Happy 2012!

Hello!

I've been remarkably busy doing what seems to be not much, but it has been a very enjoyable break. Christmas was delightful, I spent Christmas Eve with my big sister at her house, Christmas Day with my family, and Boxing Day with Levi's family (who were kind enough to pick me up from the train halfway, which meant I could still spend the morning with my aunty & co who were over from interstate rather than taking a different train the whole two hours at 9am, so props to them) and then a nice break between Christmas and New Years with Mum and Dad. I even had a friend's 21st on New Years' Eve, which was amazingly fun, I've known her since pre-primary (so about fifteen years!) and I don't see her nearly enough any more.

Oh, and before that we had a big Christmas dinner for our volleyball team, which I fully intended to blog about but I caught a cold during the Christmas Pantomime and ended up sleeping through most of the dinner. After my team had won at charades. And after I had downed an egg nog much faster than anyone else, because the cold meant that I couldn't taste the rum in it.

I was also incredibly spoilt over Christmas, some food-related highlights:

A new kettle. I went from a stovetop kettle to a secondhand kettle and now THIS. 

Also this necklace. I want to wear it everywhere. 

And these books from Levi, which I would thoroughly recommend to absolutely anyone with even a passing interest in cooking. 

I don't think I've mentioned how much I love Heston Blumenthal on my blog, but I think he is amazing and I am very glad Mum made me watch Heston's Feast with her one night (the Willy Wonka episode, which is still one of my favourites) because then it made sense that we had given someone the Fat Duck Cookbook as a birthday present (side note: my 21st is soon. Compleeeetely unrelated side note...). The Flavour Thesaurus is great because I'm never sure what to pair things with so I usually end up following recipes or sticking to safe combinations and now I have an entire reference book to choose food pairings from! :D

I feel like we're pretty caught up now. I hope you had a splendid break too. Your hair looks good today.

Monday

Grandma is back from France! Hoorah! (my excitement is not just because of the macarons)

And then I went to see Elbow with my best friend and it was the best day ever. This is during 'Starlings', if you are interested. In the BWAAAAAAMP. I apologise for the awful phone-quality.

ARGHHH

Last week of uni + two exams this week + general hectiness = not much new cooking.

Tonight, I'm making Gordo's Fish, last night was danish fritters, and that aside, its been snacking on rice crackers. Thank goodness I decided to buy snack food, I don't know how I usually survive without it in the house. It feels like cheating to put a recipe for "spinach, tomato, cheese and pepper on rice crackers", though, I feel you can figure that out yourself from the title.

Meanwhile enjoy this picture from happy things

Happy Mothers' Day!

Happy mothers' day Mama and Grandma and Aunty Mel and other mums who read my blog!

I strongly considered posting a picture of mum busting a move at Tara's 21st, but this one (from the same night) is just too lovely.

Birthday!

I've been kind of absent lately, and I apologise, but I am in one of my lazy spells.

I did,  however, have a birthday in all that time, and got some pretty radbiscuits presents.

Expect many recipes from this in the next few weeks.

Cooked in my new Weber Baby Q, because I am SO EXCITED ABOUT HAVING A BARBEQUE.

Explained Absences

Panto is over, which means I get my life back for a couple of months! Huzzah! Also, it coincides with school holidays so I'm not teaching for two weeks. So. Much. Free. Time.

Lunch.

Back to blogging ASAP, I promise!

And yes, I am eating microwaved potato with chilli and cheese. All of the time.

(that's gluten free, right? And its Friday)

Cooking With Charlie

In the absence of any *actual* blog, because Panto and an essay on the social discourses shaping our view of the female gender and how we as a society react and respond to these discourses (still with me?) are eating my life, watch this funny video by a funny man who says almonds funny.

Levi says cashews funny though, kind of how you would pronounce "a-choo!" but "ca-shew!". In retrospect, he just places the emphasis on the second, rather than first, syllable.

Back to my essay. Tra la la.

Jammie Dodgers

If there's one thing I love in this world, its British sweets. My first job was at a British lolly shop and they told us we had to try everything. Huzzah! So I developed a healthy(?) love for Jammie Dodgers, Jaffa Cakes, Bassett's Jelly Babies, and all that sort of lark.

Jammie Dodgers are one of the foundations of my relationship with Levi. Those, Russell Brand, and Agrum and Turkish Bread. The latter two because I was trying to explain to him when we met at the ball that I wasn't going to the after party, I was going to a friend's place to have Agrum and Turkish bread, and he didn't know what either of those things were. Then to make sure I would get to date him, I wowed him with my knowledge of British things. Russell Brand wasn't big back then, okay, so it made me look cool. I also think that the week between when we met and when we started dating was the only week I've consistently worn perfume, I don't know why I thought that would help but its been three years so I guess it worked! Anyway, he approves of these, and being English I would say his opinion counts for quite a bit.

JAMMIE DODGERS
Makes 12
Total time commitment: Half an hour, plus 1 hour chilling and 10 minutes cooking
Recipe from Video Jug


160g almond meal
160g plain flour
160g butter
100g caster sugar
One lemon
Raspberry Jam

1. Cream butter and sugar, then add almond meal, flour and lemon zest (I used grated lemon rind). Roll into a ball and cover in cling wrap. Refrigerate for 1 hour.

2. Leave out of the fridge for 10-15 minutes to warm up. Preheat oven to 180C.

3. Roll pastry flat, and cut circles out with a pastry cutter (or a glass, either or). Cut a smaller circle from half of these circles (am I confusing you yet?). I used the wide end of a piping nozzle for the inner circle. Essentially - look at the picture, the top half will have a little hole you can see the jam through, and you want the bottom to not have a hole or it might get messy.

4. Put the biscuits onto a lined tray, pop in the oven for ten minutes. While they're in the oven, melt a few spoonfuls of jam and squeeze in a little lemon juice. Mix together, and then spoon onto the biscuit bases and top with a biscuit top.

Gluten Free Friday: Lentil Loaf and Bento Boxes

I've developed a sort of system to get me through the weeks now that uni is back on, and I still have work and panto and bi-weekly sewing days at Grandma's (which is where I'm headed this afternoon and I can't wait!).

Actually, before I get onto that, I've had a quest for about six months to buy a bento box. It started out as an "Oh, wouldn't that be cool?" idea, then Tara gave me Lunch box Revolution for Christmas.

I was totally sold on the idea when Levi and I went into (probably) every Morning Glory store in Sydney and Melbourne, but I *still* couldn't find one that was exactly perfect. Then I got home and looked on a bunch of websites, until finally I realised that eBay would probably help. Help it did, my friends! On Monday, my bento box arrived and it is splendid. I recently bought a satchel for uni, and this is so much more spatially economical than three different containers (which means the bag actually closes, something I thought I might never see). Also, so many adorable bento accessories! So this is my new lunchbox (don't even get me started on the quest before this for a regular lunchbox):

As you can see, its from eBay seller blueberryland, and I had absolutely no problems with them. Free P&H? WHEN YOU'VE MADE THE SALE, STOP SELLING! Although, I would recommend getting one with a fork, or having a miniature fork that fits in the fork section, but if you don't its a good place to sneak some biscuits or other reasonably flat treats. 

So we're all sold on the idea of a bento box, or at least a reasonable lunchbox? Good good. Let's get on to my brilliant system then. 

As I briefly mentioned with the pumpkin scone recipe, some days you just need to grab and run when it comes to breakfast. For me, thats Thursdays when I start uni at 8:30 and need to get the bus by 7:15. Wednesdays aren't *too* much better - I start at 9:30 but I'm normally rushing around printing lecture notes so I don't have time to cook breakfast. Both of these days are pretty full-on as well - Wednesday I have uni 9:30 - 4:30, and Thursday 8:30 - 5:30 (with a four-hour gap in the middle on Thursdays, remember I'm doing an Arts degree!). So the system: Spend Monday and Tuesday, when I'm essentially free until 3:30, cooking lunch and breakfast for the week. 

(This is all relevant, I promise)

This week's lunch was lentil loaf! Hurray, relevance! This is a great recipe because you can make it quite easily and add a whole bunch of stuff or make any amount of substitutions (some are included in the notes at the end). I've made it twice, the first time I added red kidney beans and mushroom, and the second time I added cooked sweet potato. Good. Times. 

Also, The Uber-Blonde is a benevolent blogger and let me use her photo because I managed to forget all week and now its all eaten up.

LENTIL LOAF

Makes 10 serves

Total time commitment: 30 mins prep, 45 mins cooking time

Recipe from Baking It, who adapted it from Eat Me, Delicious

1 can cooked lentils, drained (or 1 1/2 cups cooked lentils)

2 cups rice

2 cups grated cheese

1 cup tomato sauce

4 eggs, lightly beaten

4 tsp soy sauce

2 tsp minced garlic

Herbs to season

Any additions you may have

1. Preheat oven to 180C and grease a large baking dish. 

2. Combine all ingredients in a bowl and pour into the baking dish. 

3. Bake for 45 minutes. Cool for 5 minutes before cutting and serving. 

NOTES/SUBSTITUTIONS: 

- Rice can be substituted for oats, millet, bulgur. Obviously oats aren't GF, so don't do that if you are intolerant, you nong.

- Tomato sauce can be substituted for BBQ sauce, salsa

- Substitutions looks like it has too many t's

- Nutritional info (per serve): 185.3 cal, 6.7g fat, 1.8g sugar 

BRB

Having some issues with too much stuff happening right now - will be back to regular posting soon!

x

The Christmas Duck

Merry Christmas, guys!

Hope your day is going splendidly. Mine is, because Gordo got me a NEW CHRISTMAS DUCK on Monday and he is the best. To be fair, I wrote this yesterday (oooo transcending space/time continuums) so I have no other presents to compare it to/gush about.

I sense your confusion about the Christmas duck.

The Christmas Duck is an amazing(ly ridiculous) family tradition.

The Christmas duck originated when I was very clumsy and dropped a glass nativity scene ornament when I tried to put it on the Christmas tree. Understandably ~distraught~ because I thought I'd broken a really expensive ornament, I salvaged the main section because essentially, the stable had shattered away from the nativity and it was still kind of fine. I thought I'd just put it on the mantle where it still looked nice, and Dad came downstairs a while later and was like "... Why do we have a duck ornament?".

Why indeed.

The new Christmas duck, however, is amazing and useful and CUTE. Its a tiny tea infuser that Gordo got me for Christmas (with a doctor-warning that with my iron levels, he shouldn't have bought it. Thanks buddy). LOOKY, ITS ADORABLE.

Christmas Joy

I can't even explain why I haven't been posting. I think it has something to do with laziness, forgetting to take photos, and production week. Ah, production week. My nemesis. But its almost Christmas, I've nearly finished my shopping, and work is over. So hopefully this gets you in the Christmassy mood, because I gosh-darn love Christmas :)

What I'm Listening To: Fairytale of New York by The Pogues.

What I Desperately Want: These fantastic gingerbread biscuits from A Work in Progress

And if I play my Christmas list (or new year presents-to-self) right, I could make some with these

  

Star Wars Heroes & Villains and Message-in-a-Cookie Cutters from Williams-Sonoma

Antidotes to all of the food I'll be consuming over Christmas:

This gorgeous gingerbread house ring from DIVINEsweetness. The details! The photography! I am in love.

Or these macaron rings from shayaaron - lemon & lime, menthe, blackcurrant, or praline. Learning to make macarons PROPERLY, with feet, is my challenge for 2011. 

Stepping away from food for a second, I LOVE this headband from Janine Basil. And speaking of challenges for 2011, I also need to learn how to use liquid eyeliner. 

OK, back to food. I want Jacques the French Toast and his baguette buddy! (*Not a euphemism) From Pumpkin Pye.

What is happening with this sushi hair barette/why don't I ever pin my hair back? Gimmeswords, you have my undying love.

Any other cute food finds?

FREEDOM!

Exams are over, which means I *should* be back to regular posting. All in good time.

Meanwhile, how awesome is this cake, if I do say so myself?

Hiatus

Hey guys,

I'm swamped with exams so hopefully I'll be back before they're done, but if not, it will all  be over by the 20th!

x

Spicy Cous Cous

Hey Em, what'd you get up to yesterday?

Oh, you know, not a lot, went to uni and got APPLAUSE for the gosh-darn Facebook pages I photoshopped for Juliet Capulet and Count Paris, and then came home and made some SWEET-ASS spicy cous cous for me and Mama and Tara, then got picked up by Gordo to go see SMASHING PUMPKINS. LIKE A BOSS. Just chillin' on a Tuesday night at Smashing Pumpkins, you know how it is.

SPICY COUS COUS
Serves 4


2 cups cous cous
Lotsa pepperoni
Traffic light capsicum (one green, one yellow, one red)
100g black olives
Feta

1. Cut the capsicums into strips, cut the pepperoni into little circles, and fry those bad boys in some olive oil until they're char-grilled.

2. Put 1/2 cup of dry cous cous in each bowl and pour boiling water over until it just covers the cous cous. Cover with a lid or something so it can cook for a few minutes.

3. Drizzle some olive oil over the cous cous and use a fork to make it fluffy. Top with the capsicum, pepperoni, olives and feta and NOM DOWN.

October Challenge: Nothing New Month

This October, I'm taking part in the Salvos "Nothing New Month". What is it? Well, from their website:

"Simple: sustainable shopping, saving money and reducing the impact on our environment all at the same time.

Buying nothing new doesn’t mean going without. Make a Buy Nothing New Month pledge and you can beg, buy, barter and swap for whatever you need, as long as it is pre-loved, but with the exceptions of necessities (including food, drink, medications and hygiene products) you can’t buy anything new."

So while that doesn't necessarily impact on my cooking, I'm going to make it. Why? BECAUSE I CAN, THATS WHY. This means I'm going to make things from scratch wherever possible (and plausible!) - no canned tomatoes, store-bought bread, pre-grated cheese, pasta sauces, or things of that nature! Obviously, some things I can't make - I'm too lazy to make my own cornflakes (is that even possible? GOOGLE TRIP), for example. But bread? Sure, I'll do that. I might even coerce the Uber-Blonde into making croissants with me :)


Wish me luck!

I'm sorry!

I knowww, I've been very lazy with posting, but I have caught the cold/flu/illness that's going round so I've been wrapped up in my warm blanket and only getting out of bed to tackle uni assignments and panto rehearsals.

It doesn't help that I can fold our couch out into a bed right in front of the TV, and that a friend just bought Tara and I Mario Kart for the Wii. I will have you know that I have gotten quite good, quite quickly in the last few days.

But never fear! I am going to have baking adventures with the Uber-Blonde (that is what you get for being the only (?) blonde in the Panto society) next weekend, and once I get these assignments underway I'll start beng more diligent. I promise!

Apologies!

The issue with having a cooking/food blog, I am discovering, is that you have to actually cook things to make posts. And the past week, in between visits to my parents, has been mainly "whats in the fridge" pasta. So hopefully once I organise myself, what with uni going back this week, I'll be posting regularly.

In the meantime, amuse yourselves with a picture of the latest addition to my teapot collection.