Sunday happenings

We ditched the menu plan last night. Hannah was sleeping over at my mother's with my niece and it was our turn to collect the bread for our church so there were only four for dinner and it was going to be late.

When I was pregnant with AJ, all those years ago, I developed a craving that didn't go away. You need to realise that at the time we were living in a country town, where the only thing open after 7pm were the pubs, and no, I didn't develop a craving for beer. What I did crave was a doner kebab with the works - lamb, salad, garlic sauce and tabouli. I craved them for months until finally, just before No. 1 Son was born a kebab van opened in the car park of the pub on the highway out of town. It was the other side of town to where we lived and it didn't open until 11.30pm but my darling would sit up on a Friday night and at 11.25 he would rug up (it was winter after all) and drive to the pub to get me a doner kebab.

I've been hooked ever since, I love them. Unfortunately they are rather expensive and since moving to Melbourne they've been hard to find. Until now. A new kebab van has opened, not too far from home and they are the best kebabs I have ever had. Wayne and I had one each for dinner last week while the kids were out and oh my they were nice. The meat was so tender, and the sauce was just garlicky enough. They were wrapped in the softest and freshest bread. Are you getting the picture yet? They were perfect.

So, last night, after dropping off the bread we decided on the spur of the moment to have kebabs for dinner. I decided we the takeaway budget had enough in it to cover the $28 required and we pulled in. And you know what? It only cost us $18. We bought a large container of lamb, a large container of salad and a small container of sauce and brought it home. I had Lebanese bread in the freezer so while the meat was re-heating and the sandwich toaster was heating up the bread thawed in the microwave. Ten minutes and we all had delicious, hot kebabs. We saved $10 - ok we saved $9, because the bread was originally 99 cents by putting the kebabs together ourselves. Best part was there was enough meat leftover to make another three kebabs today for lunch. I'm so excited to know that I can have kebabs as a treat every now and then and they won't break the budget. I highly recommend Ali's Kebabs, situated in the service station on Mitcham Road, opposite Coles supermarket in Mitcham if you ever have kebab craving.

Thomas received an unexpected invitation to go to a spur of the moment 16th birthday party today. He didn't get the invitation until yesterday afternoon and straight away went through the present box. He came up with a battery charger and a set of re-chargeable batteries and was really excited about it. I was too because if he hadn't found anything it would have meant money in a card or racing to the shops and both would have cost more than the battery charger and batteries - they were bought with a bonus Coles gift card I was sent so they didn't cost me a real cent. Gotta be happy with that.

We didn't have far to go to the party but we used the new Eastlink freeway anyhow. We only have three more weeks to use it, then we'll be back to our usual routes around town. There is no way known I can justify spending 99 cents each way to get to my local shopping centre or the post office, even if it will only take me three minutes. Taking 12 minutes and saving $1.98 a trip seems a much better option to me.

Sunday night is always roast night in our house and would you believe that I forgot to get the roast out of the freezer last night! I had a scrounge around and found some tandoori flavoured chicken pieces so we had those and baked vegetables. Very yummy and as the chicken was marked down to $6 it was a relatively inexpensive meal too.

I can here the rain on the roof as I'm typing, it sounds lovely. The forecast is for a few days of rain so here's hoping the bureau's got it right, we sure could use it.