Cooking Eating Storytelling
Coriander Egg Curry … Here is a quick-ish meal that is delicious and full of flavours that can be made as a side dish to go along with a buffet of Indian meals or eaten on the couch with some rice or a scallion pancake for dipping.
Enjoy – Blondie 🙂
Wild Mushroom Mini Arancini or mini deep fried mushroom rice balls for the uninitiated are such a great food to have on hand in the freezer.
Not only are they a great ‘fast food’ to pad out a salad but they are also fantastic to have for emergency nibbles when friends or family pop around.
This volume makes about 60 arancini but this will depend on how big or small you make each ball. To freeze the remaining arancini you simply take the recipe up to the breadcrumb coating stage and then place them on a lined baking tray so they aren’t touching each other and freeze overnight. You then place them into a ziplock bag till required. Cook them from frozen, do not defrost.
Serve them with a garlic aioli and a harissa paste or similar spicy, hot sauce.
… would love to be serving these out of a food truck. You know what they say, put the wish out there, the dream may come true – Blondie 🙂
Roast Vegetable Salad w/ Black Sesame Gomasio is a scrumptious salad that is on high rotation at our house. This salad is chock full of flavours and textures that will appeal to everyone… there’s the creaminess of the avocado, the zing and bite from the pickled beetroot, sweetness and softness the from the roasted vegetables, a mild earthy bite from the brussel sprouts, then dressed with a salty sesame seed sprinkle.
As a family we are currently into week 3 of our new lifestyle of going meat free every second day; one day on, one day off. I enjoy the challenge of coming up with delicious meals that will appeal to an almost 10 year old son, a hubby and myself. I’m very fortunate though that hubby regards salads as a dinner, I can happily serve a big plate of leaves and colourful additions knowing that it will sate his evening appetite … but man cannot live on salads alone, and most certainly not a 10 year old boy!
One trick that serves us all well at dinner time  – especially since it’s now winter is to make a couple of dishes to go with it, such as a Potato Dauphinoise – this adds a real comfort food element to this salad (or any salad for that matter) with it’s warm, soft, creamy and cheesy potato layers, or a Broccoli and Cauliflower Mac’n’Cheese.
Another trick is to have some emergency foods ready to use at a moments notice such as mini Wild Mushroom Aranchini Balls, meat free dumplings or potstickers. Make a big batch of them when you do actually make them, then freeze. This way you can pull out what you need when you need them. Have them reheating while you make up the salad.
This ain’t no rabbit food, enjoy! Blondie 🙂
Carrot & Ginger Cake w/ Pineapple Flowers is a cake I designed for Mother’s Day. Yes, this post is a little late for this years Mother’s Day but lets think of it as getting in early for next year and it doesn’t even need to be just for Mother’s Day, this cake can fit all types of celebratory occasions. What could be more occasional than edible flowers strewn across the top of a delicious carrot cake? It looks impressive and tastes divine.
Designated with doing a dessert I knew instantly what I was going to do. The cover of the April’15 Gourmet Traveller magazine had a picture of what I originally had thought was a hummingbird cake, but on closer inspection realised it was in fact a carrot cake, a deliciously moist looking layered cake that I knew would be the perfect platform for some edible flowers and crunchy nuts, which I had been eager to do for quite some time – not unlike a hummingbird cake.
I’m not a cake construction type person so if I can pull it off, anyone can (and I was so impressed with myself, which is why the following paragraph is all about how fabulous a job I did)
Once completed and placed on a rightfully deserved pedestal it was a breathtaking piece of sweet art. I had achieved what I had planned to do and that was to deliver a beautiful looking centrepiece for mum and nana for Mother’s Day. Now I fear I may have set a benchmark to what could be years of trying to one-up myself.
There are alot of steps in the preparation of the cake but you start doing elements of it in the days prior so you aren’t rushed off your feet; the candied nuts and flowers can be done before hand.
Happy whichever day it is you are celebrating… Blondie
Wow, what a busy time it has been for Bella and I. We’ve been so busy getting other projects for FinSki’s off the ground (more information on these later) that we almost lost track of time and let Autumn fly by without a tour!
We’ve been out several times this year to both the Southern Highlands and Oberon areas, enjoying the serenity that being in the forest brings – well, as serene as it can be with a dog that just loves to roll in wombat poo and having the kids trying to get him to jump in muddy puddles so he can get clean (eau de wombat pour chien)… anyway, the serenity between those moments is magical.
We decided to host a tour on the 17th of May and not surprisingly it booked out in a heartbeat. Friend and amazing photographer Sie Kitts, joined us and beautifully documented the day for our photo journal…
Mushroom tour May 2015
On a brisk and sunny morning the group all met up at Pheasants Nest at 8:00am. Once we had all arrived and introductions were made, we headed off to the forest. An eerie, ghostly fog lay close to the ground as we headed in.
On arrival at our first stop, there’s a brief rundown on the mushrooms we will be foraging for and then it’s on, everyone heads into the forest for their own unique experience of foraging.
Continue reading “Mushroom tour May 2015”
Preserved Lemon, Fennel & Cumin Marinade, is one of those workhorse recipes that can be used with anything from red meats to chicken, even brushed over vegetables for an extra flavour boost when grilling. But for me, it is when it’s partnered with pork that it really shines.
There really is nothing more to say as it really does stand on it’s own and will most definitely be one that you will return to over again.
Enjoy, Blondie 🙂
Pine Mushroom & Pork Pot Stickers… Dumplings have always held a soft food spot to my stomach, and luckily for me they are found in most countries around the word in some form or another – ravioli, ebelskiver, pierogi, gyoza or samosa just to name a few.
These pot stickers are one of my favourite dumplings with the crusty, browned base and the soft, velvety top. What happens inside almost takes second place to the perfectly cooked skin.
These pot stickers can be eaten straight up, but IÂ choose not to flavour the filling too strongly with seasonings so as to keep the flavour of the mushrooms. The flavour boost comes in the form of the dipping sauce. This is where you can go wild with flavour, maybe having several different sauces to dip into.
Happy dipping! Blondie 🙂
