March 2009 Archives

I've had my eye on this recipe from Donna Hay's Modern Classics 2 book since I was given the book by DK The Elder, but I've only just given it a go in the last week because of the recent acquisition of the food processor.   Despite having to boil oranges for an hour or so to get them soft before pureeing them in the food processor, it all came together quite easily.

So, because a box of Brazilian Pudding Pocky made its way to a workmate in a branch office, a couple of cans of this Guarana drink made its way to my desk.  I finally remembered to bring it home and give it decent time in the fridge to cool down, and cracked it open to try yesterday afternoon.   It tastes kind of like ... a not as sweet kind of creamy soda.   Quite refreshing, and the contents of the can was finished pretty quickly (although, one of the things I seem to now be able to do is finish my glass of drink (non-alcoholic) far quicker than I used to manage - not sure why!).  I let my fingers do the googling, and found out that the fruit of the guarana plant kind of looks like eyeballs when you split them open. 

Having been at the same workplace for 5 years got me a pen holder, pen, framed certificate, and gift vouchers ... and the gift vouchers went towards the food processor you see on the left in the above picture.  Reading reviews of this particular model had me a little wary (given the low review volume for Australia I'm hoping it was just a quirk, because reviews in the UK seem be good), but we have one now, and so far, it's pureed a small can of tomatoes (in the mini bowl), and it's pureed a couple of boiled-for-an-hour oranges, without falling apart.  My one stipulation in the food processor choosing criteria was that it would be easy to clean - all the plastic (and glass) parts can go in the dishwasher, and it's still easy to clean if you're hand-washing.  The plastic will break if you drop it, though.  Which is what happened to the thing that goes in the feeding tube in the lid for the bowl.   It's still usable though - just an edge chipped off. It's definitely not the food processor I'd recommend if you were severely short on space (unless you were going for the one thing that could do everything, and with the number of attachments this thing comes with you might just get away with it).

The right is the Kenwood Chef, that was given to us by DKtE for our wedding, and it's been through many cakes, doughs, cookies, creams, meringues, and other random baking hijinks.  It doesn't feel quite as sturdy as the Kenwood Chef my parents had, but it does what I want most of the time. For whatever bizarre reason in my head, there's still some things that I prefer doing by hand (like mixing up choc chip cookie dough).   I'm sure there was a train of thought somewhere here ... but my brain's telling me that sleep would be useful!

Yesterday, we went cemetery visiting, and we brought a bunch of food along with us to offer to various ancestors.   Of course, all this food-offering then means there's a bit of a food-up afterwards, so that we've all shared in the food that we offered. 

Yesterday, a small package arrived in the mail, more exciting than the usual bills and things addressed to people who don't live here.  I'd made a small order with Vanilla Products USA on ebay, hoping that the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service would deem this safe to deliver.  They had indeed opened the package to inspect it, and declared it all clear to deliver to us, which is how we've found ourselves with ... 40 vanilla bean pods! Decay is kind of wondering what I actually planned to do with so many vanilla bean pods (and I'd actually only ordered the smallest sample pack, another 10 were thrown in as a bonus), and at the moment, some of them are destined to turn some vodka into some vanilla extract, and the others are more than likely going to be put to use in whatever randomness I happen to bake. 

We had a bit of a deli-spread kind of lunch for our Monday public holiday - slices of sopressa, jarlsberg, a few dips (roasted eggplant cashew and parmesan, spring onion, and roasted capsicum),  and a breadstick.   X got some bread, had some cheese, and a little bit of the spring onion dip on a bit of bread.  Yum!

We've also had sopressa on pizza, and toasted cheese sandwiches made with the leftover jarlsberg previously - not sure how the leftovers this time will end up being used!

So, after all that, what did we have?  G had the Chicken Dijonnaise and a mug of Broccoli Parmesan soup, Decay had the 'lite' serving of the Blackened Prime Rib, I had a Grilled steak sandwich and a mug of the soup as well, and X and L shared with us.  G and I went with Lemon Lime and Bitters for drinks, and Decay asked for a beer.  Didn't get to specify what kind of beer, but it turned up, and Decay's well-informed tastebuds tell us it was Carlton Draught.   In case anyone else ever ends up here and asks for a beer, but doesn't get to specify what kind of beer they'd like.

The food was food, L ate a variety of vegetables from G's plate, and asked for lots of chippies, X had some chippies (they were curly!), gummed up a bit of the steak from my steak sandwich, had some bread, and they both had some of the broccoli parmesan soup (once it had cooled down enough). 

Now that we've tried this, it's not ridiculously daunting to be going out for dinner with two kidlings, it probably helps to choose places that aren't super uptight, but at least it felt like we were a step or two up from eating at McD's or someting!

O. M. G.

(TV ad for it here)

With thanks to Slashfood