Rick Stein

 Flipping around the TV channels, we settled on a cooking show of Rick Stein, he was in France.

I forget what he called this dish but it was very simple, although he has his kitchen elf, Valerie do the prep, he just put it together at the end.

It consisted of tomatoes, eggplant and pastry. We had just picked a mountain of cherry tomatoes from our couple of bushes. I love eggplant so a short trip to the shops for pastry and a couple of egg plants and I was all set. Unfortunately I didn't have a Valerie and had to do it all myself although I did ask for help when it came to flipping it over

Tomatoes and eggplant sliced and cooked slowly in the air fryer.

Layered into casserole dish with a sheet of pastry on top.

Then it needed to be upended and served with the pastry on the bottom, quite a strong taste and filling, would have been better with some sour cream on top. Next time.

Purple season

 October brings the Jacaranda out in flower, I almost missed it this year.

After many wet Mondays and having to resort to cafes, last week was a park day with a Jacaranda in the distance. It had almost finished flowering. One of our group, Lesley to the right

Smells of spring

 Walking Lucy the other day we came through an alleyway and the smell was very strong.

Jasmine on one side 

Gardinia on the other, I only took one pic, Lucy was on a mission to get home once she gets into the alley as it's her breakfast time after she gets home.

Shenh hao

 Found a new to us restaurant closer than ones we have been before. Reviews looked good so we decided to try it out.

The decor looked like many places we have visited in China, wooden tables and chairs with plastic table cloths.

Pictures of the food in the window outside, we were excitedly looked at them when the waitress popped out and invited us in. We told her that we were seeing many dishes that we used to eat when we were living in China.

Warren had found his favourite, twice cooked pork, that he used to order several times a week from the school canteen. That's what he ordered, I went for the braised pork.

Mine, big dishes.

Warren's some la there (chilli).

He said it was the same. We couldn't finish it, did have two spring rolls for starters, came home with enough for dinner. Great value for $40.

Robot Waiter

 Last week we visited a Japanese restaurant, it was early for lunch and at first we were the only ones there for ten minutes or so.

As more people came in, their meals were delivered by the robot Waiter.

Front view going out with music, a little like the Mr Whippy van, on the top it had two eyes and they alternated between blinking and every now and then a wink.

Coming back. It came last us and then turned into the kitchen.

Trying to beat the rain.

 Yesterday we drove to Bribie Island to grab some adventures, walk the dog and have a coffee. Nice clear day at home, grey skies when we got there.

Hitched Lucy up and walked south, 300 metres and sign on the path announces that dogs were not admitted any further as it was the start of a national park. We were 250 m from where we needed to go. I went on, on my own, did what was required and back to the car.

It was starting to rain but had to stop to take this picture of "baby" magpie and mama, they were only a couple of metres off the path. Weren't bothered by me at all.

The last two adventure we did from the car with me getting out and walking the last 30 metres or so. People must have been sheltering from the rain as the cafe we usually go to with Lucy was full. Headed home for homemade hot chocolate 

Craft and quilt show

 The last one I went to was about ten or twelve years ago. I didn't want to buy anything or take up a new craft but just wanted to look.

It was an enjoyable day, first was coffee at Rydges hotel because we couldn't find anything else open on a Sunday morning.

Quilts on display were amazing some I liked, some I wasn't that keen on but the time and effort put in was unreal probably double or triple what I was thinking.

The bottom one was in a section of recycled household materials, a city scape using keys from a computer keyboard as the buildings