Cooking Crusade

Breakfast smoothies!

I love breakfast. And I also love smoothies. Its like.. an unbeatable combination. Banana and strawberry are my fave flaves. I also love going to cafes and discovering new flavours, like lime smoothies. What are some of your fave flaves?

Ingredients: to serve 2

1/3 cup oats, pre-blended to a fine powder
1/2 cup milk (I used vanilla soy milk, but regular soy or even regular ole cow’s milk would be fine.)
2-3 generous dollops of organic raspberry yoghurt (note: the brand i used was not very sweet.. so if you use quite a sweet yoghurt, then maybe cut back on the maple syrup or honey. just taste it when you’re done and adjust to your own liking.)
A splash of maple syrup just to sweeten it (or you could use honey)
1 medium sized ripe banana
1/2 punnet – 1 punnet of strawberries, hulled and washed
optional: diced rockmelon (adds a bit of sweetness and i just looove melon.)

Prep all your ingredients (by which I mean, wash, cut, dice, blend, etc.)

Pop all the ingredients into the blender. You could even throw some protein powder in now.. you know. If you’re into that kind of thing.

Give it a bit of a whizz. Taste it to check the sweetness.

Pour it into a glass and top with a strawberry slice.

Drink it with a friend, lover, spouse or mother, but above all, enjoy!

xoxo

Christine <3

Since it’s the first Sunday of September, that mean’s one thing… That it’s Father’s Day! Yay! Happy Father’s Day!

This year I visited a cafe near my Dad’s house in Botany – a lovely cafe called Botannix Studio Cafe, found at 25 Swinbourne St, Botany. Plenty of street parking nearby, if you’re driving (which we were.) They serve all-day breakfasts, and lunch starts at 11.30am.

Dad and I got skim banana smoothies ($6.50) which were very light, frothy and not too sweet, but in a good way.

Mike and Dad ordered pancakes with maple syrup, strawberries, grilled banana and whipped cream ($14.50), which they said were pretty awesome. I tasted some and they were quite good, but be prepared for a serious sugar overdose!

I tried out eggs benedict for the first time, but I don’t eat pork, so I ordered it with the smoked salmon ($18.00, less if you order it with shaved ham) and mushrooms on the side ($3.50). I have no idea what they did to the mushrooms but they were wonderfully fragrant, buttery and garlicy. They were lovely, as was the eggs benedict – I’m glad that I tried it out and Botannix did a pretty good job of them. I’m a big fan of hollandaise sauce, especially with asparagus. The dish looked deceptively small (especially compared to Dad and Mike’s gigantic pancakes,) but the hollandaise sauce and poached eggs fill you up very quickly.. I couldn’t totally finish it all, even though I wanted to!

The link for Botannix is here and the link for the eatability page is here.

Me, Dad, Mike at Botannix:

Happy Father’s Day to all those Dad’s out there. Have a great day!

Deeeelicous mushroom omelette. (Please ignore the piece of pizza my mum added to the skillet to heat up. Lol.)

Mmm, breakfast. One of the best times of the day.

I love making hot breakfasts for me and my boyfriend on Sundays. I usually make eggs and try to throw in any other ingredients we have lying around, like, onions, shallots, zucchini, potato and turn it into an omelette or if i’ve got enough ingredients, frittata.

One of my favorites is the all-time awesome mushroom omelette. Mushroom is quickly becoming one my favorite.. foods? It’s not exactly a vegetable, and I can’t really say it’s becoming my favourite fungi… or can I?

I’ve been having an interesting week! I’m on the job hunt, I’ve got another interview coming up which I’m looking forward to.

I’m looking forward to this Friday because I’m cooking up a feast for about 10 people for dinner and since I have the day off work (since I haven’t got a job at the moment), I plan to spend all day cooking… Exciting.

My friend Ghilaine has introduced me to a reality TV show called Cake Boss. Have you guys heard of it? It’s this amazing bakery in the US where they bake the most amazing and beautiful cakes. Very fun to watch and quite entertaining as well (quite a few drama scenes… one can’t help but think that most of these are probably fake) but still fun to watch

Anyway, back to the recipe!
This one is so incredibly easy and delicious to throw together and you need so few ingredients.

ingredient list:

two eggs (per person)
mushrooms (as many/few as you like), sliced
butter
salt.

And that’s it. How easy is that?

Melt a tablespoon or two of butter over high heat in a skillet. Throw in your mushrooms and allow them to brown. Season. Leave them in there for a good couple of minutes, stirring them every so often.

Remove the mushrooms from the heat and place them in a container/bowl/a whatever. If you’re feeling particular butter-conscious, you can drain the yummy juices on a paper towel. However, if you’re like me, you’ll leave them in there.

Whip up your eggs (I just did mine in a cup with a fork.) Add some more butter to the pan over high heat and wait until its melted and a little bubbly (but don’t allow it to brown). Pour your eggs into the pan and allow to cook for a good thirty seconds or so. Don’t touch it. Allow the eggs to coagulate (I often get impatient and this results in … messes.) If you’re worried about it burning, just turn the heat down. Throw all the tasty mushrooms back onto the egg in the pan. Give it a good flip. Don’t worry if you can’t get it all done in one go, it takes practice and it still tastes good if it isn’t as pretty.

Serve with toast and other tasty breakfast side dishes Enjoy!