From Mexico to Spain

Tapas are a great Friday night dinner when hanging out with friends and they go really well with beer and cider.

My tapas were seafood Tapas: Garlic prawns, squid with a garlic and lemon aioli, olives, and scallops with chorio. All served together with crusty fresh bread. People are always impressed with seafood, no matter how easy it was to prepare ;)

And for a special friends birthday, I whipped up a cake too - Caramel meringue layer cake. I like how I casually say I whipped it up, but it looked really impressive. Two caramel mud cakes, each topped with a merigue layer and sandwiched together with whipped cream and caramel sauce. Yummmm.

Mexicana

When I ventured into the idea of a Mexican dinner party, my aim was to disperse the idea of dishes overloaded with lashings of sour cream, grated cheese and store-bought salsa's.


The fact is, Mexican food, which gave the world the chilli and cocoa bean (which fuels my glorious chocolate addiction) is fun, vibrant, fresh and healthy and not at all like the dairy loaded dishes that supermarket products and takeaway places would have you believe.


My menu consisted of:

- Chillies Rellenos: chargrilled banana chillies stuffed and roasted with a sweet potato and goats cheese mix


- Fish tacos: crispy skin fish marinated in lime juice, chilli, coriander and garlic served with soft tortillas, crispy lettuce and a lime and coriander yoghurt sauce.


- Chicken mole: chicken braised in a spicy tomato and chocolate sauce (yes, chocolate in a savoury dish)


- Bunuelos: Mexico's version of the churro, traditionally eaten at Christmas time and served with a spiced syrup of cinnamon and fennel seeds

Wow! Who would have thought that chocolate would go so well in a savoury dish. Although, I must admit that patience is needed to cook Chicken mole, there are minimal steps but time is needed to cook down the sauce, but it's well worth the wait. 


Firstly a stock is made of coriander root, chicken pieces and onion. The stock is strained, discarding the onion with the stock used in the sauce base which is served with the chicken. The sauce consists of a dark 80% cocoa chocolate (if Mexican chocolate cannot be sourced) which is melted into a spicy tomato blend of tin tomatoes, dried chillies, sesame seeds, cumin, paprika, ground cloves and all spice. The dried chillies give this dish a kick, so it's not to be eaten by weaklings who can't handle a bit of spice ;)


All in all a fun and succesful dinner party that explored a new notion of Mexican food - time to sit back and enjoy a few Corona's I think ;)

An ode to Australia

Australia Day - celebrating being Aussie with football, meatpies, kangaroos and Holden cars (some song lyrics in case you're wondering).


Of course I celebrated with a BBQ, friends, and beer. Nothing like the taste of a charcoal burnt sausage.


Other must haves on Australia Day are cricket and the triple j hottest 100 countdown. If you not doing one or all of these thinhs you're simply not fair dinkum. Neither the BBQ, Australian cricket team nor the number one song by Gotye disappointed.


I also made a few other iconic Australian delicacies: Prawn cocktails and the Pavlova (New Zealand may try claim it but Australia's story behind the Pav is more believable - and I'm not biased at all).


Prawn Cocktails are cooked, peeled prawns mixed with cocktail sauce and served on a bed of shredded ice berg lettuce usually in a cocktail glass. For my cocktail sauce I mix a good egg mayonaise with a dash of tomato sauce, tobassco, and lemon juice. Easy peasy and very retro.

And I have to say it, I'm mighty proud of my pav, made from scratch and it held its shape. Served simply with whipped cream, strawberries, kiwi fruit and passionfruit.

Summer Lovin'

This summer, in Canberra at least, hasn't exactly been a quintessential summer. Too much cloud, too much rain, a blanket is still required to sleep at night, and even worse a jacket is often required when heading out to Pub Friday.


So, when we had about 5 days in a row of sticky, humid, heat I took advantage of it. I made ice cream, granita, and gelato - the only thing I didn't make was sorbet! (to which I have added lemon sorbet to my list of things to make). I also hung out at the pool in my apartment complex, but I am ashamed to say that my legs remain lily-white, a fate that I fear will endure into the near future.


The sunshine also woke up my strawberry plants, and eversince I've been picking a handful of teeny, tiny berries daily.

Ice cream and gelato aren't too hard to make without an ice cream machine, it just means that you have to be vigulount with beating the mixture as it initially freezes, 2 or 3 times every half an hour or so, otherwise the mixture forms ice crystals and won't produce that creamy, silky texture.


My personal favourite was the balsamic strawberry ice cream, but then I go to Macdonald's purely because I have a soft spot for strawberry thickshakes. This ice cream had a sweet, tangy flavour, was just delicious, and easy to make. Basically I macerated about 400g of strawberries with 1/4 cup of balsamic vinegar for 20 minutes, then bitzed it in the food processor and chilled the mixture for 2 hours to allow it to macerate some more. I then whipped 3 cups of cream to soft peaks and folded the cream into the berry mixture. The next obvious step was to place the mixture in the freezer, blending the mixture every half an hour or so (when the mixture freezes at the edges), repeating the process 2 or 3 times, then allow to freeze completely.


The favourite of my friends has been the chocolate gelato and it was a close second for me too. For this one, I pretty much made a dark chocolate custard mixture. I was tossing up between the chocolate gelato or a cinnamon gelato, but chocolate won. (And, as with the lemon sorbet, the cinnamon gelato is on the list to make in future).


We were all a fan of the cafe granita, it tasted like an icy cold, slushy-like iced coffee, especially with a dollop of coffee cream. Next time, I will make sure I have some choc-coated coffee beans to scatter on top. Oh, and some waffle cones for the ice cream and gelato ;)


Alas, the warm weather is hiding again. It's Sunday, cloudy outside and I'm rocking at home in tracksuit pants and a jumper. I'm waiting for the rain the start, as the clouds look ominous. Perfect napping weather though.

Christmas Dinner!

I know I'm a bit late writing about my Christmas dinner, but in my defence I was busy cooking, eating and partying. But, rest assured I cooked up a storm.


And what a kitchen to cook up a storm in. My parents recently moved into a new house, and for those of you who haven't heard about the new house's infamous kitchen here is a picture:

It's a full-on industrial size kitchen. On the right hand side you can see the oven, which easily cooked the entire Christmas dinner, a 6 burner gas stove top, and a professional wok burner. I'm afraid to go near the wok burner, it apparently cooks food in 30 seconds flat and sounds like a jet engine when the gas burner is lit :p You will also see heat lamps hanging from the ceiling, to keep food warm while you plate up.I

I stuck to a very traditional Christmas dinner theme this year, cooking what I know and doing it well. Luckily the weather wasn't sticky hot this year, so the thought of cooking a hot meal for 10 people on a hot summer's day wasn't as daunting as it has been in previous years. 

My speciality vegetables which I cook every year, and in fact I cook whenever I make a roast are: crispy roast potatoes (my upmost speciality), garlicky green beans, and balsamic glazed carrots. One tip I have about cooking is: make sure you can cook something well and that you can cook it easily without any thought. I know these vegies will turn out perfect every time, no questions.

Of course I cooked a turkey and I made white wine gravy from scratch. And what Christmas dinner would it be without a ham? Redcurrant and balsamic glazed ham that is. This glaze was the best I've ever made, the recipe contains a jar of redcurrant jelly, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar, and 1 teaspoon of peppercorns. These ingredients were cooked slowly at first, to melt the sugar and jelly, and then simmered for 5 minutes until the mixture became syrupy and thickens slightly, the mixture is then strained with the peppercorns discarded. I basted the ham every 20 minutes with the glaze and it was cooked for about an hour and a half. 

And for dessert, I made a classic trifle. First trifle I had ever made, and I really like the dramatic effect the trifle has with so little effort. My trifle had a layer of strawberry jelly with berries mixed through, chocolate custard, jam rolls soaked in sherry, fresh cream and berries on top.

The short story is, we couldn't stop eating the ham, my uncle took home a LARGE helping of potatoes he loves them that much (and no one else seems to be able to replicate them), and there weren't many leftovers. All signs of a successful Christmas dinner!

My Christmas Gift Bags

Even if I do say so myself, my Christmas gift bags were a great success. Not only were my family and close friends appreciative of the thought and time taken to make the bags, but they couldn't stop raving about my cooking. Mission accomplished in my book :)



In addition to the little christmas fruit cakes I had cooked earlier, I also made some traditional shortbread which my family ate like a bag of potato chips - by the handful and they couldn't stop eating it. I think I made three batches just for them!


Perhaps the most popular item was my White Christmas. I've been making this since I was about 12 and it's the easiest thing to make. I'm not exaggerating when I say that every person who I watched take their first mouthful paused and closed their eyes enjoying the taste. 


White Christmas funnily enough contains rice bubbles and like its famous relative, chocolate crackles, also contains copha which is melted to bind all the dry ingredients together. However unlike chocolate crackles, White Christmas does not contain chocolate (although I do spread a layer of white chocolate on top of the slice once it's set - my personal touch). In traditional Christmas style, White Christmas contains mixed dried fruit, glace cherries and coconut. Milk powder is added to give an extra creamy taste and icing sugar for extra sweetness plus it also helps the mixture to set. Press the mix into the mould and set in the fridge for a couple of hours, then cut into squares.


I also made rum balls, a classic christmas treat. For a special touch I tossed the rum balls in three different coatings: chocolate sprinkles, coconut, and biscuit crumbs. The trio of rum balls looked impressive when wrapped in cellophane, with the chocolate coated, coconut coated, and biscuit coated balls looking rather colourful. My rum balls were extra 'rummy', I went a bit heavy handed with the rum but they tasted good ;)

And last but not least, I made salted caramel fudge. This one was my personal favourite. Very rich, only a small portion was needed at a time, and yet it was very addictive. This fudge went spectacularly with a cup of coffee. My tip was to take a bite of fudge, a sip of coffee and then let the coffee melt the fudge in my mouth. Yum!

Merry Christmas!

Well, the first of December has come and with it comes the time to put up the Christmas tree and start the Christmas party season.


With the work Christmas party out of the way (with a very dusty hang over to follow), the tree is officially up and my Christmas gift baking has begun. Each year I make numerous gift bags filled with various baked treats, and this year is no exception.


The first recipe on my list for this years baking are mini Christmas fruit cakes. I decided to cook friand size cakes and I couldn't resist placing a heart shaped piece of marzipan icing on each one (the icing was store bought). Stay tuned for more Christmas baking to come!