This week at work has been fairly full on. I’ve come back from a week away in Washington and there is a lot on in the branch. We also had senate estimates this week which just adds to the longer hours. We were there to give evidence at 2250 AEDT on Wednesday night. We finished after 2300 AEDT.

The weekend has been a much sought after break. I’ve been looking forward to dinner with friends this weekend. We had dinner parties planned on both Friday and Saturday evenings. Catching up with friends is always so good. Coincidentally we were repeating a weekend from earlier in the year http://wp.me/p16Zhd-jV

On Friday evening the menu was prawns, roast beef and pavlova.

The prawns were as fresh as they could be. Only frozen once and cooked as soon as they were thawed. The main course had a number of highlights. Freshly baked bread being one thing but the star was a slow cooked standing rib roast. The prime rib was cooked for about twelve hours at 50 °C and then pan seared to give it a lovely crust. Dessert was an amazing pavlova. The picture of the pavlova speaks for itself. It was served with home made vanilla bean ice cream. It was so rich and creamy.

It was a great night finished with dark chocolate and more good conversation.

On Saturday night we caught up with friends for a shared dinner party. Regular readers will know that Bron has become a star with Yorkshire puddings and a request came for roast lamb and yorkies plus Bron’s sticky date pudding. The main course was all about the lamb shoulder. The lamb shoulders (about 10 kilograms of lamb) had been prepared by a butcher and split to ensure an even cooking. The lamb pieces were placed over cloves of garlic and rosemary stems. Over the lamb more garlic and rosemary were added. Aluminium foil covered the meat and then the roasting tray was placed in the oven at 230 °C for 30 minutes after which is was turned down low to between 150 and 170 ⁠°C for seven hours. The low slow cooking ensures a succulent product with meat that pulls away easily from the bones.The secret to this meal was putting the lamb in the barbecue for about half an hour. The result was a beautiful caramelisation of the meat leaving us with some crackling too. It was accompanied by smash potatoes and roasted carrot, sweet potato and parsnips.

After the main we had Bron’s sticky date pudding with butterscotch sauce, custard and vanilla ice cream.

After dinner we had to have fruit.

This morning I woke up feeling awful. I had a headache, muscle pain and some joint pain. Even though room temperature was about 22 °C, I was shivering. A hot shower and a cup of tea didn’t help so I spent most of today in bed drinking water every hour and passing really concentrated urine. From time to time I could feel myself being viræmic. I still have a pounding headache but felt like I need to blog so I can say I did something today.

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