Finding Feasts | Cooking Eating Storytelling

Mushroom Risotto with Tomato & Chicken

FinSki's Mushroom Risotto 1 — Click on image for delicious recipe

I was given a set of the these beautiful Williams Sonoma Harvest Botanical dinner bowls by Carolyn, my Managing Directors wife for Christmas. Each bowl is carefully decorated in earthy autumn colours with forest fungi, ready for the picking. Portuguese Artisans then finish off each bowl by painting its underside a royal purple. Simply gorgeous.

Naturally, these beautiful fungi bowls had to be filled with a dish that complemented their beautiful craftsmanship, so mushroom risotto it was!

I love risotto. Sure I have had my fair share of disastrous results but how else are you supposed to learn from your mistakes? I love the labour intensive process that is required to produce the end result, watching each rice grain meld with butter and stock to produce a rich, hearty and warming goodness.

If like me you are a fan of this laborious cooking process, then you will absolutely enjoy this hilarious Thermomix risotto review. The Katering Show‘s Kate McLennan and Kate McCartney are fantastic!

Back to the matter at hand! My risotto and beautiful bowls. I am quietly pleased at the risotto results and I think the bowls are amazing.

Love risotto? What’s your favourite?

Bella

BellaLeave a comment

Coriander Egg Curry

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 🙂

BlondieLeave a comment

Wild Mushroom Mini Arancini

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 🙂

BlondieLeave a comment

Roast Vegetable Salad w/ Black Sesame Gomasio

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 🙂

BlondieLeave a comment

Vertical garden from a wooden pallet

Ask my father and he will tell you that growing up I hated anything to do with gardening. I hated our garden with a passion. It probably didn’t help that mum and dad forced my brother and I to weed the backyard lawn with hand weed pickers! A very mundane and long task! It was a weekend chore that was the cause of many tears and arguments, mainly over me trying to get out of the weeding. The lawn had to be spotless and weed killer free!

Back then I didn’t understand what all the fuss was about with growing your own vegetables, fruits and herbs. To me it was so much easier to just get it from the shop.

Fast forward 25+ years and the tide has changed. I dream of one day owning a little plot of land out in the country. One that boasts a lush vegetable and herb patch. For now though I have to settle for a house with a small courtyard.

Living 10 minutes away from the city has its positives and negatives. Great restaurants are within walking distance. Parking is a bitch, every day! Living in a townhouse means that my ability to have a garden is very limited. What small outdoor area we do have contains a BBQ, outdoor setting and our fire pit (a must in autumn and winter!) The remaining floor space is occupied by Ti our cat and Spot the bunny rabbit. Both furry four legged animals have taken it upon themselves to claim what available land we have left and use it for their toilet needs. Not the compost I had in mind!

The idea of having a vertical garden came to me some months ago when Spot demolished some wild strawberries we had growing in the garden. I started to research balcony gardens and came across vertical gardens designed from wooden pallets. Yipee! With plenty of free pallets around in Sydney my vertical garden came alive last weekend.

It took 6 hours in total. Hubby built the leg support stand but was retired from service when he tried to staple with first weed protector sheet to the pallet, not up to the standard.

I am proud as punch of my achievement. My legs and arms were a little worse for wear a few days after but I now have a little small thriving garden. It will be interesting to see what vegetables and herbs grow best over the coming months and can’t wait till my first harvest.

Ps…If you are short on space in your yard Milkwood have written a lovely story about Best Edible Plants for your vertical garden. Lots of useful information and handy tips on setting up your own garden.

If you have a vertical garden I’d love to hear from you.

Bella 🙂

Bella2 Comments

Carrot & Ginger Cake w/ Pineapple Flowers

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

BlondieLeave a comment

Mushroom tour May 2015

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” →

Blondie2 Comments