On The Road Again....

This year I was lucky enough to receive an all expenses paid weekend away to St Helens (on the east coast of Tassie) as a birthday gift from Mum and Dad. They thought it would be a nice chance for OH and I to have a relaxing weekend away together before wedding fever sets in and they were right. We had the most beautiful, relaxing and peaceful weekend. Let me show you why....

When we arrived in the room there was a huge box of chocolates and a card waiting from Mum and Dad....


The view from the deck at our room....


On the first night we were treated to a delicious 3 course meal in the resort's restaurant so of course we took the opportunity to get all dressed up! It was a lovely evening, sitting in our big leather chairs, enjoying our delicious 3 course meal whilst taking in the ocean views....it doesn't get much better then that!


We were also lucky enough to have a continental breakfast included in our package and by god did we make the most of it! We stuffed ourselves with fresh fruit, yoghurt, muesli and hot buttery toast all washed down with a hot cup of tea and that kept us going all day!


First stop for the day was The Shop in the Bush - a bric a brac shop out in the middle of nowhere where we spent up big on vintage jewellery and even did some early Christmas shopping!


Then we went back down the road to Binalong Bay. The views were just stunning and we spent a long time clambering and climbing over the rocks along the beach, exploring the rock pools and just being big kids and you know what, it felt great! Although OH did manage to get nipped by a crab....but let's be honest, it was hilarious!




In the afternoon we stopped at a beach down near Scamander and played in the sand. Just something about being with the people you love, being out in the fresh air, it just makes you feel alive....


That night we took ourselves down to the waterfront for a swanky dinner at a restaurant built out over the water. Another night filled with gorgeous water views and amazing food!

The next morning we arrived bright and early for brekkie and filled our table up with another smorgasboard of fruit, cereal, yoghurt, toast, tea, coffee and of course, the newspaper! We literally did not eat for the rest of the day!! We had a pretty full on day though so we needed all that extra energy! We took the long route home so we could stop at a few spots on the way. The first one we stopped at was St Columbus Falls and at a height of 90m, they really were an amazing sight.




Our next stop was just up the road at Russel Falls....unfortunately there wasn't alot of water coming over the falls, but the view out over the valley was worth the walk in.


And our last stop on the journey home was at Legerwood. Many many years ago a row of trees was planted in the main street as a memorial to all the soldiers from the town who had fought and died in WW1, but as time passed the trees were deemed to be dangerous and it was decided they were to be cut down. A local artist came to the rescue and using a chainsaw, made these amazing wood carvings out of the trees. Each one represents a soldier from the town and his particular story. Not only do they look incredible, but I think they make a lovely memorial to the town's fallen soldiers.


And that was our weekend away!

As always it was nice to get home, but sad that such an amazing trip had to come to an end! Not long now till the wedding and our mini-moon though!! And after the excitement from all that dies down, we have the honeymoon!! Exciting times ahead!!

Em x

Happy Birthday to Me!!!!!

Well I survived another birthday....

OH went to work early, but never fear, Mum and Dad had taken the day off work to spend with me and they showed up nice and early, bearing the essentials - cupcakes, candles and coffee!

Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to meeeeeeeee Happy Birthday to me!


Check out the cake OH made for me! I think he has been holding out! Under all that delicious vanilla frosting is an even more delicious moist chocolate cake!! But the only problem is it's just too cute to cut and eat! He has been locked in the kitchen every night this week and I can see why! I just love it!!

After breakfast Mum, Dad and I went to see Red Dog at the State Cinema (have to love a cinema that allows you to take a wine or a coffee in with you!). It was a great movie, very funny but also very sad and had all 3 of us sniffling into our cups of tea!


Next stop after lunch was a peak around some shoe shops in town....Dad did very well, ferrying shoes back and forth from the shelves while Mum and I tried on everything we could get our hands on....suprisingly though we walked out empty handed (I know!! I mean who walks out of a shoe shop on their birthday with no shoes!?).

Then we went to the Lansdowne Cafe for lunch. For a small, quiet, out of the way cafe, it was packed! And when our meals arrived we could see why!


Mum and I both had this Roast Vegie Stack with Grilled Polenta and it was amazing, two crispy pieces of polenta piled high with roasted zucchini, sweet potato, eggplant, tomato, spinach and caramelised onions, OMG Yum!!!! Dad had a toasted chicken, avocado and brie panini which looked pretty damn tasty too!


After lunch we did a small spot of window shopping down at Sandy Bay to try and walk off some of that lunch....which is just as well - little did I know I had to make room for dessert........


......because our next stop was the Pancake Train at Margate! The 3 of us shared this pancake topped with chocolate mousse, whipped cream and praline, it was heavenly (and next time I'm not sharing!).

We piled back into the car and headed for home where I was spoilt rotten with presents ranging from books to jewellery to silk scarves and this stunning lady (and the shoe box too!)

Then it was back into the car to go and have a look at Mum and Dad's new block of land which is just up the road from our place. They will be selling their sweet little cottage and building a new whizz bang house so stay tuned for updates on that!


We arrived back home to OH dancing around in the driveway because apparently we only had 10 mins to make it to our dinner booking - noone tells me these things! So I farewelled Mum and Dad and hopped in the car with OH. We arrived (just in the nick of time!) at the Pontville Pub for dinner. Pontville Pub is a great little pub with fantastic counter meals and because it was my birthday I treated myself to a parmy and it was sooooo worth it!! After tea we went home, tried a piece of OH's skull cake (yuuuuummmm!!) and then I opened my presents from OH. The pièce de résistance.....


....a rocking chair....a few months ago, we were talking about eventually having the pitter patter of little feet in our house and I was saying how much I would love to have a rocking chair in our nursery...and now I do! Although I don't have a nursery yet! Or even the need to have a nursery (I should make that very clear in case my Dad reads this!!) but it still makes me smile....and in the mean time I have somewhere comfy to read all my new books!

Thank you to everyone for making the day so special and for spoiling me rotten as usual!! OH and I are leaving today for 2 nights up at St Helens on the east coast, I can't wait....but if I don't get out of bed and go pack we won't be going anywhere!!

Em x

Chorizo, Pumpkin and Fetta Quiche

I don't know about you, but I've been interviewing all day...I like interviewing, it breaks the day up, you meet new people, but a whole day of it is a loooonng time in the one room, asking the same questions over and over and honestly after 4 hours I was starving!!!

So when I got home tonight, my brain was fried and I needed something easy, something tasty....something like this!


Chorizo, Pumpkin and Fetta Quiche

1 red onion cut into thin wedges
1 tspn crushed garlic
1 tspn crushed wet herbs (such as rosemary, thyme and parsley)
100g chorizo thinly sliced
1 zucchini thinly sliced
400g pumpkin peeled and thinly sliced
100g fetta cubed
6 eggs
1/3 cup milk

Add onion and herbs to a fry pan over medium heat and cook, stirring for 3-4 mins. Add the chorizo and cook for 3-4 mins or until lightly browned. Add zucchini and pumpkin, cooking for 8-10 mins or until pumpkin begins to soften.

Transfer mixture to a greased quiche dish and scatter with fetta.

Combine the eggs and milk in a jug, being sure to whisk well.

Pour the egg mixture evenly over the pumpkin mix.

Bake at 180C for around 15-20 mins or until puffed and golden and the egg is set.

You should get 4 serves out of this and we just had our with some steamed vegies.

I must say though, the leftovers are delicious cold on their own or in a sandwich!!

OH tells me I'm odd...but I can not be the only person who likes cold quiche / frittata in a sandwich....am I?? Come on guys (and gals) back me up here!!!

Em x

Strawberries and Cream Mud Cake

So I suppose there is no point avoiding it....tomorrow is my birthday. I mean seriously didn't we just do this like not that long ago? I can't believe how fast it has come around....but nonetheless, yes it is tomorrow. And as I firmly believe it is wrong wrong wrong to work on your birthday, I thought I better take a cake into work with me today.

I thought about it for a long time and went through many recipe books trying to figure out what to make. Something new? Something bold? A tried and true favourite? But no matter how many books and web sites I looked at, nothing really grabbed me as something that I would like to make for MY birthday cake. So then I sat down to think about what sort of cake would I really like, what sort of flavours do I love? I knew I wanted something that involved fruit, something that was not too rich, something that I hadn't made before....well I've never made a mud cake before....but not a chocolate mud cake, that would be far too rich....how about a white chocolate one? But then how to incorporate the fruit....I know! A Strawberries and Cream Mud Cake! I couldn't find any recipes that matched the vision I had going in my head so instead I found a really great white chocolate mud cake recipe and decided to just kind of wing it from there!

Strawberries and Cream Mud Cake (adapted from Exclusively Food)

For the Cake:
450g of white chocolate (I used 2 x 220g blocks of Dream)
300g butter
1 cup of caster sugar
1.5 cups milk
3 tspns vanilla
3 eggs
1 cup self raising flour
1.5 cups plain flour
2 tbspns strawberry essence
Pink food dye

Pre-heat oven to 160C (145C fan forced). Grease and line a 28cm round springform tin. (Just for the record I hate lining springform tins, but for this recipe I just placed a sheet of baking paper over the bottom tray, sealed the tin around it and let the overhang bits just kinda hang out the bottom of the tin.)

In a large bowl, combine the chocolate, butter, milk, sugar and vanilla. Microwave in 40 second bursts, stirring in between, until the chocolate has melted and all ingredients are combined. Let it sit and cool for a minute or two.

Add the eggs to the mixture and stir well.

Add the sifted flours and mix until all the lumps are gone.

Now remove just under half of the mixture to a seperate bowl. To this bowl add the strawberry essence and 2-3 drops of the food dye. Give it a good stir.

Pour half of the plain mixture into the tin. Top with half of the pink mixture. Use a skewer to swirl the two mixtures together - being careful not to rip the baking paper underneath. Top with the remaining plain mixture and then the pink mixture, again swirling the two layers together with a skewer.

Bake in the oven for anywhere between 75 and 100 mins....mine took about an hour and a half. It really depends on your oven so once it hits the 75 mark just keep an eye on it and as soon as a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean it's done.

Let the cake sit and cool for 10-15 mins before you try and remove it from the pan :)

Now while the cake is cooking you can make the frosting!

For the Frosting:
375g white chocolate melted
300ml thickened cream
2 cups icing sugar
2 tbpsns strawberry jam

Combine all the ingredients in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat well for 3-4 mins. You may need to add more cream / icing sugar depending on the consistency your after. Once the cake has cooled, cover with frosting.

(Now here I have to recommend putting the cake in the fridge overnight. Purely because it allows the flavours to develop even more.)

This frosting was great, it had a subtle strawberry flavour, but maintained the creaminess of the white chocolate and, of course, the cream. Also with all that chocolate in there, it sets nice and firm once you put it in the fridge, not solid, but firm and then as you bring the cake to room temp (like you should before serving a mud cake) it just softens beautifully. And just before you serve the cake, top it with gorgeous fresh strawberries....

Everyone at work brought something in for morning tea and the sneaky buggers presented me with a bouquet of baby pink carnations, aswell as a card signed by everyone. I felt very very spoilt.

I have to say the cake was delicious, I was really proud of how it came out. It has that dense moist mud cakey texture and the flavours were not over whelming but they were simple and subtle and it was exactly what I wanted it to be :)

Em x

WW Card File Challenge #7 Beef Curry

....with apples and bananas?? OH was going through the card file looking for something to make this week and this one was just too weird to pass up! We have made a mango chicken curry with apples before, but a beef curry with apples and bananas sounded very interesting and we just had to try it!


It was actually dead easy and one of the tastiest curry sauces we have had for a long time, not to mention the beef was melt in your mouth tender!!

And this is how it's done....

500g beef steak cut into cubes (2cm x 2cm ish)
1 tbspn butter
1 x onion diced
1 x apple diced
1 x banana diced
1 tbspn curry powder
2 tbspns plain flour
1.5 cups water
1 beef stock cube
2 tspns brown sugar
Salt and Pepper
Pappadums and Steamed Rice to Serve

Spray a fry pan with oil and add the beef. Cook over medium high heat until browned. Remove the beef from the pan and add the onion and butter, cooking for 1-2 mins.
Add the onion, banana and curry powder. Cook for a further 2 minutes before adding the flour. Stir well and cook for 2-3 minutes.

Add the water, crumbled stock cube, brown sugar and season with salt and pepper. Bring rhe sauce to the boil, stirring well, until it thickens. Add the meat and simmer for 30-40 mins until the meat is tender.

Serve with steamed rice in pappadums!

Yum yum yum, did I mention this is one of the nicest curry sauces I have tried?? This would be a perfect sauce for curried sausages too as it is nice and thick, not to mention packed full of flavour....it does have a bit of kick to it though so be warned, but the sweetness of the apple kind of off sets that. I will say though that it was a bit hard to tell the banana was in there as it breaks down and disappears during cooking, but I think it adds to the creaminess of the sauce maybe? Either way, this dish is a great way to hide fruit and vegies from fussy kids (and adults!).

Hope you all had a fantastic Monday and are all set for the week ahead of you!

Em x

Fathers Day 2011

Today is Fathers Day so what better way to start the day then with this gorgeous fruit platter....


Then we went to have a beer with OH's Dad, Dad's Dad and Mum's Dad before going to a local seafood cafe for lunch...I have to say lunch was so good I forgot to take photos, but let's just say there were sweet potato cakes, tempura mushrooms and fish burgers and it was good!!

We finished the day off with some presents and a quiet drink at Mum and Dads...but the best Fathers Day present ever?! Dad and I going on our first bike run together :)


HAPPY FATHERS DAY DAD!

Em x

Caramel Nut Clusters and THAT cake!

Well with Fathers Day fast approaching I thought I better pull my finger out and make something for my Dad. Last year I baked and baked and baked for his Fathers Day present, but this year he is on a health kick so I toned it down a bit.

A few weeks ago at work, one of the ladies made this heavenly caramel nut slice that we all drooled over and she was nice enough to give us all the recipe so we could try it for ourselves. Initially I started off following the recipe, but then I decided to make some small tweeks here and there and this is how it ended up.



All you need is:

1.5 cups crushed biscuits
125g melted butter
1.5 cups crushed nuts (I used peanuts and walnuts)
1 cup dessicated coconut
1 tin condensed milk
.5 cup dark choc bits
.5 cup sultanas

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and mix well.

Push tablespoons of the mixture in greased mini muffin or normal sized muffin trays.

Bake at 180C for 15-20 mins or until they look a nice golden colour.

Let them cool in the pan before removing.

They will store in the refrigerator for a few weeks...if they last that long!!


And for the last few nights I have been flat out working on a cake for a lady at work. She asked me last Friday if I would make a lego cake for her son's birthday this week and I said yeah no worries, I mean how hard can a lego cake be....

I retract my previous statement....after a full night of baking last night and 3.5 hours of frosting tonight, it's finally done! And despite the fact that I am utterly exhausted, I am really happy with it :)


Did I mention I'm buggered?? I have been trying to figure out what sort of cake to take to work for my birthday next week and after the last few nights, anything with buttercream is out....soooooo any suggestions??

Em x