I survived my whirlwind trip to the land down under with relatively few mishaps.
well, except the part where my flight home was cancelled and rebooked for the next day… and the flight it was supposed to connect with in LAX was on a separate ticket and so I had to rebook that… and it’s spring break, so flights are pretty full.
let’s just say, I am SO HAPPY that I had travel insurance.

so for those counting, yes, I am 2 for 2 for Fam trips where I miss my flight home. because I’m amazing like that.

anyways, back to the goods. this was by far the most hectic trip I’ve ever done in my life.
up by 7am every day… jam packed days with pretty much no free time and then fitting in some evening drinking. at every turn I was reminded that this was work, not a vacation. it broke my heart to see so many beautiful beaches and not get to swim in any of them. until our cancelled flight, I had only made it into the water once and that was wearing a jellyfish suit at the Great Barrier Reef.

that being said, what made up for the lack of beach, was that I got to do the most amazing activities that absolutely blew my mind.

in cairns we did the skyrail and the gold class train back to the city.

then we went up to port douglas to the great barrier reef where besides the amazing boat ride to and from the reef (with beers – hooray!) I flew in a helicopter (my first time) over the reef and marveled at the beauty…

and then did an hour long guided snorkel of the outer reef with a marine biologist. it was truly one of the greatest days ever. seeing the reef has been a dream of mine since I was a kid. to do it in this way was beyond my wildest dreams.

then we headed off to sydney where we did a city tour and enjoyed a couple beers overlooking bondi beach.

we ended up going out that night and on a recommendation, found the coolest little bar called shady pints that was like, top secret. it involved going down an alley and asking a guy sitting on a milk crate for entrance through an unmarked door. when they closed, the bartender suggested we head to frankie’s and end the night there. it was a fun time.

the next day we started the day with a harbor cruise, followed by the sydney bridge climb and then headed back to a private yacht for a champagne tour.

the bridge climb was surreal. I almost had a freak out and bailed, but my group rallied around me and calmed me down and kept me safe. I’m so glad I did it. at $300 a pop, it’s not something everyone does in sydney, but wow, was it ever an amazing experience and a ridiculously amazing view.

sydney is a gorgeous city and especially for a vancouver girl, I really felt the love for a waterfront urban centre.

melbourne was the next stop and I loved what I saw of the city. we spent the first day driving up the great ocean road to the twelve apostles and seeing the most incredible coastlines.

that night we checked out a mexican place called mamacita that our flight attendant had suggested and it was killer. the bartender there directed us to a cocktail lounge called lilly black that also involved venturing down an alley and searching for an unmarked door. they had over 200 bitters and made me (2) exceptional old fashioneds. (although at $19 a pop, they’d better be).

the next day we did a hidden secrets walking tour that took us to the funkiest places. the street art and little cafes and shops in melbourne made me was to stay forever and explore.
it’s a very european feeling city with these little alleys chocked full of cool shops. at times it reminded me of weaving through the streets of venice, there’s so much going on there.

our (official) last stop was adelaide and kicked things off in style with a wine tour of the barossa valley. I’ve done a lot of wine tours, but at penfolds we did something very unique that I’d never heard of before. it was “make your own blend” where we got to play taste tester slash mad scientist and put together a bottle to your tastes. it was so neat and so fun. we laughed the whole way through and had an absolute blast. highly recommended.

the we headed to an amazing little vineyard called langmeil that has vines that are as old as 170 years and they really specialized in the art of growing and making wine, it is not at all for mass production and it was incredible. I bought the most expensive bottle I’ve ever purchased at $100 AUD and plan on cellaring it for at least 5 years. it is very small production because its made purely with the 170 year old vine grapes and they don’t yield many grapes. it was honestly one of the best, if not the best wine I’ve ever had.
we made a lunch stop and then headed to jacob’s creek to cap off the day. we had a good laugh using the breathalyzer to check where we were at.

our last (official) day was spent at kangaroo island. again, incredible scenery and coastlines and so many animals! we saw kangaroos, wallabies, koala bears, tons of seals and more!

then we packed up and headed home… sort of. we made it to sydney for our connection and found out there was a mechanical issue with the plane and they had to scrap the flight. and I definitely want to give huge kudos for qantas for handling the situation so well. it was pretty much seamless and entirely professional the whole way through.
so we were shuttled to a hotel and given a bonus day in sydney!

I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I had been absolutely dying to get into the ocean and swim. so it was suits on and we taxi’d to bondi beach and finally I got to have my swim. we had some beach beers and then an amazing thai meal and that was it. up early and to the airport and we were on our way to LAX finally.

travel insurance took care of the cost of rebooking my flight from LAX to YVR and I also had some spending money for taxis, beer and food. and thankfully we know travel agents and they took care of all the nitty gritty for us, so we could concentrate on the beach.

and so, after 11 nights out of the country, I’m back.
I was very impressed with australia and to be honest, I didn’t expect to love the cities or to have such a good time, but I was more than happy to prove myself wrong. I’m not sure ill make it back, but I’m sure glad I saw it… and who knows… stranger things have happened…

moonbeam, my husband and I have for years discussed hitting this event.
lets face it, it’s a massive food & drink event with celebrity chefs and its in a totally rad place that is super fun to visit. sooooo… it was fated to happen sooner or later.
and this is our year baby.
kinda.

we started with huge plans of hitting multiple events… but then reality bitch slapped us.
these events are not cheap. like, not even remotely close to cheap.
in order to do a couple events a day, we’d be into this for a couple grand each. and it’s just not happening this year.
so we made some tough decisions and committed to two events.

we’ll be at the grand tasting on the friday night at ceasars palace and then the following night at the bellagio for the block party. both sound super fun and will be stuffed full of food & drinks.
and we’re pretty excited about it all.

as usual, this trip to vegas is including a number of our nearest and dearest for super fun party times.
now, this sort of thing isn’t up everyone’s alley, but a couple pals have decided they’re into the block party (because who doesn’t like hanging out at the bellagio and stuffing your face while getting boozy?) and I’m excited to put on some fancy duds and get all prettied up for this.
none of us are “clubbing” people and so we pretty much never end up doing a “fancy” vegas night when we’re there… I might even wear heels.*
(*i am totally not wearing heels. terrible idea)

overall, we’re treating this like a test year to check out the events and see how we feel about how they’re run and if we feel its worth the money and then maybe next year we’ll go a little bigger for the uncork’d.

at the very worst, they’re 2.5 hours each of our vegas time and we can rendezvous with the others after since going out at 10pm in vegas is like going out at 7pm at home, lol.
so there’s not much to lose when you look at it that way. (except the thousand dollars on my visa – yikes)

anyways, we’re all very excited and I’m just calling it now that if I find out mike symon is anywhere near me, I might go full fangirl. just sayin’.

naturally I’ll do my best to blog and instagram and tweet as much as I can and fill all you in on all the details and happenings!

he works with fellas predominately from India and some French Canadians as well. so mealtime is often a cultural exchange of sorts. it’s been great. he’s learned the secrets of making naan by hand and raised his tolerance for heat another couple notches. as well as sampled Quebec delights like cretonnade de veau and all manner of stinky cheeses.
often he’ll bring me home a portion of leftovers of a particularly successful meal like a fiery goat curry with rice.

one of my husband’s favorite baked treats is the carrot cake. I love a good carrot cake, but I’ve been disappointed may so many that I’m leery of them when purchased. I don’t like raisins and nuts snuck into it… the icing has to be sweet, but more cream cheesy than cloying… I’m picky.
through my Internet hunts, I’ve found what I believe is the best carrot cake recipe around. and I’m not the only one that feels that way. it’s from Canadian Living magazine and it reigns as their most requested recipe of all time.

Canadian Living Best Carrot Cake Recipe

Ingredients
2 cups (500 mL) all-purpose flour
2 tsp (10 mL) baking powder
2 tsp (10 mL) cinnamon
1 tsp (5 mL) baking soda
3/4 tsp (4 mL) salt
1/2 tsp (2 mL) nutmeg
3/4 cup (175 mL) granulated sugar
3/4 cup (175 mL) packed brown sugar
3 eggs
3/4 cup (175 mL) vegetable oil
1 tsp (5 mL) vanilla
2 cups (500 mL) grated carrots
1 cup (250 mL) drained crushed canned pineapple
1/2 cup (125 mL) chopped pecans

Icing:
1 8 oz (250g) package cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup (60 mL) butter, softened
1/2 tsp (2 mL) vanilla
1 cup (250 mL) icing sugar

Grease and flour 13- x 9-inch (3.5 L) metal cake pan; set aside.

In large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda, salt and nutmeg. In separate bowl, beat together granulated and brown sugars, eggs, oil and vanilla until smooth; pour over flour mixture and stir just until moistened. Stir in carrots, pineapple and pecans. Spread in prepared pan.

Bake in centre of 350°F (180°C) oven for 40 minutes or until cake tester inserted in centre comes out clean. Let cool in pan on rack.

Icing: In bowl, beat cream cheese with butter until smooth. Beat in vanilla. Beat in icing sugar, one-third at a time, until smooth. Spread over top of cake.

so because I’m difficult, I wanted to try experimenting a little with this recipe. but I also knew it was tried and true, and my husband loved the original and wasn’t always so hot on my desire to “healthy everything up”. so I did what any rational person would do… I made two carrot cakes. one totally to the recipe (except that I cut the oil down to a 1/2 cup and use coconut instead of vegetable) and the other recipe was mostly the same wish a couple tweaks.

I wanted to work in some of my carrot and beet pulp from my juicer, but soon realized that the pulp is so dry and what makes the carrots in the carrot cake really work is the juiciness of the grated vegetables. so I used the pulp (about 2.5 cups loosely packed) but rehydrated it with some of the drained pineapple juice and about a cup of carrot juice.
I also puréed a bit of the pineapple for a smoother texture, which really worked because the carrot pulp was much finer than the grated carrot in the traditional cake. in fact, it essentially disappeared in terms of texture and just gave you the carrot taste. the beets were totally undetectable except for the lovely pinky color.

again, I also hacked the oil down, which was totally fine. my results were delicious. a very dense, very moist and very carrot-y cake was the result. I also used a bunt pan since my cake pan was used for the traditional cake, but all I had to do was bake it for an extra 15 minutes.

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as I suspected, the syrups to make sodas aren’t really great. my mom bought me a root beer and a cola syrup and they’re tasty, but so sweet and so full of sugar and weird chemicals, so they’re definitely not for every day drinking.
most days I’ve just been carbonating tap water and maybe adding a little squeeze of lemon or some fresh fruit juice from the juicer. but for the most part, I’ve just been guzzling good old fashioned tap water with a little extra sparkle.

yesterday I was at canadian tire and they had all the soda stream goods on sale, so I decided to pick up another pack of bottles, so now I have 4 – awesome for fridge storage because I can down the whole 1L of water easily in a sitting… but they also had these flavor guys that I hadn’t seen before.

according to the label, they’re just natural flavor, not chemicals and no syrup. I’m currently enjoying the lemon lime and pretty stoked that I now have extra bottles, so I can mix up a bottle of each flavor.
I’m also thinking these would be delicious with vodka. because – duh.

my orange juice this morning gave me a couple cups of pulp… that really, is low on flavour but definitely high on fibre.
so i was going to add some of it to a blueberry muffin recipe i have that usually contains orange oil and orange juice.  i figured it was the easy fix.

but my hesitation is that its hard to find out how much i can add before i throw the recipe out of whack.
muffins can be a precarious business if you don’t have your wet to dry ratio right.  and most of the mentions seemed to be “i added my pulp to muffins” which obviously is lacking in specifics and makes me wonder if these people even do these things or if they just like to say they do online.

but at last i found a mention online that said you should be able to add 1/4 – 1/2 cup of pulp to any recipe without having to change the rest of the recipe.  and thats news i can use.

so i started out on my muffin mission… but as i was pulling ingredients from the cupboard, i found this box mix from trader joe’s.

all you add is 2 eggs, 1/2 cup of oil and a cup of water.  so i decided to short cut this bitch and just do the box for my first attempt at pulp adding.

naturally, since i don’t use vegetable oil, i subbed in coconut oil… and added a little coconut mana for fun too… then i added in 1/2 cup of orange pulp and baked it as per the box.

the results look lovely and smell divine, but i’ll have to report back on the taste test because i sent it out of town with my darling husband.

when i was a kid, my mom used to make this cambell’s soup recipe chicken casserole.  it had a couple cans of cream of whatever was in the cupboard soup, white rice and was topped with a layer of broccoli and chicken breasts laid over the top with a layer of cheddar cheese covering it all.

i love this casserole.
its everything a casserole should be.  it’s easy to make, one dish and relatively balanced…
in fact, i’ve blogged it before – here

but in the last couple weeks, i’ve purged my cupboards of most everything with a long ingredient list… condensed/canned  soup being one of those things.
so when i looked at the giant bunch of broccoli in my fridge and thought of this casserole… i was left with a quandary.  how do you sub for the soup?

i know that those cans of condensed soup work in the slow cooker in ways that other ingredients don’t.  if you’ve ever made the mistake of putting milk in a slow cooker, you know what i mean.  it does not work.
anyways, my fear was that a casserole that spends an hour in the oven might suffer from a similar problem… but i decided to live on the edge and just do my best.

chicken, broccoli & rice casserole

• 3 or 4 boneless chicken breasts (skin optional)
• 1 cup of raw rice (i used jasmine)
• 1 cup chicken stock
• 1 cup milk
• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 2 cups broccoli florets – washed & trimmed
• spices to taste.  i used s&p, chipotle, garlic salt & thyme
• 1 cup (or more) grated cheese (enough to cover)
• paprika to top

1. preheat oven to 350
2. stir together stock, milk & sour cream.  add seasonings, stir in raw rice.
3. pour liquid & rice mixture into your casserole dish
4. arrange broccoli on top
5. lay chicken breasts over broccoli
6. cover entire pan with cheese and sprinkle paprika on top.
7. cover with foil and bake for 45 minutes. remove foil and bake for 10 more to brown cheese.  let stand for 5 minutes and serve.

usually i enjoy this with cheddar, since cheddar and broccoli are bff.  but i didn’t have any, so i used a cheese called reypenaer that i brought back from amsterdam thats kinda like an aged gouda.  it was delightful.

some optional add ins i’ve seen before are diced red peppers or corn… and of course, i add spice, but that wasn’t in the original recipe… but honestly, its a casserole.
there are no rules other than to clean out your fridge.
you could get as fancy or not as you’d like.

but i’ve honestly never been much of a juice gal. i’m not even a smoothie gal.
i have often cycled through buying oodles of frozen fruit in a misguided effort to start my day with smoothies, only to throw it all out a couple months later as a solid freezer burned mess.

actually overall, i’ve never been a fruit lover.
but i do love my veggies. and veggies make friends with a juicer too.

the other thing holding me back is that i have limited condo space and therefore i shy away from things that aren’t kitchen multi-taskers. and the juicer is very much a one trick pony.
buuuuuut… it was $99 and really isn’t *that* big, so i’m gonna give it a go.

so step one… obviously buying the machine.
step two… stocking up on fruit & veg.
step three… juice!

i started with a really husband friendly option in an effort to inaugurate him, as he often turns his nose up at my happy planet green juices. so i figured as long as it wasn’t super green i had a fighting chance.

so i went apple, orange & celery.

they suggest you peel your oranges, so i did and there’s some debate about apple seeds, so i split mine in half and tunneled out the seeds and removed the stems. just to be safe.
celery just needed a wash and it was ready to rock.

the results were delicious. the husband eagerly downed his glass and all were happy.

so i decided to take the leftover orange, apple celery base and green it up a little.
enter the addition of a couple handfuls of spinach, parsley, 2 carrots and a meyer lemon (skin and all)
to make…. this!

definitely super yum.
the meyer lemon was definitely the most dominant flavour, but it smelled like parsley and celery. very interesting.
and i know you’re not supposed to “save” the juices because they lose vitamins or whatever, but i poured the rest into a mason jar and put it in the fridge for the next day’s breakfast.

last night, my two besties came over for hockey and one of them was sporting a bit of a hangover, so i whipped up a curing juice.

i decided on a couple apples, a cucumber, a few kiwis and a knob of ginger.
the kiwis were peeled, the apples de-seeded and the cucumber stem removed, but then everything was juiced together to produce this:

i’m not entirely sure why it separated, but it sure was tasty.  the ginger made it spicier than i anticipated.  i used about a 1 1/2 inch piece and this batch yielded a little over a litre of juice total, but the ginger was the dominant flavour.
delicious, but a pretty strong after burn.  i imagine this would be awesome for if you were sick.

the kiwi maybe wasn’t the best plan ever.  the little seeds got caught in my blade and were harder to clean than i anticipated as they needed to be picked out of the teeth individually with my fingernail.

this morning, we went classic.  simple delicious orange juice.

man, this is the best stuff.  just so good.

only downside is that i kept my box of oranges on the counter and i think i should move them to patio because my juice (obviously) is coming out at room temperature.

the next challenge is to find a good use for all the pulp i’m getting.
veggie pulp is easy… it can be added to soups, stocks, meatloaf/meatballs/burgers ect.
but the fruit pulp is something that will require some googling.

most of what i’ve read does say that the bulk of the vitamins & nutrients are coming out in the juice… but the pulp is pure fibre.  so while it might not have much in the way of flavour or vitamins, it’s definitely still worth eating.

also, wasting food really bugs me.  and since i don’t have a garden or compost, its making me feel guilty to pitch it.
the internet tells me that saving the pulp in freezer bags works too, and its good to separate it when blending juice… so like if i’m making a carrot whatever juice, do the carrots then stop and collect the pulp in a bag and then do the rest of the veg and store that separate ect.  makes sense.
i foresee carrot cakes in my future.

but, resolutions abound in the new year… so i’m going to finish this post and then post some more.

for the last couple years, vancouver has played host to its own german-style christmas market.
and if there’s one thing i really enjoy, its a cup of hot mulled wine while wandering around eating and shopping for knick knacks.
so this was pretty much right up my alley.

first off, kudos to these guys and the city of vancouver for treating us like adults and letting us wander with alcohol.
you could buy your hot mulled wine and/or a beer and wander freely inside the market.  not penned in to a beer garden looking longingly past the plastic fencing forced to choose between the drink and the market itself.
this was a vast improvement over many other events vancouver is home to, simply for that reason alone.  alcohol should not mean segregation.

i also was a huge fan of the mug deposit system.
instead of drinking your beverage from a disposable plastic or styrofoam cup, you received a real ceramic mug for the deposit price of $2.  then, if you wanted to keep your mug, you could… or you could return it for your twoonie back after you were done refilling as needed.
another great idea.  i wish other events would take heed and do the same with beer gardens and get rid of all those wasted plastic cups.

basically what i’m saying, is that this market took some of europe’s best ideas from their markets and instituted them.  which really, if you’re going to refer to yourself as a german christmas market, you’d better represent.

so, to show support for this idea, we immediately went into the lineup to get a mulled wine.

anyways… on to the food.
there were many choices, in fact, the stands were weighed heavily towards food over goods… which was just fine with us.

first stop… schnitzel.

sorry for the overexposed picture, it was dark and flash was the only way to go.
anyways… the schnitzel itself was pretty damn good.  we waited about 25 minutes for it and received a lovely golden crisp piece of pork with a light panko coating.  served with a pita bread, potato salad, lemon wedge & a pickle.

overall… solid.  we ate it and liked it, but really, i think vienna has ruined me for schnitzel.
when it comes from the deep fryer its just not the same as the frying pan full of butter… and the potato salad was out of a costco bucket and sprinkled with dried dill.  don’t get me wrong, i’ve eaten my share of costco potato salad, but i guess i hoped for something a little more homemade.

next up was the spätzle!

i was really looking forward to this…
after another 25 minute line up, we finally had our cheesy pasta-y goodness in hand and barely stopped to breathe.

the smell coming off this stand is so amazing, it should be illegal.  essentially this fella above just continuously tosses the noodles in excessive amounts of clarified butter, bacon and onions in a giant wok-style cast iron frying pan.  have you ever just fried pasta in clarified butter until its cooked?  ya.  you should do that.  because it was pretty much my heaven.

throw in some bacon and fried onions and you’ve got a winner.
but seriously… so much butter.  i watched that dude use pounds of butter in the time i was in line.
then he scooped out a portion, smothered it in cheese and topped it with fried onions.  yup.

because we’d been smart and shared all our meals so far, we figured it was high time for a bratwurst.

so for our last food stop of the evening, we hit up the brat stand and after a 30 minute line (see a pattern there?  we need more food stands!) we were rewarded handsomely with a lovely sausage on a crunchy soft roll smothered in sauerkraut and golden caramelized onions.

here’s a testament to how good that thing was… i hate onions and kauerkraut and i ate it all without picking it off.  it just seemed like one of those “when in rome…” kinda things.

bellies full, we grabbed a beer and wandered around to see the crafts.  overall we didn’t see too much that interested us… the one place with tons of cool looking stuff was in a building and the lineup was ridiculous to get in, and frankly i just didn’t have it in me to wait in yet another line, so we moved on.

we picked up an ornament for the mother in law and my husband purchased some alpaca socks (which he LOVES) and then we called it a night.
overall, it was a lovely way to spend an evening and i hope next year they expand the market because after the long line just to enter and then the continuous lines inside, i think a lot of people get frustrated.

but i’m happy to see the city giving these kind of events licensing and space and hope this is a tradition for many years to come.

yup.
thats right.
i’m actually going here.

this is blowing my mind.
first off, i am obviously incredibly blessed to work for such an amazing company that gives away trips like this… but also i’m just damn lucky.
they took the 15 top sellers of australia product for last month and drew 3 winners and i was one of them.

australia, admittedly is a place that was not high on my priority list to visit.
in fact, i don’t even think it was on the list.
mostly based on this.

i definitely have a legitimate fear that i will die in australia, lol.
spiders and snakes are not my friends.
but i’m sure i’ll get over my fears and have an amazing time.

so among other awesomeness, my trip includes:

• roundtrip airfare
• accommodations & some meals
• wine tour of south australia’s barossa valley
• RV’ing victoria’s great ocean road
• great barrier reef experience
• queensland rail sunlander
• sydney bridge climb
• private yacht tour of sydney harbour
• kangaroo island adventure

it’s going to be a whirlwind trip of about 10 days and then there will be an option to extend out for an extra 3 days to see uluru (ayers rock), which i’ll probably do because lets face it, i have to assume this is a once in a lifetime trip.

i’m really just gobsmacked that this happened.
its one of the biggest (and worth the most) agent trips that one could possibly win and i can not believe i’ve actually won it.
wowsa.
i should buy myself a lotto ticket because this guy is clearly lucky today.
happy early birthday to me.