Unblogged

The Unblogged Files: October 2015

11/08/2015 06:02:00 PM

October unblogged files! October was a busy but fun month - a few dinners out, dinner parties, a couple of invited events and lots of coffee.

My breakfast game was very strong this month. Avocado on toast, of course...

Avocado on toast

...açaí bowls, green smoothies and a green smoothie bowl...

Top row: Açaí bowls
Bottom row: Açaí bowl, green smoothie, green smoothie w matcha granola

 ...some fruit salads...

Fruit salads

... heaps of overnight oats... (These are great to make ahead and bring to work when I have early morning meetings, by the way!)

Overnight oats

... some yogurty granola concoctions, and bagels!

Yogurt and granola, Bagels

One morning I made myself some egg-fried quinoa, just like fried rice, but with leftover quinoa. Flavoursome and protein-filled!

Egg-fried quinoa

And one weekend morning, Sandra surprised me with a delicious combo of grainy toast, avocado, a roast tomato, a fried egg in capsicum and freshly made herb oil. Delicious!

Weekend brekky!

I've been doing a bit better this month with bringing lunches to work - in addition to dinner leftovers, I've been making healthy meals to sustain me throughout the week. Usually it's a mixture of vegetables, avocado and some protein (poached salmon, tinned tuna, leftover schnitzel etc).

Top left: Sweet potato, avo, broccolini
Top right: Gem lettuce, avocado, tuna
Bottom left: Poached salmon, avocado, cucumber, tomato, salad, toasted pepitas
Bottom right: Roast asparagus and sweet potato

But there were a few bought lunches too! (PS the beer in the below photo is because it was a work celebration!)

Top left: Cheeseburger, Captain Melville (34 Franklin St, Melbourne VIC 3000)
Top right: Beef with potato noodles in spicy soup, Dainty Sichuan Express Emporium (287 Lonsdale St, Melbourne VIC 3000)
Bottom left: Salmon rice bowl, Rice Workshop Emporium (287 Lonsdale St, Melbourne VIC 3000)
Bottom right: Supercharger Emporium (287 Lonsdale St, Melbourne VIC 3000)

We did a lot of home cooking this month too! (I say "we", I mean "Sandra cooked while I was at the gym or German class, and I quickly snapped a photo before inhaling the delicious food"). There were a lot of German meals (recipes coming up)...

Clockwise from top left: Hackbraten, leftover hackbraten in a sandwich, Käsespätzle, Kartoffelpuffer w Apfelmus; Käsespätzle; Spätzle w beef stew

 ... and a few non-German, but still delicious, dinners.

Clockwise from top left: Taiwanese meat sauce on rice; Fried egg w sautéed mushrooms, avocado, toast, herb oil and hot sauce; Nigella's salmon, avocado, watercress and pumpkin seed salad; Pork and vegetable skewers on saffron rice

Looking back through my photos this month, it seems I drank lots of coffee. Of course, I frequented my usual Plantation!

Plantation

And I took any opportunity I had to visit new cafes for a quick coffee (while shopping on the weekends, for example).

Clockwise from top left: Magic & Chai latte at Bowery to Williamsburg Midtown; Magic at Padre Coffee; Magic from Auburn Earlybird; Matcha latte and Mocha at Little Rogue; Magic at Market Lane Prahran Market

Speaking of weekend shopping, one weekend we went out of our usual way to South Melbourne Market, where we had a lovely Mexican lunch at Paco Y Lola...

Fish tacos, Corn cakes

And bought heaps of pretty plates and bowls from Made in Japan (1-7 Wynard Street, South Melbourne VIC 3205) and Chef's Hat (131 Cecil St, South Melbourne VIC 3205). Yay!


We caught up with some girlfriends at Fatto Bar & Cantina (100 St Kilda Road Melbourne, VIC 3000) for dinner and drinks before seeing Limbo at the Melbourne Festival. (The show was excellent, by the way!) My favourite dishes at Fatto were the burrata with broad beans, garlic and white anchovies...

Burrata, broad beans, white anchovies

...and the ridiculous peanut butter tiramisu with salted caramel sauce. Totally want to figure out a recipe for that and make it at home!

Peanut butter tiramisu with salted caramel sauce

We hosted a couple of dinner parties in October (both to be blogged in full, hopefully!)

We had the Food Trail family over for lunch - oysters, prawns, lamb shank stew, homemade Spätzle (yes, more!) and lots of fancy-pants wine.

Oysters, Prawns, Clonakilla Viognier

And I also cooked a fully gluten-free Chinese dinner as a birthday gift for my friend Jess, who was sadly diagnosed as coeliac just after she'd discovered the wonders of soy sauce chicken in Box Hill.

Gluten Free Chinese Dinner Party

I did a couple of events this month. One was to the launch of the new Star Bar Hotel (160 Clarendon Street, South Melbourne 3205), where we drank lots of champagne and tried heaps of delicious nibbles...

Star Bar Hotel

And another was a Grill'd burgers event at the St Jerome's Glamping hotel on top of Melbourne Central. Such pretty views!

St. Jerome's

The purpose of the event was to launch the new low carb super bun (made with egg, almond meal, tapioca flour, coconut cream, psyllium husk, honey and salt). My personal preference is for a regular bread (or brioche) bun on my burgers, which I consider a treat rather than an everyday food, and I'm not generally a fan of paleo-type breads with strong coconut flavours in them. However, combined with the fillings the overall flavours were nice, and I can see how these would be good if you were following a strict diet and counting your macros.

Nourish and Flourish burger

And finally, the last weekend of the month was spent at The Langham, where Sandra surprised me with a staycation! Hooray! We made excellent use of the rooftop pool and hot tub.

The Langham Hot Tub

And I made even more excellent use of the UNLIMITED SCONES that were included with our room. Blogpost on the weekend to come!

Scones

Phew! That was October! November is going to be a blur of German classes, gym (hopefully!), dinners with friends and quite a few events! Woohoo!

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4 comments

  1. Hehe so how many avocadoes do you go through in a week? :P And unlimited scones? How delightful!

    ReplyDelete
  2. You seriously have the most tempting homemade breakfasts of any IGer I follow! Am even tempted to start doing smoothie bowls. With frozen acai!

    ReplyDelete

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