A Filipino Sari Sari Store in Darwin

A Filipino Sari Sari Store in Darwin. Rapid Creek Sunday Market is one of the several and more popular week end fresh produced market in Darwin Australia. Darwin is the closest major city in Australia to the Philippines, It is located at the northern top most part of Australia. The Asian population is quite significant including a large Filipino community. However similar to my travel around major cities in Australia, I have not found a Filipino restaurant.

I am somehow disappointed despite Darwin’s close proximity and large Pinoy community there is no true Pinoy Restaurant. I was expecting at least there should have been a couple similar to the ones in Perth, Sydney and Melbourne. There is one take away food stall called Fresh Cuisine in Hibiscus Shoppingtowh, where you can order on menu Pinoy food for dine in or take away, I will do a separate post for this one.

The Rapid Creek Sunday Market is held every Sunday at the Rapid Creek Shopping Centre on Trower Road. The place is jam-packed with stalls offering vegetable, fruits and other local produce indigenous to Asian the likes of Indonesian, Vietnam, Thailand and The Philippines. Prices are generally cheap. There are also food stalls selling all types of food and drinks including Curries, Laksa, Chinese stir-fry, noodles, fresh fruit juices, Smoothies, Coffee, and fried snacks.

To most Pinoy in Darwin who visit the place, it is the time to buy the week’s supply of Pinoy vegetables like kangkong, okra, talong, sitaw ect. It is also the time to visit the Asian Sari Sari Store for Pinoy grocery and a change to send money back home. At this time of the week Asian Sari Sari Store’s take away food stall comes alive with the selection of Popular Pinoy food like Hamonadong Pork Pata, Dinuguan, Lechon Paksiw, Sisig, Kaldereta, Pansit and Lumping Shanghai. Just be there early because it sell out fast.

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Delicious Makes magazine: review

Have you ever come across those hobby magazines where you get a free gift with every issue, that builds up to create something - like a ship in a bottle, or a model of a Spitfighter? The first issue is usually 99p, the second is £1.99 and before you know it, you are paying six or seven quid per issue as you need every single part to build your model once you have started.



Well, in the past few years I've noticed an upsurge in these partwork magazines but in the genre of baking and cake decorating. The best thing is, as well as getting a free gift with every issue, you don't need to buy every single one or you can't finish your project - you can dip in and out as you like.



At the train station a week or so ago I spotted a new one called Delicious Makes. It came with a magazine, a pink plastic cake stand for an individual cupcake, a pack of decorative ribbon and some cardboard doilies - and all for just 99p.

The magazine is actually a mix of recipes and crafts, mainly ways to present and decorate your bakes, which I think is a nice idea and makes it stand out a bit from other baking magazines. The recipes themselves didn't blow me away however. The tiramisu Charlotte on the front cover is great, but the creme pat and raspberry tartlets and cornets filled with chocolate truffle aren't things I am likely to make. The recipe for the party layer cake is a bit disappointing in my opinion, as it's essentially a plain sponge cake decorated with raspberries. The crafts are interesting; there are instructions for making bunting to decorate a cake, pom poms made from tissue paper (not particularly appealing to me personally), a suggestion for tying ribbons around mini loaf cakes and a couple of other ideas.



The magazine is quite slim and isn't brilliant but it does have some nice ideas, I really like the little cake stand that comes with it and for 99p you can't really go wrong!



The next issue looks like it comes with a cake tin and a rubber cookie stamp so I will keep my eye out for it.

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Meal Planning Monday 2014- week 37

Lack of internet access at home (it's taking two weeks to install as we've moved) and lack of access to my blog at work means I have been a bit quiet on the blogging front lately! I didn't want to miss a week for the meal plan but I must apologise for the scrappy nature of this post as I am writing this on my phone!



Monday

I'm at a choir rehearsal so taking a sandwich and have bought my boyfriend a pizza



Tuesday

Chicken with a new kind of Mexican sauce I bought



Wednesday

Spaghetti bolognese



Thursday

I'm off work decorating and supervising the men doing our new floor

Lunch - leftover spaghetti bolognese

Dinner - Chesapeke fish for me, beef burger for the other half



Friday- off work as yesterday

Lunch - TBA

Dinner - I'm going up to London for a friend's birthday drinks so probably need to eat dinner before my boyfriend gets home from work so I might have pasta and he can cook himself something with chips



Saturday

Brunch - bacon sandwich

Dinner - at a wedding



Sunday

TBA

Back on the redecorating!



Hopefully normal service in terms if planning meals, cooking and generally blogging will be resumed next week!

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Butterfly Tea Birthday Card

I like this pretty, girly birthday card. I had some printed backing papers with pictures of cake and afternoon tea, and cut out a rectangle slightly smaller than the card I was mounting it on. I added an outline edging sticker around each side to make a frame, and then two 3D butterfly stickers - the wings lift up and stand out from the card- in two corners. Finally a 'happy birthday' outline sticker and the card is complete.

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Meal Planning Monday 2014 - Week 36

Very rough this week as we have just moved into our new house, are in the middle of redecorating and haven't got internet access, so I'm doing this on my phone!

Monday-

I'm at a choir rehearsal so my boyfriend will go to his mum's



Tuesday

Out at an iPhone photography lesson, goodness knows I need it!



Wednesday

Spaghetti bolognese



Thursday

I have to work late tonight so won't be home for dinner



Friday

garlic and herb chicken with mashed potato



Saturday

lunch- bacon sandwich for him, maybe macaroni cheese on toast for me

dinner - will be redecorating so something quick TBA



Sunday

lunch- still planning to be decorating so will grab something easy TBA

dinner- toad in the hole

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My Front Door and My New Life

My boyfriend and I have spent the last six months trying to buy a house. I say trying, because everything that could go wrong, did go wrong - between the vendors and our solicitor who equally appeared to dither, delay, they said they had sent things when they hadn't, and right before we exchanged it seemed like the vendors might have changed their minds (and on the day of completion, our solicitor got their bank details wrong so the money nearly didn't go through). That's not to mention the fact that the vendors drew out the process so much that our mortgage offer actually expired and we only secured an extension at the last minute.



Still, we persevered and had to push through the sale of my house, and ended up moving in with my boyfriend's mum for three weeks until our vendors were willing to complete on their sale. Everything went into storage - several times when I wanted to cook something, I realised the pan I needed was over at Big Yellow and it wasn't worth the trip to go and get it (not that I knew exactly which box it was in anyway!).



Finally we were able to move into our new house, which really is my dream home. It has four bedrooms, a double garage and is in a private mews road which has no through traffic so is perfect for my cat! Best of all though is the kitchen - a huge open plan area, with a modern induction hob, room for an American-style fridge-freezer (which we are going to order!), space for a dining table and there's a built-in a breakfast bar, where my boyfriend can sit and chat as I cook. The utility room just off the kitchen has more cupboards and will be the perfect place to store my baking and cake decorating equipment. I feel like the last six months have been a real slog, but worth it!



The vendors left the house in quite a state - every wall had holes and marks from pictures that had hung there for years, and we discovered that in some of the bedrooms, they had only carpeted as far as the furniture, so now they had taken the wardrobes, there are now huge sections of floor with no carpet and only grotty floorboards. So that's more money we have to spend.... but it does mean we can decorate the house how we want. We've only been there two days and we have already painted half our bedroom - it made sense to redecorate before we really unpacked.



One of the first things we did was change the front door locks of course - you never know who has keys - and bought a Yale lock from B&Q which was really easy to fit and only cost about £10. So we have security and peace of mind, even if we haven't unpacked yet.

So my front door - my brand new front door, to a house I have only lived in for two days - represents a whole new life for me and my boyfriend. It's our first home together, and has enough bedrooms that we can welcome friends and family to stay - and there is plenty of room if we decide to start a family of our own. My front door is really important to me, as it's a symbol of what I have worked so hard for and wanted for so long. At least, it will be once we have replaced the door, as I'm not keen on the stained-glass effect front - or the doorbell that plays the Lone Ranger theme tune!


This is my entry to the Yale Door blogging competition.

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Cute Kitten Birthday Card

Here's a cute birthday card I made for a female friend, using a piece of pretty pink backing paper and some raised puffy stickers of a cat and some flowers. I also added a 'birthday wishes' sticker that has pink wording on a clear background.

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