 |
 |
|
|
| |
| |
| |
|
|
|
| Daydream delicious... |
| As an Aussie with an American heritage living in Cambridge, UK - this is my foray into one of the most important things in my life - food. Whether it be local events, hotspots or cooking from home, this is a document about my life and the food in it. |
| Language: English |
| RSS Feeds for this Blog |
|
Statistics |
| Unique Visitors: 0 |
| Total Unique Visitors: 1228 |
| Visitors Out: 2453 |
| Total Visitors Out: 15305 |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
| Egg on egg with butter - Eggs benedict |
| 2007-10-12 05:15:55 |
Following a brief excursion into mayonnaise making the other week, it got me thinking about egg based sauces. For some reason or another, I had never tasted hollandaise sauce. This would have stemmed from the days when I had to make hollandaise on a regular basis at the pancake restaurant that I worked at - and although it always turned out fine for me - it had kind of put me off with the amount of butter it contained; not to mention the fact that by the end of the day it had turned into a split, coagulated mess.In effect, hollandaise is a butter sauce brought together with an egg yolk and seasoned. Egg yolk, so I've learnt from Harold McGee himself, is a natural emulsifier and when combined with fat, starts to thicken. The reason that hollandaise is a warm sauce is simple - butter melts w...
|
| |
|
| An Indian meal to stay home for: |
| 2007-10-12 05:12:00 |
This post is not a rant about the state of curry restaurants in this Country. I will not mention how many times I have tried the same meal at different curry houses to find out that they all taste the same. And I refuse to enter into a debate about which city has the best curry. Instead - I'll just tell you how I make my curry at home - where it's worth the work, fresher than ever, and better than any curry I've ever eaten out.With the knowledge of Madhur Jaffrey, the support of Jamie Oliver and the tuition of Padmaja I managed to knock up a pretty good meal. It's just amazing how fresh ingredients that are full of flavour can manage to turn a dish around.This is how I did it:Onion BonjisI don't call them bhajis, because, although they are bhajis as I (an uneducated Westerner) know it, bha...
|
| |
|
| For Johanna: Carrot Cake |
| 2007-07-04 01:25:00 |
My very favourit-ist carrot cake of all time. Made again, yesterday.Johanna: you have to follow this to the tee. I've made slight variations - all to detrimental effect. In fact, the picture of the cake above didn't work out because I used all white flour and no nuts. Didn't turn out at all.Carrot Cake175g brown sugar150mL sunflower oil2 eggs100g white flour100g wholemeal/barley/rye flour (whichever you have on hand)1 teaspoon baking powder1 teaspoon mixed spice3 medium sized carrots - peeled and grated (no doubt using your Thermomix *jealous*)50g chopped nuts1 orange, zested and juicedAdditional 75g brown sugarPreheat oven to 180° Celsius. Beat together the brown sugar and oil. Add in the zest of the orange and the eggs, beating between each additional. Beat until lighter in colour and s...
|
| |
|
| My morning |
| 2007-06-21 10:21:03 |
The view when I wake.Have I gone crazy? Yes you may ask that question when I post a picture of my bedside table the wrong way round. But let me tell you... I have entered into the world of mobile blogging with my new phone. How exiting!!! This was the very first post from my phone.Just think of the possibilities........
|
| |
|
| An interview by Johanna - The Passionate Cook |
| 2007-06-17 13:43:05 |
Here is a meme that has piqued my interest. The beauty of it is I got to choose to take it up and the questions are much more pointed and relevant to me. It also gives my readers an opportunatity to know a little more about me and my outlook, tastes and disposition.Having met Johanna on no less than 3 occasions, we've not actually managed a proper tête-à-tête, and to be honest, I was quite curious to see what Johanna would ask.If you would like to be interviewed by me, let me know by leaving a comment below and I will, in turn, eventually email you 5 interview-style questions. Be sure to leave your email!Australia, the USA and now the UK: do you ever feel like you don’t belong anywhere? And to what extent does it show in your cooking?I have never felt more at home than I do these days...
|
| |
|
| Elderflower cordial |
| 2007-06-05 15:15:14 |
All last summer I was eyeing off our neighbours elderflower bush trying to work up enough gumption to go and ask them if I could pick the elderflower heads. Last year however, my shyness got the better of me and before I knew it the flowers had turned into berries and the berries fell to the ground.This year was going to be different and a couple of weeks ago I found myself eyeing off our new neighbour's elderflower tree. Thankfully though I didn't have to overcome my shyness. On Sunday, after weeding the carrots, chard and radishes I sneaked over to the allotment opposite ours and into the elderflower bush (protected by a whole lot of stinging nettles). There were so many I figured that they wouldn't miss a few. I gathered at least 30 elderflower heads and I brought them home dreaming of ...
|
| |
|
| Rocket & Spinach Pesto |
| 2007-06-02 08:44:36 |
Ideally the first harvest of our allotment would have adorned the top of a pizza, been thrown through a salad or stirred through a risotto. But I wasn't the only one with the same idea. When I went to harvest the rocket the other night, I had found that it had been absolutely ravaged by slugs and other hungry insects. I don't blame them personally because the rocket is absolutely spot on. Peppery and fresh. And anyway - I should've put the milk out sooner.Rather than waste it I thought it was a good opportunity to make a batch of rocket pesto from the stems that were left over and the few leaves that had made it through the slug storm. I bulked it out a little with the spinach that we had. I'm freezing a bag for us to use on the odd occasion - slicing off a block to stir through winter ste...
|
| |
|
| Individual Scape and Chard Pies |
| 2007-05-24 15:11:00 |
Of all the chard pies I've made over the year, I've never actually posted about them. I guess that's because for the most part it makes up one of our fall back meals - like spag bol, or stir fry. So to me it's not all that interesting although oh so yummy!Since my acquisition of Scapes recently, I've been trying to think of ways to use them. One of the most popular scape recipes seems to be pesto which I hope to try out this weekend. But for the mean time, I decided to try it out as a replacement for garlic in the chard pie. The end result was an earthier, more delicate flavour to the mix - which is a welcome change to an otherwise mundane-ish meal (although I really, really like chard pie in general - it's just you get used to it, if you know what I mean). Below I've detailed the filling ...
|
| |
|
| Strawberry Vodka Meringue Cake |
| 2007-05-17 09:10:35 |
Dear Daydream delicious...,Please accept my sincerest apologies for the length of time I've been away from you. I offer, in way of an excuse, the incompetancies of British Telecom, who went out of their way to cancel our broadband connection and not show up on no less than 2 occasions. I know I should have found another way to be with you, my dear one, but to be honest the offerings I had for posts would have paled in comparison and would not have been worthy.Please accept this strawberry meringue cake laced with vodka (I know how you like vodka) as a gesture of good will. I made one for you, dear Daydream delicious..., and the other as a house warming gift to my new kitchen. I can't wait for you to meet! You will get along so well and really, really enjoy working together. So much so, I t...
|
| |
|
| Marshmallows |
| 2007-05-08 06:18:58 |
Since British Telecom have not yet been able to restore our connection to the rest of the world I have to sneakily post this entry while on my lunch break at work. I wanted to get at least one more in before the end of April! Oh, how this year is slipping away...These marshmallows that I made were so sweet they just about burnt our mouths! But considering that they are made purely with sugar, gelatine, vanilla and water - that's hardly suprising.They were to be for my Easter post - and I did make them for Easter since it really reminded me of being young and making fluffy bunny mashmallows instead of colouring eggs. Bunnys are so much cuter than boring old eggs, no?For the most part, the recipe is the Cooking for Engineers test recipe. On their site they do go into a load of detail which w...
|
| |
|
| |
 |
|
| |
| |
|
 |
