Birthday Dinner at The Little Snail

James took me out for dinner on my birthday, to The Little Snail at Pyrmont.

This is the dress I bought with my birthday money - $35 down from $129. I'm sick of all my Winter dresses so this will do very nicely. The photo's a bit blurry cause James took it.


I wore it with beige tights, Kate Middleton style, and these grey shoes:

The restarant was really nice.

They had this cool fish tank too.

We drank this delicious "Pink Blush" sparkling wine.

This pate was almost as good as my Mum's.

It turns out escargot are (is?) really tasty! The garlic sauce was the bomb.

James had this extremely tasty kangaroo. I had beef but the photo looked awful; the kangaroo was a bit nicer anyway.

For dessert we both ordered the same thing: creme caramel. It was awesome!

The service was great too. Our waitress was very French and dressed in a classy black top and fitted skirt with cream and black ballet flats, tres chic.

If you like eating yummy food as much as I do, you should go to The Little Snail ASAP. You won't regret it, trust me. Thanks for a delicious dinner James!

Two Little Ducks

Yesterday was my birthday! I spent the morning drawing demand curves for my economics essay. It was pretty awesome, I won't lie. But when I finished I made this tasty birthday lunch of a tuna and cheese open melt.




Then I went shopping with my birthday money and bought a dress and these shoes.

They were $99 but there was a 50% off sale, and since these were the display pair and were a little bit worn they lady knocked them down to $40. Bargain!!

My parents gave me some colourful cheese knives, body scrub, shower gel, this awesome book and a soap dispenser in the shape of a pig!! You can use it for tomato sauce too. Well, instead.

They gave me a leopard print cardi and a black slip too.

I'm also getting a subscription to STYD if I ever get around to ordering it, and an extra surprise that hasn't been delivered yet, I wonder what it is?

And James gave me this ring!

It's less blurry in real life. It's a gold band with 3 sapphires, the two on the sides are a slightly lighter colour than the one in the middle. Between the sapphires are 2 little diamonds on each side. I love it!! Thanks Jimmy if you're reading.

Scavengebeer Hunt

I had my birthday celebrations last weekend! First the girls came over in the afternoon. I wasn't expecting anyone to get me a present but I got these lovely flowers:



And all this- macaron mix, photoframe, goodies from Lush, Coca Cola Lipsmackers, Scrabble teatowel, make-your-own-snowglobe kit, delicious cookies.

Plus this Harry Potter balloon!!

I made this sweet potato fritata which was yummy but way too difficult to make.

I need to find another recipe for this. Anyone got one?

The girls all brought food too, including this lovely chocolate birthday cake.

I think it is a Nigella recipe.


And here is a cracker with my favourite homemade carrot dip, which nobody but me seems to like. More for me!

You just puree a few cooked carrots, mix them with Philly and add a bit of garlic. I add Sambal Olek too for extra deliciousness.


Then we went out for a Scavengebeer Hunt - like a scavenger hunt, but with drinking!

I got SIX BOXES OF OREOS!!!!

We had to solve clues to get to a bunch of different places and drink at each of them. One of them was Carmen's; I never thought I'd see this:

(It's still a hole.)

The girls' team did heaps of extra things for bonus points too, including a photo hugging an old lady, a photo with a fireman, swapping shirts with a stranger, having a drink with a cocktail umbrella in it, and having a drink with an actual umbrella in it:

We were the last to arrive at the final destination but we scored so many bonus points that we won!! Good work girls! Chasing a firetruck down the street really paid off.

Afterwards we went to Rob's (thanks Rob!!) to party down.

Thanks everyone for coming and being so much fun!! And thanks James for organising the whole thing, you are the best.

Date Night at TPH

We had a two-for-one voucher for the Taren Point Hotel, so last week we went there for a dinner date. We both had steak with mash and veggies:

The meat was poor, there was too much sauce, the mash was tasty but so creamy I couldn't finish it all and the veggies were undercooked. What a disappointment. Should've had one of their giant schnitzels like I normally do.


Greedy James ordered these too:

We didn't need them, but they were delicious!

Continuing the thrift, I wore this jacket that has been chillin' in my wardrobe since the last time I wore it, right after I bought it in 2006.

You can't tell here but it's actually dark blue.

I also wore these bedazzled flats, which I bought ages ago for like eight bucks at Target.

Come to think of it, my jeans were from the op shop and my top was five bucks from Miss Shop in the Christmas sales a while ago. How thrifty am I?!

Purchases

I bought these doodahs for about $4. Apparently they pull in your bra straps for when you wear a racerback top. The packaging aso says "add a full cup size instantly", but somehow that seems lke false advertising.



I bought this grey jumper at TEMT (how fancy!) for ten bucks.

From my favourite shop Target I got this pink velvet blazer for $9.86. It looks rather fetching with my pyjama pants, but I don't really know if I like it.

And also for $9.86, this cardigan which is maybe a bit "mature" for me.

These scarves were cheap too. The leopard print one was $8 at K-mart; the sparkly one was from the Forever New outlet at Birkinhead Point, I think it was about $7.

I also got a couple of things at the op shop the other day but I am going to stop buying clothes! And accessories, jewellery, perfume, makeup and sadly also books, as I have no space for any more possessions.

Snippets

James and I went to Port Douglas in July. This is the "after" shot of our bucket-of-prawns lunch on our last day:

It's the only picture we took the whole time, but I feel it is a perfect representation of the trip.

Here's a jumper with voluminous sleeves that I wore the other day:

And some delicious strawberries:

I ate them with about 5 grams of cookies-and-cream ice cream from Aldi. I would've had more but that was all that was left in the tub thanks to a certain sister.

Date Night at Shangri-La

Last week James and I decided to go to this Chinese place he'd been wanting to try for ages, because allegedly it smelled so great. First we went for a pre-dinner drink at The Ritz. I had a vodka, lime and soda and it sucked - the soda was flat! But their toilets had one of those fancy rooms where you can sit on a chair and put on makeup.

When we got to the restaurant it turned out to be one of those hot pot places where you cook your own food. We decided against it because, come on, why would you go out and spend money only to cook your own dinner? We ended up at Shangri-La Chinese Restaurant in the Cazbah, where I used to go when I was little, and it was as awesome as I remembered. I hardly ever eat Chinese but now I don't know why because this stuff rulz.
I had the same thing I always used to get - Lemon Chicken with the sauce separate. Not very authentic but my God, this was delicious.

James ordered this tasty garlic beef:

It was the Greatest Dinner Ever and I am definitely going to be eating more Chinese from now on. And since it seems to be the done thing, here is a picture of what I was wearing while I was eating this amazing dinner:

Don't mind the mark on my jumper, I accidentally knocked over a bottle of water on my desk. Smooth.

Stuff I Did On The Weekend

I decluttered.

I hate to get rid of books but there was just not enough room on my shelves, and a Sweet Valley University Thriller isn't worth the precious space it takes up.

I baked these biscuits from some dough I had left over from the other day.




I melted some chocolate with cream to make a ganache and mixed in a bit of this:




Can you see where this is going? I ended up with these, they were pretty tasty!




I took them to my Aunty's house, where I ate a Fathers' Day Feast consisting of pasta with garlic prawns and the following delicious items:

I gave my Grandad Doris Day's Greatest Hits. Apparently he loves Doris Day, who knew? I gave my Dad the latest Glee CD. Every time Glee's on TV he tells everyone why he loves it so much: because it's entertainment for the whole family and it doesn't rely on offensive or risque storylines that could be inappropriate for kids.

Apart from the teenage pregnancies. And the drugs. And the drinking. And the sex.

In other news it has been really warm for the past few days, not long 'til Summer!

(And in other other news, till is another word for a cash register; 'til is an abbreviation of until. Get it right people.)

Hello, and The Ship's Pizza Secrets Revealed

Hello!

I have decided to start a blog where I will discuss my interests, including, but not limited to: shoes, shopping, thrift, books, eating, cooking, trivia, board games, giraffes and stationery. Probably there will be some Harry Potter as well.

Today my boyfriend gave me these lovely flowers. They came with this crazy rainbow elephant attached! He brought sushi as well, I didn't take a photo though so use your imagination. It was delicious.

In other news I made a delicious homemade pizza for dinner. I have a bunch of pizza-making tricks up my sleeve from working in a pizza shop, so if anyone is reading this, you are about to get the inside scoop.

I used the recipe on the pizza flour box for the dough, I think it was:

• 220 grams pizza flour


• 1 tsp salt


• 1 tsp dried yeast


• 160mL lukewarm water


• 1 tbsp olive oil

Sift the flour and salt into your Kitchenaid bowl. Dissolve the yeast in a small bowl with a little bit of the water, then add the rest of the water to it. Make a well in your big bowl and tip in the yeast/water mixture, then add your oil. At this point I deviated from the recipe - instead of doing whatever complicated stuff the people at the flour company wanted me to do, I just turned on the Kitchenaid for 5 minutes. Then put the bowl in front of the heater with a teatowel over it until the dough is twice its original size.

When you roll out the dough, you have to put it on your pizza tray BEFORE you put the toppings on!!

You can buy special Pizza Sauce, but trust me, what you really want is regular pasta sauce. Spread it right to the edges then sprinkle cheese all over your pizza base. Then chuck on some sliced ham, corn kernels and caramelised onion, or anything you like I guess, and put more cheese on top. Put it in a hot oven 'til it's cooked (ten minutes maybe).

Eat the whole thing.