Barnacle bills Cairns esplanade

Barnacle bills Cairns esplanade 

In all if these years if my aunt living on the Cairns esplanade, we have passed by this spot a million times and never thought to eat there! They have a $16 lunch special, which we all took advantage of, I had the Thai beef salad and the flavours were amazing! Not sure what I was expecting, certainly not the awesome deliciousness that hit my plate, that's for sure! 

Bay leaf Balinese Restaurant Cairns

Bayleaf Balinese restaurant

http://www.bayvillage.com.au/bayleaf

It was my aunts birthday while in Cairns, and we all went out for a lovely meal to celebrate... They have been before and so we booked an early meal with the kids, in hope of getting out early... Unfortunately half of the family ordered the banquet, a mistake that cost us lots of time! We started with cocktails, a Balinese spin on the honeybear, it was huge, deliciously coconutty on top of the chocolate milky goodness, and to be honest, had we not started with that, I probably would have lost my ish waiting for our main to come... I ordered the suckling pig with crackle and a pork mince salad, it was amazing, when it came... They were incredibly busy and it was slow service, slow coming out, which I found stressful with my 4 year old who I wanted to get to bed after a big day of travel! My main piece of advice would be to go with the banquet if that's what everyone else is having, so you don't have to wait an eternity for your food while everyone else eats...

Muddys playground Cairns esplanade

Muddys playground

This is our families favourite spot in Cairns... We went every day and Marley had fun on her own and with her cousin... There are kids everywhere, some pretty lax parents, great play equipment, an amazing water play area! It's free too, with a cafe that has really yummy food, with broad choices to suit most types of eaters... Take bathers and a towel, let the little ones wear themselves out...

Tiger air

It feels like an eternity ago that mum, her partner, Marley and I flew to Cairns to meet my cousins new baby... But it was only a week and a half ago, a roller coaster week and a half, but there are still things worth mentioning...

Tiger air 

I had flown Tiger Air on one return journey before this trip to cairns... It was about 3 years ago and it was bad... We were trying to get the best flight times, as well as a good price for our trip to cairns and thought we would chance it... As far as human service and delays went, it was fine... The plane felt squishy, every time someone moved on front, behind or to your side, you would move too... The chairs in front felt quite close, I really didn't like it! We won't be doing that again...

Mace's little leg injury...

Have a mental list of things to blog about, but am absolutely exhausted! Mace hurt himself on a trampoline yesterday, resulting in him not walking... We went to the ER, because I needed to be sure about what was wrong, especially after the incident with his elbow... We waited for 3 hours, a long time for a 2yo through dinner time and well past bedtime!

The doctor felt quite dismissive, checking us out in the kids waiting area, saying that because he could bend his legs without crying and was in good spirits, we should go home and wait 2 days and go to the GP if he still can't walk... It just didn't make me feel any relief in his diagnosis... He is always in good spirits, regardless of pain, anyway she said she would write a letter for the GP, we waited for another 30 minutes for that, I asked what was happening as it was getting late, the nurses said to go home... Annoying, tired, stressed and by this stage livid, we went home...

This morning Mace was still crawling around... We went to the GP, after everyone I know just about giving us their diagnosis, and it is a soft tissue injury... Will last around 5 days, neurofen twice a day until then... Since being dosed up on neurofen, he is taking a few steps here and there... Relief doesn't describe it! Although I'm tired, carrying around a 15kg kid is draining, along with emotional  exhaustion, I am happy that its nothing major! No energy to blog though...

Amazing ginger biscuits!

After my ginger biscuit fail the other week, and knowing that Marley and I are going to cairns for a long weekend leaving the boys at home, I thought I better bake something for the boys! This is my go to ginger biscuit recipe... I made it vegan, swapping out the butter for nuttlex, and adding extra spices to my liking...

From Favourite Muffins, Biscuits, Cakes and Slices

Vegan chocolate mud cake...

Mark has been vegan since his vegetarian self discovered he had lactose intolerance... Not strict, but 98%... He can eat eggs, and if he takes lacteeze he is less sick from dairy... 

As you may know, I enjoy baking and missed this weeks baking because I was busy at my scheduled baking time... Then I found this recipe, and thought I might give it a go, because I love my man and want sweet treats for him too! It was on the stay at home mum Facebook site, it said to use coconut milk, but that triggers Mark's fructose malabsorption, so I substituted soy milk...

It was surprisingly good! I'm not a cake maker, but it was perfectly edible, not quite as rich or moist as I like, but hey, no dairy... We all enjoyed it, mace telling us all that he was very happy he had cake... 

http://mobile.stayathomemum.com.au/recipes/baking/dairy-free-chocolate-coconut-mud-cake/

Dairy Free Chocolate Coconut Mud Cake

Dairy Free Chocolate Coconut Mud Cake is a deliciously wicked cake, so good you’d never know it was dairy free!

Ingredients:

• 380 grams dairy free dark chocolate, chopped (available from health food stores)
• 800ml coconut milk
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 2 1/4 cups self raising flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.  Line a round tin with baking paper and set aside.  Set up a double boiler with a medium saucepan half filled with water and a metal bowl on the top. Add half the chocolate and the coconut milk together in the bowl and stir until the mixture is melted and smooth.  Remove from the heat.Add the sugar, sifted flour, baking powder and vanilla extract and beat with an electric hand beater for a couple of minutes or until well combined.  Pour into the tin and bake for 35 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.  Turn carefully onto a wire rack to cool.

Heat the remaining chocolate and coconut milk in the double boiler and again stir over the heat until smooth.  Pour the chocolate sauce over the cooled cake and serve.

This is the end...

These men are all funny, there are some incredibly funny moments in this film... In fact the first half or so, it was really enjoyable... And then it just got weird... It was like they had some quality hilarity but didn't know how to finish the story, or write an interesting and cohesive story to fit in their jokes... A great cast, it just felt like a forced and fake apocalypse story... 

It's annoying because we desperately wanted to see it, got a last minute date sorted out, and then the end was just such a let down... Not what it was pegged to be at all... I can't believe the ratings on imdb and rotten tomatoes... Sigh...

Little eyes...

No Friday baking today, because I had to take Marley to a paediatric eye specialist... At her healthy kid check the nurse and doctor 'discovered' that Marley has a squint in her left eye when she smiles... I have always seen it, it matches mine, and my Dads, I never thought twice about it... But they thought it might be related to her vision, so off we went... I was incredibly stressed about this, having about 10cm of vision, and having had glasses from the age of 5...  The idea of my little girl feeling anxious playing sports, in the water, waking up unable to see her room, all the things I have gone through, I don't want for my kids...

The experience was good, the games they play to test vision are good fun, Marley was so interested, she forgot to be shy! Haha... They did lots of tests and finally gave her eye drops, which we had to wait for them to develop... This brought back my uneasy feelings, I have many years of memories of sitting in waiting rooms unable to see, ergh... One last set of tests, and she got the all clear! Her squint is just like mine and Dads, just a squint, she has great vision and fingers crossed she won't need glasses... Relief is an understatement!

Dilated pupils...

Glory Box: Paradise Finucane & Smith - 45downstairs

I love burlesque, I love edgy shows, naked, funny, hot, dancing women, so the minute I saw this, I booked! There were 4 of us, but things changed, and it ended up just Mark and I, date night! There was a lot to love about this show, and love it we did! Ursula Martinez and Jess Love were absolute highlights! I had seen them both before, and in this very intimate setting, they were even better! Ursula's magic trick will never cease to make me smile, they did a double together that was face achingly hilarious! And Jess had a lot of nuances to her hula hoop act that were hilarious, and then cheeky! The other acts ranged from some amazing choreography to trying to shock, to being actually shocking... 

45downstairs is a great venue, intimate, and well decked out with lanterns and candles... The hosts were lovely, seats not too close together... Definitely worth the money, time and childcare!

Glory Box: Paradise Finucane & Smith - Friday, 02/08/13 - 07:00 PM
Organisation: Finucane & Smith
fortyfivedownstairs
45 Flinders Lane
Melbourne, VIC 3000 

Friday baking: soft ginger snaps...

Been hanging for ginger snaps, and the ratio of spices looked delicious, so we baked these this morning, in our pjs! I missed the soft aspect, which as a finished product, isn't the best... I have an amazing ginger biscuit recipe that's better then this if I didn't want a snap... There is no snap here! I also omitted the frosting, which just seemed weird! In retrospect, with a non snap biscuit, it probably would have made the biscuit!!!

http://www.twopeasandtheirpod.com/soft-gingersnaps-with-white-chocolate-cream-cheese-frosting/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+twopeasandtheirpod%2FrNNF+%28Two+Peas+and+Their+Pod%29