Aussies who cook

[ninedragons]

Get yourselves down to K-Mart this instant!

They do a great line of enamelled cast iron cookware under their Homemaker brand. I've got both that and some Le Creuset and it's indistinguishable.

It's on fantastic discount at the moment - the shelf sticker says 50% off but when you take it to the till it's more like 80% off.

I've just bought an iron roasting dish for $10.50

oooh, ninedragons - is it as heavy as Le Creuset or not so? If it's less heavy I can email MIL and ask her to get us some, but if it is just as heavy I won't bother cos I can
barely lift a LC milk pan!

Have you settled in ok now - it's been a few months, hasn't it? Found childcare etc.? I am supposed to be working towards packing up to move out but still haven't quite got to grips with the reality of it just yet...

Oh thank you! My Mum has been saying she wants a Le Creuset type big casserole dish - I will go and have a look and maybe get one for her birthday.

Thanks for the heads up!!!!

Oh, great tip, ninedragons! I just dropped slammed in a childish fit of temper a drawer on my foot so am languishing on the couch.

I wonder if DH would go for me.

You're in Sydney, aren't you? Which Kmart did you go to? We usually use Broadway.

ooh, can I hijack this thread since it's got Aussies who cook listening in and I've got a question?

I've just moved back from UK where I'd developed a serious bread-making habit, but round these parts I seem only able to buy bread machine mixes, not plain (strong) bread-making flour. Am I just looking in the wrong places?

And can one of you please turn the humidity down? pleeeeeze?

I am also hijacking looking for cooks!

I don't seem to be able to understand cream at all! Thickened cream, double cream that is not at all like double cream as we know it...... I don't know what to get.

phdlife, you must be looking in the wrong place as I got bread flour in the tiny Coles where I live. It is about 5KG though so you might have ruled it out on those grounds! It's got a kangaroo on the front I think and the bag is white.

Yes, Broadway K-Mart. Go soon, before I decide to go back and buy the rest of their stock! It is probably fractionally lighter than the LC but not by much. We have the large K-Mart casserole dish and it's excellent. I use it for stock, pasta sauces, curry, anything.

They have about 15 varieties of breadmaking flour at Leichhardt Coles; where are you?

I think thickened cream may have gelatine in it but I am by no means sure (or even confident).

Forgot to say, it comes with a five-year guarantee so it really is the bollocks.

Me again

Was just thinking that I used to find our LC unbelievably heavy (I can vividly remember almost bursting into tears lugging our griddle pan home from the shop on Hong Kong public transport). But now I am hauling DD around all day it seems to have got magically lighter. So there's your solution, thumbwitch - have another DC, does wonders for your biceps.

Yep Thickened cream has gelatine so it will hold it's shape once whipped. If you want cream for spooning in dollops, then I recommend Bulla double thick cream or Pura double thick cream. Not sure what english double cream is Sorry?
In regard to bread flour, you can buy a flour enhancer from most health food stores, you add it to normal baking flour to make it stronger, although there is strong flour around, just not sure how common it is

Ooo and if you want normal pouring cream (it still whips up too) then buy the pure cream in the mini milk cartons.
I want some of that cast iron ninedragons, but am writing uni assignments due tomorrow night will probably all be gone by tuesday, but fingers crossed for me...

It's sort of tucked away on a bottom shelf in Broadway, so you may be lucky.

Target also has 1000-thread count Egyptian cotton sheet sets on sale for $69 for queen size. It's like a little bit of the Grand Hyatt in your bedroom.

I have had the most phenomenal bargain weekend. We were walking to the bottle-o yesterday evening when I saw a woman carrying one of those giant cylindrical heavy wicker laundry hampers in her front garden. I have been mooning over one in a chi-chi Balmain shop where they're $120, which I know is on the steep side for a laundry basket. I was looking at hers thinking hmmm, that's really nice, wonder where she got it. She said are you eyeing up my rubbish? I'm about to put this out for the council pickup if you'd like it. I turfed DD out of her pram and put the basket in and made DH carry her all the way home.

Oh you must be sooo close to us, ninedragons, it's council pick up round here right now!

Couldn't convince DH to go to Broadway, will go in the morning after the school run and keep fingers crossed.

I don't suppose you live behind the Post Office and chucked out a perfectly lovely laundry basket yesterday?

There is one long shelf in the middle of the shop that runs parallel to the entrance with muffin tins, wooden spoons, tongs and that sort of thing. If you're facing the back of the shop, it's on the rear side of the first shelf counting from the left that's perpendicular to the long set of shelves. It's down the bottom and as of this afternoon they had roasting trays and several sizes of lidded casserole dishes. They had quite a lot of stock so I think you will be fine tomorrow morning.

I wonder how close we are? I'll give you a clue - if I'd been in our front garden we would have seen the shark being caught last week, not 20 metres away.

Maybe we should stand at our respective windows and yell MOONCUP at an appointed time.

I suspect you're very, very close to our old st - Cove. We're over near punch park now - we no longer see any fishing action, but do get a chance to check the traffic on the anzac bridge before we leave the house!

How funny, our street runs off your old one! They rhyme.....

Tomorrow, I am running and hoping that they have both cookware and sheets. I have to wait until 3 ish as first day at work !

Ah, yes, no buggering off early on your first day, even in relaxed old Australia.

Target is fantastic for sheets. These have that sort of striped weave (matte stripe then shiny stripe) that you get in really really posho hotels.