Brisbane Arcade and the State Library of Queensland

Okay, I'm procrastinating. I have lots and lots and lots of blog posts to write and I keep putting them off in favour of posting the very few that don't require much (if any) thought.

So, here are some pictures from our trip into the city yesterday. The Brisbane Arcade is just beautiful and so are the grounds around the State Library and the Museum.

Posts about food are coming soon, I promise!

Merry Christmas

I hope everyone out there is have a wonderfully Merry Christmas. Thank you very much for reading my blog this year, I really appreciate every one of you and I treasure your comments.

Merry Christmas to you all and a Happy New Year.

Summer Fruit

I love fruit at this time of year. Cherries are my favourite fruit ever, and I love peaches and plums and nectarines and lychees. I love strawberries too, but they don't seem to be at their best at the moment.

I also have three beautiful mangoes sitting on my kitchen counter. I can't decide what to do with them. Any ideas?

The best salad dressing

I found this recipe on Deb's blog Smitten Kitchen, which I love reading. Out of all her fabulous recipes that I love so much, this one would have be near the top of my list. It's creamy, it's tangy, it's fabulous even if you just have it with lettuce or Chinese cabbage.

I have a recipe my grandmother passed down to me for cucumber salad which is cucumber and onion in a dressing of cream, vinegar and sugar. I love this salad so much, but the amount of cream that goes into the dressing means I don't make it very often.

This salad dressing is as good as my beloved cucumber salad and has the benefit of being cream-less. There's buttermilk and a little bit of mayonnaise but they are the only thing to feel guilty about and I think I can live with that.

Buttermilk Dressing
from Smitten Kitchen

1/2 cup well-shaken buttermilk
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
2 tablespoons minced shallot
1 tablespoon sugar
3 tablespoons finely chopped chives

Whisk together buttermilk, mayonnaise, vinegar, shallot, sugar, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper in a large bowl until sugar has dissolved, then whisk in chives.

Well, it was supposed to be a sausage pilaf

It was supposed to be this Tomato and Sausage Pilaf from Taste.com.au. I had already turned my nose up at a recipe that needed two dishes, so I decided to turn this one into a one pot dish by cooking it all on the stove.

Then I remembered that I had cooked a stovetop paella with sausages not that long ago, and it was really nice except it was a little too flavourless. It made me doubt my Tomato and Sausage Pilaf, so I threw caution to the wind and started combining recipes.

I browned my cheap supermarket sausages for about 10 minutes over a medium heat. Once browned, I removed them from the pan and set them aside.

Add 1 chopped onion and some garlic and olive oil into the hot pan and cook until softened.

Add 1 cup of basmati rice and stir until coated in the onion-garlic oily mix, about 1 minute.

Add 1 tin of crushed tomatoes (I used basil and oregano flavoured ones) and 1 1/2 cups chicken stock. I also added two beef stock cubes and some chilli powder. Stir well and cover.

Simmer over a low heat until the liquid is absorbed and the rice is cooked.

I tasted it and found that it was too tomatoey sweet, so I tried adding some BBQ sauce. That really just added another element of sweetness, so I added two more stock cubes and chilli flakes. I also thought the rice was a little undercooked so I added some beef stock (only a tiny bit) and put it back on to heat.

I changed my mind after few minutes (and a tasting) and it became less of a pilaf and more of a stewy casserole. It was very tasty though - a bit like the BBQ sauce they put on meatlovers pizzas.

Earth 'n' Sea Pizza

During a visit to a friend's house she suggested that we have Earth 'n' Sea Pizza for dinner, because they are the best pizzas ever, she said.

I have to say that I agree, we had the Earth 'n' Sea Massive Meatlovers Pizza (a combination of bacon, beef, ham and pepperoni with special BBQ sauce) that night, and it was amazing. The bases are awesome, and the wholemeal base adds a whole new dimension to the pizza. It gives it real depth. I had three pieces that night - it was that good.

My friend also says that their ham and pineapple is also the best ever, so I've been thinking about it ever since.

When DD and I were thinking about where to get dinner the other night, I asked if DD minded if we do pizza from Earth 'n' Sea. DD is a big fan of Elios pizzas and generally isn't all that excited about other pizzas so I was very excited when he said yes. We decided to go for two small pizzas so we could get the Massive Meatlovers again and the Troppo.

They are so tasty, I'd give them my highest pizza rating ever!

Jamon

I've read many a blog post about jamón, a Spanish ham and I was very excited to see some for sale at Pennisi's. I couldn't resist getting some to try. They had some Jamón Iberico and some Jamón Serrano so I bought both, for comparison purposes.

The Jamón Iberico was a pretty low quality, but it was still miles away from the prosciutto I'm used to (the only cured ham I am really familiar with). It was silky smooth and a flavour that I really couldn't describe.

The Serrano wasn't as exciting, to me it was too similar to prosciutto.

It was quite a fun experiment, and I'm a happy food blogger trying new things!

Early Christmas Present

I hate the oven/stove in my house. It's a horrible old nasty thing that won't maintain heat, has no consistency as to what temperature it runs at and the stovetop has two options: searing hot (and not in a good way) and off. The stupid thing also doesn't have any markings on its dials so we are not quite sure if the way we are turning the knobs is the right way, and it doesn't sit level so all your food falls to one side of the pan.

My mum has had to listen to me whine about my kitchen ever since we moved here 3 months ago, and she said that everything I complained about could be fixed if I just got one of these convection oven things that she had. Apparently the oven cooks on a very high heat which means that everything gets cooked superfast. You can also (apparently) cook cakes and cookies in it too. She loves hers and so when she was visiting for the Good Food and Wine Show, she bought us one as an early Christmas present. We were also going to get an electric hot plate, but they seem to have disappeared from stores.

The plan was to cover up the crappy stove with my large Ikea breadboard and set everything up on there. Unfortunately, because we couldn't get the electric hot plate, we've had to keep the convection oven away because there's no room for it. Mum was very excited to see if I liked it and kept asking if I had used it yet, and I never had.

That is, until I had a roast pork sandwich for lunch one day and ended up with a serious craving for roast pork. I bought a pork shoulder on special at the local shops and fired up my new oven.



This took just over an hour on 200 degrees celcius, and as you can see, it was probably a little too long because the meat was a little dry.


It was tasty though. Next time I'm going to try and roast a chicken. Exciting stuff.

Lazy Dessert

What do you do when dessert needs to be made and you're late and lazy? A lazy man's Eton Mess of course. Crushed meringue with cut strawberries, thickened cream sprinkled with icing sugar. Nobody complained ;-)

Island Curries - Lamb Curry Paste

I don't remember what my logic was using the Island Curries lamb curry paste with chicken, but it was definately good logic! The paste is intensely spicy (not heat spicy) and heady with aromatics. I added some sour cream for creaminess and it was beautiful.

These are, without a doubt, the best curry pastes I've ever used.

Hmm, our old camera has been putting out some pretty shonky shots lately. It's getting much harder to find light that will show the food properly and have it reflect in the finished picture.

This particular photo is a combination of camera problems and photographer problems, and it was one of the very few times when I only take one shot of something and then eat it before I get a chance to check the photo.

I was craving noodles for lunch one day, but didn't want my staple lunch of Nigella's Cold Soba Noodle Salad. An internet search for noodle recipes followed, and I liked the sound of the Peanut Sesame Noodles that had been posted on Smitten Kitchen.

It was really good, they tasted fantastic. It was the end of the shopping week for us, so I didn't have any salad additions, nor do I like tofu, so mine was very much just peanut noodles. I also didn't process the dressing, but heated it gently until combined (I think I was confused with another recipe here, to be honest) which made it a lot gluggier than it needed to be.

I'll have to make it again, but properly this time because the flavours are the best.

See Smitten Kitchen for the recipe.

Cheese plate

Excuse the dark photo, but this was a nice afternoon cheese tasting plate made up of the cheeses in my cheese showbags. Not the best photo, but that's okay - the cheese was good.

Mons Ban Sabai Thai Garden Restaurant

For Mum's last night here we had takeaway Thai from Mons Ban Sabai Thai Garden Restaurant. Mons Ban Sabai have won a plethora of awards and I visited there for my Thai Cooking Class. We had an veritable feast of gorgeous Thai dishes.

Top row left to right:

Coconut Rice
Goong Sarm Roj (crispy prawns in sweet sauce)

Middle row left to right:

Yum Nua (beef pieces in a spicy Thai salad)
Pad Thai Noodles (rice noodles with eggs, tamarind sauce, bean sprouts, garlic chives, ground peanuts and chicken)

Bottom row left to right:

Green Curry (chicken with bamboo shoots, eggplant, herbs and coconut milk)
Satay chicken skewers


Everything was simply divine.

Mons Ban Sabai
Thai Garden Restaurant
12 Martha St
Camp Hill
Ph: 3843 5366
www.monsbansabai.com

Brisbane Good Food and Wine Show 2008 - The Haul

Before I start talking about my haul, I'm a sucker for showbags so please bear with me.


Gourmet Garden goodie bag. This one I didn't buy, but won in Tobie Puttock's show. They were handing out prizes before he came out, and I took a picture of the guy with gifts. He stopped and did a twirl, then gave me the bag. I was really disappointed that his photo turned out blurry because he was really cool. If that guy ever comes to read this, thanks!!!

I do love Gourmet Garden herbs, because my black thumb kills any type of fresh herbs if I don't use them immediately. I mean, same day. For example, I bought some beautiful basil, coriander and mint from the markets the other week. They all still had their roots, so I popped them in a jar with a little bit of water and put a plastic bag over their leaves. They were dead by nightfall.

Fresh herbs are always my preference, but I love that I can flavour my sauces and marinades with a herby taste without the need to constantly shop for fresh herbs. This was a double bonus because I had just culled my store of Gourmet Garden and thrown all of them out, so I was instantly restocked.


Organic pasta and sauce from Spiral Foods. The pasta sauces tasted so good. They were so full of flavour. We've had the Basil and Garlic, but I'm saving the Pizza/Pasta sauce for a special occasion.


These Kikkoman sauces were 4 for $10. We are always looking for new ways to jazz up our chicken (which is the meat we eat most often), so it was a nice cheap way to try things we wouldn't normally use. At the Kikkoman stand they also had these mixed with sour cream and yoghurt (I think) to be used as dips. They even tasted really good just as a simple dip.

We have tried the Roasted Garlic just as a marinade for chicken, but it's too salty on its own. Next time we tried the Lime, Lemongrass and Soy mixed with the Roasted Garlic and had it over noodles. That turned out really well, a definate winner!


I don't remember what really prompted me to buy this Hans variety bag. I know that I did enjoy all the samples they had and maybe that led me to try and buy one, but they had sold out when I asked on Saturday. The guy said that they had 30 more for Sunday, so that meant that the first place we went when we came back on Sunday was to the Hans stall.

Anyway, we loved the cheese Kransky and I absolutely adored the Barkers Creek pork. The pork was amazing. I've got to find some more of that stuff. More of the Kransky too, for that matter. The rest of the stuff was used to make some home-made meat lovers pizza. I had all this meat floating around and it was never getting used, so we bought some pizza bases and loaded them up. They were quite good, but we needed a vegetarian meal for the next night.


A selection of curry pastes from Island Curries. These are by far the best tasting curry pastes I've had for a long time. They are so beautifully spicy. The stall at the show also had them mixed with cream or sour cream as a dipping sauce, and that was fantastic too.


A selection of chilli sauces from The Chilli Man. DD and his workmates love chilli sauce so DD bought the two hottest ones there to take to work to test their manliness. I was a little more sedate and went for the chutney and BBQ Sauce. We've been using the BBQ sauce as a marinade for steak and it is making our steaks awesome!


Chocolate Mousse powder from Nicholson Fine Foods. This was an impulse buy after tasting some of their prepared mousse. It's so chocolatey and rich. I haven't been able to make it as well as what we had at the show, but I'm putting that down to the fact that I'm scaling the recipe so I'm only making one serve at time. My measurements must be off a little.


Cheese Selection from South Cape Fine Foods. I realised after Saturday's visit that I hadn't had any cheese. I was quite angry with myself, as I love my cheese. I marked every cheese stall I could find on our list of must-dos for Sunday's visit. The South Cape stall and the Tasmanian Heritage stall were combined, so we got two for the price of one (more or less, it was two for $15 instead of $10 each or something like that)! What sold us on the South Cape bag was the Persian Fetta - it is amazing! So rich and creamy. The most exciting thing we've done with other than have it on crackers is to stir it through pasta sauce though. It doesn't matter to us really, we enjoyed it no matter how we used it. The Trilogy cheese was okay, but I'm much more of a soft cheese person.


The star of the Tasmanian Heritage bag was definately their Blue Opal. It's a beautiful brie with blue veins running through it. I am scared to try a lot of blues because they are normally very strong, but the combination of the brie and blue in this was perfectly matched. It had the extra flavour and strength of the blue and the creamy smoothness of the brie. I really loved it. Again, apart from having it on crackers, all we've done with this one is have it with pasta. We're so innovative.

I don't like Swiss cheese generally. I don't mind it on sandwiches and stuff, but I'm not really a fan. Unfortunately, the St Claire really didn't do it for me.


Finally, we have a Dello Mano brownie. We visit Bien at the Jan Powers Farmers Markets far more often than we should for our waistlines, but how can we resist his fabulous brownies? He and his wife Deb are just the loveliest people too, I have no idea how he remembers us from all the other people that flock to his market stall. He always does though, and he gave us a cheery greeting when we visited him at the Good Food Show. He also gave us this Classic Belgium brownie, which we happily accepted.

We put it to good use that night for dessert, popping it in the microwave for 30 seconds to melt slightly and serving it with cream to be shared by the two of us.

You can buy Dello Mano brownies online too, so if you want to try brownie bliss for yourself, you should go and have a look at their online shop.

Brisbane Good Food and Wine Show 2008 - Sunday

DD came with me for the final day of the Good Food and Wine Show. Our Sunday visit was very organised. I had a list of all the things I wanted to see again and the few things that I wanted to buy. DD wanted to have a look around, so we tried to do it in a logical pattern so we didn't miss anything. It worked too! We got to see everything we wanted to and didn't feel that we were missing things. We did double back a few times, but mostly it was a very organised visit.


We stumbled across Ainsley Harriott doing a book signing, and I couldn't resist stalker-snapping this photo.

Alastair McLeod in the Celebrity Theatre - Sunday


I was really looking forward to Alastair's show. I love the dishes he cooks on Ready Steady Cook, I love seafood, I really want to go to Brett's Wharf, I very much enjoyed his MC'ing at the previous shows... I had high expectations. The recipes he prepared were wonderful, I wanted to try quite a few of them.


The problem was that he seemed really nervous about the whole thing. He lost his natural engagement. It was quite strange, as it was nothing like what you see of him on TV, or even before the other shows. His interaction with his audience member helper was a bit off as well (I don't think that was his fault though). Now, I am slightly prudish but I did feel that some of the things that were being said were just a little bit on the wrong side of line. It was a bit off-putting for me.


So, I was a little disappointed. I probably was expecting too much and that makes my disappointment my own fault, but I was still disappointed. I was even more disappointed because Alastair said that if we emailed him he would send us the recipes. I did email him, as soon as I got home, and haven't gotten a reply. I thought he would be better than that, actually. You don't just say something and then not follow through. I appreciate that he is busy, but then don't offer to do something if you're not going to do it! It's a pity, because the food he cooked looked fabulous.

Brisbane Good Food and Wine Show 2008 - Saturday

Tobie Puttock in the Celebrity Theatre - Saturday


I love the layout of the celebrity theatre this year. Last year we had tickets on the side and the way the stage folded up at the ends was a little irritating. This year it's nice and open. What I didn't like about this year was that they didn't give the recipes to the dishes the chefs cooked in the celebrity theatre. What's up with that? Last year it was awesome to get the little booklet with all the recipes, I even made one of them!


Tobie made a selection of dishes inspired by his new show and new cookbook. Because I was so slack in posting this, I can't remember exactly what he made. I think I remember that one dish involved watermelon and another involved fish in a tomato based sauce to be served over pasta. The pasta dish was the one I most wanted to try at home, and my eagle-eyed mother found the recipe in delicious. magazine for me. When I dig up that particular magazine, I'll post it here.


I really enjoy watching Tobie present, he's really natural and enthusiastic and he makes you enjoy the food. I wish we had Foxtel so I could see his show.

Show Restaurant

This year they have introduced a show restaurant which lets you choose from a selection of dishes from a range of chefs. You have to change your money into "Restaurant Dining Currency" at a booth outside the restaurant and then you just hand over your tickets. An entree with a matched glass of wine was $14 or 2 tickets, a main with a matched glass of wine was $21 or 3 tickets and a dessert or coffee/muffin or a glass of wine was $7 or 1 ticket. The line was the currency conversion booth was crazy long all day. We finally braved the queues at about 2pm and each bought three tickets. After we had eaten, I really wanted to try a dessert, but the line at the booth hadn't changed at all and I didn't want a dessert that much.

I love the idea of the show restaurant, I loved having the opportunity to try all of these fantastic meals that I really don't get a chance to try because we don't really go out to those kinds of restaurants. It was great being able to see what kind of flavours these chefs like to go in for and the dishes they chose.

Dominique Rizzo was one of the chefs who had a selection of dishes in the restaurant. I really like her style of cooking on Ready Steady Cook and I was quite excited to see her there serving people herself. Alastair McLeod was another chef that I really enjoy seeing on Ready Steady Cook, and I've always wanted to visit his restaurant Bretts Wharf. Alastair was in the restaurant proper while we were eating, so I gathered my courage and went and said hello to him. He seemed very nice and he was quite chuffed when I told him he was my favourite chef on Ready Steady Cook. I mean, who doesn't like to hear stuff like that? We told him that I was abandoning my mother at the airport tomorrow just so I could come back to the show in time to see him in the Celebrity Theatre. I'm such a bad daughter.


For lunch, Mum chose to have Ainsley Harriott's aubergine and potato dhansak with roti bread. She really liked it. I thought it was very very good, nice and light with a great flavour.


I chose Alastair McLeod's Roasted Flinders Island lamb with green bean and fennel salad, and a tomato and chilli jam. This was amazing. The lamb was tender and beautifully cooked, the fennel went so well with the lamb and the tomato and chilli jam. It was fresh and tasty and so good!

Ainsley Harriott in the Celebrity Theatre - Saturday


Mum said that Ainsley put on quite a show, so we went back on Saturday so I could see him. I don't remember any of the dishes that he cooked and it's not even because it's been a month, I didn't remember what he had made once we left the theatre. What I do remember was his enthusiasm and excitement. It was so great to see, he made the audience laugh and have fun and he really engaged everyone. I had had a few wines before this and Mum was definately a little on the tipsy side, but I'm sure that wasn't the only reason we enjoyed the show.


Ainsley likes his audience participation member to be a guy, to help them see that they can cook and do stuff in the kitchen too. I wish DD could have come to one of his shows, I think it would have been great to see him up there. I'm sure he's equally glad he didn't come to one of these, because I know he wouldn't have enjoyed being in the spotlight. The guy Ainsley had come up in this show was a great sport, he really got into it and he was just as funny as Ainsley. It was a great show.

Brisbane Good Food and Wine Show 2008 - Friday

More belated posting! The Brisbane Good Food and Wine Show was on from the 7-9 of November and a good time was had by all. My mother came down to visit that weekend so that she could go to the show, she went with my Aunty on Friday and with me on Saturday (unfortunately, new job meant that I couldn't take the Friday off as I had intended to) but I think she had a great time. She bought so much stuff that she was having trouble fitting it into her suitcase.

Friday - Ainsley Harriott in the Celebrity Theatre

Alastair McLeod was the MC

Another visit to Verve

Wow! Talk about procrastination. We visited Verve again (I love that place) maybe three weeks ago and I'm only blogging about it now. Please excuse the slightly out-of-date posts that will be popping up, I've been really busy with work and stuff. Excuses excuses!!!!


We started the evening with some Herb Bread ($4.90) and some Pan Bread (kalamata olive, sea salt, basil, bocconcini $4.90). I do love these breads, they are lovely and flavourful. Last time we visited, DD and I preferred the Herb Bread, this time I don't think I could pick a favourite, both of them were amazing.


For mains, my mother chose a Freshly Seared Atlantic Salmon on a Pear, Rocket and Parmesan Salad. The salmon was perfectly cooked and tasted fabulous, and I really like the combination of pear rocket and parmesan. Mum's only complaint about this one was that it was slightly over-dressed for her liking. She wished she had asked for dressing on the side as towards the end of her dish she had sad little parmesan flakes drowned in the bottom of her plate - so badly waterlogged (dressing-logged?) that we thought they could have been burghal. Although the last bits were slightly underwhelming, on the whole Mum really enjoyed this.


DD chose to have a pizza for his main. The Ham Pizza ($15.90) has salami, ham, olives, mushroom and mozzarella but I believe he asked for his sans mushrooms. It was a lovely pizza, base nicely cooked and just chewy enough, generous toppings and tasty sauce. He even let me taste it twice, just to be sure.


For my main I chose the Lobster and Snapper Risotto (diced Roma tomato, zest of lemon, fresh thyme, cream), as I loved the Sandcrab and Snapper Risotto I had last time. I have to say that I felt that the lobster didn't really come out in this dish, and I vastly preferred the sandcrab version. The lobster got lost, the flavour wasn't there. I felt that this dish needed seasoning to give it something. Last time there was no need for anything to be added as all the flavours worked really well together to make the dish.

I still really enjoyed it apart from thyme stems that I found sprinkled throughout the dish. I have to say that I'm a big believer that if it's pointy and can't be eaten, don't put it in the dish! The fishbone sized twigs really detracted from the smooth creaminess risotto is supposed to be.

We still very much enjoyed our visit and I can definately see us going back. The service is wonderfully friendly and helpful, they are such lovely people. Good food and great service.

Verve Cafe
Basement
109 Edward St
Brisbane
Ph: 3221 5691
www.vervecafe.com.au