Month: August 2011 (page 2 of 5)

Mink Car Cover

Mink Car Cover – a project to commemorate They Might Be Giants awesome yet ill-timed album. I’ve just bought the digital version and I am rockin’ out to it. The “NES-rock band” version of “Man It’s So Loud in Here” made me dance in my chair. Hipster geek awesomeness.

TON OF WOOL

TON OF WOOL
My friend Kylie Gusset has launched an intriguing new project: TON OF WOOL. Kylie is passionate about minimising the carbon footprint of the wool we knit with, and also about preserving and maintaining the Australian wool industry (most of which has moved overseas). For this project, Kylie has sourced a rare breed of Australian sheep (Cormo) that produce a beautiful fleece. She’s also secured a “scour” that has agreed to process a ton of the fleece. (That’s the minimum amount they’ll handle.) She needs about $35K pledged in order to get this project off the ground. If you like the idea of preserving Australia’s wool heritage, you should consider contributing. I did!

City2Surf 2011

City2Surf 2011City2Surf 2011
Last Sunday was my fifth time running the City2Surf and the fourth for the Snook. (Previously: 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006. We only missed last year because we were overseas.) As we’re both training for next month’s Blackmore’s Half-Marathon, the C2S was merely a training run for us this time. We were actually scheduled to do 17K, and the C2S is only 14K! So we left home a bit early and jogged/walked a few kilometers through the city to the starting line. It was a cool and misty morning, but somehow we managed to miss the small rainstorm that soaked most of the waiting runners. We had finally finagled our way into the Green Group (thanks to our qualifying times in last year’s Run4Fun), but we positioned ourselves to the very back of the group. And then we were off!

With no specific time goal beyond hoping to maintain a sub-8:00/km pace, we took it nice and easy with 2:1 run/walk intervals. They spaced out the various group starts a lot more this year, and we found ourselves running on mostly empty streets for the first 4km. It was only as we neared the 5km mark in Rose Bay that the first of the Blue runners started to catch us. From then on, we were in the crush of 85,000 runners making their way to Bondi Beach. We did a great job of maintaining a constant pace and adhering to our walk breaks. Heartbreak Hill was tough, but not as tough as it was in previous years. As we ran down the last few km to Bondi, I remarked to the Snook that I didn’t feel as shattered as I did at that point in previous years. We weren’t going fast, but we were having a great time and enjoying ourselves.

We skipped the walk breaks in the last kilometer or so and tried to finish strong. As I have a history of very bad C2S finish line photos, we decided to make a plan for this one. Do you know the “Haters gonna hate” meme? Yeah, we decided to imitate that kid. The “before finish” video captures us in all our glory. (Watch for Snookums in the red shirt going from center to lower-right.) Our final time was 1:48:05, which is exactly the pace we’d planned for. Afterwards we headed over to meet up briefly with some of the Sydney Dailymile runners and snap a few photos. Then we headed to catch a bus back to the city. (The new bus system of taking everybody straight to Bondi Junction was BRILLIANT. That was the quickest we’ve ever gotten out after the C2S.) Overall a good training run and a fun day out with 85,000 other local runners!

Read on to see photos I took on the day.As we walked through Martin Place before the race, we snickered at these brightly-coloured fellow runners. They were carrying a goon bag between them and taking swigs. “I hope that’s full of water, for their sake!” the Snook laughed.

Goons

This was my view from the very back of the Green group waiting to start. (Incidentally, we saw LOTS OF CHEATERS from other groups who had snuck up to start with us. Jerks! We got in fair’n’square via a legitimate loophole!)

Waiting for the Green start

Here we go down William Street! This bit always reminds me of the Charge of the Rohirrim. It’s just such an amazing feeling to be part of the giant surge of humanity. (And 2/3 of the runners hadn’t even started yet!)

Running down William Street

Here we are coming into the final stretch in Bondi, mugging for the cameras.

Nearing the finish

The Snook is looking fresh as a daisy!

Almost there...

Haters. Gonna. Hate.

Haters gonna hate.

Here we are at the Dailymile meetup afterwards.

Me and Snookums

The Sydney Dailymile crew (minus a few who started late and were still on the course).

Sydney Dailymilers

This was the crush that awaited us as we headed towards the bus pickup area.

Heading for the buses

Lastly, a gorgeous shot of my wonderful Snookums with all of Bondi laid out behind him…

Snookums and Bondi Beach

That’s all… See you next year!

Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals #28: Fish Tray-Bake

Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals #28: Fish Tray-Bake
This is our 28th cooking/blogging experiment from Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals… and I’m not gonna lie, the fatigue is starting to set in. But we started this thing, and dammit, we’re gonna finish it. We chose this one because we had the episode recorded, asparagus is in season, and I started drooling when I saw a photo of the Banoffee Pie. Snook was on chef’s duty and he finished in a very respectable 33:39. There were some definitely highlights and lowlights to this one…

Fish Tray-Bake meal and Cheat's Banoffee Pie

Substitutions: We already had some big potatoes in the pantry, so we just cut those up instead of using new potatoes. We had “banana prawns” rather than tiger prawns. Fresh red chilli is still very difficult to come by, so we went with dried chilli flakes instead. The pie calls for “Camp coffee,” which we had to google. It’s a kind of thick essence of coffee and chicory. Our supermarket actually had the local equivalent, but we decided against it (on the grounds that we’d never use up the rest). Instead, the Snook just made a shot of espresso and stirred a lot of sugar into it. Other than that, everything was as written in the recipe.

Quick verdict: Meh. It was okay. The fish tray-bake was tasty, but I dislike eating whole cooked prawns. I know why he does it; it’s a time cheat. But I’d rather take the time to use cleaned prawns than have to tear their heads off, peel the shells, and de-poop them myself. (The ones we had were quite gritty, too.) The potatoes and the salad were fine, but there wasn’t really much to them. We were divided on the salsa verde. I loved it, but the Snook thought it had too much raw garlic. But the Banoffee Pie… was a complete disaster. The problem was the bananas. Bananas are incredibly expensive right now in Sydney, and the best ones we could get turned out to be crappy quality and totally not ripe. We ate only a few bites of the pie and then chucked the rest away. Big disappointment! Overall we rated this one an 8/10 as cooked, but with a better Banoffee Pie we’d go up to 8.5. There just wasn’t really any showstopping dish here, and nobody likes to eat prawn poop.

Read on for a photo essay of the preparation.Pre-start prep: We got out all the necessary ingredients, tools, and cooking vessels. The kitchen was clean (well, as clean as it gets) and everything wiped down and ready to go. The oven grill was turned on full whack, the kettle was boiled, and the food processor was fitted with the standard blade attachment. We had a baking tray for the fish, a frying pan for the caramel, and a pot for the potatoes.

First up are the ingredients for the potatoes: potatoes, mint, and lemon.

Ingredients for the potatoes

Next are the bits for the fish tray-bake: salmon fillets, prawns, asparagus, lemon, chilli flakes, basil, anchovies, garlic, tomatoes, and pancetta.

Tray-bake ingredients

Here are the ingredients for the salsa verde: mint, parsley, garlic, red wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, capers, and cornichons. For the spinach salad we had: balsamic vinegar, lemon, mint, and baby spinach.

Spinach salad ingredients

Lastly, the ingredients for the Banoffee Pie: sugar, bananas, milk, pre-made sweet pastry case, cream, sweetened espresso (subbing for Camp coffee), and dark chocolate.

Dessert ingredients

Pots and pans, ready to go! The pot is for the potatoes; the frying pan is for the caramel; and the foil-lined tray is for the fish.

Pots and pans

And he’s off! The first step was to get the potatoes into a pot of boiling water. He added the stalks from a bunch of mint and a pinch of salt. The pot was covered and allowed to cook.

Cooking potatoes

Now for the caramel for the pie. He spooned the sugar into the hot frying pan and let it start to melt.

Starting the caramel

While the sugar was melting, he used the blender to whizz up some bananas and milk. Unfortunately this was where we realised the poor quality of our bananas, as they weren’t ripe enough to blend to a smooth consistency.

Blending bananas

Here’s the sugar just as it started to caramelise.

Sugar caramelising

Once the sugar was all bubbling and golden, he poured in the banana mixture and cooked it for a few minutes.

Combining the two

He then poured the caramel into the bottom of the pastry case and put it in the freezer to chill.

Pouring the caramel

Now it was time to start the fish. He chucked the salmon fillets and prawns into the awaiting tray.

Salmon and prawns

Then he snapped off the woody ends of the asparagus and added the spears to the tray.

Adding asparagus

Next he added salt, pepper, lemon quarters, chilli flakes, basil leaves, anchovy oil and fillets, and crushed garlic.

More ingredients into the tray

He then chopped up a few tomatoes…

Chopping tomatoes

…before adding them as well.

Filled tray

Lastly, he arranged everything nicely in the tray, making sure the salmon was skin side up. Then he draped over a few slices of pancetta and put the whole thing in the oven.

Adding pancetta

With that finished, he moved onto the salsa verde. He put mint, parsley, garlic, anchovy fillets, red wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, capers, cornichons, and extra virgin oil into the food processor.

Salsa verde ingredients

Whizzz!

Whizzing the salsa verde

It made a beautiful green sauce.

Salsa verde

Here’s the finished salsa verde waiting at the table.

Finished salsa verde

By now the potatoes were cooked, so he drained them and discarded the mint stalks.

Draining potatoes

The potatoes were dressed with olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper.

Dressing potatoes

He also smashed the potatoes lightly with a fork. Here are the finished potatoes!

Potatoes

Now for the spinach salad. He made the dressing with extra virgin olive oil, salt, pepper, balsamic vinegar, and lemon juice.

Salad dressing

Next he finely sliced the remaining mint leaves and added them to the dressing.

Slicing mint

He then roughly chopped the baby spinach…

Chopping spinach

…before placing it on top of the dressing.

Placing the spinach

Here’s the finished spinach salad, waiting to be tossed just before eating.

Spinach salad

All that was left to do was assemble the pie. He began by whipping the cream. (Jamie has you do this BY HAND with a whisk? No way. Everybody’s got some sort of electric whisk or beaters, right? That’s just craziness.)

Whipping cream

Once the cream was stiff, he added the sweetened espresso and folded it through.

Adding the coffee

It looked all swirly and marbled.

Marbled cream

He then sliced up the remaining banana…

Slicing banana

…before placing the slices on the chilled caramel base.

Placing bananas

Then he poured the coffee cream on top.

Cream topping

He carefully shaved curls from the bar of dark chocolate…

Shaving chocolate curls

…before sprinkling them on top to finish the pie. (It did look good, didn’t it?)

Finished pie

The final task was just to pull the fish tray-bake out of the oven. (The book said “about 10 minutes,” but it ended up being closer to 15 for us.)

Fish tray-bake

Here’s the completed meal of fish tray-bake with potatoes, spinach salad, and salsa verde.

Finished meal

And here’s the finished piece of Cheat’s Banoffee Pie.

Finished dessert

Tasting notes: I think I covered most of it already. For me the salsa verde was the highlight, and I think it would be worth making this to serve with any grilled meat or even as a salad dressing. (You may want to tone down the garlic a bit though if you find it too strong.) If I were going to do this meal again, I’d clean the prawns ahead of time and add them partway through the cooking. I’d also buy my bananas a week in advance to ensure that they were properly ripe and tasty. (Trust me; this just doesn’t work at all with non-ripe bananas.) We’re giving this one an 8-8.5/10 (making allowances for the Pie Fail). It LOOKS like one that would be perfect for a dinner party, but only if your guests don’t mind peeling and de-pooping their own prawns.

Stay tuned for another recipe from Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals!

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RunningBlog: Week 33

Week 33
This week was an improvement! Sunday was the City2Surf, which is technically a 14km race. However, the Snook and I were scheduled for 17km on our training plan. So we actually ran a few extra km’s to the starting line just to get warmed up and make the distance. Monday I went to Spudds class after work, then did another on Wednesday at lunch time. I feel like my strength is starting to come back from being sick. Today I went for a lunchtime run (in some horrible winter Sydney weather) with my friend Raj. Good total for the week!

Aug 14: 18.15km
Aug 19: 5.56km
Total this week: 23.71km (14.8mi)
Total in 2011: 766.96 (479.4mi)

To meet my goal of running 1200km in 2011, I should be at 761.5km right now. Still holding onto that 5km cushion!

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