’s my drinks bitches!!??” So … we ate loads, drank every chance we got (yes even at breakfast to fade out any noise, I screamed across a busy restaurant for a Vodka with my OJ) and those last 5 (ok 10) baby pounds crept back with a vengeance.

Not only do I have to re-start my whole workout and diet thing, but I also have to find the actual will to do it.  I can’t be arsed.  The only reason I’m still thinking about it is because my old clothes feel too tight and my maternity clothes are absolutely massive. Plus now I feel unwell, all i want to do is lay in bed, eat chocolate (I was never into chocolate!!??) and dream of cosmopolitans. I LOVE COSMOPOLITANS. Yes, more than wine or Vodka.

More than my kids?  Somedays… So, I have discovered that to be a good writer…. you need to be honest.  How does one be honest?  DRINK!! I can’t see any way around it.  Yes, it’s very Welsh of me but really…. to write, and be honest about what I find amusing, I have to be slightly inebriated. It’s the truth.  The Captain will be horrified and not happy about this “discovery”.  BUT, one must do what one must for their craft.

On a separate note, I have been having fun/fights with Helper Numero 2 in my household.  The woman is driving me fucking mad.  Rude? Yep.  She has a look on her face sometimes that says “You drunk bitch, you should be ashamed”…sometimes… I dunno… Im too drunk sometimes. The point is… she’s really fucking annoying me. She lies about everything.  She smirks. She shouts at the kids (a big No No).  She irritates the shit out of me when I open a 1990 bottle of vintage vino from…. I dunno where.  She laughs and jokes when the Captain is home and then scowls when its me (that alone is asking for a slap)… the list is endless. SO…. I have decided to be a complete and utter BITCH in response.  It keeps our house in order and if you really knew me… you know this wouldn’t be my natural way. BUT… I live in HK so things change.  Who gives a shit! anyway?  I don’t know anyone well enough here to care how I react…. unless it’s the police.