Christmas Lunch

Here's Lindsay and Simon having a laugh while Miriam looks on.

Liz and Jess have a quiet sip of beer!

Laur and Claire wondering if they'll have a second helping!

Christmas Snaps!

Here's all the Bunowang gang! Thanks Simon for taking the picture! Cathy and Geoff who hasn't long gotten off the plane from Barcelona!

Look how Miriam is so interested in Danielle's information!

Elizabeth and Danielle. Matching hats!

Elizabeth and Miriam enjoy a Chrissy moment!

Here's Aunty Margaret and David and Geoff.

Marky and Miriam.

Miriam likes her new camera. Can't wait to see the pics she took.

Cucina

Here we are at a nice new place at Coorparoo - Ave Cucina for brekky. I had a wrap of bacon, egg, and mushroom. It was so yummy!

Our herbs are doing well. We pick a big bunch of fresh ones and chop them with some sauteed garlic and tomato and toss with spaghetti. Here's a bit of sage.

Goldband snapper with orange sauce

Just love goldband snapper. So sweet and tender. Goes well with orange butter sauce.

This is super easy sauce. Squeeze two valencia oranges - these are more tart than navels - then add white wine, white wine vinegar and a sprig of thyme. Simmer in saucepan until there is just a little left and whisk in 50g of unsalted butter. We get our snapper from Fish Factory at Colmslie. It is best grilled. Brush the top with a little butter and sprinkle with sea salt and cracked pepper. For the veg, we had snow peas from garden, desiree spuds and carrot. Pretty damn good and not expensive.

Fig Tree Fun

treattrackers' shopping from Fig Tree Deli at Camp Hill - a beautiful little box of Gingerbread Babies from Perrymans of South Australia and som Mamma Marilena Nut Bread. Can't wait to try these after they have been photographed for Go Fossicking.

Our Saturday morning breakfast at Fig Tree Deli at Camp Hill was nice. Liz had the BLAT - bacon, letttuce, avocado and tomato and Danielle liked her chorizo sausage and eggs in a tasty tomato sauce. She also couldn't resist the tiny chocolate cupcake which was delicious.

Mark loved the eggs benedict and Amy had beautiful avocado on toast. The deli has a nice homely atmosphere and a great range on the shelves.

Michelton Magic

treattrackers have two nice new friends, Sarah and Julia. They're fellow food bloggers and there's is called iatebrisbane. Sarah served us the most beautiful simple lunch when we visited - freshly baked no knead rye bread with home-grown tomatoes, dukkah, and balsamic vinegar and olive oil. It was delicious.

We went to see Sarah and Darren's suburban backyard at Michelton. They grow most of their own vegies and have their own chooks. It is amazing to see how much one family can do in a normal backyard.

David's doing an article on eating throughout the four seasons in Brisbane, and Sarah's garden is perfect because she's also a fabulous cook. They have everything here, and hubby Darren likes the idea of random planting. It confuses the pests. They use no chemicals and have 'sacrificial plants'. These they let the pests damage on purpose so that they leave other ones alone.

Everything in the garden looks so healthy and interesting. Sarah loves to potter around with her toddler in tow. It gets the young Mum out of the house and into the yard and they love adding their produce to their family meals.

Vinaigrette Versatility

Black Pearl Epicure has some new products they're distributing. We visited them yesterday and our job is to try these beautiful looking vinaigrettes from Pendleton fine foods. Our salads should be fabulous until we run out of this great stuff!

Meat Treat

Here's two nice boys - a butcher and chef. They're from Super Butcher and they put on a great night for the food bloggers' dinner.

Super Butcher hosted an unusual dinner for food bloggers last night - dinner in the back of their huge shop at Eagle Farm. Decorating our dining area were some huge sides of aged beef and we were treated to a butchering demonstration by one of the company's young butchers. Here's Andrew the proprietor of the company. He's a great speaker and the beef we tried was very tasty.

More Holiday Treats

Amy liked her present from Yamba - a bottle of tomato and red capsicum relish from Cunliffe Waters. We've tried lots of their products and what a coincidence - they were staying in the flat next to us at Seascape at Yamba. We had a few chats and they're lovely people.

We always stop at Macadamia Nut Castle to break up our long drive to Yamba. Here I am with a packet of hickory roasted and one of chocolate coated.

Another break in our trip to Yamba is at Utopia cafe at Bangalow. What a wonderful array of fresh and beautiful food. We had brunch - a roast beetroot salad and a serve of fishcakes.

Our view of Convent Beach from our balcony at Seascape Apartments at Yamba. David went swimming morning and evening but it was a bit cool for me. I liked the long walks!

Yamba Treats

treattrrackers have just had another lovely week's holiday in Yamba. We liked the new Italian restaurant. They have a wonderful wood-fired pizza oven and the pizzas taste great as does everything else we tried.

Our favourite breakfast and lunch cafe in Yamba is Beachwood. Here's the beautiful Sevtap. She cooks an amazing menu in her little kitchen and she just loves her work!
One morning David had the baked tomatoes.

We also made some of our own lunches at our flat. Here's a nice avocado on toast topped with some prawns. Yum!

Every morning at Beachwood, I would have the beautiful bircher muesli topped with nicely presented fresh fruit. Then I'd try some of David's scrambled eggs with feta and bacon. We'd swap so as he could have a healthy hit too.

Here's our view for a week - Convent Beach at Yamba. We saw dolphins and whales and so many birds.

Saturday Kick-Start

We had a cheery breakfast again at brother espresso on Riding Road.
Our favourite toast topper is the marinated vegetables and feta.

treattrackers latest recruit is Aaron. He likes to kick-start his Saturday with a straight black espresso and he loves the sonoma muesli with Greek yoghurt.

David likes another one of his fathers' day presents - his 'Ministry of Silly Walks' t-shirt.

Sunday Events

The gang came over for fathers' day dinner. David was very pleased with his pasta machine and egg records voucher. Yet to try out the machine, but we'll let you know how it goes!

We tried a friendly new place around the corner in Riding Road called 'our haus'. It is nicely set up and the coffee is great!

Pearl Saturday.

Amy and I liked the homemade baked beans with a beautiful cheesy toast with herbs. (Uh oh, the red-eye edit still looks a bit weird!)

Back at our old favourite cafe Pearl at Woolloongabba. Elizabeth had the apple muffin and Danielle loved the caramel cheesecake (for breakfast)! It was so crowded this morning with everyone out for the warmer weather.

Mark loved the french toast and strawberries and marscapone. Doesn't that look beautiful!

David had a poached duck egg with some gourmet sausage. Said it was lovely!

School Garden

Our Year 2 class is aiming for a pasta sauce garden at school. Here's our tomato plants growing on the beautiful north facing balcony outside our classroom. We've planted parsley, basil, spring oinions, zucchinis and lots of other goodies in our garden bed, we're measuring growth in centimetres, and keeping a diary. Hopefully, we will have a pasta sauce at some stage!

Noosa Weekend

Noosa Food and Wine Festival was so much fun. What a beautiful spot for the launch of the new Masterchef magazine at Berardos Restaurant on the beach. I had to get a snap with Matt Moran.

Here's I am with Matt Preston who won the chefs' challenge at the festival helped by our lovely friend, Wendy. Matt was so nice and friendly.

We met Mary Mooney from Yarra Valley Dairy at Yering in Victoria. Here she is with Babak the lovely proprietor of Black Pearl Epicure and David on the right. Mary's new marinated feta is so yummy!

More Treats

We've been meeting some nice new people with David sometimes writing an instalment of Home Cook in the Courier Mail. Here's John Beasley from Beenleigh with some beautiful smoked chorizo sausages. Check out his smoker in the background - an old washing machine with a big pipe delivering the smoke from his smoking woodchips below. It works beautifully and we loved the salmon too! Here's another great story from David about finger limes http://www.couriermail.com.au/lifestyle/food-wine/ian-douglas-has-his-fingers-on-the-pulse-of-the-latest-native-food-fad/story-e6frer4x-1225850226015



My Year Two's love our new science topic - Schoolyard Safari. We snapped this plover checking out some new spots for her next nest. We were amazed at the number of live creatures we found in our beautiful playground.
I was lucky on my last trip to Tasmania to find Margaret Fulton's Cookbook at the Penguin markets. Here's my first dessert - Tarte au Pommes. Very grand name for apple tart! It's a nice recipe.

We love bush orchids that flower every April in our backyard. We tied them to our palm trees 12 years ago and they multiply every year.

Here's the Cottage Garden Nursery cafe at East Brisbane. I had an amazing mushroom ragout there last Sunday morning for breakfast. Chris Einem, the lovely proprietor of the cafe is planning to move to a nice premises next door to start up his new cafe Egg Bistro. Can't wait to see how it turns out.