Crackle with Jamie

Mothership Roast Pork

I'm sure that you know how much I love Jamie Oliver. Now, if it's possible, I think I love him a little more. His new(ish) book "Save with Jamie" is a great concept. He has recipes for a "mothership" recipe using different types of meat and large fish to make that special Sunday night dinner, and then a selection of recipes to follow that use up all the leftovers in tasty and creative ways. I've always been on the look out for good ways to use the leftovers of a roast - which, otherwise, invariably sit in the fridge for a few days to be picked at and then tipped into the bin a week later when another roast comes along!

Anyway, I digress, it's not exactly for his handy recipe book that I love him more. It's for the Mothership Slow Roasted Pork recipe. If you go back through my blog, there are a few things I love - crackling and slow cooked meat, juicy and falling apart.

Cripsy Pork Tacos

Combine Jamie Oliver, and these two things and I
believe you have a WINNER. The recipe was so easy (but you did have to plan ahead a little to make sure it was in the oven quite a while before you would think of putting a roast on normally) and turned out the most amazing crackling as the top crispy layer to succulent - pull apart - don't need a knife pork.

Then, we got to enjoy it in a fantastic Crispy Pork Taco recipe too - crackling and all crisped up with some paprika, blackbeans and capsicum & red onion pickle. A completely different take so we didn't feel like we were eating leftovers at all!

Pick up Your Fork

Late last year I attended the launch of Your Fork, a website started earlier this year to bring home cooks and eaters together. It's an interesting concept where home cooks are encouraged to register with the site as Cooks and prepare and sell home cooked meals to rival Dominoes or other takeaway restaurants. After placing an order earlier in the day from one of the registered home cooks, the team at Your Fork will pick up the meal from the cook and deliver it straight to your home.

It was an interesting gathering with several of the cooks giving us a taster of the cuisine we can expect from the dinner boxes that are advertised on the site. We sampled raw food, gluten free delights and some great hearty Egyptian dishes. Now on their site they have meals from Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Japan and Italy, and their goal is to expand their home cook network to represent many more countries.

It is a great concept and they've set it up to suit the cooks, as well as the diners who can expect authentic recipes from cuisines they're craving at a reasonable price, so instead of picking up the phone to the pizza place, why not have a different dish on your fork!

What's for Dinner, Curtis?

As a chef stalker, I was so excited to meet Curtis Stone and have his new book, What's for Dinner? signed earlier this year. He's managing to muscle in between me and my thing with Jamie, and I've been cooking through a few of his recipes so far.

What I love about his book is the diversity - quick things, healthy things, not-so-healthy-but-very-yummy things, seasonal dishes, classics and new interpretations of old favourites so I wanted to show a few of his collection.

Chicken Cassoulet with Fennel and Bacon, with Endive and Shaved Fennel Salad

I have been trying to hide pulses in our dishes trying to trick my hubbie who claims to be not a big fan. This was an amazing dish for that and he even asked for seconds even after discovering that they were beans). I Apart from the chicken pieces being juicy and moist, the veg and bean concoction underneath was so flavourful. This was a great and cost effective low carb choice on a cool night.

Spiced Lamb Chops with Grilled Zucchini, Feta, and Olive Gremolata (served with Curtis' pickled onions)

I loved the simplicity of this dish, and it is great for preparing earlier and putting on the barbie when everyone is having a drink out on the balcony to admire the aroma - or in our case rushing to try to stop the smoke alarm beeping (think we need to clean the BBQ) The grilled zucchini is a good trick to make veg taste amazing; and with the onions and feta, this dish goes from a traditional meat and veg to a delicious, different but very healthy dinner.

Slow-Cooked Pulled Pork Sandwiches with 'Fireworks' Coleslaw (and Apple Bourbon Sauce)

This recipe, and in particular the sauce, are the reason to buy this book! I amended the slow cooked pork recipe for my slow cooker (I didn't basically the same but cooked it in the slow cooker for 8 hours instead of 2 1/2 which Curtis recommended. The pork falls apart, and it's the amazing sauce/chutney that puts it back together and makes an amazing sweet, tart, spicy sauce. Served with the coleslaw (where I substituted yoghurt for the mayo to make it healthier) this was a great dish for a posh night or casual night in!

Hope you can grab a copy of the book and try out a few. If you're anything like me, you'll love it! 

Tastes on my Travels

As I travel it has started to become clearer what type of restaurants I am drawn to. Of course, I love going to the classics and trying out the acclaimed chefs' places when in their home city, but what I've noticed as I browse through the restaurant recommendations I receive is that I'm drawn to a couple of things: I like quirky buildings or locations - restaurants in buildings converted from another purpose; I love the underdog - not the top restaurant in town, but the best new restaurants, off the beaten track ones; and I love interesting produce that's a bit different to the norm, but where the preparation isn't too out there with gels and soils etc. 

Recently, I've just come back from a few weeks work and play in North America - San Jose and Vancouver to be specific - where I found some restaurants I really enjoyed which fit some or all of the criteria!

Naglee Park Garage, San Jose

This recommendation came from a colleague who thought I'd love it! Of course I did. I watched a YouTube clip of the feature on Diners, Drive In's and Dives and was really excited to try it. Classic American burger and fries but with a twist! Perfect. Even better was the courtyard out to back of the converted garage in San Jose. We sat on long shared tables and relaxed on the summers evening enjoying the food, wine and music from a jazz band playing at the back. It was a great place to kick back and chill!

Wildebeest, Vancouver

I was really excited to go to Wildebeest in Vancouver. The menu looked so interesting when I was scouring websites for where to eat in Vancouver and wow! It delivered. I really enjoy the idea of share plates which are a little bigger than starter size but not as big as a main, so you can try quite a few things. These dishes were delicious with every bite packing a punch. We had a bunch of  things including bison tartare, so interesting and flavoursome; delectable quail with the hay still smoking; tender and melt-in-your-mouth beef shortrib. The restaurant had a great vibe contrasting to the quiet Gastown street outside when we left!

Fable Restaurant, Vancouver

Fable is another Vancouver favourite established a few years ago inspired by Top Chef Canada "restaurant wars." For a Monday night I didn't think we'd have trouble getting a table but this is a popular haunt and we just squeezed in for an early sitting! This was another colleague's recommendation (they really know me!) and it was fabulous. The highlight for me was the "canned tuna" - confit (I think) tuna with preserved lemons served in a "can" but the other dishes were delicious - perfectly cooked duck and lamb; clever potato crusted chicken and good old Steak Frites! 

 Ah, great food really makes a great holiday for me. And really makes me want to return to try some of the other menu items that I didn't pick - makes my travel wishlist that bit longer though!

Wham Bam Thank you Nahm!

Nahm..... the 32nd best restaurant in the world and we were THERE! And it was fabulous - a great culmination of a week of fabulous Thai feasting. Nahm's menu was inspired by David Thompson's studies into old Thai cookbooks. He also produced a cookbook called "Thai Street Food" and we definitely tasted some refined versions of the tasty street vendor fare. How could you choose from a 6 page menu, so we went for the set menu - a selection of canapes for entree, followed by one of each of the soup, salad, stir fry, curry and relish, and then dessert. Our eyes were a bit bigger than our stomachs, but it was delicious. 

Canapes

Our Menu

The canapes arrived at the table to kick the meal off. They were fresh little bites. The smoked fish, peanut and tapioca dumpling reminded us of a dish we'd not been so fond of earlier in the week - this was obviously the right way to cook tapioca! The salted threadfin perch with ginger, chilli and green mango on betel leaves was a flavour combo to be enjoyed in one bite. 

This was so spicy it nearly blew our mouths away, and had us giggling for a while, whilst sipping on our Thai cocktails and beer. We cooled down our mouths with some watermelon and mango dipped in toasted coconut before tackling the prawn and coconut wafers with pickled ginger.

Main

For main, we had the one of all the different sections of the menu:

Salad - Salad of fresh water crayfish with pork and Asian pennywort

Soup - Clear soup of roast duck with Thai basil and young coconut

Relish - Minced prawn and pork simmered in coconut cream with young chillies, red shallots and coriander with fresh vegetables and deep fried cured carp

Curry - Aromatic curry of wagyu beef and sweet potatoes with cucumber relish

Stir Fry - Scallops stir-fried with spring onions and chilli

The wagyu beef curry was definitely the highlight. Melt in your mouth slow cooked falling apart meat infused with delicious spice flavours. The scallops was a close second. Perfectly cooked and tasty!

Dessert

We really didn't need dessert! Sooooo full! But this is what we had 

Lychee in scented syrup with Thai Cup cakes

Sweet Thai wafers with poached persimmons and golden duck egg noodles.

The sweet Thai wafers were definitely an adaption of the street food that we had tried earlier in the week. These wafers though were crispy and creamy and juicy! 

The lychee was cool on our tongues and refreshing. The cup cakes were also a reminder of the markets throughout the week with the surprising (but not as surprising this time) salty, savoury spring onion mixture in the middle of the sweet batter.

32 in the world..... Amazing (but we rekon some Sydney restaurants are better!)

Game for Jamie!

Me and Jamie! See we have this game. Jamie writes cookbooks with a time limit and show me how to make them on TV and I try to match his time. I am sure it's a game you've played before too!

Jamie makes these stunning meals in such a short time. My goal is not only to get them done in a similar time, but make them look as close as possible to his version! And sometimes, I am pretty darn close. The other day I beat all my records (but not Jamie's) and cooked his 30 min roast beef in 40 minutes. Pretty good since the kitchen didn't look like a hurricane had been through it. We're down to 25 ish mins for his 15 min dishes. Quite impressive really, considering we would spend 25 mins faffing about with a salad if not under the pressure of the clock.

What I love most about Jamie's dishes are the family style rusticness of them and even though I don't have the crockery to match, I think I do a good job. I'll hone my skills and be an expert one day but by that time, he'll probably have released a 5 min meals version to contend with!

Gerard's Bistro, Brisbane: "Can I eat this everyday?"

Oysters with Pomegranate

When we were up in Brisbane the other day, we booked early enough to get a table at Gerard's Bistro. I had been scouring the internet, twittersphere and blogs for restaurant ideas and I'd come across a few posts about Gerard's which it turns out is the "Best New Restaurant 2013." The menu looked a bit out of the ordinary with the Middle Eastern twist on the dishes, which caught my eye, and the realistic prices also made me think that we were on to a winner!

Slow Roasted Wagyu Brisket

Winner it was! I loved the passion that all of the staff brought to their descriptions of the food, and the casual but classy atmosphere. We were watching a group next to us tucking in to what turned out to be one of the house specialties  the slow roasted Wagyu Brisket, and we couldn't get past it, so after a couple of oysters each and a charcuterie plate, we were brought our board with the melt in the mouth, tender beef and interesting veggie sides.

Spiced Date Cream

One comment from the table was "Can I eat this every day?" Yes....It was that good!

After polishing off that lip licking deliciousness, we got a dessert for the table to share - the spiced date
cream. It looked stunning and finished off a gorgeous meal perfectly whilst still allowing us to remember the piece de resistance, the gorgeous Brisket. We'll be back again the first opportunity we can get!

Pork Belly Perfection

Babi Guling

I was inspired by the My Kitchen Rules Winners, Dan and Steph, to make Babi Guling, a  Balinese roast pork belly. So, I found a recipe in one of my Gourmet Traveller Magazines, bought a couple of pork bellies for our dinner party, and ground the fabulous paste to marinade the pork. I haven't had much luck with pork belly in the past, so I was starting from scratch in my mind, hoping it would go as nicely as Dan and Steph's turned out on MKR. It looked so good, and was exactly the kind of flavour combinations we love.

What an amazing result! Tender, juicy pork, with an amazing flavour, and an impressive crackling (although I didn't follow the recipe on this one - instead of brushing the skin with turmeric, I sprinkled some ground turmeric on and oiled it up as usual) Just delicious!

Laksa Leftovers

The question I always have with amazing roast dinners, is what to do with the leftovers. Chicken is easy - I just add it to a salad. I have a great recipe for filo parcels for leftover roast lamb. Nothing though for Pork. This pork leftovers had that amazing paste running through it - mildly spicy with a great curry flavour. Perfect I decided for Laksa. All I needed was some noodles, coconut milk, stock, fried tofu, chilli, and some veg to throw in and out came a delicious Laksa!

Winner dishes that will be a definite addition to our regular repertoire!

Fab Crab

Before...

I am not normally a big crab eater. I love the taste, so am happy to use crab meat in recipes and munch on a soft shell crab sushi roll or crab cakes but for a full crab in it's shell I really have to be in the mood for the fuss. Recently when in the US, the Boiling Crab Restaurant came highly recommended, and a bunch of us from work decided to make the trip. The first highlight of the evening was when were picked up from our hotel, not in a Maxi-taxi that we'd ordered, but instead a stretch limo! Oh, the irony! Of all places to be arriving in a limo.....From the sublime to the ridiculous!

Crab in the bag!

After bibbing up with full frontal heavy duty bibs, the food started to arrive. At a restaurant called Boiling Crab, you have to of course have crab. We tried King Crab Claws and Dungeness Crab, as well as Shrimps (commonly known by us Aussies as King Prawns), Corn and Cajun Fries. Rather than plates, they arrive in large plastic bags full of delicious sauce drenched seafood. You dig into the plastic bag and just chuck the shells on the table. Sounds messy? It was!!! I am not shy of getting into a mess in the kitchen, or at the dining table, but this has to be the messiest meal I've ever enjoyed. And enjoy we did!

...After

My colleague, also a foodie, who regularly frequents this restaurant, had a sixth sense of how much to order so the piles of seafood that arrived at the table which seemed like we'd never get through ended up being the perfect quantity! We feasted until we were crabbed and prawned out, cracking open the shells and sucking the juicy flesh from claws! Fabulous crab in a fun place where I didn't mind the fuss!

Feaster Easter

Normally at Easter we seem to be entertaining overseas visitors. Typically we end up camping but this time, with an onslaught of many guests we decided to stay at home. This was the first Easter feast that we would prepare at home but we wanted to make sure we had an Aussie Outdoor BBQ feel. Knowing that it is expensive to get steak in the Philippines (that we learnt first hand from showing up at a mall steakhouse only to find that the price of a steak there was more than a meal at Kingsleys or Rockpool Bar and Grill in Sydney) we decided to do a traditional Aussie BBQ with steak and homemade snags.

As an over achiever in the kitchen though, I couldn't stop at that. We needed to showcase some other Aussie fare. We had a cracker of a kangaroo dish - sous vide style - which I replicated for the guests but with just taster forks of the tender meat, along with some prawns and seafood sauce. You can't get much more Aussie than that!

Of course dessert was pavlova - 2 in fact to feed 18- the largest table we have ever hosted. The Aussie Easter feast kicked the festivities off for a great fun weekend.

Gie her a Haggis

I don't know if you know this about me, but I'm originally from Scotland. Us Scots are a proud bunch and love to party, so what better occasion than a Burns Supper, the celebration of Scotland's national poet, Robert Burns, to get back to my Scottish heritage with some festivities and food.

The real purpose of Burns Night for Scots overseas is the opportunity to eat haggis, the infamous dish traditionally encased in the stomach of a sheep. In the olden days, haggis was a poor mans' dish. The innards, typically lungs, of the animals were bulked out by oatmeal and heavy spiced to disguise the grim flavours of the off cuts and innards of the animals. Nowadays, especially in Scotland, where there were limitations on using some parts of the animal due to mad cow disease, we are much more choosy of what we stuff into our haggis and it wouldn't be any different to what you would find in a sausage. The casing too, is now similar to a sausage casing rather than being the stomach of the sheep. The spices and shape though still remain, to take us back to our roots.

Talking of roots, haggis is traditionally served with specific root vegetables, neeps and tatties - translated that is mashed turnips (or swede actually) and mashed potatoes. Typically, as whisky lovers, it's also served with a whisky sauce or just a splash of whisky poured over the meat to add some moisture and flavour.

One of the most important traditions of a Burns Supper is having the haggis piped into the room by a kilted bagpiper and the address to the haggis, originally written by Robert Burns, being recited. At our Burns Supper we were true to tradition. The sounds of the bagpipes resonating around Glebe would have been heard all up and down Glebe Point Road, probably confusing the locals dining in other restaurants! We were too busy enjoying the dramatic spearing of the haggis during the reciting of the Ode to a Haggis, and the shots of whisky to toast it (any excuse!).

"Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware; 

That jaups in luggies:

But, if ye wish her gratefu prayer,

Gie her a Haggis"

(extract from Robert Burns, Ode to a Haggis)

Food Resolution

The end of the year is a good time to reflect on the year past and gear up for next year.

2012 was my year to master fish. I wouldn't say I am quite a master but I do have coral trout, scallops, bugs, salmon, snapper and whiting under my belt. I am no longer fearful of the fishys.

This year I received my amazing Kenwood mixer. We experimented with sausages and now have a few sizzlers up our sleeves for summer BBQs. I tried some great desserts in the Sweet Adventures Blog Hop, attended my first pop up restaurant hosted by Kylie, Audra and Mindy of Masterchef fame, learnt and feasted during an amazing trip to Adelaide for Eat Drink Blog 2012 and discovered some new favourite recipes from my wonderful collection of magazines and books on our new food bookshelf! We are now set up for great success in 2013.

Armed with the Kenwood and some great new cool books from Jamie Oliver, Andy Allen and Gordon Ramsay we are heading well equipped into 2013. What will 2013 bring? MasterChef Pros is just around the corner to keep me occupied! Health kick, at least in Jan, more fresh produce to cook with and in winter I am going to augment my soup repertoire with M(i)sch(i)ef soup kitchen with an attempt to post some recipes! So, with that, let's crack open the champers, clink your glasses! Happy New Year and here's to 2013!

Go with the Filo

Filo pastry is my new fave. There are some fantastic recipes out there - more than just the traditional Filo parcel, which means the dishes are much more interesting to cook and eat! What's more is that it isn't (I don't think) crammed with butter, so it is a much healthier option meaning we can pack the filling with cheese and other goodies with less guilt!

There have been a few standout recipes that we have tried over and over that I thought I would quickly share to inspire!

Jamie's Spinach and Feta pie
Whilst we are still battling against the clock to make this in 30mins, it is a quick, mid week meal option and the acidic sides of cucumber with an olive dressing and tomatoes on a bed of basil dressing really cut through the richness of the creamy feta pie. Jamie has a great technique for cooking the Filo pie on the stove top first and then in the oven which makes it easy to cook and serve.

Moroccan Lamb Pie from BBC Good Food Magazine (couldn't find the recipe online unfortunately)

The filling of this pie is cinnamony and subtly spicy which makes it so tasty. However, even though the filling is great, this pie could really be any stew with Filo scrunched up and spread out on top. It makes a plain pie look pretty sexy and the crispness of the pastry complements the soft stew. It's even on the list for a winter dinner party, especially if we can do individual ones!

Zucchini, Haloumi and Herb tarts
These vegetarian tarts were quick to prepare, semi healthy to eat (except with the extra haloumi I threw on top!) and very pretty to serve in the tray, but a bit difficult to remove! It's a great idea to portion with the filo in little tarts, and sit them together when cooking. I am always trying to find low carb vegetarian options, not needing the obligatory pasta or rice that I feel I need when there's no meat, so this was a great alternative and everyone loved the crunch of the filo with the creamy filling!

As summer comes round the corner, I think I'll be cracking out a few more filo recipes as they are always fantastic with a salad, and the filo is so quick to take out of the freezer and then prepare! Do you have any great filo recipes?

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!

Off with a bang(er)!

Mincing the lamb and pork belly

My best birthday present ever this year has been on my wishlist ever since I moved out of home! A Kenwood Mixer! Not just any mixer either, this is one of the top of the range models: the Titanium Major. This wasn't a surprise gift, as my hubbie knew he had to involve me in the decision making of what make, model, features and attachments I was hoping for, but what was a surprise was when we put a bid on an online auction for significantly less that we thought it was worth, and WON! I was ecstatic!

Sausage snake

What to cook to "pop the cherry" of the Major, I wondered. It couldn't be any old cake or pavlova that I could have made using my trusty food processor.... It had to be something that we couldn't do before: Sausages!

I've always liked the thought of choosing our own sausage filling, but having seen the sausage making debacles on MasterChef, I wasn't convinced it would be successful first time! Now, I had a mincer and sausage attachment, there was no excuse to give it a go. I figured, worst case, we'd end up with some meat patties!

They look like the real thing!

We wanted to start off with a recipe before we branched out and experimented, so we tried out Poh's Spicy lamb and pork sausage recipe with lots of herbs and spices accompanying the 2 types of meat, that we minced from scratch. The resulting sausages were juicy and tasty, but just a little overcooked (with so much fresh meat in there, the cooking requirements are obviously different to the supermarket bought ones), so we have since fixed that up in subsequent serves, ready for a sausage sizzling summer ahead!

Happy Birthday to me!

My hubbie always spoils me and this birthday was no exception. In fact, this one was the spoiling of all spoilness. For the first time, instead of going out, he decided he would cook a surprise meal for me at home. I requested a fine dining menu of 3 courses. I did not, however, expect the lengths that he would go to deliver! I was hoping for something just a little bit more than a bowl of pasta. Let's just say if spag bol is a bungalow, my birthday dinner was a high rise!

We started of with a Spanish style tapas dish - Spanish croquettas. These little balls of delicious goo, breaded and deep fried just melted in our mouths setting the stage for the main to come.

From the aromas coming from the kitchen I had a feeling that we were going to be having something smoked. It smelt sweet and spicy, which infused the perfectly cooked duck beautifully. I recognised the dish as one Pete Evans cooked in series 1 of MasterChef and was so impressed by my hubbie's delicious and great looking rendition.

The piece de resistance came for dessert. I was almost expecting a croquenboche from hearing how much time he had spent in the kitchen, but it was quite different. An elegantly plated chocolate tart - also of Masterchef fame! It was Matt Moran's challenge to the series 1 finalists, Poh and Julie, and Cam certainly gave them a run for their money! If birthdays are a time for decadence and richness, this certainly was right on with chocolate ganache lining the plate, a slice of chocolate tart, chocolate mousse quenelles on the plate, chocolate sorbet to cut through the richness and chocolate Macarons for texture.

This was the best birthday treat ever! Three hat dining in my own home!

A little daunting.... What will I come up with for him next year?! Maybe I will need to bring on the croquenboche to top it!

Mountain Range

Grilled Chicken Skewers

This weekend we went camping out in the Watagan Mountain Range, to try out a few new purchases of ours. The first was our new Jeep "Nancy," a fun 4WD soft top, which we were keen to try on a quick weekend away to see how much she holds. The second was our new camping stove (or range!) which we'd purchased at the camping show earlier this year but hadn't used it yet. Our previous camping cooking appliance was a fabulous "Fire and Ice" BBQ/Esky combo which served us so well for many years. Last year in Darwin whilst camping though, we experienced the convenience and compactness of the gas camping stoves and decided to upgrade. We got ourselves a fabulous Colemans 3 Burner range.

Veg, potatoes and patties (for the kids)

We are known for our gourmet camping menus and this one was no different. We started off with some honey soy chicken skewers. Normally on the BBQ it would take about 20 mins to warm up and then about 30 mins to cook chicken but these were cooked through in about 15 mins. Our main was sirloin steaks with veg stir fry and potatoes. Again the stove did a great job. We had the grill plate over half for the steaks and used a fry pan for the stir fry on one of the other burners. What a great dinner to christen the stove for many more excursions to come!

Barnacle Bills

Scallops Deling

On a recent trip to Cairns even though short we of course had to pay a visit to his favourite restaurant Barnacle Bills. When he was living and working there it was a real institution and he knew and hung out with the some of the family of the family owned and run establishment. It is a classic seafood restaurant on the esplanade with a fabulous menu and generous portions. We started off with a share plate of scallops and pork belly. Yum! What a delicious combination.

Seafood Curry

For some reason I had been craving curry for dinner and unusually for me I chose a seafood curry from the extensive picks of seafood options. I typically don't go for dishes where the seafood flavour has been masked by a strong sauce but this one was perfect. There was just enough heat but the sauce really complimented the perfectly cooked fish and seafood. After filling up on entree and main full of the flavour of the sea there was no way I could fit in dessert, but a great evening and can't wait for our next trip to TNQ so we can pay another visit!

My Dude Food Challenge

Duck and Mushroom Arancini with Spicy Saffron Mayo

MasterChef has its "Dude Food" Challenge tonight and I feel like I'm quite well practised in this type of food - way more than the delicate restaurant plating that is normally required.


The entree at our dinner party last night was a good example of hearty but fun snacky "Dude Food". My hubbie requested Arancini balls for his birthday, but with a day of activities planned, I promised it at the next dinner party we hosted. He is very proud of his risotto, which he slaves over for hours, so whilst I got to enjoy that for dinner on Friday night, we made double the dosage so we'd have enough for the risotto balls to serve to our guests as an entree. 

I've never made Arancini before but in my experience the rice in the centre is warm, soft and gooey whilst the breadcrumb is golden and crisp. I had my doubts about whether mine would be exactly that. A good tip of double crumbing though was the secret success factor and after deep frying the balls for a few minutes will golden, the crumb was crispy and the insides perfect -  scrumptious with the spicy saffron mayonnaise!

Tricky Tapas Treat!

Tapas

Normally you get the main followed by dessert, but this time it's the other way round. As you know, from last weeks cheesecake post, it was my hubbie's birthday and I decided to cook up a Spanish inspired tapas selection.

I thought tapas was quite easy - slap a few slices of ham on the plate with a bowl of olives and voila (or rather...ya esta!) - but it was not quite that uninvolved.

The real trick is that lots seem to happen at the last minute. I had stuffed mushrooms grilling, chorizo in cider bubbling, bread baking, tortilla browning, calamari and whitebait frying, garlic prawns sizzling all in the last few minutes. Talk about juggling! The only things that could be done in advance were the ham and olives!

Despite the frenzy in the kitchen, it all turned out and what a feast! Certainly an authenic Spanish celebration meal!