Thursday 20th December 2012

WORK XMAS LUNCH

I made Nachos with Jalopenos.
Mini Quiches and Sausage Rolls

Brendan's Beef & Guinness Pie

Something healthy - a Spinach and Beetroot Salad!

Monday 17th December 2012

ENDLESS DELIGHT CHINESE RESTAURANT
145 Newcastle Street, Perth

After visiting our friends in hospital, the happy new parents of a gorgeous little girl, we had a craving for Chinese food. With lots and lots of ginger.

Why?

In Chinese custom, after the birth of your child, the mother is 'confined' to indoors and fed dishes containing 'heating' ingredients like ginger, sesame oil and black vinegar, for the first month. These days, there are those Chinese who follow it and those who don't. Even those who follow it tend to pick and choose what rules they will follow, with showering and hair washing being the most commonly abandoned. Let's face it, who is going to go without a shower for a month!?

Anyhow, the new mother's mother is following the tradition to see her daughter through the confinement period and so she's bringing delicious meals to her in hospital (and will continue to cook for her for the next month) and we were all hungry for ginger after leaving the hospital!

So we quickly settled on meeting in Northbridge and finding a Chinese restaurant.

We thought with a name like this, we must find endless deliciousness!

Mah Poh Tofu

Schezuan Beef

Chicken

Chinese Vegetables with Garlic and Soy Sauce

Hot and Sour Soup

Dumplings

I've never seen them do this with dumplings before! It looks like they make a little crepe that cooksk in the bottom of the pan, with the dumplings on top of it, but then they flip it all over onto a plate so that the crepe is actually over the top of the dumplings!

We couldn't find any dishes containing ginger as a main ingredient, but we did find the food surprisingly good! Very basic flavours and it didn't leave us feeling like we'd eaten alot of oil. Very much like food we'd eat at home if our parents cooked it.

I must satisfy my ginger craving another way...

Sunday 16th December 2012

ATRIUM at CROWN PERTH

A highly anticipated brunch with the ladies!

We arrived early and were pleasantly surprised to be seated in a little private room just off the main dining area. It gave us a bit more room and we didn't have to worry about the diners around us and let loose the chatter and laughter.

The food was great! Nice and fresh, with a huge selection. I headed straight for the seafood!

Round 1

The cockles were gorgeous! We agreed that they must be cooked in some olive oil with very simple flavours of garlic and sundried tomato with some herbs. Delish! The oysters were also very fresh. I tried to fish out the ones that sat on the bottom or that were covered in ice.

Round 2

The Dim Sum morsels left alot to be desired, unfortunately. I was really disappointed with the har gow. It was all pastry with hardly any prawn meat inside. I think out of all the food, the dim sum was the least impressive. It didn't even look appealing. It looked worse (and tasted) than some of the cheapest places in Perth that I've been to.


Round 3

As the morning wore on, some of the dishes were being replaced by the lunch menu. The Peking Duck was soooo good! Tender, juicy pieces of duck!

Round 4

I went back for a few more rounds of the cockles and smoked salmon. Yum! They would be awesome with some pasta. Too bad most of us had somewhere to go for lunch otherwise we could have stayed there until 2pm eating our way through brunch to lunch. For $59 and 5 hours of eating, that's not bad value. Ooh, and champagne is included! Too bad I had to drive =/ so I only had a few.

Dessert!

I actually enjoyed the desserts this time. In the past I've found them all bland and lacking in flavour and texture. Today the chocolate mousse was a dark delight and the berries were sweet and delicious! I actually ate all these on my plate!

Thursday 13th December 2012

Dinner
Garlic Chilli Prawn Linguine


Wednesday 12th December 2012

Lunch
Chicken Enchilada with Chips

This afternoon the neighbour's kids came over and, just as we made gingerbread cookies last year and decorated them, I made gingerbread houses this year and I let them decorate them. They decorated one for themselves to take home and one for me to keep for my Boxing Day BBQ. I actually wanted to make lots of little houses but the cutter kit I bought from Kmart made large houses and I really could not be bothered to cut my own templates out of baking paper.


I had baked all the pieces last night and they had all night and day to cool completely. I made a batch of royal icing and after failed attempts to try to squeeze it through piping bags, I used a spatula and spread it over the edges of the gingerbread pieces to build the houses. I was worried that the icing wouldn't hold since the pieces were pretty large, but the icing set pretty fast. I used some mugs to keep the walls upright until the icing set.

The kids were also very careful not to push too hard onto the houses when decorating them. No breakages!

I gave the kids free reign over how they wanted to decorate the houses. I suggested prior to today that they google some examples so that they would have some ideas and they quickly set to work.

The house they are taking home.

It comes complete with a little car!

It's nice to start little traditions in my own home. Wonder what we can do next year!

Tuesday 11th December 2012


Tonight I had a few friends over for dinner. The main course was Chicken Enchiladas and I then continued the Mexican theme for the sides. I made a simple garden salad and a corn salsa. I love making a corn salsa with a can of sweet corn kernels, some finely diced capsicum, red onion and maybe throw in some cannelini beans. I season it with some ground cumin and coriander and sweet paprika. No need for dressing! Perhaps a dash of olive oil or white balsamic vinegar.

Mini Pavlovas for dessert!

After dinner, Yeno stayed behind to help me make some gingerbread dough. After much deliberation, we finally decided to roll out, cut and bake at least the pieces for one gingerbread house to make sure the dough was ok. She went home at about midnight and I stayed up another few hours to bake the rest of the dough. Might as well...it'll be too warm to bake during the day.

Saturday 8th December 2012

LEEDERVILLE FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS

This was such an awesome event! The main streets of Leederville were closed off to traffic and there were heaps of street stalls selling an array of gorgeous homemade wares and foods. We arrived a little late and weren't hungry enough to sample any of the foods but we enjoyed the live music being played by the musicians on the double decker bus that acted as the stage.

Must remember this event for next year!

Sunday 2nd December 2012

Breakfast at Benoit's.

Saturday 1st December 2012

Dinner
Prawn Laksa with Eggplant

Tuesday 27th November 2012

Dinner
Oven Baked Ling with Truss Tomatoes and Broccoli

Monday 26th November 2012

I'm trying to clear out my freezer so I brought some food into work today for no reason.

Portuguese Chicken Drumsticks on a bed of Cous Cous with Pinenuts.

I keep the pan juices from the cooked chicken and mix that into the cous cous to flavour it.

With some pork mince I thawed out from the freezer, I fried some leek and onion up with ground cumin and coriander and mixed it through the mince to make these sausage rolls. Yum!


DINNER AT FLEUR & NOEL'S

We were treated to an Indian feast tonight at our dear friends' home!

The main Beef dish - I forget what it was!

Dhal

Raita

Paneer Curry

Roti

For dessert - these Paneer balls soaked in yoghurt.

Sarah brought a massage fruit platter!

Wednesday 21st November 2012

MILKD
45 Eighth Avenue, Maylands

Open Chicken Sandwich

Tuesday 20th November 2012

Dinner
Steak Dinner

Saturday 17th November 2012


I have always wanted to make chicken liver pate.

I have always been too lazy to commit to actually doing it.

Until tonight.

A few days ago, the boss at work bought some chicken livers and only need a few tiny pieces for work, so instead of wasting the rest of the livers, I put my hand up to take them home and make pate.

That was a few days ago. I have been procrastinating since!

But, tonight I needed to get it done or else the livers would be wasted.

So...I googled a few recipes and settled on one that was inspired by Maggie Beer's Pates. Surely I can't go wrong with that!? Here's the link.

I began by trimming any remaining bits of gristle off the livers. Fortunately, these livers from IGA were actually really neatly trimmed already.

Next step, fry them in some butter.


Next, throw them in the food processor with a whole block of butter and puree.

Yes, more butter. How do you say 'quadruple bypass' in French?

I don't have a food processor or blender so I was really crossing my fingers that my stick mixer would work. I really didn't want chunks of buttery liver hurling around my kitchen.


Aah, the puree. The colour of it was totally disgusting, I have to admit.

I poured the puree into some ramekins and the last step was to make the gelee cap and pour that over the top of the pate and then let it all set in the fridge.

You need to allow the flavours to develop overnight - I'll take them to work tomorrow! I must say, they look absolutely gorgeous!!