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!

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!