I love markets!

Gosh when I said back to reality, reality hit hard! I have had some full on weeks at work including work in Melbourne and  Open Day today.  A full day of saying the same 2 minute speech over and over for about 5 hours straight on a Sunday sure takes it out of you! The consequence of this is no new recipe Sunday but I have a few to catch you up on so I think you will survive

The weekend after I got back from my cruise we had some friends over for dinner so I jumped on the chance to cook a new dessert.  I had a lot of lemons in the fridge from my Nana's tree so it seemed perfect to try a classic baked lemon cheesecake. My past cheesecake experiences haven't been amazing, for some reason me and gelatine don't mix, lucky for those coming there was no gelatine in this recipe!  One thing I did find really strange was that the recipe had the cheesecake topped with whipped cream, imagine icing on a cake. I thought this was weird so I just ignored and I can see good old Donna had a point.  It was very filling and dense and the cream would have helped with this so the next night I tried it with ice cream and it was soooo much better. Lesson learned...Donna Hay knows better than me, who would have thought!

After a fun Saturday night I wanted to avoid doing housework and it just so happened that the Talbot Farmers Market was on (it is only on once a month) and I have always wanted to go out. When the sun was shinning I decided to what better way to spend a Sunday than wandering the stalls of the much raved about market.  It certainly is popular with lots of fresh and gourmet produce available including cheese's, wines, dips, fresh fruit and veg but I must say I wasn't blown away. There was also a lot of trinket and junk/second hand stalls and I don't have much interest in this.  I did buy a few fresh things but they are all things available at the Ballarat markets so I don't I will make the drive back out there again anytime soon.  One thing I did try was this very popular Chinese stand, the line was huge and my theory is always if it is popular it must be worth the wait. They had dumplings and spring rolls just to name a few.  I decided to try a tiger prawn spring roll, it was obviously hand made but trying to churn out so many at once, the little fryer system they have set up sure was getting a work out and sadly it tasted of burnt oil.

I could fill you in on some of the work things that I have been doing but I am going to blow right past it and go straight to dinner with the girls.  It has been a while since we caught up in Melbourne (our friend lives on the outskirts which makes it just over an hours drive) so we headed down on a Thursday night to meet up and it also gave the opportunity for the rest of our group that live right in the city to come out. Dinner with the girls therefore turned into dinner with everyone (minus a few), which was well overdue.  It was great to go somewhere different not to mention catch up with everyone to brag about our holiday! Mel and I ended up getting some sharing plates which included crab slidders and pizza. It was a really nice meal but I can't even remember the name of the place so don't bother going there haha!

Before I knew it, the weekend was here again and the weather was magical. I made the decision to get back on the fitness bandwagon after 2 months of nursing this unknown ankle injury.  It was such a good start to my weekend I was feeling refreshed and really enjoying some time to myself to unwind.  My gym is right near Lake Wendouree which happens to be the home of the Ballarat Farmers Market so as I am driving home I can't help but stop.  The beautiful sun and endorphins from exercise sure put me in a good mood so I grabbed some fresh food and decided to have an avocado and feta smash on sourdough for lunch.  I know I go on and on about fresh produce but people if you are not on the bandwagon yet, GET ON IT!  You will notice the difference. The sourdough in particular was amazing. I generally buy this from bakers delight but I am very happy to say this was much better.  I will be stopping by after my Saturday morning gym sessions more often to pick up a loaf.

I must say my weekend continued to be great and it ended on a high with a successful new recipe sunday.  I decided on slow-cooked lamb shank pasta with pesto.  Lamb shanks are becoming more and more popular in this household and this was a really nice way of using them differently.  The only trouble I had was trying to find buffalo mozzarella so I settled with bocconcini. This was really really simple, it did take a little while as the lamb shanks are slow cooked but this was probably one of my favourite recipes I have tired.

The last thing I just have to share with you is that I got to have a day off this week to spend with Dylan.  We went out for lunch and I just had to go to cake bakeshop now the guys have bagels out of here too.  I had a salmon bagel followed by a redskin macaroon.  These guys have a winner here, a tiny bit of sweet after a delicious lunch worked so well.  They have only been serving bagels out of here for a month or so and it was already so busy not to mention a weekday.  I would be interested to see if they have any tables on a weekend.

Enjoy your week people, I am heading out to dinner with the girls again this week and look forward to another review :)

Back to reality

Here comes the back to reality whinge. You knew it was going to happen! Often I finish up a holiday and I am ready to go back to work feeling all refreshed.  Well not this time! I could have done with another week of relaxing, drinking cocktails & sunshine.  Now I have the obligatory whinge out of the way, let me make you jealous of my holiday.

It started very early Saturday morning but we were both full of beans with excitement. The beans very quickly faded and I felt like I needed a nap before we had even landed in Brisbane.  If I had known boarding the ship was going to be a painful process of line after line after line after line then I probably would have have taken the chance...rookie mistake! We finally made it onto the ship by about 1pm and there was so much to explore.  We first found our room, not without an awkward moment of me trying to get into the wrong room and complaining the room key didn't work.  Life lesson number one, no matter how tried and keen to dump your luggage, always check the room number instead of guessing.  In my defence I had all the numbers right, just in the wrong order....ooops. It was then off to a compulsory safety talk and we even got to learn how to put on our life jackets!

Time to explore! Before we boarded we were given a lot of information including a map with a treasure hunt game where we had to find 10 different places on the ship and get a stamp at each.  If you got all stamps you could then go into the draw for a raffle.  We thought it was a good way to find some key places on the ship including the shops, the restaurants & the spa and maybe we could start our trip off with a win.  Karma was on my side and bam! They pulled my name out of the box.  Sadly not as exciting as the spa voucher the guy behind me won, but a hat, a teddy, a stubby holder and a few other token things from the gift shop, I'll take that win.  It turned out karma was on our side as we continued to win a number of things on board including a reasonable amount at bingo (one of our favourite afternoon activities), some money at the casino (we may have lost all this again by the end of the trip) a cruise DVD and a few other smaller less exciting things including a P&O winners bag from my quoits victory! I thought my luck may carry over when I was back on land, but no sadly I did not win $50 million at powerball this week.

There was so much to see and do we didn't really know where to start so we decided to take a little break and enjoy the boat sailing away from Brisbane while sipping on a cocktail. I could very easily get used to this lifestyle.  All this exploring took it out of us and before we knew it we were both starving hungry. 

The eating options included on the ship was the buffet, a restaurant, a grill and 2 other restaurants you could pay to go to.  We headed straight to the buffet for night one.  There was such a range of food including cold meats and salads, hot options such as casseroles and then a carvery as well.  Not to mention the dessert section! The biggest trap with the buffet was that you had no idea what was coming so you often took something just incase nothing better was in front of you, before you know you are eating a meal big enough for 2 people at least.  We didn't eat at the buffet often for this very reason.  We ended up eating most of our meals in the restaurant that was included free of charge.  You were seated in a first come, first serve system and could be seated on a table of up to 12 other people.  The service was exceptional and the menu was not only extensive but changed every day over the week.  You could order as much as you wanted and it was expected you had entree, main and dessert every meal.  I certainly commend them for the amount of food they turn over every meal with very little fuss or mistakes, and the quality of food was very good.  They were a well oiled machine in that kitchen!

For all of those people that told us we wouldn't even know we were on a boat, you were very wrong! Admittedly the crew said it was one of the worst they had been on in the last 6 months but trust me we definitely knew we were on a ship. We struggled to walk in a straight line most places we went but thankfully we discovered neither of us got sea sick.  After two days at sea it was a very nice feeling to put these feet on dry land.  We had 3 docks while we were away, two in New Caledonia and one in Vanuatu.  I haven't talked much about the weather yet and sadly it wasn't as warm as we had expected.  Don't get me wrong, it was much warmer than here and I was very happy to pull the shorts out but I was definitely not out sun baking.  Vanuatu was an exception to this and it was beautiful weather.  We don't have much time when we dock so at New Caledonia we decided to just wander around and explore on our own.  We did get some snorkeling in at one stop but it was very windy and raining so we didn't do too much.  We did however take full advantage of the weather in Vanuatu and went on a shore tour to see the beautiful Cascade Falls.  Everywhere you looked you could see green rainforest until we made it to base off the falls.  We were able to climb up through the falls, with the assistance of the oh so natural ropes drilled into the stones.  After the trek we were given some fresh fruits including passionfruit, pineapple and grapefruit.  It still amazes me the significant difference having fresh produce makes, it was the perfect shore day.

Before we knew it we were on our way back to Brisbane.  We decided to treat ourselves for the last few sea days including a trip to the spa and a visit to the celebrity restaurant on board, Salt Grill by Luke Mangan.  After spending a lot of time sharing tables with other people, although we met some lovely people, it was nice to have a table with just the two of us.  The food we had was exceptional and well worth the $50 for three courses, I have no doubt you would have paid much more for this on shore. I decided on tempura prawns, barramundi and gooey chocolate & honeycomb tart. It was the perfect way to spend our last night on board.  Overall it was really exciting to do something different for a holiday and I would recommend you give it a try if you are up for something different.

There are many more things I could talk about, for example the entertainment, I haven't talked about this at all!! But if you made it this far without either falling asleep or giving up, well done, I will not put you through anymore pain & jealousy!! I think I will leave it there for now and catch you up on my first and busy week at home for next time. Except I do have one very exciting thing to share.  When I returned home I got a brand new little nephew..ok so technically he is Dylan's nephew but I am definitely claiming him!  Such a little cutie and I was lucky enough to get some cuddles this week.  As for the rest of the week, I'll keep you in suspense xxx

Cruise day is finally here!

What an exciting day I have had so far.  For those of you who haven't heard me rabbiting on about this for months, tomorrow is the day I head off on my CRUISE! I know how jealous you are so I won't torture you with the thought of sunshine, swimming, eating, relaxing etc etc etc!  To add to the excitement...and now delay...of packing it also snowed in Ballarat today. I know there are millions of people around the world that don't think this is exciting, but it is! Just accept that we love it when it snows in Ballarat and it makes living here worthwhile.

I have continued to have an exhausting few weeks including some days at home sick and couch bound that my eating habits really have been horrible recently.  So I decided to embrace the sugar and make caramel slice.  I have never made this before so took the recipe from my trusty Donna Hay book and was more than pleasantly surprised.  It was a fairly simple recipe but it was so delicious.  I think this may even be one if I need to take a slice somewhere.

As the week continued and the sickness began to take full force, I certainly didn't stop with caramel slice. I didn't have the energy to cook anything, I hardly had the energy to get up so the offer of a bagel burger for dinner one night was jumped on.  Dylan LOVES Round the Way bagel van and they are often at his work one night a week.  They have been around for about a year now and are so popular they have recently purchase Cake Bakeshop and from all reports they will be selling bagels from here too.  While they are a little expensive, around $12-$15 each, the two or three I have had before have been so worth it.  They have really good quality ingredients and nailed the flavour combinations.  This time I tried a Baus Hawg which was texas style pork with a bbq sauce.  Keep an eye on their Facebook and Instagram accounts which let you know where they are trading, they are often in Melbourne & Geelong too these days.
I must admin Dylan did a pretty good job of feeding me during my sick week. He even whipped up Chicken Laksa soup one night.  I was a little skeptical as I had never had it before but with an extremely sore throat it actually was very soothing.  I loved the flavour too and he can definately cook more often.  Maybe he should have kept that one to himself!!

I was finally feeling a little better but not before using the excuse to try another of Ballarat's newest addition, FroYo.  For those of you who are not up with the newest trends this is frozen yoghurt that is slef serve and you add your own toppings and then weigh it at the end and pay for it on weight.  I tried vanilla, chocolate and strawberry and I will totally have chocolate again, the others I could happily leave. It is in such a strange place in the middle of a shopping centre though, not sure whose smart idea that was.

I am certainly still not 100% but this didn't stop me catching up with my girls for dinner this week.  I haven't seen them since before I went away for uni games.  For people I see every week, not seeing them for 3 entire weeks certainly felt like a lifetime!  We ticked another restaurant off our list and headed to The Boatshed.  I have been here for breakfast a few times and it has always been nice food but haven't been there for dinner in years.  It is more expensive than the average Ballarat restaurant but it was noticeable that the food was at least good quality but I think you really pay for the location more than the food here.  The menu was very very very small and we all really struggled to choose something.  In saying that, the chicken I had was cooked really well and the flavours were great not to mention it was nice to catch up in a quiet place without the hustle and bustle.

Now I am sure you have all been reading along thinking geeze where is her new recipe Sunday update (or maybe I am the only one that really likes that part!) but I only have one for you this time.  I did try pork as I was writing my last entry but let's just say I didn't even bother with a photo of that...enough said! I was however very excited to try tamarind duck last weekend.  I am sure it is no surprise when I tell you I haven't cooked with duck before so I wasn't sure what to expect so I followed the recipe to the letter.  It was a little overcooked but I loved the flavour.  It had a very strong citrus flavour but I found it really refreshing although perhaps just a little too overpowering.  Dylan has requested that I do not include this one on the to cook list again...at least he didn't go off and cook two minute noodles afterwards this time!

I am glad I got to catch up before I head off at 5AM tomorrow, I know you wont be jealous of that part, and look forward to sharing my travel with you when I return xx