Away from home - Orange

It had been two years since we last had a long break so we decided to take some time out in Orange, 3½ hours drive from Sydney.

Orange has been described as the “food bowl of New South Wales” and, when I started looking for accommodation, I discovered that the Orange F.O.O.D (Food of Orange District) Festival ended a couple of days before we arrived.

With the festival, school holidays and Easter long weekend, finding accommodation with a full kitchen was difficult. The apartment that I booked had a kitchenette with, according to the website, only a microwave for cooking.

I mainly use my microwave for warming frozen meals, so cooking with a microwave was going to be a challenge!

Away from home - Melbourne in 2015

This is a long overdue post about some of the meals we prepared and some of the restaurants and cafés we visited when we were in Melbourne earlier this year.

Quick Congee

Quick and easy to make! Warm and fulfilling on a cold night.

Hubby was away on business so I took the opportunity to cook a childhood favourite, quick congee, or as we called it, quick juk. As kids we preferred the quick juk to the ‘real’ juk, which had amongst its ingredients dried bean curd, water chestnuts and red dates. I still prefer the quick juk. It's a versatile dish—I will cook it for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

Away from Home - Melbourne

Being away from home can be a challenge, especially if you are watching your diet. Eating out every day for every meal can be a strain on both the wallet and the waistline. Recently, Hubby and I spent two weeks in Melbourne. This post describes the meals we prepared in our ‘foreign’ kitchen: our ingredients and our meals. It also describes some of the restaurants we visited.

Chinese Lamb Soup

Can you tell that it's unusually cold in Sydney at the moment? This is my fourth soup recipe in three months!