In sydney I cook most of my own food. I do that because its cheaper and I can make the food exactly as I want and not have any ingredients I don’t.

But what happens if you don’t have to cook the food yourself, BUT you can still tell them exactly how you like it, how you want it cooked and the food is so fresh that it was moving when you chose it ?

Welcome to Jimbaran, Jimbaran is a restaurant in bali which resides on the beach. It’s so “on the beach” that if your un/lucky (depend on how you see it) when the waves come in, they can actually come onto your toes and you can get your feet wet as you eat 🙂 Its a nice place to eat and the food is so delicious and cheap. On the night I ate there I bought the following

• 2kg Squid – (Half grilled & Half in salt and pepper flour)
• 4 x Crabs – (Half in sauce tiram half in black pepper sauce)
• 2 x Groupers – ( One grilled one fried)
• 2kg Pipi shells in Bali sauce
• 2kg Prawns grilled in garlic sauce

This amazing dinner cost me $64 and I was stuffed with good satisfying seafood. I remember going to Jimbaran maybe 10 years ago and it was empty. Not a single person there and only a few people cooking then eating fish caught straight out of the net, now its become very commercialised and $64 is expensive in comparison. But with the new atmosphere (music, nice tables, good drinks) its worth the additional cost because really.. for food this good, whats $64 even for a cheap tight ass like me 😛

So where is Jimbaran ? Everyone now knows where this is but to be more specific its south of Kuta (probably the most famous party place in Bali) and north of Ulawatu so its in between these two well know locations.

Check out the food selection prior to being cooked above…. 😛 and the beach atmosphere below. Awesome isn’t it 🙂

We had dinner out for mothers day, hurricanes so this time it was dinner in for my old mans birthday. I went and bought some rib eye meat, 2kg roll and bought some fish.

I made a ginger and shallots with garlic sauce for the fish which was cooked over a steamer. I roasted the rib eye and once it was roasted I took some of the juices that had been exposed during the cooking process and turned that into a pepper gravy.

There was also some squid so I got the pan griller out and grilled the squid, then stirred through a mildly sweet sauce that I made from a few ingredients,  through the squid for some extra flavour.

Made some garlic vegetables and fried some Lebanese bread. Made a garlic sauce with some mushrooms and olive oil to dip the fried Lebanese bread in as a starter. We had 7 people there all up and it was a nice dinner for everyone.

Sister bought a cheese cake so finished of the meal with a cheese cake 🙂

So, to me going shopping at Flemington was the gathering and harvesting of the food. Had to make heaps of room in the fridge and shift a lot of the food so I could get the veggies that needed to be refrigerated inside.

After some shifting and moving it was time to cook. Because I had so much veggies and meat to play with I didn’t have to go sparingly on the food. I also made lots of food because I had my cousin coming over with her husband.

I decided to make beans with chilli’s, mushroom, onions, parsley and garlic. I also wanted to eat the squash so I went ahead and steamed some of the squash. I made a garlic sauce and simmered it over some light heat. When the squash was nicely steamed I put the garlic sauce over the squash so that the flavour of the sauce and the taste of the squash would combine nicely. I usually do this instead of cook them together to get a  stronger flavour from the veggies and the sauce.

I then made the steak, all medium and made a chilli and garlic sauce to put on once the steak was done. I had some scallops in the fridge so I poured boiling water over them and added some salt. I kept repeating the process as the water got cold until I felt the scollops where tender and warm on the inside but not over cooked.

I made a ginger, garlic and shallots sauce combined with sesame oil and soy sauce, mixed them together and heated the sauce slightly. Once the shallots were soft I poured it over the scollops.

Time to cook was about 30 mins all up …

I wanted to make guacamole the other day. Went to coles and even some of the local fruit markets to buy some avocado’s. $4.48 each … WTF !? Almost $5 an avocado ?! What the hell is inside these things, seeds made out of gold. The normal fruiters had it on special, $4 for 2 ? Still laughable prices…

Anyhow, I got pissed and left the shopping center without buying anything. Next day I went to Flemington markets at 9am in the morning and bought myself fruit and veggies at what I thought is the more appropriate price.

• Whole box of Avocado’s for $12 … (that feels better *sigh of relief*)
• Whole sack of Onions for $5
• Whole box of Broccoli for $8
• Whole box of Capsicum and Mild Chilli’s for $10
• Whole box of Squash for $5 ! Yes $5 bucks

So what was the disadvantage of this, I had to pay 10 bucks for a trolly but got back 6 bucks if I returned it. I had to push the trolley up the ramp to where my car was parked (bit of a walk) and had to lug around big boxes and load it into my car.

Oh and you have to make sure you eat all the food otherwise it goes off. I don’t classify this as a disadvantage cause it just promotes more eating of good food 😛

Now that I have a whole box of Avocado’s I can make as much guacamole as I want and not feel like im getting jipped by the tossers running the big supermarket chains. 

Woohooo…..

When there is no food in the house the first thing I do is go shopping. Back in the day I might have found some potato’s fried them and ate them with tomato sauce just to fill up the stomach but now I know better 😛

Today we had that scenario, after a long day at the conference yesterday we were to tired to drive home, specially after another call at 11:30PM to some guys in the US, so at the end we just stayed in the city. Woke up the next morning with no food in the fridge accept for some bread and some cereal. Needed to do a lodgement and a few other things but couldn’t start any work on an empty stomach. Decided that it was time to hit coles so went downstairs and headed straight for the specials to find any meat that was at least +40% off.

Got lucky, had a choice of scotch fillets or porter house steak at +40% off, so this is what we bought

• Scotch fillets on special, usually $15 now $7.85 for 3 really nice cuts
• 1 x Eggplant
• 1 x Capsicum
• 1 x head of lettuce
• 1 x bunch of Bok Choy

Total cost was $15 dollars

Cooking time 15 minutes

• Heated Grill pan until it was smoking hot, placed a small amount of olive oil just to wet the pan. When the olive oil starts smoking I use that as an indication to start putting on the meat
• used pepper, oregano, paprika, salt and parsley and mixed them all up the make a seasoning
• Heated the second pan until it was smoking and put on the olive oil, after it was sufficiently hot, threw in the eggplant followed by the capsicum and closed the pan to allow the eggplant and capsicum cook in its own juices
• Few minutes later on the super hot grill pan put on the scotch fillets and simply put salt
• Added the seasoning (previously made) on the capsicum and eggplant mixed it up a little and again closed the pan
• Chopped up the lettuce and put on a dressing of olive oil, vinegar, pepper, salt and parsley
• Didn’t use the Bok Choy so saved for later

Total time 15 minutes total cost $15 feeds 3 people satisfactory, no problems 🙂