Brisbane Foodie Bus Tour

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!

Lamington National Park Hike!

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!!)

Out for Lunch - The Apple Tree, Kenmore

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!

Out for Lunch - Pepper Lounge, Jindalee

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

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!

Melbourne!!! Day 4 - home time

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!!