Sunday, January 25, 2009

Australia Day - Cooking Spree & Tennis

Straya Day 2009

I've mentioned previously that I am an absolute plan-a-holic. It goes without saying that for all these kinds of 'occasions' (i.e Australia Day, birthdays, New Years etc), my mind starts buzzing many weeks in advance with ideas for what to cook.



1) Spicy lamb, Grilled Eggplant Pesto pizza and Super-duper Supreme pizza
I got the idea for this after seeing all the Eagle Boys ads on TV advertising their Aussie Lamb pizza. I've had an Aussie lamb pizza at Pizza Capers and thought it was the best thing ever.

The final pizzas required:
2) Pavlova and Poached Peach Sundae
This idea was perfect for me because I had a whole bowl of frozen egg whites in the freezer (been using too many yolk-only recipes). Pavlova is very Australian but I admit, mine is not traditional. I went all-out with the home-made factor.

The final sundae required:
What I came up with isn't fully Aussie but there are influences. After all, I could have had a barbeque, lamingtons and fresh seafood but I chose not to go down that path but rather do my own thing. My Australia Day meal consists of 2 items but each item has several components that kept me busy.

I toyed with the idea of doing an East meets West theme to combine Chinese New Years with Australia Day but... I didn't want to just pop 'Chinese-style' meat like soy chicken or honey pork into stereotypical Australian cuisine: pies, sausage rolls etc.

The final line-up for today involved a full day of messing around in the kitchen. I'm thus embarrassed to reveal that there are really only 2 true 'fruits of labor'. This might seem pointless and time wasting for you but it's ideal for me. I don't like to condemn myself to too much eating but I love cooking and I have nothing to do most of the time. A nice rounded solution is to spend effort in making small quantities of complicated things so that I'm occupied but won't feel guilty about downing all my products.

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