Punjene Paprike - stuffed peppers - Balkan dish

Louise and I did another challenge, this time we made Punjene Paprike / Stuffed Peppers.

This is a traditional Balkan dish recipe here. Except this recipe is WRONG and the sauce needs to be doubled for it to work.

 I also cooked my meat first,  added the cooked rice and other seasonings, combined onion and garlic .. then i filled my peppers. I sealed them with tomato slices before placing them in the sauce.

Mine!

Louise.

IT WAS AMAZING

Next up, its my turn to pick a dish. Wait till she see's what I have in store for her.

Challenge update

Louise and I have done:
Roasted Cauliflower, Tomato and Goat Cheese Casserole

See my less glamours version below (still turned out amazingly yummy)

I decided to add 2 different types of cheese to give it a bit more taste and I'm glad I did. Goats cheese will not bind the ingredients as well. 

This is definitely going on my list of Paleo meals as its basically veggies and cheese.

and my version:

Paleo carrot cake

To travel is to live

Remember this post : Travel blues

Well, I did something about it these blues and we booked an amazing trip for next year, which I will no doubt blog all about once the planning starts.

We will depart Melbourne in July and head for Japan. From Japan I will head to Europe where we will spend the majority of the trip and then from Europe we will go to Singapore and then back home.
Choice of stop overs did take a bit of time deciding, I was considering Dubai, but I have decided to leave Dubai for next time as its a more common and much easier stop over...and lets face it Japan is pretty awesome!

As it stands so far we have booked:

                                                                           Tokyo

Beautiful Zurich. We will no doubt visit the swiss alps, but more on that at a later stage.

      

Prague

        

Vienna

        

Singapore

Watch this space though, because this is only the surface of whats yet to come.

I am currently in the process of organising Tokyo so I will post more about that later :)

Food glorious food

Still living.. but busy with food glorious food.

Louise will kill me that I am blogging about her if she ever finds out but we have been having cook offs and I've been so busy cooking.
Some of our meals include: (excuse the dodgy photos)

                                                            Our Quinoa dishes

Polish sausage pasta

Chard rolls

I made garlic and corn bread :) (Louise didn't know!)

Stuffed chicken rolls

We also made cinnamon rolls and next weekend we have a 3 course cook off.. stay tuned :)

Mexican

                          Im always looking for someplace new to indulge in my love of food.
           
                            This weekend  we attempted a 9 course Mexican Degustation at El Sabor.
                                                      (and no this is not a sponsored post)

                                                      The food was simple but delicious

Don't forget the Sangria!

                                                  At this point, i got too full to take photos.

The verdict is, I highly recommend for those who like Mexican and are looking for a cosy joint with nice music and pleasant staff. The best part was the last course, Churros !!

Whats for dinner?

One of the challenges of following the paleo diet is introducing variety.   Carbs are not allowed on the Paleo diet..that's right, no rice, no pasta, no bread and no pizza.  We eat this way from Monday-Thursday to maintain optimum health.

So this week, i experimented with cauliflower. One recipe, 3 different ways

                                         I made cauliflower pizza crust this week, finally... recipe (link)

It turned out awesome. I decided to make a healthy version with veggies and an less healthy cheesy version. Cauliflower pizza works and the crust ends up being nice and hard/crunchy and not only that, it's much much much healthier then consuming carb loaded pizza dough :)

                                                         Cauliflower mash with chives

                Made the same way as the crust but with added oils and cheese for cream factor. The potato alternative and the chives take a bit away from the cauliflower taste !

Cauliflower rice :)

Cave Living

Cave progress:

She is officially locked up.

The weekend was busy but now I have a better idea of what the cave living area will look like and that my friend is super exciting. I'll talk you through it.

It started off harmlessly with wine & dinner on a friday night..

Cave man hunted the fish himself.

I was too busy to blog about it but earlier in the week purchased our couch (see pic below)

                                      except our couch/chaise is actually a beige colour.. similar to that rug. I know, I'm already having heart palpitations at the thought of someone spilling wine/coffee over it but never fear, 5 year warranty on all stains and smells is here :)

 Naturally, the next day we were on a hunt for a living room coffee table and entertainment unit. I have thought about my colour shame a lot and have decided to keep it light and airy. Our home will be full of light woods, light oaky floors, light kitchen...and i wanted some contrast so we finally agreed on *drum roll*

This.

It's a nice rustic timber with metal details as handles.

It will go nicely with the lamp I had purchased earlier in the year

I knew from the moment I laid eyes on this lamp that it would be mine.

We started talking about the rug but couldn't agree on a shade so we decided to compromise. The decision is yet to come!

On Sunday afternoon , the Caveman and I went to the beach as it was finally nice and sunny in Melbourne. See proof below:

 I know, I found it hard to believe as well. We did a good 5km and I decided that as of tomorrow (today), my 4 hour body diet resumes.  I just feel much more energetic and healthier NOT eating carbs and sugar .. more to come on this topic in the future