I would never in a million years have thought that THIS would happen:

Today is our one year engagement anniversary! You can read all the mushy details about our engagement and Fiji holiday here.

I cannot believe how quickly time has flown. It’s now less than four months until our wedding.

And even though the big things like the venue and the dress are sorted, there is still SO MUCH TO DO.

Any advice on keeping my sanity over the next three and a half months?!

Perhaps I’ll just think of my happy place:

Mr: I want to do a spit roast for my birthday.

Me: *stunned silence*

Mr: A rotisserie pig.

Me: OHHHHH! Yep, sounds good.

And that is how the madness began. Over the last month, Mr has visited every butcher within 10km of our house to chat for hours about piggies, he’s bought a little motorised rotisserie from Ebay, and has dug a giant hole in our backyard. What was once our veggie patch is now our fire pit.

It’s actually happening.

Mr decided that before he attempted to feed 30 people using fire and a metal pole, he’d better practice first. So on Sunday we invited five of our buddies to join in the fun of our piggy practice run.

Mr assured me that I wouldn’t have to do a THING. Which was totally fine by me. The day began reasonably well, with Mr starting a very controlled fire in his DIY fire pit:

Confident that everything was under control, I pottered around inside for a while. When I next visited, the fire had grown considerably but was still manageable:

It wasn’t until Mr had filled our neighbours’ backyards with plumes of smoke that I intervened. Please note that there is no picture of the smoke plumes as I was too busy running around hissing ‘the neighbours will kill us! Put it out! PUT IT OUT!’.

We then decided to go with a safer, less smokey option:

Once the coals were ready we started to prep our piece-o-pig:

We purchased our pork from the Prahran Markets, and the butcher was most helpful. He prepped the meat beautifully:

And suggested we add lemon juice:

Salt:

And oil:

We then mounted mini piggy onto the rotisserie, carried it through the house in a sacrificial manner and put it on the fire.

And watched it turn

And turn

And turn!

The butcher suggested a four hour cooking time. During that time we neurotically adjusted the coals every five minutes:

And sat in the sun drinking G&Ts and Pinot Grigio. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon at ALL.

After an hour, piggy started to turn a nice shade of YUM:

After two hours, the smells that began to fill our backyard were unreal.

Mmmm…crackling

We decided that if we wanted to eat piggy after four hours, we would have to bring the bar down closer to the coals. After a little bit of improvising from Mr and our guests, we had success!

Nearly there:

Tadaaaaa!

Once the boys started carving, I had to get in pretty quickly with my camera!

Perfect.

Look at all that crackling!

The meat was so juicy and tender, and had that amazing smokey flavour that can only be achieved from hours over coals. The crackling was a little underdone, but after a few more minutes on the fire it was perfect.

All in all our rotisserie dress rehearsal was a huge success. A lot of fun too. Plus, we have LEFTOVERS. *happy dance*

The next challenge: a whole pig.

Stay tuned.

And pray for us.

]]> http://missmelbourne.net/2011/09/pig-on-a-spit-practice-run/feed/ 4 http://missmelbourne.net/2011/09/pig-on-a-spit-practice-run/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/MissMelbourne/~3/W46sQCUSZgY/ http://missmelbourne.net/2011/09/basil-hummus/#comments Mon, 12 Sep 2011 09:36:10 +0000 Miss Melbourne http://missmelbourne.net/?p=2166 Helloooo!

Yes, it has been a while since my last post. I am a bad bad blogger. In my defence, a massive work project that I was running meant that I was working 12 day weeks and many 14 hour days for a few months. Which was pretty hideous but strangely fantastic at the same time. And at the end of it all, I was rewarded with a promotion. Eeeeee!

But it’s over now. And I’m baaaaack!

This is a basil hummus recipe that I played around with a few months ago. Tell me what you think!

Take pretty photo of random ingredients before they are chucked into the food processor

Add chickpeas and basil to food processor and pulse until combined

Add lemon juice, tahini, olive oil, water and salt

Process until creamy. Adjust quantities to alter taste/texture if needed

Presto! (Pesto?) Simple. Healthy. Happy!

PS: is awesome on sandwiches.

]]> http://missmelbourne.net/2011/09/basil-hummus/feed/ 8 http://missmelbourne.net/2011/09/basil-hummus/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/MissMelbourne/~3/Vb1qc6f3QU8/ http://missmelbourne.net/2011/08/wedding-the-dress/#comments Fri, 12 Aug 2011 03:52:17 +0000 Miss Melbourne http://missmelbourne.net/?p=2078 Most wedding dresses are ugly.

Image courtesy of unrealitytv.co.uk

This was the recurring thought that went through my head as I flicked through page after page of wedding magazines.

Too big.

Too puffy.

Too lacy.

Too Disney princess.

I mean seriously people, the 1980s are over. Clearly the wedding industry has not received the memo.

Looking at page after page of over-the-top dresses made me feel pretty disheartened about finding the right dress. In fact, in the beginning I went through a phase of thinking that I wouldn’t wear a traditional wedding dress at all.

After some gentle coaxing from my mother and my maid of honour, we started browsing bridal shops for dresses. My gorgeous MOH did some preliminary research for me and eliminated any shops that she thought would freak me out with their meringue-ish designs. Which pretty much cut out all of the bridal shops along Sydney road.

My first dress appointment was at Brides of Melbourne. This boutique was recommended to me by several friends as a good starting point for dress shopping, as they are a large boutique who stock many different designers.

For some reason, I was extremely nervous before my first appointment. How does it all work? Am I supposed to know exactly what I want? Do I have to wear specific underwear? WHAT IF I HATE ALL THE DRESSES?

In the end I decided that it would be better to be over prepared. I did some research on their website beforehand and printed out pictures of the dresses that didn’t make me want to be sick.

I needn’t have been as nervous as I was, as the staff were lovely and made me feel at ease straight away. I suppose that they’re used to dealing with wedding newbies. And while I wasn’t able to tell them exactly what I wanted, I was able to list straight away what I didn’t want:

• No princess dresses
• No long veils
• No tule
• No fishtails

The term that the staff used for the style of dress that I seemed to like was slinky. So I tried on a few slinky dresses:

Martina Liana Dress. Image courtesy of Brides of Melbourne website

Martina Liana dress. Screen shot of image from Brides of Melbourne website.

Wendy Makin dress. Screen shot of image from Brides of Melbourne website.

While the dresses were pretty, there wasn’t anything that really caught my eye. As far as traditional puffy dresses go, Brides of Melbourne have a huge range. As for slinky dresses, their stock was fairly limited. But I’m glad that we went there, if only to clarify what we were looking for. As an experiment, the staff made me try on a giant princess dress and a long veil. I wanted to puke.

My MOH did some more research after our first appointment to find boutiques that specialised in slinky dresses. The three places that were suggested to her were Karen Willis Holmes and Baccini & Hill in Armadale, and Rose Zurzolo Couture in Hawthorn.

The first thing I noticed at my appointment at Karen Willis Holmes was the difference in the atmosphere. A smaller boutique for one specific designer. Definitely more my cup of tea than the larger shops.

'Natalie'. Image courtesy of Karen Willis Holmes website

While the dresses at KWH were lovely, they weren’t quite ME. I had a soft flowing fabric in mind for my dress, and I found many of the fabrics used by KWH a little too rough and stiff. By the way if you’re ever interested in visiting KWH, they don’t take appointments. It’s first in best dressed (haha).

On the same day that I tried on dresses at KWH, my MOH and I wandered down to Baccini & Hill. To me, it seemed like a slightly more expensive version of Brides of Melbourne: a large boutique with a mix of designers. I had a wander around and to my surprise, many of the off the rack dresses were more expensive than some made to wear gowns I’d seen. So I decided to give B&H a miss. Although I’ve heard brilliant things about their boutique from other brides.

The minute that I walked into Rose Zurzolo Couture I knew that it was the place where I would find my wedding dress. A quiet and intimate boutique where you have a one-on-one appointment with Rose. For me, the main difference between Rose’s designs and others I had seen was that I loved ALL of them. In other boutiques I had been eliminating most dresses straight away, leaving myself two or three to try. In Rose’s boutique I was worried that I wouldn’t have time to try them all.

Here are some of the divine dresses that I tried on:

Screen shot of image from Rose Zurzolo website

Screen shot of image from Rose Zurzolo website.

Stunning vintage inspired gowns. Beautiful elegant simplicity.

All of Rose’s gowns are custom made to measure. Throughout my appointments Rose worked tirelessly to find the perfect combination of colours, fabrics and designs that she felt would suit me best.

After two appointments with Rose, I chose my perfect dress. The dress that made my heart flutter. The dress that I never in a million years thought that I would find. The dress that I absolutely HAD TO HAVE.

Now, you didn’t REALLY think that I was going to post a photo of my wedding dress did you?

:D

As a consolation prize, here is the dress that I almost chose:

Screen shot of image from Rose Zurzolo website

I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until next year to see the real one.

Now I am sure that if you have read any of my other blog posts, you will realise that I’m definitely NOT vegetarian/vegan/particularly fussed if a dessert contains three sticks of butter. But I do find these recipes interesting.

So when I saw this raw vegan chocolate chip cookie dough recipe made from cashews and oats on Love Veggies and Yoga, I thought I would give it a shot.

You’re skeptical aren’t you? Keep reading. Trust me.

Cashews and oats went into the food processor:

After a minute the consistency was quite dry:

But after another minute, the mixture looked like this:

Interesting! I then added agave syrup and vanilla extract and gave it another whirl. The original recipe also used maple syrup, but I just added an extra tablespoon of agave.

The recipe suggested letting the food processor run until the ‘dough’ formed a ball. I was skeptical about this occurring, but lo and behold:

So what did I do? I kept blending to try and get those last little bits at the bottom didn’t I? Here’s what happened:

Go me.

The dough seemed to survive though. Next I transferred the mixture to a bowl and added the (non-raw non-vegan) chocolate chips:

And worked them in to form a GIANT FAKE COOKIE DOUGH BALL:

Mr: ‘So, do we just take turns at eating it or what?’

Bless.

I then started making mini dough balls. The mixture was surprisingly oily, I’m assuming from the cashews.

The verdict?

THESE ARE CRAZILY GOOD. And very filling. I was worried that we might go through the whole batch in one go, but I only managed to eat two before retiring.

Even though these don’t contain anywhere near as much fat and sugar as regular cookie dough, it’s still in there. These are definitely a sometimes food!

I’ve been doing a little bit of research on agave nectar/syrup and have read many conflicting opinions about it. Some sources say that it is low GI, but others talk about the high fructose content. From what I can gather, there doesn’t really appear to be any huge health benefits to using agave rather than honey (or sugar). It seems to be used more for it’s vegan/raw food status. Please feel free to comment/correct me if I’m mistaken.

Would I make these again? YES! They are delicious. Plus, I have been imagining exciting conversations that I could have about raw vegan chocolate chip cookie dough balls:

Me: excuse me, would you like to try these?

Impressed Friend: oh wow, you actually made something? Are these cookies that you haven’t baked yet?

Me: No, they’re finished.

IF: Oh.

Me: Just try one.

IF: Mmmmmm! These are nom-tastic!

Me: I know! Guess what’s in them?

IF: Um… cookie dough?

Me: NO! Oats and cashews!

IF:……….

Me:……..

IF: Why didn’t you just make normal cookie dough?

Me: Well, they’re vegan!

IF: You’re not vegan.

Me………..

IF: And what about the choc chips?

Me: Shut up.

On a Sunday.

I called it Monday Part One.

But when I finished….

I came home to discover that Mr…..

HAD MADE THESE FOR LUNCH:

I know what you’re thinking:

‘Leftovers!’

‘Yaaaay!’

‘What a nice treat to come home to!’

:(

>:(

NONE!

ALL GONE.

Monday Part One…

I hate you.

ANYWAY, the last time I visited Riverland, Mr and I had ridden our bikes into the CBD and had a delightful early morning breakfast after our ride. On that occasion I had ordered the ‘Riverland’ baked beans, and they were absolutely fantastic. On the day of Run Melbourne I couldn’t wait to order them again, this time armed with my camera:

Hmmmm. This was not the hearty dish that I remembered from my previous visit. Firstly, this dish seemed more like a tomato casserole than baked beans. The eggplant and capsicum were roughly cut into huge chunks and completely overpowered the dish. The texture of the beans weren’t quite right, and many of them were crushed beyond recognition.

I started to wonder if I had romanticised the dish in my mind? Perhaps last time I had been absolutely ravenous after our bike ride and anything would have tasted great?

I was pretty sure that I had taken a picture with my iPhone last visit, so I went through my phone and found it. This is the dish I ate last time:

Wow. How can a dish change so much in a matter of months? I wonder, is there this much variance in this dish on a day to day basis, or has there been a change to the menu? Or kitchen staff?

T’s breakfast looked considerably better than mine. She ordered the avocado spiced toast with poached egg, honey bacon and mapuche spice:

Look at all that sugary glistening bacon. According to T the bacon was delicious and the avocado to die for.

Our coffees were excellent. And we consumed many. We WERE waiting for people to finish a 10km run after all!

Riverland has so much going for it. You can’t beat sitting outside on their heated patio in the middle of winter, sipping coffee and watching the world go by. But unfortunately I do have to say that I left feeling quite disappointed. The baked beans had just been so GOOD last time. This time however, the plating had been sloppy and the balance of flavours was wrong.

I’m tempted to return, simply to suss out those baked beans one more time. I really hope that it was just a bad day in the kitchen. Because I do love Riverland.

Fingers crossed.

Before we started looking around online and through magazines, we came up with a list of reception venue must-haves that were important to both of us:

Needs to be close to the city as both of us would have a lot of family and friends coming from interstate and overseas (which sadly meant Yarra Valley was out)

Food and wine must be of a high standard (no dodgy chicken kiev thank you very much)

Must be able to comfortably accommodate up to 150 guests

Venue needs to be gorgeous enough so that we can get away with ‘less is more’ table decorations/flowers etc

No white cloth chair covers!

MUST NOT FEEL LIKE A TYPICAL WEDDING RECEPTION VENUE.

Screen shot taken from The Point Wedding Packages PDF

Not too shabby huh?

Also considering the quality of the food that we knew would be served, the prices and minimum spend for The Point were very reasonable.

The other main contender was The Treasury Restaurant. You can view their wedding images if you click on the gallery section of their website.

The Treasury Restaurant was the original site of the Bank of Australasia, and still maintains a very grand and elegant feel. The interior of the restaurant is just beautiful, with high ceilings and a stunning mezzanine level. Mr and I had dined there a couple of years ago and had been very impressed with the quality of the food. We had also casually mentioned to each other that it would be a beautiful place for a wedding.

What we loved most about The Treasury as a potential wedding venue is that you have the entire place to yourselves. No other patrons dine in the building during your wedding. It’s ALL. YOURS.

Over the weeks that we were looking at reception places there was one venue that we kept coming back to again and again. One place out of the two that felt like it was US. It ticked everything on our checklist, plus it had that extra….something.

Until one Friday afternoon, while we sat and had after work drinks in the venue, we made our choice:

Treasury Restaurant.

:)

Coming up in my next wedding post….. THE DRESS.

Stay tuned.

This was the third time that Mr and I had tried to have lunch here. The first time we had a booking we ended up having to cancel. The second time we dropped in with my parents who were only looking for a quick lunch, so we ordered baguettes. Third time lucky! Except this time, we hadn’t booked. When we arrived at 11am we were told that there was a table free, but they would need it back at midday. ‘Sure!’ we said.

Little problem: we were there for wood fired pizzas. When we went to order, the waitress kindly informed us that they were still serving the breakfast menu, and that pizzas weren’t available yet. We must have looked terribly crestfallen, as she very quickly said ‘let me just check with the kitchen’. A minute later she returned and told us that we could order our pizzas bang on 11.30, be first in line and have them by 11.40. YES! So Mr and I ordered some coffees and stared at our watches.

Both times I’ve ordered coffee at Giant Steps it has been excellent. Not surprising considering that they roast their own coffee beans.

Waiting a little while to place our orders gave me plenty of time to wander around and explore the place. The artisan bakery (fresh bread and cakes handmade every day) was absolutely packed with people buzzing around trying to buy bread and pastries:

The staff were run off their feet trying to keep the shelves stocked!

There is also a drool-inducing cheese room where they age local and imported cheese:

Social media and free WIFI FTW:

Finally 11.30 arrived! As promised, our pizzas were ready in no time. I ordered calabrese salami with san marzano tomato, oregano and buffalo mozzarella:

Pizza porn.

Yeah. It was as good as it looks. But I have to say that I preferred Mr’s choice of roast mushroom, asiago, black truffle oil, garlic and parsley:

I tried to steal as much of his as possible. On both pizzas the 100% organic sourdough base was fantastic. Chewy and full of flavour.

While we gobbled our lunch we were able to watch the pizzas being made in the open kitchen:

Action shot!

Obviously we couldn’t finish two pizzas in one sitting, but we were able to bring our leftovers home in a takeaway pizza box. Very handy considering we were about to try and catch our dinner. On our way out we couldn’t resist stopping for a wine tasting:

And picked up a dozen ’09 Moscato 375ml for $60. Bargain!

All in all we enjoyed a lovely coffee, pizza lunch and wine tasting at Giant Steps, and still managed to be out by midday. The service in the bistro and throughout the tastings was excellent and the pizzas were great value for money ($19-$24). Especially considering the long list of fresh ingredients that go on each pizza.

As we were leaving at midday the bistro was completed booked out. So if you would like to pay a visit for lunch, I would advise making a booking to avoid disappointment.

And I can pretty much guarantee that you will walk out the door with more than just your lunch in your belly. Cakes, cheese and wine? Who could possibly resist?

Giant Steps/Innocent Bystander Winery

‘HAVE YOU SET A DATE!?’

‘HAVE YOU PICKED A RECEPTION VENUE?!’

‘ARE YOU GOING TO GET MARRIED IN A CHURCH?!’

‘HAVE YOU FOUND A DRESS?!’

‘HOW MANY BRIDESMAIDS ARE YOU GOING TO HAVE?!’

‘WHERE ARE YOU GOING FOR YOUR HONEMOON?!’

‘HOW ARE YOU GOING TO DO YOUR HAIR?!’

‘ARE YOU GOING TO HAVE BOMBONIERE?!’

Ok. I am not one of those girls who has kept a shoebox filled with wedding pictures under her bed since the age of ten. So people asking me these questions one week after our engagement were most disappointed with my standard answers of ‘no’, ‘I don’t know’ and ‘what’s that?’.

Determined to discover exactly what ‘bomboniere’ were, I set about starting a collection of bridal magazines. It seemed that my friends, disappointed with my lack of wedding knowledge, decided that I needed a little help and also set about buying me magazines. The result? Information overload!

My advice to any brides-to-be? DO NOT read as many wedding magazines as I did. There will be two consequences:

1) You will become very overwhelmed by pages and pages of puffy dresses, stories of weddings with bridal parties of 25 and articles such as ’5000 Dos and Don’ts on Your Wedding Day’.

2)  Your fiancé will freak out that you have become a wedding-obsessed nutbag. Which you have. But it is absolutely essential to hide the crazy. Until the wedding is over.

In the end the magazine that I found the least scary and the most helpful was this one:

This mini mag is excellent for wedding newbies.There is helpful information such as suggested timelines for planning, pages to organise your budget, questions to ask reception venues/celebrants/dressmakers etc, and there is minimal advertising. This is a good thing.

So a few weeks after we returned from Fiji, Mr and I got to work putting together this wedding shindig. Guided by our Weddings for Dummies magazine and the most urgently repeated questions ‘HAVE YOU SET A DATE?!’ and ‘HAVE YOU PICKED A RECEPTION VENUE?!’, we started planning.

The date? Early 2012.

The reception venue? Coming up in my next wedding post..

And as for bomboniere? Meh…… overrated. IMHO.

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