u/GlitterEcho

Work OOTD. All items are City Chic M/18, the shoes are Sperry duck boots. I LOVE these boots even though everyone gives me shit for wearing them. They are so light, so comfy, and I just adore them.

This was so yum! Just a quick 15 min pasta dish. Cooked the salmon, threw a bit of garlic in and a small bit of cream I had left with pasta water. Flaked the salmon, threw in peas, lemon zest, salt and pepper. Sprinkled with the pangrattato to serve.

Pleasantly surprised by this place! Really nice decor, not too loud, service fast on a Saturday night.

* Tempura Sweet Potato with Curry Mayo $15

* Charred Broccolini $15

* Korean Garlic Bread $13

* Chargrilled Salmon $38

* Burnt Ends Chashu Pork Fried Rice $13

* Mocktails (hence the plastic cups I think)

Shared this between 3 and it was an excellent meal. I could eat a tub of those tempura sweet potato with curry mayo. Everything was excellent and delicious. The only small disappointment was that the fried rice really didnt have any burnt ends to speak of, or any chashu pork at all, but it was still a good stock standard fried rice.

Very reasonably priced for the location and quality of the food. There was other stuff on the menu I wanted to try so will definitely go back!

Mostly needed top ups of rice and saucy stuff. This month I made:

- Garlic and pea rice

- Japanese curry

- An Italian sausage, pumpkin and kale soup (shown reheated) that had a cubed grain blend in it that resulted from me knocking over my storage container 🤣 I cooked a blend of soaked red lentils, wild rice, pearled sorghum, chickpeas, mung beans and black barley in the instant pot with a couple of bay leaves and smashed garlic cloves, and it turned out to be the perfect add in!

- A similar kale and cannellini bean soup with pumpkin and radiatori pasta (cubed the cooked cannellini beans then added to the soup)

- A sticky purple rice that I used for a lettuce wrap platter (mix of sushi rice, black rice and basmati)

- Pumpkin butter chicken (I use pumpkin instead of tomatoes)

- Green enchilada bakes

- Venison stew (love this served with broccoli mash that I cube as well)

Not pictured, but I also froze mixed berry compote in the 2 tbsp moulds, as well as the bean cooking liquor.

I just found this funny. My mum sent me a pic of my 84 year old dads Choceur Peanut Butter stash. It has apparently not been discontinued but does disappear from stores at times. The co-op near their house seemed to get a big batch of the stock so they bought up big ($1.99/block). As my dad is kind of on his last legs due to age and illnesses, I really hope he enjoys them.

Sauce/dressing is lemon olive oil, garlic, dill, parsley and salt. I warm the dressing gently over a pan of simmering water as I've used a very high polyphenol olive oil, then just toss the hot pasta through it.

All City Chic size M, shoes are Puma

Prices in AUD, I live in South Australia. I went to my local grocer then Aldi for pet mince (not pictured) and a couple of other items. I have an extremely well stocked pantry and freezer with meat and grains etc. I also make my own bread so its not in the fresh shop. So nice that it is fresh blueberry and raspberry season again! This is pretty much as cheap as they get, maybe down to $2.99 if it has been an exceptional season but usually not.

I don't do a big weekly shop as I shop in many different stores and have things like meat delivered, so this is really just a top up of some fresh stuff for the week, as well as a few things I got while out today. I overpaid for carrots but I didn't have the time or energy to go to another store!

1st receipt $33.12AUD from a grocer called Tony and Marks.

2nd receipt $21.75AUD from one of our major independent family owned supermarkets. Before you scream at the price of eggs, supermarket eggs are about $6/dozen, but I try to support different primary producers in my state to support choice in the market and the sustainability of smaller family farms given that we have a strong supermarket duopoly known for crushing farmers. The last couple of weeks I got 2 x 18 packs of local free range eggs for $6.99 each so it all evens out.

3rd receipt $35.30AUD from a specialty Italian providore called Mercato. I love providores and specialty grocers and getting quality things to cook with is a hobby/passion of mine. I especially love fun pastas.

Hopefully something fun and different for the cart today, I love seeing regional differences in products and cool things that are available in other countries! ☺️

McDonalds AU. Wanted to see if the World Cup promos had finished yet and if there was anything new, and it seems the Deluxe range is back but for breakfast. We've had Deluxe burgers many times before (see the QPs back) but I don't remember ever seeing it for breakfast. Also showing some not new but other non-standard breakfast items.

Alongside those items is the QP with bbq and crispy onions. This has been added to the permanent menu I think, after it was first released in 2024.

The last month I haven't gotten to as many cubing projects as I would have liked, but these were my highlights.

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* Concentrated stock cubes. I don't like taking up space with stock, so I don't salt it, then boil it right down which basically makes it into a jelly, and store in the 2 tbsp cubes which I pop out into a bag. To use I just put 1 or 2 in a jug with boiling water and stir, then I salt the stock or the dish I am cooking.

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* My absolute favourite breakfast is turkey scrambled eggs, so I freeze these in the 1 cup mould. I also freeze parboiled potatoes which I microwave or stick in the air fryer.

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* Chicken and wild rice pumpkin soup. This freezes really well even with the rice, as I use a pouch blend and add it once the main soup has cooled. That way it doesn't go mushy.

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* Garlic chard. Still getting an abundance of chard from my garden and I saute it with garlic and freeze in half cups. So easy to throw into something like the soup, or as a side to the scrambled eggs, or with steak, or in a pasta sauce. Greens stored this way are so versatile and underrated.

McDonalds Australia have a new "Menu Heist" promotion featuring items from around the world - the Japanese Chicken Teriyaki burger (which looks suspiciously exactly the same picture as the recent Dunked Korean Sticky BBQ burger), Black Pepper and Garlic nuggets (which I think we've had before), the Philly Cheese Stack which funnily is not meant to be from the US but the UK, and the Gold sauce which is meant to be like a US Carolina style sauce.

This morning I tried the Benny bagel meant to rep Canada. We don't have the bagels on our regular menu here but I've had the Steak Egg and Cheese bagel in the US which was better than I expected. I like the bags they come in there, this was just wrapped in the normal paper. I liked the bagel, but I'd prefer it without the hollandaise, which I don't like as standard (not that I didn't like this one). The app does let you customise with Honey Sriracha, Ketchup, McChicken, or Housegrill BBQ sauce. You can also add a sausage patty. A sausage, egg and cheese bagel would be my preference!

I hope these are popular and they bring in bagels as standard soon.