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.
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