The Chronicles Of…

So i’ve set myself a challenge: To buy all 7 of the Harry Potter books in hard cover for under $70.00 AUD.

Which basically means I have to hunt them down from second hand shops, which is good fun.

I just bought the first one (the philosophers stone) for $8.50 the other day, so I’m off and racing. $61.50 left in the budget.

If you see some, let me know.

Here’s the list of Harry Potter books in order:

1. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
2. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
3. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
4. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
5. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
6. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
7. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

It’s been a busy week, well, actually busy weeks. I really try hard not to be busy but sometimes it just is… This week was a no day-off week as well, so I’m a bit tired… but feeling good now.

We’ve been having good friends over every week for dinner at our place after youth group and it’s good wind down time. And now I’m watching the ashes and letting my mind slip away into sleep mode.

Firstly, it’s a bit sad that between three potential bloggers on this site, we still can barely muster up a post per week… we need to pull our blogs out, people!

Secondly, I’ve finished season 4 of The Wire, and I’m very keen to get closure by watching the final season. I’m depressed, but just have to see it through. Damn obsessive compulsive tendancies.

Thirdly, I’m about to go to bed before my final week in the fun capital of New South Wales. It’s going to be an unusual week, and I don’t really know what to expect, beyond a lot of marching. Can’t wait to be finished, but at the same time, a bit nervous about the future after Friday. To be honest, I’m nervous as can be about the whole thing…

So on Tuesday night I cooked dinner, I kid you not it’s a true story!!

Ok, so that’s not so unbelievable, but what is is that it wasn’t spag bol or meat and veg, but rather roasted chicken breast stuffed with Camembert cheese and prawns, made from scratch by myself.

I also think that it tasted great!! And want to have it again and the last time I said that about my own cooking was probably never…

Don’t ask Nat how it tasted though just in case my view was biased…

Here’s what I did… a recipe if you will…

Ingredients:

- Chicken Breast or Two

- Half a Kilo of Prawns if they’re on special, or only a dozen or so if they’re not…

- Block of Camembert Cheese

Method:

Open a bottle of beer, this could take 15mins and you might get thirsty.

Peel the prawns, you’ll only need 3 or 4 per serve.

Eat some prawns.

Cut up about half the Camembert into cubes.

Eat some prawns, eat some of the left over Camembert on crackers.

Get the chicken breast and slice it in half, horizontally if you know what I mean.

By now you know to eat prawns, Camembert and crackers here…

Something I didn’t do but would help is to bash the chicken pieces flatter with one of those kitchen hammers.

Then put a few pieces of Camembert and some prawns on one end of the chicken bit and roll up… I then used a bunch of tooth picks to hold each one together.

If you then cook them in the fry pan for a little while it’ll cut down the time in the oven.

Whack ‘em in the oven, on 170, and cook until ready, like 20mins, maybe more.

Crack open a  bottle of wine and serve it and the food and you’re done!

You could serve with steamed veggies, but after eating all those prawns, Camembert, crackers and drinking the beer you’ll be full enough to not worry.

This morning there was a blackout at home after a big storm in the early hours of the morning.

Now I’m annoyed at the electricity company, but mainly because that got the power back on relatively quickly. It was off when I woke up, so I had a shower as the hot water system hugs itself or something to keep warm so there was still hot water, and while there I thought about the possible positives and negatives of the blackout. Here are some I came up with:

Positives:

- I didn’t have to iron my shirt, so had a wrinkled one for work but an excuse.

- I couldn’t vacuum the work car, which it needed to be done.

- I may even be able to justify a Macca’s breakfast, I only have toast for breakfast usually but I couldn’t cook it so… (of course in a situation like this cereal wouldn’t do as it would take the justification away)

- I could not shave and blame the blackout. I don’t use an electric razor but there’s not point in mentioning that to others…

Negatives:

- I wish I didn’t use my phone for an alarm as I would have been able to sleep in.

- I had to shower with the door open and letting in a breeze cause I couldn’t use the hair dryer to take the steam off the mirror so I could shave.

But unfortunately while there was still time to get some things done, like iron my shirt, the power was back on… stupid.

You know what I think is funny though, is that at first I still did things out of habit that wouldn’t work. Like, as I thought to myself, oh well I can’t cook my toast so I’ll just go get changed, I went into the bedroom and tried to flick the light on… idiot…