Spatula, Spoon and Saturday

There is so much failure going on this week. Least of all that I haven’t managed to eat a Paleo meal (to be perfectly honest with myself, I’m never going to be able to stick to a fad diet of any form.) but also a blogging failure.

Of course, when I started the weekly round-up, the idea, to me, is so that I update the blog more than once a week so I don’t have one weekly round-up after another. That didn’t happen. I was did fully intend to write up about Demitri’s Feast on Swan St. but I didn’t get to it. Sorry.

(Toast with jam and brown cheese)

Let’s start with a breakfast that was a totally paleo fail: toasted corn sourdough (from Purebread Bakery, see below), Norwegian brown cheese (also known as brunost or gjetost) and strawberry jam. I love it. It’s so wrong but I love it.

(Piccolo at Purebread Bakery in Surrey Hills – $2.5)

What else? Last week, (see yet another failure, I’m doing last week’s round-up this week. So much fail) went by in a blur. On Monday, I went to the library and borrowed a tonne of books. Mostly board books for Mini Me. They are very nutritious. She eats them constantly. On Tuesday, I met up with Raymond, who used to supervise my thesis back in my postgrad uni days, at Purebread Bakery in Surrey Hills. Do you know how much of a score it is to find that your local bakery actually knows what a piccolo is and makes it nicely? Yeah. It’s a good feeling.

(Dessert burger from Purebread Bakery in Surrey Hills – $3)

They also did this little nifty thing called dessert burger a few Saturdays ago but I feel like sharing it here because it’s rather cute. It’s basically a brioche bun stuffed with strawberry, coconut and some other sweet stuff (memory’s a bit hazy, sorry.)

(Almost Jamie Oliver’s beef and vegetable stir-fry)

Also on Tuesday, yet another failure. I actually followed a Jamie Oliver’s stir-fry recipe. Now, as much as I love Jamie Oliver, I don’t trust him as far as I can throw him for anything Asian related. I die a little inside everytime he attempts to make ‘Thai’ food. BUT, I have been watching Food Revolution and he goes on about tasty stir fry so I was curious. I found this recipe in one of his books. It called for you to stir fry garlic, ginger and chilli with beef. Season it with soy sauce, sesame oil and lime juice. I sort of ignored bits of it and used oyster sauce,  soy sauce and lemon juice instead. And it was actually tasty. So I wouldn’t mind making it again. But it is a total Failsian moment. Coupled with the fact that I ran out of soy sauce half way that I had to dig into the takeaway sushi soy sauce stash. Fail. Fail. Fail.

(Steam salmon with soy and ginger – recipe here)

On Wednesday, I had a date with Adriano Zumbo. And because I had a date with another man, I felt the need to be a good wife and make Josh dinner before I went off to my ‘date.’ I ended up tossing together some simple Cantonese style marinade for the frozen salmon fillets (that I bought from Regal Salmon at Taste of Melbourne – such good salmon) with steaming instructions for the fish and some greens. He thought it was good of course.

So back to my Zumbo ‘date.’ Books for Cooks (if you’re not on their mailing list, what are you waiting for?) held their usual meet-the-author session for Adriano Zumbo’s new book and I signed up for it. It was a lovely evening. We got to sample goodies cooked by Amanda from Books for Cooks (I think, that’s what she usually does) which were superb. Macarons, pastries and chocolates were on offer. Almost as good as Zumbo’s macarons. He was asked a lot about his patisserie and his time in France. About other up-and-coming dessert chefs in Melbourne (the answer: Burch & Purchese and Luxbite) and a whole lot of other ‘famous’ patisseries in Paris – whose names completely went over my head other than Laduree and Pierre Herme. Of course.

(Zumbo macarons)

Now I have to be perfectly honest with you, I didn’t know who Zumbo is, really. All I know of him is this box of lovely macarons Ellie had brought me when she came down to visit earlier this year. But they were indeed fantastic macarons. So obviously I was curious to meet the man behind it. Turns out he is a bit of a Masterchef celebrity as well. Since I’ve only seen about 15 minutes of Masterchef in my entire life, this fact skipped me.

(Beef pho at Pho Dzung  on Victoria St. – $7.5)

So after nibbling at the sweet goodies offered at the event, I Hua, Thanh and I decided we really needed a proper dinner. We ended up on Victoria St. for pho because it was on the way and I was quite keen to get off Smith St. Sorry, not a fan. We ended up my favourite on Victoria St. Pho Dzung. It wasn’t as good as I remembered it to be but it was a decent bowl of pho nonetheless.

(Soft boiled eggs and hollandaise sauce on toast)

Some time in that week, I may or may not have had soft boiled eggs and jarred hollandaise sauce on toast for dinner… See my Facebook post for the easiest and fool-proof way to make soft boiled eggs.

(Crispy barramundi and apple salad – $22)

On Thursday, yes, we’re only on Thursday still, Thanh, Agnes, I Hua, Liesl, Josh and I went out to I Spicy in Hawthorn for dinner – which I’m still yet to blog about from the last visit (yet another fail). I Spicy is basically a tiny little Thai joint in the Safeway building on Glenferrie that does quite decent cheap Thai food. We’ve been there a couple of times and had massive amounts of food each time. Thanh and Agnes declare it to be better than Appetizer. I think that’s like comparing apples to oranges.

(Bec’s strawberry and cream pavlova)

On Friday, I had mothers’ group and may or may not have had a couple of slices of Bec’s beautiful strawberry pav for lunch…

And I spent the weekend a bit sick. And the only win I can report, after many failures this week, is that my little veggie garden is coming along rather nicely.

How was your week?