Harira Soup

One of my fondest food discoveries from Morocco was the Harira soup. Savouring the different versions we had of it as we travelled around that great country was a total delight.
Some times, it had vermicelli in, some times not.
Some times, it was made on a meat stock base, some times not.
Some times, it was quite a thin soup, some times not.
Some times, it had quite a few lentil varieties in it, some times not.
Some times, it was quite red, sometimes it was more orange.
Every time it was pretty darn tasty, some times just a lot more tasty 🙂

It was one of the foods that every time we were presented with a buffet, I quickly scoped out the soup option, would this soup that I so dearly loved be present?
When a pot of soup would be brought to our table by our cooks or hosts whilst travelling, I eagerly awaited the opening of the pot, would it contain this soup that I so dearly loved?

Please, click here to continue reading 🙂 “Harira Soup”

Fairy Bread Birthday Cake

#thissundaylife is #fairybread cake because frankly it is darn smart way to eat fairy bread when in double digits.

Ever since I saw the Fairy Bread cake on Raspberri Cupcakes, I knew I had to make it, and I knew it would be the perfect birthday cake for one of girls at work. If only her birthday would hurry up!

I used the butter cake recipe from the AWW Birthday Cake book, which is frankly the best butter cake recipe ever and iced it with a white chocolate butter cream.

I baked the butter cake in a square cake pan and then cut into smaller triangles, to more accurately represent fairy bread quarters. 🙂

Winning cake all round.

#thissundaylife is #fairybread cake because frankly it is darn smart way to eat fairy bread when in double digits.

Feb-ru-ray, the first ten days but no cake

I’ve got four days left at my current job before I embark on a big change and go off to be an accountant. I’ve made three cakes to farewell others in the last 10 days and I’ll be making another one tomorrow night for one of the guys who is posting out on Wednesday. All those cakes will be in another post shortly…

Kings Beach

 

On Saturday I went up the coast. After having my farewell party the night before. I was very good and only had four drinks all night. One of those was a frozen apple pie cocktail. That was divine  Just like drinking an apple pie. So, so, so good.  Saturday was not classic beach weather but the water was nice and the waves were quite decent. An old Woodfordia friend was having a vintage garage sale on Saturday -> thus the reason for the trip up the coast. I picked up the most divine Osti shirt dress. So, so divine and just the loveliest colours. A photo may appear at some stage.

Last drinks with Chan

 

Going back to the day before, Friday. Friday marked Chan’s last day working for the company and it marked a week left for me with the company before I change jobs as well. Big things abound for the both of us this year. We’ve been desk buddies etc for the last 18mths 🙁 We met up for one last coffee at Pour Boy, the best coffee consistently in our end of town.

Taking the first box home

 

I took my first box of stuff home the other day. That’s the first time it really hit me that I’m changing jobs. Nothing says change like packing up five years of your work life and then walking out the door with an archive box filled to the brim. I’ll bring another box home tomorrow and that should be just about everything I think.

Pantone 7689

 

I’ve got my eye set on a few events later this year which mean I need to get my fitness back to a pre-uni and pre-flood level. I moved away from Asics GT 2100 series that I’ve lived in for the past x years and picked up a pair of Mizuno Wave Inspire 9. OMG, I enjoyed my Asics but these shoes are like playing in a whole new ballpark. They’re light, just the right bounce and by darn they are blue.

Mock Orange carpet

 

Just like almost every other house in SQLD, the  mock oranges have flowered and then of course it rained so off came all the petals. Will have to give the patio a very big clean on the weekend as those petals almost bake onto to the tiles. Fun times. People keep commenting on the scent when they visit but I smell nothing 🙁

Chocolate Nachos

 

Chan finally had dinner at Catcus Jack’s after hearing the rest of us at work rave about it for for the past few years. Chocolate Nachos, so, so, so good. One time we will go to Cactus Jack’s and have dessert first I think.

North Burleigh Beach

 

Last Sunday, I finally got my beach wish for the summer. Blue skies, great weather, open beaches, perfect water temperature and darn decent waves. I’ve tried a couple of times this summer to go to the beach but every time I’ve been thwarted by crap weather, closed beaches or last minute plan changes. The girls at work near on couldn’t believe it that I finally got my beach day.

Ladies

 

Just loved this detail on the Ladies change rooms at North Burleigh.

Strawberrry Jam

 

I picked up a tray of strawbs at the start of the month for $9. Hello strawberry jam!

Strawberry jam, testing for set.

 

Strawberry jam, cooling so I can test it for set.

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Strawberries, sugar and lemon juice waiting to become jam.

Washing Jars

 

Glass jars all washed and waiting to go in the oven before they get filled.

Walking with the walking foot

 

And one last picture for this lot. A snipped of one of the baby quilts I’m making at the moment 🙂 Just love that May Gibbs fabric.

There we have. The first ten days or so of Feb-ru-ary in photos.

The Hippeastrums say hello

 

Hippeastrums

Well I must say I hadn’t planned on it to be over two months between posts but such it is.

In that time uni has been well uni. It’s my last semester and and the two subjects I’m doing are ones that require a lot of brain wrangling.

Textbook pages a flutter

 

I had a birthday. I’m now 27. Gosh, it’s hard to think that this time ten years ago  I was busy decorating my formal dress, having fun and looking forward the two and a half months I was having going round the world instead of going to schoolies.

Tim tam pikelet stack

 

The girls at work made my desk into a “winter wonderland” aka filling my drawers and covering my desk with very finely shredded paper and then wrapping it all up in bubble wrap and presenting the above tim-tam wrapped berry and cream pikelet stack to me as my cake.


Bubble wrapped

Mum sent me a bunch of flowers to work which was very nice.

Birthday blooms from Mum

My birthday presents to myself was a tablet (Google Nexus 7) which I love and would be more handy that I imagined in the past few weeks, a pair of new shoes and nose surgery.

Nexus 7

These are my shoes. They’re silver. Oh so pretty. Oh so comfy. They Spin in silver from Ecco.

Shoes, Silver Shoes.

 

For the last couple of years I’ve pumped drugs up nose on and off in a bid to clear it. I’ve not really smelt or tasted things very well. One reason, why I’m always slightly paranoid about people’s response to the food that I make; does it taste ok? That all came to head earlier this year when I got sinus pain whilst flying. A change of nose drugs didn’t really do much so it was time to consider other options. I had a septoplasty and turbinectomy at the start of the uni mid-semester break.

Gosh, I’m still in recovery and if it wasn’t for those who I’ve spoken to who’ve had the the surgery previously I would seriously be questioning why I undertook it. Imagine a tap on your nose that you can’t turn off and splurts out rubbish down your nasal passage and your throat all day long.   I work in the medical field, I’ve seen, read and heard enough gory surgical tales that 99.9% of it is water off my back. Facial surgery though is that .1% that makes me go argh. I do though get a kick out of the fact though that I can now say I’ve legally used cocaine.  Yep, it’s commonly used during nasal surgery as a local anesthetic.

Roses from work in a Figgjo Flint Lotte jug

Work sent me these lovely pink roses (I can sort of smell them) and no, they didn’t see the irony in sending me roses as they came from head office and not my office. We got a laugh out of it though. I also finally picked up the Figgjo Flint Lotte water jug that I’ve had my eye on for some time.

 

Bed time

Now it’s time to have a little nap before I venture off to uni this afternoon. I’m not using four pillows anymore but am down to two pillows. The blanket came from the farm, the pillow and sæng cover are from Ikea, love those dots.

And here is another photo from the garden to sign off with. I’m so happy it’s finally raining! Not only to settle the dust so it doesn’t irritate my nose but to water the garden and to give the tank a good fill. Not sure about you but my water tank has been empty for almost two months. A Pale-headed Rosella (Platycercus adscitus) enjoying the Grevillea.

Lorikeet