Buttermilk Pancakes

This recipe is another from the "Women's weekly kids in the kitchen" cookbook. These are best eaten spread lightly with honey, rolled into a cigar and eaten with fingers.

Chef Lunchy

This was my lunch last Wednesday. The lunch box is an insulated pack from kathmandu camping supplies (originally intended as a first aid pack, I think).

Inside we have a jumbo wholegrain roll with tuna, corn, mayo and sliced cucumber. We alse have a granny smith apple, soy life flavoured soyghurt, mandarin, duplex creme biscuit (in glad wrap), carrot sticks, and a piece of onion flavoured triangle cheese. Upon recalling my lactose intollerance, the triangle cheese was removed.

Cheesy muffins

The Women's Weekly children's cookbook whose title is the most overused of children's cookery books (kids in the kitchen) was my cookbook of choice this week.

I used its ideas for lunchboxes as I have completely run out of do-able lunch ideas, it appears. These were meant to be cheese, ham and capsicum muffins, but I rejigged it as grated carrot, corn, capsicum and cheese. Some grated zucchini may have brightened things up a bit too.

Yellow Split Pea and Sausage soup ( a very bad idea part 2).

Last sunday night I had great plans to make Nigella's yellow split pea and frankfurt soup. And while I made it (substituting chicken sausages for frankfurts) it wasn't quite what I had in mind.

For one, it was super stodgy, which somehow congeals in the stomach, making it hard to move. For another, it took an hour to cook (unlike all my good and fast Donna Hay soups). It also burnt and stuck fast to the bottom of the pan, which is never good. That's one soup I won't be making again in a hurry.

Mushroom Mama

Recently Mum brought home a box from the supermarket called "Grow your own mushrooms" or something to that effect. It had been reduced to $5 and sounded like a good idea. The box contains mushroom spawn spread through what looks to be hay and a bag of soil. The box was left untouched for a couple of months before I got around to reading the instructions. A couple of weeks after that I finally got to it and "planted" them by opening the bag of soil, spreading it out on top, and religiously spraying them once a day for 5 days.

Well, I was sure the weeks of neglect would have killed them, so imagine my surprise when I noticed some growing. When it looked like a button mushroom, I thought about picking it, but by leaving it in another few days, it grew to the size of a field mushroom. The best bit is, as you pick them, more continue to grow.

Mother's Day 2007

For Mother's day we went out for dinner at EandS. I had never been there before and while the ambience left a lot to be desired, food-wise everything was great.

My brother (B) had the sushi plate with sticky soy sauce (not pictured), my dad had the mixed grill (not pictured), my mum had the chicken Thai green curry with rice, my sister (A) had the stir fried beef and veggies with noodles, and I had tempura battered flounder with Cajun wedges (which inexplicably was also served with sticky soy sauce. Go figure).

On a side note, we have a small container of cajun seasoning rattling around in the herb and spice cupboard that I never knew what to do with. Now I can make my own cajun wedges at home!

Pesach 2007

The snaps here are just 2 of the wonderful foods we enjoyed over Pesach. The second is a Pomegranite Jewel Cake (from Nigella Lawson's Feast). This was made with ground almonds in place of flour. The pomegranite seeds and juice were extracted and poured on top of the cake while it was still warm and in its springform tin. This resulted in a wonderfully moist cake with sparkling jewel seeds.

The first picture is of our 3 Pesach ducks. Just as Mum & I were preparing to cook them, I came across a Jamie Oliver recipe in a copy of Delicious magazine. The recipe involved roasting them with some carrot, onion and celecry chopped up and it the bottom of the roasting pan. After they roast, the veggies are meant to be discarded but were so flavourful from the duck fat, that they were saved and eaten.

Birthday Dinner

The following snaps are from my birthday dinner at Park Grill. The second pic is my sister's meal, a Thai beef salad with medium rare beef fillet, crunchy noodles, fresh vegies and a tomato based sauce. The first is my meal - veal scallopine. A mushroomy tomato sauce encassing pieces of tender veal, served with a side salad and roasted seasoned potatoes. We were a big group and tried nearly the whole menu. We've been back since for my sister's birthday. I forgot to bring the camera. I ordered a schnitzel burger (the schnitzel being twice the size of the burger bun) which was soft, salty and delicious.

Facon and Eggs

What more can I say? Fried facon, eggs and tomatoes on a toasted bagel with marmite. Perfection.