End of Holden

Yesterday was a sad day for most Australians. The end of local manufacturing of an Aussie Icon. Sure policy has played a part, the workers (who can blame them for trying to ensure a decent pay for what is mindblowingly boring work), and the lack of support from us Australians in purchasing decisions. There are many reasons for Holden's demise, but what to do about it? I believe we need to stand up to these multinationals, and nationalise car manufacturing. Why not? We can't stand back and watch these companies run roughshod over us..BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Coca Cola, The Banks, McDonalds, now General Motors. We need to fight fire with fire, if they don't accept our terms and conditions for trading here (and I mean decent wages for a decent day's work), input from State and Federal governments, our taxation regime (including heaven forbid, a carbon pollution tax), then we don't need them! We should build our own truly Aussie car again, perhaps a small 4 cylinder diesel or hybrid, using taxpayer funds in partnership with local car part manufacturers. Get the best brains in the land to design and build it. Then we can export to the Yanks and see how they like it!

Christopher Pyne

Interestingly Christopher Pyne's former school, Saint Ignatius College Adelaide, offers a range of co-curricular activities not available to kids at other schools: Trips to Europe, Gallipoli and Bathurst Island, Rowing, and Christmas Ginger Bread Housemaking! I wonder how much federal money goes into schools like this, and why Mr Pyne wants to be snobby with the money..

Wait there's more

Hot on the Heels of the Randall Investment Property in Cairns trip (RIP Cairns), check this out. After a trip to Indonesia and China, Senator Richard Colbeck has claimed $13,744 for overseas study in Honkers from 7-9 September 2012, for the Senator and his wife. That's expensive yum cha...

Pasta with seasonal vegetables

I'm down in Hay (southern NSW) at the moment, working on a cotton farm*. Suffice to say, it is hot, dry and dusty, and it is only spring.. This was a midweek meal I conjured up for my Fijian Flatmate, Swannie. 1 bottle of tomato passata (Italian brand, from the local IGA choose a good quality brand with herbs and a little garlic and onion blended in the sauce) 3 or 4 good quality fresh tomatoes, skin removed, deseeded and roughly chopped handful of button mushrooms, cleaned and halved 1 medium zucchini 2 tbsp olive oil, or in this case I just used canola oil parmesan sea salt all you do is toss the mushrooms in the oil in a medium saucepan for a couple of minutes, to brown them slightly add your tomato passata, skinned and deseeded chopped tomatoes season well with sea salt at this stage cook for 15-20minutes with a lid on, until the tomatoes have cooked and the sauce is fairly thick add your sliced zucchini and cook for 15minutes until the zucchini is done and the sauce has thickened. serve with wholemeal spaghetti, top with parmesan cheese and chopped parsley. swannie the fijian loved it.. *that's another story

Pea, tomato and parsley Pasta

It's been a while since the last post, sorry about that folks.

I made this very simple but tasty dish from a few ingredients sourced out of desperation (the pub kitchen was closed).  But it works - flavour wise, and hip pocket wise.

1 tin of garden peas, drained (if you have fresh peas, even better)
1 bottle of tomato passata
handful of fresh flat leaf parsley
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp grated parmesan cheese
sea salt

wholemeal spaghetti, cooked al dente

cook your pasta to your liking in plenty of boiling water and salt, drain and set aside to keep warm

in a large saucepan, bring to the boil the tomato passata, add in your peas (mine were flavoured with a little mint), a good pinch of sea salt and the olive oil. Simmer gently for a couple of minutes.

Add your pasta and stir through, turn the heat off and keep warm whilst you pour the wine.

Serve in large pasta bowls with slices of crusty italian bread, top the dish with grated parmesan and a good handful of fresh parsley.

Simple, healthy, and supremely tasty

Heatwave in Southeastern Australia

yesterday it was 42 degrees Celsius.

at 12am last nite it was still 35 degrees, now it is 7am and 31 degrees (the lowest it has been overnight) and the hot northerly is picking up.

today's forecast is for 44 deg C.

spare a thought for the poor souls in Hay, about 1.5 hours away from Griffith. Today's maximum is a whopping 46 deg!

Griffith forecast for the next week:

Sat 5/1  44C
Sun 6/1  44C
Mon 7/1 41C
Tues 8/1 42C
Wed 9/1 36C
Thurs 10/1 39C
Fri 11/1 42C