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!!)

Dinner at home - Nigella's Kitchen!!

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!

Picnic Lunch

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.

Easter Baking disasters!

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

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

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.....

Out for Breakfast - Coffee Club VIllage Square

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!!

Out for Lunch - Just Poppys - take 2!!

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.

Out for Lunch - Luigi's, Sunnybank Hills

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

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!