If someone had told me a few months ago that I would have won Best Dressed at the work Melbourne Cup event I would have laughed. Somehow though I managed to pick up the prize. It wasn’t till sometime yesterday arvo that I decided to wear a hat for the happenings today. After SES, I stopped off at my parents and ummed and ahhed over the various hats. Then Matthew suggested I wear Karl’s WW1 Brodie Helmet, a little bit of fabric and a few ribbons later I had myself a hat which would protect my head from shrapnel and was classy enough for the “field”.
Getting braces has meant that I have eaten a lot of sop/mashed foods the last week or so, one of my favourites was this Chickpea Mash I made. Not only was it packed full of goodness but it was a a good dish to use up veggies in the fridge.
Chickpea Mash
2 handfuls chickpeas, rinsed, soaked overnight and rinsed again
1 onion, diced
few cloves of garlic, crushed
olive oil
1/2 capsicum, diced
3 eschallots, diced
1/4 eggplant, cubed
2tsp tumeric
1/2tsp cinnamon
1tsp cumin
1tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp ginger
vegetable stock and/or water to cover
natural yoghurt and chives to serve
Since shifting out, I have bought myself more flowers. I don’t go buying flowers every week (my money doesn’t stretch that far!) but maybe once every six weeks or so something will grab my eye at the market and I will walk past it a few times thinking “yes, no, yes, no, yes, no, YES”. Last week it was these Waratahs. The flowerman said they would last two weeks or so. I have had these now a week and they hare now a lot less full of colour and they are taking on this interesting grey colour. When I told Mum that I have picked up these Waratahs, she told me of a scheme for next year to go see the Red Waratahs in flower. I think that sounds like the most delightful idea 🙂
Just living is not enough… One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.
– Hans Christian Andersen
Today, Tim and I had an early start for a Wedding that was very different to anything we had done before. Now every wedding is unique but this was Unique. We started the day with Vidya getting ready at 0830 and finished up at UQ about 1730. The above photo is just a sneak peak but there was colour, dancing, lots of people, food and happiness. I am looking forward to going through the rest of the photos in the next couple of days and I will be sharing more 🙂
It was pretty hard not to know that the Air Show was on, there was posters on just about every empty surface at work, there were posters at the train station, there were ads on the radio and TV, people on the net were talking about it.
In the couple of days leading up to the show I was umming and ahhing about going and I didn’t end up deciding till Saturday morning after I had gone to the markets and cleaned the flat. When I decided that I was going to go, I could tell the day was going to be a scorcher so I made a trip back to my parents to pick up some sunscreen and then just missed the next Ipswich train, I decided that I would start to drive towards Ipswich and when the traffic jam started I would stop and catch the train. I had a good run on the freeway till Gailes so I popped off the freeway and parked at Goodna and caught a train to Ipswich and then the shuttle bus out to the Base. Quick easy and it made the trip home a lot quicker 😀
It was total chaos lining up to get a ticket but when I had a ticket and was inside it was a whole lot better. There was so much that I didn’t get a chance to see. I had a brief wander round the various stalls, said hello to the people from work who were working and then wrangled myself a spot on the fence where I could park myself with my 70-200 for a day in the sun taking plane photos. My biggest bummer of the day was the fact the C-17 that I so dearly wanted to see fly didn’t get up in the air on Saturday. One of the ladies I work with went on Sunday and it did get up in the air and she showed me a video on her mobile phone of it flying and I proceeded to have a little tanty right there in the office ….. 🙁 alll in fun though. So I didn’t see her fly but I saw lots of others fly and I have photos, photos which I am pretty proud of. The two highlights for me were without a doubt the Roulette display and the F-111 dump and burns as unless something drastic happens we won’t be seeing any more dump and burns over our skies due to the upcoming retirement of the F-111. sigh. It was also great to see a lot of the planes fly in person and just see the amount of people out for a day watching planes in the sky.
Here are a few pictures but the easiest thing would be to check out the slideshow below
The Roulettes arrive!!
They break formation
F-111 in flight (dump and burn pics are in the slideshow)
For my birthday at work I had a few requests for the cheesecake I had made before for other birthdays. Yes I am blogging about my birthday oh almost a month after it. Oh it was so delightful.
This is the photo of the wind. I had the photo all planned out in my head. My cake stand on an upturned vase covered by a scarf. It all looked so good through the lens and then as I pressed my finger on the shutter, the wind lifted up the scarf and the cake stand went over the balcony, the cake went onto the table and I just sighed. After nipping down stairs to pick up the broken cake stand, I took the photo again in a slightly more simple manner.
The recipe is almost exactly the same as the cheesecake recipe I have posted before but I added a tin of caramel (either Top’n’Fill or Caramel or a tin of condensed milk converted to caramel)
Caramel Chocolate Baked Cheesecake Crumb Base
1 250g packet scotch fingers
bit of all spice
50g butter/marg
50g copha
2 tbsps or so of cocoa if desired
Melt the butter/marg and copha together.
Crumb scotch fingers till they resemble fine breadcrumbs. Stir through the all spice and cocoa if using. Stir in the melted fat mixture. The mixture of dairy and vegetable fat is used to give a better “crumb” and how it holds together. Press in to the bottom (and sides if desired) of a greased 20cm spring form pan (line the bottom with foil) and chill in the fridge whilst making the filling.
Filling
500g cream cheese
1 x 380g tin caramel
bit of lemon juice
bit of vanilla
4 eggs
2/3C sugar
Cream the cream cheese and caramel till smooth. Add in the vanilla and lemon juice. Beat in the sugar till smooth and then beat in eggs one at a time till mixture is smooth. Pour on top of the base and cook in 160deg oven for 40 mins or until cooked. Run knife round edge of spring form pan and cool overnight.
Topping idea very loved from Smitten Kitchen
50g butter
100g+ chocolate – dark or Cadbury Energy or Lindt 70% etc – Mix it up with a few different chocolates, increase the flavour or use up those half used blocks…
2 tsp honey
You could also very easily add some flavours here such as peppermint extract, mmmm.
Melt all ingredients together in a bowl over a saucepan of barely simmering water. Pour over top of cooled cheesecake and place in fridge for 30mins to set the chocolate topping.
When cutting this cake (due to the chocolate topping) if you want a clean cut you must dip the knife in a glass of hot water after each and every cut.
