While we were packing up the house so it could be painted, things were pretty hectic. Neither of us took time off work – I couldn’t, anyway – I’d resigned from my job and had four weeks notice to work through, so no way was I going to ask for any favours. Believe me, we hadn’t planned for me to change jobs around the same time we sold our house / bought another – it’s just how it happened. It was quite a stressful time. :) I’m a little ashamed to admit we ate very badly during that time – lots of quick meals of junk food and takeaway, especially once we’d packed up the pantry cupboard contents – the cupboards needed to be emptied so they could be moved away from the wall so that it could be painted. As we knew we’d be staying at Jac’s mum’s place while the house was being painted, we’d done our best to use up groceries and perishable items we had in the fridge. But we were also reluctant to make too much mess in the kitchen from cooking, and have to do too much washing up. There were too many other important things to spend time and energy on… now you know the background to this junky post, no lectures please.
One morning, I bought myself a sausage roll and tomato sauce for breakfast on my way to work.
My favourite part of a sausage roll is the end – where the filling is kind of crispy and crusty.
The sausage roll filling was delicious, with lots of chopped onion in with the meat. Such an enjoyable breakfast – hot, savoury, with the pleasure that comes with eating hot flaky pastry… but of course very unhealthy, so not good as a regular breakfast. And you really can’t eat one of these in secret in an open plan office – everyone can smell that delicious sausage roll aroma even before you take the first bite.
There was a dinner at Hungry Jack’s one night after work as we went over some documents re: the sale of the house. I enjoyed a tasty Whopper.
We tried the “new” Hungry Jack’s chicken nuggets – they used to sell longer paddle-shaped nuggets that were quite spicy – I liked those. These new ones have the classic nugget shape and are less spicy. In general, I thought they were less flavoursome than the old nuggets, but I liked them. I usually enjoy any chicken nuggets – they’d have to be pretty bad for me to not enjoy them. The plum BBQ sauce we got with them was overly sweet though – I ended up eating the nuggets without sauce.
I had a takeaway dinner of teriyaki chicken and rice bought from Nagano Sushi in the food hall at Carousel Shopping Centre. Along with a generous amount of sliced teriyaki chicken with tasty skin on, you get a little cooked cabbage and carrot too. The vegetables are buried under the chicken, sitting on top of the sauce-soaked rice. It’s all very tasty.
We had a takeaway dinner from Maya Masala, also from the food hall at Carousel Shopping Centre. Jac stopped by on her way home from work and picked up a couple of onion bhaji, a mixed vegetable curry, curried potatoes and butter chicken. We ate that with rice I’d cooked at home previously. Delicious!
Juji and Jay came over to help pack on the weekend, and after working hard for a few hours, we all stopped for a KFC lunch break. Here’s my plate: two pieces of Original Recipe chicken – a drumstick and a thigh, of course – chips, potato and gravy, coleslaw and nuggets.
KFC nuggets are so very moreish – like eating KFC but without the hassle of bones! If they’d just make dark meat KFC nuggets, that would be perfection.
The KFC just tasted so good. I used to be able to eat three pieces in a sitting as well as all the other side dishes, but now I find two pieces are enough. That’s probably a good thing.
And somewhere during that week there was a quick breakfast at McDonald’s. I had a sausage and egg McMuffin and hash brown.
The McMuffin was exactly what I needed – chewy, savoury, meaty.
The hash brown was fresh and crispy. It’s just so good biting into that piping hot crispy golden potato.
On the night before the painters arrived, we dropped the cats off at the cattery where they’d stay for three days. We decided to grab a takeaway dinner on the way home. Jac had a craving for Thai or Vietnamese (she knew definitely didn’t feel like our usual Chinese or Japanese, and I was up for anything), and so we got dinner from Ranford Thai Restaurant (Shop 13, Ranford Shopping Centre, Campbell Road, Canning Vale).
This was the fried rice. We’d actually ordered combination fried rice (with ham, prawn and vegetables – AU$9.70) but once we began to eat this we realised we’d been given special fried rice (with chicken and vegetables – AU$9.70). It was that big a deal; it cost the same, after all, and tasted yummy (and we were back home by the time we discovered it – no way were we going to drive back to the restaurant to kick up a fuss). We just ate it and enjoyed it.
We shared a vegetable omelette (AU$11.90), which was stuffed full of vegetables – broccoli, carrot, capcisum, mushroom, cauliflower and onion.
There was a sign up at the restaurant promoting their “new” honey chicken (AU$15.50). The honey flavour was tasty enough, and I enjoyed the bed of fresh lettuce underneath the chicken, but the pieces of chicken were really tiny and mostly all crispy batter. This was better than floury batter, but still disappointing. I don’t mind paying $15.50 for a chicken dish, but $15.50 is definitely too expensive for a dish that’s mostly batter and lettuce!
Jac also ordered a mild salad with prawns (AU$9.40 with beef or chicken, AU$2.00 extra for squid or prawn). I think she enjoyed the salad more than the prawns, which were served barely cooked, so barely cooked that they were soft and floppy rather than bouncy and bursty.
It was strange sitting there eating in our empty, echoey house, without the cats. As I ate my dinner I hoped they were settling in okay.
I'm TFP, a food blogger from Perth, Western Australia.
{ 22 comments… read them below or add one }
Wow, the KFC food looks different from what I get here in Canada! The fries look really tasty and the chicken doesn’t look like original recipe~ Thanks for the mouth-watering pics!!
Please don’t feel bad about your junk food posts TFP! Get into it!
Ooooh that sounds like me at the moment. The house is in utter chaos (move starts this Friday!) and I’ve been eating all manner of junk because the thought of making something to eat is all too hard :D
That sausage roll looks SO good! I bet it smells great too! I love how you smothered it with tomato sauce, which is exactly what I would’ve done! I guess Hungry Jack’s must be the Canadian version of Burger King right? I wish our nuggets came with plum sauce! That sounds like an amazing combo! The shrimp in Jac’s salad does look VERY under-cooked. NOT good!
As long as you didn’t eat this entire posts’ worth of food over a period of a few days, it looks fabulous to me! This is why I love your blog – all the food photos that somehow are satisfying to just *look* at! You’ve made my day, lol :)
yum!! sausage roll does look sooo yummy along with the other junk food you’re eating lol
We’re in the process of “should we move? Should we sell?” and I’ve started to think about not having the use of my kitchen if we had an open house, private showings, needing to keep the house spotless, etc.
I envision a similar list as yours. I don’t know whether to be excited or scared.
I love how golden brown the sausage roll is! I too like the crispy ends. I especially love the ones with mixed vegies inside. Don’t worry about all the junk food, junk food soothes stress!
Yo TFP! I dunno why, all these junkfood looked really appealing!!! :P Esp the veggie omelette! But is that gravy at the bottom righthand corner of the pic? It comes with gravy? Hope you’re all settled in with the new job and the home! :) A new season!
we moved out of our rental and into our first home in early July TFP and i couldn’t tell you how much junk food we ate during the packing, moving, cleaning, unpacking! too busy to cook so we did the same thing as you and Jac. KFC nuggets are definitely the best you can get imho :-)
Now I feel like having chinese take away tonight!
my arteries!
The sausage roll reminds me of a Runza; that’s the name of a small chain of sandwich speciality restaurants in Omaha, Nebraska [the sandwich and store name are the same]. The ground and spiced meat filling is entirely encased in dough, however.
That sausage roll looks so good I could almost lick my PC screen! I totally get all the junk food though – it’s bloody hard work sorting, packing, cleaning, unpacking, etc. whilst still actually doing the 9-5 thing. I think everyone kinda lives on take-away during those times – I certainly did! It did leave me with a massive craving for a super healthy stir-fry though – I think my body started going through vitamin withdrawals, lol.
OMG I just realised that you order the same food I do whenever I go to KFC and Maccas! I MUST have the 2 piece feed: Drumstick and thigh piece (my fave parts) and I only eat the sausage and egg mcmuffin with hashbrown for Maccas breakfast! Hey we share the same good taste TFP hehe!! ;)
the sausage roll is absolutely drool-worthy. i am getting peckish just looking at it! and you know, i understand the junk food-eating that goes on when moving house. been there, done that. ;)
junk food porn = hardcore. Nice!
The food looks amazing, as per usual! Haha, I always get so hungry looking at your site!
I actually remember eating like this for a week, it was the week my family and I moved into a new house. KFC, take-out, and all of that. Delicious, but is so bad for you. Lol.
Also, I couldn’t help but sharing. Where I live, when you say “gravy” most people take it as tomato sauce. I live in a very Italian neighborhood, maybe that’s why. I’m not Italian so I still say “sauce” and my friend almost killed me for it haha. And we did that over a KFC meal too. Sorry a bit off-topic but that’s what the KFC pic reminded me of. :)
that shrimp aint done! squishy shrimp ftl…
Hmmm are the prawns meant to be that undercooked? Cos my first reaction when I saw the photo was “Errrrrrr……raw prawns?”. I eat raw prawns at sushi trains all the time, not sure about raw prawns packed in the same bag as some hot take away food? Any food poisoning?
Mmmm.. this is ultimate food porn! It all looks great, especially the sausage roll and the Egg McMuffin. I haven’t had one of those in years. I like how you acknowledge and celebrate the chewiness/rubberiness of the fake sausage in these, because I always loved that aspect too!
Thanks, guys! I do get a little paranoid about posting junky food because once upon a time when I used to post a lot more junky food, I’d get some awful and rude emails from people telling me I deserved to get a heart attack, and I should be ashamed of myself, and I must be as big as a house. It’s pathetic, really, that some people have nothing better to do than write nasty emails!
Ling,
I always find it interesting to hear what junk food is like in other countries! Now I want to try Canadian KFC!
Thanks, Sarah. :)
Charlene,
So you should be all moved in by now? Lucky you, I have the trauma still to come! :-P
Cookie,
Look up Hungry Jack’s in Wikipedia to read the background of HJs versus Burger King in Australia. :)
Katie,
It’s been a very bingey time for us. Thankfully, we don’t move house too often.
Jenny,
It was delicious. I’m sure I must’ve looked blissfully happy as I ate it at my desk.
Amy,
It is definitely exciting as well as scary. We’re going through settlement now, and it’s a weird feeling – I keep thinking this is no longer our house – I feel quite disconnected from it now. And I’m paranoid about damaging the house, now that it’s not mine! Not that I normally do things to trash the house! Jac can’t wait to get settled into the new kitchen and have everything all set up. And all her cook books are packed up, which is weird for her too, not having them as a ready reference / source for inspiration.
clekitty,
I’d love a sausage roll that had more than two ends, or was ALL ends! O_O The love of sausage roll ends is like Elaine from Seinfeld’s love of muffin tops. LOL.
tunadip,
It was some sort of sauce, and was pretty tasty. Still haven’t moved house yet – that should be happening within the next couple of weeks.
anne,
It’s great to hear most people eat the same way when they move house! :D Oh yes, I love KFC nuggets. I’d love to know how many I could eat in a setting if there was an endless supply right in front of me.
PJ,
LOL.
Fiona,
No – MY arteries! LOL.
Cindy,
That sounds good to me! Meat in dough or pastry, I love it!
Sally,
Yes – I do feel it when I haven’t had fresh vegetables. After a while I crave salad or vege stir-fry. Or just a sandwich on really fresh bread. :)
Yin,
Hahaha, we must do! :-P
dea,
I’m looking forward to the selling/moving house stuff to be all over and getting back into a nice routine.
Apocalypse Cakes
Thanks.
Ellie,
Thank you for sharing, feel free to “share” any time! I always find these little details and stories from my readers so interesting!
jetgirl,
Yep – it was pretty gross. I certainly didn’t eat any.
SoRMuiJAi,
No, we didn’t have food poisoning. I don’t think Jac ate any more prawn apart from trying the first floppy one. I didn’t have any myself – I focused my attention on all the other clearly cooked items.
Megan,
Apart from the taste, the rubbery / chewy texture of sausage pattie gives me great pleasure! I’ve loved that ever since I ate my very first one!