The Noojee Hotel

Hello Friday!

Here is the weekend, and the time to go out and have our fun for the week is upon us. Trying to cram as much as we all can into two days that seem to be shorter than weekdays is a hard task! Everyone is trying to find the best place to have their fun, and I have actually come across a new gem recently.

Well technically speaking is not a new gem, rather an old gem reenergised with new management. The Noojee Hotel in Noojee is a pub that we are very familiar with as our four wheel driving adventures take us fairly regular in the area. But in the recent months it has been taken over by new owners and we discovered this only a couple of weeks ago, so what did we all do? We went to investigate of course!

Nothing is more exciting to me that an old country pub that is filled with so much potential being taken over by a new person. Especially if you hear that they are from the country, not the city. The pub itself has so much potential with a huge decking area that would be fantastic in the summer, that the last owners must have built and with a “bistro” that functions more like a bar area/bistro arrangement. The atmosphere has the potential to be so great in a place like that, so I was pretty darn excited to go for a look. The bf and some friends had stopped by there on their way home from a trip last weekend and said that the place was full of people, music was pumping, and the owner was friendly, approachable and down-to-earth and that they rated the place! So off we went last Sunday night with some friends to check it out.

The guy that now runs the pub has run the Dargo pub in the past which is at the base of the high country. It is a great place with a fantastic pub of its own. But it was comforting to know and see that the new owner of the pub has a great country attitude to things, talking to us about where we had been and where we were from. Doing his market research of course! The Parmas were raved about by the boys from their trip there earlier in the week, but unfortunately on that Sunday they had such a busy day due to the snow fields being so fruitful, they had run out of Chicken and Beef Schnitzels. Which was not a deal breaker for me and all the other boys were that keen on the place, they didn’t care either!

I had the Porterhouse Steak which was cooked perfectly Medium with mushroom sauce. Medium steak is a fine art that I have found hard to come across properly in a lot of pubs. I have discovered though, that ordering steak is so worrying for some people that they don’t order it when they go out in case it is ruined by over cooking! Well not to fear, this should not be a cause for concern when visiting the Noojee Pub! There was some orders of Spag bol, Mixed Grills (which has been deemed a fair challenge for the boys because it is so big) and Wedges amongst out table, and raving reviews came from it all which was fantastic. It was so inspiring to hear that a pub with a new owner is doing well in all departments, food, atmosphere, location, drinks, pool table and publican personality! Is this possible??!!

We are planning to make it a regular thing to head to the Noojee Pub, it has all sorts of good things going for it and seems to have everyone covered. Band nights, hot jam doughnuts, pizza, local ciders, happy hours, pool comps, juke box, rustic décor, hot pies to go and more! Give it a go, it’s not that far from Warragul and Drouin, only a beautiful scenic 30min drive to the greatest new thing around at the moment 

XOXO

NJC

Girls day out

Hi ho!

What a weekend last weekend was! A best friend visited from interstate and a great day out was  planned to celebrate!
We had a huge day planned which included a trip to Spotlight and also Savers which we were all very excited about. So off we went. Out first foodie stop was quite impromptu but well guided. Wandering around Fountain Gate was suggested to be the perfect opportunity to have a morning tea break at San Churro, which is a chocolate lovers dream dedicated to the the grande Spanish Churros! To be honest with you, i didn't realise that they served anything other than Churro, but how was i to know otherwise? I haven't ever been there before, but i have a great love for Churros and i had been hearing about this mystifying  place for a while. So i was excited and very, very intrigued.

So need i say anymore.....REAL chocolate hot chocolates, with all sorts of fantastic flavourings like Mint, Hazelnut and Peanut Butter! We kept out hot chocolates company with some authentic and delicious Chorros with some caramel and chocolate dipping sauces, and a not so authenticity Spanish, New York cheesecake. All was great and tasty, although it was far too rich for us all to finish unfortunately.

But off we went to Spotlight and got some supplies to teach ourselves how to Crochet, which was both so exciting but so confusing at the same time. But we got through that with some therapeutic fabric shopping for projects that we hope we keep as motivated for as when we were filling through the fabrics!

That led us into lunch where the inner gourmet came out in us, without even trying! A little cafe in Beaconsfield called 'Ask' with a bright red sign, flags and overall decor absolutely hit the spot. We were in a accidental hurry that we didn't r realise we were in until we noticed the time after we ordered, found a table and were waiting for our meals. But the meals came out in a satisfying fast manner, which made us pretty happy. But the meals that we ordered were the more fantastic part! Two of us had the Salmon Benedict and my best friend had the Baked Potato, all of which was advertised on the chalk board out the front. But i was tossing up between a couple of options, but i was darn glad i went with the choice i made because it was fantastic! Smoked salmon on grilled Turkish bread with poached eggs, sauteed spinach, all topped with an absolutely beautifully fattening hollandaise sauce! Goodness me, can't say that I've been the top advocator of smoked salmon, but I'm sure that this lunch has turned me. So all that being said, i will be going back to the 'Ask' cafe the next time i am wanting a meal in or near Beaconsfield!

After that, the two others got daring sand brave matching tattoos, of which i was too shy, whimpy and afraid of what the other half would say to participate in unfortunately. We then went back for an early birthday  party for my bestie filled with great modern inspired party food, and then called it an end to a brilliant day together.

The day was great, crammed full of fun, sun, shopping and of course food. Food is such a huge part of the everyday life, that it needs to be included in a way that sees you enjoy it, not just as a part of the mundane day, but as a defining part of your day.

Xox

NJC

Italian inspration

Hello lovelies,

Thank gosh Monday is over, it’s Tuesday now at least, which doesn’t seem much better in the daily grind, but at least it is marginally better than Monday! So after a wonderful weekend, my spirits were very high and motivation to cook something fantastic for dinner was sky high too. So last night I made a pasta from a few ideas I had seen in passing on my RSS feeds and through magazines articles. I had a few ideas that I wanted to mash together. One of which was using sausage mince as the meat in a pasta dish. This is done by taking the meat out of some gourmet sausages and frying that up into reasonably small freeform meatball sizes. Little morsels of seasons meat intrigued me because I love gourmet sausages and the pictures that I had seen always looks so decadent and truly italian (sucker for pictures!). To be honestly I loved the idea of making something that was a little complicated and that seemed more authentically Italian (unsure why). The other idea was a simple tomato sauce that I had tried many times before, but in this case, I went for the jar bolognaise sauce.

So off I started defrosting some Pork and Fennel sausages that I had bought with the intention to make something along these lines. Once defrosted, I cut the ends and removed the mince from inside the casings. This would have been a bit gross to an innocent bystander, but there were none of them so I just keep plodding along at it. I sort of mashed up the mince a little so that it wasn’t in deformed sausage shapes. To go along with my sausage mince, I cut up some green beans and boiled them up to partly cook them and also cut up some mushrooms.

So I started cooking the sausage mince and roughly chopping it up with the wooden spoon, but not to the extent I would have been chopping it up if I was making spaghetti bolognaise with proper mince. Added the mushrooms once the meat was browned and cooked a little more to start the mushrooms off. Then I added the beans and a little of the water I cooked them in along with a jar of Basil and Red Wine bolognaise sauce along with done dried oregano, salt and pepper to compliment the flavoured sausages. While this was all happening I put the pasta on and cooked that while all this was happening in the frypan (I wanted a great big tubular type of pasta, but only had fettuccini so that had to do). So it simmered away for the time it took the pasta to cook and then I served it up! It was delicious, well I thought so anyway.

There was too much sauce I think for the execution. One of the smaller pasta Stir-through sauces would have been better, but the idea was there, and it satisfied my craving to cook and to eat this mystical dish I had been thinking about for so long. I will adapt and change it a little and it will be fixed and improved! I think in the recipe I read on my RSS feed used plain Passatta sauce, but that might have been a bit too rich as well, maybe a simple fresh tomato sauce would have been better. Anyway, I will implement these changes and see how I go, I think the concept was there and the potential is very high for great success. But it was great as it was, but in true Nancy style, I will never cook it the same way again, I will change it up and do it different every time I cook it from now on. Always room for improvement! Life is too short to have the same thing all the time ;-)

XO

NJC

Dieting and Clean Eating

Happy Friday!

A recent topic of conversation at my workplace recently has been diets and clean eating. So naturally, all topics about food, drink and everything food related is centralised around how we could improve on out choices and decisions when it comes to food. Ideas on food, experiences with recipes and goals with diets and clean eating are shared and it seems to be a constant topic within the team I work in. This is probably a good thing, but I wonder whether it creates pressure for some people, generates guilt or creates a sense of determination? All of the above are probably achieved, depending on the person. I fade in and out of all of those feeling, depending on the mod I’m in. If I’m unhappy, there is no sense of guilt if I cave to a Kit Kat Chunky (my favourite!), but if I am in an in-between mood, the guilt almost kills me if I cave, but then if I am in a great mood, I am in no need to be comforted by chocolate or carbs and seem to stay satisfied by my fruit and tea snacks I try to limit myself to.

A feeling of complete annoyance that I need to monitor myself so closely also fills my body, because satisfaction with good food does not always come naturally. Will power I guess is the key phrase in this argument, which is as per tradition, the hardest thing to keep to when there are temptation all over the place.  I am a lover of vegetables, fruit, lean meat, grains and grains, and am more often than not, craving a big bowl of veges for dinner over McDonalds. But there are times where I WANT a potato cake or a burger from Hungry Jacks, and I come to the conclusion that it isn’t that bad, as long as I continue to respect food and enjoy good food over bad more times than not, I will be fine. But that being said, my mind wanders to the if’s, but’s and maybe’s when I choose bad over good food and I convince myself that I will do some exercise to counteract it, but I never end up getting around to it. So my visible weight and less visible health suffers, but I am in a constant internal battle with my morals vs my love of life and always come to the conclusion that everything in moderation is ok, which sometimes gets a bit out-balanced, but as long as I bring it back to equilibrium, things will be ok…I hope….as long as I do keep a sort-of close eye on my lack of will power and absolute weakness for chocolate and deep belief that nothing can solve trouble better than a Kit Kat Chunky.

Inspiration for all of this has come from a work colleague that has initiated a Clean Eating lifestyle change. She has been buying and cooking with basic ingredients and eating less if not any packaged foods. Which I love and think it is the secret to long life and true wellbeing. But it is a bit unrealistic and un-achievable in my non-routine, sporadic, social filled life at current. So I do try buy best to live by this idea. It is cheaper at the checkout, better for you, more wholesome and feed my love of cooking! All the pros of a good life really! I try and avoid filling more than a quarter of my trolley with packaged things or things from the middle isles of the supermarket – with the only main things making it into that are canned tuna, pasta, Asian ingredients, peanut butter, lentils, yogurt, sour cream and milk. Everything else in my trolley should be ideally meat, veges, fruit and some bread/wraps. This has worked for me over the last few weeks and if I do stray from this game plan, it is only minimal straying with the best options of a “bad” bunch of alternatives if possible.

So my goal now is to stick to this for good this time, as I have on and off over the past few years had thins great idea and have never stuck to it! Let’s see how I go with my cooking and ideas for food, hopefully they centralise around a main concept of healthy eating or at least smaller meal sizes…

XO

NJC