DISPOSABLE PARTY

Remember this little camera I received for my birthday a few months ago?

blue steel

Taken at camping, my party, slurpee runs, tea parties at world bar & 'the pool'. How cool are the effectz?! I love getting film back- especially since I had no idea how this would turn out. It's been a good few months off but suddenly life has become insanely busy again and I kind of like it.

It has been suggested to me that I change my image format to 'standard' sizing for blogs (who even knew there was such a thing?!). So I'm truly sorry for the inconsistecy, (since I only changed it not long ago) but my images will become slightly bigger as of now. You probably wouldn't have noticed anyway. (#designerproblems).

STRAYA

CHEESE & VEGEMITE BISCUITS

NEED:

125 grams chilled butter, cubed

120 grams (½ cup) cheddar cheese, grated

150 grams (1¼ cups) plain flour

2-3 teaspoons vegemite (depending how much you can handle) (I only put the tiniest bit on bread)

1 teaspoon cold water

DO:

Place all ingredients in a food processor and using the pulse action, process until the ingredients just come together.

Remove the dough, form it into a disc shape, wrap in cling wrap and chill for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 180C, roll dough out on baking paper to about 5mm, cut shapes out and bake for about 15 minutes.

Happy Australia Day folks! I'm not one for themed posts but with my new cookie cutters I couldn't resist. Have fun (everyone who resides Down Under at least) drinking VB, eating lamb and listening to Triple J's Hottest 100 (which I very sadly was too late getting my vote in for). It's been 9 very happy years that I've been in the Lucky Country and I'm very thankful to Australia for opening it's doors to my family and I.

TACK

PEANUT BUTTER & ALMOND COOKIES

NEED:
100g butter, softened
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups brown sugar
1 egg
1 1/4 plain all purpose flour, sifted
1/4 teaspoon baking soda, sifted
whole almonds, for decorating

DO:
Preheat oven to 180C.

Place the butter, peanut butter, vanilla and brown sugar in an electric mixer and beat for 8-10 minutes or until well combined.

Add egg and beat for 2-3 minutes or until pale and fluffy.

Add flour and bicarbonate of soda and beat until smooth dough forms.

Roll the dough out between 2 sheets of non-stick baking paper to about 5mm thick.

Use a cookie cutter to cut rounds (7cm cutter makes about 22), leaving room to spread.

Place on baking trays and press almonds into the rounds to decorate.

Bake for 12-14 minutes or until the edges are golden & allow to cool.

Before you judge, it's done tacky on purpose! When my brother's girlfriend brought these gems over in that great, bright 80's Tupperware container I couldn't resist keeping with the theme and photographing them on that equally 80's tablecloth. These were my comfort food tonight as I have been struggling with assembling an IKEA shelf that I really underestminated the difficulty of building. Have (mostly) kept with my mini resolution of not eating any chocolate for the month of January in an attempt to lessen my addiction. (Yes, it's actually an addiction. I shamefully wouldn't be able to go to sleep at night if I hadn't had any chocolate that day.) Anyway, these are good.Do try if you have the chance.

Thanks Madi for the recipe & cookies!

DISPOSABLE SUMMER

Taken with a Kodak disposable camera

Untill now, I've never in my life had a disposable camera. While processing boxes of gifts for my recent trip to Vietnam, we were allowed to take some of the gifts that couldn't be sent for various reasons (cameras were useless since they wouldn't possibly be able to develop them) for a donation to the charity. These are some of the photos from the past few weeks with the camera that cost me no more than a gold coin. I love the fact that it was small enough to always have in my bag, cheap enough so I didn't need to worry about leaving it on the beach while I get an ice cream or leave by the side of the pool in the risk of getting splashed.

Oh and as you might notice I've finally set up my scanner... prepararing to scan the shit out of anything and everything!

WHITE ON WHITE

Having 3.5 months holidays and being borderline bored means I've got time to bake my brother a birthday cake (alas, not the most manly of cakes) and add cutesy type to the photos. This 'Best Coconut Butter Cake' is one of the few things I use our Thermomix for. It's indulgently rich and addictive, so much so that I sneakily finished about a third of the cake after the guests had left last night. That's a third of a stick of butter. Brb, gym.

W.I.R.A.

My version of some fashion blogs' 'What I Wore Today'- W.I.R.A: What I Recently Ate.

Summer is having meals outside- sitting in the garden with a sandwich (recently rediscovering my love for the humble toasted sandwich) and a book.

Remember that huge amount of zucchinis I didn't know what to do with? Well after using them for vegie patties, stuffed & roasted, I made soup. This soup was delicious, if only I could remember what I put in it... something along the lines of zucchini, red lentils, pumpkin, tomatoes, chilli & cumin.

Missing Vietnam and craving pho after reading this review and contemplating a trip to Cabramatta after watching this on SBS recently.

Hotel breakfasts.

I wish I could write more eloquently.

RED CUPS

Went to a party on Friday night, felt like the American teen I never was.

CHILL

This year has been shamelessly lazy. 5 days straight by either the pool or beach. This has been my soundtrack to 2012 (and even though it's been out quite a while), I've only just discovered how beautifully filmed the video clip for this dreamy song is. I won't start posting heaps of youtube clips or music, but this one is worth a watch/listen if you haven't seen it.

WHAT TO DO WITH...

What do you do with two huge crates of zucchini varieties from your friend who is on holiday's vegetable garden? After much googling (and thinking the light green variety might actually be butternut pumpkin that wasn't ripe yet), I found out that the yellow one is called 'golden globe squash' and the light green one 'marrow'. I cooked them the same way I would cook a regular zucchini.

STUFFED ZUCCHINIS

For about 16 halves (quite a lot):

NEED:

8 zucchinis

½ cup couscous

½ cup boiling water

1 can chickpeas, drained & rinsed

1 cup peas

2-3 rashers of bacon, chopped

½ red onion, diced

tomato, chopped into small pieces

1-2 tsp ground cumin

egg

basil (chopped leaves or dried)

oil, salt & pepper

DO:

In a sealable container, add couscous, boiling water, large pinch of salt and a dash of oil and let stand, covered, for 30mins, using a fork to separate the grains after about 20 mins.

Sauté onions in oil in a large pan, then add bacon, after a minute or so add chickpeas, peas and cumin and fry.

Add couscous and tomato, stir in, then add whisked egg to bind mixture.

Meanwhile, bring large pot of water to the boil then add zucchinis, parboiling for about 5 minutes (be careful not to overcook as they still need to go in the oven).

Take zucchinis out of the water, slice each lengthways, then scoop out seeds (I used an apple corer which worked quite well).

Put the stuffing in the zucchinis (can also sprinkle parmesan over if you wish) and bake in 180°C oven for about 15 minutes.

PULLED ZUCCHINI BUNS

NEED/DO:

Slice 1 zucchini using a vegetable peeler and fry in a pan with ¼ of a finely sliced red onion, chopped small clove of garlic, salt & pepper. Spread both sides of toasted bun with basil pesto, add half the zucchini slices and top with shaved pecorino or parmesan. Makes 2.

Any other suggestions what I could do with the remaining box? Rattatouille first came to mind but after reading this recently, the idea of using tinned tomatoes didn't seem all that appealing.

Hope 2012 has been kind to you so far!