Well, I've been pretty slack, it's now 20th July, and I'm only just writing about our fab Mexican night.
Poor old Justin decided not to come up at the 11th hour, as he had a drippy cold, and would have been miserable spluttering and sneezing and generally freezing in our big old house.
So, I went up alone, tried a couple of people for company, but at the last minute, so it was all just a bit hard.
I'd also arranged to be at Terry's around 10am as I was part of the cooking brigade, so that was another complication for company.
The usual suspects were at Terry's - me, June, Arlene and Chris. Terry made us all a welcome coffee, and then we got stuck into it.
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| not sure what June is doing there |
First off the house made chorizos. Terry had specially ordered the skins, but they were too small... We tried coaxing them onto sausage machine spindle, but didn't really work
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| Terry about to put the skin on the sausage maker spindle |
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| closer attention now |
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| even June's finger doesn't fit properly |
We tried putting the skins through water to open them up more
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| and it still doesn't fit |
Of course, we didn't give up, we merely made a skinless variety of chorizo, more like cevapcici
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| wrapped in gladwrap (not skins) |
Meanwhile there was plenty of chopping to be done:- onions, garlic, and my personal favourite many kilos worth of almonds and walnuts for what I mis-remembered as chimpi champi chongo. But what was actually Champandongo. I was closer than I thought. This is basically a Mexican type lasagne. Arlene made up fresh tortillas (I was very impressed by this, no one actually makes tortillas),
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| rectangle tortillas |
and these were layered with a pork/beef/tomato/onion, nut mixture, (pretty much 1/2 meat and 1/2 nuts), cream and mole (Chilli, chocolate etc sauce that Terry had made up earlier).
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| meat and nut mixture |
I was also in charge of slicing up and frying heaps of green tomatoes that Terry still had from his garden. Coated them in corn meal, cumin, salt and pepper
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| My fried green tomatoes |
Chris kept herself very busy too. At one stage stirring two pots at once on the stove
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| Chris and 2 pots |
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| Arlene chopping up some lemon |
Terry made up the Mexican spicy pumpkin pies
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| Mexican pumpkin pies |
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| June having a laugh |
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| Arlene also having a laugh |
Terry also gave us a lovely lunch. Perhaps one of the best lasagnes that I had ever had. It was really delicious, all the proportions were right - meat/sauce/cheese/pasta.
Finished up in the late afternoon,and I drove back to the house. Passed a stationary kangaroo by the side of the road.
Inspected the garden, and was pleased to see a rose in bloom
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one of my iceberg roses that I grew from a cutting
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I wasn't so pleased to see the side fence in a bit of trouble, with one of the posts fallen down
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| let's hope its still up when we come up next |
Read the newspaper in bed until it was time to go. (as I could stay nice and warm in there)
Drove back to the Church for our fabulous Mexican dinner and film night, and sat at a table with Maile, David, Jill, June (who was up from Melbourne), Ron (June's son-in law), Lee, David, Dawn etc. Was rather fun. Shared around my bottle of sparkling red which went down rather well.
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| David, Jill, and Lee |
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| Maile, Dawn, Lee & David |
Started off with the warmed up refried bean bean dip and corn chips. Might sound a bit pedestrian, but was delicious.
Next up the entree was chorizos and fresh salsa with home made bread rolls by Arlene and June
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| chorizos and salsa |
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| home made bread rolls |
Chris went around collecting the money on a plate, was rather ecclesiastical of her
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money collector
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Main was the chimpi champi chongo, which was surprisingly good. The nuts gave it a brilliant taste and texture. It was accompanied by different re-fried beans, a different salsa, and the fried green tomatoes.
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refried beans, fried tomatoes, salsa and chimpi champi chonga
(could have had some red in there) |
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| Jill enjoying herself |
And then we started the film :-Like Water for Chocolate. Terry showed it dubbed in English, which I felt detracted from the film. As the dubbing didn't seem to be very good, and it was distracting hearing the voices, but not seeing them correspond to the mouth movements. Maile hated it, thought it was dreadful. She still had a good night though. Poor old Terry, when he has shown foreign films with subtitles before there were some complaints, and when he shows English versions of foreign films there are also complaints. You just can't please everyone. Also, it had been my choice or at least one of my suggestions, so I obviously felt ownership, and responsible if people didn't like it.
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| Like Water for Chocolate |
And lastly the desserts, Terry's spicy pumpkin pies with caramel sauce and cream, and Jan's 3 Leche (Milk) cake with chocolate chilli sauce - both very scrumptious.
Home after 12, and a very successful and fun night, with delicious food - if I do say so myself
Sunday, by myself and a slowish start, read in bed before getting up for breakfast. Given that it was cold, but sunny had a grilled sandwich outside for breakfast - pretty good
And then got stuck into some weeding - out the front, and in the vegetable garden.
Also had to go and buy some flowers and chocolates for Lizzie. When we were here last time, Tori had accidentally dropped some of her cards out of her wallet in Lizzie's shop. Lizzie found them, and called up Melbourne phone numbers with their surname. Tori was very grateful, and so asked me to
get Lizzie something nice on her behalf
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| gift roses |
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| gift chocolate |
She wasn't at the shop, and neither was Ben, so I had to wait until later
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| Lizzie's shop was closed |
Terry had asked me to lunch last night - given that there were plenty of leftovers, and perhaps to review the evening.
As I said I'd been weeding, and so was in my Winter overalls. I wasn't going to shower and change as I'd probably do more weeding when I returned, and after all we're not too precious in the country.
Got to Terry's around 12.30, and chatted with his brother in law Anton who had been there last night also.
Anton cooked up the chorizos on the BBQ, and Arlene, David and June also joined us. Like an after-party - at lunch time. Felt like part of the "in crowd"
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| Lunch #1 |
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| Lunch #2 |
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| Lunch #3 |
Not a long lunch, but very pleasant, and then back to my weeding. Also tracked Lizzie down, the shop had re-opened, and Ben gave me their address. Lizzie didn't want to accept the flowers and chockies, but I insisted. Also wanted to hide behind them while I took a photo.
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| Lizzie with Tori's gift |
Apart from weeding, I also did a little planting, as I had splurged and bought some berry plants from the IGA
A loganberry, youngberry, and a redcurrant. Hope they have survived the frost...
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| loganberry |
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| youngberry |
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| red currant |
And finally, a very curious occurrence. I saw that we had left a champagne flute on the window sill in the dining room from the previous week. I thought there was a hair or something about 1cm from the top of the glass
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| hair around the top? |
But, it turned out that it was actually a crack, or more accurately broken
No idea how that would have happened. Very strange indeed. Told Justin about it, and his first non serious reaction was "ghosts" (Note the following week we went to Warrnambool with Karen & Mark, and Justin showed me that there was a glass with a similar crack around
the top in the apartment there too. Maybe not as freaky as I thought)
