Thursday 21st July 2011

The hospital kitchen prepared a pasta lunch for all the staff to enjoy today. There were a few different dishes of pasta available and the chefs kept coming out to refill the trays as we polished them off. As suspected, it was pretty average.

Ian also brought in some curry!

Wednesday 20th July 2011

I made hotdogs for everyone at work today.

Tuesday 19th July 2011

Dinner at Mum's
Combination Hor Fun


I harvested some fresh chillies from the garden.


Back at home, I pottered around in the kitchen making supper and lunch for tomorrow at work. I halved some cherry tomatoes and roasted them in the oven.

Spicy Roast Chicken & Chips

Monday 18th July 2011

Breakfast
Mum's Hainanese Chicken Rice

Sunday 17th July 2011

Dad's birthday is coming up so we had a small family dinner in my new house for the first time. After last night's rehearsal, I cooked wantan noodle soup again.

Jocelyn and David bought the cake - very nice!

Saturday 16th July 2011

I had some friends over for a quiet dinner tonight.

I bought some BBQ pork and roast pork from
Four Seasons Roasting Duck Restaurant in Northbridge.


I was rather disappointed with the amount of bones present in the roast pork and the very clumsy way in which they chopped it. The pieces were chopped in large uneven pieces. I don't think I will be going back there again.

I have never made wantan soup with noodles before, so I was excited to try with one of my new utensils I bought from my recent trip to Bangkok.

I bought some wantan noodles and loosened each individual bundle.


I blanched the noodles using the stainless steel scoop.


Meanwhile, my helpful friends made the wantans.


Wantan Noodle Soup with Char Siew

Friday 15th July 2011

Ian brought in an egg dish today. He said he'd boiled the eggs too long so they took on this grey colour but they were still good to eat! He boiled the eggs, fried them and then threw them into a sambal sauce. Yum!

Thursday 14th July 2011

I had some leftover beef mince mixture from the Burger Night that I had last week and so I shaped little meatballs out of it and put them into the freezer. I used them to make some pasta today.

Penne with Beef Mince


We have been accumulating bread in our freezer at work. So, Ian bought some ham, I bought some tomatoes and cheese and we had toasties for our work lunch today.

Cheddar Cheese


The Brie toasties were soooo good!


Supper
Hokkien Noodles with Shitake Mushrooms

Wednesday 13th July 2011

For dinner tonight at work I had some leftover chicken that Ramona brought to my dinner on Sunday. They were absolutely divine!! So spicy and delicious! I must must have the recipe for them!

Dinner at Work
Ramona's Spicy Chicken Wings with Sour Cream
and roasted Pumpkin and Pinenuts


Supper
Seafood Laksa

The first time I have cooked laksa in my new home! I am loving this cold weather - perfect for devouring large, steaming hot bowls of noodles in soup!

Tuesday 12th July 2011

Breakfast
Toasted Slices of Baguette with Chorizo and Mozzarella

Monday 11th July 2011

Tonight I used the leftover rice from Saturday night's Korean dinner to make fried rice.

Firstly, sautee some diced onion and garlic in some oil in a pan.

Then add some sliced celery and diced carrots and fry these for several minutes with some soy sauce, shitake sauce, sesame oil and chilli sauce.

Once the carrots are softened, throw in some seafood. I used a prepackaged mixture containing baby squid, clams, mussels and octopus that were cut into roughly the same size.

Meanwhile, break up the leftover rice.

When the seafood is just about cooked through, add some thawed peas from the freezer and the rice. Stir until all combined.

After scooping the fried rice out of the pan, I made a very thin egg omelette with two eggs beaten with a bit of water. In the pan, you carefully roll the omelette up to form a roll and then thinly slice it to garnish the fried rice.

Sunday 10th July 2011

TRIPE NIGHT!

Tonight we had our long awaited and anticipated tripe night dinner party! Teresa cooked the tripe and brought it over. For those who weren't daring enough to try this intestinal delicacy, I cooked some potato gnocci.

We started with some nibblies!


Mini pizzas warm out of the oven.


Potato Gnocci in a rich Tomato Sauce with Leeks


Alas! We were all so overwhelmed with hunger, talk and drink that I forgot to take a photo of the delicious tripe stew that Teresa made! The following is a photo of the leftovers that I ate at work for lunch.



Marissa made dessert - Tiramisu!


Yum yum yum! So light and delicious!

An awesome night!

Saturday 9th July 2011

KOREAN DINNER NIGHT

The Benoit gang came over for dinner tonight. The theme was Korean!

I cooked some rice using the rice cooker that Dad bought for me for the first time. Benoit and I cooked the dishes and then we all gathered around the table to devour it.

Chicken with Capsicum and Bean Sprouts


Beef with Enoki


Pork Belly with Wombok and Shitake


I made a cold Sweet Potato Noodle dish


Kong brought Kim Chi Omelette


After dinner, we sat around sipping on hot tea, coffee, port and my homemade fruit liqueurs. Despite the freezing temperatures outside, we braved the cold to stroll down the street to some uncleared land where we searched for wild watermelons by the lights on our mobiles. We spent about half an hour playing lawn bowls with the melons before we hurried back to the house with the largest watermelon we could find.

Benoit practiced his pumpkin carving.

Friday 8th July 2011

Dinner at Mum's tonight after work.

Choko with Prawns
Chicken with Tofu and Mushrooms

Thursday 7th July 2011

Today at work I took my remaining bread rolls from last night's dinner and we had them for lunch. We didn't have time to organise our weekly work lunch as we were having a laboratory accreditation done yesterday.

I melted cheese on the roll in our toaster oven
and then piled on ham, fresh tomato, cucumber and lettuce.


When I got home tonight, I couldn't wait to pour myself a drink and try out the 'Whiskey Stones' that Cameron bought me for my housewarming present. They are an awesome idea!! Instead of adding ice blocks to your drink, you add these stones that you keep in the freezer. That way, your drink stays cold and doesn't become diluted as the ice melts.


Whiskey Stones


Dinner
Creamy Chicken, Leek & Carrot Pies with mashed Pumpkin & Potato

Wednesday 6th July 2011

Tonight I had a few friends over for dinner. I am enjoying the freedom to entertain in my own house!

We started with some nibblies and got stuck straight into the wine.

We had Chorizo & Fennel soup for entree but I forgot to take a photo!


For mains we had homemade burgers! I made the patties with beef mince, bread crumbs, an egg, herbs and spices to season, onion and garlic. I panfried them and then placed them on a burger bun and melted cheese over it in the grill.

Fresh sliced tomato, lettuce and sauce finished it off!
Served with some homemade Cajun Wedges.

I didn't have time to make dessert so I picked up a Sara Lee Apple & Berry Pie.


Another successful dinner!