Life Update and Shopping at Aldi

Well peeps... it has been a good few years now since i have posted on my blog. And i cannot believe i have 286 visits to my blog with 52 of them being from the last month. So in the last year I got married, went on a honeymoon to Hawaii, bought a new house and moved to a new city so i can study Law. How crazy is that. I could not believe i got accepted. I started Law in March so for the past 2 months i have been trying to cut down our grocery budget whilst still eating good, healthy, nutritious and exciting food. This leads me to my recent discovery of Aldi. For anyone who doesn't know, Aldi is a discount supermarket with different brand names to what is usually in the leading supermarkets. I try to only buy foods that are Made in Australia, but some things i don't really look at the label for (like chocolate) but i will always check the can for canned fruit, tinned tomatoes etc. I'll try and review some Aldi foods as soon as i get around to it, which also reminds me, my husband and I hit our one year wedding anniversary on the weekend so i'll do a restaurant review for Bistro Tartine. I remembered to take photos. Go me!!! I'll also try and remember to take some piccies of my attempts at Jamie's 15 minute meals :)

Big Weekend of Blogging Coming Up

Hi Everyone Just thought i would let you know that i'm going to be having a big weekend of challenges and blogging coming up. I'll be giving everyone an update on my sisters Baby Shower, progress on my 30 Day Shred Challenge and i may even attempt this months Daring Bakers Challenge. Stay tuned!

Miss Jane and Phil in Budapest - 2009

Ha so i have finally uploaded my first ever video onto Youtube! This video was filmed on a bridge on the Danube River in Budapest by Phil. It was the middle of winter, freezing cold and snowing. This was the first time i had ever seen snow so i was quite excited by it all.

We went on a month long trip and visted London, Bath, Amsterdam, Paris, Vienna, Budapest, Salzburg and Bad Gastein. BEST HOLIDAY EVER! I cannot wait to go back.

Anyway, lets see if this whole "embedding" thing works...



xoxo - but still no followers. Hoepfully i'll get some soon

My mini high tea

So, i've just completed my uni mid-semester exams. One thing that most people will know about me is that i am a chronic procrastinator. My procrastination seems to intensify around times of mid-semester exams, essay due dates and final exams. Its when my sister receives the most phone calls from me and when my receives gets the most amount of food cooked by me.

Anyway, so last weekend i had a mega cooking weekend. Saturday morning i had the sudden urge to bake some cupcakes. So off i trotted with Phil and Rafi down to the shops at 8:00am to buy some butter. Along the way we got distracted and had coffee and banana bread at Gloria Jeans (urgh!!!)



I then decided that i would make a mini high tea so bought some items to make sandwiches for lunch.

Sandwich Ingredients:
Fresh white bread
Whole Egg Mayonnaise
Sliced Roast Beef (from the deli)
Semi sundried tomatoes
Reduced fat fetta
Lettuce

Vanilla Cupcake Recipe (adapted from Donna Hay):
I'll have to update this when i get home...

125g butter
caster sugar
3 eggs
plain flour
baking powder
vanilla extract
1/4 cup of milk

Buttercream frosting:
125g butter
1.5 cups icing sugar
2T milk

Here's a picture of little Rafi. He's grown so big and is now not quite a toy poodle but more of a mini poodle. You will not believe how hard it was to not let him eat the cupcakes!



In other news, my best friend is getting married in October and i am one of her bridesmaids. We are planning her kitchen tea/bridal shower/hens party and will be meeting at the QVB for high tea in a couple of Sundays. I'll try and take some photos of the delicious food.

P.S. I want just 1 follower! Perhaps i should start linking my posts to Twitter. I was also thinking about making some videos on my life. I thought i could show Rafi doing his tricks, my wardrobe and how i do my make-up for work every day. Let me know what you think.

xoxo

Long absence from Blogging

Hello my loyal band of followers (jokes). It has been such a long time since i have posted anything here. My cooking has been going soo slowly. I made a gigantic mudcake a few months ago and i think that has baked me out. Although i am planning on making more cupcakes this week some time.

Oh i have also had a new addition to my family. His name is Rafi and he's a little chocolate Toy Poodle. That's also why i haven't been cooking much lately. What with the 3am, 4am, 5am and 6am toilet cries i can't fit much else in and am extremely tired. Although i am also planning on making him some peanut butter cookies to nibble on.

Anyhoo, i'm gonna love yas and leave yas for the time being.
xoxo

Baked Rice Pudding

So i decided that for my first ever blog post i would have to bake something extremely special to me, Mum's Baked Rice Pudding. *Almost* every time i visit my folks Mum has made me a Rice Pudding that is ready to be eaten on arrival. I write *almost* because last time i went home i was on a diet and decided i didn't really need rice pudding. I think thats the only time i have said No to rice pudding in the past 6 years!!!

Of course though, with this being my first attempt at making this dish, it didn't turn out anywhere near as nice as Mum's. I think the problem may have been that i used pre-cooked rice left over from last nights dinner. The recipe calls for uncooked rice. I probably should have just pressed the rice firmly into the dish. You can see in the photo of the dish that it looks a bit airy-fairy.

Anyway, here's the recipe that Mum gave me. I think she may have tweaked it a bit from the original recipe.

1.5 cups milk

2 eggs

100mL cream

2T sugar

6T white rice (I don't think it matters what white rice is used. I used Basmati)

Cinnamon sugar

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Grease baking dish (i used a Pyrex glass dish).

2. Whisk together eggs, milk, cream and sugar.

3. Put rice in bottom of the baking dish and cover with the milk mixture. Sprinkle cinnamon sugar on the top.

4. Bake for 10 minutes at 180 degrees. After 10 minutes turn the oven temp. down to 160 degrees and bake for a further 40 minutes.

Mum said it was important not to overcook and not to undercook this dish. Hmmmm.... Just check that the centre of the dish isn't wobbly when you take it out of the oven.

From these photos i think i need some lessons in styling my food. Hopefully this is something that will come with practice (and from drooling over plenty of Donna Hay's cookbooks).

Anyhoo, i'm not sure yet what my next blog post will be. My sister has suggested that i also become a news commentator... Unfortunately im not that interested in commentating on the political race at the moment. Boredom may get the better of me though.

I've just bought some new cupcake making equipment so i'll probably make some cupcakes towards the end of the week. I also have all the ingredients to make a chocolate brownie. Then i have my bf's Aunty coming over for dinner on Saturday night, and my bestie is coming over on Sunday to make Melting Moments and Wontons. So much food...