musings near Christmastime...

 Is it too late to plant out my tomato seedlings? i don't know. but i just did yesterday. It still feels like winter here in Tassie, last night's temperatures at 8C. Wish I had a hothouse!

Socks here was getting cozy on the carpet, out of the night cold.
Another year's nearly gone by already!
i rmbr last christmas, how we were eating Christmas lunch with a bunch of aunties [middle aged women, in my culture everyone who's 20 yrs older than you must be called "auntie"] and one of them asked what Gav did. I said "he's a factory worker" which was true at the time! I was utterly and completely surprised when one of the aunties gave me a telling off, saying i shouldn't "put down" my husband like that. but gav laughed when he heard, coz he says it IS true, and even a manager at a factory is a factory worker. thr's no shame in doing honest work, he doesnt look down on factory workers or watever workers. Aren't we all workers if we work? haha. Even the prime minister is a public servant, and we should all strive to be servants of all if we want to be great in God's kingdom.

my first ever tomato!

after the flowers, come the fruit! I'm really pleased to see this tiny little tomato, after putting so many emotional energy into this plant since Oct 12th when I bought it as a seedling in Carrick for $2. I don't even know what type of tomato this is, but after seeing it grow for 2 months now im so glad to finally see a fruit. it's tiny and green no doubt but still! not sure if the leaves are meant to be curled up like that though...

kangkung or otherwise known as water convulvulus and more pictures from the balcony garden

 These are very good for making pressed flowers as they're nice and flat, and the more you cut them off the plant, the more buds will grow!

 Above, kangkung stalks, also known as water convulvulus, water spinach or kangkong. They're one of my favourite vegetables, most Malaysians would known this one quite well. It's widely eaten in Sri Lanka and the Philipines as well I think. I just love dark leafy greens [like spinach, rocket, silverbeet, choy sum] and this one is especially good stir fried. But, because it's not widely eaten here it was hard to find, and when we finally found it at an asian shop, it set us back $7 for a bunch! [you could buy a kilo of a pork leg and have change leftover!] A bit of research on the internet showed that it grows like a weed, and is indeed a weed in some places in the US, so I thought it couldn't be too hard to grow. So we saved some stalks from our $7 bunch and instead of eating them, we put them in potting mix and flooded them with water.

 In just a day of soaking in water, tiny roots appeared at the nodes, and now, after 2 1/2 weeks, they've grown some leaves! i do hope they'll grow enough for us to harvest after a month or so!
They weren't too expensive in Melbourne, I rmbr seeing them sold at Preston Market for $2.50 a bunch. But still, there's that thrill of growing something and seeing something appear out of nothing. It's like a miracle!

More of the pansy shots. I just couldn't help myself. :) hehe

scallops

 I just can't help admiring my pansies every morning.

 Gav brought home some Tasmanian scallops that he got for $25 a kilo. I'd never cooked them before so this was our first scallop dish ever. Fried in butter with garlic and lemon juice.

served over pasta with parmesan cheese. yummy and simple but no fibre at all in this meal.

it's the 1st day of summer!

 pansies in a row...

 I think these are raspberry plants, the previous tenant planted them

 I don't want to pay $2.50 for a lemongrass stalk so I'm attempting to grow it. don't know if it'll like cold tassie weather though...

my tomato plant has grown quite a bit since we bought it nearly 2 months ago now but still no fruit!

this is turning into a gardening blog! perhaps i should change its title...

as always, everything i eat at jeff and Han's place is yummy. this is one of their regular weeknight meals, rice with various curries, and pickled vegetables.

and here's a pansy i yanked out of the ground! they were growing wild among the rocks and weeds in the carpark so I thought I'd take one to pot up, so here it is. It survived the move quite well, it's been more than a day and it still looks fresh.

this poppy was also growing wild among the weeds and grass in the carpark. how bright and lovely it is!

new obsession - gardening

Having recently moved into a new apartment with a sunny balcony, i've finally decided to indulge my gardening interest. Ive never grown anything before except some cress in cotton wool in a plastic tupperware on a window sill and perhaps some mould in the fridge but i was keen to try going for my own coriander, spring onions, chillis and tomatoes. Above, some succulents that the next door neighbour kindly gave us.
It's been raining so much these last few days, with one or two where temperatures soared to 30C. So, some plants have taken the opportunity to shoot up! including some of mine. Above, some tomato shoots that popped up after 2 weeks of waiting!
These are the spring onion shoots. I wonder if I'm meant to thin them out. but it's such a shame to waste them when they'd so courageously pushed through the soil.
This is a coconut scented geranium that i got at a garage sale for $4. it really does smell like coconut! Apparently the scented leaves can be used to flavour cakes.

I'm very proud of this fried rice noodle [char kueh teow] dish Gav and I made, I made the rice noodles from rice flour and water, in the microwave no less! And he stir fried them in a very hot wok with garlic, fish sauce, dark soy sauce, egg, chilli sauce and chinese greens. It was really yummy.
This meal above was made after I borrowed a Sri Lankan cookbook from the library and got inspired. We don't have coasters hence the cardboard "mats". Yellow rice, beef curry, potato curry, spinach and dhal [lentil] curry and pol sambol [coconut sambol]. There's nothing green in this meal at all but the lentils are full of fibre so i hope that makes up for it.....
Above is a more typical meal for us, plain white rice, a dish of stir fried asian greens and a meat dish, involving soy sauce. In this case, pork mince and potato slices cooked with dark soy sauce, garlic, star anise and cinnamon.
And this was a feast for us, clockwise from left - white rice, stir fried asparagus, chive and canned clam omelette, salted mustard green and pork soup, stir fried pork fillet with bean paste [tauchu] and chilli . Where I come from, asparagus is a very expensive vegetable, as it's imported and only available seasonally. But just last week they were $1 a bunch at Woolworths so we took the opportunity to cook them with belacan shrimp paste and chilli.

Also, in Malaysia we eat with a fork and spoon, not a knife and fork which I find quite fiddly to eat with!

various restaurant food and eating at home

this picture above was taken at a chinese restaurant somewhere in Melbourne, i don't rmbr the name of it. but the food was excellent. everyone, including non-Chinese, loves sweet sour pork.

this is one of my favourite vegetables, "kangkung" or in english, water convolvulus. what a convoluted name! It's especially tasty cooked with belacan [fermented shrimp paste] If only I could grow it here in Tassie...

Above, a curry laksa from a stall at Victoria market. yummy. I actually like laksa better here than in Malaysia, where it tends to get too oily. Also, the laksa here has more meat in it than the meagre portions served in malaysia.
a simple, tasty quick lunch at Eugenia's place. Soup made with knorr chicken stock powder with tofu, egg and frozen dumplings quickly boiled up, and stir fried vegetables with rice. What more could you want?

"western" dinner

Grilled chicken sausages, microwaved [frozen] green beans, mash, grilled chicken nuggets and gherkins. Those chicken sausages were yummy! especially the curry flavoured ones. who knows which parts of the chicken actually go into these though!

smoked salmon pasta

now that we live in the salmon capital of Australia, we've been eating a bit of salmon. Tasmanian salmon is sold under the brand name "Tassal" and we got a kilo of smoked salmon for $25! which is cheaper than if you bought it at a supermarket in small portions [they're ussualy between $40-$60 a kilo]

This simple smoked salmon pasta was made just by mixing cooked pasta with sliced smoked salmon, a few spoonfuls of cream, a dash of salt and pepper, a squeeze of lime juice, a few rinsed capers and some dried italian herbs. Finished off with some shredded parmesan. Yum!

dinner

Grilled fish with turmeric and salt, stir fried choy sum with garlic and oyster sauce, sambal belacan [chillis blended with shrimp paste, lime juice and salt] herbal chicken soup made with chicken carcass, goji berries, red dates and dried chinese herbs, and rice.

random food adventures

I love trying new foods, it's my way of discovering the world.

Melbourne's a great place for cheap Indian food - this onion uttapam, above, with its 3 sauces to go with it, was only $7.50 with free cold water. It's a savoury fermented rice pancake with bits of onion, chilli and coriander, plus some other spices cooked into it, served with a mild lentil curry, a tangy raita and a creamy coconut chutney. Really yummy! at Jaipur Curry Club in Clayton. [right next to the train station]
Above, some Indian "fudge". I don't know their names, but most are made from crushed nuts or semolina, sweetened and flavoured with spices and or rosewater. The green one was made from milk curds I think. This whole boxful was $6.80 from Sarawan indian grocer.
These are chinese sweets, above, called "mooncakes" but they're not a cake at all, but rather a rich paste of pulverised lotus seeds or red beans, sweetened and shaped into pretty shapes. These ones have a thin, baked crust but some other types have a pastel coloured doughy "skin". Some have a salted egg yolk in the centre. [how did salted egg yolks ever pair up with sweets? I don't know] I don't quite care for them, as they're too sweet for my liking but they're only eaten once a year anyway, for the autumn festival so I suppose a little indulgence isn't too bad.
And these were from a Chinese autumn festival party I went to. The yellow noodles are ramen noodles fried with spicy laksa paste [very very yummy] with scrambled egg, shredded carrot, cucumber and shrimp, and below, stir fried rice noodles [bought at Springvale] with XO sauce [a hong kong style savoury sauce bought in jars], garlic chives, bean sprouts and dried shrimp. The rice noodles were really silky and had the right texture, smooth but not falling apart, and the delicate flavours of the shrimp, chives and sauce made it just right.
below, are photos from a western style party i went to. honey joys [I just love these, sweet and crispy are a good combination] and what looks like slices of bread with hundreds and thousands sprinkled on top. and gummy sweets.

and below, sausage rolls and iced biscuits.

and healthy veggie sandwiches!

springtime pottering about

the view from out window - that's a really huge tree! wonder what tree it is.
my tiny tomato seedling. i hope it'll survive the cold.
the moussaka in the oven. I bought an eggplant at salamanca market last Saturday for $3.50! that's a really expensive eggplant. so I decided to make this Greek dish with it. I used a recipe from taste.com.au, so I don't know how authentic it is. Basically, it's a lasagne made with eggplant instead of pasta sheets. Everything else is the same - the tomato sauce, white sauce, cheese topping and mince.
I did a search for "authentic" greek moussaka and found that there were several important things I missed out - cinnamon, allspice, feta cheese and egg yolks, instead of a whole egg. And it should've been lamb mince, not beef mince. oh well :)

It tasted pretty good. If I made it again, I wouldn't fry the eggplant slices, but I'd simmer them in a bit of water till they cooked. I don't like how they absorb all the oil like sponges. I don't think it would affect the taste too much if the eggplant were simmered in water rather than fried in oil because the whole lot gets drenched in sauce before going into the oven anyway.

flowers....

This was meant to be a food blog before, but I'm allowed to change my mind aren't I? These flowers were from around the gardens at Graham Court Apartments, where we're staying at the moment. Gorgeous place! Above, some daffodil like tiny ones just outside our window. If anyone knows the names of these, please comment below!
This one above is probably some sort of daisy.
These were really tiny ones that grew in clusters.
These look like hibiscuses but I think they're not. These ones below are like stars!