CantCookStillTry

Rooster Sauce? I love it! Thats going to be so much easier to use than Sriracha. Which I find impossible to remember the way to spell. Heck I doubt I even pronounce it right. So many unexpected R's, and yes my husband never leaves home without it - mainly because he left it in the work fridge once when he went off shift and came back to find it gone - Don't even get me started on the Missing Mulberry Jam debacle of '16.

It makes me very happy! I have one more post to add here but it's all about the distillery... I am waiting until its not a school night, then I can do a proper taste test and inform you all of the results. I'm nice like that. ** Apologies in advance for slurred typos and inappropriate attempts at humour. See you Friday night **

Everyone's food looks so delicious and full of effort. I however am trapped in a phase of " 'expletive' this cooking lark, I'm too tired". Unfortunately (but not for my waist line) I don't have take away as an option. The better half got a begrudgingly served soy sauce chicken & vegetable omelette/pancake. It's always been a riff on UK Chinese takeaway egg foo young (which is totally different to the American version) but I rarely have the beansprouts, or the inclination to deep fry an omelette (Also aware this dish is unlikely to exist in real life china). Little man had a mini roast with chicken, broc, potatoes, corn and peas. I, in lieu of dinner, had a horrible shock, when I took a deep swig from the mug I had used to reheat the frozen Gravy rather than my Black Coffee.

Thank you so much, and please laugh! I don't have what it takes to be taken seriously . But I do like to giggle.

I have to admit that when Georgian food was mentioned in other posts I had to google. The food looks wonderful - disapointed at the lack of wigs.

Easy Like Sunday Morning So we hit the 1770 markets first up, they are held on the second and fourth Sunday of the month. To be honest, a little sparse this time, when we were there before, there were camel rides, you couldn't park your car anywhere near the site and were spoilt for choice with stalls. This time there were some second hand books, a few produce stalls, some honey stalls and coffee stand. Nothing I was that inspired to look like a crazy taking pictures of. I did pick up a bunch of Dragon Fruit (is there a collective term for a group of these? A bushel? A Bunch? A prickle?) They are pretty small and I have no idea what I am going to do with them, still, a beautiful fruit. Add in some more colour because a parental unit was feeling guilty about the sun burn. Its a pre breakfast dairy .. uh.. pro..biotic...? Do you believe me? For breakfast we went to a small cafe on the bay, beautiful view, interesting set up. First visit - all I will say is that in an area with no competition, we were the only people there at 930 on a Sunday - Perhaps everyone was at church. Same breakfast all around... ( I don't think they were at church ). The next place I wanted to take you was to the fish market. What I always loved about it was you could find something really fresh no mater what time of day. One of their functions was to sell on the plentiful fish hobby fisherman caught and didn't keep. So you could always get something different. Huge cool shed that specialised in cooking fresh prawns constantly for sandwiches and crabs. I always thought it was pretty busy. But perhaps not. I guess its downfall was that it was quite away out of town, away from the beach and you really had to be looking for those kind of things to find it. Not really a drop in discovery. So that was disappointing. This was all the fresh I could find to show you. Don't ask me what they are. Fishes? I would say whiting but I tend to call any fish I catch a Whiting or a Bream because thats all I know! Fun Test - is it Bream as in Dream or Bream as in Brim? There is only one correct answer - and its the way I say it. Even though every Aussie around here does the opposite. I didn't bother with any fresh fish, I did pick up this from the freezer though. I felt I couldn't leave empty handed. As it was a closing down sale we were only charged $25. After that discouraging adventure it was time for some vitamin sea - for like 10 minutes because of the kid with no skin. Chinamans Beach. (For better and worse, Australia is not quite up with some of the worlds PC-ness, sometimes that makes me feel really refreshed in a world gone mad, other times, its the uncomfortable I can't believe its called that / you can sell those). Well worth a look if you get to come here, a lot quieter than main beach, a 'locals' beach rather than a tourist beach. I don't think the Backpackers have found it yet, but there are no lifeguards so - swimming is for the capable. Swimming is for the crazy in my opinion. The ocean petrifies me, but so does the sea, and rivers, creeks, and bodies of water that are not perfectly clear and not a swimming pool.

He is doing really well the B***ard 16kg since January I believe. It's depressing to watch a man pick the toppings off a pizza base though. Usually I am a lot more supportive - however, I have a lot going on and I the kid and I wanted Pizza. Strange how the body adapts, Carbs actually make him quite unwell at the moment, his one cheat made him so miserably unwell he hasn't been tempted. I however, have the will power of - actually I do not believe anything has quite as little will power as me.

Lunch and Dinner Day Saturday The sun came out! So to celebrate we thought we would invite some friends who lived not too far away (In Australian distance) to come for a late lunch, enjoy the pool and make use of the BBQ at the rental. I'm not even a BBQ fanatic but I had serious envy with this one. I made a comment to my father once about how BBQ in Australia was much easier (I grew up with disposable charcoal BBQs in the UK) and he replied that he could probably do just as well if he had an outdoor gas oven - he has a point. Any way it was a simple deal, these posts certainly won't give you Gourmet but they might show you something different to what you get at home. Thats why I love Egullet, I love seeing what resources you all have and what you do with them. Loaded with one of each of the big three, lamb, beef and pork, our feathered friends gained a reprieve. I set the table and everything! Mainly because it was at rainforest humidity levels and sticky is not fun. Check the paper plates - I wasn't washing up. Some locally made condiments, we brought the 'Wooster' sauce with us, its starting to gain a bit of traction, a box sent on a truck heading for Cairns fairly regularly and I have seen it as far down as Brisbane. Its made in three different levels of 'heat/strength' as well. Should it be called Worcestershire Sauce? I'm not sure. Is there any Wooster sauce if its not Lea & Perrins? That's not my fight. Is it very very good? Yes. Should you just call it Wooster sauce instead of the county? Yup. A new relish to try for my Jalapeno mad husband. Tried growing them once, they were bright red and still smaller than my pinky finger. Failed. I had decided I simply must cook something on the beautiful stove, although it wasn't going to be anything complicated. A big pan of onions, slowly caramelised in butter. Lets be honest, they cooked themselves. This is obviously a before photo, the after didn't happen unfortunately. They were good though. I found a few other things that made me chuckle when I was in the 'FoodWorks' procuring onion and side salads. I found the price of $17.99 a kilo for lamb breast a little surprising, even with the fillings. And after seeing the prices on these, I'm heading straight over to some of the fermenting and sauerkraut posts to get me the skills to set up a little business. I feel there is a tidy markup. And to finish, our four legged friends have not been forgotten. I know its dog food but... still. I don't even think its trying to be funny! After a big lunch, we farwelled our friends and grabbed pizza for tea. I was a little underwhelmed and almost forgot any photos, Pepperoni, Supreme and BBQ meatlovers. Thin crust (my favourite - unfortunately a tad soggy), sadly very very salty. Still filled a hole. What goes up must come down. Edit: To make sense of my 'downhill' comment - We actually had a reservation at a restaurant called 'Plantation' for Saturday night, its on a resort called lagoons, and is the one of the most rated places in town - to be fair I would not have needed said reservation, the whole township was a ghost- umm - township, dosen't sound right but you know what I mean. However, my little boy got very very sunburnt in three hours outside (we are very sun safe etc - turns out the best rated sunscreen out there - that he was basted in - has some issues at the moment). I was too embarrassed to take him out, everyone judges the parents not the product, so the fancy place I hoped to show you guys got replaced with pizza - this was the first in a few failures of things I wanted to show you - more will be revealed later.

The Papua New Guinea one? No they didn't reach us. I hope the people are ok, was very strong, it's about now I'll start monitoring the worlds volcanoes, those things really scare me!

Breakfast is probably the most logical place to start. I know I am not allowed to go off topic, but In the next few posts I may have to digress a tiny weeny bit to set the scene... Ran (literally) to the beach after my last post to get some dawn pictures whilst deciding on where to go. The beach has suffered from the bad weather and the sun was not playing, unlike me, it didn't want to get out of bed. I sat on that stick and thought long and hard about breakfast (cough-im on topic-cough). We chose a little cafe called Codies Place (there are approx 5 breakfast serving places in the surronding area and we had not been to this one previously). This is their manifesto, as it were. ( I had tried to get a picture of the outside, but I slipped in the wet and stacked it! Way to embarassed to try again). ( If you don't want to / can't read it - shabby chic, booze focused, backpacker staffed and casual/minimalist). The breakfast menu consists of four options, Avocado smash, Big breakfast, Kids sliders and a Breakfast burger. We chose 3 out of four - we are not Avocado people. Mine: Brioche, bacon, swiss, fried egg, relish and Hollandaise. Small dudes was a mini replica of mine but hollandaise and relish were dressed with ketchup. And the big breakfast - wasn't so big when Captain low carb had to dispense of his bread and hash browns. I loved my roll, for himself, the egg white was still a little - well as he says, like snot. It was over all very good simple fare. With super friendly servers. The table next to us, were loud - but not in a bad way - and were actively group posting their trip advisor review . Not that I listen to other peoples conversations but said table own a restaurant, dedicated to a specific food, in a hinterland town called Maleny (I would also have to win the lottery to live there). So if they were pleased... The day(s) went down hill from here. Will be back later with lunch

I'll add a little extra. Clearly I spend way too much time on egullet because all I could think was 'I'm in a giant Chinese soup spoon'.

(It is 4am and sleep is proving to be a fickle mistress, so for any disastrous spelling and grammar mistakes - give me 3 hours and 3 coffees to do an edit ). We are staying in 'The Town of 1770' or just 1770 as it is known, google prefers the longer name. I think it is the second place Captain Cook landed during his 'discovery' of this country. I said the same thing. Chances are if it rains enough, I may get an extended stay. I would have to win the lottery to make it permanant though! Smithy: Australias fresh food market confuses the heck out of me, I do not understand it at all. My mother can buy cheaper, Australian grown, Bananas in her local Asda in the UK than I can get at one of the hundreds of local Banana farms 500m from my house. All the fresh produce seems crazy expensive to me, I usually put it down to being so rural so - food miles. I allow $2 leeway per kilo for thirsty plants before outrage, seeing as its very dry in this belt! I also find our local supermarket always stocks what to me is 'seconds' so the price stings a little. There is a local 1770 market being run on Sunday so I will try to take some pictures of produce there. Anyway, I have just seen that Smokey is doing a real blog! I'm so excited, Vegas is bucket list for me. I will meet you all over there

A disclaimer to start: This is not a food blog. I am slowly working my way through every egullet blog from the dawn of time and I am not brave enough for an attempt! I have simply run away for the weekend to a beautiful quaint seaside town, and thought I'd share some things I find. To be honest I'm not even planning to cook. But we will have to eat to survive I suppose. We had a two hour drive after work to the place we had rented and it was straight to the supermarket. We have learnt to pack most essentials (I'm talking olive oil, salt and kitchen towel - nothing like 'camping princess style' much to my shame. I can only dream of being that prepared - and thats in my day to day life!), so we needed to grab something easy for tea/dinner/winesoakerupper. This place is, well, affluent. I love finding things I can't get at home, but then choke a little at the price and put things back on the shelf. Stone fruit & Melon, Figs & Grapes. I have never found Miso before, should I buy some? Can I use it low carb? Never heard of it. I had always thought it was Sir Winston or the industrial revolution. Cheese is better. Fancy (to me) marinades & vinegars. I had no desire to taste this 'real broccoli' but I hadn't seen it before. Didn't want to try these either but I thought of the Smiths topic. Shopping complete we went to investigate our rental. While we have stayed in the town alot, it was our first time in this particular house. The kitchen is tempting me to abandon my 'just chill' philosophy for the weekend. The fridge. Oh the fridge. And the space! I can only dream of having a kitchen like this. And I do. A lot. Back to reality. The next two pictures are dinner. Do not judge me too harshly - I'm on holiday . Another disclaimer: It is raining cats & dogs, its predicted to do so all weekend. I hope I can find some things food related that may interest one or two of you. If the weather keeps weathering it is unlikely to be fresh seafood.

Clean the fridge out salad tonight. I yelled out to himself 'Want meat in it?' Whilst dutifully slicing the last of the beautiful salami we had. 'Yeah chuck the rest of that Strasburg in' was my response from the shower . Strasburg is a processed sausage shaped 'meat' made of pork, beef AND chicken bits that I cannot bring myself to eat. But it reminds some people of their childhood - hey I'll eat kidney pie out of a can so thats probably worse. I used a mustard dipping sauce I made for our corn beef attempt as dressing. Didn't know how to drizzle it all fancy for you guys so I used a 2ml syringe left over from administering lil man medication (clean of course). You know the sand worm poop trails left on the beach at low tide... yeah.

I had men at work tonight. The work took a little longer than expected, so, I decided to help out and make their BBQ Dinner. Note the shape of the eggs. Cracked them way too close, burnt the beejezus out of my finger. Thats performance art They boys were too tired to detect any human fleshy additions. I wasn't. Sirloin/Porter, onion, egg, bacon - I promise there was salad on the table.

Now I have filled myself with doubt. I was all set to make corned beef for the first time this weekend, following TropS advice, recipe & guidance but whilst doing a bit of research on if I could adapt to using a slow cooker, I realised the Australian recipes I was finding for Corn Beef were all a little different - they all seem to involve vinegar. I have read this topic and the other one that popped up about Paddys day corned meat, and vinegar is never mentioned/ or i missed it. I wonder why? Is American Corned Beef different from Australian? I would just usually follow the advice here, but this meal is one of my husbands favourites - and I never make it because he raves about his mothers. So perhaps I should make an 'American version" and just call it something else?! Have any of you ever used vinegar in the simmering liquid? I asked his mother and she constantly tops up the vinegar whilst cooking. I have to admit (somewhat guiltily ) that my own expectation of Corned Beef is entirely British - it comes in a can, is highly processed, and, if you buy it pre-sliced, as my husband denounces, it looks and tastes like salty cardboard, is perfectly square and crumbles when you bite it. I love it. Its not available in this country .

Found these today. Did not buy. Can only shudder along with the rest of you at possible taste. Beef? Gravy? Ketchup? Pastry?

Dinner tonight was a brunch type affair. Featuring Quiches slimmer, but not half as lovely sister, the Frittata. And some pig.

Attempted Taco night with cheese shells. Probably won't try this again on a school night/after work. Testing the structural integrity of four different cheese blends whilst supervising the learning of the letter Y was too much effort for too little reward! And thats coming from someone whose last meal would involve melted cheese 6 ways. (actually that fact might be what causes the meal to be my last).

Closing out day four of 'I'm never turning my oven on again because I live in one'. Spatched Tiny Chicken on the Bbq with Zucs. Yes I burned the everloving sssh out of it. I put it on a way too hot plate, left my tongs inside and by the time I came back.... Wait. Wait a minute. Let me just revise my Dish Name. Blackened Chicken and Zucchini I'm learning.

Too hot to cook inside. Grabbed a couple of packages of chops from the freezer yesterday in preparation - I don't label anything so turned out half were lamb half were pork. So a meat feast, with slaw.

I liked it, it has a texture more akin to a biscuit/cracker (depending on which side of the pond your on) I found it held up well against the toppings. Admittedly I didn't use a lot of sauce due to the sugar content and we did leave the "pizza" to cool and consume later, but still completely hand edible. My issue with 'gluten free' versions is it is too 'close but no cigar' to the real deal - where is this is different enough to stand alone and still be familiar Looking forward to trying cauli crust one day... when I can find them fresh again.

Last nights dinner... hesitated on putting this up, it is sure to cause controversy from both pizza lovers and nutritionists alike but hey - It was dinner. It was Friday and there were pizza cravings, someone has forsworn all bready deliciousness, but had heard of something called "Fathead Pizza" (bear with me folks, I know we all have our own opinions on each diet that comes and goes -I'm just out here being a supportive wifelet). So I gave it a whirl, and this sceptic was pleasantly surprised - I mean its no pizza, but it was enough. (Probably helps that my favourite / only pizza topping of choice is cheese ) Mix almond meal, cream cheese and mozzarella and melt. And herbs and incorporate an egg. Roll out - obviously its rectangular because round is for Real pizza and not because I'm shi... not great at rolling things out. Prebaked Topped and done. (Turkey, Jalapenos, Mushroom, Red capsicum, Onion). I tried a bit of the crust. And I have been trying to think of what it reminds me of all day. It has the flavour profile of cheap cheese straws I think! That's not necessarily a bad thing - to me. Anyway. Not to everyone taste but a fun experiment for me - Also no marmite was harmed in the making of this pizza, it just sat there to remind me yeast was a thing.

Simple veg stir fry for the Hubsters dinner tonight. Its not much but -basically he had all his protein for lunch and I was allowed all of his daily carb intake for dinner. This diet of his has really made me understand more about nutritional values if nothing else. It was good to be able to use some surprisingly high carb (at least to this novice) ingredients freely . (Hello garlic my old friend, its nice to cook with you again...) Ps. Thats a small bowl. Not a plate.

Courgette ribbons with yellow cherry mato, crispy pepperoni, olive, kale and parmesan, oh and chilli lots of chilli - crowned with a very dead egg. Served in my big old pasta bowls that I love and he who is fed hates .