Jenga at Brisbane's Hazel Tea Shop

Brisbane's Hazel Tea Shop
http://www.hazel.com.au/



This will in all likelihood be a short post because I've already covered the Gold Coast branch of Hazel Tea Shop. My friend Josh and I were wandering around the city on a shopping trip (or, rather I think I was shopping and he was a poor victim of circumstance) and we decided to get some tea.



I had a very upsetting experience earlier on in the day where I poured the very last of my change (handful of pathetic shrapnel) into purchasing myself a chocolate frappe. I got a paper and sat down to enjoy and being my uncoordinated self, knocked the whole cup over before I even took one sip.

Wok-tossed Sandcrab in Sate Sauce

Wok-tossed Sandcrab in Sate Sauce
Home Cooking



Another old post. Ah... at the rate that I'm blogging I'm probably never going to produce anything fresh. Sorry guys. I can endeavor to try harder? Possibly? These days I have an odd relationship with my laptop. I seem to always be on it but never doing anything productive. It's some kind of reverse efficiency?

I'M TALKING WITH TOO MANY QUESTION MARKS.

Ok... *calm* back to my story.


Masterchef followers will recognize Luke Nguyen's crab recipe from a Masterclass way back. He made it with mud crab but well, we can't all be mud crab eaters, OK? Friday nights I tend to be at mum and dad's house so dad watched this episode and he was quite entranced by the sate sauce so proclaimed he would recreate this dish.


This dish is almost entirely about that sate sauce. The crab itself is just deep fried but the sauce is where all the flavor resides. It's compiled from a complex combination of ingredients that lends the right amount of savory, spicy, numbing and so on. The original recipe and a video can be seen here. As usual, we tinkered with the quantities.

A Salt and Battery

A Salt and Battery
www.asaltandbattery.com.au


Ahhh memories.

Sometimes, you don't realize how much time as passed until you spare a moment to reflect. I took my parents to A Salt and Battery recently because I promised them what many students view as the best fish and chips in Brisbane.



Even though I'm a UQ student, I don't have classes on St Lucia campus anymore. When I think back to 1st year, when I had science lectures there... it feels like a lifetime ago. So many things have changed.


My friends and I used to go to Hawken Drive for food because it's a reasonably close collection of food outlets. Since that period of my life, I've developed a kind of repulsion towards St Lucia because in the last couple of years, my only time spent there was for study and exams. It's enough to make anyway swap their good memories for an association of brain torture.

Having not visited A Salt and Battery in a while, my memory of the place was of crunchy chips, perfectly battered fish, large servings and lots of customers.

Masterchef Pork Schnitzels

Masterchef Pork Schnitzels
Home Cooking



Ever since the first episode aired ~ a month or so ago, I've been carrying on to friends and family about how I would be cooking Masterchef recipes at least 'n' times per week. This hasn't been the case at all and every time I'm asked, I resort to any excuse from "it was Mother's day so my parents cooked instead" to "my boyfriend hates me being in the kitchen" and finally, the more honest reason of "I'm just too lazy".

Well... FINALLY I've managed to 'plate up' (in the words of our favorite TV judges). It's not heart-on-the-plate material but hey, after last week's pressure test, I found myself with an insatiable schnitzel craving so I e-mailed mum with a list of ingredients to be procured (hence eliminating my 2nd favorite excuse of "I couldn't afford ingredients").

Tan Thanh

Tan Thanh
57 Corsair Ave, Inala



Just bought a car recently. Well, not that recently but in scale with how infrequently I've been uploading this blog, it's quite recent. It was a bit of a fiasco picking up the beast because I actually don't have my license (pause for scoffing and snide laughter) so I had to recruit two friends to act as drivers.

One of them was my uni friend Ellen who I hardly ever see now that we're all split up on placement. We planned to catch up over lunch after I got my car sorted out. As for where to eat, it was an easy decision because Ellen wanted to prove where she thought the best pho in Brisbane was.

Homemade Muesli Bars

Homemade Muesli Bars
Home Cooking



It's been a million years since I blogged (slight exaggeration of 2-3 weeks) and the reasons are as follows:

• constant sleepiness
• laziness
• unwillingness to write about muesli bars that I made over a month ago while I was in a healthy food phase (lasted all of 3 days)
• not in the mood

And the list goes on. Ah well, back in business.

Pane e Vino

Pane e Vino
http://www.paneevino.com.au/



A lot of people seem to carry the idea that there are no worthwhile pasta restaurants. The attitude is 'I can make it myself' or 'it's just all tomato-based sauces'. I can see how that might seem logical when you're basing judgment on those really non-pasta dishes that generic non-Italian restaurants serve (if you don't know what I'm talking about, just think 'jarred pasta sauce flavor'). This also applies to pizza restaurants that attempt pasta dishes and end up serving food that tastes frozen and microwaved.



I've experienced all these pasta failings yet I maintain that out there exists pasta served at a restaurant that will blow my mind. I imagine an Italian mama painstakingly rolling out fresh sheets of pasta and the kitchen to be bustling but clean and only the freshest ingredients used.

Sweet Chili Fresh Pasta

Sweet Chili Fresh Pasta
Home Cooking



This is a short post about a meal quick fix I pulled together after I got my pasta machine. It was a birthday present from one of my closest friends and I pretty much couldn't wait to use it.


Having gone through the tedious process of hand-rolling pasta before, I couldn't wait to benefit from the wonderful qualities of home made pasta without the manual labor.


After looking through my hoard of cookbooks, I lost patience and basically just decided to throw something together. This is a really simple recipe but it was quite tasty too. I used my own fresh pasta (see recipe here) but you can substitute with whatever you have.

Mount Tamborine - mosquitos, leaches and muddy river crossings (oh, good food too)

Mount Tamborine Winery Restaurant
http://www.mttamborinewinery.com/restaurant/



I've been happily soaking up the long weekends. They are (along with the Easter break), perhaps, the best thing that's happened to me 1st half of 2010. Screw birthdays. I will pick free days of no uni and no work over partying any time.

On the Anzac day long weekend, my family decided to head South to Mount Tamborine. We go there relatively frequently and my parents are known to head down just for breakfast and then back again. I'm in the process of logging 100hrs of driving in order to be qualified for the practical driving test so it seemed like a good opportunity to clock up time.

I'll admit that dad took over for the actual mountain roads.

Nevertheless!



We went up the mountain and first thing mum decides is that she needed to use the bathroom. There marks the unexpected start of an 'interesting' adventure. There was a short trek through the bushes to get to the public outhouse. Afterwards, we were heading back to the car and spotted a sign indicating that a 2km waterfall walk was on the right. So... continue returning to the car or embark on the bushwalk? We opted for the later option.

Apricot and Almond Muesli Bread

Apricot and Almond Muesli Bread
Home Cooking



I've been revisiting my health-food phase and my most recent grocery trip was filled with muesli (2 packets in fact, because I couldn't decide which packet was more enticing), nuts, organic this, wholegrain that and low GI everything.

One of my muesli purchases was a Coles brand product "Apricot, Almond and Date muesli". As if that doesn't sound good enough on its own, the packaging comprises of that matt, clear plastic that makes everything look posh. I was also hooked in by the recipe on the back for muesli bread.



I used the full recipe and thought the batter would be waaaay too much for one bread pan. I even had muffin patties lined up, ready to take any extra batter. Somehow, it all fitted level into my bread tin and the bread doesn't rise that much so it turned out perfect. In other words, if you're concerned about baking more than you can handle, I thought the same but it all worked out.