Rangoon lime chicken

There is a little girl from Canberra who has had cancer 3 times, and she is only 6 years old.  Her name is Olivia Lambert, and though I don't know her, I have donated to her foundation to try and get her (and her family) to Germany for treatment.

One of the fundraisers was selling spice packs and I bought a few.  The first one I tried is the Rangoon Lime Chicken, and it was delicious (and a lot spicier than I thought).

There is still a fundraising dinner to come - have a look at the website for details and to donate.

More pARTycakes

We bought some caramel cupcakes at another Sweet Tooth Tuesday from Shop Handmade.

This time we got little caramel cupcakes with fondant farmyard animals as icing - G got the piggy and I had the chick.

pARTycakes did a lovely job - though the knitted cupcake was more delicious!

Sushi plates

I was shopping at a second hand shop - that I found by accident when walking between the fresh food market and the bus stop, and no longer exists - and picked up 4 wonderful sushi plates for less than $10 for the 4.

The picture underneath is lovely - not as great as the sushi though!

(this picture is post-sushi)

Brown betty tart(s)

Yes, I was supposed to make individual tarts, but I only own 2 individual tart tins and have 1 long one that was more convenient that blind baking 6 tarts, 2 at a time.   Anyway, the quantities called for by the recipe were mismatched - sufficient fruit, and I ended up with about a third too much 'crumble'. 

I had never heard of Brown Betty tarts (although they are supposed to be 'traditional'.  I actually think it is better than a crumble - the mix on top is much lighter  

Serve it with double cream, of course.

Tomato paella

This recipe makes a fair amount of paella - you have been warned!  I would say this serves at least 8 people (depending on how hungry those people are I guess)

The recipe, in American measurements, is here.  There is also an article here and there was a video on itunes.

Paella is pretty simple, rice, spices and topping - tomatoes in this case.  Then I fried some pancetta so it was crispy for me and some chorizo for G just to make it extra delicious!

Served with salad of course...

Election day 2010 - or another ode to the primary school cake stall

I voted!

I voted, and I bought cake from the cake stall.  I have waxed lyrical on a previous occasion about my enjoyment of cake stalls.

G and I went to vote early - not just to get the cake, but to help some friends move house - and were lucky enough to be able to vote quickly (no queue) and choose from a full cake stall - thanks Ainslie Primary School!

Cauliflower oricchette

This is not low-cal or diet friendly (except to the extent that collectively, what you eat can be called a diet).  Maybe it's safer to say that this meal requires some strenuous exercise to counter balance it.

Quite simply, the sauce is pureed cauliflower that has been cooked in cream (rather than water).  So that's about 130ml of cream per person, and no, I don't want to work out how much fat that is/how many kilometres I need to run.

Then you stir the sauce through the pasta and some cauliflower and sprinkle it with a panagrattato.

As you can see in the magazine the sprinkle is quite lame, so I had to 'gild the lily' in Maggie Beer speak and add some crispy pancetta.

Speaking of Maggie Beer, last year G and I went to a dinner at Old Parliament House at which she was the guest of honour.  I finally worked up my courage to ask to have a photo with her!

My Martha bounty

My friend Alissa - who writes an awesome blog called nowisthetime - has been traveling in the US and sent me (and G) a wedding present!

It's Martha Stewart goodies!

That's a real Silpat that came with 'The Cookie Gazette' - 4 recipes for you to try on the Silpat.

 I had to make some cookies straight away!

And a spoon rest that you clip onto the side of a saucepan - no more drips!

Thanks Alissa!

August Delicious

Finally, a cover that is a little bit brighter!

This issue is FULL of delicious sweet treats to make (and a few savouries too):

• dark chocolate cookies
• almond and blackberry tart
• caramel, peanut and coconut chocolate cake
• coconut and lime slice
• brown betty tarts
• duck confit (masterclass)
• cauliflower orecchiette
• chiang mai beef noodles
• linguine with sage and walnut pesto
• confit lamb shoulder
• chestnut and mushroom soup
• mushroom streudel

Lamb Ragu

Wow, this was delicious!

Another recipe that seemed to call for too much liquid, and you can see the little bits of lamb floating in a lot of passata!

As a result I didn't use all the liquid specified in the recipe and my ragu (at the top) doesn't look quite as thick as the ragu in the picture in the mag:

This was pretty tasty, and quite simple - although requiring a LONG cook time.  I wouldn't recommend it for a weeknight meal, unless you had made it another night and simply had to cook some pasta and reheat the ragu.

Braised Beef

This was way too much effort and involved HOURS of cooking.  This was supposed to be for Sunday night dinner, but I hadn't read the recipe properly and we didn't have all the ingredients, and the meat needed to be marinated overnight before cooking.

Below is the meat marinating in a bath of beer and red wine - this was not even all the beer we were supposed to use, but we didn't have a bowl big enough!

The meal ended up looking ok, and tasting decent.  However, the sauce was too beery, though G disagreed.

Disappointingly, it didn't look as good as it did on the page in the mag.

Celeriac Soup

Who knows what a celeriac looks like?  I wasn't entirely sure, so shopping for one was a little tricky.  That was the least of my problems - I had to go to at least 5 green grocers before I found one!  Luckily, I found one (because I'd already bought the other ingredients).  For those of you who also don't know, this is a celeriac:

This is what the soup was supposed to look like:

My soup laid on the table with some awesome fancy bruschetta:

My soup is not as smooth as the one in the magazine and looks like it is a slightly different colour, but I'm putting that down to the colour of the bowl.

Apple (and pear) pikelets

I made delicious apple pikelets and drizzled then in walnut honey!

Though the recipe calls for apples and pears, we only had apples in the house.  It's pretty simple really, mix up a pikelet batter with some grated apple.  Fry slices of apple in a pan and then pour on some batter so the fried apple ends up (mostly) in the middle when you flip the pikelet over.

A knitting cupcake

G was kind enough to buy me a delicious cupcake that merges 2 of my favourite things - knitting and cupcakes!

G bought it at Shop Handmade - a shop that sells artisan designer products of all types.  Such as chocolate, clothes, handmade toys, childrens clothes, jewels... lovely.  Have a look at the shop!

The cupcake was part of Sweet Tooth Tuesday, supplied by pARTycakes.