Australia Party (#9)

Last night I hosted a small group of friends for the first book club gathering. They loved my kangaroo crossing sign on the door and cucumber cut-out camels. Camels are NOT native to Australia, but have been brought in and many roam wild in the outback. Plus, they were the subject of my book, Tracks, by Robyn Davidson.

No, this bactrian is not the type of camel that lives in Australia. They have the one-humped dromedary from Arabia. However, when I went cookie-cutter shopping, the single-hump camel cookie cutter was gigantic and I knew I'd never be able to make it work for me.

I served "Australia's National Dish" according to many online sources: Meat Pie. Basically, it is a pie crust on the bottom, a filling of seasoned ground beef, and a top of puff pastry. No vegetables in it, so I made a big raw veggie tray. I found many recipes, and ended up using this one from ehow.com. I followed it very closely, except that I used my own favorite pie crust recipe for the bottom crusts (no suet!). I pre-baked the bottom crusts for 8-10 minutes before adding the filling. Also, I added onion powder, but otherwise the seasoning was according to the recipe. 

Everyone LOVED it, including Keegan. I think I'll be making it again sometime. It's a pretty cheap dish--not a whole lot of ground beef for two pies. The puff pastry top was the most expensive part, because I had to buy that. I'm sure you could just use another pie crust on top, but every recipe I came across actually did have two different kinds of crusts. I thought I better go authentic the first time.

The other Australian food served, besides the wine, was Vegemite on toasts. I used my cookie cutters for those as well. Spread very thinly over butter, it wasn't bad! I wonder if that's because I'm pregnant. I know most Americans don't care for Vegemite, at least not at first. The best were the ones with avocado smeared on. That's a common way for Aussies to eat Vegemite. Fortunately the avocado I bought was a really good one. That's always a gamble.

I had leftover puff pastry and pie crust scraps, and not one to let any form of pastry go to waste, I made cinnamon-sugar kangaroo cutouts with the pie crust scraps. I also baked up the puff pastry corners. All were devoured by the ladies.

Oops, the one in the middle lost its foot.

I also served fresh fruit and a chocolate cheesecake. I really pigged out, but the funny thing is I felt really good afterward. Lately it seems like I'm hungry ALL THE TIME, and have to eat every two hours. After the book club, I actually felt satisfied, like I'd finally eaten enough. And when I woke up at 2:20 am to use the bathroom, I WASN'T hungry! At five I was starving, though.

Overall, it was a very nice evening. We each had read a different non-fiction book on Australia, and shared what we learned. My poor sister was sick with the flu and couldn't leave her house, but we did have her on speaker phone for about a half hour while we talked about our books. None of us previously knew much about the place, so we all learned something. Several of them said, "I never read non-fiction, so this was a good idea." Yay! I was happy to hear that. The next hostess has chosen the theme "Survival" and will contact us soon with the details. I'm not sure if I'll make it to that one. Time and Baby will tell! Anyway, my work here is done. The rest is just for fun.

So there you have it, folks. Everything on this list that I could control, is fully accomplished. Now I'll just sit back and wait for number four...stay tuned!