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Tag: food

  • 50 Things to Eat Before You Die

    50 Things to Eat Before You Die – I’ve had nearly everything on the list with the exception of some of the fish/seafood. I’m still working on that. (Link courtesy of Kristen, who is much more adventurous than me.)

    2. Lobster – My one and only lobster experience was on Spring Break 1997 when I visited my roommate Eileen’s family in Boston. We had lobster with loads of butter. I found the texture to be really gross. And then I spent the next 24 hours on the train home puking my guts out. But that could’ve been from the alcohol, I suppose…
    3. Steak – Mmm, yes please. I don’t like it as rare as the Snook (who’s been known to eat carpaccio and steak tartare), but as long as the inside isn’t too bloody, I’ll happily eat it.
    4. Thai food – I’ve been told that Sydney has more Thai restaurants than anywhere else outside of Thailand. And damn, they’re all good.
    5. Chinese food – A Chinese co-worker took me for some authentic dim sum at the North Ryde RSL. It was fantastic. Much better than the crap we used to get delivered in college.
    6. Ice cream – Who hasn’t? I mean, honestly.
    7. Pizza – I love pizza. I’ve even eat it at Da Michele’s in Naples, the restaurant mentioned here. Best pizza I ever had in my life.
    8. Crab – Do crab cakes count?
    9. Curry – My current favorite is the Snook’s secret recipe for homemade mango chicken curry.
    10. Prawns – Currently the only seafood I can definitely say I like. Mmm, prawns on the barbie dipped straight into garlic butter…
    12. Clam chowder – It’s CHOWDA! Tried it in Boston once and thought it was pretty good.
    13. Barbecue – Oh, yeah. It tastes best on our very own new barbie!
    14. Pancakes – I’m guilty of introducing thick American-style pancakes to the Snook, who is now obsessed with them. So I know pancakes.
    15. Pasta – We don’t eat it so much these days – damn carbs – but I still love it. The more garlic the better.
    17. Cheesecake – *drool*
    18. Lamb – I’d never eaten lamb before moving overseas, but now it’s my favorite meat ever. Too bad the drought has made it prohibitively expensive right now.
    19. Cream tea – My favorite was at the Orangery in Kensington Gardens. Lovely.
    21. Oysters – The Snook finally convinced me to try one – raw with squeezed lime – last Valentine’s Day. I didn’t mind it, actually!
    22. Kangaroo – Yum. Ma Snook brought us some fillets last year that were superb.
    23. Chocolate – The Snook prefers his darker and less sweet than I do, but we’re both chocoholics.
    24. Sandwiches – I’m ashamed to admit that my favorite is the Chicken Caesar from Pret a Manger in London.
    25. Greek food – I make a mean moussaka.
    26. Burgers – I’ve come to love the Aussie version with fried egg and barbecue sauce. I’ll still pass on the beetroot, though.
    27. Mexican food – This is the one thing I really miss living in Sydney.
    28. Squid – I’ve tried deep fried calamari. That counts, right?
    29. American diner breakfast – Again, I converted the Snook. He’s now a big Denny’s fan.
    30. Salmon – I don’t eat fish, but last year I was so drunk at a wedding that I happily ate the smoked salmon appetizer. And it was pretty good!
    31. Venison – My childhood aversion to deer hunting pretty much vanished once I realized that venison tasted good.
    34. Sushi – I tried it a couple times to appease the Snook. Not a huge fan.
    38. Kebabs – The best kebab in the world comes from a little shop on Fulham Palace Road in London, near the Hammersmith Broadway pedestrian underpass. Get it with garlic and chili. *drool*
    40. Australian meat pie – I’ve decided that they’re a more-then-acceptable hot dog substitute at the cricket. I still haven’t been to Harry’s Cafe de Wheels, though.
    41. Mango – I’m not a huge fan of it raw, but in chutney or curry it’s sublime.
    43. Octopus – I’ve had deep-fried baby octopus a couple times in Australia. Mostly rubbery, I thought.
    45. Roast beef – Yum. I even ate it in England, which probably means I’ve got BSE now.
    46. Tapas – There used to be a great tapas place near our house in Newtown. Sadly, our patronage wasn’t enough to keep it afloat!
    50. Cornish pasty – Scarfed a few while travelling in England. Wonderful.

  • All this rage is makin’ me thirsty…

    Earlier this week the Snook mentioned that he and his co-worker Toast were discussing the Atkins plan. Toast is a weightlifter and he really knows a lot about this stuff. According to him, there’s a magic formula for how much water you need to drink every day to stay hydrated and lose weight on a low-carb diet. You ready? Here it is:

    Your weight in pounds / 2 = Fluid ounces of H20

    I was excited about this approach til I realized it means that I need to drink nearly three liters of water a day. Ouch. I’m making a valiant effort though. I’m already up to 2.4 liters today. The secret seems to be to not have ANY caffeine. I still have to go to the bathroom every hour or so, but it’s not nearly as bad as it’d be if I gave in to the sweet siren call of Diet Coke.

  • Eggplants are berries?

    Mind-Blowing Fact of the Day: Eggplants are actually berries. Isn’t that weird? There’s more where that came from on this page about fruits and veggies.

  • Sushi Boats!

    The Snook and I had to head back to our old neighborhood Newtown this morning and we noticed a new restaurant: Sushi Boat! As far as I can tell, it’s just like a sushi train except the food floats on little boats in a channel. (It sounds like that crappy duck game we used to play at my Mom’s company picnic that consisted of picking up a rubber duckie and winning the prize that corresponded with the number written on its bottom. Not a lot of skill involved there.) I think we’re going to have to investigate this one further.

  • Adventures in Food Preparation

    As you can see from the photos below, the Snook and I have been makin’ pickles. Specifically, we’re making sun dills. My mom used to make them when I was a kid and I loved them, so a few months ago we planted cucumber seeds in the garden. As with everything else we planted, they went berserk. Last weekend the Snook noticed that I had three big fat ripe ones. Here you can see the before and after shots. Now we just need to leave the jar in the sun for a couple days and I’ll be eating ice cold fresh pickles by Monday!

    Home grown cucumbers
    Pickles!

    Also, we tried out a great new sausage and bean stew for dinner tonight. It’s sorta like a cross between chili and gourmet beanie weenies. It’s not exactly the most Atkins-friendly dish but it’s an awesome winter warmer. (Why we made it in the height of Indian summer is a mystery even to me.) It even involved fennel, which I didn’t think I liked.

    This recipe is courtesy of my friend Kiri, with a few small adjustments by the Snook and myself…

    Sausage and Bean Stew
    4 thick Italian style sausages
    2 tablespoons olive oil
    1 onion finely chopped
    3 cloves of garlic, crushed
    1 large bulb of fennel, trimmed and finely chopped
    1/2 teaspoon dried chili flakes
    1 tablespoon tomato paste
    400g tin chopped tomatoes
    440g can canellini beans, drained and rinsed
    1/2 cup chicken stock
    1 small sprig rosemary
    2 tablespoons chopped flat leaf parsley
    Shaved parmesan

    Place sausages in a saucepan of cold water and bring to the boil, reduce heat to medium and simmer for two minutes, then drain well. When cool, cut on the diagonal into 2cm pieces.

    Heat olive oil in a heavy-based flameproof casserole, add sausage pieces and cook over medium-high heat until browned, then drain on absorbent paper. Reduce heat to low-medium, then add onion, garlic, fennel and chilli to pan and cook stirring occasionally for 15 minutes or until soft and then stir in tomato paste and cook for another five minutes. Add tomato, beans, stock and rosemary, cover and cook over low heat for 20 minutes. Stir in sausage pieces and parsley and season to taste. (Pull out the rosemary.) Serve topped with parmesan with a crusty bread on the side.

    Note: The Snook felt that this was a little too much chili, so next time we’ll probably use about half that much. If you’re scared of fennel (like I was), don’t sweat it. The strong licorice-ness really mellows out in the cooking and it ends up complimenting the spiciness nicely. (Incidentally, the fennel was labelled “aniseed” in my greengrocer in case you have trouble finding it.)

  • Three new things.

    Happy Valentine’s Day! The Snook and I celebrated with a night on the town. I did three new things that I’d never done before:

    • I ate a raw oyster! Seriously! With just a bit of lime juice! And I didn’t die.
    • I went to Star City, which is my first casino visit ever. It was insane. We didn’t bet anything.
    • We took the light rail home. Not exciting, but still a first for me.

    What did you do?

  • Rice Krispie Hearts for Valentine’s Day

    Rice Krispie HeartsI decided to make some treats for the office tomorrow to celebrate Valentine’s Day. I did the usual Rice Krispie recipe but substituted pink marshmallows (strawberry flavor) instead of plain. That wasn’t quite pink enough, so I also stirred in a fair bit of red food coloring. They’re quite gruesome now, don’t you think? I also stirred in a bag of white chocolate chips which I hoped would remain whole but instead they just melted into the rest of the cereal. It’s fine; they still taste good. The hardest part was punching the damn things out with the heart-shaped cookie cutter. I tried to do it while they were still warm (so I could mush the leftover bits back together to make more treats) but they cooled rapidly and I had a hell of a time cutting them out. Still, they’re kinda cute and it’s always fun to put the whole office into sugar shock first thing Friday morning…

  • Atkins overweight?

    Before anybody sends it to me, yes, I’ve seen the story about how Dr. Atkins was supposedly obese. To be honest, I’m not really convinced by either side’s arguments there. The health information was leaked by a “pro-vegetarian” group with an obvious bias, but then again, the Atkins people have a financial interest in protecting his reputation. It’s confusing. Also, if he really did weigh that much, did they doctor the photos they used on his books? Because he certainly doesn’t look that fat in them.

    At any rate, y’all shouldn’t worry about me. I had my blood pressure checked yet again last week and my doctor pronounced it “excellent”. Unfortunately I’m still a chunker, but I’m a lot less of a chunker than I was two years ago. I’ve got a new personal trainer who’s started me on a weightlifting routine. My body-fat percentage is a shocker – How can a third of my body be fat? That’s ridiculous – but we’re working on that. I’m even drinking protein shakes with milk now to speed recovery in my new badass muscles. Also, the Snook and I have each eaten our weight in cherry tomatoes in the past two weeks so we’re chock full o’ vitamin goodness. In summary: Don’t worry, kids; we’re not gonna keel over and hit our heads on the sidewalk anytime soon.

  • Atkins

    Crud. Not only did the Herald not publish my letter, they sent me a really stupid response too.

    My Letter:
    As an Atkins dieter myself (and twenty kilos lighter because of it), I’d like to say thanks for your great even-handed article. Unfortunately Mr. Matthews got one fact glaringly wrong – the Atkins plan does NOT instruct dieters to eliminate all carbs from their diets. This is impossible. Instead you are urged to reduce your daily intake of carbs to 20 grams for the first two weeks, after which you start increasing gradually. Atkins’s detractors (who rarely seem to have read his books) often imagine that we eat nothing but steak and eggs at every meal. Trust me; even at 20 grams you can still eat several cups of vegetables a day… You just can’t have them in the form of a salad sandwich.

    Their Reply:
    Many thanks for the information. The article came from a UK newspaper. The column accompanying it did make the point it was a low, rather than no-carb diet.

    How crappy is that? I was responding to this direct quote from the article: “To trigger this effect, Atkins dieters are instructed to begin by eliminating all carbohydrates from their diet, forcing their bodies to get energy by burning up fat reserves instead.” It clearly says “all”. That’s a MISTAKE, and it’s exactly the kind of MISINFORMATION that leads to knee-jerk negative reactions. Grrr. I might have to send them another message.

  • Snook’s Low-Carb Blueberry-Banana-Flaxseed Muffins

    The Snook has been cruising various low-carb websites in search of recipes to emulate the high-carb stuff we’ve been missing. Yesterday he picked up lots of almond meal and ground flax seeds in preparation for doing some baking. We spotted some blueberries at the greengrocer and I flashed back to Max’s blueberry-banana muffins. Armed with an idea, the Snook took to the kitchen for some invention. The resulting muffins don’t look so great, but they taste pretty good and it’s nice to eat something “bread-y” again. We estimate they’ve got about 12 grams of carbs each, so you’d best avoid them if you’re doing Induction.

    Ingredients:

    • 5 tablespoons melted butter
    • 3 large eggs
    • 1/4 cup cream
    • 1/3 cup artificial sweetener (we use “Splenda”)
    • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
    • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
    • 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
    • 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
    • 1 cup flax seed meal
    • 1/4 cup soy flour
    • 1 small banana, mashed
    • 1/2 cup blueberries

    Preheat the oven to 375F.

    Beat the first three ingredients together, then add the sweetener and vanilla. In another bowl mix up all the dry ingredients. Then combine the wet and dry together and add the fruit. Now fill up your muffin cups and pop them in the oven. The Snook reckons they need to bake for 20-25 minutes, but test by poking them.

    He made six fairly big muffins out of this. They don’t rise a lot, so you can fill the cups up pretty full. The resulting muffins are dark brown and pretty dense, but the fruit makes them taste great. They’ve got lots of fiber too.

    Let us know if you make any yummy modifications!