Sept 30 - Indulgence & A New Kitchen Toy

  My scumbag brain woke me up at 7:30am this morning (normal weekday time), after a mere four hours sleep.  I told it to go back to sleep and re-woke at nine.  I was expecting Miss Mischief at ten for our walk and picnic so I got up, made myself presentable and made a good energy sustaining brekkie of muesli, yoghurt, sliced banana, slivered almonds and pumpkin seeds.
  After that I set about assembling the picnic.  Picnic food always has to be portable and relatively resilient to knocks and bumps if you are going to carry it with you.  I had made up a curried egg sandwich filling yesterday so that got turned into two curried egg and lettuce sandwiches on Bürgen Wholemeal & Seeds Bread (one for me and one for Miss Mischief).  I also had on hand a 200g tub of Yumi's Creamed Beetroot Dip.  I was surprised to find how low in calories it was, comparable at least to the Eggplant Dip.  I cut up a variety of veggie sticks for us to dip in it and put them in a plastic screw-top container.  I also added just one dried peach half each as something healthy but sweet to round out the meal with.
  Miss Mischief was a little delayed due to an error on the Metlink website pertaining to Sunday bus timetables but arrived just on 11am.  With the picnic packed and in the boot, we set off for Jells Park.  We parked at the far car park on the southern side and began a lap of the lake.  There were all kinds of wildflowers and animals about, swamp hens, moor hens, ducks, parrots, wrens, pelicans, and even frogs (heard but not seen).  Jells Park is always a pleasure, a little corner of tranquil bushland hedged in by suburbia.

  As we came out of our first lap, the clouds became ominous.  We'd already walked 40 minutes and it was another 10 back to the sheltered picnic tables near the car so as it began to rain on us we decided a second lap would have to wait until next week.  We weren't dampened too much and were able to happily sit and admire the scenery with our meal.  Then, with exercise done and tummies happy, I took Miss Mischief home then headed back to my place to take care of the dry laundry and assemble things required for my next trip out for the day.
  All week, since I saw the special in the Woolies catalogue, I have been assembling a present for Bertie.  The special was 'buy three Nestle baking products, get a free baking cook book'.  Bertie uses Nestle Melts for her delicious array of fudges so I bought three packets of white chocolate, three of milk and three of dark.  That did in fact net me three free cook books so there was one for Bertie, one for me and one for Masterchef too!
  I headed down to Bertie's place with aforementioned goodies.  She was delighted.  A little bit of food porn is always appreciated and baking is definitely her specialty.  She insisted on repaying the kindness with a treat so a batch of triple-choc brownies was whipped up in no time and I indulged my sweet tooth with warm squidgy brownie.  She even made sure I got all-edge pieces, I like the chewiness of them.  Tricky is with me on that front and he polished off all of the rest of the edgy bits prompting screams of disbelief from Bertie of "How are you not fat!?"  If any of you think of yourselves as having a sweet tooth, you have nothing on Tricky.  He paused halfway through a block of Cadbury Dairy Milk to eat those brownies.

  My visit was a relatively quick one, an hour or so including a quick trip to the local large scale pet store to pick up some new wood shaving bedding for GoGo.  I saw my nephew, but he didn't see me.  The poor little tyke got tired out today and was fast asleep on his mini couch in front of the Looney Tunes.  On my way home I stopped at Coles to grab a packet of frozen sweet potato fries.  I was ready at last to test my new kitchen gadget, the Philips AirFryer!

  It's quite a bulky little appliance.  It reminds me of a Buddha in its solid comforting weightiness.  It could have coped with the entire 450g bag of sweet potato fries but I opted to do just a small portion for my own immediate testing and appetite requirements.  I find that sweet potato chips, when I've tried oven-baking them in the past, tend to go a bit soggy or a bit chewy.  But these one... they were good, they were very good.
Crisp, crunchy and salty-sweet.
  Next I tried a 100g piece of pork fillet rolled in panko breadcrumbs and a little spray canola oil.  A mere ten minutes and I had a succulent crispy coated pork schnitzel served with steamed broccoli, corn, peas and green beans.  I am definitely calling this device a winner.  At recommended retail price of $329 it is a bit over the top but I got mine for $197 on special at Target.  Still expensive, but I can see a lot of things this is going to make easier and healthier for me.
  It comes with a recipe book, which is also available online and this week I am going to try two recipes from it.  First the Salmon Croquettes and then later in the week, the Spicy Drumsticks with Barbecue Marinade.  There are a lot of ideas on the web for uses for it too.  One lady has made low fat fried wontons with it using gow gee wrappers!  I'm looking forward to playing around with it more.  Cleaning it might become a bit tiresome, but as bulky as they are, the two cooking components have been designed to be dishwasher safe so it shouldn't be too bad.
  That was about it for today.  I did spend some time idly chatting to Earnest tonight and meandered about procrastinating the blog.  I was not sure how I felt about the brownie to be honest and I have felt rather distracted by other matters most of the evening.  I'm still not sure how I feel about the brownie.  I enjoyed it for sure!  But could I have gone without it?  Certainly!  Do I wish I had gone without it?  Not so sure on that count.  Ah well, I have done my planner for the week and I guess it is just a matter of continuing to get back on the wagon.  Have a good week all.
  Jess