I'm hungry too

Sausage Rolls

2012-02-09T13:34:00.006+11:00

Sausage rolls always take me back to memories of high school lunch. My best friend and I would always split our lunch in half and share it. I would bring a chicken, lettuce and mayo sandwich while she would buy a sausage roll from the canteen. We still laugh at the thought now when we go out to eat and buy something we both like and share it, optimising on variety :) Only a select few really get me.

So now that I'm all grown up, I like to try and make my own, although they really don't compare to the ones we use to get. I miss that greasy over processed meat and onion (yes I could see the onions in them back then, which was probably the only "good" thing in them), but yes I have come a long way since then.

Sausage Rolls
Ingredients
250g chicken mince
250g pork mince
teaspoon oregano
teaspoon parsley
1 carrot (grated)
1 onion (grated)
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
tablespoon worcestershire sauce
salt and pepper
2 squares of puff pastry
egg wash, chia seeds (optional)

Method

1. Bung all the ingredients in a large bowl (except for the pastry, egg wash and chia seeds) and mix it really well

2. Cut each pastry sheet in half. Spoon mixture into the centre of the cut pastry and shape it as you go to look like a long sausage (you should get about 5-6 long rolls)

3. Fold over the pastry, wetting it with water so it sticks better, and cut it into thirds

4. Place them seam side down, brush eggwash over the top and sprinkle with chia seeds.

Cook at 180 degrees for around 40mins

Gotta be quick, see those little fingers at the top coming for the rolls?

Christmas 2011

2012-01-08T14:25:00.017+11:00

Round 2 Christmas was at our house so that means another 3 recipes to share with you.

First is a very easy trifle recipe. Forget baking the sponge! Or cooking up the custard! Time is of the essence and I had turkey, stuffing, salad, roast pork and potato bake to worry about as well. I really didn't need to add more to my list to do. So yeah, I went with the bought sponge and custard. Come to think of it, I never make custard. The carton stuff I find is always better...hmmmmm could just be my cooking.....anyway, onto the recipe, like this post isn't long-winded enough.....

Easy Peasy Trifle

Ingredients

Packet sponge fingers (or a jam roll would be really yummy too)

2 packets of straweberry jelly

Carton of custard

1 or 2 cans of diced peaches and pears (get whatever fruit you prefer)

600ml cream

Half a block of chocolate

Method

1. Place a single layer of the sponge at the bottom of the bowl

2. Make jelly as per instructions on the box and pour the cooled jelly over the sponge fingers. Place in the fridge to set (around 4 hours or overnight just to get some of it out of the way)
3. After the jelly has set, squirt the custard over it

4. Next goes the fruit
5. Followed by the whipped cream (forgot to photograph both these steps)

6. To finish off, shave/grate chocolate on the top
(We ended up using 2 bars of flake and crumpled them)
Seriously with this dessert, anything goes!

The second recipe is another dessert. Yeah one wasn't enough....(however, the trifle was so easy it doesn't really count)
We decided to make creme caramel because it's one that can be made the day before and it can set in the fridge, again it's all about managing your time on Christmas day isn't it?

I went with this recipe.

Dissolving the sugar and water in saucepan

Getting thicker

After about....13mins boiling you get the caramel.
It's not really a caramel though is it? More a toffee no?

First goes the caramel into your tin (in my case I used a quiche dish)
If you have a flan dish, go with that. And MAKE SURE you check that it fits into one of the trays in the baine marie water bath thingy, not like me. I ended up trying to fit it into a paella pan in the oven. And then found out the paella pan was too large for my oven. All this after I'd put the boiling water in and everything....grrr

Cooking the milk and vanilla

Beat eggs and sugar

Pour the milk mixture into the egg mixture

Strain it into the dish

Bake in a water bath for around 45mins at 160 degrees.
NB: make sure it's only the 45mins because I tested it at that time and it seemed too wobbly so left it in for another 10 or so minutes and found it a little too firm. Especially if you leave it in the fridge to set overnight, 45mins cooking time is best.

The next day.
You can see the custard has shrunk in size and the caramel now comes up over it. YUM!
Although I think I took the caramel (toffee) a little too far this time. Shame on me!

Recipe number 3 is ricotta wrapped with chargrilled vegetables.
I got this recipe from one of the Woolworths magazines.

Ingredients
250g fresh ricotta
1/4 cup finely grated parmesan
1/3 cup grated mozzarella
1 tablespoon finely chopped chives (or basil)
2 tespoons finely grated lemon rind
Salt & pepper
Chargrilled red capsicum
Chargrilled eggplant

Method
1. Combine ricotta, cheeses, chives, lemon, salt and pepper in a bowl.
2. Cut chargrilled capsicum and eggplant into 4cm wide strips.
3. Place 2 teaspoon of cheese mixture onto one end and roll enclosing cheese mixture.
4. Secure with a toothpick and place onto serving platter.

Chargrilling the vegies was the hard part. Suppose you could buy the already chargrilled vegies in the jar.

I ended up marinating mine in extra virgin olive oil and 4 cloves of garlic for a couple of hours

The stuffing mixture

These went down a treat!

So what else did we have for Christmas?

Second hor d'oeurve -
Smoked salmon, mayo and dill on crakers

Roasted sweet potato and pine nut salad

Roast turkey, roast pork (because not everyone in the family likes turkey), ham, potato bake, traditional irish pork stuffing and of course some gravy to help it all down.

Mmm pork crackling, how I love you

That concludes our Christmas celebration lunches for 2011 :)
And by now it is 2012 so happy belated new year! May you be blessed with love, laughter and happiness!!!
xoxoxo

Caramelised Onion, Asparagus and Feta Salad

2011-12-29T10:46:00.011+11:00

There was 2 Christmas lunches this year, one at my bros the week before and another at my house on actual Christmas Day. So it was almost a full week of celebrating (for the kids anyway with all their new toys).

My contribution this time was a caramelised onion salad (recipe here) and a black forest cake.

Butter, onion, brown sugar and red wine vinegar

After cooking for 5mins, it didn't look thick enough yet

Cooked a further 5mins made sure it was thick and caramelly

Next is the asparagus

There was a red capsicum chopped and thrown in there as well. Don't think you can make much out with all that feta I crumbled on top

And the black forest cake

Roast lamb (best roast lamb ever!)

Spinach and cream cheese dip

Fried rice

Cooked prawns with lime dipping sauce

Chicken, Leek and Smoked Bacon Pie

2011-12-16T12:50:00.009+11:00

I always keep a frozen package of pies in the freezer. You never know when you get a craving for a pie with peas and mash ;) And I'm just like a kid, a total sucker for the mini pies and sausage rolls....mmmmmm. I'd be one of those adults that hover over the kids food at the birthday party. Think fairy bread, mini pies, mini sausage rolls and baby frankfurts and of course loads and loads of tomato sauce! Do they still make that for kids parties? Not the ones I've been to anyway, I think it was just my era...........

Meat pies are a tick for me, but I detest the frozen chicken and vegetable pies. Even the so called "gourmet" ones. Sargents make a particularly bad one.

So yeah, if I want a chicken and veg pie, I'll have to make my own one.

Found this sweetly hickory smoked bacon at Woolies I wanted to try out. Loved it in the pie. But of course regular bacon will do the job, this was a little more fancy.

Chicken, Leek and Smoked Bacon Pie

Ingredients
1 Tablespoon oil
700g chicken thighs, chopped
6 slices of smoked bacon (shortcut, rindless)
1 carrot, diced
1 leek, thinly sliced (white part)
6-8 mushrooms, sliced
2 Tablespoons plain flour
1 teaspoon of preferred herbs (I used oregano)
1/2 cup cream
1 cup frozen peas and corn
1-2 sheets puff pastry

Method:

1. Heat oil in pan and cook the diced chicken, transfer to a bowl.

2. Now cook the bacon (2mins)

3. Add carrot and leek, stir well

4. Add the mushrooms

5. Throw in the flour and cook for a further 3mins

6. Add the chicken and herbs. Cook for another 5mins or so

7. Pour in the cream

8. Add the frozen veg and stir it through

9. Scoop them out evenly into 4-6 ramekins (depending how big your ramekins are).
You could line the base and edge with shortcrust pastry and blind bake it first, but I didn't.

10. Top it with puff pastry and maybe brush an eggwash over it.

11. Bake at 180 degrees for around 20mins

Garfield Cake

2011-12-04T22:12:00.007+11:00

I already felt old years ago, but the sight of 30 candles on the cake my husband made for me sealed the deal.....

But I guess he is forgiven seen as he stayed up past 12 midnight baking it and then spending another 3 hours decorating it the next day as a surprise for me.

I really was only given a chance to take photos of the baked cake, not the assembly part because I was banned from looking.

Did manage to get this photo (courtesy of my friend Jo)
How he put it together I really don't know.

And after carving (hacking) at the cake, he somehow produced this masterpiece!
I am in awe. I am no longer the cake baker/decorator anymore in this household. Hubby can now take over all of the kids birthday cakes after this one ;)

Thank you so much :* )
You are the best, love you always and forever
xoxoxo

Kit Kat Maltesers Cake

2011-11-04T14:27:00.005+11:00

Hey chocoholics, I have a cake that you will love ;) It is absolutely loaded and I dare you to eat more than one slice....

What you will need
1 chocolate cake (I used this recipe)
Chocolate ganache (also in the above recipe)
3 packets of the family size kit kat
A large bag of maltesers
Ribbon

Assembling:

Once the cake is baked and cooled, make the chocolate ganache and spread it all over the cake

Break up the kit kat fingers and place them upright around the cake

Tie a nice ribbon around the cake. This is to keep the kit kats from sliding off and it looks pretty

To finish off, dump the bag of maltersers on the top!

How easy was that?

Happy 30th Jo!
Can't believe we've been friends since we were 4 years old, how time flies when we are having fun :)
Love you loads!!!
xoxoxo

Ham Congee

2011-10-13T10:28:00.006+11:00

Now you've probably never heard of Ham Congee before today and yes it does sound odd because it's not the traditional version like Century Egg or Chicken Congee. This ham congee is one I've grown up eating, usually after Christmas when the leg of ham we have served up for Christmas day doesn't all get eaten. So instead of throwing out the bone, Dad keeps it and boils it up with rice and Bob's your uncle - Ham Congee.

When I was in Woolies doing some grocery shopping there were some leftover leg hams at the deli counter being sold for really cheap. Around $2 each, with loads of meat still attached to them. They weren't going off or anything like that, just the leftover bone after carving slices off to sell. I knew straight away I'd make the ham congee, I wasn't willing to wait till after Christmas again (which is actually a bad time to have congee because it's summer and extremely hot and more the weather for cold cocktails....I digress). Ummm yeah so I figured I might as well attempt dads ham congee for the first time. After making 2 calls to determine how much rice I needed and how much water this is what I ended up with.....

Ingredients
Leftover ham leg bone (1.5-2kg)
1 1/2 cups rice
2 litres water
2 tablespoon of vegetable oil
Shallots/spring onions to garnish

Method

The leg bone with meat still attached

1. Slice as much meat as you like off the bone and set aside

2. Add the bone to the pot with enough water to cover it.

3. Allow to boil for 5mins to bring up all the impurities

4. Strain the bone and pour out the water.

5. Place the bone, sliced meat, rice, water and oil in the pot

6. Leave it on a gentle simmer for around 2 hours.
I would check it every now and again and stir it once in a while just to make sure it's not sticking to the bottom or getting too thick. Add more water if you find it a little too thick.

Garnish with extra pieces of ham and shallots

Siu Mai Cake (FAIL)

2011-10-03T14:58:00.008+11:00

To celebrate my brother's 36th birthday I made him a Siu Mai Cake. He loves yum cha and the choice would either have been Chicken Feet or Siu Mai, I decided on the Siu Mai. However it ended up being a FAIL.

The yellow fondant for the outter wrap got stuck and then it cracked....and cracked....and just kept cracking and splitting. Sigh....I had this image in my head, but sadly it didn't turn out how I hoped. Oh well, it's the thought that counts right???

Here's what Sui Mai would look like at Yum Cha (photo courtesy of Cokeworld Citizen)

Here's the assembly:

I made 2 vanilla cakes to give it the right height and proportion

Laying the rolled out yellow fondant down, then the first sponge goes on top

Covering it with buttercream
Then the next sponge on top (no photo)

I crushed some Arnotts Milk Coffee biscuits then mixed this into the buttercream to give it some "pork" pieces
Smothered the biscuit/buttercream mix over the top

And this step is where it all went downhill....
Bringing the fondant up and covering the sides
(and this was considered the good side)

Next was the balls of orange jelly for the fish roe
Ehh, it didn't quite work how I'd planned....but neither did the rest of the cake anyway

Ok, so plan B.
Grab one of those tubes of jelly and snip little pieces off.
Voila! Fish roe!

And there you have my sad attempt at a Siu Mai Cake

Mini Hamburger Cupcakes

2011-09-22T12:28:00.008+10:00

This year for Father's Day I decided to make hamburgers, but not just any old hamburger. These are actually cupcakes. And they are dead simple. Especially because I decided to use chocolate biscuits as the patty rather than make a batch of chocolate cupcakes and then having to cut the top off and the bottom off to get the right size patty, thus eliminating all the fuss and wastage too ;)

What you will need:
- A batch of vanilla cupcakes (buns)
- Sesame seeds (on top of the buns)
- Packet of Arnott's Choc Ripple biscuits (meat patty)
- Packet of Strawberry Rollups (tomatoes)
- 250g unsalted butter + 1 cup icing sugar + a splosh of red food gel (tomato sauce)
- Yellow fondant (cheese)
- Shredded coconut + green food gel (lettuce)

Here's what I used

Make your vanilla cupakes using your favourite recipe, remembering to sprinkle the sesame seeds on top

Place a handful of shredded coconut and 2 drops of green gel into a zip-lock bag and give it a good shake around

Strawberry fruit Rollups. From memory they use to be a lot darker in colour.
And I don't remember them having cartoons printed on them. Sheesh marketing these days!

Cut circles out of it to form the "tomatoes"

Time to roll out and cut the "cheese" into little squares

Cut the cupcake lengthwise

Assembly time!

Starting with the bottom "bun"
Followed by the "patty"

And a slice of "cheese"
Put the red (yes mine looks more like pink) buttercream into a zip-lock bag and snip one of the corners off
A squiggle of "tomato sauce"
Topped with slices of "tomatoes"

And of course a pinch of "lettuce"

Finish off with the top "bun"

And there you have a mini hamburger cupcake with a side of fries (you know those French Fries chips from any supermarket)
Nom nom nom

Too sick to cook

2011-09-12T11:43:00.002+10:00

Sorry for lack of posts. My family has been struck with the gastro bug, among other ailments but the gastro has by far taken the biggest toll on us. I haven't looked at food let alone wanted to prepare anything.

Thanks to hubby for being such a trooper and big thanks to my mum for coming over and cleaning/disinfecting the place!!! What would we do without our mums?! Love my mum!!!

xoxoxo

Corned Beef with Parsley White Sauce

2011-08-11T11:06:00.007+10:00

I grew up with my dad making corned beef served with carrots, cabbage and rice. Making this made me think back to my childhood : )

Corned Beef
Ingredients
1.5kg silverside
1 onion
6 cloves
2 carrots (chopped into chunks)
6 garlic cloves
2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
1 tablespoon vinegar
2 tablespoons brown sugar
8 chat potatoes (halved)

Parsley White Sauce
Ingredients
50g butter
1 1/2 tablespoons plain flour
2 cups milk
2 tablespoons flat-leaf parsley (finely chopped)
1 heaped teaspoon hot English mustard (or 2 tablespoons of wholegrain mustard)

1. Rinse silverside and pat dry. Place it in a large pot and add enough water to cover the meat.

2. Boil for around 5mins (you will see the impurities float up to the top). Drain the meat (making sure you clean the pot before returning the meat back into it)

Stud the onion like so...

3. Add water to the pot, again enough to cover the meat, then add the studded onion, carrots garlic, bay leaves, the black peppercorns, vinegar and brown sugar. Bring it to the boil, then turn the flame down to a gentle simmer for around 1.5-2 hours.
20mins before you serve I'd add the potatoes just to finish off.

For the sauce:
1. Melt butter in a small saucepan, add the flour and stir constantly. Cook for around 1 min. Slowly pour in the milk, still stirring constantly. Add the the mustard and parsley and mix it all till its well combined and set aside.

I wanted some vegies on the side so I strained off some of the corned beef stock into a separate saucepan.

Bring it to a boil and add some dutch carrots and cook for 2mins

Bung in some asparagus and cook for a further 3mins

And there you have it...my corned beef with a parsley white sauce

Ham and Pinapple Pizza Muffin (by Donna Hay)

2011-08-05T13:30:00.011+10:00

Here's a child friendly recipe worth trying. Ham and Pineapple pizza muffins by Donna Hay. A very easy one to put together and I'm sure most kids would enjoy these.

Pizza Muffin
Ingredients
3 cups (450g) self-raising flour, sifted
1 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 cups (180g) grated cheddar
150g ham, chopped
1/3 cup (150g) chopped pineapple, drained
1/3 cup (160ml) vegetable oil
2 tbsp tomato paste
2 eggs1 cup (250ml) milk

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Place the flour, baking powder, 1 cup (120g) cheese, ham and pineapple in a bowl and mix to combine.

2. Place the oil, tomato paste, egg and milk in a bowl and whisk to combine.

3. Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture and mix until just combined.

4. Spoon into 12 x ½ cup-capacity (125ml) muffin tins and sprinkle with remaining cheese. Bake for 30 minutes or until cooked when tested with a skewer. Makes 12 (I actually made about 18)

Orange and Fennel Salad

2011-08-02T14:21:00.003+10:00

This is such a classic salad, but one I have never made or even tasted before. Till now. I was at the local fruit and veg store and because oranges and fennel are in season, they were both really cheap with the naval oranges going at 99cents/kg and the fennel 3 bulbs for 69cents, I thought what the hey lets give it a go.

Make sure your fennel is sliced really really thin. I used my trusty old V-Slicer, yes I am a total sucker for those kitchen/household gadgets that supposedly cut down your preperation/cooking time or household chores. The worst buy was my carpet sweeper purchase....sigh.....what was I thinking.....that's why I have a vacuum cleaner. My best buy would have to be the magic bullet. Best for pureeing baby food....I digress.....

So back to the salad. I tried a thin slice of the fennel and was not impressed. It was way too strong for my liking and I could not imagine eating this salad. I was already preparing myself to hate it and wondering what I would do with it all. And I knew I had to make it because I'd already bought the 2 main ingredients. You know what? I really enjoyed it. That dressing...yum! It was fresh, it was light, it was just so surprising to me because I had convinced myself I would detest it, but I didn't! Yay! Once you combine it all and eat it as a whole, the fennel is much milder in taste. This would be perfect with a BBQ'd steak : )

Orange and Fennel Salad
Ingredients
75g rocket
2 oranges (peeled and segmented)
1 fennel bulb (sliced very thinly)
For the dressing:
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/4 cup olive oil
Salt & Pepper

Method
1. Whisk all the dressing ingredients together.

2. Place the rocket and fennel in a large bowl and toss them. Scatter the segmented oranges over it and then drizzle the dressing over the top.

Impromptu Nachos

2011-07-29T10:22:00.003+10:00

Don't you just love it when you can pull something great together from remains in the fridge and some pantry items? I didn't think this one would be worth noting but once we had a bite, I had to bring out my camera hahaha! The rocket was a really good accompaniment and not something I would ever have thought to serve with nachos. I'm now converted.

Here is the recipe for my very unconventional, non traditional nachos.

Ingredients
400g mince meat
1 onion (diced finely)
3 cloves garlic (minced)
4 tablespoon Ardmona Pizza Sauce (or you can just use tomato paste but I was trying to use up my bottle in the fridge)
1 can 4 bean mix
Salt & Pepper
1 packet of corn chips (I used Nacho Cheese Doritos)
2 tomatoes (diced)
50-80g rocket
1/2 carton sour cream (150ml roughly)
100-150g chedder cheese (grated)

Method
1. Cook the onion in a hot pan for about a minute, then add the minced garlic. Cook for a further 2mins then add the meat.
2. Meanwhile, spread the chips on a baking tray and place in a heated oven for around 5mins to crisp it up.
3. Once the meat has browned, add the tomato paste and stir it through. Then add the can of beans and salt and pepper, cook for another 2-3mins.
4. Take the chips out and pour the mince mixture on top. Then layer it with the diced tomatoes and the cheese on top. Pop the whole tray in the oven for another 5-8mins or until the cheese has melted and has got a bit of colour to it.
5. Take it out of the oven and dollop sour cream all over and lastly place the rocket on top.

It's hard to go wrong with cheese and sour cream!

It was a big tray for 2!

Time to dig in...

Yeah baby!

Gotta love that stretchy oozy cheese!

The carnage...
At least we ate all our greens ;)

Margaret's Best-Ever Meatloaf Roast for four

2011-07-14T13:42:00.006+10:00

Margaret Fulton has been creating these recipe cards recently which are popping up in Woolworths. I've collected a few and this meatloaf recipe was the first one out of the Winter Series I've tried.

I really wanted to love this. And with the name "Best-Ever" I had really high hopes. I've made meatloaf in the past and they never got much praise so I was hoping this one would wow me. But unfortunately it didn't. However my husband liked it. He ate it 4 days in a row! So it's probably just me. I just don't like meatloaf. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't terrible. In fact the glaze was beautiful and extremely simple to make. It was this glaze that made it ok. I suppose I just had high expectations (I'm sorry Mrs Fulton!). Don't rule it out though, like I said my husband really enoyed it.

Margaret's Best-Ever Meatloaf Roast for four. Only $14.09
Prep Time 15mins
Serves 4
Cooking Time 1 hour

Ingredients
750g beef mince
1 cup fresh breadcrumbs
1 small brown onion, finely chopped
2 tablespoon parsley, chopped
1 egg, lightly beaten
salt and pepper
1/2 red onion, sliced thickly lengthwise
1/4 cup water
2 tablespoon Homebrand tomato paste
1 tablespoon Homebrand vinegar
2 tablespoon Homebrand Australian honey
750g washed potatoes, peeled
50g Homebrand unsalted butter
1/3 cup hot milk

Method
1. Preheat oven to 220 degrees C (180 degrees for fan forced).
2. Combine the mince, breadcrumbs, onion, parsley and egg, with salt and pepper to taste, mixing well with your hands. Shape into a rectangular loaf, approximately 25cm x 11cm on a cheet of baking paper in a large roasting pan. Top with the red onion slices (pressing lightly) and bake for 45mins.

Yeah I forgot to lightly beat the egg first
I literally shaped it into a loaf tin....

3. Meanwhile to make glaze, heat 1/4 cup water in a small saucepan with the tomato paste, vinegar and honey. Bring to a boil and simmer for 3-5 minutes, until thickened and glossy

See the difference in thickness

Back on track, moving it onto a roasting pan instead

4. Remove the meatloaf from the oven and drain away any liquid from the pan. Spoon over some of the glaze and bake for another 15 minutes, until cooked through, basting with the remaining glaze once or twice more.

The glaze before it's been in the oven

Ready to eat. Altough it needs more glaze (I made a second batch later)

5. Meanwhile, cook the potatoes in a large pan of salted boiling water to cover until soft. Drain well and return the potatoes to the pan to dry off any excess moisture. Remove from heat and mash until smooth, adding the butter and milk, and mash until creamy. Serve with thick slices of hot or warm meatloaf.

Steak and Guiness Pie AND Potato, Prosciutto and Rocket Salad

2011-07-05T12:50:00.010+10:00

After numerous dinners over at my brother's house it was time to return the favour so I asked him what he'd like us to make. He wanted something Irish. This is an odd request considering he hates potoatoes (except for hot chips) and will faint at the sight of alcohol (ok slight exaggerration but he has turned beetroot red after dipping his finger in a glass of beer and licking it). Still, that's what he wanted so I texted him a few options and asked him to pick. He chose Steak and Guiness pie. Ahh time to pull out a tradition Irish cookbook that my mother-in-law sent me........

Hahaha!

By Colin Murphy and Donal O'Dea

Steak and Guiness Pie
1kg round steak, cubed and rolled in seasoned flour
1 tablespoon plain flour
1 teaspoon brown sugar
2 large onions, peeled and finely chopped
50g button mushrooms (I think you need more like 100g mushroom)
300ml Guiness
8 slices of streaky bacon
chopped parsley
1 pack frozen shorcrust pastry, thawed

Steak cubed and rolled in seasoned flour

1. Grill the bacon, cut into pieces and place in a saucespan with the steak.

2. Fry onions and muchroom until golden and add to the saucepan.

3. Add the sugar and the Guiness. Cover and simmer over a low heat for 2 hours

4. Stir occasionally, adding a little more Guiness if gravy thickens too much.
5. Line a deep pie dish with half the pasty and bake at 220 degrees for 10mins.
6. Add the Guiness and beef mixture from the saucepan and cover with the top layer of pastry.
7. Bake for 10 more minutes or until brown.

A winner of a pie! One that would have made my in-laws proud!

I didn't take step by step photos of the salad because I wasn't expecting to blog about it but it was so deliciously good that I had to share. And as quoted by my brother "the best salad I have ever eaten" and my sister-in-law saying "the best meal you've ever made for us". How it saddens me that this was the best meal we have ever cooked for them....I would have thought I'd made better food than this in the past! And the worst part? I didn't make the salad, my husband did! He is now the salad King and I am no longer asked to make my grilled vegetable salad when are invited to bring a dish to outings LOL!

The original recipe is here (we added juice from half a lime to give it that extra punch in flavour).

Potato, Proscuitto and Rocket Salad
6 desiree potatoes
100g prosciutto
large handful of baby rocket (or arugula)
1 teaspoon minced garlic
2 tablespoons seeded mustard
4 tablespoons whole-egg mayonnaise
juice from half a lime
4 eggs
ground black pepper

1. Bring a pot of salted water to the boil.
2. Quarter the potatoes and boil for 10 minutes or until tender.
3. Place eggs in a saucepan of room temperature water and heat on medium-high flame for 15 minutes.
4. While potatoes and eggs are boiling, lay prosciutto out on baking paper on a tray and put under a medium-flame grill until crisp. Leave to cool for 10 minutes.
5. Drain potatoes and leave to cool for 30 minutes.
6. Remove eggs from heat, place in cool water and remove shells. Set aside.
7. Break the cooled crispy prosciutto into small shards.
8. Mix mayonnaise, seeded mustard, minced garlic, lime juice and ground black pepper to taste in a large salad bowl.
9. Add rocket, cooled potatoes and half the crisp prosciutto to mayo-mustard mix and toss to coat.
10. Quarter the hard-boiled eggs and arrange on top of the salad. Sprinkle prosciutto, any leftover baby rocket and extra ground black pepper over the top to garnish.

Triple Layer Chocolate Truffle Cake

2011-07-01T12:28:00.004+10:00

It's not often that someone offers to make a cake for me, so when my husband said he'd bake something and I could sit back for a change I was thrilled!

He sure knows what desserts I like....a triple layer chocolate truffle cake yum yum. I know this would have been everything I ever wanted in a cake but alas he left out one vital step. And that was to cover the cake fully with cling flim overnight. The moisture was drawn out of the cake by the next day which made it a little on the dry side and missing that moistness. Still, it was lovely and I'm more than happy for him to try it again *hint hint* and I'm sure it will blow my socks off next time : )

Triple Layer Chocolate Truffle Cake
Recipe from Avoca Cafe Cookbook 2

Serves 12
4 small eggs
100g caster sugar
75g self raising flour
25g cocoa

For the syrup
75ml milk
20ml brandy
20ml honey

For the fillings
110g chocolate (70% cocoa solids), melted with 50ml of cream
225g white chocolate, melted with 50ml of cream
500ml double or whipping cream (lightly whipped)

For the icing
350g milk chocolate
75ml whipping cream

Method
Preheat the oven to 18 degrees. Grease and line a 23cm springform cake tin. Whisk the eggs and sugar until thick, which will take about 10mins. Sieve the flour and cocoa and fold into the egg mixture. Spoon into the prepared cake tin and bake for 20-25mins, or until cooked. Remove from the oven and leave to cool on a wire rack.

To make the syrup: put all the ingredients in a saucepan and heat gently until combined. Do not boil.

Remove the cake from the tin and line the tin with cling film. (Make sure you use enough cling film to cover the cake completely). Cut the cake across its depth into 2 halves. Place half the cake back in the lined tin and brush with syrup.

Make the fillings by combining each of the melted chocolate mixtures with half the whipped cream. Spoon half the white chocolate mixture over the bottom half of the cake. Follow with the dark chocolate mixture. Finish with the remaining white chocolate mixture. Brush the other half of the cake with syrup and place on top. Cover the cake with cling film and place in the fridge to set overnight.

Combine the milk chocolate and craem and heat gently to melt. Remove the cake from the tin and spread the chocolate icing over the top and sides.

I was busy relaxing and didn't take photos of the sponge process but here are some assembly photos:

The syrup

White chocolate mixture

Dark chocolate mixture

Note no cling film AND that doesn't look like "brush with syrup"

Spooning white chocolate mixture onto sponge

Next is the dark chocolate mixture

After setting in the fridge overnight and covered in chocolate icing (or ganache)

Yep, death by chocolate cake!

How to make a Pinata

2011-06-15T14:25:00.013+10:00

How to make a pig pinata to be precise. The last time I made a pinata (a chick) was for my neice's first birthday, 5 years ago (before I started blogging). I have learnt a couple of tricks since my first attempt.

What you will need:
- 2 balloons
- a rubber band
- loads of newspaper
- flour
- water
- ice cream container
- 5 toilet rolls
- sticky tape
- egg carton
- string or rope
- paints (and paint brush)
- lollies

Blow up 2 balloons, making sure one is smaller than the other (small one is the head and the big one will be the body). Fasten the ends together with a rubber band

To make the gluey paste I mixed 50g plain flour and about 120-130ml of water together. You will need to make about 5 batches of this by the end of your pinata. I preferred to do one layer at a time, allowing each layer to dry for a day before I started the next one. It's personal preference, some people like to do the whole thing in one day but I found that doing each layer allowed me to keep track of exactly how many layers I was up to (I think 5 layers is enough. The pinata I made for my neice had about 8-9 layers and that was way too thick and just would not break. In the end one of the stong adults had to smash it open which isn't really fun for the kids!)

The ice cream container is to hold the ballon steady while you place the gloopy newspaper on it. Trust me, you will need both hands

I like to start off with the neck first because I think it's the trickest part.
Tear the newspaper up in rectangular shapes (make a stack of these before you start the sticking process. For the rest of the body and head I tore square shapes).
Dip the newspaper in the gloopey paste then place it lengthways so that the paper is sticking to both balloons.
Continue this process right around the "neck"

Now I like to stick rectangular pieces sideways on top of the first layer

Neck done. Then I get onto sticking the square peices all over, head and body.

For the legs I cut out 4 toilet rolls. Kinda looks like some helicopter propeller. Reason for that is I can stick the 2 sides down easily with some sticky tape. But make sure you have at least ONE layer of paper mache first. Not onto the ballon (like in the photo below) as it will deflate and that may affect the overall shape.

Like I said, stick these on after you have made at least one layer (not as I have done here. Just showing you how it should go on. Decided to take photos now before my hands got any more messier and probably knowing me, I'd forget to take a snap later)

And for the snout I cut out one of the cups from an egg carton

Attach this on after at least a layer of paper mache

So after a couple more layers, with the legs and snout on, the pig is forming....

5th layer on and he's nicely dried out and there is one minor detail I forgot!

What's a pig without a curly tail?!
5th toilet roll cut into a curl

Paint piggy in a layer of white first so that the newspaper print doesn't show up later (otherwise you will end up using heaps more coloured paint and I don't know about you but I can never mix the same colour again, always a shade darker or light grrr)

Now for the layer of pink

Now to make an incision on the top of this body so we can thread the rope through and also place all the lollies inside

Can't forget piggy tail. Made a slit at the back and stuck it through.

This was my husbands genius plan of nailing two pieces of wood together to secure the rope inside the pig. Last time we made a pinata we just tied the whole thing up with rope (and by all means you can do this too because it still works brilliantly) but this time we had scrap wood and wanted to hide the rope but also making sure it would last a few whacks

Tie the rope around the wood and flip them together so it can fit into the pinata through the hole. Once it's in the pinata you should be able to pull it up far enough for you to flip the wood out again so it widens out but won't come out. Then you make another hole closer to the head and pull the string through
But seriously go with the easier option which is to tie the whole thing up around the neck and hang it off the clothes line

Lollies go in the hole

Finish it off with threading the string through

Hang the pinata up on the clothes line and let the kids go wild!

And the winning shot goes to Jasmine!
Well done!

It was so much fun for the kids and just as fun for the adults to watch and egg them on!
So if you are feeling crafty and don't want to spend the $20 on a pinata at the shops, why not give this a go. Although at a stage I thought the $20 would have been money well spent! ; )

My first 3 tiered cake

2011-06-11T14:21:00.008+10:00

Expecting 52 guests at my daughters first birthday, I decided to up the ante and make a 3 tiered cake. I have never even made a 2 tiered cake before but after pouring out the batter in 2 tins there was still some remaining so I thought what the heck, let's just make a 3rd and see how we go.

I went with a simple plan so I wouldn't be too stressed out. Inititally I was going to do a full on dessert table but quickly had to scrap that idea. Maybe next year.....

Anyway, the cake didn't turn out how I quite imagined it (think flowers cascading down the tiers). Non the less.....I didn't burn the cake at least and it wasn't a total eye sore.

First up, making the fondant
My easy recipe found here

Dying it pink

After that, it's just a matter of kneeding and mixing and then rolling it out ready to press out the flowers

I found a set of 4 blossom cutters from Ebay where you press the piston and the flower pops out perfectly (even leaves an indent in the middle for the cachous)

That's the one lonely flower...

And here's another 100 more

The little flowers

The big flowers

The flowers will need a couple of days to dry out completely so they are easily manageable.

Assmbling the cake:

Bottom tier
(I so need to invest in an angled cake spatula...wink wink....husband who never reads my blog, but I'm sure someone can forward on my request)

Middle tier (oops forgot to take a photo of the top tier...guests were starting to arrive and I was getting into a slight panic at this stage with the cake unfinished and the handmade decorations still to put up)

So the end result

Haha see, definitely not the cascading effect I had in my head, but oh well. As mum said, "It looks rather.....simple", to which I replied "Um....yeah that was the look I was going for" haha!
Still, it was a fantastic day and we were just so so lucky to have good weather after such a terrible 2 weeks of downpour.

Thank you to our amazing family and friends who helped us make Miss C's birthday extra special. She was utterly spoilt with love and gifts!

Happy 1st birthday precious!
All our love and big hugs and kisses to the best girl ever!

LGM Alien Cupcakes (Toy Story)

2011-06-09T13:19:00.015+10:00

I'm back! Sorry it's been so long since I last posted on here. It has been a very very hectic couple of months with moving to a new house, settling in, the son starting pre-school, both kid's having their birthdays within a week of each other (my daughter's being her first birthday so the party was a big deal....for me anyway hehehe), no internet because of (shall I name and shame?)....TPG with their overseas customer service reps who are incompetent and unreliable.....yes I am full of excuses. So anyway lets start off with a nice easy one today shall we......

No surprises that my son loves Toy Story. He initially requested a Woody cake, but after a couple of weeks convincing him that the LGMs (Little Green Men) are better, he finally came around to the idea. I suppose telling him that I could make heaps of them, rather than just one Woody mostly swayed him ; )

I found the alien cupcake details here, but clever me forgot I wouldn't have internet access after I moved and I only saved the link and photo to my laptop and not the whole list of ingredients. Still I went to Woolies and put together what I thought was the right stuff. And lucky I didn't go by that recipe because what are green apple sour belts?? Or apple sour straws??

I used a simple vanilla cake recipe and of course any plain cupcake recipewill do too.

For decorating the cupcakes you will need:

Butter cream icing (250g butter, 1 cup icing sugar)

Blue and yellow food colouring

White marshmellows

Spearmint leaves

Edible black wirting gel

Green musk stick

The cupcakes (no your eyes aren't deceiving you, there are 2 sizes)

Green butter cream

You will need a lot more yellow than blue colouring to give it that real neon green colour

Pop on 3 white marshmellows for the eyes

Stick 2 leaves in - one on each side for the ears

Dot the eyes with the black writing gel

And for the mouth

Or squiggles

And finally top it with a green musk stick

I found a pack of musk sticks in various colours and just picked out the green ones. You'll be hard pressed to find only green musk sticks. I tried to look for roll-ups (remember those?) but they only had them in the "normal" colours like red for raspberries

Same but different....

And here he is enjoying his LGM cupcake

Happy 4th birthday!!!

Lemon, Garlic and Thyme Chicken

2011-04-14T14:31:00.008+10:00

The only herb that has survived my green thumb was the Thyme plant. Everything else has either died or been eaten by the bugs. I'm hoping with the move I can be more enthusiastic about gardening.....but not likely. Anyway, here's a chicken recipe with my one and only herb from the garden. Ingredients
2 chicken breasts
1 lemon
50ml olive oil
3 cloves of garlic (bruised)
3-4 springs of thyme (extra for garnish)
50ml white wine (0ptional)
knob of butter (optional)
salt & pepper

1. Place the chicken breast in an oven proof dish

2. Squeeze the lemon juice over the chicken. Do not throw any of the lemon out, chuck it into the dish with the chicken.

3. Throw in the garlic and dot with butter

4. Pour in the wine and drizzle the oil over it and then sprinkle the thyme, salt and pepper over the chicken.

5. Cover with foil and pop it in the oven for about 30-40mins at 180 degrees.

6. Garnish with sprigs of Thyme.

BBQ Cupcakes

2011-03-31T13:28:00.055+11:00

When I first told my family I was making BBQ cupcakes for hubby's birthday there was quite a bit of confusion. "Ewww do you mean BBQ flavoured cupcakes???" Hahahaha! No of course not, just cupcakes that a decorated like a BBQ. I first saw these in a Woman's Day magazine. Can't remember which issue and I couldn't find all the lollies they suggested so went to my local Woolies and grabbed an assortment of jelly sweets and made do with them

Woman's Day suggested using a chocolate fudge recipe for the cupcakes so I went with the recipe on the back of the Nestle Baking Cocoa tin.
Ingredients
150g butter
1 cup Nestle Baking Cocoa
4 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
3/4 cup plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 packet Nestle white choc bits ( I chopped up milk chocolate melts, about 1/2 cup)
Method
1. Preheat oven to 160 degrees. Line base of 27cm x 18cm x 3cm tin with baking paper.
2. Melt butter and stir in Nestle Baking Cocoa, allow to cool slightly. Beat in eggs. Stir in sugar and vanilla.
3. Sift flour and baking powder together. Add to mixture and stir until thoroughly mixed. Stir through Nestle white choc bits. Turn mixture into tin.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 45-50mins or until just firm when pressed in the centre. Leave in tin for 20mins then turn out onto a rack. When cold, cut into bars.

Then my version as cupcakes....

Melt butter

1 cup cocoa

Butter and cocoa mixed

Now for the sugar

Eggs and vanilla essence

Sifted flour and baking powder

Chopped chocolate melts

Bake for around 30mins

Intermission: I was baking at mum's place and before I started I asked whether she had a hand mixer. My aunt pulls this out of the drawers! Ha ha ha!!! I told them I was after an ELECTRIC hand mixer...but ok this will do. Nothing like a bit of elbow grease. How old school.

On to the decorating.

You will need:

Butter cream icing (Woman's Day says you could use black icing gels to make the BBQ grills but I preferred going the extra mile and making the butter cream and tinting it with black food dye)

Black food dye

Snap lock bag

NB: I used about 100g butter and about 35g icing sugar

Pipe strips across the cupcake to create the "grill"

For the embers you will need:

1/2 cup sugar

2-3 drops of red food dye (or you could use red or orange sprinkles)

Place sugar in zip lock bag, drip food dye in, seal bag and shake.

Sprinkle over the cupcakes

To make skewers you will need:

Different coloured jellies

Toothpicks

I used gummi bears and chopped them in 3rds - I know it's pretty barbaric!

Skewer them on and bobs your uncle

Steaks - I used coloured marshmellows and sliced them up

Sausage and Egg

Sausages are chocolate bullets

And the egg, well I just got lucky and found these in an assortmant pack along with the gummi bears

Deconstructed hamburger

And the whole lot

Happy birthday Larry! Although you don't always get the steaks cooked to our liking, I still think you are a BBQ King!

Love you!!!!

xoxoxo

Yogo

2011-03-26T13:22:00.005+11:00

Do you remember Yogo? Here's a YouTube video for you hermits who don't know, click here. Ahhhh the memories....
Loved the stuff when I was younger and I still get massive cravings till this day. That's why I am so so thankful to Mellebug for giving me this recipe! I can't believe how easy it is to make. And it really is so much like the actual Yogo. So go forth people and try this out if you love Yogo

Ingredients
3 tablespoons cornflour
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
1 tablespoon sugar (adjust to your taste)
Up to 500ml milk
Method
1. Mix dry ingredients together. Whisk in up to 500ml milk
2. Either cook on the stovetop to just boil/thickens or put in microwave and stir every minute until just boil (don't ignore or you will have a great mess)
3. Pour into containers (makes 4) and set in the fridge. Before putting into lunchbox top with berries
NB: If your child is use to sugary Yogo then you can add more sugar to start with and slowly decrease the amount each time, reducing their 'bliss point'

3 tablespoons cornflour

1 tablespoon cocoa

1 tablespoon sugar

Mix dry ingredients

Whisk in 500ml milk

Cook till it thickens or up to boil

Thick like Yogo....

I would taste it at this point to see if you want to add more sugar or cocoa

Makes up to 4 portions

Before it's chilled

2 hours after it's chilled

It was hard to make this dessert look pretty....I mean it's brown and goopy....and we've packed up our ramekins and nice glass dessert bowls because we are moving soon. But regardless, it's the closest thing you'll get to the real yogo and I'm sure if you poured the real stuff out, it would be just as hard to make it look appealing. My only gripe was after chilling in the fridge, there was this thin film on the top. Probably because I didn't cover it, but otherwise it is a dead ringer for the real thing. So anyone who loves Yogo......make some! Make it now!

Ratatouille

2011-03-24T13:41:00.004+11:00

I had a bunch of vegies in the fridge that needed to be used up before they went off....what to do? I was contemplating an eggplant and zucchini bake but then what would I do with the other vegetables? I needed a recipe where I could throw in everything together and not waste anything. So I did some research and came up with a vegetable stew, why of course.....ratatouille!! And I've never made it before till now. I will certainly be making this many more times. It's the best way to use up any pieces of vegetable you have left in the fridge and it tastes great! And it's healthy. Win win yay!

Tomatoes are the key ingredient, along with eggplant, capsicum, zucchini, onion and garlic. I however wanted to use up my pumpkin I bought on special. So tweeked it slightly. Also traditionally I believe it should be layered. But really, who has the time? Not me anyway.

My vegies that needed to be used up

Ingredients

2 tablespoon olive oil

3 cloves of garlic, minced

1 large onion (I went with 2 small onions), diced

1 large eggplant, cubed

Pumpkin (I probably used about 100g), cubed

Capsicum (go with the red for more colour, but I used both), cut in wedges

4 tomatoes (I only had 2 so also added a can of diced tomatoes), diced

2 large zucchinies, sliced

1/2 tablespoon chopped thyme (or 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme)

1 tablespoon oregano (or 1 teaspoon dried oregano)

1 tablespoon basil (or 1 teaspon dried basil)

Handful of chopped fresh parsley

Salt & Pepper

1. Saute the onion and garlic (about 5mins)

2. Add the pumpkin and cook for 3mins

3. Add the eggplant and cook for 3mins

4. Add the capsicum

And the tomatoes, cover and cook for 10mins. Make sure to stir occasionally to prevent any vegetable from sticking to the bottom.

Add the zucchini and herbs, cover and cook for 15mins

Open the lid and wow....clear the pores!

Smells delicious! Tastes pretty good too

Unfortunately I didn't take a plating shot as I had to cart the whole pot out the door over to my brothers place to feed my family of hungry hungry hippos

Taste of Sydney 2011

2011-03-14T13:29:00.006+11:00

A big thank you to Ashley from Stellar* Concepts Australia for organising tickets for me to attend this years Taste of Sydney. And what a line up! I was so pumped to go knowing that I would be able to try so many mouth watering dishes from amazing restaurants such as Berowra Waters Inn, Restaurant Balzac, L'etoile, Aperitif and many more! I might even be able to shake hands with Manu Feildel!!!

We decided to take a walk around first and scope out what was available from all the restaurants. And also see what stalls were here this year.

Gates opened at 12 noon and within half an hour it was already very busy

Mmmm.....The Grumpy Baker

Very impressed with their selection

From L to Right: Restaurant Balzac, Assiette & District Dining, Four in Hand and Etch & Charlie & Co.

I was curious about the De Dietrich appliances (and the macaron tower also caught my eye I must admit) so decided to watch the cooking demonstration by Vincent Gadon from Patisse.

The Macaron tower

Vincent showing us the pre-made tuile

In front is the raspberry mousse

Behind is the raspberry marshmellow
And the finished product! How pretty is it

Then I head straight over to L'etoile to see if Manu would be there. Seemed like everyone else had the same idea...

He's even more personable in real life!

I passed him several times and he was still as energetic and friendly as when I first saw him, dancing, singing, laughing and bouncing all around. He's a right nutter! But a charming one ; )
Ok ok....so I'm suppose to be here about the food too....

From L'etoile

~Slow cooked shoulder of lamb with smoked potato puree and jus~

It did not come like this...in my excitment of meeting (ok hugging) Manu I'd forgotten to take a photo before I started attacking the lamb!

The lamb was great but for me it was actually the smoked potato puree that made it. Oh if I could sit in front of the telly with a massive bowl of it all to myself on a cold winter night....mmmmm

From Restaurant Balzac

Last year the saddle of suckling pig with garden peas and smoked bacon jus was my favourite dish so I had to come back and try something else from Restaurant Balzac. And since it was on the menu again, I instead went for the Crisp Wagyu Beef with Wild Mushroom and Truffle Foam.

Although it was presented differently to how I imagined, that is I wasn't expecting a 'spring roll' as such, but don't let the look deceive you..... this satisfied the tastebuds. Indeed crispy yet delicate and the beef was so so good. I would swim in that truffle foam if I could! Definitely my favourite dish of the day.

Oh Mr Kemp you have won my vote 2 years in a row now!

From Berowra Waters Inn & Ad Lib Bistro
~Slow cooked fillet of ocean trout, 'French Onion Soup' puree, peppered oxtail 'Croustillant'~

An interesting mix of ingredients. The ocean trout melted in the mouth and the French onion soup puree paired with the oxtail croustillant was lovely together. But the trout and soup and croustillant together.....don't get me wrong it wasn't terrible....it just wasn't for me. But I can appreciate it if I had them as a separate dish.

Having a break between mains and dessert we went for another stroll. I was eager to check out Planet Cakes but unfortunately they weren't holding any decorating demonstrations this year and the stall looked rather empty. Perhaps they ran out of things on the last day. On the plus side, I found a stall (Moraitis Tomatoes) that sells the most amazing tomatoes. Imagine that...me going ape over tomatoes. Trust me, they were that good. I'm kicking myself for not buying any before I left.

Ok on to dessert!!

From Otto Ristorante

~ Amedei milk chocolate mousse with salted caramel and fresh berries~

Now THIS is my type of dessert! It was light, smooth, velvety and well there just wasn't enough : ) I couldn't taste the salted caramel come to think of it....but it didn't matter, this was bliss.

From L'etoile

~Raspberry bavarrois~

A very delicate dessert that was fresh and summery. Perfect for the day we had with all that sunshine

From Aperitif

~Churros con chocolate~

You know my weakness is anything doughy and deep fried. So I couldn't go past the churros.

And these were gorgeous. So fresh and oh the dark chocolate melt had that lovely bitter aftertaste that I love. Could have done with more sugar coated around them...but being my 3rd dessert my tastebuds had probably become immune to sweetness

I always enjoy the Taste of Sydney event. Having 2 young children means that I don't have the opportunity to experience fine dining, but with the renowned restaurants/chefs coming together and making their dishes available to people like me all in one open area, is just fantastic. I love that I can try their food they have created without all the fuss of having to dress up or remembering my table etiquette. A really relaxing and fun foodie experience : )

Chinese Poached Chicken (with Vermicelli and Bok Choy)

2011-03-03T10:06:00.003+11:00

Never have I poached an egg, that does seem absurd, even I can't believe I've never poached an egg before. So what was I thinking attempting to poach a chicken before I've even tried an egg? Well I had the ingredients and I didn't feel like another stir fry or another pan fried chicken. And lucky for me it actually turned out. Couldn't believe it. I was expecting the husband to turn around and say, Sorry B, it's not very good. I love it when I go in thinking I'll fail...not miserably but still a fail and then it turns out : ) So it's safe to add this one to my recipe book.

Ingredients
4 chicken breasts
2 cups chicken stock
2 cups water
1 cup of light soy sauce
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 shallots, sliced (extra for garnish)
3 cloves of garlic (*bruised)
3cm piece of ginger, sliced
2 star anise
1 Packet of Vermacelli
3 bunches bok choy
Seasame oil (to finish off the dish at the end)
toasted sesame seeds (optional, for garnish)
Method
1. Place chicken stock, water, soy sauce, brown sugar, shallots, garlic, ginger and star anise into a large pot. Bring it to the boil.
2. Add chicken and turn the stove down low. Cook it for around 10-15mins.
3. Meanwhile, bring another pot of water to the boil. Place the bok choy (chopped and thoroughly rinsed) in for about 3mins. Take it out of the boiling water and set aside. Now place the vermacelli in the same boiling water and cook for around 6mins. Drain and divide it up into 4 separate bowls.
4. Take the chicken out of the poaching liquid and slice it up. Serve it ontop of the vermacelli along with the bok choy. Pour some of the poaching liquid in each bowl (reserving the rest as a master stock if you wish). Pour a little bit of seasame oil over the top then sprinkle with seasame seeds and shallots and there you have it!

*Bruising the garlic in my terms, is to smash it with the side of the cleaver

The ingredients

Poaching liquid

Chicken in for poaching

Poached chicken breast

Juicy as

Bonus - now I have my own master stock!

So Galbi (and a feast at the Wong's)

2011-02-24T14:30:00.012+11:00

An invitation to the Wong's for a BBQ was always going to be a great feed. And of course it was as good as ever....mmmmm love lazy days of BBQ and hanging out with friends just chilling and eating. Isn't that what it's all about?

My contribution was So Galbi, a Korean dish of BBQ beef short ribs. The first time I had this was at Charcoal Mine BBQ House. So delicious! That was years ago and it's only recently that I thought to try make it myself.

I found 2 recipes to work with - Aeri's Kitchen and Rasa Malaysia

Let's start with the cut of meat. My local Korean butcher suggested this cut of rib rather than the short ribs ($18/kg). I don't even know what this cut is called. Just that it has the rib and a long thin piece of meat still attached. A must for this dish.

I also bought the short ribs as the recipe suggested this cut

Still great with this cut, but the one above is better....obviously because it has more meat. Really tender meat that has soaked up all the flavour

Short ribs $15/kg

Both recipes require you to soak the meat in water. Rasa gives the explaination that because the bone is cut, there is a lot of bone dust on the meat, so therefore you need to soak it to rinse this dust off.

In Aeri's recipe, it says to soak the bones for 2 or 3 hours to get rid of the blood. Now I would have thought the blood is what gives it the flavour. So that's why I did some of my own adjusting - I just soaked the bones for my other cut of meat and left the meat hanging over the side of the bowl

Short ribs all soaked and looking very pale

Time to whizz 1 Asian pear and half an onion. Both recipes say to use an Asian pear. I couldn't find any at the time so changed it to 2 kiwi fruit instead (did some research and this was a good subsitute)

Pour the pear & onion mixture over the meat, mix and leave sit while you make the marinade sauce (Aeri says this will take away the strong meat flavour and sweetens it)

Now to make the marinade sauce

My choice of cooking wine and soy sauce. I didn't know what soup soy sauce was so went with a light soy sauce and added a cup of water as well

Pour the marinade over the meat and leave in the fridge overnight

These are best cooked over a charcoal BBQ

Bren's altered recipe:

1.5kg beef ribs

2 kiwi fruits

1/2 onion

1/2 cup soy sauce

1 cup water

2 tablespoons cooking wine

1 1/2 tablespoons minced garlic

1 teaspoon minced ginger

1 1/2 tablespoon sugar

1 1/2 tablespoon honey

1 tablespoon seasame oil

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

3 tablespoon shallots (extra for serving)

toasted sesame seeds (optional) Also for serving

Method
1. Soak ribs in water for about 2 hours in the fridge. Pour the water out and rinse the ribs with clean water.

2. Whizz the kiwi and onion, mix this into the ribs and set aside while you make the marinade sauce.

3. Place the soy sauce, water, cooking wine, garlic, ginger, sugar, honey, seasame oil, pepper and shallots in another bowl and whisk together till the sugar dissolves. Pour this over the ribs and mix well. Cover with glad wrap and leave it in the fridge overnight or at least an hour (turning the ribs once in a while when you can).

4. Heat grill and cook for around 5mins on each side

NB: I think it would be best cooked over a charcoal BBQ. But the bonus of cooking it in a pan is you could spoon some of sauce into the pan and really give it that extra flavour and it's not as dry either.

So what else did we get to enjoy?

Prem's Lentil, Beetroot and Fetta Salad

Amra's Egg and Potato Salad

Duong's Vegetable Quiche

Prem's Avocado and mixed Greens Salad

Amra's Tomato and Ricotta Pasta

Vin's Fruit Punch

Prem's Chicken Wings

Chhay's Salted Caramel Popcorn Macaron

OMG...

Chhay's Strawberries and Cream Macaron

Not one....but 2 types of macarons!

Amra's sheet cake

Such a fabulous day of eating. And we got to take home food later and have leftovers too. Love it! Thanks guys!

Apple and Walnut Coffee Tea Cake

2011-02-18T12:12:00.007+11:00

Here's a recipe from the Woolworths Fresh magazine (Issue 60 February 2011). It's a nice tea cake that I would gladly make again. Tad bit dry the next day but it's a tea cake.....so it's lovely with a cuppa. Ooo and who doesn't love a crumble topping?

Ingredients
125g unsalted buter
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
3 tablespoon instant coffee powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups self-raising flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
300ml sour cream
2 Royal Gala apples
Crumble topping
1/2 cup packed brown sugar, extra
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon, extra
30g unsalted butter, softened, extra
1/2 cup plain flour
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Method
1. Prehead oven to 180 degrees. Lightly grease a 24cm round springform cake tin.
2. In a large bowl, beat butter and brown sugar together until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each one. Stir in coffee powder and vanilla. Sift flour, cinnamon and salt together. Add flour mixture in batches, althernating with the sour cream. Spoon into cake tin and smooth top.
3. Peel, corre and slice the apples and arrange on top of cake mixture. Make crumble topping: combine extra brown sugar, cinnamon and butter together with flour and rub together until crumbled. Stir in walnuts. Sprinkle topping over apple. Bake for 45mins or until cooked when tested with a skewer. Cool on a wire rack. Serve with cream or ice-cream.

I highly recommend serving it with ice cream. Too yummy!

Butter, brown sugar, eggs, coffee powder and vanilla

Flour, cinnamon and salt. Then alternating with spooning sour cream.

Cake batter
Layered with apples

Crumble topping

Oh yeah, crumble topping plus the walnuts

Rub rub...mix mix

Scattered on the top and ready for baking

Fresh out of the oven

Trying out another view with natural sunlight

Hmmmm looks way more rustic

White Chocolate Mudcake (Valentine's Day)

2011-02-16T10:08:00.006+11:00

After being together for 10 years, we don't really celebrate Valentines Day anymore. But this year as I was doing the mundane task of grocery shopping, Woolies marketing got me. They had set up a stand with all these Valentine chocolates and this caught my eye

It was cute and I figured I could always make a cake and place the chocolate on top as decoration. It's the best way to express my emotions....through food ; )

I chose a white chocolate mud cake with a white chocolate ganache.....chocolate overload? Nahhhhh!
Ingredients for cake
250g butter
1 cup milk
1 1/2 cups castor sugar
150g white chocolate
2 cups plain flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 eggs
Ingredients for ganache
100g pouring cream
200g white chocolate

1.Preheat oven to 180 degrees.

Place butter, milk, sugar and chocolate in a bowl and place over a boiling pot of water. Stir until smooth

2. Place flour, baking powder, vanilla and eggs in another bowl. Add the chocolate mixture and beat until smooth

3. Pour the mixture into a greased tin and bake for an hour

Disaster strikes!

Freshly baked
I cut the top of the cake so the chocolate bar would sit ontop nicely

The ganache:

Again with the double boiler method melt the chocolate with the cream, stiring until smooth

Let it cool down for 10mins and you can pour it on the cake like that or whip it to stiffen it a little

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!

Jamie Oliver's Cabonara with Peas

2011-02-03T12:51:00.003+11:00

By golly I do love this creamy pasta by Jamie Oliver.
It's a basic pasta sauce, nothing fancy, nothing hard.....which makes it one of my favourites.
You can find the full recipe here on his website. However I altered mine slightly and I also ate it with a massive steak.....no iron deficiency for me! LOL!

The main ingredients

500g pasta

4 rashers of bacon (smoked bacon or pancetta would be better)

Handfull or 2 of Frozen peas

100ml double cream

And loads of parmesan (I love the extra parmesan)

After cooking your pasta, make sure you use around 4 tablespoons of the pasta water to mix in with the parmesan. This will be your sauce

Toss toss

Double cream

Bacon

Served with a side of steak ; )

Because I'm beastie and there is no other word for it

Grilled Garlic Prawns

2011-01-27T10:47:00.004+11:00

I don't like prawns, but this is one prawn dish that I will eat and actually enjoy. I think because I'm certain that the poop chute is completely removed and there is no chance of crunching on sand (poop) whilst eating the prawn *gag* just made myself sick.

The recipe that follows is a rough guess because when I asked my dad how much garlic? How much butter? How much prawns? He got fed up of me asking and just said "Go have a look yourself. See there, that's how much". Love home cooked food and recipes...there is no real quantity, just some of this and some of that, but it always comes together and tastes so good.

Ingredients
1kg large prawns
70g butter
10 cloves of crushed garlic
salt and pepper

According to dad this is how much of the butter and garlic I need

1. Place butter, crushed garlic, salt and pepper in a bowl and mix to form a paste

2.Preparing the prawns (butterfly prawns)

Slice down the middle as shown

Remove the poop chute (or intestinal tract)

Open up the prawn

Flatten it with the knife

You can stop at this stage if you want but dad wanted to trim the head and take out the gunk in it

Scrap out the head gunk

And your prawns are now ready

3. Spoon some of the garlic butter onto each prawn and grill for around 5mins on high

Grilled Garlic Prawns

Queensland Flood Appeal

2011-01-13T11:36:00.005+11:00

This is a non food related post but an important one none the less.

I'm sure everyone is well aware of the tragic floods in Queensland with 13 deaths and 74 people still missing. The outpour of help and support has been really amazing (and that's just on Facebook would you believe!). There are many pages setting up auctions for handmade items with the money going towards helping the flood victims. You could also donate directly to the Queensland government here.

Or donate by phone 1800 219 028

Or Internet banking
Account name: Premiers Disaster Relief Appeal
BSB: 064 013
Account Number: 1000 6800

But if you are a bit of a Facebook addict like me (and love handmade products), you can go on and check out these wonderful pages who are hosting auctions:
- Jazzy Kids Auction (bidding has already started, ending 11am Wed 19th Jan)
- The Oz Material Girls or TOMG $1 Auction (Auction starts 12 noon Syd time Fri 14th Jan and ends 8.30pm Mon 24th Jan)
Both of which I have donated items from my Facebook page KC's Hairclip Studio (my other passion apart from food) for auction.

Other awsome pages helping out are:
- Handmade Kids & Rudy & The Dodo Flood Appeal (Auction starts 11am EST Fri 14th Jan and ends 12 midnight Mon 17th Jan)
- Wholesale Baby (bidding has already started, ending 5pm EST Fri 16th Jan)
- flickwillfixit.com.au (bidding has already started, ending 7pm Fri 21st Jan)
- Summerblossom Handmade Accessories (bidding has already started, ending 10am Tues 18th Jan)

I'm sure there are a lot more holding auctions but this is all I know of so far.
On behalf of everyone, thank you for doing such a wonderful job at organising these auctions and taking the time to be part of this wonderful wonderful cause! And thank you to the people who are donating their fabulous handmade goodies for the auction!

Please all you fellow Australians take some time to have a look or let others know and we can all help out where we can. Better yet, maybe make a bid or 2 on some items : )

Every little bit counts guys!
Thank you for taking the time to read this post.

Crumbed Bocconcini and Grilled Tomato Salad

2011-01-07T14:44:00.006+11:00

Thankfully it wasn't my turn to host Christmas dinner this year (or should I say last year...), it was mum and dad's turn. But each family still helps out by contributing a dish and this was mine - Crumbed Bocconcini and Grilled Tomato Salad, a recipe I found in the Woolworths Recipe Magazine.

Those fried bocconcini are deadly! Love that melted oozing cheese. But you must eat this fresh because if you leave it for too long, it's just a bit of a soggy mess. Here is the recipe which I altered slightly.

Ingredients for deep fried cheese
180g bocconcini cheese
1/2 cup plain flour
1 egg, beaten
1 1/3 cup breadcrumbs (or equivalent to 4 slices of bread)
1/3 cup grated parmesan
Canola oil for frying
Ingredients for salad
250g punnet cherry tomatoes
4 thin slices of prosciutto
100g mixed green leaves
Ingredients for dressing
1/2 cup basil leaves, shredded
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon brown sugar

Method
1. Pat bocconcini with paper towel. One by one, dust in flour seasoned with salt and pepper to lightly coat and dip in the egg. Place in a bowl containing combined breadcrumbs and parmesan cheese and roll to coat. Press coating on well. Place on a plate and chill for 30mins.
2. To make Salad: Preheat oven to 180 degrees or 160 degrees fan. Arrange tomatoes cut side up and prosciutto on two baking trays. Bake for 10-15mins, until prosciutto is crisp and tomatoes have collapsed slightly. Break prosciutto into pieces and toss together with green leaves and tomatoes. Set aside.
3. To make Dressing: Whisk together dressing ingredients until combined.
4. Heat enough oil in a frying pan to shallow fry crumbed bocconcini. Fry in 2 batches until crunchy and golden. Drain on paper towels. Scatter bocconcini over salad, toss gently and drizzle over dressing.

Organisation is the key

Patting the cheese dry

Mmmmmm prosciutto

Cherry tomatoes

Dressing

Shallow frying the bocconcini

End result

Here's the rest of the feast our family got to enjoy

Ham and turkey

Singapore noodles

Fried prawns

Fried fish

Potato Bake (whoops, slightly charred but still really good)

Prawn toast

Chhay's Christmas Trifle to round off the meal

Sushi Christmas Presents (using the Rice Cube)

2010-12-31T10:51:00.004+11:00

What is a Rice Cube? It's an awesome kitchen gadget that shapes the rice into a cube in about 4 easy steps.
So what did I decide to make? Sushi Presents for our Christmas lunch. We were already planning a massive hot dinner so something cold and light for lunch was the way to go.

Place some sushi rice in the contraption

I added my regualar sushi tuna mix in the middle (recipe here)

And topped it with some more rice

Watch the video here to see how the device works

Push, fold, push, slide and there you have it....

I cut up some nori sheets and wrapped it around each side, then made a nori bow....
Using a strip of nori, wet the ends and stick it together to form a circle (like picture). Pinch the middle and wrap a small bit of nori around the centre and place it on the top of the rice cube

And that's my Sushi Present

By the 4th attempt I was definitely getting better

Merry Christmas!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas filled with love and laughter and of course lots of food : )

What a fabulous year we've had and I thank everyone for taking the time to read my blog. Looking forward to the new year for more cooking and eating!

xoxoxo

Jimmy's Satay and my Bok Choy Noodles

2010-12-11T10:50:00.006+11:00

Good 'ol Jimmy's!
We use it for Satay Chicken, adding to the soup of Steam Boat to give that extra POW! and also just as a plain dipping sauce. This post I've used it as an accompaniment to my stir fried Bok Choy Noodles. And the noodles would be nothing without Jimmy's.

Ingredients

2 Bok Choys (cut in segments)

4 bundles of dried noodles

1 tablespoon of oil

3 cloves of garlic

3 tablespoons oyster sauce (I usually add more after tasting)

200g ham (or any cooked meat)

Jimmy's Sate Sauce

Chilli Sauce

Method

1. Fill a large pot with water and bring it to the boil (in my case I used a frying pan so I didn't have to wash up extra).

2. Meanwhile cut the Bok Choy and rinse really well.

3. When the water is boiling, throw the Bok Choy in and only cook it for around 30 seconds. Take it out and let the water come to a rapid boil again.

4. Throw in the noodles and cook (around 4mins)

5. Drain the noodles, rinse with cold water.

6. Heat the pan up again. Add the oil. Add the garlic.

7. Shake off excess water from the noodles and then place it in the hot pan (you may need to add more oil, but again personal preference here), add oyster sauce and stir well.

8. Add the ham and the Bok Choy and cook a further 2mins (constantly stirring or tossing).

9. Plate it and add some Jimmy's and chilli sauce on the side. Enjoy!

Bok Choy

Dried noodles

(use a chopstick to loosen the bundles)

Garlic

Oyster Sauce

Ham

Bok Choy - all in!

Add a splash of Jimmy's and chilli sauce
Mix mix and there you have it

Mr Dduckbocki Miss Kkochi

2010-12-08T15:03:00.003+11:00

Do you know my obsession with deep friend doughey goodness? Well yeah it's something I'm not proud of, but it is my weakness. And to make it even better....shove it on a stick! Mmmmmmm oh how I love you Pluto Pup/Dagwood Dog and who does it best? The Koreans with their panko breadcrumbs......

$3.00

I enjoy these a little too much. And unfortunately I live rather close and do succumb to them quite often. Ohhhhh but they are sooooooooo good! And there is a range of other stick foods on offer too. There are the spicy rice cakes, plain frankfurt, dim sum, gyoza, and heaps more.

Perfect for a late night snack. Make a selection through the viewing window and off you go

The Boulevarde, Stathfield

"Eat Me" Cookies (Inspired by Alice In Wonderland)

2010-12-01T09:58:00.008+11:00

I have this friend Steph.....well she's more than just a friend. She's my confidant, my advisor, tech/IT/FB support, shoulder to cry on, mothers group buddy, basically she's my go to girl. If I need something, she's there in a heartbeat. Maybe not always in person because we don't live that close to each other anymore....but she's just a phone call away.

So Steph was turning 30 and had invited me to her Alice in Wonderland themed birthday party and I had promised to make her a giant cupcake (which turned out to be a bit of a fail because it went all droopy on me - photo proof will be at the end of this post). Luckily I also decided to make cookies, of course Alice in Wonderland inspired ones that say "Eat me" or "Try me" he he he.

You can find the recipe here. Yes it's another Martha Stewart one....she's awesome!

The flour mixture

Creaming butter and sugar

Add the flour mixture into butter and sugar and watch it transform

Mix mix....

Until it forms a dough

Whoops forgot to take photos before I baked

Oh well....here are the baked photos

Royal icing in snap lock bags

Pipe the edges first and allow them to dry (around 30mins)

With the remaining icing, mix a tiny bit of water in it but make sure it is still stiff and not runny! Very important as I found out (takes twice as long to dry and also creates air bubbles)

Spoon the icing onto the cookies (the dried edges works as a barrier to stop the icing running over the side). Again allow to dry

Using white icing, pipe your words

And the party.....Steph and Carlos did such a fabulous job! Look at the decorations!

The bar area....mmmmm loved the Strawberry Martini

Oh and as promised.....here is my melting giant cupcake.....traggic isn't it?

Happy 30th birthday Steph!

Thanks for being such an awesome friend : )

xoxoxo

Rainbow Cookies

2010-11-18T21:19:00.006+11:00

I know I've been terrible with the posts lately. I've taken a breather and looked to my inner child and this is what I come back with....the rainbow cookie.

I've seen the rainbow cake doing the rounds so I thought I'd try a rainbow cookie instead. Great for the kids to get involved and also the inner child in me. Requires a little bit more elbow grease as you have to work the colour through the dough but it's worth it when the kids see the end result. So much fun (a great excuse to get a bit messy with the flour and just enjoy it.....well for the kids anyway....mop and bucket for me afterwards was not so fun)

Work it!

The colours
Rolled and ready for the oven

Straight out of the oven

And the kids cookies (the big one I made hehe)

The Jordster on the left and The Keanster on the right with his one lone cookie

Rainbow Cookie Recipe

- 200g room temperature butter

- 1 cup white sugar

- 1 egg

- 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste (or vanilla essence)

- 2 cups plain flour

- At least 4 different colour food dyes
Method

1. Using the paddle attachment mix the butter, sugar, egg and vanilla.

2. Pour in the plain flour and mix again.

3. Divide into four balls.

4. Mix a different colour for each ball.

5. Flour the work bench and roll each ball out into a snake.

6. Place 2 snakes together (parallel), then the other 2 on top (so when you go to cut it you will have all four colours)

7. Cut along the snake (2cms thick) and roll each one out and press it down on the baking pan.

8. Bake at 180 degrees for 10-15mins

How to Make a Nappy Cake (and Sock Roses)

2010-10-25T15:19:00.011+11:00

Not quite a food post....but it's still a cake.....

My dear sweet friend Danuta had invited me to her baby shower so this was a great opportunity for me to try make a nappy cake. It's fiddly I must admit but if I can do it, so can you. I did need a couple more hands to help me out (while I took photos of course) but other than that it's achievable.

Danuta and I have known each other since kindy, we went to primary, high school and uni together and she was one of my 5 bridesmaids. We've also lived on the same street together for the past 23 odd years. Some of my fondest memories were spent with her, her sister (Teresa - who also did an awesome job organising the baby shower!) and I in my front yard chatting and playing Big 2 after school and on the weekends......good times they were : ) So she's a special friend of mine and deserves a special gift. Ok enough of the soppy stuff.....onto the nappy cake.....
What you need
- Newborn nappies (a box of huggies has 108 nappies but I think I used around 40-50. Depends on on how big and how many tiers you want)
- A box of rubber bands
- Maybe a dowel to hold the tiers in place (although I used the cardboard roll from the cellophane)
- Sticky tape
- String
- Ribbons
- Cellophane
For the base you can buy a cake base but I just cut up a nappy box and folded it over to make sure it's thick and strong, then covered it with foil.

Finally, you'll need various baby items to decorate (I used 3 pack baby blanket, thermometer, baby lotion, baby oil, cutlery set, socks and a hooded towel)

Lay the nappy face down with the "open" side towards you
Roll it up towards the "closed" end

Secure with a rubber band

Space the rubber band out so the nappy holds it's shape better and more securely (not necessary, but I can be a bit anal....)

The stack of nappies
Bottom tier - surround the cardboard roll with the nappies and secure with rubber band

Add more nappies and tie a string around to keep them in place

Before you cover the bottom tier, start on the middle tier (trust me, it's just easier to do this now). Slide this off so you can cover the bottom tier with a blanket
Another view

Wrap the blanket around the bottom tier like so...

and tie string around the bottom tier to keep the blanket in place

Make sure you gather it around the roll neatly (and in our case the blanket wasn't long enough to go the full way around so we cut some blue paper just to hide the nappies....again not necessary but yeah....anal....)
More example of the gathering

Yeah I think you guys get the picture now

Secure a rubber band at the top

Remember how we started on the second tier before? Well slip that back on now

Wrap the second tier with another blanket, tie it up with string

Top tier - I used the hooded towel as my top tier and shoved the last blanket at the top to hide the carboard roll

Using larger ribbon (maybe 2cm width) tie them around each tier to hide the string. Then place your baby items all around and secure with smaller ribbon

But wait there's still more!

Sock Roses!

Lay the sock down with the toe part towards you

Roll it up towards the opening

Make sure there is the "bud" forming

Once you get to the end, fold the opening inside out covering the base of the flower

Sock rose or flower

Pin the sock roses carefully onto the blankets (as you don't want to pierce any nappies) and voila!

Side view

Back view

Other side view

Cover it in cellophane and tie the top off with ribbon and you have your nappy cake

Congratulations Danuta and Simon!

May your little man be blessed with good health, a loving soul and a happy life : )

xoxoxo

Chorizo Pasta

2010-10-20T15:01:00.003+11:00

This is probably my favourite pasta to cook because it's so simple and delicious. You don't need many ingredients because the chorizo oil provides the flavour....mmmmmm chorizo oil.....

Ingredients
2 chorizos
1 diced onion
2 garlic cloves

1 can diced tomatoes

400-500g pasta

1 tablespoon chopped parsley

Salt and pepper

100ml cream (optional)

1. Fry the sliced chorizos and set aside. DO NOT throw out the chorizo oil. Leave it in the pan to cook the other ingredients
2. Cook the diced onion and garlic

3. Add the can of diced tomatoes (I only had whole tomates at the time but it still works. Crush them or break them to segments while you are cooking and stirring)

4. Add the parsley, salt and pepper

5. Add the cooked chorizo and simmer for around 10mins

6. Option - add the cream before you are about to serve. Stir well.

Serve over cooked pasta

Bistro Lilly

2010-10-18T15:11:00.004+11:00

A rare dinner for 2 at a nice restaurant without the kids. Comes by once a year ; )
I picked Bistro Lilly for our 5 year wedding anniverary. I was after something nice but not over the top or too extravagant. Did some research and eventually decided on Bistro Lilly. It was their fast courteous email reply that won me over.

The specials currently available are 2 courses for $39 or 3 courses for $46 where you must arrive before 6.30pm. Or you could go for the 5 course degustation for $69. We went for the early bird 3 course special.

Outside
Nice romantic ambiance

Optional extra - Bread roll, roast garlic and truffle butter ($1.75pp)

Entree 1 - Polenta Dusted Baby Calamari, Basil Aioli and Rocket
Baby calamari are the way to go! They were so tender and they had a nice crunch with the polenta curst. The basil aioli was very subtle. Mmmm good dish.

Entree 2 - Truffled Duck Liver Pate, Cherry Vinegar, Red Onion Relish and Toasted Brioche ($19 off ala carte menu)

For me, I'm don't like pate so I can't say I enjoyed this. But my husband thought it was lovely : )

Mains 1 - 180 day Grain Fed Angus Beef Fillet, Sauteed Spinach and Shiraz ($35.90 off ala carte menu)

Our version tonight came with pumpkin puree, mash and onion relish. The steak was awesome! Seriously, the knife just slid down the meat. Really beautiful. And cooked just as we asked.

Side - Crisp Royal Blue Potatoes Lyonnaise ($9.50)

Very good. But again with the onion relish?

Main 2 - Confit Duck Leg, Braised Red Cabbage, Caramelised Pears and Chestnuts ($34.90 off ala carte menu)

On the night the ingredients were changed slightly. It was broccolini with pomegranate sauce. This was gorgeous! Loved the crispy duck skin and the fall apart meat. And the pomegranate sauce goes really well with the duck.

And to my horror.......my camera battery died just before the entree : ( Couldn't believe it. Oh well. I ended up having the Vanilla Bean Brulee with Lavender Sable. Lovely and creamy with the ever important top you can crack with a spoon. My husband chose the White Chocolate Parfait, Liquorice and Fresh Raspberries. He absolutely adored this. And I was impressed with the Liquorice Parfait as I don't like liquorice in it's "normal state" but this was really good.

My one gripe? Onion relish was a bit of an overkill. Only the pate (entree) mentioned onion relish so to get it on the beef (mains) and potatoes (side) was a bit too much. Or I guess it's just bad luck that those were the dishes my husband chose.

Overall, a really nice place. Not too fancy, smart casual (but a couple rocked up in jeans and a t-shirt) and the service was attentive - our water was filled up regularly without any need to hail someone down. Har! We got a phone call in the middle of entree to see if we still wanted to keep our booking ha ha ha!

Happy 5 year anniversary : )

Love forever

xoxoxo

Baked Pork Chops with Tomatoes and Creamed Corn

2010-10-11T14:22:00.010+11:00

I first had this dish a couple of years ago from Cafe De Coral in Hong Kong. This "Cafe" is actually a fast food franchise which popped up everywhere we went....guess it was Hong Kong's equivalent to our MacDonalds. And like MacDonalds, we ate here a lot, possibly way too many times considering there were so many other great places we could have eaten at. Still, at least I came away with this dish : )

Ingredients
4 pork chops

2 cloves garlic

1 onion (cut into wedges)

1 tin diced tomatoes

1/2 can creamed corn

1 cup chicken stock

1 capsicum (cut into wedges)

4 cups cooked rice

Diced tasty cheese (about 150g but that's a guess because I just throw on whatever I have or feel like)

Salt and Pepper

1. Heat a pan, shake some salt and pepper on the pork chops then cook it for about 2mins each side (doesn't have to be cooked through as you will be adding other ingredients and placing in oven later).

2. Add the garlic and onions and cook for further 5mins.

3. Add the tin of tomatoes, creamed corn and chicken stock, cook another 5mins.

4. Meanwhile, spread the cooked rice out on a casserole dish.

5. Add the capsicum, stir and taste to see if you need more salt or pepper.

6. Pour the pork chop mixture over the rice.

6. Sprinkle the cheese over the top and bake in the oven for around 20mins.

Or in our case we add LOADS of cheese

Fresh out of the oven

Speedy Chicken and Sweet Corn Soup

2010-10-06T14:29:00.003+11:00

You can't run a Chinese take away shop without having this soup on the menu. It's up there with fried rice, sweet and sour pork or mongolian lamb. All altered to suit the Western palate. But I do admit, I love some nasty Chinese take away every now and again. So why not make it at home?

This recipe is only speedy because you use already prepared chicken stock (maybe leftover from another recipe or maybe use the ones from the carton). Obviously if you cook the chicken bones yourself it's heaps better, but we are talking speedy today....

500ml chicken stock

1/2 can of creamed corn

1 egg

Handful of diced or sliced chicken, whatever you prefer (You can use as much or as little chicken as you like as this is not to flavour the soup)

salt and pepper to taste

Shallots or spring onions for garnish

Heat up the chicken stock

Add the chicken and boil for 5mins then add the creamed corn

Crack an egg into a bowl but do not beat it, just break the yolk

Pour the egg into the hot soup and stir gently....and I stress REALLY gently as you want the egg to form into cooked ribbons. See below photo.
Add salt and pepper to taste (although you may not need any if you are using the stock from the carton as that is pretty salty already)

Pour it into a bowl and garnish with shallots

Shoe Cake Toppers - Happy 30th Birthday Chhay!

2010-09-28T10:50:00.022+10:00

Like the majority of females, my sister-in-law is obsessed with shoes. But she is the only one I know who owns around 50 pairs (that was around 3 years ago so it's significantly more by now I'd say. I think she's stopped counting at this stage). So it was only fitting that I make a cake decorated with shoes for her 30th birthday.

This is no doubt one of the trickiest cakes I've put together (compared to the steak cake and the butt cake). And making it harder was the fact we were having the party at the park which meant transporting the iced cake to the venue and then putting the shoes on after we arrived. Unfortunately the shoe on the right didn't make the full journey : ( No matter, the cake tasted fantastic. I was very impressed with how it turned out. Thank you to my wonderful friend Tina who sent me her reliable chocolate cake recipe. She's my go-to-cake-advice-buddy. You rock!

The cake itself wasn't hard to make it was just the shoes that were a nightmare. You know how fondant can be on a warmish day. And especially when you make your own fondant, it's not as good as the real stuff, but again I like to punish myself don't I?

So how to make the shoe topper? From this excellent website. Oh Nati you are amazing! She also provides a template for you to print out. Awesome!

On to how I made the shoes.....

My first attempt

The Sole...

The sole with heel

Another view
The lining. Upside down sorry
Lining on the sole

Using scrunched up cling film at the front to hold up the top of the shoe and stop it from collapsing

I stuck on cachous which ended up giving it that studded look
Second attempt

This heel was a disaster as you will see in the following photos

I gave the lining some stitching marks this time
The heel is collapsing!!!

Third and final attempt as I was well and truly over making shoes by now haha!
Starting to make the bow

Now for the cake itself. A simple cake which surprisingly didn't have any milk. Turned out to be really lovely and moist.

Ingredients
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2/3 cup canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla essence (I used vanilla paste)
2 2/3 cups plain flour
2/3 cups baking cocoa
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teasponos bicarb soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups boiling water
Method
1. Boil the kettle while you prepare everything
2. Mix oil, sugar, eggs and vanilla
3. Sift dry ingredients together and fold into wet mixture with the 2 cups of boiling water
4. Mix until smooth, pour into greased tin
5. Bake at 180 degress for around 45mins

Dry ingredients

Wet ingredients

Mixing the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients

All mixed and ready for the oven

I forgot to take a photo after I baked the cake. Here it's all baked and trimed and iced with chocolate gananche.

Chocolate Gananche

200g dark chocolate

200ml thickened cream

Method

1. Using the double boiler method, melt chocolate (filing water in saucepan and bring to boiling point. Place chocolate in bowl and put it on top of the boiling saucepan making sure the bowl does not touch the water. Stir the chocolate until fully melted)

2. Pour the cream into the melted chocolate and mix

3. Take it off the heat and allow to cool for 15mins

4. Whip it up so it's light and somewhat fluffy and holds it's shape.

5. Smother the cake with it

My handwriting is terrible so I didn't want to attempt icing the message on, instead I went with fondant and little letter shaped cookie cutters. Much safer option.

Carted the cake to the park in my handy Wilton cake carrier and finished it off there.

Ta-da!

Oh so moist!

Happy 30th birthday, Chhay! Hope you had a lovely day and of course many many many more. Try to curb your shoe addiction too : )

Lots of love from all of us

xoxoxo

Banana Bread

2010-09-23T10:10:00.004+10:00

I've made banana cake before but this was my first time making banana bread. It's a good recipe and the bread turned out better than I expected. To really enjoy it, I needed to spread a fair amount of butter (ok a lot of butter) but that's just me. I looooove butter.

Recipe can be found here.

2 mashed bananas

256g self rasing flour

40g plain flour

1 teaspoon cinnamon

140g brown sugar

50g melted butter (cooled)

125ml skim milk (although I used full cream because I don't buy skim)

2 eggs

Add the cooled melted butter and mix

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix

Pour batter into a loaf tin and bake for 180 degrees for 45mins

Fresh out of the oven

Sliced up

The townhouse smelt so wonderful! Banana and cinnamon wafting out to the neighbours. Bet I made them jealous hehehe!

Potato Bake

2010-09-19T12:20:00.005+10:00

Another tried and tested recipe I always go back to time and time again. Potato and sour cream - enough said. The other bits are just little extras ; )

1kg potato

1 large onion

4-6 rashers of bacon (diced)

300ml sour cream

salt & pepper

1 cup grated tasty cheese

(the cup of cheese will depend on how wide your dish is. I used a big roasting pan so ended up needing 2 cups of cheese to cover it all but if you use a smaller dish, but deeper, you should get away with a lot less cheese)

Cook and drain spuds
Cook the bacon and onion in a frying pan with a dash of oil

Pour the spuds, bacon and onion in the roasting pan/dish.
Add the sour cream, salt & pepper and mix it all really well
Spread the cheese over the top evenly

Bake for about 20mins at 180 degrees.

Or if you are in a rush, just grill it till the cheese is melted and golden brown

And what did we have the potato bake with this time?

Dad's roast chicken

And the rear view

AND pork ribs too!

3 Ingredient Cookie (gluten/dairy/soy free!)

2010-09-09T11:01:00.005+10:00

Seriously the easiest cookies to bake ever and it's wheat, dairy and soy free. But it is packed with peanuts so unfortunately not nut free....well you can't win them all!

The 3 ingredients:

1 cup granulated white sugar

1 egg

1 cup of peanut butter (I weighed out roughly 235g instead. Oh and I used crunckie peanut butter to give it more crunch)

Put it all in a bowl and mix mix mix

Suppose you could use a paddle attachment on your mixer

Roll ping pong size balls. Place on baking paper and push a fork down vertically and then horizontally creating an "x"

Like so....

Bake at 180 degrees for about 10mins.

Make sure you allow them to cool completely on the tray before you move them or they'll just fall apart.

These are the quickest easiest cookies I've ever made. My husband's friend who is gluten intolerant couldn't believe they were wheat free. I'm so thrilled that he loved them and that they turned out so well.

Thank you to April who gave me the recipe (gotta love facebook when 1 post can get to friends of friends of friends from across the globe).

Colcannon

2010-09-02T13:23:00.004+10:00

My husband loves potatoes as much as I love rice. Put it down to him being Irish and me being Chinese. It's just what we have grown up eating and enjoying. But how creative can you really be with potatoes? Before marrying him I only knew how to make mash potato and baked/roast potatoes. These days I have a few more recipes up my sleeves thanks to his love of the humble potato. One such recipe which is probably the most common one in Ireland is Colcannon. A mixture of left over mash and anything else really you have in the fridge. But the main ingredients should be mash potato and cabbage.

Ingredients

500g potato

2 tablespoons butter

50ml milk

50ml cream

3 rashers of bacon (diced)

1/3 head of cabbage (shredded)

Pepper (salt is optional as I find the bacon gives it enough saltiness)

Method

1. Boil the potato until they are soft.

2. Meanwhile just before the potatoes are ready, heat a pan and cook the bacon (2mins), add the shredded cabbage and cook for a further 2mins.

3. Once the potatoes are ready, drain and mash adding the butter, milk and cream.

4. Add the bacon and cabbage and stir it well.

Cooking the bacon.

Apparently what we call bacon here is not the same as in Ireland. Traditionally it should be the meat from the neck. The closest thing I could find was bacon off the shoulder.

Adding the shredded cabbage

Colcannon

It could be a meal on it's own. Carbs, meat and veg ; ) But we served ours with roast lamb. Yum!

Pocky Sticks with Popping Candy

2010-08-25T14:12:00.004+10:00

Try say that really fast five times! Luckily making these weren't as hard but it did take a long time to roll each one out. I gave up after making about 40. Still, they are really fun to eat and more fun to watch when an unsuspecting victim realises it's popping in their mouth.

I went with this recipe from Frelia as I had all the ingredients in my pantry already and it turned out really well. I like the addition of hazelnut meal as it gives it a more nutty taste. Next time I think I'll cut down the sugar slightly and maybe add some salt just to try balance it out a little more. I think that the slight saltiness of the sticks should go well with the chocolate (as crazy as that sounds!)

Dough (which makes around 60 sticks)

Pinching off little balls and rolling them as thin as I could get it before they'd fall to pieces

Close to being as thin as the real Pocky Sticks

Fresh out of the oven

The chocolate dip mixture

Pocky Sticks with Popping Candy

Ingredients

125g butter

125g icing sugar

1 egg

50g hazelnut meal (if you don't have this Frelia suggests subsituting with flour)

250g flour

1 teaspoon vanilla essence (because I didn't have hazelnut flavouring)

200g dark chocolate (or milk chocolate, whatever you prefer)

50ml cream

2 x 10g sachets of popping candy (but otherwise you could use nuts, hundreds and thousands, shredded coconut, etc)

Method

1. Combine softened butter, icing sugar and egg in the mixer (I justed used the dough attachment on high speed to save cleaning the beater attachment but this will take a little longer).

2. Add hazelnut meal, flour and the vanilla essence. Mix until it forms a ball of dough.

3. Wrap the dough in cling film and refridgerate for at least an hour.

4. Preheat oven to 175 degrees C. Take a small ball of dough and roll it out as thin as possible without it breaking apart. Place each one on a flat cookie tin with baking paper on it. These won't expand much so you can keep them quite close together. Bake for 10mins.

5. Allow to cool completely. Meanwhile, melt the chocolate and the cream in a double boiler.

6. Cover 3/4 of each stick with the chocolate and allow that to cool slightly before you sprinkle the popping candy on (or any other nuts or candy you prefer).

7. Place it on a sheet of baking paper and allow to cool completely at room temperature.

Tuna and Avocado Sushi

2010-08-12T11:05:00.004+10:00

From a warming hearty winter dish to this summery recipe. It's like one extreme to another. It's not really the weather for making or eating sushi though is it? But that would reflect my mood, I'm so over this cold winter, bring on summer!

Sushi rice
2 cups Sushi rice (short grain)
3 cups of water
4 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt

NB: For every cup of rice you will need 1 1/2 cups of water

Method (rice cooker instructions)
1. Place 2 cups of rice in the rice cooker bowl and rinse it till the water is no longer cloudy.
2. Pour in 3 cups of water in and turn on the rice cooker.
3. Mix vinegar, sugar and salt and stir until sugar dissolves. Sprinkle over rice, slicing through rice with a wooden spoon to break up any lumps and distribute the vinegar evenly.
4. Cool rice quickly by fanning it for 5mins. Cover with a damp cloth to stop the rice from drying out.

Method (stove top intructions)
1. Place 2 cups of rice in saucepan and rince it till the water is no longer cloudy.
2. Add 3 cups of water and bring it up to the boil. Stirring occasionally.
3. Reduce heat and simmer covered for 12-15mins.
4. Remove from heat and stand covered for 5-10mins.
5. Follow instructions above from step 3 onwards.

I chose Sun Rice this time.

Very happy with this product as the rice turned out perfectly and I love the packaging. It has a re-sealable zip.

I don't have one of those wooden bowl type things that you are suppose to cool it in and I also don't have a wooden spoon, so a plastic one would have to do. Here I've sprinkled the vinegar mix and getitng ready to "cut" the rice

The ingredients I chose to use this time to wrap was:

1 grated carrot

1 avocado

1 large can of tuna with roughly 3-4 tablespoons of mayo mixed in, and some salt and pepper to taste

The tuna and mayo mix

The finished product.

Best served with some Japanese soy sauce and wasabi

A lovely light healthy meal perfect for the warmer weather (when it finally comes around). Well Spring is just around the corner.....hurray!

Cottage Pie

2010-08-08T14:47:00.003+10:00

Winter means hearty, filling, comfort food. And Cottage Pie is exactly that. It's something I grew up on and never had it often enough. So now I make so much that it usually lasts a few days and I still am not sick of it. Like when I make spaghetti, enough to last at least 3 days. My record eating spag bog was 6 days in a row....almost made it to a week. But it wasn't the same spag bog (I would probably have keeled over with food poisoning if I kept food for that long). So does it count if it was 2 different versions? Eating my one for 4 days and eating my dads one he made for the following 2 days? I digress......

Sorry went off to a bit of a tangent there....now Cottage Pie....yes yes, I love it. When I was little however I would eat it with rice (yes even though it's a meal on it's own and yes it has mash potato on top), nowadays I can do without the rice although secretly I think it needs it hehehe

Ingredients
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 carrot, diced
1 celery stick, finely chopped
1 brown onion
2 garlic cloves
1kg minced beef
2 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 cup chicken or beef stock
1 cup of frozen vegetables of your choice
salt and pepper

1kg potatos
100g butter
1/2 cup milk (more or less depending on how you like it)
salt and pepper

Method
1. Heat oil in pan then add carrot, celery, onion and garlic. Cook until onion is translucent and other vegies are soft.
2. Add meat and cook for another 10mins making sure you stir and break the mince apart so it's not all in big chunks
3. Add flour and tomato paste and stir well, cooking the flour.
4. Add bay leaf, worcestershire sauce and stock. Cook for 10mins.
5. While the meat is cooking, peel, cut and boil up the potatoes.
6. Add the frozen vegies, salt and pepper and cook for another 10mins giving you time to finish off your mash potato.
7. Pour meat into a big roasting dish, layer the mash potato on top. Decorate the mash by dragging a fork over the top.

Fresh vegies

Cut extra small so hopefully the little lad won't pick it all out

Fresh vegies, meat and liquids added

Frozen vegies added
This time I chose corn, peas and red capsicum

Bottom layer

Top layer

Fresh out of the oven

Cottage Pie