It should have been Mexican New Year over the weekend (instead of Chinese New Year, that is) – as we somehow found ourselves enjoying it twice. That’s two times a winner in my eyes!

First up, we joined Joe, Shamine and Baby Harry for Saturday lunch at Pepe’s Newmarket. They lean more towards the restaurant side of Mexcian dining compared to the fast-foody style of our regular Mexican haunt – Guzman y Gomez at Emporium. We’d be warned that their meals verged on being unfinishably large, and we consequently attended with our best appetites in tow. Burritos were the order of the day, and I can’t say we were disappointed – though I had no trouble polishing off my plate so I don’t know what the fuss was about!

Serving number two was of the home made variety, when we had Mel and Ben over for a very overdue birthday dinner for Ben. When I say “very overdue”, I mean it was very overdue – Ben’s birthday is in the middle of the year. In fact, we promised to make him fajitas so long ago that he’d completely forgotten that we’d promised to make him fajitas. But we are nothing if not true to our word, and so fajitas it was!

Even Oscar got in on the action, sampling, and somewhat enjoying – well, as much as Oscar enjoys any food, that is – his very first fajita!

The right-hand side of our herb garden was looking a bit spent by the end of 2011. Our parsley and chives – which had both been very good to us – had gone to seed. Our sage was being eaten by something-or-other, and our original basil plant had never done too well in the soil.

Since digging up and replanting everything on the left-hand side of the garden, the plants there have been growing amazingly well. The basil grows faster than we can consume it (clearly we need more uses for basil!), and our cherry tomatoes have just started fruiting.

Given how well the left-hand side of the garden is now doing, we figured that the right-hand side should be treated to a little bit of replanting love as well. And so, we went through and dug up all of the dodgy old soil, and replaced it with about 150 litres of fresh new potting mix. The stuff that ended up on top was pretty loose, so we all had a go at stomping around to try and compact it a bit.

We’ve put in some new parsley and chives, and replanted the sage, oregano, plus the original basil plant. Only a few days on, the chives are already looking bigger and stronger – hopefully the same will be true for all the other plants soon too!

Because we’ve been a bit more organised about the position that the herbs are planted, we’ve got a decent chunk of space left over – I think we could easily fit another two plants in there. Any suggestions? We’d love to grow some coriander, but every time we try to, it dies! And we already have mint (growing very well in a pot), some lemongrass, and two chili plants (one which is doing exceptionally well this year). What are we missing?

“Christmas” and “pigging out” go together like “Pearl” and “Jam”, and we’ve been doing our best to honour this sacred tradition. We kicked things up another notch last weekend, when Jason and Susan hosted an (extended) family Christmas party at their place.

Even Oscar got in on the action, throwing less food onto the ground compared to what he normally would!

Rounding off the weekend of pigging out was morning tea at Mark and Jen’s place (our back neighbours), where we did our best to consume as much coffee and sugar as possible. Kristy’s “North Pole” cupcakes were a rather impressive highlight.

Since both Sibylle and my birthdays are in October, a German influenced celebration was surely going to be on the cards! This should have been obvious by the fact that Sibylle is Austrian (which is almost German, though she’d probably argue that Germans are almost Austrian), and by the fact that I love me some German food!

And so, on the day after my birthday, we all joined Karl and Sibylle and their two little munchkins at The Brisbane German Club, opposite the Gabba. We were all quite encouraged by the rather authentic looking menu, though there were a few little influences that sounded distinctly Australian. Still, if someone offers me a menu with pork knuckle on it, then you’d better believe I’m going to be ordering the pork knuckle (although I almost ordered the lamb shanks, because if someone offers me a menu with lamb shanks on it, then you’d better believe I’m going to be ordering the lamb shanks; but I didn’t think I could get through two main meals). Sometime later, here’s what was served to me:

A hearty feast, indeed! But I’d be lying if I said it was the best pork knuckle I’d ever had. Basically, I wasn’t too impressed by the layer of crackling around the outside – I wanted something big and meaty, not something big and meaty wrapped in a layer of fat! Still, the gravy and potatoes were delicious, and the other patrons seemed satisfied with their meals, so I’ve no-one to blame for my poor choice but myself. Why oh why didn’t I stick with the lamb shanks?! Clearly another visit is in order!

At my 2008 Christmas party, I was served beef wellington as the main meal. I can still remember how amazing that beef wellington was, and my review at the time (that it was “to die for”) still rings true. Anyway, I also remember that upon recounting this to Kristy, she told me that she’d never had a beef wellington, and that it was something that she really wanted to try. And so, nearly three years later, that’s exactly what Jason, Susan and I cooked Kristy for her birthday dinner!

Bearing in mind that this was my first attempt at making a beef wellington (not to mention using puff pastry), I think it came off pretty well. It was perhaps a touch more rare than I would have ideally liked, but Jason and I happily took the rarest parts, and gave the slightly more medium-rare bits to the girls. Our duxelles was a little bit wet, and we had put it all around the meat, so that meant our pastry didn’t puff up quite as much as it should have; but overall it still tasted great, and alongside our honey-roasted carrots, sweet potato with cinnamon sugar mash, and fresh green beans, it all presented rather nicely on the plate.

Given the amount of butter that goes into the meal, I can’t imagine that it’s the healthiest thing for you in the world, but oh man did it taste good!

I feel so cheap doing the “weekend wrap-up” post when we had no less than three (or four at a pinch) bloggable events! But, time is so precious these days, and truth be told, I only took photos for one event of three; so a wrap up it is!

On Friday night, we trolleyed out to The Durham’s for dinner and a movie (Hoodwinked – gerrod.com rating: 8/10). To complement the delicious pork cutlets, David and Nelly had whipped out a selection of salads that would have put Sizzler to absolute shame. The honey roasted carrots with currants and almonds were particularly impressive!

On Saturday night, whilst Nonni and Poppi babysat for Oscar, Kristy and I had a night out on the town (well, in the valley more accurately)! And frankly, it felt weird being out past 7 PM, and without child! Weird, and yet good. Very good! We were out to celebrate Penny (from work) and Adrian’s engagement, and we partied up in style at The GPO, doing our very best to get through their generous bar tab.

Given that it was a “work” outing, we met up with the work crew – Ben and Michelle, Rob and Elise, and Pieter and Annalize – for dinner beforehand. Rob decided on Kings Diner, and instead of ordering the traditional way, we played Chinese roulette! Basically, everyone randomly chose a number from a range given by the gatekeeper (me), whose job it was to ensure that (a) everything picked was generally edible, and (b) there was a decent variety of meats and styles. It was absolutely awesome – and we ordered loads of dishes that I’m sure we would never have picked otherwise. The salt and pepper calamari in sweet chili sauce was a particular favourite!

We spent Sunday quietly recovering from our night out (it quickly became evident that we aren’t young anymore). Actually, we spent most of the day in the kitchen, cooking food for Oscar, and various delicacies for ourselves. And for the folks that turned down our invitation to join us for dinner – you know who you are – this is what you missed out on:

Slow cooked (for 8 hours) curried lamb shanks, served on a bunk-bed of nutmeg mashed sweet potato over chive and oregano mashed red potatoes. I don’t know any other words for “delicious” but if I did I’d be throwing them at you right now. Yeah! Take that!

(A huge thanks to Louisa for the recipe!)

Had we have still been living in London, last Saturday would have been our four year anniversary of moving there. To celebrate, Kristy decided we should have a proper English roast for dinner, complete with Yorkshire Pudding and gravy. And it was delicious!

As much as I miss living in London (and believe me, I miss it a lot!), I thoroughly enjoy being back in Australia as well. If only we could have the best of both worlds!

For our final adventure in Brisbane, we took Aubain and Ingrid out to Scarborough for some fish and chips. The Seafood Lover’s Cafe had been recommended to us by some locals (thanks Melissa!) so we thought we’d give it a whirl. I don’t think the bird behind the counter liked me.

Bird: Hi, what can I get you?
Me: Hi there, could I please get a Two Person Combo pack, with barra as the fish?
Bird: No, sorry, the combo only comes with dory. It’s a combo.
Me: Really? I’m happy to pay the difference in price.
Bird: No. It’s a combo, we can’t change it.
Me: Oh, ok… well then I’ll have the Two Person Combo pack, one piece battered, one crumbed.
Bird: No, both pieces of fish come crumbed. It’s a combo.
Me: Oh I see how this works now. I’ll have the Two Person Combo pack please.
Bird: (to kitchen staff) One Two Person Combo pack!

However, their stubbornness at refusing to change the fish is my only complaint. The food was excellent! We were joined by the rest of the Thomases, Kristy’s folks, plus the Threebies, and we all loved our meals!

We finished off our afternoon with some Boules in the park at Woody Point. Conditions weren’t the best, with a fairly soggy ground and a lot of wind whipping along the waterfront, but you have to take what you can get!

We had such an awesome week with Aubain and Ingrid visiting, and we were extremely sad to drop them off at the airport on Monday morning. We had crammed so much into the week that it felt like a much longer break from work than it had actually been, but only one week in Australia is definitely not enough to see everything! Hopefully they’ll be back soon so we can start with Part Two of their Australian adventure!

A few photos from the Sunshine Coast and Brisbane and Woody Point now online at Picasaweb.

Yes, I’m definitely someone who holds gardening in high regard, along with taking out the rubbish and mopping the floors. But as it turns out, with a little bit of disicpline, some plants from Mom and Dad, and a lot of patience, gardening has an upside. Chilis!

Sadly I didn’t realise how often plants need to be watered, and our scotch bonnet chili plant suffered at the hands of the Australian sun. But as you can see, our bird’s eye chilies (or at least that’s what I think they are) are doing very well!

And we’re not just growing chilis either; our little garden also has some basil, mint, thyme, oragano, chives, corriander, and quite possible some other herbs that I can’t identify. Some of them are probably weeds, but I’ll still chop them up and give them a go.

Tonight will be the inaugural sampling of our chilies; they’ll be joining forces with garlic and lemon to marinate some barramundi. And if the weather holds off, it’ll all be going on the barbeque in about half an hour!

Even the name makes my mouth water.

I’ve tried out a bunch of brownie recipes over the years. There have been good ones, which I’ve promptly lost all record of. And there’ve been bad ones that haunt me. Like the one that just wouldn’t set, so I stayed up until something ridiculous like 2am trying to make it work. The ingredients were so expensive I couldn’t bear to pull the plug. But finally this week I’ve arrived at one that I love and think I can replicate! Therefore it is being saved for all eternity (presuming Gerrod backs this up) on gerrod.com.

Most weeks I try at least one new recipe, and lately I’ve been getting most of them from taste.com.au. The website is great, and the advanced search feature rocks. I tend to choose things that have a “freezer friendly” tick, so that I can make more than I need and fill the freezer with back up meals and snacks. This recipe is no exception.

Ingredients (serves 10)

• 125g butter, chopped
• 300g dark chocolate
• 1 1/4 cups caster sugar
• 3/4 cup plain flour, sifted
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder, sifted
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
• 3 eggs
• Cocoa powder, to dust