My Birthday

December 19th, 2009 Filed under: Life, Restaurants, Reviews | Tags: birthday, canterbury university, China Kitchen, chinese, christchurch, Copper Chime, food, graduation, indian, ivy, preschool

Talk about what I did on my birthday; graduation, visit to my old pre-school, great meals.

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Home Grown Snow Peas

February 11th, 2009 Filed under: Life | Tags: flat, food

We got our third pick of the season this week with some great looking snow peas. That means we have grown are own lettuce, mushrooms and snow peas now, with some tomatoes ripening as we speak. Our little vege garden is coming along nicely. The only problem now is we are running out of room. Might have to get off my ass one of these weekends and weed the backyard so we can set up a proper garden back there.

Ivy made a delicious stir fry with the snow peas, some bacon, egg and cabbage. Try not to drool on your keyboard!

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Thumbs Up to Briscoes

January 22nd, 2009 Filed under: Life | Tags: food, shopping

I bought a rice cooker from Briscoes last year. It was cheap, really cheap and I didn’t really think it would last that long. As it turns out, it didn’t. The problem with it is, it has no off switch. You need to unplug it when it isn’t in use. Me being the forgetful bastard that I am, left it on over night and broke it. I looked all over for the receipt, so I could try and take it back but couldn’t find it anywhere. I decided to try anyway and to my surprise Briscoes replaced it no questions. Thanks Briscoes glad to see some companies still have great customer service!

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Mushroom Explosion

January 21st, 2009 Filed under: Life | Tags: food

Just a quick update on the bucket-o-mushrooms we bought the other day. As you can see in the photo these things have doubled in size over the past two days. We are going to have to harvest them tomorrow. We’re planning to use them in enchiladas. Will post a picture tomorrow.

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Bucket-O-Mushrooms

January 20th, 2009 Filed under: Life | Tags: food, markets

On the weekend, Ivy and I went to the Riccarton Markets. They are the biggest weekend markets in town with plants, crafts, food, second hand gear, self importers and even rides for the kids. We had a good look around bought some cherries, peaches, free range eggs, a chocolate mint plant, a rosemary plant, and a bucket of mushrooms. Not a bucket full of mushrooms, but a bucket full of dirt and little mushrooms growing. Cool, I know. It cost us $10 which is about the same price as 1kg of mushrooms from the supermarket. Apparently this bucket will grow around 3kg of mushrooms over the the next 4 to 6 weeks.

Since we got the mushrooms 3 days ago the mushrooms have doubled in size. These things are growing like wild fire!

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Topkapi Turkish Kebab House

January 17th, 2009 Filed under: Restaurants, Reviews | Tags: food, turkish

Just got back from dinner with Ivy at the Topkapi Turkish Kebab House. It didn’t start off to great, after ordering our meals at the counter we went to sit down. While seated the waitress who took our order approached us and asked “You guys are taking away right?” Um, nope. She then tried to tell us that she had already put it through as takeaway and looked at me like ‘you’re going to have to leave’. I told her we have nowhere to eat and asked if she could just bring it to the table. Finally she agreed that we could eat there, but our entree would be cold as it is already wrapped up and can’t be heated up in the container.

When we finally got around to eating the food, I got a Grilled Zucchini Kebab and Ivy got a Lamb Kebab, it wasn’t the best. Not to mention it was overpriced. I did enjoy the atmosphere of the place, but I doubt we will return any time soon.

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Making Gnocchi

January 13th, 2009 Filed under: Life | Tags: food

Ivy and I made some Gnocchi today for dinner. For those not in the know, Gnocchi is a pasta dumpling made from flour, potato and egg. We made ours in a basil pesto sauce, which sounds good, but was not the best.

We used to get a great Gnocchi from an Italian restaurant in Taipei called the Italian Job. They made theirs in a cream sauce, so we will have to try it that way next time.

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