Blooms and Colors

Sometimes I find myself just wandering around the garden, exploring, like a kid lost inside a toy palace made of cardboard boxes.

Blooms in autumn.... some are left overs from summer's glory, plants basking in a seemingly perfect temperature...not too hot, not too cold. Seen around the front and side garden one afternoon. 

kaffir limes coming up

something likes to eat the bay leaves

a little red parrot perched on top of a tree at the front garden

bloomin' beaut - i don't know it's name but when the sun starts to disappear it also looks to wither away

this is not purple rain

australian native

another australian native :)

and yet another australian native

that's just what i call flowers that i don't know about yet hehehehe

pink cuties

now this, I know, is a joya

flowers of a cambodian chili plant

iris?

nothing like the color of maple leaves that scream autumn

Salty Chocolate and Chili Meringues

The right amount of salt makes almost anything tastier... and it also holds true for chocolate! I found this recipe from the Kitchenaid website although I didn't have hazelnuts and did not bother substituting, and instead of shards of chocolate I used bittersweet chocolate buttons. I think I should have added more chili flakes though :) I did this in quite a hurry so the photo on the Kitchenaid website definitely looks nicer!

Maejito

Now it is a bit very cheeky but I have to say the results of this experiment was very pleasant, and hence shall be named after its creator.

Featuring the mae-jito!

This highball is based on the typical mojito recipe (mint, sugar and lime muddled together, with a shot (or two?!) of rum and topped with sparkling soda water), but this has no sugar but has sugar plant leaves in it! I also used a combination of lemon and kaffir lime.

Maejito
serves 2

8 sugar leaves
a handful of mint and peppermint leaves
1 small kaffir lime, quartered
1 lemon, quartered
4 shots Bacardi rum
sparkling tonic water, to top up

sugar leaves and mint 

kaffir lime

the zest of which was used here

in a tall glass tear 4 sugar leaves and a sprig of mint and peppermint leaves

2 kaffir limes wedges and 2 lemon wedges

muddle until the juices of the citrus and the essence of the leaves are released

(muddling is a nice therapeutic activity

I used to use the end of a rolling pin for this but I have upgraded since..

so now I have a proper muddler :)

add 2 shots of the rum and top up with chilled sparkling tonic water

garnish with a mint sprig

All the leaves and fruit used for this drink are homegrown!

Enjoy :)

The Firehouse

Somewhere not too far away from where we live is a cozy place called The Firehouse, an ex-fire brigade that was given a make over and converted into a restaurant. With its fine selection of food, cocktails and wines, we may just end up finding ourselves grazing over their tapas after a leisurely evening stroll.

The building definitely feels old but the interior decor is modern, with artwork for sale hung on the walls and empty wine bottles showing telltale signs of how they were once eagerly consumed. For some reason I am having a cocktail thrill these days, so I started with the curious Sage and Butterscotch Martini. It was nice, but probably too sweet for me (but hey, it has butterscotch, what was I expecting?)

Sage and Butterscotch Martini

tequila, butterscotch schnapps, lemon juice, cointreau and sage

After that first round the second drink was interestingly named "Here's Johnny 16" - apparently an Italian take on the Rob Roy cocktail. With limoncello, ginger, lemon thyme and Johnnie Walker Red scotch - who would have given it a miss?

 

 slurped

The selection of tapas was also quite tempting, everything on the menu sounded good. By unanimous vote, the following arrived:

(left to right)
whitebait, corn and coriander egg fritters with sour cream,  

marinated char-grilled octopus with fennel seeds,

beetroot cured ocean trout, horseradish mascarpone and chervil,

and country terrine of duck & pork, roasted pickled fruits, melba toast.

Across the table is a glass of Pontack's Head cabernet sauvignon.

The fritters were very tasty, the octopus so-so (but meat was tender), the beetroot cure on the ocean trout was very interesting and made us wonder how they did it :) The terrine was also flavorful, and was perfectly combined with the pickled plums.

With eyes bigger than bellies we continued on to the main course of lamb shoulder bastilla with pumpkin and cinnamon (a parcel of crispy puffed pastry with very rich meat) and another small plate of short cut beef ribs with mole sauce.  Yes, it was as yummy as it sounded.

Will definitely come back!

Interested? Check out their website. Bookings essential!

* photos from my blackberry

Breakfast in Bread

This was inspired by last night's episode of The Cook and The Chef where the chef (Simon) made mushroom dumplings and Maggie made an omelet using a new approach - the eggs weren't fully scrambled together, simply 'mixed' (sort of). You can still see traces of the egg whites and the yolks aren't fully incorporated. She added a touch of cream and salt and pepper.

Mushroom is one of M's favorite things in this planet, so after seeing the show he started drooling over mushrooms. I have a couple of packets of dried mushrooms (shiitake and black mushroom) stashed in the pantry so I sneaked out and started hydrating them with the intent of using them in the morning.

I sauteed the shrooms (excess water drained and saved, it is full of flavor!) in a some extra virgin olive oil and a couple of cloves of garlic, finely minced. After around 8 minutes of moving it around on high heat, I set it aside.

I wanted to see what Maggie's omelet recipe would be like, but I am not a huge fan of using cream in cooking our usual meals, except for baking (the calories are shared!) :p so I just added a tiny dash of milk and followed her style. I used 5 eggs for 2 decent sized omelets and topped it with the sauteed mushrooms. And a bit of fresh thyme for an extra heavenly scent.

The omelet was surprisingly fluffy!

Sourdough take 3 - results

round 3 resulted to 3 loaves of bread :)

cross section

while these ones are great, i think there is still a lot of room for tweaking the recipe....maybe changing the proportions of sponge to flour, or maybe a stronger bread flour might yield nicer bread... there's only one way to find out...!

Kaffir lime zest, anyone?

One of the most fragrant and tasty harvests that we enjoy from the garden is the kaffir lime, especially its leaves which we use for anything that I can practically throw it into :)

Zested, the fruit just gives the most amazing scent! I threw the microbits into a cake batter whipped up by my equally amazing toy (details later).

Sorry the photo looks a bit dark! (couldn't bother editing at this point hehe)

At Salford Lad's club

Do you think you would like a pan fried salmon encrusted with toasted almonds and fennel, served with couscous and a salad of rocket and spanish onions? (Well, I did!)

This was lunch one afternoon at Salford Lad's Club, a relatively new joint near our office in Port Melbourne. However I cannot fully recommend that you try this dish out when you go there, because the menu varies, I think every week! And it has been great so far!

It is a pretty nifty joint for us who's office is a stone's throw away from this place. We used to be deprived of choice for coffee and lunch places - the nearest place would be Bay St which is about a 25 min walk or a 5minute drive (and fight-for-parking-space). The kitchen is open and you'll find 2 guys in a flurry of activity, cooking and assembling the meals, fresh. Lunch (such as the one featured here) is around $15. For the presentation, taste, value for money, plus a laid back ambiance - not bad, I say... not bad at all.

A bit more info about the place here!

Other meals from this place from previous occasions:

tiger prawns and pumpkin in a japanese style curry

kashmiri lamb mince 

Afternoon Tea

Had someone come over after lunch today, so I whipped up a quick 'biscuit' type baked goodie made of self raising flour, cream and tonic water! (It's supposed to be a lemonade scone recipe but I rolled out the dough a bit thin so not much rise...) Served with whipped cream, jam and tea, this simple treat became extra special and sweet :) total time prep and baking time : 20 minutes!

Sourdough - take 3

Third attempt, different blend.

The sponge is made with 1.5 cups of wholemeal flour and half a cup of plain flour. With autumn setting in, it's cooler so I'm leaving it to do its magic overnight...

Background beers : this week's (I mean, this month's) stash, James Squires Golden Ale. Easy to drink, flavorful and certainly very enjoyable :)





The next day...

Results! Bubbly, with a distinct fermented scent (not foul - otherwise, something's wrong!)

I added around 3 cups of plain flour to 1 cup of this sponge. The rest went back to the bottle, to be kept in the fridge, for future sponges...

Check out the end result here

Carrot and Sultana Cake

Although I would like to say that "due to a bit more spare time I managed to bake a cake"... that would be a lie because I tend to bake cakes on a busy week day anyway!

This one is an evolution of the tried and tested Carrot Cake   recipe... but since I ran out of almonds, I substituted 3 handfuls of sultanas... and instead of white sugar, I used 1 1/2 cups of brown sugar, thinking that it would echo the deep complex sweetness of the sultanas.
I also used less than the quantity of white sugar in the previous recipe because the sultanas would be sweet by themselves...

Not quite sure yet what it tastes like... it's still cooling in its tin :) Might be taken to office tomorrow by him as I will be in Syd for the next two days...

Anyway...

This photo (as well as the one from the previous post were uploaded via my Blackberry, straight into blogger, and I'm really loving this mechanism. I'd still have to edit via the dashboard to insert the tags or to modify the position of the photo and to link previous posts, but I think it works really well for quick uploads!

That's my 'rave' review for this afternoon :)

Today's Breakfast Pizza

Black and white pudding
Shredded cheddar cheese
Homegrown tomato
Cracked red chili flakes and black pepper
Parsley

On homemade thin crust pizza dough.


Must be odd for some, this 'breakfast pizza' concept - but to me it's just a different presentation of bread and cheese (plus more!!!)

Previous pizzas here.


* edit : in hindsight I realized I used the wrong cutter :D that one (small wheels) is for pastry/pasta/etc!
(Kitchen geek!) should've used my pizza cutter instead... hopefully the pizza police ain't monitoring this blog....! :p

Saturday Slacking and Martini Madness

So. It's a long weekend and the unanimous vote is to stay at home and do nothing. Well... it's not really possible to do nothing, so it was pretty much chill, eat, drink and be merry.

Sounded like the best plan  all week!

Started with breakfast - wholemeal pancakes with honey and homemade jam.

1 cup wholemeal flour

1 egg

enough water to make a batter which is not too thin but not too thick

whisk all together

leave to rest for a couple of minutes and dollop on to a heated non stick pan with extra virgin olive oil (instead of butter - although butter would be a very tasty option!)

serve with honey and jam (like the apricot jam or the remainder of last year's plum jam!)

AND don't forget the coffee please. :)

Lunch was Tasmanian oysters as entree (with a bunch of tasty condiments),  homegrown green tomato salsa and grilled fresh sardines (with rice!).

Now, notice the beer on the side - Dry Dock - the recent Dan Murphy's purchase which was on special - but honestly, would not buy that again (sorry, just personal taste!). Average house beer on a really warm day, and... that's pretty much it though. (Not for guests!)

Anyway - the green tomato salsa had 2 variants for this afternoon. One was with the flat cilantro and the other was with parsley and verjuice (the acidic juice of green grapes - have only heard it from Maggie Beer and found it at Coles!). I was requested to remember the recipe (an instantaneous Saturday afternoon salsa recipe) so before I forget, I shall write it down...

 really proud of these little babies - fresh from the backyard!

they don't look perfect but i guess that's what makes it special!

Saturday's Fresh Green Tomato Salsa
2 green tomatoes, diced
2 small sprigs each of parsley, mint and thyme, minced
dash of extra virgin olive oil and verjuice
1 green bird's eye chili, minced
Toss all ingredients together with salt and pepper to taste.
(Happy to report that all herbs are from the herb patch!)

Dinner was mussels flavoured with the (leftover) tomato salsa, extra virgin olive oil and vermouth, sprinkled with minced fresh parsley.

Speaking of vermouth.... nothing like mixing vermouth with either vodka or gin to make the classic Martini. So the whole afternoon was pretty much Martini Madness.

The base for the drinks below are mostly from 45ml vodka and 15ml french vermouth (for one serving) unless otherwise specified!

And these were shaken (not stirred) with vermouth rinsed ice in your usual shaker.

I can't really say it's a classic, because a classic would have been made with gin

 I used vodka (only because we got Gordon's and MAN that can burn!) and it was tough to choose

between and olive and a lemon peel garnish

but affiliation to home grown things won!

so twisted lemon peel it was

(at least for the first round!)

the second round was a bit of a rebellious martini

instead of lemon peel, i used a kaffir lime (also homegrown) 

and muddled 2  leaves from a sugar plant with vodka for a hint of sweetness

(ran out of ice at this stage - the bottom part of this glass is supposed to have ice to keep the top part cool!)

round 3 was a almost a classic except for the vodka still. and now the olives take their turn!

now this one I think is a winner

45ml vodka + 30ml vermouth

and the garnish made a lot of difference

a dried chili, speared with olives and a twist of fresh lemon peel

the longer you take to drink it

the hotter it gets

:)

chocnut martini

same martini mix but with dry vermouth (de Bortolli)

chocnut is a sweet treat that Filipino kids would be most familiar with!

this is in memory of the drink with the same name that I had in one of my favorite places back home

There could be one or two more martinis coming up but maybe that would have to be posted later..... !

iSpy with my little eye...

...Something that starts with an M...?

shaken not stirred!

Caraway Seed Cake

Late Thursday before leaving work I was informed that one of the developers will be celebrating his birthday on Friday. It seems that this guy is not the type who celebrates or announces his birthday. Nevertheless I set off to find a quick recipe to make one non pretentious simple cake. I've been doing a lot of chocolate flavored ones lately and while they were always a winner, I thought I'd do something else, maybe something 'intriguing'? :)

The last time I made a Lemon and Caraway Seed Cake a lot of people were not familiar with the taste of caraway. Maybe it's worth re-introducing to see if they remembered, because I think this fragrant and flavorful seed is fabulous and deserves to be known more. 

Caraway Seed Cake

175g soft butter

175g white sugar

3 eggs

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

225g plain flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

2 teaspoons caraway seeds

Grease a square tin (or a springform tin) and pre-heat oven to 180C.

Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. I think it's important to not rush this step. Old style 'wooden spoon' creaming works (i.e. you use a wooden spoon to cream the butter and sugar together until you rub a bit of the mixture in between your fingers and you can't feel any of the sugar anymore)  but if you got your gadgets, it can make this quickers of course!

Add the eggs one at a time, making sure it is well incorporated after every addition. Then add the vanilla extract, caraway seeds and fold in the flour and baking powder. Depending on the conditions the batter might appear too thick (and not a 'dropping consistency') - you can add a bit of water or milk at this stage before pouring into the tin.

Bake for around 45min or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Let cool in the tin before serving. Best served with afternoon tea or dunked in milk!

I topped it with a basic frosting of 2/3 cup icing sugar, vanilla extract dissolved in about 2 tblspns of hot water and a tinge of yellow food color to make it a bit more festive. I also sprinkled some colored chocolate bits on top.

Hope the birthday boy had a good one :)