T for Tuesday and Smoked Trout, Sweet Potato and Macadamia Salad

Smoked Trout, Sweet Potatoand Macadamia Salad

Saw this recipe of Good Chef Bad Chef last week and knew I had to make it.

Took me all morning to find the smoked trout and white balsamic vinegar LOL, they're not items that are easy to find. I changed it up abit and instead of macadamia nuts I roasted pinenuts. I also boiled the purple kumera I had. I also added finger sized Lebanese cucumber.

The macadamias and the trout help to make this salad exquisitely rich in good oils. Cashews would work just as well as the macas, and flaxseed oil instead of olive oil in the dressing would also be lovely. 

Perfect for Autumn.

Ingredients – salad:

·       1 medium sweet potato, cut into 3-cm chunks                    1 tbsp olive oil

·       1 tsp each of sea salt and cracked black pepper                150 g whole or 2 fillets smoked trout , flaked

·       1 cup whole macadamia nuts, toasted                                  

·       2 large handfuls of baby spinach                                        1 cup mint leaves

·       2 spring onions, thinly sliced

Ingredients – dressing:

·       1 tbsp raw honey                                                                  ¼ cup orange juice

·       1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil                                                    ½ tbsp white balsamic vinegar

·       1 tsp wholegrain or dijon mustard                                       ½ tsp sea salt

·       ½ tsp cracked white pepper                                             

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Method – dressing:

Place all the ingredients in a jar and shake well.

Method – salad

1.     Place the sweet potato on a baking tray, drizzle with the oil and season.

2.     Roast in the oven for about 20 minutes,or until golden.

3.     Allow to cool slightly.

4.     Place the sweet potato in a bowl, add the flaked trout and the other ingredients and gently toss.

Dress and give this beautiful salad a final toss.

- See more at: http://www.visitvineyards.com/food/books-guides-food/wine-food-travel-articles/recipe-janellas-wholefood-kitchen-smoked-trout-sweet-potato-and-macadamia-salad#sthash.KJnYAyyG.dpuf

Here's another shelf of that gorgeous teapot shop on the Gold Coast Hinterland.

Joining Bluebeard and Elisabeth for T for Tuesday

T for Tuesday Belvedere Hotel Redcliffe Queensland

  

 We spent Valentine's Day lunch at the Belvedere Hotel in Redcliffe, one of our favourites haunts. It reminds me of Fiji

Sitting opposite the hotel waiting for it to open, lovely tranquil day, even if the beach was muddy and not a place to sunbake on

 Hubby sitting and relaxing

 Hubby is always goofing around when I take photos, this was our seafood platter for two, forgot to take a photo of the upper layer which had natural oysters.

 How much cutlery do you need for seafood? Obviously this many. Fork, crab cracker, crab scooper, mini fork, knife, I needed them all LOL

My mocktail San Fransisco it was called and consisted of pineapple, orange and red cordial juice. I would not put that much pineapple in if I were making it-made it abit sour. But it looked awesome.

Joining Bluebeard and Elisabeth for T for Tuesday, my drink qualifies for a Mardi Gras colour, doesn't it?

T for Tuesday and Mango and Pineapple Chutney

I came off a midnight shift last night and slept in until 9.30am. Unheard of for me to sleep in that late but good, because I need the rest. I have learnt never to plan anything on my day off after a midnight shift. NO appointments, no meeting with friends, no large cooking days. Having said that we bought some mangoes from a farm up north on the weekend that needed to be cooked so I soldiered on and made these mango and pineapple chutney with Kensington Mangoes. I still have a bowl full of R2E2 mangoes all cut up ready to cook so I will just have lunch and get my second wind and cook them too.

Continuing my showcase of the Tea shop we visited at Mt Tambourine in January. Here is another set of that tiny tea set that is even tinier than the one behind it that I showed before. My finger is there for size comparison.

Joining Bluebeard and Elizabeth for T for Tuesday Meme

I was just listening to radio 612 while I was making my chutney and heard a wonderful programme about decluttering and living simply. They told about not buying anything other than food and necessities like replacing clothes etc, for a year to see how you feel, because I must admit most or some of us buy for comfort. 

Another segment was about giving away one thing a day for a year from your house to declutter, one lady gave it to the thrift store.

I am going to embark on these two above and try and live simply like Rhonda below. Why dont you join me and lets make a promise to ourselves.

I follow a blog of Rhonda Hetzel who lives on the Sunshine Coast who has a wonderful blog called Down To Earth. I am learning towards living simply. 

Christmas Cards All Year Round- February

The February Challenge for 

Christmas Cards All Year Round

is Red and White and shades of these with no other colours.

February Challenge
Enter your card to win a prize

I used StampinUp Cherry Cobbler and vanilla cardstock, and Glimmer Red paper. Impression Obsession Merry Christmas DIE106-S. Jemark Forever Stickers. Very easy simple card to make if you are doing multiples and lots of. Die cut the Merry Christmas die on white cardstock, adhere the glimmer red paper to the back and attach all onto Cherry Cobbler red cardstock. Adhere pearls.

I also made a purple version-well I didn't read the challenge brief too well and made that as a mistake but it turned out well and another version of a Christmas card to create. Take a look at it HERE.

T For Tuesday

On Saturday we went to visit friends and they served up iced tea which was absolutely yummy. I have tried to drink the commercial ones but they aren't so nice. 

I was surprised to see how cloudy it look when I put filtered water into the leaves at and got really worried but it settled down

But as you can see below it settled to a nice colour. The bottle in the middle had been steeped for 12 hours. I put room temperature filtered water. If you want to speed up the process you can put hot water in about 2 inches above the tea leaves then fill it up with cold water.

This is called tea syrup, you use about a quarter of this quantity and filter/strain the liquid so no leaves go into the tea you will be making. If I remember right someone on T Tuesday was making tea like this, was probably our host Elizabeth.

This kind of iced tea is to die for and so refreshing in our humid weather. 

These are the fruity teas that are suitable for my tea syrup, from my favourite shop T2

As promised I am sharing weekly photos of the gorgeous Teashop we visited in Janury, you can see more tea pots HERE and HERE. My finger is in the photo to give you a perspective of how small the teaset is, the whole plate sits on the palm of my hand.

Joining Bluebeard and Elizabeth for T for Tuesday

Purple Red glitter Christmas card

Here's my mistake card when I went to make my Christmas Card All Year Round February Challenge, but as you see no 'mistake' is ever a mistake and turned out really nice. I like making non traditional Christmas card colours. 

Stay tuned for the real version in a different colour.