Maria's Food Fix

Italian obsession

2010-04-09T21:49:00.004+10:00

There are some moments where I swear I must've been Italian in a previous life. I'm so fascinated by the processes, depth and intricacies of Italian food - which is why I'm over the moon that SBS has created a weekly TV drool-fest: Italian Food Safar i.

When I saw this creation, I could almost smell the fried fish through the TV! It looked divinely innovative.

Stuffed sardines (sardine alla beccafico) from SBS's Italian Food Safari TV program

I headed off to buy the sardines at our local seafood market and was shocked - sardines are SO cheap!! As it was close to the end of the working day, I just bought all of what was left in the window - about 30 sardines I think and it was only $4.75. It's the perfect GFC budget food!

The only thing that irked me a bit about this recipe was filleting the sardines - which you do by pushing your thumb down the midline of the sardine from tail to head to splay the fillet, then gently lifting out the bone. It was easy, but each time I picked up a new, whole sardine, I kept thinking of my childhood goldfish, Sparkle! Just that slipperiness and the texture of it all was odd - I've never had to fillet a fish of any type before.

I remembered the ingredients that were required, but due to my utter laziness, I didn't bother to look up proportions and just went from memory and what felt right. The filling is composed of fresh white breadcrumbs (zap them in the food processor), chopped parsley, parmesan cheese, garlic, salt, pepper and a beaten egg.

I had intended to use fresh parsley from my herb garden, but my neighbourhood friendly possum had completely gnawed my parsley plant to pieces. Grr. The only time I needed a significant quantity of it.

Pick up a sardine fillet, squish a little sausage of the mixture along the middle, then use another similarly sized fillet to sandwich over the top - then press the edges together slightly with your fingers to make it stick together.

Coat with a light dusting of plain flour.

Pan fry in olive oil for about 3-4 minutes per side.

These are incredibly delicious - the sardines still retain some of their inherent fishy-flavour, but with the salty characters of the parmesan and the parsley herbal-hit , it's a perfect balance. I used to love eating canned sardines in tomato sauce, but that is put to shame by this fresher alternative.

Rich in omega-3 fatty acids, not to mention Vitamin D, calcium, B12 and protein and being very low carriers of mercury - this is skyrocketing to the top of my fish list. As I'd made so many, we had leftovers to eat the next day and believe it or not - they taste even more spectacular the second day. If you're going to try this recipe, definitely plan for leftovers. But you may have to hide some away from your family as you're cooking to actually create leftovers!

For the love of dairy

2010-03-30T15:59:00.002+11:00

Considering my absolute love of cream, milk, butter and anything full-fat dairy, I was dismayed when my worst fears were confirmed - my boyfriend is lactose intolerant. This news came to us gradually as he loves milk and his coffees so much that he was adamant that it couldn't possibly be the milk that was giving him gut-wrenching tummy aches.

Also, I secretly think that he felt it was almost a blow to his masculinity - he was incredibly embarrassed about asking for soy milk when we went out to cafes. It wasn't until we were at a dinner party once and two other men announced they were bypassing the icecream because of lactose intolerance, that he finally 'came out of the closet' and reluctantly agreed to go soy.

Unfortunately, my boyfriend constantly complained that soy milk was making his coffee taste awful. Thank goodness we've found Zymil milk, which contains the enzyme lactase, and tastes like ordinary milk. The only problem is - I adore cooking with cream and there are no lactose-free versions. Please, please Zymil - start producing cream products as well! I'm normally good with trying to keep cream out of recipes - but when I read this recipe, I couldn't resist despite the large quantity of cream.

Creme Brulee from The Really Useful Cookbook by David Herbert

The offending ingredients! 250ml full fat milk, 500ml cream and a split and scraped vanilla bean into a saucepan.

Heated until close to boiling point, then allow to rest for 10-15 minutes.

Whisk together 8 egg yolks and 150g caster sugar. I saw on Poh's Kitchen recently that you can't leave caster sugar sitting on egg yolks for too long or it will cook them, so best to get beating.

The mixture becomes gorgeously pale and fluffy.

Pour in the warm milk and cream mixture and combine well.

David Herbert's tip is to ensure the depth of custard is a maximum of 3cm to allow for the perfect texture. This souffle ramekins are probably not the best vessel to use, but they were the only appropriate oven-safe ones I have.

The ramekins are filled, then placed into an oven tray and hot water is poured into the tray until it is 2/3 up the side of the ramekins.

After baking at 150 degrees celsius for 25-30 minutes, allow to cool and refrigerate for a minimum for 4 hours or up to 2 days. Sprinkle with caster sugar and use a blow torch to caramelise the top before serving. I just popped them under a strong, hot grill for a few minutes after sprinkling the sugar and this did the job perfectly.

I am so in love with this recipe! My boyfriend had two on two separate days (and hence suffered horribly with stomach cramps) just because he couldn't help himself - they really are that fabulous. If that's not enough to convince you how amazing this brulee is, then nothing will. The custard texture is so supple, soft and silky and just humming with a warm, vanilla aroma. An easy recipe and one that I'm sure I'll be repeating time and time again.

No canned salmon here, folks

2010-03-26T23:17:00.007+11:00

Every two weeks at work there's an assortment of books that arrive in a large cardboard box, casually placed in our communal kitchen for our perusal - all at an enticing reduced price, delivered by an affectionately-termed 'Book Man'. It's really a book company that manages to get some fantastic deals on books and opens mini book 'vending' stores at small businesses. Of course, I get sucked in. Every time I say, 'This is absolutely the last cook book I'm buying for 6 months," then two weeks later, "OMG! But it's Jamie! And it's half price!". So yes, I've gotten some amazing deals, but because I work at two different practices and they change the variety in between places - I can no longer close my Recipe Book cupboard anymore. Aargh.

This recipe is from another awesome book that I got for only $20 (it's still $39 at Book Depository!).

Salmon Fish Cakes from The Really Useful Cookbook by David Herbert

This recipe promotes itself on the premise that poaching your own salmon for fish cakes is worth the extra effort. I have to agree - I've been searching for ages to find a decent recipe that didn't just involve opening a can of salmon. Sure, it's easy - but not that much easier, really. Poaching the salmon just involves wrapping the salmon in foil, leaving some space for air, then adding to a pan of cold water and bringing slowly to boil. Simmer for 3-4 minutes. It's only an extra 3 minutes compared to 30 seconds to open a can of salmon. So, I've got my bossy-boots on and I'm telling you - put the canned salmon away!

Boil chunks of potato in boiling, salted water until tender.

Mash the potato, allow to cool slightly then add the flaked, cooked salmon, chopped spring onion, parsley or basil, lemon zest and juice, mustard and egg yolk. Season.

Form into patties and coat flour, then dip into a mixture of beaten egg and milk, then breadcrumbs.

Shallow-fry over medium heat. I served this with a beetroot and lettuce salad and a bit of leftover rice - I don't think you need the extra carbs with the potato within the cakes.

These are really tasty - not a hint of fishiness at all, which can sometimes irk me a bit with poached fish. With all the herbs and lemon, it had almost a meat-like quality to it - and of course, anything fried is a hit with me! A lovely simple recipe. Of course, I know canned salmon has a place in the pantry - just nowhere near this recipe.

Fancy name, but not so fancy results

2010-03-09T16:58:00.009+11:00

Every time I cook or eat seafood these days, I reminisce about the amazing fresh crab that my boyfriend and I ate at the pier in San Francisco on our US holiday. Recommended by our San Francisco For Dummies book (which I was brazenly reading out in the open at the SanFran airport baggage carousel while waiting for my boyfriend until he quickly whisked it away from me - I was a walking advertisement for getting mugged!), the crab is fresh and cooked right on the pier.

The staff will clean and break the crab shell for you so that all is needed is clean hands (pack some hand wipes too) and gorgeous Boudin sourbread with butter to mop up the amazing juices. Because it can be bitingly cold outside, buy your crab first then take it over the massive Boudin building - they've got seating there as long as you purchase some bread. Hands-down the best dining experience ever - it's an absolute shame that crab is ever cooked any other way! We ended up going back again the day before we left and I'm saddened that Melbourne doesn't have a similar facility. The second time back we bought a simple basil and tomato pizza from Boudin to eat with the crab. Divine.

Seafood Quenelles from Dinner with Friends by Jane Price

I think I have the world's weakest food processor. However, every now and then I muster up some patience and get cracking with it. 200 g of firm white fish fillets is minced, followed by 150g scallops and 150g prawn meat separately then they are combined.

An egg white and 1 teaspoon of finely grated lemon zest is added to the minced seafood. I think I was a bit overzealous with the zesting and I'd advise you to stick to 1 teaspoon.

With the motor running, add 125ml pouring cream then snip in 3 tablespoons of chives. Cover and refrigerate for at least 3 hours.

Once chilled, use two tablespoons to form egg shapes. I found this easier to do with my fingers, but I've seen chefs do it properly and it looks great once you get the hang of it. Place them on baking paper, cover and refrigerate for an extra 30 minutes.

While the quenelles are chilling, make the tomato couli by heating 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a pan and lightly heat 1 crushed garlic clove.

Add 425g crushed tomatoes and 170ml fish stock (I used chicken because I can't stand the smell of fish stock!). Simmer for 30 minutes until thickened and reduced. Push through a fine sieve - I didn't as I prefer the chunky bits in my tomato sauce. Return back to the pan and add 2 tablespoons of cream and 2 tablespoons of snipped chives and reheat gently.

In a large saucepan, heat 1 litre of fish stock (again, I substituted with chicken) until just simmering then lower the quenelles into the poaching liquid in batches. Cover the pan, reduce the heat and each batch needs about 6 minutes. Drain on paper towels. Serve by ladling the tomato coulis onto the drained quenelles - or you can use the sauce as a base and place the seafood on top.

I served this with rice. The quenelles reminded me strongly of fish mince balls that are used in Vietnamese hot, strongly flavoured noodle-soups. I had made quite a lot of quenelles and used the second batch the next day in this fashion. It's probably related to the way I've grown up eating minced seafood, being more familiar with having it with noodles and soup, that meant it tasted quite bland and out of place with the tomato coulis. Even with the coulis seasoned and with the citrus notes in the seafood - it just didn't seem right. The next day, the flavour was much better - I think this recipe really needs some chilli to give it an extra zing.

Thumbs-up for fresh pasta

2010-03-08T00:22:00.005+11:00

After seeing weeks of relentless advertising for My Kitchen Rules on Channel 7, I had vowed to not watch this reality show purely based on the fact that the advertising was so repetitively annoying. But I caved. Ah, who can resist when it's such slim-pickings when it comes to weekday evening show choices.

I found myself watching one couple make fresh pappardelle pasta and having an enormous craving. It's been quite awhile since I've brought out the pasta machine, but it's certainly getting more fun as I learn to make different types. I amended the fresh pasta recipe from Jamie Oliver's and made up the sauce as I went, using whatever I had available.

Freshly-made pappardelle marinara with roast sweet potato, parsley and basil

I was hoping for leftovers to take to work the next day, so for two people I used 400g pasta '00' flour and 4 eggs and an extra egg yolk. The extra yolk was a last-second addition as in my hurry to get started, I accidentally cracked open 5 eggs instead of 4. I couldn't let that last egg go to waste!

I've read a variety of recipes where salt or olive oil is added - I think this is a case where simplicity wins out in the end. When you're eating the final product, you'll realise that no alterations are needed at all - it's perfection with just egg and flour.

After letting the dough rest for half an hour, I started cranking the pasta machine and slicing the pasta into wide ribbons - just a bigger version of fettucine.

While I was rolling out the pasta, I cut two sweet potatoes into rough 1.5cm cubes, placed them on a roasting tray with olive oil, salt, pepper dried parsley flakes and roasted until they were soft - about 45 minutes in a 200 degree celsius oven.

I was a bit nervous about the pasta ribbons sticking to each other as they cooked in the salted water, but thankfully it wasn't an issue at all.

As the pasta bubbled away, I heated olive oil in a pan with 3 chopped spring onions and 2 minced garlic cloves.

In with about 3 large handfuls of raw marinara mix and white wine. I covered the pan here briefly to help the seafood cook through.

Once the seafood was close to done, I threw in the roasted sweet potatoes, fresh chopped basil and parsley and turned this through briefly to warm the herbs. Season with salt and pepper.

I had some fresh parmesan in the fridge so the boy and I grated it straight onto our plates. There's a side salad hiding towards the back too!

I cannot encourage you enough to try making your own pasta at home if you haven't tried it - or attempt to do it more often if you've got a little extra time on your hands one evening. There's really no comparison to dried pasta - the pasta has a completely different bite to it, as well as absorbing the sauce flavours much more intensely. Like most things around the kitchen, I'm sure with a bit more practice it becomes a speedier (and less messy!) process.

A Hearty Meal in Summer

2010-02-23T20:40:00.005+11:00

We might be sweltering in the heat here in Melbourne, but I've come to realise how much I miss the hearty foods that I normally make (that also happen to be super-comforting to eat) during the colder months. I couldn't resist this recipe as I was scrolling through Jamie Oliver's website, so I'm deviating from the USA goss momentarily.

Jamie Oliver's Steak, guinness and Cheese pie with a puff pastry lid from Jamie at Home

Start by gently frying some chopped onions in olive oil.

A great bonus with this recipe that there are a lot of hidden vegies. It does take awhile getting everything washed and chopped beautifully, but it's so satisfying once you're done and you won't even know you're eating such a significant volume of greenery!

Chopped mushrooms, celery and carrots:

The vegetables are added to the saucepan, along with butter and garlic.

Combine then add fresh chopped rosemary, beef, salt and pepper.

Time for the Guinness, it has such a strong scent:

This is added to the pot along with water and flour to help thicken the stew. Then into the oven for about 2.5 hours.

I have recently come to realise that my oven is stuck on only one temperature setting - it doesn't matter whether I set it at 90 degrees or 220 degrees, it's still going full blast. I didn't let this hold me back from trying this recipe out, but I did realise that I wasn't getting the slow long cook that Jamie obviously wanted. After a few checks of the pot, I figured I was done by about 2 hours as the sauce was nice and thick at this stage.

Half the cheese is stirred into this piping hot stew - don't forget that the pot is hot when you're doing this - I've got a nasty welt from trying to hold onto it with my bare fingers as I was stirring. Season and allow to cool slightly.

A juggling act occurred next as I tried to cover the pie dish - which inconveniently needed 1.5 sheets to cover it, so there was a lot of stretching and joining of puff pastry for this stage.

The remainder of the cheese is sprinkled over the stew.

So deliciously cheesy and rich - I had this with a lettuce and beetroot salad. Jamie suggests peas but I needed something lighter than that. The meat had become gorgeously tender; the Guinness does have a different flavour to it - it does take a few mouthfuls to get used to, but I think it needs to be robust to match the strength of so much meat, cheese and pastry. Wonderfully cosy comfort food.

Which, actually does relate in a roundabout way to my USA trip. I could've done with some comfort food on the flight back, as despite 4 phonecalls throughout the trip to try and select seats for the 16 hour flight home, Qantas wouldn't let us check in until we'd done our transit flight from San Francisco to LA. We got to LA only to find out that they'd seated us completely apart - seriously, on different ends of the plane and sandwiched in between God-knows-who.

After trying to rationally reason with the check-in staff, I embarrassingly confess that I resorted to the crying strategy. It started off as a few fake tears, then in my utter exhaustion and desperation it became a full-on heaving bawl. To keep it short, they 'miraculously' found seats for us together and all was well as I walked away with puffy eyes, dishevelled hair and a snotty nose. Then we straightaway bumped into some friends we knew from Australia (can you believe it - in LA?!) - so, so embarrassing. I cringe now as I write this. If only a pie could right all wrongs.

Shamelessly pining for more Sushi Rika

2010-01-19T22:12:00.007+11:00

To mix things up a bit, I'm moving onto San Francisco momentarily, with it's awesome Golden Gate Bridge and amazing Japanese eatery - Sushi Rika. San Francisco was our last stop and by this time, the boy and I were tiring slightly of eating out every day of our holidays - yes, I know, what a terrible conundrum to be in!

It had become a bit of a gamble as to whether the food was going to be great or not - we'd had some amazing highs and a few bad, bad lows. We were almost sobbing in despair as we choked down the food at Disneyland Anaheim - not even worth a photograph I'm afraid, but more about Disneyland on another post!

Sushi Rika had fantastic service and cute, segregated booths. It also boasts a karaoke bar if you're up for it; but we were here for a good chow-down. We started off with an impressive sake platter, all five with distinctly different flavours.

Although plum wine doesn't count as sake, it was in there and tasted like a summer-y, girl-friendly wine and that's one I'll continue to look for at Japanese restaurants in the future.

The boy and I ordered dinner combinations, which gives you each a salad, miso soup and either two or three selections from about eight varieties of small-sized mains.

The salad is lettuce with a tasty mayonnaise-based dressing.

My boyfriend paid a bit extra $1.50 to get a seaweed salad - check out the generous serving!

We both ordered sashimi as our first main selection. These are the chunkiest and most delicious slices of sashimi I've eaten - ever.

The boy's other two selections were tempura and chicken teriyaki.

I just had one more, which was pork bbq short ribs - such tender meat and bursting with flavour.

We'd been almost living at Starbucks for the past two weeks and I was so coffee-d out and was dying for some green tea before bed, and the very friendly waiter gave me an enormous tub of ready-made tea to take back to the hotel, without charge. Lots of brownie points earnt there, which translated to me becoming a happy (and generous) tipper!

It also translated to us coming back the next night for fried oysters and the largest pot of sukiyaki that I've ever laid my eyes upon.

This visit unfortunately was marred by the fact that the boyfriend wanted to try another Japanese restaurant (because it was closer to where we were), but by the time we sat down and looked at the menu we were already regretting it. I don't remember the name of this place, but the table was so low that I was losing circulation in my knees pressed up against it. The menu was abysmal, so we did a shifty - we ordered one entree, guzzled our drinks and left (awfully drunk after drinking on an almost empty stomach) and bolted to Sushi Rika. So, that concluded visit number two.

Yep - we went back there for a third time on our last night before flying back to Melbourne. Chicken Teriyaki for the boy and I had beef yakiniku. We had ordered sashimi at each visit and the chef had remembered us - the 7-piece sashimi became 9 pieces at the second visit and then 11 this time. And we'd left with complimentary green tea each time! Sorry about the blurred photography - what is clear is that the food smelt so tantalising that turning the macro focus on was obviously not high on my priorities.

So it is with much sadness that Sushi Rika is so far away and I'm not sure if I'll ever get the chance to eat there again - once again, I need a replacement restaurant in Melbourne! And Samurai Hawthorn is not an option, because although I used to love that place to pieces and I crave their green tea milkshakes almost day - I've heard about and unfortunately experienced some compromised hygiene and can't bring myself to go back. Sob. But if you're ever in San Fran, you must swing by Sushi Rika, at least for some nibblies and a drink.

My current obsession: Mexican Food

2010-01-14T21:36:00.005+11:00

Apologies for the blogging gap, but as you can guess from the above photo, I've just returned from a 17 day trip to the USA! And I've got the extra weight on me to prove it - the boyfriend and I have seriously eaten our brains out throughout this trip.

What I did absolutely ADORE about America was the amazing variety and availability of gorgeous, superbly fresh and tasty Mexican food. I'm almost ready to believe I was Mexican in a previous life. Unfortunately, Mexican food has lost most of it's oomph and wow factor on it's way to Australia - all the places I've been to have bland, boring beans and processed, stale food. Each Mexican eatery I went to in America (based on some research done though guide books and the internet) served wonderfully vibrant and fresh flavours. I'm going to pop a few more photos up soon of other treats we ate.

The first place we tried was Border Grill in Santa Monica. My boyfriend had chicken tacos, corn tamales (wow - these are just amazing! How have I never eaten one of these on my life before?) and seafood ceviche.

All of the Mexican restaurants provided huge quantities of complimentary warmed corn chips and salsa. We went all out and ordered an enormous tub of fresh guacamole too. Also, as we'd come at Happy Hour, it was $3 Margaritas!

I also had a seafood ceviche of my own and a platter with three tacos - lamb, fish and chicken.
I'm sure there must be great quality Mexican food somewhere out there in Melbourne; I'm quite keen to do some research and find one that matches good value with great variety, fresh ingredients and some pizazz!

Mango adds the wow factor

2009-12-04T23:05:00.007+11:00

I'm not quite sure why, but I've recently become obsessed with making curries. Sure I've got the new cook book, but it's not the only one I've been foraging through for ideas. Along with that new territory, I'm starting to acquire a taste for adding chilli to food and I'm needing to add more and more chilli to the curries to get that flavour kick. After years of not believing it, it seems it is true that you can learn to love chilli!

The amazing part of this recipe is the surprising sweet chunks mango that you obtain in the occasional mouthful amongst the fleshy prawns and smooth, silky coconut undertones.

Nigella Lawson's Red Prawn and Mango Curry from Nigella Express
Nigella Lawson's Wasabi Lime Dressing from Nigella Express on spinach and avocado salad

Wok oil is heated in a saucepan, then chopped spring onion and red Thai curry paste is added.

Coconut milk, chicken stock and fish sauce are added and brought to the boil.

Although it's high up om my list of un-favourite cooking chores to do, this recipe requires peeled pumpkin and sweet potato - and it's one of the few times I think it's worth the annoyance. I can feel a grumpy moment coming on everytime I have to peel a pumpkin, but I have recently bought a new industrial-strength potato peeler which makes light work of the pumpkin skin. The chopped sweet potato and pumpkin are added and simmered until softened.

While this was cooking away, I made my absolutely favourite salad dressing to go on some simple spinach leaves with scooped pieces of avocado. Lime juice, groundnut oil (I use extra virgin olive oil), wasabi paste and sea salt. I've lost count of how many times I've prepared this and it's versatility on any salad base is perfect. Another example of my need for a chilli fix!

Just as we're about to eat, I add the prawns to the curry and the chopped pieces of mango. There was a time in my childhood where I could've sworn that if I was only allowed to eat one food item for the rest of my life, it'd be mango. Although I'm not quite as fanatical these days, I love gorging on them in summer.

Garnish with coriander, serve with rice (and the salad in my case) and feast away. We bought a new Samsung fridge recently (woohoo for more fridge space!) which arrived just as I was ladling this curry onto the plates, and the delivery men caught a glimpse and said they wished they'd been invited for lunch!

So many curries to cook and so little time...

2009-11-16T23:03:00.003+11:00

I've recently acquired yet another cook-book - it's a small book, no wider than a DVD disk but decently thick - and it's simply called '200 Curries' by Sunil Vijayakar. I'm one to bring cook-books to bed with me and get stupendously hungry as I read them before bed, and this is one where I've earmarked almost every second page to cook. The food photography is simple but mouthwatering and I'm constantly tempted to undo all my night tooth-brushing and flossing to run to the kitchen for something to nibble on to settle my hunger.

Coconut Lamb Curry from 200 curries by Sunil Vijayakar

Ingredients
2 tablespoon sunflower oil
1 onion, thinly sliced
2 teaspoons grated fresh root ginger
2 teaspoons crushed garlic
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
20 curry leaves
2 tablespoons mild curry powder
1 tablespoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon chilli powder
625g boneless lamb cut into chunks
200ml vegetable stock
400ml coconut milk
100g fresh coconut grated
6 tablespoons chopped fresh coriander
salt and pepper

Oil is heated in a large heavy-based saucepan, the onion is stir fried over medium heat for 4-5 minutes. Add ginger, garlic, cinnamon, curry leaves (I left this out as I don't like the chunky leaves in the sauce when I'm eating it later on), curry powder, ground coriander, turmeric and chilli powder.

Cook for 2-3 minutes then add lamb. Cook for 2-3 minutes then stir in the coconut milk and stock. Bring to the boil, season well and cover tightly. At this stage you can simmer over a very low heat for 1.5-2 hours; I actually threw everything into the pressure cooker her to get the lamb superbly tender.

Cook for 2-3 minutes then stir in the coconut milk and stock. Bring to the boil, season well and cover tightly. At this stage you can simmer over a very low heat for 1.5-2 hours; I actually threw everything into the pressure cooker here to get the lamb superbly tender.

I did deviate from the recipe here and added sliced carrot and mushrooms to the pressure cooker. I swear that once you head down pressure cooker territory, it's so hard to go back - the meat becomes so unbelievably melt-in-your-mouth. My boyfriend's mother gave me one awhile back and I was honestly quite skeptical until I tried it.

I also left out the fresh grated coconut, as I felt it would have too much a lamington-quality to it with the floaty bits. It is definitely worthwhile stocking up on some of the spices in this recipe as they're used quite frequently in many curries (or a multitude of other recipes!) and are so cheap to acquire. The layering and depth of flavours is awesome in this dish.

Eating the weekend away

2009-11-03T22:12:00.000+11:00

Puff pastry is high up on my food Love list. Yes, I'm sure it's all related to the enormous butter content, but if you wrap anything in pastry I'm happy to scoff it down. This works well in my favour in my ongoing quest to attempt to cook with more fish and seafood.

On top of this, we've just had Melbourne Cup today and I snuck in a day-off on Monday to make it four days of blissful holidays. It's been fantastic being able to enjoy the gorgeous weather - the boy and I have had an incredibly nasty bout of the flu, which well and truly kicked the life out of us for 2 weeks. Now I can put all the misery in the past and finally be able to taste my food - in the midst of being ill, I managed to make the saltiest chicken soup ever and was still not able to taste it!

The boy even had a Cup day punt and managed to pick the winner, so it's been an awesome weekend of eating, bludging and figuring out what shoes I'm going to buy with our little cash influx!

Individual Fish Pies (from www.exclusivelyfood.com.au)

Butter is melted into the pan and the leeks are cooked gently.

Flour is added and cooked briefly, this will help thicken the sauce later on.

White wine, lemon juice and cream are added and simmered until thickened. This is seasoned with salt and pepper.

Adding the fish pieces, parmesan cheese and parsley then stirring gently until just combined. Most of the cooking occurs later in the ramekins.

Divided into the ramekins:

The rim of the ramekin is moistened with water, then thin strips of puff pastry curled over the edges to help form a good seal later on. A pastry lid is then placed over and pressed down with a fork.

Quite a short baking time, so you won't have to wait too long for the delicious results - 25 minutes. In fact, after you've gotten the chopping out of the way, it really is a simple and flavour-packed meal. The fish pieces are quite filling, so I could only fit in one pie but the boy moved on to a second one - which works out perfectly, leaving another 3 for dinner tomorrow.

The delicate leek scent wafts through all the fish pieces, removing all traces of 'fishiness' which is a huge plus. The sauce looks thick when you're spooning it into the ramekins, but you don't need to worry with the juices that the fillets will release - it becomes a nice coating consistency after cooking.

With the extra time I've had this weekend, I made Nigella's Cherry Cheesecake from Nigella Express which we've been slowly attacking over the 4 days. There was just enough tonight left tonight to finish for dessert - I bought some fresh cherries to eat alongside. I think this is the perfect way to have this - having a fresh-fruit element contrasts so nicely with the heavier elements of the cake so I'd highly recommend having both rather than one or the other as the cake topping.

Cream saves the day

2009-10-10T21:10:00.006+11:00

You've probably noticed that a significant number of the recipes that I make include cream as an ingredient. There's no mistaking that I adore cream - more than any other person I've ever met. An iced-chocolate isn't quite the same without lashes of creamy goodness on the top, scones must be with jam and cream, and yes, I'll have cream as well as ice-cream with my pancakes.

This hasn't worked out so well with my boyfriend, who's recently come to realise that he's lactose intolerant. It hasn't stopped him from guzzling bowls of ice-cream and regretting it later, but it does make me feel a bit guilty when I can't help but crave Carbonara for dinner. These two recipes have been quite the indulgence for one day.

Hot Spinach Dip (from www.exclusivelyfood.com.au) and Nigella Lawson's Hot Toffee Sauce (from Nigella Feasts)

The dip involves placing baby spinach leaves, softened cream cheese, chopped spring onion (I used a quarter of a red onion), garlic, lemon juice, parmesan cheese, pepper, mayonnaise and cheddar cheese into the food processor - it was a bit of a cramming-moment but I did manage to fit everything in.

It does look quite lumpy and thick once blended:

However after a short bout in the oven, until the cheese bubbles, it's meltingly good-looking!

This dip didn't look too appetising to my boyfriend at first (geez, anything remotely vegetable-looking and my boyfriend starts to worry) but it doesn't taste like vegetables at all. Each bite of the dip with bread gives your taste buds an enormous flavour kick. Very more-ish and a perfect dip to make for parties.

As I was watching the movie Revolutionary Road tonight (quite a depressing movie), I needed some food comfort which came in the form of lots of ice-cream doused with a hot toffee sauce. This is dangerously easy and fast to make. Dark brown sugar, golden syrup and butter are brought to a ferocious bubble for a couple of minutes, then stir in some cream.

The best part of this sauce is munching on the little chunks of toffee that have hardened when they freeze against the ice-cream. The smell of making this wafting through your kitchen is mouth-watering. What an awesome cooking day - two definitely repeatable recipes. Maybe cream has the ability to make anything taste amazing?

Bringing on the summer with passionfruit

2009-09-25T21:22:00.005+10:00

What a gorgeous day for Melbourne today! Bring on summer, I can't wait for lazy weekend barbeques and frolicking at the beach. What better way to celebrate than with a summer fruit - good ol' charming passionfruit. I know that Nigella raves about having passionfruit on pavlova, but I personally think that it's territory belongs as icing on these cupcakes.

I recently made a batch of the Crabapple Bakery cupcakes and I whipped up some more today and switched to using the passionfruit icing instead - which they normally use on their extravagant sponge and cream cake.

Ingredients:
50g softened butter
1/2 cup fresh passionfruit pulp (about 6 fruits in my case)
4 cups icing sugar

The butter, passionfruit and half of the sifted icing sugar are combined, then the remaining icing sugar is added gradually until smooth.

This stuff is incredibly alluring - I can't believe any of it made it onto the cupcakes because I just wanted to slurp it all down! Passionfruit is definitely my next 'new cool thing' since rhubarb!

Subtle Saffron

2009-09-22T20:50:00.004+10:00

I'm not completely sure if saffron provides enough of a taste for my uneducated palate to be able to detect it in cooking, but it does add a gorgeous hue when added to soups.

Creamy Fish Soup from Kitchen Classics: Soups and Breads by Jane Price

Ingredients

¼ teaspoon saffron threads
2 tablespoons boiling water
1 litre fish stoc
125ml dry white wine
1 onion, finely chopped
1 small carrot, finely chopped
1 celery stalk, chopped
1 bay leaf
50g butter
2 tablespoons plain flour
300g skinless firm white fish fillets (such as snapper, orange roughy, bream) cut into bite-sized piees
250ml pouring cream
2 teaspoons chives, to garnish

Soak saffron threads in the boiling water.

The fish stock (I used vegetable) wine, carrot, celery and bay leaf are placed in a saucepan and brought to the boil slowly, then simmered for 20 minutes. I used an extra carrot to make up for the lack of celery.

The liquid is strained and vegetables discarded. The saffron and liquid are poured into the hot stock.

The butter is melted in a clean saucepan (I just used the same one as for the stock) nd then the flour is stirred in for 2 minutes - it becomes pale and foamy. This is removed from heat and the fish stock stirred in gradually. The saucepan goes back on the heat and the soup is stirred constantly until it thickens.

The fish is added and simmered for 2 minutes, or until cooked through.

The cream is now stirred through without boiling the soup.

This soup has a velvety, subtle flavour - there's the hint of all the vegetables that were used in the stock before, and I think this makes a huge difference as the soup doesn't just taste like processed stock. Adding a few fresh vegetables in the beginning does allow you to cheat a bit with store-bought stock, because you get the depth it brings as well as the sprightly kick of home-made ones.

This recipe has the potential to act as a curry as well - if the sauce is thickened further, it would be perfect over rice to soak up the juices. It wins votes from me as there's no fishy smell, which is my ultimate nightmare when cooking seafood.

Speaking of which, the boy and I ate out at Italy 1 in Camberwell last night and the food there is fabulous. The waitress was very ditzy and they were a bit understaffed, but they made it up ovewhelmingly in the quality of the food.

The boy and I shared a calamari entree, followed by Linguini Marinara for the boy and Barramundi and Scallop mousse tortellini in a crab bisque for myself, a side of tomatoes with buffalo mozarella, then a pear and chocolate tarte with hazelnut gelato. I'm salivating while typing this! This is the second time I've been and they've been impressive on both occasions.

I have no idea how they manage to pack such an enormous amount of flavour into each of their dishes - I was almost ready to go out the back and beg the chef to show me how to make the marinara!

Seriously Veg

2009-09-15T22:30:00.007+10:00

There have been a few times in the past where I've tried to fool (lovingly, of course!) my boyfriend into eating a completely vegetarian meal, but I realised I'd pushed it a tad too far when I made this and realised there was absolutely no way to hide the fact that there was a complete absence of meat. Not that these weren't lovely, but for the avid meat-lover and I must admit - even myself - these are perfect as a carb side but we did need some meat to buff out the meal. There were a few patties leftover which we'll have with a good hearty steak tomorrow!

Vegetable and Chickpea patties (from www.exclusivelyfood.com.au)

This recipe does look quite orange-coloured as I had no zucchini and substituted carrot. The carrot is gently fried with onion and garlic.

Canned chickpeas, peanut butter, curry powder, egg yolk and bread are whizzed together in a food processor.

This mixture is then added to the fried carrot, onion and garlic, along with chopped herbs (I used coriander purely because it's the strongest growing plant in my herb garden at the moment!) and sesame seeds that have been roasted in the oven briefly to enhance their flavour.

I added the diced vegies, which were boiled and diced potato and sweet potato

The patties are formed and supposed to be refrigerated for 20-30 minutes before pan-frying but I was starving and gave them a quick 10 minute session in the freezer. I did have the heat up a little to high and so the outsides are a bit charred, but this didn't affect the overall taste - they were nice and crispy on the outside and squidgy internally.

I did have quite an appetite though, after spending the whole afternoon outside in the vegetable patch putting potatoes in. Well, more like sneaking them in as they were supposed to be planted before August - but I'm hoping my the patch will forgive me for being 2 weeks late.

I've given up on my broccoli plants, which don't seem to be growing at all from their seedling size - I think I mulched too close to them and have somehow suffocated them, as the only thing that's happening is their leaves are going purple. I've replaced them with some lettuce seedlings and will keep my fingers crossed that they do their thing - I'm not going to let this vegetable patch get the better of me. Jamie Oliver makes it looks so frustratingly easy!

Dumplings a different way

2009-09-09T21:29:00.007+10:00

When I told my boyfriend that we were having dumplings for dinner, he was a bit surprised when I brought out these "Western-style" ones instead of the meat-filled Chinese type that we normally head to Box Hill to chow down. Fortunately, he wasn't disappointed and I've earmarked this recipe to make again - except I've lost the damn thing! Aaargh! I made this recipe about 2 weeks ago so there's a bit of vagueness trying to remember as much as I can to detail it here.

Jamie Oliver's Beef Stew with Herb Dumplings (The Herald Sun Weekend lift-out August 2009)

Starting with celery, garlic and a bay leaf - cook slowly until softened.

Diced beef is added and browned:

Then in with beef stock and red wine - there's quite a decent amount in this. This is brought to the boil and then simmered on low for an extended period to tenderise the meat.

While that was cooking away, I proceeded to the dumplings. I used a tiny nutmeg grater to finely shave the butter into the flour - it does look beautiful, it's almost a shame that it has to be marred by mixing it in.

Adding parmesan cheese and chopped fresh herbs - I used rosemary and parsley.

Water is added now and there is some gauging required so that it becomes doughy enough to form into balls.

Once the stew was ready, the dumplings were delicately placed on top. They look small and insignificant, but they become nicely golden and raised later.

The interior of the dumplings are so light and flavoursome! No hint of heavy bread-iness and a great accompaniment to stew as it adds a completly new flavour with each bite, as well as balancing out the heavy wine intensity. They also don't get soggy too easily, so you can take your time without worrying that the dumplings will be swallowed up by the stew juices. Now I've just got to keep my fingers crossed that I haven't accidentally thrown that recipe out.

Small Glitch

2009-09-08T22:03:00.002+10:00

My computer has been eaten alive by a viral thing over the past week, but I'll be back to regular posting from tomorrow!

Cupcake Comfort

2009-08-25T22:36:00.008+10:00

There's two things that pop up into my mind when I'm making cupcakes. The first one relates to the time I made some Magnolia Cupcake recipe cupcakes at home and brought them to work. Everyone was so impressed, that even 2 years later, if anyone talks about baking someone will mention my cupcakes. Now, this should be a fantastic compliment, but it has made me too paranoid to bring anything else to work anymore - as I'm sure it can't live up to the hype of those cupcakes. I'm even wondering if people really remember how good those cupcakes were, or if it's just been dressed up in their imaginations!

The second one occurred when I ran out of flour awhile back and had to do a quick dash to the supermarket. At the check-out, the guy behind me asked me what I was buying flour for (lol!). I was a bit taken-aback but told him I was making cupcakes, and I thought the conversation would end there. Err, no. He then asked me, "What for?" (again!). Followed by, "Is it for a school fete or something?". Hmm...there really was no proper justification for this so I truthfully said, "Uh, no. Just to eat!" He then gave me a weird look (I don't know why I was on the receiving end of these, by now) and asked me,"Do people even make cupcakes anymore?". Well, damn straight they should!

Vanilla Daisy Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream Frosting (from The Crabapple Bakery Cupcake Cookbook)

Recipe is here thanks to Lemon Almond

Creaming the butter and adding the sugar in thirds. I halved the quantities to make a dozen cupcakes.

Adding the eggs, one by one. This is followed by vanilla extract.

Flour and baking powder are added in thirds, alternating with milk.

The icing is a mixture of creamed butter, icing sugar, milk and vanilla essence. I put two drops of green food colouring to get a nice pale shade - I shudder at the thought of garish icing colours.

I'm loving this cupcake recipe - I believe it's a fluffier version of the much-worshipped Magnolia Cupcake bakery ones. It's lighter on the butter and sugar, although I did reduce the sugar quantity a tad. Gorgeously light on the inside and a beautiful golden colour throughout. They're so light that when you're spooning the batter into the cupcake cases, it's almost like spooning marshmallow clouds. Really.

Medicinal Minestrone

2009-08-16T16:31:00.004+10:00

Along with the massive windstorms we've had lately in Melbourne, the immune systems of the boyfriend and I have also weathered a battering. We need some proper, home cooked nutritional sustenance rather than lazily nipping out for take-out or splurging on a new restaurant experience. This also has to do with the fact that we've planned a trip to the U.S. at the end of the year and it's time to save, save and squeeze in some more saving.

I've also turned a new leaf after the recent emergence of my vegetable patch - which, by the way, has some lettuce shoots breaking through the soil (woohoo!) . Trying to get our recommended five veg and 2 fruit in a day is actually harder than it sounds - luckily this recipe ticks off all the veg.

Minestrone soup at www.taste.com.au

You'd better roll up your sleeves for a fun chopping experience - into the pot went pancetta, capsicum, potato, carrots and celery. The capsicum was an impromptu last-minute addition to increase the veg ratio. Cook for 5 minutes.

Add beans (I used butter beans but red kidney beans are obviously the usual choice but I can't stand them grr!), beef stock and canned tomatoes. Simmer for 30 minutes until the vegetables soften.

Add pasta and cook until it becomes al dente. I found some cute little dinosaur pasta shapes at the supermarket and used these, but they did take a little longer to soften.

Garnish with parsley - proudly from my brand new herb garden (fingers crossed this one lasts!) and parmesan flakes.

This minestrone is really refreshing, but a little on the sour side. I'd be interested to try a few other recipes that have other vegetable combinations that may counteract the tomato tang. You will feel extraordinarily healthy while eating this however - it's a hardcore vegetable dosage which should remedy those winter blues!

Italian Cooking Mama

2009-08-11T22:49:00.008+10:00

My current addiction is the game - Cooking Mama - on the handheld Nintendo DS. My boyfriend thinks it's crazy and that I should divert that energy into real food that we can actually eat. But there's something so satisfying in tapping away at the screen to simulate chopping or kneading or whatever task you've been set!

I did, however, take up the boy's advice today and put my Italian Cooking Mama apron on and proceeded to make ravioli from scratch. This did result in 00 flour coating every imaginable surface of the kitchen (I'll be finding new spots to wipe for days ahead) but I was cast back to my kiddy playdough days!

Jamie Oliver's Ravioli of roasted red onions, thyme, pine nuts and potato from Delicious magazine May 2006

The ravioli filling is prepared first - by roasting red onions and thyme sprigs in a pool of balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil in the oven. Separate to this, I roasted desiree spuds. Both went in together but the potatoes took an extra 15 minutes to cook through.

Once out of the often, the potato flesh is scooped out (cue lots of hot potato burns - so you really should wait a bit for them to cool) and combined with the caramelised onions. The onion is chopped into squishy little bits and the juices are also added.

Parmesan, butter, salt and pepper are used to season this mixture.

I made fresh pasta sheets using 600g 00 flour and 6 eggs.

After kneading the two together, it needs to rest for 30 minutes while covered.

Using my nifty pasta machine, it flattened out beautifully. It's amazing how easy the dough is to work with after it's rested and once you've done the first initial flattening. The key is to split the dough into 2-3 and run them through separately to reduce the force needed.

To make the ravioli, I cut rectangles out of the pasta sheets and brushed the edges with some water, before adding a ball in the middle of one half of the strip, then folding over. I used my fingers to gently press the edges together.

Jamie suggests to cook the ravioli for 3-4 minutes - I found the pasta was still too dough-y and cooked for 7-8 minutes. Perhaps I could've rolled the pasta sheets out a bit thinner. After this cooking time, however, the pasta was cooked perfectly.

A simple sauce is made by lightly toasting pine nuts with oil and butter, then using balsamic vinegar to lightly coat the ravioli once added to the pan. Grated parmesan cheese was perfect with this.

The waft of caramelising onions around the house will make your mouth-water long before these are ready, so be prepared to kick people out of the kitchen when they wander in for a taste test! The flavours were so delicious that the boyfriend didn't even notice there was no meat in this dish - each packet of ravioli was full of juicy, intense oomph. However, as I knew there was no meat, I did feel it would be good to have some meat on the side or some bacon through the light sauce (naughty me, I shouldn't be wanting bacon!). It was great to make dinner a meat-free meal though.

This is only the second time that I've used the pasta machine and amazingly enough, it's a pretty easy contraption to clean. So I've got no excuses for letting it gather dust before the next pasta playdough session.

An apple a day to keep the doc away...

2009-08-04T22:01:00.006+10:00

I'm sure there's some truth to the saying, as apples are packed with fibre, antioxidants and flavonoids - but I must admit that the reason for this baking-fest was more the fun of making pastry again rather than nutritional interests. Although I do love a lovely crunchy Fuji apple - every now and then in a rare moment of luck, you can find some lovely crisp ones at the supermarket. Granny Smith green apples are the best choice for baking and I have used them here.

On a side note, I watched Jamie Oliver's Save The Bacon last night. Crap. I have never really been motivated to go vegetarian, but I was scarred after seeing what goes in pig farms. I feel stupidly ignorant for not thinking about what happens to the animals before they end up looking pretty in packaging at the store. I still don't think I'm game enough to go veg but I'll certainly be trying to make a few days a week fish or purely veg days. Save Babe!

So without any guilt I can say that no pig was harmed in the making of the following recipe!

Nigella Lawson's Apple Butterscotch Tart (from How To Eat)

It seems that everytime I make pastry, it becomes less of a scary and offputting procedure - so I keep trying to find more yummy recipes to motivate myself into baking from scratch. It really is worth the effort and doesn't take much time. I made the pastry before dinner - first by freezing the flour and butter for 10 minutes.

I then let the KitchenAid turn this into a breadcrumb mixture with the dough attachment. I can keep making dinner while this is done. Then I just need to slowly add some iced water (with a squeeze of lemon juice and a pinch of salt) until the dough just comes together.

This is formed into 2 discs and left to sit in the fridge for 20 minutes - or until we finished dinner. I was only supposed to make a half quantity but I didn't realise this until after, so I've got some spare pastry for another recipe sometime.

The pastry case prebaked. I used rice as the weights. Not a perfect looking case, but let's just call it rustic!

4 Granny Smith apples - peeled and cored - are used to fill the pastry.

The butterscotch sauce is made by combining lightly beaten egg and cream with light muscovado sugar and flour.

The apples still retain a bit of crunch to them, even though they I sliced them quite thinly. I'd be inclined to pre-cook them slightly on the stove next time to soften them before placing them in the pastry. Even though it seems as if there's a lot of sugar in the butterscotch sauce, it certainly doesn't make the tart too rich or intense. It actually works to enhance and emphasise the sour hint of apples. I reckon this works well with a scoop of ice-cream and lashings of cream. Go for both together! I can justify it by thinking of all the nutritional goodness of the fresh apples and well, you need your calcium from that dairy, right?

Carbs, carbs, carbs...

2009-07-28T21:20:00.006+10:00

I've recently been distracted but incredibly intrigued by Jamie Oliver's 'Jamie at Home' DVDs, where he shows gorgeous imagery of the most amazingly perfect home vegie garden and the results in the kitchen. With that inspiration, I spent the whole weekend creating a raised vegetable patch in the backyard (I love Bunnings!) and forming a separate herb area. My boyfriend has calculated that we could've just spent the $200 on buying actual vegetables (insert me, rolling my eyes) - but I've promised him I'm going to stay motivated this time. This is, afterall, the most effort I've put into a vegetable garden - even if it is my 3rd effort in a year! Keep your fingers crossed for me and I'll take some piccies soon.

Back to carbs though. They're a sure pick-me-up in winter - when I'm frozen down to my tippy-toes and it feels like I wake up to darkness to go to work, then come home to darkness - a good dose of carbs will set things straight. I feel less guilty eating this though, with the almost 400g of mashed fruit and 160g of walnuts - geez, of course it must be good for me!

Banana Bread from http://www.exclusivelyfood.com.au/

To begin with, the walnuts are roasted in a hot oven for a few minutes. I completely forgot about mine as I whizzed around the kitchen getting out the remaining ingredients and kept mine in for a full 10 minutes - eek! Luckily they weren't too bad and were salvageable - once coated with the bread batter, you couldn't tell how dark they'd become.

I've squished the super-ripe bananas, then added vanilla extract, eggs, yoghurt and melted butter. This reminds me of a muffin recipe.

In with my unattractive walnuts!

Plain flour, sugar and bi-carb soda are combined separately then added to the liquid mixture - careful not to over-mix.

This really is different to regular banana cake - certainly less sweeter and a more bread-like texture. I'm really loving the walnut crunch. I'm especially happy that it requires about 4 bananas - this is the recipe to turn to for those ageing bananas in your fruit basket. This does taste much nicer when warm, so I've been zapping it in the microwave for 10 seconds and then slathering thick layers of butter on top and enjoying it with a mug of hot tea. Yum.

The remedy for an unexpected chocolate craving

2009-07-21T16:27:00.017+10:00

I had the biggest chocolate craving last night. And when the boyfriend looked at me hopefully and requested a bake-up, I was too tired to do something fancy but I did need something to satiate my need for chocolate.

Maybe it was all that chocolate on the Master Chef finale that did it. By the way, I'm so annoyed that Poh didn't win. That was a damn tough challenge they had in the finale - I was looking at the chocolate plate and thinking - macaroons, chocolate pastry AND tempered chocolate?! All in 2 and a bit hours - I can't even make one of those in that time - so kudos to them for getting through it alive.

It seems Nigella has been in a similar baking situation before and I was able to spend minimum time in the kitchen, but still get maximum gratification from her recipe.

Nigella Lawson's Store-cupboard chocolate-orange cake (from How To Be a Domestic Goddess)

Even more of a sign that this recipe was meant to be - it calls for good thin-cut marmalade, which you may recall I made not too long ago. This was the perfect scenario to utilise the large store.

Ingredients
125g unsalted butter
100g dark chocolate, broken into pieces
300g good, thin-cut marmalade
150g caster sugar
pinch of salt
2 large eggs, beaten
150g SR flour
20cm springform tin, buttered and floured

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

Melt the butter in a heavy-bottomed saucepan. When it's almost completely melted, add the chocolate pieces. Allow to soften briefly then take the pan off the heat and stir with a wooden spoon until well combined.

The sugar, salt, marmalade and eggs are stirred in. It's almost a shame to disturb the visual smoothness of the chocolate, as it seizes up and becomes thick and lumpy.

Flour is added gradually.

The mixture is placed into the tin and baked for 50 minutes, then rested for 10 minutes in the tin before turning out.

I've never been one to pick the orange-scented chocolates when faced with a selection of assorted chocolates - I've always been a berry-flavoured or mint sort of girl. Despite the relatively large volume of marmalade in this recipe, there's only a waft of orange throughout the cake - it doesn't choke it with fruitness, fortunately. It really does seem more of a chocolate cake than an orange one.

It is a lovely cake, but not as impressive as some other ones in the past - I won't forget about this if I'm desperate for dessert but it won't be the first one I turn to. It's got a decent crumby texture to it and if you prefer it more damp and dense, pouring thickened cream over it as I did will achieve that perfectly. True to what Nigella says, it's isn't the prettiest of cakes and I think if I were to serve it for guests it would need some dressing up with some icing sugar or even a basic chocolate frosting to cover the cracks.

Pork and Peas

2009-07-18T11:01:00.005+10:00

My boyfriend and I have a good mate who hasn't ever eaten pork in his life - previously because of religious reasons, now out of pure habit. We take turns having dinner at his house with his wife and then at ours - and ever since, I keep finding all these lovely pork recipes that I would love to serve up for guests!

This is another recipe that I was watching on the Nigella Bites DVD that motivated me to hoist myself out of the house to get the necessary ingredients - I was so crazily hungry by the end of that DVD session! It made me realise that I've neglected to utilise pork in recipes frequently in the past. To me, pork has always felt like it's had limited uses, but I do hope to find some more interesting ways to prepare it.

Nigella Lawson's Loin of pork with bay leaves (from How to Eat)
Nigella Lawson's Upmarket mushy peas (from How to Eat)

Trying to be a purist, I went to the butcher first to acquire the pork but they were very unhelpful. I needed a loin of pork, boned and rolled. Nigella suggests derinding, but to me, the rind is the most delicious part of eating a pork roast. The butcher didn't have an unfrozen loin, although he did try to sell me a lamb leg instead(!). So I went to trusty Woolies, who had one packaged, ready to go - and it was on special too - woohoo!

The rub mixture:
6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
4 cloves garlic, bruised and crushed with the flat side of a knife
6 peppercorns, bruised
6 dried or fresh bay leaves, crumbled or 2 teaspoons ground

A bed of a sliced medium onion and 10 bay leaves is prepared, with the rolled 1.8kg pork loin placed on top and the oil rub is massaged in. I dried the rind with paper towel to improve it's crunchiness later on. Nigella asks the butcher to keep the ribs in her DVD to place on the side of the loin when baking, to add it's juices to the gravy later and as a cook's treat. They're absolutely delicious, so I'm glad I bought them as an extra - you must, must have them!

Into the oven at 200 degrees celsius. The instructions are to keep it in there for 1 and 3/4 hours but I found I needed over two, going by my meat thermometer. I let the meat rest on the side, then I reduced the meat juices left in the tray with some white wine and flour to make a gravy.

The mushy peas are made as a side to fried salmon in the DVD, but in the book it's down along with roast cod. I figured that it would be appropriate and simple to add the veg factor here.

800g of frozen baby peas are cooked in salted water with a head of garlic. I down-sized proportions here, but I probably shouldn't have as we enjoyed this immensely.

Drained and into the food processor with creme fraiche or sour cream, butter and I added some freshly ground pepper too. Process and serve!

My main concern with cooking pork is that it will be dry and chewy - this was incredibly moist and the meat fibres were falling apart as you picked them up with your fork. The crackling could've been a bit crisper, but there were plenty of good bits to try and break your tooth on. Fortunately, the pork wasn't too herb-y despite the high volume of bay leaves - it just added a slight sweet muskiness to the meat.

The true star of the show, however, was the divine mushy peas. Whoa. When I plated up, everyone was "eeugh, what's this green weird stuff" but this was quickly followed by happy munching - these peas are creamy, sweet and so easy to eat. My vegie-hating boyfriend was converted. My childhood memories of ugly, wrinkled, dark green peas were completely wiped away by this vibrant and fresh mush. This is going to be an absolute staple for meals in the future. I think I understand Nigella's infatuation with the baby pea!

A walk on the sultana side...

2009-07-10T22:14:00.007+10:00

In the past, I've been grossed out by the idea of using fruit in savoury meals. Especially sultanas. Then the other evening, I went to Va Tutto restaurant in Ivanhoe and had the most wonderful Rocket and Pear salad. Lovely food there but - unfortunately, terrible service - the waiter heavily berated us for accidentally ordering something that she'd told us was one of the many items unavailable on the menu, amongst many other incidents.

But the point of the story was that - shock horror - I started to change my mind about ignoring menu items that included fruit as an ingredient. I've always felt quite strongly that fruit belonged in the dessert section and that was all that my tastebuds were going to put up with. The thing that swayed me towards making this recipe was Nigella's (not surprisingly) mouth-watering delivery on her DVD. I was truly tempted to leave the sultanas out, but I felt that I should honour the way she intended it to taste.

Nigella Lawson's Tagliatelle (I used Trivelle) with Chicken from The Venetian Ghetto (from How To Eat)

Soaking the sultanas in warm water for half an hour - this picture would be much more accurate if I was standing next to it with my face contorted in hesitation!

I roasted a free-range chicken, lightly seasoned with salt and pepper and a lemon stuck up the middle. Two tablespoons of olive oil was rubbed into the skin. I roasted it with the breast down for half of the cooking time to keep it succulent.

To assemble, combine pasta, rosemary needles, soaked sultanas, lightly toasted pine nuts and the chicken meat plucked from the roasted bird (along with the oily juices). The kitchen was full of my "ouch" and "aargh" sounds as I burnt my hands in the name of a good meal as I was tearing the meat off!

I felt the meat juices were a bit too oily for my liking, so I did skim some of the oil off the top as it sat in the roasting tray and then used this fat to roast potatoes the next day. I sprinkled through some parsley and served some steamed corn on the side for the veg factor. I also added some salt and pepper, and I put some parmesan cheese out on the table for those who wanted it - and I think it did need some extra saltiness.

I've read How To Eat so many times it's ridiculous - I tend to bring it to bed and read it just before I nod off - and yet I don't think I've ever read this recipe before today! How I've managed to miss this recipe is outrageous, but I'm certainly glad that Nigella's DVD brought my attention to it. It tastes really healthy and wholesome - and the sultanas weren't overly sweet! I was worried that they might turn the meal into a disastrous mix of dessert and main, but soaking them meant that you didn't get a sugary spike, but a very mild sweetness which was a nice change every now and then from the salty chicken. Loved this recipe.

Deliciously Gooey

2009-07-07T21:37:00.006+10:00

I recently found Season 1 and 2 of the Nigella Bites series at Borders, which has caused quite a flurry of cooking activity at my house. One minute, I'm comfortably relaxed on the couch watching tv, the next I've got an enormous craving for whatever Nigella is making and I'm running off to the supermarket for a grocery dash. This was one of those inspirational recipes.

Nigella Lawson's Gooey Chocolate Puddings (from How To Eat)

Thankfully, this recipe is quick to whip up and doesn't need many ingredients. I've recently vowed to always have an emergency stock of Lindt good quality dark chocolate in my pantry for last-minute chocolate-baking cravings.

Ingredients

125g best quality dark chocolate, finely chopped
125g unsalted butter
3 large eggs
150g sugar
35g plain flour
butter and flour for preparing ramekins

I intend to avoid the double-boiler method of melting chocolate for as long as I possibly can - anything to make the final clean-up easier.

The chocolate and butter is melted together in the microwave. Set aside to cool.

In a separate bowl, eggs, sugar and flour are whisked by hand until just blended.

Gradually whisk in the melted chocolate and butter, then allow to rest.

The ramekins are greased with butter and then flour to lightly dust over the butter. I noticed on the DVD that Nigella didn't bother with the flour, but I thought I'd try it just in case. Divide into 4 ramekins.

At this stage, I left the puddings and finished cooking dinner. After dinner, the oven was preheated to 200 degrees Celsius and they're cooked in about 10 minutes - they're perfect just as they come out of the oven. Be careful not to burn yourself in your enthusiasm to dig into these! You can fiddle with the cooking times depending on if you want them gooier (less time) or more cakey (more time). I thought they were perfect at 10 minutes.

In hindsight, this recipe is another (but simpler) version of the Hot Chocolate Chip Brownie Sundae Cake that I made awhile back. I'd say that out of that one, Nigella's Chocohotopots and this - this one wins as it's easier to control the interior moist-ness and generally faster to make.

The boy and I ate them with a generous pouring of thickened cream, which is so delicious against the piping hot, moist interior. The top is set but the inside is rich and has an almost peanut-butter-like consistency in the way it sticks to the roof of your mouth. The serving size looks small - but trust me, the pudding is so rich that it is quite adequate to satiate your chocolate appetite.

Vegie Love

2009-06-30T22:26:00.008+10:00

This has been such a 'Vegetable Discovery' week. In the last post, I found out how versatile zucchini was, now I've fallen in love with parsnips. And this is the first time in my life that I've ever eaten them - isn't that odd? I've gone a whole 26 years without trying these weird carrot-impersonator-looking vegetables. Their stringy ends have always seemed a bit ugly every time I've passed them in the supermarket and they've never really caught my attention until I watched a Jamie Oliver DVD and my appetite was well and truly revved.

Jamie Oliver's Roast potatoes with garlic and rosemary and parsnips with thyme and honey (from Jamie's Christmas DVD)
Jamie Oliver's Creamed Corn (from Jamie's Christmas DVD)
Nigella Lawson's Roast Chicken (from How To Eat)

I admit that I'm quite a lazy cook. I can't remember the last time I peeled a potato because I'm happy to eat their skins rather than be burdened with the chore of removing them. That should give you an idea of how motivated I was by watching Jamie, because I'm proud to say I gritted my teeth and peeled them and the parsnips. I really think I should invest in a better peeler; my mother used to have a fantastic peeler that was so quick and easy to use.

Parsnips and potatoes, halved and parboiled, then sprinkled with salt and pepper. Garlic cloves are added and the whole thing drizzled with olive oil - I couldn't find the goose fat which Jamie used but I'd love to try it one day. 10 minutes into the oven time, rosemary is added.

15 minutes before removal from the oven, honey is brushed over the parsnips - a sprig of thyme is supposed to be used as the 'brush', but as I don't have a herb garden, I felt it would be a bit wasteful to just buy some thyme for this.

I shaved the corn kernels off 8 small corn cobs - which made one hell of a mess in the kitchen! Luckily I had my dogs acting as super-quick vacuum cleaners - they loved it as they gobbled up all the sprayed corn kernels. The kernels are cooked in a saucepan with water - Jamie said to use 2 wine glasses of water, but I found this made it too watery - I'd use only 1 glass next time.

While this was simmering, I pulled out the food processor and readied the other ingredients - chilli (I used green as the boy and I aren't too good with hot foods), salt, sour cream (which Jamie said can be used instead of creme fraiche), butter and black pepper.

Blended with the corn and ready to eat, with a knob of butter melting in the middle.
Nigella's roast chicken has become quite a staple in our household. I took the dogs for a walk and picked up a beautiful free-range chicken from our local butcher, huffing and puffing as I carried it home. My boyfriend got stuck into the carving while I got the vegetables ready.

It's obvious that I'm a fan of Nigella's chicken recipe, but I was even more blown away by Jamie's delicious take on the vegetables. The roast potatoes were nice and so crispy - more so than Nigella's method where she adds semolina flour after parboiling.

The parsnips were superb - the honey wasn't sickly - it was just enough to enhance the parsnip's inherent starchy sweetness. I could not get enough of these. I'm going to aim to get some parsnips in every time I make roast potatoes in the future.

Creamed corn was also fabulous, although I could tell it was related to the amount of butter and fat within. I'd be wanting to reduce the amount of butter and water the next time around.Rich but strangely addictive - I finished my corn and thought I was full, but then went back for another scoop and then kept craving more as I ate it.

The Wonders of Zucchini

2009-06-26T23:21:00.004+10:00

I feel a bit guilty. I've always thought of zucchini as a pretty boring vegetable (technically a fruit!) without an interesting recipe to it's name. My recent research tells me it's low in calories (not that this fact has ever swayed my eating preferences) and is blessed with decent amounts of vitamin A, folate and manganese. And I've also found a pretty damn good way of eating it aside from being a filler in stir-fries.

Zucchini Slice (from http://www.exclusivelyfood.com.au/)

Chopped onion and bacon are fried together in an oil-less pan.

Grating the washed zucchini - about 550g. I have no sense of proportions and bought 4 zucchini as I was too lazy to weigh them. I only needed 2 and a 5cm piece off the 3rd bit, so I might have to buy up again to make another slice. Not that my boyfriend is going to be bothered by that, judging from his reaction after eating this. The excess liquid is squeezed out over the kitchen sink.

Mixing together eggs and oil. For the past couple of years, the boy and I have been making a conscious decision to buy free-range and hopefully organic eggs as much as possible. I really think you can taste the difference. They certainly look much better when you crack them open.

Combining the squeezed and grated zucchini, fried bacon and onion, grated tasty cheese, self-raising flour, salt and pepper.

I really wish I had taken a photo of my boyfriend's face when he bit into this. Everything else I cook is going to be compared to this, I'm afraid.

It's so moist and yet fluffy at the same time. It has no hint of heaviness that can feel almost choking when you're eating egg-y foods like frittatas. The small quantity of flour is just enough to bind the ingredients without giving it a cakey or dry quality.

Like carrot, zucchini has the extraordinary ability to blend into the background and absorb the flavours of everything that surrounds it, as well as acting like a healthy bulking agent.

If you're like me and you adore bacon, this will be just the thing to address a bacon craving. Makes for fantastic lunch-box additions for work or school as it keeps so very well. Even after having left-over slice sitting in the fridge for 2 days, it still tasted like the day I baked it when I took it to work today. That's a pretty damn good selling point for me.

It's Pie Time

2009-06-23T21:02:00.007+10:00

I'm a sucker for rhubarb and I adore pie. So together, this can only result in something amazing. I've been a bit dubious in the past about Nigella's pastry recipes, but this has completely restored my faith.

I hear, quite frequently, that there's no point in making your own pastry, that frozen pre-made types have evolved magnificently to eliminate the need of cooking from scratch. Yet there's something unexplainably satisfying about getting to the end of the recipe and knowing that you've put the whole thing together yourself - piece by piece. Now that I'm achieving a better grasp at pastry-making, it doesn't even feel as if it's too much extra work. Especially with the help of my dearest KitchenAid.

Nigella Lawson's Rhubarb Meringue Pie (from How To Eat)

To begin with, the rhubarb was sliced lengthways along the stalk then into 1cm slices, then heated gently in a saucepan with freshly squeezed orange juice.

While this was cooling, I started making the pastry. Cubes of butter, the flour and a glass of orange juice were chilled in the freezer for 10 minutes. I used the KitchenAid to rub the butter into the flour - using the paddle and the slowest speed. I gradually added in the orange juice, finishing off with some iced water towards the end as there wasn't quite enough juice left.

Once the mixture could be formed into a ball, I flattened it into a disk and wrapped it in cling wrap. Off to the fridge for 20 minutes.

I rolled it out to fit my pie tin. I was so happy that it rolled out evenly - no flaking or breaking sections in the middle. Then back to the fridge for another 20 minutes - this is a recipe that needs time and patience.

After the blind-baking, using rice. I used Nigella's method of baking with a higher temperature for 15 minutes, then a lower temperature with the rice removed and the rim covered with strip of foil to prevent it from burning.

Now to the filling. Caster sugar and egg yolks are combined with melted butter and a small amount of plain flour. This forms quite a thick paste, so to make it runnier, the juice from the cooked rhubarb is added as well as extra orange juice to make up the difference. The final paste needed to be quite runny.

The cooked rhubarb is placed into the pie shell. I didn't have enough rhubarb - only about 300g instead of 700g, so I added some frozen raspberries here.

The runny paste is poured over.

Once baked for 20 minutes, this mixture spreads and sets.

While the pie was in the oven, I made the meringue topping with egg whites, caster sugar and lemon juice. I don't have cream of tartar, but I read that lemon juice used in the same quantity is a good substitute. It gives the meringue a more 'polished' looking finish.

Spread onto the hot pie and into the oven again for 15 minutes.

The contrast of colours looks so beautiful. Stark, marshmallow-y topping over the tartness of the fruit. Then a light, crispy exterior from the pastry. I can feel a pie-baking addiction coming on! There was a bit of nervous juggling, with help from the boyfriend, to manoeuvre the pie from the tin. Slicing the pie felt like such an accomplishment - everything held together and it serves gorgeously. The meringue rises quite a bit after baking but then flops down a bit afterwards, but it still is a splendid display.

Even though the pastry has a 'rustic' appearance, I really enjoyed making it and admiring the final result. Surprisingly, even though there's quite a bit of orange juice in this recipe - the shell and the filling - it's barely detectable. I was concerned that it was going to compete with the rhubarb flavours, but it's partnered harmoniously.

I'd say this recipe is more fiddly, rather than challenging to make. The multiple steps and the waiting in between for baking or the pastry to chill can make it feel like much bigger job than it really is. Now that rhubarb is in season, it's the perfect excuse to make this time and time again.

Fried....lamb cutlets?!

2009-06-19T22:51:00.005+10:00

Although my boyfriend and I like to occasionally believe that we have 'refined' tastbuds, at the end of the day, if something is deep-fried we're pretty much guaranteed to enjoy eating it.

Parmesan-crusted Lamb Cutlets from 1000 Best-Ever Recipes from AWW

Eggs, milk and garlic are combined to form the 'glue' for the batter to stick to the cutlets.

The crust portion is composed of breadcrumbs, grated parmesan cheese and oregano. It calls for fresh oregano, but this was another one of those times that I kicked myself for being too lazy to get a herb garden going. I pulled out my dry spice rack, which I used to be quite proud of, until I watched Jamie's Christmas last week and Jamie declared dried spices to be like tasteless sawdust. Except for oregano. Phew, so I'm excused here. I added some chilli flakes as well.

The lamb cutlets are dusted in plain flour, dipped in the egg mixture and coated in the crumbs.

Hmmm....deep frying.

Lamb cutlets are a real favourite for the boy and I, however we'd bought an enormous amount in a bulk-buy splurge. I normally love them with just a dusting of Maldon salt and freshly ground pepper, then grilled quickly, as they stay juicy and flavoursome. We were tiring of eating them this way, which is why I experimented with this new recipe.

Unfortunately, I was quite disappointed. The boy, true to his love of deep-fried food, devoured his portion and didn't have much to comment. I felt like all the beautiful sweetness and unique flavour that lamb has was competing with the strong parmesan crust. My tastebuds were so overwhelmed! I bit into the crust, which was in itself was great - crunchy, salty and herby - but then my tastebuds would get to the lamb and it just tasted wrong. I felt like I really wanted to taste chicken instead.

I think this would be a superb way to prepare chicken, but it doesn't do any justice to lamb. I guess if you didn't like the taste of lamb, you could do this to try and mask the flavour. I, stubbornly, like my lamb the simple way. Turns out my tastebuds can actually make some decent distinctions.

Where's the sunshine?

2009-06-16T21:52:00.012+10:00

I flew back in from Thailand a couple of days ago and I already feel so starved of sunshine. It's amazing what a few days of drinking in sunrays will do for your mood - not to mention the time off work!

The boy and I jetted off to Bangkok and Phuket, spending a few days shopping and sightseeing, with the leftover days lazing around on pristine beaches and bathing in the most gorgeously clean ocean water. Now that we're back in grey, grizzly Melbourne I needed to get some summer back in the kitchen at least. I also needed to cheer up some sad-faced oranges which were sitting in the fridge.

I've always been fascinated by the art of preserving and jam or jelly-making, but the fear of failure has been quick to hold me back. Nigella's recipe seemed like a good place to start as the resultant quantity seemed like a bearable amount to toss down the sink if all failed. So I slipped my apron on and went into housewife-ly mode - making jam seems to have that effect on you!

The difference between marmalade and jam is that marmalade involves the use of the pulp and rind, whereas jam is the fruit juice only - the chunky bits are sieved out through cheesecloth.

Nigella Lawson's Orange Marmalade - based on the recipe for Pink-Grapefruit Marmalade (from How To Be A Domestic Goddess)

800 grams of oranges are brought to the boil in a saucepan of water, then simmered for 2 hours.

The oranges become heavy and squishy now. I was supposed to scoop the pips out and boil them down, but as you can see - all of them were pip-less.

The oranges - pith, rind and flesh - are chopped. This is the fiddliest section. I scooped the flesh out to try and keep as many chunky, soft bits as possible and tried to get the rind bits relatively small.

Nigella has made this using pink grapefruit and suggested a variation with Seville oranges. I followed the orange variation but instead of adding the suggested extra 400g sugar, I stuck with the 1kg (for the grapefruit version) as I know the Seville oranges are a more sour version of my Navel oranges. I used jam-setting sugar which is in the same section as all the regular sugar at the supermarket.

Bring gently to the boil then watch for 15 minutes. At the beginning of the recipe, I put a saucer in the freezer. I splodged a teaspoon of the marmalade onto the saucer to test if it had gelled - as Nigella says, if you push it with your finger, it should wrinkle.

I was having quite a "Meg" moment - if any of you have read "Good Wives", the sequel to the classic "Little Women", you may remember her fretting over a pot of jam. Fortunately I was luckier than her and after 17 minutes, my marmalade was beautiful and ready to jar-up.

I did have a blonde moment though (sorry!). I had washed my jars in soapy water, put them in a 140 degrees Celsius oven to dry and some of my lids melted! Fortunately, not all of them did - was I supposed to put the lids in or not? Luckily enough, I had enough jars to bottle almost all of the jam.

I can't wait to try more jam-making! This stuff tastes like bottled sunshine. Sorry, I know I'm sounding all Sesame-street - but it's set perfectly and is sweetly citrus-y. I'm very happy with keeping the sugar quantities at 1kg - it has a hint of sour tang but not so much that your face will pucker.

The zest isn't too overpowering either - I was a bit worried it would be too chunky, but the zest is quite soft and is a reassuring reminder that this isn't overprocessed supermarket junk. I love how the bits remain suspended in the 'juice' sections - it's very aesthetic. This would make a great gift.

Off for some inspiration...

2009-06-04T23:51:00.002+10:00

I'm off to Thailand for 8 days! Woohoo for warm and sunny weather. I'll be back soon with some food pics and more cooking fun :)

Going the extra mile...

2009-06-01T20:28:00.011+10:00

It seems as though I always end up doing things the hard way. Which I don't mind if it tastes amazing, as this recipe did, but when you're pre-boiling lasagne sheets one-at-a-time at 11pm on a Friday night it tends to dampen my cooking enthusiasm.

Which is what I found myself doing last Friday when my boyfriend spontaneously invited 2 other couples over for 11am lunch on Saturday. For some reason, I've never ever been able to get dried lasagne sheets to soften just by chucking them in the oven, sandwiched by sauce. Even then, the lasagne still tastes better the second day when it's properly absorbed the juices - but I would never dare to make it without preboiling.

I did, however, feel so much better when one of the girls turned to me at lunch and told me she had the same issue - and I didn't even bring it up! It really is worth that extra bit of effort and I try to boil each sheet separately for about 2 minutes each while I'm making the sauce. I've tried chucking them all in together and constantly stirring to stop the sheets from sticking but it just doesn't work.

Beef Lasagne from http://www.exclusivelyfood.com.au/

Fry the onion in olive oil. I pad the sauce up with 2 stalks of celery as well and use a bit less meat that way. There's normally bacon in there as well, but I was cooking for a non-bacon fan (I can't imagine how...). Beef mince and garlic are added.

After the beef is browned, add red wine, a bay leaf, oregano, basil, tomato paste and diced tomatoes. I think the oomph from this recipe comes from the red wine, it is what distinguishes it from other less-tasty lasagne recipes that I've tried in the past.

Simmer for 40 minutes.

The white sauce is made by melting butter then adding flour, cooking for a few minutes. Milk is added then the mixture is reheated until the sauce thickens. Parmesan cheese and nutmeg is added. Don't be a doof like me and drop the whole nutmeg in there while you're grating it in!

Assembly: white sauce on the bottom

Followed by meat sauce

More white sauce, then the next lasagne sheet.

Finish with a mixture of tasty and mozarella cheese.

I baked for 30 minutes, then left it in the fridge for the next day. It does take almost an hour to heat up though, so leave plenty of time for that.

The first time I made this, I was just so happy my lasagne sheets were edible! Each time after I've really come to appreciate the richness and depth of the meat sauce. And I'm so in love with the white sauce. I can imagine dipping chunks of bread in it - just as it is. The guests were fans - or just extremely polite! I cannot imagine getting a white or meat sauce just by opening a jar - there's freshness oozing out of every molecule of this meal. Make sure you get some good canned tomatoes and use great quality wine - you'll be glad you spent those extra pennies!

A hearty winter meal

2009-05-19T22:22:00.005+10:00

This recipe is a "variation" not because I'm a genius at experimentation in the kitchen, but because I saw a glimpse of this recipe in a book I was flicking through then came home and realised the only meat I had left in the house for dinner was sausages. It's been a bit boring eating sausages the regular way - grilled or bbq-ed, so I relied on a bit of memory work and just used what I had in the pantry.

Curried Sausages based on a recipe in the Australian Women's Weekly 1000 Best-Ever Recipes from AWW

The major ingredient quantities were purely based on what I had - I pan-fried 6 thin beef sausages in a small amount of olive oil.

In a separate larger pot, I gently fried one chopped onion in a tablespoon of olive oil, until soft.

Addition of 2 chopped stalks of celery and carrots. These were cooked on medium heat for another 4-5 minutes.

Add 1 tablespoon of curry powder and 2 cups of beef stock. The original recipe had potato but I had none in the house, so I added some red split lentils to thicken the sauce. An idea stolen from Nigella! This worked incredibly well and I think I'll always skip on the potatoes in the future - it's less chopping and peeling, and the lentils are a healthier alternative.

Simmer for about 8-10 minutes or until the lentils disintegrate. Add sausages right at the end - I cut each one into quarters and threw them in just to warm them up again. Season with salt and pepper.

Really yummy and a lovely meal to warm you up, especially when you come home and you're searching for comfort food. Surprisingly quick to prepare as well, as the vegetables are chopped so small that they cook rapidly. My boyfriend was full of praise for this meal, although I'm inclined to believe that anything with sausages in it will get top marks. I was so impressed with the outcome, I even went out and bought the AWW book!

On a side note, I went to Flower Drum restaurant on Sunday night and took a quick snap of one of the courses - eye fillet with black pepper sauce. Beautiful food, but very over-priced I'm afraid and I don't feel as though the prices are justified. I know it has been rated as one of the top 50 restaurants in the world multiple times, but with a $900 price tag for 5 people, I felt like the service was very below-par. It was for a very special occasion - not quite the place for a quick midnight snack! I've always wanted to try it however, so I'm glad to say it's part of my culinary adventures.

Cheering-up-my-sick-boyfriend Muffins

2009-05-13T22:06:00.006+10:00

You know you're a true baking addict if thats the first thing you think of doing for someone when they're sick. My boyfriend had a raging flu last night and was super miserable with a complete lack of appetite. That last bit is just as worrying as if he had been a confirmed Swine Flu victim - my boyfriend out-eats anyone I know. He always has an appetite. Thank goodness that the stress of work seems to burn the calories pretty well.

He went to the doc today and don't worry - he's just got the regular normal flu, contrary to our overworked imaginations at 3am last night. And so now I've just got the effort of trying to force-feed him a few bits and pieces to keep his energy up.

Choc-chip Banana Muffins from The Age Epicure - Chocolate

Dry ingredients were self raising flour, brown sugar, cocoa and choc chips.

Wet ingredients (yes, on the topic of illness, I know what this pic looks like...): egg, oil, 2 mashed bananas, dash of vanilla essence and milk.

A nice, quick stir (I'm always so paranoid about the whole over-mixing thing that toughens your muffins...eek!) and 22 minutes later - woohoo - muffins. The added cocoa is a suggested variation, which I think is great to reduce the overt sweetness of the ripe bananas and makes them a gorgeous colour. Lucky for me, this was an easy recipe, as I had zero sleep last night after hunting the house for every blanket possible to layer on my boyfriend and constant water trips for him.

So it was basically fail proof - beautifully fluffy and moist. Its nice to see the occasional moist fleck of banana when you bite into the muffin. I do believe these would keep extremely well with their huge moisture content. And my plan worked - the boy's eaten two and is tucked back into bed again.

I need a breakfast chef

2009-05-08T21:18:00.005+10:00

It's moments like these that motivate you to get out of bed that extra bit earlier in the morning to make a proper, delicious breakfast. If only the mornings weren't so cold; if only I wasn't such a terrible grumpy-head every time the alarm went off - followed by my usual 2 snooze alarms. What I'd love is someone who'd slip in every morning (quietly!) and prepare an exciting breakfast each morning to entice me out of bed. Hmm. Sounds crazier now that I've put it in writing.

Nigella Lawson's Cheesecakelets (from Nigella Feasts)

If you share my love of cheesecake, the title should be enough to sell this to you. It also seems a bit naughty to be eating something that sounds like an afternoon tea item for breakfast.

Egg yolks beaten with sugar.

Cottage cheese, flour, and vanilla are combined with the yolks, followed by beaten egg whites. They only need to be on the frothy side, so you don't need to pull out too much equipment.

With maple syrup:

The super decadent version - fresh strawberries and sugar. You may be wondering where I got such gorgeous strawberries from - my aunt works occasionally at a strawberry farm and buys a punnet or too for me if I ask nicely!

I felt it was a shame to hide such lovely strawberries in balsamic vinegar, so I skipped their maceration.

The addition of vanilla gives it a heady aroma as they're cooking. And she's not lying - they do taste like little cheesecakes! Much lighter and less sweet of course, but the cottage cheese takes away the blandness that pancakes sometimes have - they really don't need too much adornment.

Another easy pancake recipe from Nigella, I love how she adds different ingredients to achieve a completely unique angle on the regular type.

Still recovering....

2009-05-05T23:13:00.003+10:00

I'm still here, guys! Cooking has slowed a bit because of my finger, but I've had the stitches taken out today. I even was brave enough to take them out myself at work. So all should be back to normal soon.

We've just been eating pretty simply the past week, with the boyfriend being especially nice - he's helped with all the chopping and dishes/pots. We had stir-fried noodles with store-bought BBQ pork tonight.

All this lack of cooking has left me with plenty of shopping time, so I've indulged in some retail therapy today and bought a new pair of tan leather boots. Will take some photos for the next post, but they are quite a guilty (but necessary!) indulgence.

There's always room for dessert...

2009-04-29T14:53:00.011+10:00

Especially when it looks and tastes as good as this. I admit, I feel like I'm cheating on Nigella. I haven't made one of her recipes for awhile, but it's been fun to wade into other chef's waters for a bit.

I've been a bit worried though - I've been having such good luck with all these new recipes lately, it can't be long until I hit a complete dud. What I probably should've been more worried about is watching my aim with the kitchen knife. After I made this yesterday, I was chopping ingredients to marinade spare-ribs, missed the board and did a good job of gashing myself with the knife.

Not a "oh whoops" nick but a "oh my god my skin is flapping off my hand" job. My boyfriend heard the yelps, saw the rapidly pooling blood over the kitchen floor and whisked me off to the GP for three local anaesthetic jabs and some stitches. Damn Wusthof knives - they were a much appreciated Chrissy present that cut through me like butter.

So, I was watching Huey's Cooking Adventures on telly today (got the day off to let the hand heal a bit) and kept flinching everytime Huey was waving his knife around! Now I know how weird phobias originate.

Bill Granger's Passionfruit Crepes from Bill's Open Kitchen

Crepe ingredients ready to go: plain flour, 1 egg lightly beaten into milk, melted butter and salt. I chilled this for an hour while I made dinner.

Before I got the crepes going, I started on the passionfruit curd. I did a bit of a boo-boo. I thought the butter was supposed to be heated along with the eggs, passionsfruit and sugar in a bowl over simmering water, when it is actually meant to be whisked in cold, afterwards. Fortunately, it didn't affect the taste or ability of the curd to thicken.

I served this with chocolate and honeycomb ice-cream. I took a sneak taste of the curd before serving and I was so impressed. The curd is unbelievably good. Beautifully velvet in texture. So good that I would leave the ice-cream out next time, as it detracts from the passionfruit, which is all you really want to taste here. Crepes were super-thin and light.

I'm so glad I managed to try this out, as it's going to be a juggling-act trying to make any semi-complicated recipe with my cut hand for the next 8 days until the stitches come out. On the bright side, my boyfriend said, "Well at least it's your left hand - you can still use the computer mouse with the right". In the meantime - promise me you'll be careful with your chopping knives!

Hooked On Coconut

2009-04-26T20:57:00.005+10:00

Everytime I go to a new Thai restaurant, I have an incredibly superficial way of figuring out whether I like it or not. If there's coconut rice on the menu, I'm sold. There is something indescribable about it - the way it makes anything taste unbelievably fabulous. And if it has that effect, I figured that this was a good way to disguise the fishiness of fish. Which I hate. But I do need to eat more of it and cut down my love of red meat.

I have been told though, on numerous occasions, that it's a 'Western thing' to be eating coconut rice with your savoury mains, as it's meant to be a dessert only in Thailand. But it's falling on deaf ears. The one place that has the best coconut rice ever, and gorgeous curry dishes, is Suwan Thai restaurant in Lower Plenty, Melbourne. You'll need to book, as I've gone there numerous times to be sadly turned away when I've had a crazy, last-minute craving.

The sauce from this recipe is probably about as close as you can get to mimicking the coconut rice there. I've tried a few, but this seems to get the right sort of intensity without drowning out the other food flavours.

Bill Granger's Coconut Fish from Bill's Open Kitchen

I was given this book as a gift for my birthday this year. I must say, it has renewed my interest in Bill Granger's cooking. I did a few of his recipes awhile back, but for some reason had lost interest in trying any other ones. I'm a true convert after this one - I've got absolute respect for anyone that can make me eat cooked fish and somewhat enjoy it.

I used gummy flake although he recommends snapper or barramundi. My reason is that I got to the fish market too late and this was the most decent-looking fillet left, and I was also worried that the other fish-types would be too fishy.

In a pot, throw in coconut milk, chicken stock, fish sauce, caster sugar, lime leaves, lemon grass and chilli. I cheated with chilli flakes.

I love how easy and fast this recipe is. All you do now is bring to a boil, simmer for a few minutes then add the fish to poach. Reduce the coconut sauce after the fish is taken out and pour over the fish and steamed rice. It would work well as a great speedy weeknight dinner. Bill suggests a cucumber salad, but with the frosty nights we've been having I wanted something heartier than a salad. I stir-fried some beans in olive oil and onion. Poached fish is quite filling, so don't go overboard with the fillet sizes like I did as I could only finish half of mine.

The boyfriend and I were a huge fan of the coconut sauce. This is the star of this recipe. I'll be back for this coconut sauce next time a curry is in the works.

Shanks Very Much

2009-04-21T21:03:00.007+10:00

Gosh I love this Aussie lamb ad. I know I've mentioned it before, but it is just so cute. And now I can't get the line "Shanks very much" outta my head. Tuesday has become a regular day off work for me, so it's when I get to do a bit of cooking experimentation.

Nigella Lawson's Aromatic Lamb Shank Stew from How To Eat

This is the first time I've ever cooked lamb shanks, and the first time I've ever really taken proper notice while eating it. I remember watching Nigella make this on her series and she mentioned that shanks were a cheaper cut, so I didn't have the greatest of expectations for the meat texture.

Brown the shanks. Damn I love that word(!).

Add extra oil to the same pan and gently cook the onion and garlic.

To this is added: turmeric, ground ginger, chilli, cinnamon, nutmeg and pepper. Love getting the spice rack whirling.

Add honey, soy sauce and Marsala. I used some red wine instead.

Getting the lamb back in and adding water, before simmering for an extended period. Red lentils are added towards to the end to thicken the sauce.

Talk about a taste explosion. There's flavour coming out of every direction - really beautiful, multi-layered depth of flavour. I suspect if you've got the willpower to hold off until the next day, you'd be a happy little diner. I was worried with all the spices that my boyfriend would find it too strong, but he was really impressed. It's almost like the vast array of spices neutralise each other so that you don't get an overpowering hit of one particular type.

The meat was barely hanging on to the bone when you took to it with a fork. Gorgeously tender. Very hard to believe that a "cheaper" cut can taste so good.

Look at these two super sleepy, content dogs - Louis and Jack - after they'd had a good gnaw at the leftover lamb bones...

But wait, there's more....

2009-04-18T20:51:00.008+10:00

Following on from my previous post with even more chocolate, I'm sure you're thinking I'm substituting food for some serious therapy. No need to worry, my main problem is currently having 3 males under my house with an insatiable chocolate craving. When I announced that a chocolate cake was under proceedings, the boyfriend pleaded for something "super chocolatey". And I delivered.

Nigella Lawson's Gateau Reine De Saba from Delicious magazine June 2006

There was an exile from the PS3 to the kitchen as soon as I started melting the bittersweet chocolate with butter, almond essence and coffee. So I was able to complete the rest of the recipe with quite a few willing helpers!

Whisking egg whites a pinch of salt, then gradually adding sugar.

If there's anything that makes me feel lazy about baking a cake, it would be the whole tin-lining process. No idea why - it only takes about 2 minutes and when I'm done I'm on my happy way again with the baking process. Yet everytime I read those lines in a recipe, I feel like I'm about to do the ironing or something similar. But here we are - lined and greased, with the separated yolks ready to be whisked with the remaining sugar.

This recipe is supposed to be made with only almond meal, however I only had 110 grams in the pantry and had to substitute with plain flour for the remaining 180g. Nigella says the original recipe had a proportion of plain flour before she modified it, so I figured it was a pretty safe sub.

The whites are then folded in.

The glaze consists of chocolate, sugar, corn syrup and unsalted butter, all melted together in a saucepan. I used dark Lindt chocolate for the cake and milk Lindt chocolate for the glaze.

Not the neatest thing to serve- especially if you're too impatient to wait for the cake OR the icing to cool. But it makes up for it in delicious-ness. The boyfriend took one mouthful and said "Oh. My. God. This is amazing." It is so very, super-duper, extremely chocolate-y. And rich, so a cup of strong tea or coffee makes a good accompaniment. A little cake goes a long way here - although we all came back for seconds.

It is very dense and moist in the middle - almost pudding-like. It keeps very well, considering that it is so moist to begin with. I reckon it tastes best when warm, but I still found myself stealing cold slices of it while cooking dinner the next day.

Chocolate Heals All Ills

2009-04-10T22:17:00.009+10:00

Hey guys! I'm so happy to be back and blogging - I'm truly sorry about being such a bum and vanishing for a few months, but I needed to step away and get some oomph back in this lil baker. It's going to take a hell of a lot to beat what I went through, so now that I'm here again, I can assure you I'll be a model blogger! Thank you for the emails and messages I received from a few readers, they are so appreciated.

Anyhow - even though my mojo had gone AWOL, I had still been doing a bit of 'fun' cooking here and there. I made this cake for my brother's birthday in February.

Gordon Ramsay's Black Forest Cake from Delicious Magazine

The chocolate sponge in this recipe is so amazingly light and fluffy - and it's all thanks to the muscle work you'll need to put into the egg whites. I don't have a spare bowl for my KitchenAid so I did the sweat-inducing whisking by hand. You won't mind once you eat the results.

Beat the butter and sugar, add egg yolks.

Add espresso and melted chocolate. By this time, I've got a hunch that it's going to be an awesome cake. The smells are divine.

Flour, baking powder and cocoa are sifted together.

Hmmm....chocolate batter. The egg whites and flour mixture are folded into the butter alternately.

I was a bit worried about trying to get this cake out of the pan, even with it being lined and all. It felt so light and delicate! But there was not a split to worry about.

I irked at the idea of having to deseed fresh cherries, so I cheated and bought pre-seeded, canned black cherries in syrup. Instead of adding sugar to the fruit to make a syrup, I used the canned syrup and just added the cherry brandy and slightly warmed the whole mixture. This worked really well and I don't think it had any ill-effect on the final result.

After gently slicing the cake in half, I spread on some of the whisked cream and icing sugar, followed by the warmed cherry mixture and dabs of cherry jam.

Then on with the lid and the final layer of cream and cherries to decorate.

This is the best freaking Black Forest Cake I've ever eaten. In my life. So if you're hesitating to make the recipe - maybe you can't be stuffed heading to the shops for the ingredients, or you've got too much on this weekend - you're crazy. Even if Gordon needs his mouth washed out with soap, he has one mean recipe up his sleeve and he's won me over. It's a perfect match - superbly light sponge balanced by the weight of the cream and tang of cherries. My brother announced it was far better than The Cheesecake Shop one - and that is one heavy statement for him.

The only problem with this cake is that it's a bit sloppy to serve straight after you've made it.

I took this picture of a slice the day after, when it had firmed up in the fridge a bit. Much better presentation, so I'd recommend making it the day before if looks matter. Otherwise it tastes fabulous either way.

Hmm...

2008-12-17T16:13:00.002+11:00

There's going to be a bit of a break in this blog for awhile. I know, I hate it when blogs go and do this after preaching about being dedicated posters. Thanks for all the fun and I'll be back sometime.

Crazy Christmas

2008-12-07T23:44:00.006+11:00

Despite all the odds working against me lately, I'll be damned if the Christmas spirit gets crushed outta me. It's been a really, really tough week. I can't wait for 2008 to pass and to have a fresh start - so bring on the Christmas cheer.

Nigella Lawson's Traditional Christmas Cake (from Nigella Christmas)

The night before, I steeped a double quantity of currants, raisins and glace cherries with brandy. I felt like quite the alcoholic, pouring all the liquor into the measuring cup.

My intention was to bake 3 cakes, but to start off with 2 in one day. It's 3 days later and I've only managed to get one up and running so far - but hey, that's a start at least. I took out the eggs and butter, first thing in the morning, to get them to room temperature.

Dark brown sugar and butter were creamed together in my fixed (woohoo!!!) KitchenAid. I must recommend Swann Small Appliance repairs in Montmorency if you're having a boohoo moment. I'm afraid I've forgotten the guy's name - but it was his 60th birthday, it was a Saturday and he still took the time out to fiddle with my pink baby. And now I can bake. There is light at the end of this crazy Christmas tunnel.

Unfortunately, I was so excited that I accidentally added 3 eggs instead of 2, after the lemon zest was added. So after a brief can-I-get-away-with-this thought, I had to chuck the first batch and start again. Grr.

While this was beating away for the second time, I did the whole fancy tin lining thing:

The treacle and almond essence was added to the wet ingredients, then I sifted together the dry ingredients - ground ginger, ground cloves, cinnamon, almond meal and plain flour.

Mixing the dry ingredients in alternately with the headily fragrant steeped fruits. I had a sneaky little nibble on the fruits, which had absorbed all of the alcohol. Great way to turn into an alcoholic - they were absolutely delicious!

Adding the chopped pecan nuts:

The ultimate messy kitchen:

Of course, there's no proper verdict for another 3 weeks, as that's the minimum time that it needs to sit in the double layer of foil and multiple bags of Glad bags to 'develop' it's flavours. I did salivate as I painted it with extra Brandy, then wrapped it promptly in foil after it came out of the oven, to capture all the steam before it had a final bandaging. Waiting is going to be tough. I've given everyone who even steps past the front a door a stern warning that the wrapped package in the pantry is not to be touched at all. 1 down, 2 cakes to go.

Dessert or Dinner?

2008-12-03T21:32:00.006+11:00

Just when I thought that I'd found (and used) all of the nifty shortcuts in cooking, Nigella introduces me to one more - bless her. Who would've known that you could make pumpkin soup without the slave-like peeling of the annoying skin?

Nigella Lawson's Roast Squash and Potato Soup (from Nigella Christmas)

The selling point for this meal is that you chop up pumpkin, sweet potato and onion and bung it into a roasting pan - as is. I had to reread that line when I was going over the recipe. Oh, and sprinkle with cinnamon and grated nutmeg. You don't even need to peel off the skins later on, after everything is cooked. Nigella promises that there is no need, as the skin doesn't taint the soup flavour, it just adds a mild texture. And she was right!

I did the roasting last night after dinner then took the cooled vegies out to prepare the soup tonight. The roasted ingredients are blended in batches with vegetable soup, then placed in a pot on the stove to heat up, with the addition of Marsala and seasoning. I've just bought a bottle of Marsala recently, as it features so heavily in many of her recipes.

I'm quite confused. The Marsala smells and tastes quite dessert-ish and sweet - are there suppose to be different types of Marsala? The soup had a promising waft during the blending process, but after the addition of wine, it tasted weird. Edible, but I did feel like the recipe would have been 1000 times better without it. I only added about 90 ml rather than the recommended 125 ml. It made the soup confusingly sweet, when what I wanted to have was a comfortingly creamy, savoury soup. Paired with the cinnamon and nutmeg, my tastebuds were baffled.

Fortunately, the blue cheese that I crumbled in did save it from being a disaster. At the end of a long work day, I couldn't be bothered washing the damn blender in order to blitz the blue cheese and buttermilk into liquid that was supposed to be drizzled into the soup. I reckon it tasted much better with chunks of oozing, melting blue cheese throughout. This soup is incredibly filling, you won't have room for much else afterwards - I couldn't fit in my halloumi and spinach salad which was to go with this, as well as crusty bread. Even the bread was a struggle.

Would I remake this recipe? I'm definitely stealing the idea of roasting the veg with their skins on, but I'd aim to make it so much more savoury. Out with the cinnamon and Marsala. I reckon the alcohol addition is completely unnecessary - if you need more liquid, add stock instead.

A bit of a disappointing first experience with Nigella's new book; here's hoping for a better second one.

Once my holidays have started, I'm going nuts with the baking (mental note: fix KitchenAid ASAP), so there's still hope for more repeatable recipes.

Carrot Deception

2008-11-29T23:05:00.004+11:00

Well, this has got to be the world's best way of transforming a non-vegetable-enthusiast into an avid eater. Carrot cake has always baffled me, in a good way though. Carrots seem like such a hum-drum, boring vegetable, yet they really create some magic when placed into a cake - and we're not talking minute forms, but in this case a proper cup and a half.

Carrot Cake (adapted from http://www.exclusivelyfood.com.au/)
Nigella Lawson's One-Pan Sage and Onion Chicken (from Nigella Feasts)

I've been making carrot cake for years from an old recipe book that was given to my mother in the 80's. On the morning of the day that I was expecting my boyfriend's parents over for an elaborate lunch, I realised I'd bought all the ingredients but had done my usual doof-thing and forgotten to get the book from mum's house. After a quick panic attack, I went to my trusty internet, then to my trusty Exclusively Food site and found a reasonable replacement recipe.

Track back the night before - I'd been quite pleased with my organisational skills as I marinaded the chicken with lemon, mustard, worcestershire sauce, pepper, sage and onion. I've never been quite housewife-ly enough to remember to prepare meals beforehand, but if there ever was the need to impress, it was now.

The carrot cake recipe calls for crushed pineapple, which I assumed would lend liquid/moist characteristics as well as a subtle sour note. I don't know about you folks, but crushed pineapple does not live in my pantry as a storecupboard staple! I decided to use Greek yoghurt instead, of which I had some left over after the yoghurt cake I'd made (again) recently and I figured would have pretty similar qualities. I also like adding sultanas to my carrot cake, reducing the sugar quantities and replacing the caster sugar with brown or muscovado sugar.

I'm afraid I got rather impatient and tried to toss the cake out of the pan while it was still a bit too warm, so the base was a bit crumbly. I managed to hide this by slicing the cake as quickly as possible after it was brought out to the table - hopefully nobody noticed!

I found the chicken very moist and tasty, and quite different from the usual honey and soy marinade that we have. The boy said it needed a healthy shake of salt onto it, which I strongly disagree. I might compromise and use a tiny amount next time.

All my little experimentations seemed to go smoothly, as the cake was perfect. I frosted with a butter and cream cheese icing, while holding the head of my broken KitchenAid down as it struggled to whip. Sob.

The cake tasted basically the same as my original favourite recipe. I can't imagine carrot cake without the caramelly undertones from the brown sugar - caster sugar would make it taste too plastic and processed. It just smells more homely with dark sugar. My boyfriend was bizarrely enthusiastic about a cake that is based on dried grapes and a vegetable.

I'm off to put up the Christmas tree - yes, I know it's early. But all this Nigella Christmas reading has made me super festive. I confess - I am one of those nutters who goes enormously overboard with Christmas celebrations. I love everything about this season. Bring on December!

Puff Pastry Blessings

2008-11-23T22:53:00.006+11:00

Ah, the wonders of modern life. Without a freezer, there'd be no frozen sheets of puff pastry in our baking worlds. And there have been countless times where I've been desperate for dessert, without a smidge of flour in the house, yet frozen puff pastry has been my food-pang's salvation.

This is such a quickie and a great way to use up miserable or tasteless fruit. My problem was that I'd bought a punnet-boxful of nectarines which are responsible for all the new frown and wrinkle lines I've developed after biting into their extremely sour flesh. Thankfully, after a good sugaring, they were surprisingly edible!

Nigella Lawson's Nectarine and Blueberry (or Strawberries!) Galette (from Nigella Express)

I took the pastry out of the freezer to briefly thaw out while I combined apricot jam and thickened cream together.

This was painted over the pastry, which I lay over greased foil. The pastry is scored around the edges, which I did diagonally, to form the raised frame later on. I'd made some Chicken Pot Pies a few days ago and had a half sheet left, so this recipe was a handy way of using that up.

I sliced the nectarines and washed and cut some not-quite-good-enough-to-eat-raw-anymore strawberries to strew in between. Hey, I'm still sticking to the berry family, so it's not cheating! And I'm being quite resourceful, right? This was followed up with a scattering of sugar over the fruit.

Wonderfully golden after being baked - I needed about 22 minutes rather than Nigella's suggested 15 minutes.

The result was fast, delicious and warmly filling. Crisp, flakey edges and gooey sweetness from the fruit. It's a good enough reason to keep a constant stash of puff pastry in the freezer. I can sometimes see the benefits of making your own pastry, but most of the time I must admit I'm happy to open a packet and do away with the whole butter-cubing process.

My darned KitchenAid is in a sad and sorry state, it makes awfully painful noises each time I try to start it up, in the vain hope that using it is possible. It'll be off the repairers and a bit of a lull in mixer-required recipes until it's back from the doc's. I refuse to give in to a MagiMix though - my boyfriend keeps telling me about all these websites he has found that insist it is vastly superior. I'm sticking by my KitchenAid, at least for now...

If it ain't broke...

2008-11-18T22:34:00.005+11:00

I've been busily poring over my newly acquired Nigella Christmas book, which arrived in the mail on Friday, to plan how I'm going to squeeze as much Christmas cooking into the next 5 weeks. I did divert from the Christmas planning and produce this cheesecake for guests that were coming after for 'afternoon tea and cake' (insert posh accent).

We followed this up with a late dinner at the new Groove Train at the brand spankingly gorgeous Doncaster Westfield Shoppingtown. I am so in love with this place, if only parking wasn't such a suicide mission. I've been close to tears each time I've had to look for parking - and I haven't always been in the driver's seat. Dinner and the city view was great; service was splendid. I'm quite the chips/fries connoisseur and these guys have the best ones I've had ever, hands down.

Nigella Lawson's Chocolate Cheesecake (from Nigella Feasts)

Making this cake became quite an unfortunate chore. For some reason, when you've got a deadline to meet, it does take a bit of the excitement out of baking. Also, when you have to run to the store twice because you did not foresee that moths were going to eat their way into a bag of digestives - well that's quite a grr-factor. The much-needed digestive biscuits were processed with butter and cocoa powder.

Pressed crumb-age in the baking tin:

After the drama of getting the base made, I then went to beat the cream cheese, only to find out that there is something seriously wrong with my KitchenAid. The head of the machine was rattling around in a terribly scarey manner. I vainly attempted to tighten a few screws, before bringing in the boyfriend expertise. After losing quite a bit of cream cheese onto his t-shirt and the floor, I gave up and kept using the rattly KitchenAid as it was. I certainly need me a repair man soon though. It's quite depressing considering it's less than a year old.

Sugar, egg yolks, whole eggs, sour cream and melted chocolate are added to the cream cheese.

'To be sure, to be sure, to be sure' (damn those HBA ads), I wrapped the tin in a double layer of cling wrap, followed by a triple layer of foil then into a waterbath for baking. I do the extra layers because I've eaten soggy baked bases before and it's quite a downer.

After refrigerating this overnight (with a big not plastered over it requesting that everybody had to be careful not to squish the cake), it's ready to be popped out of the tin.

I'm not sure about this one. The boyfriend loves it and there's nothing left of it now; it certainly is delicious, but only in thin slices - it's rich and gluggy tasting in your mouth, made even heavier by it's chocolate nature. I normally adore cheesecake, but I do believe that the chocolate is a bit of overkill. It tastes like a less-sweet mudcake, and I'm sadly not a fan of the ol' mudcake.

It does look beautiful on serving and it has that extra novelty factor, but I'm an old fashioned gal who'll be sticking to 'original' flavoured cheesecakes. Cheesecake is such a well-perfected recipe, I don't think it can be bettered.

The Moistmaker

2008-11-15T20:13:00.007+11:00

For all you Friends fans, you may remember that the Moistmaker was a special sandwhich conjured up by Ross' sister Monica and was stolen after he left it in the work fridge. It contained bread soaked with gravy in between all the internal layers, hence providing all that juicy flavour. By coining it with this term, I felt like I could almost taste the deliciousness of this turkey sandwhich from across the TV screen! There is no better way to describe this cake - it's just oozing with moistness from it's own magic ingredient - Greek yoghurt.

Blueberry and Yoghurt Crumble Cake (from www.exclusivelyfood.com.au)

I am definitely a sucker for any recipe with the word 'crumble' in it. This recipe starts with the topping, combining nuts (I used walnuts), butter, flour and sugar. Rather than regular brown sugar, I used muscovado for that extra caramel-ish hint.

I also happen to love a recipe that does away with boring, old 'cream the butter and sugar'. Fortunately, I all had to do here was whisk together eggs, vegetable oil, sugar, yoghurt and salt. I reduced the sugar quantity to 260g instead of 280g.

Self-raising flour is gradually added to the wet solution; I was able to use my Nigella-copy whisk (I can't find the genuine one anywhere - I did try!), but this step does involve a bit of muscle work.

I was a tad short of the required amount of blueberries (I bought fresh ones) so I added some frozen cranberries that I had lying around.

The crumble mixture is sprinkled on top. It cooks in quite a low oven but for a decent period of time - 80 minutes. I had to lie the cake slice down to take the below photo, as the cake was warm, meltingly soft and moist. I am absolutely in love with this recipe. It beats all the other butter-type cakes hands-down. I'm already planning to make it again tomorrow as we've got people coming over. It has a tiny breath of lemon to it, and you manage to catch a bit of the velvety yoghurt on your tastebuds - but you'd be hardpressed to figure out it was there in the first place. Keeps brilliantly, it tasted just as good the day after baking. This is the one to make if you're out to impress someone.

While this was baking, I sat down for a Pork Roast dinner. I followed Nigella's method of peeling the crackling off as the roast comes out of the oven (I did burn myself quite a bit though, so do be careful!) , then turning the oven heat up and putting the crackling back in as you carve. It really crisps up the crackling evenly so that you don't get the usual few soggy bits. A great idea.

Weekend Brekkie

2008-11-08T18:47:00.005+11:00

One of the things I adore about weekends - oh, aside from blissful sleep-ins, no work, slumping around the house in PJs and taking the dogs out for long walks - is putting proper effort into making and eating a scrumptious breakfast, while reading the paper. I feel like I never get to do justice to breakfast time, as I'm usually scoffing down soggy toast wrapped in foil as I deftly manoeuvre car traffic on the way to work.

An added bonus in this recipe is being able to utilise a poor, neglected banana from the fruit bowl. Gee, bananas lead a tough life in this household. I'm constantly trying to get rid of them at the last minute and finding miracle ways to mask their banana-ryness.

Nigella Lawson's Banana Buttermilk Pancakes (from Nigella Feasts)

I do love how Nigella has the knack of showing you how to make wonderful recipes, as well as giving you as many shortcuts as possible to make life that extra bit easier. Here, all the ingredients - plain flour, bicarb soda, baking powder, buttermilk (or milk with some vinegar added and allowed to rest for 5 minutes), banana and sugar - are whacked into the blender and whizzed.

The melted butter is stirred in at the end and voila - you're ready to fry.

I'm not sure if I was in just more of a patient mood this morning, but these were very quick to cook. Everyone had their pancakes dished out speedily - I dribbled some warm apricot jam over the top of mine. I wouldn't go so far as to say that you couldn't taste banana at all, but yes, it didn't smother the meal with a heady banana waft. They were so light and fluffy, it was (at the risk of sounding super-corny) like eating little clouds. Ok, I want to delete that sentence, but I won't - because it's true.

Rhubarb or Raspberry?

2008-11-05T22:49:00.004+11:00

My tastebuds are confused. I thought that only thing that tasted like raspberries, was, well - raspberries. Yet, here I am, eating rhubarb and my brain swears onitself that it's eating raspberries, minus the annoying seedy bits.

I'd only ever eaten rhubarb once in my life before, ages ago at Pancake Parlour - and there was hardly any rhubarb, which was drowned in icecream and whipped cream anyway. I knew, deep down, that whatever rhubarb tasted like - I was going to like it.

Again, another Nigella brain-washed moment. She just keeps raving on about it so much and the way she lovingly gazes at rhubarb in the DVDs makes it impossible not to have warm, fuzzy feelings about it to begin with.

Nigella Lawson's Rhubarb Crumble (from How To Eat)

Cubes of cold butter are rubbed into flour:

Add caster sugar and dark muscovado sugar. I didn't have any vanilla sugar, so to make up for this missing dimension, I used dark instead of dark muscovado. This mixture is frozen for at least 10 minutes. I started making this before dinner and took the crumble out to make dessert afterwards.

I don't like my crumbles to watery - Nigella suggests adding some flour when making a berry crumble, which I did for this too, along with orange juice and sugar. This was tossed through the rhubarb that had been sectioned lengthways then cut into 5cm portions. I read in someone's blog awhile back that if you forget to cut the rhubarb lengthways, you'll end up with some uncooked stalk-ey bits.

Off to the oven for about 35 minutes, then I served in dessert bowls with a generous pour of cool thickened cream.

What a simple, earthy recipe. It's so easy to whip up and very tasty - the only thing is I would stick to Nigella's sugar recommendations. I've had no problems in the past reducing her sugar quantities, but the rhubarb is quite tart and really does need some generous sugaring.

Aside from that, the rhubarb has such a beautiful, soft, melt-in-your-mouth texture - hey, I'm sold. I'm not going to have to worry about annoying seeds getting stuck in my teeth when eating raspberries anymore - the dentist in me comes through - it's rhubarb I'll be reaching for at the supermarket. I can't wait to try out some more rhubarb recipes.

Oven Dramas

2008-11-01T22:38:00.006+11:00

Every time I make this cake, I anxiously watch for the signature horizontal crack down the loaf. It's a bizarrely comforting confirmation that my cake is a-okay. This anxiety was increased ten-fold by the fact that, this time, I was using a much more ancient-looking oven than I'm used to (in the house we've just moved into) and that this was the first cake I was testing in this contraption.

It's an AEG oven, but the knobs are confusing and it rigidly demands that you comply with recommended temperatures depending on what you're telling it is going in. I still haven't figured out how to modify the temperatures beyond that, if it is at all possible, but if it isn't - there will be tears!

I've found that a lack of faith in the oven has really affected my baking mojo. Geez I miss my ol' Smeg baby. To reduce the risk of baking disasters as much as possible, I went with a tried and true favourite.

Nigella Lawson's Mother-In-Law's Madeira Cake (from How To Be A Domestic Goddess)

This is the definitive baking-on-compulsion sort of cake, as you're sure to have everything you need already at hand. Eggs, butter, sugar, lemon and the two types of flour. As the ingredient list is so short, I always find myself triple-checking that I've added everything I need - it just seems too simple to be true.

Cream the sugar and butter - I use 160g instead of 200g and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Beat in the lemon zest, followed by eggs and little spoonfuls of flour.

After adding the rest of the flour and lemon juice, it's whacked into a greased loaf pan and then the oven for an hour. I had no idea how to operate the oven timer and almost lost track of time cleaning the bathroom while the cake was in.

This is cake that you want to slice almost immediately once it comes out of the oven - it's so beautifully fragrant. I was patient enough to allow it to cool in the pan before tipping it out and dishing out warm slices of it with hot cups of tea to my dad and the boyfriend. Judging from the chomping noises and conversation lull, this is one that will please even the toughest critics.

The oven managed to behave itself, it actually cooked in a remarkably even fashion. It even managed to outdo the Smeg, compared to the last time I made this recipe. Finger's crossed that there's no cold spots to be discovered later on. Is it possible I may have a decent oven, afterall?

Sausages In A Snap

2008-10-27T22:27:00.005+11:00

Ah, yes. The good ol' Apology Blog Post. We've all read them before, so I don't need to do the full-on explanation on how life has been hectic with house-moving, hence the blog neglection.

I can tell you, however, that sausages - despite all the stories I hear of their gory ingredients - make a delicious, quick dinner when your bones are aching from lifting boxes all day.

Nigella Lawson's Italian Sausages [with Lentils] (from Nigella Bites)

I must confess, I didn't do the lentils. I just used the concept of cooking sausages in red wine and garlic. I soaked couscous in chicken stock, dripping over the juices from the sausages and finished with a grating of cheese for added seasoning.

I'd actually thought that I'd exhausted all methods of cooking sausages, so it was refreshing to learn that there was one more - which turned out to be really tasty. I've really come to have an increased appreciation for adding wine to cooking - something I would never have even considered in the past. I'm finding that I'm reaching for leftover bottles of wine in the fridge when I'm experimenting with cooking random throw-togethers.

In this case, addition of wine really brought out a depth and sweetness in the sausages. I'm still not sold on couscous though. Sigh. So damn easy to make and yet no-one in the house likes it!

Trying Basmati Rice

2008-10-20T23:13:00.007+11:00

Our new house has settled, as you can probably tell from the sparse blog posts lately! The boy and I have spent late nights, after work, cleaning and moving bits and pieces over to ease the 'real' move this Saturday.

Before we leave our beloved renovated apartment, I've vowed I need to do two final things - use my dearest Smeg oven for a big bakeup (this is the happiest relationship I've ever had with an oven) and have one last relaxing spa in our deluxe tub. It's not like we're moving to the slums, but the kitchen and bathrooms are unfortunately the weakest points of our new place - aspects my boyfriend has promised will be changed in good time.

Apart from that, the recipe experimentation is slowing down this week as I try to use up as many weird remnants from the pantry and fridge. I did do one last 'extravagant' food shop to make this:

Nigella Lawson's Saffron-Scented Chicken Pilaf (from Forever Summer)

I think what drew me to this recipe is that I love the Chicken rice that comes with Hainese Chicken - it has such a heady, strong flavour. This is basmati rice, which I'd never used before, cooked on the stove-stop in a lemony chicken stock infused with saffron strands and cardamom.

I may be Vietnamese, but I'm ashamed to say that I had never made rice the 'traditional' and 'proper' way over a stove-top. I'm an unabashed, avid supporter of the electric rice-cooker. It has always seemed ridiculous that you'd want to torture yourself making rice anyway, it seemed as though it would be too difficult to stop the bottom from burning and the top from going claggy. It felt quite chef-ish doing rice this way - especially in a frying pan!

I nervously fretted over the simmering rice while the cubed chicken thighs (I prefer this to the recommended breast) marinaded in plain yoghurt, cinnamon and lemon juice. I would reduce the lemon juice quantity next time as the yoghurt is quite sour already, making the chicken a bit too sour for our liking.

Fry the chicken pieces after letting them sit in the marinade for at least an hour. The first few batches were pale looking, but eventually a bronze-ish juice built up in the pan which bathed over the the other chicken pieces.

Once the rice was done, I fluffed with forks, then tossed through the nuts (I used pepita seeds, roasted pine nuts and cashews) and chopped spring onion rather than parsley - which the boy unfortunately hates and I adore. Getting him to try a brand new type of food was going to be a bit tough, so I thought I'd better not push him over the culinary edge with the parsley factor!

I was thrilled that the rice came out perfectly fluffy and aerated.

Hmmm. "Interesting" - that's how I would describe this meal. I found the rice to be a bit too 'busy' and the boy said it tasted too healthy and herby. Guess I didn't win any points for leaving out the parsley. The chicken was a bit sour but was the saving grace, as it was juicy and tender. A bit too experimental and out-there for our tastebuds.

Cloud 9

2008-10-15T22:25:00.008+11:00

Ahhh. The gloriousness of chocolate-y goodness. It's been a tough week, a week where I could've snuggled up on the couch with the whole plate of cake smothered in cream and eagerly devour chunks using my fingers. I'm a dentist with a sugar and chocolate addiction...

I've been at a all day dental courses this week, part of compulsory continuing dental education as part of being in practice in Victoria. There's been two alternating speakers, one who is really interesting, the other who truly bores me to tears. I've never, ever been in a situation before where I have felt like I was wasting away hours of my life in such a bored-t0-tears, extreme manner. And there's still tomorrow to go! Thank goodness for chocolate salvation.

Nigella Lawson's Chocolate Cloud Cake (from Nigella Bites)

I think this recipe really takes the cake (tee hee hee) for being the most obviously indulgent and decadent cake, even before I've even tasted it. This cake is practically just egg, chocolate and sugar. Flourless and proud of it.

I nervously separated 4 eggs and gave them a light beating with my dear KitchenAid until they just held their shape.

Dark chocolate and butter was melted in the microwave, then added to two whole eggs beaten with 4 egg yolks, orange zest and sugar. Cointreau was an option, which I left out.

The egg whites are folded in gently.

It's quite scarey when this cake comes out of the oven - it rises to a splendid height, then almost in a blink of an eye, it collapses in the middle. Which is what is supposed to happen, although my boyfriend freaked out and asked out what was wrong with my cake!

He was soon relieved after I served out slices of the cake, with lashings of double cream. Nigella suggests whipping it with cointreau, I decided to keep the flavours simple (and make my life easier). The boy was very impressed with how moist the cake was - this is probably the epitome of moistness in a cake. So rich that you'll only be able to eat one slice at a sitting though - if you want to properly enjoy it and not feel sickly afterwards. It's definitely yummy - I can see how hardcore chocolate-addicts would adore this; I personally found it a bit too rich and gluggy to crown it as one I'd remake. We found it hard to finish the cake just because it was so dense and filling. If it's these qualities you love, if mud cake is what you live for, you'd be in chocolate heaven with this goodie.

The Battle With Pastry

2008-10-13T21:37:00.005+11:00

This is damn tasty pastry. It was just very nerve-wracking to make. I've had quite a traumatic experience with Nigella's pastry recipes already, in the past, which made me think I was the crappiest pastry baker ever until recently.

I decided to venture back to Nigella's pastry, in the form of a different recipe and book, because I was sucked in by watching her make it with her sister Horatia on the Nigella Bites series. Of course, she made it look super-simple, whereas it was actually quite fiddly - but still fun - to make.

Nigella Lawson's Granny Lawson's Lunch Dish (from Nigella Bites)

When the boyfriend tasted this, he said it tasted really healthy. Which is quite deceiving, considering the astronomical amount of butter and vegetable fat that goes into getting the pastry so deliciously flakey. I couldn't find anything actually labelled 'vegetable fat' in the butter/lard supermarket section, so I ended up using Nuttelex. Here's the cubed butter and Nuttelex about to head into the freezer with the 00 flour.

I was already sold on this meat-sauce interior as soon as I saw Nigella adding olives and hard-boiled eggs. What a perfect marriage of tastes! The saltiness tang of the olives works perfectly to take away the blandness that beef and tomato sauces sometimes have. I read somewhere that some people were leaving the olives out of this recipe - no, no, no!

I had the same problem with this pastry as I did when I had tried to make Nigella's Cherry Pie from How To Eat a couple of years ago - it just kept flaking and falling apart. I ended up having to desperately add some iced water to get it more roll-able. Throughout this whole time, I was about to give myself a stomach ulcer with all the stress! There seemed to be barely just the right quantity to fit the pie contents. I was so thankful this was a free-form pie, this would have been impossible to stretch into a pie tin. I would have also been one grumpy bum if this hadn't worked.

Two sheets are rolled out - the pie contents is poured onto the first, then the second is placed over the top and the edges tucked in and pronged with a fork.

She says this is enough to serve 6 people, I don't think is even enough for 4! Not only would the physical portion size be inadequate, but it's so delectable that you'll immediately crave more. The pastry is so, so very good. Crumbly, buttery and melt in your mouth. The interior has such a hearty, comforting quality to it. So although it does need a bit of time to make, it's a recipe you'll want to come back to.

I sure hope the oven in our new house (settlement in on Thursday, woohoo!) has the ability to produce goodies like this, it's a bit older and I'm so worried that I'm not going to get a decent baked treat until we get a kitchen revamp. I feel like I'm trying to cram in heaps of baking recipes that I've wanted to make for awhile into this short period before we move, just in case! Fingers crossed.

Strawberries and Cream

2008-10-08T21:37:00.004+11:00

I was shocked to read an article in The Herald Sun that strawberries constitute one of the more common food allergies. Whoa! I cannot imagine a life without the unified luxury of strawberries and cream. This combination even has the ability to mask not-so-lovely-tasting strawberries that occasionally pop up at the supermarket.

On the other hand, if I read one more Cosmo/Cleo/other girl mag article about eating or rubbing strawberries to whiten your teeth.....well, grr. Strawberries are acidic - all you'll be doing is demineralising your tooth structure. And definitely don't brush your teeth with an acidic strawberry mash up - you'll be kissing your strong enamel goodbye.

To continue my rant, I really must spread the word that pregnancy itself does not make your teeth rot. It's just an old wives tale. We will nod sympathetically if you tell us that this is the reason why you have ten holes, but we don't even remotely believe you. The reason is more likely because you're tired pre/post birth and not brushing/flossing regularly, you're snacking constantly on foods to satisfy hormonal cravings, and all that jazz.

On that note, back to the food...

Orange Cake (from http://www.exclusivelyfood.com.au/)

I had my future in-laws over for dinner. After wracking my brains over what to cook for them, I decided on a good ol' fashioned Asian Steam Boat. Basically, a Tom Yum chicken broth sitting in pot over a gas burner that sits at the dining table, surrounded by a bountiful collection of tasty tidbits to toss into the broth.

I went to Box Hill Centro and stocked up on an endless variety of asian leafy vegetables, as well as prawns, scallops, fresh fish fillets, thinly sliced beef and combination seafood balls.

As a sign of my dedication, well really just my desperation to impress, I woke up at 6:30 am to bake a cake so that it would be eaten on the same day it was baked. I definitely wanted to stick with strawberries and whipped cream as a topping, but I needed some sort of sponge-y base. I've had quite a lot of success with recipes from Exclusively Food, so I took the risk of not having tried this recipe before.

Butter, sugar and egg creamed together - with a smattering of zest grated over:

I decided not to complicate the fruity flavours too much, so I sticked with just orange juice and zest for the base. Just before serving, I topped the cake with whipped cream and sliced strawberries that had been macerating in a drizzle of balsamic vinegar.

I was a bit disappointed to find the cake base was a bit too crumbly for my liking - I wanted more of a light, airy sponge whereas this was quite dense. That didn't stop me and the others from guzzling the cake down though - I had completely forgotten how marvellous strawberries and cream were together. I think it was the topping that saved it - on it's own, it would've been dry and boring. Which is quite a surprise, considering how many winner recipes I've managed to get from this website - I can only blame my technique, I guess! My boyfriend says it was "nice but not the best reflection of what you bake normally". Hmm, sounds like report-card language to me.

My New Obsession: Indian Food

2008-10-06T23:10:00.006+11:00

I can't get enough of Indian food lately. I recently bought The Curry Secret : How To Cook Real Indian Restaurant Meals At Home by Kris Dhillon and poured over the recipes, salivating at how delicious everything seemed. I decided to have an Indian themed dinner party, this was also a good chance to test out a new recipe.

Nigella Lawson's Muttar Paneer (from Nigella Feasts)

I made this with Cucumber and Garam Masala spiced yoghurt from The Curry Secret, and of course, plain rice.

I hadn't tried paneer before, it is basically heated milk curdled with a food acid, commonly lemon juice. After visiting a few delis, and a blank looks from a few staff later, I finally managed to find it - oddly, at Safeway (Woolies for all you non-Vics).

The paneer is sliced into cubes and shallow fried, quite hazardly, in vegetable oil. I did manage to sustain quite a few ouch-ish oil spatter burns here, until I rummaged through the cupboards and found my hardly-ever-used spatter guard. This step bronzes up the cheese beautifully.

A bunch of headily aromatic spices, tomato puree and frozen peas are simmered together.

The paneer is stirred through at the end, the sauce becomes significantly thicker after simmering.

I also made the hugely successful Chicken and Cashew Nut Curry from Nigella's Forever Summer which has received rave reviews everytime I've made it. It's so simple, I'm almost embarrassed at how complexly fabulous it turns out - everytime.

The muttar paneer itself was full of flavour, but a little bit too oily for my liking. Some of the oil from the fried paneer, even though they've been sitting on kitchen paper to soak up the excess, does make it's way into the sauce. A nice curry, but quite rich, hence best in small servings. Fortunately, the coolness of the cucumber yoghurt helped balance out it's richness.

Happy 100th Sage-ish Post!

2008-10-03T23:12:00.005+10:00

Oh, big whoopee I hear you say. I used to see many a celebration over a hundred or two hundred posts and although it certainly seemed exciting for the blogger, I never really truly appreciated how hard and how long it takes to get to one hundred posts. It's no mean feat! And I'm happy to have gotten to this milestone and to still adore cooking and sharing the foodie love.

Sage Chicken (a take on Nigella Lawson's One-pan Sage-and-Onion Chicken and Sausage

So easy I felt sneakily lazy, I marinated the chicken in dried sage, whole grain mustard, worcestshire sauce, olive oil, pepper, and the juice of a lemon with the rind thrown in. The difference between this recipe and Nigella's is obviously the lack of sausage and onion.

I've been a bit turned off sausage after a friend told me of someone he knew that worked in a butcher telling stories of all the weird and wonderful things that went into their making.

-
After roasting this in the oven, I served with crusty bread smeared with a parmesan cheese, cashew and basil dip and some steamed veg. Absolutely delicious and juicily flavoursome - it almost seems like any sort of roast chicken recipe is infallible. I was a bit hesitant with using sage, as I wasn't really sure if either I or the boy was going to like it, but I'm happy to report that sage is officially the rage of our kitchen now!

Falling in Lamb

2008-09-30T22:12:00.006+10:00

Red and green food. Just makes me think of Christmas. I think I'm going slightly nutty as it's been awhile since my last break from work and it seems like Christmas holidays are never going to arrive. Myer has their Christmas decorations out, so clearly I'm not the only one trying to speed towards Christmas. We haven't had a public holiday in Melbourne since June and our next one isn't until Cup Weekend in November. Painful.

Frozen peas have become quite the freezer staple in household, ever since I became crazily obsessed with the 'Queen of the Frozen Pea' - Nigella. I've always been more of a corn rather than a pea person, but I am starting to appreciate their fresh, nutty sweetness.

Nigella Lawson's Rapid Ragu (from Nigella Express)
Nigella Lawson's Petits Pois a la Francais (from Nigella Feasts)

I've never cooked lamb mince before, I couldn't ever think of a means to make it work. The whole time I was cooking this ragu, I had Nigella's words about the 'nursery sweetness of lamb' in this recipe echoing through my head.

True to the title, the ragu is effortlessly simple to prepare. Heat olive oil, fry some pancetta cubes, then the lamb mince. Chuck in yellow lentils, canned tomatoes, marsala, water and caramelised onions. After 20 minutes of simmering, which is just right amount of time to get a veg side dish and get out of your work clothes, there's some jelly ready for your belly.

Asians all along have known of the greatness of cooked lettuce. My family, ever since I was child, had been bunging in leaves of lettuce into two-minute noodles and home-made noodle soups to up the health and flavour factor. You'd be surprised at how well lettuce mops up the flavours of a broth, intensifying it's own soft sweetness.

The Petits Pois is just a fancy name for frozen peas and lettuce cooked in an oniony chicken broth.

The ragu is served over a bed of pasta.

I'm absolutely awestruck with this ragu. I had no idea lamb was so capable of being so sweet and flavoursome - it's completely different from any lamb I've eaten before! The flavours are so different from barbecue-ing, grilling or roasting lamb. Very tender, melt-in-your mouth and comforting. It doesn't have the hint of toughness that minced beef sometimes has. It takes up the lentil and caramelised onion juices, giving a real depth of flavour. So easy and very repeatable.

This rave about lamb reminds me of the TV ad that's playing at the moment, to promote eating lamb, that the boy and I saw recently. We both sat with our jaws on the floor, until we realised it was mock movie trailer. This ad absolutely reflected my enthusiasm for lamb after cooking this meal!

The peas and lettuce concoction was lovely, but nothing particularly special. The broth needs to thicken up a bit to coat the veg more, maybe a bit of cornflour or potato starch would be a good addition. A good back up if you're out of other veg and these are the only ones left, but I wouldn't specifically plan to make this again.

It's All Philly

2008-09-26T23:30:00.007+10:00

It's bizarre how 'Philadelphia' cheese has this enormous monopoly over the cream cheese industry. I don't think I've ever seen any other alternative cream cheese, in any store, ever. It's absolutely delicious - although, how will we ever know without being given the opportunity to try another brand? I can't think of any other product in the world where it's just the one main company that produces basically all the product - even Coke has an arch-enemy. Just a little thing that bugs me every now and then.

Clearly, it hasn't stopped me from endlessly supporting and boosting their profit margins.

Cream Cheese Muffins (from Bake or Break)

As if there weren't enough ways to incorporate cream cheese into recipes, this seemed like a new novel method to try.

The main point I noticed about this recipe was it seemed like there was an astronomical amount of sugar in it, knowing that my family likes their desserts and cakes only modestly sweetened. In total, there is supposed to be 3 cups of sugar. I ended up using about 1 and 3/4 cups and everyone seemed to be quite happy with the sweetness levels this way.

For the dry ingredients, flour, sugar (I used about 3/4 cup here) and baking powder.

Milk, oil and eggs are the wet ingredients, kept separate until the end, typical of a muffin recipe. Beat together the cream cheese and sugar (I used 1/2 cup here).

After the batter has been made, add half the cream cheese mixture. The other half is used to dollop in between layers of batter, as you spoon it into waiting paper cases, to provide a squishy creamy interior surprise as you bite into the muffin.

A topping of pecans, sugar (I used 1/2 cup again), butter and flour is sprinkled over the muffins. Don't forget this bit - I had to rescue my muffins out of the oven a minute after I'd put them in when I realised they were looking a bit naked on the top.

I wish the above photo could've reflected the internal part of the muffin better - the crumb has a light hint of creaminess throughout, then your taste buds come upon the soft interior, which makes this quite different to other muffins I've made. The topping is lovely, nutty and crumbly. I would, however, reduce the quantities by half next time as I ended up with 28 of these - using my crossed-between muffin and cupcake tin. So we were a bit cheese-d out by the end of this week, after eating this for breakfast, afternoon tea and dessert almost everyday!

Italian Mama

2008-09-24T00:03:00.012+10:00

Until this recipe, tomato-based sauces have never really interested me. Sure, I'd eat them, but it always felt like the whole thing was drowned in the intense sour tang of gluggy tomato.

Like many other recipes I've tried, Nigella's beguiling manner of preparing this on her DVD swayed me into making it. I did, however, take the I-work-5-full-days-a-week shortcut and left out the part where you make the fresh pasta. I have a good reason though - if I'm going to slave over making gorgeous, fresh pasta, I don't want it to be ruined by a sauce I don't love.

Nigella Lawson's Pasta with Meatballs (from Nigella Bites)

For the meatballs:

250g minced pork
250g minced beef
1 egg
2 tablespoons freshly grated parmesan
1garlic clove, minced
1 teaspoon dried oregano
3 tablespoons semolina or breadcrumbs
good grind of pepper
1 teaspoon of salt

Wash your hands, roll up your sleeves and squish all these ingredients together in a large bowl. I'd run out of parmesan and added some mashed up soft blue cheese instead. Roll teaspoonfuls of this mixture into small meatballs, placing them on plates lined with clingfilm and place in the fridge.

I started rolling the meatballs as 1 onion, 2 cloves of garlic and 1 teaspoon of dried oregano was cooked over a low-medium heat for 10 minutes in a deep, wide pan with 1 tablespoon each of unsalted butter and olive oil - after being blitzed in the food processor.

Add 700ml bottle of tomato passata and refill the bottle halfway with cold water and add this too, with a pinch of sugar and some salt and pepper. After 10 minutes, add 100mL of full fat milk. I suspect this is what dampens down the strong acidity of the tomato - it really transforms this meal into something special.

Drop the meatballs in one by one, don't stir as you'll end up disintegrating them. Cover partially with a lid/foil and cook for 20 minutes and add more salt and pepper at the end. Ladle over hot steamy pasta.

With the milk added, it lends a slight creaminess which is barely detectable, but works well as a neutraliser to the tomato. I'm really impressed with this recipe - the seasoning was perfect. The meatballs had just the right amount of zing to them - the semolina isn't too bready, the blue cheese wasn't strong but added an extra depth to the flavour. I'm sure making them with blue cheese again the next time around.

The only time-consuming part is rolling the meatballs, which in all honesty, only really takes 5 minutes - it's just the repetitiveness which makes it seem like a wee bit of a chore. And hey, it does give you the satisfying feeling of being an authentic Italian mama, as Nigella promises. This is the first time I've really enjoyed a tomato-based pasta sauce and I intend to pull this recipe out for dinner time and time again.

Eat, Eat, Eat

2008-09-19T22:30:00.003+10:00

We've been eating non-stop the whole weekend. I'm going to have to rock up to people's houses with stretchy pants next time. Dinner party after dinner party at friend's houses, but we did manage to squeeze in a roast on Friday night!

Our pantry was down to the absolute bare minimum by then, as we'd somehow managed to get away without (proper) food shopping for over 2 weeks, minus the occasional milk or bread dash. I'd like to say it was because I was trying to use up all the food before we moved out, but I can't lie - it's still another 4 weeks until the house settlement, and we've just been purely too lazy to hit the stores.

This weekend was a major stock-up, which I'll never let happen again, as lugging bags and bags of groceries up the stairs was a big no-no.

Nigella Lawson's Cold Roast Beef (technically supposed to be with the lemon salad, but no salad leaves were left in the house!) (from Forever Summer)

Bay leaves and pepper over the slab of beef, then into the oven. I can't quite remember the cooking times, as I'd borrowed the book from the library and have returned it since, but I'd add a good extra 15 minutes next time around.

Nigella clearly loves her meat as rare as can be, which the boy enjoyed, but I'd personally like to have it more medium-rare. The good thing is that by baking it, when you sliced it there wasn't blood oozing all over the place, which is what normally irks me about rare-ish beef.

I served with green beans, drizzling the beef with olive oil and a sprinkling of salt and pepper, and some rice cooked with asian yellow lentils. I personally found the beef quite boring, it really needed much more of a flavour kick.

I guess if you really want to taste your meat, and you adore the taste of beef, you may find this more palatable. Possibly with the lemon salad, this balances out the flavours - with the strung tang of lemon - so it may be my pairings that sent this recipe astray. I'm going to keep searching for the perfect roast beef recipe.

Chocolate and Cream

2008-09-16T23:03:00.007+10:00

The only thing that ranks higher in the foodstakes than cookies n' cream is chocolate and cream. I believe my unshakeable adoration for Nigella and her cooking ways has something to do with the fact that she seems to be the only one who loves cream as much as I do. Not that this is a Nigella recipe, but it certainly reminds me of her Chocohotopot recipe.

As a testimony to how much I loved the brilliant Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cheesecake Bar recipe, I went out and bought the book from which it came from. This book is quite the feast for your eyes, with a colour theme of chocolate brown and pink throughout and beautiful, mouthwatering photos.

Elinor Klivan's Hot Chocolate Chip Brownie Sundae Cake (from The Essential Chocolate Chip Cookbook)

Rather than using a double boiler to melt the chocolate, I went for the lazy but superbly easy microwave technique! Butter, unsweetened chocolate and milk chocolate chips are melted together. You're supposed to use dark chocolate chips but I just used less milk chips and more dark chocolate, then reduced the sugar quantities later on.

Beat eggs, sugar and salt, then add the melted chocolate mixture and vanilla. I used 1/2 cup sugar rather than 1 cup, the sweetness turned out just right.

Finish with some plain flour.

Divide amongst 6 buttered ramekins, then sprinkle with a few more chocolate chips. For once, a recipe has actually divided out to the right proportions - it fit exactly 6 ramekins.

After baking, mine did not pop up and rise as much as the pictures in the book did. I think she used much smaller ramekins, as I divided the mixture amongst her recommended 6 and I found the eating portions to be the right amount. You don't want any more or less than what you get.

Instead of ice-cream, I cut right to the chase and poured cool thickened cream over the hot sundae cakes. It was quite a delectable foodie moment. Hot, melting chocolate centres, light spongy cake on the top - all bathed in cool cream. Very nice indeed.

Not quite as rich as Nigella's chocohotopots - they're both delicious in their own ways - this one has the great surprise of the chocolate chips within. This probably is why you don't notice the richness as much, and because of that I'd favour this one slightly. I really do need to try Nigella's again and blog about it, as the first time I made it, I was still struggling to control my oven temperatures and overbaked it.

I had two left over for tonight, which I microwaved for 30 seconds. It doesn't quite have that gooey melted internal portion anymore, but it's still super moist and delish.

Mortadella Memories

2008-09-13T23:12:00.003+10:00

I haven't touched mortadella for years. It was an ingredient of the past that conjured up memories of highschool sandwiches. Salami and, occasionally, ham are the only ones that have stayed - only because I use them on pizzas.

I don't even really "do" sandwiches anymore, not the typical supermarket deli meat and salad-type ones anyway, as I seem to have OD-ed on them back then.

This was quite a refreshing way of incorporating it into a meal - a pasta salad.

Nigella Lawson's Mortadella Pasta Salad (from Nigella Express)

There's really no need for precise measurements, I suspect Nigella threw this together spontaneously then had to backtrack and figure out quantities for the sake of the book. It contains cooked pasta, slices of mortadella, parsley and a dressing of olive oil, salt, mustard, lemon juice and black pepper. I really felt that some sort of vegetable input was required, so I microwaved some frozen peas and threw them in.

This is tasty, without drowning in sauce and flavourings like most pasta salads are like. It's perfect to throw together for a packed lunch for work the next day, or if you need a dinner whipped up, pronto. Aside from the mortadella, it's pretty much based on pantry staple ingredients. I like how it's a good base to add a few different other ingredients or alter the existing ones - change the meat, swap the veg, mix up the herbs.

Deceptively Simple

2008-09-13T00:44:00.007+10:00

It's so annoying when you've decided to brush your teeth and hop into bed early one night, only to sit there reading food blog after food blog, getting hungrier by the minute. The fact that I know I've already brushed and flossed my teeth makes it all the more tempting to head to the kitchen for a pre-sleep snack attack.

I finally gave in to my gnawing hunger pangs and made:

Nigella Lawson's Oeufs En Cocotte (from Nigella Express)

It sounds like something awfully complicated - with a name like that - and just when I thought I'd cooked an egg in every way possible already, I read about this.

It's just an egg cracked into a greased ramekin, with a drop of double cream, a sprinkle of Maldon salt (of course) and if you have some truffle oil lying about, this is supposed to add the oomph into your ouefs. I didn't, but I am keen to get my hands on some the next time I head into a specialty store.

I think I was a bit worried about the relatively short oven baking time (15 minutes), where they sit in a water bath, and I left the ramekins in there for another couple of minutes, so the egg wasn't as runny as I would have liked it to be.

I chopped some freshly parsley and threw this into the ramekins, which was perfect - it does need some sort of fresh herb to top it off - some coriander, the dark green ends of spring onion or parsley would all work well. I guess you can't really go wrong with a predominantly egg recipe.

An insanely easy recipe, though, and perfect to whip up in moments such as tonight - when you're craving something warm and savoury, yet processed, boring cup-a-soups just won't do the trick.

Stuff The Terminology

2008-09-07T23:29:00.004+10:00

While I was making these, all I could think of was that this recipe seemed like hamburgers, except that I was frying them instead of bbq-ing or grilling them. My trusty friend Wikipedia tells me that a rissole is meant to be a croquette enclosed in pastry or breadcrumbs, baked or deep-fried. Us good ol' Aussies have morphed this into our own version - which is a pan fried mixture containing mince meat.

Rissoles (from http://www.exclusivelyfood.com.au/)

I processed onion, zucchini and carrot, then threw this into a pan with some oil to soften over low heat. Add the garlic. This is left to cool.

Once cooled,in a large bowl, add worcestershire sauce, mince, breadcrumbs, seasoning, egg, bbq sauce, cheese and tomato paste. It may sound like a weird combo - well it did to me anyway - but it works amazingly well.

Using the pan you used before for the vegetables, fry the flattened balls of mixture.

I roasted some pumpkin in the oven, mashed it and smeared it onto fresh white bread rolls and used this to sandwich the rissoles. The rissoles were extremely tasty - wonderfully flavoured, with so much depth and a lovely intensity. Not to mention how they melted in your mouth - not a hint of toughness, like how you can sometimes get with hamburgers.

The boy took one bite and asked which butcher I'd bought these 'hamburgers' from, which was promptly met by a glare from me as I explained that I'd made these from scratch. They're a bit like that though - it's really quite hard to believe that you've made these all by yourself. The hidden vegie factor, on top of everything I've mentioned, is an enormous bonus.

So, whatever they're called, rissoles schmissoles - they're scrumptious.

Crabby

2008-09-07T01:03:00.005+10:00

An appropriate title for not only this recipe, but my mood. You wouldn't believe the evening I've had. We managed to lock ourselves out of our apartment. Again. Twice in 2 weeks. We called the same locksmith and he had the sense of humour to charge us 20 bucks more, because it was 11pm. And he told us to put him on speed dial.

I finally managed to find some 'fresh' tubbed crab meat, surprisingly enough at Coles. Packaged in little plastic tubs, weirdly enough, from India.

Nigella Lawson's Crab and Avocado Wraps (from Nigella Express)

The crab meat comes pasteurised and cooked; this is then mixed with wasabi, mayonnaise and sesame oil.

Arrange on a soft tortilla wrap, topped with curls of avocado and a squirt of lemon juice. Roll and slice into 4.

These were a bit too fishy for my liking. The boyfriend, on the other hand, loved this aspect of it. I believe a bit of pepper and salt wouldn't have gone astray either - it was just so bland tasting. I only managed to stomach two of these, the boy ate without any reservations.

Considering that I love eating raw oysters, I think this woud be pushing the boundaries of most people's seafood limits, unless it was seasoned very heavily to disguise the fishy taste.

In the TV version of this, she leaves out the shredded lettuce, which I did too - I think this was fortunate, as it would have only watered down the flavours even further.

The Combination of Three Great Loves

2008-09-02T23:02:00.008+10:00

There are some recipes out there that you know are going to be good, from the moment you set your eyes on the recipe title. Cookie dough? Tick. Cheesecake? Tick. Chocolate chips? Whoa - now this recipe was starting to teeter into urban myth territory. I knew I was in for a goodie when I saw this on Baked Perfection. Read and salivate!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cheesecake Bars (from The Essential Chocolate Chip Cookbook by Elinor Klivans)

Graham crackers are the same as digestive biscuits, which is what I used in crumb-form along with melted butter and chocolate chips (zapped in a food processor) to form the base. This is pressed into a lined baking tin and baked for 6 minutes.

While this had it's time in the oven, I made the cookie dough. In a mixer, combine brown sugar, granulated sugar, vanilla essence and butter. Plain flour is then slowly added to this. I reduced all the sugar quantities slightly. Instead of 1/3 cup of brown sugar, I used 1/4 cup and instead of 3 tablespoons of granulated sugar, I used 2. I found the sweetness to be spot on perfect, so I'll be making it this way again in the future.

I found that there was quite a large amount of this cookie dough leftover - I'd probably only make half this amount next time. I froze the leftover dough from tonight, as I'm sure I'll be repeating this recipe pretty soon.

The cheesecake batter is cream cheese at room temperature creamed with granulated sugar. Again, a slight reduction in sweetness. The packet of cream cheese I had was only 250g rather than 280g, so I used a medium sized egg. This is spread evenly over the baked crumbs.

I then used my fingers to roll little teaspoon-sized cookies and dotted them evenly over the mixture - they do look quite cute in miniature versions! Bake for 30 minutes.

Melt some chocolate (I used dark) in a sandwich bag in the microwave, then cut a teeny corner and drizzle the chocolate over. This is the fun kindergarten-painting moment!

I took some of these to work today and people were quite impressed at how they looked, as well as the effort I'd taken to make the cookie dough and not just buy store-made dough. It really was bizarrely easy though - I guess the difficult part of this recipe is just co-ordinating the procedures for the three different components - crust, cheesecake and cookie dough.

Feedback for this recipe was raves all around. The boy ate three slices and asked immediately asked where I'd stored the rest. There were a few 'oohs and aahs' at work, so this is quite a crowd pleaser. Myself, I'm head over heels in love with this recipe. It's so damn delicious! I know there's a lot of butter, sugar and chocolate in this - but throw all your food inhibitions and calorie-counting out the window and try this.

The baked cheesecake is velvety smooth and having the chocolate chips there is a great taste and texture contrast. The biscuit crumb is plain enough to not steal the limelight away from the amazing cookie dough gracing the slice. I'm tempted to just make the cookies on their own, they're so soft and yielding to the bite.

This is similar to the Cheesecake Bars I made awhile back, just a dressed- up and more exciting version. Everytime I find a recipe like this, I'm saddened by the thought that I may never get the thrill of finding anything as good as this again.

Little note: I've been zapped by a virus on my computer and it's killing my computer's speed, making it painstakingly difficult to do anything, so apologies for the slow updates lately :)

A Rave for Ribs

2008-08-30T22:46:00.006+10:00

I can't quite work out why, but for me, there's something so much more delicious about eating meat off the bone. Must be those long-buried caveman instincts coming out in me.

Nigella Lawson's Finger-lickin' Ribs (from Nigella Feasts)

Being Vietnamese, I've grown up only using star anise in traditional Vietnamese Pho. It had never crossed my mind to use it any other way. I remember my mother's pantry was always well-stocked with a little jar packed to the rim with these little fragrant beauties.

My concern was that these ribs were going to taste like pho-flavoured meat. Hey, I love my pho. But ribs have got to have their own unique lip-smackin', finger-lickin' taste.

I needn't have worrried. The marinade was star anise, pineapple juice (I used freshly squeezed orange juice), soy sauce, freshly squeezed lime juice and it's zest, onion, oil (I used vegetable oil), green chilli (which I omitted), fresh ginger, a cinnamon stick and molasses (I used treacle because I had some left from the Fresh Gingerbread awhile back).

I kept this in the fridge to marinade overnight. I had completely forgotten how wonderful meat can taste if you give the marinade long enough to seep completely into it. So many times, I seem to be rushed into marinading for 10 minutes or half an hour. I really must make an effort to be more organised in the future to reap the scrumptious benefits!

The ribs were in the oven for 50 minutes; I didn't need to roast them for 60 minutes as Nigella recommended. The meat was moist, melting, and bursting from the seams with flavour. If you make this, do it properly and leave it to marinade overnight. You won't regret it. It had a strong savoury tone with a mild reminder of the sweetness from the juice and treacle. Best of all, it had a unique taste of it's own - no pho reminders! The flavours were nicely muddied together, not to confuse your tastebuds, but to provide deep resonance. Nigella deserves a high-five for this awesome recipe.

Edit: Just did my research - treacle and molasses are the same thing! Treacle is the British version; molasses is American. Interestingly, when sugar cane juice is first boiled, you get golden syrup. The second boil creates the more concentrated form - treacle. Anyhow, the word treacle sounds much more appetising to me!

Me, The Chocolate Addict

2008-08-28T22:05:00.004+10:00

I have no idea what is wrong with my tastebuds, but I've had chocolate cravings like never before - as you can probably tell from my recent blog entries.

It's even had me cursing the fact that Nigella hasn't gotten around to writing a full book based on chocolate goodies.

Nigella Lawson's Chocolate Cherry Cupcakes (from How To Be A Domestic Goddess)

This recipe is frighteningly easy - I can see cherry jam becoming a firm staple in my pantry, purely for use during emergency late-night chocolate baking escapades. Very much like a muffin recipe, however the crumb is quite cupcake-ish in nature.

In a saucepan, melt the butter, add dark chocolate then take it off the heat and stir to form a dark, glossy mixture.

Add the cherry jam (I used St. Dalfour brand - I loved this in the Cherry Cheesecake, and if Nigella has used it before, I assume it's good enough for this.), 2 beaten eggs, caster sugar (reduced from 150 grams to 120 grams due to the sweetening in the jam) and salt.

This forms a delicious chocolate-y glug, to which you add the self-raising flour, mix gently and spoon carefully into cupcake or muffin cases. In my cupcake tin, I managed to get 14 cupcakes.

I made these last night, but only managed to ice them today as I'd only figured out at 11pm that I'd run out of chocolate for the icing. It was quite disappointing to head off to bed, not being able to taste my baked goodies as they were intended to be.

They were still delicious uniced - suprisingly so. I iced a few today - using Nigella's suggestion of a double cream and dark chocolate mixture, but I found this far too bitter and it completely stole the show away from the cherries and mildness of the cake itself. We ended up eating a few more, just on their own.

During a blog wander, I found a recipe for Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting which may be just the thing for this. But to be honest, they really are superb without any extra fuss.

Just on efficiency alone, this recipe is a winner. Incredibly quick to whip up, these cupcakes seem to be keeping relatively well on their second day. I love the squishy chunks of cherry - make sure you use a jam that hasn't boiled the fruit down to nothing-ness.

Not Quite Death By Chocolate

2008-08-23T22:06:00.011+10:00

On her show, Nigella presents these biscuits as the ultimate break-up comfort food. These became the ultimate waste-of-money-day comfort food for the boy and I.

Don't ask us how, but we somehow managed to lock ourselves out of our apartment today and had to sit outside for 3 hours waiting for a locksmith to take - no jokes or exaggerations - 30 seconds to pick our lock. For the bargain price of $160. Sob. What an absolutely stupid way to waste hard-earned cash, which should be going into our mortgage.

This served as an appropriate cheer-up:

Nigella Lawson's Totally Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies (from Nigella Express)

Ingredients
125g dark chocolate, minimum 70% cocoa solids
150g flour
30g cocoa, sieved
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
125 soft butter
75g light brown sugar (I used 65g)
50g white sugar (I used 40g)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg, cold from the fridge
350g semi-sweet chocolate morsels or dark chocolate chips (I used 250g)

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees celsius. Melt the chocolate in the microwave - I cannot begin to even express how thankful I am to my microwave for being able to do this task. It sure beats the double-boiler technique, hands-down.

Cream the butter and sugar.

Add the melted chocolate and mix together. I love watching the chocolate swirl it's way into the pale butter mixture.

Beat in the cold egg and vanilla extract.

The flour, cocoa, bicarbonate soda and salt are combined separately, then added to the creamed mixture.

I truly think that Nigella was having a moment of chocolate madness in the midst of dire stress when she created this recipe - 350g seemed like a gigantic amount of choc chips to me. I went for a combo of white and milk chocolate chips, at 100 grams less than what Nigella suggested, and I still felt like I was going crazily overboard.

Using an ice-cream scoop, or just guessing with a spoon (which was my way), scoop out 12 mounds onto a lined baking sheet about 6cm apart. Don't flatten them. Bake 18 minutes, testing with a cake-tester to ensure it comes out semi-clean. I reckon 16 minutes is how long I'd go for next time, as mine came out clean at 18 minutes.

The boy and I sat on the couch, munching away at cookies and slurping happily at mugs of hot tea to chase away the cold we'd endured outside. An absolute party for your taste buds.

I was initially hesitant at the amount of chocolate that was used to get to the end-point - I wanted chocolate comfort, not stomach-churning richness. The cookie had a dusty texture, working nicely with the soft melting chocolate chips. I normally prefer soft Mrs. Field-type cookies, but for some reason, this dustiness was what was needed to stop the cookie from being overbearing.

The chocolate intensity was spot on - I can normally only stomach one cookie most of the time, but I was back for another one straight away. It leaves a wonderful memory of gooey-ness on your tongue that entices you back for more. And yes, we're getting a back-up key made.

Raw cabbage, anyone?

2008-08-20T22:58:00.002+10:00

It was a dismal day in my childhood when I realised that coleslaw's main constituent was raw cabbage. How absolutely un-exciting - for a meal that is so fresh and juicy, how could it have originated from something as boring and dull as cabbage?

As I grew up, only tasting the occasional KFC coleslaw, the memory of this fabulous salad faded and I began to associate the word coleslaw with off-smelling, musty cabbage. Until this.

Nigella Lawson's New Orlean's Coleslaw (from Nigella Express)

The dressing is simple enough - mayonnaise, maple syrup, buttermilk, apple cider vinegar, pepper and salt.

As you would expect, the salad component does require a bit of washing and chopping, but it should be easy enough if you have a decent food processor. Which I don't. I'm working on the boy for a new one, which wouldn't be so hard if our food processor wasn't less than 12 months old.

Cabbage, carrot, spring onion and celery - no surprises here.

This is tossed together with the dressing, finished with a sprinkling of pecans. I love, love and adore this coleslaw. It's sweet, not in an in-your-face manner, but in a mild, sneaky creeping into your tastebuds sort of way. The coleslaw is best dressed just before you serve it, as it does have a tendency to go a bit soggy if it's sitting around for a bit, just like the KFC one is.

I was so busy devouring this that I only remembered to take a photo of it on my plate after 10 minutes into eating! I served this with Nigella's Mustard Pork Chops.

This stuff may not look pretty, but the taste will reward you greatly for your chopping efforts. It blew me away enough to make me forget about my initial cabbage-disillusionment - raw cabbage or not, the boyfriend and I enjoyed it. If you're making this for guests, expect them to scrape the bottom of the salad bowl clean - just like mine did.