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Father's Day 2015

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I asked my daddy, "what kind of cake do you want for Father's Day?" He said, "just a plain cake with nothing on it." He's just too easy and kind on me! Happy Father's Day!  I've spent so long looking for a perfect card for this Father's Day but they just don't seem to be have what I was looking for. I wanted something with a nice long message but all the ones I saw had dull cover pages. Then I came across this superdad one and I found it to be quite appropriate for us because he has been like a 'superhero' to me. I ended up getting this cute tatty bear one and thought I'd just write my own long message here and force him to read this later :P So here it goes... To my dearest best daddy in the world, Firstly, I hope you like the card and the other presents. I thought I'd get you this superdad tatty bear because you have been like a 'superhero' in my life. You may not know how to fly l...
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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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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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Oriented October

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Happy Halloween everyone! I was super late last month , so I wanted to redeem myself by getting my post out on time this month. This month has been a huge learning curve for me. It has been super busy and crazy, as usual. I spent most of it doing statistics, but the good news is I am starting to get the hang of it. I feel more comfortable doing the analyses now, and I have started keeping good notes of what I am doing so I can go back when needed. Besides statistics, I conducted a few focus groups with another friend and attended an UCL behaviour change workshop, both of which have been very helpful. There was also a sad happening this month which left me feeling down for a couple of days, but I am reluctant to write about here at this stage. I am trying not to think about it for now because I know I should be focusing on the positive things. Other than that, it has been a pretty good mix of quantitative and qualitative work. In other news, I went to Parramatta Lanes and made ...
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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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(Un) Organised October

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This month has gone by way too quick! (Okay, I know I said that last month too but this month went even quicker) It started off with me madly writing my results, then doing discussion. Discussion took me about a week :/ I was rushing to finish my draft because I had to send it to my supervisor and leave enough time for feedback. I allowed myself two weeks time (which I thought was too much, at the time!) But I was so glad I did this later because it can take a couple of days to get feedback as supervisors are too busy to read it in one go. Anyway, now let me move onto the other fun things I did. Starting off with the most important highlight of the month: I WENT TO CENTRAL PERK!!!! I was so bogged down with writing, I almost didn't realise it was finishing and made it in the last weekday after handing in my draft. I had to wait for about an hour but I would say the wait was worth it because I'm such a 'friends' obsessed freak. Getting my butt on that cou...
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Fabulous February

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I did not write properly last month as I had a million things on my mind. There is so much that has happened, and there is so much I want to write. But I can only write so much in this one post. So I will write the main updates here and save the rest for future. As some of you would probably know from Instagram , I got married earlier this month! I would have liked to have made a big announcement but I decided to go into hibernation instead as I was feeling very stressed. I was starting to crumble under a lot of pressure leading up to the wedding as there were many unfinished tasks (both work and wedding related). Having to work right before the day of the wedding was no easy task, but I managed to get through with a lot of support from my parents, family and friends. I am so grateful for the people in my life who went out of their way and travelled long distances to be here for me. I won’t say too much about the actual wedding in this post as I will blog more about this lat...
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Holiday cooking (Part 2)

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This part of my holidays was spent a bit differently. I went away to Asia to spend some quality time with my mum. I didn't have to cook as often as I normally would (mum and others pretty much took care of everything) The food supply was also a bit different, some of the things I use back home wasn't readily available here.  Not having access to some things was difficult, but at the same time, I got to try other things I don't eat as often in Sydney (like guavas, they're my favourite!) Recipe up for oatmeal omelette  :) Orange pancakes with spicy chicken Sweet potato, guava and orange salad Guava, pineapple and mandarin salad Yoghurt pancakes Sea of green! Pineapple and chicken pasta Chicken, carrot and pea dumpling Chicken, carrot and capsicum skewers Green papaya and broccoli ribbon pasta Oatmeal omelette
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Holiday cooking (Part 1)

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After completion of my thesis, I had the best time doing some cooking experiments. I spent a part of it overseas (see part 2 ) I've posted the recipe for kale chips and wholemeal date and walnut loaf . Veggie mess of zucchini, broccoli, beans, carrots and bean sprouts Rainbow trout cutlets with potatoes, zucchini, tomato and bean sprouts Sesame sprinkled salmon with tomatoes, peas and wilted spinach Wholemeal date and walnut loaf Kale chips with tzatziki Chicken spinach parcel with sweet potato mash Chocolate banana ice cream with flaked almonds (vegan) Oats, coconut and sultana cookies Poached salmon, sweet potato and walnut salad Asparagus and prawn curry Sweet potato, chicken and capsicum skewers Lemon herb salmon with sweet potato mash and zucchini Crumbed chicken on a stick Wholemeal fettuccine with lamb, zucchini and asparagus
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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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