Anniversary in Noosa

 

We have been in Australia for nearly two months and have been focused on finding work, making it difficult to fit the “Holiday” part of our “Working Holiday” lives. Jess has been working full time and I have become a “lazy houseman” while I look for work. This however did not stop us from an extravagant trip to Noosa to celebrate our 4 year wedding anniversary.

Just hangin' out in the National Park

 

Noosa is a sleepy beach vacation area on the East coast in Queensland (just North of Brisbane and part of the Sunshine Coast). It is about 1000km from Sydney and an hour and a half by plane. We were excited to get out of town and see a different part of Aus.

It was rainy when we arrived and into the second day but eventually turned around enough to enjoy the beach and National Park.

 

 

Alexandria Bay (the unofficial nude beach), where we found these washed up blue jelly fish and no nude beach goers due to the high winds.

 

 

The only wildlife we ended up seeing on this trip - a Kookaburra!

 

 

Our room was very nice. The only downside was the sound of the young family rooming above us.

 

 

 

Finally, a selection of the food we ate over the weekend.

 

 It ended up being the perfect getaway spoiling us even more than usual for our anniversary.

 

 

NBL Basketball Game

Jess and I have been craving basketball. We do not get the NBA on TV here so the next best thing is the NBL (National Basketball League). The NBL is a “Premier” basketball league operating with eight teams on this end of the world.

We never had the opportunity to see the Breakers play in New Zealand so we were happy to scoop up some cheap tickets to see the Sydney Kings vs. the Adelaide 36’s.

We loved actually seeing a live game and I never pass up a venue that sells beer and hot dogs.

Seeing a live game did curb our craving for basketball but it was a far cry from the NBA. I would argue that watching the University teams at home play is better basketball.

There were maybe two NBA sized/skilled players that would be buried pretty deep on the bench of teams as lowly as the Raptors or Wizards. We did not even see a game dunk…

Despite the level of play we will definitely check out some more games.

Lemon, Lime Sorbet

Continuing my mini Mexican fiesta I decided we needed something that you would easily be able to eat on its own or be able to douse in tequila and make a drink out of it. We also needed something sweet because Jess assures me she would actually die if she didn’t get some kind of treat after dinner. We considered making margaritas but instead settled on Lemon, Lime Sorbet.

I have really been on a roll making simple things that I had never considered making before and Sorbet does not disappoint. Making Sorbet is about as easy as making buttered toast so unless you’re my Dad you can probably do this.  

Ingredients:

- 1 cup castor sugar (fine Sugar)

- 1 cup water

- 1 cup lemon, lime juice (I topped it up with some lemonade in the fridge because my limes weren’t juicy enough)

- 1 tablespoon lemon, lime zest

Directions:

Mix water and sugar together in a small pot. Bring to a boil and simmer for 5 mins. Add the juice and zest then pour into a container and put in the freezer. Stir every 30 mins or so until it sets up. After 3 hours or so it is perfect margarita consistency and 4 hours it was perfect Sorbet.  

There is just enough sugar to cut through the acid of the fruit and get rid of the “icy” taste making this the most refreshing snack for a hot summer day. If you a really adventurous rim your glass with salt, pour in tequila and enjoy a mini-margarita for dessert.

Homemade Tortillas

 

 

I love most Mexican food and was pretty depressed when I realized that New Zealand and Australia are way behind the curve when it comes to providers of Mexican treats. I did find a bottle of Cholula Hot Sauce at the local market and decided to take matters into my own hands and have a bit of a fiesta by putting Cholula on everything edible.

I had already decided to make Shrimp on the Barbie! and was left to decide what I was going to do with BBQ’d shrimp slathered in Cholula. Years ago when I was in Mexico on a family vacation the absolute best thing I ate was garlicky shrimp wrapped in a flour tortilla sold by this little old lady in any alley between two buildings. Dreaming of that wrap I decided I was going to make shrimp tacos.

My primary concern was that store bought tortilla shells were not going to do my shrimp justice. I also wanted smaller diameter tortillas so that I could justify eating a plateful of them. The only solution would be to venture down the path of making my own Tortillas!

It turns out that it is really easy to churn out amazing flaky soft Tortilla shells with minimal effort and maximum food hero-ness. I vow to never buy Tortillas ever again! I am close to saying that these are the absolute best thing I’ve ever made but I did make a pretty amazing plate of“Ants on a Log” a while ago.

Ingredients:

- 3 cups Plain Unbleached Flour

- 1 teaspoon Salt

- ½ teaspoon Baking Powder

- 1/3 cup Olive Oil

- ½ - 1 cup Hot Water

Directions:

Mix flour, salt and baking powder together. Add the olive oil and mix together until it is the consistency of fine crumbs. Add the water and mix until it starts forming a ball. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest for 30 min or so.

Divide the dough in to 10-15 balls and roll out into thin discs. Cook at medium/high heat in a dry non-stick skillet. (I used a little oil because our skillet is so crumby). Cook partially on one side, flip and cook fully on the second side then flip back to the first side. This will cook the tortilla more evenly and make it fluffy and flakey.

You can wrap anything in these shells. They would be good with jam and peanut butter or more savory things like the tacos. I think the next time around I will make quesadillas. Enjoy!
 

 

 

 

 

Shrimp on the Barbie!

The combination of travelling to Australia and having a food component to our Blog made this Post mandatory. Every time we talk to anyone at home we hear some version of Paul Hogan’s “…Slip another shrimp on the Barbie” quote from a commercial before his Crocodile Dundee days.

Before NZ and Aus we imagined the people here grilling every meal every day. It turns out the Canadians grill as often as anyone here. The only appreciable difference is that people here grill in public parks surrounded by family and friends. At home it is more common to see some poor husband in the yard wearing snow pants trying to survive long enough to make dinner (usually on a grill big enough to feed the block).

I suppose I cheated because I cooked prawn instead of shrimp. I don’t know the difference between them and only asked for the biggest most alien looking thing that I could throw on the grill.

Ingredients:

-          ½ kilogram Large Prawns

-          ½ bottle Cholula hot sauce

-          4 cloves Garlic

-          1 or 2 lemons

Directions:

Marinade prawns in hot sauce and garlic. Line grill with lemon slices to keep meat from sticking. Grill until you are comfortable that you won’t poison yourself with raw meat. We ended up chopping up the meat and putting it in tacos.

It was good but there is too much work involved in ripping off the tails and heads so I think I’ll just get tails next time.

Grilled Cheese with Rosmary and Gouda

 

I have recently become obsessed with putting rosemary on everything. I put it on the standard meat and potatoes, but have also been throwing it in sandwiches a wraps and pizzas. The tastiest application of rosemary for me has been the ultra simple “Grilled Cheese” sandwich.

Grilled cheese has been a staple cold weather, hangover, sick remedy that I have always eaten with tomato soup. I always loved when my Mom would whip up a grilled cheese sandwich and a tin of tomato soup. Generally the idea would be to dunk the sandwich in the soup but my aversion to hot (temperature hot) foods always left me eating them separately. I haven’t been sick or drunk so far this week so I don’t really have a reason for the making the sandwich other than as a vessel of transport for eating rosemary. I have also tossed in some anchovies as well making it a real "grown up" sammy.

Ingredients:

-          Bread

-          Gouda

-          Rosemary

-          Butter

Directions:

This sandwich really has no place on a food blog other than I like it (I also had the camera nearby). Butter one side of each piece of bread. Cut the cheese and pile it in the sandwich. Chop the rosemary and sprinkle it throughout the sandwich. Grill on medium heat until the bread is golden and crunchy and the cheese is oozy and melty. Wait to eat until the cheese is a temperature between molten and room… if you can.

Greek Style Gyro Burgers

Now that I have Jackaroo for all my grilling needs it has given me the opportunity to expand our food preparation options to exclusively grilling.

A couple days ago we went to the “Yeero Shop” for donair/yeero/gyro/kebab and had an amazing beef something in a pita; the only downside was the price. At 25 bucks for a couple Yeero and lemonades I was full but my wallet was empty.

Today we were deciding our daily grilled meal and decided on burgers. The only issue eating burgers here is that they do not have the sharp yellow American cheddar that I have been craving so we settled on a Mediterranean flavoured burger. We lucked out with some of the food we had in the pantry and after a quick trip to the corner store we were soon munching on the most delicious juicy fresh pita burgers. There is no replacement for a standard burger but this was the next best thing.

Burgers:

I have never really understood people that buy premade burgers. They are pretty much the easiest thing to put together and always taste better. I made 8 “normal” sized burger patties.

Ingredients:

-          800g fresh ground beef

-          ¼ cup chopped fresh oregano

-          Juice from ½ a lemon

-          Couple spoons of tzatziki

-          1 egg

-          Bread crumbs (I just crumbled up the butt of an olive loaf that I had made a few days ago)

 

Directions:

Mix everything together and form into burgers. I saw on a TV show that said if you wet your hands before you start mixing beef for burgers or meatballs the meat won’t stick to you - making the clean-up a little easier.

 

 

Pita and Fixens:

For a burger I’m usually happy with mustard, ketchup, cheese and onion but for these we decided to go all out and make sure the pita was bursting with goodies.

Ingredients:

-          Pita (Our corner store has these amazing giant Lebanese pita’s that are soft, fluffy and perfect for wraps. If you can find something similar. Half the fun is pulling off little bits of pita drenched in dressing)

-          1 tomato

-          1 container of yellow cherry tomatoes

-          Heap of lettuce

-          1 red onion

-          Feta

-          More oregano

Optional:

-          Tzatziki

-          Black olives/ olive tapenade

-          Baba ghanoush

-          Hummous

-          Hot sauce

-          Colby cheese slices

To put this whole thing together we grilled the burgers and just before I pulled them off I threw on a cheese slice letting it melt over the meat. I also put the red onion in some foil and grilled it to soften it up.

 

 

While I was drinking beer and looking at the BBQ Jess chopped up the veggies and mixed tzatziki with the lettuce and feta with the tomatoes and oregano. We spread the “optional” ingredients over the pita, sliced a burger in half and piled everything else in (I ended up putting two burgers in mine and all the “optionals”).

 

 

My wife is so hot!!!

 

 

This was definitely a messy meal so we grabbed our beers and ate on the patio while hovering over our plates. We still both ended up with food on our shirts! They were actually better than the pictures look. Like most things the key is to have fresh ingredients, the beef was juicy with a little crust from the grill, the lettuce had that wonderful crunch and the juices from the tomatoes blended the flavours together perfectly.

Nom nom nom!

 

Bondi to Coogee Coastal Walk

We went on a great walk last weekend with our roommates. This well known Bondi to Coogee Coastal Walk started at the Bondi Icebergs Swimming Club – an amazing beachside pool free of sharks or other ocean animals that might scare people out of swimming in the open waters of Australia. The entire walk was 5.5 km long and we were treated by an art exhibition for the first kilometre or so. Sculptures by the Sea showcased many strange and unusual art pieces – but with the beautiful background of the Bondi & Mackenzies Bay.

This route was so scenic and we passed through other beaches, (Tamarama, Bronte, Clovelly & Gordon’s Bay), as well as Waverley Cemetery. A huge plot of land with large intricate head stones facing the ocean, not a bad place to be in the afterlife.

 

 

 

 

 

 It was a beautiful day and we were exhausted after words. Flip flops were a bad choice…

Strozzapreti – Priest Stranglers

Disclaimer: No Priests were strangled in the making of this recipe... I also still hate the Celtics despite the head to toe green outfit.

I have been spending most of my free daytime hours at the Marrickville library using the free Wi-Fi and applying for jobs. The library is great but the job hunt has been fruitless at this point. After I finish my self imposed quota of 10 – 20 job applications I reward myself with scouring the library’s collection of cookbooks. It is rare that I actually follow a recipe but one jumped out at me from David Rocco’s “Made in Italy”. David is a fellow Canadian that has split his time between Toronto and Italy showcasing rustic Italian dishes.

The recipe is a twist on the standard pasta recipe that yields pasta with a little extra kick and an even better story. The story behind the name Strozzapreti – Priest Stranglers is that these poor Italian housewives were diligently running their households when the local priest would drop by looking to spread the word and fill their bellies at the same time. The housewives would whip up some pasta putting a kink in the noodles hoping the unwitting Priest would choke on it. It seems a little complicated to try to off a Priest with pasta but I guess I’ve never really considered it. I’ve only included the pasta part of the recipe and made changes from my experience. The recipe is for 6 servings and is accurate, we fed five but Jess tossed a plate of finished pasta on the floor before we started cooking.

 

Ingredients:

-          3.5 cups all purpose flour

-          3 canned peeled plum tomatoes, finely chopped, with juices

-          1 egg

-          Salt

Directions:

The big difference between this recipe and any other pasta recipe is substituting the tomatoes for water or egg. Pretty much just mix the ingredients together and knead the dough until it is smooth and elastic. Wrap the dough ball in cling wrap and let sit for 30min at room temperature. Roll out the dough and cut into whatever size you’d like. David’s recipe says to cut to 1cm wide and 5cm long. I find the easiest way to cut dough into noodles is to roll it up and then cut it. We cut ours into a multitude of different sizes and dusted in flour so that they would not stick together. Cook for 4 min in boiling heavily salted water. I unfortunately do not have a picture of the finished cooked product because we ate it before I thought to grab the camera… sometimes it is a good thing to just enjoy something than to get it on film. The pasta is delicious and you taste the tang of the tomatoes. The only way I could see anyone choking would be simply because of the quantity you try to ingest in one fork full.

 

White Bread

 

As someone who came into cooking as an adult I have been practising making simple things that can compliment more complicated dishes. Bread is something that generally scares me when I think about making it. It is something that can be devoured in seconds or pushed off to the side in favour of something tastier. I lean towards savoury herb breads that you can slather with butter and sop up sauces with. I have been working with a different bread recipe than before and I think this one is actually better for adding some sweeter ingredients and using with jams, jellies, or French toast.

 

 

Ingredients:

-          Packet of dry yeast

-          3-3.5 cups plain flour

-          1 tsp salt

-          1/4 cup sugar

-          1 cup warm milk

-          2tsp melted butter

-          1 egg, lightly beaten

-          2 tbsp melted butter

-          Additional tasty ingredients

 

Directions:

Making this bread is super easy. Mix everything in a large bowl (I’ve been using a big pot because we don’t have a mixing bowl). Knead until it is smooth and elastic. Put the dough ball into a greased bowl and cover letting it rise for an hour or so. Knock down the dough and either put it into a greased loaf pan or on a greased baking tray. Let rise again. Brush with some egg and milk if you want a crunchy crust, for the big loaf pictured I used oil and it ended up soft. Bake at 200 C for 20-25 min.