Sunday 28th June '09

Breakfast
Toasted Lettuce & Cheese Sandwiches

Yep that right, this actually was breakfast, eaten during proper breakfast hours of the day. I had these yesterday morning as well. For these toasties, you need the older style sandwich toasters that seal the edges of the sandwich so the heat melts the cheese and the lettuce goes soggy and nothing spills out the sides. It's delicious!!

Lunch at Work
Mum's Pork Rib soup with Carrots, Potato & Cabbage


Afternoon Snack at Work
Chicken & Marjoram Pie
I made these a few nights ago. My marjoram in the garden is growing like crazy and I've been meaning to use some to make pies for a while now. I made the filling mixture with garlic, onion, lots of marjoram, leek and diced chicken.

I lined some ramikins with shortcrust pastry.

Next, I spooned the filling into each one and added some grated cheese.

I used the remaining shortcrust pastry to cover the ramikins, but didn't have quite enough so had to improvise. I brushed some egg yolk over the pastry and then into the oven for about twenty minutes until the pastry cooked and was golden brown.

Saturday 27th June '09

After work I picked Long up and we had coffee in East Perth before fetching Ivy from work. We went to get dinner takeaway in the city. We had our stomachs and hearts set on a big bowl of ramen but the place we wanted to go to was closed! We walked around for a bit and then finally decided on an Indonesian restaurant that we walked past.


INDONESIA INDAH HALAL RESTAURANT
120 Barrack Street, Perth CBD

Rendang Sapi
dry curried beef using many spices and coconut milk

Ayam Gulai
mild chicken curry

Ayam Goreng
marinated fried chicken

Udang Petai Belado
panfried prawns with petai and cooked in chilli

The menu spells 'petai' as 'petay' so when I googled the word to see what it was...*giggle*

Sate - Chicken
chicken satays

Sambal Terasi
hot chilli sauce

The flavour of the chicken curry was good, although it felt like we didn't get much chicken. It was mostly bones. The serves weren't that large either. There were three big chunks of beef in the rendang, several boney pieces of chicken in the curry, three pieces of the fried chicken, and the six satays. The satays were $2.15 per stick! The prawns were probably the only dish worth the $12. Long pretty much finished most of the sambal chilli on his own. Overall, the food was fine but I reckon it wasn't worth the $78 we paid for it. That's right - the bill came to $78. Even with the four rectangular takeaway containers of steamed rice, it still was pricey.

Ivy and the new Sara Lee cheesecake minis

They were yummy - just like the ordinary Sara Lee cheesecakes. I get the smaller pieces for entertaining purposes...but can't we just cut up a larger cheesecake into small slices!?

Benoit's tank - it's so pretty!

We went to watch the Transformers 2 movie tonight. We went through the drive-thru at Maccas to get snacks.

me doing a cone...of sorts

The movie was awesome! I loved all the action and the guns and airstrikes! Long loved it to and we were high-fiving each other during the movie. Afterwards, we tried to get a shot of us high-fiving each other infront of the Transformers cardboard poster.

robots in disguise

We went to Oriels to get supper but their kitchen had closed so some of us had cake. I had a short macchiato with soy milk which I didn't think was worth taking a photo of. So sleepy!

Friday 26th June '09

Dinner
Lemon Pepper Barramundi
with Saffron & Prawn Risotto

For the barramundi I wrapped it in some aluminium foil with some lemon zest and cracked black pepper and baked it in the oven for about ten minutes.

For the risotto - I sauteed some diced onion and crushed garlic in a pan with some olive oil. I added some diced zucchini and tomato and fried this for a few minutes. Next, I added some arborio rice and fried this for a few minutes before adding some vegetable stock. The trick is to add the stock a little at a time, let the rice simmer and then add more stock so that it doesn't dry out. Just before the rice was cooked through, I added some prawns and saffron threads that I'd been soaking in some warm water. I love risotto!

Dessert
Raspberry muffin with Cream

I really wanted some cream to go with the muffin but all I had was cooking cream in the fridge. It had to do!

Thursday 25th June '09

Dinner
Lamb Shanks
with Potato & Sweet Potato Mash

Wednesday 24th June '09

Last week I snapped up a spare ticket from Andrea for the Ross Noble show tonight. I rugged up nice and warm and drove out in the miserably wet weather to meet for dinner. We planned to catch the bus from Wellington Street to get to the show venue so dinner in the city made sense.

43 BELOW43 Barrack Street, Perth CBD

Tapas
Arancini Balls

Poppers - crumbed Jalopenos stuffed with 3 Cheeses

Dip Plate - Toasted Turkish Bread
with balsamic vinegar & olive oil,
Kalamata olives & dip

I'm not quite sure what the dip was - some sort of capsicum relish? I actually don't think I tried any. We were told that the kitchen ran out of the marinated octopus that came with this dish, so in its place they gave us some marinated soft shell crab. Actually, they gave us one soft shell crab that was cut into two pieces.


The arancini balls were delicious and morish. I just had to ask that we order a serve of the 'Poppers' again because I absolutely loved them last time. They did not disappoint! I seemed to be the only one that didn't find them the least bit fiery - just sweet with a tinge of heat just as a jalopenos should be.


Mains
Andrea: Thai Green Chicken Curry

Cameron & Myself: Scotch Fillet with a Vegetable Pave
with Prawns & Scallops

The mains were, honestly, rather dismal. Andrea's curry looked like something you'd get served to you in a food court. There was a generous portion of chicken but that was pretty much it...lots of chunky pieces of chicken with rice that appeared rather dry.

The steak Cameron and I had was ok but nothing special. The prawns weren't deveined and tasted rather mushy. I was interested to see what Definitely was not worth the $29.50 we paid for it.

I think we'll stick to the tapas next time.



After dinner, we caught a taxi to Challenge Stadium. The show was fantastic! There was a round raised platform in the centre of the stadium and we sat all around it. Ross Noble performed on the stage, sharing with us his high energy antics and oh so so funny humour. There were also four large screens above him so we could watch his closeups. We were skeptical about such a large venue but it definitely was much better than His Majesty's Theatre where I last saw him performs a few years ago.


Back at home, I had a bowl of soup, took my cold & flu tablets and crawled into bed.

Tuesday 23rd June '09

I slept in until the afternoon.

"Breakfast"
Mum's Fried Rice with Lap Cheong

Lap cheong is a Chinese sausage that you can buy prepackaged in vacuum-sealed bags from any Asian grocery store and I believe even the supermarkets such as Coles and Woolworths carry them too. As a kid, Mum used to make rice in the rice cooker and when the rice was cooked, she'd put the lap cheong into the cooker so that they'd heat up with the steam from the hot rice. The sausages are made of pork and are rather fatty. I remember the oil/fat oozing out of the slices. Yum! Mum usually uses bacon in her fried rice but she must have been clearing out the pantry and found some.

I made my provolone potato gratin

Dinner
Rosemary & Thyme Lamb Chops
Provolone Potato Gratin

Mum also made a big pot of soup. She made the soup base with some pork ribs and then added lots of cabbage, carrot, potato and tomato. The pork ribs make such a deliciously sweet soup! I polished off most of the soup and Jocelyn managed to get a few bowls herself before it was all gone.


This cold is being persistent...I'm so thankful the doctor gave me a medical certificate to cover the next few days. All I can manage to do is sleep all day, get up and make dinner and then go back to bed.

Monday 22nd June '09

At home, Mum made a stirfry for me to have with rice porridge tomorrow if I felt like it.

Salted Fish & Bean Shoots Stirfry

It was difficult to cook dinner tonight. My heart just wasn't in it. I wanted to be in bed. However, I had a scotch steak in the fridge that needed to be cooked tonight.

I fried the steak and used the pan juices to make a red wine jus with mushrooms. I also made some couscous and stuffed it into a capsicum.



Dinner
Scotch Steak with a Red Wine Jus & Mushrooms
Capsicum stuffed with Couscous

I managed to eat about half before I felt sick. I needed some soup.

Roasted Fennel Soup

1. Roughly chop a large fennel bulb, a brown onion and peel several cloves of garlic and roast with a drizzle of olive oil in the oven for about half an hour until they start to brown.
   
2. In a pot, combine 1/2cup milk and 1 1/2cup chicken or vegetable stock. Add the roasted vegetables, season with salt and pepper and bring the mixture to a boil.
   
3. Simmer the mixture for about ten minutes and then process the mixture.
   
4. Return the pureed soup to the pot and reheat before serving.

I served the soup with some deepfried shallots and a sprig of the fennel that I kept aside earlier. Now this is what you need when you're feeling sick.

Sunday 21st June '09

I really didn't want to go to work this morning but it was too late notice to get someone else to do my shift. I doped myself up on cold and flu tablets and somehow managed to get through the day.

At home, Mum had made some soup so I had some of that.

Mum's chicken, shitake & abalone soup

Alas! Mum didn't have enough time to cook the abalone so instead of being tender and juicy, it was rather hard and tasted like dried up bread. The rest of the soup was fantastic though. She's going to give them some extra cooking time tomorrow to get them to how they should be.

When I'm sick, there's nothing I love more than a big bowl of comfort food. This is usually rice porridge or some hot noodle soup. Guess which I had tonight?

Dinner
Bee Hoon soup with Beef Balls & Stuffed Chillies

Sometimes I like to add some cloves into the soup base

Later that night, Jocelyn and I both found ourselves in the kitchen debating on a snack. We felt like toasted sandwiches but all the bread was in the freezer so I used some pita bread and toasted some tuna, sliced onion and lots of cheese.

Late Night Snack
Wholemeal Pita with Tuna, Onion & Cheese

Finally...I get a few days to try to shake this cold.

Saturday 20th June '09

When I woke up this morning, I was feeling like shite and hit the snooze on my alarm. Only to be woken up ten minutes before I was supposed to be at work by Dad. Argh! I dragged myself out of bed and managed to get to work. I thought I'd at least get the morning start up done and then go home. This didn't happen though because I was so doped up on cold and flu tablets, I didn't think I would make the drive home since I'm prone to feeling drowsy after taking them.

For lunch, Andrea had suggested we do a BBQ cook up so luckily I had grabbed some frozen prawns and chicken kebabs from the freezer on the way out the door. Andrea was the good little slave and cooked all the food and served it to me.

Andrea's vegetable kebabs
my chicken kebabs marinated in five spice

Andrea's marinated prawns

Andrea bought these satay beef kebabs

Andrea throwing our shrimp on the barbie

I can't really remember but I think Andrea marinated her prawns with some chilli, parsley, olive oil and lemon juice. I'm pretty sure mine were marinated with ginger, coriander, lemon juice and olive oil. They made for two different tastes - but both were plump, juicy prawns!

I wish my throat didn't burn so much each time I swallowed and that my nose wasn't so congested. I would have been able to enjoy this lunch much more. I could have tasted the flavours much better. While at lunch, the doctor had time to see me. She reassured me that I couldn't possibly have the swine flu (however it's possible that I could because I've been exposed to several patients who have been suspected of having swine flu or who have family members who have tested positive) but recommended that I take several days off work to shake this flu that I definitely do have.

When I got home from work, I had a cup of tea and was trying to decide whether to stay home in bed or keep my dinner plans. I decided to throw on a scarf and went out. It's only Victoria Park and I'll promise to come straight home after dinner.


TEN TEN
I met Ramona, Marissa, Teresa and Bronwyn for dinner tonight. We were all rugged up and it was pleasantly warm inside the restaurant.

kang kong with sambal

sizzling beef with garlic

half a steamed Hainan chicken

deepfried duck with plum sauce

The duck was absolutely beautiful! I finished off the last piece!

Marissa and Ramona had deepfried ice cream

we loved this cute Buddha statue at the counter

Marissa offered to make us her 'Marissa's Mess' dessert back at her place but I kept my promise and went home. I was so tempted to make a left turn and go, but I thought for once I should listen to my sore throat and sniffly nose and go home to get some rest.