Wednesday, October 31, 2012

So.... This is the end of the story... for now....

So... we have reached our last real dinner for this blog...

Despite the slow deterioration of photo quality over the last few months, the quality of food has remained at atmospherical levels throughout!

Have we learnt anything over the past year?
Of course... we've learnt that cooking is fun, (and exhausting!). We've improved our skills and repetoire, we've eaten many new things, we haven't lost any weight... but we haven't put on any weight either (or so I'd like to believe...).

And we've been lucky to have been able to share our love of food with quite a number of family and friends. But, all good things must come to an end... 

It's not a complete full stop.
I'll probably continue to post interesting and good looking dishes that we make, but we'll probably stop being annoying asian foodies now and will refrain from taking photos of absolutely everything we eat. Not everything needs to documented. We have now experimented and done our bit for this generation of oversharing and made our mark.

Instead, we are now going to properly enjoy our meals as they should be enjoyed. HOT!

As I had said in the first post on this blog:

This is a place where food is enjoyed and loved.
This is a place where food is cherished.
This is the Hosue of Awesome Food.

Why.... yes it is


31 Oct - Smoked Cod Ricotta Quiche

We bought these smoked cod fillets from Conway a few weeks back and decided to do a creamy eggy quiche to match the smokiness of the fish...

And what an awesome decision that was!
So good my mouth is still drooling!


Served with a little bit of tomato, cucumber, and capsicum salsa

Ricotta, milk, eggs, smoked cod, onions, asparagus and a teensy little bit of scallops (leftover from yesterday)

Light and fluffy yet full of flavour hits, this was an amazing quiche!

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

30 October - A special dinner!

So awesome housemate bought these beautiful zucchini flowers despite her serious lack of time to do anything with them.... and these babies don't keep well either...

So it was upto yours truly to figure out how to turn these beautiful things into amazing morsels of food....

How beautiful does this look?!



Mustard roasted chicken drummettes, zucchini flowers stuffed with scallops, ricotta and pesto and served with Apple mint salad and bean salad 


Monday, October 29, 2012

29 October - Soba Noodle Salad with Wontons

Hot day, get home late-ish... don't want to do too much in front of the cooktop so cold dinner is a godsend!


Soba noodles, purple cabbage, wontons, soy dressing


Two more dinners to go....


Sunday, October 28, 2012

28 October - Impromptu Fried Eggs (Breakky) & Fish & Chips for dinner

Because breakky so brilliant yesterday, we just had to have it again today (albeit with a few minor alterations since we didn't have exactly the same leftovers...)

So not as luxurious as yesterday's breakfast, but not bad for a spur of the moment thing.
And just in case y'all were wondering, no I did not break the yolk while frying the eggs. They broke of their own accord (I have reason to believe these eggs are not fresh!)



 And then, in keeping with our "no cooking" weekend theme (not a planned thing, it just happened that way...), we couldn't be arsed cooking dinner so off we went in search of some decent fish and chips. And got some.


Battered rockling fillets

Grilled snapper with chips and potato cake

These were from Rockfish in Maribyrnong.
Now, it was ok... not brilliant and nothing outstanding, but for the price and for the ease, we would happily go back there again.

Verdict? Chips were ok but could have done with some seasoning and be more crispy. My snapper was perfectly fine, but the battered rockling seemed a bit oily and greasy.... the potatoe cake on the other hand was bloody brilliant!

Oh, and there was a steak burger, but photos were forgotten due to the hungry hordes stampeding towards their dinner (well, hungry horde of 1 for the burger), despite the lack of photographic evidence, I hear good things about the burger.

Saturday, October 27, 2012

27 October - Sausages & Eggs (Breakky), No Cook Dinner

Unusually, we decided to make a cooked breakky today after a workout at the gym (I broke up with my gym today... so after the end of October, I believe I might be letting myself go :Þ )

So cooked breakky involved some fresh not very turkish-like turkish bread, sausages, fried eggs, caramelised onions, bit of sweet corn and home made chipotle chillis. Yeah yeah yeah, these things were all leftovers from dinners of the last few nights (except the bread, which was actually fresh!), but leftovers are some of the best meals I've ever had :)



I pickled these chipotle chillis myself and it tastes fantastic!



Not really sure what the other girls had for dinner.... but since I was home by my lonesome once again, I really couldn't be bothered impressing myself (since I already know I'm an awesome cook lol)

So, dinner made and eaten all within 15mins. Good stuff.
Not really sure what the other girls had for dinner.... but since I was home by my lonesome once again, I really couldn't be bothered impressing myself (since I already know I'm an awesome cook lol)

So, dinner made and eaten all within 15mins. Good stuff.


Leftover bread from breakfast, leftover braised beef shins (courtesy of mumm-dearest), and smoked salmon in the other one.


Friday, October 26, 2012

26 October - Pork Sausages, Fennel & Carrot Salad, Mashed Potatoes & Caramelised Onions

So... I think I should be counting down the days now....

31st October is all but nigh....

Alrighty then! It is now 5 days and counting.... tick tock tick tock

And on an exhausting Friday night, what do we eat? I thought I'd do something quick, which ultimately didn't turn out really any quicker than usual....

Don't let the disappointing photos fool you, this actually took me over an hour to cook!
Well, to be fair, the caramelised onions did actually take an hour to cook in itself...(notwithstanding the onion chopping time of course, hencewhy, the 1hr+ prep & cook time)


So what have we got here eh?
Pork snag, diced fennel and carrot salad dressed with Tetsuya's Honey Mustard Vinaigrette, caramelised onions and mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes

It ain't pretty but this is what satisfaction is made of.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

25 October - Rice Stuffed Capsicum & Frothy Creme Brulee

We loved this dish so much the first time we've been gagging to make it again...

Black rice, white rice, cheese, herbs... how can this ever be wrong?





A boy cooked this for us, and it was pretty nice (the boy was nice too....)

Texture wasn't exactly creamy brulee-like, more frothy moussey/ cappucino-like, but it tasted damn good so you gots no complaint from me.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

24 October - Costco Dinner - Smoked Salmon Pasta with Pesto

This was not intentionally a Costco dinner, but it's just one of them things that happened...
Costco pasta, costco smoked salmon, costco pesto...
add chopped parsley and tomatoes and DINNER!



Tuesday, October 23, 2012

23 October - Meat Sauce on Steamed Tofu, Beans & Baby King Oyster Mushies

Haven't done this dish in awhile....
This was just what vegies were left over in the fridge.... beans... baby king oyster mushies....






Monday, October 22, 2012

22 October - Tuscan Onion Tart (no cooking) & Pandan Jelly

It was one of them days at work where by the time you get home, you really can't be arsed to do anything.... fortunately for us, we had some tuscan onion tart left over in the fridge...

Tuscan onions you ask? They look like big giant elongated red onions..... google it for a pic cos we forgot to take one :Þ




Served with a fresh tomato salad in balsamic dressing


And to finish off, some pandan jelly (made from fresh pandan leaves and coconut milk)



Sunday, October 21, 2012

21 October - Szechuan Pepper Eggplant with Brown Rice

So we gots ourselves quite a lots of eggplants from Highpoint cos it was way way way cheap.

And remembered that we had picked up a recipe card from somewhere long long ago and never tried that eggplant dish. Well, no time like the present....

Just because we loved it so much last night, we made this wonderful tofu "steak" again



This is our newly discovered brown rice. So yummy!
Why have we not tried this wonderful stuff until now????