Not a great pic, but seriously, this soup was ‘the shit’.
Arriving home very late after a rather long Monday at work, I was greeted by Niall offering up a bowl of this scrumptious soup.
It’s from the Anthony Worrell Thompson GI Diet book. It’s a really hearty soup, that really is more of a main course than a starter.
We had a few cherry tomatoes and sweet santini tomatoes in the fridge that needed using. These went into the soup and probably lended to the very sweet intense taste of the final product.
Niall improvised by adding one or two naughty things that perhaps didn’t help the whole GI thing but what the hell, it was gorgeous.
It’s been a while since I’ve had a wander through the zillions of recipes and tips, and tonight I was sure glad I did. This recipe for Morrocan Aubergine & Chickpea Salad was deliciously light and tasty, seasonal and nutritious. And stupidly easy to make.
I added couscous to the salad and made a nice little green salad too, and we washed it all down with some nice Reisling. Rocking.
My reading material for our journey to and from Australia was Frank O’Connor’s My Oedipus Complex and the Jamie Oliver Magazine. Think of that what you will.
The copy of Jamie’s Magazine was the second issue of the new bi-monthly and it’s packed full of recipes. It also has some travel-eating type pieces and a few celebrity food cameos. The recipes are worth the £3.95 cover charge, and I will most certainly be using a few more of them in the coming months. It doesn’t appear to be widely available in Ireland, but you may find it in Eason’s and sure, there’s always the web.
The first meal (and bar a few salads and sambos, the last) meal I’ve cooked since we got back to Dublin was a Cannellini Bean Bake from the magazine. In the mag, this is just a side dish for a Pork Neck Fillet recipe, but it stood up on its own as a nice Sunday night din dins.
So…we’ve been back from Australia for over a week now. At this point, it’s almost as if it was all a wonderful, happy dream…
I have cooked once since we’ve been back. Seriously, we needed to lay off the eating after our incredible trip. Although we did manage to squeeze in an Indian take-away from the best Dublin Indian that I’m aware of, KonKan over on Clanbrassil Street. Damn good curries. We also had some great sushi in Hilan Chinese & Korean Restaurant on Capel Street. Diggin’ it.
Our trip to Australia was absolutely amazing and I hope I didn’t sicken y’all too much with my blog updates. Normal service will now resume.
It’s a salt and pepper shaker in the shape of a kangaroo and its joey. I mean, what the HELL was I thinking leaving that behind in Melbourne?! It was only $28 (about €15). It’s been playing on my mind since we left. Dash it all, I might just have to make another trip back to get it
Once again, big thanks to Tourism Australia for giving Niall and I this fantastic opportunity. Their reps in Melbourne and Perth went out of their ways to show us a good time. I also want to say a big thanks to all of the lovely people we met along the way who welcomed us with such open Australian arms. Good on ya.
And finally, thanks to all of you who commented along the way!
Right…better start cooking for myself again…:)
MP3
While we were in Perth, myself and Niall visited the super deadly RTR FM, an alternative community radio station. We were interviewed by the lovely Danae Gibson about our trip and you can have a listen by clicking on the link below.
By the time we arrived in Perth last Tuesday, we’d had nearly five full days of action packed adventure and plenty of eating in Melbourne. On the trip from the airport to the very central Rydes Hotel in Perth City, our taxi driver explained that the pace was a little slower out here in Western Australia. I won’t lie to you – part of me breathed a sigh of relief.
It could be something to do with the weather in Perth (it rarely falls below 20 degrees in the daytime in winter and summers have highs of 45 degrees) but it’s a very relaxed place.
On our first few days in Oz, we had been told breakfast was a bit of ‘a thing’ in Melbourne, that everyone went out for breakfast/brunch on the weekends to catch up with friends or to simply enjoy some good grub.
We were given the heads up on Cumulus Inc, which had the rep for being one of the best breakfast places in Melbourne, and is situated on 45 Flinders Lane, conveniently right behind our lovely Hotel Lindrum.
On our last morning in Melbourne, we were determined to sample a good breakfast, as most of our eating had been night time affairs. We arrived at Cumulus at about 11.38 only to be told that breakfast finishes at 11.30am! Oh, we were so sad. Fear not, though, the very kind barrista wearing rather trendy specs suggsted that we wait til 12 and we could be seated for lunch. We battled on and braved the 20 minute wait. So glad we did.
After our supreme meatfest in Tjanabi, we really wanted a salad. Like, really.
On our last night in Melbourne, we were shown around a handful of the seemingly endless funky little bars that are scattered around the city by our delightful hostess Michelle.
Michelle is the creator of The Deck of Secrets, a series of playing card size packs designed to be a handy way for an out-of-towner to get to know certain parts of a city. The tour that we went on was the Bar Secrets tour of Melbourne, dropping in on some of the 52 bars that are included in the Bar Secrets Melbourne City pack. The cards have a photo of the bar, the address, a short description of what makes it special, and a very handy map on the back of the card.
We awoke early on Sunday morning in Melbourne to face a beautiful sunny Australian winter’s day. As we made our way up to the Koorie Heritage Centre, a short walk from our hotel, we noticed that early Sunday morning in Melbourne is not unlike early Sunday morning in Dublin; there were a few lost souls wandering the streets who appeared to have not made it home from Saturday night just yet!
After a browse in the Koorie Heritage Centre, which had an exhibition about the history of the native people in Melbourne, we headed back to the centre of town in the direction of the Eureka Skydeck. The Eureka Skydeck is not only home to the Southern Hemisphere’s highest viewing platform (a whole 88 floors above the ground) but it is also an apartment building, where no doubt folks have paid quite a few bucks to avail of the incredible views and proximity to the city centre.
Okay, vegetarian readers. This post might not be up your street. On our second night in Melbourne, we took the short walk from our hotel to Federation Square where dinner was to be enjoyed in Tjanabi, The All Australia Restaurant. It turned into quite the meat fest!
The word Tjanabi means ‘to celebrate’ in the language of the original inhabitants of Melbourne and the idea of this restaurant is literally to celebrate the local and indigenous foods. They have done this by creating a menu made up entirely of local produce and indigenous ingredients, and the restaurant is a great way to have a culinary crash course in Australian indigenous food.
We had tried our first kangaroo on our Foodies’ Dream Tour at Queen Victoria Market earlier in the day, and our aim at Tjanabi was to try as many different Australian meats as possible.
Tjanabi enabled us to do this by offering the option of Taster Plates, with which we started. The idea was kind of like an All Australian Tapas. There are 11 possible options on the menu and you can choose 4, 6, or 8 selections. We went for 6 and ticked a few of the meats we wanted to try off our list in one quick starter!
There’s nothing like a Harley ride to wake a girl up in the morn. And now I know that from experience.
At 8.45 on our second morning in Melbourne, we were met in our hotel by two lovely gents and their chariots: John and Mick and their beautiful Harleys. We were kitted out with helmets, gloves, and biker jackets. Up we hopped on the back of the bikes and off we rumbled through the streets of Melbourne.
Mick and John dropped us off at The Foodies’ Dream Tour meeting point in the fantastic Queen Victoria Market, which is the largest market of its kind in The Southern Hemisphere. The Foodies’ Dream Tour is a two hour guided walk throughout the entire food part of the market. It’s an excellent way of getting your bearings, as the place is huge.
Having a knowledgable guide meant that not only did we get to see the food market in its full glory, but we were given some inside information on the workings of the market, we were pointed in the direction of the best stalls, and of course, we got to taste loads of yummy treats on the way!
Here is a tiny bit of the food market in pictures (there were too many things to take photos of so I’ll just give you a basic idea!):
