All About Food

One of the larger changes we've had since we've moved here has been the food. There are just a lot of mild subtleties in flavor and in availability. I wanted to share of few things about it. This is a long post.... #1 Because I love food and #2 Because I like to write and #3 Because I love food!

If I could...
There are a lot of things I would have people send over if they could... you know, like a Chilli's Restaurant, In-N-Out Burger, a fountain drink of Dr. Pepper, Rhodes Rolls. :)

However, because of all the things we don't have here, I'm learning to make a lot of things from scratch that I would have never bothered to try and do before. It's probably much healthier that way as well (sometimes).

Australian Food:

• Aussie Meat Pies are HUGE here! It seems like they have Aussie Meat Pies everywhere. They also sell these at Costco at the food court. It's basically minced meat (hamburger) with a pastry top and then topped with some ketchup (they call it "tomato sauce" here) or BBQ sauce.
• There is a lot of Thai and Turkish food places here. I see Turkish bread at the super markets a lot as well. We bought some the other day and really liked it. I am not sure what's different about it, but it was still good.
• Vegemite: We tried this one night for Family Home Evening and I wish I would've had a video camera to get our kids reactions to it. They both spit it out and wiped it off their tongue. It basically tastes like ocean water made into a brown paste. I'm not sure why people like it. I guess I just didn't grow up on it.
• Aussie Desserts: Pavlova (a hardened meringue with fruit on top), Lamington Cake (yellow cake with coconut and chocolate), Sticky Date Pudding Cake (a cake with warm sticky date pudding poured over the top right before it's served. so good!), Nutella Fairy Bread (fairy bread made with nutella instead of bread if you saw my previous fairy bread post)

• They use lots of Dates, Figs, Prunes and Passion Fruit (Yummmmm!)
• They use a lot of lemon, honey ginger, and pumpkin in stuff (stranger still since they don't have canned pumpkin)
• Chicken Schnitzel: Mmmmm! This is so yummy! I love that they have little butcher shops here. We can go pick up some fresh chicken schnitzel in any flavor we choose and have it made up right there for us. Then all the hard work is done and we just have to go home and cook it. Our favorites are "Honey Macadamia" and "Garlic Parmesan".

• Sausages: Very often they have what's called a "Sausage Sizzle". This is popular in the summer time. The sausages are as big as and look like hot dog's but are sausages and they eat them in between a piece of bread with some ketchup on it. I'm not a big fan of them myself because of how I'm weird with the whole meat thing here, but they are a big hit and everyone else seems to really like them. Plus, the smells here are different with all of the food. I haven't quite gotten used to it yet.

• Bacon: The bacon here is more like what we call Canadian Bacon in the US. Here is some bacon we bought and decided to make one morning. I actually happen to like the bacon here a lot.

Things I do like here:

• Uncle Toby's Hot Cereal: This is much better than just having oatmeal. I'm not sure why, but it's so good. It's creamy and filling... even if you make it with water instead of milk. We all love it. AND, it's one of the only ways to get some good fiber down my kids (and my big kid).
• Pancakes in a Flash: This is a regular here. The pancakes taste like crepe's to me. I like to make them a little thinner by adding more water and use them as crepe's for lunch and roll ham and cheese up in them. Jeremy likes to add a bit of baking powder to it to make them really fluffy. They are really good. They have a sweet, unique flavor.
• Smooze Fruit Ice: We get these at Costco and throw them in the freezer for a nice little sorbet treat. They are so good!
• Tim Tam's (Obviously)

• There is an awesome little bakery/ pastry shop near the Canberra City Centre called Cornucopia Bakery. It's just behind the hotel we stayed at for the first couple of weeks we were here. It is AMAZING! That is one place I will really miss when we are gone. The little bakery shops they have around here really remind me of Paris. Need I say more?

Fast Food or "Take Away" as they call it in Australia:

Macca's 

(a.k.a. McDonald's)

 

 Macca's has come out with some "creative" sandwiches in honor of the 2012 Olympics.

The Sydney Stack Burger: a burger the way Australian consumers like it, with a slice of beet plus lettuce tomato and pineapple. 

 It always weirds me out that they put beets on hamburgers here.

The Beijing Chicken has cucumbers on it. 

Interesting eh? 

What do you think that Hungry Jacks looks like? 

Does it resemble anything familiar in the US?

Since I won't eat hamburgers here from anywhere I have yet to try ol' Hungry Jacks. It just never appeals to me. Even at ol' Macca's I've started to cringe at their food... and I was raised on that stuff. :)

They have a Cold Stone Ice Cream here, but it's called "Cold Rock". ha ha

At kid's birthday parties they always serve:

1. Fairy Bread
2. Popcorn
3. Cheezels

Marshmallows: I really don't like the ones here. You can't make Rice Krispie Treats with the ones here. The Marshmallows have a strange flavor and don't melt down to the same consistency. It is much gooier.

Beef Jerky: I'm not a fan of the red meat here, so I eat a lot of chicken and have appreciated some of the "stow away" beef jerky we've received in some of the care packages from our family.

Chilli Powder: (Which I looked everywhere for and never found until after I had my dad send it. Go Figure.)

Ranch Dressing packets: You will never go to a restaurant here and have "ranch" on the menu. Most people haven't tried it before. The dressings are usually vinegar type dressings. They DO have ranch dressing bottles (not the packets) here at Costco now, but it doesn't taste the same as at home.

Tootsie Rolls/ Pops: They don't have Tootsie Rolls here.

BisQuick: There is nothing like that here. I used BisQuick at home to make a lot of different things. I loved it! I miss it here.

Kool-Aid: Just barely found some of these in a shop over by the airport that had a lot of different American Candy. You could buy lemon or orange for $0.85 cents each. 

Twinkie's: At the same shop where you could buy the Kool-Aid they had Twinkie's to purchase individually. They were selling ONE TWINKIE for $3. Can you believe that? What a joke! 

Reese's Pieces/Peanut Butter Cups: They don't have these here in Australia. I didn't know that until the limited time only 1 lb. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups at Costco were no longer.

Instant Pudding: Any time I've asked someone where the instant pudding mix is, they have no idea what I'm talking about. One person said, "Umm, we just make our own pudding." Ha ha... Ok, well, I guess that's a valid concept. ;)

Crisco: They don't have Crisco shortening here. When I asked people about it at the store they showed me this tiny, hard, refrigerated vegetable shortening that you have to use a chainsaw to break apart. I found a brand new baking store that was just opened up over by the airport (a different one than the one that sells American candy) and they were advertising Crisco in their window. I ran over to look at it and they were selling it for $35 for the can. No thank you! I know how it really only costs about $3! 

Cake Mixes: The cake mixes are so expensive here. They range from $4-6 per mix and they only make 1/2 of the size of cake it would make in America. So if you wanted to do a double layer 8 inch cake, then you'd have to buy two cake mixes, meaning you're spending $8-$12 for one cake made from a cake mix.

Fountain Drinks: They don't have many places that have fountain drinks here. Costco of course has them and I believe McDonald's has them. But most places you go to eat will only have 1-2 liter plastic bottles of soda. I'm not really sure why. It also makes it so much more expensive. It always costs about $3-4 for each drink when you go out. We usually share a drink (our whole family) or bring our own because if we all get a drink that's another $15-20 which seems like a total waste to me.

Shelf Reliance Food Storage: I really miss our Shelf Reliance food. I feel like I was finally getting the hang of incorporating all their stuff into my everyday life and really LOVED their stuff (not to mention that we had to get rid of almost an entire year supply of food storage). It made meal planning very easy, fast, and convenient. We can't get it here.

Canned Pumpkin: Just found out that there is no canned pumpkin here. For Family Home Evening one night I decided to make mini pumpkin pies (which I found an awesome recipe for on Pinterest). I asked the lady at the grocery store where the canned pumpkin was. She raised her eyebrow and looked at me like I was nuts and said, "CANNED pumpkin? I've never heard of that before." I said, "What do you make pumpkin pies with here?" She said, "We don't. We only make meat pies here." 

Canned Olives: We were making  mini pizza's one night and went to go get some canned olives. When Jeremy asked the lady where they were at the store she gave him a strange look and said, "We don't have olives that are canned, but we have some in jars."
 
Canned Green Chilli's: ...Still haven't seen these here, but don't think I'm going to ask about it. Pretty sure that they don't have them.