In a cooking frenzy

Due to my still unemployed state, I've become a bit of a pro in the kitchen (I think I probably also have my parents to thank for this - it must have been passed down in the blood). I cook every evening for Dave and quite often I'll bake something or other in the afternoon or morning to fill my time and because I enjoy it so much!

I absolutely LOVE granola - there is the most amazing patisserie up the road which amongst all the croissants, pains au chocolat and chocolate almond croissants (my personal favourite), sells lovely crunchy granola with yoghurt and stewed fruit. A healthy breakfast you may think, but granola is chock full of oil and sugar so what seems to be a low-fat and low-calorie breakfast is very probably not. So I've been on the search for a healthy version granola and today I found it! It contains absolutely no oil and sugar and is instead bound with mashed banana, honey and water (sounds funny, tastes gorgeous). I used the normal oats, seeds, nuts, sultanas, and I also added some dates because they're yummy. It's so delicious in fact that I have probably already eaten half of the batch I made because I just can't wait for breakfast tomorrow morning! By the way, the photo at the top is very much stolen from somewhere else, unfortunately my granola tastes good, but it doesn't look that attractive!

Going with the cooking theme, another of my successes was last night's dinner: chicken breast stuffed with mozzarella, cherry tomatoes and basil, with sweet potato mash, and peas. Who needs to go to a restaurant??

And of course, the pear and blackberry bread which I made on Dave's request - another success despite the fact I don't own any weighing scales. All my family and friends are in for a treat when I get home - lots of dinner parties and cakes at my house!

Life of an unemployed

Seeing as I'm unemployed, I'm managing to fill my days quite nicely with activities! Yesterday was a good, productive day:

7am: pump class.

8:30am: breakfast and job hunting.

10am: I made tuna fishcakes for dinner - they were so simple to make and really delicious, Dave loved them, so much so in fact that he even took me to the cinema in the evening to say thank you! I then made a banana and pecan nut loaf as there were some ripe bananas lying around the house.

11am: more job hunting.

12:30pm: spin class.

2pm: meet Rach for sushi. For dessert we decided to go to the Guylian cafe for Belgian waffles with melted Guylian chocolate, praline ice cream and fruit. Absolutely delicious!

7pm: get home from my afternoon out with Rach to find that Dave has eaten half the banana loaf (see picture below) so it was obviously a success! He then tells me later on that he doesn't actually like banana loaf that much...and requests that I make him some pear and raspberry loaf. So I'll be doing that next week unless I get a job.

7:30pm: check my emails to find out I've been shortlisted for a job I applied for. Woohooooo. Haven't heard anything more though which is slightly worrying. Fingers crossed I'll get an interview.

8:30pm: cinema trip to see "It's Complicated" with Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin. It's quite funny although we were sat next to the most special person I've ever had the misfortune of encountering. The first time Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin sleep together he actually wooped out loud and clapped and did this again every time something relating to sex/drugs happened. What an idiot. Dave decided he must have been American. Haha.

11:30pm: bed time!

A rather busy day for someone who actually has nothing to do all day wouldn't you say??!!

My new slippers!

I've been looking for a pair of slippers for aaaages; although it's really hot here we always have our air con on and it makes my little feet chilly! I randomly found these in a sleepwear shop for the bargain price of $1 so I couldn't resist. They're super cute and keep my feet cosy!

The British Lolly Shop

A month or so ago Dave and I discovered possibly the best shop in Sydney - The British Lolly Shop. They sell lots of old school style sweets including lemon sherbet, mint humbugs, black jacks and fruit salads, flying saucers, my favourite strawberry millions and the list goes on...They also sell English Cadbury's chocolate: this is an absolute blessing as Australian Cadbury's tastes is disgusting and tastes like tobacco (apparently due to the extra preservatives they have to add to stop it melting in the heat or something like that). Of course all of these goodies are ridiculously expensive so a trip there only occurs on a special occasion.

The other night we went for a late night walk around the harbour and came across this little gem of a shop and decided a new year's treat was in order. We splashed out on some strawberry bon-bons, black jacks, those little sweetie bracelets, and butterscotch Angel Delight.
I was most excited about the Angel Delight: I absolutely love it as it brings back lots of childhood memories for me - it cost $5 so about GBP 3, which is absolutely extortionate but it was soooooo good. With lots of sprinkles on top, $5 for that much happiness was well worth it :)

Yawn...

My second day of official unemployment (the fact I actually finished my last job on 18 December doesn't count because it was the Christmas holidays...). I'm bored already. My day so far:

7:30am: Dave's alarm goes off. He puts it on snooze a million times so I get woken up every 10 minutes until he eventually decides it's time to get up an hour later (actually he didn't do that this morning but every other morning he does).

9:00am: Get up, have my morning bowl of porridge, check my emails and read the news online.

10:00am: Potter around the house cleaning things up and generally trying to waste time.

10:30am: Start looking for jobs online and apply for a couple.

11:30am: Read a couple of chapters of my book, The Girl on the Landing, which is very good, along with the obligatory cup of tea, of course.

12:45pm: Walk to the gym for my cycle class. Almost die of exhaustion. Walk home.

2:00pm: Have lunch. Today it's a baked potato with tuna and tomato followed by a nectarine. Look for more jobs, check emails, go on Facebook. Time wasting...again. Start making dinner (that really is how bored I am).

3:30pm: Meet Dave for a coffee. No appetising cakes at the cafe so, unfortunately, it is just a coffee.

4pm: Go down to the pool to sunbathe and read more of my book to discover the sun has gone in, the sky is overcast and it's actually quite cold. Go back to the flat to kill some more time before my 6:30pm Pilates class.

And that's how my day has gone so far. I think I might bake a cake tomorrow...

My Birthday at Summit

Along with my beautiful new Ralph Lauren jacket (thank you to my wonderful mummy and daddy too), Dave's birthday treat to me was dinner at Summit in Sydney. Summit revolves 360 degrees, 47 floors above the habour over the hour so you have uninterrupted views across the whole of Sydney, even as far as to the Blue Mountains on a good day, throughout your meal. It is owned by celebrity chef Michael Moore and is one of the best restaurants in Sydney - lucky me! We started the evening with cocktails in the Orbit Lounge, which is the bar adjoining Summit. The views were incredible - and my cocktail was pretty good too.

Dinner was also a delicious affair. I had the asparagus 'pissaladiere' salad to start with buffalo mozzarella, taleggio and walnuts, followed by Jewfish (funny name, I know) with pepperoncini, roma tomatoes, anchovies and a kind of ratatouille. Both were gorgeous - beautifully presented and tasted delicious too. Dessert was a birthday-style hot raspberry jam meringue souffle with poached raspberrries and raspberry custard - it looked amazing (and was huge too) but it was a little too sweet for my liking (I did manage to finish it all off though!).

Coffee and petit fours followed along with the sunset, which was beautiful.

A trip to the casino, Star City, finished our evening off nicely. I indulged in a few too many amaretto sours whilst Dave had a flutter, and won some money too. Woo. Thank you for a wonderful evening Dave, I'm a very spoilt girl, I couldn't have asked for a better birthday :)

NYE 2009 Sydney Style

Before I write anything, yes, the photo on the left is stolen from the internet. I could never take a photo this good, nor did we have such an amazing view of the bridge. Anyway! Sydney is obviously famous for it's NYE fireworks display so we couldn't come here and not watch it on the big night! There are many vantage points from which you can watch the fireworks, one of the best being Mrs Macquarie's Chair in the Royal Botanic Gardens. This was our view of the bridge from our picnic spot - a little obscured by trees but good nonetheless!

NYE in Sydney is an all day thing and because everyone wants the best view, people are willing to queue from the early hours. Dave headed off to Mrs Macquarie's Chair at around 9am loaded down with all of our picnic things. He said that by the time he got there people had already been queuing for at least 3 hours beforehand - some had even arrived as early as 4am to ensure they bagged a good spot - crazy! I didn't join him until later; I left the house at 11:30am and didn't get to our picnic until 2:30pm. I'm bad with queues at the best of times so you can imagine how grumpy I was by the time I eventually reached Dave and all our goodies!

Round 1 of the picnic started when I arrived: various deli meats, roasted peppers, sweet potato salad, crusty bread, various cheeses, cherries and rockmelon plus a glass of vino. Delicious! Then the wait started for the fireworks. We entertained ourselves quite easily with card games, reading and walks every now and then. Dave and I even managed to find somewhere selling chocolate dipped marshmallows and strawberries (it's become a bit of an obsession of ours - we even made some last night).

Round 2 of the picnic happened at around 8pm. The kiddies fireworks went off at 9pm and they were very impressive; we were in for a treat at midnight! Every hour until then a big blast of fireworks would go off getting everyone revved up for the main event. After this we cracked open the vodka and the drinking games started...

Finally midnight came around and wow the fireworks and atmosphere were AMAZING. Apparently each year the display takes 15 months of planning and costs $15 million dollars. Expensive, yes, but very, very worth it. A once in a lifetime experience and very surreal to be there for real; it gave me goosebumps! Happy New Year (and Happy Birthday to me too)!