Hello everyone, welcome to my new food blog- Downunder Kitchen!I live on the outer edges of Melbourne, Australia. Not in the country, exactly, but close enough to it to see the occasional boomer (kangaroo) or fox by the roadside! While growing up in the Great South Land, I was nurtured with lots of good Fair Dinkum Aussie food, with a healthy serving of silly Aussie (and English) humour on the side. I'm a generous soul, so I'd like to share the hilarity with you!
Welcome to my wacky world!!!
Over the coming weeks & months, I'll be sharing classic Aussie tips and recipes... goal number 1 is to show you how to make Vegemite on toast PROPERLY! There is a wrong way, folks!
(Humming) All we are saying... Give Veg. a chance!
I'll also share snippets of Aussie trivia, essential Aussie slang definitions, and silly stories to make you laugh. And hey, if I get clever enough on here, I may even get around to some silly quizzes! I hope you'll like it here. Please jump on board and send me lots of comments and questions!
My Story:
Once upon a time, I was in domestic bliss: baking breads, stewing stews and concocting all kinds of wonderful dishes for my hubby and three little ankle-biters. Then came a nursing degree, subsequent full-time work, and the wonderful challenges of parenting school aged children! And somewhere amongst it all, I lost my enjoyment of cooking. (Sob.)The fun and interest had departed, and I was left with... The Drudgery.
But that all began to change late last year, thanks to three groovy people and a proper kitchen knife!
First up, in November, my darling husband brought home a Jamie's Christmas DVD and persuaded me to attempt a Jamie Oliver-style Christmas feast for his family who were coming over for Christmas Lunch. We both cooked together, produced a delicious spread (including an incredibly moist and yummy turkey), and came through it with a great sense of achievement!
In the planning phase, while I was watching the DVD and madly scrawling the instructions on a notebook, hubby decided it was high time we had a good quality knife. Our new knife (not a Wusthof, by any stretch, but at least a good quality Wiltshire chef's knife) did more for my cooking than anything else to date. After using it for half an hour, I was wondering where it had been all my life! And it brought home the realisation that with good tools and ingredients, cooking can be VERY pleasurable indeed! I've now added a Santoku and a paring knife to my collection... my cooking world is complete! At least until I can get my hands on one of those Kitchen Aid mixers I've got my eye on! And maybe some Le Creuset dutch ovens, aaaahhh!
But anyway, I'm a happy camper!
My other cooking muse was none other than bloggy legend Ree Drummond from The Pioneer Woman. If you haven't checked out her site yet, I urge you, GO!!! You'll love it! But make sure you come back here in 2013 when you're done browsing over there!
P-Dub, as she's called is so much fun. She has some amazing recipes, such as her Chocolate Sheet Cake, BBQ Meatballs and Whiskey Glazed Carrots, which I've joyfully consumed with friends. But don't stop there- she also shares about daily occurrences on their middle-America cattle ranch, records wacky Scarlett O'Hara and Brittney Spears impersonations, and writes a mean romance story! But enough about Ree- we'll save that for her blog!
So that's it! With my hubby's encouragement and knife-purchasing skills, and with regular inspiration from Jamie and Pioneer Woman, I have now returned to a love of cooking. I hope you'll come on the journey with me- we'll get past the Vegemite quickly, I promise!
