Cooking with Mina - Iahnie de Fasole

Today Mina showed me how to make her delicious Iahnie de Fasole - beans with sausages.

Ingredients

• 1.25kg of white beans
• 3 onions, chopped
• 3 sprigs of fresh thyme
• 1 bunch of parsley, chopped
• 3 bay leaves
• 2 heaped tablespoons tomato paste (no salt added)
• 1 handful of whole peppercorns
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 6 pork and leek sausages (we used macedonian ones)
• Boiling water

Preparation
Overnight (or for at least 6 hours), soak the washed beans in cold water in a casserole dish (that has a lid you can use later).

Method

1. Replace the water that the beans soaked in with fresh cold water and boil for 1 hour on low heat with the lid on
2. Strain the beans in a colander
3. Put the beans back into the casserole dish and fill with enough boiling water to cover the beans with the level about 2cm above the beans, and add the salt
4. Boil again for about 15 minutes or until all the water is absorbed
5. Remove the beans from the stove
6. Cut the sausages in half and score them deeply
7. Fry the sausages (scored side down first) in a frying pan in enough oil to generously cover the base of the pan
8. Once the sausages are done, remove them from the pan but keep the oil, and put them on top of the beans so that any oil remaining on the sausages drains onto the beans
9. Fry the onions in the sausage-oil until they soften
10. Add the parsley and fry on high heat for about a minute
11. Add the tomato paste and fry for another minute
12. Add 1 cup of boiling water, stir though until it begins boiling, then remove from the fire.
13. Take the sausages off the beans and put aside
14. Pour the fried onion mixture onto the beans in the casserole dish and stir through
15. Add the thyme, bay leaves and pepper corns and stir through
16. Add the sausages back to the dish
17.  Simmer covered for 10-15mins (to soften the herbs and peppercorns) with the lid on stirring occasionally
18. Enjoy with dill pickles and crusty bread!

Making Oua Rosi with Mina 2014

One of my favourite parts of Easter is making oua rosi with Mina. This year they turned our really pretty!















Also for easter I made some bunny cookies with some cookie cutters I impulse bought like 6 months ago because you know, they're bunnies. It was waayyyy harder than I thought it would be! I used a really great recipe for the sugar cookie dough, but it was just so hard and fiddly to get the cookies to not break apart due to their shape. The ears in particular kept staying within the cutter as I pulled it out of the dough.



The next challenge was the icing. I'd never worked with royal icing before (and even this time I used a packet of it) and my god it's hard. You firstly have to mix it up thick and use it to pipe outlines around each of the cookies which takes FOREVER. Then you thin out the royal icing with water to turn it into flood icing which you use by getting a teaspoon of it and placing it into the centre of the outlined cookie and then working it outwards using the spoon. Very annoying and fiddly! I also added a marshmallow tail which was cute but made the cookies quite hard to stack.



I think that the end result definitely does not reflect the amount of effort that went into it. They were good but not great, I think I might stick to cupcakes!

Since we're talking about baking, here's a picture of some cakes I made for the end of a project at work. The project was to create a simulation of a Caterpillar CAT6060 hydraulic shovel and excavator, including the satellite console that has all the machine switches on it and the BCS monitor for monitoring machine state. My team worked on the software for the BCS unit and the machine control. I think it turned our really well! Unlike the cookies I think you can definitely tell the amount of effort that went into these.

Melbourne 2014 - Sunday

Back in Perth, holidays really go too quickly :(

Yesterday morning we went for a (just less than 4km) jog around the Tan Track around the Botanical Gardens which was a great way to start the day. Well... kind of, man I'm bad at jogging! By the end of our very slow jog my knees and ankles felt like they were going to explode (and still hurt today) even though I was fine cardio wise. I really envy and admire people who can jog and enjoy it, but I would take 30mins of burpies over a 30min jog any day!

I managed to enjoy some of the beautiful scenery when not focusing on my complaining, and also on dodging the various vomit piles around the place. We estimated that during our short stay in Melbourne we saw about 10 piles of vomit, not including the vomit instance when I was actively vomited on.

After a quick shower and checking out of our hotel we had a breakfast/lunch extravaganza session at Cumulus Inc. Amazing coffee, juices and food! We had a coffee outside while we waited (~25mins) to be seated at the kitchen bar. When we asked what juices they did they apologetically said that they only freshly squeeze grapefruit; hopefully this encourages people to try the best fruit candidate for fresh squeezing! I chose the shakshouka to compare it to my favourite thing to get at the Perth Hawkers markets, and it was really really good - a bit low on the spices but perfect for breakfast. Andrew and I shared some home made crumpets and a Madeline with lemon curd over a second coffee, and all this lasted us pretty much the whole day.



We spent the rest our time taking a quick trip into St Kilda for a walk along the beach markets, a quick stop in at Luna Park (we wanted to ride the "roller coaster" but then we noticed that it was more like a chair-lift-roller-coaster with an unhappy looking operator that was standing up on it), and a couple of drinks and a game of pool at the Espy Hotel. I had a VB and a Melbourne Bitter for that authentic experience and decided that VB tastes like artificial sweetener but Melbourne Bitter is not too bad at all! I thought both beers were interesting but I don't understand when people say that they're "bitter", which is a different bitter to grapefruit. I guess I have more beer practice to do!







Back in the city we had another drink at the Lindt Cafe (the iced milk chocolate is the best) and laughed at all the people waiting in line to get into the new H&M that just opened in the GPO building. Seriously the line was snaking all around the building, there were BOUNCERS… in suits… bouncing at H&M! I felt really bad for all the people because they would have waited over an hour to get in and I don't mean to be mean but how disappointed would you be if you waited over an hour to get into H&M, and some girls even had their boyfriends in line with them. For the record I like H&M, but not 1h line like! Anyway I took some pictures because I thought Yvonne would find this funny.





Melbourne is a really cool place, I like it a lot.

Melbourne 2014

Andrew and I are currently in Melbourne enjoying the good food, refreshing cold weather and unfortunate footy.

After a delicious breakfast of poached eggs on toast at The Quarter, an awesome takeaway coffee from Degraves Espresso and a mighty struggle with the Myki machine (we gave up and went to a deli to get one) we caught the tram to the the Queen Victoria Markets. Perth really needs some markets like these! I love doing my fruit shopping at Malaga markets but my god the selection at QVM was huge. Although we were a bit grossed out that there were pigeons flying around pooping on the produce in the outdoor area of the fruit section… eww.



We had a quick pick me up at the Lindt cafe, then headed to Movida for a lengthly 2h dinner and drinks session before the game. We asked for some pimentos de padron (off menu) and were so excited when they said they had some! They were just as good if not better than the ones we had in Madrid.



We also tried the anchovy and tomato sorbet (I braved the anchovy and made it half way, I can see why people like it but I was also reminded why I don't), the Iberico jamon (50gm for $30 but so delicious and worth it), the patatas bravas (again Madrid quality), the beef cheek on cauliflower puree (I am definitely going to attempt the puree at home), and the field mushrooms in sherry sauce (the winning dish in my opinion). We had a couple of Moritz beers, Andrew had a dry sherry, and we also got a bottle of rioja tempranillo. I really really liked Movida, the food and setup made us really nostalgic of our time in Spain.

The game was sad, let's move on.



We had a quick drink at Cookie rooftop bar which I meh-ed - it was OK, but maybe I'd had it hyped up so much that I was disappointed. The bar was too small and awkwardly positioned to service the number of people up there, and there was a garbagey smell about the place. I can see why it would be an awesome outdoor cinema place but as a rooftop bar it was meh and The Garden in Perth is better. My favourite part was the stairs to the top... earn that drink slackers!

Then I got a mega craving for laksa which could not be quenched because the Malaysian part of China town was closed at 11pm. More like Ma-lazy-an! I'm just sore because I really wanted that laksa especially after I got vomited on by some random guy (well my foot got vomit splashed) that didn't even apologise. I think I took it pretty well, and Andrew did a great job of pulling me out of the way before the second torrent of vomit. Then we saw some guy pissing in a lane and some people sculling a goon bag and it wasn't even midnight yet! We've decided that Melbourne city friday night people are much grosser than the Perth city equivalents, even if they have better street art.

We sought refuge in a restaurant called Shark Fin Inn where we caught up with Greg but spent most of the time in amazement at the massive crayfish in the tank next to us, and also wondering if the thing in my vegetarian hot pot was a) a thumb guard, b) a whale foreskin or c) a mushroom. We asked, and after the staff discussed the best english translation they decided on bamboo mandible, which we decided it probably meant option a). I kid, but the food was actually really good, and I had my first black and white snow ear funguses which I really enjoyed.

Today we went to the Melbourne Zoo! We got kissed by a seal on the cheek, landed on by butterflies, watched some monkeys rape/fight each other (our zoo visits are never complete with some form of butt fingering, raping, or my personal favourite, flehmen and urine drinking). It's so much fun seeing different zoos, their different ideas for enclosures and unique animals. Our favourite was the butterfly house which we thought could have done with some classical music or something because it was just magical.





We then caught the tram into the Brunswick and Fitzroy area and took a walk around the suburbs (which were filled with places that looked straight from The Last Of Us) before ending up on Brunswick Street. We had a drink at Bimbo Deluxe (Melbourne you definitely win at rooftop bars), then a perfectly crafted cocktail at Black Pearl, then after some quick shopping at Dangerfield (where I bought 3 x animal related things) we finished off with an early dinner at Brother Burger.









We just came back from a swim at the Hyatt pool and are relaxing before our last day tomorrow. We're planning to run the tan, I am nervous!

Kazakhstan, Hong Kong, and Mel and Brendan's Wedding

A week ago I spent a week in Kazakhstan for work gathering some information about some machines and processes used at a few of the underground mine sites around the country. It was an amazing trip and a great opportunity - I think very few people can say they've been in an underground mine site, let alone one in Kazakhstan!

For anyone wondering what an underground mine site is like, it's an extremely physically demanding environment to be in. I came prepared with notes, drawings, and documents expecting that I could whip out my pen and paper and take notes down there, but that was SO not possible. My video camera was the only thing I could use as a tool, and even that was difficult because you always had to have your hands free when moving for safety.

It wasn't at all claustrophobic, but it was very uncomfortable in almost every other way. The temperature varied from very hot (around machines) to very cold (due to air being pumped in from above ground), and it was wet (sometimes almost to the top of our gumboots), dusty (we had to wear dust masks which were absolutely filthy when we finished our shift), extremely loud (a jumbo drill operating is fucking terrifying), and our mining outfit (is it called an outfit?) was heavy, hot and constrictive. Before we went I was worried that there wouldn't be any access to bathrooms down there (I drink a lot of water…), which there weren't, but it was so not an issue, peeing was definitely the last thing on my body's agenda! What an experience!

I even have a little souvenir of copper ore: the Perth customs officer thought it was an awesome bit of potential contraband, but luckily I got to keep it :)



On the way back we had two 7h stopovers; one in Almaty and one in Hong Kong. In Almaty we took a dodgy taxi ride into town (500 tenge became 500 tenge/km, the ropes decorating the taxi seats should have been a warning sign…) to go see the beautiful Zenkov Cathedral - one of the only wooden cathedrals in the world, and it's made entirely without the use of nails! Scott insisted there's no way anyone would be able to know, so it's probably not true… he has a point.

We stayed a while and enjoyed the beautiful Russian Orthodox service out of the cold, it was so beautiful I didn't even mind I had to wear a head scarf (tolerance disclaimer - the bit that bothered me wasn't the head scarf, it was that I had to borrow one from a communal box and I'm a germaphobe).





After a terrible sleep on the flight to Hong Kong we sucked it up (along with a Berrocca) and went into town to go see The Peak. It was a really busy Sunday, so that's pretty much the only thing we got to do before we had to go back to the airport, but we took a detour through some markets on the way where I bought some awesome chopsticks with little ducks as the chopstick rests.





Our trip was really successful, but man o man it was exhausting. I took Friday off and spent the weekend relaxing and celebrating Mel and Brendan's wedding down south at Laurence's winery and Pullman resort in Bunker Bay. Congratulations Mel and Brendan!



The wedding was beautiful, Mel looked stunning and Brendan looked very handsome, the speeches and videos were touching and witty, and the reception was really really fun! Maybe a little bit too fun (my head is still hurting a bit today).





Down south is a beautiful place for a wedding. Andrew and I enjoyed the most of our rare time off by having lunch at Knee Deep winery on the drive down on Friday (the butternut medley was amazing), and lunch at Bootleg Brewery on the drive back, which I would have appreciated much more on a less fuzzy brain/tummy.

Congratulations again to Mel and Brendan!

Kazakhstan

I'm currently in Kazakhstan on a work trip, somewhere I never thought I'd be traveling to! We're waiting at the Almaty airport to travel to Ust-Kamenogorsk and thought I'd take the opportunity to do a quick post.

Almaty is a beautiful city. It was snowing and -12 degrees when we arrived, an absolute contrast to Perth which we left in the mid 30's. We arrived in the afternoon and stayed at a lovely hotel with Persian rugs and beautiful old furniture for the night.


After a swim in the indoor pool and an intense session in the steam room (we had a local show us the best way - 10min in the 50 degree steam then plunge into a cold shower, and repeat until your plane kankles disappear!) we ventured out into the cold and the snow to visit the new republic square and grab some dinner.


The walk to the square was really fun with frequent stops to take photos of the postcardy scenes and crazy looking icicles. Dinner at Olivka was soup (delicious dish-of-the-day lentil soup and brocoli and leak soup) followed by a shared horse steak (tastes exactly like beef) and lamb curry. We were so tempted to just go back to the warmth of the hotel but we were proud that we took a chance with our 4 Russian/Kazakh words at a local place.


This morning we had breakfast in the hotel and tried some chal, a fermented drink made from camel's milk. It smelt absolutely awful, but tasted OK, sort of like fizzy yoghurt with an alcoholic aftertaste. I only risked a small sip.



I haven't had a chance to try the local beer yet, I'm looking forward to it!

Sacrilege at Perth Festival

A massive bouncy castle in the form of Stonehenge, how much fun!

Emma, Joey, Andrew and I decided to go on the last day of Sacrilege which was here for the Perth Festival at the Supreme Court Gardens.  It closed at 7pm so we decided to go at around 5pm - we figured that would be enough bouncing and then we could go grab dinner and a drink afterwards.


Turns out there were timed sessions of 10 minutes which… THANK GOD for because we were all about to die when the whistle for our session blew.


Andrew and Emma went barefoot, Joey wore socks, and I took things a little bit too seriously with my Nike studio wrap shoes.


We definitely didn't pace ourselves! Because the bouncy castle wasn't super bouncy (and there were no flips allowed, but I did manage to sneak in a handstand) the funnest thing was running, which felt like you were running super fast in space. I think it was the final lap around the outside that killed me the most!


I can't believe how tired we were after 10 minutes! How embarrassing. Also, we have a 2 hour session booked at BOUCEinc at the end of March, probably should have gone for the 1 hour session, whoops. After 5 classes this morning (3 fitness, 2 pole) I am feeling pretty sorry for myself this morning, but totally worth it!

Skydiving for Andrew's 30th Birthday!

We just got home from skydiving in Pinjarra!

I bought Andrew a tandem skydive (14,000ft) for his 30th birthday, and I decided to do it with him. It was incredible, like nothing I've ever experienced and completely not what I expected. I can't recommend it enough!

The drop zone was way more ad hoc than I had expected, but all of the staff were really lovely and immediately put us at ease. They all had a dry sense of humour and made a lot of jokes about memory loss, it being their first jump/week, running out of fuel, using black and gold batteries for the auto-reserve system… at least I hope they were all jokes!

After having a briefing about what to expect and where to put our arms/legs at what point during the experience we suited up in our awesome (but quite smelly) jumpsuits and met our tandem partners (Sheldon and Antonio, both awesome guys). There were 7 of us (including the pilot) on a very small plane, Andrew and I were jumping together with a lovely lady who's kids had bought the same jump for her 60th birthday. It was all very intimate, we were sitting on our tandem partners' laps! 

It took a lot longer than I thought to get up to 14,000ft, probably about 10minutes. It was a beautiful view and I was lucky enough to be right up next to the cockpit so I got a good look of all the controls. At one point Antonio told me to tap the pilot's arm and tell him "you're a good man!", which was obviously code for "please do some crazy shit" because after asking me if I was sure (to which I confusedly nodded yes) he did a big dip down then pulled up with the plane, my poor brain didn't know what to think!

At 14,000ft a light started blinking, an alarm sounded, and then the door opened up to let in a rush of loud and very cold wind. Andrew was first out of the the plane, and it actually blew my mind see him go out, it was very surreal! The lady went next and I was last out. Dangling my feet over the edge was not as scary as I thought it would be, I felt more alert and completely focused rather than scared. After Antonio told me to scream "fuck yeah!" we tumbled out, and I managed to get a view of the plane in the first tumble. 

After a few seconds I got the thumbs up meaning I could let my arms out, and for the next 60 seconds I experienced free fall and reached terminal velocity of about 200km/hr. It felt very fast, the wind whipping past gave me a very distinct sense of the speed, but I didn't feel that feeling in my stomach you get from roller coasters or drop rides. It was just exhilarating, and I didn't feel scared at all. 

The parachute opened and pulled us back a bit more roughly than I expected, and then we started our glide down. I was allowed to steer for a bit, and I took to opportunity to spin as much as possible, that was an amazing feeling! There are two ropes, one for each hand, and you pull down harder to turn faster. At one point we were completely horizontal, the parachute was next to us! Well that's what it felt/looked like, I wonder what it was actually like. 

The landing was really smooth, we landed on our feet then fell down on our bums. I was so sad it was over so quickly, but my got it was an amazing experience!

DO IT!

Disney and Circus

Any excuse to dress up as a rabbit, even better when it's socially acceptable! Cara's (well Jasmine's) Disney themed birthday party was awesome.

I felt right.

Last night Krystal, Georgia and I went to see Splash Circus (Kinetica) as part of the Summerset Arts Festival. As usual Kinetica did not disappoint! Our favourite was the lira.

It all looks like so much fun, I wish I was in the circus!

Triple J Hottest 100 of 2013

My votes:

• Phoenix - Chloroform
• Phoenix - Entertainment
• Phoenix - S.O.S. In Bel Air
• Polica - Chain My Name
• Polica - Tiff {Ft. Justin Vernon}
• The National - Graceless
• The National - I Need My Girl (my #1)
• The National - I Should Live in Salt
• Lana Del Rey - Young And Beautiful
• Violent Soho - Covered In Chrome

Would have loved to fit in:

• Arcade Fire - Afterlife
• Pond - Xanman
• Major Lazer - Jessica

I pretty much had to restrain from my list being just Phoenix, The National and Polica (which it mostly is anyway), and chucked in the last two based on the songs that have most made me sing out loud in the car. Also my #1 song wasn't actually in the list (the other two The National songs were), but it really was the best song of 2013 for me.

I think voting in the hottest 100 is a great way to find out about new stuff to listen to and also remind yourself about stuff you used to like but don't anymore (or have forgotten about). I realised that there's a lot of bands I've lost touch with including The Knife, Arcade Fire, Vampire Weekend, Royksopp, and I was surprised (and excited) to see a Postal Service song in there.

An early and inevitable congratulations to Daft Punk!