Christmas in Adelaide

Merry Christmas

I spent Christmas with Liam's family and up in the Adelaide hills, we opened a few bigger presents at home and then took the car up the hill to have more present opening and a scrumptious lunch. We had Turkey AND roast pork with roasted stuffed pumpkin, beer bread, roast vegies, purple cabage and the most important cauliflower cheese. after all that food we went for a cooling dip in the pool and I tried out my new rashie (top so stop you getting sunburt when swimming). we chilled out in the evening with the corpse bride dvd, I do love that film.

On boxing day we headed back up to the hills but this time we took our bikes on the train, it's great bikes travel free if there is space. We had lunch with Liams family, amazing chick pea patties but I didn't get the recipe, followed by a bit of wine blending. Liams' sister and her husband were flying out today so we waved them off and set off on our bikes, soon we were going down Shepards hill road past Marion and on to Brighton beach, the beach was really busy and I felt free wheeling was cheating so we followed the coast around to glenelg and took a wiggly bike path back to Richmond rd in the city. All up we rode more than 20km and I am thinking of investing in bike shorts with some padding!!

Lamb Rogan Josh

Ok as I'm atempting to keep track of recipes that work,
I cooked this today and it came out tasty!
It's from Bowl Food I cycled down to the Indian Spice Centre on Goodwood Rd. They have really cheep bulk spices and so many amazing things it was hard to stick to the shopping list.

Rogan Josh
1kg bonned leg of lamb
1 tbs ghee or oil
2 onions chopped
1/2 cup plain yoghurt
1tsp chilli powder
1tbs ground corriander
2tsp ground cumin
1tsp ground cardamom
1/2tsp ground cloves
1tsp ground turmeric
3 cloves garlic crushed
1tbs grated fresh ginger
400g crushed tomato
30g Slivered almonds

1. Chop Lamb into 1 in cubes trim off excess fat.

2.Heat oil in large pan, Cook onion for 5 min until soft.
Add yoghurt, spices, garlic, ginger, tin of tomato and 1 tsp salt, simmer for 5 min

3 Add lamb, stir well till all coated. cook over low heat for 1-1.5 hours until meat is tender (my meat was quite fatty so seemed to take a while to become tender, I cooked for 3.5 hours) Remove lid and simmer until liquid thickens.

4.Toast some almonds to sprinkle over the top.


This was a nice spicy-ness for me,
the recipe also said to add 1 tsp garm masala once cooking finished mixing well and serve with almonds and fresh corriander, but I abandoned the recipe and just served it with the almonds.

December

So December is here already. wow.
This week I have mainly been trying to get Christmas presents posted to the UK before the last post on Friday.

So a few weeks ago me and the boy bought bikes. It's great Adelaide is so FLAT!!! there are very few slopes and nothing you could call a hill in the city. I've been riding to work even on night shift as there are so many great Bicycle paths. I got really groovy bike lights which go on the tyre valve so cars can see you from the side mine are mulicoloured. It's only about a 20 minute ride, but I'm feeling so much healthier for it.

Also, having a bike makes me go and do little things like popping to the supermarket on my bike to pick up a few things rather than taking the car or putting it off till we need loads of stuff as riding is so easy!!

We rode to Henley beach where we saw 22 Kite surfers. It was amazing. I'm not sure if it was a competition or something but so many all the way along the coast between west beach and Henley. we stopped for an ice-cream at Henley as we felt we had earned them. After the Henley ride we fitted out cycle computers which are great as they tell you how fast you are going and how far you've ridden which really pushes you to go that little bit further or try a little bit harder.

Yesterday we played Laser tag at zone 3 on South Road. It was great I haven't played since I was at Uni. I ended up 9th out of 20 and our team won 1 out of 3 games. I'd forgotten how much fun and how much energy you use up playing this will have to do this again.

Reading: The Kite Runner
Work: Going on to Afternoon shift
Wine: $2 Cleanskin white Chardonnay from dan Murphy
2star
Moods: on the rise.

Lamb and Mushroom Kofta

I found this recipe on a flyer from the mushroom shop, have been meaning to try it for a while, finally got around to it last week. was very tasty.

Lamb and Mushroom Kofta.

Serves 4
Cooking time 20 min
1tbs Olive oil
300g Cup Mushrooms, finely chopped
3/4 cup flat leaf Parsley leaves
1 small red onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1tsp ground coriander
1tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
400g lamb mince
olive oil cooking spray
Warm naan bread, yoghurt snd tabouli, to serve

1. Heat large frying pan over high heat, Add oil and mushrooms cook whilst stiring for 5 min or until tender. set aside.

2. Combine parsley, onion, garlic and spices in a food processor (oh how much easier this would be in a food processor!) process until finely chopped. add mushrooms and mince use the pulse button to process untill combined (or in my case put in big bowl and mix with wooden spoon) Season with salt and pepper

3.Use wet hands to mould heaped tablespoons of mixture around 8 metal skewers (at this point I had to run to the shop across the road to buy metal skewers) squeezing mixture tightly. place on a tray and refrigerate for 30 minutes if time allows.

4. Preheat BBQ on medium high, spray skewers with oil turning to coat all sides. BBQ for 10-15 minutes. serve with warm naan yoghurt and tabouli.

This came out well next time I will make them spicier by adding chilli and more cumin. We had these with home made Hummus and salad too.