2008 Orphan's Xmas with the KKC

This year, we had our usual Orphan's Xmas with the Kiwi Kensington Crew - me and the Boys, plus Dany, Scott, Ben, Lisa and honorary member Nate.

Previous years have taught us we never have an appetite for a full meal, so everyone bought a selection of nibbles. As you'll see, there was a fair amount of food, but considering the small amount of leftovers, we catered rather well.




There were ribs, smoked salmon on toasts, devils on horseback (prunes wrapped in bacon) and ham.




There were also chicken wings, chicken nuggets, cheese, olives, peperonata, roasted cherry tomatoes, marinated mushrooms, and leek and sundried tomato empanadas. PLUS, there were spicy koftas, a couple of dips, sweet & salty nuts, candied pecans and more cheese (most of which hasn't been opened and will probably be eaten on NYE!).




Moving on to the sweet stuff - gingerbread cookies, cherry tarts, almond crescents, chocolate dipped strawberries, plus fruit (cherries, grapes) and pavlova (not pictured).



After a couple of rounds of eating, there was "cricket" in the park.



As well as some board games - Operation and Cranium.



The mess we created on the floor was VERY impressive. This wasn't even half of it.



Hopefully everyone else had a great Xmas too! Recipes for some of our Xmas food to come.

Food round up: Mostly Hobart

It's time for another round up of food I've eaten - mostly from my trip to Hobart with Mum and Dad.

Mures, Upper Deck
Victoria Dock,
Hobart, Tasmania
Phone: (03) 6231 1999

Our first night in Hobart, we wandered around acquainting ourselves with the city. For dinner, we walked down to the waterfront and decided to eat at a seafood restaurant.

I had blue eye fillets, marinated in soy, honey, garlic, and ginger, char grilled and served with stir fried vegetables and potatoes ($31.50). It was okay - not great, not bad.



Dad had fish and chips ($29.50), and choose to have his fish grilled. It was served with chips and salad. Mum had the baked blue eye served on borlotti beans, roast zucchini, eggplant and capscium with sweet corn puree and pappa di pomadoro sauce ($33.50).

Mako Seafood
Constitution Dock
Hobart, Tasmania




My Dad seemed to be obsessed with fish so the following night we had fish and chips. We went down to the waterfront again, and ate at Mako Seafood, which is actually a floating two level pontoon. Along with the fried stuff, you can also purchase fresh fish.

I had a mini fish basket - for $8.50 I got a piece of fish, which was trevalla, a prawn, scallop, calamari and small chips.



Mum and Dad shared a fish feast - fish, 2 prawns, 2 calamari, scallop, chips and salad.

Say Cheese
7 Salamanca Square
Hobart, Tasmania
Phone: (03) 6224 2888



On Saturday, after visiting the Salamanca Markets, we stopped for lunch at Say Cheese. I felt like eating bits and pieces, so I ordered an antipasto platter ($23). It was massive! The plate was loaded with cheese, smoked turkey kransky, button mushrooms, smoked octopus, eggplant, peppers, olives, sundried tomatoes, and dolmades.



I also received a large bread roll and crackers. It could've easily fed two people. Look how many crackers there were!



Fortunately, Mum and Dad had smaller meals so they were able to help me out with mine! Mum had a smoked chicken salad and Dad had a smoked salmon salad.

New Sydney Hotel
87 Bathurst Street
Hobart, Tasmania



Nearing the end of our trip, we had dinner at a random pub. I had a MASSIVE peppered steak pot pie ($20). This thing was seriously gigantic, and it was all big chunks of meat. It was also quite salty, and I only managed half because I got rather tired of eating nothing but meat chunks. The chips were good though.



Mum had a small seafood and tomato pasta with rocket ($13) while Dad had fish AGAIN. He had the fish of the day ($28). Mum also ordered us a caesar salad ($10) to share - and thank goodness she did! I was grateful for the lettuce to break up the tedium of my pot pie.

Raupo Riverside Café
2 Symons St,
Blenheim, New Zealand
Phone: +64 3 577 8822



In November, Alastair and I also made a quick trip to Blenheim. Last time we were there, we had breakfast at Raupo. On this trip, we found ourselves at a loose end and went to Raupo again for cake and coffee. We had a chocolate torte with white chocolate mousse and raspberries ($7.50). It was a sponge like cake, so wasn't too heavy, and it was yuuuuuuuum.



We returned again for breakfast on our last day. I wasn't feeling particularly hungry (I'm not sure what was wrong with me - it's very unusual!) and just had a couple of mini croissants with butter and jam (normal toast wasn't on the menu).



Alastair had pancakes with fresh fruit and yoghurt.


That's it for this edition! I have been a tad slack with posting recently, but I have a couple of half written posts that I will try and finish this weekend.

Food I've been eating

Yey! It's time for another food round up post (aka I've got a backlog of photos).

So what have I been eating? Well, it appears that eggs have been featuring heavily.

There's been boiled eggs with toast soldiers.



There's been scrambled eggs topped with feta, cooked Gordon Ramsey style.



And served on toast, of course. I really like toast! If I lived by myself, I could see myself having cheese on toast for dinner most nights.

It's a good thing I have people to cook for!



Check out the video for Gordon Ramsey's explanation on how to make the perfect scrambled eggs.



More egg (and bread) - one weekend I made savoury French toast. I put some grated cheese in the middle of two slices of bread, squished the bread flat, and then dunked the sandwiches into an egg mixture before pan frying. Yum!

Speaking of French toast, I have a post coming up where I'll tell you about the brunch where we had the most sublime French toast EVER. Also known as the brunch where I got blog outed!



Moving away from eggs, one weekend we had a beef pot roast for dinner. It looks strangely glossy, and I promise that I haven't being doing strange things like varnishing my food to take photos. I think it's glossy due to the gravy that I poured over.

I thought the meat was just okay - but the carrots and celery were super tasty!



With the pot roast we also had this potato thing. Sliced garlic was softened in butter in a frying pan, then I layered thinly sliced potatoes on top with more butter. After cooking on the stove for a while, the whole thing went under the grill to cook the top. Garlic, potato, butter... I would have to hang up my apron if it had turned out anything less than scrumptious. (Fortunately it was brilliant!)



This is oxtail ragu on brown pasta. The last time I cooked oxtail, Alastair decided that it weirded him out and didn't want to eat it (even though he's eaten it before). Next time I make it, I'm going to take the meat off the bone and tell him it's normal beef!



And finally, this bowl was the last of the quinoa I had in the house. I know quinoa is very nutritious, and I've tried very hard to like it - but I just don't. So no more quinoa - huzzah!


Here's another shot of boiled eggs, because I like it, and I need to take my mind off quinoa. Note the gooey yolk - perfect for dunking toast soldiers!

Meals other people have cooked

Jeepers. My entire weekend has been spent cleaning the house in anticipation of my parents' arrival on Wednesday. Now, my house is not normally that unclean, considering we all work full time and we HAVE LIVES, but every time they visit they comment on how dirty it is. Obviously the house is clean enough to me, but not clean enough to them. Being Chinese, they have very high standards and nothing is ever good enough. Kidding! Kidding! That may be the stereotype, but fortunately my folks aren't really like that. Just with cleanliness, apparently!

Since I haven't had any time or energy for cooking this weekend, here's a little showcase of meals other people have cooked! Y'all know by now that I love cooking, but it's still nice when other people cook for me. :)

My Bro's friend Derms visited at the beginning of this year. One night he made chicken curry for dinner (with some assistance from my Bro). I find curry terribly difficult to photograph, so I didn't do the meal justice. We teamed the chicken curry with basmati rice, and it was fragrant, tangy and spicy. Visitors who cook are visitors worth having!



And this is a lasagne that my Bro made one evening a while ago. He cooked up a rich meat sauce, and layered it with cheese sauce and lasagne sheets.



It's hard to go wrong with lasagne, and despite my Bro's grumbles about the cheese sauce, there was nothing wrong with this lasagne. It was pretty ace, actually.



When my mother in law, Annette, was here the previous week, she offered to cook dinner one evening. Alastair got to choose a meal, and he asked for a lamb roast. Poor lad, he only gets a few roasts a year from me! This is the roast lamb, perfectly cooked and tender.



Along with the lamb there were roast vegetables: pumpkin, kumara/sweet potato, parsnip and roast potatoes. The pumpkin and kumara had softened up and become sweet and slightly caramelised. A special mention must also be made of Annette's roast potatoes, which were gorgeously crispy with a pillowy soft centre.



And she even made gravy! Proper gravy!



Ahh, it was a good meal.



But that wasn't all! There was also dessert - yoghurt sweetened with honey and orange juice and layered with blueberries.



There was lots of lamb left over, so the following night we had the rest with some salad. The lamb was tender and garlicky, and the salad was thrown together from bits and pieces that has been hiding in the bottom of my fridge. Nom nom nom.