Polkadots and Chopsticks

February 21st, 2012

According to the great almighty Wikipedia, Pancake day or Shrove Tuesday is linked to Easter. Traditionally known as the day for eating pancakes before Lent. There are all sorts of crazy things that go on to celebrate this day, like pancake races. You know those egg on a spoon races you did as a kid? It’s like that. But with a pan. And a pancake. I hope they get to eat it at the end!

I’m not religious in the least but a day for eating pancakes? I’m so there! I urge everyone to go out today and find pancakes! Eat lots of pancakes!!

There is nothing that my work colleagues love more than chocolate. If I’m baking something to bring in to share, the request is always chocolate.

So chocolate crêpe cake for pancake day it is! Yay!

Now I’ve been attempting the age-old “I’m going to eat healthier” goal. So I added some fruit. Hey its a start right?

Chocolate ~~Crepe~~ Thin Pancake Stack-Like-Cake

For the crepes:

Recipe found here! Taste.com is such a great resource for a quick solution!

For the filling:

2 x punnets blueberries

125g extra light cream cheese

1 x tsp fresh lemon juice

- Blend together in a mixing bowl until well combined.

And a bit of chocolate ganache for good measure!

Step one. Put crêpe down. Step two. Spread on ganache. Step three. Put crêpe on top. Step Four. Layer of blueberry mixture.

Repeat from Step one! Top with fresh blueberries!

Simple, delicious and slightly healthier then the other option of chocolate on chocolate with extra chocolate lol!

Are you going to hunt down some super pancakes today? I’d love to hear about them, if you’ve found some secret treasures during your day!

Peace out!

Tags: cake, pancake day
Posted in Categories: cake > dessert > easy | No Comments »

February 7th, 2012

Oh this week has been so long. And it’s only Tuesday!

We had a couple of guests for the weekend though, my Axey’s sister and her boyfriend crashed for a couple of nights before they flew out to Thailand for their holiday. Lucky things!

I like to introduce people to new foods so we dined on Japanese Shabu Shabu. Couple of mishaps, I burnt three of my fingers putting the noodles into the electric wok (which I thought was off.) Made things a bit difficult to eat with one hang covered in aloe vera, ice and tea towels!

Dinner was a success though. Great tasting food that everyone can cook to their liking and socialize at the same time. Best thing about it – it stops you from eating too fast! Such a westerner problem.

For four people with leftovers for two the next day:

2 x packets of thin sliced beef. I’m not sure on the exact weight as they were from the asian grocer in Dee Why, Mao Sheng (opposite Woolworths)

3 x finely chopped shallots

1 x roughly chopped leek

1/2 x packet of Soyco Japanese flavoured Tofu

1 x 400g can of bean sprouts (you can use fresh or canned, personally I actually prefer canned)

1/2 x packet of Enokitake (long, thin white mushrooms. Can be found in the fridge section at asian grocers)

2/3 x packet of Hikaru soba noodles, these can be purchased from Coles and Woolies

For the broth:

2 x sheets of dried kombu (I believe this can be bought from Coles and Woolies now as well, at least in Sydney in the asian section. Otherwise asian grocers will have it)

2 x litres of water

1 x teaspoon white miso paste

1 x teaspoon soy sauce

2 x tablespoon sake

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Categories: beef > dinner > easy > japanese | 3 Comments »

January 31st, 2012

Okonomiyaki. Just saying the word makes me smile.
Known as a “Japanese pizza or pancake” its my favourite dish to whip up quickly on a weekday for dinner.
A layer of crunchy cabbage cooked in a light batter, topped with bacon, shallots and Chinese sausage. Smothered in Bulldog sauce and a little bit of Kewpie mayo. Yummo!

Oh and can’t forget the fried shallots! Sprinkle them everywhere!!

The recipe I work from is here at Okonomiyaki World. It’s a great site showing variations on the batter, toppings and healthier substitutes for ingredients.

Making it a short one today. Rather distracted with gaming and books! Currently reading the third book in the Game Of Thrones series, which is awesome! Taking a bit of time to play some old school Guild Wars and Age of Empires II. Don’t judge me! They’re classics!

But to the topic at hand. Okonomiyaki. Awesomely easy to pronounce – unlike the english language, what you see is what you get! And awesomely easy to make!

Whip it up next time you entertain and your guests will think you’ve worked yourself to the bone to make such a great meal lol.

Peace out all! Have a great day!

P.S – My awesome Axey has published his new apps on the Android market! So proud! Check it out for your tablet or phone.

The cat one is awesome addictive fun, especially fun to anyone who has seen the eHarmony cat lover video!

Posted in Categories: easy > japanese > main meal | 3 Comments »

January 20th, 2012

Aloha! This week has been hectic. Food blogger picnic on the weekend, new BBQ to cook on, busy at work, got sick. I think that sums it all up!

Although I have tried a couple of new items this week that I haven’t had before.

Haloumi – rather salty but nice in the right meal I think. Lychee – strange but sweet! Going to give it another go.

The picnic was awesome. Although it did take me 2 hours to get there when it should normally take 40mins. Nice one closing the Harbour bridge on me like that, thanks Sydney!

Got there alright. Eventually found a group of people with lots of food, so I assumed I was in the right place. Stood around feeling a bit like an odd turkey for a while but then people talked to me! Conversation! And there were plenty of other people who were popping their food blogger meetup bubble. Yay!

Wore my usual polkadot getup – polkadot fingernails, polkadot top. No forgetting who the polkadot girl is!

Met quite a few people. Wish I could remember who was who better. Think I might need to start using one of those memory brain trainer programs.

I know there was one person, who was from the Northern Beaches as well that had mentioned a really good Japanese place in Balgowlah…I really wish I could clearly remember who that was, because I’d love to know the details and catch up for a meal sometime lol. (So if you’re that person, maybe send us an email? Please?) I know I didn’t imagine it! I swear!

I didn’t take as many shots of the food as I probably should have, I was more focused on getting in there and trying all the gorgeous looking food. There were two paella! Two!

As well as homemade marshmallows, mango konnyaku jelly, pandan cupcakes, ginger and cream cheese cupcakes, mini quiches, mini kofta, fairy bread, stuff wrapped in bacon and much much more. As well as a pop up bar! I couldn’t drink as I was driving but I heard great thing about the cocktails – great and very alcoholic things!

And I must apologise. I seemed to have missed photographing my own creations! I know, it’s really unforgivable. But I will remake them at a later date and post the recipes up!

Simon - TheHeartOfFood, Christie - CookingCrusade

I made cute mini “Minny’s Chocolate Pie” from the book and film The Help (read it, watch it. It’s good!) and Aniseed pork in crispy wonton cases. Everyone seemed to really like the aniseed pork, its been a recipe in my family for generations!

There was so much food! Surprisingly enough we couldn’t finish it all. I’d made 4 chocolate pies in practice for Saturday, so I really didn’t want to take any home. I ended up giving them (and the container lol!) away to the lovely boys from Up For A Feed.

Paul - UpForAFeed, Lola - Figs&Brie, Joseph - UpForAFeed

All in all, I’m not the most social person. I get awkward and have moments where I really just can’t think of anything to say that anyone else would find interesting.

But I’m really happy I went. Met a lot of amazing people and have add a whole new collection of blogs to my daily reading list. Great to put faces to names to blogs.

And I hope to see more of you all in the future!

Shanshan - Foodisourreligion

For more great photos and posts on the picnic, Chocolatesuze has a complete list of the bloggers attended and at the bottom links to other blogs that have posted on the picnic as well. And a great huge thanks to Helen from Grab Your Fork and Chocolatesuze for organising such a great event!

Peaceout all! Hope your workday goes uber fast!

Posted in Categories: chocolatesuze > food blogger meetup | 18 Comments »

January 10th, 2012

Perfect smooth macchiato from ChillBar, Dee Why

My beautiful other half suggested we go out for dinner. As in eat out, at a location. Not at home.

It’s something we very rarely do as we’re both a bit on the antisocial side and we enjoy the comfort of our own home where we can relax and unwind. But its always great to change things up a bit!

With our hearts set on Japanese cuisine, we headed off to Dee Why and cruised the Strand. Just off a side street next door to Whitewater Grill we found Ocean Sushi, no bigger then a hole in the wall.

With a real Japanese greeting by the sushi chef behind the counter, we had great hopes of the food being authentic and delicious. We ordered two entrees to share and a bento box each for take-away. Roughly 15min which was expected.

While waiting we sipped on our drinks. Normal good ol Ginger Beer and a bottle of Ramune.

Ramune from Ocean Sushi, Dee Why

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Posted in Categories: Uncategorized | 7 Comments »

January 4th, 2012

Happy New Year all! Little bit late I know, but we spent our holiday with the relatives and its near impossible to use the intertubes out there. But I’m back the first chance I’ve had so I must get points for that right?
Its a beautiful area, 10 mins from the closest town and a nice bit of land. Nice to get away from the city every now and again.

I did alot of sleeping over the short break. Sleeping, reading and eating. (Currently reading the 1st book in the Game Of Thrones series, I highly recommend it!)

There was an abundance of food so I didn’t really do any cooking while away. Roast lamb, roast pork, roast turkey, salads and coleslaws, puddings and trifle. Oh me oh my I think I gained some weight! haha.

I’ve never really been one for ‘New Year’s Resolutions’. I just never saw the point of it when I was younger, I’d forget a couple weeks down the track anyway!

But this year. This year I have a few goals I wish to achieve.

1. Lose some weight, or at least tone up a bit.
2. Eat more variety of food (I understand this counters the first goal a bit, but hey! I love food!)
3. Try cooking a whole fish in the BBQ (Got a massive new BBQ from the in-law-parentals for Christmas, lots of plans for it!)
4. Work on my baby blog. It’s coming along, we’re getting there
5. Go away for a holiday
6. Have more people around for dinner, lunches etc. Entertain more.
7. Eat healthier
8. Stress less about work? That’s an every day resolution, not so much a new year resolution.
9. Go out dining more. So many places close by, but so lazy. Din Tai Fung, Jamie’s Italian here I come!
10. Lucky last. Be more motivated. (Code for: Be less lazy!)

Looking at those, they’re not huge things to achieve. But isn’t it best to work up from there? Don’t aim to high yadda yadda right?
It’s something. It’s a list of goals. It’ll keep me going.
One thing I’m going to have to work on straight away, is my social anxiety issues. Once you get to know me, I’m loud and I speak my mind.
But that takes a while….I’m very shy around new people. The invite came through for the Sydney Food Blogger Meetup. I’m so frakken excited! But without knowing anyone and it being a social situation….it could be interesting. Interesting in the way that I’ll be a bit split personality until then, half of me is running around all excited and trying to plan what to wear and what to cook, the other half is curled up in a ball squished in a cupboard thinking about all the awesome people that will be there and I’ll do something to make a fool of myself. Maybe trip over something and fall on a cake (it’s not unlikely, I’m rather clumsy) Or just curl up in a corner on my picnic blanket with a box on my head, a bit like “If I can’t see them they can’t see me?” lol.

I’m going though. I’m sure everyone is extremely nice and not scary monsters at all like people were back in high school or anything lol.

Enough with the crazy. Look! I got “Heston Blumenthal At Home” for Christmas!
He would have to be close to my favourite celebrity cook. Knowing that he can get to where he is in life without any professional training in food, just amazes me and fills me full of hope and motivation. It’s really a “you can do anything if you put your mind to it” type feeling.
Love it. Anyone who has seen his show, Heston’s Feast, will know what kind of fantabulous creations this man makes.
Don’t fret though, this cookbook is plenty friendly to the average home cook like me. I’m already planning to give his recipe for Triple Cooked Chips a go, and ice cream made with dry ice. It looks amazing!

So I hope you all out there had a great Christmas and looking forward to some good time in 2012!
I’d love to hear any of your New Year’s resolutions, I’m sure they’re a bit more exciting than mine! lol

Peace out!
XX

Posted in Categories: Greetings > Uncategorized | 14 Comments »

December 21st, 2011

You know what I love? Ice cream.

And you know what’s better than ice cream? Maple Chocolate and Bacon ice cream.

And you know what’s better than that? Maple Chocolate Bacon ice cream with pancakes.

I know. It’s a bit of a mouthful of a flavour name isn’t it? But it is what it is.

And by god I’m proud to say it tasted awesome. My dear Axey was rather skeptical pretty much until he tasted it. The thought of bacon in ice cream didn’t quite sit right with him lol.

Using my brand new Pink Cusinart Ice Cream maker that I won from Wholesome Cook‘s giveaway a few weeks back, I set myself to make my very first ice cream.

I used a basic vanilla ice cream recipe which was in the little recipe booklet that came in the box (thank god! because honestly I didn’t know where to start!) and tweaked it accordingly.

First step: Freeze the “freezer bowl” for 12-24hrs.

Ice cream mixture

Ingredients:

1 & 1/2 cups light milk

600ml thickened cream

2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste

1 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup maple syrup

To complete ice cream:

3 Rashers of Bacon, finely diced

Chocolate fudge sauce (or equivalent)

In the bowl of your mixer, combine the milk and sugar until the sugar is dissolved. About 1-2 minutes.

Stir in the thickened cream, vanilla and maple syrup. Depending on how rich you want the maple flavour you might want to tweak the amount of syrup.

Put the bowl containing the mixture in the fridge while you prepare the bacon.

Using a medium fry pan with a lid works best, cook the bacon until very crisp. If I had cooked mine for maybe 30 seconds to a minute longer it would have been charcoal and useless.

But you definitely want to make it as crisp as possible for maximum effect!

Mmmm Crispy!

Drain the bacon on paper towel and soak up as much moisture as you can. You’ll now want the bacon to cool down completely before adding to the ice cream.

I cheated a bit and chucked mine in the freezer for rapid coolness!

Remove the bowl with your mixture from the fridge and set by your ice cream maker. Grab your “freezer bowl” from the freezer and put it on your machine.

Turn the ice cream maker on and pour your cream mixture into the freezer bowl and let mix for about 20-25 minutes or until thickened.

In the last 5 minutes pour the crispy crunchy bacon bits into the freezer bowl, then 2/3 cup of chocolate fudge sauce drizzled in slowly.

The ice cream will end up soft and creamy. Transfer to an air tight container and freeze for 1-2 hours for a firmer ice cream.

Churn my pretty! Churrrrnnnn!!

Enjoy on pancakes, toast, biscuits, waffles or just straight out of the container! I love my new ice cream maker and I have a feeling we’ll be great friends…once the weather cheers up a bit!

Would you be game to try such a concoction? Or have you created something just as unusual but awesome?

Hey I’d even take a challenge! If anyone has some crazy tasty ideas for an ice cream flavour send us a line or a comment! I’ll give (almost) anything a go! Seafood in ice cream is where I draw the line though guys!

Peace out and Merry Christmas!

Tags: ice cream
Posted in Categories: dessert > easy > homemade > sweet | 6 Comments »

November 30th, 2011

We’re boozing on up, we’re boozing on up! Nothing can stop me!

So I tried. I reaaaally tried to follow the recipe to the tee. But I couldn’t! It’s like against my programing or something.

But the Christmas Pudding recipe over at Exclusively Food is amazing, and I’m sure if I had followed it completely it would have been just as amazing to look at.

Shopping for the ingredients I even wrote everything down to the exact gram I needed. The pro-budget shopper in me couldn’t stick to it.

Searching for raisins…sultanas….mixed peel….ooo! What do we have here? A packet of mixed fruit? Sultanas, raisins, mixed peel already together? And a quarter of the price opposed to buying 3 different bags of each? Perfect!

I know, it doesn’t seem like that big of a difference. But I didn’t check that the packet I picked up (which was quite a large mix, I think 375g?) was enough to make up for the 3 separate weights. Not to stress! I still had to get a packet of dried dates and glace cherries.

The dried dates were about 200g, and I ended up adding the packet of glace cherries which were about 200g as well. Bit more than the recipe called for.

Chucked all the fruit in a bowl, realised the bowl wasn’t big enough, switched it to a bigger bowl then added the 2 and a half tablespoons of brandy….

Thinking to myself “Hmmm…I think it needs a bit more…don’t think its coated enough, maybe because of my funny changes to the amount of fruit. ”

Little tip of the bottle….SLOSH! Ah well. What’s a little booze at Christmas time right?

My first time steaming a pudding and I think it went pretty darn good!

I hope everyone is getting stuck into their Christmas baking! Many more treats to come!

Peace out all!

Posted in Categories: christmas | 7 Comments »

November 23rd, 2011

Welcome one! Welcome all! Do you like my new home? Isn’t it cosy?

This weather sure is cosy sort of weather. Wish I was at home under a doona watching a movie with a hot chocolate!

I thought it was time to stop living with the dinosaurs, put away my knitting and modernize a bit. You’ll see to the right there’s a section with flashy new gadgets – I believe these are what all the cool kids are using these days, if you click on them I think its a good thing!

There’s still a few gizmos to work on slowly but hey! Rome wasn’t built in a day! And I couldn’t keep it contained any longer so I hope you’ll all enjoy the new look.

Feels a bit wrong, a bit dirty to have a post and not feature any food. While umming and arring about what would look great up here I was actually eating this!

Miso soup with udon noodles and tofu. Perfectly yummy on a cold dreary day.

Unfortunately I think I would have been better off staying in the office for lunch. Is there an eye test for depth perception? I swear that’s my problem.

I swear that trolley bay came out of no where and beat up my passenger side back door…..not convincing enough? Damn.

These things happen right? No point getting upset about spilt milk or a dint in your car when it was your own fault lol. It just give the car…character? Yeah lets go with that!

Ah well. I’ll just go back to my miso soup and pretend nothing happened. Just check out the new blog look and find calmness in the polkadots!

Peace out! Have a great winter’s day out there!

Posted in Categories: Uncategorized | 6 Comments »

November 8th, 2011

The room is silent, a single cough echos along the walls to where I stand.
I look at the papers in my hands, nervous as a wreck.

“Hello everyone, my name is April and I’m a Perfectionist”

In front of me I have scrawled notes in point form.
1. I took a whole day off work to create a cake
2. People point it out to me that I should be happy with what I’ve created
3. It always tastes good in the end
4. I cried because the cake didn’t look how I wanted it to.

A meeting for Perfectionists sounds right up my alley.
I’d be the last person to admit to the whole world that I cried over a cake. But a fact is a fact.
Whether it’s creating a cake, crumbing fish, making a simple coffee or cutting up vegetables – I’m a perfectionist. I actually made this cake a few weeks back but its taken me this long to love it a bit.

Close your eyes…wait. That won’t work. You can’t read the description AND close your eyes to imagine it.
Silly me. Let’s start again. Picture this:

Delicate and fluffy white chocolate cake sandwiched with layers of fresh raspberry mousse and berry buttercream. Covered completely in more berry buttercream with a disc of fresh raspberry jelly sitting on top. Cover the entire thing in perfectly smoothed homemade white marshmallow fondant.
Top with fresh raspberries and marvel at the wonder!

Tip #1: A jelly layer isn’t really a great idea when the cake has to travel. Kinda melts a bit!
Tip #2: I wouldn’t recommend a Jelly layer beneath a fondant layer. You see, when you put the heavy fondant on top of jelly…everything starts to…slide off. Especially when I didn’t make the marshmallow fondant ahead of time to let it firm up in the fridge.

The recipes I used were definitely not to blame, but maybe were not the best choices for what I had imagined.

The white chocolate cake recipe found here from Exclusively Food.
The Buttercream was loosely re-created from My Recipes
And the raspberry mousse I loosely used this one from Hungry Happenings
Every recipe I use, I use loosely. I’m a perfectionist but I don’t really measure while cooking?
I know, I confuse me too…

Although it wasn’t the most beautiful thing to look at from the outside, the inside looked alright.
The beautiful fresh raspberry taste was there, I would have liked a stronger tasting white chocolate cake but its a bit difficult with white chocolate. It also came out a lot denser then I was expecting!

So taking the day of work to make a magically farewell cake for a woman at work ended up more stressful than I imagined. The fondant just kept ripping and the jelly was melting – thought it was only fair that I got to melt for a bit too! lol

I don’t always have a great day in the kitchen, as I’m sure everyone can relate to.
If only I could learn to be a little less gun-ho at everything and a little more patient and accepting of however it comes up when I’m finished I would be in the kitchen even more!
Do you have any secrets you’d like to share to keep calm in the kitchen? Or any disaster stories that you can laugh about now? I’d love to hear them!

At least I can assure everyone this will not be my last cake.
And on another note of upcoming goodies, I won the pink Cuisinart Ice Cream maker from the giveaway at Wholesome Cook! Jump on over there and check out all the jellyrific creations from October’s challenge!
I can’t wait until it arrives! I have some amazingly quirky ice cream inventions up my sleeve for this scorching summer we have around the corner!