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Black Star Pastry (Strawberry Watermelon Cake)

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Some of you might know about the desperate attempt I made last year for the Strawberry Watermelon Cake (see previous post at  Black Star Pastry ).  Yesterday I had the privilege of tasting this cake at a party. I got super excited as I’ve been wanting to try this for almost a year now. I was so tempted to just skip the mains but I patiently waited for dessert time and made sure I left space for the cake :P In the meantime, I went to take a close look at the cake (could not resist, for obvious reasons) and I was amazed at how magical it looked. It was constructed beautifully starting with a layer of almond  dacquoise followed by cream, then a slice of watermelon with cream,   almond  dacquoise and cream again. Finally, it was topped with strawberries, pistachios and dried rose petals. It was a quite a delicious cake but unfortunately, it did not meet the expectations I had. I liked certain elements, such as the lightness of the cream layers, f...
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The Emporium

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This cafe has a great welcoming atmosphere with options to dine in or outside. We went on a weekday so it wasn't that busy. I wasn't that hungry so I ordered a side. It was filled with Dutch, purple and orange carrots with Harissa dressing. It was great in the beginning but after a while, it got boring. It would've been better if they had one or two other veggies (rather than just carrots). Roasted Dutch carrots, cashew dukkah, harissa dressing $9 Chocolate cremeux, honeycomb ice cream, chocolate soil, dulce de leche, espresso gel $16 The dessert however, was delicious. It had lots of crunch, texture and flavour. There was lots of bits and pieces like bread, chocolate, ice cream etc. The amount was good in terms of portion control. Yes, I know the photo doesn't look as appealing as the lighting was poor but it looked way much better in person.
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Australia's Healthy Weight Week

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This week is all about encouraging people to eat healthy, home cooked meals and making small changes towards a healthy lifestyle. It is also about telling people what we do as dietitians (hence I am writing) The pictures are from the morning tea we hosted (colleagues and myself) for staff on our floor at work.  As you can tell from the photos, we tried to include something from all the food groups. We wanted to make it colourful and include healthier options, where possible.  Fruits: apples, grapes, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, figs, passionfruit, nectarines and peaches Vegetables: carrots, snow peas, cherry tomatoes, cucumber and beetroot dip Dairy: low fat yoghurt and low fat ricotta (fritatata) Lean meat, fish, poultry, nuts and legumes: variety of nuts, hommus Cereals: wholemeal pita bread If you'd like to read more information on the AHWW, head over to http://healthyweightweek.com.au/ :) Zucchini, ...
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Floriade 2016

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Hello everyone! Please excuse my lateness for posting Floriade pictures. I can't believe it took me well over a month to get this out. The past month has been very busy and I somehow forgot about this?! My visit to Canberra was a very short one but enjoyed every moment of it. It kind of made me realise that I should go away more often. I came back feeling very refreshed and happy! The last time I went to Floriade was 2014, so it was nice to come back after two years. I tried to do a little experimenting with my camera, and happy to say, I think I've improved from last time :P I'm starting to realise my love for detail photography, the close up flower ones are probably my favourite. Hope you like the pictures :)
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Joyful June

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I had one of the most adventurous months, ever. As some of you would already know, I was away for most of June. I flew to Canada to present my first ever oral at an international conference. I had been to an international conference in Melbourne last year; however, it didn’t quite feel as international for me (flying there from Sydney). But I knew this conference was going to be an entirely different experience. One of the biggest challenges I faced before leaving was having to pack for a range of weather conditions and ticking off the tasks I urgently needed to finish before I left. As usual, I ended up leaving my packing until the very last day (this always happens). It felt a little strange to be leaving home for almost three weeks which is a long time for me because I rarely go anywhere without family. Nonetheless, I was also super excited for the adventure that awaited on the other side of the world. The International Society of Nutrition and Physical Activity (ISBNPA) c...
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Mad March

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Wow, I honestly can't believe we've hit the first week of April. I've gotten quite behind with blogging (as you can tell from my late March post). It has been a somewhat crazy but productive month for me. The good news is that I have finally managed to submit my research paper from last year. It was really nice to get it out of the way because now I can focus on my PhD (until I hear back from the reviewers again, at least!)  With my current research, I'm progressing quite slowly (systematic reviews take a long time unfortunately). I'm up to reading my bunch of full texts. I tried to be slightly more environmentally friendly with this SLR and minimizing the number of papers I print. It becomes hard after staring at the screen for a while so I ended up printing approximately half of my full texts. That's probably all the main updates, study wise. Here are all my March eats :)   One pan lemon herb salmon and zucchini Zucchini and lentil pasta...
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Jumbled July

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This month has been rather depressing because I've been all over the place and didn't get to do what I made plans to do. I was progressing at a steady place trying to finalise my systematic review. But then I heard back from the journal I had submitted my old review to which requires further revisions. Initially, I thought it'd take me around a week, but there are so many little things I need to look into. I'm still not done, but hope I'm closer than yesterday. In other news, I did a short statistics course. I've been trying to find a relevant course for months now, but most courses were out of Sydney or ridiculously expensive. Finally, I found a good one; it was using a software called GraphPad Prism. To be honest, it was overwhelming because stats has been my area of weakness and I did it a very long time ago. But I'm really glad I did it because now I'm armed with somewhat confidence. Overall, it has been a really challenging month. I feel ...
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Five things I love about being a dietitian

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I've been thinking about writing this for a while now but thought I'd leave it for something special like Dietitian's Day (which is today) And here we go :) 1.    You are legally allowed to spend more time thinking about food.  The normal, acceptable amount for a person is 10% (according to experts), with exceptions for people if their profession involves dealing with food. If you're thinking more or less than this, your dietary habits may not be considered so normal. But as dietitians, you're allowed to obsess about food, and it's totally okay! ;) 2.    You always have something to strike up a conversation. Have you ever been in an awkward situation where you’re trying to carry out a conversion, but not sure what topic to pick? It can be a struggle when you’re connecting with new people. Talking about food is a good starting point because it's something we all eat; each and every one of us has something to share about food (likes/dislike...
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Juggling June

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I spent all of this month writing up my paper. I focused on writing my discussion for the first two weeks. Soon after I started writing, I realised, there were other small things I needed to finalise as well, like how I wanted my tables to look, supplementary information, etc. Getting everything together and trying to tie up loose ends has been harder than I imagined, but having some experience with systematic review write up (from last year) was sort of helpful. I was also trying to juggle a few other things on the side (more about this later).  Overall, it was a super intense month for me, but things are looking better now because I can almost see the finish line! The good news is that I've managed to meet the deadline I had set for myself, so I'm happy (for now). In other news, I was doing 'Junk Free June' this month which is an initiative run by Cancer Council Queensland that encourages people to give up a junk food for the entire month. I picked my to...
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Simple September

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Spring time! Gosh, this month has gone by too quick! I have been quite busy with research (currently finishing up data extraction) so haven't been able to write up proper recipes. Also, my mum came to visit (for her birthday) so she has been taking care of most of the chores now and I have been doing minimal cooking. Here are some shots from our mini party and other simple eats this month- Woke up early to make brekkie for mumma- capsicum, kale and feta frittata Chocolate raspberry slice Red quinoa, chicken and potato balls Sweet potato and pecan brownies Coconut cupcakes Carrot energy balls (mum)- I call them 'high energy balls' because of the amount of sugar she puts in them! Chicken buns (mum)- not the healthiest as these are fried but they make good party treats! Green tea cupcakes with orange icing I tried being artsy :P That's all for now :) x
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