I’m not going into details at present, but it’s been a challenging week juggling thesis, job applications, Jac’s gall bladder* and my grandma back in hospital. Next week will be even more challenging, but I can’t go into details right now.
Last Thursday night, we had another grilled fish and salad meal. Here’s the big bowl of salad, which included more of our homegrown grape tomatoes.
Jac boiled up a batch of small potatoes (they weren’t new potatoes, just small potatoes).
The barramundi fillets were just beautiful. Definitely our favourite fish out of all the fish we’ve eaten recently. In addition to my fish, potatoes and salad, I also had a few sliced dill pickles. Yum.
The barramundi was amazing – it was just beautifully flaky. I ate the skin too – I really like eating cooked fish skin. Jac and VR left their fish skin on their plates. I ate Jac’s fish skin but felt a little bashful asking VR if I could eat hers. :)
On Friday (the Australia Day public holiday) Jac and VR took off to Toodyay (pronounced too-jay) to spend the long weekend at a mate’s parents’ holiday house. I stayed home to finish the last of the thesis edits. It was worth missing out on the weekend away – I got everything finished. In between working and watching The Thornbirds on dvd, I of course made sure I kept myself well-fed. This was my dinner on Friday night – I stir-fried some cabbage with lots of garlic and onion and oyster sauce…
…and I cracked open a can of SPAM and fried up four slices in the pan. While the SPAM was getting nicely crisp on the edges I broke a couple of eggs into a bowl and beat them with some white pepper and soy sauce. When the SPAM was well browned, in went the eggs. I love fried SPAM and eggs with rice – that’s my favourite comfort meal of all.
On Saturday night I did a vegie stir-fry using the leftover salad vegies and boiled potatoes from Thursday night. I ate this with rice. No meat! I’ve been surprising myself by eating less meat in general lately (some of you will say – but you consumed a whole tin of SPAM over the weekend! And some of you will say – yeah, SPAM isn’t really meat after all! LOL)
And this was my brunch on Sunday – a toasted multigrain English muffin with a slice of fried SPAM and sliced grape tomatoes from our garden, topped with freshly cracked black pepper. I spread a little aioli on one of the muffin halves too.
On Sunday evening Jac and I went to our favourite food hall for dinner. She’s been craving sushi, and so she had a mixed sushi plate.
I had wantan mee, dry style. We haven’t had a meal featuring pork in our house ever since the gall bladder attack, and I was craving it. (Some of you will say – well, that’s probably why you had SPAM, right? And some of you will say – at last, some real pork!) The char siu (barbecue pork) went down a treat.
Jac really felt like having something for dessert – since it had been such a hot day the perfect refreshing dessert was ice kacang (What is it? Read this). I’ve never really gotten into ice kacang myself.
On Monday I went to uni and had a lunch of rice, noodles, curried vegies and beef in black bean sauce.
Corn has been so cheap and so delicious lately. We’ve been buying corn for 50-60 cents a cob from the supermarket, and it’s been really juicy and bursty and sweet. I could eat it every day. That’s VR’s new favourite mate, Paul Newman of the delicious Ranch Dressing, that you can see peeping in the corner there.
Grilled shark, salad and corn – mmmm.
The shark was a pale pink colour when raw, and turned white when cooked, bearing a strong resemblance to grilled chicken breast as shown in this photo.
*So far, no extreme pain attacks, but she did have a bad night recently with enough abdominal discomfort and nausea to prevent her from having a good night’s rest. Although we’re not eager for the surgery, I think she’d like it over and done with so that she can be on her way to recovery.
I'm TFP, a food blogger from Perth, Western Australia.
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m still keeping Jac in my thoughts. *hug*
I was at work yesterday and a woman came through with 10 cans of Spam.
I thought of you. :)
Hmmm, Spam , I used to eat Spam fritters (spam in batter then deep fried) when I was a bit younger , I’ve grown up since then and now prefer Corned Beef Hash 8).
Good to see you got some work done on the long weekend,I hope Jac and VR had fun in Toodyay , of course they had better done some archery at the archery range.
Nand now I have the Spam song stuck in my head.
Spam spam spam spam spamitty spam , spamitty spam.
lots of prayers and hugs for jac’s surgery to go well, and for your granny to get better.
i know how stressful it must be for you, but fingers crossed this week and next go by very fast!
Gaaaaahhhh.
This is the kind of blog post I prolly have to go through a few times so it gets through to my teeny tiny brain. Heheheee.
No complaints though, I’m lovin’ it! :D
Poor girl. You must be worried. My grandma had a stroke a few months back. I still worry about her.
Yummy looking food, as per usual.
hey, was worried when you hadn’t posted for a while. love your spam comments! good luck with your challenging next week.
YEA! Your thesis is finished! All you have to do now is defend it. Good luck. Pretty soon we’ll be calling you Dr. tfp, lol.
I hope your grandma is ok tfp. Please keep us updated.
Jac, hang in there!!!!! My doctor has prescribed dicyclomine. It’s a gastrointestinal muscle relaxant that helps a LITTLE bit. It makes the attacks bearable. I take it AS SOON as I feel an attack coming on.
Katie,
Hahahaha, we bought 4 in one go last time we went shopping, because they were on special. Not quite as impressive (or scary) as 10!
minimike,
I used to eat SPAM fritters too – my grandma fried them in batter as well as crumbed. They were very good, with a side of baked beans. Nope, no archery as far as I know. They had a swim in Northam pool and spent the rest of the time watching dvds and trying to stay out of the heat.
sangeeta, Chubbypanda, allison,
thank you.
CatDonna,
Good!
Nicole,
Can you believe this – we don’t have to defend our theses over here. They just have to be examined and passed by the markers – and that’s it. Probably sounds really slack.
Jac’s had a little discomfort the last couple of days, but nothing too terrible. Fingers crossed there won’t be anymore late night runs to the hospital before she can have the surgery.
Hey there Professor Pornographer!! :)
Lell and i continue to send you and Jac our thoughts. We hope all goes well with the surgery and the ensuing recovery period.
And that SPAM looks REALLY yummy all fried and glistening with the egg and rice… if only i could bring myself to actually eat it. :) lol
haz- (the gastronaut)
Oh, and i just couldn’t help but think of the Def Leppard line;
“Let’s get the rock outta here!”
Sorry :P hehehe
haz- (the gastronaut)
Yay! More food posts. Everything looks so good. I think this summer I’m going to try cooking more fish, especially on the grill. All your fish posts have made me wish we ate more of it. And those salads really have me wishing it were summer here!
I’m sorry Jac isn’t feeling well. Hopefully once the surgery is over she’ll be feeling better in no time.
Haz,
Thanks for Lell’s and your kind thoughts. I hope it all goes well too. As I type this (Sunday, surgery on coming up on Tuesday) I admit I am feeling a little nervous about it.
The Home Cook,
I think even when we’re back to “normal” eating (whenever that may be), I’d like to keep eating fish more regularly. It is a little more expensive, but that’s why I’m trying to get a job, right? :)