Buttermilk kisses

blog copy, originally uploaded by creamy_mash.

This Anzac Day we held the cockatoo cup race in honour of little Mich's farewell. At the last minute a whole bunch of us girlie girls pulled out of the race - it was grey, cold and wet! Instead we made breakfast (for the other paddlers like Big Dave who didn't help organise anything!) whilst sipping champers - a far more fitting anzac tribute. ha!

I was too busy flipping pancakes for 30 people(!) to take pictures of the breakfast menu which consisted of: Bacon and Egg Rolls, Hello Kitty faced toast (it is the coolest toaster!), fruit salad, and Buttermilk pancakes with blueberry sauce and icecream! Instead I have pictures of - the girls flipping pancakes, Red Ginger and her NEW CAR! close ups of pancakes, Mich trying on her farewell present (with billy in the background holding back the tears because she's leaving and now he'll have the whole responsibility of updating the PD's website hehe!), Red Ginger and her new stylin' sunnies, the girls hanging out on the deck chairs in the front yard.

Farewell Lil' Mich, I know you'll have a great time travelling around Europe hanging out with other aussies haha! Hopefully I'll see you in Sept when Red Ginger and I take on Europe! Safe Trip and Big Hugs.

i would do anything for love...but i wont eat that.

There are many things I will eat - pig's trotters, pig intestines, pig's blood (okay so mostly pig related stuff) and chicken's feet, but I wont eat a placenta. After rumours yesterday was that Tom Cruise wanted to eat Katie's placenta, we talked about placenta recipes at work, as you do. ;-p

Last night, I asked mum about placentas and she replied of course they eat them in China and OF COURSE the hospitals sell human placentas to the food markets so that people can buy one and cook it up at home. You can even get placenta soup at the hospital canteen. OF COURSE! The going rate for a placenta in Guangdong?
Fresh placentas for about 100 yuan (US$12) each and dried ones for 130 yuan (US$16).

Long Weekend

chadbday, originally uploaded by creamy_mash.

Ello Ello!

Happy Birthday to The Chad! My good friend and wannabe Pro Golfer/Pro Millionaire/Pro-Actor (hence the standard Chad pose in the top right hand corner of the pic).

I baked him a Hummingbird Cake from a Delicious Magazine recipe. It's the first time I baked a fruit cake - it's kind of like a carrot cake with pineapple and mango bits in it. I made a lime cream cheese frosting and Natty helped me decorate with the 'C' made from crushed walnuts!

The combination of roasted walnuts, carrots, pineapple and mango pieces and frosting was an intersting combination of sweetness and texture.

Chad requested a 'low fat' cake. Unfortunately the only really 'low fat' thing about this cake is the 'lite' philly cream cheese I used in the frosting haha...

Happy Easter

easterfrog, originally uploaded by creamy_mash.

Yeah I know I'm not religous but any holiday that celebrates with chocolate gets my vote! This year I decided to splash out on a Haigh's Peppermint Super Frog (novelty size as it says on the sticker). Everyone at work was more than willing to help out with the eating! YUM!

Another Weekend (eating)

More eating – was the theme for this weekend (and every weekend).

Jpeg/TB Boy came out of hospital on Friday, to celebrate we went straight from hospital to Hungry Jacks for the much anticipated “when I get out of hospital the first thing I want to eat is a whopper-whopper". It did not disappoint.

Later that night, I baked pineapple pie and it was reviewed by TB Boy as the ‘best tasting one yet except the bottom is really burnt’ (this is my 4th attempt but I think it has more to do with the fact that anything tastes better than hospital food).

Saturday – after watching Saturday – after watching ‘The Laughing Samoans’ perform at Riverside Theatre in Parramatta (I ‘get’ island humour now…am I turning into an islander by proxy?!), the girls and I went down to Temasek for some Laksa. The rich creamy coconut milk was delish. It wasn’t until we were paying the bill that I noticed my fave Assam Laksa on the specials blackboard! Damn it! But the Laksa was still good, and then we wondered off to Church St in search of some mouth cooling gelato and westie night life. We saw drunken louts stumbling back from the Races shouted out obscenities to passers-by, women wandering barefoot in their race frocks and crushed fascinators, and there were plenty of doof doof cars cruising the strip. Ahh.."Parra..doesn’t..matta"!

After hearing about the big swells that were coming down as a result of recently cyclones, we had hoped that Sunday's regatta organisers would let us play in the big waves at Fisherman’s beach in Narrabeen. But no such luck – instead the race was moved up to Palm Beach and we pounded our canoe through the windy bay around Scotland Island. Felt knackered afterwards – but managed to drag myself to dinner with the family to celebrate dad’s 30 year anniversary for arriving in Australia! Dad’s first job was at the Pagewood KFC, I suggested we go there for dinner (ha ha) but instead we had good old canto style ginger and shallot crab, giant steamed oysters, and a beef in a hot pot soup that tasted abit like Vietnamese beef noodle soup, but less spicy. YUM! I was so stuffed. Wished that I was like Violet Beauregarde from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, so they could roll me out like a human blueberry...

And this weekend is the easter long weekend which can only mean one thing. More Eating. AGAIN!

End of summer...

I’d like to officially announce that it’s no longer summer. Ha!
I know it’s April but March still had days like summer in the mid 20s and I was hoping that the heat would last longer this year, but when the bottle of Tahitian tanning lotion (courtesy of Red Ginger) goes from a nice liquid state to solid overnight – there’s no denying that the seasons have changed.

PS. Jpeg is coming out of hospital today! Yippee! Now I’ve just got to fatten him up and get him back to normal!

stress=baking

When I get stressed and need some cheering up I bake. (therefore I am) haha.

In the past week I have baked, cooked and eaten like a starving woman. I baked scones, Mrs Field's dark chocolate chunk cookies , and attempted to bake another frangipani tart . Except that the tart bombed out (i misguidedly thought I could replace pure icing sugar with impure icing mixture. what. was. i thinking?!) the frangipane mixture did not set and remained in a molten gooey state even after the tart crust had been burnt to a crisp. No worries -I made buttermilk pancakes with rich chocolate sauce instead. Almost as good as Trade Winds Cafe in Maroubra.

Despite Jpeg being in hospital the weekend wasn't so bad. I got to gorge myself on Voodoo's mum's fijian crab curry. OH YEAH! (crab makes everything better!)

The low down (public service announcement)

Hello friends.

Just a little note to let you know the good news is that Jpeg's mysterious illness is confirmed as T.B. Thanks for all the well wishes - he's still in hospital but hopefully will be out sometime this week and on the road to recovery (he has to get treatment for 6 months).

The bad news is that TB is a contagious but luckily curable disease and if you think Jpeg might have coughed or breathed air near you in the last few weeks (i.e. his birthday celebrations last weekend....that's the last time i organise anything!) you might want to go get a check up with the G.P and ask for the TB skin test just to be sure. If you have contracted TB - the incubation period is about two weeks from contact.

The symptoms for TB are:

• coughing for 2-3 weeks with no improvement after treatment
• weight loss (unintentionally and not on jenny craig)
• feeling unwell and tired
• fever and night sweats (drenched clothes and bedsheets kind of sweating)

If you have noticed all these symptoms get thee to a doctor quick smart.

Okay that's the end of the public service announcement.