Regional Visit

As part of my work as a hospital pharmacist I have to travel the smaller remote siteswithin our region (The Gascoyne) and conduct a 'regional visit'.  I was lucky enough to be able to co-ordinate this with mom this time as she needed to go up there to for her work.  We drove up on the Monday, a four hour drive north from Carnarvon to Exmouth.  What is interesting is passing through Learmonth and seeing all of the communication towers and runways and signs saying "Do not enter' in the middle of nowhere about 50km before you get into Exmouth.  I have heard all sorts of stories about what used to happen here, that because of the soldiers stationed here from the US they used to ship in brands of US food, that there is a duty-free wet mess and they used to be able to invite friends in to drink for cheap and that there are all sorts of buildings there that you can't see from the road! I don't know how much of it is true or how much is just a good story but it certainly makes that last half hour of the drive pass a little quicker!
When we arrived in Exmouth it was lunchtime so we went to Kailis http://www.exmouthwa.com.au/accom_result1/exmouth-fish-co/ for lunch.  They catch tiger and king prawns in the gulf there so we bought a beautiful box of fresh steamed prawns with seafood sauce and a warm bread roll for lunch.  There would have been photos but I figured it wasn't a good idea to operate my camera with prawny hands! Before lunch we took a quick detour over the road from the big prawn to Charles Knife Gorge, just beautiful.  One of those places where pictures don't do it justice.

After lunch there was some work involved.... After work we went to dinner at Mantarays Restaurant at the Noveotel Ningaloo Hotel, it has won all sorts of fine country dining awards and we could both see why.  One of the nicest dinnersI have had in ages :) Beautiful setting, great service and really, REALLY good food. http://www.novotelningaloo.com.au/eat.html

The next morning (after a bit more work!) we drove onto Coral Bay nursing post, via Pebble Beach.  As the name suggests, it is a beach made entirely of really cool looking pebbles! Perhaps not so good for jogging on (rolled ankles galore) but very pretty all the same...

It really is a beautiful place where we live!

And I will call it.....???

Leftover potatoes, yams, bean casserole, turkey chopped up small and gravy.  Stirred around together to form a mush.  Dropped into a pan with sizzling butter.  Fried till golden.
Served with blobs of tomato sauce.

And I will call it? Leftover turkey smash? Turkey ala Carnarvon? Thanksgiving fry up? Whatever the name... I am making this again next year and eating it with a couple of runny fried eggs.... MMMMmmmmmmmmm

Thanksgiving

I can't believe that my little house last night had a full sit down cooked thanksgiving dinner for thirteen people.  Quite comfortably actually! To start with we had stuffed celery with bluecheese/cream cheese and pineapple/cream cheese and nuts and olives and sweet pickles.  For mains we had a HUGE turkey, bean casserole, Pioneer Woman's creamy mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes/candied yams grilled with butter and brown sugar, mom's amazing stuffing balls, bread rolls, gravy and coleslaw.  It was all sooooo good.  Clean plates all round! After dinner we had cherry pie, pumpkin pie, cream and ice cream, followed by our newest invention - pumpkin pie shots.  Its a mix of vanilla vodka and pumpkin spice syrup (Thanks Leigh <3) topped with a squirt of whipped cream and sprinkled with pumpkin pie spice (thanks again :) )They looked so pretty! And tasted pretty good too!
It was fun to cook these things for a room full of Australians who had no idea what was traditionally eaten at a thanksgiving meal or what the point of thanksgiving is (explanations were necessary)
To add to that it was about 30C/86F and 90% humidity! Without the aircon we would have melted!
It is lots of work to co-ordinate that many dishes coming together hot at the same time! Couldn't have done it without mom's help... She's the best (and her stuffing is out of this world..did I mention that already??)
Alas - no photos.... as we were clearing the table we remembered that we had wanted to take a couple! Too late! But here's a photo before it all started.
I am thankful for friends and family... and mom's stuffing.

Pre-Thanksgiving

I know, I know - its Thanksgiving and we are all about turkey, stuffing, bean casserole and pie BUT we all have to eat something the day before thanksgiving and this is it.  Technically that is the day before Fairbanks Thanksgiving and two days before Australian thanksgiving.  Nothing to do with time difference but everything to do with work commitments interfering with cooking commitments on the Australian side of things leading to a rescheduling of Thanksgiving to Saturday night.
So this has become a staple dish that we make at least once a week.  I have been working to 6pm every night and since the sun hasn't set yet we were working in the back yard till about 7 before we decided we had no clue what to have for dinner... so we turned to this.  So easy to make and its one of those meals that we always seem to have the ingredients for... Particularly now that we grow our own spring onions!

Which is clearly the only reason I uploaded this photo - to show off our spring onions! Here is a better shot of the recipe below.

It takes about fifteen minutes from start to eat... and part of that is because i like to use my chaseur fry pan for the steaks to get them really rare and that takes a while to get to 'molten-centre-of-the-earth' hot.

The finished product

Leftovers????

Wildlife.

Found yesterday at Carnarvon Pistol Club.  Too big to fit into Justin's cupped hand.  Not that he was going to pick it up.  Just poke it with a stick maybe.  Big enough to eat small children and scare the crap out of thirty-one year old pharmacists.

Friday night

And here it is again! Friday night - can't believe my luck!
Pizza tonight

On the top we have BBQ meatlovers with pepperoni, salami, smoked ham and bacon with smokey BBQ sauce in place of pizza sauce.  On the bottom we have vegetarian with  home made pesto, tomatoes, mushrooms, onions, capsi and kalamata olives.  Not pictured is the trashy but compulsory Hawaiian ( I told mom it was my Australian taste bud's fault) with plain ol ham and plain ol pineapple out of a tin with plain ol cheese.  There's a time and a place for these things y'know?
The stormy afternoon went well with the gin and tonics out on the back veranda (30 Celsius, grey, clouds, light rain and about 70% humidity - kinda feels cyclone-y) but as an after dinner drink I think we might move onto these:

Talijancich ( http://www.taliwine.com.au/home.php ) is a little winery that is conveniently located on the road out of Perth on the way back to Carnarvon.  It is in an area of Perth called the Swan Valley which has lots of wineries and places to buy beautiful produce.  We are always going through there in a rush to get home or to get to Perth but we try to stop at Talijancich when our stash of this runs low at home! (and don't worry that this bottle is only half full - we have another!)
Just for the record it DOES taste better when drunk from these cute little port sippers.....
Happy Friday!

Ramblings.....and Malaysian curry

Just this morning, lying in bed on my day off being lazy and reading a book (One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, seen the movie more than once but this is my first time reading the book) I had a thought....How long is it going to be before no one OWNS books anymore? They are heavy (being an 'in bed' reader this often is a problem for me), expensive, they wear and (Justin's main complaint) they take up boxes and boxes or shelves and shelves worth of space in the home. It seems so quickly that letters became a thing of the past (when was the last time you got a handwritten letter... or wrote one yourself?) and emails replace this.... to further support my ramblings there was a segment on a crappy morning show this morning about how people are using social media like facebook to announce important life events (births, deaths, proposals) so much so that a beautiful invitation or that first picture of the new baby are less of the norm.
And then tonight, as I am looking online to find a picture to upload to this blog of one of my favourite cooking books I find this:
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=Mdfacqx2UaQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=charmaine+solomon+complete+asian+cookbook&hl=en&ei=HE3iTJ3gMcfXcbiwnIcM&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

I am a little deflated.... My favourite cook book, all 512 beautifully presented A4 pages of it are available online from a quick google search.  I guess this is great - no need to spend the money on the book, a quick key stroke or two brings you to the recipe you want and you're away!
I guess my point is I would rather have my turmeric stained, sticky paged, dog-eared tangible book than a quick download...
But then I guess my other point is I'm tired of reading heavy books at night in bed and really would love an iPad.
I'm torn.
So anyway you can all quite clearly see what I am having for dinner tonight - in the Malaysia section - page 231; Gulai Kambing. Made with beef because we didn't have any mutton and almond meal because we didn't have any candlenuts but we had everything else in the cupboard.
And its delicious!
Served with rice and sliced cucumbers and chilli sambal.  And Gula Melaka for desert (its on page 237 but I cheated and mine came out of a jar.....SHHHhhhhhhh)