Sugar & Spice and All Things Nice

{round up} sweet new zealand february

noreply@blogger.com (Shirleen) — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 04:05:00 +0000

When I took over hosting Sweet New Zealand from the lovely Arfi of HomeMades at the start February, I must admit I was a tad nervous. What if I only get a small handful of contributions? What if I don't do justice to the contributors' entries? What if, what if, what if...

All my apprehensions were put to rest when Sweet New Zealand February started with a bang - I had 2 entries on the first day - that's a 'bang' to me! And then I received a reassuring email from Alessandra who created Sweet New Zealand. It was not long before the entries starting coming in and I had fun introducing each blogger and their entry.

Here's a round up for February's Sweet New Zealand:

gluten-free banana cake w/ passionfruit icing

First to kick it all off for February was my favourite food blogger, Emma of My Darling Lemon Thyme.

Emma is a Kiwi currently living in Perth with her husband and two littlelees. Her recipes are always healthy (and gluten-free), easy to follow and most definitely drool-worthy. You don't have to be gluten-intolerant to enjoy her recipes - I'm not! And I can say this with authority as I've personally made many succesful meals and sweets from her blog!

Emma's scrummy gluten-free banana cake is an all-time Kiwi favourite - it's iced with passionfruit icing and looks picture perfect. I'm certain it'll be excellent eating as well!

white chocolate chunk cookies

This is exactly why Sweet New Zealand has been a success - if it wasn't for this monthly event, I would not have known about this lovely blog, YoungBaker. Nor is this blog vibrant, addictive and filled with posts that just makes you smile, the face behind this blog is 15 year-old Kimberley, who can seriously bake. When I think about my own culinary 'prowess' at 15, all I can come up with is dressing up instant noodles and making sandwiches. Yeeeesh...

Kimberley who is from Auckland has baked us some white chocolate chunk cookies - dunked into a cuppa or enjoyed with a tall glass of cold milk. You decide. Either way, I don't think they'll last long enough to share!

nutella cake {gluten-free}

If you haven't been following this blog - Grace Cakes - might I suggest you do if you're a cake and cupcake fiend? Which I'm going to assume you are since you're here. :) Lydia who is the talent behind Grace Cakes has been blogging since 2010, and I suspect honing her baking and decorating skills since forever (the photos on her blog attest to this).

This gluten-free Nutella Cake from Lydia may be the best way to spoil someone dear to you. Or you could just keep it all for yourself!

good old fashion ginger cake

Next up is Allison of Pease Pudding, a regular contributor to Sweet New Zealand. In addition to this blog, the amazing and multi-talented Allison also runs culinary workshops (The Gourmet Gannet) and writes reviews for local papers. Oh...did I tell you that Allison also started and ran our little country's first food bloggers conference last year? :-)

For this month, Allison is offering up a classic sweet treat for when you have 'the girls' around for a cuppa and a chinwag on a Saturday/Sunday afternoon - good old fashion Jamaican ginger cake.

I strongly recommend dressing up in a summery frock for this get together. Its the perfect pairing - ginger cake and a cheery summer dress!

gluten-free chocolate and almond fingers

And now, we have Alessandra. Alessandra hails from northern Italy but has called NZ home for the last 15 years. Having published two cookbooks in English and two in Polish, Alessandra is also a food and travel writer. Her blog, Alessandra Zecchini is filled not just with recipes, but also stories of family travels, her garden, culinary adventures, her children, etc.

She also happens to be the creator of Sweet New Zealand!

Now if you're after a recipe for some homemade gifts or the week's home baking, I think Alessandra's gluten-free chocolate and almond fingers are just right. Crumbly, nutty and topped with chocolate...what's not to like?

brandy snaps cannoli

Alessandra has been busy at sweetening the week up, again. This time she's made brandy snaps cannoli - another Kiwi favourite, with an Italian slant.

I reckon this is just perfect for Valentines Day...or any other day really! It's quick and easy to make, and sure to impress.

I noticed this when I was at NZ's first food bloggers conference last year - a good percentage of our blogging community is made up of a melting pot of different cultures, including immigrants who now call NZ home - Italian, Americans, South Africans, English, Malaysian, Singaporean, French, Japanese, etc. And it is due to this patchwork of cultures that make NZ's food blogs such interesting reads.

hazelnut mocha cake

Christina hails from America and her blog gninwordon, is not just about the food she makes and eats. Her posts are often peppered with snippets on growing up in America, her family there, the culinary differences between the two countries and also her life now in Aotearoa.

Christina recently made this utterly decadent hazelnut mocha cake. Apart from impressing her friends with this cake, she may be trying to out-do her mother's famous fruit salads which she was known for at Sunday bbqs.

I think Christina might just have a slight edge with this cake, don't you?!

swedish midsummer cake

Another blogger who now calls NZ home, is Suzanne of The Upside Down Life. Suzanne's another newbie to our food bloggers community - always so exciting to have one more person to obsess over food with. Welcome!

This Swedish midsummer cake is Suzanne's first entry to Sweet New Zealand. How utterly gorgeous does this cake look? And I bet it tastes heavenly like only a marriage of strawberries and cream can.

nectarine & plum sponge cake

Lovely Sue from sunny Nelson writes her blog Couscous & Consciousness from her kitchen, in which she also runs cooking classes. Sue also teaches yoga as well (not in the kitchen!).

Staying true to local produce, Sue churns out all kinds of yumminess from what's available seasonally - like this delightful nectarine & plum sponge cake for this month's Sweet New Zealand.

chocolate & coffee bean ice cream

If you love your sweets and desserts, but moan that there just isn't enough decent recipes out there that is slim on the hips, yet big on taste - you need to check out Time for a Little Something.

This blog is written by Jemma, who is probably one of our most prolific food bloggers. Jemma started blogging around 8 months ago and has already clocked up over 120 posts!

Now if you're a huge ice cream lover like me, you might just want to give this chocolate & coffee bean ice cream a go. Its so easy to make and so delish, you could make more than one batch to enjoy the late summer days (or nights) with.

Food-wise, I don't think any fruit epitomises summer like stone fruits do. Personally I'm not a huge fan since the varieties sold at supermarkets are often hard and tasteless, and I'm not lucky enough to be able to grow any of my own. However, that's not to say that I don't drool over photos and recipes posted by fellow bloggers on the many sweet delights that stone fruits lend themselves to.

greengage clafoutis

Vanille from @ Down Under definitely had me looking at her greengage clafoutis with longing. It's rustic and feminine (you know what I mean right?) - just the kind of sweet dish to enjoy on a sunny Saturday afternoon with your favourite people, sat on white wicker chairs on a patio with your pets (if you had any) dozing under your feet.

So if you're into unpretentious food and beautiful daydream-inducing food photography, then you must head to Vanille's bi-lingual blog. It's filled with recipes for simple gorgeous food and glimpses on her life now in NZ (Vanille's French).

fijian black forest gateau

Bake Club is the brainchild of Frances. , who with her baking-mad family and friends all contribute to the delectable number of sweet pleasures on this blog.

For February's Sweet NZ, Frances has baked us this very special fijian black forest gateau.

Black forest gateau is the cake of my childhood. I seem to remember having this cake for many of my birthdays! So if you're looking to bake one yourself for a special occasion, you might just like Frances' post on this oldie but goodie.

french farmhouse cherry pie

Just the name of the pie itself conjures up images of white distressed painted cabinetry, a metal pitcher of field flowers on the bench, large wooden dining table with mismatched chairs, with a fat cat by the back door. And sitting with pride of place in the middle of that table, is a cherry pie.

This special cherry pie is a particular favourite of Emma of Muffin Mum. One could say that the recipe has been 'in the family' (of sorts). I think it's a perfect pie to see the end of summer and coming autumn.

walnut, honey and orange blossom cake

I'd been following Mairi's blog, Toast, for a while before meeting her for the first time at last year's food blogger's conference. And she's every bit as warm, inviting and real as her blog.

As food bloggers, being food mad is par for the course. But I reckon that Mairi's particularly obsessed (don't think she'll mind me saying!) - if all the gorgeous food photos she tweets daily is anything to go by.

choc chip & espresso cookie bars

Lastly, here's my own contribution - a cookie that's between a cookie and a slice. I made these as part of a care package that my bestfriend sent to her son who is in his 1st year at Otago University.

I did put some aside for our own consumption of course. Eaten with a glass of cold milk or hot strong coffee...I'm thinking it's a recipe that I'll be making again, soon.

I had a blast hosting Sweet New Zealand this month. Thanks to everyone who contributed - you're all an amazing and talented bunch! And now, I have the pleasure of passing the hosting of March's event to the gorgeous Emma at My Darling Lemon Thyme. See you all there!

X.

choc chip & espresso cookie bars

noreply@blogger.com (Shirleen) — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 03:18:00 +0000

Cakes don't feature in a big way on my blog, not because I don't like cake - I do! It's just simply down to the fact that I'm not a confident baker and tend to steer away from baking cakes (eating is another story of course). I don't think I have the 'lightness' of hand and instinct for it. For some reason, cookies though, don't instill such a feeling of hesitance.

So when my bestfriend told me that her first born's birthday was coming up and that she was putting together a care-birthday package for him, I volunteered to bake some cookies to add to the loot.

Now I have multiple lists each as long as my arm, if not longer, of baking want-to's. There's the favourites list from blogs I follow, stack of cookbooks with post-its scattered through the pages, a growing pile of magazines with more post-its, a ringbinder (yes, yes, I know) with recipes torn from newspapers/magazines and hand-scribbled recipes, and...

Admittedly, I'm a little freakish when it comes to anything I like or passionate about. Aren't we all? No? Really? Nah...come on, just admit it already! :-)

Okay, back to what I made for the care package.

I toyed with the idea of those peanut & cashew cookies that I had made for Chinese New Year - those were a big hit. But the cookies don't travel well since they were quite crumbly. Didn't think they would stay intact by the time they made their way from Wellington down to Otago University. Remembering a recipe that had been bookmarked not so long ago from a blog called Hungry Girl por Vida (I do have many recipes bookmarked from this blog), I took another quick look at decided that Cindy's Choc Chip Cookie Bars was the perfect choice. It was between a cookie and a slice, and would travel well.

Cindy blogs from America, so I had to convert all the US measurements into metric. That wasn't a biggie - it took only 10 mins to go online and make all the conversions. I did make teensy tweaks to the recipe, based on what I had in the pantry and addition of espresso coffee to emphasis the chocolate.

I hope he liked it!

Choc Chip & Espresso Cookie Bars

Adapted slightly from Hungry Girl por Vida

INGREDIENTS

113g butter - I used salted butter and omitted the salt from the original recipe

113g cream cheese
1/4 cup granulated raw sugar
3/4 cup soft brown sugar, lightly packed
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp instant espresso granules
340g dark chocolate, chopped or semi-sweet chocolate chips
140g walnut, toasted and cooled

Preheat oven to 180C.
Prepare your baking pan - grease the pan, line the bottom with baking paper and then grease again. Type of pan - you can use a 10” square cake pan or the type of rectangular pans you'd use for baking slices, lamingtons or brownies.
Toast the walnuts in the oven until lightly browned, remove and set aside to cool.
Melt your butter in a small pan over medium-low heat until the milk solids are brown and fragrant. Be careful not to burn the butter. Transfer the browned butter into a large mixing bowl to cool.
In a smaller bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and espresso granules.
In a separate bowl, toss the chocolate and nuts together.
Add the cream cheese and sugar to the browned butter and cream until light and fluffy.
Beat in the eggs, one at a time, mixing each egg in well. Remember to stop and scrap down the sides every now and again.
Add the vanilla and mix.
Fold in the flour mixture and mix to just combined - there should be still some streaks of white flour through the batter.
Fold in the nuts and chocolate lightly, taking care not to over mix. By this time the remaining streaks of white flour will be fully incorporated into the batter.
Spread the batter into your prepared pan - I used a lightly greased silicone spatula to flatten out the batter. You could use clean lightly oiled fingers as Cindy's recipe suggested.
Bake in the middle of the oven until the top the golden and the centre is just set. Remove from the oven and cool in the pan. Once cooled, remove from the pan and slice.

This is also my own contribution to February's Sweet New Zealand.

crepes | pancakes

noreply@blogger.com (Shirleen) — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 10:30:00 +0000

Shrove Tuesday or Pancake Day was three days ago. I woke up that morning and had no inclination whatsoever to make any pancakes that day. Although I was brought up in a rather strict Roman Catholic way, I'm no longer religious and don't observe Lent. So Shrove Tuesday was lost on me.

But when I came home later that morning after yoga - not that yoga has anything to do with it except that I was super hungry - I decided that I've made pancakes enough times in the past that I ought to be able to just throw a few together. To be really honest, it was the bowl of sugar pears on the table slowly over-ripening and a freshly opened jar of Nutella that gave me the push I needed.

After some umming and ahhing, I decided that something more crepe-like rather than the slightly more spongier pancake or pikelet was the way to go.

Now since it's impossible to make a small batch just for lunch, so I ended up with enough crepes for savoury and sweet crepes for lunch, and more sweet crepes for dessert that night. Not that I'm complaining, 'cos who (in their right mind) would say no to Nutella smothered crepes, right?

Most of you will already have your go-to recipe for crepes or pancakes. But if you're after a simple one that's not sweet or doughy and a perfect foil for any accompaniement, try the recipe below. Its never failed me. The savoury and sweet crepe fillings below are not recipes as much as just me showing you a couple of ways you could go with the filling. There is simply just no rules to what you could fill your crepes with - well except in my opinion (umm...and experience), sausages and crepes should never meet on the same plate.

Crepes

INGREDIENTS
25g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
Plus a little more un-melted butter for frying
150g plain flour
325ml milk
1 egg

Season your pancake or crepe pan, or use a medium-large flat bottomed frying pan with low sides. To season your pan - melt some butter in the pan and then wipe the pan with a paper towel. Put pan aside once seasoned.*
If you have a handheld whizzer, use the large tumbler and the whizz attachment that the set normally comes with. If not, mix it all in a mixing bowl with a whisk.
Whisk the flour, milk and egg together until smooth.
Whisk the melted butter in just before you start to cook, whisking until just mixed.
Heat your seasoned pan over medium heat with a tiny knob of butter.
Pour 1-2 ladles (depending on the size of your ladle) of the batter onto the middle of the pan, then lift your pan off the heat a little and tilt it around so that the batter coats the entire bottom of the pan. Try and do this evenly.
Then put the pan back onto the heat and cook for about a minute (the top will start to dry out a little) before flipping** the crepe over and cooking the other side for around 30secs before removing onto a plate.***
Repeat steps 5 - 7 until all your batter is used up.

* If you're filling your crepes right after you finished cooking all of the crepes, do not wash your pan - leave it seasoned.

** If you're very confident and able to flip a crepe with a flick of the wrist, good on you. If not, you could do as I did - I slid an icing spatula/palette knife under the crepe on one end and lifted the crepe up with the spatula, high enough to be able to quickly flip the crepe back onto the pan.

** I didn't cook my crepes completely through because I knew that I would be warming each of the crepes through again when I topped them with the fillings.

Sweet Crepes ~ Pears, Nutella & Almonds
This serves one person.

INGREDIENTS
Cooked crepes
1 small pear - I used sugar pears, sliced
1 tbsp of Nutella, or however much you want to use really!
*Another 1 tsp Nutella, softened with a few drops of milk & stirred to make a thick sauce
Small handful of almonds, chopped

Use the same seasoned pan that you just cooked your crepes in. If not, season the pan first.
Place a crepe in the pan, heated over medium heat.
Spread the Nutella over one 1/2 of the crepe, taking care not to tear the crepe. I use the back of a metal teaspoon to do this.
Working quickly, lay the sliced pears over the Nutella and scatter the chopped almonds over the pear slices. By this time, the edges of the crepe will start to turn a little crispy - that's okay, believe me. It's nice, you'll like it!
With a spatula, fold the crepe over in half and then half again.
Place on a plate and drizzle the Nutella sauce over your filled crepe. Enjoy!!

* Put the Nutella and milk in something small and microwavable. Zap on high for 5-10 secs, and then stir briskly to mix and form the sauce.

Savoury Crepes ~ Smoked Chicken, Scrambled Eggs & Greens
This serves one person.

INGREDIENTS
Cooked crepes
1 egg, beaten with 2 tbsp milk
1/4 smoked chicken, chopped into small chunks
Tasty cheese, 2 tbsp grated or use a vegetable peeler to peel thin slices to cover 1/2 of the crepe
Handful of baby salad greens
Salt & Pepper

Use the same seasoned pan that you just cooked your crepes in. If not, season the pan first.
As the pan is heating up, quickly scramble the beaten egg.*
Place a crepe in the heated pan.
Working quickly, scatter or lay the cheese over 1/2 of the entire crepe. Once the cheese starts to melt, add the scrambled eggs over the cheese and scatter the smoked chicken, then top with the baby salad greens. Season with salt & pepper.
Again, working quickly, use a spatula and fold the crepe over in half.
Place and Enjoy!!

* To do this quickly, beat the egg & milk in a microwaveable bowl. Zap on high for 30 secs, and then stir quickly with a fork or small whisk to scramble up the mixture. Zap for another 30 secs and stir to scramble again. Repeat for another 20 secs if mixture is still too raw.

sweet new zealand

noreply@blogger.com (Shirleen) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 01:22:00 +0000

If you don't follow my tweets or FB page and have just stumbled onto my blog or here for an update - this is just a quick note to let you know that I'm hosting February's Sweet New Zealand.

Sweet New Zealand is a monthly food bloggers event, started by fellow blogger Alessandra Zecchini.

It's about sharing recipes, getting to know each other, discovering new blogs, growing the Kiwi food blogger community (both in NZ and worldwide) and everything sweet - cakes, cookies, lollies, jams, ice cream......

To find out more about this event, how to participate (not a competition) and the round up of the past 6 months of Sweet New Zealand, go to my Sweet New Zealand page at the top, or click here.

Thanks for stopping by!

roast chicken salad with turkish bread

noreply@blogger.com (Shirleen) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 05:28:00 +0000

Wow. A whole entire month has already passed and we're into our 2nd month for 2012! Summer is finally setting in (for Wellington anyway) and both the days and nights are starting to really warm up.

Chaffers Marina

Having grown up in the tropics, I really miss the heat of summer. Now I do like winter - with it's comfort food and wrapping up warm in lovely winter gear and outfits (I'm very much a girl in that respect). But by the end, towards the last month when winter hangs on for dear life and tries to linger, I'm usually jaded, somewhat depressed, downcast, irritated, sick of not being able to hang my laundry out in the backyard and in desperate need of sun and warmth. I'm basically a walking petri dish of melancholy that needs to also lose at least 3 kgs. You see how it is?

Boatsheds at the marina

Wellington can be quite slow on the summer uptake compared to some other parts of the country. But when it arrives, it is GLORIOUS. I don't make this statement lightly - for those of you who live here, have visited or come here often (say for work), you know it's true. For the last +/- 15 years since I came to live in Wellington, summer has become for me, 3-4 months (dependent on global warming!) of all that is happy, positive and light. It's a season of celebrations, public holidays and long weekends. Of festivals, markets and fairs, open air orchestral concerts, movies in the botanical garden. Of time spent with friends, of beaches and baches, long laid-back days and lazy lie-ins on weekends.

Lazy lie in

It's also a season when I eat healthier - more salads, lots of fresh greens (e.g. chinese veg like kai lan, bok choy, ung choy and snake beans) and array of lush summer fruits that tempt every taste bud. Desserts and sweets are somewhat healthier (?) and less stodgy with the likes of ice-blocks/cream, fruit tarts and flans, baking with all types of berries, homemade ice cold milkshakes, smoothies and fruit juices.

(And yes, I am deliberately leaving out listing all the artery clogging, heart stopping food we indulge in over the Christmas and new year holidays). :-)

Summer also sees me hanging out in cafes a whole lot more than I would in the colder months. One that I've been frequenting a bit is the Pentifull Deli on Majoribanks St. As its name suggests, it is first and foremost a deli. But also has a table inside and one outside, where customers can sit and enjoy their purchases. Staff also often move things about a bit on a display table so that they can fit 1-2 more of their regulars if needs be. Now it's during summer that I tend to make more filled bread meals - sandwiches, rolls, burgers etc. Not just for lunch or snacks, but often for dinner as well, although more substantial that the lighter versions for earlier in the day. And it is at Pentifull that I ate what is now my favourite lunchtime meal - chicken salad baquette. Wendy who is the owner and also a chef makes the best chicken salad baquette, I reckon.

I loved it so much that it inspired me to make a version of it at home. There was no way I was going to be able to replicate Wendy's chicken salad at home - not without her recipe! (hint hint if you're reading this Wendy). But it was close enough that it was a hit with 'S'...and I was pretty chuffed with it.

Keeping it simple - just some chicken breast simply roasted with skin on to keep it moist. I used free range chicken, but if you're on a tight budget and buying free range is simply unaffordable, go with what you can.

I was going to remove the skin once the chicken was cooked, but it was so yummy and crispy that I left it on.

Use whatever salad greens you prefer - I used baby cos (a.k.a gem lettuce). Or if you think there's more than enough vegetables in the chicken salad, go ahead and omit the lettuce. No rules here!

Put this salad together whilst you're waiting for your chicken to cool down.

Slather the roast chicken and salad with good quality mayonnaise. Don't be all skimpy with the mayo either - slathering is the oly way to do it. Go ahead and make your own mayo if you're braver than I am. I just buy mine as mayo is one of those seemingly easy things to make, but scares the bejeesus out of me. If you're willing to part with a bit more dosh that you would normally for a jar of mayo, you can buy some decent ones out there. I used Heinz's Seriously Good mayo. It's not top of the line, but it's pretty good. According to the advertising on the jar, they use free range eggs which apparently makes the difference. If you're using a cheaper version, be prepared though for your mayo to be vinegar'ry.

The bread of choice that night was turkish bread. It was freshly baked and on special. So again, no rules here - use whatever type of bread you fancy.

As you can see, I've cramped in as much of the roast chicken salad as I could in the bread. No skimping in my kitchen! And don't go bothering with cutlery for goodness sake. Your hands are the best cutlery for this meal.

Store your leftover chicken salad (oh, there will be!) in the fridge and enjoy for lunch the next day, sans bread. :-)

Roast Chicken Salad with Turkish Bread
Inspired by Pentifull Deli

INGREDIENTS
3 free range chicken breast, skin on
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt and cracked pepper
1/2 telegraph cucumber or 1 regular cucumber, chopped fine (but don't mince)
1 small avocado, cut into small pieces
1 small red onion, chopped fine
2 stalks celery, chopped fine
2 stalks spring onions, chopped fine
Zest of 1 large lemon
Juice of 1/2 lemon
Mayonnaise (homemade or store-bought)
1 tablespoon of either Dijon mustard or mild English mustard
1 head of baby cos lettuce
1 large turkish bread (or any other bread of your choice)

Heat oven at 200C.
Rub just enough olive oil all over the chicken breasts to lightly coat it, and then season well with salt and cracked pepper.
Roast in preheated oven until chicken is just cooked through and skin is crispy. Over-roasting your chicken breast will produce dry stringy chicken meat.
Once cook, take chicken out and let cool slightly so that you can handle it.
Cut chicken breasts into small cubes and put aside - the larger the cubes, the harder it is to stuff your bread!
In a large bowl, combine all the vegetables and the lemon zest, and gently toss to mix.
Add chicken breast pieces to the salad and as much mayonnaise as you need (or want) to coat everything.
Add the mustard and lemon juice. Mix everything gently.
Butter your bread if you wish and then line your bread with 1-2 cos lettuce leaves.
Fill your bread with as much of the roast chicken salad as you wish.
Salt and pepper to taste...and enjoy!

enter the dragon

noreply@blogger.com (Shirleen) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 09:49:00 +0000

Gong xi fa cai! Gong hei fatt choy! Xin nian guai le!

Now what's all the differences you ask? Well, these 3 greetings are probably the most common you'd hear in NZ. The first being loosely translated to 'wishing you prosperity' in Mandarin, the second being the same greeting in Cantonese and the last being 'happy new year' in Mandarin. I speak two other dialects (although not very well any longer!) - Hokkien (paternal ) and Hainanese (maternal), and the greetings are the same with the exception of the differences in pronunciation of the words of course...but I won't bamboozle you with all of them!

So its the start of the Year of the Dragon. I may not be as excited as some (let's say millions of other chinese) around the world since I believe in the chinese horoscope as much I believe in the western zodiac and the existence of fairies in the garden. But if you were into horoscopes, let me summarise what astrologers and geomancers are predicting around the world for 2012:

The Dragon sign is the luckiest and mightiest of the 12 signs
Luckiest sign to be born under - so they predict a baby boom all around the world for 2012. Hmmm...maybe I should retrain as a nanny and charge loads. Just a thought.
There's going to be loads of prosperity and good luck all round. Well, except for the following...
Europe will struggle economically (errr, if you've been following the news...no shit sherlock?!)
More natural disasters in the form of storms and floods in asian countries such as India, China, Thailand (no, you don't say) and Pakistan. Don't they always? Anyway??
Apparently a prosperous year for those born under 'metal' signs (me). Does this mean I will actually get my dream job? And a little girl waits...
There's meant to be travel for me as well. But! Yes, yes. Always a 'but'. It seems I should be cautious of contagious diseases and colds when travelling. So travels to the jungles of Congo is out for me then? You know, just in case I get bit by a monkey and contract something hideous. And I could always have a pack of Coldral on me for 'just in case'. Not for the hideous contagious disease silly! But for potential colds. For the former, I could always buy a hazmet suit online and take it with me on my travels. For 'just in case'.
This is the clincher for me - the Dragon is the only legendary animal of the 12 signs. So all in all, this year is the year of make-believe. Based on an animal that may/may not have existed, depending on who you talk to, and if they've taken their meds for the day. Just another thought.

Now, now. I don't mean to be all cynical (or do I?). ;-) I'm just seeing all this from the other side of the coin. The funny slightly whatever side. And I promise you I DO enjoy celebrating Chinese new year. It is in my blood afterall. However, its the food and traditions that I enjoy, not so much the superstitions and astrological believes. Though some will argue that it's a fine line between tradition and superstition - and I agree!

My gorgeous younger sister in the photo, lucky mandarin oranges and an 'ang bao'

(red packet)

What was I saying again? Oh yeah. Food and tradition. Oh and new clothes. New pjs in particular. Isn't it the same whichever kind of new year you celebrate? It all revolves around food, tradition and for some, new clothes. The new pj thing? I'm not entirely sure that every chinese has this new year tradition, but in my family it's definitely 'the' thing to do. Every year after the all important Reunion Dinner on new year's eve, we'd troop out to chinatown to soak in the crazy, busy, noisy, brightly red-dy atmosphere. And yes, to those of you who ask - there are chinatowns even in asian countries!! We'd buy new year sweets, snacks, more decorations (huge discounts to be had on the eve!) and new pjs . We won't be allowed to wear the new pjs though until the next night - i.e. in the new year. And if the pjs were days earlier, they would still sit in the cupboard all washed and ready for the new year. Even now living in NZ and as adults, my mum still buys us new pjs or gives us the money to go buy them for ourselves.

And then there's the traditions. As I said before, the line is pretty thin between tradition and superstition when it comes to Chinese new year. I won't list ALL the ones that are observed by my family. But here's a few:

Don't wear black or white but red - red is for prosperity and good luck, whereas white is a mourning colour for us and black, well black is just bad.
No using of the knife, scissors or anything with blades. The cutting action of the blades equates to the cutting away of luck and also cutting and dividing joy and happiness. So what happens if you needed to cook, you ask? Well, that's why most family will have a MASSIVE (I do mean massive) cook-up on the eve, so that hopefully the food will last for at least the first 3-4 days of the new year.
No using of the broom - it sweeps away good luck. I still maintain that you could get around that one with using a vacuum cleaner - it sucks in instead!
And whatever you do, try not to break any glass. The whole shattering into bits is major bad juju.
Throw open all windows and doors and turn on every single light in the entire house just before the new year arrives - to let the old leave and the new come in. This is one tradition I like to keep. Now in Singapore that was easy, not so much in NZ. In Wellington on Sunday night (new year's eve), it was windy southerly and around 8C. So we flicked on all the lights and only threw open all the windows and doors at 11.50pm and these were all promptly shut at 00.15am. I reckon that was long enough for the old to leave and the new to come in!

The there's the food. Oh the FOOD. Now that's what I miss most living now in NZ. For me, if it wasn't the food, it wouldn't be Chinese new year. The food makes it. Just like every other festive or religious celebration around the world, there are certain dishes and foods eaten just during that time of the year. And for Chinese new year, most, if not all of the dishes have specific meanings attached.

Cashew & Peanut Cookies

Most of the dishes are seafood based (whole fish, prawns, scallops, lobster, abalone, etc) with a few chicken and duck dishes and some more unusual ingredients that you wouldn't use in daily cooking (e.g. fat choy, which is a black hair-like algae often cooked with Chinese mushrooms). There's also specific vegetables and fruit like leeks, broccoli, mushrooms and mandarin oranges. Basically, all the dishes have meanings attributed to prosperity, good luck, health or happiness. Though to be honest, most of it is about prosperity. You know what us Chinese are like... :) Even desserts, sweets and baking for this festive period have meanings attached to them - like the Pineapple Tarts I made, which the name in the Hokkien dialect sounds exactly like 'prosperity come'. See what I mean with the whole prosperity thing?!

Pineapple Tarts

Ultimately the Chinese new year dishes, desserts and baking one grows up with is often based on the dialect group you belong to. For me, it's been a mish mash of all sorts as I grew up enjoying both Hokkien (paternal) and Hainanese (maternal) dishes and as a teen Cantonese (stepmother). And just to confuse you further - the country you grew up in can make a pretty distinct difference in the dishes as well - what a lot of families would eat in Malaysia and Singapore can be quite different from those eaten say in China.

Some store-bought Chinese new year goodies - clockwise LR: crispy egg rolls, cashew cookies, almond cookies.

If you're interested in knowing more, just Google key words 'Chinese New Year food/dishes'. And here's a couple of links you could check out from noobcook, Rasa Malaysia and good old Wikipedia.

It was a relatively quiet new year celebration for me this year - by choice. I had a big and stressful Christmas and didn't really want a repeat, so low-key it was. Instead of the usual big Reunion dinner bonanza, we just went for lunchtime yum cha with my bestfriend and her family.

I also decked the house up with (after taking all the Christmas decos down - sheeesh!) and made some of my favourite Chinese new year cookies - Pineapple Tarts and Cashew & Peanut Cookies. Will post about these soon!

Now I'm just umming over whether to close the new year (strictly speaking it lasts for 15 days) with Yu Sheng. Basically a massive dish of shredded vegetables and raw seafood (fish and jellyfish) tossed with a dressing made of oil, sesame oil, sesame seeds, plum sauce and crushed peanuts. And yes, you guessed right - it's ALL about prosperity. An abundance of prosperity to be exact!

Happy Chinese New Year!! X.

{better late than never!} christmas goodies

noreply@blogger.com (Shirleen) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 04:00:00 +0000

Before I launch into this post, let me wish everyone of you a Happy New Year! :-)

You may think that it's far too late to be posting up anything about Christmas. I thought so too initially. And the longer I left it, the less irrelevant it seemed. Until today.

There were a lot of firsts for me when it came to Christmas gifting last year - these mainly revolved around giving homemade goodies as Christmas presents. I've never felt that what came out of my kitchen was ever good enough to give away as presents (Christmas baking somehow different from cooking a meal for friends) - although every year, cookbooks and food magazines were earmarked and mental notes taken whilst watching the likes of Nigella and Donna whip up what seemed like amazingly simple yummies to be wrapped up prettily as presents.

However, 2011 was different. It was the year I blogged about food. And to do so, I increasingly found myself cooking and baking recipes I would normally deem too difficult so that I could blog about it. All the hours spent in the kitchen finally gave me the guts to decide that this was the year for homemade Christmas goodies. That and the fact that we were still a one-salary household. Although I'm not entirely convinced that going homemade was necessarily cost-saving! Ah well...

Spritz Cookies

So there I was. After multiple exhaustive online recipe searches and an entire booklet of mini post-its, I managed to come to my final list. It was made up of a few 'firsts': marmalade, onion jam and spritz cookies. I decided to throw in a couple of repeat recipes as well, just in case my first attempts bomb out - deciding on chutney and granola (with slight variations to when I first made them).

Many photos of the final products were taken with every intention in getting a post out before Christmas. However I completely underestimated how much time it was going to take baking, preserving, bottling and wrapping up goodies for 15 people! With all that plus the usual madness and chaos which is the lead up to Christmas, meant that I kept putting off the post. Sitting down to sift through photos, touching them up and writing a decent post was so NOT what I wanted to do after all that.

So here we are, just past mid-January. Looking through all the photos that I took of my Christmas goodies efforts, with the initial thought of deleting them all. But as I went through one after another, I decided, what the heck. As far as I know, there were no rules about posting up something Christmas-sy almost a month after the event. And even if there were, tough ti**ies! I'm doing it. I've done it.

Mini Marmalade

Happy new year - again! If you've had a great 2011, here's to an even fabulous one for 2012. And let's be there for each other so that 2012 will be a memorable one, for all the right reasons! xoxoxo

PS: Will post the recipes for these soon!!

spring vegetables, smoked fish & quinoa

noreply@blogger.com (Shirleen) — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 11:20:00 +0000

We went fishing on Sunday. Yep we did. One minute we were grocery shopping and the next minute we were on the pier at Petone. A friend (aka Zippy) had decided that he wanted to do a spot of fishing. We decided that we'd join him!

It was one of those early Summer days - sun was up but there was a touch of coolness still in the air. The pier already had a good number of people fishing by the time we got there. There were the serious ones that came armed and prepared - large pail of smelly bait, collapsible chairs, chilly bin filled with cold drinks and food and a ghetto blaster. There were the SUPER serious ones with all of the gear, the most expensive rods and metal cages (think those were for crabs). And there were the little boys with their simple homemade fishing gear - a long line wrapped around a piece of wood and a weight at the end.

Let's not forget the old Chinese guys that fish alone (they're never in a group or with friends!). All very serious business this fishing. They often have every possible gear and accessory. One guy had on a bright yellow waterproof outerwear (I don't know what it's called) that covered him from head to feet, although there wasn't a skerrick of rain - very Deadliest Catch styles!

The boys spent the afternoon waiting for a fish to take a bite of their bait and yapping away on the ins and outs of bait types, hooks, lines, weights, etc etc.

I spent my time alternating between reading in the sun and taking the piss out of the boys for their lack of luck - 'S' did not catch anything and Zippy caught 2 baby ones that had to be returned to the sea. I believe I told 'S' that if we lived couple of hundred years ago and he was my hunter/gatherer partner, I'd starve. ;-)

If you're wondering...that's not a sandwich we made for afternoon snack. It was fish bait - some very smelly bait (think the boys called it bonito) squished between a piece of white bread. I hear it's Michelin-star cuisine for the fishies!

Now you must be wondering...what has this got to do with spring vegetables, smoked fish and quinoa (post title) got to do with fishing? Well, not much really. Except that it was a damn good thing we had bought some smoked fish at Moore Wilsons earlier in the day, since the boys caught nothing!

Now. On to that spring vegetables, smoked fish and quinoa dish.

So I've mentioned at some point in an earlier post or posts that I've been moving away from stodgy winter dishes that we've been enjoying for the last 3 months or so, and cooking dishes that are a bit more light and healthy. I'm not only carrying winter weight, I'm also carrying holiday-in-Asia weight, and not forgetting stuff-my-face-at-food-bloggers-conference weight!

But with summer now upon us, it's so much easier to make those healthier dishes loaded with summer greens and fruits. I'm not naturally a healthy cook - I love rich curries, fried food, butter and cream-based sauces. Even if I made steamed vegetables or a salad, I'd smother it in a gallon of olive oil or spoonfuls of mayonnaise. So for healthier options, I have to look elsewhere for inspiration.

Unfortunately for me, I don't have a collection of amazing cookbooks like Ottolenghi's The Cookbook or Plenty or Heidi Swanson's Super Natural Everyday to cook from. Having been jobless for almost a year kinda puts a damper on spending. And in the wider scheme of things, cookbooks are classified under the 'want' category and not a 'needs' category!

However, this where the interweb, the digital world, the blogosphere, the internet, whatever you want to call it, comes into it's own. I might not be in possession of much sought after cookbooks, but there are thousands of recipes online that I can tap into. And a favourite of mine is Emma Galloway's 'My Darling Lemon Thyme'. Emma's blog is wonderfully written and her vegetarian/vegan recipes are so simple to follow and yet her dishes aren't simple - you know what I mean? Every recipe I've tried has been packed full of flavour. Her recipes definitely put to rest the notion that vegetarian dishes are boring!

So when I came home from the Sunday market with a bag full of fresh peas and 2 huge bunches of asparagus, I was (unusually) inspired to make something healthy (again, unusual) with them, based on several recipes I've read online. Lurking in my pantry was a bag of quinoa that I had bought a month ago and having only made a quinoa salad once from it, I decided that it was time for it to make another appearance!

I must confess that right up to now, the only peas I've ever eaten came straight out from the freezer. Nothing wrong or unhealthy even, with snap frozen peas. But fresh peas are...well, so fun! Snapping and popping the wee green peas out from their jackets is so therapeutic. And the crazy in me also thinks that the rows of little green orbs all in a row are so cute! Nevermind that they are bursting with goodness. It's the cute factor that won me over!

I can see why Anne Geddes (she of the cute baby photos) was inspired to dress babies up as peas in pods.

I was actually rather surprised that my bag of peas yielded 2 whole cups of fresh peas. I had thought that at most, I'd get maybe a cup. More for me - yay!!

Now I know that everyone says how sweet fresh peas are, but maybe it was just the batch I bought. They had a slight bitter taste to them that I wanted gone. So fresh as they were, I quickly blanched them for 2 minutes in rapidly boiling water that I'd added 1 teaspoon of sugar to. And they tasted divine.

At the very last minute, I decided to add smoked mackerel to the salad. The salad was getting waaay to healthy for me - I'm still not quite prepared (yet) for such healthiness to invade my life! And I know my body...to be more accurate, I know my tummy well. If I didn't throw in some protein, I'd be rummaging the kitchen for a midnight snack, which would invariably be something unhealthy like a large mug of milo with a plateful of sweet biscuits.

Mackerel is good fish anyway. We love it in our household. Its got all these good oils. So perhaps I haven't strayed that far away from making a healthy dinner afterall!

Okay...okay. There were Nigella-style sploshes of sesame and extra virgin olive oil as well to my salad. The sesame oil gave a nice nutty flavour to the otherwise bland-ish quinoa. So I caved in a bit more. If you have better control than I do, just drizzle instead of splosh! :-)

Spring Vegetables, Smoked Fish & Quinoa
The ingredients below will make enough for 4 people. Or dinner for 2 and enough to pack away for lunch for 2 the next day. Just adjust the amounts accordingly if you want to make less.

INGREDIENTS
1 cup quinoa
400g smoked fish of your choice, broken up into chunks
2 cups fesh peas (if you only have frozen ones, I'm sure it'll work just fine)
2-3 stalks spring onions, chopped into same size as the peas
2 bunches asparagus, chopped into bite sized pieces
Extra virgin olive oil
Sesame oil
Salt & pepper to taste

Bring a large pot of water (lots) to boil and salt it (you can omit the salt if you want). Add the quinoa into the boiling water, stir and turn down to medium-low heat. Stir occasionally just in case it sticks at the bottom. When quinoa is cooked, you'll see these little white-ish 'tails'. I just taste a tiny bit of the quinoa to determined whether it's cooked.
Once the quinoa is cooked to your liking, drain it well and set aside.
Bring another pot of lightly salted water to boil and add your asparagus. Turn down to medium heat and cook for no more than 3 minutes. Quickly drain and place in a large serving or mixing bowl.
For the peas - eat them raw or blanch it quickly in boiling water for 2 minutes. Quickly drain and add to the cooked asparagus.
Add the spring onions and well-drained quinoa to the vegetables.
Add some extra virgin oil and sesame oil, and toss gently to mix. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Scatter the smoked fish on top of the vegetables and quinoa, and serve.

Note:
Smoked fish - if you have your smoked fish in the fridge, take it out at the start before you prep your vegetables, so that it's room temperature when you're ready to add it to the quinoa. If not, you could zap it in the microwave for 20 secs on high. But if you don't mind eating cold smoked fish, then skip this.

i'm making a list, and checking it twice...(or more!)

noreply@blogger.com (Shirleen) — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 06:16:00 +0000

Christmas suits my slight OCD* nature to a T. All that list-making, matching gift to person, taking 3 hours to just dress up my Christmas tree, more list-making for the bbq on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day brunch and dinner, scouring shop after shop for just the right ribbons to match the wrapping papers and wrapping the gifts. Seriously, I have lists for the lists I made. There's even colour-coding on my grocery lists!!

I spent most of this afternoon gift wrapping. Which gift is to be wrapped with which paper and with which ribbon. All very important stuff. (yes, yes, it's only brown or red paper, but still very important!) All corners neatly folded and tucked, seams and ends hidden, and no sticky tape can be seen.

So therapeutic. So OCD.

And tomorrow, it's exactly that slightly obsessive nature that will see me trawl through over 60 cookie recipes that I've bookmarked, so that I can choose just 3 to bake for Christmas gifting. Oh, and there's a small stack of cookbooks on the dining table with post-its as well. :-)

I've handmade things in the past for Christmas gifts (non food related), but I've never baked cookies to give away before. I've never been brave enough nor sure enough that my cookies were any good for consumption, other than by myself and 'S'. See with cookies, you can't tell how it'll all turn out until you bake them. By which time, it's all too late if they suck. But this year, I've decided to forge ahead and just do it already.

Let them eat cake I say...err...wait. I mean cookies.

But why stop there with cookies, right? I've also decided to make chutney, onion jam and orange marmalade! You know, I'm going to be able to tell exactly who my friends (and family!) are by the end of Christmas, because only the ones who TRULY love me, will still want to know me after they've eaten their gifts.

Actually, I've already made the chutney about 2 weeks ago. But as Christmas draws nearer and nearer, I've been stressing about the jars of chutney in the cupboard waiting to be wrapped. I've put a little jar aside for ourselves in the fridge and have been having it with some of our meals. Not convinced. And each time I eat some more, I more unconvinced. 'S' says the chutney is yum. I say a do-over. If I could. There are 10 jars of chutney in the cupboard. Maybe not. Stressing... OCDing... Why do I do this to myself?!

I'll try and get a post or 2 up before Christmas to let you know how the cookies, onion jam and marmalade turned out. If nothing else, I'm sure it'll be a bit of a laugh as I bumble my way into the realm of domestic goddessing - i.e., homemade foods as Christmas gifts! I know we all can't be Nigella, Donna or Martha. But surely, we can try!

*As I understand it, OCD is all about obsessions and compulsions. My bestfriend thinks I'm a tad bit OCD. I think she's right.
Case in point: I butter my toast 1/4 at a time, rotating my toast 90deg butter, then 90deg again and butter, and so on. This way, I make sure every surface right up to the edge of my toast is buttered. Then, it's the same process again with whatever spread I add to it - peanut butter, jam, Marmite, etc.
Case in point #2: I stop and remove my shoes to rearrange my socks if they've slid past my ankles or if I can feel the joining stitches at the top of my toes.
Case in point 3#: Laundry is pegged up with the SAME coloured pegs - I can't bear using a pair different coloured pegs.
I'd say all that ticks both the obsession and compulsion boxes. Don't you??

Are you a little 'special' like me? :-)

1st day of summer!

noreply@blogger.com (Shirleen) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 23:48:00 +0000

Hello friends. It's the first day of Summer here in New Zealand!

And as such, I just wanted to share some pics I took a couple of hours ago. Nothing food related, but still I hope, enjoyable for you.

This would not be complete with a couple of shots of Cyrus, soaking in the sun...

...and being predominantly black, became too hot after several minutes and ran indoors.

Happy Summer my friends!!

X.

PS: Quick update on the dental front:
I've found out that liquid valium works a treat on me. Apparently it's meant to make me very relaxed and not be able to feel any anxiety, but still awake and aware. Well. According to my dentist, I was awake. According to me, I was fast asleep. He was very happy on how it all went - I was ecstatic. So apart from just before 'lights out' and my friend arriving to pick me up after, I don't remember one iota of anything. And once I got home I slept for about 19 hours. All in all, a successful trip to the dentist. Phew.

depot, being a fan and the dentist (!)

noreply@blogger.com (Shirleen) — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 09:17:00 +0000

Tomorrow I have an appointment with the dentist and I'm determined to get this post in tonight, since I'm going to be out of action for a good while after that. Why such a big deal you ask? Well, I'll explain a little later towards the end of this post. Before I delve into what I'm sure is going to be a horror of a day at the dentist, let me first tell you about our meal at Al Brown's new restaurant Depot, and about bumping into the man in person today. Much more exciting!

Just over a couple of weeks ago, New Zealand held it's first food bloggers conference in Auckland. 'S' and I decided to make it a long weekend up there and on the list of things to do was a visit to Depot, Al Brown's new restaurant.

As with most current eateries, Depot did not take reservations. It was first come first served. Being the keen beans that we are, 'S' and I got there early and got our table. Well, not so much a table since we sat at the bar. But hey, not complaining here. It was as far as we were concerned, a primo spot!

Here's what we ordered, devoured and then ordered seconds for...

Meat platter for 2 - Wild pork salami, beef bresaola, wild rabbit rillettes, air cured paprika beef. These were accompanied with large jars of mustard and baby gherkins. (yes, yes I know baby gherkins are called cornichons, but calling them cornichons here doesn't seem fitting).

Falafel with goats curd and harissa. There was a really nice spicy hit with the harissa. I liked this dish, though I wished there was more than just the one vegetarian dish to choose from!

Crisp pork hock with apple & horseradish salsa verde. This was my 2nd favourite dish from the repertoire we ordered. The pork was melt-in-the-mouth and I absolutely loved the apple salsa. Every forkful of meaty pork was accompanied with bursts of fresh, sharpish, sweetish salsa. Personally, I think the salsa is what makes this dish. Without it, the meat would just become well-cooked pork that I would have still liked but would probably not have more than a couple of mouthfuls. I was though a bit confused about the pork skin. Was it meant to have been crispy crackling? C'os ours weren't. They were these pieces of super hard as rock skin, which I was a tad bit disappointed in. Who doesn't love pork crackling right? Although we weren't really sure, we decided not to ask and just pushed them aside. I was happy enough with my pork and salsa!

Asparagus with black olive butter. Couldn't pass up on the asparagus for 2 reasons. One because I can never pass up on these lovely green spears and two, because we'd only ordered one vegetarian dish which strictly speaking wasn't a vegetable but made of chickpeas (and I do like my 5-a-day). 'S' really liked the black olive butter and I've promised to try and replicate it at home soon.

I've saved the best for last: Turbot sliders with preserved lemon and watercress. The bite-sized turbot was cooked just so (I hate overcooked fish) - simply grilled on these large hotplates (this was done only a few feet from where we sat) and sandwiched between these wee sweet buns. The preserved lemon was chopped fine and mixed into a kind of dressing which was perfect against the lightly salted fish and sweetish buns. I couldn't get enough of these little gems! Being able to finish each little 'burger' in only two bites, these were gone in a flash, so I ordered a 2nd plate. 'S' didn't even get a sniff of that 2nd order. I had polished it off in minutes. As I'm typing this post, I can almost taste it...definitely going back for more when I'm up in Auckland next.

And this is the man behind Depot - Al Brown.

I'd met up with some fellow food bloggers this morning (Jemma, Sasa and Viviane) at Floriditas - Sasa was down from Auckland. Low and behold, who should walk in? And what do I do when I spy the man himself sitting in a corner hunched over his laptop with a cuppa, having some quiet 'me' time? I bug him (of course!) for a photo and rambled on in quite an unintelligible way about Depot and turbot sliders. Sheeesh...

I then proceeded to lord it over 'S', pxt-ing the photo to both his cellphones. 'S' thinks Al is the bees knees you see. Mwuahahaha...

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now. Back to that dental appointment which is going to take me out of blogging for a few days.

So, what's the big deal? What is it that's causing me small heart palpitations alternating with light headedness? I think people call this a mild anxiety attack.

Well, tomorrow (or today if you're reading this on Tues) I get one of my wisdom tooth and another rogue tooth taken out. My dentist assures me that I will be so fully sedated with valium that I wouldn't remember a thing. Every fibre of my being is screaming "YEAH RIGHT"!!

This is me we're talking about - the person who needs up to 7 injections in the mouth just for routine hygiene work to be done. How the hell is valium going to help with a double tooth extraction, one of which is a wisdom tooth that will need cutting out and stitches??!!

I don't like it and I don't want to do it. But I have to. *Actual stamping of foot like a 5-year old*

i'll huff & puff & i'll blow your house down

noreply@blogger.com (Shirleen) — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 02:07:00 +0000

Some of my regular readers know that occasionally, you'd see a post here that's not food-related. That's the '...and All Things Nice' part of my blog.

Some of these have been about songs that I'm obsessed with for that particular time, movies I've seen and more often than not, Cyrus the cat.

This time I'd like to share with you - especially to those who live in other parts of the world or just outside of Wellington - a day in windy Wellington.

This was Monday.

Gales are not a daily or even weekly occurrence in Wellington. But it sure happens helluva more often than other cities and towns here. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that there are some places in NZ that don't ever get gales!

Wellingtonians are so used to the wind that we'd walk out of the house in slippers and shorts, and say that its a breezy day or balmy evening. We're tough like that here. Visitors on the other hand, will be covered from neck to toe.

That's not to say that Wellington is dull and grey. That's London. So we have a tad more wind that some, but when the sun's up, there is no city in NZ that can beat a good day in Wellington.

Here's what Wikipedia has to say about Wellington.

asian beef balls soup with noodles

noreply@blogger.com (Shirleen) — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 05:13:00 +0000

Since coming home from a 3-week holiday in Asia, I've been willing the weather to warm up. To be fair, the weather in Wellington has warmed up from the freezing winter temperatures. But Wellington, true to form, is taking its time schleping towards more summary days.

We had 104km/h winds yesterday. And the thermometer did not go up any further than 10 degrees. You see what I mean.

So as much as I'd like to start planning meals with lots of lovely fresh salad leaves, drizzled with this, that and the other, I find myself heading down the path of tummy warmers more often than not.

However, I have faith that warmer days are around the corner. And there are things to be done before the sunny warm days of summer hits. Namely:

Lose some weight
Tidy up and paint my toes nails
Break out the summer clothing.

Now this year, I'm carrying more than the usual 'winter weight'. It's more like winter weight + eat all I want in Asia weight + eat until I'm about to burst at the conference weight! To help with the mammoth pre-summer weight loss regiment, I've been cooking more vegetarian meals and also soups and casseroles that are lighter than what I had been cooking for winter (thick stews, cream-based sauces, slow-cooked fattier meats, etc).

'S' loves noodles, so I try and cook it at least once a week. Asian style noodle soups are often easy to make and relatively healthy. In fact, you could make this dish as healthy as you want it to be - like using lean mince and udon noodles for example. I've used 'regular' mince here, that is, mince with fat. It's a personal choice.

This really isn't a recipe that I created. It's simply something I throw together often using flavours I'm very familiar with. And if you decide to make this weekly like I do, change it up a bit by using different proteins (beef/pork mince, chicken/duck slices, frozen prawns and squid or tofu), or different types of noodles and just about any type of vegetable will work as well. No fix rules here.

Give it a go and let me know if you like it, or what you did to change it up a bit!

Asian Beef Balls Soup with Noodles

INGREDIENTS
Meat balls:
500g mince beef
2 cloves garlic, grated

1 1/2 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 tbsp sesame oil
1 tsp cornflour
1 tsp ground white pepper

Soup:
Rice bran oil (or any other light tasting vegetable oil, like canola or soya)
10 shallots, sliced (you can use onions if you prefer)
25g ginger, sliced (about 2 fingers length and width)
2 cloves garlic, smashed and roughly chopped
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp chilli flakes (use 1/2 TSP if you prefer it less spicy or omit entirely)
1 bunch of fresh coriander (appx 1 cup), roughly chopped and set aside for later
The stems (near the roots) of the coriander, chopped
8 cups water (you can use stock, but I prefer to keep the flavour of the soup base clean)
2 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 tsp sugar
Salt to taste

Selection of vegetables chopped/sliced - zucchini, carrots, corn, bok choy, asparagus, or whatever you like
Buckwheat noodles - follow cooking instructions on the pack

Use a light hand and quickly mix the mince beef and all other meat balls ingredients together. Don't over mix as I find that it makes meat balls dense and tough.
Cover and put aside for the mince to marinade a little whilst you get on to the soup.
In a large pot, heat some rice bran oil over medim heat and gently fry the shallots, ginger, ground coriander, chilli flakes and coriander stems. Fry until the shallots are soft and lightly browned.
Add the 8 cups of water to the shallots mixture to make the soup.
Bring to boil.
Lower down the heat to medium-low and add the vegetables. Note - if you're using vegetables that cook quickly like bok choy, asparagus or zucchini, add these vegetables in only once the meat balls are almost cooked, in the last 3 minutes of cooking.
Add the light soy sauce, fish sauce and sugar to the soup.
Whilst the vegetables is cooking in the soup, make the beef balls.
Wet your hands and very quickly and lightly again, roll the marinated mince beef into balls and place them on a plate. Damp hands will help prevent the mince sticking to your hands and make it easy to roll. I rolled my beef balls into the size of large Jaffa balls or gobstoppers.
Heat a little rice bran oil up in a fry pan on high and very quickly brown the beef balls. You want only a light brown and sear - not to cook the beef balls through. Once lightly browned, scoop into a bowl/plate lined with kitchen paper and set aside.
At this point, boil some water, ready for cooking your choice of noodles.
Back to the soup - Turn the heat up to medium and add the beef balls into the soup and cook until the beef balls are just cooked. Don't be tempted to cook the beef balls for too long, or else they'll over cook and start to fall apart. So will your vegetables!
Add some salt at this point, to taste.
Whilst the beef balls are cooking, quickly cook your noodles in a separate pot. Most noodles will take only between 3-5 minutes cooking time.
Drain your cooked noodles and divide them into large bowls. Top the noodles with the the cooked beef balls and vegetables - scoop these out without the soup. Then ladle the hot soup over the noodles, beef balls and vegetables.
Top with plenty of fresh coriander and enjoy!

for the love of food {nz's first food bloggers conference}

noreply@blogger.com (Shirleen) — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 00:55:00 +0000

From the moment it was announced that New Zealand would be having it's first food bloggers conference, I'd been telling all and sundry about it. Actually to be exact, telling everyone that moi would be attending NZ's first ever food blogger conference. I'm sure I repeated myself a little more than a couple of times to some friends and family.

Now I've attended a couple of work-related conferences and managed and work a decent few. However, none that I've found myself raving on about. And when the day finally rolled around, it did not disappointment.

As bloggers from around the country started to trickle in, I felt a teensy weensy bit of shyness creeping in - excusable since I've only met a small handful of bloggers in person, that and the knowledge that I was in the company of some amazing bloggers who lived and breathed food more than even I did, who wrote like pros and took exquisite photos. But it didn't take long for that feeling to dissipate. NZ food bloggers are some of the nicest and most inclusive people I know. And before long, we were all chatting and laughing. There was a lot of 'ahhh...so you are so and so'! You see most of us have communicated over Twitter, Facebook and on our blogs. But most use our blog names and not our personal names. It was lovely to be able to put faces to blogs!

There's not much more to say really about the day that hasn't been already said by some fellow bloggers who have blogged about the conference. However if I had to summarise it (not that I haven't already gone on and on, on this post), it was to me, a gathering of kindred spirits who wholly understood the love (sometimes obsession) for all things food-related and the need to share that love on our blogs and with people in our lives. It was a superb day.

The conference venue was hosted by The Tasting Shed - thanks! Unfortunately I don't have any photos of the restaurant or even signage. I was too busy talking to fellow bloggers and taking photos of food! Here are some photos I did take on the day. :-)

Here are some of our speakers - Jaco Swart - Rainbow Cooking (on social media), Alessandra Zecchini (on writing for different media) and Emma Boyd - Our Kitchen (on Fisher & Paykel's blog, Our Kitchen). Andrea Wong of So D'lish was also one of our speakers but I didn't get a photo in - bummer. Andrea spoke on Web Design & Web Optimisation.

Morning tea! You really had to be there to see it - a gaggle of food bloggers clicking away with their cameras around the table. In the world of a food blogger, No food (almost) is EVER consumed before photos are taken. There was a joke floating about that maybe there should be a conference for long-suffering partners of food bloggers. There could be a presentation on how to cope with living with a food blogger, managing rumbly tummies and cold food, and having the dining table taken over with photography props! Maybe even a support group...teeheehee...

And yes, I've decided that a group of food bloggers is a 'gaggle'. Like geese. If you've ever heard a large group of food bloggers together, you'll understand.

More chit chat at morning tea.

The cool kids at the back of the class. L to R: Louise - Pacific Harvest, Sue - Couscous & Consciousness, Sasa - Sasasunakku, Mairi - Toast and Kristina - Plum Kitchen.

Lunch time...

Of all the scrummy food that The Tasting Shed put on for us, I have to say that my favourite was the braised and rolled pig's head. It was melt-in-the-mouth good. Wished I had the plate all to myself!

Q&A session after lunch with Vanessa Opera of Food Opera, Sasa - Sasasunakku, Bron - Bron Marshall and Rosa - The Culinary Explorations of Mrs Cake. Some very lively discussions were had! Why they started their blog, daily number of visitors their blogs get, to make money or not, where to from here...etc etc...

Louise from Pacific Harvest took us through a tasting session of all the different types of seaweed Pacific Harvest offers. The tasting did not only involve the different dried seaweeds, but also the different ways they can be used; in pesto, puttanesca sauce and making healthy snacks (3 different kinds of dried seaweed + slivers of nuts + sesame seeds + honey to combine it all). Who would have thought?! I immediately thought of another way to enjoy this snack - sprinkle over jook (Chinese rice porridge)!

Have you noticed the smartphones and notebooks (i.e. digital not paper) on the table and in many hands? Conference attendees were flooding Twitter with highlights and thoughts throughout the day, me included. Bloggers who weren't able to attend followed our tweets.

Finally it was a workshop on food photography given by Bron Marshall. Bron gave us tips on lighting and styling, which I found very useful. I was so inspired that I went on a prop-hunting (read: shopping!) exercise the very next day. Stumbling on the Retro Fair at Greenland the day after the conference was definitely timely.

The conference also included a wine tasting session at Coopers Creek. However I hadn't taken any photos during the tasting. Was too wrapped up with the tasting to remember. Ooops!

Once the conference was over, most of us drove back into the city for the night's event - a dinner at Cook the Books. Once there, we were spoilt with fabulous food and as the conversations flowed and night wore on, more food was presented. I could barely move after all that food.

Towards the end of the night, people slowly trickled out. Goodnights, hugs and kisses were exchanged, as were promises to visit each other's city/town and future plans made for get togethers. Until next year!!

What a buzz.

A massive thank-you to Allison (Pease Pudding and Gourmet Gannet) for organising our very first food bloggers conference. What an amazing job you did!

Sponsors:

Last but not least, a big thank-you to all our sponsors below:

Annie's
Bell Tea Cuisine Magazine
Cook the Books

Coopers Creek

Gravity Coffee
Gü
Henergy cafe-free eggs
Hubbards
I Love Pies
Kohu Road
Kokako Organic
Loaf Handcrafted Breads
Mad Millie
Mother Earth
New Holland Publishing NZ
Nourish magazine
Pacific Harvest
Photo & Video International
Teza
The Tasting Shed

Whittaker's Chocolate

Links to a few other blogposts on the conference:

Alessandra Zecchini

Bron Marshall
Domestic Executive
Easy Food Hacks
So D'Lish
Pease Pudding
Plum Kitchen
Toast

scrumpdelilicious banana and choc chip muffins, springtime and peonies

noreply@blogger.com (Shirleen) — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 02:54:00 +0000

The peonies are finally in bloom. It's Spring time here in the southern hemisphere. Time for peonies, asparagus, new season potatoes and baby ducklings.

And yes - it's spelt 'scrumpdelilicious' and pronounced scrump-dli-licous. :-)

There are many things I like about Spring - peonies, baby ducklings...did I mention asparagus? But I have to be honest and admit that Spring is actually not my favourite season. As a child growing up in Singapore, I used to think how lovely Spring was and if I lived in a country that had four seasons, Spring would be my favourite. However, 15 odd years in New Zealand has proven otherwise. True that with Spring, comes a riot of colour; flowers and greenery in every hue imaginable and fruits such as strawberries. But by this time of the year, I'd be sooo hanging out for Summer's warmth and sun, that the rain and wind that's characteristic of Springtime where I live, with temperatures that hover at a couple of degrees warmer than winter just doesn't do much for me.

However, I am thankful for Spring. Thankful that for around 6 weeks or so, I get to enjoy my favourite flower of all time, thankful that I get to see wee little ducklings paddling behind their mama (near Chaffers Dock and by Te Papa) thankful that I can once again have my morning porridge studded with fresh strawberries.

And to celebrate my getting-back-to-cooking-baking-and-blogging groove, here are some banana and chocolate chip muffins I made a couple of days ago.

Now these are not just your run of the mill banana and choc chip muffins. This recipe is, in my opinion, the best banana muffin recipe around. I'm over bready and heavy muffins. These ones are moist, moreish and surprisingly light. They are sweet though - more so than most banana muffins. Certainly not for the faint hearted or those watching the waistline. The proportion of brown sugar and golden syrup makes them so. But they make such an oh-so-lovely treat!

For the full effect, I recommend eating them warm, not long after they're out of the oven. If there are any left for later, heat one in the microwave for 10 seconds (a little longer if heating more than one). Trust me - they taste oodles better, warm.

I found this recipe online on the Search for NZ's Favourite Recipe website (Rach's Heavenly Banana Muffins) and tweaked it a little and added chocolate chips to it. And you know what else? This can be a really cheap and economical sweet treat for the kids or visitors. Look out for the stack of cheaper very ripe bananas at your supermarket and buy whatever brand of chocolate chips your budget allows. And if you don't have golden syrup, sub it with honey (warm it so that it's slightly runny and easier to measure out).

It's also a breeze to make - a recipe that ticks all the boxes!

Banana Heavenly Muffins

INGREDIENTS
Dry mix:
1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Wet mix:
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 Tablespoons Golden Syrup
160g butter, melted together with the Golden Syrup
3/4 cup brown sugar (well packed)
2 teaspoons Vanilla Essence
3/4 cup mashed banana
1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 200°C. Prepare muffin tray - I line mine with cupcake/muffin paper cases.
In a large bowl, sift the Dry Mix ingredients together: flour, baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon.
In a smaller bowl, very lightly whisk together the Wet Mix ingredients.
Make a well in the centre of the flour mixture and lightly stir in the wet mixture until just mixed. Do not over mix – mixture should look lumpy.
Spoon the batter into the prepared paper cases - only 3/4 way full, as the muffins will rise a bit.
Bake for about 15 - 20 minutes, until cooked.
Cool for 5 minutes in the pan before removing them onto a cooling rack to cool completely.
Makes approximately 12 medium sized muffins.

feasting in south east asia

noreply@blogger.com (Shirleen) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 12:35:00 +0000

Thought I'd start with a night shot of Singapore. I arrived at 6.40am and by 11pm that first night, I was in Ku Dé Ta, up on the 57th floor of the Marina Bay Sands, enjoying some Kiwi vino (of course!) with a Kiwi expat. And getting very very trollied. I blame my friend and jet lag. This shot was taken as I was hanging over the glass ledge - remember, 57th floor and drunk!

My first few days in Singapore passed by in a blur. I was super busy catching up with friends - friends whom I went to primary school with (appx 30 years ago!) and friends I worked with in various places whom I haven't seen in like 15+ years. So as it turned out, I didn't get too many photos in - was too busy catching up. And to be honest, was so excited about being able to eat so many foods that I've missed terribly that whenever dishes were put in front of me, I only had one thought in mind - EAT!!!

I did finally snap out of my food stupor and was able to take a few photos...

Nonya kuehs (Nonya cakes and pastries) - there are dozens and dozens of different types of Nonya kuehs and these are my maternal grandmother's heritage. I bought a selection from a store called Bengawan Solo, a chain store that specialises in Nonya kuehs. Being a chain store, their kuehs are not the best or most authentic. But when you've been hanging out for these for 6 years (yep, that's how long its been), these chain store kuehs are manna from heaven!

Chilli Crab - look and weep. Yes, I had Chilli Crab. My stepmother asked for a list of foods I wanted to eat when I got to Singapore and this was amongst the top in the list. Just look at it. The magnificence...*wiping off mental drool here*

See the brown balls to the left of the Chilli Crab? Those are fried sweet buns and is what you mop the chilli gravy up with. So simple and yet so genius. Sometimes the buns are steamed, but this time we ordered fried ones. Why go healthy when you're going to indulge in a dish you haven't had for 6 years or so? I say go for it!

The other side dishes we ordered were chinese veg and tofu with prawns and broccoli. These may be simple to look at, but trust me, they were de-li-cious!! The to fu were sitting in this flavoursome gravy and yet the skin on the to fu was crispy and the insides all soft and silky. I love this difference in taste and texture.

After madcap days in Singapore, I headed to Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Here's an obligatory shot of a Thai wat (temple) - taken at a night market.

Chiang Mai had been in recent times in the media for all the wrong reasons - tourists poisoning and deaths, etc. And then there was the flood. In fact, the floods only receded the day before I arrived. Finally enough, when I left Thailand via Bangkok, I left the day before the floods hit Bangkok.

When I got to Chiang Mai, a well-meaning family friend who lives there warned me not to eat at hawker stalls or backlane restaurants - the floods meant that some people may be washing and cooking food in less than hygienic water. That, plus the stories about seafood poisoning amongst tourists in the media, got me a tad worried. Do I eat and risk getting sick? Or do I err on the side of caution?

After...oh, what was a mere few minutes of deliberation, I decided to take the risk and eat. Afterall, I was with my Dad and he frequents Chiang Mai quite a bit due to business. It would be unlikely that he'd take me to some backlane restaurant and expose me to food poisoning. I also had my trusted pack of Imodium. You know, for just in case. :-))

I'm so glad I chose to close a gastronomic eye and plunge in. 'Cos if I hadn't, I wouldn't have these to share with you. Food in Thailand is ridiculously fresh, often a kaleidoscope of flavours in your mouth and absurdly cheap. A food heaven for foodie blogger!

I have NO idea what these dishes are called. The menu was in Thai and we had a Thai friend who ordered for us. I was told however that this amazing spread was Vietnamese-Thai food. Almost every dish came with a different dipping sauce. I'm so in love with all the different types of Thai dipping sauces - such a riot of flavours in my mouth. My favourite dish was the roll-your-own rolls. Love interactive food!

My bestfriend Amanda loves Thai food and one of her favourite dish is Tom Kha Gai (Chicken and Coconut Milk Soup). We've both had this dish in almost every Thai restaurant in Wellington, and we're often disappointed. The broth is often either so watery and insipid that all you're drinking is a bit of flavoured watery coconut milk, or someone's been too heavy handed with the lime, or chilli, or salt. So when I saw Tom Kha Gai on the menu on my 2nd day, I knew I had to have it. Now I'm sure there are some awful Tom Ka Gai served in Thailand, but the Tom Kha Gai Gods must have been smiling at me that night. The broth was just the right balance of sweet, salty, sour and bitter. I believe this is what is termed as umami. Everyone else at the table (and there were only 3 of us) had one bowl each. I happily polished off the rest.

Why am I showing you a plate full of mushrooms, you ask? Well that's because that entire plate of mushrooms only costed NZ$4 and was one of the dishes of fresh ingredients we ordered for out Thai-style steam boat. I've seen Enoki mushrooms (middle of the plate) sold in NZ for almost $10 for only 100g. So you can see how the mushroom fiend in me was absolutely delighted! I was in mushroom heaven...

I personally think it's sacrilegious not to eat Tom Yum Gong at least once if you visit Thailand. Check out the chillis swimming in the one I had! Again, I was the one at the table that polished off most of it. It was very good Tom Yum Gong - serious. Although, I'm more of a Tom Kha Gai fan. But I told you that already, right?

This is simply crispy fried whole fish - scales and all. Strangely enough, once fried to a crisp like this, the scales are rather yummy! It's like crunching on fish crisps. Just about every restaurant will serve this dish. Some with a dipping sauce on the side and some with sauce drizzled over (never drenched).

Now these are what I call PRAWNS. Enough said.

This is something I never let pass whenever I go back to South East Asia. Growing up, this was my favourite fruit. Some of you might recognise it, some of you not. And although you might have not eaten it before, you are likely to have read or heard about this fruit before.

Yes, yes- it's the 'gloriously smelly' (as described by Mika of milliemirepoix) Durian. The following words have been known to be associated with this King of fruits - stinky, strong odour, disgusting, rotten onions, gym socks, stale vomit, etc etc.

However, for the fearless and adventurous - there's no going back once you've had a taste of the flesh that surrounds a Durian seed. It's like the heavens opening. A revelation. Seriously - I kid you not. How do I describe the taste and texture? Well to me, it's the custard-liest, creamiest, sumptuously silkiest fruit pulp, flavoured with hints of almond, rich but not cloyingly sweet (actually some types have a slight bitterness that balances the sweet). If I was allowed only fruit on my death bed, I would have Durian.

Just thought I'd share this with all of you - I visited an elephant sanctuary and by chance, captured this quiet and tender moment between a mahout and his charge.

Oh - and by the way - if you're ever holidaying in Thailand, please try not to go on those tourist elephant rides or pay any attention to the touts with baby elephants on the streets begging. Nor visit elephant parks that feature elephants painting. Why? Well, the internet is full of information on why not. Google some of it. And if you're not convinced, check out some documentaries already posted up on Youtube. Basically - it's not natural for elephants to paint. Nor is it natural for a baby elephant to be WITHOUT it's mother, nor is it natural for it to be walking on the streets begging. Just simply think about the kind of 'training' the elephants get put through, so that they can entertain tourists by painting and allowing themselves to be ridden daily. And think about what methods would have been used to separate mother and baby.

So, please, please. Read up on whether it really is a sanctuary or not, before visiting any animal parks!

And if you're wondring...the sanctuary I visited was the Elephant Nature Park. And here's an article on Huffington Post you might be interested in. :-)

Oh. Those are my feet, relaxing in the hotel spa after my indulgent Javanese massage. Just thought you'd like to know. After leaving Thailand, my next stop was Bintan Island, Indonesia. Which is where I got my Javanese massage.

And that's the hotel and stretch of beach that Brenda (my other bestfriend) and I had our girlie weekend away...err...from my holiday. Angsana Bintan Resort, Bintan, Indonesia. The photo doesn't truly represent the gloriously sunny days we had there - it was taken towards the end of the day, as the sun was setting.

I digress.

Now back to more important things...

Soup Buntut (or more accurately: Sup Buntut) - Indonesian Oxtail Soup. Lip-smacking, drool worthy, can I have more than one serving, kinda dish. Brenda introduced me to this dish. See, that's why I love her and we've been friends for 25 years.

Example of a VERY badly taken photo. But had to share - a selection of different satays wrapped around .... sticks, served with a plate of katupat (rice packed in palm leaves casing and boiled), shallots, the nuttiest and spiciest satay sauce (not a hint of peanut butter in sight - yusss!) and fried lobster rolls. Just a simple entree.

Friends from waaaay back. When I got back from Bintan to Singapore, there was another raft of catch ups with old friends. I've known a few of these girls for almost 18 years and have not seen most for just as long. A few of them have children ranging from 2 to 4 children each. And none of them look a day older than when I first knew them all those years ago! (That's me on the far left).

And if you must know - we had a continuous flow of lychee martini that night. T'was a good night.

And this is the main reason why I was back in Singapore. Brenda married Paul. Have I said that I've known Brenda since I was 15 and Paul since we were 13? Fabulous things do happen to fabulous people... :-) X.

about bleedin time...

noreply@blogger.com (Shirleen) — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 04:22:00 +0000

Yes, yes. I've been M.I.A. for quite some time. Got busy with some contract work I had going on for a couple of months, got busy with getting lazy, got busy with some other personal stuff going on, got busy with organising for a trip to Singapore (for an old friend's wedding) and got busy being on holiday!

Now that I'm back from the bad lands of 'avoidance' - me thinks it's about time I uploaded all that Wellington on a Plate photos I took. Might take a while though...I'm doing that one bit at a time. Memory needs some digging into for commentary! So if you can, please bear with me a little longer. You can start though from reading some of the updates I've recently posted - here.

And once those are all up, I promise you that I'll dazzle you with an array of delectable delights that I had when I was recently in South East Asia. :-)

snow in wellington!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Shirleen) — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 06:12:00 +0000

It doesn't snow in Wellington. Not at least in all the 15 years I've been here.

Today it snowed. And ran around the house, screeching with excitement like a child and snapping gazillion photos.

These were taken with my faithful cellphone, so the snow kinda looks like rain. I've made the photos b&w so that the effect is clearer and more dramatic. But believe me, it was SNOW!

{wellington on a plate 2011} the journey begins

noreply@blogger.com (Shirleen) — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 05:21:00 +0000

Some of you may have been wondering what I've been up to since it's been a month (yes, exactly a month today) that I've posted anything. I've even gotten messages and emails from some of you! Sorry about that - my bad. It's been a combination of being too busy, tired and uninspired. Truth.

But honey...I'm home!!

Thanks to Wellington on a Plate, I've embarked on this awesomely gastronomic 2-week journey of feasting. Which means I'm going to have material coming out of my ears to write about. And boy is it going to be hard to get rid of the additional weight that I just know I'll be piling on - in addition to the usual 'winter weight'! But I can't think of a better way to spend the last miserable weeks of winter.

Here is what's planned/done:

Fri 5^th	Plum	Burger Wellington dinner
Wed 10^th	Duke Carvell's Swan Lane Emporium	Burger Wellington dinner
Thurs 11^th	Osteria del Toro	Three-course Greek tasting menu
Fri 12^th	New Zealand Chocolate Festival	Launch
Fri 12^th	Martin Bosley's	A 3 course lunch at multi-awarded Martin Bosley's
Sat 13^th	New Zealand Chocolate Festival	NZ's first chocolate festival! Demos, tastings and chocolate indulgence
Sun 14^th	Tongue-to Tail Duck Delights	A degustation menu based around the duck at Le Canard
Tues 16^th	A Local Food Story in Three Parts	Cooking demo and food tasting (3 course) at the Urban Harvest HQ
Wed 17th	Martin Bosley's	Burger Wellington lunch
Thurs 18^th	The Southern Cross	Burger Wellington dinner
Sun 21^st	Malaysia Kitchen Night Market

In addition to all this, there's still a very long wish-list, hampered only by finance and time. Damn you budget!! But no, seriously, I am thankful that we're even able to get to do all that's on my list above.

I've set up a separate page on my blog for all my Wellington on a Plate and Burger Wellington 2011 posts. Check out my first post here on chomping down on Plum's 'Plum in a Bun' burger.

curried carrot & lentil soup with minted eggplant

noreply@blogger.com (Shirleen) — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 03:23:00 +0000

So yesterday's post was a bit of a rant about the media harping on about the astronomical prices of tomatoes and capsicum - in the middle of winter. Go figure! And then I put in my two cents worth about food budgeting. So it only feels right to follow that post with one on a carrot and red lentil soup.

Carrots and lentils are cheap at any time of the year. So its easy on the budget. This one has been adapted by a recipe I found on another blog. I made it once exactly like that recipe and then the second time, I changed it a bit and curried the carrot and lentils - not so much that it was overly spicy, but just enough that it say nicely warming my tummy on a cold winter's night. And it's a breeze to make, so pretty perfect for a weekday dinner when you've had a long day at work and don't want to fuss around in the kitchen too much.

Eggplant is expensive right now because it's off-season. But if you can afford it, go ahead. If not, I found that substituting onions for the eggplant worked really well. But you'll need 2-3 onions, depending on their size and cut them into thick-ish slices because they do cook down a lot. The caramelisation of the onions with the mint and paprika works a treat!

And for those of you voracious meat eaters out there - you ought to give this a go. It's a very 'big' and tasty dish, especially if you enjoy a bit of spice kick every now and again. And its pretty filling as well.

This has become one of our favourites at home. Hopefully you'll like it too!

If you want to read my rant on off-season produce and what we do for food budgeting - check this post out.

Curried Carrot & Lentil Soup with Minted Eggplant

Recipe adapted from My Darling Lemon Thyme

INGREDIENTS

Soup:

1 large onion, finely chopped

1/4 teaspoon ground tumeric

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon ground coriander

1 cup red lentils, rinsed well under cold water

2 small carrots, grated

1 large tomato, chopped

2 green chillies, finely chopped

1 cup coconut milk (if you're using coconut cream, use 50g mixed with 1 cup water)

3 cups vegetable stock or water

Juice from 1/2 lemon

2-3 tablespoon light oil (I use rice bran)

Optional additional seasoning*:

2 tablespoon light oil

1 more large onion, finely chopped

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

1/2 teaspoon black mustard seeds

Handful of curry leaves (optional)

Minted Eggplant:

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

1 large eggplant (about 500g), cut into 1cm dice

2 tablespoons salt (sea salt if possible)

2 garlic cloves, crushed

3 teaspoons dried mint

2 1/2 teaspoons sweet paprika

sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Soup:

Heat oil over medium heat and fry the onions until soft (not brown). Add the spices and fry for another minute until fragrant.

Add the lentils, carrots, tomato, chillies, coconut milk and water, and bring to boil. Skim any scum from the surface and lower heat and simmer for about 25 minutes, or until lentils and carrots are cooked and become a soft mush consistency.

At this point, add the cooked additional seasoning* if you're using it.

Add the lemon juice, and salt and pepper to taste.

Additional seasoning:

Heat oil over low heat, add the cumin and black mustard seeds, and allow the seeds to pop.

Add the onion and curry leaves, and fry until golden brown.

Stir into the simmering lentil soup.

Minted Eggplant:

While the lentils are cooking, sprinkle 2 tablespoons of salt over the diced eggplant in a colander. Set aside for 20 minutes in the sink to let the juices run out of the eggplant.

Rinse eggplant well under running water, drain and dry thoroughly on paper towels ( I lightly squeezed the eggplant with the paper towels to help the drying process).

Heat the extra virgin olive oil in a large heavy-based frying pan over medium heat. Add the eggplant and cook until soft and golden - stir often.

Add the garlic and cook for a further few minutes.

Add mint and paprika and cook until fragrant.

To Serve:

Ladle lentil soup into bowls and top with the minted eggplant and drizzle with the paprika stained oil. We LOVE the minted eggplant, so heap quite a lot of it on our soup!

budgeting & expensive off-season produce

noreply@blogger.com (Shirleen) — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 13:50:00 +0000

Curried Carrot & Lentil Soup with Minted Eggplant

There's been a lot of talk in the media about skyrocketing prices of groceries. And in particular fruits and vegetables. Now I'm not the only blogger out there who has written about their feelings on this subject, but I'd like to add my two cents worth.

Now I'm not an economist, accountant or financial expert of any sort. But this much I know - grocery prices have been climbing for a while now and we've felt the pinch even more due to the economic downturn for the last couple of years, an increase in our goods and service tax, and rise in petrol amongst other things. And when you throw horrid winter weather into the mix, prices for certain produce (like off season ones) become rather ridiculous.

On the news tonight, one of the main highlights was how expensive fruits and vegetables have become (a 12.2% rise), contributing to the overall increase of 1.4% in food prices. The fruits and vegetables that they (i.e. the media) chose to use as examples were tomatoes, cucumbers, capsicums and lettuce - all summer produce. We are currently in the cold, wet and windy (gales for some of us!) grasp of winter. You see what I'm getting at, right? So here is what's irritated me - that the media highlighted what most of us already know, but just to make it sound worse and more 'newsy', the more expensive off-season produce were used as examples.

In a previous job, I witnessed genuine despair - children sent to school without breakfast and a parent not being able to put food on the table that night for dinner (there was a frantic ring around by the school principal and a bag of potatoes and other basic foods were collected and donated). You hear about these things and read the stats in the news. And for middle-class me, it was suddenly very real. It was an eye-opener, shocking, humbling and upsetting all at once.

So as I watch the reporter highlight expensive off-season produce and talk about the overall rising grocery prices in the same breath, in the middle of one of the more expensive and high-end supermarket chains in the country, it kinda irritated me a bit. I sat there thinking how in the hell does that help those that are really in need?

I thought about the constant complaints I hear from those who are slightly better off, or those who are better off enough to shop at the more expensive supermarket chains - and I wondered...perhaps better budgeting, some menu planning and even less arrogance for cheaper brands may help? Complaining certainly doesn't. Rocketing prices is not a personal attack and not just a phenomenon that our country is facing - it's worldwide. What about shopping at cheaper supermarket chains or vegetable markets? And how about buying seasonal? Correct me if I'm wrong - but I've never heard of someone dying because they weren't able to eat capsicum, lettuce, tomatoes or cucumbers for the 3-4 winter/cold months!

In our household, there is only one of us earning since I was laid off last November. But we'd probably still be considered middle-class since the one salary coming in is a comfortable one, and there are no children (just a furbaby). However, with increasing living expenses, we've still had to re-look at our food budget. And to be honest, I've not found it too hard to do. Here's our simple and effective (for us) 'formula':

Do a big shop once every fortnight instead of weekly (which we used to do previously).
Only allow a top up of vegetables and fruit for second weeks.
Plan a weekly menu and stick to it. You don't have to spend a lot of cookbooks or foodie magazines. The internet has thousands and thousands of recipes of every dish imaginable - so it's not that hard if you put in a small effort.
Write a grocery list based on your menu - it does help with only buying what you need.
Plan as many weekly meals as possible that can be cooked in bulk and appropriate to take to work the next day for lunch.
Buy vegetables and fruit from the weekend market if it's cheaper than your neighbourhood supermarket.
Try eating less meat - there are loads of interesting, delicious and nutritious meatless dishes on the internet. Try cooking some recipes - surprise yourself!
Buy cheaper cuts of meat - in the colder months it's quite cheap to feed a few mouths with a simple casserole of meat and root vegetables cooked in a slow cooker or in the oven.
If you like fresh green salad leaves - buy just what you need from the loose bin, unless you are certain that you'll be finishing the entire pre-packed bag within a couple of days. If not, the leaves start to go off and its a waste.
If it's not too much of a stretch, give yourself variety by including seafood once a week. Apart from fresh fish, there's also smoked fish - it's pretty cheap to put a fish pie together with smoked fish, vegetables and mash potato (which can be cheaper than pie pastry).
And don't get carried away with thinking that everything from the loose bins are cheaper than packaged products - in my experience it's not always necessarily so!
Don't be arrogant to think that some of the cheaper budget brands mean lesser quality. Some do, but some don't. Try some and you may be surprised.
And it won't kill you to buy cheaper substitutes - for example, use stock cube instead of the more expensive ready-made stock liquids. And if you must cook with wine, unless the quality of your life depends on it or a reputable visiting food reviewer is coming for dinner, buy what's on special.

Because the above works for us, we've been able to allow ourselves treats or home baking every now and again, which doesn't blow our budget out of the water. It has also allowed us to sometimes splurge on one or two more expensive items. We also still eat out or have takeaways, but a lot less than we used to. We now eat out twice and have takeaways twice within a fortnight. And although it's a lot less than what we used to do before, since we still have the occasional treats, eating out and takeaways, we don't feel like we're missing out, or hard done-by.

Now I'm not saying that what works for us will work for everyone. And since we're only feeding two adults and a cat, we don't have the added financial worries that come with having children. But some of the above may help some of you, to some degree. Surely that's better than complaining about the ridiculously priced off-season produce in the middle of winter.

Here's a link to a post on a relatively cheap but yummy and filling soup if you're looking for some ideas!

lasagne - almost like Jamie's

noreply@blogger.com (Shirleen) — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 09:57:00 +0000

I know this is not a plate of lasagne. Its walnut tart silly! To be exact - a walnut tart from Floriditas Cafe and Restaurant in Wellington. I'm not a nut tart kinda gal. But I wanted to share this photo with you 'cos this is likely to be the best dessert tart I've had in a long time. That, and I'm on a bit of a walnut roll and obsession.

Now here's that lasagne - based on a Jamie Oliver recipe and tweaked a little by moi.

Jamie Oliver's recipe uses leftover roast meat, but seeing that I didn't make a roast, I used a mix of minced lamb and beef. The few other times that I've made lasagne, I've only just used a meat sauce. This recipe calls for two sauces: the usual meat sauce (ragù) and...

...a béchamel sauce.

My experience in making white sauces is sorely lacking - I've only ever made the most basic of white sauces with just flour, butter and milk. I've not made white sauce in this way before - the milk delicately infused with the flavours of the onion, flat leaf parsley, peppercorns and nutmeg. So simple and yet so effective! I wanted to know more about the different types of white sauces, so I had a poke around the internet. From what I've read, there seems to be 3 basic types - one that's flavoured with just nutmeg, one that has added peppercorns and bay leaves, and one that uses the classic mirepoix flavours of onion, carrot and celery. It's definitely a sauce that I'll be making (and experimenting with) again, especially with seafood.

There was discussion on whether we'd buy or make the lasagne sheets. And there was discussion on whether the store-bought stuff was any good. Heck, there was even discussion on fresh or dried pasta sheets. At the end, the decision was easy - we'd run out of time to make our own in time for dinner, so it was fresh store bought stuff. It wasn't that bad really. I secretly sighed in relief, especially when the last attempt at homemade pasta produced some very ugly and knobbly pappardelle!

The layering part of the lasagne was easy. It was probably the first time that I made enough sauce for all the layers. Usually, I'm left with too little sauce for the top layer. But this recipe was spot on and it also called for the top to be spotted with some mozzarella and drizzled with olive oil. In the past, my lasagnes have just been topped with good 'ol grated colby or tasty cheese! I got to say, I was well pleased with how it all looked even before it went into the oven.

And I was quite excited about cutting into the layers once it was all done.

The sauce was seasoned just right and although it looked it, the béchamel sauce did not make the dish too rich. I even liked the burnt cheese and burnt pasta at the top and edges. This was perfect winter fare!

Lasagne - almost like Jamie's
Recipe from (tweaked slightly) Jamie Oliver - Jamie's Italy, Lasagne alla Cacciatore

INGREDIENTS
Meat Ragù:
500g mince lamb
350g mince beef
Olive oil for frying and browning
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 sprig of rosemary
3 bay leaves
3 x 400g canned Italian/plum tomatoes (good quality )

White Sauce:
1 litre / 4 cups milk
Handful of flat leaf parsley
Pinch of fresh grated nutmeg
1/3 onion, peeled and sliced
6 black peppercorns
80g butter
65g flour
150g parmesan, grated
salt & pepper

For layering and topping:
Fresh pasta sheets, or make your own
A small knob of butter, to butter baking dish
Parmesan for grating
Mozzarella for topping
Handful of sage leaves
Extra virgin olive oil (good quality)

Preheat oven to 220C.

Meat Ragù:

Heat some olive oil and brown the mince in batches and set aside.
In the same pan, add an extra spash of olive oil and fry the garlic over low heat until lightly browned.
Add rosemary, bay leaves and tomatoes, and cook gently with lid on for about 30 minutes.
Add the browned mince to the mixture and cook further for 20 minutes without the lid - if the sauce becomes too dry, add a little hot water.
Remove the rosemary and bay leaves and put aside.

White Sauce:

Add the milk, parsley, nutmeg, onions and peppercorns in a pot and heat over medium-low heat and bring to boil gently. Remove from heat and strain the milk.
Just before the milk comes to boil, melt the butter in a separate pan and stir in the flour well to make a paste (roux).
Add the strained milk one ladleful at a time to the roux and mix well each time. You'll end up with a thick smooth sauce. Bring to boil and then lower the heat to simmer for 2 minutes.
Take off the heat and stir in the grated parmesan. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Putting together:

Butter a large baking dish.
Cover the bottom of the dish with your pasta sheet, letting them hang over the edges.
Top with some meat ragu, and then some white sauce, followed by a sprinkling of grated parmesan. (Don't be tempted to overload and put too much each layer).
Repeat until you run out of meat ragu - but make sure you have enough white sauce left to cover the top.
When the final sheet of pasta goes onto the top, fold over the pasta from the edges and cover the entire top with white sauce.
Sprinkle with grated parmesan, tear and scatter mozzarella over and scatter sage leaves. Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil and bake for 45 minutes, or until the pasta is cooked and the top golden.

{wellington on a plate 2011} here we come!

noreply@blogger.com (Shirleen) — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 04:48:00 +0000

It's that time of year again. Can you hear it? It's the sound of foodies all over NZ whopping in delight and groaning in frustration.

Wellington on a Plate launched couple of weeks ago and ripples of delight can be seen (and heard) everywhere you go - the people sat next to you at a cafe/on the plane/seat behind on the bus or train planning their mode of attack on which events to go to, all your tweeps twittering about nothing else for an entire week (or more), suits hurrying along the footpaths in the CBD clutching their programmes, lone strangers during lunchtime thumbing through their dog-eared programmes, and gleeful updates on friends' Facebook pages when tickets are secured.

Wellington on a Plate is the most successful (in my opinion) culinary event in NZ. The festival is in its third year and growing in popularity. It's held in the Wellington region but has also successfully attracted people from other parts of NZ. I think that one of the main reasons for its success is that it really does have events that cater for every taste and budget. From $15 set menus through to $325 Masterclass with some of our top chefs, from chocolate tasting to beer tasting, and from a cocktail crawl to blind dining.

For my readers and friends who are not from NZ, go here and find out more about Wellington on a Plate. Who knows? You may be in NZ for some reason between Aug 5-21...!

As for little old excited me, here's what we're going to:

A Local Food Story in Three Parts - cooking demo and food tasting (3 course) at the Urban Harvest HQ.

Tongue-to Tail Duck Delights - a degustation menu based around the duck at Le Canard.

Lunch at Martin Bosley's - a 3 course lunch at multi-awarded Martin Bosley's.

New Zealand Chocolate Festival - NZ's first chocolate festival! Demos, tastings and chocolate indulgence at the InterContinental hotel.

Malaysia Kitchen Night Market - diverse mouthwatering Malaysian food.

There's a whole long list of other events that I'd love to go it, but can't for various reasons...

Blind Dining at Capitol
Tongue-in-Cheek
Foodie Zoo Safari
Behind the Scenes in Two Top Kitchens with Zest Food Tours
Hands on Pastry Making
The Dark Side of Coffee and Chocolate
Wellington Young Chefs Dinner

But who knows? Things could change!

As of 22 June, 21 out of the 80 events were already sold out or fully booked - a week after the festival's launch. So if you haven't bought your tickets or made your bookings yet, don't leave it too late!

{recipe test} mushroom sauce with homemade pappardelle

noreply@blogger.com (Shirleen) — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 13:42:00 +0000

When I started this blog, I really had no idea what I was doing and where it would lead me. Arguably I still don't really know what I'm doing compared to the legion of ridiculously talented foodie bloggers out there. And as to where it would lead me...I think I'm still on that road and haven't yet arrived at any destinations.

What has happened though, is that I've made some new friends. Half of whom I've now met, and the other half I've only communicated online. It's a bit like internet dating! You're initially drawn together based simply on interest (all things food), the first tentative comment left or tweet twittered, then friendly online banter. And like real life, a small handful do actually become friends! (remembering that you can't be friends with everyone you meet).

A little while ago, something else happened. Something that only fellow foodies can truly appreciate I think.

I've been following an Australian food blogger - I like the beautiful, emotive photos he takes and his principles on the fundamentals of understanding where your food comes from and appreciating it (i.e. not just from your supermarket shelf all beautifully packaged). Anyway, I comment on a couple of his posts, and he does the same on mine. The next thing you know, I've been asked if I would like to be one of his recipe testers for his upcoming new cookbook!

I mean seriously. Although we've struck up a friendship due to our blogs, the man doesn't know me from a bar of soap. And I can't bring myself to be arrogant enough to think that I'm that good a cook. So all I can put it down to, is this friendship that has been built around our love for food, that has gotten me this recipe testing 'gig'.

Did I tell you how I did a bit of a victory lap around my minuscule kitchen? Bugger how many visits or comments my blog gets. Making friends and having been asked to be a recipe tester for an upcoming cookbook is better! Sooo much better.

Now I can't list all the ingredients of the recipes I'm testing, but I can show you photos and tell you about my experience making the recipe. I did make my own pasta (for the first time!) to go with the mushroom sauce. Now that I can go into detail. :-)

I wanted to use wild/field mushrooms for this sauce. But do you think I was able to get any? Farmers markets, speciality stores, regular supermarkets...and I came up zilch. Sure, there was 'exotic' mushrooms if I wanted those. But no wild mushrooms to be bought! It was pretty frustrating. So I settled for good 'ol dependable portabello and brown cap mushrooms. I figured that these would give me a certain degree of earthiness that the wild varieties would have.

The recipe was easy to follow - not a crazy long list of ingredients, but just a handful of necessary ingredients to make the sauce taste just right, like fresh herbs and a glug of some quality wine. The end product was this silky creamy sauce with a lovely earthy flavour. And it went very well with some pappardelle pasta.

Apart from gnocchi, I've not made pasta before and thought perhaps it was time to take the pasta machine out of its box and use it for only the second time since it was purchased last December. Making the dough turned out to be relatively easy.

Add these...

...to these...

...a little bit of this (good quality stuff)...

Get your hands into it...

...and work it all into a nice big ball of dough.

After a bit of resting, dividing up into smaller balls and refrigeration, the dough is passed through my pasta maker roller thingy majig.

The harder part of making this pasta was rolling it out through the machine. I have no photos for you of the mound of fresh pappardelle that was laid out on a large baking tray. Reason? My first attempt at pasta making came out all knobbly, uneven widths and thickness - as you no doubt see from the photos of the cooked pasta. Although my pasta was nothing to look at, but once cooked, it had a lovely texture and flavour. The difference between store-bought and homemade pasta is so ridiculously obvious!

But I do have this photo.

My crooked knobbly homemade pasta definitely looks much better when smothered in mushroom sauce.

Pappardelle

INGREDIENTS
2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
1 cup + 2 tbsp semolina flour, plus more for dusting (I use semolina 'fine')

6 large eggs, at room temperature
4 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil

Sift the flours together onto a large work space on your kitchen bench or dining table.
Make a well in the centre and crack the eggs into the well and add the olive oil. (try and make a deep-ish well so that your eggs & olive oil mixture does not spill out and over the mountain on flour).
With a fork, start beating the eggs to break them up. Continue to mix with your fork, bringing in a little flour at a time into the egg mixture. Essentially you're working from inside, out.
Once you've got your flour 'wet', its time to start using your hands. Dust your hands with flour and start bringing in the dough to form a large clump.
Start kneading the dough - push the dough away from you with the heel of your hand, and then fold the dough over itself and turn counter-clockwise. Repeat this kneading action until the dough is smooth and elastic. If the dough starts to stick to your work surface or your hands as you're working on it, dust your hands and the dough with a light dusting of flour.
Rest the dough for 10 minutes and then divide the dough into 2 balls. Flatten the balls of dough slightly, wrap with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
When you're ready to roll out your pasta, take your dough out from the fridge and work on it straight away.
You can role out the pasta into sheets with a rolling pin or the use of a pasta making machine - I used a machine.
Divide each refrigerated 'block' of dough up in half, and flatten the dough a tiny bit more before feeding it through the roller of the pasta making machine. Each time you roll the dough through the machine, adjust your roller back one number/mark, so that the sheet of pasta dough is rolled thinner and thinner with each progression. I needed to feed each sheet through 4 times to get the thickness desired. I also found that a very light dusting of flour (I use a sift) after each roll prevents the dough from sticking to the machine or bench.
After each block of dough is rolled out to a nice sheet of pasta dough, dust the top of the sheet lightly with flour and roll loosely into a cylinder or 'cigar'. With a sharp knife, cut into wide rings of pasta, unroll each ring and dust with semolina and gently toss to separate the strands of pasta.
Place your pappardelle pasta on a large baking tray and if not cooking straight away, cover the pasta with a damp tea towel. Or freeze straight away in freezer bags.
Cook pasta in rapidly boiling water that's been well salted.

spice roast quail with carrot & pine nut stuffing and orange cous cous

noreply@blogger.com (Shirleen) — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 11:09:00 +0000

There is, I must admit, a small eensy weensy obsession with Al Brown in this house. Not stalking, hearts drawn with a cupid arrow kinda obsession. More of a culinary hero worship sort of thing. We follow his blog and tweets, have his Go Fish and Coasters books, watch reruns of Hunger for the Wild, etc.

Every now and again, a recipe will go up on his blog and we'd drool over it. But to be honest, haven't felt that we had enough skills to pull them off at home. Well, not until a recent spice roasted quail recipe.

Now I have to point out that yours truly has never seen a quail alive, let alone dead. And I always thought that it was one of those meats that you had to go shoot for yourself, or a hunting mate do it for you. Didn't have a clue. So one fine afternoon, I thought I'd send Mr Brown a tweet asking him if he got his quails from Moore Wilson. I figured if I didn't get a reply, then I'd just quietly forget about it...

From the photo in this post, you can see that I got a reply!

So off we went to get our quails. I've never been so tickled by a dead bird. I've cooked poussin before but these quails were so...little! Plucked, headless and feetless wee little things. They were borderline comical! Anyway, I was glad each pack came with 4 quails, so there was 2 for each of us.

It was getting late and I decided not to bone the quails as per the recipe. I think if I attempted to do that, 1. I would have butchered it (no delicate boning skills here), and 2. dinner would have been served at 10pm. Now if we were maybe French, 10pm dinner maybe de riguer. But seeing that we're not, I think I would have been pushing it having dinner ready at that time of the night! So as you can see, it was whole instead of boned quails.

I was so intent with getting everything done right that I didn't take any photos during the prep or cooking process. But I did managed to take a few pics of the final product just before serving it up. All in all, I was pretty proud of myself.

The stuffing is out of this world. Seriously. Its like one of the best stuffing recipes I've made. It is a tad bit expensive as it does call for 1 cup of pine nuts. But let me tell you, it's well worth it. I was eating just the leftover stuffing on its own for lunch the next day. I have future plans for this stuffing!

A tip - loose pine nuts from the bins at the supermarket actually comes in more expensive. I bought 2 small pre-packed pine nuts (I think they may have been Pams) which was exactly 1 cup and it cost about $8 total. The pine nuts from the bins came in at almost $12 for the same amount.

Anyway, this is becoming one helluva long post, and since I don't have lots of photos to break it up, I think I should just finish it up soon.

I made everything from the recipe, including the cous cous (that's super yummy too!) and cucumber yoghurt. I also added some broccolini on the side for greens. So if you're looking to cook something special this weekend, or just want to cook something you've not done before, you should look at making this. It isn't a difficult recipe to follow at all and it's sure to impress.

Spice Roast Quail with Carrot & Pine Nut Stuffing and Orange Cous Cous
I won't lay out the entire recipe - you can find it on Al Brown's blog.

Notes:

Moore Wilson sells quails frozen in packs of 4. Since there was only 2 of us, I only bought one pack. But I still followed the exact recipe for the stuffing and cous cous, which was great as we had left over stuffing and cous cous the next day for lunch!
If like me, you haven't boned out the quail, I found that it was easier to stuff the cavities by pipping the stuffing in because the quails are so small and cavity opening not very wide. Just place the stuffing into a medium-large zip lock bag and snip a small opening at one corner of the bag to make an impromptu pipping bag.