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Tag: food

  • I Made This

    I was at last able to pick up the Snook’s super-secret birthday surprise tonight – two beer mugs that I made him in my Ceramics class! (He didn’t mind that they were late; I couldn’t get them out of the kiln any sooner.) I had a lot of help from my tutor Peter. They have extruded handles and I finished them with a hand-painted pewter glaze. They turned out pretty much exactly as I’d hoped. They’re pleasantly heavy without being too chunky; they’re slightly wonky and obviously handmade; they look rather medieval and masculine. The photo makes the one on the left look chipped, but that’s actually water from where I’d just rinsed them out. Snookums only had them out of the wrapper for about two seconds before he’d filled the big one with beer!

    And yes, that is a football-sized ball of Silk Garden. I pulled my cardigan apart. It’s a long story.

    Beer mugs
    Cheers!
    Chicken Pot Pie

    That last picture is my dinner creation for tonight – Chicken Pot Pie. Yes, I decorated it with a bird made from puff pastry. It was delicious!

    Recipe:

    Okay, this is just a slightly-modified version of the Chicken Pot Pie recipe from the Better Homes and Gardens New American Cookbook, which is my all-time number-one go-to cookbook for just about everything.

    First, you’re gonna need some cooked chicken. (The recipe calls for three cups.) You can either pull it off a roast chicken, or you can poach your own. Poaching’s pretty easy so I go with that. Just whack a couple breasts in a skillet and fill it with water. Cover and simmer until they’re cooked through. Sometimes if they’re really thick I cut them in half so they cook faster in the middle. Once they’re done, fish out the chicken and set it aside to cool.

    Now get out a pot and fry up a chopped onion in a quarter-cup of butter. (Mmmm.) When the onion is soft, you’re going to dump in one-third of a cup of all-purpose flour, half a teaspoon of salt, half a teaspoon of dried thyme, and a good grind of pepper. Stir it around a bit so the flour soaks up the butter and cooks a little. (This is what makes the sauce thick.) Now you’re going to dump in two cups of chicken stock and three-quarters of a cup of milk. Stir it around and cook until thickened and bubbly. Now throw in your vegetables. Tonight I felt like using a lot so I put in carrots, potatoes, peas, broccoli, and green beans. While that’s cooking, go back to your now-cool chicken and tear it up into chunks. Add that to the pot. You’re nearly done!

    All you have to do now is pour your mixture (basically a thick chicken stew) into a big Pyrex baking dish (or you can be fancy and put it in little individual dishes). Cover it up with some puff pastry (buy it frozen but let it thaw first) and cut a few slits to let the steam escape. If you’ve got some left over, you can go nuts with the decoration (a la my bird). Pop the whole thing in the oven on a fairly high heat (at least 180C if not more) and let it bake for 15 minutes or so, basically until the pastry goes flaky and golden. Pull out and eat!

  • Greek Festival, Darling Harbour

    I can’t believe I finally scooped Helen! On Sunday the Snook and I walked down to Darling Harbour to check out the big Greek Festival. It was beautiful and sunny and hot and crowded. We had some food and watched some dancers. I had a great time! (The Snook was less entranced: “I’m not emo; I just hate people.” We saw that graffito once and it’s become a catchphrase.) I even took my camera…

    My first stop was sweet-corn-on-a-stick. I’m not sure how Greek that is, but it was SO. GOOD. I had it with margarine and salt and pepper.

    Corn

    Next we stood and watched a troupe of dancers perform the song everybody was waiting for: “Zorba the Greek.”

    Zorba

    Time for more food! We joined the extremely disorganized queue and waited… and waited…

    Waiting

    We’d decided against the loukoumades, which were like deep-fried balls of dough dipped in honey. They looked amazing but definitely not in my daily Points allotment. (Incidentally, I’m amused that Helen took almost this exact same picture.)

    Frying

    I had the vegetarian “souvlaki,” which was basically a pita with chargrilled vegetables, garlic, and tzatziki. They’d made them up ahead of time so it was cold, which was my only complaint. Otherwise… delish.

    My Souvlaki

    Snookums went for the full meat option. Mmm, looks good.

    Proper Souvlaki

    Yum!

    It’s fun being a wannabe food-blogger… 🙂

  • Vermicelli – unpaid endorsement

    I have a new lunchtime addiction: Vermicelli‘s rice paper rolls. They just opened around the corner this week and they’re great! I’ve had the lunch special twice now, and my favorites would have to be the Sesame Beef rolls (they taste like bulgogi!) and the Portuguese Chicken salad. My only regret is they don’t have any nutrition information so I can accurately add up my Points. (I’m going to count them as slightly higher than the Sumo rolls, since they seem to have more meat.)

  • Learning How to Run

    Learning How to Run. Yeah, I need to go for a run tonight. Unfortunately my birthday dinner triggered a weeklong food depression in which I’m still mired. I’ve been really tired for days – like, sleepy tired – and I’m stuffing my face with carbs. I haven’t even bothered tracking my Points. This is BAD, y’all. I know in my brain that all the rich food I had last week was the culprit, yet I’m still having trouble snapping out of this. (Needless to say, I didn’t weigh in last night.) Anybody have any words of wisdom for nipping a shame spiral in the bud? (Running link courtesy of Brigita.)

  • Kiwiberries

    On a whim, I bought some KiwiBerries at the grocery store this morning and they’re currently ripening on my desk. Does anybody know how to eat these? Do I just chew them up, skin and all?

  • Non-Busy Business

    I have had a really busy non-busy weekend. (Busy in the sense that I felt like I was on the go constantly; non-busy in the sense that I feel like I got absolutely nothing accomplished.) Friday was St. Paddy’s Day so we headed over to the Papists’ for some beer and truly excellent Irish stew. (Seriously, Major, I want the recipe.) Saturday morning I was off to Newtown for my quarterly Depo injection, at which time I realized that my new Pommy doctor is actually Sir Bob Geldof. Sir Bob wants me to have a bone density scan to make sure I’m not losing calcium from the hormones. Whatever, Bob. I also met up with Miss Jane, who lent me Miss Fee’s knitting swift and ball winder. The Snook and I then had a lot of fun figuring it out so I could turn my five skeins of Harmony (color 801 Natural) into five beautiful center-pull balls. In the afternoon I was back to Newtown for SSK where I completed my gauge swatch for Rogue. Later that night I also experimented with different knitted hems. I like the twisted stitch hem the pattern recommends, but I quickly realized it wasn’t going to work with cardiganizing the pattern (since the hem lies on the bias rather than flat). So I tried a few widths of stocking stitch and then knitting my cast-on edge up into a tube, which seems to work well. I went with eight rows and I think it’s going to look nice. I also tried out one of the side cable panels just to make sure I was understanding the symbols right. Then I actually washed my swatches and laid them out to dry. (I know! Who does that?) Checking in the morning, I’m still a tiny bit tighter than the pattern suggests – I get more like 4.75 than 4.5 stitches per inch – but I’m not knitting it any looser. It’ll block to the right size. I did manage to go on a run Sunday, thank God, because Sunday night ended up being an orgy of consumption. One of Rodd’s cousins (well, kinda) got married and we attended the reception in Pyrmont. It was the biggest, funnest, most ostentatiously Italian gathering I’ve ever been to. We drank ridiculous amounts of wine and danced to “That’s Amore!” I ate everything – in a good way. I mean that I tried absolutely everything they put in front of me. Anchovies, olives, mussels, oysters (natural and kilpatrick), nonnata (which, since I now know what it is: *shudder*!), prawns, ocean trout, EVERYTHING. As I said to Ma Snook at one point, “Did you ever think that the girl who cried because you tricked her into eating yabbie paté would be eating this stuff?” (She maintains that there was no deception involved.)

    So diet-wise, yeah… It’s not going to be a good week. But I just need to write it off and get back to work, right?

  • Birthday Dinner

    The Snook kept our dinner destination a secret to the very end, helped enormously by my ignorance of Sydney geography. I knew we were going to Randwick… to Belmore Road… and then suddenly we pulled up to Restaurant Balzac. “Oh!” I said. “I know this place!” It was an inspired choice. After our last fancy dinner, I was looking for real food cooked exceptionally well, and that happens to be Matthew Kemp’s forte. We seriously considered the degustation, but frankly there were too many good things on the a la carte menu that just weren’t included. (Our menu was slightly different from the one posted.) I was also feeling adventurous. (This is probably fodder for a whole ‘nother post, but I’ve been reading Jeffrey Steingarten and I’ve decided to GET OVER my food phobias because they’re silly.) So in the end I had the “Wagyu Minute Steak with Café De Paris Butter, Gnocchi, Sweetbreads and Snails,” followed by the “Risotto with Fresh Truffle.” The Snook had the “Raviolo of Braised Quail and Chestnuts with Roasted Breast, Bacon and Sage” followed by pork neck (not listed) with “Boudin Noir, Pumpkin, and Brussel Sprouts.” Everything was fantastic. I’m serious; this was one of the best meals I’ve had in Sydney. My starter – including the snails and sweetbreads, of which I’m pretty sure I had both pancreas and thymus – was incredibly moreish, all caramelized meats and yummy carnivorousness. (I ate offal and I enjoyed it! Mr. Steingarten should be proud.)

    My truffle risotto… Well, to be honest when I read that truffle risotto was available, I envisioned the most delicious idealized truffle risotto ever, and quickly realized that it was not likely to live up to my expectations. I was wrong. I don’t even have the words to describe how good it was. There’s probably a German word of seventeen syllables that means “something that unexpectedly lives up to expectations you didn’t even think possibly could be realized.” It was that good, and it was a generous portion. (Goodbye, BMI!) The Snook and I were, of course, trading tastes of each other’s dishes, and his were just as good. Before our official dessert – bread and butter pudding for me, chocolate fondant for the Snook – they brought us a taster of Rhubarb Eton Mess that actually BROUGHT TEARS TO MY EYES. Is there anything better than crumbled meringue and real, heavy whipped cream? No, there is not. The service all night was excellent, not least because they brought my dessert with a birthday candle in it. We polished off a bottle of Penfolds Bin 128 Shiraz (courtesy of Toast – thank you sir!) along with dessert wine and a gin & tonic each… which explains the clumsy and disjointed nature of this review. Suffice it to say that while Tetsuya’s was the height of modern art, Restaurant Balzac (courtesy of Matthew Kemp) was a damn fine meal. I can’t wait to go back.

  • Birthday Cupcakes!

    Cupcakes

    So much for the healthy BMI rating. I picked these up this morning at Cupcakes on Pitt and brought them into work for the staff. There was much rejoicing. I had the one with the Oreo on top. *grin* Sooooo good. Much lighter than I expected, both the cake and the icing. I recommend them!

  • Food Scarves

    Crocheted scarves that look like food. Those are absolutely brilliant! My favorite is the Bomb Pop; I may have to attempt a recreation in knitting. I wonder what it is about crochet that inspires so many of its practitioners to create food-related items… (Link via Pop Culture Junk Mail.)

  • Poached egg!

    I poached an egg for my breakfast this morning… in the microwave! I’ve never done that before. A bit of quick Googling was all it took. I put a bit of water in a cappucino mug (something smaller would’ve been better), then gently cracked my egg into it. I used a skewer to poke the yolk a few times so it wouldn’t explode. (It doesn’t leak out though, and the resulting yolk was still nicely runny). Then I covered it with cling film and nuked it at 60% power for forty-five seconds, and then continued checking it in fifteen second intervals. Ninety seconds seemed to be about perfect. Yum!