Numeracy

Double click on the image to enlarge.

just copy and paste

Pan fried Salmon with Beetroot Tzatziki

600g baby potatoes
4 x 150g boned salmon fillets
Spinach
1 lemon
1 carrot peeled and juliene

Tzatziki
Canned beetroot
Lemon juice
Pepper
½ cup Greek yoghurt
Olive oil

Dressing
1 Tbsp honey
2 Tbsp olive oil
¼ tsp chilli paste
Balsamic vinegar

Step 1. Cook (boil) potatoes until tender. Cover to keep warm. Set aside
Step 2. Steam carrots for 5 minutes, mix with baby spinach then toss in dressing of honey, olive oil, chilli paste and balsamic vinegar.
Step 3. Heat a large pan over medium-low heat. Season the fish with olive oil, lemon juice and salt and pepper. Raise the heat to medium-high.
Meanwhile start to mix tzatziki
Step 4. Place Salmon, skin-side up in the pan. Cook until golden brown on one side for about 4 minutes. Turn the fish over with a spatula, and cook until it feels firm to the touch and the skin is crisp if desired. About 3 minutes more.
Step 5. Serve on top of potatoes with beetroot tzatziki, and a side of steamed spinach.

For a quick, homemade beetroot tzatziki, add 1 finely chopped, canned beetroot bulb with some lemon juice, pepper and Greek yoghurt.

Raspberry and Coconut Ice-cream Sundaes

Ingredients
250g frozen blueberries, thawed
2 Tbsp icing sugar
4 scoops low-fat vanilla ice cream
2 Tbsp desiccated coconut

Method
Step 1. To make sauce, place a saucepan over a medium heat. Simmer 2 tbsp water with 1 ½ cups blueberries and sugar for 2-3 minutes or until berries are soft
Step 2. Remove from heat, process in food processor, until smooth. Sieve, discarding seeds.
Step 3. Divide ice cream among 4 serving glasses. Drizzle with sauce. Serve with coconut and remaining berries.

How to upload a word doc

always thinking of leadership - actually practising copy and paste

If you want to build a ship,

don't drum up the people

to gather wood, divide the work

and give orders.

Instead, teach them to yearn

for the vast and endless sea.

Antoine de Saint Exupery

Real estate agents have an unearned power to drive our community.

"House for sale in "......" school zone" I have read this often enough that I think one school in Havelock must be better than another. What qualifications do they have to measure a school?

"House in Havelock at a Hastings price." WHAT!

These people are setting our social circles and they have no qualifications for it.

TVone breakfast show. This programme is on in my house - I think because we will keep up with the latest happenings in NZ. But these presenters comment or make a facial expression that sets the standard of thinking. They practice 'put downs'. The put downs are of people who are different to them. When pulled up on it - they make a joke - which lets them off. How clever is that?

Smacking

Parents who smack as part of parental correction; and adults who abuse, maim, traumatise, hospitalise, kill are two issues.

Making smacking a criminal offence will not support parents in learning not to smack if they are not supported in alternatives.

Making smacking a criminal offence will not stop the terrible abuse.

So lets start with the easy one.  This is easy because we are a thinking society and we can do this without going straight to punishment. Let's start satellite groups attached to kindergartens where parents meet to workshop "What are the alternatives to smacking"  "What to do when you are about to smack." "What are the benefits."  "What is the future?" "Will we get a whole bunch of spoilt out of control kids?" or "Will we promote a community of learners who are learning to act for intrinsic reasons?"

Abuse.  I think one place to begin, is with the adults who live next door, the other adults in the house, the relatives.  Let's empower them to tell someone when they think 'it is not right'. Empower them to know the child/baby deserves/has a right to a physically and emotionally safe home. This may be the type of abuse they grew up with too so this must be difficult.

Who can they tell.  Public health nurse, kindergarten teacher, doctor, Pita Sharples, MP, Christine Rankin, Cindy Kiro, kaumatua, - tell someone who will know what to do, or find out what to do.

media power

Tonight I have watched TV One News highlight an elderly woman hooked on XBox. Apparently she can play all day.  This woman has been given fame. I assume this woman receives a benefit. I know other elderly people who go to childcare centres to read a storybook or to sit and knit and talk to children.  This shows that we value our elderly as people who contribute.  Other elderly people grow a vegetable garden and give produce to family, neighbours and friends.  This provides another strong role model of healthy living and is productive old age. I think it is a poor excuse when elderly people say "I have paid taxes all my life, I deserve the pension."  Actually, they have received health benefits, education benefits, transport facilities, community facilities.

Then I watched on the same news channel a  world record of mouth-stuffing. 68 hotdogs over a limited time won a competitor a trophy belt and a cash prize.  Let's highlight someone who uses food and resources to the benefit of people who need it. 

The media have the power to set the standards for our community and therefore an enormous responsibility.

The Simpsons and The Family Guy.  These have a huge following and are setting the standards the values and the language for our children and for the future.  I am not without a sense of humour - even though my children may think so - I just feel very aware of the standards we are setting. 

Tonight I am told I am overthinking it. I wonder where they got that from.