Eat, sleep, work, repeat – repeat

For the past few months, my life’s been mostly about work. Weekends have been precious time for recovery, although occasionally the work has spilled over into the weekends too.

We’ve also been busy with the newest member of our family, chocolate Burmese kitten Ava, who is just adorable. If you’re interested, you can see Ava (and Truffle and Elvis) at TFP Cats on Facebook and Instagram.

I haven’t really been out much, apart from occasional Pokemon walks with Jac (we both walk, it’s just me who catches Pokemon), and trips to Chicken Rice Corner – I love their chicken rice and am hopelessly addicted to their weekend special curry laksa.

To be honest, I haven’t really missed dining out these past few months, as Jac’s been cooking delicious meals at home.

Bacon and eggs with a mug of tea. On weekends, sometimes eaten at the table, sometimes on a TV tray in bed.

Now that the cold weather’s arrived, we’ve been enjoying more noodle soups at home for dinner, like this delicious broth made with chicken and pork stock, with garlic, spring onions and a touch of Chinese five spice. In the soup: rice noodles, green veggies, bean sprouts, carrot, fish cake, and the last shreds of a supermarket BBQ chook. I love noodle soup and would happily eat it every week, if not multiple times a week.

One of Jac’s brothers went on a fishing trip up North with a group of mates recently. He didn’t want to take his catch home with him to Sydney – I don’t know why but I’m not complaining! It was eagerly shared among the family, and Jac and I scored some snapper and yellow fin tuna. She baked the snapper wrapped in foil with Asian-style flavours – ginger, garlic, soy, spring onions and sesame oil – and served it with jasmine rice and steamed Chinese greens in oyster sauce.

Baked snapper Asian-style with ginger and soy, with steamed Chinese greens.

One of our favourite dishes from our 2014 holiday in Hawaii was ahi poke – marinated cubes of raw yellow fin tuna, sometimes served with tapioca and sweet potato crisps. As soon as she saw the beautiful yellow fin tuna from her brother’s fishing trip, Jac knew she had to make ahi poke. There was enough tuna for four, so we invited my sister Juji and her hubby Jay for a Hawaiian-themed dinner. Ahi poke to start, followed by huli huli chicken (similar to teriyaki chicken) with mac (macaroni) salad and steamed rice. This is a brilliant combo – I would not hesitate to repeat this exact meal any time! I especially love huli huli chicken.

Our Hawaiian dinner recipes
Jac used recipes from the internet:
Ahi poke
Huli huli chicken
Hawaiian mac salad

Ahi poke, served with red tapioca chips (we bought the chips).

Huli huli chicken – made for sticky-sweet finger licking! Jac chopped full-sized chicken wings into three. The raw wing tips went to the cats. Crunching on raw wings is good for their teeth.

Mac salad – up close

We had friends over for afternoon tea a few weekends ago. Jac tried a recipe called ‘When Pigs Fly’, made using using SPAM Hot and Spicy. They were delicious savoury crispy balls that reminded me of arancini, made with grated SPAM Hot and Spicy, cooked rice and cheese, with an outer coating of panko breadcrumbs, finely chopped pecans, parsley and Cajun seasoning, served with a cooling tangy ranch dip. Confession: our guests knew the spicy balls had pork in them, but had no idea it was SPAM – and they really enjoyed them!

We also served up the last of the huli huli chicken wings, corn chips (Jac bought a packet of a newish flavour called After Dark Southern Fried Chicken – I don’t think they tasted like fried chicken, but they were extremely moreish), Dutch mini pancakes (I blogged about these years ago – they’re called poffertjes), and peanut crisp cookies (sorry, no recipe) and lemon cupcakes, which Jac baked.

Our afternoon tea recipes
Again, recipes from the internet:
When Pigs Fly – SPAM bites
Lemon cupcakes with lemon icing
Little Dutch pancakes (poffertjes)

When Pigs Fly – SPAM Bites and huli huli chicken wings.

Jac baked the lemon cupcakes, which I helped ice and sprinkled with grated lemon zest. The fresh lemony hit from the zest made a real difference.

We dug up our old poffertjes maker which has been stored in a cupboard in the garage, and Jac found a recipe for poffertjes batter online. Our friends’ kids, aged 5 and 9, really enjoyed the pofferjes (most kids do – I think it’s the ‘mini’ appeal). We dusted the poffertjes with icing sugar. I drowned mine in maple syrup.

We hosted breakfast with friends at our place on the recent long weekend. Jac cooked the creamy mushrooms (a French-style dish she made up with four types of mushrooms, cream and sherry – no recipe), toast, bacon and Scottish sausage – another new recipe she tried for the first time. I scrambled the eggs, which came from our chooks. The Scottish square sliced sausage (not quite square – dictated by the dimensions of the dish Jac shaped it in) was a fantastic addition to our fry-up. I told her she’s welcome to make it again any time.

Bacon, scrambled eggs, creamy mushrooms, Scottish sausage and buttered toast. Our free range chooks’ yolks are vividly yellow, as you can see.

As mentioned, we’ve been to Chicken Rice Corner in Canning Vale a bit lately. I love their food, which is comforting, delicious and great value ($6.50 for chicken rice, $6.50 for laksa – that’s super cheap by Perth standards). Only annoying thing is they’ve changed their opening hours a few times but haven’t updated their Facebook page (their current opening time on weekends is 10am). They have, however, mentioned that they’ll be opening up a second location soon. Don’t know where yet.
Update: Two readers have (separately) told me that the second Chicken Rice Corner outlet will be at Allendale Square in the Perth CBD. All will be revealed at Chicken Rice Corner’s Facebook page later this week.

Roast chicken rice


I can’t get enough of Chicken Rice Corner’s laksa and it seems I’m not the only one who’s hooked. It’s immensely popular – we made the mistake of going post-1.30pm on a Sunday and they had sold out by then. The broth is just the right level of spicy and it has every thing I like in curry laksa – egg noodles, shredded chicken, tofu puffs and fish cake.

Unfortunately, there seems to be no end in sight to the crazy workload. You have no idea how much I am looking forward to my next holiday, coming up in late July – a road trip and winter break with Jac. I’ll tell you guys more closer to the time.

In the meantime, I’ll keep my sanity with life’s simple pleasures – comforting meals, cat cuddles and Pokemon games.

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