Chocolateria San Churro

I did some christmas shopping at Highpoint on the weekend. Thankfully I got in there early so I was mostly done before the crowds REALLY started. But after dealing with people, and spending far too much dollars, I decided I deserved a treat. I've never been to a Chocolateria San Churro cafe before, so figured I could do with some churros and tea.

Are they the best churros I've ever had? No. Even so, they were pretty darned tasty. Warm chocolate sauce and 100s & 1000s helped too :-) I went for the kiddy serve. I'll leave you with some pictures...

Peanut Butter Choc Chip Bikkies

I wanted to make some biscuits (huge surprise there, right?). Actually, I wanted to EAT some biscuits. In particular, I had a hankering for some peanut butter and choc chip biscuits. These little babies were delicious, if I do say so myself (and I do), and they were dead-easy to make. I can't for the life of me remember where on the internet I got the recipe from, as all I have to go on now are my notes in my own nigh-on-inscrutable shorthand. I'll decipher it the best I can for you.

Peanut Butter & Choc Chip Cookies (made at least 2 dozen)
125g softened butter
150g brown sugar
1 lightly beaten egg
1 tsp vanilla
150g peanut butter (the crunchier the better, in my opinion, or if you use smooth, add 50g of chopped nuts. Or add the nuts anyway, it's up to you)
225g plain flour
1 tsp bicarb soda
200g choc chips

Heat the oven to 200C. Cream the butter and sugar. Add the egg and vanilla and beat lightly till combined. Stir through the peanut butter. Fold in the flour. Stir through the choc chips. Make teaspoons-full of dough into balls and place on a baking tray, then flatten slightly with a fork or anything else you like. Bake for about 15 minutes or until golden.


I also made a couple with finely diced bacon in them, on request for a friend. I personally didn't try those, as that's a bit out-there for me. I'm not sure how they tasted, I haven't heard much from that friend since! I'm sure the two aren't related though... Actually, we went to a Jeff Martin concert that night and any thoughts of biscuits went clear out of my head. Can you blame me?!

Caffe Macchiato

23 Macedon Road, Templestowe Lower
P: 03 9850 8822

Just west along Manningham Road from one of my favourite restaurants is this little street, and on this street is this little cafe.

I've had coffee here before, but never stopped for some food. We decided on a whim to try it out for breakfast this morning. Sadly, we thought we'd be thwarted at the door, with the place absolutely packed. We were told some tables should be coming up in about 20 minutes, if we were happy to wait. We said we'd go for a walk and see how it went. Well, we'd just reached the top of the street when we heard someone calling out... turning around, it was the waitress! She'd come out of the cafe, seen us, and run up to tell us there was a table free and she'd reserved it for us. How nice was that?

Our orders were taken quite promptly, but delivery of coffee and food was fairly slow. In this case I'm inclined to be a little understanding because, I'm telling you, this place could not fit any more people in. Every seat at every table was occupied, and you have to be prepared for a little wait when things are that busy. Besides, I've been to this cafe when things weren't quite so busy, and had no issues with service then.

To accompany my breakfast I had a hankering for an iced chocolate. I wish I'd been warned about it...


No word of a lie, there must be about half a litre of milk in this glass. And it was yum. Milk, ice cubes, ice cream, drinking chocolate... although it did defeat me and I ended up not being able to finish it.

We each ordered the CM Brekkie - me with scrambled eggs and an extra hash brown, him with poached eggs. I think next time I'll ask for an extra piece of toast, but aside from that this was great. Plenty of shortcut bacon, heaps of soft scrambled eggs, a delicious grilled tomato, and even Worcestershire sauce when I requested it..


I had a look over the rest of the menu and I think I'll need to go back and see what they do with their barramundi. And several of their other menu items had me eager to try them.

Linguini, Gamboretti, e pomodoro

Did I say that right? Probably not. I'm sorry. But this is what I cooked for mum and her friends for lunch.

It's always difficult to cook something that you don't actually eat yourself. Or at least, I find it difficult. Or perhaps that's not quite the right word. I mean, I've never cooked prawns before, and don't eat them either, so I have no idea of the correct way to prepare them so that they are edible. I'm happy to report that this meal was unanimously voted as "great" by all that partook.

First we picked up some prawns from Queen Vic market, with no set idea of what to do with them. I suggested I cook up some pasta and make a tomato sauce and simmer them in that. Mum gave that the nod, so I did.

A diced onion and a heaped teaspoon of crushed garlic sauteed in some oil. A tin of tomatoes and a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste, plus another half-tin of water added and set to simmer. A squirt of this, a shake of that, and it simmered for about 15 minutes. I threw the prawns in for the last 5 minutes or so. As always, I am no good at putting stuff on a plate and making it look good:


But I hear you asking, if I cooked this for them, what did I eat. I reserved a little sauce before throwing in the prawns and had this with some pasta and a spare arancini we had leftover in the freezer. It might not be as special as prawns, but it was bloody tasty too.

Grandma-style Cookin'

Sometimes you just crave a meal kinda like what Grandma might've used to make. Or just something kinda simple, homey, old style.

For those who don't know, my mum's been staying with me since the end of September. It's been great having her here, what with an operation, last-minute wedding hassles, the non-wedding, and a bunch of other things rearing their ugly heads. Today we decided to have corned beef for dinner (and lunch tomorrow, and probably as part of dinner tomorrow night... it was only a small piece of beef, but there's only two of us!).

If we imagine the plate is a clock, then clockwise from where 11 would be is:

- slices of corned beef that'd been in the slow-cooker with a bay leaf, worcestershire sauce, vinegar and water on high for 2.5 hours, then low for another 4.5 hours so that it was fall-apart tender, with chive white sauce on top.

- potato, sweet potato, carrot and pumpkin, tossed with oil and Vegeta then roasted.

- steamed broccoli.

- cauliflower that had been roasted with a little of the oil the other vegies had been tossed in drizzled over the top (BTW this is a fricken AWESOME way to eat cauliflower).

- corn cut from the cob, then seasoned with a little butter, sugar, salt, and thinly sliced... stuff from my window sill... is it sage or basil? I'm a bad person, I don't know!

- tomato and onion pudding, made by layering slices of tomato and onion with crushed Vita Brits in a casserole dish, then topped with more crushed Vita Brits and dotted with butter, and baked at about 180C for an hour. Delish. Try it.

- finally, in the middle, some steamed green beans.

Y'know, we only had a little of each thing, but it ended up being a HUGE meal. But so tasty. Needless to say, we didn't have any dessert. But hey, how good are we, folks: count the number of vegies in that meal... EIGHT vegies, plus the tomato and onion. Surely that means we can be a little bit bad for a few days? Cos, you know, we're, like, in credit, right?