Intersection Tavern Ramsgate November 17, 2009
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Decided to go out to the Intersection Tavern in Ramsgate tonight for dinner with all the UK visitors. We’ve been there before but decided after all the eating out at Chinese restaurants it was time for a change (esp for my English hubby who isn’t enamoured with rice for every meal). We like the place as it feels a lot like an English pub/bar (think Wetherspoons/Llyods Bar type thing). We’ve not really found anything that feels like a traditional pub here (well, why would we expect to) and I guess the closest thing is a “hotel” (I wonder if they actually do have rooms these days or if they are just bars with gambling sections). Anyway we ordered the BBQ Pork Ribs, Lamb Shanks, Ribeye Steak and the Steak n Guinness Shephard’s Pie.
BBQ Pork Ribs – These were extremely plentiful (think of the Brontosaurus ribs in the title sequence of The Flintstones). They had a slightly spicy taste too. They were quite soft, not jawbreaking and very finger-licking. Only thing that would have been better if they had been a bit warmer (they were a little tepid by the time they brought the dishes out to the table). Came with some yummy wedges and salad.
Lamb Shanks – 2 whole lamb shanks. My poor Mum is only tiny and she ordered this. To be fair to her, she did manage to eat most of the meat (mostly by ensuring she piled various bits of it on everyone else’s plates to “try”). The meat was very soft and fell off the bone. I think this dish would have been better on a cold Winter evening as it was quite stodgy with all the mash and gravy.
Ribeye Steak – wow this was meant to be 300g but it looked like it was 300g excluding the massive bone sticking out over the edges of the plate!!! It was ordered rare and came just medium rare (not bleeding or “mooing” as hubby would say). Looked good though.
Beef and Guinness Shephard’s Pie – no idea why it would be called a Shephard’s pie (not even Shepherd’s). Traditionally Shepherd’s Pie is made with lamb (i.e. sheep) and this was blatantly a Cottage Pie (made with minced beef) – though perhaps this recipe is named after someone called “Shephard”??? Hubby’s verdict was that it needed more Guinness and more crispiness of the potato topping.
Overally we had a great time. The food was a little slow, but then there were 8 of us so expected it to be a while (I suspect it was the Lamb Shanks that took the longest as they were the hottest when served). The meals were around $20 each, but currently (till end of Nov 2009) they are doing 2 for 1 on mains at www.hotdocket.com.au. You need to print out a new coupon for every 2 meals (i.e. we needed 4 coupons with different serial numbers on) – no worry though as you just press refresh on the website and print out again.
Bombay Potatoes November 12, 2009
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Probably the least authentic recipe in the world coming up…. decided to make a korma for dinner tonight (there’s a lovely jar of Patak’s hiding at the back of the cupboard – I know it’s cheating, but it does taste nice). Decided that having rice or naan with it would be boring and I’m long overdue for another experimentation. Here’s my recipe for Bombay Potatoes (gleaned the main ingredients from various online webpages), it serves 4 as a side dish…
Ingredients:
- 3 medium/large potatoes
- 3 tbsp vegetable oil
- 1 tsp of wholegrain mustard
- 1 tbsp of plain flour
- 1 tbsp turmeric
- 1 tbsp crushed chilli flakes
- 1 tbsp ground cumin
- 2 diced fresh tomatoes
Instructions:
- Peel and chop potatoes (or could leave the skin on if you want to) into 1″ cubes and parboil for 7 mins
- Drain the potatoes and leave aside for 5 mins (don’t rinse the potatoes with cold water or anything, you want the heat from the potatoes to steam off and leave the potatoes dry). Once the potatoes seem dryish then sprinkle the plain flour and mix so that the potatoes are coated well.
- Heat the vegetable oil over medium heat in a frying pan (mine was about 30cm in diameter and you’ll need one with a lid)
- Put the mustard into the oil and stir
- Once the mustard starts to “pop” then add the cumin, turmeric and chilli flakes. Again stirring into the oil.
- Add the floured potatoes into the oil/spice mixture and stir
- Put the lid on the pan so that the potatoes cook through (I more or less sauteed for 2-3 mins then put the lid on for a similar amount of time and then stirred/turned the potatoes before replacing the lid)
- It took about 10 mins to get the potatoes done. They should look nice and crispy on the outside and coated with a golden brown spice mixture. The potato itself will go yellow because of the turmeric.
- Dice the tomatoes and remove all the soft pulp out of the middle (i.e. you’re just left with the skin/flesh – but no seeds or juice)
- When you want to serve it up just quickly heat through potatoes to crisp them up and then scatter the tomatoes on top when you plate it.
I liked this recipe best as it yields nice and crispy bombay potatoes with plenty of flavour (frying the spices seems to really increase the concentration). It will go well with our beef korma and rotis.
Sculptures by the Sea – Bondi November 10, 2009
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Despite having lived in Sydney for almost a year now I’ve not actually been to Bondi Beach before. Decided to go up on the train with my sister and BIl for a day off from the squeaklet (left with her grandparents for the day). They’re doing the annual Sculptures by the Sea at Bondi which is various sculptures scattered about on the coastal walk towards Tamarama Beach. It was a great day as it was bright and sunny (though a little bit on the warm side). There were about 100 or so sculptures. I liked the Eyes in the cliff (Eye Sea You by Tim Wetherill & Shayne Amber Wetherill) best and the linked cubes with a mirror cube in the middle (DNA by Jonathon Leahey) as well as the kinetic green rotating blob thing (Morpheus by Phil Price). It was quite busy and although I wasn’t taking photos my sis was. It took ages as there’s always someone else taking photos wandering into your shot!!
Facebook Status Update Stats November 10, 2009
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Playing around with facebook and there’s an app that looks at your stats. According to Status History I have 215 posts using 3958 words, the oldest of which is “Evie has put on 16oz this fortnight – little fatty” (oh dear, what a status to remind me of – I’m guessing this was around Oct 2008). The most used words are:
#1 Evie (unsurprising really, I love my baby so much)
#2 enjoyed (pleasantly surprised at my optismism here)
#3 off (no idea why I’ve used off so much)
#4 house (probably due to having sold a house in the UK and bought a house in Aus in the last year)
#5 days (not sure probably me carping on about the number of days left till X, Y, or Z)
Poor John doesn’t get a mention though, nor Mocha. I would have also thought there would be more food/cooking related words, but I guess I must have a better vocabulary for that and had more variation in word usage.
More Visitors November 6, 2009
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My parents have arrived from the UK to stay with us for the next couple of months. Originally they were coming in Jan 2010 but when Singapore Airlines did some extremely cheap offers earlier this year they managed to snap some up (£420 return each inc taxes). They’ve really missed little Evie and she’s changed so much since Feb when she could only just about crawl. Now she runs around everywhere and is starting to say words. Of course they see her on Skype most days but it’s different in the flesh. Evie looked most confused when they arrived and enjoyed poking their faces to see if they were real and giggling away (poor thing imagines them to come out of the laptop I suspect – she likes to poke their faces on the screen too). The house was scrubbed in preparation and all ready by evening when they arrived. It’s the first time my parents have seen the new house and they were happy with our choice. They even have their own room which was already populated with their luggage that they left behind at my brothers (inc 4 suitcases and various other sportsbag style luggage as well as 3 full golf bags and sets). Had a quiet dinner at home when they arrived. 2 more days and we’ll have even more relatives coming – my sis and my BIL are coming on Sunday. It’s gonna be a full house here.
What Is This? October 25, 2009
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Out and about around the City today and took lots of piccies. Question is – what is this a photo of?
Facebook Glitch October 23, 2009
Posted by graciek in Life in General, WTF?.Tags: facebook glitch
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The weirdest thing ever just happened on Facebook. We have our friend Lisa visiting us and I’ve been letting her use my laptop to check emails and go on facebook, etc. I went onto facebook and it told me I had a friend request. Duly I clicked on the link – strange I don’t know this person and she has no friends in common with me. As standard – I clicked IGNORE. Went back to my homepage and it was a bit odd as the person at the top of my news feed wasn’t one of my friends. However everyone on the feeds below was and the photos stream were my friends’. Strange I thought this must be a glitch so I pressed on the home button again. Weird, now I have a news feed with no one I know on!! Also my thumbnail next to the status box is not me, it’s Lisa’s. The photos on the right are still my friends though and it definitely says my name in the top bar. Yikes – somehow I’ve mutated into a Lisa/Grace facebook entity. Sure that’s not supposed to happen. So pressed logout and it went straight into Lisa’s profile. It was like somehow Lisa was already logged in, then I managed to login ontop of that, facebook got confused and merged our news feeds. It was quite amusing and I only wish that I had taken a screen grab of it. Slightly worrying though, imagine if it had been a public computer!!
Egg-free Carrot & Pineapple Cake October 22, 2009
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Decided to do a bit of baking again this afternoon. Really wanted to make a cake or cookies but realised that we have no eggs left (not even a small one hiding in the back of the fridge). Here’s the recipe:
-175g of self-raising flour (I used about 100g of wholemeal and 75g normal)
-50g of raw brown sugar
-1 large grated carrot
-1/3 of a medium sized pineapple diced finely (I had some fresh lurking about in the fridge I guess you could use a 250g tin drained)
-Handful of sultanas
-1 tsp of vanilla essence
-1/4 tsp of baking powder
-2 tsp of white vinegar
-125ml of water
-50ml of vegetable oil
For the icing:
-125g of cream cheese
-100g of icing sugar
-1tbsp of cold water
-Orange zest
Mixed the dry ingredients together and then added the fruits and liquids. I didn’t bother with the hand blender, just mashed it about with a fork. Poured into a 9″ cake tin (used spray oil to grease the tin first). Bake at 180 deg for 40 mins then allow to cool. Mix up the ingredients for the icing and spread on top of cake once cooled.
Another Scorcher in Bundeena October 21, 2009
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After 3 weeks with my MIL visiting and it being unseasonably cold, damp and all round unpleasant weather it’s been wonderful sunshine and blue skies since she left on Thursday. Today it was another lovely day and we had our first over-30 deg day for some time. As it was my brother’s day off we spent the day with him at his pad in Bundeena (which is a lovely little remote township in the Royal National Park in Sydney). Headed off to the beach with little Evie and remembered (first time since Jan) to bring her bucket and spade set. We had ice creams and went down to Horden’s Beach first and enjoyed the lovely clean sand and Evie paddled around a bit in the creek. Yet again she found another boyfriend, this time, a Thomas the Tank Engine toddler to play with. Headed over the ferry pier, over the rocks and onto Gunyah beach. Gunyah is a lovely small beach and it’s always very quiet as noone (apart from those who live nearby) know it’s there. The house was boiling when we got back and even with all the windows open and fans blasting air around the humidity didn’t really drop till around 10pm (just in time for sleeping thankfully).
Day Trip to Kurnell October 20, 2009
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As we have a visitor staying with us (yes, another one) I decided to take us out for a little drive for the day to Kurnell. We finally found the Visitor Information (d’oh stupid roadworks meant we ended up almost in the refineries there). There’s a lovely short walk, around 1km circular, that takes you past a number of monuments and viewpoints. It took us around 1 hr to walk round as little Miss Evie decided she absolutely did not want to be carried and that she was adament she would walk. Sadly Evie’s walking consists of “tacking” left and right all over the place, and stopping every 10m to sit down or inspect a twig/stone/leaf. The concrete path there also had polished stones embedded in it so that was another delight for Evie to stop and try to pick up. We eventually got round to the Cook monument where by I got fed up of Evie’s dillydallying and put her on my shoulders. Our friend Lisa suddenly jumped up and started waving her hands about. I was so confused. Apparently a big magpie was dive bombing poor Evie. Evie was shrieking away with laughter as I was spinning round trying to see what it was and Lisa was prancing about like a mad woman. We must have a looked a sight! As we walked past a number of other monuments we wondered whether these spots were exactly where Cook might have stopped or whether it may have been further round the bay. Either way it is an absolutely lovely place to walk round and the small museum there was quite interesting. Drove round the rest of the park and stopped off at numerous spots to take in the vistas. Finally got hungry and went down to the Silver Cafe for a lovely greasy spoon style chippy and then across the road to play on the beach for a while. Evie enjoyed picking up shells.
