Swiss Market


I got to celebrate passing my PRINCE2 exam by attending the Swiss market and indulging in a few delicious treats.


It was well attended and there were baked goods, chocolates, sauerkraut, grocery items, crafts, toys and fun band playing some tunes.

I was a bit disappointed there was no raclette, there was a kiwi sausage sizzle with swiss sausages though and we bought some emmental cheese.  I got some swiss chocolate and Kane got a Berliner doughnut and we also bought some birnwegge.  (All of which were eaten the next day before I thought to take pictures of them!)
 

After we had wandered around the stalls inside and outside, we bought some crepes and rivella to enjoy in the sun whilst being entertained by a lively band who appeared to be dressed as wizards.


I am looking forward to one day visiting my good friend Craig who lives in Switzerland :)


Cinco de Mayo


So due to living in the Southern Hemisphere the 30th April is seasonally equivalent to Hallowe'en (although we still celebrate Hallowe'en on 31st October) this makes it a good time to watch horror movies.  Now I'm a total wuss when it comes to actually scary movies so I tend to stick to the safer franchises like Scream, Final Destination, and such like.  After watching Scream 4 and finding it enjoyable we watched I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer. OMG this is a terrible movie! This prompted us to find other low rated movies which lead to Kane finding Pinata Survival Island.  He read the synopsis and it sounded hilarious! Since it is set on Cinco de Mayo and, surprisingly, Fatso.co.nz had the movie I ordered straight away so we could make a night of it.




The movie stars Nicholas Brendon (Xander from Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Jaime Pressly (Joy from My Name is Earl and also Tina in DOA), Nate Richert (Harvey from Sabrina the Teenage Witch) and Garret Wang (Harry Kim from Star Trek: Voyager) - with a cast list like this, how can we go wrong!  The plot of the movie is fairly simple - a group of college kids go to the island for a scavenger hunt, two of them find an ancient pinata filled with demons and evil souls and crack it open, the pinata then starts to hunt and kill them off.

It is not very scary but there is a tiny bit of gore, there are also some really funny parts - most of them I'm not so sure are intentional - like half way through the movie the pinata develops the ability to change into a flying worm like thing, I don't know how .. or why.

To accompany such fine viewing I cooked up a big batch of chilli which we had with refried beans and rice.  I have become paranoid about calling this chilli after that episode of the big bang theory where Sheldon calls Priya's chilli a casserole!


My chilli recipe is:

* a little oil
* 2 x brown onions, sliced
* 1 x clove garlic, crushed and sliced
* 1 x thai chilli, sliced
* diced capsicum (mixed colours)
* frozen mixed veg
* tin of kidney beans
* tin of brown lentils
* large tin of diced tomatoes
* tbsp tomato paste
* few drops of liquid smoke

 Heat the oil in the pan then soften up the onions and garlic
Add the sliced up chilli and capsicum and cook for a few minutes
Add the kidney beans, lentils, tomatoes and frozen mixed veg and give it a stir up
Add the tomato paste and liquid smoke stir it up and leave to cook until everything is soft and hot.  I usually let this simmer away for 20 minutes while the rice is cooking.


Pinterest Cooking: Spicy-Sweet Glazed Shrimp

Friday night saw us heading out in the dark for the rugby game at Eden Park (Blues v Reds).  To supplement the hot chips and beer or wine we normally get there I had a look at my Pinterest Game Day recipes and decided to have a go at making Martha Stewart's Spicy Sweet Glazed Shrimp.

It was very quick and easy to make.  I defrosted some prawns and threaded them onto two skewers - this is to make them easier to turn over without prawns spinning in all directions!


Next, I mixed up the glaze which is a really simple mix of Sriracha and honey.  I've never tried Sriracha before and when I tasted a little bit it was very very spicy to me, less so for Kane - I think his chilli growing has hardened him up to such things!  The recipe calls for 2 tablespoons of Sriracha to one third cup of honey, but I only put in one tablespoon of Sriracha and it was really pleasant.  I will make this mix again to use as a dipping sauce as well as a glaze.  


I cooked the prawns on the grill pan until they started to whiten up and then I flipped them over and cooked them on that side for a few minutes and brushed them with the glaze and flipped them over and cooked them for a few minutes and the glaze started to caramelise.  I brushed the tops with glaze and flipped them over again for a few minutes.


I then brushed on any glaze I had left over, they looked nicely opaque and cooked through so I served them up and they were so yum!  Will definitely make again.





Roadside Bake Sale

Having gone from city living in one country to suburban life in another I'm not always sure which to attribute the little differences to - but I don't think you would see children selling homemade baked goods on the streets in the UK (too dangerous!)



There were 3 youngsters dancing with signs to attract passing cars.  When we walked up to them a woman who was probably at least one of the youngsters Mum explained it was fundraising for their school.


I thought it was pretty enterprising and who doesn't love home baking!

We then walked home munching on tasty biscuits.  I wish they could be there everyday!

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