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

Korumburra Chinese

Hello Saturday!

We have all been talking about a having a dinner together with all of our friends, and the location has been talked about as Korumburra Chinese. So it was finally last week that we actually planned it for good. The background behind all of this hype is that a few of our friends live in Korumburra and go to Korumburra Chinese all the time (which I am super jealous of by the way!). I have been there once and loved it and have been holding it in high acclaim ever since. So the thought started that we needed to get the rest of the clan from our area over to Korumburra Chinese for a group dinner. Friends have come and gone since I had first started talking about it and the thought and come and gone from my mind as well. Well a slight nudge from a friend that the idea should be planned put it in full steam ahead! No one even knew what it was called, other than Korumburra Chinese (turned out to be Rainbow Palace). So I rang and booked for Friday night.

There was actually a false alarm last week when we tried to make it Saturday night, but lack of planning on my part and the lack of enthusiasm on other’s parts eventuated into us not going. But I learnt from that and forward planned! We then decided that the following Friday night was going to be it so we started planning!  

So all week we were gaining interest and confirming numbers. The numbers were at 20 people at one stage if everyone responded. But some people had other things on so we ended up having a table full at 14 people. I love spending time with friends and it was great to get everyone keen to come. It is also BYO so everyone was keen to take a few drinks. I stopped on the way home from work to grab some Moscato (Wolf Blass: one normal and one pink sparkling) which ended up very well received.

 It turned to be a good night, which I wasn’t surprised about really J We had our own area at the back of the restaurant and everyone enjoyed themselves and got involved in conversations, storytelling and generally catching up with each other. We all had something different and tried all different things. Sang Choi Bow was the flavour for the Entree with three of us ordering it. Some soups were on the cards as well as stay sticks and pork tenderloin (all of which looked great, which makes it hard for me to choose for next time!). All were very quickly devoured and were well received for the first time tryers! Chicken with Three-Course Mushrooms was my choice for main and I shared that with a few friends and the BF along with Chicken Curry, Beef Plum, Sweet and Sour Chicken and some rice. All of it was so delicious and was a great variety that allowed us to have some new things in the mix! Everyone left realising why we have been raving about it so much, and I am hoping that we all go together again (fingers are pretty tightly crossed)!

So the moral of the story I guess is to have a nice drive over to Korumburra if you are at all keen on Chinese food. It sits nicely between traditional western-inspired Chinese food and the traditional Chinese food that still appeals to western tastes. I am already planning to take my Dad over there one night for dinner because he is a seasoned Asian food lover like me.

XO

NJC

Akkonah Park Market and the Pancake Parlour

Hi Hi!

Its been a while since my last post, and I am eternally sorry for leaving you in hanging. But life has gotten away with me recently, which is I guess the prefect start to this blog.

Markets are brilliant and such a great way for women, couples and families to spend a day or a morning. Last weekend, me and the ladies decided that we were way overdue for a catch up, so off made plans to get out and about and head to the Akkonah Park market in Berwick. Such a great market because it is open every single Sunday, rain, hail or shine. None of the travelling hours to an exotic market you have been told about and have been thinking about for ages, only to arrive on the 4^th Sunday of the month, instead of the 3^rd! As much as I love exotic and under-estimated markets, sometimes a bunch of girls is so desperate for a catch-up, there needs to be some sense of certainty in a market. The Akkonah Park market is definitely that, as well as being extensive, creative, carried in the stalls, but oh so certain. The fruit and vege stalls are such regulars that people rely on them as source of shopping, and the creative stalls that showcase people’s talents always makes us all feel very inspired to do something similar “one day”.

The main topic of conversation for us all is of course food and what the market has to offer. As soon as we got there, I bee-lined for the hot drink cart  to get a Chai Latte and the ladies got some Churros. Unfortunately, neither of our yields was anything to rave about, but we didn’t let it ruin our day! So we wandered through the stalls and I got some essentials like socks and gloves. But then came the serious part, we stopped at the cheese stall and got 3 cheese for $10. I got myself some Goats Cheese, some yummy Gouda that we tasted and also some very intriguing Cumin spiced cheese. We all had the intention of having some sort of Cheese Appreciation days because we knew t was farfetched we would eat all the cheese ourselves. But the deal and the huge variety of chesses that were on display were too great to miss out on.

Heading to the vege and fruit stall was next, and we all stocked up on some well needed supplies. Unfortunately I had done a shop during the week and was internally devastated that I couldn’t take full advantage of this stop. I had my sensible hat on that reminded me that I would never use all of whatever I was wanting to buy. So I went for some bananas and an eggplant, of which I had the great pan of making a dip with (and still haven’t done so yet).

So after that was all done and dusted, we still hadn’t had enough of the day so we went to the Pancake Parlour for Lunch. This was a de-brief session of the morning we had. The hardest part about the lunch for everyone was the decision to go Sweet or Savoury! My mind was well made up as soon as I heard the specials: Spicy Prawn Crepe with salad. So that is what I ordered, unfortunately I only ordered an entree size which was nowhere near large enough but I was glad I ordered some “Cottage Fries” aka potatoes with it.

The girls had some tea and I had a cold drink and we talked about what we had been up to recently and got all of our words out for the day J A great end to the day that went for longer than we expected, but none of us minded or complained, I think we all really needed some girl talk over some pancakes and apple carts. It was well deserved and we spoiled ourselves, which I think is the sweetest part of it all.

XO

NJC

Homemade Pizzas

Hello there!

Weeknight dinners are something that most people dread. But I’m not sure why. The thing that I dread is finding myself in front of the telly from the time I get home to the time I go to bed. I love getting up and doing something, I think that it helps extend the day and helps lessen the slave feeling you get when all you do during the week is sleep and work.

So on Thursday night this week, I came home with a really defeated feeling. But half way home I starting thinking about what my plan was for dinner. I had bought a Good Food Ideas magazine recently and in true lazy fashion, only skimmed across the more interesting recipes and pictures. One of which was a caramelised onion tart with filo pastry and brilliantly glossy and caramelised onion. I skimmed across this recipe enough to work this much out, so naturally this great picture and idea has stayed in my head since.

So my ideas started humming and before I knew it, I had forgotten my terribly hectic day. The caramelised onion tart quickly graduated into a homemade pizza with some of the cheese I had bought at the market on Sunday and some chorizo and pancetta that I had in my fridge. Between leaving work and as I was finding myself in the supermarket,  I was having a internal battle for my dinner; whether to cook a great Indian curry (from a jar) or make homemade pizzas (by this stage I was realising that I had too many great ingredients to just make one flavour pizza).

So the idea was now to make a easy pizza base that I had heard about for ages and recently a friend had made it and gave the tick of approval; a base made from just yogurt and self-raising flour. So I grabbed some Greek yogurt and got slightly side tracked by the cast-iron frypans and griddle pans of which I bought one of each (and since buying have really praised myself for the clever purchases).

Pizza Base:

1 cup Greek Yogurt

1 cup Self-raising flour

1. Mix together into a ball

2. Knead for 4-5 min

3. Cut into 2 halves if you want 2 thin bases, or leave as one if you want a think base.

4. Roll out to desired thickness

Pizza 1:

Greek yogurt

Half an onion, sliced

Quarter of a cup of sliced leek

Quarter of a cup of capsicum, sliced or diced

Quarter of a cup of Goats cheese, torn up

Quarter of a cup of pancetta, diced

Half a very large mushroom, sliced thinly

                1. Warm a pan (I used my new cast iron one J)

2. Put some olive oil and throw in the sliced onion and leek and cook on low until soft and brown.

3. Put a layer of Greek yogurt on the rolled out pizza base

4. Put all the ingredients except the Goats Cheese on the pizza in any sort of way you like

5. Slide the pizza onto the pizza stone or tray that you had in the oven as it was warming up.

6. When the pizza is cooked and the toppings look crispy and yummy, bring it out and put the goats cheese on top. Slice it up and eat it!!

Pizza 2:

Greek Yogurt

Quarter of a cup of Chorizo, finely sliced

Quarter of a cup of capsicum, sliced or diced

Half a very large mushroom, finely sliced

Quarter of a tomato, diced

Quarter of a cup of cumin spiced cheese (or whatever else you want)

                Put together in the same way you did the first one! Eg, yogurt base, ingredients other than the cheese into the oven and put the cheese on as you pull it out of the oven.

The result of my scatter-brain, love of finding any reason to go the supermarket, and ideas stemming from a food magazine, was something I was pretty darn proud of!

XO

NJC