Happy Australia Day!

Wishing you all a happy and safe Australia Day! I hope you are all celebrating with friends and/or family and enjoying the day.

I have fond memories of an Australia Day that I spent in Leicester, England. I went to work in my Aussie flag t-shirt, and took an Aussie flag to hang on the wall behind me. I then had to explain to every customer that I served that day what it was all about! The night ended with my flatmate (also Aussie) and myself drinking a couple of VB's that he had found and sharing a packet of Twisties! It was a brilliant day! So no matter how you are celebrating today, I hope it is full of fun and laughter.

Do you like chilli?

These are the chillies that hang above the bench in my parents' kitchen. Every single one of them was grown in the backyard, but as they can't eat them as quickly as they grow, they are sewn onto a string and hung in the kitchen to dry. Don't they look awesome?!

Peanut Butter M&Ms!

I am going through a bit of a peanut butter phase at the moment. Lashings of crunchy peanut butter and honey on my toast to start the day. Brilliant chocolate peanut butter fudge that I couldn't help but keep most to myself. And then I found these...
So so good! The usual candy shell, but in the centre of the chocolate was peanut butter! My new favourite M&Ms!
Since finding these, I have found lots of other peanut butter goodies - Reece's Pieces, Peanut Butter Cups, even white chocolate Peanut Butter Cups! But alas, still no sign of peanut butter chips in Sydney. The search continues...

By popular demand *well, friend FFichiban!* here are places in Sydney that sell these yummy morsels.

The British Lolly Shop

Sugar Hit

Both are good stores, but Sugar Hit is 3 times the size and sells every US food imaginable... except peanut butter chips :(

Christmas Celebrations Continue...

So after all the excitement of the Sydney Chicken Christmas Dinner, how does one continue celebrating? Easy! Head down to our hometown of Melbourne, for not one, not two, but THREE more Christmas dinners! Phew!

Me with no idea of how to cut a lobster!

First up was Christmas Day lunch. It was a delicious cold spread, consisting of lobster, prawns with avocado cream, ham, pork, tomatoes topped with pesto and bocconcini, cucumber topped with crab, fresh crusty bread, Christmas cake, pudding, fresh berries, custard and cream. Wow - I am full again just thinking about it! We spent lunch time relaxing with BF's family (those that were still in the country!) and drinking a lot of wine!

Table setting at Mum and Dad's

Then came Christmas Day dinner! We set off to my parents' house, where the three courses are always eaten at a relaxed pace, as they know we are all already stuffed from lunch!

Starter, light and refreshing

Entree was a simple, yet delicious salad of mixed leaves, pinenuts, cherry tomatoes, proscuitto and goats' fetta. The leaves and tomatoes were fresh from the garden that afternoon!

Dad preparing the bbq

Main was roast lamb, marinated with garlic and rosemary, and cooked on the barbeque.

Mmm... rare meat!

Dad was in charge of mains, so his side was potato, green beans, cherry tomatoes, olives and anchovies, roasted in the oven - yum!

Main by Dad

We followed this with dessert of more pudding and custard! And Christmas night always ends still sitting at the dinner table 5 hours after we started eating, drinking wine and laughing the night away.

Pudding with custard - my favourite!

The third Christmas meal was with the extended family - and was a HUGE buffet of roast pork, ham, Lebanese sausages, marinated chicken, whole snapper with tahini, four different salads, roast potatoes, mango salsa, apple sauce... the list goes on and on. The best part of this day was meeting my new cousin Belle, born just a few weeks before Christmas!

Belle

Our trip home was packed with fun, food, family and friends. Along with the above, there were BBQ's, yum cha, cricket... it goes on! I'm glad to see that all of you had a great time this Christmas, and hope that the new year brings you all health and happiness!

The 2nd Annual Sydney Chicken Christmas Dinner

Every year for the past 12 years, a friend of ours has thrown a Christmas party. It is a major event on our calendar, about 30 of us get together and spend the afternoon/night eating, drinking and being merry.

When we moved to Sydney last year, we were the 3rd couple from our group living here. Work commitments meant that none of us would make it to Melbourne for the annual, and seeing it was the first Christmas in Sydney for both Sis and MJ, and BF and I, the 6 of us decided to start our own Sydney tradition.
You would think that between Sis and I, we would work at whipping up a big fancy feast, but no. The other couple, SteveKat, were moving back to Melbourne just before Christmas, and MJ had been raving about this amazing chicken takeaway that he and Sis had found just near their house. Boys being boys, Steve decided that he MUST try said chicken before leaving Sydney. Thus, The Sydney Chicken Christmas Dinner was born.

This year, there were just the four of us, and Sampson (Sis' cat!). After the craziness of December, it is nice to just relax with some good takeaway, a beer or two, a bottle of wine, and good company.
I know, you want to know about the food - barbeque chicken, hot chips, tabouli, toum and chilli sauce. MJ always makes sure to get extra toum and chilli sauce because we eat so much of it! Toum is a deliciously creamy garlic sauce made mostly from garlic and oil, is very pungent and addictive. A rather modest spread for Christmas, but a new tradition. It also means that by the time we all make it to Melbourne (I fly tonight!) that we have not overdone the Christmas foods early.

Sampson getting into the spirit

I'm off to finish packing now - wishing you all a very Merry Christmas full of laughter, fun and food!

A Sad Goodbye...

Friday was a sad day for my family. We lost our girl, Amira, after almost 16 years to pneumonia. She was very much a member of the family, my mum's shadow, and a great source of comfort to us all.
She loved raw carrots, broccoli and zucchini, munching on apple cores, and if you blew kissy-noises at her she would come over and give you a kiss.
She enjoyed sitting on a chair at the dining room table to watch us eat as part of the family, and never failed to make us laugh. She will be well remembered and dearly missed.

GRRRR...

So I still have no oven, no camera cable and therefore not a lot to blog about. I will spend this time having fun reading other's blogs and drooling...

Check out these awesome blueberry cupcakes that I want to make when my oven is fixed.

It just keeps getting better...

So to add to the woe of still not finding the camera cable, tonight whilst cooking what was going to be the best cheesy bread ever, my oven died. But because the fan in the oven continues to work, it took me over 40 minutes before I realised that it was dead. Poo. The bread came out pretty heavy, but seems to be almost cooked (and I will be eating it in protest). Guess I better call the landlord...

My blog in Paris!!!

Well, not quite! But my post about Donna Hay's Meat Pies has made it onto a website for a cooking school in Paris! A World in a Pan describes itself as "Cooking classes in Paris in the warmth of a Parisian home" and "The new culture sensitive cooking school concept". You can check it out here (just scroll down and there it is!) A big thanks to Laura who posted it there.

Bummer :(

So there haven't been any new posts at the moment because I seem to have misplaced the cable that allows me to transfer my photos to the computer (and by me, I mean my partner, because I don't actually know how to do it!) When I read blogs, I find it is quite often the pictures that get me excited about the food - it is the same with cookbooks for me. So hopefully I will find the cable this weekend and get posting!

I'm dreaming...

of this bacon sarnie. Whilst I sit here and have my very healthy all-bran and muesli mix with skim milk :(

Ow!

Sorry this isn't a food post... I cut my thumb today and it is quite significantly padded at the moment which makes both cooking and typing a little awkward! So instead, I relaxed at a local bar with some friends and a few icy cold brews. Will try and post something more exciting tomorrow!

New Toys!

Just a couple of photos of the new toys that I picked up yesterday. Lots of kitchen fun to be had with these!!

The World's Most Amazing Food.

A look at the magic that is the food of El Bulli. Click here, sit back, enjoy 9 minutes of heaven, and then attempt to convince your loved one to fly you here immediately!

That's what I want!

This is what I would love to have in front of me right now - best espresso in Sydney from Single Origin.

First time for everything

I am very new to the world of blogs. So new that I'm not really sure what I am doing. But basically I wanted a place to put pictures, recipes and to vent when things in the kitchen don't go the way I had planned. And the title comes from the simple fact that I love dessert and will always ask for the dessert menu. Even when I am way too full to even think about it.