I wrote this in response to Sunili’s comment on my risotto recipe.

It might be time-consuming but I really believe that writing meal plans and shopping lists can help you to eat better more balanced meals and save money too. However, a lot of meal plans are set up so that while you eat nice, healthy, balanced meals and save some dosh, the meals are boring and repeated over and over ad infinitum. I don’t like boring, so this is the way I do it. [Read more →]

Ok so maybe it is a little cold for salad, but this one does have a little bit of chilli to warm you up.

I’m making it for dinner tonight because it is easy (and I like easy) and it tastes pretty good too! (This does not purport to be a Thai style salad.)

Ingredients (to serve 4):

250g rice stick noodles
4 150-200g pieces sirloin steak
1 1/2 tbs peanut oil, plus extra to brush
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1 red chilli, seeds removed (or not), finely sliced
1 1/2 tbs caster sugar
small piece of ginger
2 lebanese cucumbers, cut into strips
1 small red (spanish) onion, thinly sliced
2 tomatoes, quartered
1/4 cup fresh mint leaves
lime wedges, to serve

Method:

Place noodles in a bowl and cover with boiling water. Soak for 6-7 minutes until softened or follow packet instructions. Drain thoroughly and refresh if you like.

Preheat a frypan or bbq until hot.
Brush steaks with oil, then sear for 2 minutes on each side, if you like rare beef. (ed: If you don’t, just keep cooking until the meat is all dried out and awful. )
Transfer steaks to a warmed plate and rest for 5 minutes, then slice.

Combine soy sauce, vinegar, chilli, sugar, peanut oil and ginger in a bowl until sugar is dissolved. Add noodles, beef, cucumber, red onion and tomato. Toss well.

Top with mint and serve with lime wedges.

While I (slowly) write a detailed post on meal planning I thought I would share a few recipes with you. These recipes come from The Congressional Club Cook Book, 10th edition, published in 1982.

The book is a monument to truly awful eating. [Read more →]

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Thanks for your patience!

No, it isn’t a four by two in the burbs on a quarter acre block.

For 20-30somethings in Perth it’s an after-work home-handyman renovation-in-progress on a 3 by 1 with a timber deck extension, lots of shiny stainless steel (or is it brushed this season?), a couple of feature walls and a hundred sparkly downlights burning through the ceiling. You get extra points if you have an extreme mortgage and a massive commute. [Read more →]

If you have reached this page because you typed ‘I don’t want to live anymore’ into your search engine, please know that there are people that care about you. Things might seem awful now but there are people who can help you to pull yourself back up. You can get help and you can be happy again.

If you are in Australia, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14. They are available to speak to you 24 hours a day. There are similar services in other countries too. Please don’t give up.

My blog has been online for all of 3 days now and is kindly hosted for me gratis.

However I feel like a teenager tentatively taking the first steps towards independence and a giant glaring hole of debt.

I want my very own hosting account to match my very own domain name - http://www.beyondbeeton.com - which doesn’t currently do very much because it just redirects you here.

If I knew how to put in a poll I’d add one now.

So just pretend there’s a poll here. I’d like to hear from you. Should I move to my very own account?

If there are no responses I’ll assume the answer is a (or to save my very fragile ego, that you all hate polls, even pretend ones).

a) Don’t be silly, nobody reads your blog anyway.
b) I don’t care.
c) There’s a way to change it and redirect the few people reading so far, you gumnut, and it will be ok.
d) No really, I don’t care.

There’s nothing more empowering than having your apron strings untied from the sink.

Unless you get untied from the sink so that you can trot off in a wool suit to your box on the terrace for every daylight hour and more besides, after which you will glamorously engage in up-to-the-minute witty banter with 40 of your nearest and dearest colleagues who you are dining with again. You then of course go home, ring your mother and actually listen to what she says, clean the toilet, put the bin out (you’re a liberated woman after all), read the paper and a few novels (see the witty banter point above), bake something nice to take to work tomorrow and save at least 15 children from starvation or tractor accidents or something, all while looking hopelessly alluring.

If you’re managing all that and vodka isn’t a part of your daily routine then I hate you and there is nothing for you here. [Read more →]

It was horribly cold tonight. I had no intention of going out shopping so I ransacked the fridge and pantry instead. I have no idea how this happens when I dutifully write a meal plan and shopping list every week, but I digress. So we had risotto cakes all wrapped up in proscuitto and served with sweet balsamicky tomatoes and rocket.

This recipe is an easy one, and very quick if you happen to have some left-over plainish risotto in the fridge. I never seem to, we’re both far too fat and far too fond of risotto.

At any rate this makes a nice dinner party entree with a little “here’s some I prepared earlier” magic. On a weeknight it is far more important to make sure your husband knows exactly how long you’ve been standing in front of the stove. [Read more →]