Random Photos

Southbank

Here are some pictures I took at Southbank on Saturday Afternoon/night. The big wheel thing is a giant ferris wheer you can go on and get a nice (I presume) view of the city. It costs $15 per person for a ride. We didn;t go on it. We went and saw Chicago instead. We had front row seats and it was excellent!!

The Wheel behind a tree

Out to Dinner - March - Amici's Southbank

Before we went to see Chicago on Saturday night, we went to Amici's at Southbank for some dinner. We got there just around 6pm, so quite early and the place was very busy. We last ate here on the night before our wedding, so almost 4 years ago.

Tonight we were seated outside not quite under an umbrella, so when the breeze picked up we briefly wondered what would happen if it started to rain (I guess we would have gotten wet, but it didn't happen, so it didn't matter!)

We both ordered lasagne - and whilst it was quite tasty, I think we could have made it better ourselves.


Vegetarian Lasagne $17

Whilst this was tasty enough, it had vry large chunks of carrot & squash in it as the vegetable component. I think they could do better than this. What about some zuccinni, eggplant and spinach? Large chunks of vegetables don't really go so well.

Lasagne (Meatertarian) $16

Janet thought the sauce was a bit too runny.

So not the best meal of all time, but we cleaned our plates, so it can't have been too bad!

This was our dining companion -it sat behind me for most of the meal.

Happy Birthday Janet!

So on Saturday it was Janet's birthday, and we seem to have spent the whole weekend eating.



A bit of present opening was followed by pancakes for breakfast. Then I mowed the lawn while Janet finished reading her Library book. Then it was off to the library for an exciting birthday outing, followed by a stop at Amart Allsports for some new running shoes for me. Stupid lady tried to tell me that the size 10 shoes I was about to try on wouldn'
t fit me and I should try a size 6. Even though I had previouslt tried on an 8 1/2 which was toooo small. Stupid woman then made some comment about not needing a boat if I went fishing when the 10's fit me.

Anyway, next stop was Brodies for lunch - Chicken Roll for Janet, and a Brodie Burger minus the meat for me. Plus some delicious chippies. THey make them fresh, so they are deliciously crunchy.

For dinner we went with Pam & Sid to Sizzler. This is my plate....

This is Janet's salad bar plate.....

And her Fisherman's something or other meal.....

Then on Sunday it was off to my parent's place for a barbeque.... and my Mum made us crepes for desert...yum!!! I made an experimental cake.... because janet likes doughnuts, I call it a doughnut inspired sponge cake. It was Nigella's Victoria Sponge cake with some cinnamon added, I then brushed the 2 cakes with melted butter and rolled them in cinnamon sugar, and sandwiched them together with Mock cream. It worked quite well, although if I did it again, I would not add the cinnamon to the cake, I'd just make it vanilla-ey.

Come on February - enough now!

I am ready for this month to be over. Lots of strange and stupid things have happened!

1. My heart rate monitor has been playing up. (either that or I am dead). So I have had to send it away to be serviced. Theres a very strange feeling as you drop your watch into a post box. (I did of course bubble wrap it and put it in an express post thingy).
2. My sneakers have broken. I love my sneakers. I hope I can find ones that I like as much. Or there will be trouble.
3. Optus told me they would be increasing our home phone to $57 per month. (this was to include all local calls). We currently never spend over $40 a month on that phone. After much debate with the Indians during which I got no-where. (they suggested that I could disconnect my Optus intrnet from them in order to get a cheaper phone????), they were also going to charge me $99 to check if I could still be their internet customer if I changed phone providers)I have jumped off the Optus ship and joined up elsewhere. For $0 connection fee and $20.95 home phone. We will pay more for the internet, but get HEAPS more downloads.
4. I might be called up for Jury duty again in April. I have sent the form back, so we will wait and see.
5. We are going to see the musical Chicago next month. We had front row seats. I got an email saying they had added an extra front row. If we want to be in it, I just had to reply. A guy rang me and told me to send back the original tickets and they will send me the new ones. Now I am hoping there isn't a scam to steal Chicago tickets from people. Wait and see on that one!

I think that is all, but its not over yet, so you never know what else just might happen!

Out to Dinner - February - Seoul BBQ

Restaurant #2 on the quest for one new restaurant per month. This one might not be considered quite so successful.....

We went to a Korean BBQ Restaurant at Sunnybank. It was filled with Koreans which was a good sign. It was also staffed by waitresses without a great grasp of english. So we had some problems. Since we have absolutely no grasp of Korean.

Each table has a hotplate in the middle of it, ad we could see that everyone was cooking their own food. Large plates of raw meat kept going past us.

Browsing the menu I was a tad worried, as there was not a great deal of explanation, and everything looked like meat. Even the tofu dishes had meat.

I asked the waitress for help and she pointed me to a beef dish that could be served without the beef. YAY. I was taken care of. Next problem - Miss Janet. I asked the waitress to reccommend something for her. SHe said that the BBQ dishes were for 2 or more people, so that ruled them out. Finally, Janet decided to have the same as me, only with the beef & the egg.

About 8 little white dishes were placed on our table, each containing different kinds of vegetables in sauces. There was also a small dish of chilli sauce for each of us. Then our meals were brought to us. They were served in large stone bowls that were sizzling! My bowl contained rice and assorted vegetables (like carrot, bean shoots, strange mushrooms) Janets had the same as well as some beef & a freshly cracked egg on top, and a bowl of beef stock on the side. As you stired everything together, it sizzled away. I added the chilli sauce and some of the vegies delivered earlier. It was really quite tasty. It was a short grain rice, and the chilli sauce was not toooo hot. The sizzling bowls were really cool though (in a non-chilly way).

It was a very busy place, with food being constantly brought out to the many tables. It looks like the BBQ is the most popular thing here, so maybe another trip with more meat-eaters would be the way to go, in order to have the true Kprean BBQ experience. (It might pay to take a Korean along as well)

January Dinner = Cafe @ Bayliss

This year we are trying to go to a different restaurant for dinner each month. Just the two of us (which is why the earleir dinner with my parent's did not count :-) )

Since it was the last day of January, we had to get ourselves into gear and find somewhere to go. The answer was Cafe @ Bayliss. THis is very close to our house. In fact I think if I took the bike path, I could run there faster than we could drive. We did drive, but this was because we have had very rainy weather lately. Nothing to do with being lazy.

So Cafe @ Bayliss... it descibes its self as a Cafe & Asian style restaurant. It has a small air conditioned indoor area as well as tables outside. We sat inside and had the worlds most forgetful waitress. Janet ordered a coke, I asked for water. In the 2 minutes it took her to go to the fridge and get the can of coke and the water bottle & glasses, she had forgotten who wanted the coke. SHe did give us lovely glasses full of ice for our water though, so this earns her some points.

We decided to start with the vegetarian spring rolls and these came out piping hot and deliciously crunchy. In fact I do believe I burnt my tongue because I was so eager to try them. They were goooood. I can see more of these in my near future :-)

For mains I had a selection of items to choose from the vegetarian section of the menu. These were all "vegetable-only" versions of other items on the main menu. So I went for the Terryaki Stir Fry with steamed rice. THis was good. The sauce was delicious. I just wish they would actually add some protein to the meal instead of just removing the meat. How hard is it to have some tofu on stand by?

Janet had Sweet & Sour pork (surprise surprise!!) and said it was good.

We would like to go back here someday to try the all day breakfast.

"new" table!

The other excitement of our Saturday was that Sid brought around a table and chairs for us. The table extends, so it can seat 6! We then had to go out on a quest to find a non-ugly covering for it. We ended up getting a length of plasticy stuff from Spotlight. We still have to find a proper table cloth, but we couldn't find one we liked.

Jaspa had to check out the chairs.

Let there be light!

I do believe that on Friday I declared I was not cooking another meal in our kitchen until we had our new lights up. Just before 8 on Saturday morning the electrician arrived. And now we have light! Bright light. Brilliant!!

Australia Day!!

Australia Day = Long Weekend :-)

We went to my parent's place for our traditional Australia Day lunch (I forgot the camera). Meat pie, mashed potato & peas. I took my own home made tofu burger. Everyone enjoyed much pie eating, followed by a bit more Pavlova eating. And then we rolled home.

In other news, we have a rather dark kitchen at the moment. The light went out, and when I went to change the bulb bits of plastic rained down upon me. Old lights. So now we have 2 lovely new lights waiting to go up in the kitchen & dining room (we figured since they were both as old as each other we should replace them both at the same time). Now we just need the electrician to come and put them up for us. It would certainly be nice to be able to see what we are doing again!

Out to dinner - Thai Boupha, Springfield Lakes

Saturday night we went out to dinner with my Mum & Dad to the Thai Boupha @ Springfield Lakes. This restaurant got a big thumbs up from everyone.

Its a tiny little dining area inside, but we prefered to sit there rather than outside in the car park, where perhaps there would be less traffic of the busy waiter variety, but probably more traffic of the vehicle variety.

The main reason I like this place so much is that nearly every dish on the menu can be made as a vegetarian version.

We started with Vegetable Spring Rolls, which were fresh, hot and crispy. And then we each chose one dish.

We had -

Sweet & Sour Pork - apparently delicious - with pieces of pork fillet in a yummy sauce. No battered & deep fried unidentifiable meat in this meal.

Chicken with cashews - I have had the tofu version of this and the sauce is magnificent!

Salt & Pepper Calimari - Served on a bed of lettuce, a generous pile of reportedly tender calimari.

Tofu with Basil & Chilli - A deliciously large amount of tofu in a tasty sauce (I think the sauce that comes with the cashew version wins out though), along with a good mix of vegies. The only problem was a sprinkling of coriander on the top. But this is just because I do not like it at all. Not even one little leaf.

A deliciously filling dinner - all plates were nearly empty by the end of the meal. Only a few scraps and some steamed rice left behind.

More Christmas

Jaspa trying to open Jeya's Present!

Jeya opening her present (watched from inside by jealous Jaspa)

Janet opening her presents!

Christmas!!

We started the day with breakfast. As well as this fruit I also made a more eggy version of Nigella's Green Eggs & Ham. Which is basically eggy pancakes with green pesto mixed through, wrapped around a slice of ham.

Lunch - lots of food!

We provided the nibbles - I made Polenta cupcakes with pesto/creamcheese frosting, and wonton cups filled with avocado & tomato salsa.

Jeya was given a doggy cupcake from Lochie!

Our girls relaxing under the tree!

Look what I made...

Last night I gave up waiting for the Christmas cards we ordered to arrive. I sat down and made 20 cards. They were simple ones, but they look ok. Not bad for a last minute job.

So I sat down on the couch to wait for the glue to dry (this was about 8pm) and not 2 minutes after I had finished making the cards, a van drove up the driveway and the parcel lady dropped of a parcel at our front door. Guess what it was? Yep the Christmas cards we had ordered. So now we have a good supply.

I roasted a chook!

Saturday night Pam & Sid came over for dinner, so I decided to make a roast chicken. This was slightly stressful since I have never roasted a chicken before. I basically followed Nigella's recipe for Lemon Roast Chicken from Nigella Feasts. You rub the chicken with butter and put half a lemon inside it. I added fresh herbs from the garden (rosemary, sage & thyme) to the butter and rubbed this all over the chook, as well as putting some butter under the skin over the breasts. I also chucked some sprigs of these herbs inside the chicken. THen you salt the chicken and bake it in a 22o C oven for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Let it rest for 15 minutes before squeezing over some lemon juice and serving.

I also par boiled some potatoes, shook them around a bit after they were drained, and threw these in around the chicken, as well as some separately for the vegetarian (that would be me :-) ). Along with some roast pumpkin and roasted cauliflower, it was really quite delicious.

I was most impressed with the way the chicken turned out! It looked just like a real one. And by all reports also tasted delicious.

For dessert I made mini pavlovas with strawberry & mango.

And then we all played a bit of tennis & bowling on the Wii.

Happy 90th Birthday Pa!!

On Saturday it was my Grandfather's 90th Birthday. I made the cake. I used my Gran's recipe for chocolate cake. It was the cake she always made us for our birthdays. I have written the recipe down in my recipe note-book as told to me by my Mum over the phone many years ago. THere is a secret to the recipe. The recipe says 2 eggs, but the secret Gran twist is that you actually put in 3 eggs and get a better result. This was an accidental discovery by my Gran, but it is the way I always make this cake. Its a simple, tasty chocolate cake.

MMMMM chocolate cake batter. I actually made this cake twice. I had a slight disaster with the icing during round one. So that cake ended up in the bin, and I made a second cake after a quick trip to Woolies for some more ingredients.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PA!!!

Busy Busy....

Its getting to be that busy time of year. How did Christmas get to be less than 2 weeks away? No idea!

I believe we are fairly organised Christmas-wise. We have our shopping done, aour presents wrapped, our tree decorated, and our lights up on the house. We have not as yet sent out cards. This is because, rather than make them this year, I thought it would be good to buy some from a charity so we could at least be helping out someone. Good idea, only I should have had it earlier, because the cards we ordered have not arrived yet. People may be getting New Years or Easter cards from us. Who knows!!!

This weekend I have some cooking to do, so I am planning to take some photos and do a little cooking-blogging. I am going to make my first ever roast chicken dinner, for Saturday night when Pam & Sid are coming round. I am also baking a chocolate cake for my Granddad's 90th birthday. So that will keep me occupied this weekend!