Ah Lynette that is priceless, green vomit - don't ya luv kids. At least he ate it, mine would just make gagging noises and refuse to taste. We will be eating that almond pud for the next couple of nights I think. For some reason I can't quite fathom I decided to double the mixture. Its a long time since I've made it and I should have just done the standard mix in one of those mini tins each but the notes were a bit vague and I couldn't recall. Luckily hubby AND kids have a sweet tooth so hopefully they'll do most the damage.

Cabbage prevents drunkenness? And I had this image of ancient Romans lounging around with grapes and red wine but in reality they had scoffed a plate of cabbage and had to lie down because of the wind pains!

If you want to make the cabbage puree, and I reallly would recommend it, it was about 800g of cabbage, a large handful of spinach to 3/4 cream/evap milk and 1/3 cup stock. Plus lots of salt and pepper. You could add any sort of herb if you had some on hand. I'm thinking mint would go well and will give that a go next time. It really is good - I was eating it by the spoonful out of the pot before dinner was ready!

Might be late doing the almond dish as we are going away for the weekend - camping on an extinct(?) volcano. Thank goodness, we're not in Iceland!

If you eat loads of cabbage you may be able to rise above the eruption, should another occur. Cheap trip home. Clean undies mind.

and hope the sleeping bag isn't a double or triple !!!

I do a nice spring cabbage which is really nice..shred cabbage finely..melt a good big knob of butter in a dish in the microwave.....add the cabbage and stir to coat....then add some lemon pepper seasoning and cover with a paper towel and cook for 30 secs.... on HIGH then stir..then cook for a further 30-60secs on HIGH. Serve and enjoy!!!

Just in the nick of time, the week 7 challenge is complete.

I made Chinese steamed pork and cabbage rolls. Recipe is here:

[www.cuisine.com.au]

We had these with rice and soy sauce. The rice had a seasoning shaken over that my brother who currently lives in Japan brought back with him last time he visited. It has toasted sesame seeds, and small strips of nori, and other things that I can not identify by sight or label.

I also got to use my bamboo steamer for the fist time, so it was all a bit new and exciting really. There were a few changes to the recipe, due to not checking what we had before I started, and not wanting to go out to get anything, such as no egg... but it all worked well anyway.

Here is my effort.
[farm5.static.flickr.com]
[farm5.static.flickr.com]

Verdict on this one: 4/5
(I think it may be virtually impossible for me to get a 5)
Everyone ate their dinner and enjoyed it.

I will gladly give them a 5.

We got busy this afternoon playing soccer on the lawn, so it had to be something quick for the challenge.
Mum was doing something with cabbage, so I decided to use almonds.

I made praline, which is sugar and almonds. I put 70g of almonds and 1/4 cup of caster sugar into a small saucepan on low heat. I let the sugar caramelize, then I quickly scraped it into a dish to cool. When it was cold I put it in the food processor until it was crumbs.

We had the praline with peacherines and cream mixed with vanilla yogurt. You eat it by dipping the fruit into the cream/yogurt and then into the praline.

It is a very easy dessert, but can look very fancy, and works with all sorts of fruit.

Verdict: 4/5

[farm5.static.flickr.com]

Sharon, the seasoning you had was most likely furikake (or furikako) and is available from all Asian food shops and some supermarkets. I think the most economical packets are the ones with the ingredients loose in the packet rather than in several sachets inside a larger packet, though sometimes it's hard to tell which is which because all the writing is in Japanese.

I think I'm probably the last one in on this challenge. I found a recipe on the internet for Chicken Almondine, which turned out to be a really easy dish to make, and quite tasty. Almonds were cooked in butter in a pan until lightly browned and then set aside. The chicken breasts were dredged in flour seasoned with salt and pepper and dried rosemary, and then browned in the butter for 5 to 6 minutes each side before adding dry white wine and simmering for another 15 minutes or so until the chicken was done. The almonds were returned to the juices in the pan and then poured over the chicken pieces and served with rice. I felt it would be a colourless meal, so added some thinly julienned carrot and some chopped beans. We gave it a 3 out of 5 - it was very nice, but I have other chicken recipes which we much prefer, so I probably won't make it again.

Yes I think those still doing the challenge are all done now (with zeus'mum to return once settled in). I did my squid dish last night and hubby's comment was bring back the cabbage - hmmmm. Will post about it later, need to go walking to get rid of those calories from my almond pie finally finished off last night.

Oh dear - I am so far behind... BUT I did finally make something with almonds today. Here's the link to what I made - except I used apples, strawberries and raspberries.

[veggieteens.typepad.com]

Only thing is - I chose almonds for the challenge so as to use a packet that have been sitting in my freezer for yonks. And after making this, I now have a packet of opened almonds still sitting in the bottom drawer of my freezer!