Busy, busy, busy

Today has been a very active day. We have been out shopping for a new fish for our aquarium. We wanted to get a plecostomus because they are algae eaters and will help to keep the algae levels down in our cichlid tank. We ended up buying two pretty bog standard plecostomus at about 6cm length and they grow up to about 15cm.

After that, we needed to give the fish tank a good clean out. We took the hood off, all of the gubbins out and cleaned all of the algae out. The filter wool is a bit nasty and it needs to be replaced eventually. After that, we did a 1/4 water exchange.

I decided to make a nice beef and vegetable pie for dinner tonight. It’s a simple pie: diced carrot, celery potato and onion fried off and then put in the pie dish. Beef with a beef stock cube, 1 cup of water and a teaspoon of cornflour. When the beef is cooked and the liquid is a little bit reduced and thickened, poured over the vegetables and a lid of puff pastry over the top.

Into the oven at 150^o for about 30 minutes did the trick. The pie is also very tasty … not just pretty. My gorgeous little daughter made the leaves on the top of the pie for decoration and to use up the excess pastry.

For dessert, I made a couple of miniature pavlovas. My darling wife mentioned that she had seen some pav’s that had been dipped in chocolate, so I thought that I’d make up some chocolate sauce and drizzle it over the top. The fruit on the pavlova is banana, strawberry, passionfruit pulp, whipped cream and, of course, the chocolate sauce. I’ll see how the family enjoys their dinner tonight.

It looks nice.