Noosa Food Festival

Last month we visited one of our favourite places, to do one of our favourite things - Noosa (which is sentimental to us because it's where we got married) to go to the Noosa International Food Festival. What a great weekend. We often go up to Brisbane for Mothers Day and I'm always envious when I see the ads for the Food festival the following weekend, so this time, we decided to move Mothers Day and take my Mother in Law for a weekend away. We started off the weekend on Thursday evening with a fun, light hearted, food themed concert. The QLD Virtuosi orchestra, along with special guests were a great source of entertainment, and this was almost the highlight of the weekend. It certainly kicked the festival off to a great start.

On Friday morning we breakfasted at our wedding reception spot, Berardo's on the Beach. It was a great experience as usual with amazing service, delicious food and what a view! It is a fave of ours, but also, being in one of the most stunning locations, a fave of some of the weekend guests to Noosa, the Chefs. Not only did we spot Neil Perry walking into the restaurant and sitting down at a table when we were outside chatting on the boardwalk admiring the beach, but we even featured in his Instagram snap of the occasion! (See us in the foreground with Noosa beach and National Park in the background!)

Saturday was our day to hit the festival and the rain that had sprinkled on Friday afternoon cleared up, leaving the only memory of it as the squelchy mud beneath our feet! We spent a lot of time glued to the main stage with chef after chef showing off their beautiful dishes. David Thompson from Nahm restaurant, which we were lucky enough to visit on our trip last year to Thailand, prepared a spicy stir fry, and Guy Grossi and Jacques Reymond also demonstrated some fascinating techniques.

Another highlight of the festival was High Tea by the River. In a sun drenched marquee with views of the Eric Pernoud (a local patissier) and Adriano Zumbo. What a delicious spread! We had different flavoured eclairs from Pernoud, ranging from traditional flavours to some distinct and unexpected ones; Cheesy bites from Ian Curley and then Zumbo's macarons and a pineapple and popping candy verrine that popped and tingled in our mouths. We certainly enjoyed everything that we were served and the Chefs were very gracious coming round to visit the guests at the table. I think Zumbo probably had his photo taken with every guest that attended!
river, we were treated to some great sweets and savouries from Ian Curley,

All in all, Noosa gave us another fabulous weekend and we left with more memories of a great festival and town!

Eat Drink Blog 2012: My Top 5 Highlights

Last week was the wonderful Eat Drink Blog 2012 Conference in Adelaide organised by a fabulous South Australia based group of bloggers. The bringing together of like minds for a weekend has certainly been one of  the highlights of my blogging career, as it reinspired and energised me to lift my blogging game. Of course, I could walk through the days one by one, but since we'd all be asleep by the time the plane touched down in Adelaide, I thought I'd pick the top 5 learnings to share.

1. Sydney pulled the market short straw
I don't quite know how I've made it to Adelaide on a few occasions but never been to the Adelaide Central Market. It's a bit like Central Station in Sydney, that is, not quite in the centre, but now that I know about it, it will be the centre of my next visits to Adelaide. What happened to Sydney in all of this? We ended up with Paddy's Market, selling cheap souvenirs, while Adelaide has this great hub filled with hundreds of vendors collected under the same roof selling their speciality products at what seemed like reasonable prices, creating a real community feel whilst supporting the farmers and growers.

2. Don't gush
Diane Jacobs, an expert in food writing who has written the food writers/bloggers bible, Will Write for Food, (which I can't wait to get my hands on) was the keynote speaker. As well as many other nuggets, her key advice was: don't gush... It's boring. I guess I knew that already, but do have a tendency to rave about things I love, and it would be very easy for me to gush about the Eat Drink Blog Conference, but I'll keep that in check. When I receive the book I have on order right now, I'll be putting my new found food writing knowledge to the test!

3. Write the recipe ingredients in the order they'll be used
One of the themes running through a variety of presentations was that keeping it simple for readers is the key. Readers and, more importantly, our recipe triers, don't want things to be too complicated, or they'll just go elsewhere. I hadn't really actually thought that people would really be trying my recipes, but in case they are, I'd better make them clear. One of the simplest ways to do that is to list out the recipe ingredients in the order they appear in the recipe. I can put that one into practice straight away!



4. Email subscribers are like gold

Email subscribers are the loyal friends who have requested blog posts straight to their inbox. Instead of having to go seeking through the facebook feed, competing with their friends wedding pics, the next fun event, they have opted to be sent the posts each week to distract them from work, and therefore I might actually get a look in! I had never thought about it like that till Jules from the Stone Soup's presentation. By thinking about what I am wanting my readers to do when they get to my blog, I can hopefully make it a little simpler for readers to engage when they arrive!

5. There really is too much of a good thing

Who says you can't get enough of a good thing? I love food and tasting everything I can! The Eat Drink Blog Conference 2012, however, actually pushed me to the limit! There were so many tasty offerings provided for us to feast upon by the generous sponsors: Breakfast from Red Door Bakery, Lunch from the market producers who came in on their day off to feed us at Adelaide Central Market, Coffee from Breville, A Mexican feast from the Hilton, Chocolate fountains from Providore, cheese from Barossa Cheese Company, cakes from the Cupcake Table to mention a few that I can remember! I think it's clear that I'll not make the grade as a competitive eater, but I had a great time trying!

Thanks again to Lambs Ears and Honey; The Hungry Australian; Eating Adelaide; Travelling in MaryJanes; She Cooks, She Gardens; The Natural Foodie; Playing House for organising a memorable, insightful but also fun weekend! And the South Australian Tourist Board for showcasing their beautiful state!

Fire it up!

We are very prepared campers. We bring everything including the kitchen sink - well a folding one that is! This time we had a packed car full on an Easter weekend excursion to Mudgee. BBQ, stove, fry pan.... All the essentials for a weekend with some fantastic camping and cooking under the stars. With only 1 meal  to go and too much gear for us all to fit in the car on the way home, we sent some back with our fellow camper who was leaving early. We really did miss Jace after he left on Easter Sunday morning as we'd packed our portable gas BBQ in the boot of his car leaving us only with a little gas stove to prepare our final breakfast. Little did we know that the gas canister was about to run out leaving us stranded, not cooking with gas!


Luckily our smouldering fire from last night was still radiating heat so we went back to basics. Our coffee pot bubbled away in the embers and we cooked pancakes, bacon and eggs holding the frypan steadily over the burning logs dodging the flames as they flared up! Good to know we can go back to basic survival to make sure we don't miss out in our coffee in the morning!

Bircher Brekkie

Serving Bircher Muesli in a Bowl

Breakfast like a king they say! That's all very well on the weekend when there is enough time to prepare but not so running from the early morning workout, to the shower to work!

It's all to easy too to get into the habit of buying breakfast every morning - doorstop wedges of toast with butter and jam takes away all the hard work of my gym slog though.

So, it has to be something to take to work and I found a great solution. Bircher Muesli! Apparently the soaking of the oats in juice activates the enzymes which is good for you? I just think it tastes great! Shop bought Muesli can be packed with sugar. This recipe's sugar content at least comes from the dried fruit rather than any added sweetening. Why make your own muesli if only to add some "not so fresh" juice so  I opted for freshly squeezed orange.

My Tupperware-full of Bircher Muesli

I sometimes make a big tupperware at the start of the week and take a few spoonfuls of the muesli out to take to work. Alternatively, sometimes I make up the dry ingredients in advance and take a half cup of that in a mini tupperware with half a squeezed orange. I let that soak overnight and add a few scoops of yoghurt before rushing out the door.

You can add grated apple, a couple of sliced strawberries or even a small handful of frozen mixed berries to the tupperware. They have defrosted by the time I get to work making a perfect accompaniment!

Dry Bircher Muesli Ingredients

Bircher muesli

2 cups oats
1/2 cup pepitas (pumpkin seeds)
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
1/2 cup goji berries
1/2 cup currants or raisins or sultanas
Juice of 3 oranges
250g unsweetened yoghurt

• Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl or tupperware container.
• Squeeze the oranges and add the juice to the oats,seeds, dried fruit mix.
• Stir to combine.
• Leave for an hour or overnight for the juice to be absorbed.
• Add yoghurt and mix well.
• Serve as desired (see ideas above)

Choc and Cheese

Our current Japanese homestay guest loves muffins, so before we start our big health kick, I thought I'd try my hand at some baking. Apart from the odd birthday cake, I'm not really a huge baker. I definitely don't have the perfectionism required for beautiful baked goods, so my attempts are of the rustic variety! 

We were going on a road trip so I decided to bake some savoury broccoli, ham and cheese muffins, a recipe I found on the internet, as well as some sweet cappuccino and white chocolate muffins from my breakfast bible, the Marie Claire Breakfast cookbook. The techniques and ingredients for both sets of muffins were completely different, leading to two contrasting but equally tasty outcomes.

The savoury muffins were delicious. I substituted the plain flour for wholemeal flour in an effort be a bit healthier. It was a really interesting use of broccoli to pack them with goodness! There was a lot more egg in these muffins, and the lightness came from whisking up eggs. They were more akin to frittata than a cake, but that worked really well with the savoury ingredients and made them less heavy and a great breakfast on the road snack.

The sweet muffins were light and fluffy from the buttermilk added in these. The coffee flavour was subtle and balanced the sweetness of the chocolate. There were however, some hitches along the way! The muffins were prepared wrapped in baking paper lined ramekins. Whilst they were moist and tasted great, they were quite a strange shape given some of my inconsistent baking paper cylinders. The white chocolate chips kind of sunk to the bottom of the muffins too! And they certainly didn't look much like the picture.

All in all though, my efforts were pretty good and those tucking in came back for seconds reinforcing that they were actually very tasty!

Bringing home the Bacon & Eggs!

Eggs Benedict, Fingal Bay Longboat Cafe

A dish that Cam prepares perfectly every time and leaves me holding my breath when I order it at a cafe, is poached eggs and bacon. A classic that I'll never forget is when I was told that I didn't ask for my poached egg runny and that is why it came out practically hard boiled! This weekend I was pleasantly surprised to dodge the poached egg bullet, and experience a deliciously cooked Eggs Benedict that oozed out over the sour dough at a local beach side cafe!

The other speciality cuisine of Cam's that I have to avoid when eating out is Italian. My Aussie hubbie could have come from Italy with his tasty pizza - made completely from scratch dough and all - and his non traditional spaghetti bolognese with a little heat from jalapeño chillies and full of fresh veggies - mushrooms, eggplant and tomatoes.

Cam's Honey Soy Steak

My husband's signature dish is Honey Soy Steak with mash, honey carrots and broccoli. He has cooked this dish for me for as long as I've known him, and it's a favourite in our household. It's the one dish that our student home-stay guests request as their last supper when they're about to leave us and it is a consistent winner as a winter warmer comfort food. Cam always cooks my steak so perfectly that I rarely order steak when we go out, afraid that it won't be up to my standard - we even wrote it into our vows at our wedding "Do you promise to continue BBQing her steak just the way she likes it" ;-)

I'm a very spoilt wife with a great husband who came with his very own yummy kitchen repertoire!

The Shaked Truth

The sad truth about being a foodie for me, is that I'm not immune to a bit of bulge in the tummy (or many other places for that matter) when I've been enjoying the fruits of my meal planning, it's execution and most importantly sampling. My latest strategy, that my friend (and colleague) embarked on  to battle the bulge, is breakfast protein shakes. Euuugh! I hear you!

At first it was a bit of a struggle. My first experience was of a gloopy mess of lumpy powder and milk. I did get a bit handier with the shaker and was able to make a fairly scullable concoction. Recently, however, it's come a long way with the introduction of a blender. What a difference! Now, not only are we able to have the dairy and protein components, but add in daily fruit requirements, and much needed flavour. And, our offers to be share have been taken up by our office with one especially nit-picking male colleague, so they must be pretty good!

Now, there's a menu of many smoothie options - banana, blueberry with banana shake mix? mixed berry with strawberry shake mix, fresh mango, strawberry and vanilla shake mix - all with a hit of extra protein.

I guess the real question - is it working? Well, it works for me right now. It's quick and satisfies my hunger, I easily make my fruit allocation for the day, I skip the toast from the coffee shop on the way to work. If nothing else, it allows me continue to enjoy my yummy menus in the evening, and I can keep my favourite delicious breakfast recipes for brunch with my husband or friends on the weekends!