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 ;))