Tag Archives: Custard

My weekend in food was good

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This weekend I completed my income taxation return and caught up on some work. I also spent some time with Bron and managed to enjoy some delicious meals. If you follow me on instagram you can see how I ate this weekend as well as some of my other activities.

Thai salmon cakes

Bron’s fish cakes were really nice.

Sticky date pudding with homemade custard and butterscotch sauce

Bron makes the best sticky date pudding. Her homemade custard and butterscotch sauce are to die for.

Spring in Canberra

The deciduous trees are blooming and my allergic rhinitis is getting worse. I must be snoring like a train because every morning I wake up with a sore throat like razor blades are cutting it.

Lake Ginninderra

Before breakfast I went for a walk and captured some images. We had breakfast at Black Pepper which is on the corner on the left of the image.


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Dead carp

Fishing is popular in Canberra waterways. The lakes are full of carp. They are a pest and regarded as feral. If a carp is caught it is not allowed to be thrown back into the water. From what I’ve seen people go fishing, catch carp and then leave them anywhere they choose.

Green eggs and ham

Bron chose green eggs and ham. The scrambled eggs have avocado in them.

Poached eggs, Kransky and hollandaise sauce

I ate poached eggs, Kransky sausage, mushrooms and hollandaise sauce.

Pan seared salmon served with a tower of potato mash, wilted spinach, pine nuts, peas and corn along with asparagus and broccolini. The mash potato was made with blue cheese.

Tonight I cooked a light meal of salmon. Click on it if you want a larger resolution view.

Oh and if you’re interested, next weekend I want to see the Melbourne Storm defeat the Canterbury Bulldogs. I also want to see the Sydney Swans defeat the Hawthorn Hawks.

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My weekend in food and ‘health’

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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.

Fresh prawns with a seafood sauce.

Yep, it's a salad. The olives are local.

Creamy potato bake.

Fresh bread made on the day. With real butter, what can be better?

Standing rib roast. Doesn't it look amazing.

Plated up. This dinner was so well balanced.

A heart shaped pavlova. Lovely fresh fruits including blackberries picked locally.

Pavlova served with home made vanilla ice cream.

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.

10 kilograms of lamb shoulder in three oven trays.

This is me sampling some of the lamb. Look at that growing mountain of meat.

Smash potatoes and roasted sweet potato and parsnip.

Can you believe how much meat we went through?

Bron made enough yorkies for everyone to have two or three.

Ready to serve.

My first helping of lamb and vegetables.

My second helping of lamb.

My first helping of Bron's sticky date oudding with butterscotch sauce, custard and vanilla ice cream.

My second helping of pudding.

After dinner we had to have fruit.

Terry's chocolate orange ball.

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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Crème brûlée French toast for breakfast

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Have you heard of anything more extravagant? Bron mentioned a few weeks ago she’d read a blog of someone whose bucket list involved eating Crème brûlée French toast from a well known place in New York. It was on her bucket list. Bron found a recipe from http://www.smittenkitchen.com for crème brûlée french toasts. This morning I visited to enjoy a Saturday breakfast. For the first time in a very long time I felt full after breakfast.

Bron chose to use brioche which I think was a fantastic choice.

Brioche soaked in custard

Brioche soaked in custard with orange zest

The orange zest was a great touch. Citrus is amazing.

Bananas and berries and mint

Cherry and orange sauce, it tasted awesome.

Brioche soaked in custard after emerging crispy from the oven

I just love that this was bread soaked in custard, yet it remained absorbent enough for the cherry and orange sauce and maple syrup.

The breakfast table

Brioche centrepiece

Brioche before the sweet goodness arrives

Crème brûlée French toast with cherry and orange sauce accompanied with maple syrup

Apologies about the photography. All images were captured with an iPhone 4.
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A weekend in food

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I know a lot of fellow bloggers have started 2012 with posts about resolutions and reviews of 2011. I thought my first post for 2012 should be about a weekend of food enjoyment.

On Friday night we caught up with friends and enjoyed steam boat and pavlova at their place. We’ve enjoyed steam boat with them before and it has always been a fantastic meal. Steam boat is also known as hot pot. I remember steam boat as a kid, Mum had an electric boat and we had many happy meals putting meat, vegetables and noodles into the simmering water. On Friday night we enjoyed marinaded pork, beef, chicken and prawns. We had three types of noodles and heaps of Chinese vegetables. At the end, three egg yolks were beaten in and we had the best soup to finish.

Steam boat preparation. Everything ready.

Steam boat preparation. Everything ready.

A bowl of awesome goodness.

For dessert we had a pavlova lovingly made by our friends. This pav was amazing. The cream was whipped coconut cream and pouring cream. It had a lovely coconut flavour and a smooth texture. The fruit included banana, passion fruit, mango, pineapple, Chinese gooseberry (kiwifruit), blueberries and strawberries.

The platter was about 60 cm in diameter. Four adults polished it off in one hit. It was awesome.

A huge pavlova

We accompanied the pavlova with one of the all time best ice creams. Weis‘ mango cream with Queensland nut (Macadamia) chunks.

My favourite ice cream Weis' mango cream and macadamia chunks

My first (of three) helping.

My first of three helpings of awesome pavlova

The empty platter, all gone in one go

We finished the evening with chocolate and port. Well I didn’t have port, but it was a great evening. Lots of laughs. We really treausre these times with our friends. Especially the work and social related conversations. I’m glad I don’t drink otherwise I’d forget how much I laugh when we’re all together.

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