Cooking on Holidays in a Beach House

Well, o.k. - here I am. Yet another food blog to add to the thousands of other food blogs in this thing called the In-terrr-net. So why am I doing it?

Actually, it's purely for selfish reasons - I've now filled a shelf-ful of notebooks with our weekly menus since I started writing down what I will be cooking for dinner around nine years ago. I have now filled four Kikki K recipe folders with cut-outs from Delicious, Gourmet Traveller, and other food mags with so many more recipes tagged and awaiting cutting and pasting. And since August 2007, I've been seeing a nutritionist and have been keeping track of what I eat, and have recently discovered the ease of doing this on Excel spreadsheets.

So I've been thinking - if I'm already keeping track of what I cook and eat, then I might as well start this blog which I've kinda been planning but have been putting off. And this is a good a time as any to start it - we're on holidays for 10 days in this gorgeous beach house in Byron Bay, and thought it would be useful to share some tips on planning and shopping for holiday cooking. Over the years, the hubby and I have preferred to take our hols with our two golden Labradors, Baxter and Georgie, which meant a lot of holiday houses that allow doggies. Travelling with dogs also means a lot of cooking in, which suits us just fine. This house we're in is by far one of the best places we've stayed in, and in fact this is our second time here.

It certainly helps to have a very well equipped kitchen, but you can still whip up some pretty good stuff if you plan ahead and if you take a few essentials with you - I can just hear the hubby spluttering over my use of the term "few", but I count a mere single box of pantry essentials and an esky a far cry from the five boxes of "essentials" I took for a 5-day holiday many many years ago. But I digress.

So for my very first food post series, I'll be sharing my tips for holiday cooking, the menu I've planned for our 10 days of beach house bliss, and some of the recipes that we'll be cooking. So until tomorrow, happy eating and may your belly always be full of good food!