I think I just had one of the nicest coffee’s I’ve EVER HAD. The Deputy Rector pops down to The Potter coffee shop from time to time and picks us up a coffee, and today’s brew was just amazing! I mean, I haven’t had a bad coffee in Melbourne (bad service, yes, but not bad coffee!), but this one was just exceptional. It was the perfect temperature, the perfect strength and the flavour was fantastic!
And now I want another one…
One of the enormous ANZAC bikkies I made a few months ago.
Today is not only my Mum’s birthday (Happy Birthday Mum!!!) but it’s also the 60th Anniversary of when my grandparents landed in Australia. They were refugees from WWII and had a choice to come to either Canada or Australia, and luckily for me, they chose Australia! (Lucky, cos, you know, otherwise I wouldn’t exist. So maybe it’s lucky for ALL OF YOU!!! Ha!)
Mum and Dad wanted to commemorate this milestone by throwing Nanny and Grandpa a party, and Mum took it upon herself to make the coolest cake EVER!
Mum hired the cake tin from a cake shop and bought the accessories to put this creation together. When she first emailed it to me, I thought it was a picture from a magazine that she wanted to copy, but no! It was the real deal! I showed all the ladies here at work and they went berserk over it as I did!
Mum has made many of our cakes over the years, mainly from the Woman’s Day Birthday Cake Book. You know the one. I had the doll cake, the bunny, the monster, the piano (it was purple cos purple is my favourite colour and Mum would do anything for me), the sewing basket, a few numbers (like ONE – 3 cakes spelling it out!), the cricket bat (yes, I had the cricket bat) and a few more I’m sure. This is a bit of a hobby of Mums, but I reckon she could turn professional!
I hope you have a lovely birthday Mum! And I trust the Anniversary celebrations were a blast! 🙂
Updated: And here’s Nanny and Grandpa enjoying themselves on their special day:
A few weeks ago, our friend Ian came down for a visit. He’s been threatening to come down for a year and phoned us on a Wednesday to tell us he’d be here Friday night til Sunday! So we booked him in for Saturday afternoon and evening and looked forward to it with great anticipation.
About a year ago, Hubs and I went on a winery tour with our friend Nate, and one of the bottles we bought was a Verdhelo from Sticks Winery. We had been saving it for Ian’s visit as we knew that was one of his favourite varieties of wine so of course, we had to buy some cheese and bikkies to go with it!
We headed out to Hardware Lane, as Ian is our jazz buddy and there’s live jazz at Hardware Lane most nights. There are also LOTS of restaurants and way too many spruikers. Business is obviously slow EVERYWHERE as we were offered free bottles of wine, Cosmopolitans, beers and bourbon to try and convince us to dine at a number of places. We opted for a place called Pop.
It had no Pop.
The free bottle of wine was actually really nice, and about $40 on the menu, but we were right in the middle of the 2 groups playing jazz so we couldn’t really hear either of them which was disappointing. The food and service weren’t really up to scratch so we decided to look for somewhere else for dessert.
We went down to Block Place which is a neat little lane way in between the Collins Streets (little and big) and went to Caffe e Biscotti for a night cap. Hubs wanted “something different” to drink so the bartender took full advantage and made him a Frangelico, Kahlua and lime. I won’t disclose the cost, but it was a delicious drink! Ian had a liquer coffee with Cointreau and I had a port.
The drinks really were lovely but not something we could afford regularly!! We also ordered a stack of pancakes to share which were delicious, but the best thing about this place was the little jazz band outside! They were great and really added to the atmosphere of the place. The service was good and it’s somewhere I’d like to go back to try the meals. But definitely only for a special occasion.
A great night out in Melbourne!
Hubs and I try to have a designated “date night” every week or 2 and it usually occurs on a Wednesday night. A few weeks ago, life was hectic and the only day we could do was the Tuesday, so we put it aside. Hubs planned to cook up his famous pumpkin and mushroom rissoto, so before he got home from uni, I got a few things ready for him. I had frozen some leftover stock from the last time we’d made rissoto, so that was all thawed out and ready to go. I chopped up all the mushrooms and put them in the steamer part of our saucepan set to rinse before setting them aside. Then I chopped up the pumpkin and got the rice out ready for Hubs to come home and make some magic.
So Hubs comes home, tired after a long day of studying and slowly gets to work. First of all, he grabs the “saucepan” of mushrooms, puts it on the bench and proceeds to pour the defrosted stock “into” the saucepan, all in one go, before I realise what he’s doing. You can guess what happened to the stock….
Chicken stock – 1
Hubs – 0
Somehow this was my fault for putting the mushrooms in a saucepan with holes in the bottom and not telling him. I wasn’t so convinced and started to get a bit cranky, but tried to see the funny side.
Not a happy Hubs. So I helped him clean that up while he continued preparing. Now it was time for the rice. As we had some leftover, again, from the last rissoto he’d made, I had rolled up the packet and put it in a re-sealable glad bag, but as he went to take it out, he grabbed the “wrong” end.
And you can guess what happened to the rice…
Rice – 1
Hubs – 0
It went all over the counter, on the floor, beside the oven, EVERYWHERE! And that was my fault too. I was laughing quite hard at this stage, but Hubs wasn’t ready to see the funny side, so I decided it would be best to leave him to it and go and read my new favourite comic book.
We had a couple of glasses of wine over dinner and a DVD and started to relax a little and try not to take it all too seriously. Dinner was absolutely delicious and looking at these photos now (and having the sense to take them at the time) I can’t help but laugh. A lot. It really was a hilarious date night, and we have learnt that Tuesday nights are NO GOOD for date nights any more, and we should stick to Wednesdays from now on!
Maybe I should have learnt from last time, although, this might be another one of his ploys to do things “enthusiastically and badly” in the hope of not being asked to do it again!!
On Saturday night, Hubs and I were invited over to dinner by our friends Rohan and Miya. Hubs and Rohan study together. Miya is half Japanese, and they treated us to a Japanese dish called Shabu Shabu. And as Hubs put it “It wasn’t just a meal, it was an adventure!”
We got to cook our own fresh ingredients like carrot, cabbage, fish, tofu, spinach, spring onions and bean sprouts and noodles and “fish” them out when they were done! Then we placed them in our sauces which were ponzu sauce with spring onion, or sesame sauce (my fave!) and then onto the rice. I can still taste the yumminess of it all! And it was so healthy as well! Just boiled ingredients and tasty sauces. I wanted more and more but just couldn’t fit any more in!
We then finished off the meal with a lovely self-saucing chocolate pudding and some of my choc-dipped strawberries. It was a lovely evening with new friends and we can’t wait to go on Rohan’s Dad’s yacht some time in the near future! (Now you HAVE to take us! Ha ha ha.)
Here’s a photo from the evening – check out the awesome set-up!
And hopefully a photo of Rohan and Miya to come (cos I forgot to take one of them on the night – I was distracted by the food!!!!)
As I mentioned the other day, the Newman College Senior Common Room held a bake-off on Sunday, and it was an event that lived up to expectation. In the last few weeks, there has been a lot of big talk about who’s going to bake what, and who’s going to win. The scene was set with 21 entries (more than anticipated!) of foods such as spinach triangles, truffles, muffins, cakes, scones, a Tim Tam stack, and jelly. Oh yes. The steaks were high!
In preparation for this prestigious event, I spent most of Saturday in the kitchen, baking and making my creations. I had decided on a Pink theme and started looking into recipes and found this one on a blog that I read (the cake balls, towards the end of the post). I was excited and got to work fairly early in the morning (10am!). I really should have take progress-photos, but mine turned out pretty much the same as the ones on the blog, and her photos are MUCH better than anything I could have taken.
So pink cake balls down, coconut ice and choc-dipped strawberries to go! Here’s the final product, titled “Pretty in Pink”.
And from another angle:
It seems my entry impressed the judges, as I took out first place in the sweets section! The prize? A wooden spoon of course!
Now I know this looks like a typical dessert-time at Nanny’s, but it’s actually all the other fabulous entries:
Ingredients for my creations: $25
Bribes for the judges: $50 (ha ha)
Seeing Hubs look at all the fantastic bakery creations and getting the most excited about blue and green “Griffin” jelly: Priceless.
There are some things money really can’t buy.
Mum came down for a visit last weekend and we had a de-lightful time! We left Hubs at home to study (aka do all the things he’s not “allowed” to do when Wifey is home like read recreationally and watch scary movies!) and took a road trip out to Stratford to visit some rellies. We had a lovely evening with them and a couple of their friends drinking wine, eating a roast and drinking more wine! We then filled up on a BIG Breakfast (they know how to do a proper Big Brekky in the country!) Sunday morning and headed back to Melbourne town, passing through the “Sale Gale”! Fun!
We then treated Mum to a service at Newman College Chapel where the choir were in fine form, as per usual. Monday we went off to the movies and saw Milk which was a really great movie – 4 stars out of 5 for sure. Before that, however, we visited Kokoblack, the inspiration for the title of this post. Definitely 4.5 stars out of 5! It was a real treat!
Hubs opted for the Chocolate ice cream Martini:
And Mum and I had the Belgian Spoil for Two with 2 hot chocolates and a taste of a whole lotta yummy stuff!!
I was impressed by the presentation and the service, and quite impressed with the prices as well. I mean, it wasn’t super-cheap, but it was different and delicious, and considering you can pay (and I have paid) $5.50 for a fancy hot-chocolate in chocolaterias, I thought $22 for 2 awesome hot chocolates, and small servings of chocolate cake, 2 belgian chocolates, shortbread, chocolate ice cream and chocolate mousse was okay by me.
What’s that? You’d like me to take you to Kokoblack next time you’re in town? Oh, okay then!
So Hubs and I have been eating a bit of pop corn lately – it’s a cheap and tasty snack that’s SUPER easy to make!… or so I thought… Here’s what happened:
Wifey: “I’m off to see my friend now. Be back in a few hours”
Hubs: “Can you please make some pop corn before you go so Dr Luke and I can eat it while watching (insert boy movie here)?”
Wifey: “Honey, I have to go. It’s really easy to make. Just heat up the oil, put half a cup of corn in, put the lid on, and turn it off when it stops popping.”
Hubs: “Okaaaay”
An hour later
Ring ring
Wifey: “Hey Hubs”
Hubs: “Oh yeah. Cooking pop corn is soooooooooo easy. How come I have a kitchen full of smoke and a saucepan full of black corn? See what happens when you leave me alone to fend for myself????”
Wifey: (trying to stop laughter)
This is what greeted me on my return: (our new pots!!)
And it took a few days for the burnt pop corn smell to leave the house!!! The moral of the story? Never assume that a super-intelligent man who is completing his PhD in electrical engineering, as WELL as studying medicine, can cook pop corn.