Mixed Berry Cheesecake Brownies

Hi ETD-ers! Sorry for the lack of posts recently, but Gaffa and I have been busy preparing for Gaffa to join the Australian Navy. He started the New Entry Officer Training Course on his birthday- what a great birthday present! ;P And is due to finish at the end of November. Just in time for our wedding! :) Yay!

Just before Gaffa left he requested that I bake him his favourite cheesecake - one with berries and a brownie base. I first discovered this cheesecake from a recipe I found randomly in a magazine at a doctor's waiting room. Since then I've used a couple of other recipes for the same cheesecake because it's easier to do a quick Google search than to find a piece of paper that I've stuffed somewhere...

This time I used the first thing that popped up in my search, a recipe from Taste for raspberry cheesecake brownies. The recipe uses dark chocolate whereas in previous recipes I remember using cocoa powder. This may be the reason why Gaffa raved about the brownie base being so damn good on this particular cheescake!

Diving in Tulamben - USAT Liberty Wreck

It's winter here down under and it's damn cold! So today I'm reminiscing on the warm clear waters we experienced while diving in Bali. Gaffa and I decided to do another day of diving by ourselves on the Tulamben wreck. We both love wreck diving - travelling around the world to dive on top wrecks like the SS President Cooliage in Vanuatu, Zenobia in Cyprus, Thislegorm in Egypt...

This time we were diving on the USAT Liberty which is a US Army transport ship that got torpedoed by a Japanese submarine in 1942 near Lombok. It was the towed to Talamben beach for salvage operations. In 1963 when Mt. Agung erupted, it pushed the ship about 25m from the shore to a depth of about 30m, where it now lies encrusted with beautiful coral and swimming with an abundance of marine life.

Eating in Bali Part 3

Okies, I swear this will be the last post about eating in Bali! Only two more restaurants to rave about, ones that are a definite must-eat when visiting this paradise island. 

After the wedding all our relatives and family friends went home, so it was just Gaffa and I, my parents and the newlyweds. We decided to meet up with them in Seminyak for dinner which is about half hour taxi from Nusa Dua. We arrived abit late for the $3 cocktails across the road,  but we were happy with the lychee martinis at Ultimo. 

Ultimo is an Italian restaurant on the main street of Seminyak, where you'll find lots of shopping boutiques, restaurants and cafes as well. I was surprised to see such a popular Italian restaurant in Indonesia, but I guess you do have a lot of  Westerners who probably get sick of eating nasi goreng everyday they're in Bali.

We were seated out the back, outside. There was minimal lighting, so little that they supplied us with torches so we could read the menu. We ordered an antipasto plate to share for a starter, and each ordered a pasta dish for mains.