More flowers

Unfortunately, as you can see I missed the light by a little bit. I'll try again today.

Goodies from the Farmers' Market

We went to the Farmers' Market yesterday morning, our last until the end of June! We'll miss the next one because we will be away. It's going to be such a long time without a divine Belgium hot chocolate from the wonderful people at Dello Mano.

While we were there I picked up a couple of things I have read about but have never seen/tasted/cooked with - some Meyer lemons and fingerlimes. I've been searching the Internet for recipes to try but nothing has really taken my fancy yet. Does anyone have any suggestions?


After the markets DD kindly took me to Black Pearl Epicure so I could buy some fleur de sel. I want to make Dorie Greenspan's World Peace Cookies again, but properly this time. DD sat patiently outside waiting for me to pay, no doubt thinking of much less demanding times when all I knew about cooking came from Nigella DVDs and I got excited over Maldon salt.

I love its little bag!

Poached chicken and soba noodle salad with soy dressing

This recipe is another from Bill Granger's Bills Food. It's a quick, easy, healthy dinner that is really light and tasty.

DD said that "the delicate flavours danced across his palate". It's a pity that he was mocking my blog at the time. I'm quoting him anyway because it's true!

DD doesn't really like soba noodles, so I cooked him and our housemate some ramen noodles instead. I love soba noodles so that just meant more for me!

Poached chicken and soba noodle salad with soy dressing
from Bills Food by Bill Granger

250g soba noodles (I used 90g soba and 180g ramen)

soy dressing

60ml light or Japanese soy sauce
60ml mirin
2 tbs seasoned rice wine vinegar
1 garlic clove, finely chopped

poached chicken

1 tbs black peppercorns
3 thick slices of ginger
2 spring onions, roughly chopped
2 tbs sea salt
4 chicken breast fillets

Make the dressing by stirring all the dressing ingredients in a bowl until combined.

Bring a saucepan of water to the boil, add the noodles and cook for 3 minutes or until al dente. Drain the noodles and rinse with cold water to cool them. Toss half the soy dressing through.

Put the peppercorns, ginger, spring onion and salt in a medium to large saucepan, fill with cold water and bring to the boil over high heat.


Add the chicken breasts and stir. Turn off the heat, cover with a tight-fitting lid and leave for 1 hour before cutting into slices.


Divide the noodles among four plates (or three plates and a lunchbox, in our case) and top with snow pea sprouts and chicken. Spoon the remaining dressing over the top.

Szechuan Stir-Fry Beef

I had some beef stir-fry strips defrosted for dinner tonight but I didn't really know what to do with them. After my massive effort at organising my bookmarks on del.icio.us AND going through all my magazines looking for the chilli chicken recipe AND making an Excel spreadsheet of meals that catch my eye and that I want to try soon and sharing it on Google Docs, I was foiled by the fact that most of the meals tend to be chicken or pasta. We don't eat red meat all that often.

DD asked for Spicy Szechuan Beef, but with the stir-fry strips in place of mince. I wasn't too excited about this idea as I find that particular recipe to be very thick, heavy and gluggy. He did agree to let me have a browse of some websites and even helped by reading over some recipes. In the end, he liked the look of another Szechuan themed recipe using stir-fry beef.

This recipe for Szechuan Stir-Fry Beef comes from Recipezaar and is so simple! I read through the recipe and did the first step (make the sauce) and then realised that all I had to do after that was to cook the beef. I hadn't even started to cook the rice yet. I had a brief pause while I put the rice on and then started stir-frying and while I stir-fried I blanched some snow peas. It took less than ten minutes.

The flavour in this dish is incredible (hehe I just looked at the recipe again and one of the reviews says the exact same thing). It's true though. It's lovely and spicy and has a beautiful rounded flavour which I think comes from the dry sherry. I make my own chilli powder as I haven't seen it around in stores, and mine is a little tamer than the chilli powder recipe recommends - I cut out a bit of cayenne - so I would imagine that it would be quite a spicy dish using true chilli powder. If you aren't a fan of spicy heat, I'd halve the amount of chilli powder.

Szechuan Stir-Fry Beef
from Mille on Recipezaar

500g beef stir fry strips
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup dry sherry
2 tbs water
2 tsp cornflour
2 tsp ginger, peeled and minced
1/2 tsp crushed chilli flakes
1/2 tsp pepper
1 tsp chilli powder
1 tbs vegetable oil
2 tsp minced garlic

In a small bowl, mix all ingredients from the soy sauce to the chilli powder and mix until smooth.

Heat the oil in a frypan. Add garlic and beef strips and stir fry for 3-4 minutes.

Stir in the sauce and continue stirring until the sauce has lightly thickened and is bubbly.

Serve with steamed rice and snow peas.

Individual lasagne with ricotta and tomato

Bill Granger has this lovely vegetarian free form lasagne in his book, Bills Food. I was looking for the recipe for his baked tomato and mozzarella pasta and found this. DD loves lasagne and I never seem to have time to make it. I don't like frozen/packet/premade lasagnes, so DD has to miss out or deal with me complaining about substandard lasagne.

This one, however, looked really easy and had the added bonus of not requiring a bechamel sauce. I found the method he recommends to be quite messy though and the next time I make it I think I will try it a different way. We only had one tin of tomatoes, so I substituted a jar of pasta sauce. This wasn't a very good idea, as it made the tomato sauce too sweet and too thick.

Even with a sweeter, thick sauce the lasagne was very good and I enjoyed it immensely. DD, unfortunately, still believes that it can never be true lasagne without meat.

Individual lasagne with ricotta and tomato
Adapted from Bills Food by Bill Granger

1 x 400g can chopped tomatoes
1 x 500g can garlic and red wine pasta sauce
1 clove garlic, minced
drizzle of extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper
pinch of sugar
500g light ricotta
40g Parmesan, freshly grated
1 tsp minced oregano leaves
350g fresh lasagne sheets
fresh oregano leaves, for garnishing

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C. Cook the tomatoes and sauce in a medium saucepan over medium to low heat for 20 minutes or until slightly reduced. Add the garlic, olive oil, salt, pepper and sugar and cook for another minute. Remove from heat.

Stir the ricotta, Parmesan, oregano and some salt and pepper together in a bowl.

Cut the lasagne sheets into sixteen 10cm squares and cook them, a few at a time, in a large saucepan of boiling salted water until al dente. Transfer to a bowl filled with cold water and a few drops of olive oil. When the sheets are cool, drain and place on a tea towel.

Pour 3/4 cup of the tomato sauce into a large roasting tin and spread to cover the base. Place four lasagne squares on the tomato sauce, keeping them separate. Spoon one-third of the ricotta mixture evenly among the squares. Place a second square on top of each and repeat the process to give four layers, finishing with lasagne squares. Spoon 2 tbs of sauce over each stack. Bake for about 25 minutes, until hot.

Serve with extra sauce and sprinkled oregano leaves. (I didn't have any extra sauce)

One of my stacks had to be cut in half to fit in the roasting tray. While it looks a bit messy it does show the layers quite nicely.

Sweet potato soup

A friend of mine at work has a throat infection and she is pretty miserable at the moment. She was talking about how she would like her mother to make her some pumpkin soup. I found this recipe for sweet potato soup in the bonus cookbook in the latest Healthy Food Guide and I thought I'd make some for her while she waited for her mother's pumpkin soup.

I've never made a creamy soup like pumpkin or sweet potato soup before, but this was really easy. Tasty too. My problem was that I halved the recipe and then boiled the sweet potato for the time in the recipe and too much of my liquid evaporated, turning my soup from a soup to a nice smooshy mash/puree type thing. It is an absolutely gorgeous smooshy mash/puree type thing though, but I'm not quite willing to let people who know me see it. I'm pretty sure that the people who read this blog have experienced something similar and can sympathise!

I'm not sure if I can save it by returning it to heat and trying to thin it out with more chicken stock. I'm debating over trying it with a little bit. If I decide to leave it as a mash, it's still okay. I have everything I need for a second batch.

The photo was fun too. Because I wasn't going to eat any I didn't want to fill a proper bowl, so I went for a mini setup. I used a small custard cup/ramekin for a bowl and I sliced thin little bread medallions from a pane di casa roll from Baker's Delight. It was very cute.

Sweet Potato Soup
adapted from Healthy Food Guide Classic Makeovers Recipe Book (June 2008)

olive or canola oil spray
1/2 large onion, chopped
1 tsp minced garlic
1/2 tsp minced chilli
1 tsp ground coriander
500g orange sweet potato, peeled and cut into small cubes
500ml chicken stock
75ml evaporated milk

Heat a large saucepan and spray with oil. Cook onion over medium heat for 3-4 minutes or until soft. Add garlic, chilli and ground coriander and cook, stirring, for 1 minute.

Add sweet potato, chicken stock and water. Bring to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer, partially covered, for 20 minutes or until sweet potato is tender. Cool slightly, and puree.

Add evaporated milk and reheat gently.

Update: I saved my soup today by adding some more stock and evaporated milk over a medium heat until it got to the soupy consistency I was after. It's still really yummy!

Chilli Noodles with Chicken and Peanuts

I had a craving for this recipe the other day. I made it a couple of times a couple of years ago and then never really thought of it again. It's really strange how things just come back to you.

When I started having cravings, all I could remember of the dish was that there was chicken, noodles and lemon and that it came from a magazine, so I went to my cookbook bookshelf. I went through every magazine I have looking but couldn't find it. It also wasn't in my clippings folder, which is strange because I remember really liking the dish and making it more than once - I wouldn't have ignored it. I was a little disappointed, but visited Google and Taste.com.au to see if I could get it there. I had no luck and I ended up quite frustrated. I tried to replicate it from what I remembered, but it didn't really work.

In the end, the weekend after my fruitless search I was going through some old magazines that I had put aside to look at again because their covers looked interesting and I found it. I also realised why I wasn't successful in the online search. I was looking for lemon chicken recipes with noodles when it was really chilli chicken with noodles and it was in a magazine that isn't involved with Taste.com.au. Finding it was a triumphant moment for me.

It's a little bit fiddly, but it is really worth it.

It has a beautiful kick from both the chilli flakes and the julienned ginger. After cooking, you drizzle over the juice of half a lemon and the lemon flavour lightly permeates through the entire dish. When I first made it, I didn't have a very high tolerance for heat/chilli, and I used the lemon to tone it down a bit. Now, I'm happy to say that I didn't have to drown my dish in lemon, and it made it even better this time round.

I really love this dish and the only thing that would stop me from making it all the time (unless I lose the recipe again) is that it is a little bit high in calorie due to the noodles and peanut oil. Luckily, the recipe makes heaps. The magazine says it serves 4. We easily got six servings out of it.

Chilli Chicken with Peanuts
from Australian Table October 2006

375g packet fresh thin egg noodles
1/4 cup peanut oil
500g chicken breast fillet, cut into strips
1 tsp chilli flakes
175g butter beans, cut diagonally in half
4 small carrots, cut into thin matchsticks
1/2 cup peanuts
2cm knob of ginger, cut into thin matchsticks
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1/4 cup light soy sauce
juice of one lemon
lemon wedges, to serve

1. Prepare noodles according to packet directions. Pat very dry with a paper towel and set aside.

2. Heat 1tbs of oil in a wok on high. Add noodles and stir-fry for 10 minutes, until starting to colour and crisp. Remove from wok and set aside.

3. Toss chicken and chilli flakes together to coat. Heat another tablespoon of oil in wok on high and stir-fry chicken in two batches for 3 minutes until browned and cooked through. Remove and set aside.

4. Heat remaining oil in wok on high. Stir-fry beans, carrot, peanuts, ginger and garlic for 2 minutes. Return chicken and noodles to wok with soy sauce and stir-fry breifly to combine. Drizzle with lemon.

Breakfast ham and egg pies

This recipe is from a weight-loss guide in a two year old edition of Super Food Ideas. I made it once ages ago and liked it (in fact, I even bought my first ramekins to make it) and I'd like to make it again, so I'm posting it here so I don't forget it.

Breakfast Ham and Egg Pies
from Super Food Ideas Weight Loss Guide

80g sliced light ham, chopped
4 eggs, at room temperature
1 small tomato, seeds removed, diced
2 tbs flat-leaf parsley leaves, chopped
1 tbs low fat ricotta cheese, crumbled
1 tbs light thickened cream
30g baby spinach, trimmed
4 slices crusty wholegrain bread, toasted, to serve

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Grease four 1/2 cup capacity ovenproof ramekins and arrange ham to line base and sides.

2. Crack 1 egg into each ramekin. Top each with a quarter of the tomato, parsley and ricotta. Drizzle 1 tsp of cream over each and season with salt and pepper.

3. Bake pies for 15 to 18 minutes for soft yolks or until egg is cooked to your liking. Stand for 2 to 3 minutes.

4. Divide spinach between plates. Turn out ham and egg pies and place on top of spinach. Serve with toast.

Variation: you could replace ricotta with reduced-fat feta cheese or low-fat cheddar

Nutrition per serve: 905kJ; 7.9g fat; 2.4 g sat fat; 15.3g protein; 19.5g carbs; 2.7g fibre; 201mg cholesterol; 614mg sodium

Tulips

Beautiful tulips from Rosalie Gourmet Market. Tulips and lillies are my favourite flowers.

Zabaglione

Haalo from Cook (almost) Anything at Least Once posted this beautiful looking simple Italian dessert and I have been very eager to try it. I had three leftover egg yolks in the fridge and I was feeling a little precious after a bad day so I decided that a little lightness and creaminess was in order.

This was absurdly simple for how good it was. In fact, my only problem was that I only have wine glasses in one size and they are really too big to be a dessert vessel, but I didn't have anything else that would be suitable. If only all my problems were as large as deciding which glass to use for dessert!

Bill Granger's Baked Tomato and Mozzarella Pasta

I forgot to take something out of the freezer this morning for dinner tonight, so that meant we were going to have pasta. I wanted to do something different and have a (non-cheesy) pasta bake, so I made one from Bill Granger's Everyday. This is really easy and tastes fantastic. It's not that bad for you either, at approx 300 cal for a generous serve (pictured above).

Bill says to cook this for 30 minutes in a 180 degree oven, but I found that this was a little too high. I took mine out after 20 minutes and the top of the bake had dried out substantially. This may be because of my oven, but I recommend that you start checking a little earlier.

Baked Tomato and Mozzarella Pasta
Adapted from Bill Granger's Everyday.

1 tbs olive oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, crushed
1 celery stalk, finely chopped
1/2 tsp chilli flakes
400g tin chopped tomatoes
salt and pepper
400g cooked penne
80g fresh mozzarella cheese, torn into pieces.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Heat the olive oil in a pan over medium-low heat and cook the onion, stirring for 5 minutes or until soft. Add the garlic, celery and chilli flakes and cook for a further 5 minutes.

Add the tomatoes and bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to low and simmer for 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and remove from the heat.

Stir the tomato sauce through the cooked pasta and spoon into a casserole dish. Dot with mozzarella and bake for 30 minutes until the cheese is melted and bubbling.

Burger Urge

DD was having a craving for a Chimi's burger the other night so we wandered off to the Valley for dinner. Unfortunately for DD, Chimi's is closed on Sundays. He was still enthusiastic about a burger, so we decided to try a burger from Burger Urge. When we were searching for the best burgers in Brisbane this was another one of the most commonly recommended.

We all chose to order a cheeseburger: prime ground beef, cheddar cheese, salad and relish. We also got a side of sweet potato fries. DD loved the sweet potato fries from Chimi's and was very happy to see that he could get some here as well. Although we were boring with our burger selection, Burger Urge also offer a quite inventive range of beef, chicken, lamb and vegetarian burgers.

The burgers are quite large, but not as large as Chimi's. The salad was nice a fresh, but the cheese was sadly non-existent. Well, that was how it tasted. DD opened his up to remove the tomato and I saw cheese, but there was no sign of it in flavour. The relish was pretty tame as well. It felt like I was eating a dry patty with salad. I was disappointed, but they were so busy while we were waiting. I think that we might have been better off in ordering a fancier burger like everyone else seemed to be doing. The more gourmet options were definately the popular option.

I have decided that I really should not watch my food being prepared anymore, because I will never eat out again. While we were waiting I was treated to the sight of one of the staff taking an order and handling money then turning around and plunging both hands into a tub of lettuce and then assembling and patting our burgers. She did this three times. Sometimes I am too squeamish for my own good, I think.

The meat patty was quite nice. It was good quality mince and it wasn't fatty at all. I think that if we had ordered differently we would have been very impressed with the burgers. If what you want is a basic burger though, then I would recommend Chimi's over Burger Urge.

Burger Urge
542 Brunswick St
New Farm
Ph 3254 1655
www.burgerurge.com.au

Breakfast at Cafe XS, Carindale

Looking for a fast, quality breakfast (or meal) at a fantastic price during a tiring shopping trip? Try Cafe XS. We have walked passed this little cafe so often and it's always busy. On Mother's Day, Mum and I stopped in to see why.

The first thing that struck us was how cheap everything was. Most meals were less than $12. Our breakfast of eggs benedict and a hot chocolate (me) and a steak sandwich and a cappucino (Mum) was only $28. A similar breakfast we had at the Coffee Club was almost twice that at $50.

The service and the quality was definately not reflective of the cheap prices. Our food was delivered quickly and all staff were lovely and friendly. Our meals were delicious, well presented and cooked to perfection.


I didn't get to try Mum's steak sandwich, but she said it was lovely. I thought it was quite funny that she chose another steak meal (she didn't want eggs) after having steak two nights in a row, but she enjoyed it.


My eggs benedict was wonderful. Two poached eggs with runny yolks served on lightly toasted Turkish bread (my favourite bread base for an eggs benedict) with just the right amount of ham and the best hollandaise sauce I have had for a long time. The hollandaise had an amazingly subtle flavour that really brought out the flavours of the eggs and ham. It was not overly strong and it really just emphasised the other flavours rather than having another flavour fighting for dominance. It made the dish really light, rather than the heavy meal it can sometimes be.

The coffee and hot chocolate are really good too. DD was ill on Mother's Day so he didn't get to come out, but I will definately bring him back to try it.

CafeXS
Store 1088a Westfield Carindale
1151 Creek Road
Carindale
Ph 3395 0725
www.cafexs.com

Fiasco's Restaurant, take two.

The last time we went to Fiasco's we were disappointed with the service we received. I must have really high standards, because it does seem that wherever I go lately I am not satisfied with service. However, I am glad to say that I was proven wrong with our visit last weekend.

We went back to Fiasco's on Saturday and were pleasantly surprised at how much better the service was. 100% better. We were seated straight away, our drinks order was taken and delivered promptly, everyone was wonderfully friendly and attentive. We were seated outside and there was always a waitperson nearby to make sure everything was okay. By the time our orders were taken we had already been visited by more staff than our previous visit. Last night was the way I think service should be and I am very glad that we went back and got to see them at their best.

I do think that we were disadvantaged last time in eating so late, even though it was not our fault our table wasn't ready for half an hour. Last night everything was relaxed and easy, we were even asked if we would like a second drinks order when our mains arrived, compared to last time when we weren't even asked once! We were also offered dessert on this visit and chose to share (there were three of us) a brandy snap basket with ice cream. It was amazing, a perfect end to a wonderful meal with great service. We couldn't have asked for more.

Fiasco's Steakhouse
Morrison Hotel
640 Stanley St
Woolloongabba
Ph: 07 3391 1413
(bookings highly recommended)

Birthday Dinner at Summit Restaurant, Mt Coot-tha

It was my birthday last week and to celebrate my mother, DD and I visited the Summit Restaurant at Mt Coot-tha for dinner. The cake above (a lovely black forest) was a surprise from my workmates during the day for myself and N, who share the same birthday.

We chose to visit Mt Coot-tha because it had a nice celebratory feel to it, and because I have never seen the view from Mt Coot-tha at night. It was absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately, while I brought the camera for some food shots, I forgot the camera battery which had been charging. I apologise for my poor little mobile phone pictures.


We were seated in a corner of the indoor section of the restaurant, giving us a beautiful view of the city lights. Unfortunately, the mobile phone does not do it justice. It was like looking over a twinkling Christmas tree. It was quite warm inside the restaurant and it warmed to almost uncomfortably hot and stifling during our meal. I think next time we might try for an outside table.

For starters:

Seared Deep Sea Scallops served on Asian rice noodles with fine vegetables topped with coriander and cashew nut pesto.

This was my entree. I loved the scallops, they were lovely and big. However, I could not taste any coriander or the cashew nut pesto. I added some sweet chilli sauce from DD and mum's entree and that really made the dish. It was great with the extra sweet chilli flavour.

Homemade Baby Spring Rolls filled with vegetables and served with sweet chilli sauce.

DD and Mum shared the six spring rolls and said they were fantastic. DD let me try some of his and I have to agree. They were beautifully light and crispy and really flavourful. They weren't oily or fatty like some spring rolls can be. It was a wonderful dish.

For our mains:

Grilled Wagyu Rump Steak (300g) served with sauteed diced potatoes, green peas and bacon with a caramalised onion compote and red wine reduction.

This was DD's main and he said it was very nice. The potatoes were a little bit undercooked, but not much. He really enjoyed the onion compote and red wine reduction.

Grilled Queensland Hereford Beef and Moreton Bay Bug. Sliced Hereford tenderloin and a grilled Moreton Bay Bug tail on two garlic mash, steamed bok choy with caramelised onion and red wine sauce.

Mum and I both chose this for our mains. I loved it. My steak was cooked as I ordered it (medium rare) and everything was really delicious. I particularly loved the mash and red wine sauce combination, almost more than the bug! Unfortunately, Mum was given two very small discs of steak in her dish, and they were quite overcooked. She also ordered hers medium rare, but these were leaning towards well done. The pieces were so thin that it would be quite easy to overcook them, but the reason we are going to a nice restaurant is so that we get the benefit of a chef's skill. If a diner orders a steak medium rare and the chef chooses a piece of steak too thin to be able to cook it to medium rare, pick another piece of steak to serve!! Mum was quite disappointed with this.

For dessert:

Chocolate Indulgence - chocolate fudge cake with bitter chocolate mousse and triple chocolate icecream served on a pool of chocolate mud.

DD decided to have a go at this plate of chocolatey richness. It was really good, everything a plate of chocolate should be. I loved the chocolate mousse. The mousse was served in a chocolate cup with strawberries. The strawberries tasted quite bitter and they were liberally dressed in icing sugar and a sweet balsamic glaze which DD and Mum did not like. Luckily they were easily removed and the chocolate could be enjoyed uninterrupted.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Cup filled with espresso icecream, topped with warm chocolate fudge.

This was my dessert. It was amazingly good. The chocolate chip cookie had a really lovely deep flavour which DD said was too sweet, but I thought it was the perfect foil for the espresso icecream. They were perfect together. I would order this again for the espresso icecream alone, but add the cookie and the fudge, it's heaven!

Before we were served, a couple at the table next to us were receiving their desserts. They looked lovely, and Mum and DD were teasing me about asking him if I could take a photo. While they were doing this, he pulled out his phone and took a photo!!! I felt that he could be a kindred spirit.

Mum ordered a cappucino to have while we ate dessert, unfortunately (again), the coffee didn't arrive until at least 5 minutes after we had finished our desserts.

The food tasted really good and I enjoyed every dish. What was disappointing (apart from Mum's steak) was that the service wasn't as good as I was expecting. We waited a long time for service and then all of a sudden had three different staff asking us for drink orders and then waited a long time for service again. We had empty glasses sitting on our table for the entire meal and they were only removed once Mum's coffee was delivered (again, more than 5 minutes after we had finished eating and were ready to go). I know it seems like a small thing, but it really affected our enjoyment of the meal and it was really disappointing. This was our first night out at a "fancier" restaurant and we felt that our visit was not worth the money we spent on it.

I have since been told that if I want excellent service I need to visit a restaurant that caters for a more corporate clientele rather than the Summit's more celebratory diners. A restaurant that deals with regular diners will provide a better service than one that serves diners that only visit for a special occasion. What are everyone's thoughts on this? Does anyone have a nice restaurant that serves good food and has great service?

Summit Restaurant at Brisbane Lookout
Sir Samuel Griffith Dr
Mt Coot-tha
Ph 07 3369 9922
www.brisbanelookout.com

Quick chicken with lemon and sage sauce

sorry for the terrible light

I could not decide what I wanted to do with some chicken I had out for dinner last week, so I decided to try one of Good Housekeeping's six speedy sauces to serve with sauteed chicken breasts. This one is a lemon and sage sauce.

I love both lemon and sage and really really liked the flavours. I'll do it again.

Skillet Chicken with Lemon-Sage Sauce
from Good Housekeeping

500g free range chicken breast strips
salt and pepper
1 tbs olive oil
1/2 reduced sodium chicken stock
1/3 cup white wine
1 tsp grated lemon peel
2 tbs lemon juice
2 tbs chopped fresh parsley
1 tsp chopped fresh sage
1 tbs cold margarine or butter

In a non-stick skillet, brown chicken breasts. Sprinkle with salt and black pepper. Set aside the chicken to rest.

Add the chicken stock and white wine to the pan. Cook 2 minutes to reduce sauce by half. Stir in lemon peel, lemon juice, parsley, sage and any juices from the chicken. Remove the skillet from heat and stir in cold margarine or butter.

Penne with Beef and Arugula

I spent a very long time organising all my food bookmarks on del.icio.us recently and found this long-forgotten Giada De Laurentiis recipe. I love the idea of having pasta with non-minced beef. It's strange, but true. This recipe is from her "Picnic Planner" episode of Everyday Italian, and it tastes equally good served warm or at room temperature.

It's really easy and delicious. The dressing is a combination of olive oil, balsamic vinegar and Dijon mustard. I wasn't comfortable with the three-quarters of a cup of olive oil, so I halved it. However, I did not make any adjustments to the amount of balsamic and it ended up really strong. It needed quite a bit of seasoning to soften the flavour.

I didn't have any fresh basil or rocket leaves, so I substituted Thai basil and baby spinach leaves. I thought that the peppery-ness of the Thai basil would substitute for the peppery-ness of the rocket. I did like the balance of the herbs but I would like to try it again with proper basil and rocket.

Penne with Beef and Arugula
adapated from Giada De Laurentiis' Everyday Italian

500g beef stir fry strips
1 tsp herbs de Provence
1 garlic clove, minced
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
500g penne pasta
1/4 balsamic vinegar
2 tbs Dijon mustard
salt and pepper
1/4 cup chopped fresh Thai basil leaves
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley leaves
2 cups chopped baby spinach leaves

Season the steak with salt and freshly ground black pepper, herbs de Provence, and minced garlic. Spray a skillet with cooking oil spray and fry the beef strips until just cooked through. Set aside to rest.

Meanwhile cook the pasta according to packet directions, reserving 1/4 cup pasta water.

In a small bowl, whisk together the balsamic vinegar, Dijon mustard, salt and pepper, fresh herbs and oil. In a large bowl toss the pasta with half of the salad dressing and the reserved pasta water. Add the spinach leaves and steak and the rest of the dressing and season with salt and pepper as needed.

Pistachio Macaroons

I have wanted to make these little macaroons for ages. Two of my favourite food blogs, Not Quite Nigella and A Spoonful of Sugar, have both made the macaroons and both had good things to say. I was a little nervous as I have never had a macaron before and I have never used a piping bag before.

I made the recipe taking into account the notes from the above posts. I followed Angela's example and peeled the pistachios by dropping them into a pot of boiling water and allowing them to boil for one minute, then draining them, pouring them into the centre of a tea towel and, in Angela's words, rub them madly. She also said it was simple, but mine were quite reluctant to shed their skins. I don't think my water was boiling hard enough. It took me over half an hour to peel the 130g of pistachios. Nonetheless, I was very glad I did it.


I also tried to follow the tips from both posts about rapping the baking trays on the counter before baking to eliminate the excess air. I did rap, quite loudly, but I did still end up with quite a delicate macaron.

Some of mine were quite misshapen also. I found it a little bit awkward piping the mix, firstly about how to best get the mix into the bag and then how to pipe without the little raw mix trails between the macarons. I'm sure I will get better at it though. I will have to whip some cream and practice with that.

The macarons are very very sweet. I used three baking trays for this batch and I cooked them separately because my oven tends to do strange things when it's full. I found that the batch that cooked longer (13-14 minutes) were less sweet than those that cooked for less. When you pair it with the toothache-inducing sweetness of the buttercream, it's a little overwhelming. The longer cooked ones worked much better. After the first few tries, I started putting far less filling in.

Everyone says that the recipe mades far too much buttercream than is needed for filling and it's recommended to halve it. I completely agree with this - more than half of my buttercream went to waste. If I had halved it, I could have cut some time off of my pistachio peeling too.

My macarons don't look anything like those at Not Quite Nigella or Wikipedia, but they do kind of look like Nigella's and those at A Spoonful of Sugar, so I don't think I did too badly. While I do feel a small sense of achievement now that I'm done and they are made, I don't think I'll be in a hurry to make these again. Nigella calls these cookie bliss, but I think they are too sweet for cookie bliss. Give me the salty chocolatey mix of Dorie Greenspan's World Peace Cookies anyday.


Pistachio Macaroons
from How to Be a Domestic Goddess, by Nigella Lawson

These are the world's most elegant macaroons. The color alone, that waxy pale jade, perfectly matches the aromatic delicacy of their taste; and their nutty chewiness melts into the fragrant, soft paste with which they're paired. Of all the recipes in this book, this is the one of which I think I'm most proud: cookie bliss.

These are perfect at the end of dinner alongside some confectioner's-sugar-dusted raspberries; or alone with coffee, gracefully piled on a plate or cake stand.

Ingredients

for the macaroons:

1/3 cup pistachios (75g)
3/4 cup confectioners' sugar (125g)
2 large egg whites
1 tbs sugar (15g)

for the buttercream: (halve these amounts, trust me)

1/4 cup pistachios (55g)
1 2/3 cup confectioners' sugar (250g)
1/2 cup unsaled butter, softened (125g)

2 baking sheets, lined with parchment or wax paper.

Preparation

Preheat the oven to 180°C. (I followed NQN's example and set my fan forced oven to 160°C, but I highly recommend to add an extra minute or two to the cooking time).

Grind the pistachios in a food processor along with the confectioners' sugar (this stops them turning into an oily mess), until as fine as dust. Whisk the egg whites until fairly stiff, but not dry, sprinkle the sugar over and whisk until very stiff. Fold the whites into the pistachio-sugar dust, and combine gently. Pipe small rounds onto your lined baking sheet, using a plain 1/2-inch nozzle. Let them sit for about 10 minutes to form a skin. Then put in the oven and cook for 10-12 minutes: they should be set, but not dried out.

Remove from the oven and let cool, still on their sheets, while you get on with the filling. This is simple work: grind the nuts and confectioners' sugar in the processoor as before; then cream the butter and continue creaming as you add the nut dust. Make sure you have a well-combined soft buttercream. Then simply sandwich the macaroons together.

Chimi's Burgerbar

Tonight's dinner from Chimi's Burgerbar came by in a roundabout way. I was reading on A Spoonful of Sugar about Angela's Banana Praline Parfait which she adapted from a recipe by Heston Blumenthal. This led me to Google Heston Blumenthal and watching an episode of Heston Blumenthal: In Search of Perfection about his quest for the perfect burger. I enjoyed it so much I linked it to DD, who also really liked it, and when I asked about dinner DD said he wanted burgers. After seeing that episode, I could understand the craving.

Next we had to find a good place for burgers. Previously we had always gone to Seafood and Eat It in Greenslopes. They made the best burgers ever there, their grilled chicken burger was sublime. I have to admit that I dream about it occasionally. Tragically, the last time we tried to go there, it was closed. I wish I knew what had happened to it.

So, our favourite burger haunt was no more and it was back to Google to search for "best burgers Brisbane". One of the most frequently recommended was Chimi's in Fortitude Valley. DD has also wanted to try them after seeing their posters allowing you to downsize your burger for $3 off. This admirable option is matched by the slightly less healthy Chimiburger: a burger with two beef patties, bacon, cheese, egg, tomato, red onion, relish and aioli then dipped in egg, crumbed and flash fried.

It was surprisingly quiet in the Valley for a Saturday night and we were able to drive there, order and receive our burgers and drive home in about half an hour. Unfortunately, I didn't time how long it took for them to fill our order, because I was distracted by a quite contradictory council sign.

We didn't take the option to downsize because we wanted to see how big the burgers are, but we were not quite game enough to try the Chimiburger. DD and C ordered a Late Breakie burger: a beef patty, tomato, red onion, egg, cheese, bacon, aioli and relish ($9 ea) and I tried a Moo burger with cheese (pictured - upside down - above): a beef patty, lettuce, tomato, red onion, cheese, aioli and relish ($8). We also ordered a side of sweet potato fries ($3 for regular, $4 for large).

My burger was quite tasty. The flavours of the mayonnaise, relish and cheese were perfectly balanced. It wasn't quite the stuff dreams are made of (as my much lamented chicken burger was), but it was a nice burger. It was huge and messy, with saucy mayonnaise dripping everywhere. Although DD's burger was twice as messy, I think he ended up going through three serviettes. DD enjoyed his but C felt that the Late Breakie was missing something, but he couldn't put his finger on what that was. DD loved the sweet potato fries, however I found that they were too thin and stringy for me. I prefer a thicker cut to a sweet potato chip.

We all enjoyed the burgers and at $36 for three burgers, a side of fries and parking in Chinatown mall (the food was only $30, but the extra $6 was well worth not having to find a park in the Valley at 7:30 on a Saturday night) it was very reasonably priced. There was a lot of food there!

Chimi's Burgerbar
Shop 13 Licorice Lane
Fortitude Valley Mall
Brunswick Street
Fortitude Valley
Ph: 07 3854 0244
www.chimis.com.au

On the road to a bakeoff

I had a false start on the way to my wonderful sour cream banana bread. One of the four recipes I was going to make was this Banana Banana Bread, also from Recipezaar. This recipe is the highest rated banana bread recipe on that site, with twice as many fantastic reviews than any other banana bread. I was so excited about it, I had decided to make the recipe as written even though I had initially decided to halve each recipe.

I had worked out how many bananas I need (some recipes measured the bananas in cups, others specified the number of whole bananas) and had assembled everything ready to go. Then my butter just wouldn't soften. I was reluctant to microwave it soft, as I tend to over heat and melt the butter and I wanted everything to be perfect for my first blogging event. It took hours. I took my butter and eggs out of the fridge at 10am on Sunday morning, and it wasn't until after 4pm that it was finally soft enough to be workable.

So, with a combination of anticipation and excitement, I got to cooking. I sifted my flours, I mashed my bananas. I even pushed my banana through a seive to try and make my banana bread silky and consistant (it took a long time!). I mixed it all up, poured it into the tin and popped it in the oven. Then, I started cleaning up. I put away my flour container, my jar of sugar, my block of butter... ?? Why did I still have a block of softened butter?

I forgot to add the 1/2 cup of butter to my banana bread. On the upside, it became a fat-free banana bread. On the downside, the bread was hugely dense and took ages to cook. It still tastes very nice, although I can't eat it unless its quite heavily toasted because it is so dense. I am looking on the bright side of this goof: since there is no butter inside the bread, I can add butter after I toast it!


Banana Banana Bread
from Shelley Albeluhn on Recipezaar

2 cups plain flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter (quite possibly optional)
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs, beaten
2 1/3 cups mashed banana

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celcius and lightly grease a 9 x 5 loaf pan.

In a large bowl, combine flour, soda and salt.

In a separate bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar. Stir in eggs and mashed bananas until well blended.

Add the banana mixture into the flour mixture and stir just to moisten.

Pour batter into prepared loaf pan and bake for 60-65 minutes.

Let bread cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack.

Banana Bread Bakeoff

My most memorable banana bread moment was the first time I went to Sydney to visit DD. We had banana bread at a cafe at Universal Studios and it was lovely. I don't like banana breads with nuts or chunky bits and this one was a revelation such as I've never tasted before. It was smooth and consistant, toasted and nicely coated with butter.

Ever since then, I have been searching for a banana bread that could rival it and I've only ever found its like at Gloria Jeans in the BP Service Centre in Coffs Harbour. Living nowhere near Coffs, I haven't had the opportunity to indulge as much as I'd like to.

Then the wonderful Not Quite Nigella announced her Banana Bread Bakeoff! There couldn't be a better opportunity to explore the wonderful banana bread recipes and hopefully find something that could live up to my extremely high banana bread standards.

I went out and stocked up on bananas, butter, flour and sugar and narrowed down my selections to four recipes. I was going to do Banana Bread: Variations on a Theme, but fate intervened in the form of a banana bread that will spoil me for any other banana bread. This banana bread deserves to be entered into NQN's bakeoff, my very first blogging event!

Many of the recipes I chose were extremely simple, with a minimum of ingredients. This recipe, a Sour Cream Banana Bread I found on Recipezaar, is no exception. Baking911 states that sour cream contains acids which tenderize the gluten in the recipe, producing a fine crumb and sour cream makes them moist and springy. A fine crumb, moist and springy sounds like a perfect banana bread to me.

This banana bread tastes great fresh out of the oven as it is, it tastes great the next day toasted with a little butter AND it even freezes well. The banana taste is delightfully prominent without being overpowering, the bread isn't too sweet and it melts in your mouth. I highly recommend it!


Sour Cream Banana Bread
from Charishma Ramchandani on Recipezaar

1/2 cup butter or margarine
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup mashed banana (I used three medium bananas)
1/2 cup sour cream

Grease one large loaf pan and preheat oven to 180 degrees Celcius.

Cream the butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla in a large bowl.

Add the dry ingredients, bananas and sour cream and mix well.

Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 1 hour.

Cupcakes

It's a friend's birthday on Saturday. I wanted to make her something nice and I thought that some cupcakes would be in order. She doesn't like chocolate, so I tried Nigella's wedding cupcakes from Nigella Feasts.

I have seen her make these, complete with gloriously white royal icing, on her latest DVD and they seem so easy. Just throw everything into a food processor and then spoon into cupcake cases and bake. However, I managed to mess these up somehow. I halved the recipe and I think that I must have mismeasured something. The cupcakes sank and were dense and nasty. I think I also didn't cook them for long enough, even though they were in there five minutes longer than Nigella's specified cooking time.

It was a little disappointing and I wasn't really confident enough to try it again, so I fell back on something I had in the pantry.


I know, it's a packet mix, but goodness, what a packet mix! Whisk and Pin specialise in hand made gourmet organic muesli, but they also offer an array of gourmet baking mixes such as cakes, pancakes and scones. The Organic Vanilla Cupcake Mix includes organic self-raising flour, organic caster sugar, lemon powder and organic vanilla and smells so good!

These turned out perfectly. They didn't sink, they have a lovely light crumb and a wonderful lemony scent and flavour. I love lemons, so this little cupcake is heavenly.

I did make Nigella's royal icing to ice them. Since the icing also has a little bit of lemon juice added the match was wonderful. I hope my friend likes them.

The mix also includes little sugar flower decorations, which made me feel like a domestic goddess regardless of the fact I was using a packet mix.


My friend is a huge fan of The Nightmare Before Christmas, so I wanted to make these Jack Skellington cupcakes. I'm not normally very creative (which probably makes for a pretty boring blog!) but I had fun trying these. I used cocoa sprinkled over a template which I cut out with a stanley knife and with the assistance of some sharp nail scissors.


Do you think they look okay? I hope I can get them to work tomorrow without the cocoa moving. I'm going to take a photo so she knows what they started out like.