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!

Bibimbap

This is incredible comfort food, and yet it is healthy. The best of both worlds!

It's a korean dish called Bibimbap. Ingredients can vary from restaurant to restaurant. In my version, I added: sushi rice topped with stir fried beef, shitake mushrooms, matchstick carrot sticks, finely sliced nori, wilted baby spinach and sesame seeds. Lastly a fried egg is placed on top, and the dish is served with a glass of miso soup and hot chilli sauce to add to taste. Then, the fun part begins; you mash it all together, add the chilli sauce, and eat.

It's very much a dish influenced by Japanese flavours. In most restaurants you can order it with either a fried or raw egg. In the version with the raw egg, the dish is served in a hot stone bowl, so that the heat cooks the raw egg as you mix it through. The best thing I love about this dish is, it's tasty and contains only a small portion of meat with a large amount of vegetables, which is why I call it healthy :)

The perfect food for a hot day

Caramel Semifreddo.


It's an Italian frozen dessert, much like ice cream but in my opinion a lot easier to make. Very much appreciated on such a hot day like today :)

I got this particular recipe from Donna Hay, and for anyone who likes caramel I highly recommend you give it a go, it's delish! I forgot to buy pecans so I didn't make the salted maple pecans, although I can imagine they would match perfectly, after all salted caramel is a match made in heaven:


http://www.donnahay.com.au/CatalogueRetrieve.aspx?ProductID=2560990&A=SearchResult&SearchID=2035835&ObjectID=2560990&ObjectType=27


I've got my eye on a raspberry and nougat semifreddo recipe for Christmas (although knowing me I'll change my menu many times over until it's just right :p)

Fresh bread anyone?

Recently I've been paying careful attention to amount of salt that is in packaged and processed foods, and the long story short is - we are eating WAY too much salt in our daily diets.

 I was surprised to discover that most breads contain a ridiculous amount of salt. So with this in mind, I've been endeavoring to make my own bread, not to mention reduce the amount of packaged and processed foods in my daily diet.


This has been a very rewarding project and while the thought of kneading dough can appear a cumbersome process, it is actually quiet therapeutic and once you get the knack of it, the task gets easier to do.

One important tip I can provide is to make sure you use a strong '00' flour, usually referred to as bread or pizza flour. If you use regular flour, the bread can turn out doughy in the middle.

Thus far I've cooked a cob loaf and focaccia, all with minimal salt and using a good quality organic flour. The smell of baking bread whafting through the house is well worth it.

Its been a while

Wow, what a busy few weeks, haven't had time to cook let alone blog!


I've been occupied with birthdays (including mine), parties, drinking, eating, and going to fancy degustations. With more busy times to come - Melbourne trip followed by a drive up to the Hunter Valley for a Cold Chisel concert.

This has been the first quiet weekend for a while, and I spent it playing my new Simpsons trivia game (birthday present from a very special friend) and to continue the Simpsons theme making donuts... with chocolate sauce... from scratch. Aren't I clever?


I can't believe it's almost the end of October. Time to start thinking about my Christmas dinner menu!


(There will be plenty of posts to come, I promise!)

More Souffle!

This souffle recipe is totally different to other souffles I've made in the past. I basically made a toffee out of caster sugar, cream of tartar, and a little water, then gradually whisked this into soft-peak whipped egg whites, beating well in between each addition. The result? Honeycomb Souffles! It actually tasted like fluffy, soft, honeycomb - delsih

Floating Islands and a teacake

Through my cooking hobby I just keep on learning new cooking techniques. I never knew that one could poach a meringue, but you can! While the meringue itself is low fat, the traditional recipe serves them on a bed of cream anglaise (a.k.a fatty fat fat), however this version is the hip-friendly version served on a raspberry 'cream' (a.k.a low fat vanilla yoghurt blended with raspberries).

However, in the name of balancing things out, I also baked a caramel-almond teacake... I didn't eat it though, my lovely work colleagues got to enjoy this one, and I have stumbled a easy peesy caramel icing recipe in the process.

More lamb!

I missed a week with my blogging, but in my defence I was sick last weekend, and I've been busy enjoying the beginning of spring. 


Although it's not so sunny today and the wind is playing up my hayfever, hence the blogging!


Nonetheless, I did end up cooking a pretty awesome cake: Hazelnut and chocolate meringue cake. A rich chocolate-hazelnut mud cake base with a chocolatey meringue layer on top. And it was served with chocolate sauce, which admittedly looks a bit like gravy in the picture... 






And last nights dinner: Coriander-crusted lamb with mash potato. It's a Donna Hay recipe and I highly recommend it. Made me realise that my oven is a bit temperamental, the last time I cooked lamb racks it took 20 minutes in my oven and they were perfectly medium-rare, however last night it needed 30 minutes, go figure? Delicious though, the coriander crust was a winner ;)

I think I just fell in love...

.... with a low fat dessert ;)

When I don't have plans on a Friday night, I love cooking up something yummy so I can enjoy the leftovers. Plus, while I love entertaining, cooking by myself means there's no pressure to get the meal cooked to a set time and I save money. Although, Billie can get pretty demanding with the requests for scrapes...


 In line with my diet regime (which I am proud to say, the weight is still falling off), I cooked 'low fat' recipes. I say 'low fat' because while they are healthy and diet friendly, I most certainly do not feel like I'm missing out. 


So what did I cook? Beef, red wine and mushroom pot pies and steamed chocolate puddings with chocolate sauce. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the pot pies (after all, it's my favourite: slow cooked beef in a red wine sauce with the added benefit of a flaky pastry layer on top) but, I was most impressed with the dessert. Seriously, if I didn't know it was low fat, I would have easily been convinced that it was not hip-friendly (it was that good!).

Lamb.

Another week, another kilo lost :) Billie (my cat) discovered the joys of catnip this weekend. Cats I've had in the past weren't interested in it, but I witnessed first hand the effects catnip can have on a cat. He was smelling it, rolling in it, eating it, and blissfully lying in the middle of the floor, occasionally playing with his tail for the best part of the weekend. He was most definitely in a happy place. On the plus side, he didn't attack my feet during my sleep once!


After a not so great week at work, I decided lamb would be the best comfort food (seeing as the catnip has no effect on me :p). Slow, slow, slow roasted lamb served with skordalia. This lamb was virtually falling apart after 4 hours in the oven, definite comfort food. I decided to cook a Greek-style dish this weekend, which is what I had originally planned to cook for the girls weekend in the Blue Mountains. Skordalia is a basically a potato puree with lemon juice and garlic, I guess you can call it a dip and it went well with the lamb, which was seasoned with garlic, lemon and oregano.


And for dessert? Crepes with caramel apples. Note to self: hot caramel burns like crazy! A teeny tiny drop touched my finger, and it hurt like crazy... Fingers crossed for a better week to come :)

And just one more for the weekend

Cupcakes: I won't actually be allowing myself to eat any of these but I promised my team at work that I would be baking something for them this weekend, so I've delivered on this promise with chocolate cupcakes with vanilla icing (and sprinkles ;))

More weekend cooking....

This post outlines my 'treat' for the weekend (a treat for having lost weight this week):

- Plum pork dumplings
- Caramel chicken with pickled cucumber

I love the concept of sweet caramel and sour sauces in savoury food, especially in Asian style dishes, and teamed up with the pickled cucumber really lightened the dish, and adds that important crunch element. And on reflection, this dish is actually pretty healthy - Winning!

The plum pork dumplings I actually made up myself. I basically made a dumpling mixture of pork mince, plum sauce, finely chopped garlic, and grated ginger. I then folded the mixture into some gow gee wrappers and cooked them gyoza style (fried in a pan for a couple of minutes to crisp up the base, then added some water, whacked the lid on and let them stream for 2-3 minutes more to cook the filling and the rest of the dumpling).

Wintery weekend

Well, the weather this weekend has not been too spectacular. After some beautiful days during the week, the weekend was grey and dismal.


I've been dieting this week (trying to lose the weight I packed on during last weekend's eating efforts! :p), and I'm proud to say the meals in the post are indeed diet friendly, and more importantly winter friendly:


Slow braised lamb shanks with mushroom ragout, and panna cotta with cinnamon cherries.


The panna cotta melted a little bit, as you can see from the picture, but that was because I had to dip the moulds in hot water to get the panna cotta out, and unfortunately because the panna cotta, being low fat, was primarily low fat milk, low fat yoghurt and gelatine, it melted quicker then the full fat versions I've made in the past, but - wow, it tasted just as good as the real thing and the cherry sauce was delicious (it was basically a jar of cherries simmered in their juices with a cinnamon quill until the sauce reduced, and it was then cooled in the fridge). And of course, who doesn't like slow cooked lamb shanks.... diet? what diet?

A weekend in the Blue Mountains

Last weekend some of the family and I ventured to the Blue Mountains. I must say, I was thankful for my smart phone and its GPS function as the planned route to get to the Blue Mountains couldn't be taken due to a complete road blockage on the Great Western Highway. So my trusty GPS took me via the back roads - on the Birds view line of road, which was very hilly and windy, and FULL of trucks trying to also find their way to the Blue Mountains. Very scary trip, as the trucks were traveling along at full speed on a rather small road. But I made it in the end to Blackheath in the end, and lets just say my family knows how to eat! I would like to travel via that road in not so busy times again though, there was stacks of apple orchards where you could pick your own apples, not to mention lots of apple pies for sale.


I cooked dinner on the Friday night, which went down quiet nicely (I think). I stuck to a relatively simple (and yes, French again!) menu considering I was cooking for 15 people. The menu was:

- Beef Bourguignon
- Ratatoullie 
- Potato and onion gratin
- Garlicky green beans
- Apple and cinnamon Clafoutis (for dessert).


I'm not one to normally include recipes in my blog, mainly because the thought of typing out the recipe doesn't intrigue me ;) but the Garlicky green beans were easy peasy: green beans blanched in salted boiling water for 5 minutes, drain them, then return the beans to the pan and add butter and crushed garlic, then toss until the butter has melted.


On the Saturday some of us went for a drive to Katoomba and we had the most delicious brunch (including scones with jam and cream) at the Paragon cafe. Very cute cafe :)


Then Saturday night my lovely cousins cooked a Christmas dinner (that's Christmas in July), with lashings or roast meat and vegies plus trifle and pumpkin pie for dessert. Sunday morning was followed by a huge fry up of all the left over food, and then it was time to venture home (this time at least via the Great Western Highway which was a blissful drive in comparison to drive in :p).


Thanks to the family for a great weekend and I genuinely hope we can do it all again next year xx

Cheers!

The French theme continues...

Given that Tour de France is on at the moment, I decided to continue the French theme this week, seeing as I stayed up late to watch it....


Main course: Moules Marinieres, which is basically steamed mussels in a creamy, buttery sauce of white wine, parsley and garlic, traditionally served with whole egg mayonnaise, crusty bread, hot chips and an iced cold beer. I served it with all of these accompaniments except for the beer, I decided that a nice glass of white wine was much better, seeing as I was already cooking with it. I was a little worried because by the time I got to the seafood shop they didn't have any small black mussels left, so as you can see from the picture I had to use the larger green mussels, which I actually preferred because they were a lot more meaty. Scrubbing and de-breading the mussels was well worth it. 


Dessert: Chocolate Creme Brulée. One word: heavenly.


As you can see from the picture, it was enjoyed with a game of scrabble. I lost by one point :( Perhaps I was distracted by the heavenly dessert? Or maybe, as usual, it was the wine's fault ;)

Happy Bastille Day!

My status update on facebook telling my friends what I planned to cook for dinner tonight in aid of Bastille Day has received much approval.


Further, I have determined that it is my friends distracting me from taking photos of my food, because I am home alone on this cold Canberra night drinking wine (and eating brie with fresh sourdough bread - just thought I'd thrown that in for effect) and as you can see, I have managed to take the all important photos.


So what did I cook? Provençal chicken with salad and sourdough with vanilla poached pears for dessert. The chicken is a winner, it melts in the mouth and who doesn't like poached pears with fresh cream!

Last weekend...

So it's a bit late to be reporting on last weeks cooking adventure, I know. Unfortunately work was really busy this week, and I'm preparing for an interview to make my promotion permanent, so I've been a tad bit preoccupied.


Plus, to make things worse, I forgot to take the all important pictures!!! I really, really, really need to stop drinking wine while I cook dinner, because as soon as my awesome friends arrive I forget to capture the image of my awesome food.


Nonetheless, last weekend I took on a bit of an Italian theme so I cooked:

• Starters: Tomato and basil bruschetta
• Main: Slow braised chicken in white wine with creamy polenta
• Sides: Mozzarella and tomato pasta bake and a green salad, and
• Dessert: Italian potato donuts with chocolate sauce

(Plus a few too many bottles of vino :p)

Yes, that's right - I made donuts from scratch. Very impressed with myself and my friends ate every last bit of it. They were even scraping the last of the hot chocolate sauce out of the bowl. Very fun dinner, evident by the fact that we were too busy eating to take pictures...

Macaron Mayhem

So, you've probably been wondering what I've been up to as I haven't posted anything for over a week. Well, besides last weeks failure to get a photo of my top deck milk chocolate and white chocolate mousse, I've been consumed with making macarons.


It all started with a recipe book that I just had to buy in Wheel & Barrow, entitled 'Secrets of Macarons'. When I embarked on this project I was well aware of the temperamental recipe that is the macaron, but I can now say I have lived it. Over mixed batters, too much liquid, sticking to the baking paper, not rising properly, bubbles in the middle, and over cooking. Nonetheless I've been determined to get the perfect crispy light macaron, with the correct 'rise' to the get the crumply little feet on the base of the macaron with a flat top.


And..... after about $50 worth of eggs and almond meal, I have finally got some picture worthy macarons. Admittedly, they are not perfect and I still need to tailor the cooking time to my oven, but I'm pretty happy with the results. I've stuck to plain vanilla macarons with a white chocolate ganache filling for now, and in the coming weeks and months I will venture into a rainbow assortment, I'm sure ;)

Friday, Friday, getting down on Friday...

Fried Friday is always my favorite day of the week, mainly because as the name suggests, it's the start of the weekend celebrated with food. 


I've been eating soup for lunch and dinner all week, which is nice in winter, but Fried Friday started with a fresh cinnamon donut this morning (one of my colleagues practically forced me to eat it!) and tonight, I made red wine and parmesan cheese risotto with goats cheese. It is really, really, really good and really, really, really easy to make. I'm very impressed with the results. I can confidently say I have mastered the art of a creamy risotto.

Last week's cupcakes

I cooked these cupcakes last week, but with the long weekend and a busy week at work I've only just round to posting them!


I've made cupcakes millions of times before, but they are always picture worthy. Vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream icing = classic.

Souffle Success!

This is a very quick post, primarily just to brag.


This is the second time I have attempted to make a souffle, with the first time time being a miserable failure. While it tasted good, it didn't rise very well. However, my second attempt was a fabulous and equally delicious success; Hot Raspberry Souffle (yay! it worked)

Bombay Beef is the bomb

As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, this week's adventure was an Indian dinner party. 


I cooked butter chicken, bombay beef and yellow lentil dahl served with naan bread, poppadums, cucumber and mint raita, and mango chutney, finished off with chai tea. The chutney, naan and poppadums were store bought of course (not enough time to knead dough etc. on a Friday night!), but I'm actually pretty proud of the curries and the chai - all made from scratch and I now have a food cupboard full of spices and a home that smells of spices and curry. 

My mates said it was all full of flavour, and there were no left overs; I guess that's always a good sign ;) India isn't a country I would particularly want to visit, mainly because I don't like crowds and I don't think I could stand to see the poverty. However, I do like Indian food and will never bother buying Indian sauces in a jar ever again, the results of making it yourself are tenfold more flavorsome. 


I'm going to take this opportunity to warn my readers to expect to see a  LOT of European food over the coming months. I have decided to go to Europe in 2012, for my *cough* 30th birthday - England, France, Spain, Italy, and Greece are all on the list. Let the saving begin!
 

Ad lib chicken satay skewers

I know this post doesn't entirely conform to my blog, in so far that this isn't exactly a new recipe that I haven't made before, but I was quiet pleased with the results and I've never served my satay sauce with chicken skewers before. 


Further, this wasn't exactly a recipe. So I entitle this dish my ad lib chicken satay skewers. I marinated some chicken tenderloins in a soy sauce, honey and turmeric sauce, threaded the chicken onto some skewers and baked them.


Moving onto the satay sauce, I don't have a recipe for that either. It contains a mix of ingredients that I basically mix to taste. At the risk of sounding like my late great-Nanna Nelly with her caramel tart recipe that she took to the grave, 'you just know' the recipe by heart. No one in the family has been able to match the perfect melt in the mouth pastry that she used to make copious amounts of ever since!


Billie loved this dish too. I've never seen a cat go so crazy over chicken before. He now has a full belly and is crashed out in the middle of the couch.

Evil Chocolate

This batch of brownies cost $30! They are triple chocolate and raspberry brownies. That's dark chocolate, white chocolate, and milk chocolate. I must say they are so rich I struggled to eat a 3cm square brownie piece, but they are decadently delicious. Very dense, mud cake consistency with crunchy chocolate pieces in every bite with the occasional burst of raspberries. They go down well warmed up in the microwave and served with ice cream ;)


I will definitely be taking these into work tomorrow, otherwise they'll go to waste (as I will be on a salad diet all week trying to work these off!).


Which leads me to next weeks project - I will be having a few friends around for an Indian dinner party. Not sure what I'm going to cook yet, but suffice to say it will be slow cooked, spicy and warming...

First stop - Vietnam

With the 'predicted' rapture and the coming of the zombies been and gone, aside from that it was a beautiful sunny weekend in Canberra with 18 degree days and night temperatures that didn't tip below zero, which is a rarity for this time of the year! I spent my weekend just hanging out with friends - dinner, drinks and general stupidity. 

After a weekend of eating and drinking too much, it was nice to finish it off with a light, fresh and healthy meal. Vietnamese always achieves these objectives, so I decided to cook Ca kho to - or caramel tamarind salmon and I will definitely be cooking this recipe again. It was dead easy to cook, yet highly impressive. Juicy salmon pieces coated in a sticky, sweet sauce - yum!

Oh, and for good measure, I also cooked a gingerbread cake with walnuts and a lemon glaze. Hope all my work mates enjoy this one tomorrow :)

I have no idea what I will be cooking next weekend yet, so stay tuned...


Renee

My first post ;)

I've taken this opportunity to create a blog on my cooking adventures. I know this seems terribly cliche, but cooking has been a hobby of mine since I was a child and, much to my modesty, I have become quiet good at it (even if I do say so myself!). And, what better way then to join the internet craze and share my cooking ventures in a blog...


I thought for my first post I would take the opportunity to explain what cooking means to me. As I stated above cooking has long been my hobby, however in recent years cooking has developed into so much more - it is an adventure that can take you to any place in the world instantly, right at home in your kitchen. I love nothing more than inviting my close friends and family around for dinner, and trying new cuisines and recipes. Imagine it; an Italian or Moroccan adventure without the need to travel halfway around the world.


Don't get me wrong I love traveling, but cooking is the poor man's adventure ;) I recently went to the US and the one moment that I will never forget is devouring a slice of New York pizza, in Times Square on New Years Eve....


Every week, my aim will be to post the successes and tribulations of my cooking adventures and I hope this will make for interesting reading.


Thanks for taking the time to read.
Renee :)