Lemon and Ginger Cookies

Recipe from Coconut and Lime.
I used minced ginger (wet) instead of ground (dry) and also honey instead of golden syrup.

Since we aren't buying snackeries, I cracked and made some cookies. I'm not sure if this is any healthier than eating store bought cookies but damned if I'm cutting cookies from my life!!!
When in Sydney, Juan mentioned he liked this Lemon Ginger tea we had at home one night (after another giant blowout holiday dinner!!!) and then I saw this recipe for Lemon Ginger cookies on foodblog Coconut and Lime and what with the cookie cravings I was having, well, their existence in my flat was assured.


I loved the colour of the mixture. So innocent and baby chick yellow! As you can see from the baked photo on the right, I would totally fail the uniformity exam if I went to culinary school but then this gives us the option of selecting small, medium or large cookies depending on the size of our munchie attack.

Snuggling pork cookies on the right ;)

After 10 minutes, the cookies came out quite soft and more browned than the photos on Coconut and Lime but after a short period of cooling, the outside was slight crispy and the inside chewy as described. For some reason I couldn't really taste the ginger until the next day. I don't know if smelling three batches of cookies baking dulled my senses slightly or what but the next day they were much tastier! Also, after one night in the cookie container they were rather soggy and no longer crisp on the outside :(
Tastewise, I really like them! Not too sweet and incorporating two of my favourite flavours of the moment. And without a choc chip in sight, an achievement indeeed!

Back to the Smoothies

I've totally regressed and started making smoothies for tastiness which for me means fruit, dairy and no greenery!
I justify this to myself as we are having a month of not buying chips, biscuits and other processed snackery leading us to attack grapes, apples and other fruit when the munchies inevitably occur. We've also been making good use of our NEW BICYCLES (hurrah!) on weekends so in my head, this balances out the lessening of sludgy drinks in my life.

I've also discovered the joy of making ice cubes from the lemon juice. This means less mess (I don't have lemon juice all over my hands everytime I make a smoothie), slightly colder drinks and I've read that ice helps the blending process and makes a smoothie errr .... smoother. The ice cubes are also great to dump into glasses of water (or cranberry juice!) for an extra freshener and makes adding lemon juice to dinner recipes extremely easy and mess free.

SMOOTHIE FROM THE OTHER DAY:
1 x Banana
1 x Pear
1 x Granny Smith Apple
Couple of dollops of Ski D'Lite Berry Basket Yoghurt per cup
3 small Lemon ice cubes per cup
Some water
VERDICT: This recipe was split in two as roping the Boy into the New Year's health kick hasn't been difficult in the slightest since smoothies magically appear before him! Splitting the recipe in two also meant the smoothie was much more drinkable (thinner) than when I try to cram in 3 whole pieces of fruit into one cup ... Tasty and fresh! But the pears still seem to add more 'grit' than I would prefer ...

A History of Music

Here's the animation I finished up before Christmas for the guys at Pro-Juice. It's a weekly half-hour show presented by Arlo Enemark with info, tutorials and interviews aimed at independent producers that want to make, distribute and market their own media (paraphrased from the DVD insert).
Enjoy!

Extremely Condensed Re-cap

A very selected mosaic of our little holiday in Sydney.
There was food eaten, people caught up with, family reunited, animals gawked at and a few too many untimely bouts of rain. All in all a very Merry Christmas! :D

Happy Holidays!

It's not that I meant to disappear from the virtual world, but 2 weeks in Sydney with parental care, endless gorging with friends and fam and shiny new toys does distract one somewhat. However, I am back in Melbourne now and will post some photos of my little Xmas sojourn soon.

Mornington Penninsula Getaway

(For the rest of the photos click here!)

Juan and I drove down to the Mornington Penninsula for a little Anniversary Getaway. It's a lot closer than I thought it was, only about 1.5 hours of pleasant driving. On the way down we stopped by Tully's Market to get supplies for our in-room dinner spread and they had some really good produce! The prosciutto was to die for and we returned the next day on our way back to Melbourne for some more (and another pepperoni stick as well which we had mistaken thought was a cabana previously).

Day 1 was very rainy unfortunately (hello summer? when did you say you were gonna come around?) but I was determined to go strawberry picking at Sunny Ridge and so after a quick afternoon nap in our room at Seahaze B&B (we had the Lotus Room and it was a really nice stay! Big bed, DVD library and jacuzzi *double thumbs up*) we drove the whole 10 minutes to the farm. You pay $8 for the U-Pick option and get empty punnets which hold around 500g of strawberries. They also gave us plastic bags for our feet due to the mud - totally stylish! Just as we got into the field of strawberries designated for picking ("please follow the orange cones") the rain decided to get heavier and heavier so we raced through the rows looking for lush red strawberries most of which were the size of my palm! We also bought some boysenberry jam and strawberry Pinot (OMG so strawberrilicious and not toooo sweet at all).

Due to the weather (and our almost frostbitten hands), we decided to retire for the day and make the best of our warm, dry room! Our dinner spread was made up of mozzarella, double brie and sweet chilli cream cheese, 100g of San Merino prosciutto (super delish), a pepperoni stick, pumpkin dip, antipasto mix (olives, artichoke, sundried tomatoes, pickled onions, and ... carrots? what the? unexpected and not very popular with us!), turkish bread, white nectarines and super fresh, just picked strawberries that were the most SWEETEST, TASTIEST, STRAWBERRIEST strawberries I've ever eaten. I totally recommend the U-Pick'ing option (if it's not raining ... or even if it is!).
A steaming hot, bubbly jacuzzi later and we were totally done for the day, soft, warm and full of good, fresh produce!

Day 2 the weather was perfecto! After a breakfast of croissants and deliciouso boysenberry jam (jam bought from Sunny Ridge the day before) on the deck, we made our way up to the Arthur's Seat lookout (ho hum) and pretty soon were on our way to Ashcombe Maze and gardens. Boasting the biggest hedge maze in Australia we couldn't resist! The whole complex is quite pretty but smaller than I thought 25 Acres sounds like. The maze was totally fun even if we managed to solve them pretty fast, running like little children never hurt nobody! There were rose gardens, mini-woodlands, a lake and lavender gardens to boot (purple! so much purple!). Touristy yes, but totally worth it.
Before driving back to Melby city, we drove about 30 minutes further to Sorrento just for a looksee and some fish and chips. Not as touristy as I thought but I don't think we made it to the main beach, just the suburb! The waterfront was pretty peaceful but due to the extreme windchill factor, we polished off our lunch and drove straight home (via the aforementioned prosciutto stop) all relaxed and happy and ready for our Christmas holiday to Sydney lol

Mornington Pennisula: Highly recommended!!!

Illustration Friday - Balloon

Today is Juan and I's 2 Year Anniversary. On a rooftop 2 years ago we had our first real conversation and as they say, the rest is history :)

This year (well mostly the last half of) has been exciting and scary and amazing. I feel we are on the verge of something special and its going to be spectacular.

Black Rollerball and Photoshop

Love Me! (please?)

I entered the animation I made for my Master's degree into this little competition.

It's based on public votes so if you would be so kind as click below and sign up (takes 2 seconds) and vote for me I will petition the universe to rain cupcakes upon thee.

Daily Smoothie - Day 11

FRIDAY'S SMOOTHIE:
1 x Banana
1 handful of Strawberries
1 x Granny Smith Apple
1 x Pear
Small squeeze of lime juice on top.
VERDICT: Totally leaf-less! Sorry Dr Oz but I bought this giant punnet of strawberries today (for $3!!!) and could think of anything better to do with them. Oh it was so tasty, so sweet ... and I even added a bit of milk ... oh dear ...

We bought a lot of vegies this week and I really liked all the different colours on our breakfast bar hence the second photo. And I also had another big giant salad (see HERE) to accompany this so I still managed to have my fill of greens for the afternoon!

Daily Smoothie - Day 9

Some deadlines took priority over the smoothie experiment so this was actually made on Friday and I haven't had a smoothie since :(

FRIDAY'S SMOOTHIE:
Small handfuls of:
*Cucumber
*Cos lettuce
*Celery
*Parsley
Juice of 1/2 Lemon
1 x Royal Gala Apple
Itty bitty teeny weeny slivers of ginger
Some water
VERDICT: I quite like this one although it's still verging on the grassy side. I would say this would be celery flavoured with a twist of apple. Definitely much more drinkable than the last one!

We don't really have any glasses in our rental apartment hence the constant photos of the blue plastic tumblers. Doesn't really make for appetizing photos I must admit! Or is this just a case of the photographer blaming the props???

As you can see I basically halved the green to apple ratio from last time making a much more drinkable smoothie. I must admit I do miss my berries though, at this point I won't be converting to all green smoothies just yet! I'm still hooked on fruit smoothies for sure (banana, apple and berry = my idea of heaven).
From a comment on my previous post, I am also keen to try some beets (I'm Aussie and I LOVE beetroot) and more citrus in the near future.

To accompany my smoothie on that particular Friday, I was procrastinating about deadlines and decided to make a salad as I knew it would consume a respectable amount of time. All up, I think making the smoothie and the salad took about 20 minutes! I had cos lettuce, cheese, tomatoes and cherry tomatoes, corn, parsley, celery and cucumber mixed with some lemon juice, orange vinegar, salt and pepper and topped with 2 x poached eggs. Thinking about how healthy it all was, I almost made myself sick. Might tasty and filling without that 'heavy' feeling (which will soon be experienced as I am heading up to Sydney in a couple of weeks for the holiday season :D - looking forward to gorging at all the new chocolate cafes and dumpling houses that have opened up in the last year!).