Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts

Monday, May 8, 2023

Blast From The Past ~ Lunch Series: Two Bit Villains Soda Bar




Or 'The One Where Two Meat-Eaters Unknowingly Dine At A Vegetarian Eatery'

EDIT - Guys, I'm re-publishing this post from 2016 as a Blast From The Past, mainly because I ran out of time to blog (eeek!). This week my son is doing work experience, so hopefully I'll have plenty of time to write, so there will be a proper one next Monday. Two Bit Villains is still operating in the heart of the city, so this is still relevant and hilarious, but they may have changed their dishes since seven years ago lol. The tags on the pics are my beauty account but I now have a dedicated food account on Instagram called @imhungrymax so feel free to follow me there. Hope you enjoy the post!

Two Bit Villains
Shop 150
Balcony Level, Adelaide Arcade
Adelaide

LOL. I'm still not living this down. I surprised hubby with my choice of lunch date location last week, and he was pretty amused/appalled/surprised alright when he looked at the menu. I don't know how I missed this, because I did research Two Bit Villains online before proudly making my decision, but all the meat words were in quotes. For example, panko-crumbed "chicken", housemade pressed "beef" and spice-rubbed "pulled pork". ALL THE MEAT WAS FAKE. Oh My God, we laughed. We laughed, we laughed some more, and then as staunch Carnivores, we widely avoided ordering the fake meat. I looked at hubby and could see him mentally crafting the story he would tell his workmates upon his return. This tale would not feature me in a favourable light. Anyhoo, I ordered, said no to all the vegan and dairy-free options, and returned to our table. And thus began our one hour experience as vegetarians.





Drinks: I ordered a Passionfruit Hand-Crafted Botanical Soda which was very subtle in flavour and low in bubbles. My husband had a Tummy Tonic Soda Float (ginger, citrus, mint, star anise and icecream) which came in a jar (naturally) and was quite nice.





Food: I had the Onion Rings Burger (if you read this post you'll be aware of my onion ring addiction) which was lettuce, tomato, cheese on a bun stuffed with onion rings and a swirl of tomato sauce and mustard. I picked Tater Tots as my side, probably just so I could shove them in my pockets later like Napoleon Dynamite. This was a good sized meal. I mean we are talking generous servings here. I basically couldn't finish it and hubby just managed to eat his but couldn't finish mine. This never happens (he always has the ability to finish my food). I'm pretty sure the cheese was real and the burger was good. The tater tots were good. I enjoyed and was super-full afterwards. My husband got the Nacho! Nacho! Man meal with guacamole (a basket of crunchy tortilla chips topped with housemade salsa beans, grated carrot, corn, spring onions, sour cream and cheese). He said it was really nice, even the beans which he normally doesn't like. He had onions rings as a side, and obviously we shared the tater tots and onion rings, because of my #onionringaddiction. The onion rings were super crunchy and delicious! 10/10 for the onion rings!




Fun Fact: Adelaide Arcade is supposedly haunted. I was on the look out for ghosts, but disappointingly, did not meet any on the day in question. Although the pale look on hubby's face when he saw the menu came close.



Ambience: I loved the cute, funky decor, the quirky arches and the large opening out to Rundle Mall that provided a welcome breeze. We were told if we sat on a long table we may have to share, so we made a beeline for the high tables with stools along the wall. Our table was quite private and plenty fun! There weren't a ton of other diners, perhaps another four or five tables of people. The staff were all friendly and capable, no issues there whatsoever. I'm glad it didn't get super-busy. Overall, quite a lovely dining atmosphere.

I'm not gonna lie, we've probably eaten everything off the menu that we want to, with the possible exception of the Frozen Choc Peanut Pie dessert. I don't think we'd return, even though it was a pleasant surprise!


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Disclaimer: Non-sponsored. We paid for our own meals and all thoughts are my honest, unbiased opinion.


Monday, January 9, 2023

My Go-To Easy Summer Salad Recipe

 


Hi guys! I thought since absolutely no-one asked, I'd post my go-to Summer Salad recipe. This is super easy to make and doesn't require many ingredients at all. Of course, you can add whatever you like and sometimes I jazz it up with extras, depending on how I'm feeling and what we have on hand. Basically it's a lot of green, a bit of orange and no red, because I don't really like tomatoes in salads. This is not one of those blogs where you have to skip through five paragraphs detailing my family history before getting to the recipe, so let's have a look!

This serves one, adjust ingredient amounts accordingly!

Ingredients

Handful of Iceberg Lettuce
1 Carrot
1 Lebanese Cucumber
Smooth Feta Cheese
Handful of Nuts (cashews, walnuts, etc. You choose!)
Italian Dressing (low-fat if desired)

Equipment needed - cutting board, sharp knife, grater, plastic container or bowl for serving/eating.

Method

1. Shred lettuce and pour into plastic container
2. Cut carrot and cucumber on long slit side of grater. Add to container.
3. Cut 1/4 packet smooth feta cheese into cubes. It will crumble but this is good. Add to container.
4. Roughly chop a handful of nuts and add to container.
5. Toss it to combine, or put on lid and shake it. Remove lid.
6. Add desired amount of Italian Dressing and toss salad.
7. Enjoy!




You can make this quite quickly for a weekday lunch. Or you could serve it with dinner as a side salad. Of course, being a salad, it's totally up to you what you omit, change around or add in. Here are some ideas:

~ use a bag of mixed salad leaves for more variety
~ add halved cherry tomatoes
~ add chopped spring onion
~ add shredded chicken or some ham for a protein hit
~ use tasty cheese instead of fetta
~ experiment with the types of nuts added or omit altogether
~ try French dressing instead of Italian or whatever type you like
~ chopped celery also goes well in this salad

The following shows the salad with the addition of cherry tomatoes...


The possibilities are endless! I hope you enjoyed my go-to Easy Summer Salad recipe. Let me know how you go with it!


Monday, December 26, 2022

Christmas 2022

 


Hi guys! I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas! We went to a local hotel for Christmas lunch with my Dad this year. Great for me, because I didn't have to cook haha. I tried to get a bit more Christmassy this year, but just with decorations around the house, not with baking, after this disaster. Mind you, I never put up any decorations other than the Tree, so I definitely didn't go over-the-top. This was the first year I put lights on the Christmas Tree though, so go me!





Here are some pics from our Christmas Lunch, which was was a set menu.









Another thing we did this year was walk around our local neighbourhood at night checking out the Christmas lights. Here's the best decorated house we saw on our adventures!




And Christmas Day wouldn't be complete without presents! Here's a pic of our 15 year old son's gifts as hubby and I don't usually get each other anything. Can you spot Pumpkin pretending to be a present?




I changed my mind about baking and made some Rocky Road after all. I just couldn't resist! However, part of my melted chocolate seized up again. So disappointed! I honestly don't know what I'm doing wrong (this also happened the last time I attempted to melt chocolate in the microwave). I changed the bowl, spoon, type of chocolate and made sure everything was super dry. The only thing that's different is we bought a new microwave. Anyway I made the Rocky Road with partly seized chocolate and it seemed to work, although it was much harder to mix the ingredients together.

I also bought some meringue nests, whipped some cream, cut up some berries and assembled little fruit meringue nest thingies. The only treat I've made lately that's actually turned out! Probably because of my minimal input haha.





Obviously we watched a couple of Christmas movies, because when else are you going to watch them, if not at Christmas time? I'd like to also watch Die Hard, Bad Santa and How The Grinch Stole Christmas. Here's what we've seen so far...





I hope you all enjoyed Christmas and are having a lovely break!

Monday, December 19, 2022

How To Ruin A Seemingly Idiot-Proof Packet Of Chocolate Muffins

 


Hi guys! I finally got around to some baking on the weekend, and by baking I mean Triple Chocolate Muffins from a White Wings box, lol. I haven't managed to do any Christmas baking yet and not sure I even will, but these muffins satisfied my baking craving, even if I did use a pre-mix packet. {I've edited this after writing it, so everything in italics I've added after my baking sesh. I completely fucked up these muffins, read on to find out how, lol}.




I had half a block of baking milk chocolate left over from something else, so I decided to chop that up and add it in, because three types of chocolate were clearly not enough. Thus creating Quadruple Chocolate Muffins. This was the first 'jazz up'. A difference between muffins and cakes is that you shouldn't overmix a muffin mixture, whereas with cakes you can beat until light and fluffy. I think this is why the packet instructions get you to mix all the wet ingredients together really well first, so you're not tempted to overmix the dry ingredients in. {Surprisingly, no, this is not where I stuffed up.} This recipe used vegetable oil instead of butter which was different, but seemed to work nonetheless.







I ended up with one giant muffin for some reason, which Mr 15 immediately called dibs on, haha. But this one took way longer to cook through in the oven, meaning the others probably overcooked a bit. But I was not about to start removing the smaller muffs from the oven as I'd rather have slightly overcooked muffs than burnt fingers lol. {Guys, I should have taken the muffs out when the 11 were done and sacrificed the one monster muff. Instead, I idiotically left them all in waiting for Andre The Giant to cook through, and ended up with one good biggie and 11 dry, overcooked normies. Oops!}




The other way I jazzed up my now-quadruple chocolate muffins was by melting white chocolate then drizzling it over the top. Thus creating Quintuple Chocolate Muffins haha. Now you have to wait until the muffins are totally cool, like the Fonz (or Danny from Grease) before attempting this, or you will have a melted shitshow of a mess on your hands (and your kitchen bench). I googled how to effectively drizzle melted chocolate and the best way was from a piping bag/plastic bag with the end cut off but fuck that shit. I used a fork and I think it turned out pretty good! {No it did not turn out good. This is a lie! There was no drizzling because the white chocolate went all weird and lumpy and refused to melt properly. So I was forced to think on my feet. I decided to get a butter knife and attempt to ice the lumpy white choc on the top. This did not work and they look pretty bad. I left four of them nude for my son, because he refused to eat the white chocolate and I don't blame him lol}.





{So that's how to completely ruin an idiot-proof packet of triple chocolate muffins. Not gonna lie, this blog post went in a different direction than the one I anticipated. I hope at least you can laugh at my misfortune. And no, I won't be doing any more Christmas baking}.

I hope you all have a Merry Christmas!

Monday, December 12, 2022

Life Lately, in Pictures!

 


Hi guys! Just a super quick post today, as I'm getting busier as we approach Christmas, and don't have much time for blogging. I'm undecided if I should take a blog break over the holidays. We're also having a short holiday in January which further complicates things, so it might actually be best to skip a few Mondays and come back fresh in February 2023. We'll see! Anyway, here's a quick round up of what I've been up to...


Watching





Decorating




Collabs (Nourish'd Kitchen and The Mile End Hotel)







Relaxing



Playing (Candy Crush)



Trialling