Vicious Ange

Springtime

2011-09-25T15:43:00.000+10:00

Busy bee hard at work on my sprouting broccoli

What to do with the pumpkins from the garden

2011-05-07T09:05:00.000+10:00

With 2 pumpkins from the garden to cook up, I wanted to try some different recipes rather than just adding them to a roast. The first recipe was pumpkin hotcakes from Stephanie Alexanders Kitchen Garden Companion, pumpkin steamed & mashed then added to flour, eggs, etc (no sugar) & cooked up, served with maple syrup. Delicious morsels with crispy edges & the sugar wasnt missed though the maple syrup did make up for it!

Next, a roast pumpkin salad, the dressing is made up of chopped roasted capsicum, lemongrass, sesame oil. All served on a bed of rocket (from the garden too). Delicious though my pumpkin didnt brown up during the roasting & was quite soft, think it would have been nicer if it caramelized a bit.

Lastly a Bill Granger recipe for a pumpkin soup that was a bit different. Pumpkin was baked in the oven with tomatoes, carrot & spices, then mashed, stock & lentils added & simmered on the stove for a while. Serve with a dollop of yoghurt & this was one of the best soups I've tried in ages, bound to become a Winter regular in the house. Pumpkins all gone now though does anyone have any sensational pumpkin recipes to share?

Happy Easter

2011-04-26T08:28:00.000+10:00

We've had a busy Easter over here, Family lunch Good Friday, lovely picnic in the amazing childrens garden at the Botanical gardens for Easter Sunday, a drive to the country to visit friends today & of course lots of baking & cooking for it all. Here are a couple of Easter treats I delivered this year. Above white chocolate chip/chocolate cupcakes topped with butter frosting, Persian fairy floss & Easter eggs. I loved the overall look thought found them overall to be too sweet. If I made them again would change the base cupcakes & frosting to something a little more adult in flavour. Having said that though I didnt hear any complaints & they all disappeared pretty quick!

Below are my hand made Easter eggs that I gave out to the family, Chloe loved making them with me & loved even more making the packaging. We cut up egg cartons & painted them, then tied them up with ribbon to secure the eggs inside. The eggs were chocolate crackle eggs, held together with melted dark chocolate & topped with melted white chocolate & freckles, inspired by fast Ed on Better Homes & Gardens, a great Easter treat to get the kids involved in.

Autumn Garden

2011-04-17T16:52:00.000+10:00

Lovely long chillies, waiting for them to turn red, chose a variety with not too much heat in the hope I can sneak some into the kids meals too, miss cooking with chilli....

A couple of rogue pumpkins that sprung up from the compost in the weed patch behind the garage that we have not done a thing with yet. They are different colors so not sure if they grew on separate vines & are different varieties?, hard to tell in the jumble of vines & weeds. Interestingly the pumpkins I planted didnt grow so might have to plant them in this spot next spring

Capsicums turned from green to black, now waiting for the red to kick in, these grew on last years plants which I left in

Garlic coming through, not much success with my last batch so hope this spot does better. You can also see some of my masses of basil bushes alongside

Peas growing up the fence, then a row of carrots, row of coriander, row of beets & some marigolds to ward off the pests

Bright & cheery nasturtium, again to help with bugs

Joshie lending a hand with this mornings garden chores, raking leaves & bug spraying (my garlic & oil mix from Vasili), Chloe still sound asleep...

And the asparagus plot coming up nicely, believe in a year or 2 I might even be able to harvest. Meantime I am growing some carrots in the space at the back.

Have also planted some broad beans, show peas & rainbow chard which are yet to poke to their heads up through the soil, love waiting for everything to grow & ripen & nice always having something ready to harvest. At the moment the tomatoes have just come to a halt, cucumbers said bye bye & beans which we have been eating almost every night dug up too though I do have one stalk in a pot that looks quite vigorous & may produce some late beans yet. Meantime masses of herbs for the picking, waiting for chillies & capsicums to ripen & some rocket & lettuce just about ready for my lunch

Happy 4th birthday to my sweet princess Chloe!

2011-02-21T19:18:00.000+11:00

Yesterday was my beautiful baby Chloe's 4th birthday, I cant believe how quick the years are going. To celebrate we had a small party with family & a couple of Chloe's friends.

Amongst all it all we had some cheery clown straws which worked well slurping up the home made lemonade I concoted, figured if they were going to have sugar, at least I could make it free of chemicals & colours, etc, a big hit, they all loved it.

Then for lunch I stuck to kiddie food & we had the pigs in blankets above, I grew up with the cocktail franks wrapped in bread and baked in the oven. This was a Nigella Lawson recipe from Nigella Bites. The franks were wrapped in a cheesy scone dough & baked, mmm, delicious. I have wanted to try them for ages but of course needed the excuse of a childrens party. Much nicer than plain old bread.
Also made some home made sausage rolls, filled with pork, zucchini, onion, pesto & cheese, again really good & nice to sneak in some veggies (sorry forgot to take a photo. Then there were chicken wings & a variety of sandwiches.

While everyone was bursting at the seams after lunch I played some old school party games with the kids, pass the parcel, success, musical chairs, took lots of convincing but in the end they were all fighting for that last seat & pin the tail on the donkey, may need to invest in a better blind fold next year as some unusual bulls eyes were had!

Last of all was birthday cake, chocolate of course sandwiched with chocolate fudge icing & more icing smothered on top & sides. Decorations all pin with a splash of purple here & there, lots of smiles over this one. Also pictuerd the white chocolate cupcakes with pink icing & decorations courtesy of Chloe, lemon & lime tart, whoopee pies (thanks mum) & fruit kebabs.

Chloe declared it her best birthday ever & true to form about midnight she awoke us with a big clean up job in her room, too much chocolate that wouldn't stay down, oh well better luck convincing her to be moderate next year!

Garden update

2011-01-26T18:43:00.000+11:00

A few photos from my garden. it's all coming along nicely though things seem to be taking a lot longer this year with our cooler than usual summer. Here are some tomatoes, I have 6 different plants on the go & finally they are starting to produce

First lemons on the lemon tree, lets hope they will live to mature, I haven't had much success so far

The first of my tomatoes to ripen, these were actually some Winter tomatoes that I picked up at the garden show last year, I planted them a bit late so nothing in Winter but nice to have something ready to pick now

Thai basil (back) & sweet basil (front), all from last years seeds. This year I have been planting basil every few week so I have a continuous supply, these are my youngest

More Winter tomatoes from last summer, yet to redden

A rogue pumpkin plant I have let live amongst the weeds, one budding pumpkin so far, who knows how many more I will find amongst the weeds

The first of my cucumbers looking good

And lastly some corn just about ready to eat....

How is your garden growing this year?

Happy 2011!

2011-01-01T21:04:00.000+11:00

Happy 2011 to all. I have been a bit of a slack blogger lately, I seem to have lost my mojo since the finish of the Cookbook Challenge (which I did not even complete!). I have still been cooking lots, just no time or inclination to write about it. Guess that's what happens when you're busy with a new job & trying to run around doing Christmas stuff. I did lots of Christmas cooking, 2 puddings, mince tarts, stained glass window biscuits & a glazed ham to name some of the more traditional recipes and for my mums birthday I made Poh's Jaffa Chiffon cake which I have to say I was very dubious about yet it turned out amazing & stayed fresh for days afterwards in the fridge, the fridge didnt even make it go hard & cold like I find it does to most baked goods making them inedible.

One of my resolutions this year is to have a bbq every weekend while it is still warm enough/daylight savings. We tend to only fire it up when we have company and that is something I want to change. I have so many mouth watering bbq recipes I want to try & most are ones I wouldnt bother to make if having a party so Saturday bbq night is the perfect excuse to try some of them out. Tonight was the inaugural fire up & I went with some sticky ribs from Ben O'Donoghues barbecue cookbook. I teamed it with some corn cobs & sliced chats. Fantastic recipe, slow cooked for 3 hours so can sit back & relax until the last half hour where the veges are banged on & the glaze applied. Kids were chomping away at there 'bones' quite happily & I have to say the only downside was how much I stuffed myself, smaller portions next bbq I say!

Summer Garden Update

2010-11-28T14:37:00.000+11:00

Chloe sitting in the new garden with the lettuce & carrots behind her. It's great to see her take an active interest in the veggie plot, she loves to water, weed & of course harvest the goods.

This is the new plot, its coming along slowly but pretty much everything has at least sprouted, now we just have to wait for things to get bigger & see if they produce well.

Some lettuce & heirloom carrots, all coming along nicely & before I know it we will be picking the lettuce, this will be the first thing we harvest from the garden this summer

Beans with the potato crop in the rear, going nuts! I'm a good Polish/Lithuanian girl so love my spuds, hope there are millions under the dirt

Asparagus slowly appearing, a couple of years before I get to taste this bed

Four different tomato varieties, spring onions & leeks in the rear

I have the rain, now I need some sun so all of these babies can grow, grow, grow...

Busy Days

2010-11-24T20:49:00.000+11:00

Busy days with a new job have meant that my blogging has sadly fallen behind. I had to give up on the end of the cookbook challenge though I'm still happy that I did every week right up until the last couple when I was running around like a mad woman & had to say no for my kids & my sanity!

While I try and get myself back into a groove, here are some pictures of dishes made with the broad bean crop which is now all over ( I do have several bags in the freezer for later use though)!

Broad Bean, pea & pancetta salad with blanched almonds

Beetroot, broad bean & chard salad (all from the garden!!)

For now I am busy keeping up the new summer garden which will hopefully be producing soon, planning meals that I can make ahead, spending lazy summer days with the kids on my days off & the Christmas onslaught has begun too, so its dinners, parties, kids concerts, end of year break ups etc. Love this time of year, enjoy XXX

First pick of the crop

2010-10-26T12:34:00.000+11:00

My broad bean crop is now producing tons of big fat, bright green beans that I adore. For my first pick I bashed them up with some Parmesan, olive oil and lemon juice and piled them on some toasted sourdough rubbed with garlic - Heaven!

Icy Fun

2010-10-26T10:54:00.000+11:00

Firstly, apologies for the delay in posting, I haven't been able to get a photo on blogger for the last few days, I kept getting a 'server error' message. Looked in the forums & turns out all sorts of people having problems, cleared my cookies & seems ok now.

So now that I am back up and running here is my Cookbook Challenge, icy theme, mango & pineapple frozen fruit blocks. I loved them yet despite omitting the 'green' stuff I still couldnt convince the kids they were as good as the kind you get in a packet, oh well next time I will just stick to something chocolate flavoured, I did try & they do eat a lot of fresh fruit so I cant hold it against them!

Note - I omitted the mint 'green stuff' as it can have a tendency to turn off the kids no matter what it is or tastes like!

Also, sadly I will not be posting for picnic week as falafels & homus were on the menu & were a complete disaster, they completely fell apart & were inedible, didnt think you would want to read about plain old dip which was wonderful so as I'm bowing out for this week, sorry things are a bit mental here & dont have the time to come up with a new dish!

Frozen fruit blocks - Iced - 180 very cool concoctions

1 ripe mango
125g (3/4 cup) chopped fresh pineapple
1 tablespoon chopped mint
185ml sweetened pineapple juice
6 ice block sticks

Put the mango, pineapple, mint & juice in a blender and blend until smooth.

Pour into 6 80ml icy pole moulds, push the sticks in and freeze for 5-6 hours.

Dip quickly in hot water to remove the moulds

Makes 6

Delicious Stuffed Roti Bread

2010-10-19T13:39:00.000+11:00

For bread week of The Cookbook Challenge I thought I would test myself and make a style of bread I had never attempted before. I love Roti so when I saw this recipe for stuffed Roti I just knew I had to give it a go! The bread is incredibly simple to make, no yeast, no kneading, only 20 minutes to rest. The filling took more time than the bread can you believe, only because I was boiling really big potatoes & they took forever to cook. Anyway once the filling was mixed & the dough rested, it was a simple task of rolling (I did in all in my hand in more of a stretching method), stuffing, sealing, flattening (again my hand) & frying for a couple of minutes each side in the pan. I was a little worried they would fall apart as there were some holes left after stuffing them but once cooking they kept their shape really well. One thing to note was that I had about half the stuffing left so it would be a great idea to double the dough quantity to make 8 as they really are worth it!

I served these with a simple kidney bean salad dressed with red onion, cumin, coriander & lime juice which was perfect alongside, some nice zing to go with the earthy flavours of the bread. Yum!

Aloo gobi parathas: Roti breads stuffed with cauliflower and potato - Ben O'Donoghue - Ben's Barbecue

Roti Dough

250g plain flour
pinch salt
50ml sunflower oil

Filling

300g potatoes
200g cauliflower
2 tablespoons chopped coriander leaves
2 teaspoons garlic paste
2 teaspoons ginger paste
75g onion, finely chopped
1/2 green chilli, chopped
1 teaspoon turmeriv
1 tespoon chilli powder
juice of 1 lime
salt
sunflower oil, for frying

To make the dough, combine the flour and salt. Mix in the oil and add enough water to form a soft but not sticky dough. Wrap in cling wrap and rest for 20 minutes.

Boil the potatoes in their skins in salted water until tender. Meanwhile, in another pan, cook the cauliflower in salted water until soft.

Once the potatoes are cooked, peel and mash them. Drain the cauliflower, then crush it and mix with the potatoes. Add the remaining ingredients, apart from the salt and oil for frying. When combined season with salt to taste.

To make the parathas, take a portion of the roti dough (makes 4 so take a quarter at a time) and flatten it in your hand. Add a spoonful of the filling then roll the dough into a ball. Using a rolling pin (or your hands), flatten the ball to around 1cm thick.

Prepare your barbecue or pan on a medium heat. Lightly oil & cook the parathas on both sides until golden and cooked through.

Italian Week & guess who finally got a new camera

2010-10-07T19:38:00.000+11:00

I finally made up my mind and bit the bullet & bought a new camera, went for a Canon 500D. So far I am still on full auto and haven't had much of a chance to play yet the photos are amazing, especially compared to my old camera. The soup photo here is old & the pasta & risotto are from the new camera, I am one very happy girl & cant wait to test it out in Cairns on our holiday next week!

When I saw that this week's theme for the Cookbook Challenge was Italian I was very happy, I mean what good Aussie didnt grow up eating spag bol & pizza? Seriously there is a bit more to it than that and I cook a lot of Italian style food at home, it's almost pure Aussie tucker to us by now. So I picked out 3 recipes from a book I rarely use even though everything looks and sounds delicious whenever I flick through it, Jamie Oliver's Jamie's Italy. The first was this hearty Ribollita, I cook a big pot of soup a week so am always trying out new ones. Loved this, a good combination of beans, spices and veggies and the torn up bread gave it a lovely silky, thick texture as promised. Also made up for the Grand Final weekend of excess and junk, think hot dogs & Macca's for breakfast in bed on Sunday morning - all 4 of us!

Notes - I used tinned beans as I am always too lazy to wait that hour for the dried ones to cook and instead of cavolo nero I picked some fresh rainbow chard from my garden to throw in the pot. I also added about 3 cups of chicken stock in place of the beans cooking water for flavour & to loosen it up.

My Favourite Ribollita - Jamie Oliver - Jamie's Italy

310g zolfini or cannellini beans, fresh, or dried and soaked overnight
1 bay leaf
1 tomato, squashed
1 small potato, peeled
2 small red onions, peeled
2 carrots, peeled
3 sticks celery, trimmed
3 cloves garlic, peeled
olive oil
a pinch of ground fennel seeds
a pinch of dried red chilli
1 x 400g tin plum tomatoes
310g cavolo nero, leaves and stalks finely sliced
2 large handfuls of good quality stale bread, torn into chunks
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
extra virgin olive oil to serve

Add your beans to a pan of water with the bay leaf, tomato and potato. Cook until tender, dried will take up to an hour, fresh about 25 minutes. Drain and reserve about half a glass of the cooking water, discard the bay leaf, tomato and potato.

Finely chop your onions, carrots, celery and garlic. heat a saucepan with a splash of olive oil and add the vegetables to the pan with the fennel and chilli. Sweat very slowly on a low heat for about 15 to 20 minutes until soft. but not brown. Add the tomatoes and bring to a gentle simmer for a few minutes. Add the beans & a little of the reserved water and bring back to the boil. Add the cavolo nero, stir it in and then stir in the bread too. Add more cooking water if necessary. Continue to cook for about 30 minutes, you want to achieve a silky, thick soup.

Season with salt and pepper & stir in some extra virgin olive oil and serve.

Second up was spaghetti & meatballs with a difference. Chloe loves her spag & meatballs which can get a bit boring so finding a nice variation is always good. This is a Sicilian inspired dish of fresh tuna meatballs. Really nice & the tuna was tender unlike some 'meat' balls which can be a bit tough if not cooked right.

Notes - I didnt bother to liquidize my sauce, I like it rustic.

The best tuna meatballs - Jamie Oliver - Jamie's Italy

For the tomato sauce:

olive oil
1 small onion, peeled and finely chopped
4 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely sliced
1 teaspoon dried oregano
2 x 400g tins plum tomatoes
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
red wine vinegar
a small bunch of fresh flat leaf parsley, leaves picked and roughly chopped

For the meatballs:

400g tuna
olive oil
55g pinenuts
1 level teaspoon ground cinnamon
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
a handful of fresh flat leaf parsley, chopped
100g stale breadcrumbs
55g freshly grated parmesan
2 eggs
zest and juice of 1 lemon

First make the sauce. Place a large pan on the heat, add a good glug of olive oil, your onion and garlic and fry slowly for 10 minutes or so until soft. Add the oregano, tomatoes, salt and pepper and bring to the boil. Simmer for about 15 minutes, then liquidize until smooth. Add red wine vinegar to taste and adjust seasoning as necessary.

While the tomatoes are simmering, chop the tuna up into 2.5cm dice. Pour a good couple of tablespoons of olive oil into a large frying pan and place on the heat. Add the tuna to the pan with the nuts & cinnamon. Season lightly with salt and pepper and fry for a minute or so to cook the tuna on all sides and toast the pinenuts. Remove from the heat and put the mixture into a bowl. Allow to cool down for 5 minutes, then add the oregano, parsley, breadcrumbs, Parmesan, eggs, lemon zest and juice. Mix up with your hands & form into balls a touch smaller than a golf ball. Place on an oiled tray in the fridge for 1 hour to rest.

Put the pan you fried the tuna in back on the heat with a little olive oil. Add the meatballs and jiggle them around until they're golden brown all over. Add to the tomato sauce, serve with spaghetti sprinkled with parsley.

Lastly I made a cauliflower risotto with a lovely crunchy anchovy pangrattato to top it off. Nice and unusual though the actual risotto flavour was a bit bland so not sure I would make it again, I wont post the recipe for this one

Off to play with the camera now, bye...

Grand Final Take 1

2010-09-28T10:56:00.000+10:00

For grand Final Day Take 1 I made some footy inspired cupcakes to suit this weeks Cookbook Challenge theme of Cup. What a day, I went over to my mums with the kids as Michael is lucky enough to be an MCC member & he even got a reserved seat in the ballot, no such luck for the rest of us. Everyone apart from my Dad was barracking for the Pies so in the spirit of things & feeling a bit sorry for the Saints as they havent won a GF in a VERY long time, I made my cupcakes in both teams colours. The base recipe I used was Nigella's Night & Day Cupcakes, a beautiful light & fluffy chocolate cupcake with a cream cheese icing which gave me a nice white background to paint the team colours on. I was pretty pleased with the decorating myself, I haven't dabbled much so am by no means an expert. Everyone else loved them too. Now to do it all again this weekend, I think the party is at my place plus I have to take Chloe to the Justine Clarke concert in the morning so will be keeping things on the simple side. GO PIES and finally put us all out of our misery & let us get on with Spring/Summer.....

Note - I have given the base recipe here, if you want to decorate, I used the icing tubes for sale in supermarkets, much easier than the mess of mixing your own, not to mention having to pipe from a bag!

Night-And-Day Cupcakes - Nigella Lawson - How to be a domestic Goddess

Cupcakes:

2 tablespoons cocoa powder
2 tablespoons boiling water
75g golden caster sugar
50g dark muscovado sugar
125g self raising flour
2 large eggs
125g very soft unsalted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon milk

Icing:

200g icing sugar, sieved
100g cream cheese
juice of 1/2 a lime or 1 tablespoon lemon juice
12 chocolate coated coffee beans or dark chocolate (if not decorating in my manner!)

Preheat oven to 200c. Line a 12 whole muffin tin with paper cases. Mix the cocoa to a paste with the boiling water and set aside while you make the cupcake mixture.

Put the sugars, flour, eggs, butter & vanilla in a food processor and blitz to combine smoothly. Scrape the mixture down the sides, and then pulse while you add the cocoa paste and mil down the funnel. You should have a batter with a soft dropping consistency, if not, add a little more milk. Dollop into the cases in the tin and bake for about 20 minutes, until an inserted cake tester comes out clean.

Leave in the tn for 5 minutes then remove to a wire rack to cool completely. When cool, make the icing by beating together the icing sugar & cream cheese until soft. Add lime or lemon juice to taste & spread over cupcakes. Decorate with a coffee bean in the middle of each or shavings of chocolate as desired.

Spring/Summer garden on the way

2010-09-22T09:16:00.000+10:00

I am super excited that the new garden bed has finally been built. Last weekend Michael and I put in a massive effort, he built, I shoveled, the kids were taken care of & 2 days later, it's all ready to settle in and accept an offering of seeds from me that will hopefully turn into an abundant crop. Can you see my broad bean bushes & herbs poking through from the side garden bed?

I have so many seeds waiting to plant that I dont think I will fit them in. So far garden bed number 1 on the left will have corn, potatoes, beans, cucumber, carrots(and/or beets) & Watermelon. Still have to plan bed no 2 and I have a little space in my existing beds for a couple of things too. Fingers crossed most of it grows as this is still all pretty new to me though I do hope to get much better over the years.

I will keep you updated on the progress and cooking of crops....

Dreaming of Summer

2010-09-21T12:05:00.000+10:00

In my impatience for summer to arrive I decided to make a granita with tropical fruits for this weeks Cookbook Challenge. I know it was madness & I should stick to gooey warming puddings for a couple of weeks yet but I just couldn't resist. The theme was raw so I guess no matter what I chose it was not going to be a hearty or Wintery dish at all. I actually had a hard time choosing something to make, I initially wanted to make a salad of some description but nothing took my fancy so fruit salad it was. Technically the granita has a sugar syrup which is cooked so it's not all raw, though as it ends up frozen with fresh fruit I figured it was pretty close. The recipe is for passionfruit granita with a suggestion to change to mango if you prefer, yes please, I looooveee mangoes & they so remind me of summer which I am absolutely dying for so mango it was. The granita is fantastic, sweet & very fresh tasting & perfect with a selection of fruits. I scooped it over paw paw, kiwifruit & pineapple. I dont normally eat paw paw & this one left a really unpleasant taste in all our mouths so I dont know if I bought a dud or it's an acquired taste, wont be going there again & will stick to the others which were perfect. Have some leftover which I think I might have with some sweet red strawberries, esp as the forecast over the next week even shows the temp reaching figures beginning with a 2, yippee! Oh, did I mention I am also off to Cairns in a couple of weeks for an early taste of summer, VERY EXCITED!!!! Any recommendations for places to eat (child friendly) or places to go?

Notes - Granita can be stored in the freezer tightly covered for up to a week once made & feel free to mix up the fruit with any combo you like and what is in season/available of course

Exotic fruit salad with passionfruit (or mango) granita - Relaxed cooking with Curtis Stone

Serves 4

1/4 cup sugar
500g ripe passionfruit, halved (or sub with 2 ripe mangoes, pureed)
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/2 pineapple, peeled, cored & cut into bite-sized pieces
1 pawpaw, peeled, seeded & cut into bite sized pieces
1 mango, peeled, pitted and cut into bite sized pieces
1 star fruit, cut into 6mm thick slices
4 kiwis, cut into bite sized pieces
1 tablespoon chopped fresh mint leaves (optional)

In a small, heavy saucepan, stir 1 cup of water and the sugar together until the sugar dissolves. Slowly bring the syrup to the boil, then remove it from the heat and let it cool completely.

Spoon the passionfruit pulp or mango puree into the cooled syrup and mix together. Stir in the lemon juice. Pour the mixture into a 20cm square baking dish and freeze it for about 30 minutes, or until the mixture is icy around the edges.

Using a large fork, stir the icy part of the mixture into the remaining mixture in the dish. Continue to freeze the mixture, stirring in edges every 20 to 30 minutes, for about 1 1/2 hours or longer, or until it is frozen. Using a lrge fork, scrape the frozen granita into flaky crystals. Cover & keep frozen.

In a large bowl, gently toss the fruits and mint together. Spoon into serving bowls, top with granita and serve.

Some simple Chinese - Kylie Kwong Style

2010-09-14T16:49:00.000+10:00

That's right, we are up to week 44 of the Cookbook Challenge & it's Chinese theme. Kylie Kwong's Simple Chinese Cooking had to be the book to use, I love the look of it though rarely cook from it, I think this is actually my second look in for the year thanks to the challenge, I will have to keep reminding myself that it's full of great & simple (as the title states) recipes. I chose a Hoisin pork stir fry with a Chinese style coleslaw to go alongside. The picture looks a bit bland however it really was a lovely dish. Hoisin sauce of course gives the pork a sweet flavour & the quick cooking kept it nice & tender. I used my wok burner which I normally dont use & I'm sorry, it didn't seem to get the temperature as hot as the regular big burner & my pork seemed to stew rather than stir fry nicely. It didn't seem to affect the overall flavour though as you can see it ended up a very unappealing greyish color. Back to the big ring next time I think. The coleslaw was lovely & fresh though for the life of me I couldn't get Chloe to eat any of it, carrot, cabbage, cucumber, all on her list of no's despite the fact that she is a pretty good eater, oh well a night without veggies occasionally shouldn't cause too much harm. All in all a nice midweek dinner though not for every day, even though it's all pretty simple, there is a lot of chopping & pickling & making sauces, etc so it actually took a while to prepare.

Stir-Fried Pork Fillets with Hoisin Sauce - Kylie Kwong - Simple Chinese Cooking

600g pork fillets, cut into 5mm slices
1 small cucumber
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon light soy sauce

Marinade

3 garlic cloves, finely diced
1/4 cup hoisin suace
2 tablespoons malt vinegar
2 tablespoons shao hsing wine or dry sherry
1 tablespoon light soy sauce
2 teaspoons white sugar
1 teaspoon five spice powder
1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon sea salt

Combine pork with marinade ingredients in a large bowl, cover, and leave to marinate in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Using a vegetable peeler, finely slice cucumber lenghtways into ribbons, set aside.

Heat oil in a hot wok until surface seems to shimmer slightly. Add half the pork and stir fry for 30 seconds. Remove from wok with a slotted spoon and set aside. Add remaining pork with all the marinade and stir fry for 30 seconds. Return reserved pork to the wok with soy sauce and stor fry for a further minute or until pork is just cooked through and lightly browned.

Serve with reserved cucumber

Celery, Carrot and Cabbage Salad - Kylie Kwong - Simple Chinese Cooking

1 small cucumber
3 small carrots, peeled
1 teaspoon white sugar
1 teaspoon sea salt
2 sticks celery, sliced on the diaganol
1/2 cup malt vinegar
2 tablespoons white sugar, extra
2 1/2 cups finely shredded savoy cabbage
2/3 cup sping onion, julienne
1 1/4 cups fresh bean sprouts
1/2 cup mint leaves
2 tablespoons light soy sauce
2 tablespoons lemon juice
pinch Sichuan pepper & Salt (basically Sivhuan peppercorns & Sea Salt, dry roasted & then pounded to a fine powder)

Using a vegetable peeler, finely slice cucumber and carrots lenghtways into ribbons. Set cucumber side and cut carrots into a fine julienne.

Combine carrots in a bowl with sugar and salt, mix well and leave to stand for 15 minutes.

Add celery to a small saucepan of boiling salted water and blanch for 30 seconds. Drain, refresh under cold water and drain again. Set aside.

Combine vinegar and extra sugar in a small heavy based saucepan and stir over heat until sugar dissolves. Simmer, uncovered for about 1 minute or until slightly reduced/ Set aside to cool before stirring through pickled carrot.

In a bowl combine reserved cucumber, pickled carrot mixture, celery, cabbage, spring onion, bean sprouts and mint. Pour over combined soy & lemon juice & mix well. Arrange in a bowl, sprinkle with Sichuan pepper & salt & serve immediately.

Midweek Moussaka

2010-09-09T17:52:00.000+10:00

During the week I have to cook a meal after work for either my parents or Michaels parents when they have finished their babysitting shift & I have finished work. As Joshie is a very clingy, sookie la-la, mumma's boy, when I finish work at 5pm ( I work from home so am right there when finished), the boy will not stand for anything other than being held so I have to prepare something the night before that can be cooked/reheated very simply. This works fine for now when warming comfort food is all the go but when the temperature is soaring, an hour in the oven will not do pleasant things to the house, not to mention you dont feel like such heavy food when the heat is on. So let's hope Joshie decides to have fun with the grandparents before that time arrives or we might be having pizza for dinner, even the pub is out as he goes to bed at abt 6pm no matter how hard we try to keep him up later, I know I shouldn't complain about this!

Anyway this weeks offering was George Calombaris' Moussaka recipe from the Hellenic Republic book, it's also on the menu there & is his mums recipe which can be found here. I loved it, it has a layer of grilled eggplant on the bottom, a tasty, sweet meaty tomato sauce in the middle, next a layer of grilled sliced potatoes & a keflagraviera cheese bechamel on top which also includes eggs. The eggs help the sauce to set & the whole thing holds together really well when you serve it, a bonus as I hate it when you have such a tasty dish that falls to slop on the plate when you serve it. I served it with a Greek salad & it was a winner, everyone gave it the thumbs up!

Happy Fathers Day

2010-09-07T10:59:00.000+10:00

Fathers Day this year was a lovely long lunch at my mums, we started with a beetroot soup, then had a warming beef pot roast & to finish with I made dessert. I had some egg whites in the freezer that were begging to be whipped into a meringue. I remembered this Jamie Oliver recipe that sounded perfect for this time of year. Normally I think of a pav/meringue as a summer cake, laden with tropical fruit & cream. This version however was smothered in roasted nuts, pears & a chocolate ginger sauce as well as the usual whipped cream. By the time you pile everything on it ends up being a pretty massive affair & to prove how much it was enjoyed, after 5 adults & the 2 kids dug in there was only a teeny piece left. We all felt sick of course but couldnt stop going back for more it was so good. So hope all the Dad's out there had a good day, for me that means, family, good food, nice wine & a nap on the couch after lunch as you are so full you cannot budge an inch! This is my crunchy entry for the cookbook challenge though after the topping went on the meringue wasnt really all that crunchy, oh well, I had good intentions.

Notes: I couldnt for the life of me get the skins of the nuts before they were roasted so I roasted them & peeled them afterwards which was much easier, any tips? Also, used pears in juice rather than syrup, sauce tasted good this way but maybe it would have been thicker & sticker if syrup used instead?

Tray Baked Meringue with Pears, Cream, Toasted Hazelnuts and Chocolate Sauce - Jamie Oliver - Jamie at Home

4 large egg whites
200g unrefined golden caster sugar
a pinch of sea salt
100g hazelnuts, skins removed
2 x 400g tins of halved pears in syrup
optional: 2 pieces of stem ginger, thinly sliced
200g dark chocolate (minimum 70% cocoa solids)
400ml double cream
50g icing sugar, sifted
1 vanilla pod, halved & seeds scraped out
zest of 1 orange

Preheat oven to 180c. Line a 40 x 25cm baking tray with baking paper.

Put your egg whites into a squeaky clean bowl, whisk on medium until the whites form firm peaks then with the mixer running, gradually add the sugar and a pinch of salt. Turn the mixer up to high & whisk for about 7 to 8 minutes until white and glossy. Spoon the meringue on to the tray & shape it into an A4 size rectangle. Place in the oven & bake for 1 hour or until crisp on the outside & a little sticky inside. At the same time, bake the hazelnuts on a separate tray in the oven for an hour or until golden. Take our of oven when ready and allow to cool.

Drain the tin of pears, reserving the syrup from 1 can. Cut each pear half into 3 slices. Pour the pear syrup into a saucepan with the ginger and warm gently over medium heat until it starts to simmer. Take off the heat and snap the chocolate in to the pan, stirring until it's all melted.

To assemble, place your meringue on a board or tray. Whip the cream with the icing sugar & vanilla until it forms smooth, soft peaks. Smash or chop the toasted hazelnuts and sprinkle half of them over the meringue. Spoon half of the cream over the top & drizzle with some of the sauce. Divide most of the pears over the top evenly. Pile over the rest of the cream & pears. Drizzle with more chocolate sauce, then sprinkle over the remaining nuts & some grated orange zest. Serve straight away.

Golden Cardamom Chicken with Crispy Onion Spiced Rice

2010-08-31T15:32:00.000+10:00

The theme for this weeks Cookbook Challenge was Bird. Now bird is a very broad theme, lots of different birds out there, chicken, duck, quail and pheasant just to name a few & cookbooks have hundreds of recipes for them. Despite this I had a hard time deciding what to make. I think when the theme is so broad and there is too much choice I have trouble making up my mind. I nearly went for duck confit, a dish I am dying to make but due to the amount of duck I have consumed lately (out & home cooked) and the amount of fat involved I thought I would stick to some simple chicken. I guess I consider chicken to be a very boring meat, in fact when I got married I didnt have any chicken on the menu for the same reason & the staff organizing totally agreed with me. Dont get me wrong I eat a lot of chicken and enjoy it though it usually features in very simple dishes in this house.

In the end I found this very interesting sounding dish from Nigella Lawson's Feast cookbook. It falls under the wedding chapter & serves lots as part of a banquet, I halved the ingredients & it fed us for 2 nights. I normally tend to shy away from frying in so much oil but it was the weekend & it was for the good of the challenge so away I went. I marinated the chicken for 2 days & it was extremely tender, the cardamom lent a lovely & very subtle flavour among all the other spices in the marinade. The coating was nice & crispy & again had some beautiful flavour. It also tasted great the next day straight from the fridge so it would be ideal picnic food to drag along as well. The rice was tasty too & love the crispy onion, have always been a sucker for near burnt fried onion slices. The icing on the cake would have been the sweet and crunchy pomegranate seeds but alas not in season.

Golden Cardamom Chicken with Crispy Onion Spiced Rice - Nigella Lawson - Feast

For the Chicken and the Marinade

zest and juice of 1 lemon
1 onion
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon cardamom seeds (from abt 5 pods)
2 fat garlic cloves
125ml olive oil
1/2 tablespoon Maldon Salt or 1 teaspoon table salt
1.5kg boned and skinned chicken thighs

For the coating

4 eggs
175g cornflour
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
vegetable oil for frying

For the Rice

1 onion
3 tablespoons oliv eoil
500g basmati rice
3 cardamom pods, crushed
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 litre hot chicken stock
75g pine nuts, toasted
1-2 tablespoons chopped parsley
1-2 tablespoons chopped mint
1-2 tablespoons chopped coriander

To finish

1-2 tablespoons pomegranate seeds (if available)

To marinate the chicken, put the lemon juice, peeled & roughly chopped onion, allspice, pepper, cardamom seeds, peeled garlic, oil and salt into a processor and blitz to a pulp. Chop the chicken pieces in half, add the marinade to coat & leave in the fridge overnight or for up to 2 days.

let the chicken come to room temperature while you start the rice. Peel the onion and slice into very thin half moons. Heat the oil in a wide saucepan (one which has a lid) and cook the sliced onions in the oil over a fairly high heat until darkly golden and very crispy. Remove to a plate and reserve for later.

Turn the heat down, add the rice and spices to the pan and turn in the oil until the rice is slicked and glossy. Add the stock and let the pan come to the boil, then put the lid on & turn the heat down to the lowest setting. Cook without peeking for 15 minutes by which time all the water should have been absorbed. Take off the heat and leave to rest for 5 minutes.

While the rice is cooking you can get on with your chicken. Beat the eggs together and in a separate bowl, combine the cornflour, allspice, paprika and salt.

Pour enough oil into a pan until it comes about 1cm up the sides & heat until sizzling. Shake excess marinade off chicken, coat in flour mix, then eggs & place in the frypan. Cook until golden and crispy (about 10 ,minutes - I did mine one side at a time for 5 mins each), cut into a piece to make sure it's cooked through - thicker pieces may need longer, then remove to a plate lined with paper towel. Continue until all of the chicken is done.

When ready to serve, stir the pine nuts and most of the onion & herbs through the rice. Tip onto a serving platter, top with the chicken & finish off with the rest of the onion & herbs & pomegranate seeds if you have any.

A Very Brief Taste of Melbourne

2010-08-29T18:33:00.000+10:00

Stokehouse Wagyu beef cigars, artichoke tapenade and horseradish

Friday night I was fortunate enough to attend A Taste of Melbourne for the first time with some friends thanks to SBS Food and Green & Blacks Organic Chocolate. Unfortunately for me due to a sick little boy who needed a visit to the Dr I didn't arrive until 8.30pm & couldn't make it again due to a very busy weekend. The doors close at 9.30pm & the bar closes at 9.15pm so 1 hour was really not that long to spend there. Luckily I had printed out the menu and knew some of the dishes I wanted to try. Thanks to the map I even managed to find these places though I only got to try 2 savoury dishes & one sweet & only managed to visit the Green & Blacks produce stall. I have to say I was very disappointed as there was so much I wanted to try, maybe next year I will have better luck.

My first stop was The Stokehouse for the fabulous beef cigars, artichoke tapenade and horseradish. Wow, I am so glad I tried these as they were luscious, crunchy pastry, moist & delicious filling & the tapenade was the perfect partner.

Next I dropped into Green and Vlacks to say i & thanks for the tickets & tried the chocolate and raspberry cheesecake brownies & butterscotch choc chip cookies, both were great & are from the upcoming new cookbook, I will be very interested to see the book when released, I already have one of their books & love it being a true chocoholic.

Longrain was next on my list so I headed upstairs only to be very disappointed to find EVERYTHING sold out, even the cocktails, not very happy!!!!!! So it was off to Charcoal Lane for the Seared Kingfish, Red Curry, Puffed Rice & Coconut. I loved the flavours in this dish though I think the temperature put me off a bit. It was quite cold & I think I would have preferred it warmer even though the guy dishing it up assured me this was the temperature it should be served at.

By this stage I only had 6 crowns left out of my 60 (yes I managed to spend a lot in a short time without even getting much as there may have been some glasses of wine going down too). I stopped by the Melbourne Wine Room & Mr Wolf stall and they were kind enough to let me sample the Vanilla pannacotta and blood orange jelly. Nice though by this stage I was more interested in drinking more wine than sweets so headed out the door for a long night at the Brunswick Green and Retreat!

Apologies too for the lack of photos, I did take heaps more but they were completely crap, I really need that new camera which current financial circumstances have had to put on hold again for now....

Green and Blacks samples

Looking forward to next year & hope I manage a bit more time next visit.

Celebration Cupcakes

2010-08-25T11:14:00.000+10:00

When I think of any celebration I immediately think of cake. Seriously, what cant be celebrated over a good piece of cake in any form? When it comes to kids, cake is usually best appreciated in the form of cupcakes, and cupcakes with sprinkles or any type of bright decoration. So for week 41 of The Cookbook Challenge I made up a batch of sticky toffee cupcakes for the celebration theme. I didnt really have anything specific to celebrate so I tried to find a recipe that was a bit healthier & these had lots of fruit in them, sultanas, apricots & dates. Chloe was my decorator & she chose a mix of blue, orange & green sprinkles this time. Sadly while they looked cheery & bright the cakes in themselves were not that spectacular. They were okay but didnt have much rise & the flavour was a bit on the ordinary side. I also didnt like the choc topping so no I wont be making these again.

Sticky Toffee Cupcakes with Chocolate Topping - Jamie Oliver - Happy Days with the Naked Chef

30g sultanas
30g dried apricots
30g dates
1 teaspoon baking powder
140g self raising flour
30g muscovado sugar
1 tablespoon golden syrup
1 large egg
30g melted butter
140ml hot water

Icing

40g butter
40g caster sugar
40g plain chocolate
70ml double cream

Preheat the oven to 200c. In a food processor, blitz the sultanas, apricots, dates, baking powder and a little of the flour (just enough to stop the fruit sticking to the blades). Put this mixture into a bowl with the sugar, golden syrup, egg & butter & stir together. Then add the very hot water and the remaining flour and mix well with a whisk. Divide the mixture between 12 cupcake papers (note Jamie places the papers on a tray, I put them in a muffin tray). Bake for about 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, melt all the icing ingredients together in a small saucepan and bubble for a while until darkened in color slightly. Remove from the heat and let the sauce cool until it thickens. Then ice each cupcake.

Taste of Melbourne - Last minute give away

2010-08-24T09:44:00.000+10:00

I have a few last minute double double passes to give away to this weekends Taste of Melbourne Festival thanks to the lovely people at Green & Blacks Chocolate. All passes also come with some free blocks of milk & dark chocolate to sample.

As this is very last minute, the first people to contact me with their address and contact details will get the tickets, so email away & I will mail out tomorrow and hopefully the packages will arrive in time. Please note all but 1 of the double passes are for Thursday or Friday sessions only so please indicate when you would like to go.

I'm very excited to be going to this years festival, I haven't been before & have heard both good & bad comments on previous years shows. There is good food & wine and I'm going with fine friends so sure that no matter what I will enjoy myself, details will follow.

Apple & Rhubarb pie

2010-08-17T11:20:00.000+10:00

I have been waiting for apple week in the Cookbook challenge for ages, I have been craving am apple pie like you wouldn't believe, cant actually remember the last time I ate one let alone made one. I chose Bill Granger's Apple & Rhubarb pie recipe from Bill's Sydney Food as he is usually pretty good with his sweet recipes. The pie recipe serves 6-8 and is supposed to be baked in a 23cm pie tin. As I only had 2 smaller dishes I made 2 pies & froze one. This was a brilliant move as the 1 smaller pie still kept us going for 2 days, so it would have been way too much to have the whole thing at once. When I made the filling I was being bugged by little people & was a bit distracted, I forgot to add the sugar so added it after it was cooked, didnt seem to cause a problem though the filling was very sweet, dont know if that would have changed if the sugar had cooked down a bit? Overall a delicious Winter pie that was definitely enjoyed by all!

Notes - The pastry was a little hard to work with though it tasted nice & short when cooked. I did only need to bake mine for about 45 minutes & by then it was already a little too brown. Strange as my oven usually cooks slower than a recipe so something to keep in mind.

Apple and Rhubarb Pie - Bills Sydney Food - Bill Granger

1kg Granny Smiths, peeled, cored and finely sliced
juice and zest of 1 lemon
50g butter, cut into small pieces
300g rhubarb, chopped
300g catser sugar
2 tablespoons plain flour
1 tspn ground cinnamon
1 qty shortcrust pastry (recipe below)
2 egg yolks, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons caster sugar for sprinkling

Toss the apples with the lemon juice and zest. Melt the butter in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add the apples and cook for 5 minutes, or until softened slightly. Add the rhubarb and the sugar and cook for 1 minute further. Add the flour and cinnamon, stir gently to combine. Allow to cool.

Place half the pastry on a lightly floured surface and roll out until 4mm thick. Lightly press into a 23cm pie tin and refrigerate while the filling is cooling. Spread the apples & rhubarb evenly in the pie shell.

preheat the oven to 200c. Moisten edges of pastry base with egg yolk. Roll out remaining pastry on a lightly floured surface until 4mm thick. Cover pie with rolled pastry. Trim, press edges of the pie firmly together and crimp the outer rim with your fingertips. make incisions in the top of the pie with a sharp knife. Brush with remaining egg yolk and sprinkle with caster sugar. Bake the pie for 1 hour until the crust is golden brown. Remove from the oven and cool for 20 minutes. Serve with ice cream of cream as desired! Serves 6-8.

Shortcrust pastry

4 cups plain flour
1/2 cup icing sugar
a pinch of salt
360g unsalted butter, cubed
1/2 cup cream

Place flour, sifted sugar and salt in a bowl. Add butter and rub through the fingertips until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Add just enough cream for mixture to form a ball. Divide pastry into two balls, wrap in plastic wrap & refrigerate for 30 minutes before using.

The famous Gingerlee Grench toast made by me!

2010-08-15T16:02:00.000+10:00

I love the Syrian French toast at Gingerlee in Lygon st, East Brunswick & it's possibly my favourite breakfast out, if I ever go there I find it impossible to order anything else & many others feel the same, so when Delicious recently published a recipe inspired by this dish I was very, very excited that I could finally reproduce this dish at home. It's a bit fiddly in that there are a few different components to prepare so I needed to invite someone over for brunch to make it worth the effort, luckily Karen was the target & she has tried the dish so felt she could fully appreciate it. Loved it & seriously think it was just as good as the original which is great news, go ahead & try it & you will have a very speical home cooked brekky.

Bill Granger = Quick Week Night Winners

2010-08-11T10:26:00.000+10:00

TV Chefs, seems like every chef out there with a cookbook has their head on tv these days so it wasnt hard to find someone from my cookbook collection for this weeks cook book challenge theme. Bill Granger, now I have never actually watched him on tv as he only appears on foxtel (as far as I know) and is not accessible to us poor folk who only get free to air tv! However despite not watching him wow me on the screen I am a huge fan of his recipes for various reasons, he always has great breakfast sections in his books, his cakes & desserts are amazing & his lunch & dinner fare is perfect for simple mid week dining & generally doesnt include 10 pounds of butter or cream as do some other cookbook recipes. I was originally trying to find some fancy pants recipe for the theme but really had a busy week so this was all I could fit in. As you can see from the photo the chicken is a deep, rich golden & sticky brown & actually looks quite similar to the photo in the book. Juicy and tender thanks to the cooking in liquid, the lovely caramel flavour of the chicken is pretty intense (I would probably add less fish sauce next time & keep it a bit sweeter), though it does all balance out welll with the steamed rice & greens on the side,

Caramel Chicken - Bill Granger - Bills Open Kitchen

8 chicken thigh fillets, skinless, chopped in half
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 red onion, sliced
3 garlic cloves, sliced
freshly ground black pepper
60ml (1/4 cup) dark soy sauce
115g (1/2 cup) brown sugar
60ml (1/4 cup) fish sauce

Steamed rice & green vegetables such as broccoli & spinach to serve

Place the chicken and oil in a bowl and toss to combine. Heat a large frying pan over a high heat until hot. Add the chicken, in two batches, and cook for 2 minutes on one side until lightly brown, turn and cook for another minute. Remove from the pan. Reduce the heat to medium and add a little extra oil if needed. Add the onion and garlic and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Return the chicken to the pan, sprinkle liberally with black pepper, add the soy sauce & stir to combine. Cover the pan, reduce the heat to low and cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Increase the heat to high, add the sugar and stir to combine. Cook uncovered for 3 to 4 minutes, or until the sauce is rich, dark & syrupy. Add the fish sauce and stir to combine. Place ina serving dish and serve with rice & greens. Serves 4

Sugar & Spice and all things nice

2010-08-10T10:58:00.000+10:00

Week 38 of the cookbook challenge was spice week. Even though I love spice in all forms I had a difficult time deciding what to make. I didn't want a curry as I'd done my Sri Lankan dish just recently & didn't want a cake as have been over doing it a bit lately. When I found this recipe for duck it sounded perfect, love duck & the spice mix was a bit different to anything I usually cook with. The mix actually gave the duck a really lovely sweet flavour that went perfectly with the parsnip puree. My mum had dropped off some home grown beets which I made a nice salad with & did some roast spuds to keep the kiddies happy, fantastic meal & really quite special for a weeknight.

Sugar and spice crusted duck with parsnip puree - Jill Dupleix - Good Living Winter

4 duck breasts
1 tsp black peppercorns
1 tsp juniper berries
1 tspn cumin seeds
1 tsp caraway seeds
Sea Salt and Pepper
600g parsnips, peeled and chopped
Brown sugar
1 tbspn butter
grated nutmeg
50ml milk

Preheat oven to 200c. Score the skin of the duck in a diamond pattern. Crush the peppercorns, juniper berries, cumin and caraway seeds and 1 tspn salt and place on a plate. Gently press the skin into the spices.

Heat a dry, non-stick frying pan and cook the duck skin side down for 5-6 minutes over a gently heat until crisp. Turn once & cook for 3 minutes. Pour off the fat as it renders to prevent it burning.

Cook the parsnip in simmering salted water for 15 minutes until tender.

Transfer the duck to the oven, skin side up, scatter with brown sugar and bake for 10 minutes, then rest. Drain the parsnip and puree with butter, nutmeg, salt and pepper to taste and sufficient milk to make it smooth.

Carve the duck thickly and serve on the puree.

A Well overdue dinner party

2010-08-01T12:17:00.000+10:00

Last night I had my brother & his girlfriend over for a bit of a dinner party. I realized I haven't had anyone over for a proper dinner (apart from parents and in laws every week after babysitting which doesn't count), since before our renovations which is at least 18 months. There have been plenty of brunches, lunches, cake & coffees & even a couple of parties of mass catering but no good old dinner party. I love a dinner party & am really a bit sad that no one (I know) seems to have them anymore or if they do they dont invite me! Back in my late twenties before marriage and kids, a few of us would have them all the time but since most people have settled down with kids they seem to think it's too much effort. Not me, I am now going to try & do a dinner a month or so as I love it & dont care if I dont get an invite back, people will just have to put up with me & my dinners. It's a great excuse to cook dishes I wouldnt normally make for just us & the kids.

My entrée for dinner was a mushroom, spinach & goats cheese tart. I love tarts & would eat them every day if the pastry & cheese, etc wasn't so bad for my cholesterol. This pastry recipe actually cooked a bit quickly so ended up a bit on the very dark brown side (though not burnt) & so was a bit crumbly, a little disappointing but not a complete failure. The filling was delicious & right now I am wishing I made a double batch for leftovers but looks like it's toast for lunch again!

The main course was pan fried veal with a balsamic, pine nut & currant sauce/jus, whatever you want to call it, with a pumpkin & rocket salad on the side. This was a risky move as I had to pretty much cook it up fresh after the entrée and by that stage I'd already had a few glasses of wine, luckily I was still functioning ok and there were no disasters, in fact I loved this dish in all it's simplicity & will definitely make it again.

Dessert was pretty much ready to go. I made a white chocolate, mint & dark choc chip ice cream the day before which I was a bit concerned about. It was a sugar syrup rather than a custard based ice cream and the melted white chocolate didn't seem to blend very well with the syrup when mixing. Then the mixture didn't set in the ice cream machine which might have had something to do with the creme de menthe & vodka in it. I threw it all into the freezer & hoped for the best. tasting it in the morning I thought it was delicious even if it was a bit grainy, almost granita like. I bought some store bought ice cream as a back up in case I had any last minute reservations but turns out there was no need to worry. The ice cream was served with some oozy chocolate fondants, after the last week of Master chef there was no question this was what I had to make. A few hours in the fridge before cooking ensured that they didn't set right through & just imagine how well they went with the minty, chocolatey ice cream, heaven!

I was very happy with everything & cant wait to invite my next lot of guinea pigs over for some more feasting.

A hearty curry from Sri Lanka

2010-07-25T19:13:00.000+10:00

The theme of hearty could have been right for just about every dish I am cooking these days, it's that cold weather & having to cook for 4 now and toddlers and pre-schoolers seem to like the hearty dishes best of all.

In the end I decided it's been ages since I cooked up a good curry (sadly need to stay away from chilli for the kids), so with not too much on I was ready to do the double dinner cook off, ie cook a spicy curry for Michael & I & a separate dinner for the kids (corn and zucchini fritters with chicken schnitzel if you are interested!). I love Sri Lankan curries and really miss the old Village Curry House on Sydney road, what ever happened to it I wonder? So I turned to my Food Safari book & the Sri Lankan chapter to find this classic chicken curry by Charmaine Solomon. Despite the long list of ingredients, if you get all the spices measured up before you start and pretend you are a tv chef filming :), its a really simple curry to put together. The flavours are delicious, spicy yet subtle & all rounded off nicely by the addition of the coconut milk at the end, one to make again & very close to the flavours of my old favourite.

The rest of the weeks hearty dishes include a chicken and leek pie, spaghetti and meatballs and beetroot soup, mmm 2 months in and still not sick of Winter cooking for 2010.

Notes - I used dried curry leaves as didn't have time to search out fresh ones. Also didn't bother peeling my tomatoes as for a dish like this I dont notice the difference. And sadly no pandan leaves to be found either so left out with no substitute. And my biggest note, even though I asked for chicken on the bone, I unwrapped my parcel to find boneless thigh pieces, thankfully this didn't dry the dish out & it was still perfect.

Chicken Curry - Food Safari - Maeve O'Meara - Recipe by Charmaine Solomon in Sri Lanka Chapter

2 tablespoons ghee or vegetable oil (or a combination)
1/4 tspn fenugreek seeds
10 curry leaves on the stem
2 large onions, finely chopped
4-5 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 teaspoons grated ginger
1 teaspoon tumeric
1 teaspoon chilli powder
1 tablespoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon ground fennel
1 teaspoon ground cumin
2 teaspoons sweet paprika
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons vinegar
2 tomatoes, peeled and chopped
6 cardamon pods, cracked
1 cinnamon stick
1 lemongrass stalk, bruised
1 pandan leaf, folded
1.5kg chicken thighs on the bone
250ml thick coconut milk
lemon juice (optional)

Heat the ghee or oil and fry the fenugreek seeds and curry leaves until the leaves start to turn brown. Add the onion, garlic and ginger and fry gently until the onion is soft and translucent. Add the ground spices, salt and vinegar and stir well. Add the tomato, whole spices, lemongrass and pandan leaf, then add the chicken. Stir to coat the chicken in the spices, then cover and cook over a low heat for 40-50 minutes. Stir in the coconut milk and taste for salt. Add a squeeze of lemon juice if desired. Serves 6.

Some Winter comforts, roast & pud

2010-07-20T11:37:00.000+10:00

Friday night was freezing and I hadn't baked since the weekend so I had an irresistible urge to make a pudding. As this weeks theme for the Cookbook challenge was comfort food I thought it was also necessary for the good of the challenge, so my excuses to myself made I whipped up a batch of very quick golden syrup puddings that then took an hour to bake. Note that I did a session on my exercise bike while they were in the oven to prepare for my sins! This recipe was from The Good Living Winter cookbook & features on the cover. Note that the cover also looks much better than mine, they seemed to end up with a lot more sauce & a much richer syrupy color, think I added too much butter/not enough golden syrup. Other than that, really tasty pudd without being too heavy. Love the flavour of golden syrup so really it was bound to be good.

Note - I used baking paper topped with foil rather than buttering foil - it all seemed to messy for me. I also didnt tie mine up & only one spilled out a little while cooking.

Little golden syrup puddings - Good Living Winter - recipe by Jill Dupleix

150g butter
150g soft brown sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 tspn vanilla extract
2 tbspn golden syrup
150g self raising flour, sifted
2 tbspn milk

Sauce

2 tbspn golden syrup
2 tbspn butter

Preheat oven to 180c. Lightly butter 4 ovenproof 150ml ramekins or pots.

Beat the butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla extract and golden syrup with an electric mixer for 4 minutes. Fold in small amounts alternately of the flour and the milk until you have a fairly stiff batter.

Tip the mixture into the pots, cover each with a piece of buttered foil and tie foil with string. place in a baking tray and pour in boiling water halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Bake for 1 hour or until the puddins spring back to the touch.

Sauce: Gently heat the golden syrup and butter in a small pan. Turn out the puddings and spoon the sauce over the top. Serve with ice cream if desired.

And for my savoury comfort food of the week, I felt a nice roast pork was in order. For something different I went for Bill Granger's roast pork with braised veggies on the side rather than roasted. The idea being to cut down on the fat content a bit. The pork had lovely flavours though I dried mine out a bit, cooked it a bit too long and took the baking paper off to try & get my crackle crisp (Bill's didnt have crackling). I compensated by making some gravy to pour over the top. The veggies were nice but I have to say it just wasn't quite the same without nice crunchy roast spuds, soft, caramelized pumpkin, etc so now I am still craving a roast, the proper way!

Slow-Roasted Pork Shoulder with Cumin and Coriander Seeds - Bill Granger - Holiday

Serves 6

1 tspn cumin seeds
1 tspn coriander seeds
2kg Pork Shoulder on the bone
olive oil
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 240c. Crush the cumin and coriander seeds with a mortar and pestle. Put the pork in a large roasting tin, drizzle with olive oil and rub with the crushed spices. Season well with salt and pepper. Put in the oven and roast for 30 minutes or until the pork is browned, then remove from the oven.

Reduce the oven to 180c. Moisten a large piece of baking paper with water and place over the pork, tucking the edges underneath. Return to the oven and roast for 2 hours or until tender. Rest for 10 minutes before carving.

Braised Potatoes and Peppers with Bay

Serves 6

3 tblspns olive oil
2 red onions, sliced
750g yellow waxy potatoes, peeled, cut into wedges
1 large red capsicum, cut into thin strips
1 large green capsicum, cut into thin strips
3 garlic cloves
3 bay leaves
250ml (1 cup) chicken stock
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper

Heat the olive oil in a large non-stick deep frying pan over medium low heat. Add the onions and cook, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes. Add the potatoes, capsicums, garlic and bay leaves and cook, stirring occasionally for another 10 minutes. Add the stock and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer for 20 minutes. remove the lid, increase the heat to medium and continue to simmer, stirring occasionally, for 10-20 minutes until all the stock has evaporated and the potatoes are tender, coloured and starting to form a crust. Season well with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Spanish Feasting

2010-07-13T12:32:00.000+10:00

The theme for this weeks Cookbook challenge was Spanish & who doesn't love a good old Spanish feast?

The first dish I cooked was for my family, I had some egg yolks that needed using up & Bill Granger's Crema Catalana was calling my name. I have never made one before but I guess its fairly similar to a brulee which I have had some success with & besides it meant I got to pull out & dust off my barely used blow torch - yay fun with fire! The recipe was pretty good in that the end flavour was sensational, lovely spiced cream without being too sickly & the crackly top was a wonderful contrast even though I may have overdone the torching. The only problem I had was that mine didn't seem to set in the oven even though I cooked them for a lot longer than the specified time. A few hours in the fridge & they were pretty well set but I cant help feeling they were still a little on the soft side, not too worry as id didn't seem to effect the pleasure factor. Oh and did I mention that I had this for breakfast as I knew there was no way I would have room after our potluck lunch (details to follow), very decadent breakfast!

Crema Catalana - Bill Granger - Simply Bill

625ml (2 1/2 cups) cream
170ml (2/3 cup) milk
2 teaspoons natural vanilla extract
2 cinnamon sticks
peel from 1 orange
peel from 1 lemon
6 egg yolks
4 tablespoons caster sugar
2 1/2 tablespoons soft brown sugar

Preheat oven to 140c. Put the cream, milk, vanilla extract, cinnamon, orange and lemon peel in a saucepan over medium heat and bring just to boiling point, then remove from the heat.

Whisk together the egg yolks and caster sugar in a large bowl. Strain the cream and pour slowly over the yolks and sugar mixture, whisking constantly. Skim off any foam that rises to the top.

Put six 125ml ramekins in a large roasting tin and spoon the mixture into them. Pour hot water into the tin to come halfway up the sides of the ramekins & cover with foil. Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until just set. Lift the ramekins out of the tin and leave to cool before chilling in the fridge for 2 hours.

Preheat the grill to its hottest temperature. Put the ramekins on a baking tray, sprinkle brown sugar over the chilled creams and then place under the grill for a couple of minutes until the sugar is melted & dark golden (alternately if you have a chef's blowtorch this is the time to use it). Leave for a few minutes for the sugar to cool & harden before serving. Serves 6.

Next I had to cook a dish for the Cookbook Challengers potluck Spanish themed lunch, kindly hosted by Agnes at Off the Spork. I thought there may be a lot of reheating going on so I brought along a dish I could serve straight up. This 'Asadilo de Pimientos', basically a Roasted capsicum, tomato, garlic and onion salad is a recipe by Frank Camorra in the Food Safari cookbook. Personally I loved the salad and thought it was nice and refreshing alongside some of the heavier dishes of the day, hope everyone else enjoyed it too. I've also been eating it for lunch since then on some nicely toasted sourdough rye, it's like a bit like an Italian bruschetta that way.

Note this recipe has 2 whole heads of garlic in it so beware! Also to note, I didnt bother peeling or seeding my tomatoes as I really cant see the big deal about going to all the extra effort. For the dressing, I used half quantities & the dish was still swimming on dressing so dont feel the need to add the whole cup of olive oil or half a cup of sherry vinegar, in my opinion it would be way too much.

Asadillo de Pimientos (Frank Camorra) - Maeve O'Meara - Food Safari

6 red capsicums
2 onions
2 heads garlic
250ml extra virgin olive oil (arbequina if possible)
sea salt
500g tomatoes, peeled, seeded and roughly chopped
1/2 bunch flat leaf parsley, roughly chopped
125ml sherry vinegar
1 tablespoon cumin seeds, toasted and crushed

Preheat oven to 180c. Place the whole capsicums, onions and garlic in a baking dish. Drizzle with some of the olive oil and sprinkle with sea salt. Roast for 30 minutes or until the onion is soft. Transfer to a bowl, cover with plastic wrap (the steam will help loosen the skins) and set aside until cool enough to handle.

Put the tomato and parsley in a separate bowl. Squeeze the onions from their skins, roughly chop them and add to tomatoes. Cut the tops of the heads of garlic & squeeze the cloves into the bowl. Peel the capsicums and discard the seeds. Tear the flesh into strips and add to the bowl. Pour over the remaining oil and the sherry vinegar. Sprinkle with the cumin and add salt to taste. Toss well with your hands.

And to end of Spanish week with a bang I give you the Cookbook Challengers Potluck lunch. As I said before the lovely Agnes at Off the Spork hosted with other 'cooking' guests being Penny at Jeroxie (Addictive and Consuming, April at My Food Trail, Cherrie at Sweet Cherrie Pie, and Leigh of Chit, Chat, Chomp, plus some partners and stomachs for good measure (you know who you are!).

The aim was to bring along your Spanish dish for everyone to share. The picture above does no justice to the amount of food we consumed in the end, with some people cooking up to 4 dishes (I think that was the max). From memory this is what we had, Oxtail (beef) stew, wrinkly potatoes, deep fried custard & lemon tart all from Agnes, octopus stew, sardines, mushrooms & toast from Penny, garlic prawns, breads & friands from April, beef roll ups from Cherrie, Chorizo, pea & filo parcels plus Spanish bickies from Leigh & the salad from myself. A fantastic feast from all thanks very much. For individual details and closer ups of all the other dishes, sure they will all be posted on the girls blogs soon. Nice to meet some fellow lovers of food & share the love on a sunny Melbourne afternoon

Winter Favourite = Soup in any form

2010-07-07T10:42:00.000+10:00

As I have said many a time before, I absolutely adore soup in pretty much any form and flavour so I was very happy with this weeks Cookbook challenge theme. I decided on a classic Tuscan Ribollita from Skye Gyngell's My favourite ingredients. I am really loving this book, there are not that many recipes, yet every one I have tried so far has turned out to be something special (apart from my panna cotta which didn't work!).

In Skye's version of this soup she replaces the stale bread with farro. I couldnt find farro anywhere in Brunswick so in my version I replaced the farro with Greenwheat Freekeh. I love trying new grains & this was a first for me. From the back of the box 'Greenwheat Freekeh is 100% Australian grown wheat. Picked and roasted when the grain is green, it retains a higher percentage of protein, dietary fibre, vitamins and minerals, in particular, calcium, potassium, iron and zinc than mature wheat.

I threw the freekah into the soup with the water & let it bubble away so it was very easy to prepare. The soup was delicious & hearty & the freekah added a lovely texture, almost nutty in it's chewiness though definitely not tough, lovely all around.

Notes - I used canned beans instead of dried & just added them about half an hour before the end of cooking time. I also substituted rainbow chard for cavolo nero as I have some growing out the back. And as mentioned I used freekah instead of farro as I couldn't get my hands on any.

Ribollita - Skye Gyngell's My favourite Ingredients

Serves 6-8

400g dried cannellini beans, soaked in cold water overnight
About 3 litres water
5 tablespoons olive oil
2 onions, peeled and chopped
1 dried red chilli, crumbled
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 celery sticks, chopped
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
3 small garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
small bunch of sage
2 potatoes, peeled and chopped
150g farro, well rinsed under cold water
400g can peeled plum tomatoes
bunch of cavolo nero, thick stalks removed, roughly chopped
extra virgin olive oil, preferably Tuscan, to serve

Drain the beans and place them in a heavy based saucepan. Pour on about 2 litres water to cover generously and cook over a low heat until the beans are soft, about 1 1/2 hours. Drain and set aside.

Heat 3 tbsp of the olive oil in a seperate cooking pot (large enough to hold all the ingredients comfortably) over a low heat. Add the onions, chilli and a pinch of salt. Sweat gently until the onions are soft and translucent.

Now add the celery, carrots, garlic, sage, potatoes and farro. Cook for a couple of minutes to allow the heat to begin to release the flavours of the vegetables, then add the tomatoes. Cover and simmer over a low heat for 20 minutes.

Stir in the cooked beans, then cover with about 1 litre of water - just enough for a thick brothy base in which the vegetables can cook properly. Add the cavolo nero and reduce the heat to low. Cover and cook for a further hour until the vegetables are really soft. Add a generous pinch of salt and a few good grindings of pepper.

Remove from heat and allow to cool completely. Let the soup stand for a couple of hours - this will improve the flavour no end.

When ready to serve, reheat the soup, taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary, then drizzle with extra virgin olive oil. Turn up the heat to emulsify, then ladle into warm bowls.

Prawns & camera questions

2010-06-29T14:52:00.000+10:00

Before I talk about this weeks challenge, I have a question for all of you food bloggers out there. I am ready for a new camera (see photo above for why!), I really want to up the quality of my photos and the current camera just does not do the job. I realize I need to spend more time on food styling too but lets face it with screaming kids at my heels half the time I'm lucky I get any photos at all. So the first question is should I go digital slr or stick with a plain old compact digital. As well as taking photos of food (yes I do have a life outside of cooking!), I love taking photos of people, my garden & holiday snaps too. I believe an SLR gives a better photo though it's been 20 years since I have picked one up so dont know how much time I could devote to learning how to use one all over again, might just use the auto setting forever. Also after a couple of questions it seems that SLR's do not have a macro function & I would need to buy another lens, starting at $500.00 thats more than I want to put out on top of the cost of a new camera. What does everyone out there use, would love some advice on this one before I take the plunge & buy my next camera, thanks?

Back onto food, this weeks challenge was seafood, I had a hankering for prawns and wanted to find a nice comforting wintery way to cook them, George Calombaris' recipe in Greek Cookery from the Hellenic Heart seemed to be just what I was after. The sauce the prawns were cooked in was delicious though I didnt get my pan close enough to the grill for the feta to brown up, I dont think this made much of an difference apart from in appearance. Loved the sauce & the prawns were nice too yet I didnt really love the dish & didnt think the prawns went that well with the sauce even though the 2 elements on their own were great. All in all an okay meal but one I wouldnt bother making again, a bit of a disappointment really considering all of the options I could have gone with for such a wonderful theme.

Prawn Saganaki (Baked prawns, tomato and feta) - George Calombaris - Greek Cookery from the Hellenic Heart.

600g whole green prawns
4 brown onions sliced
250g extra virgin olive oil
3 cloves garlic, sliced
1 tablespoon thyme, chopped
2 cups crushed tomatoes
1 cup water
1/2 bunch shredded parsley
100g feta, crumbled

In a heavy based saucepan, saute prawns in olive oil for 3 minutes. Add onions and continue to cook for further 3 minutes. Add the garlic and thyme, cook for 2 minutes, then add crushed tomatoes and 1 cup water and simmer for 5 minutes. Season to taste. Stir in shredded parsley, spoon into serving dish and sprinkle with feta. Grill until golden and drizzle with extra virgin olive oil to serve.

Soup and Spanish Potato Week

2010-06-26T10:50:00.000+10:00

Potatoes would have to be one of my favourite foods yet I was a little uninspired when it came to potato week in the challenge. I guess mostly my love of potatoes is as a side, smooth and creamy mash, crispy roast potatoes, the humble chip done really well for example and not a star though they do star in some fabulous dishes all alone, one of favourites being the potato pancake/rosti/hash brown - whatever you choose to call it.
I also found it funny that I chose a Spanish dish and a soup dish which after seafood week next week are the 2 themes for week 34 and 35, must be sub-consciously thinking ahead! My soup dish wasn't actually meant to be for the challenge, I was just wanting a very quick meal to throw together for Friday night dinner & was looking through Nigella Express for inspiration where I found the recipe. I wouldn't even call it a recipe, its more just a couple of ingredients thrown into a pot & cooked for a while then whizzed up. That's what I love about soups really, the simplicity of some fresh ingredients cooked in the one pot, maybe a fresh slice of bread on the side & you have a fabulous warming winter meal. This sweet potato and pumpkin soup was no exception, sweet and creamy with a lovely tang thanks to the sour cream I added at the end & everyone had a smile on their face.

Note the recipe calls for buttermilk which I substituted with sour cream as I love it in soups and I had some in the fridge just calling out to be stirred through. Nigella also suggests buying pre-chopped veggies, I didn't go that far, really it's not that difficult to slice up some pumpkin and potato is it?

Butternut and sweet potato Soup - Nigella Lawson - Nigella Express

350g diced butternut pumpkin and sweet potato from a packet. (I used one large sweet potato and half a pumpkin)
750ml hot chicken or vegetable stock ( I used 1 litre to make up for the extra veg I put in)
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground mace
Freshly ground black pepper
4 teaspoons buttermilk

Put the diced veggies and hot stock in a large saucepan with the stock and spices. Bring to the boil and simmer for approx 15 minutes or until the veggies are tender. Add some pepper to taste.

Puree the soup with a stick mixer or blender, stir through buttermilk (or sour cream) to serve.

For my second dish firstly I would like to apologize for the photo, it wasn't a pretty dish, which combined with the lack of good light & my poor food styling does not make it look very appetizing at all. This was a quick spanish dinner from The Hungry Girls Cookbook Volume 2. If you haven't heard of the book, it's a small collection (12) of recipes put together by 3 local girls, you can read all about it here.

Some typical Spanish ingredients such as , potatoes, capsicums, smoked paprika, chorizo all done in a bit of a fry up was perfect for me to knock up after work one night for the in laws, that's right, I am back working. At this stage only 2 days a week from home so you wouldnt think it would be too much different to my old ways but those 2 days throw me about. Josh is very clingy so when I finish at 5 he really bawls for me so even this quick meal is difficult, it breaks your heart when all they want is you & you cant go to them, he really is a mummy's boy which Chloe never was (girl that is!). I think from now on on work nights I will try & cook the night before so all I have to do is reheat. Anyway back to the dish, nothing spectacular but a nice comforting dinner all the same. You really have to watch the salt & get your flavours balanced right, I found the potatoes needed lots of salt yet the chorizo didn't so it was hard to get it perfect.

Note that the recipe feeds 3-4 so I adjusted the quantities to feed more, extra spuds & chorizo

Quick Spanish dinner - The Hungry Girls Cookbook - Volume 2

4 medium potatoes (about 800g)
2 large red capsicums
1 medium onion
1 small semi-dried chorizo (about 125g)
2 garlic cloves
Big handful parsley leaves
2 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
1 heaped teaspoon smoked paprika
3/4 teaspoon salt

Bring a pot of water to the boil and cook the potatoes in their skins until just soft.

Meanwhile, get everything else ready, halve and seed the capsicums and cut the strips in half widthwise. Finely slice the onion. Cut the chorizo in half lengthwise then thinly slice it. Finely chop the garlic and roughly chop the parsley.

When the potatoes are half cooked, heat a frying pan over high heat and add the oil and capsicums. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring regularly, until the capsicum skins are starting to wrinkle. Turn the heat back a little, add the inion and continue cooking for 8-10 minutes, until the onion and capsicum are collapsed and browning at the edges. meanwhile, drain the potatoes and cut into bite sized chunks.

Add the chorizo, garlic and paprika to the pan and fry for another few minutes, until the chorizo has browned slightly. Add the potatoes and salt and stir gently until the potatoes are covered in the rust coloured juices. Stir in the parsley. Taste & adjust the seasoning as required.

French feasting, Rick Stein Style

2010-06-20T19:35:00.000+10:00

Week 31 of the Cookbook Challenge was French week which had me very excited. Firstly I Loooovvvvee French food and secondly I have Rick Stein's French Odyssey sitting on my bookshelf being badly neglected. Michael was very sweet and bought it for me after I fell in love with the food watching the tv series that went along with the book. It has lots of great recipes though a lot of them are somewhat intimidating. This week I had no excuses and I was determined to try out some recipes that were a bit out of my comfort zone. Having said that I picked some fairly safe options, an apple tarte tatin which was actually very simple, Some duck that though a bit fiddly was pretty straightforward and a Pissaladiere, a dish I have seen made many times and loved the look of though was a bit hesitant over whether I would like these flavours or not.

To start with the Duck, the recipe for which was called, Vetou's magret de canard with red wine sauce and Sauteed potatoes on the side, basically duck breast with prunes and a red wine sauce. This was absolutely fantastic, the duck was moist & tender, the sauce was rich & velvety smooth with a lovely taste & texture that had a lot to do with the small amount of chocolate added in at the end I suspect and the potatoes were lovely, nice and crunchy on the outside and smooth and soft on the inside. Love duck & this is definitely a make again winner.

Notes. I couldnt find dried Agen prunes so used the ordinary supermarket variety and also I forgot to pre-soak them so just soaked them in boiling water from the time I started the dish until they were needed in the sauce. Also, having no French wine on my rack I used a Shiraz which in my opinion worked a treat. Also I was prepared for huge leaping flames in my pan, sadly, I only managed a flutter before they died down so the fire is nothing to be scared of (which I was personally!)

Vetou's magret de canard with red wine sauce - Rick Stein's French Odyssey

Serves 4

8 dried Agen prunes
4 duck breasts
150g carrots, roughly chopped
1 onion, roughly chopped
3 shallots, roughly chopped
5 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
600ml red wine, such as a Languedoc or Corbieres
3 cloves
Large srig thyme and 2 bay leaves
15g plain chocolate
Salt & freshly ground pepper

Put the prunes into a bowl and cover with cold water. Leave to soak for 1-2 hours.

Season the duck breasts on both sides with salt and pepper. Heat a large, heavy based frying pan over a high heat. Add the duck breasts, skin side down, lower the heat slightly and fry for 2 minutes until the skin is nicely browned. Turn over and brown them on the other side for 2 minutes, then lift onto a plate and set aside.

Add the carrots, onions, shallots and garlic to the duck fat left in the pan and fry over medium heat for 10 minutes, stirring now and then, until soft and golden brown. Add the wine, bring to a rapid boil, then light with a match and shake the pan for a few seconds until the flames have died down. This burns off the alcohol. Then lower the heat, add the cloves, thyme and bay leaves, and leave the sauce to simmer gently for 10 minutes.

Return the duck breasts to the pan, skin side down, cover and simmer for 2 minutes. Turn the duck breasts over, recover and cook for a further 2-3 minutes. This will give you duck that is still pink in the middle, if you prefer it better cooked, cook for up to 1 minute more on each side.

Lift the duck out of the sauce onto a plate, cover with foil and leave it to rest in a low oven (about 100c) while you finish the sauce. Add the chocolate to the sauce and simmer for 2-3 minutes more. Then pass through a fine sieve into a small pan, pressing out as much liquid as you can with the back of a ladle. Drain the prunes, add them to the pan, and simmer over a medium heat until they have heated through and the sauce is nicely reduced and well flavoured. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

To serve, lift the duck onto a board and carve, on the diagonal, into long thin slices. Lift each onto a plate and spoon 2 of the prunes alongside. Spoon some of the sauce over and around the duck and serve with sauteed potatoes or mash.

Sauteed potatoes

Cut 750g peeled floury potatoes into 4cm pieces. Put them into a pan of well salted water, bring to the boil and simmer until tender, about 7 minutes. Drain well and leave until the steam has died down. Heat 40g butter and 3 tablespoons olive oil in a large, heavy based frying pan. Add the potatoes and fry them over a medium heat for about 10 minutes, turning them over as they brown, until they are crisp, golden brown & sandy - the outside of the potatoes should break off a little as you saute them, giving them a nice crumbly, crunchy crust. Season with salt & pepper.

Next on the menu was a fabulous Tarte tatin. For something so simple to put together this is one amazing dessert, apples fried in butter and sugar, topped with puff pastry & popped in the oven, who would have thought the magic that this would create? I made this one day for no reason other than I wanted to, Jane was over for lunch the next day & was lucky there were some leftovers so she got to share the joy.

Note that I used ready rolled puff pastry and therefore made it even easier by eliminating one step, ie rolling out pastry and chilling for 20 minutes.

Tarte Tatin - Rick Stein's French Odyssey

250g puff pastry
75g softened butter
175g caster sugar
750g (about 5) large firm dessert apples (I used Granny Smith's)
Vanilla ice cream or creme fraiche, to serve

Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured surface and cut out a 26cm disc, slightly larger than the top of a 20cm tarte tatin dish or relaiably non-stick cast iron frying pan. Transfer to a baking sheet and chill for at least 20 minutes.

Spread the butter over the base of the tarte tatin dish or frying pan, and sprinkle over the sugar in a thick, even layer.

Peel, core and halve the apples, trimming them very slightly if necessary to fit but keeping their nicely rounded shape, and then tightly pack them, rounded side down, on top of the sugar. Place the pan over a medium heat and cook for 20-25 minutes, gently shaking the pan now and then, until the butter and sugar have amalgamated with the apple juices to produce a rich toffee coloured sauce and the apples are just tender. Take care that the butter and sugar are not allowed to burn.

Preheat oven to 190c. Lift the pastry on top of the apples and tuck in the edges down inside the pan. Prick the pastry 5 or 6 times with the tip of a small knife. Transfer to the oven and bake for 25 minutes or until the pastry is puffed, crisp and golden.

Remove the tart from the oven and leave it to rest for 5 minutes. Then run a knife around the edges and invert it onto a round, flat serving plate. Serve warm with ice cream or creme fraiche.

Last on my French menu for the week was a Pissaladiere (Nicoise onion tart). I'm not a huge anchovy fan so I was a bit hesitant about this dish though it always looks so good anytime I see it cooked on tv so I thought what the hell, this is the perfect time to try it out. As you can see it is a bit overcooked as Josh was having a mummy's boy mood & it was difficult to get to the oven to check on the cooking. Despite the appearance it didnt really taste burned which was a good thing. I liked the flavours though it was very intenese. I think the onion mixture would have been a bit better spread a little thinner & it may have been a bit better balanced between the soft, chewy base, sweet onions & salty anchoves & olives. Overall glad I tried this dish & enjoyed it but cant see it on the repeat menu anytime soon

Pissaladiere (Nicoise onion tart) - Rick Stein's French Odyssey

275g strong plain white flour
2 teaspoons easy-blend yeast
1 teaspoon salt
250ml hand-hot water
2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil

Topping:

50ml extra virgin olive oil
1.5kg onions, halved and thinly sliced
A large bouquet of parsley, thyme, bay leaves, rosemary and oregani
2 teaspoons anchovy paste
6-8 anchovy fillers in oil, drained & halved lengthways
Handful of small, black Nicoise olives (I used kalamata as they're my faves)
Sea Salt & freshly ground black pepper

For the base, sift the flour, yeast and salt into a large bowl and make a well in the centre. Add the warm water and olive oil and mix together into a soft dough. Knead for 5 minutes on a lightly floured surface until smooth and elastic. Return to the bowl, cover with clingfilm & leave in a warm place for approx 1 hour or until doubled in size.

meanwhile, for the topping, heat the oil in a large pan over low heat. Add the onions, bouquet garni and some seasoning, cover and cook gently for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. Then uncover, increase the heat a little and continue to cook for 20 minutes or until all the moisture from the onions has evaporated and they are thick and pale brown.

Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured surface, knock out the air and knead briefly once more. Then roll it out into a rectangle and lift onto an oiled 30 x 37.5 cm baking sheet. (I actually made a round one & used a pizza stone). Reshape with your fingers, then carefully spread with a thin layer of the anchovy paste. Spread the onion mixture evenly over the top, leaving a 2.5cm border free around the edge. Criss cross the top with the anchovies and dot with olives. Season lightly & leave somewhere warm to rise for 10-15 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 240c. bake for 15-20 minutes or until the crust has browned and the edges of the onions are starting to caramelize. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Happy 1st Birthday Josh

2010-06-15T15:22:00.000+10:00

A big Happy Birthday to my little man Joshua, cant believe he has turned 1 now! To celebrate we had a big bash on the weekend as well as some cake on his birthday during the week. Luckily it was baked theme for the Cookbook challenge this week as both ovens were working overtime. I managed a couple of snaps of the cakes but didnt get any of the savoury dishes. I had an Italian themed party & made huge trays of lasagna, cheese & spinach cannelloni, osso bucco & chicken cacciatore, with some salads & potatoes on the side including a yummy panzanella. Desserts at the party were the big chocolate birthday cake plus some cup cakes, caramel slice & a lovely boozy tiramasu for the adults.

Cake number one on Joshie's actual birthday was a classic Victoria Sponge, I didnt want anything too rich as I knew how much chocolate would be going around at the party. I used Nigella's recipe from Domestic Goddess, as always it was incredibly simplified, everything is pretty much bunged into the food processor before being baked. The sponges are sandwiched with jam & berries, I chose strawberries & then they are glued together with lashings of whipped cream. I used light cooking cream which despite the promise on the jar just would not whip properly, next time I will go the real deal. The cake was lovely though I dont think it was as light as a sponge should be, this may have been the processor method's fault or it could have been mine, I will have to try another recipe & see what the difference is.

Victoria Sponge - Nigella Lawson - How to be a domestic goddess

Cake:

225g unsalted butter, very soft
225g caster sugar
1 tspn vanilla extract
4 large eggs
200g self raising flour
25g cornflour
1 tspn baking powder
3-4 tablespoons milk

2 x 21cm sandwich tins (about 5cm deep), buttered

Filling:

2-4 tablespoons raspberry or other berry jam, depending on the berries
1 punnet raspberries or berries of choice
125ml double cream

Topping:

1-2 tablespoons caster sugar (I used icing sugar instead)

Preheat the oven to 180c. If the tins are loose-bottomed you dont have to lone them, otherwise do.

Put all ingredients apart from the milk into a food processor & pulse until you have a smooth batter. Then pulse, pouring the milk gradually through the funnel till your cake mixture's a smooth, soft, dropping consistency. Pour the batter into the 2 tins evenly and bake for about 25 minutes, until the cakes are beginning to come away at the edges, are springy to touch on top and a cake tester comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tins on a wire rack for 10 minutes before turning out to cool completely.

When you'r ready to eat, put one layer on a plate, spread with jam and scatter the fruit on top. Whip the cream til it's thickened but still soft, spread over the jammy fruit. Put the other cake on top & sprinkle with the sugar of your choice.

Here is a photo of the cupcakes I made. I used Jamie Oliver's Tea party fairy cake recipe from Cook with Jamie. The recipe is pretty basic so I wont bother giving it, I then iced them with chocolate icing, lots of colored sprinkles & some minty green & jaffa orange m and m's. After having kids for 3 years now I have worked out this is what they want, cupcakes, chocolate icing & bright decorations, doesnt need to get any more fancy than that. Although Chloe seemed to not care too much about the actual cake, she was just burying her face in the icing & coming up black refusing to eat any of the cake, was very funny!

And for the sing a long I made this cute chocolate cake with chocolate icing, again lots of sprinkles, some writing icing to help with the name & colored m and m's. I thought it looked really cute. The cake itself was light, fluffy & not too sweet with lovely choc-butter icing, I could have done with seconds however it didnt stretch quite that far. I will give the recipe for this one as it was similar to Nigella's methods though everything was thrown into the trusty kitchen aid this time, no creaming, whipping, etc & I was really pleased with the result. It also makes quite a large cake which is good for parties.

Never Fail Birthday chocolate Cake with Chocolate Icing - Bill Granger - Holiday

Serves 16

250g unsalted butter, softened
440g/2 cups sugar
4 eggs
250ml/1 cup milk
310g/2 1/2 cups plain flour
5 tspns baking powder
4 tblspsns cocoa
1 tspn vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 180c. Grease and line a 20 x 30 cm cake tin.

Beat the butter, sugar, eggs, milk, flour, baking powder, cocoa and vanilla with electric beaters for 8-10 minutes until the mixture is pale and well combined. Pour into the tin and bake for 40-45 minutes, or until a skewer poked in the middle comes out clean. Leave to cool for 10 minutes in the tin, before turning out and transferring to a wire rack. Ice with chocolate icing when completley cool.

Chocolate icing

300g Icing sugar
4 tblspns cocoa
2 tblspns softened unsalted butter

Sift together the icing sugar and cocoa. Add the butter and 3-4 tablespoons of warm water and beat until smooth and fluffy, adding more water if neccessary.

A kinda blue week

2010-06-01T15:07:00.000+10:00

When I first read of this weeks theme 'blue' I was really stumped and asked Michael for advice. He quickly pointed out all of the obvious choices which I cant believe I didnt think of myself, blueberries - cant get much bluer, blue eye fish, blue grenadier, blue fin tuna, blue cocktails, and the list goes on.

With such a choice I decided I would do a savoury & a sweet, the savoury is the sensational blue-eye dish above which is only kinda blue as the fish monger had no blue eye and I had to settle for snapper instead, oh well it was all in the right spirit & anyway I love snapper so it was no problem for me to change. This is a Curtis Stone recipe from 'Relaxed Cooking With Curtis Stone', even though everyone absolutely loved it, I know why & I will not be making it again. The amount of butter & cream used was enough to cause a heart attack on the spot & I even reduced the quantities as I couldnt make myself use the full lot. I know when you go out heaps is used but it's easier to turn a blind eye when out & pretend you dont know. When you are actually cooking yourself & have to physically add the butter & cream, for me anyway I get scared & try to avoid dishes with these vast quantities. Suprisingly the red wine reduction was probably the healthiest thing on the plate as it was simply pure red wine & isnt a glass or 2 supposed to be good for the old heart too? Anyway, here is the recipe for those brave enough to take it on....By the way, the recipe is called 'oven roasted...' & the oven is not used at all so think the recipe may have changed somewhere along the way.

Oven roasted blue-eye with garlic mashed potatoes and pinot noir reduction - Curtis Stone - Relaxed cooking with Curtis Stone

Serves 4

One 750ml bottle Pinot Noir
2 large russet potatoes (abt 1 kg), peeled
6 large garlic cloves, unpeeled
2/3 cup milk
1/4 cup cream
150g butter
Sea Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
Four 185-220g blu-eye trevalla fillets (preferably the thick end of the fillets)
Juice of 1/2 lemon

Pour the wine into a medium-sized heavy saucepan and bring to a boil. Simmer over medium-high heat for 40 minutes or until reduced to 1/3 cup and slightly thick.

Meanwhile, cut the potatoes into 5cm chunks, and place them in a large saucepan of salted water. Bring to a boil and cook for about 15 minutes, or until tender.

While the potatoes are cooking, cook the garlic in a small saucepan of boiling water for 1 minute, then remove & dunk in a bowl of cold water. Repeat this process 2 more times. Peel off the skins and mash the garlic in a mortar and pestle.

Drain the potatoes well then return them to the pan and mash. Mix the garlic into the potatoes.

Bring the milk to a simmer in a small saucepan over medium high heat, then slowly stir it into the mashed potatoes. Slowly stir in the cream to make a nice, velvety smooth puree. Cook over medium-low heat for 5 minutes, and gradually beat in 75g of the butter. Season the potatoes with salt & pepper to taste. Cover with cling film & keep warm.

Heat the oil in a heavy frying pan over medium-high heat. Sprinkle the fish with salt & pepper. Place the fish in the pan & cook for about 8 minutes on one side, turn, add the lemon juice & remaining butter to the pan. Continue cooking, spooning the lemon-butter over the fish as it cooks, for about 4 minutes, until just cooked through.

Place some potato puree on each plate, top with fish & drizzle over the red wine reduction.

My second blue dish was a blueberry torta from Jamie Oliver's Italy. I've had this book for ages and have hardly cooked any of the dishes even though every time I flick through there are tons of recipes I really want to try out. The cake uses 600g of blueberries so it really packs in the fruit which is something I love, it's funny really, give me straight chocolate in any form & I'm in heaven yet with cakes/desserts I prefer fruity concoctions over chocolate. It also contains olive oil & is mixed with melted butter rather than the more traditional creaming method, the result is a lovely moist, berry laden cake with a lovely crisp shell if you are lucky enough to get an edge piece. Also it makes a huge cake, I used a 25cm square tin & it was still quite high so one for the crowds. Perfect with a nice cup of afternoon tea!

Torta di nada / nada's cake - Jamie Oliver - Jamie's Italy

Serves 10 (very generously)

butter for preparing the cake tin
4 large eggs, at room temperature
270g sugar
180g unsalted butter, melted
115ml extra virgin olive oil
155ml milk
1 vanilla pod, sees removed or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
400g unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tspns baking powder
a good pinch of sea salt
zest of 2 lemons, grated
zest of 2 oranges, grated
600g fresh blueberries or small sweet red grapes such as muscat or fragola

Preheat the oven to 175c. Generously butter a 25cm cake tine, line the base with greaseproof paper and set aside. Either by hand or in an electric mixer, beat the eggs and sugar for about 3 minutes until thick & pale yellow, then add the butter, oil, milk & vanilla. Mix well, then sift in the flour, baking powder & salt. Add the lemon & orange zest & stir with a wooden spoon until thoroughly blended. Set aside for 10 minutes to allow the flour to absorb the liquid.

Stir about a quarter of the berries into the batter, spoon it into your prepared tin and smooth out the top. Bake for 15 minutes then remove from the oven, scatter the remaining berries on top & gently push them down. Return to the oven for another 30-40 minutes until the top is a deep golden brown and the cake feels quite firm. Put the tin on a rack to cool. After 10 minutes run a knife along the sides of the pan and turn out your cake.

Sunday Brekky Bill Granger Style - The Cookbook Challenge Week 28

2010-05-24T14:45:00.000+10:00

When I first noticed that the theme for week 28 was breakfast I always knew that I would cook a Bill Granger dish, after all he is the king of breakfast isn't he? Lately there have been a lot of sweet breakfasts, in particular pancakes of one form or another on my menu so I thought it was time for a savoury change. This recipe for scrambled eggs mixed with golden fried chorizo all eaten in a soft fresh roll was delicious, and the tomato salad on the side was pretty good too. A simple dish for a busy weekend when you still want a nice cooked start to the day.

Grab and Go breakfast Sandwich - Bill Granger - Feed Me Now

Serves 2

125g Cherry tomatoes
2 teaspoons lime juice
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon shredded coriander leaves
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
1 Spanish chorizo sausage, about 120g diced
2 spring onions, sliced
2 medium eggs, lightly beaten
2 bread rolls

Halve the cherry tomatoes and place in a bowl with the lime juice, sugar, shredded coriander, salt & pepper. Stir gently to combine.

Place a frying pan over a medium heat. When hot, add the chorizo and fry until lightly browned. Add the spring onions and stir for 30 seconds until softened. Pour over the beaten eggs. When they start to set around the edge of the pan, gently stir and turn the mixture with a spatula or wooden spoon until the eggs are just set.

Break open the bread rolls, divide the mixture between them & serve with the tomato salad.

What to do with an insect theme?

2010-05-22T19:30:00.000+10:00

What to do with an insect theme for I certainly was not going to be cooking up the real thing, there are some ingredients that I absolutely will not touch! So for week 27 of the cookbook challenge, I scoured far in advance as I didnt want to be stuck coming up with a last minute recipe. I found this 'Bee-Sting' cake in my Good Living 'Winter' cookbook that my mum bought be for Christmas, it's a collection of recipes from Stephanie Alexander, Brigitte Hafner & Jill Dupleix drawn from the Sydney Morning Herald's food and wine section. This is a Brigitte Hafner recipe, there is no explanation of the cake in the book so a quick google & I have found that it's a traditional German cake so called Bee-Sting as it is topped with honey. There seem to be many very different versions around, I have never even heard of it before, I think it may have been popular a while back.

The cake is made of a batter & topped with a nut/butter/honey mixture, then baked, cooled, halved & filled with a custard butter. It's a delicious, dense cake that is made a bit special with the rich custardy filling. It is being thoroughly enjoyed by us & visitors who happen to be around this weekend, though I wouldnt make it again as there were a lot of steps & pots & pans used, for that much effort it has to be a 5 star recipe in this house. It is something different though & worth trying at least once.

Bee-Sting Cake - Good Living Winter

Cake

75g unsaled butter, soft
75g caster sugar
1 egg
250g self-raising flour, sifted
6 tablespoons milk

Topping

50g whole almonds
50g whole hazelnuts
75g unsalted butter
100g caster sugar
1 tspn milk
1 tablespoon honey

Custard

250ml milk
30g custard powder
50g sugar
100g butter, soft

For the cake. Preheat oven to 170c. Cream together the butter and sugar until pale & thick. Beat in the egg, then gently fold in the flour and milk. Combine until you have a soft dough. Grease and line the bottom of a 26cm springform tin. Spoon the mixture into the tin and level it out.

For the topping. Grind the nuts until quite coarse. In a frying pan, gently heat nuts with the butter, suagr and milk, stirring until the butter has melted. Remove from heat and stir in the honey. Allow to cool slightly then pour over the cake batter and bake for 30-35 minutes until golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely.

For the custard. In a small bowl, combine just enough milk to dissolve the custard powder & make a smooth paste. Now combine the paste & the remainder of the milk and sugar in a small saucepan and cook, stirring, until it thickens and boils. Cook for another minute, remove from heat and allow to cool a little.

Beat butter until creamy and, when the custard has become lukewarm (the custard should not be too warm, as it will melt the butter), whip butter and custard together until combined & fluffy.

When the cake has cooled, slice through the middle. Fill with the custard, replace the top & serve. Serves 10-12

Eggplant - My favourite ingredient at the moment

2010-05-20T21:09:00.000+10:00

I'm in love with eggplant at the moment, I've always liked it though I haven't cooked it all that regularly. My mum however has a glut of eggplants growing so I am cooking them up every week, searching for new & interesting ways in which to prepare them. This has to be my favourite recipe yet, they are Eggplant & Port Patties from Stephanie Alexander's Kitchen Garden Companion. The ingredients sounded a bit odd, I have certainly never heard of a rissole of any type containing eggplant that's for sure, but I trust this book & gave it them a go never to look back. The patties are moist, didnt break up at all while cooking, the eggplant gives them a delightful creamy, nutty & smoky flavour, & the simple tomato sauce pulls it all together amazingly. I ate mine alone & cooked up some pasta for the kids to eat theirs with, Chloe, who has been very fussy lately asked me right away to make them again one day & even ate by herself (her thing at the moment is to make us feed her to take the focus of Josh) & even Josh gobbled up every last mouthful of his though he is less hard to please seeming to devour anything I put before him. I cant wait to make them again & will double the recipe next time. Here it is with a couple of small changes of mine for those who want to have a go...

Eggplant & Pork Patties - adapted from Stephanie Alexander's Kitchen Garden companion

Makes 10

1 eggplant (about 400g)
200g baby spinach, washed
200g minced pork
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
100g fresh ricotta
30g breadcrumbs
1/4 cup grated parmesan
1/2 teaspoon salt
freshly ground black pepper
1 egg
1/2 cup breadcrumbs (extra for crumbing)
olive oil, for frying
1 qty Fast Basic Tomato Sauce (recipe follows)

Heat a barbecue grill plate until hot. Roast eggplant, turning it 2-3 times so it roasts evenly, it will take about 30 minutes fir skin to char and eggplant to feel quite soft. Remove with tongs & cool a little. Peel away charred skin. Halve lengthways & put into a colander resting over a tray to catch any juices. After 10 minutes, wrap eggplant in a clean tea towel and gently squeeze. Chop flesh quite finely & place in a large mixing bowl.

Place spinach in a non stick frypan over medium heat for a few minutes until wilted down (you will not need any oil as the water on the leaves from washing will be sufficient). Place in a colander & press with the back of a spoon to squeeze out as much liquid as possible. Chop finely and add to eggplant.

Add pork, garlic, ricotta, breadcrumbs, parmesan, salt, pepper & egg to eggplant/spinach mixture & mix very well. Cover with glad wrap & refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Divide mixture into 10 balls & slightly flatten each one. Roll each patty into breadcrumbs. Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a large non stick frypan & gently fry each patty for 5 minutes on each side. Add the tomato sauce to the pan & cook for an extra 10 minutes. Tuck in!

Fast Basic Tomato Sauce

1/3 cup extra virgin oliv eoil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 bay leaf
500g ripe tomatos, roughly chopped
2 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
8 sprigs basil
salt & black pepper

Heat oil in a large non-stick frying pan over medium heat, add onion & bay leaf, then cover & cook for 5 minutes or until onion is well softened but hardly coloured. Uncover & add tomato, garlic & herbs. Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently for 10 minutes or until tomato has collapsed. Add salt & pepper to taste. Blend with a bamix to a smooth consistency.

Something wicked to do with leftover egg yolks

2010-05-15T19:28:00.000+10:00

I have been keeping my eye out for recipes to use up a heap of egg yolks I have sitting in my freezer due to an uncommonly high amount of meringues being baked here lately. This recipe for Chocolate Custard Tarts from Bill Granger's Open Kitchen caught my eye. Oh My! They are so delicious, the chocolate custard is heavenly & I really had to stop myself from eating it all up out of the pot before it even reached the shells. Luckily I showed some restraint & made the tarts as it was even better once encased in golden puff pastry. Bill is such a legend, sorry but I do drool over his books, breakfast king, divine sweets & gorgeous & usually pretty healthy lunches & dinners too, who can resist?

Anyway I scoffed 2 tarts before they rest were ripped out of my hands and off to Michaels sisters 30th birthday party tonight, I promised a dessert yet in the end couldn't make it as I had to stay home with the boy who has had a bit of a cold (me too) & needed his sleep. Oh well, secretly I am pleased with a whole night just to myself, no whining, no footy in the background, just silence & the freedom to do whatever I want (without leaving the house of course) for a few hours at least. So here I am sitting at the computer, glass of champagne in reach, blogging away, doing online crosswords & looking forward to snuggling up with my book, currently reading The Slap & I am loving it. Just finished cleaning the kitchen & had a gourmet dinner of a corn cob with salt & butter (hey, it's nice not to have to cook for a change!) & feeling very relaxed.

Oh yeah, I found the recipe for the tarts here if you want to give them a go.

Green Mothers Day 2 ways - Cookbook Challenge - Week 26

2010-05-10T14:43:00.001+10:00

Wow, I cant believe we are halfway through the Cookbook Challenge, which translates to 6 months worth of it, I dont know where the time has gone & on another note that also means that Josh is turning one in less than a month, what happened to my baby?

I decided to make green week a Mothers Day feast. For breakfast I made the family, yes that's right, I cooked my own Mothers Day breakfast as I really wouldnt want to see what Michael would do to pancakes, Nigella Lawson's Arabian Pancakes with Orange Flower Syrup & Pistachio's, that very green & beautiful nut. The book was Forever Summer & with the weather Melbourne has been experiencing of late it does seem that we are sort of having our very own forever summer too, she also suggests serving them as pudding, ie dessert though I thought they were just fine for breakfast. They were really dreamy, the orange flower syrup was so beautifully thick, sweet & orange scented & went perfectly over the light, fluffy pancakes & the contrast of the chewy nuts on top made the whole dish just perfect. Josh had a bite or 2 though Chloe who normally loves a pancake like her mum decided she didnt even want to try them & insisted on wheat bix, oh well what could I say but more for us! She had spent the previous night vomiting all over the place, her bed, our bed, the floor & finally the bucket when we got her close enough so I was hoping that pancakes would cheer her up but sadly she didnt have much of an appetite & pretty much didnt eat all day or night (dinner was also flat out refused even though it consisted of her favourite savoury components, potatoes & meat on the bone). One thing to note was that my batter didnt seem nearly as thick as she suggested it would have been & there is no way it would serve the 8-10 people that she quotes, I would say max 4!

Arabian Pancakes with Orange-Flower Syrup - Nigella Lawson - Forever Summer

Orange Flower Syrup

225g caster sugar
150ml water
juice of half a lemon
1 tablespoon orange flower water

Pancakes
150g plain flour
1 tablespoon caster sugar
1 and a quarter teaspoons baking powder

1/4 tspn bicarb of soda
pinch ground cardamon

3 tblspns Greek Yoghurt or labneh
approx 125ml semi-skimmed milk
1 large egg
50ml almond oil (or 50g butter, melted & cooled)

To serve

1-2 handfuls shelled pistachios, chopped

To make the syrup, bring the sugar & water gradually to the boil in a saucepan, swilling the pan to help the sugar dissolve, but on no account stirring it. Once it's boiling, pour in the lemon juice and then turn down the heat a little & simmer for about 10-15 minutes until it coats the back of a spoon. Add the orange-flower water and simmer for another 5 minutes, then cool the syrup and chill in the fridge.

To make the pancakes, measure the dry ingredients into a large bowl then spoon the yoghurt into a measuring jug and, stirring with a fork, pour in the milk until you hit the 250ml mark. If you need to, add a little more than the 125ml specified to do so. Whisk in the egg & then the almond oil, then stir this jugful of wet ingredients into the bowlful of dry ones. Almost immediately the mixture will stiffen into a thick, fluffy batter.

Heat a dry griddle & when it is hot add about 2 tablespoons worth of batter for each pancake. When the pancakes begin to bubble on top, flip them over & cook the other side to a golden brown. Serve drizzled with syrup (brought back to room temperature if made in advance) & sprinkled with nuts.

Green dish number 2 was to be my Mother's Day dinner & Michael was going to cook it for me so I kept it pretty simple. A lovely rack of lamb with a mint salsa & some fairly traditional veg, potatoes, pumpkin & peas. This recipe came from the same book as the pancakes. Michael did a great job considering he also had Josh hanging off his leg the whole time, the boy was sick & in a new take on things didnt want to know about Mummy, it was all Daddy this weekend I'm afraid so I got to relax for real while the cooking was taking place. The salsa was fantastic, lively, vibrant & great to liven up the otherwise dull roast vegetables, no gracy needed. The lamb was tasty & tender though I was a bit disappointed in my butcher who I normally love as the lamb had quite a high fat content & therefore not much of the good tender pink stuff.

Thanks Michael for a bright spot in my otherwise pretty average Mothers Day!!!!

Rack of Lamb with Mint Salsa - Nigella Lawson - Forever Summer

Serves 4-6 so adjust quantities as needed

2 racks of lamb, approx 8 cutlets on each rack

Mint Sauce

30g fresh mint
30g fresh flat leaf parsley
16 cornichons (baby gherkins)
4 teaspoons capers
200ml extra virgin olive oil
4 tspns white wine vinegar, or to taste
pinch caster sugar
ground black pepper
Maldon salt

Preheat oven to 210c. Make sure the lamb is out of the fridge and well on its way to becoming room temperature. If still fridge cold when they go in the oven add about 7 minutes extra cooking time.

Destalk the herbs & whiz them in a food processor until they are chopped, then add the cornichons and capers and whiz again. Pour the oil down the funnel, and then add the vinegar and sugar to taste, season with salt & pepper.

Score the lamb fat, by using a sharp knife to draw diagonal lines, this way & that, about a couple of centimetres apart and using a pastry brush, paint the fat with a coating of the mint sauce, saving the rest to serve with the lamb. Arrange the racks in an intertwining arch (if you can be bothered!) and put them into a tin & into the oven for about 20 minutes until cooked to your liking.

Chocolate Panna Cotta with Warm berries & Honey = Silky Challenge Fail

2010-05-07T20:46:00.000+10:00

For this weeks Cookbook Challenge theme of silky I knew right from the very start that I wanted to make my first ever panna cotta. I flicked through my books & found several recipes & they all seemed to be quite different, some using yoghurt, others coconut cream & then the more traditional (I think, though I am by no means an expert) cream based ones. I chose a very decadent sounding chocolate panna cotta with berries & honey from Skye Gyngell's My Favourite Ingredients. I love this book & I love Skye's recipes so I am positive the reason it didnt set properly must have been some fault of mine & not the recipe. As I said I have never made one before so have no experience in the problems one might encounter. I let the panna cotta's cool down before I put them in the fridge, they were in for well over the specified 2 hours, the gelatine seemed to dissolve okay so any tips on why one may not set? They sort of half set & seemed to set more at the bottom (which strangely was the top in the moulds) so if I didnt mix them enough then I would have thought the gelatine would sit at the bottom rather than the top but maybe it is the other way around, am I confusing anyone?

Anyway apart from them not actually setting, the flavour was fantastic, the sauce was heaven as you can imagine, rich chocolate, sweet berries & lovely oozy honey to bring it all together, mmmm, if this had set correctly it would have been an absolute stunner. Here is the recipe for anyone who is game to try it out & see what happens to theirs, please let me know

Chocolate Panna Cotta with Warm Berries & Honey - Skye Gyngell - My Favourite Ingredients

Serves 4

a little oil, to oil the moulds
200g good quality dark chocolate (minimum 64% cocoa solids)
2 sheets of leaf gelatine
190ml whole milk
250ml double cream
100g caster sugar
1 vanilla pod, split lengthways

Berries & Honey

180ml honey
200g blackberries (or any berries you fancy)

Lightly oil 4 individual panna cotta moulds or other pudding basins, 200ml capacity each.

Chop the chocolate into small pieces and melt slowly, without stirring, in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of gently simmering water. Remove the bowl of melted chocolate from the heat and set aside to cool slightly. Soak the gelatine leaves in cold water to cover for about 5 minutes to soften.

In the meantime, put the milk, cream and sugar in a heavy based pan. Scrape the seeds form the vanilla pod and add these to the pan with the empty pod. Place over a medium heat & bring to a gently simmer, stirring once or twice to help dissolve the sugar. Remove from the heat and strain through a fine sieve onto the melted chocolate, stirring well to combine.

If necessary, return the chocolate mixture to the pan & reheat gently - it needs to be very hot but not quite boiling. ake off the heat. Squeeze the gelatine to remove excess water & add to the hot cream, stirring to dissolve.

Strain the mixture through a fine sieve into a jug, then pour into the prepared moulds. Allow to cool completely, then refrigerate for at least 2 hours before serving.

For the berries, warm the honey in a small saucepan. Add 2/3 of the berries & cook gently until they have begun to bleed into the warm honey. Remove from the heat and stir through the remaining berries.

To serve, quickly dip the base of each mould into hot water to loosen the base & the sides, then run a small sharp knife around the top & invert onto a plate. Spoon the warm berries over the panna cotta & serve immediately with extra cream on the side if desired.

Happy Birthday Michael

2010-05-03T14:08:00.000+10:00

Sunday was Michaels birthday & for a change I had him all to myself for the day. Unfortunately The Mighty Pies were playing in the afternoon & the family wanted to go to the game so we had the family celebrations on Saturday, I was actually pleased we got to have a nice family day alone for something different.

To start with we walked down nice & early to Hellenic Republic for breakfast, it's nice & quiet at opening (9am) with most people in the area preferring to sleep in & have a later start to the day, for us, 9am is a late breakfast. Chloe & Josh were well behaved & shared some toast between them, Chloe also stole some of my eggs & Michaels amazing thick cut bacon. It was a nice breakfast though I'm sure they have shortened the menu & my spanakopita & poached eggs wasn't as good as the first time I had it back closer to the date they opened. Still it was great to be out & I love going for a nice early morning walk. Now that Josh is getting a bit easier to be out with, ie we can feed him off a menu instead of having to drag along baby food, we will have to start heading out a lot more like in the good old days.

After a relaxing day for Michael, I decided to have a bit of a pizza party, boys love pizza & Michael is no exception. I find them really simple to make at home & actually prefer it to the home delivered variety no matter what the brand/shop it is coming from.

I used the base recipe from Jamie Oliver's Italy & made 3 different pizza toppings, margaritas with fresh basil from the garden, and a couple of his suggested toppings, potatoes, mozzarella, rosemary & tomatoes and for the last, egg, prosciutto, artichokes, olives, mozzarella, tomato sauce & basil. I cut my potatoes a bit thick as I didnt allow enough time for them to cool & I think I overcooked them a bit, so they didnt crisp up at all though the flavours were still fantastic. The margarita was really very good, it's usually my favourite , though this time the prosciutto won out, a fantastic marriage of flavours. Luckily I made heaps so guess whats on for dinner tonight & lunch too, no doubt I will be sick of pizza very soon!

To finish off the night I made some apples stuffed with dates, sultanas, pine nuts, honey, cream, vanilla, cinnamon & lemon zest, they were then baked with some apple juice & served with the juice boiled down to a syrup. I wanted to keep things relatively simple after all the pizza & we really didnt need any more cake after Saturdays celebrations (I made an orange torte with chocolate ganache). Nice though really, really sweet so lots of yoghurt on the side was needed to cut trough the richness.

My birthday is later this week, more celebrations & of course more food, look out for some sensational chocolate that I will make for this weeks challenge as well as for me!

Chocolate Souffle - Cookbook Challenge - Week 24

2010-04-29T15:20:00.000+10:00

Out of the hundreds and possibly thousands of recipes I have featuring chocolate, I decided before even looking through my books that I wanted to have a go at a classic chocolate souffle for this weeks challenge, something I love to eat when out yet have never cooked myself. I have attempted more complicated souffles and some simple fruit based souffles yet chocolate had somehow been missed. I found a recipe in Relaxed cooking with Curtis Stone, the recipe mentions that normally only cocoa is used and the addition of chocolate in this one makes it even more rich & irresistible. The recipe was pretty straightforward to put together. As you can see from my photo, even though I tried my best to get the butter and sugar coating on evenly my souffles still managed to rise uneven, no effect on the flavour, purely a presentation issue so it didnt bother me too much. Also, by the time the 12 minutes cooking time was up they hadnt risen all that much so I let them go a couple of extra & they rose well though there was no gooiness left. They were still lovely & moist and hadnt dried out at all, I just prefer them with that hint of goo in the middle. All in all I was happy with the outcome, the flavour was nice & rich without being too over the top, though I didnt think they were that sensational & will probably stick to ordering them when out for now. Now to find the perfect recipe to use up all of those egg yolks leftover.

Chocolate Souffles - Relaxed Cooking with Curtis Stone

Serves 6.

15g unsalted butter
1/3 cup sugar, plus more for coating the souffle dishes
125g good quality dark chocolate (60-70 % cacao), coarsley chopped
1/2 cup cold water
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa
6 large egg whites
icing sugar

Preheat the oven to 180c. Coat the interiors of 6 240ml souffle dishes (mine were smaller so I made 8) completely with the butter, then coat them with sugar. Place the dishes on a baking tray.

Stir the chopped chocolate in a large bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water until it is melted and smooth. Whisk in the cold water and the cocoa powder. Remove from the heat & set aside.

Using an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the egg whites in a large bowl until they are soft peaks. Gradually beat in the 1/3 cup sugar. Continue beating until the egg whites are shiny and form soft peaks when the whisk is removed. Fold a quarter of the mixture into hte warm chocolate mixture. Fold in the remainin egg whire mixture. Divide between the dishes & bake for about 12 minutes until puffed but still moist in the centre. Lightly dust with ising sugar & serve immediatley.

Morning Tea with some mums, kids & bubs

2010-04-22T16:30:00.000+10:00

Another lovely, summery, autumn day in Melbourne, I invited a couple of the girls from mothers group over with their 3 yr olds, bubs & one due to arrive shortly. We sat outside & tried to relax over these delicious passionfruit melting moments, the kids had other ideas & we mostly spent the time running around fetching things for them, keeping the crawler out of trouble, pushing the swings & lots of keeping the peace.

Oh well, it was still a nice way to spend the morning & surely soon they will amuse themselves & we can maybe even break out some wine to really relax!

Leaf - The Cookbook Challenge - Week 23

2010-04-19T15:05:00.000+10:00

With a theme this week of leaf, for something different, instead of making a nice healthy salad or dish using lovely spinach or the like I thought I would make a creamy pasta dish that included lettuce, it sounded quite odd so I thought this was the perfect time to see how it tasted. The recipe comes from Stephanie Alexander's Kitchen garden Companion, a book that I have used a bit in this challenge & a lot any other day of the week too, I love it & have so many recipes bookmarked to try, I hope I can get to them all soon.

The lettuce has quite a distinct flavour that is obviously very lettucey (making up words here), wilted down in the pasta I actually found it quite odd though I did really enjoy it too. The recipe itself I had picked out before last weeks Doctors appointment in which I was given 2 months to get my cholesterol down, so butter, prosciutto, cream, this may be the last I see of you for a while in such large quantities though I refuse to give all the good things in life up entirely & am definitely not giving up baking! Will be very interesting to see how I go retesting in 2 months. As such, I really enjoyed this bit of luxury, even if in such a simple dish. W ho doesnt love a creamy pasta sauce full of beautiful prosciutto & balanced out by lovely fresh peas, worth a look even if only once in a while. Note the recipe in the book also comes with fresh pasta instructions which I will leave out as I was in a hurry & went with a packet.

Lets see how healthy I can make chocolate next week, I think if I use good quality dark chocolate I can sneak in something really yummy!

Pasta with Peas, Lettuce & Prosciutto - Stephanie Alexander - Kitchen Garden Companion

Serves 4

40g unsalted butter
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
6 slices prosciutto, cut widthways into 1cm wide strips
12 cos lettuce leaves, hard stalks cut away, leaves cut widthways into 3cm strips
2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
salt
500gpeas in pod (to yield 1 cup shelled peas)
1 cup pouring cream
2 tablespoons chopped flat leaf parsley
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
Dried fettucine, pappardelle, etc to serve 4
Grated parmesan, to serve.

Bring a large pan of salted water to boil. Once boiling, cook pasta according to packet instructions.

Meantime, heat butter & Olive oil in a large non-stick frying pan or saute pan over low heat & gently saute prosciutto until the fat starts to run. Add lettuce & garlic, then cover pan and cook gently over low heat for 5 minutes or until lettuce is limp.

Add peas & cream to prosciutto/lettuce mix, cover & cook for 5 minutes until peas are tender. Uncover pan & increase heat to medium, then cook for 2-3 minutes or until cream starts to thicken & deepen in colour. Toss in drained pasta & parsley, season with salt & pepper to taste, toss well & serve with grated cheese.

Red savoury & sweet - The Cookbook Challenge - Week 22

2010-04-14T10:33:00.000+10:00

Red was an easy week for me, the dish that immediately sprang to mind was borscht. My grandparents on my mum's side were Polish so I grew up eating this delicious soup that I used to actually call 'Red Soup' so how could I not make it, the name plus the wonderful memories it evokes were enough to get me scouring through my books for a recipe. Would you believe I could only find one recipe and that was in my Bowl Food cookbook, a book I sometimes turn to if I need something quick & easy on the table. I dont know how authentic the recipe is, I cant actually remember what my Gran put in apart from the obvious, BEETROOT. Regardless it was sensational, even though I cooked it for about 3 times longer than required, with all the veggies added after the first hour, I think this was what made it, the beef was nice & tender & the veggies had cooked down enough that they were still whole but really took on the flavours of the soup, rather than being just cooked & not really melding if you know what I mean? I was quite please with the red outcome too, after I chose the soup I was worried it would be too purple, as lets face it, beetroot has more of a pink/purple hue than red. The tomato saved it though & everything looked quite the right color for the theme to me, definitely a keeper.

The second recipe I wanted to try this week was for some strawberry vacherins. I picked up some super sweet Sunny Ridge strawberries from the Collingwood Children's farm farmers market last weekend & this seemed like a great way to showcase them. They are pretty much a meringue with crushed strawberries mixed through before baking. I served them with ice cream & fresh strawberries as suggested, loved them, crispy outer shells, gooey strawberry flavoured center & the aroma was pretty spectacular too. I think I'd actually prefer them with a dollop of double cream than the ice cream though so something to keep in mind for next time.

The recipe for Borscht below is per the book, notes from me - I cooked it for 3 1/2 hours as mentioned, adding all of the veggies after the first hour of cooking & the finishing touches, ie lemon juice, sugar, herbs right before serving. I also used a whole 400g can of tomatoes as couldnt see the point of only using half.

Beef and Beet Borscht - Bowl Food

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
500g beef chuck steak, cut into 2cm cubes
1 litre beef stock
2 small beetroot (abt 250g)
200g canned crushed tomatoes
1 carrot, diced
2 potatoes, diced
2 1/2 cups (190g) finely shredded cabbage
2 teaspoons lemon juice
2 teaspoons sugar
2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat leaf parsley
2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
Sour Cream, to serve

Preheat oven to 200c. Heat oil in a large saucepan and cook the onion & garlic over medium heat for 3-5 minutes. Add the beef, stock & 1 litre water & bring to the boil. Reduce heat & simmer, covered, for 1 hour 15 minutes, or until the meat is tender. Remove the meat.

Meantime, trim the beetroot just above the end of the leaf stalks. Wrap in foil and bake for 30-40 minutes or until tender. Unwrap & leave to cool.

Return the stock to the boil and add the tomato, carrot and potato and season with salt. Cook over medium heat for 10 minutes. Add the cabbage and cook for 5 minutes. Peel & dice the beetroot. Return the meat to the pan & add the beetroot, lemon juice, sugar & 1 1/2 tablespoons each of parsley & dill. Cook for 2 minutes or until heated through. Season to taste.

Serve with a dollop of sour cream & garnish with remaining herbs.

Strawberry Vacherin - Bill Granger - Feed Me Now

Serves 8

250g ripe strawberries
250g caster sugar
4 medium egg whites
pinch of sea salt

Vanilla or strawberry ice cream or cream to serve

Preheat the oven to 120c. Line a baking tray with baking paper. Ina bowl, crush 4 or 5 of the berries with 1 tablespoon sugar, using the back of a fork.

Place the egg whites & salt in a clean, dry, large bowl and whisk until soft peaks form. Add the rest of the sugar gradually, whisking continuously, until the mixture becomes stiff & glossy. Add hte crushed strawberry mixture gradually and whisk through.

Spoon the meringue mixture into 8 mounds on the prepared baking tray and bake for 1 1/4 hours. Remove from the oven & allow to cool. (Meringues can be stored in an airtight container for up to 1 week.)

To serve, top each meringue with a scoop of ice cream and scatter with the rest of the strawberries.

Thai Feast - Cook book Challenge - Week 21

2010-04-06T15:17:00.000+10:00

Let me start by saying I love Thai food so I was very excited about choosing the menu for this weeks Cook Book Challenge theme. Originally I planned on making some type of Thai curry then changed my mind as I thought that might be a bit boring, not boring to eat, just something I have done many times before & am quite comfortable with. I ended up going with 3 recipes, a home made sweet chilli sauce & Gai Yang: Thai barbecued chicken, both from Ben O'Donoghue's Ben's Barbecue & on the side a Thai cucumber salad from Stephanie Alexander's the Cooks Companion.

The sweet chilli sauce was sensational, so much nicer than from a jar & pretty simple too, I halved the chilli quantity & it still had quite a bit of kick to it so very happy with that decision. The chicken was really, really good too, I think basting the chicken in the leftover marinade mixed with coconut cream was the final touch that made this dish so delicious. Note, I used chicken thigh fillets, my all time favourite chicken cut rather than jointing a whole chicken, basically I have no idea how to do it & am too lazy, would rather just slap the thighs in the marinade & I always find them so tender too. The cucumber salad on the side was a nice refreshing touch, I left out the chilli as I was pretty sure between the chicken & the sauce we had enough & I was spot on, I also used cashews instead of peanuts as I have a no peanut house, cashews I find to tbe the best substitute & love them. I wonder if you could make a satay sauce with cashews, I love a good satay & miss it o so much, anyone tried it with anything other than peanuts?

Overall, loved Thai week & found some recipes I will definitely use again

Sweet Chilli Sauce - Ben O'Donoghue - Ben's Barbecue

500g caster sugar
500ml white wine vinegar
500ml water
4 lemongrass stems, peeled & finely sliced
10 garlic cloves, peeled
15 long red chillies, chopped (feel free to halve this amount!!!)
1/2 teaspoon salt

Combine the sugar, vinegar and water in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Place the lemongrass, garlic, chillies and salt in a food processor & pulse to a fine texture. Add the paste to the saucepan, then simmer and reduce by half. Skim off any floating bits or any foam that forms.

Once thick, set aside to cool. Will keep for up to 2 months in the refrigerator in an airtight container.

Gai Yang: Thai Barbecued Chicken - Ben O'Donoghue - Ben's Barbecue

Serves 4.

1 x 1.5kg chicken, cut into 8 joints, trimmed of fat and excess skin (or sub with skinless chicken thigh fillets as I did)
1/4 cup coconut cream

Marinade

5 coriander roots, washed & chopped
6 garlic cloves, peeled
5 Thai pink shallots, peeled
1 birdseye chilli
1 tblspn minced turmeric or turmeric powder
2 tblspns freshly ground white pepper
3-4 tblspns fish sauce to taste
2-3 tblspns palm sugar to taste

For the marinade, use a heavy mortar and pestle or food processor, and puree the coriander roots, garlic, shallots, chilli and turmeric. Add the pepper, fish sauce and sugar to taste, and mix well. Rub the marinade into and under the skin of the chicken and leave it to marinate in the fridge for 2-3 hours.

Remove from the fridge & allow to come to room temperature.

Cook the chicken in a frypan or griddle pan over high heat, turning & basting frequently with the leftover marinade mixed with the coconut cream, until cooked through.

Thai cucumber salad - Stephanie Alexander - The Cooks Companion

Serves 4

4 shallots, very finely sliced
1 tblspn vegetable oil
2 long cucumbers, peeled and seeded
1 tblspn brown sugar
2 tblspns rice or white wine vinegar
1 fresh chilli, seeded & finely chopped (optional)
50g peanuts, roasted & chopped (substitute with cashews)
2 tblsons freshly chopped coriander leaves & stems
fish sauce

Saute shallots gently and slowly in oil until brown but not burnt. Drain on kitchen paper. Cut cucumber into 1 cm cubes. Dissolve sugar in vinegar. Toss vinegar mixture through cucumber, then add all other ingredients, seasoning to taste with fish sauce.

Happy Easter and a healthy start to the day, all down here from there

2010-04-04T17:22:00.000+10:00

For me these days Easter is all about family & eating. This said, I felt I could get away with some cheesy pics of Chloe & Josh with their Easter Egg loot from the Bunny, though the photo shows the closest Josh will come to actually eating a chocolate for a couple more months at least, for now he just gets to enjoy the bright wrapping.

I started the day with some bircher muesli Hellenic Republic style. Bircher muesli is a summer favourite of mine now in it's last days before I move on to warmer porridges. This recipe differs to my usual with the addition of pureed strawberry & segmented oranges added to the mix. Very nice though be warned the mixture says it serves 4, I think it could easily go 8!

After brekkie & ester eggs we were off to lunch at my mums for a tradional lunch of sauerkraut soup, roast & some chocolate/orange mousse & a pistachio, chocolate & pear cake baked by me.

What did everyone else do for Easter? Off to the couch for me now I think....

Another Thai Beef Salad - Cookbook Challenge - Week 20 - Tangy

2010-04-01T14:44:00.000+11:00

I had a rather difficult time coming up with a recipe for this weeks theme of Tangy. I could easily have made a sweet recipe, a citrusy cake perhaps? However I didnt have anyone to feed cake to this week & as I've been really good to myself lately & have stuck to 'the rules' I've imposed on myself I didnt want to bake just for the sake of a challenge. So I set about trying to find a savoury recipe that sounded tangy to me, Thai was the best I could come up with, the lime juice, fish sauce & lemongrass dressing fit the bill even though the chilli might have made this dish more apt for a spicy theme. I also seriously cut down on the quantity of spring onions & shallots & added some lettuce instead as there is only so much onion I can eat in one sitting.

Conflicted as I was, I had no problem eating this dish. I've recently discovered a great butcher & I swear whenever I cook a meal with his meat it is great, tender & full of flavour, so the simple dressing & bits & pieces of spring onions, shallots, coriander & the like lifted it to a fab weeknight dinner. By the way, when I'm cooking something like this which Chloe who is only 3 will not eat, even the mildest of chillies hurt her tongue, (dont worry will keep trying her until she is a chilli trooper like the rest of us!), to avoid cooking 2 meals, I just make some veg & salad on the side & give her the meat minus the dressing, she does love a good piece of steak too.

Anyhow, the recipe comes from Ben O'Donoghue's Ben's Barbecue, a book I recently acquired for free simply by purchasing 6 bottles of Penfolds wine in a recent Safeway promotion, having been known to enjoy the odd drop or two, this posed no problem I can tell you & hey presto, I have yet another cook book. This is the second recipe I've tried from the book & let me tell you, the first was a major disaster that I did manage to salavage, the recipe for foccacia, the mixture was so soggy it was like soup, I had to add about a ton of flour to achieve a dough & of course by then it was more like bread in the end & didnt in any way resemble what it was supposed to. On thinking about it but by no means being an expert I think the quantities were out, 1.5 litres of water to 1kg of flour all up, what does everyone else think? Anyway luckily no 2 was a winner so dont have to toss the book just yet. Will actually be using it next week for the Thai theme too, funny that I actually made Thai the week before for Tangy & now have to do it again, should really plan ahead a bit better.

Thai Beef Salad - Ben O'Donoghue - Ben's barbecue

Serves 4

2 bunches spring onions, washed, outer leaves removed, roots & tips trimmed
3 red chillies, finely sliced
10 Thai pink shallots, finely sliced
1 bunch coriander, washed & chopped
3 sticks lemongrass, peeled & thinly sliced
400g rump or sirloin steak
salt & freshly ground black pepper
juice of 3 limes
5 tablespoons fish sauce

Finely slice the spring onions on the diagonal and place in a bowl with the chillies, shallots, coriander & lemongrass.

Prepare your barbecue (or grill pan over the stove) for direct grilling over a high heat. Season the beef with a good amount of salt & pepper, then cook to your liking. I prefer a medium-well-done as I think you get a more flavourful salad. Allow the meat to rest while you dress the salad.

Squeeze the lime juice over the spring onion salad, followed by the fish sauce, then toss to combine. Slice the meat finely, removing the fat. Add to the salad & toss to combine, then serve.

Earth hour 2010 at the Zoo - Warning no photos of food to follow

2010-03-30T15:10:00.000+11:00

For Earth Hour this year I was lucky enough to be given a couple of tickets to Earth Hour at the Melbourne Zoo thanks to Zoos Victoria. The tickets included a behind the scenes tour of some of the reptiles where the lovely guide (pictured) brought out a Fijian crested iguana, Honduran milk snakes & biggest & best of all a Black Headed Python. I hid behind my camera while Michael had a play.

After our tour, we had a wander around and saw the Lions who seem to sleep forever, get frisky for about a minute before resuming their laziness, the giraffes having a bit of a feed & a lonely meerkat or 2 wondering what all the upcoming noise was about.

We were then treated to a sit down barbecue dinner, a simple spread of veggie burgers, snags, potato salad, green salad, bread & lots of free booze - who can say no to that! Too bad really as I brought along my own dinner not fully understanding that the offer of food to be proved meant an entire meal, thinking it would be more like a nibbly or 2 pre-show. Sadly my food had to be thrown out after being carted around & neglected all night.

Next was off to the vip seating area, where we snuggled up on the picnic rug with our one free rain poncho (I scored it), to brave the drizzle (which thankfully didnt last too long), to watch Wagons & Tim Rogers, missed the Blackchords entirely while eating, sorry. Wagons were interesting, part comedy, some interesting language & a good strong voice, Tim Rogers I love from way back & was especially please to hear him sing Heavy Heart. We also brought along our own booze so we were very merry by the end of festivities.

Despite the ignorance of the PR company who organised the event, in regards to a certain chocolate & the Zoos involvement i the 'Dont Palm us Off' campaign, you can read all about it here, we had a wonderful time, love the zoo & love their Twilight nights, as I say every year, I will have to get along more often!

Rice 2 ways - The Cookbook Challenge - Week 19

2010-03-24T17:19:00.000+11:00

The theme for this week was rice. I really wanted to make both a savoury & a sweet dish this week so I chose 2 recipes from the same book, Bill Granger's Holiday & both had an Asian feel to them. It's funny how I thought the pudding would be sensational & the rice just ok yet things turned out completely the other way around. I loved the simplicity of the rice with chicken yet the pudding didnt do it for me at all though I was quite partial to the gorgeous caramelized pineapple on top.

The chicken dish was quite interesting for me in that it was cooked a bit differently to my normal method, the rice had ginger, onion, garlic & sesame oil through it, I love the aroma of anything cooking with sesame oil in it? Once this was simmered for a while the chicken was poached on top. When I tried this before adding the soy, spring onions & chilli I was a little disappointed as it was a bit bland (as well as looking way too white!), however the addition of the last minute extras lifted the dish to one I was very happy to eat, a great simple combination.

Ginger & Sesame Rice with Poached Chicken - from Bill Granger, Holiday

Serves 4

2 tablespoons peanut oil

1 tablespoon sesame oil

1 onion, finely chopped

3 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tbspn freshly grated ginger
400g jasmine rice
750ml chicken stock
500g chicken breast fillets, cut into thin escalopes

To Serve

Finely sliced spring onions
Chopped red chilli
Soy Sauce

Heat the oils in a large deep frying pan over medium-low heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5-6 minutes until soft. Add the garlic and ginger & cook, stirring for 2 minutes more.

Add the rice and stir to coat the grains of rice with the oil. Add the stock and bring to the boil. Cover, reduce heat to low and simmer for 5 minutes. Place the chicken in a single layer on top of the rice. Cover again and simmer for a further 8-10 minutes, or until the rice is just tender and the chicken is cooked through.

Remove from the heat and set aside with the lid on, for a further 5 minutes. Serve sprinkled with spring onions, chilli & drizzled with soy sauce

My second rice dish was a coconut rice pudding with caramelised pineapple. Now I love anything flavoured with coconut or coconut milk so I thought this was a definite winner. Wrong, it was ok though my version turned out a little dry, didnt really brown all that well on top & the flavour just didnt taste quite right to me. Funny as I made a classic rice pudding for Josh yesterday & served it to him with some blackcurrant jam stirred through & this one was sensational! As mentioned the pineapple got a big thumbs up, I guess anything coated in sugar & cinnamon & fried has to taste good right?

Coconut Rice Pudding with Caramelised Pineapple - from Bill Granger, Holiday

Serves 4

400ml coconut milk
500ml milk
225g arborio rice
3 tblsons caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 170c and lightly grease a 1.5 litre capacity baking dish. Put the coconut milk, milk, rice, sugar & vanilla in the dish & stir together well. Cover with foil & bake for 1 1/4 hours, remove the foil & bake for a further 30-35 minutes until nicely browned on top. Leave to rest for 10 minutes before serving with pineapple.

Caramelised Pineapple

1/2 tspn ground cinnamon
2 tblspns brown sugar
3 thin slices fresh pineapple, cut into small triangles.

Mix together the cinnamon & sugar on a plate. Toss the pineapple in the cinnamon sugar until coated on all sides.

Heat a large non stick frying pan over medium high heat & cook the pineapple for 1 minute on each side until caramelised. Serve with the pudding.

Fantastic soup & another use for the rainbow chard in the garden

2010-03-18T15:20:00.000+11:00

I know you probably wont think so when looking the the photo but this is one fantastic pot of Chick pea and chard soup. In my opinion soup doesn't photograph well at the best of times so you have to take my word rather than go my fairly dubious looking photo above. With the change of seasons and the weather supposedly cooling down I have moved into full 'make-a-pot-of-soup-a-week' mode. Soup being one of my most loved foods, I love to make old favourites & am always on the lookout for new recipes. This one caught my eye in my new ebay purchase of Skye Gyngell's My favourite ingredients. It's a lovely book and I have tried a few of her recipes from Delicious so I was keen to start from the book, this recipe was perfect for me as I'm also on the lookout for recipes I can use my rainbow chard growing out the back in.

I cheated a bit when making the soup, I actually pretty much cooked it while playing out the back with both kids, just running inside every 10, 20 or 30 minutes to add the next ingredient, all of which I had lined up waiting to be thrown in, you cant get much easier than that. So my cheats were, using tinned chickpeas instead of dried, ie no need to soak overnight or boil for 1 1/2 hours. I just added the lemon juice when I threw them into the soup. I also threw the chard straight into the soup rather than cooking it separately as suggested. I wasnt expecting the soup to be so good, the ingredients are very simple yet all together they were amazing, one to add to my soup collection for sure.

Chickpea and chard soup - Skye Gyngell - My favourite ingredients

200g dried chickpeas, soaked overnight (or sub with a tin of chickpeas - no need to soak)
3 tblspn extra virgin olive oil, plus extra to serve
juice of half a lemon
2 dried red chillies
5 garlic cloves, peeled & smashed with the back of a knife
3 rosemary sprigs
2 x 340g tins of good quality peeled plum tomatoes
sea salt & freshly black pepper
1 litre good quality chicken stock
300g swiss chard
2 thick slices day old chewy bread, ie sourdough, crusts removed
75-90g Parmesan - freshly grated

Drain the chickpeas, rinse & place in a large heavy-based pan. Cover generously with cold water , but do not season. Bring to the boil over a medium heat, then turn the heat down. Simmer gently for 1 1/2 hours or until the chick peas are soft, skimming away any scum from the surface every now and then. Drain & dress with 1 tblspn extra virgin olive oil & the lemon juice. (Note as mentioned you could skip this step & just add a can of chickpeas with the lemon juice at the adding stage).

In the meantime, warm 2 tblspns extra virgin olive oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Crumble in the chillies and add the garlic and rosemary. Cook for a minute or so to release the flavours, then add the tomatoes & stir well to break them up, adding a good pinch of salt. Cover & cook for 20 minutes, then pour in the stock & cook for a further 10 minutes. Finally add the chick peas & simmer for 40 minutes.

Towards the end of cooking time, prepare the chard. Wash and pat dry, then strip the leaves from teh pale central stalk, using a small sharp knife, set aside. Trim the stalks & cut into 1cm chunks. Add these to a pan of well salted boiling water and cook for 2 minutes, then add the soft green outer leaves & cook for a further minute. Drain. (Note I skipped this stage & simply added the torn leaves to the soup directly a few minutes before the end of cooking time.

Break the bread into small pieces and stir into the soup with the Parmesan, turning the heat to low. Add the chard and a drizzle of olive oil. Taste & adjust the seasoning before serving.

The Cookbook Challenge - Week 18 - BBQ

2010-03-17T21:04:00.000+11:00

This weeks cookbook challenge is BBQ and what Aussie doesnt just love them? As you can see in my photo I actually 'barbecued' my Salmon on the griddle pan over the stove as I was cooking for my parents & Michael is never home in enough time to even contemplate waiting for him to get the real thing out. I'm actually having a 'real' bbq on Saturday night so if I remember I may get some photos to post of the real deal.

The recipe I chose was from Jamie Oliver's Jamie at home, I really like this book & enjoyed the series too & seemed to remember a bbq chapter with a delicious salmon recipe. The Salmon was fantastic & everyone apart from my Dad who peeled it off & left it to the side, loved the crispy skin, even Chloe, anything with crunch tickles her tastebuds. I have to say though that I quite often griddle salmon with nothing more than a sprinkle of salt & pepper & brushed with some olive oil & feel it doesnt need anymore. This recipe had herbs & lemon zest stuffed into the flesh & even though it was fantastic I dont really think I could taste the difference the herbs made. The cucumber yoghurt on the side however was a great extra to serve with the salmon this way. I used fresh mint in mine. So even though I would make the cucumber yoghurt again I probably would bother adding the herbs.

Crispy barbecued side of Salmon with cucumber yoghurt - from Jamie Oliver - Jamie at home

Serves 4-6.

1 x 1.5kg side of salmon, scaled & pinboned (I only used about 950g & it fed 4 adults & 1 3 yr old fine)
zest and juice of 1 lemon
a bunch of fresh herby fennel tops or basil, leaves picked & finely chopped (I used basil as that's whats in my garden right now, maybe fennel would have had a stronger flavour)
olive oil
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
1 cucumber, peeled lengthwise at intervals
300ml natural yoghurt
1 fresh red chilli, deseeded & finely chopped (omitted from mine so it was Chloe safe)
a small bunch of fresh mint or oregano, leaves picked & chopped
extra virgin olive oil

Brush the bars of the bbq clean to prevent the fish sticking, then light it & get the coals glowing hot. (Or turn on the stove or gas bbq like I did).

Place the salmon skin side down on a board and, using a sharp knife, slash it evenly all over on the fleshy side, making the incisions about 1cm deep. Scatter the lemon zest & fennel tops or basil over the salmon, then push into the incisions. Rub the fish lightly all over with olive oil then season with salt & pepper.

When the barbie is ready, lay the salmon on the bars, skin side down. Cook for about 4 minutes until golden brown then flip over, cook for a further 2-3 minutes. While it's cooking, gently ease the skin away & put it alongside the fish to crisp up (I also omitted this step as I get great crispy skin on the griddle without removing it). When the salmon is cooked to your liking, lift it off the bbq onto a serving platter, then break the skin into pieces & place on top.

Cut the cucumber in half lengthways, remove the seeds, chop it up & mix in a bowl with the yoghurt. Balance the flavours with the lemon juice, half the chopped chilli and half the mint or oregano. Season carefully with salt & pepper.

Break the Salmon into 6 chunks & serve with the cucumber yoghurt, some crispy skin & the remaining chilli & herbs.

If you have too many grapes...

2010-03-14T17:11:00.000+11:00

Patrizia's Grape Fritters from Stephanie Alexander's Kitchen Garden Companion, sensational! Having masses of grapes ripening on the vine out the back all at the same time I thought it was high time I started experimenting with cooking grapes as I dont have enough to start making home brew just yet. I've never actually cooked with grapes before as they are so sweet & delicious all on their own that I haven't felt the need up until now.

As pancakes are one of my favourite foods, this recipe immediately caught my eye. The recipe suggests seedless grapes, mine have seeds so as the batter was resting for its required half an hour, I plopped myself down at the bench while everyone else was sleeping & de pipped the 500g, not such a big deal when you have time to spare & for me these sorts of jobs are always a labour of love anyway so I find them quite relaxing. As for the cooking, I found it a bit tricky to get the temperature just right, you might be able to see in the photo that the batter isnt quite cooked all of the way through, after the first few when I realised this was happening, I slowed things down a bit, squashed them after flipping & problem solved. A really sweet Sunday morning brekkie treat without too much added sugar, they didnt even need any syrup or ice cream on the side.

Does anyone else have any great grape recipes for me?

Patrizia's Grape Fritters

1 1/2 cups self raising flour
2 tablespoons caster sugar, plus extra for dusting
1/4 tspn salt
1 egg
1 cup milk
500g black grapes, preferably seedless, stems removed
grapeseed oil or vegetable oil, for frying

Sift flour, sugar & salt into a large mixing bowl. Lightly whisk egg with milk. Make a well in the flour & stir in the egg/milk mixture, then whisk to form a smooth, thickish batter. Leave to stand for 30 minutes.

Cut the grapes in half & de-seed if necessary. Stir through the batter.

Pour oil into a medium sized non stick frypan to a depth of 1cm & heat over medium heat until hot. test the heat by dropping in a small blob of batter. It should sizzle as it hits the oil & start to brown at once. Drop in heaped tablespoons of batter & fry for 1 minute, then turn with an egg lifter. Press down lightly on each fritter with the egg lifter. Fry until golden brown on both sides. Remove & drain on greaseproof paper. Dust with extra sugar & serve. Makes about 10.

The Cookbook Challenge - Week 17 - Vietnamese

2010-03-10T16:21:00.000+11:00

This weeks theme is Vietnamese. Not only do I not own any Vietnamese cookbooks, I also have not really eaten in many Vietnamese restaurants & I've never been to the country itself though I hope to visit one of these days as I hear it is very beautiful. So for my recipe this week I once again turned to trusty Bill Granger's version of things, a lovely light & refreshing chicken salad from Bill's Open Kitchen. Note that I am almost embarassed by how much I am using Bill Granger's cookbooks but what can I say, they suit me to a T at the moment & I am really trying to get out all of my other books too I promise.

I was going for salad as the weather has been so hot lately though that all changed with the storms, if I'd known how chilly it would get maybe I would have found a pho recipe! A bonus for me with this dish was that I actually got to use some Thai basil & Vietnamese mint from my garden which is great, they are thriving & dont get used as often as some of my other herbs so always nice to find a use for them before they die off. The dressing was quite tangy & zingy, the overall salad being quite light & satisfying. I think the flavours leant a bit too much towards the sour though so next time I would just add raw carrot rather than going to the trouble of pickling my own, I think that would keep it fresher. Overall a nice, simple (though you have to start the carrots a couple of hours ahead if pickling) weeknight dish, though not sure I personally will be rushing back to try this one again, it just didnt wow me enough even though I love recipes like this that I can do in stages, that way I can have most stuff prepped while the kiddies sleep & its just an assembly & quick cooking job at the end to bring it all together.

Vietnamese Chicken Salad - Bill Granger - Bill's Open Kitchen

3 x 200g chicken breasts
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
sea salt
pepper (Bill prefers white, I went with black)
90g (1 cup) bean sprouts
20g (1 cup) Vietnamese mint leaves
50g (1 cup) Asian basil leaves, or basil leaves
180g (4 cups) Chinese cabbage, finely shredded
Vietnamese dressing (below)
90g (1 cup) pickled carrots (below), or raw carrot, peeled & finely julienned

Preheat the oven to 220c. heat a frying pan over high heat & while the pan is heating, brush the chicken with olive oil and season with salt & pepper. Place the chicken skin side down (if skin on) & sear for 2 minutes, turn and sear for another minute. Put the chicken on a baking tray & cook in the oven for 8 to 10 minutes. Leave to rest for 20 minutes. Shred the chicken into thin strips with your hands & place in a large bowl. Add the remaining ingredients and toss to combine. Serves 4.

Vietnamese dressing

60ml (1/4 cup) lime juice
60ml (1/4 cup) fish sauce
2 tblspns rice vinegar
1 tblspn caster sugar
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
3 red asian shallots, or 1/2 red onion, finely sliced
2 small red chillies, very finely chopped (seeds removed if you dont like too much heat)

Place all the ingredients in a small bowl & stir until the sugar is dissolved.

Pickled Carrot

250g carrots, peeled & finely julienned
1 teaspoon sea salt
2 tblspns rice vinegar
1 tblspn caster sugar

Place the carrots in a colander, sprinkle with salt & toss to combine. Leave for 20 minutes. While the carrot is resting, place 185ml (3/4 cup) water with the vinegar and sugar in a small saucepan over a medium het & bring to the boil. Remove from the heat and allow to cool. Rinse the carrot, squeezing out any excess water, and place in a bowl. Pour over the pickling liquid and stand for 1 hour. Strain before serving.

The Cookbook Challenge - Week 16 - Noodles

2010-03-04T19:02:00.000+11:00

Week 16 & the challenge is flying by. It has been busy, busy, busy around here lately so I have only managed the one recipe a week once more, soon I hope to challenge myself to do 2 or 3 again, For this weeks theme, noodles, I thought it was about time to make something from Kylie Kwong's Simple Chinese Cooking, a book I havent used in at least a year for no other reason than I forget it's there & am always reaching for old favorites. The recipes all look delicious & what I have made so far relatively simple, even though the list of ingredients is long, most are all thrown in together & the cooking process is speedy. I loved the Stir Fried Hokkien Noodles with Sweet Pork Fillets that I chose & will make sure I revisit this book again soon, maybe even for the challenge if the theme fits (I'm sure I can manage at least week 44 Chinese!).

The pork was tender, sweet as promised & the flavours were all well balanced to create a tasty & filling yet light enough not to weigh me down meal.

Stir-Fried Hokkien Noodles with Sweet Pork Fillets - From Kylie Kwong Simple Chinese Cooking

400g pork fillets, cut into 5mm slices

1/2 large red capsicum

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1 small white onion, cut in half & then into thick wedges

4 spring onions, trimmed & cut into 10cm lengths

12 ginger slices

3 garlic cloves, finely sliced

1 x 450g packet fresh hokkien noodles

2 tblspns shao hsing wine or dry sherry

1 tblspn light soy sauce

1 tblspn oyster sauce

1/2 tspn sesame oil

Marinade

1 tblspn shao hsing wine or dry sherry

1 tblpsn hoisin sauce

1 tblspn malt vinegar

1 tblspn white sugar

2 tspns light soy sauce

1/2 tspn sesame oil

Combine pork & marinade ingredients in a bowl, cover and leave to marinate in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Remove seeds and membranes from pepper, cut into slices and set aside.

Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a hot wok until surface seems to shimmer slightly. Add pork and stir fry for 1 minute. Remove from wok and set aside.

Add remaining oil to hot wok with pepper, onion, spring onions, ginger & garlic and stir-fry for 1 minute or until the onion is slightly browned. Toss in noodles and reserved pork and stir-fry for 30 seconds. Finally, add wine or sherry, soy, oyster sauce, sesame oil & stir fry for a further 1 1/2 minutes or until pork is cooked through and noodles are hot.

The Cookbook Challenge Week 15 - Muffins

2010-02-25T19:35:00.000+11:00

This weeks theme for The Cookbook Challenge is muffins. I like muffins though only the sweet variety, I never quite got savoury muffins, maybe that's because I have never eaten a good one yet? Anyway I do find them a little uninspiring and particularly unphotogenic though they are always quick to whip up and cook, usually only requiring some stirring in a bowl so no messy appliances to wash up either which is a good thing.

So trying to find a really good recipe was a challenge for me, no boring old banana, I had a few options & nearly settled on Bill Granger's Pumpkin muffins but in the end these apple & berry muffins won out. Who doesn't love anything with a crumble topping? The muffins themselves were very moist as they were jam packed with fruit so the nice crumble was a great contrast on top. A really good muffin recipe & one I would definitely make again.

Apple and Berry Crumble Muffins - From Marie Claire Breakfast

155g (1 1/4 cups) self-raising flour
150g (1 cup) wholemeal self-raising flour
1/4 tspn ground cinnamon
pinch of ground cloves
115g firmly packed soft brown sugar
185ml (3/4 cup) milk
2 eggs
125g unsalted butter, melted & cooled
2 granny smith apples, peeled, grated
155g (1 cup) blueberries

Crumble

50g plain flour
55g (1/4 cup) demerara sugar
35g (1/3 cup) rolled oats
40g unsalted butter, chopped

Preheat oven to 190c. Line 12 regular muffin holes with muffin papers. Sift the flours, cinnamon and cloves into a large bowl, add the husks and stir in the sugar. Make a well in the centre.

Put the milk, eggs and butter in a bowl, whisk and pour in the well. Fold until just combined. Fold in the fruit. Divide among the muffin holes.

To make the crumble, put the flour, sugar and oats in a bowl. Rub in the butter until most of the lumps are gone. Sprinkle 2 teaspoons of the crumble over each muffin. Bake for 25 minutes, or until golden. Cool for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack.

Happy 3rd Birthday Chloe

2010-02-22T12:28:00.000+11:00

Happy 3rd Birthday to my beautiful baby Chloe. We had a bit of a bash at home to celebrate, afternoon tea with the family & a few friends....

The birthday cake was this spectacular Choc-cherry Tiramisu ice-cream cake from Super Food Ideas Dec2009/Jan 2010 issue. I dont normally buy this magazine but I was standing at the check out one day & this was on the cover and caught my eye. What little girl can resist layers of chocolate & vanilla cream cheese ice cream with cherries & biscuits in between all topped with chocolate curls, cherries & silver cachous??? You cant tell in the photo but this cake was huge, think 4 litres of ice cream plus extras, happily served everyone, 25 or so adults plus kids & decent servings too & we even have some leftovers.

For the rest of the food I kept the savoury food simple, sandwiches and dips, plus my mum made chicken wings & pigs in blankets for a childhood flashback, yum & I couldn't believe how many people actually had never had or heard of them either.

The sweet food however I went all out on & baked for 2 days, funnily it was all Bill Granger food, he never lets me down on the sweets, vanilla cup cakes & blueberry trifle from Bill's Open Kitchen, lime slice from Bill's food, and lastly, cranberry & white chocolate cookies & chocolate caramel slice (minus the salt) from Holiday. I loved all of the recipes, the one I got the most compliments for would have to be the caramel slice though. I was so busy on the day that oops I didnt get a chance for photos, I was actually quite lucky to get a photo of Chloe and the birthday cake!

The Cookbook Challenge - Week 14 - Japanese

2010-02-15T16:26:00.000+11:00

The Challenge for this weeks Cookbook Challenge was Japanese. At first I thought I would something authentic, though in the end I was bored by that idea & came across this Jamie Oliver recipe that I had bypassed many times as it seemed too fiddly. It's Japanese style Pork with Plums, Coriander, Soy Sauce & Spring Onions, too me it really doesnt sound all that Japanese apart from the use of plums which I absolutely adore, but hey I really dont know much about the cuisine apart from typical food I eat out in restaurants, you know sushi, tempura, teppanyaki, you get the drift. Anyway in the end it wasnt as time consuming as it looked & I really loved it, the pork was very lean & steamed so top points for the healthy factor there, the plum sauce was amazing but then again what isn't amazing when made with plums, we had heaps leftover so actually used it as a dipping sauce on the side too & the greens & soy pulled it all together very nicely. So well done I say & I am really going to start using some cook books that aren't my well worn favourites soon too I promise.

Japanese Rolled Pork with Plums, Coriander, Soy Sauce & Spring Onions - from Jamie Olive - Happy Days with the Naked Chef

10 plums
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 star anise
2 thumb sized pieces of fresh ginger, peeled & finely grated
2 cloves
2 heaped tablespoons muscovado sugar
600g pork loin
Salt & freshly ground black pepper
1 small handful fresh coriander, washed & chopped
Spring onions
Soy Sauce

Wash the plums, then halve, remove the stones and dice into 1cm cubes. Heat the oil in a pan and fry the star anise, ginger and cloves for 1 minute. Add the plums & sugar with a couple of tablespoons of water, place a lid on, simmer slowly for about 20 minutes until chunky & pulpy. Allow to cool in the fridge.

Take your pork & trim off the fate & sinews. Cut into 0.5 cm slices & ione by one bash out the slices to about half their original size.

Season the plum sauce and stir in half the coriander. Smear each pork slice with some sauce & roll up like a swiss roll. Place the rolls into a bamboo steamer & steam over simmering water for about 10-15 minutes until the meat is just cooked. Remove from the steamer & serve on a bed of finely sliced spring onions, sprinkled with the remaining coriander & doused with soy sauce.

Notes:

Brown sugar is fine in place of muscavado if you havent got any.

I lined my steamer with baking paper & as a result the basket was full of liquid when finished, it didnt seem to compromise the flavour though it probably didnt help either

Thanks Michael for making the sauce in the morning while I was out doing the shopping!

The Cookbook Challenge - Week 13 - Love

2010-02-11T19:23:00.000+11:00

This weeks theme for The Cookbook Challenge is love. I had to have a good think before I knew how I wanted to interpret this one. Rather than going for the obvious Valentines Day romantic commercial love that was probably the most obvious I wanted to cook something I LOVE cooking for someone I LOVE. This could have been many different foods for many different reasons. I finally settled on pancakes, they have to be my favourite breakfast indulgence & cooking someone breakfast is an act of love, dinner has to be eatan & cooked pretty much every night apart from the occasional take-away or night out, lunch somehow gets scraped together most days (usually vegemite & cheese sandwich I have to admit), however breakfast which is normally cereal, either out of a box or my home made muesli, is very special when I go to the trouble to actually cook up something.

Chloe loves pancakes, thats right Chloe got the love not Michael this time sorry, so I settled on Bill Granger's (the king of brekky), Oaty Hotcakes with Caramel bananas from Feed me Now. Somewhat healthy hotcakes topped with absolutely wicked & drool worthy bananas, need I say anymore other than you have to try these out for yourself.

Oaty Hotcakes with fruity toppings - from - Bill Granger - Feed Me Now

Hotcakes

185g plain flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
good pinch of freshly grated nutmeg (optional)
pinch of sea salt
1 tablespoon caster sugar
25g rolled oats
375ml buttermilk
1 medium egg, lightly beaten
35g butter, melted, plus extra to grease pan

To make the hotcake batter, sift the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg & salt together in a bowl. Stir the sugar and oats through then make a well in the centre. Pur in the buttermilk & egg, stirring until just mixed. Add the melted butter & stir to combine. Set aside.

(At this time I made up the caramel bananas so they were ready as soon as the pancakes were cooked.)

To cook the hotcakes, heat a large non-stick frying pan over medium heat & brush a little butter over the base. Pour in 2 or 3 small ladlefuls of batter, being careful not to overcrowd the pan, and cook for 2-3 minutes. Transfer to a plate & keep warm while cooking the rest (or serve up to hungry nearly 3 year olds while you get on with the rest).

Caramel bananas

3 bananas
60g butter
90g brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Halve the bananas lengthways & cut each piece into 3. Put the butter, sugar, vanilla & 3 tablespoons water in a large frying pan over medium heat & cook until the mixture forms a caramel and darkens. Add the bananas and toss through until well coated.

A peak at some of my garden

2010-02-09T16:08:00.000+11:00

Some of my grapes starting to ripen up. This is the first year we have lived here that we have let the vines fruit so I have no idea how long they take to ripen or if they will be nice or not, fingers crossed. Notice the gigantic rosemary bush underneath - love it!

My pots against the garage wall ( to be knocked down at an undecided date in the probably far off future to make way for real trees & garden beds). From left to right, baby Bay tree which will stay in the pot given that they apparently can reach 12 metres tall, lemon tree, to be relocated to the real garden once the garage finally dies, mint, baby cherry tomato plant, Vietnamese mint, blood orange tree, again waiting for a real garden, garlic chives & apple tree, again in waiting...

Strawberry patch by the back door, starting to take off though so far no ripe strawberry has made it inside past Chloes eager fingers

More herbs, basil, Thai basil, blood plum tree, ditto on the garden & more basil. Lots more growing in the beds & so far havent had to buy a tomato all summer so am reasonably happy with my first ever real veggie patch though there will be lots of changes next year to improve upon the failuires & some crops that didnt bear as well as hoped

The Cookbook Challenge - Week 12 - Eggs

2010-02-07T09:37:00.000+11:00

This weeks theme for The Cookbook Challenge is eggs. I had some egg whites in the freezer waiting to use up so my first recipe was going to be some sort of pavlova/meringue. Going on from my success of the moonblush tomatoes, Nigella had a similar recipe for her Forgotten Pudding, similar as in you cook it in the oven after its turned off. As I had a very busy morning the day I needed to cook this, it was perfect as all the prep was done the night before and all I had to do was whip up some cream and pile the fruit on top at the party - Michaels Dad's birthday lunch. Amazingly it did cook with only the residual heat from the oven being preheated. I liked it though due to the slow cooking it didnt have the outer crunchy layer of a pavlova, instead it was nice and soft and marshmellowy, nice for a change though my preference is for the crunch which I will go back to next time even though you cant beat this recipe for the laziness factor - my mum thinks Nigella is the laziest cook she has ever heard of!

Forgotten Pudding - Nigella Lawson - Nigella Express

6 egg whites
1/2 teaspoon salt
250g caster sugar. plus 2 teaspoons
1/2 tspn cream of tartar
1 tspn vanilla extract
butter for greasing
250ml double cream
4 passionfruit
350g berries (I used a mix of strawberries & blueberries)

Preheat oven to 220c. In a large bowl, whisk the egg whites and salt until peaks begin to form. gradually add the 250g sugar, then the cream of tartar and the vanilla, whisking all the while at speed, until the whites are stiff and glossy. Butter a swiss roll tin then spread evenly with the mixture. Put in the oven, close the door and turn the oven off and leave overnight - DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR TO PEEP!

When serving, move to a large plate. Whisk the cream until thick but still soft and spread over the meringue. Scoop out the seeds and pulp of the passionfruits and spread evenly over the top. Toss the berries in the remaining sugar and heap on top (I skipped the extra sugar). Slice and serve.

For my second egg week I had to pick a savoury breakfast dish, I love cooking breakfast on the weekends and have been wanting to bake some eggs for a while now so this was a good excuse. I chose Bill Granger's Baked Eggs from Holiday, they are baked in a ramekin with some spinach in the bottom & a little cream & parmesan on top. My only difficulty was that my ramekins were a touch on the small side & once I had the spinach in with 2 eggs each they were already filled to the top, my solution was to pour out a bit of egg white to make room for the cream & cheese & it was fine, egg whites are highly overated if you ask me anyway (unless whipped to form glorious meringues or macaroons of course). Michael & Chloe had theirs with my favourite Ottway bacon & toast on the side, I skipped the toast but couldnt pass up the bacon, it's not very often that I have it around so when it's there I dig in. Loved the eggs though Michael started the oven off for me & it wasnt until 3/4 of the way in that I realised he had the wrong setting so they took longer than required to puff up and goldenise (making up words here I know). As a result the eggs were hard baked rather than soft & oozing which was ok for a change even though I would have preferred the ooze.

Baked Eggs with Spinach and Parmesan - from Bill Granger's Holiday

To serve 4 (adjust quantities as required for more or less people)

1 tblspn olive oil
200g baby spinach leaves
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
8 eggs
4 tblspns cream
4 tbspns grated parmesan

Preheat the oven to 200c. Lightly grease four 9cm ramekins & place on a baking tray.

Heat a saucepan or frying pan over medium heat and add the olive oil, spinach & season with salt & pepper. Cook until leaves are just softened. Drain the spinach in a colander and as soon as it's cool enough to handle, squeeze out the excess liquid.

Spoon the spinach evenly into the ramekins & break 2 eggs into each on top of the spinach. Pour 1 tablespoon of cream in each & sprinkle with 1 tablespoon of parmesan. Bake for 15 minutes or until the eggs are set & puffed up. Season & serve immediately with toast.

The Cookbook Challenge - Week 11 - Mixed

2010-01-26T18:10:00.000+11:00

The theme for this weeks cookbook challenge is mixed, definitely one open to interpretation. I am making 2 recipes where the ingredients are mixed up. The first mixes savoury lamb with the sweet fruit pomegranate. I know it's nothing new to mix fruit and savoury and it's always a winning combination so what makes this recipe different for me is that I have never worked with a fresh pomegranate before. Now that I have I love them and will be rushing back for more, it was so sweet and lovely and the crunchy texture was brilliant. Overall this dish was a winner, a little bit time consuming to prepare, even having to start the yoghurt the day before but in the end worth it. I also have a confession to make, I was a little tired after a morning/afternoon out breakfasting at Hellenic Republic, strolling down Lygon street doing a bit of shopping and finishing off doing the groceries at Barkly square so I actually got Michael to make this dish. Isn't he fantastic, from someone who really couldnt cook other than from a packet or jar when I met him let alone follow a recipe, I can now hand over a recipe and feel confident that he will pretty much be okay even if he does make a shocking mess of the kitchen! I did prepare the yoghurt and plate up so I did lend a teeny bit of assistance.

Lamb kibbeh with parsley and pomegranate salad - Recipe from a recent (?) issue of Gourmet Traveller

230g burghul, soaked in cold water for 10 minutes
1 onion, finely chopped in a food processor
2 tblspn finely grated lemon rind
2 tblspn finely chopped flat leaf parsley
1/2 tspn each of allspice and ground cinnamon
1/4 tspn groound chilli
450g minced lamb
Olive oil, for shallow frying
Hummus, to serve
Extra virgin olive oil, to serve
Flatbread, to serve

Mint Yoghurt Filling

500g plain yoghurt
1/2 cup firmly packed fresh mint leaves, coarsley chopped
1 tspn dried mint
1 clove garlic, coarsley chopped

Parsley & pomegranate salad

2 tbspn extra virgin olive oil
1 tbspn lemon juice
2 tspn pomegranate molasses
1 small red onion, thinly sliced
2 tspn sumac
1 cup loosely packed flat leaf parsley, torn
1 cup loosely packed mint leaves, torn
1/2 cup pomegranate seeds

For mint yoghurt, combine yoghurt, fresh and dried mint, garlic and 1 tspn sea salt in a food processor and process until smooth, then place in a muslin (or chux as I did) lined sieve, tying the ends up. Place over a bowl and refrigerate for 12 hours or overnight, to drain.

Drain burgul through a sieve, then transfer to a clean tea towell and twist to remove excess water. Place in a large bowl with onion, lemon rind, parsley and spices and season to taste with sea salt and black pepper. Using your hands, mix to combine. Add lamb, mix until well combined then refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Divide mixture into 18 portions. Roll each into an oval shape, make an indentation with your thumb and shape into a thin hollow shell. Place 1 tbspn of yoghurt filling into each cavity, then moisten edges with a little water and press to seal. repeat with remaining lamb & filling, then place on a tray and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Shallow fry lamb in batches for 3-4 minutes or until brown and cooked through. Drain on absorbent paper.

For salad, combine oli ce oil, lemon juice, molasses, onion and sumac in a bowl, toss to combine.

To serve, spread some hummus on a flatbread, top with kibbeh and scatter with salad.

The second recipe for the week was chocolate and beetroot muffins, this time I'm mixing sweet chocolate muffin with savoury beetroot which of course is a vegetable. I have been wanting to try out this combination for a while now so this seemed the perfect opportunity. See how bright & pink the uncooked mixture is, very pretty, cooked they still have a pink tinge but look quite ordinary, lets face it most muffins even if they taste spectacular look a bit dull, especially compared to say, a dazzling iced cupcake. They were nice, especially when you hit the big chocolate chunk in the middle, you could really taste the earthiness of the beetroot though not in a bad way so it was okay. Overall I wasnt completely in awe of them so I probably wouldnt make them again, just nice to try once.

Beetroot and Chocolate Muffins - from Stephanie Alexander's Kitchen Garden Companion

Makes 12. Preheat oven to 180c. Grease a 12 hole muffin tin with melted butter. Grate 1 large beetroot & set aside 250g. Sift 175g plain flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, and 2 tablespoons cocoa powder into a bowl and set aside. Lightly whisk 2 eggs with 1/4 cup milk. Process 60g softened butter, 1/4 cup vegetable oil, 1/4 cup caster sugar & 1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar in a food processor until smooth & creamy. Gradually add egg mixture then add to flour mixture & fold through. Stir in beetroot. Spoon mixture into muffin pans. Break 100g of dark chocolate into 12 squares & poke 1 in each muffin. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until well risen and springy to touch. Cool in tin for a few minutes then turn onto a wire rack to cool.

The Cookbook Challenge - Week 10 - Cool

2010-01-21T16:44:00.001+11:00

This weeks theme for the Cook Book Challenge was cool and I thought it would be nice to include a savoury & a sweet dish for the week. The challenge is inspiring me to create as many recipes as I can for each week, if time permits, I may even make 3 in a week one of these days.

Cool was an easy theme given that we have had such warm and sometimes too hot weather (minus the surprising cold spell that snuck in). Salads and frozen/refrigerated desserts have been big on my menu regardless of the challenge so I didnt have to look to far for my recipes.

I have had an abundance of tomatos in my garden so each week I am on the hunt for new and interesting recipes to use them all up. Nigella Lawson's Express had this great recipe for cherry tomatoes and a salad to use them in. She calls them 'moonblush' tomatoes as you cook them overnight in an oven that isnt even turned on, very clever. I only thought of making them the morning I wanted to use them and 6 hours or so in my oven seemed to be perfectly enough time. This is a fantastic way to use up cherry tomatoes, you get a nice little semi dried tomato with lots of bite. I used dried oregano as I dont keep dried thyme in the house as I have enough growing out the back to keep me going continuously, I actually have oregano too though sometimes I prefer using this herb dried depending on the recipe, this was one such case. To cook them you heat up the oven to 220c and then as soon as you put the tray in you turn the oven off, pretty amazing, I didnt think the heat would keep going for that many hours to keep them cooking but it sure did. For the salad it was a very simple mix of some salad leaves, goats cheese, mint, lemon juice and the tomatoes, lovely. These tomatoes would work well thrown in most salads or served simply on their own as a side, tossed through pasta, in a sandwich, the possibilities are endless.

Moon Blush Tomatoes - Nigella Lawson - Nigella Express

500g (about 24) cherry or any small tomatoes

2 teaspoons maldon salt or 1 teaspoon table salt

1/4 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon dried thyme

2 x 15ml tablespoons olive oil

Preheat oven to 220c. Cut the tomatoes in half and sit them cut side up in an oven proof dish or tray. Sprinkle with the salt, sugar, thyme and olive oil. Put them in the oven and immediately turn it off. leave the tomatoes in the oven overnight or for a day WITHOUT opening the door.

Slow Roast Tomatoes, Goat's Cheese & Mint Salad - Nigella Lawson - Nigella Express

200g rocket or spinach salad

2 x 100g tubs soft goats cheese ( I used marinated myself)

1 x 15ml tablespoon lemon juice

1 x 15ml tablespoon olive oil

2 x 15ml tablespoon chopped fresh mint

Arrange the salad leaves on a large dish and then scoop out spoonfuls of the goats cheese and dollop it here and there. Add the tomatoes. In the same dish the tomatoes cooked in, whisk together lemon juice & Oil and pour over the salad. Scatter with the chopped mint and serve.

My second dish was a very simple watermelon granita from Bill Granger's holiday. Apart from the fact that I didnt chop my watermelon small enough and some of it wouldn't process properly, this was a breeze and even more delicious than a luscious slice of watermelon on a hot day, why wouldn't it be with the addition of sugar, lime juice & a bit of freezing action, highly recommended.

Watermelon Granita - Bill Granger - Holiday

Serves 10-12

2kg Seedless Watermelon

115g (1/2 cup) caster sugar

3 tablespoons lime juice

Cut the watermelon flesh into bit sized chunks and freeze for 1-2 hours in zip-lock freezer bags. Put the frozen watermelon in a food processor and mix until completely smooth. Add the sugar and lime juice and process again until completely incorporated.

Transfer the mixture into an airtight container & freeze for 3-4 hours or until firm. Once frozen, scrape into crystals with a fork & serve immediately.

The Cookbook Challenge - Week 9 - Berry

2010-01-13T19:49:00.000+11:00

This weeks Cookbook Challenge theme was berries, pretty good pick for a week that started out so hot.

With Melbourne's latest heatwave having struck I decided to try out a couple of cooling berry recipes, the first was this smoothie. I know you really dont need a recipe for a smoothie but seeing it in a book just gave me the nudge I needed to drag the blender out of the cupboard (cant remember the last time I even used it!), and start the first (hopefully now there will be more to come), of summers cool concoctions. As mentioned in the ingredients, I found this a bit on the sour side so added some ice cream to sweeten things up.

Raspberry and Strawberry Smoothie - from Bill Granger, Bills Open Kitchen

4 strawberries, hulled
30g (1/4 cup) raspberies
15g plain yoghurt
125ml milk
3-4 large ice cubes
(I also added a couple of scoops of vanilla ice cream as I found it too sour without)

Place all the ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. Pour into a tall glass and serve. Makes 1.

The second recipe was a frozen raspberry whip to go over strawberries, sounded a bit different to anything I have made before so I thought I would give it a go. Easy, peasy to make, just throw everything into the trusty kitchenaid and whip for 10 minutes to find an airy mass of sweet berry goodness. From such a small amount of ingredients it is incredible to see how much it increases in volume, impressive. It was very yum though quite sweet so serve with more strawberries than whip as you only need a bit of whip with each mouthfull or it is too much, unless of course you have an incredible sweet tooth.

Frozen Raspberry Whip with Strawberries - from Marie Claire, Zest

150g (1 punnet) raspberries
1 teaspoon lemon juice
115g (1/2 cup) caster sugar
1 egg white
500g (2 punnets) strawberries
1 tablespoon icing sugar

Whip the raspberries, lemon juice, sugar and egg white with electric beaters for 10 minutes, or until the mixture is light and fluffy and has tripled in size. Spoon into a container and put into the freezer for several hours or overnight until it is frozen. Just prior to serving, hull and halve the strawberries. Sprinkle the berries with the icing sugar and lightly toss until they are well coated. Leave for 5 minutes and serve with a scoop of the frozen whip. Serves 4-6.

The Cookbook Challenge - Week 8 - Sweet

2010-01-04T20:04:00.000+11:00

I had a few friends over for a bbq on the weekend so it was the perfect opportunity for me to pick out something sweet from one of my many books for this weeks challenge - sweet.

Michael had bought me a lovely bottle of limoncello for Christmas and as we're not huge drinkers anymore & I knew I had recipes for lovely desserts all over the place with this lovely lemon liqueur, I went on the hunt.

I decided on Nigella Lawson's Anglo-Italian Trifle from Forver Summer, the recipe can be found on her site here.

I have to say even though everyone swears they loved it (maybe they were being polite?), I wasnt actually that keen on it myself, the 250ml of limoncello I found way too overpowering & I think I could have used half that amount. Also the recipes calls for 8 trifle sponges???? correct me if I'm wrong but I dont think we sell anything specifically called 'trifle sponges' here & I'm guessing whatever they are they are pretty small as 8 cakes would call for a much larger bowl. As it is I used the recommended 2 litre bowl & squeezed in one supermarket bought sponge along with all the other ingredients & I actually had to fish out about a cup of berries to make everything fit & I still couldn't fit all the cream on top so served it on the side. Also I had to use mixed berries, raspberries, blackberries & blueberries as couldnt find 750g of blackberries.

So in conclusion I found the alcohol too strong & overpowering & not enough cream to balance it out even with some of the extra on the side. The last trifle I made was this delicious lemon & blueberry one, should have stuck to that instead!

The Cookbook Challenge - Week 7 - Soft

2009-12-28T19:31:00.001+11:00

Well here is week 7's Cookbook Challenge number, sorry I never made it to part 2 of Christmas, I started out well & got a photo of my chocolate cupcakes & the fried, stuffed olives & from then on it was mayhem & it wasn't until the crackling was lifted off my fabulous roast pork & the turkey carved that I had a moment of 'Oh My I Forgot the bloody camera' or words to similar effect anyway. Just to let you know, I used Jamie Oliver's recipe from Jamie's Italy for porchetta, I had a 4kg loin of pork & I have to say it was one of the best roasts I have ever made so if you are after a great recipe for roast pork, please go ahead & try this one.

This weeks theme was soft so I thought I would be a good mum & make some home made ice cream for Chloe, (good in that she would love me, not necessarily because it was any good for her!). I gave her a couple of flavour options & she opted for cookies & cream. The recipe was a standard custard base with lots of oreos mixed in half way through the churning process. Chloe very proudly did the crushing for me so I assumed she would be dying to try out the ice cream when it was ready, I mean normally she is begging us to let her have ice cream. Today we broke it out of the freezer & as I went to scoop it, Chloe was adamant that she didnt want any & wanted some of her old ice cream, a massive tantrum followed with no ice cream consumed by Chloe though Michael & I dug in & loved it. A few hours later she relented & gave it a go to find that surprise, surprise it was nice after all! I think next time I will make ice cream to please me, ie alcholic or coffee flavoured or something like Green tea which I wouldnt think that kids would like but of course knowing Chloe she will surprise me.

Love home made ice cream & have again vowed to make lots of different flavours this summer as I do every summer, will see if I get past one this season.

Cookies & Cream Ice Cream from Iced - 180 very cool concoctions

375ml (1 1/2 cups) milk
375 ml (1 1/2 cups) pouring (whipping) cream
60g (1/4 cup) caster sugar
6 egg yolks
125g cream filled dark chocolate biscuits such as oreo's, crushed

Put the milk, cream & sugar in a saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring constantly, for a few minutes, or until the sugar has dissolved and the milk is just about to boil. Remove from the heat.

Whisk the egg yolks in a large bowl. Whisk in 60ml (1/4 cup) of the hot milk mixture until smooth. Whisk in the remaining milk mixture, then return to a clean saucepan and stir constantly over low-medium heat for 8-10 minutes, or until the mixture thickens and coats the back of a spoon. Do not allow to boil. Cool slightly, then cover & refrigerate until cold.

Transfer to an ice cream machine & freeze according to manufacturer's instructions, adding the biscuits halfway through. alternatively, transfer to a shallow metal tray & freeze, whisking every couple of hours until frozen & creamy, add the biscuits during the final beating. Freeze for 5 hours or overnight. Makes 1 liter.

The Cookbook Challenge - Week 6 - Christmas - Part 1

2009-12-22T12:57:00.001+11:00

For my first Christmas post I made a panforte which I have never made before. For some strange, unknown reason I was dying to make one this year so even though I couldnt find a recipe in my gazillions of cookbooks I bent the rules a little & used a recipe from the Donna Hay Christmas magazine issue. I am also hosting Christmas day for 20 adults plus a few kiddies so if I dont forget in all the mayhem to take photos I will write about my feast day too.

Back to the panforte, this version used dried apricots, almonds, hazelnuts & some mixed spice. After looking at a few recipes it seems that most have figs which I love too so next time will have to try a fig version. I really liked the combination of fruit & nuts in this recipe & enjoyed the panforte which so far has lasted 5 days between Michael, Chloe myself & a few guests too, the fact that it is so dense & chewy makes it perfect for resisting & sticking to only a small portion at a time.

Panforte - recipe from the 2009 Donna Hay Christmas issue

1/2 cup (75g) plain flour, sifted
2 tablespoons cocoa. sifted
1 teaspoon mixed spice
1 cup (150g) chopped dried apricots
3/4 cup (120g) roasted almonds, halved
1 cup (140g) roasted hazelnuts, halved
200g dark chocolate, chopped
2/3 cup (230g) honey
1/4 cup (55g) caster sugar
1/4 cup (45g) brown sugar
icing sugar to dust

Preheat oven to 180c. Place flour, cocoa, spice, apricot, almonds and hazelnuts in a bowl & mix to combine. Place chocolate, honey, caster and brown sugars in a saucepan over low heat & stir until chocolate has melted. Pour into the flour mixture and mix well to combine. Press into a lightly greased 22cm round springform tin lined with non stick baking paper. Cook for 30 minutes or until the centre is just firm. Cool in the tin. Cut into wedges & dust with icing sugar.

The Cookbook Challenge - Week 5 - Greek

2009-12-16T13:08:00.000+11:00

This weeks challenge was Greek. Unfortunately I dont own any Greek cook books as yet though I know for a fact that I will be receiving George Calombaris' Greek Cookery from the Hellenic Heart which I am dying for, I have now been twice to Hellenic Republic, am going again for my mums birthday on xmas eve with the kids in tow & cant wait to start cooking some of my now favourite recipes. So this weeks challenge is a bit early for me & so I stuck to a very simple Greek Salad from Bill Granger's Open Kitchen. I know it's very boring for a challenge however with the craziness of Christmas in full swing this week I just dont have the time for anything more elaborate than a bit of chopping & grilling. A lovely light salad with lots of fresh mint & parsley from the garden & to make it irresistible, lots of gorgeous grilled haloumi heaped on top. The recipe can be found here.

Apte's Banana & Coconut Bread with Honeyed Labne

2009-12-14T16:13:00.000+11:00

If anyone has been to Apte in Alphington they will know about their heavenly Banana & Coconut bread. I ate there quite a while ago when pregnant & was dying to try the famous dish, though on the day they were serving it with rhubarb which I had in my mind for some reason or another you are supposed to avoid when pregnant so had to give it a miss. Instead I had the ricotta hotcakes which were impressive themselves. Anyway I digress, the recipe for the banana bread ensemble appeared in a magazine at about the same time we visited, I'm pretty sure it was delicious so I kept a hold of it & finally made it last week. I served mine with tinned blood plums rather than roasted fruit & it was perfect, it reminds me very much of my all time favourite Syrian style French toast, orange blossom syrup, honey labne, stewed rhubarb & pistachiosfrom Gingerlee in Brunswick. I love the banana bread which was really easy & to serve I just popped a slice in the toaster as needed & topped with all the extras, though next time I might even be tempted to try & make a french toast version with the labne, plums & pistachios & see how close to Gingerlee's I can get it too, it's not so easy to get out for brekky these days with 2 littlies underfoot so if I can replicate a recipe at home, even better.

Banana & Coconut Bread with Honeyed Labne

You will need to begin the labne a day in advance or try buying some from Middle Eastern food shops

2 cups (300g) self raising flour

1 1/2 cups (330g) caster sugar

1 1/2 cups (135g) shredded coconut

400ml can coconut milk

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

4 small bananas, sliced

Roasted fruit (such as rhubarb or blood plums) & chopped unsalted pistachio kernels, to serve

Honeyed labne

1kg Natural yoghurt ( I only made about 250g worth & it lasted the whole loaf so I guess it depends on how much dollop you like on your bread)

1/2 cup (175g) honey (as above I only added about 1 tablespoon)

For the labne, line a mesh strainer with a piece of muslin or a clean chux cloth & set over a large bowl. Place the yoghurt in the strainer, then gather the cloth up & secure with string or a rubber band. Place in the fridge & allow to drain for at least 12 hours or overnight until thickened & creamy. Remove from cloth & discard the liquid in the bowl. Whisk in the honey until smooth, chill until needed.

Preheat oven to 160c. Grease & line a 10cm x 30cm loaf pan. Combine flour, sugar & coconut in a bowl. Place the coconut milk, eggs & vanilla extract in a separate bowl & whisk to combine. Add the egg mixture to the dry mixture & stir until just combined. Fold in sliced banana, then pour into prepared tin, Bake for 1 hour 45 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool slightly in th epan, then turn onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Slice banana bread and serve plain or lightly toasted with the labne, fruit & pistachios. The bread will keeep in the fridge for 3-4 days. Reheat or toast before serving.

The Cookbook Challenge - Week 4 - Beans

2009-12-08T20:03:00.000+11:00

This weeks theme is beans. Rather than trying to find a complete meal to make using beans I decided on a side. I have so many recipes in my books focusing on wonderful sides which I normally ignore in favour of the more seductive looking main meals that I have decided to put in a big effort to make more sides. This Bean Salad recipe comes from my latest book, Stephanie Alexander's Kitchen Garden Companion, the book really does turn simple ingredients into special dishes. The recipe uses green & yellow beans however I was away this weekend & didnt have time to hunt around so was stuck with last minute shopping & no yellow beans. I cannot believe how simple this salad is, it just proves that if you use quality ingredients like fantastic marinated goat's cheese, olives & fresh herbs from the garden than that is all you sometimes have to do to impress.

Green & Yellow Bean Salad

Salt
1 tablesoon extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons of your favourite olives
2 teaspoons small salted capers, soaked in water for 5 minutes, drained & patted dry (I omitted the patting)
2 tablespoons chopped flat leaf parsley
2 teaspoons chopped chives
150g green beans, trimmed
150g yellow beans, trimmed
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
marinated goat's cheese, to serve

Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to the boil. Meanwhile, put olive oil, olives, capers, parsley & choves into a mixing bowl.

Cook beans seperately in the water for 8 minutes each & drain, dont run cold water over them as this will leave them tasting of water rather than beans. Add beans to the mixing bowl. Mix well, taste & season with salt & pepper. Arrane on a serving platter & top with goats cheese.

The Cookbook Challenge - Week 3 - Hor d'oeuvres

2009-12-02T08:08:00.000+11:00

This weeks them was Hor d'oeuvres. I wasnt doing any entertaining for a change so Michael & I got the experiment for dinner which is good as after my first ever attempt of rice paper rolling I suck & need lots of practice. This is a good things as a) the Vietnamese prawn rolls I made were absolutely delicious even though they were falling apart so I'd love to try them again and b) at least I didnt have the embarrassment of serving them up to people though I'm sure my close friends would have forgiven me. My main problem it seems was that I just didnt chop my veggies small enough, you can see how chunky mine are in the photo so at least I can work on that, secondly I tried to stuff way too much of everything into each wrapper so a delicate perfect roll was never going to happen. So the challenge is helping me to experiment so that next time I need to feed the masses I will have some tricks up my sleeve. The rolls themselves were easy to get ready (apart from the assembly of course, just lots of peeling, chopping & picking of herbs from the garden. The sauce was lovely, sweet & yet with a lovely tang thanks to the lime juice. Cant wait for an excuse to try them out again. Recipe from Small Food - snack sized bites to share with friends which I thought was a fitting book to choose this weeks recipe from.

Vietnamese Prawn Rolls

2/3 cup (170ml) lime juice)
2 teaspoons grated lime zest
1/3 cup (80ml) sweet chilli sauce
2 teaspoons fish sauce
2 teaspoons grated palm sugar or soft brown sugar
12 x 15cm rice paper wrappers
12 cooked medium prawns, peeled & halved lengthways
1 small carrot, cut into 5cm long julienne strips
1 small lebanese cucumber, cut into 5cm batons
1/2 avocado, sliced
3 tablespoons fresh coriander leaves
2 tablespoons torn fresh Vietnamese mint
5 spring onions, thinly sliced on the diagonal

Combine the lime juice, zest, sweet chilli sauce, fish sauce & sugar in a small bowl.

Working with one wrapper at a time, dip a wrapper in a bowl of warn water for 10 seconds to soften, then lay out on a flat surface. Place 2 prawn halves and a little of each remaining ingredient at one end of the wrapper, then drizzle with 1 teaspoon of the sauce. Fold in the sides & roll up tightly. Serve with the remaining sauce for dipping

Makes 12

The Cookbook Challenge - Week 2 - Indian

2009-11-29T10:22:00.000+11:00

The theme for week 2 of The Cookbook Challenge is Indian. Following on from week 1 I made another recipe from Nigella Lawson's Forever Summer, Keralan Fish Curry. Kerala is a state in South Western India & though Nigella admits it might not be entirely authentic I thought it fit the theme perfectly & it was meant to go with the rice I made for week 1 which I had stashed in the freezer so that part was out of the way at least. The rice defrosted perfectly too so no issues in making ahead. I used some fresh yellow belly that my brother caught, & then generously scaled & filleted for me. The curry is really light & fresh so perfect for a summer meal, hence the fact that it's in her Forever Summer book I guess. The whole mellow yellow look & feel of the dish was exactly as it tasted, a good quick curry to whip up for a yummy mid week meal.

Keralan Fish Curry - From Nigella Lawson Forever Summer

Ingredients

1.25kg firm white fish
2 teaspoons turmeric
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 medium onions, halved and cut into thin half-moons
2 long red chillies
4 cm piece fresh ginger
pinch ground cumin
400ml tin unsweetened coconut milk
1–2 tablespoons concentrated tamarind
1 tablespoon liquid fish stock

Method

Cut the fish into bite-sized chunks, put them into a large bowl, and rub with a little salt and 1 teaspoon turmeric. Heat the oil in a large, shallow pan and peel and tip in your fine half-moons of onion; sprinkle them with a little salt to stop them browning and then cook, stirring, until they’ve softened; this should take scarcely 5 minutes.
Cut the whole, unseeded chillies into thin slices across (although if you really don’t want this at all hot, you can seed and then just chop them) and then toss them into the pan of softened onions. Peel the ginger and slice it, then cut the slices into straw-like strips and add them, too, along with the remaining teaspoon of turmeric and the cumin. Fry them with the onions for a few minutes.
Pour the can of coconut milk into a large glass measuring cup and add a tablespoon of tamarind paste and the fish stock, using boiling water from the kettle to bring the liquid up to the 4-cup mark. Pour it into the pan, stirring it in to make the delicate curry sauce. Taste and add more tamarind paste if you want to. And actually you can do all this hours in advance if it helps.
When you are absolutely ready to eat, add the fish to the hot sauce and heat for a couple of minutes until it’s cooked through, but still tender.

Serves 4-6

Fancy Weekend Breakfast

2009-11-29T10:02:00.000+11:00

Here is a photo of the tarted up bircher muesli I served to Megan for breakfast on Sunday. Oats soaked in apple juice overnight, in the morning stir in some yoghurt, honey & crushed strawberries. Serve in a fancy glass with layers of blueberries & strawberries in between & piles of fruit on top. As I've mentioned before, bircher muesli is a favourite summertime weekend breakfast of mine & it can be varied with any fruit combo you can imagine & it's pretty much guilt free so you can go there whenever you want...

Bill Granger cooking on a rainy Melbourne Sunday

2009-11-23T16:23:00.000+11:00

Yesterday I had big plans to spend the whole day outdoors gardening, I have a lot of work to do before summer sets in. I know the forecast was for rain but lets face it, when does it ever rain when the weather man says it will? Anyhow it did rain so I was stuck indoors most of the day, to make the most of it I decided to do a bit of cooking.

I started off by making Bill Granger's puffed apple pancake from Holiday for Michael & Chloe when they got back from the mornings swimming lesson. The idea of making one giant pancake to share rather than standing over the stove making them one by one was appealing. Mine doesnt quite look as appealing as Bill's did however I really loved it. The caramelised apples were rich & buttery & surrounded by the batter with the yoghurt on top was a winning combination for me.

Next I whipped up Bill Granger's Easiest Chocolate Coconut Slice from Feed Me Now. The in laws were coming over for a visit & I had a friend plus little ones coming over today so I needed something to serve with coffee. The fact that this was the easiest slice I have ever made was also appealing & it came together very nicely.

By this time I was noticing a pattern & then I decided on dinner & yep it was yet another recipe from Bill. This was all unintentional mind you but I do find his recipes quick & easy so it's no surprise that I whipped up 3 in the one day. Dinner was Grilled Chicken with Chickpea salad from Open Kitchen which took me a whole 14 minutes from start to serve, I kid you not. The whole dish only took the time the chicken had to cook for. I had to be at the cinemas at 6.15 to watch New Moon so again I really appreciated the quick & fresh dish. Very healthy grilled chicken with a touch of olive oil added & a salad of raw ingredients dressed simply with olive oil & lemon juice. Thanks Bill! Maybe one day I will feel like I can take on some more elaborate recipes but for now simplicity works best. Oh & I even managed to get in half an hour of gardening before being rained out

The Cookbook Challenge - Week 1 - Citrus

2009-11-18T15:33:00.000+11:00

I decided to join in The Cookbook Challenge that Rilsta is holding over at My Food Trail. The Challenge is to cook a recipe from your cookbooks each week, each week has a new theme, week 1's theme is citrus. I usually use my cookbooks each week so I think the challenge for me will be the theme as it will force me to cook recipes from my books that I've previously ignored, it will also be good for me to have a project to concentrate on. I've really been enjoying cooking lately so I am looking forward to getting stuck right in.

This weeks recipe comes from Nigella Lawson's Forever Summer, a book I have had for quite a while & therefore tend to forget about, seeing that we are having a crazy hot November in Melbourne I thought it was appropriate to drag it off the shelf. I decided to join in the challenge at the last minute so didnt have a lot of time to ponder this weeks theme. Flicking through the book I came across this lemon rice which is suggested to go with a curry, as next weeks theme is Indian I thought I could be one step ahead & cook the rice now & also have some for next weeks curry, it will also be a test to see how well it freezes. I like spiced rices & this one is very tasty, I love the crunch of the toasted mustard seeds thrown in at the end.

Lemon Rice

1 tblspn vegetable oil
250g basmati rice
1/2 tspn tumeric
1/2 tspn dried mint
juice & zest of 1 lemon
approx 500ml water
1/2 tspn salt (or more to taste)
1 tblspn black mustard seeds

Heat the oil gently in a saucepan with a tight fitting lid before adding the rice. Stir until well coated with oil & add the turmeric & mint, stir to mix. Squeeze in the lemon juice & add the water, so that it covers the rice by a good couple of centimeters. Stir in the salt, put the lid on tightly, bring to the boil, then reduce & simmer until all of the water is absorbed, about 15 minutes. While the rice is cooking, toast the mustard seeds by heating them for a couple of minutes in a dry frying pan. Sprinkle over the rice with the lemon zest to serve.

Frozen Chocolate & Nougat Tartufo

2009-11-16T14:39:00.003+11:00

Saturday night I had a couple of girlfriends over for dinner & with the threat of another stinking hot night I planned well in advance to make a frozen dessert, that way it was all done the morning before & no need to sweat or heat up the kitchen on Saturday. As it turned out it didnt up being that hot though no matter as this dessert was a stunner in my eyes & one to keep for the long hot summer ahead.

It's a frozen chocolate & nougat tarufo from the May 2008 issue of delicious & the recipe can be found here. Soft Italian Nougat was called for & what better place to source the best than Mediterranean Wholesalers on Sydney Rd where they had a whole display of different varieties, I chose pistachio which would have to be one of my favourite nuts. To assemble, there was lots of melting, whipping & blending, nothing too difficult & no ice cream maker to churn required, though I do have one of course! To serve a simple unmoulding & rolling in toasted coconut & you're done. Once again a lovely dessert for a hot night.

Accidental tomato patch

2009-11-13T20:26:00.004+11:00

As well as my veggie patch out the back I have this incredible accidental patch out the front, as you can see it's already nearly as high as Chloe. What I mean by accidental is that all of these plants grew out of my compost. They are all thriving & we have so many little tomato's already starting to grow & they appear to be all different shapes & sizes so lets hope they do well & I have a bumper crop. Will be interesting to see what does better, the bought plants out the back or my self starters out the front.

Pasta

2009-11-10T16:12:00.003+11:00

This is a pasta dish I made the other night. It is orecchiette with cauliflower, mint, peas & breadcrumbs (panko) & the recipe can be found here. The recipe featured in a recent Delicious magazine & it came from Matt Moran. I liked the look of it's simplicity as well as the fact that it was a bit different from the usual pasta recipes I cook up. I didnt use any panko as I couldnt get my hands on any in the time I needed. I love orecchiete pasta, it's chewiness is really very tasty & it feels more substantial than say spaghetti or penne therefore I tend to eat less in a serve which is a great thing. A great dish for that occasional pasta indulgence.

Fabulous Broad Beans

2009-11-10T16:08:00.001+11:00

The last few weeks I have been busy trying out new recipes with my fabulous broad bean patch. My firm favourite is still smashed beans on toast, where you smash them in a mortar & pestle with parmesan, oilive oil, salt & pepper & then heap them on top of grilled sourdough rubbed with garlic. The crop is dwindling & the bush looks a bit mangy so not many more beans for this season which is sad, I love them & in particular I love the shelling process, I find it quite relaxing & this year I've had a very interested little helper in Chloe which makes it even more fun. We sit at the bench with a big bowl in front of us & just go for it, it doesn't seem like a chore that way at all.

Anyway last night I made the above salad which I didnt have high hopes for yet it turned out a treat. It is a recipe from Jamie Oliver's Jamie's Dinners - Moroccan Broad Bean salad with yoghurt & crunchy bits. It's basically beans double podded dressed with lemoin juice, olive oil, mint & salt & Pepper. These sit on a bed of yoghurt & are topped with fried red onion, cumin & breadcrumbs. Sounds a bit weird but the flavour combo was delicious. I served this along side some simple grilled chicken which I had marinated in olive oil, lemon juice & oregano. A fantastic meal for a warm pre-summers night.

Masterchef Masterclass at Home

2009-11-05T15:57:00.004+11:00

Above is George Calombaris Open Beef Kofta from Season 1 of Masterchef. I made it for dinner a couple of weeks ago & loved it even though I now have a bit of an aversion to George himself thanks to his thoughts on food bloggers which I'm sure you are all aware of.

Not being a food stylist myself, you will note that my photo looks nothing like the photo on the website, the only thing I left out were the deep fried shallots to serve, let's face it who could be bothered when cooking a quick dinner after a hard days work in the garden.

Anyway as I said, this was delicious, light, tangy & yet enough to satisfy not just myself but Michael with the mans appetite & it will be made again. I will however pick on the recipe a bit. To start with the recipe states that it serves 2 & makes 1 kofta. It suggests using a 22cm round flat bread which then has 500g of mince loaded on top plus all the other bits & pieces & is only cooked briefly in the frying pan & then grilled for 4-5 minutes. Now if you ask me all of that mince piled on 1 pita bread would be mighty thick & unappealing to me & I cant see it cooking sufficiently in the time given. I actually made 5 pitta's with the above quantities & they fed the 2 of us for 2 nights & were perfect that way.

So tell me, has anyone else tried this recipe or what do you think of the recipe as is?

Court Jester Cafe Brunswick

2009-10-26T14:27:00.007+11:00

A visit from Michael's sister Julie called for a visit to my favourite new cafe, Court Jester's in Breese st in Brunswick. The place can be found in a back street behind Sydney Rd opposite a huge construction site. In a warehouse you will find a big open space with one long communal table down the middle with old couches & computer ports scattered around the edges. As well as being a cafe serving fantastic Polish cuisine, the place doubles as an Art Gallery. The guys running the place use recipes handed down in their families to make delicious dishes such as pierogi which I absolutey love & miss oh so much since my Gran died (I am way too lazy to make them myself even though I watched her a thousand times), cabbage rolls, borscht & many others. They do brunch all day & lunch from 11am. I just love the fact that they are so close to me & serve food that is very rare to find out, especially around my area.

This weekend I fancied some eggs so had the poached eggs with marinated avocado, horseradish mayonaise, dench toast & a side of Polish sausgae, another old favourite - fantabulous! Coffee is great, prices are good & they seem to tolerate Chloe running around like a lunatic, there are even old colouring books & jars of textas to amuse the littlies.

Look the place up & pay them a visit, you wont be disappointed I promise.

Happy Birthday Maya

2009-10-26T14:16:00.003+11:00

Saturday was Maya's 4th birthday party which was held at Quarries Park in Clifton Hill which I had never even heard of let alone been to before. Great park, HUGE playground that we will be visiting again very soon, Chloe loved it so much that she cried all the way home as she wanted to go back.

Took along some treats for the kids, cupcakes with a rosewater icing & sugar stars & chocolate cupcakes with chocolate icing & smarties. Chloe did the smartie decorating & had an excellent time, apparently I am now 'the best' mum. Good fun in the kitchen now that she is interested & wants to help out all the time, let's hope she loves cooking as much as her mum. Anyway I thought all the little girls would go for the cute pink girly cakes but no, everyone pounced on the chocolate, in the end the pink ones were eaten mostly by adults, will keep in mind for the next kids party.

Chocolate Ginger Chews & Strawberry Picking

2009-10-21T13:44:00.004+11:00

Here is a photo of the lovely chocolate ginger chews from the latest issue of Donna Hay magazine, minus the sugar coating which I figured they would not need being sweet enough for my taste already. For anyone who loves a choc/ginger combo, these are a hit though the ginger is not all that strong which has some advantages in that little people like them too, disadvantage, little people like them too so less for me. Below is a pic of Chloe after eating a chew picking some fresh strawberries to wash it down with. You cant see our first 2 luscious red stawberries as they are hidden under the foliage, fingers crossed lots more to come. Actually my mum has just built me a strawberry patch by the back french doors with 7 strawberry plants, if that flourishes I will be very happy indeed.