Pork chops on a Friday night and holidays!
I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned that Jac and I will be going away on holiday from the 22nd of December. We’ll be flying out to Sydney, staying a couple of days with her brother and then heading up the coast to stay with friends of ours (remember our English mates L and D who stayed with us ages ago? They’ve now settled in a little town on the NSW coast) for Christmas and New Year, and then we’ll be back for a couple of days in Sydney again before flying back home to Perth on the 4th of January.
We’ll be catching up with one of Jac’s aunties and her family on the day we arrive, which should be nice. Jac’s aunties are all really lovely. I’m hoping to catch up with my sister who lives in Sydney towards the end of our holiday (she’ll be in Perth for Christmas!). I’m also hoping to catch up with E, who kindly sent me a list of yummy places to eat in Sydney. I hope we’ll have the chance to try at least a couple of the places while we’re there. If any of you guys have any suggestions feel free to let me know!
While we’re away, my sister Juji and her boyfriend Jay will be house-sitting for us again. On Friday night, we had them over for dinner so we could go through a few housey things – though not much has changed since the last time – and also just have a catch-up.
Jac cooked pork chops. They were nice big meaty ones, and quite lean. She browned them in the pan and finished them off in the oven.
We also had baked corn on the cob (baked in the oven with the pork chops).
Jac also made a salad. I let everyone else have the avocado, as I don’t like it in salads.
Jac also made crispy baked potatoes. Here’s my plate, before I grabbed salad.
And now, my plate with pork chop, baked potatoes, corn, salad and a blob of aioli.
Juji loves her corn smothered in butter. I find if the corn is sweet enough I don’t need anything else with it.
Jac merely seasoned the pork chops with salt and pepper before cooking. I had mine with a little smokey barbecue sauce, but really, the porky flavour was so good I didn’t really need any sauce at all.
For dessert, I’d made brownies. Due to lack of time I cheated and used a White Wings brownie mix. We served the brownies with chocolate sauce and ice cream. We made the chocolate sauce using the chocolate icing mix from the box by adding half a cup of thickened cream and heating it in a pan on the stove.
Juji and Jay had brought over some Christmas baked goodies.
Juji had made chocolate cheesecake slice and almond raspberry jam slice. Both were lovely, but I think the chocolate cheesecake slice was my favourite.
In fact, I might have a little something sweet shortly!
Jac’s been packing for some time – we’re now at the “editing” stage. We’ve stocked up on cat food and litter, and favourite food items of J and J, such as bacon, bacon and more bacon. :) I have stocked up on my medication for travelling – I get physically very sick when I’m flying and can’t fly without anti-spew drugs. We’re talking the need for multiple spew bags here. (That’s enough about that!) The house needs a good clean before we leave, and my study looks like a rubbish tip. I’m supposed to be cleaning it today. Jac’s in town at the moment finishing off her Christmas shopping. I finished mine yesterday and have all the gifts wrapped and ready to go.
Back to planning for the holiday: I’ll be bringing 10GB worth of memory cards with me so I can take photos to my heart’s content (I don’t think I’ll use them all, but I just don’t want to worry about running out of memory card space). I’m not sure if I will be able to post for the couple of weeks that I’m away, so I hope you can be patient. I should be able to check emails every now and then.
If you’d like to be informed when I’m back and posting again, please leave a comment below. So that I’m not spamming anyone, please specifically say you’d like to be updated when I return from holidays. If you fill your email address where required on the comment form, it is visible only to me and I will only use it to send you an email alert when I return from holidays or to let you know if I manage to post while I’m away. I’ll take photos of lunches and dinners as usual this week, but whether I get a chance to post during the week before we leave is another story… I’ll try! Maybe Juji will be willing to be a guest food poster here while I’m away. I have another week off work when we return, so there’ll be plenty of time for me to tell you all about our holiday when I get back.
We fly out early morning on the 22nd Dec. I’m scrambling to get everything (house, work) ready before we leave, and for a while it was getting me really cranky. But now I’m starting to feel quite excited. I have new Billabong board shorts which I think look great, and new undies to wear on holiday!
I’ve loved taking photos and writing up our holidays previously, and I can’t wait to get started.
EDIT: That’s five photos of pork chops in one post! How very porky!