A mixed foodie weekend

I'm really loving this cooking thing. I cook what I want, when I want. Things I generally wouldn't cook, I get a chance to experiment. Sauces and ingredients that have been sitting in my pantry for ages finally get used. Thursday, being such a miserable and wet night, I came home wanting something very carby and very comforting:

Minchee, Japanese Chicken Curry, sugar snap peas and rice

The Minchee is a stirfry of cubed potato and mince which I've always wanted to try after reading this. The potato was cooked until it just started to break down and naturally thicken the sauce. I browned the mince quite well before cooking this and it made the sauce so SO nice and almost nutty. I wanted to eat just the minchee with nothing else!

The curry chicken was thick and rich. I'm not a huge fan of Japanese curry when I'm out and about since I find their curry quite sweet. This one however, was more spicy than sweet. I actually had a few spoons of just sauce.....for tasting purposes of course.

Friday, I decided to have a catch up with Cookies at Macchiato. We always walk by and keep saying "We need to try it one day". Well, we did.

Mexicana Chicken Pizza

The woodfired pizza had a really crispy and light base. The addition of jalapeños really added a great kick that we needed on a rainy night. Next time we're going to ask for extra jalapeños!

Angelhair pasta with Chorizo Arribiata sauce

I've never had a creamy arribiata sauce before, but I must say it was a really nice change. They were also quite generous with the amount of chorizos! Oh, and we also ordered a big jug of sangria to wash down all that food as well. (As we do)

Saturday involved a lot of sleeping in. Listening to the rain fall onto the tin roof of my carport whilst snuggled up in bed was the perfect start to the weekend. I eventually dragged myself out of bed to do some housework and run a few errands. As I was out grocery shopping, I walked past a new bakery thats opened in my area. Our family friends had brought over their egg tarts previously and I was very impressed by that. So, I thought it was only fair that I tried some of their other goodies:

Harm Sui Gok - Glutinous pastry stuffed with pork mince
Char Siu So - BBQ Pork triangle

I had taken these goodies home, nuked them up and popped them quickly into an oven to crispen up and they were still delicious! I would've loved to have tried them fresh. But for lunch, I decided to stop by my favourite Turkish Pide shop. I haven't had their freshly made pide in ages! And they make the BEST chicken and mushroom pide in all of Sydney!

1/2 a chicken and mushroom pide (The pide was huge!!)

I had picked up a bag of prawns whilst I was grocery shopping so I could indulge a bit:

The prawns were sauteed quickly in a wok with chicken, before adding garlic and veggies. I made sure there was going to be a lot of sauce by adding a big cup of chicken stock, soya sauce and oyster sauce. Once everything was almost cooked, I thickened the sauce and then stirred through a beaten egg turning the sauce into a thick and eggy gravy which I poured over some instant noodles (I love instant noodles in a noodle stir fry!)

SO unbelievably good!

Sunday, was again spent sleeping in. When I finally did wake up, I finished off the remaining pide. Yes, there was enough food for two meals! I fluffed up my pillows and hide under the doona with a remote control watching House on DVD. I was sooooo comfortable I refused to cook dinner! I eventually had to get out of bed for volleyball training which ended around 8pm. Instead of going home to dig through the pantry for food (Yes I know it was my fault that I was lazy) I went to the local Chinese takeaway store instead. I wanted restaurant food!

Fried Dim Sims

These were nothing like the ones we used to serve at the restaurant. They were nice, but I was really disappointed that they were so different from what we used to sell. Our dim sims were 90% meat whilst theirs were 90% vegetable. Our batter was light and crispy, their batter was more crunchy than crispy (Yes there is a difference)

Beef with vegetables in Oyster sauce - Simple but delicious

Gong Po Chicken

I have plenty of leftovers to take to work tomorrow ;)