Melbourne City Romp

I forgot to mention...

Tomorrow I'm going in the Melbourne City Romp, with my brother's girlfriend, Mel and Dan, and Michael (and maybe one more person, currently anonymous).

I can't wait, it's going to be a great day. All funds go to the Burnet Institute, and you can sponsor out team at our profile page.

I know times are tight for many, but any $$ you can spare to sponsor our team would be truly appreciated! I'm hoping to throw up some pics of the day soon.

Treacle 'n' Ginger... a match made in heaven

I can hear what you're thinking. You're thinking "what the HELL is that, and what kind of creature shat it?!" But this little beauty, picture above, is sooooooo incredibly good I've had to put it and its mates away, otherwise I'd be sorely tempted to eat them all up.

This funny looking little dude is a ginger snap. Butter, sugar, treacle, a little bit of flour, and some ground ginger. The recipe is here. You'll notice that it says to use golden syrup. I left that at work (hey, I was having crumpets there one day!), so substituted treacle, which I prefer anyway. These will end up topping a banana split tomorrow evening. Mmmmm...


And while we're on the subject of ground ginger, this year I decided to give the kids in my neighbourhood a break for Halloween, and find a compromise somewhere between lollies (which I refuse to give them), and apples (which I have given them in the past!), so I went looking for a simple gingerbread recipe. Have you ever noticed that for every somewhat involved recipe that tastes brilliant, you can often find a much simpler recipe that still tastes pretty good?

I have an old family recipe for gingerbread in an old exercise book on the shelf, but didn't feel like going to that much effort. Instead I went looking and found this easy-peasy alternative (I substituted treacle for the syrup again). I figured I'd give the recipe a trial-run and bake a batch of bikkies today while the mood took me, so that at the end of the month I know what's happening. And if the little bits of dough that I sampled, both before and after cooking, are anything to go by, these will hopefully be a little better received than those apples XD I might even decorate them!

Oh WoW

Well, after a couple of days of firewall issues, I finally have the latest patch of World of Warcraft downloaded and installed.

I just fired it up. I got as far as the credits. I got chills just watching them.

Awesome.

Honey Oat Muffins

I've always like grabbing a copy of recipes+ or Super Food Ideas on my way through the checkout, when I remember. And I never seem to throw them out. And every now and then I'll pick one up off the bookshelf and have a little flick through.

Today I was flicking through my August '07 copy of SFI, and then had a craving for a muffin. This was probably because I was looking at an article with 10 different types of muffin, and each looked good. The only trouble was deciding which to make: cappaccino, cheese and tomato, banana, chocolate cherry, caramelised onion, chilli corn (oohh it was hard to pass this one up), sticky date, lemon, doughnut or honey oat. The honey oat called loudest.

These little sweeties are soft, moist, and so so yummy. And the SMELL when they were baking... oohhhh.

Honey Oat Muffins
(from Page 80, Super Food Ideas, August 2007)
2 1/2 cups self-raising flour
1/3 cup sultanas
2/3 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup honey
1 1/4 cups milk
1 egg, lightly beaten
90g butter, melted

Preheat the oven to 180C. Lightly grease a 6-hole, 3/4 cup capacity muffin pan.

Sift the flour into a large bowl. Add the sultanas and 1/2 cup rolled oats and stir to combine.

Make a well in the centre. Combine the milk, egg, butter and honey in a jug, then pour into the well.

Using a large metal spoon, stir until just combined - but don't over-mix.

Spoon mix into muffin holes until about 3/4 full. Sprinkle the remaining oats on top. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until a skewer stuck in the middle comes out clean. Drool over the aroma.

Somewhere to Avoid: King Kebabs

A friend at my weekend work gets a lamb kebab every Sunday for lunch and raves about them, so yesterday I gave in and got myself one... Oh. My. God. This thing was fkn (excuse me) AMAZING! Oh wow... succulent meat, garlic sauce, fresh crisp lettuce, juicy tomato: I'll be having another one this weekend just to make sure it wasn't a fluke. If you ever go to the Rubble and Riches Market at Laverton find your way to the outside of Shed 2. Stand facing the shed. You will see a caravan selling sweet corn on the cob to your left (which is also VERY nice), and a hot-food caravan to the right of it, the name of the business escapes me. I often get lunch from this caravan and, even with my wussy stomach, I have never been sick. You can get hot dogs, lamb or chicken kebabs, hamburgers, salad rolls, chips... your typical hot-food-van fare. Give it a go. Or go and say "hi" to Helen and Igor inside Shed 1 between the hot donuts and the ice cream van and grab something from them. Lovely people. And while you're there in Shed 1 turn around and stock up on nuts and nibbly things from John and his family - they really are lovely people. And their honey-roasted almonds are positively sinful... but this is not an advertisement for the market - they don't pay me enough for that. And I've gone WAY off topic. But for those who have heard me tell horror stories of working at the market - it's not ALL bad, see?

So anyway, today I found myself with a craving again. One of the guys from my M-F job (oh wow, I just realised that could be mis-interpretted... I meant "Monday-to-Friday job") recommended a place on Russell Street as having good kebabs. So M and I decided to try it.

The menu listed a chicken kebab and can of coke for $9 between noon and 2.30pm. M grabbed a can, ordered the kebab and also a (big) slice of baklava. After she'd paid her money she realised that things didn't add up... when she queried the guy behind the counter about it he said that deal wasn't "available today". Ahem... WTF? Strike 1.

I gave my order (chicken kebab, 600ml coke), $11.50. I hand over $12.50, telling him it's $12.50. He puts the money in the till and... closes it. I had to ask for my $1 change (and to think what I go through on weekends to get $1 out of people...). Strike 2.

M and I sit down to await our kebabs. Then we realise he didn't give her the baklava. Never mind, we'll get it on the way out, we say (and we did).

Our kebabs arrived, they certainly looked the part. But...

But the flavours were barely there.

But they were just so damn greasy (you expect a certain amount of grease, sure, but this was ridiculous).

But an hour or so later found me becoming quite well acquainted with the loo. I was NOT impressed.

Strike 3 (and 4 and 5).

Now, I KNOW we're not talking about fine dining, but there is a certain standard I don't like to dip below in my food. I did that today.

King Kebabs (not 100% sure on the name) is on Russell Street, between Bourke and Lonsdale in the CBD, just down from Hungry Jacks. I overcame my initial misgivings because the place had been recommended. I should have listened to myself.

Or maybe they were just having a bad day. I'm not inclined to find out.