WOW! What a great way to start the year, you would not believe how excited I was for this day and it turned out to be even more spectacular than I imagined. I had never been to any of our destinations but they had been on my to do list, so it was just perfect in every way including the weather.
It takes about 2 hours to drive from Hobart to Launceston and thankfully I was able to get a lift with my wonderful Hubby who had a day planned up that way anyway and we gave my friend Natalie a lift too. We met her just after 6am!! The drive went quickly as we hadn’t caught up for ages so chatted (mainly about food) non stop all the way, this helped us to work up an appetite.
We met at the Harvest Market in Launceston at 8.30 for breakfast which we had pre ordered along with coffees. The market was great and especially as we had such perfect weather. It started to get quite busy too.
Seven Springs Farm – beautiful organic produceThis was one of our delicious breakfast optionsI had ordered the Reuben Sandwich from Meat Bread Cheese
We headed off to our next destination Bridestowe Lavender Estate. It was so wonderful, I have never seen so much lavender all together. Our day only got better, with the most wonderful Tasmanian spread for us in the lavender fields, including King Island Dairy cheeses, lavender cake and Jansz sparkling wine. Music from an old vintage French record player added to the atmosphere. It was like being in a wonderful lavender dream. After we finished our feast we walked through the fields for our VIP helicopter ride over the farm. It was so spectacular.
Our next stop was Clover Hill Wines. We were given some beautiful sparkling wine and a gorgeous platter to share (because of course we needed more food!!) It was such a relaxing time sitting outside looking at the beautiful view of the vineyard while sipping on the wine and tasting all the delicious food on the platter. Such a wonderful place to visit.
The last stop was Architects of Air installation as part of the MONA FOMA summer festival. It’s hard to explain but it was 20 mins of fun exploring inside this magical, surprising place – a maze of colours, patterns and sounds. A feast for the senses and for us photographers!! I feel truly grate for this wonderful day seeing things I have never seen and I will definitely be visiting these places again very soon.
Since the 1st of this year I have been on a health kick – yes I have had to have a few meals off in that time, but choose to keep coming back to nourishing foods with lots of veggies. Healthy is different to everyone and I love to indulge with delicious food all the time but healthy food is also delicious. So I will share with you some of my favourite healthy creations along the way. It’s all about the green smoothies, salads, stir frys, fruits that are not too high in sugar and herbal teas. Already I have been feeling much better for it and my hubby has even been having green smoothies too!!
Spicy Beef Soup with Cauliflower “Rice”Fiona Hoskin’s Green Smoothie RecipeI made this for my hubby – Healthy Banana Bread – recipe from cookidoo
It’s January 2020!! So I’m having a healthy start to the year with green smoothies, soups, salads and stir frys. This is how I created this delicious recipe – it not traditional but it is tasty, quick and easy.
Ingredients
1 Bunch Fresh Coriander
1 Clove Garlic
1 Chilli
10g Fresh Ginger
10g Fresh Turmeric
400g Chicken Breast and or Thighs cut into cubes
1tbs Fish Sauce – optional
Salt and Pepper to taste
20g Coconut Oil
Juice of 1 Lime
Baby Cos Lettuce Leaves
1 Cucumber, thinly sliced
Few Sprigs of Fresh Mint and/or Thai Basil
Method
Place coriander roots, garlic, chilli, ginger and turmeric into the TM bowl and chop for 3 secs speed 7.
Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the chicken, fish sauce, salt and pepper. Use the turbo button 1 sec intervals (up to 3 times) until the chicken is minced.
Heat a frypan to medium heat and add the coconut oil. Once it is melted, add the chicken mince mixture and stir fry until the chicken is cooked and slightly caramelised. Squeeze the lime juice over the top and stir.
Serve the chicken on baby cos leaves with cucumber slices and fresh coriander and mint/thai basil leaves. Enjoy!
The last lunch of the year celebrated with relatives and the day before my detox. I still had leftovers to use up so arranged my menu around that. I only had to buy Chicken Drumsticks for the Miso, Ginger & Lime Chicken recipe from Ottolenghi’s Simple cookbook and I had everything else I needed for a feast. YUM!!
I would also like to take this time to reflect on 2019 – what a year and what an amazing foodie adventure it was. I feel so very privileged to have eaten some amazing and interesting food with friends and family, both in home and at restaurants. I have met awesome Chefs and cooks along the way. I have cooked alongside friends at some wonderful cooking classes and workshops. Not to mention all the Thermomix cooking experiences and cooking classes spent with my customers and friends. Thank you to everyone for being such a wonderful support and part of this epic, delicious foodie adventure. I’m looking forward to lots more amazing food in 2020. Happy New year to you all!!
Chicken with Miso, Ginger and LimeMy famous Potato Salad recipeRoasted Eggplant with Anchovies and Oreganoiphone pic of the Pull Apart loaf I used up leftover ham, pesto, cheese and butter.
We were lucky to have an extended Christmas this year celebrating the week before Christmas with a Japanese feast and then on Christmas Eve I decided to do some more traditional food for the 4 of us!! And we proceeded to eat the leftovers from Christmas Day till New years Eve!!
I used my favourite Yolande Zarins tablecloth and napkins.
I was so excited to set my table for Christmas Eve dinner, I set it on Saturday night – 4 nights early!! I had just collected my early Christmas pressie 4 new dinner plates and a new serving platter form my favourite ceramics lady Sallee Warner. I got so excited setting the table I proceeded to put all my Sallee Warner Ceramics on the table that I have collected over the years and was very surprised at how many beautiful pieces I have. It turned out lucky that I set my table early because on the day of Christmas Eve I ended up delivering 3 Thermomix!!
I bought this gorgeous table runner and matching Christmas crackers in Newcastle, however it’s a Melbourne company called Milligram that make them.In keeping with the theme, I also got out a few of my other special Aussie designed tableware including my Dinosaur Design pieces.
On the day before Christmas Eve, I went to visit my Chef friend Eloise Emmett who had promised to help me with my Turduckenail – Thank goodness she did because I was very slow at deboning the birds. She had helped me make a Turducken on a couple of years ago and it was delicious. I had some quails in the freezer so thought I was being inventive by adding the quail in too. But it turns out Ellie had already done that a few years ago! Ellie took out the bones from the Turkey leaving the legs and wings in place, I deboned the duck and cut the legs and wings off the deboned jumbo quails (we ate those for dinner that night with a teriyaki sauce YUM!) So we placed the Turkey into the baking tray and then the duck inside that – the small chicken inside that and the quail meat followed by a thyme & bread stuffing. Then it was secured into place with a couple of skewers. See Ellie’s recipe here. I served mine with the leftover teriyaki sauce basted on towards the end of cooking. And used the bones to make a delicious stock for the gravy ( I forgot to take a photo of that gravy) I also had more stock left that I used to make an amazing mushroom broth.
You can see some of the layers of the different birds in the turduckenailMushroom Broth made with leftover turduckenail stock
So Christmas Eve dinner was the main event this Christmas I arrived home about 2.30 promptly placed the Turduckenail into the oven and steamed the potatoes in the varoma before roasting them in duck fat in the oven. I steamed the cauliflower in one thermomix while I made the bechamel sauce in the other thermomix for the cauliflower gratin and peeled and chopped the other veggies ready to roast. I used the thermomix to reduce the stock and make a delicious gravy. And I also made an amazing homemade butter and added my own homemade miso. This was to serve with the homemade sourdough bread I had baked the previous day, because we didn’t already have enough food!!
Watermelon & Strawberry Frose’ – recipe by Darren Purchese was perfect on some of our hot festive days
I had planned a few different desserts that didn’t happen so it was lucky my wonderful friend had made me a delicious Christmas pudding that we had for dessert with some thermomix made vanilla bean custard. We didn’t actually need any dessert but it’s just what you do isn’t it?
Homemade Sourdough with homemade Miso Butter (using homemade miso)Turduckenail – deboned quail inside, deboned chicken inside, deboned duck, inside mostly deboned turkey and then roasted.Turduckenail plate – it’s like lucky dipCauliflower GratinDuck Fat Roast Potatoes and Roasted baby CarrotsRoasted VeggiesGingerbread giftsChicken Liver Pate’ giftsSpice BiscuitsSaffron Peach BelliniEspresso MartiniHummus Dip
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