Daily Prompt – Season Scents

S’mores, salty ocean breezes, veggie burgers on the grill, sweaty people on the bus — what’s the smell you associate the most with summer?

Summer seems like so very long ago… Well, it’s now winter here and it’s all about layered clothing and keeping warm. Although I’d much rather be on a beach in the sun right now!

May 26 – Summer Food

Tell us your favourite summer food.

 

…WATERMELON!!!

I love watermelon in Summer. It’s so juicy and refreshing. I’d love to just grab half a watermelon, and a melon baller, and scoop tiny balls of pink juicy goodness out whilst sitting on the couch watching some stories. It’s the best!

Alternatively, I love things like smoothies… full of fruit and ice and sorbet… yum yum yum yum yum.

And salads. Salads with coriander and chili and prawns. Summer is the perfect time for prawns. Prawns, scallops, squid… lots of it. In my tummy.

One of my other favourite foods in summer is sorbet. Blood orange sorbet. Ooh yes please!! So incredibly refreshing.

May 5 – Kitchen Creation

Have you ever invented your own recipe? Tell us about it (or your favourite one).

There are two ‘creations’ that instantly come to mind when I read this…

Firstly, there’s my cheesy pepper rice concoction.

I first created this when I was poor student. I was doing really long hours dancing full time, and would generally come home feeling completely exhausted, and by time I was ready to have dinner, it was quite late. After going through my six-pieces-of-toast-and-two-cups-of-tea-for-dinner phase, (which at one point also became a breakfast phase!) I moved on to this creation. It all happened one night when I was craving rice. Nothing special, just plain, boring, rice. I don’t know why, but I just was. I would sometimes make a big curry or stew, and a big pot of rice, and then portion it up and that would be lunches or dinners for a week, and I would always make my rice substituting water for stock – usually vegetable or chicken.

I’d make it in the microwave, and it would always cook perfectly.

So this one night, I decided to just make a small single portion of rice. Using chicken stock, I cooked my rice to perfection and took a couple of mouthfuls. It needed something. So I hunted through the cupboards to work out what to add… A-HA! A couple of small tins of tuna. Mixed it into the rice… still needed something… PEPPER!! SO I mixed that in and then added some grated cheese… and it became this gooey, peppery, tuna rice dish that became an instant hit, and a new regular in my repertoire of cooking late at night.

The other ‘creation’ of mine is my watermelon drink. It’s something that I generally only make in summer, because it’s so refreshing – especially here when summer reaches temperatures up to 45 degrees celsius!!

So, in a blender I would put a small amount of juice – I would only ever use a special Apple & Mint juice from the supermarket, then I would cut up a whole bunch of seedless watermelon (enough to fill 2/3 of my giant blender) then a big bunch of fresh mint, a generous handful of ice, and another small amount of juice… and blend.

It takes a little bit for everything to blend and for the ice to crush, and it quickly fills the blender – so if you try it, make sure that you don’t overfill the blender, because once it’s all liquidised, it’ll overflow.

Then in a glass, I put some more ice, pour in my concoction, garnish with some more mint and VOILA… heavenly refreshment!!

Daily Prompt: In the Summertime

Theoretically, summer will return to the polar-vortex-battered Northern Hemisphere. What are you looking forward to doing this summer? If you’re in the Southern Hemisphere, what are your fondest memories of Summer past?

Well, for us here in ‘Straya, we get really hot summers… this past summer we saw some temperatures reach from between 46 – 48 degrees (celsius). I remember when I was a kid, we lived in the country and every summer we would have to endure 45-degree heat waves for up to two weeks at a time before we’d actually get a cool change come through.

As the world and society has evolved, along with the ozone layer and global warming, that has since changed. Living in Melbourne, I’ve noticed a distinct pattern in summer… it’ll get ridiculously hot for a few days in a row, then it will rain. Then it gets hot again, then it rains again. We’re fortunate enough to have air conditioning where I live as well as where I work, however catching public transport between the two of them can become quite a nightmare. A hot, sweaty, exhausting, sweaty, smelly, sweaty nightmare.

For me, the standout memories of this summer were extensive train delays due to track network upgrades; countless days of making my absolute favourite Watermelon Mocktail (Watermelon, fresh mint leaves, apple & mint juice, splash of lemon juice and ice – all whizzed up in a blender, and served over ice and some fresh mint leaves to garnish!); it was also a time of sleeping; blogging and PS3; copious amounts of food, but above all, the stress and drama revolving around Christmas.

What. A. Nightmare.

Surprisingly, not once did I get to go to the beach. I didn’t get to swim in the ocean. In fact, I barely managed to swim in a pool for most of summer. Granted I was also carrying a little excess weight, so getting my top off in public certainly wasn’t an option, but it’s disappointing that I didn’t even get the opportunity to visit the ocean.*sigh* I love the ocean. It’s so therapeutic for me.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/04/06/daily-prompt-in-the-summertime/