Sunday, December 03, 2017

Weekend Cooking: Pineapple Fridge Tart

Pineapple Fridge Tart Recipe



Crust Ingredients:
1 packet of tennis biscuits ( crushed )
100g butter (melted)
Method:

Crush the biscuits or whiz them in a food processor until broken. Add the melted butter and blend very briefly until just mixed through.

Scrape the mixture into the prepared dish and spread out. Work the crumbs up the sides of the dish and flatten with the back of a tablespoon. Put in the freezer for 10-15 minutes to firm while you prepare the filling.

Filling Ingredients:
1 tin of condensed milk
125ml ( 1/2 cup lemon juice )
1 ( 400 gr ) tin ” crushed ” pineapple ( well drained )
300ml cream ( whipped until thick)
Method:

Mix the condensed milk and pineapple. Add the lemon juice

Fold in the cream

Pour over crust and decorated with pieces of fine tennis biscuits or pineapple pieces.

Put in the fridge for at least three hours or overnight

Recipe from




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Sunday, November 19, 2017

Weekend Cooking: A Taste of Tuscon

One of the things I really wanted to do when I was in New York was a food tour. There are so many interesting looking tours that are available - specific types of food, neighbourhoods and more - but we just didn't have time this time.

From New York we were flying to Tuscon to meet up with some friends for part of the weekend. I have known these girls online for many, many years since we originally met on the forums for author Sara Donati. There is a core group of about 10 of us who have stayed close over the years despite the fact that we are spread all over the world. There are members in the US and Canada, Australia, New Zealand and France. I have previously met two of them on my last trip to California, but the third girl was one I hadn't met which was very exciting.

Originally when they were planning their girls get together they asked if I want to come to America and I was very tempted but had to say no because, well, it's a long way to go for a weekend, but by getting our dates just right I was able to be there for at least a full day before we flew back to Australia.

Given that we did only have just over a day, we wanted to make sure that we used our time wisely. Robert already knew what he was going to do. Tuscon is home to the largest plane grave yard in the world so he was going off to look at planes and helicopters. In the course of looking for what we were going to do I came across a walking food tour of Tuscon, and also the fact that Tuscon was made a UNESCO City of Gastronomy a couple of years ago, so this is what we did for the afternoon.

In the end, there were the four of us and the tour guides, so it was almost like a personal tour, something that was emphasised at the end of the tour. I had been talking about how we hadn't been able to find any traditional American apple pie. The tour had ended when the guide came back and gave me a back containing an apple empanada. She apologised for it not being pie but hoped it would do as a substitute.

So first, a don't do before embarking on this tour!

Don't visit a craft market and stock up on various different flavours of pie with plans to eat them when you finish the tour. You will be waaayyyy too full to even contemplate anything for dinner except maybe some nibblies much later in the evening, preferably after a spell in the hot tub. Visit the craft market by all means. Contemplate buying lots of different pieces of jewellery all you like. You just won't need the pie.

We met in a lovely courtyard area called Mercado San Agustin where there are various different shops including a Mexican bakery, some kind of iced confectionery place (Sonoran Sno-cones) as well as the first of five stops on our tour, Agustin.

Here we tried some amazing food, including some of the best calamari I have ever tasted, goats cheese brulee that was to die for and a new to the menu kale salad. The chef came out and talked to us about why sustainability was so important in the food world right now which was very cool. He was very passionate about the food he had presented to us and about this subject.

The next stop is my kind of place - brunch. Again the chef came out to speak to us and when he heard I was from Australia he was very enthusiastic because brunch is really big here and cafes and restaurants are constantly trying to do interesting things with breakfasty type foods. He said that he followed a number of Australian chefs to get inspiration We got to taste 3 tasters, and I have to say the Cinnamon Griddle Cakes were amazing. The others were good too.

Next stop we had sliders at a sports bar type place. Not your normal beef or pulled pork, but this time it was duck, which I have never had on a burger before. It was so good, especially combined with the house coleslaw which was definitely identifiable as coleslaw but also had a different taste to it. It was really fresh and tangy and went with the sliders perfectly. One thing that was interesting about this place was that they had a lot of flavoured vodkas available, some that I can imagine drinking but a few that I couldn't. Roasted Garlic vodka? Green pepper vodka? Anyone, anyone?

We were all full now but still managed to find space for some wood fired pizza. The pizza was great but it was the salad that was the surprise. It was fresh and delicious and it would have been good to go back and just have the salad by itself, which in itself is something that I would never have expected to say about a pizza joint.

Last stop was the ice creamery which is all natural ingredients and some interesting flavour combinations. For example, there was a bourbon and bacon ice cream flavour. The bourbon ice cream was really good, the bacon not so much, but that's probably because I don't really get why you would mess around too much with bacon by doing things like covering it in chocolate, putting it in cupcakes or ice cream.



It wasn't all about the food though. During the course of the tour we were also introduced to some of the history of Tuscon, and to some of the interesting buildings in town, including the movie theatre and an old hotel, and also some of the many murals that have been painted in downtown Tuscon over recent years.

One fun thing was that because it was close to Halloween the movie theatre was having a free showing of Beetlejuice. As we walked past there was a guy there all dressed up as Beetlejuice in the full costume. A bit later in our tour, we came across the guy again, but this time he was out walking around town with his wife. He was dressed normally from the neck down but he was still full Beetlejuice from the neck up!!

The tour was well run, a good pace and it was a nice touch to include an all day trolley ticket so that we could continue to explore the city if we wanted to. We chose to head back to Le Augustin for a cocktail to round off our day nicely!

It was a thoroughly enjoyable experience, and one I would definitely recommend if you happen to find yourself in Tuscon with a few spare hours!




Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. For more information, see the welcome post.

Sunday, November 12, 2017

Weekend Cooking: Eating our way around America

In my last post I mentioned that my son has moved to Kansas to go and play junior college basketball. He has moved to a really small town in Kansas. It is only right that we make the effort to go and see where he is living now so that we can visualise where he lives, goes to school, trains and plays basketball etc. And, it's only fair that if we go to visit him, then should take the opportunity to go and visit a big city that we both (being the boyfriend and I) have previously said we wanted to visit. And finally it's only fair that we take the opportunity to catch up with friends as well. Given how fair that all sounds, we did it! And had a great time doing so.

We flew from Melbourne to Wichita via LA and Denver. This wasn't our original plan. Originally the plan was to fly to Kansas City via LA and San Francisco but there were issues in San Francisco so we ended up changing our flights. On landing in LA we had one of our stranger meals (deep fried ham and cheese sandwich on really sweet bread which was then served with jam/jelly. Having said that on the way home we had really great pizza in LAX and I also tried the Orange Chicken from Panda Express that my son loves there too. I may have also had my first and then last margarita in the airport, but there were also a few in between

Denver was where our food adventures started. I know that it is only airport food, but we had dinner in Denver at the Mexican restaurant and it was delicious!! I don't really know why but Mexican food and margaritas taste much better in the US than they do here. Maybe more authentic or less homogenised or something. I'm not really sure.

The town that the boy lives in is really small but it has some fast food options which keeps a teenage boy happy. The best thing we had there was at the sports bar where we had a philly cheese steak sandwich. So delicious!

We were also able to have soda's at an old fashioned soda fountain.

That was quickly surpassed though by what was probably the best meal we had in the US on this trip. One of the things we wanted to try was Kansas BBQ and we had it on the Sunday night we were in Wichita. Oh. my. goodness. The pork ribs were sooooo good.

On the not so good scale were the donuts we had there. They were advertised as one of the best places to get donuts in the city. If they were the best, I am concerned because I would much rather eat the donuts from the place about 10 minutes from my house. I was a little bit brave at the donut shop and tried to the pumpkin donut with spiced cream cheese frosting. The frosting was amazing. The donut...not so much. I know that at this time of the year the whole country goes crazy for pumpkin flavoured pies, coffee, and lots of other things, but it was really a bit of a no no to this Aussie who eats her pumpkin roasted or in soup.

We were hoping to go to the home of the first ever Pizza Hut but the building was in the process of being moved and so we couldn't find it! We did, however, get to drive through the university grounds.

We really enjoyed our time in Kansas and I hope to do another post to talk about the non food related highlights at some point, but we'll see!!

Our next stop was New York, the Big Apple!! And of course we had to do all the touristy stuff. For both of us it was our first time in the city and it was somewhere we had both wanted to go for a long time. With only a few days we wanted to see the sights, but also allow ourselves enough time to spend time in specific places as well.

First foodie stop.... cheesecake!! And the Red Velvet Cheesecake did not disappoint. Robert had an apple crumble cheesecake which was also really good. Whilst we were in New York, of course we had to have a hot dog (didn't really live up to expectations), we had pizza at Lombardi's, fresh bagels for breakfast, cinnamon scrolls, cupcakes from Magnolia Bakery (oh that frosting) and more.

 Our final stop after 3 and a bit hectic days in New York was Tuscon in Arizona. Talk about a contrast to New York! Tuscon is a UNESCO City of Gastronomy which was surprising, and we (my friends and I did a foodie walking tour which gave me some insight into why. I am planning to write a specific post about the Taste of Tuscon tour, but let's just say we had some really good food!!

The reason we went to Tuscon is because 3 people I have been friends with online for over 10 years had organised a girls weekend months ago. At the time, they asked me to go and had said that I couldn't because, well, it's a long way from Australia to Tuscon just for the weekend but the timing worked out well because we were in the country at the same time as the weekend, so I could go.

We spent time at a craft market where there were some interesting looking displays including a guy selling all different types of pies etc. We did get some to try but we ended up eating so much on the walking tour that I forgot to eat it! Oh well. Next time.

For breakfast on the first morning my friend cooked biscuits and gravy which was a first for us. The second morning we did bacon and eggs. A little more normal for us but still tasty.

One of my friends bought these delicious little morsels and I could easily have eaten the whole bag by myself. Instead a bought a few handfuls home and tried to ration myself to only a few a day but I wasn't totally successful.

You would think that being on our way home would be the end of our foodie adventures in America for this trip, but you would be wrong. In order to get from Tuscon we had to fly via San Francisco. The next flight was delayed (there's a pattern here!!) and so we had a few hours to kill so we ended up having clam chowder in sourdough bread which was really good, and just a taster for when we get to spend time in the city proper.

Our final foodie stop was at Wolfgang Puck's restaurant in LAX where we had a delicious pizza. Happy eating at the airport indeed!

We don't need to talk about the plane food because it was suitably average but the airport food was pretty darned good.

The only thing that we had been really looking forward to that we didn't get to do was to have down town apple pie from a diner, piled high with whipped cream, but for some reason that was harder to find than we expected. It's on the to do list for next time. In the mean time, we are on a quest to find a really good American style apple pie. I tried a new recipe last week that was good without being amazing so watch this space as we continue this quest.

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. For more information, see the welcome post.

Sunday, October 08, 2017

Weekend Cooking: Gyoza (Pork Dumplings)

It's been a big few weeks in my house.

In the space of 10 days my life changed completely with my son getting an offer to go and play junior college basketball in America, organising everything and then he was gone! It's a bit weird to think that my then 18 year old son moved to the other side of the world, but he did.

People are asking me if I miss him, and of course the answer is yes, but it's actually not too bad. In many ways it's almost as if he's been in his bedroom playing Xbox for the last month but there are a few differences. For one, if I buy a block of chocolate it's still there 3 days later, unless I eat it of course. I haven't bought milk since he left,  and there's no dirty dishes when I get back home.

One of the other things is that I can revisit recipes that I have made before and he wasn't keen on. This week, for example, I made Baked Zucchini, Tomato and Parmesan risotto. I made it a couple of years ago and my son wasn't keen but when I made it this week the boyfriend was super impressed and has already asked me to make it again. I was going to post the recipe for this today but it turns out I already did that 4 years ago, so I needed a plan B.

One of the things that I really enjoy doing with the BF is cooking, and he really likes it too. Most weekends we say what will we cook and we'll do it together, and often it is something new to both of us. Over the last few months, we've made things like Yorkshire Pudding and he's mastered Creme Brulee. I've tried baking new cakes and his son loves my Vanilla slices so I get regular requests to make that as well.

Today, though, we made dumplings!! It's something we talked about doing a while ago and this weekend is when it is going to get done. We're starting with a relatively basic recipe and then we will probably progress from there to slightly more complicated recipes.

Here's the basic recipe that we are using:

Gyoza (Pork Dumplings)

  • 2 teaspoons vegetable oil
  • 2 teaspoons finely grated fresh ginger
  • 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
  • 55g (3/4 cup) coarsely chopped green cabbage
  • 2 tablespoons water
  • 250g pork mince
  • 2 shallots, trimmed, thinly sliced
  • 1 tablespoon soy sauce
  • 2 teaspoons caster sugar
  • 1 teaspoon sesame oil
  • 24 gow gee wrappers
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil, extra
  • 160ml (2/3 cup) water, extra
  • Hakubaku Chilli Soy Noodle Sauce or soy sauce, to serve
Heat vegetable oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Cook ginger and garlic, stirring, for 1 minute or until aromatic. Add cabbage and water. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 3 minutes or until the cabbage wilts. Transfer to a bowl. Set aside to cool. Stir in pork, shallot, soy sauce, sugar and sesame oil. Season with salt.

Place 1 wrapper on a clean work surface. Place 2 teaspoonfuls of pork mixture in the centre of the wrapper. Brush edges with water. Fold over to enclose filling. Pinch edges together. Place on a tray lined with non-stick baking paper. Repeat with remaining wrappers and pork mixture.

Heat half the extra vegetable oil in a non-stick frying pan over high heat. Cook half the gyozas for 2 minutes or until bases are golden. Add half the extra water. Cook, covered, for 5 minutes or until cooked and liquid has evaporated. Transfer to a serving platter. Cover to keep warm. Repeat with remaining oil, gyoza and water. Serve with chilli sauce or soy sauce.
Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. For more information, see the welcome post.

Saturday, September 02, 2017

Weekend Cooking: Honey Sponge Roll

A couple of weekends ago I was at the boyfriend's house and I was feeling the need to make something. Because I am still in trying to impress mode I asked him what he would like. Should I make chocolate cake or brownies or lemon syrup cakes or white chocolate cheesecake, After a short deliberation, he looks at me and says that he wants a Bee Sting cake. Now, given that wasn't one of the options given I was a little surprised, but I went off to the internet to see if I could find a recipe.

Now it turns out that a Beesting cake is a kind of German honey flavoured yeasted cake with a kind of toffee topping, that needs to be beaten for quite lengthy period of times, and in some recipes left overnight before finishing, so in the end I went back and said no. There were a couple of reasons. The first was that I hadn't bought my stand mixer with me, and the second was that it sounded way too hard.

On Sunday morning though, I had a brain wave. The signature dish of one of my former colleagues is a honey log roll. It would have the honey and cream component that he was looking for, but without the hard work. Never mind the fact that we didn't have the mixer to be able to whip the egg whites. In the end he did that using the whisk attachment to a stick blender. Never mind that I have never attempted to make a sponge before and that I had never attempted a roll type cake at all. Thank goodness you can search the internet and find most things. A few minute and we had a recipe!! A quick trip to the shops to buy a baking tray and it was time to bake.

In the end I was super happy with how it turned out. It was so delicious, and I will definitely be making this again!


Honey Sponge Roll


    4 eggs, separated
    ½ cup (110g) caster sugar, plus extra, for dusting
    ½ cup (75g) cornflour
    2 tablespoons plain flour
    1 teaspoon mixed spice
    ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
    2 teaspoons baking powder
    1 tablespoon honey, at room temperature
    Honey cream filling
    90g unsalted butter
    2 tablespoons honey

      Preheat oven to 180°C or 160°C fan. Lightly grease and line base and sides of a 26cm x 32cm swiss roll pan.

      Using an electric mixer, beat egg whites until stiff but not dry. Add sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, beating constantly until mixture is thick and glossy. Beat in egg yolks until just mixed.

      Meanwhile, finely sift cornflour, flour, spices and baking powder. Lightly fold into egg mixture with honey, mixing gently until evenly distributed. Fill prepared pan shaking gently to spread mixture evenly.

      Bake for 20 minutes, until risen and firm when lightly pressed with a fingertip. Turn out onto a tea towel lightly dusted with extra caster sugar. Quickly peel off paper and trim edges. Roll up immediately in tea towel starting from short edge. Leave to cool completely.

      Using an electric mixer, beat butter until pale and creamy. Add honey and beat until well mixed. Add 2 tablespoons water and continue beating until mixture is smooth and creamy. Unroll cake and spread over filling. Roll up again and serve cut across into slices.



      Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. For more information, see the welcome post.

      Saturday, August 19, 2017

      Weekend Cooking: Oooh la la!!



      I mentioned a few weeks ago that I got a stand mixer for my birthday back in June. That was only part of my present though. The other part was a cooking lesson experience. Or more precisely, a French Dinner Party cooking lesson, and I finally got to do it on Wednesday night at Gourmet Kitchen Cooking School.

      The dinner party is either available as the finale of a six weeks beginner course, or as a standalone lesson, so the group was a mixture of the people who had been doing the course or as a one off. I was one of two people who were only doing the dinner, but despite that we still felt welcomed by the rest of the group.

      I had had a busy day at work so it was a bit of rush but I got to the cooking school just in time to start cooking. A quick wash of the hands, and it was time to start. Even just the sound of the menu was a bit intimidating but I guess this is why we do things like cooking classes...to find out what is and isn't achievable.

      Below is the menu that we cooked. When I look at it, I do think 70's dinner party but someone who has been to France recently has confirmed that it is still very much on the menu now. Of course, I might need to go to France myself to prove it. You know, scientific research purposes.

      Chicken Liver Pate
      Twice Baked Cheese Souffle
      Beef bourguignon
      Creme Brulee

      Of these, I would never have attempted to make pate or souffle. I have made easy versions of bourguignon, and my partner is making creme brulee on a regular basis in an effort to perfect it, so I knew that wasn't as difficult as it might seem.

      Working together, the group all performed the necessary tasks to bring the dinner together. We started with the beef as it needed to be cooked the longest. The interesting thing was that the recipe included deli meats called speck and kaiserfleisch which are pork products with a smokey flavour and a thick layer of fat that rendered down as part of the cooking process. The other tip that I learned much later in the night was that you can use pureed steamed carrots to thicken a stew. You couldn't taste the carrots but it certainly seems like a better way to thicken than adding cornflour and water like a normally do.

      While the cooking process for the bourguignon was quite lengthy, it was definitely worth the extra effort. Beef, red wine, shallot, celery, and mushroom combining perfectly with creamy mash potato (both in terms of texture and also the ingredients that went into the potato - there was no shortage of cream and butter all night).

      Then we made the pate. I don't mind pate on occasion, but I don't think I would necessarily have thought about making it myself. I was surprised to see that it wasn't actually that difficult to make, with the most time consuming parts of the process being the cleaning up of the chicken livers and then making sure that they are completely cooked. It did taste delicious with toasted slices of baguette. One word I would probably use to describe it would be rustic. It wasn't chunky at all, but it was thicker and more solid than the pre-made pate that you buy in the shops.

      Next, onto the twice baked cheese souffle - something that I would always have thought was far too difficult to make, but it really, really wasn't that difficult. Super cheesey and super delicious. I think this will be the first thing that I try to make at home.

      One handy tip I learned was that when you are making any kind of bechamel sauce if you heat your milk up separately and then add it in slowly as normal it should speed up the thickening process. I am definitely going to try this next time I make any kind of white sauce.

      When I first looked at the website to see what we were going to make, I was really, really hoping that it would be tarte tatin. A few years ago I but creme brulee was also good, and really not difficult to make. Beautifully creamy and its always fun to get the blow torch out and melt the sugar to make the crispy topping.

      The teacher, Laura, was knowledgeable and patient, and I could definitely get used to having an Alex in the kitchen to clean up after us as we made each dish!! The atsmosphere was friendly. The only thing I guess I wasn't expecting is that we didn't end up eating until around 10pm which made it a late night after an already long day.

      So I guess the test of how successful a cooking class was is to ask the question would I go back again and the answer is yes, I have had a look at the website and I am contemplating both of the patisserrie masterclasses, the Japanese class, the Thai masterclass or maybe just the macarons class. Or maybe all of them.


      Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. For more information, see the welcome post.

      Saturday, July 15, 2017

      Weekend Cooking: Lime and Buttermilk cake

      A few years ago now, I bought a cookbook which was written by regular finalist in the Country Womens Association of Australia baking competition. I have made a couple of recipes from it, but it has been a while since I tried anything new.

      I do now have good reason to try new things though! I was very excited to get a stand mixer for my birthday, so now I have no reason not to try making all the things that I couldn't possibly make before. Now don't get too excited. It wasn't a KitchenAid or anything flash, just a run of the mill stand mixer but I love it. In fact, it does tend to come with me when I go to the boyfriend's house for the weekend whenever we have anything planned. He's even attempted freshly made bread rolls (so delicious!!).

      Whilst I would say that I am an average cook there were some things in this recipe that I have never done before. For example, I have never whipped egg whites separately before. And I was able to delegate things like zesting and juicing the limes to my assistant, and he does a great job of cleaning up too!

       I haven't got the texture quite right yet, but I will! It does taste delicious!



      Lime and Buttermilk Cake

      250g butter at room temp
      1 cup white sugar
      finely grated rind of 2 limes
      3 eggs, separated
      200ml buttermilk
      2 tbsp lime juice
      2 cups self-raising flour
      Icing
      1 cup icing sugar
      1.5 tbsp lime juice
      1 tsp water

      1. Preheat oven to moderate (170 degrees C) and grease a 22cm (base measurement) round cake in tin and line the base with baking paper.

      2. Use electric beaters to cream butter, sugar, lime rind until white and fluffy. Add egg yolks one at a time, beating well after each addition.

      3. Add half the buttermilk, half the lime juice and half the flour and then fold through. Add the remaining buttermilk, lime juice and flour and then fold through. Use electric beaters to beat the egg whites into soft peaks, Fold into the cake mixture and spoon the mix into the tin. Use a knife to smooth the surface.

      4. Bake for 50m or so or until springy to a gentle touch in the centre. Leave in tin for 5m and then turn out onto wire rack to cool.

      5. Icing: Combine all ingredients until smooth and then spread over the cooled cake.

      Saturday, July 08, 2017

      Weekend Cooking: A weekend in Sydney

      This week's post could more accurately described as Weekend Eating or Weekend Away than Weekend Cooking, but let's go with this one for now!!

      A couple of weeks ago now, my boyfriend and I went to Sydney for the weekend. Ostensibly we went to see the Escape from Pompeii exhibition that is on at the Australian National Maritime Museum. And that is what we did, but we also took the opportunity to do a couple of other things as well, including dinner at Koi Dessert Bar

      It was an early start on the Saturday morning. We flew from Melbourne on a 6am flight so I was warned well in advance to expect grumpy BF to be on the plane with me, and that he was planning to be asleep again before the plane took off.

      The exhibition was good without being great. I guess, given the title of the exhibition I was expecting it to be more about Pompeii, but it was more about the Roman navy in general with small parts focusing on the attempt to rescue people who were escaping from Pompeii.

      What we really enjoyed were the other parts of the museum, particularly the replica of the Endeavour, Captain Cook's ship when he claimed Australia as British territory. We also clambered all through a decommissioned submarine.






      One of the things I was really excited to see at the museum was Hartog's plate. I have long been interested in the earlier European explorations that took place, particularly on the west coast of Australia. Hartog was a Dutch sailor who in 1616 was blown off course and landed on some islands where he left a pewter plate. This is the earliest known European artifact in Australia. The original is normally housed in a museum in Holland but for a short time is on loan to Australia. Part of the reason why I am interested in this history goes back to going to visit the Western Australian maritime museum in Perth where they have preserved the shipwreck of a Dutch ship called the Batavia.


       
      We had beautiful weather both days we were in Sydney which hopefully comes through in the photos. It was definitely much better than we had in Melbourne on the same weekend!!

       On the Saturday night we splashed out on dinner at Koi Dessert Bar. Koi is owned by former Masterchef participant Reynold Poernomo and his brothers. It obviously specialises in desserts given it's name but we opted for the 6 course set dinner menu for our visit. The desserts were pretty amazing it has to be said, but the mains were pretty good, although the service felt a bit rushed. For example, we had our first course before the drinks had even been brought out, and then in between one course, the waitress had taken away our cutlery and the next course arrived before she came back with the new cutlery. Also, the mains could have been a bit generous. We didn't walk out hungry, but we also weren't full.

      Jerusalem artichoke and mushroom risotto - the bits on the side are dried or fried artichoke. Delicious

      Beef Rib with soy potato, cipollini onion, galbi jus and green pear - Could have eaten 3 of these. The meat was so tender

      Spanner crab meat with green curry, coconut tapioca risotto and green apple. This was the strongest flavoured dish

      Blackberry mousse with freeze dried blackberry, shiso, beetroot gel, yogurt sorbet, and charcoal meringue - My favourite dish of the night. So delicious

      I think this was tapioca cake with tonka bean ice cream and aerated chocolate. It was tasty but I preferred the other 2 desserts

      Dulce with pear, ginger streusal, yuzu, ginger pear sorbet, pear compote and white chocolate

       I have to say going to a dessert bar with someone who doesn't like ice cream is both a bad and a good thing. (I know....shocking right). I felt bad that there was no ice cream free dessert for him, but then I did get to eat the ice cream that he didn't eat, so I guess I was the winner on the night. Don't feel too bad for him though. I have had to start keeping a supply of emergency cream in the house because he does love cream in any form!!

      On Sunday we started with a sleep in and a leisurely stroll before we took advantage of the beautiful weather and walked from under the Sydney Harbour Bridge, around to the Opera House and then kept walking around the edge of the harbour, through the Botanical Gardens and back again, until it was time to jump on the train back to the airport and home again.


      Not a bad view from the hotel room






       We are already talking about what we might do next time we are in Sydney so I'd say it was a successful weekend.

      Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. For more information, see the welcome post.

      Sunday, July 02, 2017

      Weekend Cooking: Sally's Scones

       A couple of years ago (or more like 3) I posted a scone recipe here as part of Weekend Cooking.

      In the comments my friend Sally gave me an alternative recipe that she calls her best ever scone recipe. This is one that she serves to the shearers that come to her sheep farm in New Zealand (no sheep jokes allowed).

      Since then I have made this recipe several times, and it is very easy, and definitely the scones turn out to be very light and very fluffy, just as she promised.
      Now I am posting it here so that I can find it more easily, and share it with you all of course.

      Sally's Scones


      4 Cups Self Raising Flour
      1/4 teaspoon salt
      1 Cup of cream (300ml is ok) and it is better if the cream is sour or old
      1 and a 1/4 Cups of lemonade.

      Mix together until the dough comes together without working it too much. Role out to about 1 to 1 and 1/2 centimetres and then cut out using a scone cutter (although i don't have one of those so I use a glass as my scone cutter).

      Bake in a hot oven (around 220C) until golden- or just starting to go brown on top. They are always light and fluffy. Serve with butter and jam, or whipped cream and jam- or even jam and cheese when cool (at least this is Sally's suggestion. I am a traditionalist and go for jam and then whipped cream on top.

      Recently I hosted a morning tea with a few friends and this is the spread that we came up with, featuring still warm scones!


      I know I said no sheep jokes but I can't resist sharing some of the photos from when I went to visit Sally a couple of years ago

      Meet  Baaarnaby and Baaarbara 




      And Ewe-nice



      Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. For more information, see the welcome post.

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