Gratuitous food mill pics

I can't believe I have had this baby for months and haven't shown pics!

I hadn't used it for a while as it has been a bit warm but with a cool change came the beef and red wine casserole in the previous post and some mash!

Then add butter and milk, salt and pepper for the lightest fluffiest and creamiest mash ever.

Enjoy!

Sandra would not be proud!

I slipped a little on the liver cleansing diet and made this beef and red wine casserole.


With Mash. Oops. Excuse the overexposed photo. It was so very tasty though!
I love my slow cooker!!

Good night!

Gorgeous Things

These are two handmade flower brooches made by a very special customer of mine.



This one was bought for me for my birthday by my work collegue L.
It is a very wintery one and I will be wearing it with winter coats and cardigans next winter.




This one was given to me by the crafty lady herself. It is more summery and I will be wearing it with summery dresses and tops, maybe even corsage style at the waist. (It was a gift to thank me for being the middle man between her and my egg lady, Mrs S who drops eggs to me on Wednesday and then R comes in and picks up the eggs on Friday)

R makes the flower brooches out of vintage kimonos and ties and sometimes upholstery fabric. For those in Canberra, they can be purchased at Department of Interior i(uber stylish boutique) in Manuka and they are also stocked in a boutique in Melbourne but I can't remember the name.. Oops!

The customer in question, R is without a doubt the most stylish lady I know. She always looks amazing and totally individual. I would describe her style as "avant garde impeccable".

She tends to favour a mix of vintage and bespoke clothes, shoes and handbags and fantastic jewellery.

R collects vintage lucite handbags and has been featured on ABC's "The Collectors" and had her own exhibition and the Canberra museum and kindly invited myself and two collegues to the opening party. She is also an incredibly lovely and gracious lady.

I can only dream of being half as stylish! Cheers R!

Torrone; troubles, tears, tantrums and triumph (well almost)

My sister always makes the most amazing torrone (hard Italian nougat) at Christmas. She was taught to make it and given the recipe from my brother-in-laws family who are all amazing cooks! I remeber one Christmas spent with them; it was a very enlightening culinary experience for a 15 year old from a small town to eat quail, rabbit and octopus at an Italian christmas...it still is one of the best meals I have eaten, over 10 years on! I know it is a bit of a cliche saying the secret ingredient was love but it may just have been! I am very jealous of my sister having access to her husband's lovely sisters and mother and being able to pick their brains and share their recipes!

Without further ado, here is the recipe for torrone! You will need a decent stand mixer and an electric knife for this. Do not even attempt it without!


Torrone

3 egg whites
1.5 cups sugar
500g honey
750g nuts (I used 500g blanched almonds and 250g pistachios)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 pkts wafers (plain ice cream wafers, not wafer cream biscuits or anything!)
Bowl of ice cubes

Beat egg whites until very stiff peaks form

Very very slowly add half the sugar with beater mixing (this should take around 10 minutes adding small amounts of sugar at a time)

Heat honey for about 1 minute in microwave so it's warm and runny. Add 3/4 jar really slowly to the egg white mix while beating (this should take around 15 minutes. I drizzled dessertspoonfuls slowly into the eggwhites)

Add rest of honey and sugar alternately (slowly again, over about 10 minutes)

Transfer to saucepan and cook for 1-1 1/2 hours on very low temperature stirring all the time ( I mean it, stir, stir stir) to stop it from catching and keep the nougat nice and white. After about an hour check every 5 minutes to see if it has reached the hard crack stage.

(NOTE: I actually made my torrone in my slow cooker and it took around 1 hr 45 minutes but I didn't have to stir it as much as if it was in a saucepan and the clean up was super easy. I probably only stirred it for about 30 sec every 2-3 minutes rather than using a saucepan where you literally stir it constantly. The slow cooker was my own briliant idea and I used it against the advice of my sister. My rationale is that everything is better in a slow cooker)

Meanwhile, toast the nuts. (I do this in the microwave)

Line a large baking dish/tray with gladbake and spray with cooking spray.

When it gets to the hard crack stage microwave all the nuts for 3-4 minutes until hot. Take the eggwhites off heat and mix nuts and vanilla in very quickly and pour into baking tray.

Smooth down nougat in baking tray then dip hands in ice cubes and dry them lightly and press down nougat until quite flat.

Press wafers onto top (if it doesn't fit they can be cut with kitchen scissors and they won't break).

Place cutting board/bread board on top then flip and peel off baking paper and press wafers onto other side. (place them the same direction top and bottom!!)

Neaten the edges and kind of push it all down and the edges in. Leave for 20mins-30mins then cut into pieces with electric knife. My sister said to cut halfway down between each wafer then flip and do the same on the other side but I was lazy and just went all the way through. You can choose to live dangerously or play by the rules.

Leave until completely cooled and then wrap in cellophane. Pat yourself on the back.


Here is my pictorial showing what happened....


Honey!

These are the kind of wafers you should buy.

Pistachios

Blanched almonds

The egg whites will get ridiculously thick and white and glossy while you are beating it

As you put it in the saucepan (or slowcooker) it will reduce in volume a little and become a little more liquid.

If you follow the directions the above shouldn't happen. I did two things wrong; I forgot to use cooking spray on the glad bake and I didn't use a cutting board when flipping, I just tried to flip it onto the bench where I had laid out more glad bake. Oops. This was about 2 hours into the operation.

I flipped out a little and called my sister and decided that I would scrape as much of the mix as I could off the wafers and glad bake and stick it into the microwave briefly to soften and try again.

Success! (ish) .

As you can see here and in the next photo it was a bit gappy as my nut/nougat ration went awry; all the nuts were salvadged but a lot of the nougat remained attached to the baking paper and the wafers.

Nearly there!

Here it is all sliced up ready to go, it doesn't look that bad, but when made properly (ie NOT by me!) it should look perfect!

Wrapped up a little messily (it was hard, I am not very dextrous) in Christmas colours!

I will try very hard to have another shot at this before christmas! Also, I intend to make rum balls, gingerbread, shortbread, fruit mince and mince pies and rocky road before christmas. I am toying with the idea of a Christmas cake, but I probably won't get aound to it!

Ciao bella! Bon Natale!

Sandra would be proud...

Sandra Cabot that is... I'm managing to stick pretty much to the Livr Cleansing diet...Slipped up and had a skin latte on friday...I needed it though!!!

Here are some of the meals I have had over the last fortnight...

Seafood risotto....Yummy and fresh and delish!

Teriaki Chicken stir fry thing with soba noodles and back Japanese sesame seeds (very inauthentic!) The sesame seeds looked great and were crunchy and I love soba noodles but have trouble thinking of ways to use them.

Kedgeree. Have always wanted to make this or try it but never had the chance. I used brown basmati rice made with some chicken stock, onion, tinned salmon, curry powder, heaps of lemon juice and rind, hard boiled egg lemon rind. I thought it would be a bit strange, but the lemon seemed to tie the curry and salmon together despite being two very strong and disparate flavours! I will make this again soon, maybe with smoked trout or smoked salmon instead.

Apart from that I have been having lots of chicken breast and fresh fish with salads and steamed veg, nothing which is exciting enough to be photographed!

Bye!

Brined roast pork

I made this ages ago but forgot to put up a picture.

I was worried soaking in the brine mixture would stop the crackling from being crispy but it was fine, and I didn't even have to rub salt into the skin. I hadn't cooked roast pork before as I hardly ever eat plain pork (bacon, ham pancetta though... bring it on!) due to the human flesh thing as I mentioned in an earlier post. This was really yummy and the pork was really tender and moist, great for lunch sandwiches.

However, I won't be making it again any time soon as I am doing the liver cleansing diet to bolster my liver before Christmas/New Years. Thus no dairy, beef, pork, lamb (I dislike most lamb anyway) or booze, cheese (eek!) or chocolate. Notable exceptions will be this evening (free dinner/seminar at The Boathouse; will be amazing food as always) and our work Christmas party which is High Tea at The Hyatt; should be fun!

Will post soon with some of the foods I have been eating in the last few weeks and also a pictorial on The Great Torrone Debacle of 09.

Mushhhhhies.......

Just a quick one; here is mixed mushrooms on bruschetta I made for Mr Undomestic Goddess and I for breakfast a couple of weekends ago. It had swiss brown, dried porcinis and dried yellow chanterelles.

Picnic!

A couple of weekends ago I prepared a picnic feast for some friends and Mr Undomestic Goddess did a very half-hearted job of helping me. Here is my menu

Cheese platter
Antipasto platter
Asparagus Salad
Pumpkin, rocket, walnut, parmesan and red onion salad
potato salad
brined roast chicken with my Dad's stuffing
hand cut leg ham
pavlova
ginger and pear tea cake same recipe as posted previously
Copious amounts of wine and mineral water (very hot day!)

Mr Undomestic Goddess was very mean and wouldn't help and I ran out of time to take photos!!

I managed to get one of the asparagus salad (steamed then refreshed asparagus, caramalized red onion, pine nuts, olive oil and balsamic as dressing and salt and pepper)

And one of the antipasto, though I didn't really make this!!

This was not for the picnic, it was a chocolate cake with almonds I made for a workmates birthday.

More soon when I am less tired!

Ahoy there!

Arrrr ye landlubbers, tis time to tell yer of the secrets of Brining!

Ok enough unwarranted pirate-speak! I am a brining newbie but it makes food awesome!!! I started off brining chicken breasts then poaching them and then moved on to pork cutlets (brined then pan-fried) then roast chicken and pork. Have you every wondered why pork and chicken breasts in restaurants are finely textured and amazingly moist and then when you cook them at home they can be tough and stringy?? Brining my friend. I know it sounds weird but try it and you won't go back! I haven't tried other meats, apparently you can do it but I'm not entirely sure and I don't really like touching raw red meat if I can help it. I just think that poultry and pork lend themselves to it much better.

For my brining mix I use 1/3 cup salt, 1/3 cup sugar (usually just raw sugar) and add 2 cups of boiling water and stir until dissolved. Then add 2 cups cold water and let the brine cool down before adding the meat. I also add some herbs spices etc. I have a great lemon myrtle spice mix but you could do anything really or just leave it plain.

Then if you are using pork steaks/cutlets or chicken breasts soak for 1-2 hours at least, but I usually soak for 8 hours. Try to cover the meat entirely in brine and not have any air. (This is where ziploc bags are your friend) If it is a chicken or piece of pork for roasting go for 24-48 hours. Then cook as desired.

Apparently you can also use other liquids like wine or juice or add vinegar or something but everything I have read says to be careful as the meat can go to mush if you use an acidic brining solution, maybe reduce the time by half. Actually I have no clue, maybe experiment and let me know so I can start brining in booze without trepidation!

Well thats it! Get to it, start brining! And then seriously tell me how good it is!

Cheap Thrills Part 2

Boistered by my previous attempt at op-shopping I announced to my work collegues that I was going to find some cheap cute plates to brighten up our morning/afternoon teas. Previously we had been using paper plates or paper towels. Yes I know, not very environmentally friendly or classy! At Salvation Army Store in Phillip I found these for $2 each. So cute and dainty!



I love roses!

I was also going to bring in this plate to have as a work cake plate, but decided I couldn't give it up. I love that it is a little faded and worn. Someone has obviously served a lot of cake on it!!! It was $3. It will visit work from time to time as I am pretty much the only one who bakes which doesn't bother me as:

a) I love to bake

b) I really dont need to eat all the fruits of my labour

c) Everyone is really appreciative (even if my attempts are not very successful) and I can bask in the praise ;)

Onwards to St Vinnies in Phillip where I found these egg cups. Bring back nice egg cups I say!!

I only bought 2 as Mr Undomestic Goddess wont eat boiled eggs (and doesn't like to be reminded what eggs actually are....ovum anyone?)

How sweet and delicate is the design? So cute! They were $1 each.

I also got this scarf in a sheer chiffon silk for $2. I love the colours though it won't match anything I own. I am thinking of using it as a tablecloth over a plain white one??? Any thoughts?

On to Salvation Army Weston creek where I picked up this jaunty nautical (jauntical?) scarf for $1!! (But I gave a donation as well)

There were also a couple of trios (saucer, plate cup) there but they weren't in great condition and I wasn't fussed over the pattern. They were $10; tell em they're dreaming (uh-oh, Im getting cheap...)

Last stop St Vinnies Dickson where I got this quiche/flan/pie dish thingy for $5. I have been wanting to buy one for a while but haven't got around to it. Very old-school design and colour!!

I also got some little plain glass short stemmed dessert dish things which were a bit boring but I will feature them when I have made something to go in them.

Last of all, the best thing of the day was this necklace. Cool glam 70s/80s aesthetic?? It appears unworn as the tag was still on and informed me it was made by Barcs of Australia and was triple rhodium plated (did they find out that rhodium gives you cancer?? What the hell... it looks fantastic!)

I feel I need a power suit or a cocktail frock a la opening credits of Young and the Restless complete with giant hair (and a wind machine).

$10 for this little gem. (it is styled against the back of my trivial pursuit board. I am all for improvisation!)

Bye for now,

Undomestic Goddess

These are a few of my favourite things (for the moment)

Sorry, the title was just so I could pull together some random things.

Pears: I have been eating at least a pear a day for the last couple of weeks. William Bartlett pears are cheap, good and in season at the moment. I have never really been into pears, apples or nashis, yes, but not pears. Also different fruit must have a time, place, variety and ripeness and no weird brown bits. E.g. I will eat fuji, sundowner and gala apples and they may be eaten whole. Green apples, nashis and pears (only bartlett so far) must be quartered and cored. Bananas (cavendish only) must be slightly under-ripe. Strawberries are more exciting to buy than to eat, ditto grapes, there are always some in my fridge, festering slowly. Anyway, back to the topic at hand.

I decided I would do some baking with the pears. I cooked 2 pears with some soft brown sugar, a little butter, powdered ginger, crystallised ginger and mixed spice. (sorry, I am crap at measuring things... go all out with the quantities!) I cooked it until it was all caramel-ly and soft. Then I let it cool as I made the following cake and folded the pear mix through at the end

http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/13581/cinnamon+tea+cake

When done I brushed it with melted butter and sprinkled with a mix of caster sugar, mixed spice and extra ground ginger.

The end result was amazing!!!! It tasted like a gingery doghnut with chunks of pears. Could have actually been more pear-y so next time I will try 3 to 4 pears. I will definitely make this again soon!

Another thing I like at the moment is this pasta: super quick, fresh and yummy. Literally made in less than 10 minutes.

I call it "Awesome Tuna Pasta for One (sexy lady)"

Put saucepan of salted water on to boil.

Tear up a couple of fresh lasagne sheets (I use the latina ones they are thin and when they cook are soft and lovely. 2 of these is enough for 1 person. )

Throw pasta into pot when boiling and cook for 4 minutes (time from when pasta comes back to the boil) While it is boiling keep going with the other preperation.

Open tin of tuna in oil (sirena brand is yummy, don't use the stuff in brine it tastes like old fishtank water, also, the oil is good for you and you drain off most of it anyway, don't make me tell you again not to use the stuff in brine or even worse in springwater: YUK)

Roughly chop a big handfull of flat leaf parsley.

Toast a tablespoon or two of pine nuts (I do this in the microwave)

Zest a medium lemon.

When pasta is done drain and throw in tuna, parsley and a little olive oil and squeeze the entire lemon into it (trust me, its not too much lemon go crazy with it!)

Put back onto burner until the excess water and lemon has evaporated and the pasta is heated through. Add salt and pepper.

Put into a bowl and sprinkle with pinenuts and lemon zest. Yummy. I like it beacause all the lemon cuts through the tuna and you still get the texture of the tuna but with a far milder taste.

**********************************************************************************

WARNING: Not food related!!!

I recently found this bracelet that I bought last year at the British Museum gift shop (best tourist destination gift shop I have ever been in!) and I had to have it. It is more creamy toned in real life. (I should have shown either more or less of my hand in this photo as it looks like a strange puffy stump)

The bracelet has 8 different metal panel thing each with a different design.

I am making an effort to wear more of my statement jewellery as I have a lot of it but am a bit lazy to put it on.

I am also making an effort to have fresh flowers in the house. I really think it is a fairly low cost way to spoil yourself and brighten your day. Lillies are not my favourite flower: a bit boring and conventional but they are long lasting and relatively inexpensive. These lasted 2 weeks.

I had some tulips a couple of weeks ago when the weather was cooler and they lasted a full week and were gorgeous. Such a great colour. It is getting a bit warm for them now thought.

Well that's it for this evening. I have to go now and watch Man vs Wild (SBS 8.30pm monday)with Bear Grylls (yes, that is his name) an ex British SAS guy who likes to scale mountains with no gear, wrestle snakes, eat scorpionsdrink the liquid from elephant poos and generally be very manly in the outdoors. Sorry Mr Undomestic Goddess, but if I was stuck in the wilderness I would choose Bear Grylls over you. But I love you anyway!

Nighty-night!

Cheap Thrills Part 1 - or how a material girl (almost) overcame her fear of op-shops

I was feeling brave last Tuesday (Melbourne cup day, which was a public holiday for me) and decided to make my way to Queanbeyan (Queanbehole for those in the know) which is ahem... a rather working class satellite town to Canberra across the border in NSW . I have been reading a few fashion blogs of late and seeing some fantastic vintage/thrifted frocks and accessories....

I also found a communal blog dedicated to op-shopping around canberra and they gave a few hints on op-shopping such as be nice to staff (I always am because retail can be thankless, also many of these guys are volunteers so of course I will be nice!) and wear clean underwear because you may be burst into in a dressing room. I nearly fell off my chair reading this. Who needs to be told to wear clean underwear?? People frequenting op-shops perhaps, scary thought. Perhaps the poster actually wanted us to wear clean non-skimpy underwear, which indeed is a good idea if you are trying on clothes. Here is the link to the blog anyway, and afterwards back on track with my own personal journey...

http://act-opshopping.blogspot.com/


First of all I went to Anglicare...

Gorgeous paisley scarves. $3 each. No tags, not sure if they are silk or not (they felt and ironed like it) but they were both in great condition and no marks, loose threads etc.

Pleated Skirt $4 . I love this lightweight skirt, amazing pleats, perfect condition. I would assume early-mid 80s?? It is not a great length, mid calf exactly where my legs are chunkiest, YUK! But I dropped it off for alterations to get it to just on the botton of my knees. Alterations cost $21..., so five times more than the skirt... But all things considered, $25 for a fantastic one of a kind summer skirt... I can't wait to get it back!

Close up of the pattern. Cool huh?

I ordered this brooch from forever 21 online a few days ago. Especially to wear with the skirt. Oops, not so frugal now. Must stop buying stuff!!

Anyway, back to my op-shopping adventure...I went to the Salvation Army store next...

Loving this amber cut glass jug, such a great colour. It didn't have a price on it and the lady gave it to me for free! (but I put some money in the donation box because I felt bad...)

It went well with these flowers, I have no idea what variety they are but they are pretty long lasting, they are a week old here and we have had some warm weather. I bought some stocks at the same time and they only lasted a couple of days but smelled gorgeous.

These I did pay for. $8. Total. Crazy. (for the little dishes, the jewellery I already had) Gave them a quick soak in a diluted bleach solution and they came up really well. They are definitely too light for crystal but the glass is in good condition and I am just using them to organise my jewellery. Pretty happy with that!

Well that was an end to my adventure. Also it wasn't smelly like I expected. I am really sensitive to smells and Mr Undomestic Goddess frequently drags me to antique shops and second hand book shops and both of these can smell a little musty and weird. (So I blame him for my fears for taking me on dodgy outings) Also I don't like the smell of old people coats (naphthalene/moth balls). But both op shops I went to were very clean and non smelly and all the stuff was very clean as well. For those of you who are still a bit iffy I will give you some pros and cons based on my oh so limited experience of 1 hours op shopping.

Pro

Environmental: self explanetary. There is already so much crap in the world. Not only are we saving all the production energy we are also minimising land fill etc.

Economical: Hello, the stuff is cheap.

Social: Supporting charity while shopping? Can it get any better?

Con
Time: It is time consuming going through the stuff.

Range: I do realise that op-shops just get what people donate and it is nigh impossible to go op-shopping with a particular thing in mind. But I was hoping to see some nice/quirky vintage stuff. Pretty much all the clothes were chain store brands (everything from tempt and supre to Cue, Witchery and French Connection) from the last 10 years. The clothes were in good condition, but didn't interest me. Although it would provide a good retail alternative for those on a limited income, which is the main purpose of op-shops.... um should this be a pro?? What I'm getting at is that it is hard to find amazing vintage clothing in op-shops, unless you know when the deliveries come in, you have a good eye and lots of time. I think I will have to try some vintage boutiques next time I'm in Sydney.

Overall it was fun, and I found some nice things. Go in with a big smile and an open mind.

I will post a part 2 soon, with stuff I bought this weekend!