o frabjous day!

o frabjous day! books, recipes & other things

  • Beer Review – Abbot Ale

    A new, enormously large liquor store has opened up down the road, carrying all sorts of exotic beers. The boyfriend has been experimenting with different flavours, mostly dark beers and stouts from the British Isles. The boyfriend says, “Abbot Ale is a mahogany coloured, richly flavoured brew. It has a slightly fruity tang, mixed with…

    Read more: Beer Review – Abbot Ale

  • Cheeses

    When I wasn’t devouring chocolate in Tasmania, in both liquid and solid form, I was eating cheese. We visited two cheese factories while we were there, and bought an enormous amount of cheese from both places. The first we visited was the Pyengana Cheese Factory, which is about 20 ks out of St Helens, and…

    Read more: Cheeses

  • Handmade Chocolates

    I am completely unable to resist handmade chocolate, and I bought them twice while in Tasmania. The pictured collection was bought at Jam Packed in Hobart, and included some very cute little chocolates. The snail to the right was filled with chocolate ganache, and was delicious. The curl of a tail towards the bottom of…

    Read more: Handmade Chocolates

  • Hot Chocolate

    The boyfriend and I recently spent about 9 days on holiday in Tasmania, which we enjoyed immensely. I spent much of my time eating enormous amounts of lovely fattening things, which I’ll outline in the next few entries. But firstly, my Tasmania hot chocolate experience. I drank a lot of hot chocolate in Tasmania, because the…

    Read more: Hot Chocolate

  • Ham & Onion Spaghetti

    This dish is one of the boyfriend’s creations – a fragrant mixture of spices, herbs and ham tossed through spaghetti, and served with plenty of cheese – inspired by a rather bare refrigerator. dried spaghetti (this is also great with fettucine – I’ve been using Barilla pasta recently, which is really nice, and I like…

    Read more: Ham & Onion Spaghetti

  • Heaven Ganache Icecream

    This week’s icecream treat – Heaven’s latest variety, Ganache, which comes in several flavours. This particular one is Double Chocolate. And it is delightful. Lovely dark chocolate on the outside, silky smooth chocolate icecream on the inside. As you can see from the photo below, it’s supposed to taste like mud cake in icecream form,…

    Read more: Heaven Ganache Icecream

  • Baked Mangrove Jack

    Baked fish is such an easy weekday dinner – very quick and simple. We grabbed two reasonably sized fillets of mangrove jack from the supermarket and baked them with shallots, chives and pepper. 2 fillets fish (roughly 500-600g) butter shallots red onion chives pepper salt Finely slice the shallots, red onion and chives. Place the…

    Read more: Baked Mangrove Jack

  • Wok – Beef Stir Fry

    Thanks to the generosity of several people giving us gift vouchers to celebrate our engagement, we recently bought (among other things) this gorgeous stainless steel wok, which has enabled us to whip up quick stir-fries for dinner during the week. While we unfortunately have an electric stove, our barbecue has a gas burner, which means…

    Read more: Wok – Beef Stir Fry

  • Cheese Bread

    Another recipe from Doris Brett’s Australian Bread Book – a delicious cheese-filled bread which is wonderfully flavoursome. It would be gorgeous with soup or pasta, in thick warm slices, scented with sharp cheese. 3 1/2 teaspoons (two 7g sachets) dried yeast 1/2 cup lukewarm water 100g melted butter 1 cup milk 3 1/2 cups grated…

    Read more: Cheese Bread

  • Wallflower Loaf

    When looking around the internet for some low-fat baking recipes, I was struck by this delicious sounding loaf from A Finger in Every Pie. Constructed almost entirely from fruit and nuts, this very healthy loaf is delicious warm from the oven, the sticky dates melting in your mouth. I won’t repeat the recipe, as I…

    Read more: Wallflower Loaf