Pasta al Forno Con Pomodori e mozzarella (Baked pasta with tomatoes and mozzarella)

For a quick & easy pasta dish I made this baked pasta from Jamie Oliver’s Italy cookbook. It’s very traditional & nothing new, just good simple delicious pasta, who doesn’t love pasta with loads of tomatoey sauce & oozy melty cheese. And the best bit is heaps of leftovers to freeze for mid week when I don’t have the time or energy these days to cook most nights. Jamie’s recipe also gives the option of using fresh tomatoes whichI have omitted as that makes it too much hard work! His recipe also says to process the sauce but I went the rustic option & left lumpy, as I said I needed something very, very easy.

Pasta al Forno Con Pomodori e mozzarella (Baked pasta with tomatoes and mozzarella)

Sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 white onion, peeled & finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, peeled & finely sliced
1 or 2 dried red chillies, crumbled
3 x 400g tins plum tomatoes
a large handful of fresh basil leaves
I tablespoon red wine vinegar
400g dried orecchiette
4 big handfuls of freshly grated parmesan cheese
3 x 150g balls of mozzarella, sliced

Preheat your oven to 200c & put a large pot of salted water on to boil. To a large pan add a couple of glugs of olive oil & fry the onion, garlic & chilli slowly for about 10 minutes until softened but not browned. Add the tomatoes & a small glass of water, bring to the boil & simmer for about 20 minutes. Tear the basil leaves & add along with the red wine vinegar & salt & pepper to taste. Meanwhile cook your pasta according to packet instructions & drain.

Add half the sauce & a handful of parmesan to the drained pasta & toss. Then rub a large baking dish with a little olive oil & layer a little pasta in the bottom, top with sauce, parmesan & mozzarella slices, then repeat layers until all ingredients used up, finish off with a good layer of cheese. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes until golden & bubbling.

Apple & Pine Nut Cake (Torta di Mele e Pinoli)

Today I made this cake from Australian Table July 2006, to take over to a friends house for brunch. I peeled my apples as they were a bit old & didn’t know how the skin would go in this state. The cake was very unusual, the pine nuts gave a very interesting flavour, the apples of course made it nice & fruity. A good cake if you don’t feel like anything overly rich or sweet.

Apple & Pine Nut Cake (Torta di Mele e Pinoli)

1 cup plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ cup caster sugar
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
125g unsalted butter, melted
4 medium unpeeled golden delicious apples, cored & thinly sliced
¾ cup pine nuts
grated rind of 1 lemon
icing sugar, to dust
Mascarpone, to serve

Preheat oven to 180c. Lightly grease a 20cm springform tin & dust with flour.

Sift flour & Baking powder together into a bowl. Stir in sugar. Make a well in centre & add beaten egg & melted butter. Stir, gradually incorporating flour to make a thick batter.

Fold in ¾ of sliced apple & ½ cup of pine nuts & lemon rind. Spoon into prepared pan. Arrange remaining apple on top of cake & sprinkle with remaining nuts. Bake for 1 hour and 5 minutes, cover with foil if browning too much, until a skewer inserted comes out clean.

Cool cake in pan for 10 minutes before transferring to a serving platter to cool completely. Dust with icing sugar & serve with mascarpone.

Satay Anika Malaysian Restaurant, East Brunswick

Last night Michael & I didn’t have much on & with footy season finally over I wa s able to drag him out of the house away from the tv screen. We didn’t feel like dong much of anything so just went for a walk down Lygon Street (East Brunswick end) to one of my favourite local restaurants.

Satay Anika is a great place for a quick, cheap & really good Malaysian feed. Its byo too which is nice sometimes, so armed with a bottle of Montalto Pinot Grigio – which I am quite partial to even though I have to severely limit my intake these days, we stepped inside, another great thing about the place – you don’t need a booking & can walk in off the street (or I have never needed one yet anyway).

The place is tiny with 2 areas, up & downstairs – have never made it upstairs myself. Nothing fancy about the décor but who needs it when the food is so good? The staff also are very friendly & attentive. Apparently the place is famous for its satays which sadly I have never tried as Michael is allergic to peanuts – something I am constantly frustrated by when cooking! One of these days I will bite the bullet & just order some for myself to try. Anyway this said we started off with some veggie curry puffs which were delicious. We then moved onto a traditional Malaysian chicken curry cooked in coconut milk, a Malaysian Noodle dish, some rice & of course Rotti to mop up the gorgeous curry sauce. The noodles were good but the curry beats it all, I love this stuff & have vowed next time to order curry & curry alone so I can have the whole dish to myself, it really is fantastic. With the bill coming it at $30.00 suggest you get down thre & try it out for yourself!

Satay Anika
140 Lygon Street
East Brunswick
9380 9702

Orange Cake

Yesterday I made this simple yet tasty cake from the latest Spring edition of Donna Hay magazine. Once again I didn’t read the recipe properly, I think this pregnancy thing is screwing with my mind! I only saw the orange zest & not the orange rind so the orange flavouring was a little light, still tasted good though & very quick to throw together though reminder to self – check recipe first & put butter out to soften well before you need to beat it – I seem to forget this every single time I’m baking a cake.

Orange Cake

15g unsalted butter, softened3/4 cup caster sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 ½ cups plain flour, sifted
1 ¼ teaspoons baking powder, sifted
1 tablespoon milk
2 tablespoons finely grated orange rind
4 tablespoons orange juice
1 tablespoon orange zest

Orange icing

1 ¼ cp icing sugar, sifted
2 tablespoons orange juice

Preheat oven to 170c. Place the butter & sugar in a bowl of an electric mixer & beat for 8-10 minutes or until light & creamy. Gradually add the eggs & beat well. Add the flour & baking powder & mix well. Add the milk, orange rind & juice & mix until smooth. Spoon the mixture into an 18 x 8 cm loaf tin lined with baking paper & bake for 5 minutes or until cooked when tested with a skewer. Cool on a wire rack.

To make the icing, combine sugar & juice in a bowl & mix to form a smooth paste. Use a palette knife to spread the icing over the cake & serve topped with orange zest.

Fifteen Melbourne - Finally a look in!

A couple of weeks ago when I heard that Fifteen was opening for reservations I suggested to Michael that it would be great if he could get us a booking there, you know a nice surprise seeing as how I'm normally the one doing all of the organising for the 2 of us. I thought the booking line might be a bit busy but had no idea that within a matter of days they would be booked solid until the end of January next year, amazing what a tv show can do for you. Anyway Michael being the fantastic hubbie that he is, got on the line & waited for 1.5 hours (on speaker phone while he was working so it was bearable!) & got us a booking for a Saturday night no less, very impressive.

There have been a lot mof mixed feelings out there about Fifteen so I was quite curious to see exactly what it would be like. I love the idea of what Fifteen stands for, helping those in need but at the same time providing us with a (hopefully) great experience in oder to achieve that goal. At the same time I think that for $90.00 a head for the 6 course tasting menu which is your only option for dinner, the food has to be bloody good & stand up to other great Melbourne restaurants.

I had very high expectactions for the food, a few months ago I did a Queen Vic Market cooking night with Tobi Puttock & the food was to die for so I was hoping for more of the same.

Ok so now down to last night. On the decor, I loved it & it was totally different to the 'artist impressions' as seen on tv. The colorful bar area which Jamie knocked looked great & the colors were much more toned down, oranges, reds, very warm & filled with wine very subtle too. The place is split into 3 areas, the private dining room which I spied a corner of, looked very dark & gothic from what I could see, would be nice having a private party there with some friends, I believe it seats 10. Then onto the main area, on entering you walk down some stairs where you can see straight into the kitchen, then around the corner the bar area with more casual looking dining area in front, light wooden seats & tables, etc. this is split down the middle where you go into the second dining area which is where we were seated. I loved this area, all dark wood furniture, dark wood floors, black walls & ceilings, a purplish couch forming the back seat for the tables on the side & back walls & long mirrors along the walls too & some very funky globe light fittings hanging here & there. Ask Michael, I love black & the trend seems to be now to have everything all nice & light so this darkess worked well for me.

Now onto the food, as mentioned it is a six course set menu, soup, seafood, pasta, main, dessert & cheese platter with a choice of 2 dishes offered for the pasta & main course.


First course was Borlotti bean & pasta soup with fresh grated parmesan & Fifteen olive oil.

This was really nice, though needed a bit of salt, luckily there was a dish of Pink Murray River salt flakes on each table - nice touch - which did the job. As you can see it was a very thick, hearty, warm & homey soup which I would love to replicate at home.


Next was fried whitebait, sage salt, lemon & aioli.

As you can see a very small serve but dont be put off, by the end of the night we were well satisified & if the courses were any biggger we would have struggled to fit them in. The fish was cooked perfectly, nice & light & the salt/aioli combo went very well with it.

For the Pasta course I opted for the Fifteen ravioli with biodynamic riccotta, free-range egg yolk, served with white asparagus & butter broth.

Yummo, nothing beats home made pasta & the runy egg filling was quite unusual, quite a big ravioli too as you can see. Michael went for the Risotto of calamari, squid ink, celery, chilli & fifteen olive oil which he reallay enjoyed too.


For the main we both had the Slow roast Bachus Marsh grass fed beef, Nicola potato & fennel al forno, braised greens & salsa verde. The other choice was Tasmanian Salmon. The beef dish smelled divine which I think was mainly due to the whole clove of roast garlic hidden amongst the greens which I happily devoured. The beef was very tasty though mine was a bit on the cold side which is obviously a bit dissapointing. Mine pictured was cooked a little extra as I'm not supposed to be eating any raw or underdone meat at the moment, Michaels was as per the menu & pretty bloody which is a good thing, nothing worse than an overdone piece of cow.

Dessert was Vialono Nano Tiramasu, little twist on the traditional with crostoli.

The twist was rice instead of sponge/biscuits in the tiramasu, I have to say that this & the crostoli were fantastic & by far by favourite course of the night.


Lastly, the cheese course. pear, quince paste, muscatels, grissinei, some fruit bread & of course the cheeses, sorry have forgotten what they were except tto say that one was lovely & oozy & the other was as bitey spanish crumbly one, both fantastic, in fact the whole cheese course was really great.

Overall the whole experince was enjoyable, the staff were very friendly & helpful, extensive wine list to choose from, fast servce though not too fast that you had no time between courses & the food was good, presentation & tatse. For 2 weeks of opening & a bunch of kids that a couple of months ago had no idea it is pretty amazing to see how far they have come though I would like to see them improve some more & lift the food from being just pretty good to being fabulous!

Fifteen Melbourne
115-117 Collins Street
Melbourne
1300 799 415 www.fifteenmelbourne.com.au

Pink-Eye potato, olive and Caper Salad

Being of both Polish & Lithuanian background I am a very big fan of the humble potato & am always looking for new ways to dress it. I love anything from a simple mash, a hearty baked spud jammed packed with tasty fillings, crispy roast ones & of course a great potato salad. My all time favourite potato salad is the family recipe which I have eaten my whole life, its pretty much boiled potatoes, peeled, mixed with chopped onion, boiled eggs, tons of mayo & some salt & pepper, very simple yet very tasty. Occasionally however I do like to try something different so the other night I tried Ben O’Donoghue’s take on the dish from the surfing the menu cook book of series 1. It was great, the olives & capers added a nice zing to the dish. Very repeatable, we served it alongside a good steak for a quick & simple meal.

Pink-Eye Potato, Olive and Caper Salad

1kg pink eye potatoes
½ garlic clove
salt
2 tablespoons coarsely chopped flat leaf parsley
100g baby capers
200g pitted large green olives
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
100ml extra virgin olive oil
freshly ground pepper
finely peeled zest of 1 lemon
2 tablespoons white celery leaves

Place the potatoes in a large pan & cover with cold water. Add salt, bring to the boil & simmer until tender, about 20 minutes depending on the size. In a large mortar smash the garlic with a little sea salt, then add the parsley & roughly smash. Add the capers & olives and do the same to give a coarse, roughly broken up texture.

Peel & cut the potatoes in half while still hot. Add the vinegar & oil. Cool fro 10 minutes, then add the olive & parsley mixture. Season with salt & pepper & toss through the zest, celery leaves & remaining parsley.

Squashed Ginger Biscuits & a disaster!

Yesterday I slaved away all morning making some lemon meringue pies at the request of my mother. Alas they were a complete disaster & had to be dumped. The pastry was fine (even though I misread the recipe & added too much butter), the meringue tops were fine & even the filling tasted pretty good but it just didn’t set at all so a bit difficult to eat unless you like lemon meringue soup! I have a feeling that I should have cooked the filling & bit longer and allowed it to thicken more even though I already had cooked it for double the time the recipe suggested. Needless to say I am throwing out that recipe & it will be a while before I attempt these again.

So to make up for my disaster today I whipped up a batch of very simple ginger biscuits, pretty sure the recipe is from the latest Donna Hay. They were a cinch to make & Michael loved them, they had a lovely ginger & spice flavour that wasn’t too subtle or overwhelming. My only comment would be that if you have a fan forced oven, cook them at a lower temperature & a bit shorter duration as mine were quite crunchy despite the fact the recipe states you will end up with soft biscuits. Still crunchy was good.

Squashed Ginger Biscuits

115g (1/3 cup) golden syrup
100g butter
150g (1 cup) plain flour
2 tablespoons white sugar
3 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon each of mixed spice & ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 220c. Combine golden syrup & butter in a saucepan & stir over low heat until butter melted. Sift remaining ingredients together in a large bowl, add golden syrup mixture & stir to combine.

Roll tablespoons of the mixture into balls and place on baking paper lined oven trays. Bake for 5 minutes then reduce heat to 180c and using a spatula, flatten biscuits & bake for another 10 minutes. Cool on a wire rack. Biscuits will keep for up to 1 week in an airtight container. Makes approx 18.

Banana and Date Bread

Last week the latest edition of Donna Hay Magazine was delivered to my door & flicking through I knew I just had to make of this luscious sounding bread which even sounded remotely healthy, I mean it did have fruit in it so it must be good for you right? After popping it in the oven to cook for a tantalizing 1 hour & 10 minutes of the most lovely aroma wafting through the house, I did a bit of spoon licking, let me tell you the raw mix was pretty damn good, lucky I tried it after starting the cooking or none might have made it into the pan! Also I have to mention that one and a half cups of bananas is a lot at today’s prices so I was very lucky to score a bag of lady fingers at Coles going for $4.00 a kilo, they weren’t even that brown but were just perfect for mashing up for the cake mixture. The end result was divine, dates and bananas are another perfect combination I’ve decided, the cake was nice & moist on the inside & had a crispy outer shell, Michael and I both scoffed heaps while it was still warm out of the oven.

Banana and Date Bread

125g unsalted butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 ½ cups plain flour, sifted
1 teaspoon baking powder, sifted
½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 ½ cups mashed banana
¼ cup maple syrup
1 cup chopped dates

Preheat oven to 160c. Place the butter & sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat until pale & creamy. Gradually add the eggs & beat well. Fold through the flour, baking powder, bicarb soda, nutmeg & cinnamon and stir well to combine. Stir in the banana, maple syrup & dates. Spoon the mixture into a 7 x 32cm lightly greased loaf tin lined with non-stick baking paper. Bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes or until cooked when tested with a skewer. Allow to cool in the tin & slice to serve.

Poached, East Brunswick

This morning Michael & I went out for a leisurely walk down Lygon Street in East Brunswick in search of somewhere new to try out for Brekky. We settled on a new place called Poached. It’s right near sugardough. At 10am we easily got a table, unlike down the road at Small block where you usually have to wait 15 minutes or so. I’m sure once more people try this place out it will soon become packed too. The interior was quite spacious with maybe 10 or so tables spread out with plenty of room to move. The main tables being set against the wall where the wall is a couch, very comfy, I am a big fan of the couch chair, lots of room to dump bag & whatever else you may be carrying around too. There are also tables out on the sidewalk & we spotted some out the back too which I’m sure will be put to use when the sun is out & more people about. It has quite a modern feel with black couches, tables & seats & the floor was some sort of colored stone work that had a sort of Flinstone effect on me, I liked it. To eat I settled on Eggs Florentine with a side of bacon, this was served on sautéed baby spinach, mushrooms, English muffin & topped with hollandaise. It was cooked to perfection, really good, the bacon was also a very tasty cut & cooked just to my liking, not too crispy but not like some places where it appears they’ve only flicked it in the pan for a second or so. I also had a café latte which was a really good coffee & a chocolate milkshake, hey don’t laugh I need all of the calcium I can get & I am eating for 2 so have to use whatever excuses available to me at the moment & make the most of the situation! My eggs came in at 10.00 which is pretty cheap around these parts so was happy with that too. The menu also had lots of other interesting choices for another day, omelette’s, pancakes, French toast & the like & all with some interesting ingredients thrown in, sorry cant remember what I didn’t try! Another great place in this strip which is slowly building up, lots for me to try & blog about yet.

They are open for brekky & lunch & closed on Sundays.

Poached
169 Lygon St
Brunswick East VIC 3057
(03) 9387 2396

Quince and Red Wine Duck

The other night I had planned on cooking dinner but after a hectic day/week in the new office, got a bit caught up so once again Michael was a darling & did the prep. I have made this dish several times before, its so easy & really, really yummy, great for a simple dinner alone or even impressive for guests – or so I have been told. It has a lovely sweet flavour that goes perfectly with the richness of the duck meat. I always serve with mash potato & greens on the side even though the recipe suggests couscous. The recipe comes from Marie Claire ‘Zest. Sorry the photo is not the prettiest, don’t let that put you off. I also find that a bit further cooking time is required so they aren’t completely raw & that the skin does crisp up nicely.

Quince and Red Wine Duck

12 thyme sprigs
250ml (1 cup) red wine
2 garlic cloves, sliced in half
4 duck breast fillets, skin on
3 tablespoons quince paste
1 teaspoon cumin

Preheat oven to 200c. Arrange the thyme sprigs over the base of a baking dish to form a bed for the duck. Add the wine & garlic to the dish. Rinse the duck fillets under cold water then pat dry with paper towels. With a sharp knife make several incisions through the fatty skin on each of the fillets. Rub the quince paste into the skin, sprinkle with cumin & season with salt & pepper. Sit the duck fillets on top of the thyme, skin side up. Bake for 5 minutes, then remove form oven & spread the paste over the fillets with a knife. Return to the oven for a further 10 minutes. For crispy skin put the cooked duck under a hot grill for 2 minutes. Allow to sit for a few minutes then slice. Serve with cooking liquid drizzled over.

Baked Chocolate tart

Today Rach was coming over for a bit of a catch up, she is a bit of a sucker for chocolate (just like me in my present state!) so I whipped up this tart of Jamie Oliver’s from ‘The Naked Chef. I had some left over pastry in the freezer from when I made the lemon lime tart so this cut down considerably on my prep time which was excellent, means I got to spend the whole morning in the garden! I’ve included the pastry recipe as per previous post. I served the tart with fresh strawberries & blueberries & let me say this, it was sensational, absolutely delicious. The fact that it was dark chocolate made it very intense without being too sweet, it tasted a little like a chocolate pudding but solid of course & of the sweetness of the berries was perfect along side. Also I have to say home made short crust pastry definitely kicks ass over the frozen kind. Make this tart & trust me you will not regret it.

Baked Chocolate Tart

1 x 25cm flan or tart shell, baked blind
140g butter, unsalted
150g good quality chocolate, (70% cocoa solids)
8 tablespoons cocoa powder, sifted
small pinch salt
4 eggs
200g caster sugar
3 tablespoons golden syrup
3 medium heaped tablespoons sour cream or crème fraiche

Place the butter, chocolate, cocoa powder and slat in a bowl over a pan of simmering water & allow to melt slowly, stirring occasionally until well mixed in. In a separate bowl beat the eggs & sugar together until light & well creamed, and then add the golden syrup & sour cream. Stir your choc mixture into this mixture, scraping all of the chocolate out with a spatula. Once you’ve mixed it well pour it into the pastry shell. Place into a preheated oven for 40-45 minutes at 150c. During cooking a beautiful crust will form.

Carefully remove the tart from the oven & allow to cool on a rack for at least 45 minutes, during which time the skin will crack & the filling will shrink slightly. Serve with fresh berries

Short Crust Sweet Pastry

To make 2 x 30cm/12 inch tart moulds
250g butter
200g icing sugar
a medium pinch of salt
500g flour
4 egg yolks
4 tablespoons cold milk/water

You can make this by hand or in a food processor. Cream together the butter, sugar & salt & then rub or pulse in the flour & egg yolks. When the mix has come together, looking like coarse breadcrumbs, add the cold water or milk. Pat & gently work together to form a ball of dough. Use minimum movement as the more you work it the more elastic it will get, causing the pastry to shrink & be chewy. Roll into a large, short & fat sausage shape, wrap in glad wrap & place in the fridge for at lest 1 hour.Carefully slice off thin slivers of pastry lengthways, around 5mm thick. Place the slivers in & around the bottom & sides of your tart mould, then push the pieces together & level out. Now it needs to rest again for at least 1 hour in the freezer this time.Bake the tart for about 15 minutes at 180c, completely cool & fill with any uncooked fillings.For baked fillings, bake blind first at 180c for only about 12 minutes. You can fill the shell with rice, baking beads, etc but if your pastry is straight out of the freezer you shouldn’t have problems with shrinkage, etc.

Lebanese Lemon Chicken

After a week away & eating our for every single meal I was looking forward to getting back into my kitchen & cooking up something hopefully delicious. I decided to try this dish from Jamie Oliver’s Jamie’s Kitchen. I used some chicken marylands instead of a whole chicken cut up as frankly I couldn’t be bothered with the chopping. Wow, this dish was amazing, unlike anything I have ever cooked before, very different. The aroma of aniseed while cooking was intense thanks to the fennel bulb & seeds. The bulghur wheat was fantastic, I haven’t really tasted or cooked with this much at all in the past & I loved it, it went all crisp & brown around the edges & the rest was just melt in the mouth full flavour. The flavours in the crispy chicken skin were gorgeous too & it all went so well together especially with that final dollop of sour cream to bring it all together.

Lebanese Lemon Chicken

1 large chicken cut into pieces
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
½ teaspoon cumin seeds
½ teaspoon chilli powder
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
1 teaspoon salt
3 heaped tablespoons plain flour
extra virgin olive oil
1 large bulb fennel, roughly chopped, herby tops chopped & reserved
1 red onion, peeled & roughly chopped
2-3 small preserved lemons, chopped
1 small bunch fresh rosemary, roughly chopped
150g farika or bulghur wheat
1 wineglass of tequila, vodka or white wine
565ml chicken stock or water
1 small tub sour cream

Preheat oven to 180c. Bash all of the spices up in a mortar & pestle with the salt until you have a fine powder. Add the flour & mix well. Rub this all over your chicken, any flour left over, reserve for later.

Heat an appropriately sized casserole type pan on the stove and add 5 tablespoons olive oil. Brown your chicken pieces on all sides, do this in one layer. Once they are coloured, remove to a plate, turn down the heat, add the onion, fennel, lemons and rosemary to the pan. Fry for around 5 minutes or until nicely softened. Then add excess flour & farika or bulghur wheat, give it all a good stir.

Add the tequila, vodka or wine & allow to cook down. Cover with chicken stock until it reaches the same level as the grains & veg. Now make a cartouche (A piece of greaseproof paper cut to fit the size of your pan). Run it under the tap to make it flexible then rub with olive oil. Place over the grains & veg in the pan & put the chicken on top. Place in oven & cook for 45 minutes until the chicken skin is really crisp. Serve with a dollop of sour cream & the fennel tops.

Cook Islands Trip

We have just returned from our week of Paradise in The Cook Islands, as you can see from the photo, it is gorgeous over there & the pic doesn’t even do the place justice. We even got to spend a day & night in Tahiti as on the way there some very strong winds – apparently 120kms/hour, prevented us from landing so we had to divert, thanks to Air New Zealand for providing all we needed it was actually really enjoyed rather than being the disaster it could have been. They put us up in The Intercontinental which was beautiful, we spent the day swimming in their gorgeous & mammoth pool, walking around & chilling out. As for the food, well I know resorts aren’t usually the best but I have to say the buffet lunch was pretty awful so the eating extravaganza I had planned was not off to a good start.

All in all our food experience did not end up being that great apart from a couple of good feeds, for the most part I thought it was pretty awful, so as you can imagine I was very disappointed. Most of the food is imported from New Zealand which brings the prices up for a start, they are more or loss on a par with Australian restaurant prices which I wouldn’t mind paying if the quality was the same. The fact that it wasn’t & there really weren’t any cheap & easy options available for dinner didn’t make me any happier paying these prices. Lunch was a bit better with more available & at more reasonable prices. We had a tropical breakfast included daily which was fine, not much can go wrong with cereal, fruit, toast & pastries after all! I hate to write about bad experiences but really wasn’t left with much option. So anyway that being said now I will tell you about the good bits.

When we finally made it The Cooks, our first port of call was the stunning Island of Aitutaki, the photo is actually One Foot Island which is one of the surrounding motu’s (Islands). We did an Island cruise taking in a few surrounding Islands & some snorkelling – fantastic, and we had a local lunch on Honeymoon Island put together by the cruise people. This was great as they laid out a platter of traditional fruits & vegetables including Sea Grapes, these were very weird looking, a small branch with lots of very small ‘green grapes’ attached, squeezed with lime juice very tasty & apparently very good for you too, paw-paw, guava, lady bird bananas (as you can imagine I made the most of readily available bananas & stuffed myself with them for the whole week), some baked tapioca pudding – yum, steamed tapioca, purple kumara, fresh coconut & some fresh tuna sandwiches. Most of it was delicious though I was a bit iffy on the kumara & steamed tapioca. It was all served in a tiny little open hut on woven plates lined with freshly picked leaves of some sort, really enjoyed this experience.

That night was Sunday & not much is open on Sunday nights in Aitutaki so we opted for Te Vaka Bar & Grill, we caught a taxi there & the lovely driver gave us a piece of sponge cake for the ride that she had freshly baked that afternoon, it was delicious & moist & as you can probably tell the people here are very friendly, a very nice experience & cheap too! The restaurant was in a lovely open air building with the usual wicker furniture & Island feel, the food here was quite nice too, not fantastic but pretty good. Michael tried the Cook Islands speciality ‘Ika Mata’ which is fresh tuna marinated in lemon juice then tossed in coconut cream with onions, garlic, tomato & cucumber, he gave it the thumbs up, being pregnant I had to take his word for it as raw fish off the menu for me for now. I had Garlic chilli prawns, these were good too, with the marinade all making a lovely thick jammy sauce for the prawns. Michael then had some coconut topped Mahi Mahi (very nice fish if done the right way – we had a lot of it over the week) with calamari & I had an Island chicken curry, absolutely huge servings, don’t think I even ate half of mine. I then had some ice cream with freshly grated coconut & chocolate fudge sauce, their desserts were not overly creative! All in all it was a pleasant experience.

As you can probably tell by now they are very big on coconut on EVERYTHING in The Cook Islands, I was ok with it at first but by the end of the week hated it as most of the time thought it was way overdone & think it will be a while before I eat anything with coconut again which is a shame as I really like the stuff.

Anyway back on the mainland, Rarotonga a couple of places worth mentioning. FBI fish and chips , near the main bus stop in town. As we were getting off the bus we could smell it and you know what that smell does to you, we had no choice but to then find the place & order up. The fish was Parrott fish & the batter was light & crispy & all seemed to be cooked in nice fresh oil & at NZD11.50 for the 2 of us very good value for a change.

We went to Trader Jacks for dinner one night which is apparently the place to go, unfortunately I thought the food was crap here, our char grilled octopus was very tough & chewy & the coconut braised lentils it was served on well, yuk! For the mains Michael had some Wahoo fish, pan fried with garlic, lemon, fresh herbs & fries, this was nice & simple & really good, I ended up eating half of it as my Mai Mai wrapped in banana leaf & served on a bed of ginger, coriander, chilli & COCONUT cream was disgusting, I had one bite & didn’t go any further. So I was pretty hungry after this & ordered dessert, Chocolate & apricot cake with chocolate fudge & ice cream – bad mistake again, cake was dry & I don’t know what the fascination is with bloody vanilla ice cream & hot chocolate fudge on anything either! The place had a good feel & was fun but I would definitely order plain if going again, the bar pizzas looked & smelt terrific too – maybe that’s the way to go?

For our last night we went to Tamarind House, recommended as the best spot on the Island I had high hopes & it didn’t disappoint, the setting is a majestic restored colonial era building & the piano player perched in the corner all night also added to the ambience. Michael started with the seafood chowder, another Island specialty which he enjoyed & I chose the chicken & mushroom won tons which were delicious, I finally learnt not to order Cook Islands food which I have developed an intense dislike for! For mains I had some smoked salmon spaghetti & Michael some Island style swordfish, we both left very happy customers for once.

All in all it’s a gorgeous & relaxed place for a holiday, Aitutaki was the highlight & highly recommended but if you go don’t have too high expectations for the food, hope I am not being too critical here, who knows maybe its just my pregnant taste buds after all.

5 things to eat before you die

Reb from Cucina Rebecca has tagged me for the latest meme which seems to be spreading like wild fire, 5 things to eat before you die. This all started not so long ago by Melissa at The Travellers Lunchbox. Here is my contribution which doesn’t contain quite as many fancy things as some, when I came to thinking about my favourite things, they all came back to pretty simple stuff!

1. Pierogi – Home made & Polish style the way my grandma used to make them. One of my best memories from childhood was visiting my Grandma when a fresh batch of pierogi were made, or even better making them with her, this was a whole day affair as when you make them you make 100's so you can give them out to the whole family to take home of course. I think the fact that they were made on this mammoth scale each time is what has deterred me from making my own so far. Pierogi are a European pastry, hers were filled with mashed potato mixed with loads of onion fried in butter. They are then boiled, drained, lots of butter applied until melted & then served with lashings of sour cream. The seconds were then pan fried a golden brown & again served with sour cream. So this simple fair is something I miss dearly & have vowed to stop being so lazy & make & perfect myself before I die. Now that I am about to start my own family hopefully this will inspire me so that my children can grow up with them as I did.

2. Cherries - these luscious beauties would have to be my favourite fruit of all time. I love them & eat them all on their own, they are so sweet & heavenly that I find they need no embellishment. The only downside to cherries is that the season is so short that from beginning to end I eat as many as I can before its all over for another year.

3. Chocolate - sorry to be so general but good chocolate in any shape, size or form is on my ultimate food group list for obvious reasons

4. A picnic of fresh local produce somewhere fabulous with the one you love. A couple of memorable ones for me would have to be a spring picnic in Paris in the botanical gardens with Michael, eating French cheese, bread & wine amongst other delights & the recent picnic I had in Lorne for my wedding anniversary which as well as some fantastic fresh food we topped off with a bottle of Dom Perignon which we had picked up in Champagne itself a few years ago, great food for me does not have to be fancy, the setting & company can play just as major a part & nothing beats eating fresh regional food where its made, ie Fresh bread, local cheeses, chutneys, jams, fruit, dips, chocolates

5. Grilled Haloumi on fresh bread. Something more specific for number 5. Haloumi grilled with a bit of oregano & drizzled with some lemon juice on top of some really good fresh bread would have to be one of my favourite ways to eat cheese, I do love all cheese however this is number one & is so good can pretty much eat enough so that it is a meal in itself

And before I go I will pass this on & tag (hope no one else has got to you first!)

Mellie at Tummy Rumbles
Sarah at Sarah Cooks
Niki at Esurientes
Kaylyn at Kaylns Kitchen
Ellie at Kitchen Wench

Scones with cream & Strawberry Jam

For afternoon tea with my parents the other day I had a hankering for some scones with whipped cream & jam, nothing could be more simple yet also so delicious at the same time. Rather than use my standard recipe I thought I would try Bill Grangers. As I’ve said before I love his sweets so wanted to see if his variation made them extra special. The recipe is from Bill’s Food , and everyone gave it the thumbs up, can you see how good they look inthe photo?

Also this will be goodbye for a week or so as Michael & I are off to the Cook Islands for a week of paradise. Hope to brng back some lovley food stories & photos soon

Simple Scones

1 tablespoon icing sugar
310g (2 ½ cups) plain flour
1 ½ tablespoons baking powder
a pinch of salt
250ml milk
30g butter, melted

To serve
Jam
Whipped cream or double cream

Preheat oven to 220c. Sift the icing sugar, flour, baking powder & salt into a bowl. Add the milk & butter & stir to combine with a knife. Knead quickly & lighly & then press out onto a floured surface.

Use a glass & cut our rounds, roughly 5cm/2 inches in diameter and 3cm/1 ¼ inches deep and place close together on a greased baking tray. Gather the scraps together, lightly knead again, then cut out more rounds. Cook for 8-10 minutes, until puffed & golden. Serve with Jam & whipped cream. Makes 8.

Blueberry butter cake and Goodbye Sharon

Saturday Sharon had a bit of a going away bbq & I of course thought it was a great opportunity to test out a new cake. I chose this luscious Blueberry butter cake from Bill Granger’s Bill’s Sydney Food. I love his cakes, so far they have all been perfect so whenever I can I knock out another one. As blueberries are a bit expensive at the moment I used frozen ones, they were being cooked so figured it wouldn’t hurt. These worked fine though I think because of the moisture content the cake need about an extra 15-20 minutes over the recommended 50 minutes, after 50 there was a pool of liquid on top which I poured off & the cake was still pretty much raw in the center. I have to say I was a bit worried at this stage but luckily the extra time cooked it & there was no damage, ie burnt top that I was panicking about! The cake went down perfectly with lots of very nice comments. It’s a pity I don’t have a photo of the cut cake as it looked fantastic, in the center the fruit had dropped to the bottom so it was sort of spread through the whole cake & the crumble topping just made it, all in all another winner from Bill.

Blueberry Butter Cake

For an old-fashioned Sydney experience you’d use mulberries from the tree that always stained your mother’s washing on a windy day – and get your fingers and lips red in the picking. The blueberry is more urbane.

Topping
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
¼ cup plain (all purpose) flour
75 g (2 ½ oz) unsalted butter, cold

Cake
2 cups plain (all purpose) flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
125g (4 oz) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup caster (superfine) sugar
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup sour cream
2 cups blueberries

To make the topping, place brown sugar and flour in a bowl, add butter and rub in with fingertips until mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs.
To make the cake, preheat over to 180c (350F). Sift flour, baking powder and salt into a mixing bowl. Place butter and sugar in a bowl and cream together. Add the eggs, and mix. Add the dry ingredients, alternating with sour cream, mixing well after each addition.
Pour the cake batter into a greased 23cm (9 in) spring form cake tin. Sprinkle with blueberries and topping mixture.
Bake the cake for 50 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack, topping side up.
Serve warm or at room temperature with fresh cream. Serves 8.

Weekend Herb Blogging - Lemongrass - Thai Pumpkin & Seafood Curry

For this weekends herb blogging hosted by Kalyn of Kayln's Kitchen I'm concentrating on lemongrass

Lately I have been taking a lot of inspiration from other blogs. I see a recipe & I just have to have it. So when recently I saw one of my favourite Nigella recipes made by 2 of my local bloggers I realised it had been way too long since I had this lovely curry. The first time I did this I made it as per the recipe, ever since I have omitted the prawns as I didn’t think they added that much & much preferred the taste of the salmon in this curry. So anyway thanks to The Next Nigella, Sarah and of course Nigella Lawsons’s Nigella Bites, where the recipe came from.

For today’s’ version I have used Lemongrass from my little herb shelf, it is the first time I have harvested any so got out the gloves & dug out 3 bulbs. The grass is quite sharp so you definitely need to wear protective gloves & glasses or goggles to avoid any nasty injuries, especially as you will be getting right down into it pushing & pulling to wrench the tough buggers loose. The smell as you’re freeing them is lovely & intense. Once loose, cut off the leaves, peel back the tough outer layers & cur off the roots. I have shown photos of the various stages so you can see what it looks like before it gets to the stage you see it in the shops as.

I also used some fresh lime leaves & coriander from the garden, I love being able to walk outside & pick fresh ingredients as I need them, if only I had room for a veggie garden too, oh well maybe one day. Anyway this recipe is really quick & easy & tasty so do try it out if you haven’t already.

Thai Yellow Pumpkin & Seafood Curry

400ml tin coconut milk
1-2 tablespoons yellow or red Thai curry paste
350ml fish stock
3 tablespoons fish sauce
2 tablespoons palm or caster sugar
3 lemongrass stalks, each cut into 3 & bruised with the flat of a knife
3 lime leaves, de stalked & cut into strips
½ teaspoon turmeric
1kg pumpkin, peeled & cut into bite sized chunks
1kg Salmon fillet, cut into large bite sized chunks
Pak choi or any other green vegetables of your choce
Juice of 1 lime
Coriander, to serve

Skim the cream off the top of the coconut milk & put it, over medium heat in a large saucepan with the curry paste. Let it sizzle & using a wooden spoon beat together until combined. Still beating gently, add the rest of the coconut milk, fish stock, fish sauce, sugar, lemongrass, lime leaves & turmeric. Bring to the boil & add the pumpkin. Cook a fast simmer for approx 15 minutes until the pumpkin is tender. If leaving at this stage to finish off later, leave the pumpkin with a tiny bite to it so it doesn’t overcook when reheating for the final stage.

To the simmering pan add the salmon & cook until cooked, about 3-4 minutes, also add the green veggies. Towards the end add the lime juice. When done sprinkle over coriander & serve with tice.

Spiced Slow-cooked Lamb Shanks

The other day I realised that winter is nearly over & to my shock & horror I haven’t made a single batch of lamb shanks this season. Well of course I had to rectify that immediately & cooked up this tasty version from Jamie Oliver’s The Naked Chef. The thing I love about this dish is the fact that really you just chop everything up, cook it a bit then chuck it in the oven for a couple of hours & wallah you have a gorgeously tender piece of meat falling off the bone, complete with intensely flavoured veggies, a little mash, polenta or whatever takes your fancy on the side & your meal is complete.

Spiced Slow-cooked Lamb Shanks

4 lamb shanks
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon corianders seeds
1 small dried red chilli
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary
1 teaspoon dried marjoram or oregano
1 tablespoon flour
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
1 large carrot, quartered & finely sliced
6 sticks of celery, quartered & finely sliced
2 medium onions, quartered & finely chopped
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
170ml dry white wine
6 anchovy fillets
2 x 400g tins of plum tomatoes
1 handful of fresh basil, marjoram or flat leaf parsley, roughly chopped

Season the lamb with salt & pepper. Smash up the coriander seeds & dried chilli & mix with rosemary & dried oregano. Roll the lamb in this mixture, pressing it well. Dust the lamb with the flour.

Heat a thick bottomed casserole pan, add the oil, brown the meat on all sides & then remove from the pan. Add the garlic, carrot, celery, onions & a pinch of salt and sweat until softened. Add the vinegar & allow it to reduce to a syrup. Pour in the wine & allow to simmer for 2 minutes. Add the anchovies & tinned tomatoes, kept whole. Shake the pan & return the lamb to it. Bring to the boil, put on a lid & simmer in the oven at 180c for 1 ½ hours, then remove lid & cook for a further half an hour. Season to taste & stir in the fresh herbs.

Pancakes USA Stylie

Well after I can’t remember how many gorgeous photos of pancake blogs lately, Matts being the last, I finally gave in & made my own. Normally I make very thin crepe style pancakes but for the stack I obviously needed some fat little babies so I looked through my books & Jamie’s recipe for USA stylie pancakes from Happy Days was about the only one for which I had all of the ingredients handy without having to make a dash to the shops. In this recipe the egg whites need beating before adding which personally I thought didn’t seem to make that much difference & was one step that made these a bit on the fiddly side. They did taste quite yummy though, especially drenched in maple syrup & yes Vanilla Ice Cream!

Pancakes USA Stylie

3 large eggs
115g plain flour
1 heaped teaspoon baking powder
140ml milk
a pinch of salt

First separate Add the flour, baking powder & milk to the egg yolks in a bowl & mix to a smooth batter. Whisk the whites with the salt until they form stiff peaks. Fold into the batter. Heat a good non-stick frypan on medium heat. Pour some of the batter into the pan (I buttered my pan though the original recipe doesn’t call for this) & fry for a couple of minutes until bubbles appear on the top, flip with a spatula & fry until golden on both sides. Serve with whatever takes your fancy.

I Carusi Pizza

Well this little Pizza place that you would not even notice unless looking really hard for has to be Melbourne’s best kept secret. The place is always jam packed full of people so don’t even think about turning up without a booking. The menu consists purely of pizza (apart from a couple of salads & some olives). It’s lovely & warm inside, some nice music playing in the background & dimly lit so quite atmospheric. Michael & I were seated opposite the pizza production line last night which was fascinating. I swear these guys could win a world record they crank them out so fast. We had a small pizza each, they come in either 10 or 13 inch, we really should have had the large as they are very thin based so not over filling especially for a man & someone eating for 2. Michael had the Genovese, tomato, goats cheese, pesto, roasted peppers & prosciutto. I had the Greg Oregano, tomato, prosciutto, rocket & Parmeggiano. Sorry about the crappy photos, not sure what was going on with the camera last night so you will have to trust me that these were divine & there are so many fantastic sounding combinations that you just want to order every single one. They have dessert pizzas too which sadly we didn’t have time for last night as we had to rush home to watch The Pies have a mighty win over Port Adelaide, maybe next time. Do yourself a favour & get down here fast.

I Carusi Pizza
46a Holmes Street
Brunswick East
9386 5522
BYO & Cash only