So the other night I was wondering what to make for dinner. I was pretty uninspired. I went to the supermarket after work and looked for some meat. I didn’t want to spend a lot of money and I wanted something simple. I noticed some mince on special. It was beef mince, regular grind, not labelled lean It was going for $3.
I mixed the mince with a beaten egg, some cubed Harvati cheese, a little olive oil, some coarsely ground pepper and dried herbs. I flattened the mince out onto some baking paper onto a fry pan. I covered with some finely cut parsley and then covered with aluminium foil before placing into an oven set at 150 °C for 45 minutes.
After 45 minutes I removed the foil added some tomato, curry powder and vegetables to the top and then put it back into the oven for 15 minutes and turned the heat up to 200 °C.
This is how it looked
I pulled it out of the oven and rested it for 5 minutes before transferring it to a plate and then eating.
So basically it’s a big ground beef burger without bread.
What would you call it? Does this already have a name that I don’t know about?
The day started with a sleep in. It was a lovely day in Brisbane. It was about 17 °C when I got out of bed. I heard in Canberra that this morning was a frost laden –6 °C. I’m so glad I was in Brisbane and not in Canberra.
For breakfast we started with some of Mum’s pikelets with some maple syrup.
This is Mum’s recipe
1 cup self raising flour
1 egg
¾ cup milk
1 heaped table spoon of sugar
Vanilla
1 tablespoon of melted butter
Mix and then let stand for an hour if you can be arsed
Cook and flip when bubbles form and burst
Mum’s pikelets are delicious.
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We then had to go to Westfield Chermside so Miss16 could buy some things with gift vouchers she got for her birthday. Miss12 persuaded me to buy some beef jerky. I’ve never had it before. I’m not sure I’d eat a lot of it.
After taking Miss12 to school so she could help out with a junior gymnastics display I took Miss18 to Paniyiri for work experience and Miss16 and I decide to stick around and enjoy some Greek food.
As it turned out Miss18 was at the entrance and accepted our tickets to enter.
Musgrave Park isn’t that big but in the area just in front of the Brisbane Greek Club there is a stage and that’s where most people sat to enjoy the entertainment and eat the food. Behind the entertainment area were the food stalls. There were so many. Most were selling much the same sort of Greek food. Some were selling regional variations. There was a good combination of savoury and sweet.
When we arrived, former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was speaking to the crowd. He was followed by the Queensland Premier Campbell Neumann.
For lunch I chose some meat
Greek lamb yiros. It was pretty good. There wasn’t too much fat but just enough.
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Miss16 chose a chicken souvlaki wrap which she enjoyed. Sorry no image.
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The main stage
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The dancing was popular
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We ate Loukoumathes (Greek honey puffs) while watching the dancing. I’d never had them before. Apparently a few hundred thousand of these sweet little treats will be made over the weekend. They were sweet and they were nice to eat while watching Greek dancing.
Last night I flew to Brisbane to have an extended weekend with my daughters and parents.
Thursday was a pretty big food day and I just didn’t think about my weight.
A work mate shared his Mum’s Macedonian sweet treats
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For lunch about eight of us in the branch had chips and gravy. One of us even had a pie, chips and gravy (not me).
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I got to the Qantas club with about 30 minutes to spare
I was given the mango sorbet to try. It was pretty good.
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On board QF960. The 737-800 has been updated.
I watched a movie during the flight
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I may not have had a pie with my chips and gravy but I did have one for dinner on the flight
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Dessert cake
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When I got to my parents’ place they were eating dinner and Mum gave me a small plate
Shepherd’s pie
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Miss16 started making some cupcakes at about 9 pm because a friend of hers is having a birthday on Saturday so she wanted to make something to share with her on Friday.
Some friends on Facebook, twitter and IG suggested I may have applied a Daddy tax. I didn’t do anything to discourage that notion but truth is Miss16 didn’t make enough to fill the baking tray.
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They look good don’t they? Vanilla cupcakes with passionfruit icing.
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We had an early start for the school run this morning
Peanut paste on toast with coffee
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One of the annoying things about Canberra (and in fairness Darwin) is the ban on plastic bags.
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Today I was taking my parents in town by bus so I had to buy a go card
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I promised Mum for Mother’s day I’d take her to the refurbished City Hall. Mum used to work as a volunteer at the Citizens’ Advice Bureau and spent a lot of time at City Hall.
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I remember winning school prizes at school speech nights and being down there
Mum tells me she used to sing down there for her school choir
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City Hall now contains the Museum of Brisbane. It’s a really nice little museum. I’d happily go again and again. One of the features for now is the exhibit on World Expo 1988 Brisbane.
Do you remember what you were doing in 1988? I was in medical school and we’d catch a train from Bowen Hills to the Mater Hospital and walk through Expo.
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I think it’s fantastic that Doug Anthony the deputy PM and leader of the National Party usurped Malcolm Fraser the PM of the day and supported Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen in the bid.
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The Light Fantastic
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After spending about an hour in the museum we walked over to the Treasury building to meet up with Miss18 and have lunch. Miss18 announced she’d got a job to help her get through her TAFE/QUT courses so we celebrated.
The Treasury building
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In the Treasury Casino building is Luke Nguyen’s restaurant Fat Noodle
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We waited near some stand up tables and read through the menu and I noticed the cloth napkins
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We could see into the kitchen too
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After being seated at a large table near a window we received a pot of Chinese tea
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Dad asked for the Fat Pho Noodles
His only concern was the large fillet of beef in the bowl which he would have preferred sliced.
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Miss18 had pork and prawn wonton
Not as good as Mum’s wonton of course
If you want to read about Mum’s wonton click here and here
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Mum and I both asked for the Singapore noodles
This was spectacular
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The after lunch Belgian chocolate mint was delicious
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Apparently this German sausage hut also serves big pork hocks on request
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All in all it’s been a good day.
Now to rate Luke’s restaurant. The meal was fantastic and I would recommend anyone visiting Brisbane to try it out.
The dunny was interesting. The pedestal was solid and sound. The urinal was an older stainless steel model with a sturdy grate. It was big enough for two well proportioned men to stand next to each other without inducing hesitancy. I like a good firm grate to stand on so there is less of a chance of urine spray on the floor. The hand basin was motion detector activated but a little shallow. The hand drying unit was a pseudo air blade. It was pretty pathetic. If you’re going to use an air dryer and try to imitate a Dyson Air Blade, just buy the Dyson. My dunny score is 3.5 out of 5.
The napkin score is pass. Cloth napkins always pass.
When I was in Atlanta I had my first (and second) Reuben sandwich. I’ve been wanting to make one ever since. Before I get there though I wanted to practice cooking corned beef. I’ve done it before but it was a long time ago.
The task for today was to simply cook some corned beef that I could have for dinner and also make as a filling for toasted sandwiches at work.
The whole process took a few hours from start to finish.
This is the piece of meat I used
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I soaked it in some tap water with some star anise, cloves, bay leaves, brown sugar and vinegar
In my youth I would cut the fat layer off and put it between two well buttered pieces of white bread and add some mustard and then inhale. Nothing tastes as good as silverside fat from corned beef between buttered bread.
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I wanted to add some caramelised onions
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I finished the cooking by putting the onions, corned beef and a cup of the cooking fluid from the pressure cooker into a casserole and cooked in a low oven. Half-way through I took it out to add a little curry powder and a potato for my dinner.
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For comparison. I wasn’t going to open the can, but the shot is for comparison (sort of).
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This is a large bowl that I will use for toasted sandwiches at work this week.
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This is so much cheaper and easier but way too salty and oily
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Tonight’s dinner. My take on corned beef and vegetables. No white sauce here
This wasn’t too bad. The meat fibres pulled apart easily. It wasn’t too salty or oily like canned corned beef. It was sweet with the onions.
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The next step when I feel confident is to try a Reuben sandwich. That’s a dish I want to make well so I can share it with Bron.
Last night Bron took me to see Star Trek into Darkness. I’ve been looking forward to this for a very long time.
Now if you don’t like science fiction I invite you to read on because at some stage I do get onto food
Okay, it’s time for confessions, well, not really confessions because if you’ve read my “about” page you’ll know that I do like all things Star Trek. I remember in the 1970s coming home from swimming club on a Friday night and after a shower I’d sit with Dad and watch Star Trek The Original Series (TOS). I loved it. I didn’t really understand the nuance of Kirk as a womaniser and risk taking leader, but I really liked Spock, Bones and Scotty. When Star Trek The Next Generation (TNG) began I was an immediate fan. I’ve also enjoyed Star Trek Deep Space Nine (DS9) and Star Trek Voyager. My favourite series though has been Star Trek Enterprise (ENT) which was a prequel to the ST TOS era. I suppose it comes as no surprise I have a soft spot for Star Trek medical officers as well as science officers.
In 2009 when Star Trek http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0796366/ was launched and we became aware of what Star Trek Canon describes as the Alternate Reality* a whole new vista of possibilities opened for Star Trek fans. Star Trek 2009 directed by JJ Abrams was a great movie. I really hoped Star Trek into Darkness http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1408101/ could be as good and not a disappointment.
Last night Bron bought tickets at the Dendy Canberra http://www.dendy.com.au/Page/Home and we got great seats in the middle. It was an interesting crowd sitting around us. As much as I love Star Trek I’ve never been inclined to dress up in Starfleet uniform or as a non-human Star Trek character. That didn’t stop some of other movie goers. I had a man next to me in an engineering tunic complete with com badge. About as far as I will go is holding up my right hand, palm anterior with third and fourth digits separated and occasionally saying “live long and prosper” Apparently this _\\// is the emoticon for live long and prosper.
Back to the movie; I was not disappointed. I was pleasantly surprised. I did have some doubts at the beginning and now that I’ve seen it I wish I had taken the time to revisit some of the TOS movies plus some relevant episodes from ENT. The plot was great and the story unfolded nicely. I’m glad it wasn’t any longer than just over two hours. Too much longer would have been tedious. I really liked how a variety of concepts from various parts of Star Trek lore have been weaved in. I’d happily rate it between 9 and 9.5 out of 10. At the start I was worried that JJ Abrams had botched the job but he pulled it together at the end. The odd cameo was also appreciated. What I really enjoyed was seeing the return of an actor who played a part in ENT.
If you like Star Trek I don’t have to recommend this, you’ll go again and again like I will.
If you aren’t into Star Trek or science fiction but like a good movie, I recommend this movie as worthwhile. It would help if you watch Star Trek 2009 to get some of the background to the Alternate Reality.
If you don’t like Star Trek and if you don’t like science fiction, if you’re a hater, then I recommend watching something else. The win win will be you will free up a seat for fans to go again and again
So how did I prepare for Star Trek into Darkness? It all centred around Bron naturally. Saturday started with an excellent Bron breakfast of poached egg on a muffin with another muffin smeared with marmalade.
Sorry it’s a bit blurry. I was feeling very hungry.
After the movie Bron made me a Haigh’s spicy hot chocolate
Marshmallows maketh the hot chocolate
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This morning Bron made us scrambled eggs and bacon on sourdough toast
Bron bought the streaky bacon at Elite Meats in Holt. It was very tasty bacon. While there appeared to be a good layer of fat, it didn’t taste fatty at all. Thank you Bron.
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*Alternate Reality—If there really is only the prime and alternate realities the word alternate as an adjective is acceptable. If there are however, infinite alternative realities, then I object to the adjective alternate in Star Trek Canon. How this interacts with the concept of parallel universes in Star Trek Canon is unclear in my puny mind.
I did the salmon the way I normally do with a fry pan and lid and a 5 minute timer. I cooked the vegetables with a little soy and honey.
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and again the next night…
Another small piece of salmon
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I’ve been walking every day too
Mr Owl looks good at 0445 AEST with a black background of the night sky
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In preparation for my clinical day a week I started reading some relevant documents.
Tea rather than coffee too
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For reasons I won’t go in to, I was able to return to my old office area. The first thing I did was put up my flags. I felt immediately at home.
My two favourite places in the world. Queensland and the Northern Territory of Australia
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On Friday I started my first day at The Canberra Hospital as an Honorary Visiting Medical Officer in Pathology. I decided I could walk to work from my DoHA car spot
There is a lot of construction underway so it’s not possible to see the building from outside
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It was a pretty good day. I really enjoyed getting oriented back into a clinical pathology set up. It was nice to speak with clinicians about patients and visit the mortuary and see the museum named after my friend and colleague, viz., Professor Peter Herdson. It was fantastic to get back into the lingo and to start thinking about the wonderful interface being a clinical microbiologist is between the patient in the ward and the vast technological brain power that rests in medical laboratory scientists and other practitioners. I love the technology of pathology. As I grew up in medicine, Professor John Kerr’s most profound comment was that pathology is medicine. If you understand pathology you will understand medicine. Truer words there are not. He also held a firm view that rigorous examination was the best way to produce a well rounded undifferentiated medical graduate who would be ready to learn more about how to heal the sick and teach others to become good practitioners of the art and science of medicine. I love that in pathology we extend our practice into the tactile of holding plates and loops, we can sense the aroma of our friends on the plates, we can see the bright colours of the wonderful chemical reactions in solid and liquid phases. We can stand before instruments worth hundreds of thousands of dollars that reduce the time from specimen reception to result delivery to hours instead of days. But best of all I love that we can take the complex and abstract and share a story with a referring and treating practitioner and help him or her heal their patient. Working in government bureaucracy for the last five years has taught me so many things, but I cannot love it like I love being in a laboratory surrounded by wonderful people and patient specimens, machines and most of all microscopes. Four days a week at DoHA and one day at TCH is a good balance.
As I walked back to my car I was reminded that The Canberra Hospital and the Royal Darwin Hospital were designed in Canada and it was Prime Minister Gough Whitlam who sought to build hospitals in the two territories. The design may well have been good for Canberra but it was a disaster for Darwin. This is a multi-storey, air conditioned building with a furnace up the middle. Indigenous Australians in the Top End communities do not like heights, they don’t like the cold and why require a furnace in a building in subequatorial Australia. What the hell was Prime Minister Whitlam thinking? The best hospital design in the Northern Territory of Australia is the Katherine Hospital. One level, multiple wings with open flow through ventilation and lots of courtyards for patients to gather in along with their intravenous infusion stand and drugs. In Darwin, as much as I love the RDH (not the building itself, I love the people, I love the community, I love the family that is a hospital), it is unseemly to have all the Indigenous Australian patients feel like they have to mill outside on hot concrete with their intravenous infusion stands all because of a mistake from the 1970s.
This morning I weighed myself. I haven’t done this for a couple of months. This morning standing naked I weighed 80.2 kg (or 176 lb for my friends in the USA). Since about Easter I’ve felt myself thickening a little. At the beginning of the year I was about 76 kg. At Easter I was suffering from ManFlu and then had an ankle problem which meant exercising was not a high priority for me. Coupled with some more extravagant eating it should come as no surprise that I’ve got over 80 kg.
I really need to stop eating so much, exercise more and watch what I’m eating. This last week has been a little out of control. Let’s take a look.
Now we need to remember I started the week with the ham hock (which was delicious). I also experienced my birthday (and much of Bron’s generosity). Finally I had one of the best quick meals I’ve ever had last night [click on the links for the images in the posts].
So in between I also ate pretty well.
Roast belly pork
Yes, I ate all that to myself and there was nothing left over.
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Friday morning signalled my last Friday working in the department so I had my last Friday Mavi breakfast wrap.
This doesn’t mean my last Mavi breakfast wrap, just the last one on a Friday. From next Friday I start working as a Visiting Medical Officer in Pathology at The Canberra Hospital every Friday.
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On Friday night I was late at work and so that means takeaway
Before I went to see GI Joe Retaliation I needed lunch. I don’t want to spoil this for anyone. I loved the movie. It’s well worth watching if you like ninja action, guns, heavy machines and very athletic looking actors. I will definitely purchase the DVD when its available.
If you click on any image in this post you’ll see the IG comments made by my IG friends. Some are pretty funny.
It’s autumn
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Mr Owl
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New speed dampening cushions have been installed on local streets. I’m not a fan of them. I am a supporter of better road safety.
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Saturday’s early morning clouds
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Mr Owl this morning. Beautiful blue sky.
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An abandoned car outside the local cop shop
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On a depressing note, my footy teams have not done so well this weekend. The Brisbane Broncos were defeated by South Sydney. The Reds drew their game. The Melbourne Storm were defeated by the Canberra Raiders. So very very sad…
I turned 48 this week (Wednesday 01 May) and enjoyed some fun food.
Before the food though a little reflection. I’ve never really been one to ponder too much about birthdays and getting older. We’re born, we live and if we’re fortunate we age, grow old and then we die. When I turned 30 and 40 I didn’t have a party because in my mind it wasn’t a big deal. Over the last year or so I’ve experienced some evidence of ageing in terms of my health. I’ve had to think more about my weight, my blood pressure and my diet. While I still eat more, I’m more and more conscious of the need to keep my weight at a certain level. On Tuesday night I went to bed and for the first time reflected on the following day I would be 48. Forty-eight sounds old. Forty-seven seemed to be a little way before I hit 50, but 48 is two years away from 50. In my mind 50 is old. That means in 2015 I reckon I’m taking a couple of days off around my birthday and spend some time in quiet reflection. The last place I want to be is at work.
So on Wednesday I woke up feeling quite flat. I needed something sweet and refreshing. The best thing in the morning though was a text message from Miss15 who sent me a pinch and a punch for the first day of the month. Normally I get in first.
I made the smoothie with Chinese gooseberry and pineapple pieces. The coffee was also strong.
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On checking my post office box I had a couple of cards. One from my parents and one from Bron.
Coffee and cards
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I work with great friends. A couple of them decorated the glass outside my work area.
The good news is I move work areas again next week.
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I decided against lunch because Bron was taking me to dinner. When we got there I got a gift from Bron.
Popping candy and chocolate.
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We went to our local Canberra Southern Cross Club at Jamison. The club does a pretty good steak which is what I wanted to eat.
This is a Scotch fillet steak with hollandaise sauce and mash potato.
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Bron bought me a nice cake and we had some at the club. It was great going out with Bron and having a good meal and enjoying each other’s company.
One candle was enough
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The next morning I walked
Hello Mr Owl
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I had some cake for breakfast
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I only had a little
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Office coffee with popping candy
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I got a nerf gun for a birthday present from a work friend
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It’s a nice little pistol
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Chicken and vegetable bake was necessary before I could finish off the cake
This is the ham hock thawing because I forgot to take it out of my freezer last night.
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I looked over a few recipes and while enamoured by many of them I decided to just make it up as I went along based on suggestions from a number of websites.
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This is a heavy duty meal so it needs heavy duty cookware.
My casserole
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I thought I should add some nectar of the gods. It is such a shame I have a liver that cannot metabolise ethanol, otherwise I’d drink this every day for my health. Not to worry I did see a recipe that used beer rather than wine.
XXXX Gold. XXXX sponsor the XXXX Queensland Maroons. Anyone who knows me knows how much I love the XXXX Queensland Maroons and state of origin rugby league. By far and away the greatest game of all. The first state of origin game will be soon. Can Queensland make it eight years in a row?
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Of course man cannot live on meat and beer alone so there are vegetables included.
I forgot to include the Brussels sprouts in the image :-/
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It’s a fairly simple dish to make. I chopped onions and added them to some olive oil in a saucepan on a low heat. I waited for the onion to soften nicely before adding some balsamic vinegar and brown sugar. Once that was simmering and well incorporated I added the tomatoes. When the tomatoes were soft I added the chopped celery and mushroom. When everything was really soft I started to prepare the casserole. I lined the bottom with thinly sliced red cabbage and laid the ham hock on top. I then added the contents of the saucepan and poured the stubby of XXXX GOLD into the casserole. I then added the carrots and Brussels sprouts. I put the casserole into a low oven (150 °C) for four hours.
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This is how it looked at about 3 hours
You can see the meat falling off the bones.
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After four hours I pulled the casserole out. My apartment has a delicious sweet smoky aroma to it. I plated up the slow cooked smoked ham hock on a bed of noodles.
Okay, it’s doesn’t look that colourful and I captured the image before I added some continental parsley.
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I didn’t add any salt or seasoning like a stock cube because I knew there would be so much flavour in the ham plus the flavour of the balsamic vinegar, sugar and onion really came through. I expect I may blow the sheets off the bed tonight after eating so much cabbage, onion and Brussels sprouts. It’s a good thing it’s just me
It was going for $3.
