Pumpkin and poppies

For our team meeting this month I thought I'd continue on the bread theme. Trying to forget about the zucchini and fetta disaster of the weekend (it had the texture of porridge) I thought I'd give pumpkin bread a go. I didn't expect much - the dough was really moist and I was anticipating another porridge-y nightmare, but it actually turned out OK. Rather sconey in texture (mainly cos it was too wet to knead much I think!). Went down a treat at work (although I wolfed into the passionfruit melting moments my boss brought along).



I wish I was a better photographer (not that I'm going to do anything about it, mind) cos the poppies I bought at the markets last weekend are just beautiful and this does not do them justice. They are sweetly fragile and delicate and they take my breath away. I also like playing guessing games as to what colour will pop out when the funny shell falls off (I'm not doing very well so far).

Our best residents of Corryong

Piggy choccy treats - Bacolate Bikkies

Today was my first day back at uni after a six month break. I'm doing my Masters by correspondence, and I'd forgotten the joys of a reading filled Saturday. My house is cold at the best of times, but today found me huddled over the computer, with twenty layers of clothing on, a knee rug and a hot water bottle under my feet. And I get to do it all again tomorrow. With pneumonia.

Luckily, I just had a delicious interlude at Loz's (who fortunately owns a heater). Went over for dinner - she had an abundance of rock salt so made the Jamie Oliver chicken in salt with fennel and lemon. We ate it with potatoes au gratin (which I always think of as potatoes au Aoife, after a mate in Ireland who always made them). There had been some discussion early in the week about...wait for it...choc chip and bacon bikkies. Los had seen a blog that had talked about them (and who doesn't like to discuss bacon?), and it had said that they were delicious. So... here they are.

One of these biscuits is doing its own thing, one of these biscuits is not the same...





For those people who were never good at Sesame Street games, the top one is bacon-y and the bottom normal. They both look the same, really - melty chocolate and scary butter laden trays. The bacolate biscuits were alright. I mean, I ate one. But then I'd eat Satan. It wasn't the worst ever and if one was really hungry it would probably be great. But the good ol' fashioned choccy ones suited me a hellava lot more.

Anyhoo, another day at school tomorrow so it's the hay for me (and I was up in the fives this morning at the flower markets, so I totally need my snoozes). Too much adventurous eating has tuckered me out!

Baking, so hot right now

It would seem I have become obsessed with baking bready things since that time I conquered yeast (three days ago). I spent all morning scrubbing the holy hector out of my apartment - which was long overdue - and moving furniture and things around to make it feel a little different. And all I could think of, the whole time, was whether I should rest on my pizza laurels or move up a notch....to bread.

My bank balance clinched it. I'm povvo (sure I can afford bread, but I like the idea of 'making do' in depression style, and creating meals out of dripping, a carrot and some icing sugar). I had all the ingredients for bread, I had a clean house to mess up again, and I had a spare evening.

Due to the internet machine being frustratingly slow today, I turned to my ol' mate Jamie for a bread recipe. And he has several (I think from the Return of the Naked Chef). I opted for the very basic bread recipe, to which I could add said carrot and sugar if I chose.

I started the project cockily, it must be said. Yeast is my bitch! I know how it works! And sure enough, everything went according to plan. I'd opted to make the bread into rolls - that way I can use them for my lunches this week. With dripping. I was a little dubious putting them in the oven but within ten minutes my house smelled amazing and in fifteen I was taking out perfectly baked, lightly browned rolls.



How heavenly! I felt just like I am sure a new mother feels (mind you the yeast thing is harder to crack than the other stuff, so I feel I am slightly superior to a new mother). I make a scary mother, though, cos I ate one of the kids immediately. With butter. Hot from the oven.



They were awesome. Could have been cooked slightly longer, and weren't the lightest things ever, but they would have been perfect to dunk in soup or stew, and they'll handle my sandwich nicely tomorrow. Woohoo! Bread!

I'd have eaten the rest except I'd like to some left to carry on the family name (which, incidentally, is Glutton McGreedy).

Victorious Villains

Another locals evening on Friday, this time seeing the entire complement of Villains heading to the golf club trivia. We met for a warm up drink at the REM bar and then moseyed down. I had seen ads for $3.50 burgers and that lured a lot of hungry people along.

Sadly, though, no burgers. Instead a Christmas in July function, with the world's worst buffet (it was described as a cross between Cunny Chinese and boarding school food). Still we lined our stomachs (and had horrendous Christmas pud halfway through trivia, in case we'd managed to forget how nasty it was).

There had been a lot of pre trivia emailing as we discussed our areas of expertise. We had nothing to worry about sports wise, according to Steve:

Australian sport is easy-

Cricket – yes, they probably won it
Rugby – yes, they probably won it
Rugby League – yes they were guilty
AFL – Coke and Ice
Football – Harry Kewell
Swimming – 8,000 gold medals and yes they did beat the Senegalese
Dress Making – Ian Thorpe

There were more people playing than last time - and I was delighted to see our old friends (both from the Concordia and last trivia). Friendly competitive banter occurred throughout the evening - particularly as our two teams had a shocking first round and were both placed on 5 points. The next round saw us make no improvement at all (as it was the 4th July it was an 'American' round. There were two questions about Yankee Doodle, clearly two of the top ten things about the States! The second Yankee Doodle question was 'Where did he go?'. The crazy trivia lady insists it was London - although she changed her response to London town. Which makes no syllabic sense) (bad loser, anyone?!).

Come round three, though, and the Marrickvillains began to come through. It was general knowledge (and as Steve predicted, had a Harry Kewell related question as well as several entertainment trash ones, hurrah). We were kick-ass-awesome - we got them all correct (with only one phone-a-friend) and scored 14 out of 10 (bonus points you see) which took us up to second place.

The final round was entertainment, I think. It included 6 tracks from the 80s (and one arguably from the 90s...listen to me! I so want to do that woman's job for her!). I was hip with the 'Meatloaf, Anything For Love' answer, much to my shame. In between this round and the final scores, Jen was victorious at Heads and Tails, scoring a bottle of (scary golf club) wine.

Crazy lady read out the scores...and we tied for first! Much to the disgust of the other team, who demanded to know whether we'd signed in or not. We won $75 of 'Marrickville Money' - photocopied cash valid at the golf club bar. Which we drank that night. We bought a round of shots (frangelico, cointreau and baileys - which I believe has a proper name but is now called the Marrickvillain) for our team and for pretty much anyone else who was in the near vicinity. Just to spread the Ville good cheer.

I ended up kicking on that night with Tim - back to the REM bar until about 3, I think (and then a cycle home which I confess I barely remember. I went out to the bike rack today and saw I completely failed to bother locking my bike up - the lock was just thrown over the top. I suspect I was too pissy to bother and thought it might fool any likely thieves).

Trivia happens the first Friday of the month - and with so much Marrickville Money up for grabs, I reckon the Villains will return to defend their crown!

Not a Crust box in sight

Woohoo!! Third time WAS lucky! The dough rose, I rolled (with my pestle, not having a rolling pin!), toppings were added and it was divine.





One was spanish onion, endive and capsicum; the other bacon and mushroom. Both with tomato sauce and bocconcini. We ate enough to leave only my lunch for tomorrow! And let's face it - I'll yum it up at breakfast!

Next time I'll roll them slightly thinner, but they were fab. Perfectly cooked all through, crunchy on the sides...desert island here I come - shove over, Kate Hudson!

My Desert Island Food

If I were stuck on a desert island, and could only eat one thing, it would be pizza (I'm talking meals, not like singular food items. If it were singular food items it'd be...hmmm...a thought for another day!). Kate Hudson feels the same; she said in NW last week that pizza was her desert island food, too.

I have wanted for ages to make my own pizza dough and tonight, I am doing it. Well, in reality, I have been trying to make it since last night but the bloody thing just won't rise, dammit. I mixed up my first batch last night, and under advice from a website put it in the fridge to slowly rise, thus developing flavours (and allowing me to sleep). I didn't want to get up this morning until I remembered it and then quite literally ran to the fridge to see....the same sized ball of dough that went in.

Take two. I made another batch and thought since my house is cold like a fridge I should leave it out and theoretically it would rise while I was at work. Ah theories. I got home - again, running to see - and...nada. Well, a slight rise I think, but not doubled.

So...take three. I have just made some more (and with advice from a colleague, changed the recipe slightly to ensure the yeast takes) and have turned on the oven, turned it off again, and placed the (fingers crossed) rising dough in there. I am about to go and pick up Jacs after work - I have promised her fresh homemade taste sensation pizza. If take three doesn't work I am going to have to feed her a lot of champagne and try to sneak some Crust (the closest good pizza) in without her noticing.

Expect victory photos if it worked, and for me to hide the Crust boxes in my faux victory photos if it doesn't!

Sisters doin' it for the weekend!

And what a weekend it was! I barely know where to start. I arrived in Wagga on Thursday night, just in time to join my sister's indoor netball team (I fantasised on the flight there that I was an elite netballer being flown in just for the game. Sadly nobody asked me where I was going or why). We won the first game; the second we lost - against the local disability service. Like, clients. Admittedly there was no way we would have beaten them, but at one stage we had let them get ahead about 12 goals (and by 'let them get ahead', I mean they were walloping us!). One of our team said she felt movement behind her head for some of the game; when she turned around, her opponent was making bunny ears. There was a lot of mocking coming our way I'm afraid!

The next morning J, my sister, and I decided we were going to hit the road and head away from Wagga for the night. We did a radius search for towns about two and a half hours away and decided on Corryong, a small town in Victoria. Corryong is apparently the town from which 'The Man From Snowy River' hailed. However there is some speculation (as a man in the local club told us...when I asked what he thought the truth was he replied that he didn't really care. God love you, George!) - apparently the guy who may be Mr Snowy River had met Banjo Patterson once at least, but so had several other likely sorts at the same time. Sounds like a mystery for the sisters to solve...and by solve, I mean drink to!



Because that's pretty much what the evening held! We stopped at a winery on the way there (with the world's drunkest tasting lady - 'one for the customer, ten bottles for me' was her motto) and bought a rather nice Pinot. Having got a taste for wine, we checked ourselves into the one pub in Corryong that offered rooms (the Courthouse) and...well...got on it. After a bottle of wine and a conversation with a rather simple bar boy, we heard the club was the place to see and be seen, so we headed there. Another wine or so and we'd met a few locals, heard a few rumours (about said simple pub boy!) and decided to head out for dinner to 'The Bottom Pub'. On the way through we stopped for a 1-2-3 game (J yelled mixer, I yelled spirit - tequila and fanta we drank!) and managed to win ourselves a bottle of wine on the raffles. Dinner was a...blurry affair, during which we regained our stamina, and headed back to our own party pub.




1-2-3 Tequila and Fanta!

Back at party pub, we found that we were the only ladies, and would be all evening. We cashed in on our bottle of wine and started a darts game. With an old guy and young bar boy. Which we cheated at - although I did get a spectacular bull's eye, if I do talk it up myself! The night then progressed into: spending lots of money on the jukebox (country songs only in honour of our location. I swear I will never play Kenny Rogers or Leanne Rymes again), hanging out with our new found old friends, dancing with 'tally' (who was, unsurprisingly, tall), and laughing at J attacking the town's one policeman and yelling 'arrest me, arrest me'. At the end of the night I was bought a drink by 'youngy', whom we'd not spoken to all night. The 1-2-3 game gave us rum and raspberry. I'd half drank mine, turned around, and he;d taken it back and finished it! Country hospitality my arse. The evening ended by the various groups wanting us to party on down with them but us politely declining and retiring to our quarters where we giggled ourselves to sleep!


Darts through drunken eyes

The following day we headed back to Wagga (only after investigating the grave of The Man, which was located in a beautiful old cemetry that looked out over the hills. On the clear crisp morning it was gorgeous) and, well, did it all again! We met up with a few friends, had dinner with our folks, and then went out and I'm afraid to say played 1-2-3 all night, in different variations. The highlights were a Baileys on ice (lucky; that could have been horrid!), and the low lights...well these were most of the drinks! A tequila and pineapple, a gin and coke, a butterscotch schnapps and something...anyway, we partied until dawn and had a fabulous night.

Although clearly it was based around drinking and this 1-2-3 game (incidentally, a game I'm proud to say J and I made up, which has taken at least one person by storm!), the weekend was just tops. I don't spend nearly enough time with my sister (hard when you're 600 odd kilometers apart!) and this reminded me of all the reasons I adore her and her company. Fortunately, whilst 1-2-3-ing we drunkenly booked several more holidays together...so watch out Radelaide and Darwin!!