I'm back baby!

Hello one and all!

First off i'd like to apologies for being away, my study load was very overwhelming, however I'm back now and to make up for it I'll post some pictures of what I've been loving this past week. I'll give details in another blog post as there are a few things I'd like to review! Enjoy!

A little bit of everything. My ultimate fav. would have to be the macarons!

Recipe of the week

OMG! This is a naughty one this week.

Make welcome Banoffee Pie!

I Chose to use a very fast and simple recipe as I've never tasted one of these babies before. I found the recipe at http://www.taste.com.au/. I usually go here for ideas and usually tweak the recipes to make it my own. However on this occasion I followed the recipe to the T.


Ingredients:
1 x 250g pkt granita biscuits (Arnott's brand)
125g butter, melted
2 bananas
1 x 300ml tub double cream
1 x 394g can sweetened condensed milk
70g (1/3 cup, firmly packed) brown sugar
50g butter

Method:

1. Place the biscuits in the bowl of a food processor and process until finely crushed. Add the butter and process until well combined. Divide the biscuit mixture among six round 8cm (base measurement) fluted tart tins with removable bases. Use the back of a metal spoon to firmly press the biscuit mixture over the base and side of each tin. Place in the fridge until required.

2. To make caramel filling, place condensed milk, sugar and butter in a medium saucepan over low heat. Cook, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, for 10-12 minutes or until caramel thickens (do not boil).

3. Pour the hot caramel evenly among biscuit bases. Cover with glad wrap.

4. Peel and thinly slice bananas, and arrange over the caramel filling. Top pies with a dollop of cream and serve immediately.

This is obviously a sometimes treat. It is much too rich to eat on a regular basis.

Hope you enjoyed reading this weeks recipe of the week!

Rich hugs!

Weekly review

It's that time of the week again!

This week I've got a bit of everything that I wanted to review. I'll kick of with something that disappointed me to tears (a bit over board).

As I mentioned before in a previous blog post that this was terrible. Sara Lee this is not a 'Deliciously Irresistible Ice cram', what it is, is plastic! I know I might sound harsh but this flavour made me sick. The vanilla flavouring was distinctively artificial like some cheap vanilla lolly you'd buy for 80c.
In saying that it was hard to enjoy because of it. It was so overpowering that one mouthful is enough to put you off.
I'm not saying that all their products aren't edible but this one comes under the list of  indigestible.

On a lighter note their new apple crumble is to die for!

Next would be a combination of lip colours I've been wearing everyday this week.

I managed to achieve this very feminine, summery pink colour buy applying an Estee Lauder lipstick in 14 Rose petal- Creme and over the top an Estee Lauder lip gloss in 09-Rock Candy-Shimmer.

**WARNING mangled lipstick in next picture as a result of a toddler licking off the top**

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the consistency of the lip stick. It is very creamy and moisturising. It has more of a pearly finish on its own, but when combined with the lip gloss it gives it a gorgeous glow with just the right amount of shimmer.
The colour doesn't last very long, however you're left with smooth luxurious lips. If you wanted you could just reapply the gloss on its own for a natural shine.

The lip gloss itself is dual ended which I'll post in a separate post in the next coming day as a part of my beauty regime.

Last but not least is my baby...who is always my favourtite!

I am just a tad bit bias...BUT ISN'T HE SO CUTE?!

My little on has been swimming since he was 6 months old and he's now almost 19 months. He has swimming lessons every Tuesday at the Sydney Olympic Aquatic Centre.
Last week we had the lovely people from Puddle pics come and take underwater pictures of the kids swimming.
Although my son is very competent underwater, the photographer was worried that he might swim straight into the lens. So my son's lovely instructor guided him under the water so he was at a good distance for the photo to be taken.

I ordered only 2 pictures because they'll be back next year to take more. They cost $45 for the 2 however the more you buy the cheaper they turn out to be.

That's it for this week's review! I hope you all enjoyed it!
Don't forget to comment and subscribe for the latest updates from tastytantrums! Also I keep forgetting to mention to follow me on instagram @tastytantrums.

Wiggly hugs!

Home invaders and cooking thieves

Heyho!

This week has been uber busy. I'm coming to the end of my study period which means FINALS! I'm not through the woods just yet but I couldn't resist putting up a new post for you all.

This week I went to a new home improvement centre on the Hume Highway called Masters, I'd say this is a more fancy type of Bunnings Warehouse.

I was on the hunt for some home decor and plants for my balcony. At Masters I found that they had a lot more variety when it comes to the garden than Bunnings which was a pleasant surprise. 

They're home decor was absolutely gorgeous and the prices were very affordable. I didn't pick up anything this week as I am still not sure in which direction I want to go in regards to changing up my home decor. But Masters is definitely the place to go when it comes to chic and cheap(ish) home decor.

They have a lot more updated/modern products than that of Bunnings. The coolest thing they have are these:

Aren't they so cool?! There's plenty space and can fit 2 kids in the drivers part of the trolley. But I will admit they are GINORMOUS and hard to steer. But who cares! As long as the littlies are quite and happy nothing else in the word matters, right?!

This week I've also been anti-cooking which meant a lot of charcoal chicken, Thai and Sara Lee.
I was at Franklins the other day and saw that Sara Lee had a new line of frozen desserts. I'm not one to often purchase frozen goods as I'd much rather eat and buy 'fresh'. But seeing as I wasn't going to have a lazy week I thought, why not?

Yep! Good ol' apple crumble. My husband would kill for apple crumble so I knew that I had to bring this one home. The crumble on the top is always the best bit. Although I'd say the apples and the apple sauce on the inside were more on the sweet side but it was still delish!

I served the apple crumble with some Sara Lee french Vanilla ice-cream.

I'm sorry Sara Lee but this ice cream is terrible. The vanilla flavouring is very artificial and overpowering. I would not recommend anyone to buy this. Which makes me a bit hesitant to try the other flavours they have.

I hope this post was informative, stay tuned for my favourite products of the week and recipe of the week...

Big hugs!

"Home is the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in"- Robert Frost

The sweetest of teeth

I don't usually do anything exciting on Wednesdays. But Yesterday was a special Wednesday! I met up with my awesome BFFs and got ourselves macaroon-ed out!

I'm going to go ahead and confess that I devoured 4 of these babies.
This box of 6 cost $15 or if you wanted to give these as a gift or take some treats over to a friend's place they provide larger quantities. The big mama is 24 macaroons for $55.

On that note, my sweet tooth this week has been troubling me. I just can't help but think about all the delicious goodies I can whip up! So this week I made the famous Banoffee Pie.



This was my first time EVER to try a banoffee pie. So I'm not sure as to how it's meant to taste but BOY DOES THIS TASTE GOOD! I'm not saying this because I made it but WHOA! Is this a rich treat!

I used a very simple recipe to make this, however I'm on the hunt for something a bit more complex to see the taste difference.

Hope this post was as enjoyable to read as it was for me to write! I hope you're all drooling over these bad boy!

Sweet hugs!


"Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first"- Ernestine Ulmer

Recipe of the week

This weeks recipe was a hard one to choose from, I figured that I'd go with the traditional Filipino dish 'Pancit'.

Noodles were introduced into the Philippines by the Chinese and have since been adopted into local cuisine.

Ingredients:
1  packet vermicelli noodles
1 packet egg noodles (optional)
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
1 onion, finely diced
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 cups cooked chicken breasts, diced
1 small cabbage, thinly sliced (optional)
1 cup sweet peas
4 carrots, thinly sliced
2 sprigs greet onions, sliced (optional)
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 lemons, cut into wedges, for garnish


Method:
1. Place the rice noodles in a large bowl, and cover with warm water. When soft, drain, and set aside.
2. Heat oil in a wok or large skillet over medium heat. Saute onion and garlic until soft.
3. Stir in chicken, cabbage, carrots and soy sauce. Cook until cabbage begins to soften. Toss in noodles, and cook until heated through, stirring constantly. Transfer pancit to a serving dish and garnish with quartered lemons.

Note: To add extra flavour you could purchase a sachet of Pancit flavouring from a Filipino grocer. This will give it a slight orange colour along with added Pancit taste.

Let me know if you try this out, I love you hear from you all!

Hanggang sa susunod na oras!

Weekly review!

Heyho!

It's that time of the week again where I review my most loved products from this past week. 

First off I'd like to give a shout out to my best buddies for surprising me with a beautiful ring from Pandora. I was absolutely elated when they handed me the bag with this gorgeous ring inside as it was my very first Pandora.

I have been wanted something from Pandora since forever and I was hinting to my hubby to get me something from there, but looks like my friends beat him to it!

If any one is interested in buying this little beauty, the ring is called 'Black spine, grey crystal. It has a little jewel in the middle of the flower!

The band of the ring is quite thin which makes it very comfortable to wear. The beautiful black spinel isn't too big which means it won't catch on anything and it isn't heavy to wear!


Next is definitely naughty... 

No words in any language that can describe this treat. Firstly Adriano Zumbo since making an appearance on Master Chef Australia has become the talk of the town. His treats are the Louis Vuitton of the food industry.  His mind blowing sweets are too good to pass up when you see them sold on your supermarket shelf.

This box of goodness retails for $8.47 at Woolies, they also carry his tantalizing macaroons in salted caramel and passion fruit and they also sell a very very very naughty mud cake all of which are $8.47 each. 

I love food!

This is the ultimate sandwich spread. Have it with some cold meat and salad leaves on beautiful multi-grain bread...Drool!
This is a mix of traditional labni and kalamata olives. It's smooth and the flavours just come together and tickle your taste buds. Enough said!

Lastly something not food related!

I'm always on the hunt for a good foundation. I believe that once you've found the foundation that works for you, stick with it and stock up on it. I also believe that if a beauty product says 'anti-aging' it doesn't mean you can't use it you don't have wiser skin.

This is my first time to buy foundation from Face of Australia. Since having a baby my skin has changed and all my usual foundations stopped looking good on my skin. So I have been on a year long hunt for a great foundation with full coverage.
I prefer buying full coverage foundations because you can also thin them out with a damp sponge or a damp foundation brush.
This foundation is full coverage and very easy to work with. It thins out into nothing if you want sheer cover. It has SPF which is great and it doesn't leave your face shiny or greasy like other foundations with SPF.
As for colour matching, they only have three colours : porcelain, beige and tan. I found that if you're in between shades, if worked in well it will match your skin perfectly.

So there we have it! I hope you found this useful. If there are any products out there you would like me to try out, don't be shy, let me know!

Big hugs!

'Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined'. - Henry David Thoreau

Birthday Week!

Hello one and all!

This week has been craz-ay! It was my birthday on Tuesday and I celebrated it with le famille!

A lot of people don't know this but I am actually part Filipino part Palestinian. Wild mix I know! So this why my little shin-dig was a mix of Filipino and Arab.

The first dish is the national dish of the Philippines 'Pansit'. It is noodles with chicken, carrot, beans, shallots and sweet peas. This is one of my favs and is always on the table at special occasions.

The second is sweet. This is called 'Kanafeh'. This is a real delight if made well. The original is much more orange in colour and a lot thinner.

With kanafeh there are 2 main types. The first image is called 'na'meh' which translate to soft/smooth, the second is 'khishneh' which is rough. Both are filled with a special cheese called Nabulsi cheese which sadly you can't get in Australia. BUT never fear for those who want to give this baby a go there are alternatives such as, haloumi cheese, mozzarella and a'kaway. You could use a mixture of all three to give it extra taste.

Then of course we had the good old chocolate cake that I made last minute as my brother doesn't eat traditional Arabic sweets.

So there it is! Dishes of the week! I'll post up a recipe for one of them tomorrow. If there are any requests don't be shy to send them my way!

Birthday hugs!

"The way I see it, you should live everyday like its your birthday". -Paris Hilton

Recipe of the Week

Here again!

I've decided that Sunday will be the day where I will choose a couple of recipes that I've used during the week that I love. Of course this doesn't mean that I won't add more according to everyone's requests.

Lets get started. This week I made an Arabic dish called "Fatet Lahmeh". The recipe I used is from the Manal Al-Alem cookbook 2010.

Thankfully this book has English translations to all the recipes in the book.  
So here it goes:

Ingredients:
1-1.5kg diced lamb
1 tsp salt
1 onion quartered
2 cinnamon sticks
10 whole black peppers
3 cups short grain rice
10-12 cloves minced finely
2 tbs ghee
3 rounds of Arabic/pita bread cut into 2cm squares
1/2 cup of vinegar.

Method:
1. Place lamb into either a pressure cooker or pot with onion, cinnamon, pepper and salt. Cook until tender.
2. Once meat it cooked drain it out and keep the water for later.
3. Cook the rice (however you usually cook it)
4. Heat up some vegetable oil and deep fry the bread. Set aside.
5. Place ghee and garlic into a saucepan and saute on high until the garlic turns golden.
6. Pour the vinegar into the garlic and bring to a light boil for 1 min.

How to assemble the dish:
1. Place fried bread at the bottom of a deep dish
2. Spoon half the garlic and vinegar mixture onto the bread. At this point you will also need to wet the bread with some of water that the lamb was cooked it. Just enough to wet the bread or else they bread will go completely soggy. You want there to be a bit of crunch!
3. Evenly spread rice over the top of the bread.
4. Place meat on top of rice in an evenly fashion.
5. Drizzle the remainder of the garlic and vinegar mixture over the meat.

Next recipe is a sweet one. These Arabic butter biscuits (from what I'm told) originated from Jordan.
These would have to be the most EASIEST bikkies you'll ever come across. These are also I sometimes treat as you will find out soon.

Ingredients:
2 cups ghee
2 cups icing sugar
3.5 cups plain flour
nuts of your choice

Method:
1. Pre-heat the oven to about 160 C fan forced (180 C gas)
2. Using an electric mixer, mix the ghee and icing sugar until well combined with a smooth texture.
3. Add in the flour and mix on medium until well combined.
4. The consistency should be that of dough. 
5. Take small amounts of the dough and shape them however you like.
6. Add either almonds, pine nuts or pistachios to the the shape for decoration. Or you can leave it plain.
7. Bake for around 15 min. 
Here are some examples of how 'Gharaybeh" can be shaped:

Baking tip!
 You don't want them to go brown! These bikkies are meant to be pale in colour. once you notice them starting to crack from the tops they should be about right to come out.


   

Here are what mine looked like:

I hope someone gives these recipes a go and let me know how you went!

Tasty hugs!

“Always start out with a larger pot than what you think you need.” 
― Julia Child

Weekly review

Heyho!

With my blog my aim is to review a range of different products such as: Clothes, beauty products, everything related to children and last but not least food!

So this weeks review will be on: Mádara decoface tinting fluid in the colour Sun flower.

I was so excited to receive this product! When I was reading the description I wanted to fall in love with it. So when it came into the mail you can imagine my excitement.

The box says that it tints, illuminates and lightly moisturises the skin. Tints yes, everything else. Dom Dom!

• A light alternative to foundation. Ting!
• Evens out skin tone. Dom Dom!
• Disguises imperfections and fine lines. Double Dom Dom!
• Smells like the cleaver plant. TING!!

If you like the smell of crushed up plants then this is the product for you. The scent is so strong at first I thought I was putting Alfalfa sprouts on my face. Although I must admit that this past month my face has been terrible.

I recommend using this product when your face is practically flawless, as I found that if there are any dry patches on your skin i'll highlight them with out saying sorry.

So with that said I'll keep using it as my face hopefully gets better. I'll probably do another review on it in another month or so to see if I've changed my mind about it.

Made in Latvia
Certified organic

Next I've got some things for my son.

I've always been quite keen on giving my son healthy snacks, so when I found these in my local Woolworths (health food aisle) and Big W (chips and snacks aisle) I was eager to try them. Introducing Healtheries Kidscare Rice Wheels.

These come in a few flavours. I've only every gotten the cheese and burger flavour, it also comes in roast chicken. Each rice wheel is bite size, so they're perfect for little mouths!

On the pack it says they're:

• Gluten free
• 70% less fat than potato chips
• No artificial flavours (find that hard to believe)
• No MSG

I absolutely LOVE these! My son loves the crunch and they taste just like naughty burger rings! I will definitely be re-purchasing these when I run out. 

Last but not least KIDS FASHION!

OK, so I'm obsessed with all sorts things but Fashion is definitely my numero uno! 

I got this shirt for my son this week from Myer. This shirt is by Pure Baby Organic Clothing Company.
The shirt retails for $44.95 but OMG this is the softest shirt you will ever touch! I love putting my little monkey it shirts like this even in the warmer months as you can easily roll up the sleeves or wear a plain cotton Tee under it and keep it unbuttoned.

The shirt also comes with an option of taking the little hoodie off to give it a more formal look.

Since the weather is getting warm I'll be pairing this up with some cute GAP denim shorts and either pairs of converse shoes.

Shirt: Myer
Shorts: GAP
Shoes: Converse DFO

Hope you all found this weeks reviews beneficial. I'd love some feedback on how my posts are going.

Hugs!

"Say what is true, although it may be bitter and displeasing to people." - Baihaqi

Totally Baked

Saturday upload fail OOPS! But I promise today I'm making up for it!

Tah-Daaaaaah! So here we have butter cake with fondant and stencil work..
I've been into baking for a very long time but it's only since last year where I really got into the whole idea of fondant and properly decorating the cakes I make. I used mini stencils, these to be exact:

I also used a stencil to create the quilted effect and another to create the floral print

I was given these as gifts so unfortunately I can't tell you how much each item costs.

For the fondant I had some left over Satin Ice from a wedding cake a made at the start of the year. That was $39.99 from a shop here in Sydney called Glasshouse Cakes and Supplies in Revesby 
or visit their website, they've got a lot of really cool stuff for cake decorating and they make cakes too!
http://www.glasshousecakes.com.au/. 

I hope you all like this blog post. I'll be posting another 2 today, because I'm doing a weekly stash blog on all the things I bought this week and loved. I'll also be posting up the recipes of the week! Stay tuned, don't go away, i'll be right back after this short break!

Sweet hugs!

"Let's face it, a nice creamy chocolate cake does a lot for a lot of people; it does for me."- Audrey Hepburn

Get Stuffed Friday!

It started with...

And ended with...

And this...

I haven't eaten this much for months!

Today's feast consisted of an Arab dish called "Fatet Lahmeh". There isn't a western equivalent that I know of. The dish has 3 main components: Meat, rice and fried Lebanese/Arabic bread.

Desert was made by my dear husband. In Arabic these are called "Ghraybeh" or in English Butter biscuits. They're not quite like short-bread but it come close. Some people like them with Pistachios on the top but I prefer them without as I'm not much of a nut person.

Lastly which just pushed it over board was mango and vanilla ice-cream. I can't tell you all enough how much I LOVE mango Weis Bars! So when I can't get to the shops and have me some Weis, this is the closest thing I have. Mangoes are certainly coming back into season which excites my taste buds to bits!

In tomorrows post I'll put up the recipes for both the "Fatet Lahmeh" and Arabic butter bikkies!

Hope you've all had a great week!

Fat Hugs!

“The only time to eat diet food is while you're waiting for the steak to cook.” 
― Julia Child