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Garlic basil basa skillet with tomato butter sauce and white beans

No-knead olive focaccia

Pinch of Yum and Serious Eats… both very trustworthy food blogs. The fish dish was very tasty, and will be even better once we can get nice summer quality tomatoes. I’m definitely cooking it again. And the focaccia was super easy to make, you just have to remember to start it the day before. I didn’t use pistachios, and only used about half the oil. Scott and I finished the whole loaf in less than 24 hours hahahaha.

Basa rice bowl with corn and avocado salsa, black beans, cheese, sour cream and lime

I was very inspired by a Salsas Mex Club email promoting their bowls. Again I used basa (why is it so cheap?? Wait maybe I don’t want to know…), and made a quick ‘salsa’ with avocado, tomato, corn, red pepper, lots of lime juice, and salt. PS I love my pressure cooker. ~45 minutes for black beans straight from dry, YES.

Lamb korma and sag aloo

I cheated a bit and used a jar of korma sauce from Aldi. But I added a tin of diced tomato to bulk it up. Simmered lamb chunks for about 45 minutes, then added green beans for about 10 minutes. Yum. I don’t cook lamb often, because I’m not very familiar with it, but this one came out super tender and nice. The sag aloo wasn’t great though, which is why I haven’t linked a recipe. I should have parboiled the potato before frying it with the onion and spinach, I think.

Scott has begun experimenting with macarons. The first picture is his first batch. They were vanilla with white chocolate ganache. They got nice feet and lift, but had hollow shells. That can be from over OR under mixing apparently. :/ They tasted very nice. Second batch was lemon flavoured with lemon icing. There were no hollow parts, but they’re kinda flat and funny looking. They were much chewier and denser. Again, taste was very nice.

We’ve watched a couple videos for tips, and have some better recipes to try, so hopefully each batch comes out better and better! Good thing we got a nice big bag of almond meal from Costco. :D

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After walking past the place dozens of times, we finally checked out the new cafe that opened up just down the street. Everything about the place looked cool, so I had high expectations.

Scott had a flat white. He said it was silky smooth and quite good.

I had the ox cheek black bean eggs benedict, which had poached eggs, pickled kohlrabi, dehydrated peas and hollandaise over sourdough toast. It was EXCELLENT. Like actually one of the best egg benedicts I’ve had in my life. The ox cheek was super tender and there was a generous amount of it. The hollandaise and perfectly poached eggs were super rich, but the pickled kohlrabi cut right through it and cleansed the palate. The sourdough was lovely and the peas worked as a crunch element (hehe).

Scott ordered the pixel avocado on sourdough toast, which comes with poached egg, chilli air dried kale, edamame hummus, pickled radish, lime and nori. It looked spectacular but maybe wasn’t the most exciting dish on the menu. I mean the crispy veg and hummus were interesting, but the toast, avo and egg is just toast, avo and egg, you know what I mean? Still good but he probably should have ordered something different.

We also got a salted caramel doughnut to take home to share later. It was light and fluffy and the caramel was nice.

All in all, very good. I can’t wait to go back to try out some more of their dishes. The miso scrambled eggs are calling my name.

Actually we are going back tomorrow. :D Jemma and Damien are meeting us for brunch and then we’re taking April for the rest of the day until family dinner. She really wants to go on a tram, so we’re going to take one into the city to see the Wallace and Gromit exhibit at ACMI.

Light Years Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

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Alternative post title: Scott’s Midlife Crisis? j/k

Scott’s work sends all their new staff to work half a day at Boost and Salsas. You might have seen pictures of him on Facebook making smoothies a while back. He finally did his burrito day and conveniently it was very close to our house and on my day off! Jemma came out to meet me for lunch/laugh at her brother.

He was easily double the age of everyone else working there hahahahaaa. Jemma said people might think he was an ex-con and that was the only job he could get. Heheheheeee. It was quite busy when we were there and he looked a bit stressed, but we still got to say hi.

I was going to do a Zomato spoonback for this post, but I think I may have gotten special-made tacos for me because that was A LOT of guacamole. :D They were all very tasty, and great value on Taco Tuesday!

PS I got to keep the hat

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I found jian bing outside of China again! This time it was at Mr Kitchen, in Melbourne CBD. It was extremely authentic and brought me right back to the streets of Beijing (except for the price). Jian bing really make such a great breakfast.

How to make jian bing: make a very big thin mung bean pancake. Crack an egg over it and break the yolk and push it around so it cooks in a thin layer over the whole thing. Sprinkle with black sesame seeds, cilantro, and green onion. Flip it over. Paint on some sauces, including a nice spicy one. Place a crispy fried wonton wrapper type thing on top, then fold it all up. Done!

Delicious.

Mr Kitchen also has that donut option instead of the crispy option, which must be from another region of China. They also had that noodle, meat, cucumber dish that I used to eat all.da.time in Beijing, but we were just after a small snack on the way to the footy game.

Mr. Kitchen Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

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This was a couple months ago but it was so delicious I still want to share it.

Cassia took me to Ebeneezer Place, a cute little side street in the Adelaide CBD with a lot of little cafes. We checked out every option and then decided on Afghan for lunch.

Neither of us could decide anything because every single thing on the menu sounded nice, so with the help of the very patient waitress we both got mixed plates where you can choose three items. Cassia picked Morgh Degee (chicken marinated in yogurt and Afghan spices), Banjan Borani (eggplant simmered in tomato, with yogurt sauce), and one of the dumpling options (sorry, can’t remember which).

I picked the eggplant, dumplings, and Lamb Qormah (lamb curry).

Both plates came with rice and a little side salad.

It was all so good!!! The eggplant was delicious, the chicken and dumplings were great, but the real highlight was the lamb curry. It was tender and meaty and super yum. I also liked the casual relaxed vibe of the place and how all the dishes were mismatched pieces. Very cute.

Kutchi Deli Parwana Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato