Festive Food Fair - Gingerbread Muffins

Anna at Morsels & Musings in Sydney has decided to host a Festive Food Fair event. I think this is a great idea & hopefully the event will provide inspiration for everyone during the holiday season & leading up to all of those glorious Christmas feasts. I have chosen a simple muffin recipe from Nigella Lawson’s Feast under the Christmas section of course. I managed to whip these up in the time it to me steam some rice for dinner – they are that simple. I made a couple of changes due to lack of the correct ingredients - all light muscovado sugar & no dark and all golden syrup failing the discovery of any black treacle down the shops. They were still absolutely lovely & I don’t think these compromised the flavour at all but who knows, maybe they would make them even better. These would be great for xmas brekky or just to have on hand if people are popping over at this time of year. Light & fluffy & ginger & spice just conjure up festive images don’t they?

Gingerbread Muffins

250g plain flour
½ teaspoon bicarb of soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 ½ teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
1 egg
50g dark muscovado sugar
50g light muscovado sugar
150ml full-fat milk
¼ teaspoon balsamic vinegar
6 tablespoons vegetable or corn oil
4 tablespoons golden syrup
4 tablespoons black treacle.

Preheat oven to 200c. Line a 12 hole muffin tin with muffin papers.

Combine the flour, bicarb, baking powder & spices in a large bowl. Whisk the egg in a large measuring jug then add the sugars, breaking up any large lumps. Add the milk and vinegar then measure in the oil with a tablespoon. Use the same oily spoon to add the syrup & treacle so they don’t stick to it. Whisk the mixture to combine and add to the flour mix. Stir until mixed but still fairly lumpy. Spoon into muffin papers & bake for about 20 minutes until the tops are dry.

Pan Fried Lemon Veal with Green Beans

After all the munching at the Age Harvest picnic yesterday a light dinner was called for so being Bill Granger crazy at t the moment, Michael knocked up this dish from Bill’s Food. I didn’t end up doing the beans as mine were in the fridge for longer than I remember & had horrible looking brown marks all over them so in the bin they went. Served with mash, absolutely simple & delish. The lemon & veal is such a fantastic combination of fresh flavour.

Pan Fried Lemon Veal with Green Beans

8 veal escalopes
1 teaspoon sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
300g baby green beans, trimmed
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
4 tablespoons lemon juice
50g butter
2 tablespoons finely copped flat leaf Italian parsley
Lemon wedges, to serve

Season the veal with sea salt & black pepper.

Steam the beans in a steamer for 3 minutes. While the beans are steaming, heat the oil in a large frying pan over medium to high heat. When the oil is hot, add the veal and cook for about 45 seconds on each side.

Reduce the frying pan heat to low & add the lemon juice, loosening the residue from the base of the pan. When the lemon juice boils, add the butter & mix until the butter melts and the sauce is slightly thickened. Pour over the veal & sprinkle with chopped parsley. Serve with beans & lemon wedges.

The Age Harvest Picnic at Werribee Park

On this gorgeous Melbourne day I headed out to the Age Harvest Picnic at Werribee Park with Michael & my parents. We got there at about 10 so we got a good park & a good spot to set up on the lawn. It’s a beautiful setting & there were heaps of stalls filled with goodies. You can see in my photo how packed it ended up being by about lunch time. Some of the treats I bought to take home were Basil infused olive oil from Barfold Olives, some very refreshing Ginger & green Apple Fruit Soda cordial – made to an ancient tradition with fresh fruit, no preservatives, colours or artificial flavourings, Goldfields ‘Kamarooka’ honey, lot’s of jams from Marcia’s Munchies, hand made with natural ingredients – they were all so good I couldn’t decide so bough them all cherry, raspberry, tangelo marmalade & apricot, Some quince paste & stunning Virtuous Vanilla plum jam from Olive Branch preserves – though I don’t know what was virtuous about it – I thought it was wicked! I also tried lots of great bickies & sweets which I didn’t buy any of as at the moment I’m too busy making my own all the time. I had a small tub of chicken & seafood Paella from The Paella Pan - who do paella party catering – sounds interesting & the dish was yummy, some fantastic ginger ice cream from Irrewarra Natural Ice cream & tried some of Micahel’s Red Duck beer – very refreshing also. I love these events & today was the perfect day fro it, even managed to escape with minimal sun burn.

Strawberry sour cream streusel cake

Today after brunch at my place, Megan & I headed over to visit Rach & her new baby Ethan, so of course it was a good excuse for me to bake & take something along. I tried out this recipe from a recent edition of Delicious, it was scrumptious if I do say so myself & everyone loved it. The strawberry puree inside the cake was intense but not overly sweet & went perfectly with the crumble, who doesn’t love a good crumble? Definitely a winner to be made again

Strawberry sour cream streusel cake

¾ cup (165g) caster sugar
320g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp bicarb soda
240g chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1.5cm cubes
1 cup (240g) sour cream
1 large egg
2 tsp vanilla extract
2tsp Demerara sugar

Strawberry Puree
2 tsp cornflour
2 tsp vanilla extract
225g strawberries, hulled
3 tbs strawberry jam

For puree, make a paste of cornflour and vanilla, add to blender with berries and jam. Puree until smooth, set aside.

Preheat oven to 170c. Grease a 23cm springform pan.

Combine caster sugar, flour, baking powder and bicarb of soda in a large bowl. Rub in butter with your fingertips until mix resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Remove ½ cup and set aside, then add sour cream, egg & vanilla to the main bowl. Mix well with a wooden spoon.

Using a little over half the batter, drop dollops in to pan. Pat batter across bottom of pan & about 2.5cm up sides, mix will be very sticky and somewhat uneven. Add puree, making an even layer across bottom of pan & leaving a rim of dough above it. Cover with remaining cake mixture.

Use a fork to combine reserved flour and butter mix with Demerara sugar. Sprinkle evenly over cake, then bake for 45 minutes or until lightly golden. Cool in pan, then serve.

Chocolate Truffles & Sugar High Friday!

For the latest Sugar High Friday the theme is truffles & the host is The Passionate Cook. Now I love truffles yet have never made them before so I thought I would start at the beginning & make some traditional French style truffles from Green & Black’s Chocolate Cook book. These are predominantly a chocolate ganache, dusted with cocoa powder. Apparently they were first called truffles as they looked like real freshly dug truffles of the fungus type! They are absolutely wickedly delicious, dense & rich in a very adult dark chocolatey way that I love and I feel even more guilty eating these as opposed to bought ones as I know exactly what went into them. Not too time consuming though you do have to start at least 3 hours or so before hand to get the required amount of refrigeration time. Also today in Melbourne it’s quite hot, up there in the 30’s, so I found I had to roll them in batches as the mixture started getting a bit melty after about 10 truffles, so I popped the mix batch in the fridge every now & then. Yum, now I have to try & give some away before I eat them all.

Micah’s Truffles

275g dark chocolate, minimum 60% cocoa solids, broken into pieces
250ml double cream
50g unsalted butter, at room temperature
50g cocoa powder

Place the chocolate in a large bowl. Bring the cream to the boil & pur it over the chocolate. Stir gently until the chocolate has melted, trying not to create bubbles. Leave to cool for 2 minutes, then add the butter in 2 stages & stir in gently. Once the butter is incorporated, the ganache should be smooth & glossy with no oil slick on the surface. Set the mix in the fridge for a minimum of 3 hours or overnight.

Remove from the fridge about 15 minutes before you want to make the truffles, depending on room temperature. Put the cocoa into a bowl. Ensure your hands are cold & dry, then dust them with cocoa. Take teaspoonfuls of the ganache mix & roll the mixture in to a ball in your cocoa dusted hands. Drop each truffle in the bowl of cocoa, roll it around then toss between your palms to remove any excess powder. The truffles can then be returned to the fridge and kept for up to 2 days as long as they are stored in an airtight container. Serve straight from the fridge or at room temperature.

Roast Loin of Pork with Peaches

Seeing that Peaches have finally arrived in our shops I though it was about time I tried out this roast from Jamie Oliver’s Return of the Naked Chef. I know its 30 degrees out but when you have a craving for a roast what can you do? The recipe below is for 7 which I halved for the 2 of us – looking forward to some leftover pork sandwiches. This was a very tasty roast, the meat was very flavoursome & moist though I am a bit dubious about all of that butter & I only used half, think I will cut it in half again next time as don’t think that much is necessary & should still be tender & moist with not so much

Roast Loin of Pork with Peaches

1 x t rib loin of pork
1 bunch fresh thyme, leaves picked & chopped
200g butter
salt & freshly ground black pepper
8 fresh peaches (or use 2 tins in natural juices if our of season), halved & stoned

Preheat oven to 220c. Score the skin of your pork about 1 cm apart through the fat nearly to the meat. With a knife carefully part the meat from the ribs. Scrunch your chopped thyme into the butter with the seasoning. Rub & distribute a little of the butter into the gap you have made between the ribs & the meat. Push in as many peaches as you can fit & pack the rest of the butter on top. To hug the meat & ribs together & hold the peaches in place, simply fasten some string around the pork loin in 3 or 4 places & tie firmly. Place in a roasting tray with any leftover peaches & other veg you wish to have with your roast. Cook for 50 minutes to an hour, allow to rest for 10 minutes before serving.

Spaghetti Tetrazzini (Chicken & Mushroom Pasta Bake)

I made this dish from Jamie Oliver’s Italy a couple of weeks back & have hesitated in posting it. Frankly it was quite average, a bit on the oily side & not up to the standard that I expect from his recipes. It was still ok but nothing special. I don’t know if I did something wrong or not so would love to hear of anyone else out there who has also tried this one out & what they thought of it. Pretty much the only real difference between mine & the recipe below was that I omitted the porcini having none handy.

Spaghetti Tetrazzini (Chicken & Mushroom Pasta Bake)

20g/a small handful of dried porcini mushrooms
Olive Oil
4 Chicken Thighs, boned, skinned & cut into bite sized pieces (I bought thigh fillets)
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
2 cloves garlic, peeled & finely sliced
350g handfuls mixed mushrooms, cleaned & torn
200ml white wine
455g Spaghetti
500ml double cream
200g parmesan cheese grated
a sprig of fresh basil, leaves picked

Preheat oven to 200c. Put your porcini in a bowl & pur over just enough boiling water to cover them. Put to one side to soak for a few minutes. Heat a saucepan big enough to hold all ingredients, and pour in a splash of olive oil. Season the chicken with salt & pepper & brown gently in the oil. Strain the porcini, reserving the soaking water, and add them to the pan with the garlic & fresh mushrooms. Add the wine, with the strained porcini water & turn the heat down. Simmer gently until the chicken pieces are cooked through and the wine has reduced a little.

Meanwhile, cook the spaghetti in plenty of boiling salted water according to packet instructions & drain well. Add the cream to the chicken, then bring to the boil & turn the heat off. Season well with salt & freshly ground black pepper. Add the drained spaghetti to the creamy chicken sauce & toss well. Add ¾ of the parmesan and the basil & stir well. Transfer to an ovenproof baking dish, sprinkle with half the remaining cheese & bake in the oven until golden brown, bubbling & crisp. Divide between your plates & sprinkle with the rest of the cheese before serving.

Buttermilk pancakes with Caramelized fruit.

Sunday morning for brekky to use up my left over buttermilk from last weekend some more pancakes were in order, I found another recipe using buttermilk in Bill Granger Bill’s Food. Buttermilk is low in fat, there is not much sugar in the mix & it is served with fruit so I could even kid myself that I was being healthy once again. As with all of Bill’s breakfasts, these were great, seems l & easy too. The fruit was supposed to be plums which of course aren’t around yet so I used nectarines, these were nice & even gave a bit of a bitter tang for contrast, think sweet juicy plums would work even better. Oh & this week I halved the recipe & was still heaps for the 2 of us.

Buttermilk pancakes with Caramelized fruit.

250g (2 cups) plain flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
a pinch of salt
2 tablespoons sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
750ml (3 cups) buttermilk
75g unsalted butter, melted
unsalted butter, extra for greasing the pan

To serve

Caramelized fruit
Maple syrup
Yoghurt

Stir the flour, baking powder, salt & sugar together in a bowl. Add the eggs, milks & butter & whisk to combine.

Heat a large non-stick frypan over medium heat & brush a small mount of butter over the base. For each pancake, ladle 80ml (1/3 cup) of batter into the pan & cook for about 2 minutes until bubbles appear on the surface. Flip & cook for another minute. Transfer to a plate to keep warm while cooking the rest.

To caramelize fruit, heat a frying pan over high heat, cut the fruit in half, remove stones, sprinkle cut side with sugar & fry cut side down for about a minute.

Serve in stacks with fruit, yoghurt & maple syrup.

Cajun snapper on corn & sun dried tomato risotto

For the main course I made this delicious snapper from A Slice of Port Douglas, starfish restaurant & bar. I’ve made this heaps of times before & it’s really delicious & I love the Mexican take on the risotto. Snapper too would have to be one of my favourite fish & the Cajun spices are not messing with it too much. I used coriander in my sauce as I can never find chervil and it works fine.

Cajun Blackened Snapper fillet on corn and sun dried tomato risotto drizzled with a chervil vin blanc sauce

750g snapper fillets
2 tablespoons Cajun seasoning
1 tablespoon oil

Corn & sun dried risotto

2 corn cobs, kernels removed
4-5 cups fish stock
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
2 cups Arborio rice
¼ cup sun dried tomatoes
1 teaspoon tumeric powder

Chervil vin blanc sauce

1 tablespoon butter
1 spring onion, finely chopped
½ cup white wine
½ cup fish stock
2/3 cup cream
drop worchester sauce
1 tablespoon chervil

Cut down the corns with a sharp knife to remove the kernels. Dry fry over medium heat shaking the pan regularly until kernels turn golden brown. Place stock in a large saucepan & bring to the boil, reduce heat & keep at a simmer. Heat oil and butter in a large heavy based saucepan. Add rice and stir for 1-2 minutes or until transparent. Add 1 cup of stock to the pan & stir continuously over medium heat until the liquid is absorbed. Continue adding stock, 1 cup at a time, stirring constantly for 20 minutes. Add kernels, tomatoes & tumeric & mix well to combine. Cook for a further 5 minutes or until rice is cooked.

To make the sauce, heat butter in a saucepan. Add spring onion & sauté for 1 minute. Add wine, stock & cream & simmer until sauce is cream but not thick. Season with salt, pepper & Worchester sauce. Remove from heat & add chervil & mix well to combine. Keep warm.

Coat the snapper fillets with the Cajun seasoning. Pour oil into a very hot pan , place fillets in & cook for 2 minutes one side then turn over, reduce heat & cook for approx 2 minutes n the other side until cooked.

Serve Fish on top of risotto with sauce drizzled over.

Note – Chervil can be substituted with Chinese parsley or fresh coriander in the sauce.

Banana Semi Freddo

Last night I had a couple of friends over for dinner, nothing lavish but a good excuse to try out some new food anyway. I am going to start with dessert just because it looked so good (in my opinion anyway). I have been loving ice cream & chocolate at the moment & had never made a semi freddo before so thought would give this recipe from Ben O’Donoghue and Curtis Stone’s Surfing the Menu a go. I t was pretty simple to make though did take quite a few bowls & in order to freeze you need to start this quite a few hours ahead or even the night before. The upside of this of course is that when you are ready to eat you just whip it out & serve, no fiddling around while the guests are there. Everyone loved the fact that it was full of fresh bananas & all in all it went down pretty well, nice to serve something a bit different for a change too

Banana Semifreddo

10 free range egg yolks
100g warmed honey
3 tablespoons rum or banana liqueur
4 tablespoons caster sugar
3 large ripe bananas
5 egg whites
500ml pouring cream
200g dark chocolate, chopped
55g unsalted roasted peanuts (other nuts may be used), finely chopped

Line a loaf tin or a glass pudding bowl with plastic wrap and place in the freezer to chill.

Place the egg yolks in a bowl with the honey, rum and half the sugar. Place the bowl over a pan of simmering water and whisk until the mixture is light & fluffy and doubled in volume.

Mash the bananas with a fork, add to the egg mixture & stir to combine. In a clean bowl, whisk the egg whites with the remaining sugar until stiff. Fold into the banana mixture. Whip the cream to soft peaks & fold into the banana mixture. Add half the chopped chocolate. Spoon into the lined mould & freeze until set.

Melt the remaining chocolate by placing it in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water (don’t let the bowl touch the water). Unmould the semifreddo onto a serving plate. Using a spoon, drizzle half the chocolate over the top in a criss cross pattern, then sprinkle with the peanuts. Drizzle the remaining chocolate over the top. Return to the freezer until required.

About 15-20 minutes before serving, transfer to the fridge to soften.

Gingery Hot Duck Salad

Last night for dinner we had one of my favourite Nigella Lawson dishes, Gingery Hot Duck Salad. The recipe comes from Nigella Bites & is under the chapter, temple food – what Nigella describes as ‘soothing, pure, would be restorative food I make for myself after one binge or late night too far. Temple as in ‘my body is a ‘’. Now obviously in my condition I haven’t been binge drinking though I did spend the day snacking on cheese, crackers, dips & bread & the like while watching the races so was definitely in need of something good & light.

I was a bit tired too after all that eating & race watching so Michael was kind enough to make this for me this time which also proves how easy peasy it is! Lovely flavours that work oh so well together & a lovely touch of chilli to add some spice aswell. You must try it

Gingery Hot Duck Salad

1 duck breast
2 tablespoons fish sauce
juice of half lime & juice of half orange
1 chilli, finely chopped
1cm ginger, grated
few drops of sesame oil
Baby spinach, mixed lettuce, etc to serve

Grill or fry the duck breast, fat side down, until cooked the way you like it.

Let it rest while you mix the fish sauce, lime & orange juice, chilli, ginger & sesame oil in a bowl. Pour any juices that the duck has made into a bowl, then carve the meat on the diagonal into thin slices. Toss the duck into the bowl & stir everything well. Serve on top of mixed leaves.

Coconut Bread

This morning for brekky carrying on with my sweet theme I made this recipe from Bill Granger’s Sydney Food. It is described as ‘never to be replaced’ on the menu at Bills. It is a Jamacican bread intended to be served with salt-fish relisg. Lime marmalade goes well too & it keeps well sliced in the freezer. Can be served toasted, buttered & dusted with icing sugar. Sounds very different & was incredibly easy to prepare. The end result was delicious, though to me it is more of a cake then a bread, much in the same way banana bread is really a cake. I had a piece nice & warm from the oven which was perfect & then tried one buttered & dusted with icing sugar, this was good too but to be honest I don’t think it needed the extra’s. I’m yet to try it toasted, sure will be great too.

Coconut Bread

2 eggs
300ml milk
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 ½ cups plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 cup caster sugar
150g shredded cocnut
75g unsalted butter, melted

To serve
Butter
Icing sugar

Preheat oven to 180c. Lightly whisk eggs, milk and vanilla together.

Sift flour, baking powder and cinnamon into a bowl, add sugar & cocnut and stir to combine. Make a well in the centre and gradually stir in the egg mixture until just combined. Add melted butter and stir until mixture is just smooth, being careful not to overmix.

Pour into greased and floured 21 x 10cm loaf tin & bake for 1 hour or until cooked when tested with a skewer. Leave in the tin to cool for 5 minutes and remove to cool further on a wire rack. Serve in thick slices, toasted, buttered & dusted withicing sugar. Makes 8-10 thick slices.

Steak & Guiness Pie

For dinner tonight another favorite from Jamie Oliver, this time from Happy Days. The thing I love about this dish is it’s so easy & can be prepared ahead of time ready to just pop into the oven later.

Steak & Guiness Pie

680g stewing beef, diced
sea salt & fresjly ground black pepper
2 heaped tablespoons flour
Olive Oil
1 onion, peeled & roughly chopped
4 sticks celery, washed & roughly chopped
2 parsnips, peeled & roughly chopped
1 handful of fresh mixed herbs (ie rosemary, thyme & bay)
565ml/1 pint Guiness
2 x 400g rins tomatoes
1 x 500g pack puff pastry
1 egg, beaten

Season your beef generously with salt & pepper, sprinkle with flour & toss around until coated. Heat 2 or 3 glugs olive oil in a large casserole-type pan & fry your meat until golden brown. Add the onion & fry for another minute, then add the carrot, celery, parsnips & herbs. Fry for a further 4 minutes then pur in your Guiness. Add the tomtoes & rbing to the boil, simmer for around 2 hours or until the meat is really tender, season to taste. At this stage you can move to the fridge until ready to serve, this will also intensify the flavour.

To make the pies, preheat oven to 190c. Put your meat filling into a dishor dishes (if making individual pies). Cut your pastry into circles about 1cm bigger than the top of your dish(s). Brush the rims with beaten egg, place the pastry on top squash the excess down the sides to secure. Lightly score the top of the pstry in a criss cross pattern & brush with the remaining beaten egg. Bake for 45 minutes until golden & Bubbling.

Lemon Souffle Cakes

This morning for brekky I felt like a sweet treat as I do most days now, having gone from a savoury person to a sweet person during my pregancy. It used to be I would always choose a delicious savoury treat before heading anywhere near a sweet yet nowadays all I want is sugar & chocolate, I could seriously eat sweets for dinner these days & I have to sheepishly admit I might have done once or twice too! So for inspiration I looked to Bill Granger who as I have said before seems to have the most mouth watering breakfats rcipes. Today’s recipe was from Sydney Food. The pancakes were light as promised & the citrus tang was fantastic, the only ptoblem was the recipe said it was for 4 though Michael & I ate the whole batch – their really weren’t that many and Bill even claims they are low in fat so cant be all bad to eat that many!

Lemon Souffle Cakes

¾ cup buttermilk
2 egg yolks
2 tablespoons lemon juice
3 teaspoons grated lemon zest
1 teaspoon vamilla essence
25g unsalted butter, melted
¾ cup plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 tablespoons caster sugar
a pinch of salt
2 egg whites

To serve
200g strawberries, halved
1 tablespoon honey
icing sugar

Place buttermilk, egg yolks, lemon juice & zest & vanilla essence in a bowl & stir until combined. Add in the melted butter & mix well.

Sift flour, baking powder, caster sugar & salt into a large bowl. Make a well in the center & gradually stir in the buttermilk mixture until the dry ingredients are just moistened, being careful not to overmix.

Place ht egg whites in a dry, clean bowl & beat until soft peaks form. Gently fold the egg whites into the batter, using a large metal spoon.

Melt a small portion of butter in a non-stick frypan over medium heat and drop 2 tablesppons of batter per cake into the pan. Cook iuntil golden brown on the underside & looking dry at the edges, flip & cook the other side.

Toss the fresh strawberries with honey & a light dusting of icing sugar. Dust the cakes with icing sugar & serve with berries.

Retro Brekky on Brunswick Street

Today Michael & I headed out to Bruswick street for a bit of brekky & a wander. We ate at Retro which I have walked past hundreds of times yet never eaten in before, it always looks so inviting, I love the retro outfit of the place.

To start with I was a bit dissapointed in the limited breakfast menu, they had the usual toasts, cerals & various egg combo's, all featuring poached eggs, ie, florentine, benedict, big brekky, no scrambled, omelettes or anything else interesting. With the amount of cafes out there doing good breakfast at the moment I like to see a menu with a bit more creativity thrown in. Having said that I ordered the poached eggs & bacon on toast with hollandaise & a hash brown on the side. Being pregnant I'm not supposed to eat runny eggs so I ordered my poached eggs non runny & they did manage to cook them perfectly, no runniness yet not overdone at the same time. The sauce was nice, hash brown good though I suspect forozen & the bacon was good too. All in all a good breakfast but not outstanding. Great space to catch up with friends in though as it has a great feel & lots of big tables & couches & I noticed they even had high chairs & room for prams so will have to keep in mind for the future.

Retro
413 Brunswick street
Fitzroy
9419 9103

Malted Milk Cookies with Chunks of Dark Chocolate and Malteser Smashings

Today I needed a chocolate cookie hit so I made this batch from a recipe that I found at from Helen at Grab your fork some time ago, as promised they were delicious, very moorish & I will be trying my best not to eat the entire 25 by tomorrow!

Malted Milk Cookies with Chunks of Dark Chocolate and Malteser Smashings

Based on Donna Hay's double choc cookies from Modern Classics Book

2250g butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup sugar
3 eggs
2 1/4 cups plain flour, sifted
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup malted milk powder
200g dark chocolate, broken into chunks
100g Maltesers, smashed in the bag

Cream butter and sugar. Add the eggs gradually and beat well. Add flour, baking powder, malted milk powder, chocolate and Maltesers and mix well. Place large tablespoonfuls of mixture onto baking trays lined with baking paper or greaseproof paper. Ensure there is plenty of room between mounds to allow for spreading (I did about five per tray). Bake at 150C for 20-25 minutes (depending on how soft/crispy you like your cookie).


Makes about 25.

Parmesan Crusted Blue-eye and braised potatoes with peas

Last night I cooked up this very tasty dish from Bill Granger’s Bills Food. It was really good & pretty easy to prepare though I would recommend getting the potatoes on to steam while coating the fish. Also don’t salt the potatoes too much as the stock is already salty to begin with. Yum! I’m really loving Bill’s recipes at the moment & will be trying out lots more soon, particularly the brekky ones which I believe he is famous for!

Parmesan Crusted Blue-eye and braised potatoes with peas

75g (I cup) fresh breadcrumbs
45g (1/2) cup finely grated parmesan
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
2 eggs
125g (I cup) plan flour
4 blue-eye or other firm white fish fillets
1 tablespoon olive oil
25g butter

Mix the breadcrumbs, parmesan, salt & pepper in a bowl. Crack the eggs into a bowl & beat lightly together. Place the flour and some salt & pepper in a bowl. Dip a fish fillet in the flour, then in the egg and finally, in the breadcrumb mixture. Continue until all the fish is done this can be done in advance & fish refrigerated for up to 2 hours before cooking),

Heat the oil & butter in a large non stick frying pan over medium to high heat. Add the fish & cook gently for about 2 minutes on each side, turning once, until lightly golden. Serve with the braised potatoes

Braised Potatoes with peas

8 Kipfler potatoes, peeled & steamed until tender
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 white onion, finely sliced into rings
155g (1 cup) green peas
250ml (I cup) chicken stock
15g butter
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper

Slice the potatoes into discs. Heat the olive oil in a medium pan over medium pan over medium heat and fry until soft, but not brown. Add the peas & toss well. Add the stock, bring to the boil & simmer for 5 minutes. Add the potatoes and cook for another 2 minutes. Remove from the heat, add butter, salt & pepper & stir to combine.

Luscious Cherry Cheesecake

This is a cheesecake that I used to make all the time years back, the recipe comes from The Australian Lifestyle Cookbook, a book my mum gave to me for my 21st birthday, it is a giant of a book & I haven’t pulled it out in years. Now that I have made this old favourite again will take a look & see what else I can try out. Just from reading the ingredients you can probably already taste how beautiful this cake is, lovely & rich & creamy with a nice tang from the cherries on top, way back when it was made all the time everyone adored it. Quick tip, it is best to start this cake a couple of days ahead, ie I made the crust Friday night so it was nice & chilled ready for the filling on Saturday which needs 24 hours before putting on the topping. It may sound like a chore but it actually makes it easier as you just do a bit here & there instead of one big job, just needs some prior planning.

Cherry Cheesecake

Base
180g plain sweet biscuits (I always use butternut snaps), crumbed
pinch cinnamon or nutmeg
60g butter, melted

Combine ingredients and mix well together. Press into a 20cm foil lined pie plate to form a crust. Refrigerate.

Filling
250g cream cheese
400g can condensed milk
1/3 cup lemon juice
1 teaspoon gelatine dissolved in 1 tablespoon hot water

Beat cream cheese until soft. Gradually beat in condensed milk, lemon juice & dissolved gelatine and mix well. (Use ripe lemons as green lemons may prevent a firm set). Pour mixture into chilled crust and refrigerate at least 24 hours

Topping
450g can cherries, drained, syrup reserved
1 tablespoon brandy
1 ½ tablespoons arrowroot
red food colouring, optional (I never use this)

Arrange drained cherries over top of cake. Bring syrup to the boil. Blend together arrowroot & brandy then add to boiling syrup, stirring continuously until thickened. Add a few drops of red food colouring if desired. Spoon carefully over cherries, chill.

Couscous with grilled summer vegetables & loadsa herbs

The salads for the bbq were a simple green salad, a capri salad with some lovely fresh buffalo mozzarella that I bought from the local deli, personally I was very excited about this as I’ve never been able to find it before to buy & have only tasted it once & it was divine, thank God for the deli at Barkly square, they have promised to keeping selling it & add abt $55.00 per kilo (from what I remember) 2 balls cost me about $12 so not cheap but well worth it I think. I also made this couscous salad from Jamie Oliver’s Return of the Naked Chef. This is a great salad, full of fresh veggies, the roasting & grilling flavours really stand out & the dressing & herbs pull it all together nicely without being overpowering

Couscous with grilled summer vegetables & loadsa herbs

250g couscous
285ml/ ½ pint cold water
3 red capsicum
1 handful asparagus, trimmed
2 or 3 small firm zucchinis, sliced
1 small bunch spring onions, trimmed & finely sliced
3 good handfuls of mixed fresh herbs (basil, coriander, mint, parsley)
2 x olive oil & lemon juice dressing
salt & freshly ground pepper
red wine vinegar

Place the couscous in a bowl with the cold water. Blacken the capsicum either over a naked flame (if you have one on your stove top) or under the grill. When blackened, place in a sandwich bag, wrap in glad wrap or cover in a bowl for 5 mins until cool. Remove the skins & seeds & roughly chop.

On a very hot griddle pan, lightly char the asparagus & zucchini on both sides then toss in the bowl with the couscous & add the capsicum, spring onions, chillies & ripped up herbs. Mix well. Add the dressing & toss well. Season to taste with salt & pepper & a dash of red wine vinegar,

Olive Oil & lemon juice dressing

2 tablespoons lemon juice
5 tablespoons olive oil
salt & freshly ground black pepper

Spiced Mazatlan Meatballs

For the main (meat plus!) course of tonight’s bbq, alongside the steaks, chops & various snags I made these from Ainsley’s Ultimate Barbecue Bible, for something different. The are little Middle Eastern flavoured meatballs, they were mega easy to prepare, basically you just chuck everything into the food processor & then roll into balls. We cooked these & served them while the rest of the meat was cooking, great idea to start the main course, they went down very well & not too filling as to spoil your appetite for the rest of the feast

Spiced Mazatlan Meatballs

500g Lean minced lamb
pinch of salt
I onion, finely chopped
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground allspice
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
4 tablespoons roughly chopped fresh coriander

To serve
4 Middle Eastern flatbreads
1 red onion, thinly sliced
200g Greek yoghurt
1 lemon, cur into wedges

Place the lamb, salt, onion. spices & coriander in a food processor and whiz until well blended. Using wet hands, shape the mixture into 20 meatballs & cook over hot coals or in a non stick frypan for 10 minutes, turning frequently until well browned.

Warm the flatbreads for 1-2 minutes on each side until softened & warmed through.

Serve the flatbread with onion scattered over, a dollop of yoghurt, meatballs & roll up.

Griddled Eggplant with fetta, mint & chilli

Today I’m having Michaels family over for a bbq & to start with I thought I would try out these little morsels from Nigella Lawson’s Forever Summer that I have heard so many good things about.

The recipe calls for a large bunch of fresh mint which luckily I have growing in my courtyard no thanks to me. It initially grew on it’s own & every year I cut it back as it tries to take over the garden & just keep a little patch to use for cooking. I love the fact that I can just pop out the back door to take a cutting whenever I need, and Mint is so versatile, it can be used in sweet, savoury & even drink recipes, you gotta love it. You can see in the picture how it’s growing very heartily amongst my lobelia against the back wall! So this recipe is my entry this weekend for Weekend Herb Blogging, hosted by Pat at Up a Creek without a Patl this round.

I have to say these are absolutely yummy, I could have eaten them all if it wasn't for the fact that I had a mamoth bbq waiting for me. The strong taste of the eggplant went really well with the salty, creamy cheese & the mint & chilli just set the whole thing off, really easy to prepare too. One hint too, I was very cautious with the filling & eneded up hacing some leftover so stuff them full.

Griddled Eggplant with fetta, mint & chilli

2 large eggplants, each cut thinly. Lengthways, into about 10 slices
4 tablespoons olive oil
250g fetta cheese
1 large red chilli, finely chopped, deseeded or not, depending on how much heat you want
Large bunch fresh mint, finely chopped, with some saved for sprinkling over at the end
Juice of 1 lemon
Black pepper

Preheat the barbecue or griddle to a high heat
Brush both sides of the eggplant slices with the oil, and cook them for about 2 minutes each side until golden & tender
Crumble the fetta into a bowl & stir in the chilli, mint & lemon juice and grind in some black pepper. Pile the end third of each slice with a heaped teaspoon of the mixture & roll each slice up as you go to form a soft, stuffed bundle.
Place joint side down on a plate & sprinkle with a little more mint.

Makes 20 rolls

Sweet & Sour Pork

Last week I made this dish from Kylie Kwong’s Simple Chinese Cooking. The sauce was absolutely fantastic, the fresh ingredients work a treat & the flavours were beautiful, fresh & delicate. On the pork however I need some practice, I have no clue how to deep fry! I suspect I didn’t heat my oil high enough before I started so the end result was still tasty but not crisp, golden & luscious as promised. It’s funny you would think that deep frying would be the easiest cooking method of all but because I have always steered away from it, you know, too much fat, etc, I am way behind on this technique. Anyway the flavours were there & lots more recipes to perfect my technique on yet!

Sweet and Sour Pork

1 ½ tablespoons cornflour
1 tablespoon cold water
2 x 300g pork neck fillets, cut in half lengthways and then into bite sized pieces on the diagonal
2 egg yolks, lightly beaten
3 teaspoons light soy sauce
2 teaspoons sesame oil
1 teaspoon sea salt
¼ cup plain flour
¼ cup cornflour
vegetable oil, for deep frying

Sweet and Sour Sauce

¼ small ripe pineapple, peeled
1 small carrot, peeled
1 small cucumber, peeled
¾ cup malt vinegar
5 tablespoons shao hsing wine or dry sherry
½ cup white sugar
1 teaspoons seal salt, extra
4 garlic cloves, crushed
2 tablespoons ginger, julienne
½ medium sized yellow pepper, julienned
2 small tomatoes, finely sliced
2 tablespoons light soy sauce

Blend cornflour with water in a bowl until dissolved. Add pork, egg yolks, soy sauce, sesame oil & salt and mix well. Cover & leave to marinate in the fridge overnight.

To make the sauce, remove core from pineapple & finely slice into pieces. Using a vegetable peeler, finely slice carrot lengthways into ribbons. Cut cucumber in half, slice on the diagonal & set aside, together with carrot & pineapple.

Place vinegar, wine or sherry, sugar & extra salt in a medium heavy-based saucepan & stir over high heat until sugar dissolves. Bring to the boil, add garlic, ginger, reduce heat & simmer, uncovered for 10 minutes. Add pineapple, carrot, cucumber, pepper & tomato & simmer for a further 3 minutes or until pineapple is tender & tomato has broken down slightly. Stir in soy sauce, remove from stove & set aside.

Combine plain flour & extra cornflour. Add the pork & mix well. Heat vegetable oil in a hot wok until surface seems to shimmer slightly. Deep fry pork in batches over high heat for 1 minute, then reduce heat to medium & fry for another 2 minutes, or until pork is almost cooked through. Remove & drain on absorbent paper. Gently reheat sauce. Return all pork to the hot wok & deep fry for a further 3 minutes, or until lightly browned, crispy & cooked through. Remove & drain well on paper. Serve with sauce.

White Chocolate & Berry Muffins

When I saw these luscious sounding muffins on Exclusively Food, I knew I just had to make them soon. I used strawberries as they were readily available, next time would like to try with either raspberries or blueberries or combinations of all 3. They were absolutlely delicious straight out of the oven. However I must warn you I spooned the batter straight into a greased muffin tin instead of lining with patty cases & when I tried to tip them out there was a bit of a mess, ie breakage. Luckily not all of them fell apart & I quickly prised the rest out carefully with a knife, so I think I would go the cases next time. Absolutely drool worthy as promised.

White Chocolate & Berry Muffins

Fresh or frozen berries can be used. If using frozen berries, add them to the mixture while they are still frozen.

Makes 12 muffins.

320g (2 cups) self-raising flour
148g (2/3 cup) caster sugar
1 cup chopped white chocolate
2 teaspoons lemon juice
250ml (1 cup) milk
125ml (1/2 cup) mild vegetable oil
1 large egg
200g berries

Preheat oven to 170 degrees Celsius (fan forced). Line a muffin tray with 12 muffin cases.Mix self-raising flour, caster sugar and white chocolate together in large bowl.Whisk lemon juice, milk, oil and egg in a medium bowl until combined. Gently stir in berries.Gently stir wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Stop stirring once the ingredients are combined (do not over mix). The batter should be quite wet.Spoon mixture into muffin cases. Bake for 22 to 25 minutes. To check whether muffins are cooked, press lightly on the centre of a muffin; if it springs back, it's ready.

Serve muffins warm or at room temperature, dusted with icing sugar. Muffins can be reheated in the microwave. They are best eaten on the day they are baked.

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.