guess what?!?

Christmas Eve Dinner - PIZZA!!

2011-01-10T13:07:00.000+10:00

a little bit more pre-christmas eating! We had Pizza from Pizza Capers......

BONANZA

pizza sauce with smoke house pepperoni, marinated rump of Black Angus beef, shaved ham, with mozzarella, smoked bacon, garnished with fresh herbs (Janets choice)

RUSTIC FRUIT & VEG mushrooms, onions, capsicum, pineapple, on a bed of ricotta topped with roasted roma tomatoes, garlic, herbs and cheese (my choice - YUM!)

Italian Connection

Pizza sauce with smokehouse pepperoni, mozzarella, Kalamata olives, slow roasted tomatoes, fire roasted capsicum, red onions, parmesan, fresh garlic & herbs (not sure if this is the right one, but its my best guess!! This was Scott's choice)

VEGETARIAN

Our pizza sauce with loads of fresh, sliced button mushrooms, Kalamata olives, fire roasted capsicum, Spanish onions, golden pineapple, fresh garlic & herbs, garnished with parmesan (Gina's Choice)

THE ALGERIAN

Capers’ pizza sauce, topped with chorizo, fire roasted capsicum, Kalamata olives, baby bocconcini, garnished with cherry tomatoes, fresh garlic & herbs (Mum & Dad's choice)

For dessert, we had red jelly and icecream!!!!! Which I neglected to photograph in my excitement!!!!

We also had some of these Darrel Lea Christmas nougat's - we were guessing what flavours they were, as te box didn't have a picture guide to help us out!

Meringues - or how to use up egg whites!

2011-01-07T11:10:00.000+10:00

As part of my pre-christmas cooking, I made some Vanilla icecream - this required 6 egg yolks, which left me with egg whites to use up! So I went the easy route, and made some meringues, and some mini pavlovas!

There is a "basic meringue recipe" here at taste.com.au . I just adjusted the quantities.

To make the meringues, I just piped swirls onto the trays.....

For the pavlovas, I piped nests!(kind of wobbly nests, but nests all the same!).

I filled the cooled nests with raspberry cream, and topped with a raspberry. (to make raspberry cream, I used the cream that I had leftover from making my icecream! - I simply whipped it to soft peaks, added a little bit of icing sugar and some "crumbs" from the bottom of the frozen raspberry packet! )

Christmas! - lunch #1 - pre-christmas!

2011-01-06T11:59:00.000+10:00

December hits, and the eating season is upon us! Now that it is infact January, and I have had a small break from all the eating, I think I can manage to revisit some of the meals enjoyed over the festive season!

Christmas Lunch number one was actually held prior to Christmas, think of it as training for the stomach :-)

My contribution was this couscous, chickpea and pumpkin salad. Its a made up recipe - I think I used half a cup of couscous. To this I added 1/2 cup of boiling water, a couple of teaspoons of "Christine Manfield Harissa" and the zest of an orange. Put a lid on it and let it sit for 5 minutes. Once the cous cous was done, I fluffed it with a fork, gave it a squeeze of orange juice and a splash of Olive Oil and tossed through a tin of chickeas, some roasted pumpkin (simply roasted in the oven), some diced red capsicum and some chopped baby spinach. DELICIOUS!!

We also had this tomato, basil & yoghurt cheese salad, dressed with balsamic vinegar,

a tossed green salad,

This chicken that looks like it was run over (it comes mostly deboned and marinated from the butcher),

and some stuffed roast beef.

For dessert I made Nigella's "Gleaming Maple Cheesecake" from Nigella Lawsons "Christmas" book. I have wanted to make this ever since I first set eyes on it when I first read the book! There is a copy of the recipe over at not quite nigella . I was very happy with the way the cheesecake turned out! Tasted mighty good also :-)

Brisbane Foodie Bus Tour

2010-12-17T10:30:00.000+10:00

I was fortunate enough that the planets aligned and I was on holidays this week, so was able to join fellow Brisbane Food Bloggers, Twitterers, and general Food lovers on this fantastic christmas bus tour!

First stop was "The Fishery" at Milton where we were treated to a selection of Prawns, Salmon & Oysters. (yes, I passed sampling anything, but everyone else looked like they were in seafood heaven!)

Next stop : Wine Experience , Rosalie, where we sampled a number of different wines, including one from Luxembourg. Now while wine isn't exactly my cup of tea so to speak, if I need to buy some wine, this looks like the place to go, as the guys were so knowledgeable and helpful!!

Slightly silly from our wine tastings, the bus rolled on to Dello Mano Brownies, at Newstead, to taste a selection of magnificent Brownies. It was difficult to decide on a favourite, so several tastings were necessary :-) . I think that the esspresso walnut, and the peanut butter were up there at the top of my list, but they were all so very good!

Full of Brownies, it was time to pay a visit to Black Pearl Epicure for a quick run down on Camembert & Brie, complete with tastings, and then a little time to purchase some delicasies in the shop

Next stop was Cakes by Judy C at Ashgrove, where we samples some Christmas Treats...

Sugar Plums!!

After all that eating, what could possibly be next??? yes, of course - LUNCH!!

Lunch was at Sprout at Auchenflower, where we had a special garden menu (with produce from the magical garden out the back!!!) (This is the vegetarian version - everyone else had a slightly meatier lunch)

Beetroot and witches chase cherve "lasagne" with basil foam

grilled organic tofu with mango sabayon and asian herb salad (everyone else had fish in place of the tofu)
..

grilled olympus haloumi with warrigal greens, green olive and preserved lemons (the other main was a turkey and wild boar roulade with fig)

Chocolate macadamia and pineapple torte with basil icecream
(basil icecream was a bit difficult to get the head around to start with, but was actually great!!)

We were shown around the garden out the back - WOW!! I was very jealous, and inspired to expand my small vegie patch at home. I even went home with a cutting of the warrigal greens which is hopefully sprouting!!)

then to finish, -fruit mince pie and chantilly cream. This would have to be the best fruit mince pie I have ever tasted!

SO, what a fantastic day!! Thanks to Natascha for organising, to all of the places we visited for their generosity, and to everyone on the bus for a magnigficent experience!

Dinner at home - from the garden!

2010-12-08T12:45:00.000+10:00

My veggie garden provided some of the ingredients for our dinner!!! Very very exciting to get to eat something I grew myself!

I recieved this Thai Marinade paste when I went to Black Pearl Epicure for a fantastic Bloggers dinner and pantry tour, so I decided to put it to use right away.

I marinaded some tofu in one bowl, and some chicken thigh in another bowl.

I left it for only about half an hour, since this was not a well thought out dinner, and we were hungry!

I then simply stir fried the chicken or tofu with some vegies, and a splash of soy sauce to create a very tasty meal! Both dishes were served with some brown rice!

here is my dinner - the tofu version!

and Janets meal - the chicken version!

The marinade had a really fresh zingy flavour! And my lovely fresh vegies were absolutely delicious!!!!

Lamington National Park Hike!

2010-12-02T14:40:00.000+10:00

I went on a roughly 15k hike at Lamington National Park with a group of people from "In Shape Outdoors" We battled many many leeches, and some ticks as well, but we all survived - and didnt get lost this time!!

finished off with a salad sandwich from the cafe - delicious!!! I was starving! (had to remove the cucumber though - not THAT hungry! haha!!)

Dinner at home - Fettucine x 2

2010-11-25T15:59:00.000+10:00

I decided to make some fresh pasta for dinner - I really should do this more often, because, its fun, easy, and tastes fantastic!

I made the pasta dough using 100g flour, 1 egg and a pinch of salt. I whizzed this in the little food processor, and then kneaded it, before resting it for about half an hour. I then rolled it out with my pasta machine, cut it into fettucine, and hung it up on this make-shift pasta rack (a wooden spoon balanced on two coffee mugs, balanced on tinned tomatoes for extra height!)

We ate the last of the Brewbakers bread topped with garlic and olive oil and grilled until toasty - delicious!!

After cooking in boiling water for only a minute or two, I tossed the fettucine into two different sauces...

for me, A simple sauce of sauted onion, garlic zuccinni and grape tomatoes

For Janet, a carbonara sauce - with bacon and zuccinni.

Brewbakers, Albion!

2010-11-23T13:02:00.000+10:00

A few weeks ago, I attended a bread and Pizza making calss at Brewbakers, Albion. Owner, RIchard talked us through the many processes and calculations involved in creating the best bread ever!

These little balls of dough were so soft! We shaped them into pizza bases

topped them with a delicious selection of ingredients, and watched them go into the oven!

The pizzas came out crisp on the outside, yet soft and fluffy in the middle! Best pizza ever!!

We also had a go at shaping some bagels!!

I ate my bagel for lunch the next day - yum!

We also had a go at weighing out the correct amount of dough , and shaping into ciabatta loaf. Not as easy as it sounds!

We each took a just out of the oven loaf home! Miraculously, the loaf survived the drive home intact, and was enjoyed another day!

Now on my list of things to do is a visit to Brewbakers when the actual shop is open so I can try some more baked delights!!

Out for Lunch - The Apple Tree, Kenmore

2010-11-10T19:21:00.000+10:00

For my Dad's birthday, we went to lunch at "The Apple Tree" at Kenmore. (it is where "Simple Pleasures" used to be).

We started with some Garlic Bread 7.90 which was nice and crunchy, with melted garlicy butter.

Being Sunday lunch time, we could choose from the "bar menu" or the "appetiser menu" I think we all found something on the bar menu that took our fancy.....

The only exception was Gina who chose the Sunday Roast 24.00 Roast Beef with Yorkshire Pudding, Roast Potatoes, Honey Roasted Carrots, Cauliflower Bake, Roast Pumpkin and served with Pan Gravy. This was a very generous serving, with a pile of sliced roast beef, which had to be shared in order to finish it all!

Scott had the Classic Caeser Salad Cos lettuce, Bacon, Crispy Croutons, Boiled Egg & shaved Parmesan.with Chicken - Add $4 (Anchovies optional) 13.90

Guess who had this one? British Style Shepherd's Pie Slow cooked Lamb Mince topped w Creamy Mashed Potato &and Cheddar Cheese, Served with Green Peas and Warm Toast 19.90 Yes, it was Janet! She thought this was delicious, but might have liked it to be a tad bigger.

Mum had The Apple Tree Steak Sandwich With Beer Battered Chips. Sliced Tomato, BBQ Aioli, Caramelized onion, Fried Egg and Lettuce served on Turkish Bread. 17.90 This was certainly a sandwich and a half! I tried a chip, andit was magnificently fluffu on the inside and crunchy on the outside,

I was considering the Roast Vegie sandwich, but in the end decided on the Haloumi Salad Grilled Haloumi with asparagus, on a summer salad with citrus dressing (V) 14.90 The dressingon the salad was fantastic (the salad did have cucumber in it which I skipped!). Loved the haloumi and the asparagus, a couple more asparagus spears would have been welcome!

Dad had the Salt and Pepper Calamari SaladTender fried calamari,roasted red peppers, spanish onion, cucumber,baby capers and citrus aioli. 14.90 Look at that pile of calamari! The salad underneath was the same as the one I had with the haloumi.

We ummed and ahhed a little about dessert - some where rather full, others still had room. In the end only Scott showed restraint and declined the temptation!

Mum had Cranachan A Traditional Scottish Dessert consisting of layers of rolled Oat Praline, Honey, Cream and Raspberries with a hint of Whisky. 12.00 I had a taste - can't go wrong with raspberries!

GIna had Chocolate Mousse -it was quite a dark chocolate mousse - not very sweet, very very good!!

Lemon Meringue Pie w summery berry coulis.. 10.00 This one was my choice - YUM!!! Loved the super lemony filling, and the berry coulis was a nice addition!

Vanilla Bean Creme Brulee with Scottish style shortbread biscuit. (GF Available) 12.00 Janet & Dad both had this - the brulee was velvety and vanila-y - and now Janet wants me to make her some shortbread!

We all enjoyed our lunch - the serving sizes were a little inconsistent, but not a big problem! The service was friendly and efficient, and we would definitely go back again!

Dinner at home - halloween!

2010-11-08T13:02:00.001+10:00

We had friends over for dinner the night before Halloween, so I decided to make the food a little halloween themed. but only a little!

I wasn't paying $20 for a "carving pumpkin" at Woolworths, so I carved an apple instead! A tea light fitted nicely inside.

For dinner, I made this beef and bacon pie. I uses Maggie Beers Sour Cream Pastry. It was easy to make - it just goes together in the food processor. The filling for the pie, I made up. I sauted a leek, then added garlic, and chopped up meat. I think I used blade steak. Not really a meat expert here - it had a bone in it, which I cut out and used to make some meaty stock, which I added to the browned meat with some tomato paste. I simmered the meat on a low heat for a few hours, until it was really tender and falling apart, and the gravy was thick. Then I left it overnight to cool in the fridge. The next day I shredded the meat up a bit with a fork.

I rolled out the pastry and lined my pie dish with it, then put it back in the fridge to harden up, I then filled it with the cold meat filling and put a pastry top on. I then put it back in the fridge to cool again. I btushed the top with egg wash and baked in the oven for 20 ish minutes, until nicely golden brown.

I served the pie with some assorted roasted vegies, which is what I ate for my dinner.

dessert was a slight drama. I made a kind of chocolate mousse-y thing using condensed milk, cream and cocoa powder which I beat together, and put into cups with a suprise of caramel in the middle. Then we went and bought a new fridge, and in the excitement of getting the new fridge delivered, I left the dessert in our old fridge, which was taken away by the delivery man. Oops. So a quick new dessert was needed. I had already made these chocolate spiders to put on top of the mousse, so I zipped down to the IGA and bought some ready made tart cases which I filled with the left over tin of caramel. And there we have a super easy, and rather tasty dessert.

I am still cranky at myself for leaving my Ikea cups filled with dessert in that fridge. Have to go to Ikea to get some more cups!!!

Dinner at Home - Feta & Pumpkin Ravioli

2010-10-25T14:43:00.000+10:00

yes, another "wonton wrapper" ravioli! These ones were better than my last attempt - I baked some pumpkin and mixed it with feta, garlic and sauted onion to create an absolutely delicious filling! I used a soft feta, so it mixed with the pumpkin beautifully.

Dinner at home - Nigella's Kitchen!!

2010-10-22T12:42:00.000+10:00

I got the new Nigella Lawson book "Kitchen" so I have been trying some of the recipes!! When my Mum & Dad came for dinner to see our now unpacked new house, I made "Spanish Chicken with Chorizo and potaotes" for the meat eaters.... This was a super easy recipe, which involves throwing everything into a roasting tin and baking in the oven!!
I halved the recipe, since I was only feeding 3 rather than 6.

( I also cooked some pumpkin and peas to go with)

This recipe got the thumbs up from everyone - Janet had the left overs for dinner the next night.

for myself, I made roast vegies with haloumi - I threw potatoes, pumpkin, sweet potato, onion and halved tomatoes into a roasting tin, sprinkled with oregano and a little olive oil, and put some slices of haloumi on the top, and baked along with the chicken dish. MMMMM delicious!!!

For desert? Nigellas Chocolate Key Lime Pie! This was a chance to use my new flan tin! Another easy recipe with great results!!! No baking involved here - just whizzing up digestive biscuits, cocoa, choc chips and butter for the base, and beating together condensed milk, cream, and lime juice for the filling. If I made this again, I think I would use chocolate wheatens for the base, to eliminate the need to use choc bits!

Out for Dinner - Coffee Club Village Square

2010-10-20T12:54:00.000+10:00

At the end of September I went out with my fellow boot-campers for a meal at the Coffee Club at Village Square. I had this Mediteranean open grill. I think it was also meant ot come with Olives, but I asked for none, because I am not a fan. This was a tasty dinner of tomato, red onion, feta, pesto and melted cheese on toasted turkish bread! Delicious!

Breakfast At home - haloumi, spinach, tomato & toast

2010-10-18T13:01:00.000+10:00

This is the delicious breakfast I enjoyed Saturday morning when I came home from training. I will admit to having a bit of an addiction to haloumi cheese at the moment :-) .

This is a super easy breakfast to make and I think its better than any breakfast I have ever gotten out at a cafe!

I simply put some sliced haloumi into a non stick frying pan with some sliced tomato and cook until the haloumi is deliciously golden on both sides. When that is done, I move it to the side of the pan and pop in some chopped red onion, once the onion has softened I add some baby spinach leaves and a splash of balsamic vinegar and cook briefly until the spinach has wilted a little. Then serve with some wholemeal toast!

Dinner at home - Pumpkin & Parmesan Ravioli in homegrown tomato sauce

2010-10-06T12:51:00.000+10:00

I adapted the recipe from the cooking class and made this Ravioli. Actually I didn't look at the recipe at all. Its easy enough to just make whatever sort of filling you want!!

For this one, I cooked some pumpkin in the microwave, added some sauted garlic and onion and some freshly grated parmesan cheese. I mixed and mashed this all together and placed half teaspoonful blobs into the centre of wonton wrappers which I had brushed with egg wash. I then folded the wrappers in half to make semi-circular ravioli.

For the sauce, I cooked an onion and some garlic in butter and olive oil. To this I added 1 peeled and chopped (homegrown) tomato. I simply cooked this together until the tomato had broken down, adding a little water along the way to loosen the sauce.

After cooking the ravioli in boiling water for probably a couple of minutes (until just done) I tossed it in the sauce and served with a sprinkle of parmesan on the top. DELICIOUS!!!!

Out for Lunch - Pepper Lounge, Jindalee

2010-09-29T13:55:00.000+10:00

We had a family lunch at Pepper Lounge, Jindalee. This post has been a little while in coming, We actually went there for Fathers Day, so almost a month ago now!

We started with this Garlic Bread, which was a little disappointing. In that the bread itself was cold. It had nice melted garlicy butter on te top, but there was no crispness or warmth to the bread. I suppose it wasn't called garlic toast, so maybe this is the way its meant to be.

Mum had this prawn pizza. The base was nice and crispy!

Dad had this pasta - fettucine in a creamy carbonara sauce with mushrooms.

I had this open vegie sandwich, which was absolutely delicious! There was zuccini, eggplant, capsicum and feta on toasted turkish bread! YUM!!

My brother had this chicken burger and chips. The chips were calling out to be sampled, so how could I resist. Great chips! Chicken burger was reportedly good also

Janet had the bacon eggs and toast! Looks like a Janet meal doesn't it!

We all enjoyed our meals, and whilst there was a little confusion over whether we were given the correct menu's, the service was good - there seemed to be several new staff, so they were being carefully supervised.

I'd love to go back and try something else from the menu!

Cooking Class - Dessert - Chocolate Ravioli with Honey Marscapone

2010-09-29T13:38:00.000+10:00

Now I do not have the actual recipe for this one, but to the regular pasta dough, some of the flour was substituted wit cocoa powder and some icing sugar. I do not know the ratio sorry (the recipe wasn't on the cd we recieved!)

After rolling out the pasta dough, we cut it into circles, and then filled it with a mixture of melted chocolate and cream. THese ravioli's were assembled in the same way as the wonton ravioli - each circle was brushed with egg wash, filled and then folded into a semicircle. The ravioli was then cooked briefly in boiling water, and served with a mixture of Marscapone & honey

now after eating pasta for entree and pasta for main course, this was a little much for dessert, however, the oozy chocolate filling was absolutely delicious, and ravioli for dessert was a bit of a novelty.

This "Perfect Pasta" cooking class was really enjoyable, and a great way to spend an afternoon - cooking and eating!!

Main Course - Fettucine with Cauliflower, Chilli, Olive & Parsley

2010-09-28T13:19:00.000+10:00

For this recipe we made our own pasta! I hae a pasta machine at home, but hardly ever use it. And when I do, I usually end up making lasagne sheets because I can't be bothered with the last step of cutting into strips. But its not even difficult, so will have to do better in the future!!

Fresh Noodle/Pasta Dough Recipe

Ingredients – serves 4:

250gm plain flour

3 eggs (55gm)

10ml oil

pinch of salt

Method 1:

1. Sift the flour into a bowl and form a bay in the middle

2. Whisk the eggs and pour into the bay

3. Add the oil and salt

4. Gradually incorporate the flour into the egg

5. Knead the dough until its smooth and doesn’t stick to your hand

6. Wrap and refrigerate for ½ hour

7. Roll as desired

Method 2:

1. Alternatively sift flour into a food processor, add the egg, oil and

salt and process until smooth

2. Wrap and refrigerate for ½ hour

The sauce we did for the Fettucine was simple, different and delicious!!

¼ cup olive oil

300gm fettucinne

½ head cauliflower

½ red chilli

40 gm kalamatta olives (pitted)

½ Bunch continental parsley

1 x sprig rosemary

1 teaspoon mini capers (preserved in salt)

1 teaspoon anchovies

60gm Pecorino cheese

2 cloves garlic

salt and pepper

I didt let my partner put the anchovy into our sauce because I wanted to keep it vegetarian!

Cut cauliflower into small 2cm florets

1. 2. Pick rosemary leaves

3. In deep frypan, fry florets with ½ cup olive oil until golden brown

4. Rinse capers, and leave to dry on paper towel

5. Slice garlic and chilli, add to cauliflower

6. Cook for 3 minutes or until soft

7. Add dried capers, chopped anchovies, olives and rosemary

8. Stir on medium heat until anchovies dissolve

9. Meanwhile, chop parsley, grate cheese

10. Boil a medium pot of salted water and cook fettucine until pasta is al dente

11. Drain off excess water

12. Add half of grated pecorino and the half of the parsley

13. Stir with metal spoon off bottom of pan until mix to begins to

stick

14. Add remaining cheese and parsley

15. Toss through pasta and serve

IT was really delicious!!!

Recipe for Ravioli

2010-09-28T13:11:00.000+10:00

Ravioli filled with Roast Pumpkin, Persian Fetta, Garlic and

Lemon Thyme, with a Sage Burnt Butter Sauce

Ingredients – serves 2:

¼ pkt fresh wonton sheets

100g butternut pumpkin

1 brown onion

¼ bunch fresh basil

¼ bunch fresh sage

¼ bunch lemon thyme

1 clove garlic

35g Persian fetta

75g grated parmesan cheese

100g butter

1 egg

olive oil

salt and pepper

1. Pre-heat oven to 200°C

2. Cut pumpkin into small pieces place on roasting tray, splash a bit of

olive oil and lemon thyme over it and roast until soft

3. Meanwhile, dice the onion and garlic finely

4. Fry onion, garlic in the pan on a low heat until soft, add pumpkin

5. Chop basil and add to mix (save some leaves for garnish)

6. Add fetta to the mix. Season to taste, take off heat

7. Put large pot of water on the boil

8. Brush outside edges of wonton wrappers with egg

9. Place filling in centre of each ravioli, and fold circle in half to form

pasta parcels, press edges together to seal, then trim edges

10. Cook ravioli in boiling water till

pasta is soft and rises to the surface. This should take about

two minutes

11. Grate parmesan with microplane while you wait

12. In a frying pan, melt butter and add chopped sage

13. Cook on medium heat until butter just begins to brown, and

sage leaves go crisp

14. Season to taste

15. Immerse cooked ravioli in sauce briefly to take up sauce

16. Plate the ravioli, and sprinkle with parmesan cheese and top

with saved basil leaves

17. Serve hot and immediately

Cooking Class - Perfect Pasta @ Focus by James part 1 - entree!

2010-09-10T13:11:00.000+10:00

For my birthday, Janet gave me this cooking class!! It was held at the Focus by James restaurant @ Springwood, and led by their chef! The cooking stations were all set up in the restaurant - with a gas burner for each pair of students. A lot of the participants seemed to come with someone else, but there were a few of us who came on our own.

For each dish we cooked, the ingredients were brought to us all measured out in little containers!

For entree, we made Pumpkin & Persian Feta Ravioli with Sage Butter. This dish was made using wonton wrappers, rather than fresh pasta, a good shortcut to know if you don't want to mess around making the pasta dough yourself!. The filling was simple to make, we simply mixed together roasted pumpkin, sauted onion, garlic & thyme, and some persian feta. The key to making neat ravioli was to not try and put too much filling in!

mmmmmm butery goodness! The ravioli was cooked briefly in boiling water, then tossed in the sage and butter.

the finished dish!! After we created each course, we sat down in the restaurant and ate our creation. and little fairies appeared to clear up our used pots and pans!

stay tuned for part 2 - the main course!

Pizza!! - Dominoes.

2010-09-01T13:48:00.000+10:00

a takeaway dinner from quite a while ago, but one that may well be repeated rather soon as we are moving house tomorrow......

A Meatasaurus for Janet

and a Vegorama for me - minus mushrooms, plus pineapple. YUM!!!!

Malteaser Birthday Cake

2010-08-30T12:37:00.000+10:00

Here is a birthday cake I made some time in the not tooooo distant past... its a basic chocolate sponge, with chocolate icing and Malteasers! Quite tasty it was too.

Big Weekend!! - how to buy and sell some houses!

2010-08-09T13:40:00.000+10:00

Its been a while between updates, and I have photos on my camera of several meals that I havent gotten around to uploading yet. ooops! However, things are about to get a little busy very soon! We had a HUGE Saturday -

10am - looked at a house. we LOVED it.
11am - looked at another house - didnt like it
12pm - signed up to put our house on the market
1pm - Lunch at foodcourt :-)
1.05pm - Real Estate agent calls to say he has a couple to bring through house at 3pm
1.10 pm - quickly grabbed the shopping we needed
1.30pm - home to tidy up house and pull special rose out of garden and into pot
1.45 pm - Hands bleeding thanks to rose bush extraction. Real Estate calls again - another agent will bring people through at 2.30, and 2 other agents will come to have a look at 2
2-3.30pm - people coming and going.
3.30 - take puppy for walk to get out of house
4.00pm - Real estate calls - have an offer and will bring contract round (yay!!)
5.00pm - we accept offer. contract signed with 28 day settlement (panic!!).
5.15 - off to look at first house again
5.30 - make offer on house
5.45 - off to a 40th birthday party!!
8pm - Call from agent - our offer is accepted!

Crazy Crazy day!!

Melbourne!!! Day 4 - home time

2010-07-23T12:31:00.000+10:00

Our last day in Melbourne was a bit of a rush, since we were being picked up to go to the airport at 11am!

So we started the day with a delicious breakfast at Edelweiss Cafe

Janet had bacon and eggs, with lovely thick toast

and I had the Vegetarian Breakfast - which had mushrooms, hash brown, baked beans, tomato and toast!

Then we went for a walk around town - We stopped to take some photos of all of the grafitti in Union Lane -

And then we headed back to the hotel to wait for the shuttle bus. and headed for the airport. We had to wait in a long line to check in, and then we had to wait for a long time at the gate - we used up some time by removing some of the 27 layers of clothes we had been wearing so that our carry on luggage was correct weight :-) Since we knew there would be no food to buy on the plane (except pringles) we grabbed some lunch from the airport.

this vegie pizza was the only vegetarian thing I could find. Even the sandwiches all contained meat.

and Janet had a chicken sandwich.

and then it was up up and away, back home!!

Melbourne!!! Day 3 - Great Ocean Road Tour

2010-07-19T11:10:00.000+10:00

breakfast was a couple of croissants from "Pie Face" which we had purchased the night before. I tried to heat them up by snuggling them close to the boiling kettle in our hotel room. fail. Still, yummy enough croissants! We were being picked up by Wild Life Tours Australia for a one day tour of the Great Ocean Road!

first stop was the famous Bells Beach

I saw my first ever "wild" Koala. In that we saw Koalas that were in trees, not in zoos!

We had lunch (included in the tour) at Apollo Bay. Hanet had the Roast Chicken, Chips and I ate her salad :-)

I had a Vegie Burger.

We had about half an hour after lunch to have a wander around. We found ourselves at this ice cream shop :-)

It was delicious icecream! Janet had honeycomb, I had Dulce de Leche Gelato. mmmmmmmmm

We ate our ice cream whilst walking out to see the view of Apollo Bay.Then it was back onto our little bus.

next stop was Maits Rest Rainforest Walk

Then on to the twelve apostles.....

......Loch Ard Gorge

........London Bridge. All amazing sights to see (and a million more of my photos can be found here!!

on the way back to the city, we stopped at the Noodle Canteen at Colac for dinner

lemongrass & chilli vegie noodles

sweet chilli chicken noodles

Melbourne!!! Day 2 - busy busy!!

2010-07-14T12:56:00.000+10:00

We started our day with a bit of breakfast from McDonalds.

mmmmm pancakes!

Janet had a bacon & egg roll

Then we caught a tram to the Melbourne Zoo. We were a bit early, so we had to wander around aimessly for a while waiting for it to open! The zoo was the place I really wanted to go to while we were in Melbourne. And I took about a million photos, so will share just a few here...

Meer Cat

Gorilla! - We stood and wached the gorillas for ages - they were enjoying a feed of spinach!

We also got to see the baby elephant!!

And of course, my favourite - Giraffes! Janet told me that they didn't have giraffes at this zoo, so I was very excited to see that they actually did!!

Lion

Brown Bear

After the zoo, we hopped back on the tram, and jumped off at the Queen Victoria Markets for a quick look around.

we managed to squeeze in time for some lunch

yes, we ate churros for lunch. We shared a bag of 7. for $6. delicious! Although I did get rather covered in icing sugar!

We then headed for Federation Square, because we had tickets for a very important event.

This is the whole reason we were in Melbourne!!

The Abba World exhibition was really good! They had heaps of the actual costumes, instuments and other ABBA memorabillia, as well as interactive sections where you got to sing with ABBA, dance in a video clip etc etc. We had a great time!

Of course, all that ABBA-ing makes you hungry, so we went over the road to "Lord of the Fries" for some dinner!!

how exciting! a vegetarian burger place!!! I want one in Brisbane!! please!!!

JAnet had the French-Canadian Fries, or Poutine, which was fries with cheese and gravy

I went for an original burger, which was fantastic! loved it!! the burger patty was delicious, the sauces, the pickle, everything was just as a burger should be!

And after all that healthy eating (just as well we also did A LOT of walking) it was back to our hotel for some sleep!

Melbourne!!! Day 1 - Dinner

2010-07-06T13:53:00.000+10:00

We went for a quick trip to Melbourne - we flew down with Tiger Airways, which had bargain priced tickets - it just meant waiting around at the airport for a rather long time after checking in. Our plane left a bit later that scheduled, which meant we arrived in Melbourne a little late for the bus we had booked to take us to the hotel. So as soon as we walked across the tarmac and out onto the footpath (yes, we never actually set foot inside the Melbourne Airport), the bus company was on the phone asking us where we were. We did make it onto the bus, so all was good! (We weren't the last ones on either!)

After we checked into the hotel, we popped back out to find some dinner. It was almost 10pm, on a Thursday night. We ended up finding this place situated quite nearby, opposite a Hungry Jacks and a Nandos (which was about to hit closing time). We asked the lady inside when they closed and she said midnight, so in we went to Cafe Tono

We were the only customers, and they were in the process of mopping the floor. We ordered our food, and watched as it was created behind the counter. The pasta sauce was freshly made for my spaghetti napolitana - the chef was whizzing up tomatoes and things with a stick blender right in the frying pan. We watched the pizza being created, and as it cooked, the pizza chef was busy prepping more dough for future pizzas - he was making perfectly portioned balls of dough.

I was presented with a humungous plate of spaghetti. Spaghetti Napolitana is one of my most favourite meals, and I am often disapointed, because the sauce doesn't live up to my expectaions (basically, I want something better than I can make myself!). This time there was no disapointment - it was delicious! I only wish I had been able to eat the whole plate - but the large serve defeated me about 2 thirds of the way through.

Janet's meat lovers pizza was also a hit - the base tasted deliciously fresh, and it had a good amount of meat and sauce. I was half wishing I had ordered a pizza, until I tasted my pasta!

Then it was back to our hotel for some sleep in readiness for the next day. (thats not our hotel in the picture - its just some pretty lights we saw on our wander)

Dinner at home - Lasagne x 2

2010-06-21T10:55:00.000+10:00

A couple of lasagne's that I made - one meaty, and one vegie (of course!). I felt like making some fresh pasta, so I rolled it out and cut it into sheets to fit these tins. The result was quite delicious!

The vegie version had a pumpkin layer (I just microwaved and mashed it), a grated zucchinni and cottage cheese layer, and some tomato sauce layers (onion garlic and tinned tomatoes cooked down into a delicious sauce)

The meaty version contained a 3 - meat sauce - it had mince, chopped veal and bacon, cooked up with tomatoes onions and garlic. This one also had layers of a cheesy white sauce.

Happy Birthday Mum - Zebra Cake!

2010-06-15T13:11:00.000+10:00

For my Mum's birthday (which was way back in May) , I decided to make a zebra cake - recipe from here. The only change I made was the addition of icing, because, well, it was for a birthday, and a birthday cake needs icing!! Despite appearances, this was a very easy cake to make, with the only fiddly part being the alternate spooning of mixture into the cake tin. The resulting pattern inside the cake was certainly worth it. THe cake tasted good too!!

Out for Dinner - Focus by James, Springwood

2010-06-09T15:57:00.002+10:00

For our fifth "not-wedding" anniversary, we went out for dinner to Focus by James at Springwood. This restaurant is located upstairs in a centre on the Pacific Highway service road, so whilst we were sat by the window, the views were of the highway and car yards. It was a Saturday night and the restaurant was seemed to be nice and full.

For entree, Janet had the Sweet Pork Belly....this was a special, so not on the online menu, the specials were read to us by our waitress from a srumpled piece of paper, and I am not sure of what else was in this dish - we think it was served with sweet potato mash. Whatever the ingredients etc, Janet loved this dish. It was tender and melt in the mouth.

I went for the Bruschetta Trio caprese, mushroom ragout, peperonata. The toppings were very flavoursome, but the bread was a little soggy for my liking.

We then had a rather long wait for our main course. We think something might have gone astray in the kitchen - as there was some concerned chatting amongst wait staff whilst looking in our direction.

For my main, I ordered a second entree - this dish jumped out at me - Smoked Beetroot, Cashew & Goats Cheese Ravioli w/ red wine & tarragon butter The filling in the ravioli was absolutely delicious - smooth, sweet and smokey with a hint of crunch from the cashews. I think that the actual "pasta" was wonton wrappers, rather than fresh pasta, as it was very shiny and a bit sticky. I did love the filling!!

Janet chose the Free Range Chicken Breast w/ prosciutto, provolone cheese & warm lemon potato salad. I tried a little of the potato and it was nice and creamy. Janet thought the chicken was great - nice and tender.

Then it was onto dessert -

Janet had Frozen Profiteroles filled with peanut butter ice cream in a sugar cage . I of course tasted this one too. The profiteroles were the best I have ecver tasted - I don't know if this is because I always have had duds, or if these were extra good :-). They were filled with peanut butter icecream, which was like eating extra creamy peanut butter - divine!

I chose the Sour Apple Creme Brulee with Green Apple Sorbet My favourite part of this was the fantastic green apple sorbet YUM!! THe creme brulee was good also - a hard shell of caramalised sugar covered a soft creamy custard, with just a hint of sourness. Quite a different taste!

So overall a great dinner - I'm sure we'll be back again!

Lunch at Home - Wholemeal Bread!!

2010-06-03T12:33:00.001+10:00

Janet felt like some fresh bread for lunch, so I had a go of making some without the aid of Bread Mix this time. It was just wholemeal flour, yeast, salt and water mixed into a dough and left to prove, before placing into a tin and letting it rise again, and then into the oven. I was happy with the way it turned out, considering I didn't use a recipe and didn't measure anything.

I had my warm slices of bread spread with cottage cheese and topped with slices of tomato and pieces of gherkin! YUM!!

dinner at home - wholemeal vegie flan

2010-05-28T08:34:00.000+10:00

I borrowed the book "Frugal Food" by Delia Smith from the library and made this flan from it - I did change the vegies that went into it. I have however returned the book to the library without taking note of the recipe. oops! It had a very easy pastry base - I think it was 40g butter rubbed into 40g plain flour and 40 g wholemeal flour, with cold water to bind it together. probably a pinch of salt also. The vegetables (I used onion, pumpkin, sweet potato and zucchini) were cooked in a pan before layering them into the blind-baked pastry shell, and pouring over an egg mixture (sorry, can't for the life of me remember what went into the egg part!). then it was baked in the oven until done!

it really was very delicious and easy to make with ingredients I had in the fridge/cupboard.

Dinner at Home - roast chicken for one!

2010-05-26T13:17:00.000+10:00

note the lack of greenery on the plate? Must be dinner for Janet :-)

I bought some chicken marylands so I could make a roast chicken dinner for Janet, without having to cook an entire chicken, I marinaded the chicken "Nigella-style" in a plastic bag with lemon, soy and garlic for a few hours before roasting in a ht oven with some potato, pumpkin and carrots. I could have cooked some peas to go with, but I was being lazy and dint want to dirty anything else :-)

Hell Pizza - at last!

2010-05-20T13:40:00.000+10:00

There was much excitement when we saw that a Hell Pizza was going to open at Village Square Browns Plains. This meant we didn't have to go to Darra for our Hell Pizza fix. SO for months we droveand walked by without seeing a loto fprogress in the empty shop with the Hell Pizza sign on the window. Eventually it opened, and well, we just didn't get around to going straight away. So when we finally got there it was a quite joyous occasion :-)

THis shop is bigger than the one at Darra, and has some booths inside, and quite a lot of seating outside on the footpath. We decided to eat our pizza there and then instead of driving home with it, so we sat at one of the booths. We both ordered a "snack-size" pizza, which is the perfect size for one person.

Janet chose "Lust" ($9.50) - Bacon, cabbanossi, cheese, ham, pepperoni, salami.With the optional bbq sauce

I tried the "Sinister" ($11) which is a vegan pizza -Avocado, refried beans, black pepper, capsicum, jalepeno, onions, salsa, you can choose cheese as an optional extra if you don't want to stick with the vegan-ness of the pizza. I skipped the cheese.

This was delicious -I loved the beans and the salsa on the pizza. The jalepenos made it a little too spicy for my liking, but I could easily remove a few to lessen the heat factor a tad! I love the crispy edge of the pizza bases at Hell - yum, yum, yum!!

Dinner at Home - Spring Rolls & Sweet Corn Soup

2010-05-19T12:00:00.000+10:00

So I was feeling brave and actually tried deep frying something. I was planning on making rice paper rolls, but on reading the packet, saw that it had instructions for deep frying them, so I decided to have a go! The filling was a basic stir fry of vegies, tofu and rice noodles tossed in some soy & sweet chilli sauce. The deep frying was a little scary, and I probably won't be rushing in to do it again, but the result was some quite tasty spring rolls!

to go with the rolls, I made sweet corn soup - this was fresh corn cooked up in some vegie stock with some garlic and ginger, then whizzed with a stick blender. I then drizzled in whisps of beaten egg. Delicious!!!

friday night dinner - satay box, Browns Plains

2010-05-17T13:16:00.000+10:00

We had dinner at Satay Box, Browns Plains before doing our grocery shopping. This is really a takeaway shop, with a few tables and chairs if you want to dine in, the cooking is done just behind the counter, so you can see your food getting tossed around in the hot woks.

We had to try the vegie spring rolls, because we hadn't tried them before! They were quite good, but the close proximity to the kitchen meant they were very very very hot when they arrived at our table!

I had the satay vegetarian noodles. Which came with a nice mix of vegies, and even a few pieces of tofu, and a fairly standard satay sauce. Again, very hot! The steam just kept on pouring out of the noodles!

Janet had the crispy chicken in sweet chilli sauce - this was a whole little chicken, deep fried until crispy and covered in a delicious sweet chilli sauce.

when we finished, they brought us a plate of orange wedges, which was an unexpected, but pleasant surprise!

Dinner at home - Sausages with French Toast

2010-05-12T13:38:00.000+10:00

hmmm, I seem to have cooked lots of sausages lately. I think it must be because they jump out of the freezer at me when I am staring into it before work. Something like that!!

On this occasion, I sliced up some left over bread into thick fingers, dipped it in beaten egg and made some french toast to go with Janet's sausages. The lack of vegetables on the plate was only an issue for me. And I didn't have to eat it, so no problem at all really!

Out for Lunch - Grill'd (Garden City)

2010-05-10T13:15:00.000+10:00

We had a buy one get one free voucher for Grill'd so off we went for lunch!!!!

I ordered the "Garden Goodness" with no bread roll (because I wanted to be able to eat my lunch with out feeling like I was going to explode at the end :-) ). This was a great way to have this burger - they put the avocado in a little container on the side. mmmmm this was a fantastically delicious lunch! (unfortuately it seems I wobbled when I took the photo)

Janet had the crispy bacon burger, in the traditional fashion, and somehow managed to eat the whole gigantic thing!

and we shared these absolutely deliciously crunchy chips! (with some sweet chilli mayo to dip them in!!) Best. Chips. Ever.

Dinner at Home - Sausages x 2

2010-05-04T13:20:00.000+10:00

for me - a couple of vegie delight Rosemary sausages, served with onion and tomato "gravy" (just onions and tomatoes cooked down into a chunky sauce), with mashed potatoes and green peas!

for Janet - sausage "balls" in gravy with mashed potato and peas. TO make the sausage balls I just took the skins off the sausages, broke them into pieces and rolled them into balls. I fried them in the pan, before removing them and making the gravy (it was just a bit of gravy powder, water and some bbq sauce). I popped the sausage balls back into the gravy pan to simmer for a little while.

The mashed potato was made with a dollop of the new Philadelphia Cream. Made them deliciously creamy!!

Picnic Lunch

2010-04-29T13:15:00.000+10:00

This is our kind of picnc - the kind that involves stopping at the bakery on the way to the park!!

We called in at the Jason Lee BAkery at Westpoint shopping centre, Browns Plains and grabbed some lunch to eat at the Berrinba Wetlands

I got a Salad Sandwich. They were extremely generous with the grated cheese. It fell everywhere. I love bakery sandwiches because they are made with deliciously fresh bread!

Janet had a sausage roll - she is a big fan of the sausage rolls from this bakery.

Shadow had some leaves and sticks. And some lettuce that fell from my sandwich. She had a lovely time watching small children ride by on bikes

she also rather liked playing with this empty Coke bottle.

dinner at home - noodles

2010-04-26T17:32:00.000+10:00

Noodles and vegies with some sort of meat from the freezer :-) (possibly veal!)

Noodles and vegies with Tofu!!

I marinated both the meat and tofu in soy, brown sugar and lemon juice before pan frying. The noodles and vegies were simply stir fried with some of the marinade from the tofu. Easy and delicious dinner!!

dinner at home - pasta 2 ways

2010-04-15T15:13:00.000+10:00

I'm on 2 weeks holiday at the moment, so not really spending a great deal of time on the computer. But heres something I prepared earlier :-)

For Janet - because she loves bbq meat lovers pizza, I made bbq meat lovers pasta! This was mince, pepperoni and bacon, cooked up with some bbq sauce and tossed through wholemeal pasta, with grated mozzarella on the top. Big thumbs up from Janet for this one!

for me - I cooked up red capsicum, onion, grape tomatoes, baby spinach and fresh basil which I tossed through the wholemeal pasta with some parmesan cheese on the top. Yum - I could just about eat tomatoes for every meal and be very happy :-)

Friday Night Dinner - Souvlaki Hut

2010-04-10T15:11:00.000+10:00

A trip to Souvlaki Hut has become a bit of a regular occurance for us on a Friday night.

Janet always gets the Fish & Chips. (And I always steal a few of the deliciously crunchy chips)

I always get a vegetarian Souvlaki, minus the cucumber and olives, with some hommus. Sometimes I get regular, sometimes I get small, depending on how hungry I am! But it is always absolutely delicious! I love the squeaky haloumi cheese, and the stripy bread, mmmmmmmm!!!!

We always eat in, beacaue the one time we took away, by the time we got home (only about 5 minutes drive) the souvlaki was soggy :-(

Easter Baking disasters!

2010-04-06T13:35:00.000+10:00

We invited Pam & Sid over for morning tea on Easter Sunday. Janet asked if I could make a chocolate cake and some cookies. As is usual, I started looking through my cookbooks and magazine clippings for some inspiration. I found a recipe for a chocolate sponge roll that I had kept from a baking tin I bought, so decided to give it a go. This was my first disaster. I think I cooked it wrongly, because it was a little crunchy on top, an when I tried to roll it, it just folded and broke into pieces. I tasted a bit of the broken cake, and it didnt even taste any good. So the cake AND the recipe went in the bin.

So I moved onto the cookies while I waited for some more butter to soften for Cake take 2. I chose some choc chip cookies from a generic tyoe of cookie and slice book that I have. Never cooked from the book before, may not do so again :-). The cookies looked ok when they went into the oven, they puffed up and looked fine when they were nearly baked, but when the timer went off and I looked in the oven, they had flattened like pancakes! Oh dear. These ones didn't go in the bin. We tasted them and decided they were still edlible - we renamed them "pancake cookies"

Onto cake number 2 - I made Nigella's Sponge cake recipe from "Domestic Goddess", substituting some cocoa powder for some of the flour. I like this recipe because everything gets thrown into the food processor!

My 2 sponge cakes came out of the oven looking nice and even! YAY another disaster avoided.

I decied to fill the cake with mock cream & grated chocolate, since I didnt want to go to a shop. Heres a tip - don't make mock cream in advance because (d'uh) when you put it in the fridge it goes hard. To fix this small problem, I just beat it up again, and added a couple of tablespoons of "Philadelphia Cream" yes, cream, not cream cheese! They have a new "cooking cream" product - its not for whipping though, so by mixing it with my mock cream, I softened the mock cream, and thickened the Philladelphia cream! Brilliant!!

the cake was goooooood!!

Out for Lunch - Melange, Roma St Parklands

2010-04-05T12:58:00.000+10:00

I met up with a lovely bunch of ladies from "Calorie King" for lunch at Melange, Roma St Parklands

Nadine had spoken to the chef, who had agreed to create some "lighter" options for the purposes of this lunch. He came over to our table and talked us through a few items that weren't on the menu

I chose to have the "chefs special" vegie salad. This had delicious morsels of roast vegies tossed through the salad leaves. Suprisingly, my favourite part of this whole dish was the mushrooms! They were amazing!!

Other peoples choices included:

Salt & pepper calamari, fresh lemon aioli

Smoked salmon, hash cake, avocado salsa sour cream

oven baked salmon with salad (chefs special)

fruit salad with yoghurt

Out & About - Roma St Parklands

2010-04-01T08:25:00.000+10:00

I was meeting for lunch at Roma St Parklands in the city one weekend (food post to follow!), so I got there early for a wander around.....

Dinner at home - Pasta 2 ways

2010-03-30T13:04:00.000+10:00

Both of these dishes started off in the same way - in a frying pan, I heated a little olive oil, and added a chopped onion, some chopped pumpkin and some chopped sweet potato, and fried until tender. I was planning on tossing this through pasta for both of us, but as I cooked this mix of vegies, it put the idea of making a pumpkin and chick pea curry.

Since Janet doesnt like curry, I took half of the vegie mix out of the pan and popped it into a seperate pan with some bacon.

I then tossed this through the wholemeal pasta I had already cooked and bingo - bacon & pumpkin pasta

With the remaining vegies in the original pan, I added some kofta curry paste and a small tin of chick peas....

and there you have it, pumpkin & chick pea curry with wholemeal pasta!

Delicious!!

Out for Breakfast - Coffee Club VIllage Square

2010-03-24T13:09:00.001+10:00

Another Saturday morning car service means another breakfast at Coffee Club Village Square. Friendly table service, with water bottle and glasses placed on the table as soon as you sit down!!

I tried something different this time - Haloumi & Mushrooms served with toasted turkish bread, baby spinach and pesto. Except I asked for no mushrooms, and for some grilled tomato (I decided to not risk overdosing on mushrooms). Delicious!!!! (Another slice of tomato would have been nice)

Janet had the bacon, eggs, tomato & toast (again!!) minus the tomato - and loved it (again!!)

I was a little suprised when I read the bill (after we had paid and walked out) to see that they had charged me extra (I think $2) for my one slice of tomato. Even though I had not had the mushrooms, and Janet had also not had tomato. Only $2, but really, I think they could have just thrown it in!!

Dinner at Home - Tomato Soup & Cheesy Garlic Toast

2010-03-22T13:14:00.000+10:00

mmmm tomato soup would be one of my favourites. I made this for a weekend dinner - a simple soup made by frying up some onions, garlic and fresh herbs, along with some red capsicum, before adding in a tin of tomatoes and whizzing up until smoothish. Add vegie stock or water to thin down if needed, and stir in some fresh basil before serving!

to dip in the soup - cheesy garlic toast - spread a little garlic onto a piece of bread, sprinkle with grated cheese and pop uder the griller until brown!

Dinner at home - breakfast for dinner!

2010-03-18T12:18:00.000+10:00

We had eggs that needed using up, so we had some breakfast for dinner! (yes, I could have done some baking, or made a more "dinnerish" dinner, but this went down quite nicely!)

For Janet - fried eggs, bacon and wholemeal toast

for me - an omlette filled with onion, red capsicum, grape tomatoes and a sprinkle of parmesan, with some wholemeal toast.

(I simply sauted the vegies, removed them from the pan to cook the egg, and then added them back in with the cheese before folding the omlette over - not the prettiest thing to look at, since it kind of stuck to the pan a little, but it certainly tasted delicious!!)

Out for Lunch - Just Poppys - take 2!!

2010-03-16T13:20:00.000+10:00

We were going to be in the area, so we just had to go back and try Just Poppy's again!!

They have a wide selection of different soft drinks in their fridge - Janet had the Lime, I had the Raspberry Cranberry - YUM!!

We both tried different burgers to the ones we had on our previous visit -

Janet went for this Lamb Mince Burger - "Ewe Bewdy" - Lamb mince seasoned with lemon, basil, thyme, on onion, lettuce, tomato & bbq sauce. (minus the tomato and onion) This was a big hit - she said she could really taste the seasoning in the meat, and it was delicious!!

I tried the "Salt of the Earth" burger - pineapple, egg, cheese, mushroom, grilled onions on lettuce, tomato & beetroot with sweet chilli sauce & Mayo. (minus the egg). This was a great burger, although a little on the drippy side, as could be expected with the pineapple, sauce and mayo.

Dinner at home - Vegie not-Burger!

2010-03-15T12:22:00.000+10:00

This is one of my favourite dinners at the moment - super easy too - mixed salad leaves from a bag (that includes grated carrot and grated beetroot), tossed together with some chopped tomato and drizzled with a little mayonaise and topped with an oven baked Sanitarium Not-Burger and some onion. (the onion on this one went a little crispy in the oven - oops!)

Out for Lunch - Luigi's, Sunnybank Hills

2010-03-10T14:56:00.000+10:00

We went here for a Sunday lunch - it was the day after Janet's Party and we were very sleepy!

We started with some buttery garlic bread. Which was delicious, but unnecessary, since it filled me up way too much.

Janet tried the Meat Lovers Pizza (just for something different??? :-) ). It had a nice crisp thin base and a decent amount of toppings, without going overboard.

I had the spaghetti Napolitana, which had mushrooms through the sauce - chopped up mushrooms that I was able to eat with no dramas. It was a nice thick, chunky tomato sauce, just what I felt like!!

Luigi's is in the Pinelands shopping centre on Mains Road. I'd go back to try the vegie pizza :-)

BBQ Dinner - Berrinba Wetlands

2010-03-08T13:01:00.000+10:00

We had a bbq at the Berrinba Wetlands. They were extra Wetlands, since it was raining. Too bad they don't have the bbq's under cover! An umbrella soon took care of that though.

I continued with my "I like Mushrooms" quest. by bbq'ing a large mushroom. I put some garlic on it for flavour.

THis is my giant mushroom burger. Unfortunately, I ended up removing the mushroom. Too much mushroom for me. Way too ambitious. Small chopped up pieces of mushroom would be a better plan!!

Janet had a sausage burger.

and Shadow behaved herself tied to a post nearby!

Happy Birthday Janet!

2010-03-02T20:10:00.000+10:00

Janet turned 40 on the weekend, and we had a "Young at Heart" party for her. This has kept me rather busy cooking over the past few weeks!!

We were expecting about 40 people, so I made lots of food - I cooked most of the finger food in advance and froze it.

We started with lots of different nibblies.....

Cheese, dip and crackers

Chippies!!

Cheezles!!

and of course some lollies!

The "healthy plate" - I made a big bowl of hommus. In fact, I am still eating it now :-)

Then we moved onto some hot finger food....

a pile of sausage rolls

I made 3 different kinds of meatballs - mexican beef, sweet chilli turkey & honey, rosemary lamb

I also made a batch of corn fritters, 2 kinds of puff pastry pizza scrolls (bbq meat lovers & roasted vegie), and Nigellas Ritzy Chicken Nuggets

We had a wonderful gang of waiters to help hand the food around - thanks kids!!

and because it was a "young at heart" party, we also had to play a few party games - we "pinned the nose on the koala" and also played "pass the parcel!!!

And then we had dinner!

I made 2 rather large lasagne's - one meaty and one vegie (I forgot to take a photo until after they were outside in the dark)

My Mum made this delicious salad, and there was also a potato salad from Chevonne, that I neglected to photograph! Garlic bread too!!

YUM!!

Then, there has to be some desert......

We did have a fruit platter, but we kind of left it in the fridge. oops

every kids party needs fairy bread!!

the jelly cups were a big hit!

Pam made these fairy cakes

and Janet specially requested chocolate crackles, so Chevonne & her kids made these snazzy looking ones!!

And of course, no birthday is complete without a cake..... Janet selected this one from the Women's Weekly Birthday Cake book, and I made it for her.....

HAPPY 40th BIRTHDAY!!!!

Out to Dinner - Huo Fo Vegetarian Court, Sunnybank

2010-02-25T12:05:00.000+10:00

We were meeting friends at Sunnybank for "coffee" so we decided to get some dinner before - and I selected this vegetarian restaurant (it is in the Sunnypark Shopping Centre on Mains Road)!!!!

We were kind of early, and the place was fairly empty. You sit out in a covered courtyard.

Everything on the menu is vegetarian - even the items labelled as chicken, fish steak etc. So it was very exciting to have so many options to choose from!

We started with these crispy chicken bites (I was tempted by the spring rolls, but decided that we should try somehing different for a change!) These were crispy fried balls of what looked like chicken, but wasn't.

For my main meal, I chose the spicy steak - mainly because I wanted to try something completely different. This was in a quite spicy sauce (as the name suggests) , with lots of crispy vegetables. It came seved with steamed rice and something crispy on the side. Not sure what it was, but it was delicious!!

Janet had the Honey Prqawns - which looked remarkably like actual prawns. I tried one, and they were so much like prawns that I didnt like it. Janet however thought it tasted just like prawns. So she was happy!

I want to go back here with a group of people so that I can try more of a mix of dishes!

Dinner at home - Pizza

2010-02-25T11:54:00.000+10:00

Some more home made pizza!!!

This is the vegie one - with grape tomatoes, pumpkin, zuccinni and "not-bacon" (with tomato sauce)

and the meaty one - with left over bbq sausage, cheerio, bacon & pepperoni (with bbq sauce)

and the cooked vegie version

and the meaty one!

A delicious and easy dinner!!

A Wedding!!

2010-02-18T13:16:00.000+10:00

Here is some of the food we had at Jeff & Melissa's wedding - the reception was help at Scarborough, overlooking the boat harbour - which would have made for lovely views had the weather been nice - it was a lovely wedding never-the-less!!

While everyone else helped themselves to the buffet meal, I was given my own special vegetarian meal of vegies and noodles. It looked good. Too bad the noodles appeared to not actually be cooked :-). THe vegies were tasty though!!

This was Cassandra's dinner (it looks a bit nicer than Janet's plate! haha)

Here's Janet's plate - lacking a little in the green department!

pretty cake!!

Cake was served up for dessert, along with fruit salad. There were 2 types of cake, chocolate and I think caramel. I had the caramel one - yummy and moist - and I loved the raspberry sauce!

So, we have another wedding coming up, and this one is posing me with a clothing dilemma - the invitation states that the dress is to be 50's cocktail attire. Any ideas? or suggestions as to where to find such a thing?

Out for Lunch - Just Poppy's, River Hills

2010-02-16T15:01:00.000+10:00

Janet was told about this place that makes great burgers, so we had to go and try it.... and yes, the burgers were fantastic!!

The menu was massive - they even have 4 "meat-free" burgers on the list!!

I chose the "Tree Hugger" - vegie patty with lettuce, tomato, beetroot, spanish onion, grilled capsicum, halloumi cheese, mushrooms and hommus. Wow, this was a delicious and massive burger - I couldn't finish it. Actually it would have been just as good without the vegie patty, because there was so much other stuff on there! (and the mushrooms were cut up, so I coped with them quite nicely :-) )

Janet had "On the Run" - egg, bacon, cheese. She thought it was great

The chips were fantastic! Crispy and hot, not that we actually needed them, but we ate them anyway!!

You have to sit out the back of a kind of dodgy looking shopping centre, so possibly it would be an idea to take your burgers to a park to eat them - so many choices, means we will probably be making a return visit in the not too distant future!

Out for Dinner - The Music Kafe, West End

2010-02-07T14:26:00.000+10:00

We went to "The Music Kafe" at West End to see Janet's cousin play. They had a $5 pizza special the night we were there, but we decided we were a bit "pizza'd out" and went for other meals.

I had the Rissotto (with Mushrooms, spinach & parmesan $12.50). Now anyone that knows me will think that this is a very odd choice, as I do not eat mushrooms. Well, my quest for 2010 is to embrace the mushroom, so this was my first attempt. Perhaps a bit of an ambitious attempt, as they were very generous with the mushrooms in this rissotto. The rice was nicely cooked with still a little bite to it, and it was not gluggy. I ate some of the mushrooms, but they got the better of me in the end, and I ended up eating around them. A more seasoned mushroom eater would have really enjoyed this dish, as apart from the mushroom factor, I really loved it!

Janet had the Chicken Carbonara ($14.50), which had some nicely cooked chunks of chicken throughout a traditional creamy & bacony carbonara sauce. She loved it.

These were big meals, and neither of us managed to finish them. There were a few items on the breakfast menu that took my fancy, so perhaps we will be back another time.

Pizza!!! - Lawrences Pizza, Crestmead

2010-02-05T10:13:00.001+10:00

We took Shadow for a walk around the Berrinba Wetlands and decided to make a detour to pick up dinner on the way home. For some reason I remembered that Lawrences Pizza is located in Julie St, Crestmead. Otherwise, we would have been driving around aimlessly for a lot longer than we did! (I love my UBD!)

We ordered 2 small Pizzas - $8 each, and waited outside with Shadow - a puppy makes passers by so much more sociable!!

I ordered (surprise!) a vegetarian pizza - minus the Mushrooms and Olives. They gave me some extra pineapple to make up for this - bonus!! This was a good pizza - not too cheesy, and with a good spread of toppings - I would like the sauce to be a bit more flavoursome though.

And Janet got a meat lovers pizza. Janet thinks that Lawrences Pizzas are the best, but I am still in the Sicillian Pizza boat - I like their sauce and base a little more.

We each ate half a pizza, and popped the rest in the freezer for another day.

Dinner with Friends - Make Your Own Pizza!!

2010-02-03T12:31:00.000+10:00

Heres a good idea!! We went to our friends place for dinner and we had "make-your-own-pizza". We used Pita bread as the base, and each made half a pizza each round (2 pizza trays and 4 people!!) There were so many different toppings to choose from - fresh tomato, mince, pineapple, onion, olives, corn, capsicum, pepperoni, other meat, squash, sundried tomato, cheese, and lots of sauces!

about to go in the oven

Just out of the oven

another round of pizza!

and then we played a bit of "Name that Tune 80's edition" in which Janet smashed us all.

Dinner at home - chicken pies

2010-02-01T13:23:00.000+10:00

I made these little chicken pies for Janet - I made them in Muffin tins, so that gives you an idea of their size.

I lind baked some frozen shortcrust pastry in muffin tins whilst I cooked up the filling.

The filling was simply chopped up chicken thigh, and a variety of chopped vegies - zuccinni, carrot, corn, and peas, sauted in a little oil, and then simmered with some chicken stock until the vegies were tender and the chicken was cooked. I then filled up the pastry cases, and topped with a little grated cheese before popping them into the oven for the cheese to melt.

Lunch at home - Salad Sandwich

2010-01-27T13:05:00.000+10:00

We bought some sliced white bread from the bakery, so I just had to make a delicious salad samdwich for my lunch - this one had Baby spinach, onion, grated carot, tomato, beetroot, not bacon and Spring Gully Green Tomato Pickle. YUM!!!

Shadow

2010-01-27T13:02:00.000+10:00

We had a bit of a drama with Shadow, where she had to spend the night at the emergency vet - she's all ok now - but she did her best to look sad in these photos -

New Year Barbeque

2010-01-21T12:45:00.000+10:00

We went to my parent's place for a barbeque just after New Years......

There were mystery sausages - in that some were beef and some were not, and no-one knew which was which. THis did not concern me, as I had my own vegie sausage :-)

Delicious smashed potatoes - with rosemary- these potatoes had such delicious crispy bits, as well as soft fluffy centres!

A Salad with just about anything you could think of - feta, tomato, capsicum, onion, mushrooms, avocado, YUM!!

Some marinated barbeque chicken

Crusty bread - with real butter :-)

And for dessert? Well this was my department, so I made individual pavlovas with fruit salad. Basically, I piped out meringue into the appropriate shapes (and they actually were not too wobbly looking!!) and baked them. I made them the day before, so I wanted a crunchy meringue, rather than a chewy meringue which may have gone soggy with the wait in the fridge.... I assembled the pavlovas just before we ate them - I put a little Vanilla Fruche in the bottom and topped each one with a pile of fresh fruit salad - I chopped up all the fruit quite small, so that everyone got a little bit of everything in their little pavlova.

Afternoon Nibbles

2010-01-21T12:35:00.000+10:00

Anyone for cheese and crackers? This was a bit of a hodge-podge of things we had in the cupboard and fridge that we had for an afternoon tea. - The last couple of gherkins, some Lavash crackers left over from the Food & Wine show, some cheese that also came from the Food and wine show (a yummy 3-layered Southcape cheese), and some feta. Some tomato would have made this just a touch better, but we didn't have any

Easy Vegie Lasagne

2010-01-19T08:07:00.000+10:00

This is my easy, cheats way of making a vegie lasagne - and it tastes great! Instead of cooking up anything and assembling the lasagne in the traditional way, I use a jar of bottled pasta sauce, grated raw vegies (usually zuccini, pumpkin & sweet potato), a couple of beaten eggs and a little cheese (all of these factors depend on what food happens to be in the house at the time)

You begin with a little of the bought sauce on the bottom of an oven proof dish, followed by dried, instant lasagne sheets. Next a layer of grated zuccini, over which I pour some of the beaten egg and sprinkle a little cheese (this can be cheddar, mozzarella, parmesan, fetta, or ricotta, whatever takes your fancy). Next, another layer of pasta, then a layer of grated pumpkin and some more pasta sauce. Continue like this until the dish is full. I finish with a layer of pasta, covered with sauce and a spirinkle of mozzarella on the very top. I then (depending on how "wet" the bottled sauce is) pur a bout 1/4 cup of water into the dish and bake the whole lot in a 180 oven for about 45 minutes, or until the pasta and vegies are nice and tender.

the pictures aren't exactly great, but you get the idea!!

New Shoes!!

2010-01-18T13:06:00.000+10:00

These are my new shoes! They no longer look quite so white and shiny, thanks to Boot Camp! I have been wearing them now for the last 2 weeks, and I have not yet decided if I like them. But I will get used to them, because they certainly cost too much to not!!

Red Rooster?

2010-01-17T16:17:00.000+10:00

This is what Red Rooster gives you when you order a serve of roast vegetables. That tiny shrivelled up orange thing is supposedly a carrot. Next time Janet wants a Rooster Roll, I am getting my dinner from somewhere else!!

Christmas Brownies

2010-01-15T15:31:00.000+10:00

And before Christmas is too much of a distant memory..... some Brownies I baked to use up the leftover dried cranberries and white choc chips from the Nigella Cookies......

I simply used my usual stand-by brownie recipe can be found here, and stirred in the cranberries and choc chips.....YUM! (I always like it when I put white choc chips in these brownies, because they stand out and make the brownies look much prettier!! haha - even though I don't particularly love white chocolate!!)

Post-Christmas Lunch!!

2010-01-15T13:55:00.000+10:00

Another feast of Christmas Food!!

This was an after Christmas Christmas lunch at Pam & Sid's place

delightfully pink watermelon salad

mmmmmmm fruit!!

meat, meat and more meat!!

this was a delicious mango, capsicum and snow pea salad

d-i-y salad!

this is Janet's plate

and this is my plate

and to finish..... some delicious icecream! - Pam had added dried apricot, chopped up minty chocolate and frozen berries to vanilla icecream and then decorated the top with ice magic!

Out for Work Christmas Lunch - Michaels Oriental, Sunnybank

2010-01-15T12:22:00.000+10:00

Just before Christmas, we went out for our work Christmas lunch - to Michael's Oriental at Sunnybank. Its not the first time we have been here for a Christmas lunch, but its the first time I have taken the camera and made everyone wait before they could tuck in!! As always, the food here was most delicious!

We began with a selection of Entree's - the waitress serves everyone, we had Vegie SPring ROlls, Deep Fried Dim Sims & Steamed Dim Sims. I did some wheeling and dealing to swap my Dim sims for another spring roll :-)

There were 8 of us at lunch, so here comes a nice variety of main dishes......

Honey King Prawns

Crispy Prawns with Oats

Crispy Seafood (Prawns, Calamari, Fish, Scallops)

Steak & Bacon

Michaels Steak ‘Eye fillet centre cut tenderloin’ mushroom & cucumber sautéed with a blend of spicy barbecue and peanut flavour"

Sweet & Sour Pork

Mixed Vegetables - this is what I ate!! Nice and crunchy vegies, in a garlicy sauce.

Fillet Steak Chinese Style - this was in a barbeque sauce

We also had some Fried Rice, as well as steamed rice (Yum - steamed rice is delicious!!)

And after all that, we still managed to find some room for desert.....

A couple of people had the kids icecream - with strawberry sauce - and sprinkles!!!

I had this one - called "Eagles Nest" its a nice marshmallowy pavlova filled with fruit. It was a mixture of fresh and tinned fruit - which is a little disappointing - I am sure it wouldn't be too hard to make it all fresh fruit!

Michaels Comet - deep fried icecream!!

Sticky Date Pudding

And then we all rolled home :-)

Nigella's Cranberry & White Chocolate Cookies

2010-01-08T09:50:00.000+10:00

I made these cookies as little Christmas gifts - nice easy cookies that reportedly tasted delicious. Obviously you could change the ingredients to make whatever sort of cookies you want - but cranberry & white chocolate sounded nice and christmassy to me! This is the first thing I have made from the "Nigella Christmas" book - I tend to just look through it and dream :-)

copy of recipe can be found here

to make gift tags, I cut out christmas tree shapes from corrugated cardboard (used a cookie cutter as a template) and glued on "merry christmas" thingies :-)

Unfortunately I didnt plan ahead very well, and only had freezer bags to wrap the cookies in - so not too elegant! Next time, Remember the Cellophane!!

Christmas cooking - Pumpkin, Feta & Leek Tart

2010-01-02T15:04:00.000+10:00

This is a very easy recipe - especially since I use frozen pastry.

First up you have to blind bake your shortcrust pastry - my tart dish is bigger than the pastry sheet, but I can manage to fill in the gaps bu using the corner off-cuts....

While the pastry is cooking, fry 2 leeks in a little butter - cook them gently for about 10 minutes, or until they are really soft and translucent. Remove the leeks and heat a little olive oil, again, gently fry about 200g's of cubed pumpkin until soft, towards the end of the pumpkin cooking, sprinkle in about half a teaspoon of mustard powder and stir around.

Once your pastry case is ready, spread the cooked leeks over the base of the tart, then evenly distribute the pumpkin over this. Cut up about 100g of feta cheese (roughly the same size as the pumpkin) and sprinkle this through thed pumpkin.

Next, beat together 4 eggs and 250 ml of thickened cream (I use extra light cream), and carefully pour this into the tart. Bake in a 180C oven for about 25 minutes.

to decorate, I cut stars from some slices of pumpkin and fried them until soft - I put these onto the top of the tart about halfway through the oven baking (in case they sunk whenb the tart was still liquid)

We atet this cold, but I am sure it wouldbe delicious served warm.

Christmas Lunch!!

2009-12-30T15:57:00.000+10:00

After breakfast, we moved on to our next meal - Lunch!! The venue - my Aunt's place, where we had a nice relaxed gift opening session, before moving to the table for a bite or two to eat :-)

First up there was a gigantic bowl of rather large prawns, which were eaten with a dipping sauce made by Bill, as well as this delicious sesame seaweed (really, the sesame seaweed was so good!!)

instead of prawns, I had some thai marinated tofu to eat with my dipping sauce and seaweed - YUM!

Next up, we filled the table with more salads than you could imagine!

I made this green salad - I marinated the red onion in lime juice for a few hours, and simply tossed mixed leaves with the onion, a chopped mango and a handful of chopped pecans.

Mango, avocado, capsicum & tomato salad - so colourful!!

Tabouleh

A mixed bean salad

potato salad - Janet said this was the best potato salad she has ever eaten! (good job Kristy!)

My Pumpkin, Leek & Feta tart made another appearance - this time decorated with pumpkin stars!

Some more prawns!!!

Tomato, basil & Onion salad - nice christmassy colours!

Oh, and there was some meat.....Turkey with stuffing on this plate

This is the special vegetarian potato salad Kristy made for me - no meat in this one!!

A giant platter of Ham

This was my plate

And this was Janet's plate

Can we fit in any more food? Well there is ALWAYS room for dessert - especially at Christmas!

My favourite thing EVER - the Berries that my Granddad makes!

and of course, the traditional Christmas Pudding - it is flaming here - we managed quite an impressive flame this year, by warming the brandy in a saucepan before lighting it and pouring it over the pudding - too bad it doesn't show up in the photo!

Christmas Breakfast

2009-12-29T13:14:00.000+10:00

For breakfast on Christmas Day, we went to Pam & Sids for a delicious start to the day....

This is my bowl of Fruit Salad with Mango, nectarine, grapes, cherries and a lychee.

Barbequeing Bacon & Tomato

Toast, bacon, tomato and eggs for Janet & Pam

and some deliciously buttery hot croissants!!

Merry Christmas!!!

2009-12-24T11:15:00.000+10:00

Merry Christmas!!!! I hope you and your families have a happy and safe Christmas!!

Catch you all soon with some more Christmas Feast Posts!!

Shadow

2009-12-24T11:12:00.000+10:00

Isn't she the cutest Puppy in the world???? I am only slightly biased :-)

Pre-Christmas Morning Tea

2009-12-23T08:51:00.000+10:00

Another Pre-Christmas gathering - morning tea this time!

Mum made these deliciously fluffy pikelets, which we ate with real butter and some delicious cherry jam

Mum's Christmas cake - nice and fruity and moist

and some Sultana scones from my Aunt with raspberry jam! YUM!!

Christmas Lunch #1

2009-12-22T08:33:00.001+10:00

Our first Christmas lunch of the season! We went to my Aunt and Uncles place near Bribie for this delicious lunch

Mum made this cous cous salad - I love this - it has lots of little morsels of delicious vegies as well as feta cheese mixed through the fluffy cous cous

Some tomato, radish & cucumber salads - this combination looks so nice and Christmassy!!

I made this Pumpkin, Leek & Feta tart (I am making it again for Christmas day, and have come up with a way to decorate it to hopefully make it look a little more tasty!! - stay tuned for recipe in a future post!!)

Desley made this noodle salad, which I missed trying, but it looked delicious!

THere was also Barbequed chicken (and some other meats as well)

my plate

Janet's plate

Desley created this very tall dessert - it was a panetone layered with marscepone & custard -

Spaghetti bolognese & tofunese

2009-12-21T10:24:00.000+10:00

For Janet, I used mince (not sure what sort - possibly pork & veal).

For me, I used grated tofu - so it did resemble mince!

For both sauces, I cooked an onion and then added the "mince" Once the meaty mince was browned, I added grated carrot & zucchini to both saucepans along with some bottled tomato pasta sauce, and let it all simmer away. Very easy and very delicious!!

Paw Print Cupcakes!

2009-12-17T09:39:00.000+10:00

We picked up our new puppy Shadow, and took these cupcakes along with us (for the humans, not the dogs!). I decorated them with M&M's and mini M&M's - makes for very easy puppy paw print cupcakes!

Puppies!!

2009-12-16T12:46:00.001+10:00

Before we brought Shadow home, we had to try take some group photos of all 10 puppies. Quite a tricky task!

Jeya loves her new little buddy, but Shadow loves her new big buddy even more :-)

Turkey Roast!

2009-12-12T13:35:00.000+10:00

Pam & Sid were coming for dinner, so I cooked a Turkey Thigh Roast, along with a nice mix of vegies. It was a frozen turkey roast that came in a box from the supermarket, so I just had to follow the directions on the box to cook it. I served it with some pumpkin & sweet potat mash, some peas & corn and some mini potato bakes (which I cooked in muffin tins) and some gravy. Turkey got thumbs up all round from the turkey eaters, and the vegies were delicious!

Pelicans - at the Berrinba Wetlands

2009-12-11T12:15:00.000+10:00

I have been going to Boot Camp at the Berrinba Wetlands for the past month and a half - starts at 5.30 three mornings a week. These wetlands are about 5 minutes from our house - I can't believe that so many pelicans live there - there are always a big group of them in the middle of the pond.

The newest member of our family....

2009-11-26T14:01:00.000+10:00

Meet Shadow - she will be coming to live with us on the 6th of December. Meanwhile we are busy puppy-proofing the backyard. Hopefully She and Jeya will get along and Jeya can teach her how to be a good dog! (we have also booked into puppy preschool, so we can give Jeya some assistance!!)

Vegie Burger by the Beach

2009-11-26T13:54:00.000+10:00

We went back down to Palm Beach for some lunch and a walk along the beach - I couldn't go past the same vegie burger I ordred last time - it was massive, and this time, we had no room for icecream!

It was a great day for a walk along the beach - there were lots of people walking their dogs, and we got closer to making up our minds to get a puppy.....

Library - or how to avoid buying every recipe book ever written

2009-11-25T10:10:00.000+10:00

this is my favourite section of the library - the cooking section! I choose a whole pile of cookbooks and bring them home to read over the 3 weeks. Sometimes I cook some of the recipes, but mostly I just read them and absorb the ideas for future reference!

Pitos-topped macaroni, vegie & cheese

2009-11-23T11:46:00.000+10:00

I recieved some Pitos Pita Chips to try, and rather than use them all as chips, I decided to use some of them as a crunchy topping to my Macaroni, Vegies & Cheese.... I chose to use the Sour Cream & Chives flavour for this!

Basically, I cook some pasta, and then create a regular white sauce, to which I add a variety of grated vegetables - zuccinni, carrot, pumpkin, sweet potato, as well as corn & peas and some fresh herbs. I add a litle grated cheese and put it all into an oven proof dish, topping with the Pitos Pita CHips and a little more cheese, and bake in the oven until browned.....

Yum! The chips were deliciously crunchy!

We ate the Sweet Chilli Pitos Pita Chips in the more conventional way - out of a bowl - these were my favourite - they had a really strong sweet chilli flavour!!

dinner at home - times 2

2009-11-20T12:59:00.000+10:00

for me - Quinoa with broadbeans, butter beans and assorted other vegies in a tomato sauce. This was my first try of Quinoa - I bought it on clearance at one of my Woolies stores :-). It was quite tasty!

for Janet - Sausages with potato cakes - I grated the potato, squeezed out the liquid, mixed in a little garlic and salt and then squished the mix into egg rings to fry. They turned out nice and crispy on the outside, soft and tasty in the middle.

Out to dinner - Thai Emperor, Augustine Heights

2009-11-18T13:29:00.000+10:00

We found yet another Thai Restaurant to try out..... this one is at Augustine Heights (just past Springfield Lakes). Quite a small restaurant - they were making good use of the outside area to fit more people in!

Crispy Prawns

Spring Rolls (of the meaty variety)

I ordered crispy tofu as an entree, however was later told they had run out of Tofu, but could make me a vegie soup. When it arrived it had Tofu in it! I will assume that the crispy tofu was going to be made using silken tofu! THis soup was quite bland - just vegetables and tofu in a plain vegetable broth - could have used some chilli or something to give it a bit more flavour! However, it was a huge serve and it would have done me as a main meal.

Chilli Basil Tofu - this was very tasty - a delicious sauce, and nice still crisp vegetables. I could only eat about a quarter of it though, since the soup filled me up!

Massaman Curry (Chicken)

Thai Marinated Chicken - Janet loved this - it was deliciously succulent chicken served with a sweet chilli dipping sauce.

Dinner at home - Spagetti with Tofu or Chicken

2009-11-16T12:42:00.000+10:00

Spagetti with sauce out of a jar - it was a Leggo's Pasta Bake sauce, but I didn't bake it - just stirred it through the spagetti, along with some baby spinach, Served with either Chicken or Tofu - both of which I marinated in garlic and fresh herbs and a littel olive oil before pan-frying until the Tofu was crispy, and the chicken was cooked through. Delicious!!

Dinner at home - Roast Chicken & Minestrone Soup

2009-11-12T12:55:00.000+10:00

I roasted a chicken - I marinated it in some lemon juice, soy sauce and garlic for a few hours before roasting it in a hot oven surrounded by some vegies. I was very impressed with the way it turned out - nice and golden and glistening. Tasty too apparently!

for myself, I cooked up a big pot of minestrone soup, with plenty for the freezer to be eaten another day. And because it was just for me, I put in some fresh asparagus, and some tinned beans to make it extra yummy!

Picnic in the Rain

2009-11-09T13:24:00.000+10:00

We went to a family picnic in Queens Park at Ipswich - it was raining, so a soggy sort of standing up under umbrellas picnic!. Janet & I bought our lunch from the cafe in the park. Surprise Surprise, I had a salad sandwich! - this one was served on a polystyrene tray and held together with a large wooden skewer! Thats a bit different! It contained all of the usual suspects - carrot, beetroot, lettuce, tomato and onion - and was quite delicious!

Souvlaki Hut - Browns Plains

2009-11-06T09:55:00.000+10:00

We have given the Grand Plaza Foodcourt a miss the past couple of weeks and done our shopping (and eating) across the road at the Westpoint shopping centre. Our dining venue of late has been the Souvlaki Hut.

I usually go for the Vegetarian Souvlaki, minus the olices and cucumber. It comes with grilled haloumi, lettuce, onion and tomato, and is quite delicious! I find that eating in is much better than taking away, as it tends to go soggy if you don't get stuck into it pretty quickly!

Janet has been having the fish & chips, which is nice and crispy! The chips here are absolutely delicious!

My one slight issue with this place is that when you dine in, they serve your fish and chips on a nice, real plate, with a knife and fork, but you still get your souvlaki wrapped in paper in a foil bag. I realise they need to wrap it up so it doesnt all fall apart, but maybe they could leave the foil bag and put it on a plate for the dining inners!

Pizza!! - Sicilian Pizza, Browns Plains

2009-11-04T12:40:00.000+10:00

Well, we finally tried Sicilian Pizza - it is on the corner of Browns Plains & Wembly Roads, so we drive past here very often, but have only just now discovered what we have been missing!!! These are the best takeaway pizzas I can remember eating since we were in Vancouver.

Whilst the actual shop is not much to look at, the pizzas are fantastic!! There was a big selection on the menu - with photos of the uncooked pizzas accompanying the menu on the wall.

Janet had this meaty one -"Tutta Carne" ($14) - Ham, pepperoni, bacon, chicken, mozzarella cheese, it was topped with a swirl of bbq sauce which was a popular addition. Janet did ask for bbq sauce on the base as well, but when we got the pizza home, discovered it had tomato sauce on the base, so next time we will be sure to be clearer with this request!

My selection was called "the Gourmet" ($14) and was topped "Strings of spinach, ricotta cheese, marinated eggplant, capsicum and semi sun-dried tomatoes" The ricotta was a great adidition that I havent had on a pizza before - made it nice and creamy, and cut through some of the saltiness

my plate!

These were nice large pizzas, - we froze quite a lot of it and ate them at a later date - they were even better after being reheated in the oven - such a nice, crispy base, and delicious toppings.