Merry Christmas & Chox in box

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!
I heart Christmas! (sigh) I Absolutely adore what this day represents, how it brings love ones together and the uncontrolable joy that expels through every vessel in my body upon receiving presents. But what I absolutely adore about Christmas, is the food - food glorious food. Your turkeys, hams, chooks, spuds roasted to perfection. Oh dear goodness Christmas is like a smorgasboard that celebrated once a year and gives anyone and everyone a guilt-free reason to indulge themselves into having extras. More potatoes? Yes please!....Gravy oh yes!

However this Christmas, was first one in a long time where we had home cooked meal, or should I say barbeque. Last year I was on a plane to Cambodia on Christmas day, the year before that we went to a birthday. This year Mum had the fortunate task of feeding us silly and she succeeded. What was on the menu:

Cos lettuce salad mixed with capsicums, olives, tomatoes and feta cheese
Potato salad (always good)
garlic sauteed prawns (with chilli dipping sauce)
Corn on cobs
barbequed baby carrots
Lamb on the barby

Melbourne's weather decided to take a break from giving us thunderous, lightning and constant pouring of rain the days leading up to Christmas. We were praying for good barbeque weather, as Mum was adamant of having her lamb chops on the bbq and her prays were answered, it turned out to be beautiful, actually - warm, not to windy, not hot, just right.

Unfortunately folks, I did not take any pictures and I have a good reason. I'm currently moving out and renovating the house, so everything is everywhere at the moments, so instead of showing you pictures of our wonderful Christmas feast. I've posted up these choccies. Yes folks! Chocolates, I made these about a week ago, during the last week of work. Last year I made chocolate chip cookies and put them in tiny boxes and gave them out to my workmates. This year I wanted to make chocolates, but didn't have the stamina to present them in little gift boxes, so instead I brought them to our Kris Kringle morning brunch and was well enjoyed by my fellow peers.

INGREDIENTS
200g of either milk,white or dark cooking chocolate broken into pieces i used dark and white)
1/4 cup thickened cream
20g butter chopped
1 cup rice bubbles
1/2 cup desicated coconut
50 g red glace cherries coarsely chopped

EXTRA: Coco powder and/or icing sugar to decorate.

This recipe was adapted from Woolworths Fresh Magazine at my local Safeway supermarket. Simple, beautiful, tasty. I used dark and white chocolates.
1. Melt chocolate, cream and butter in heatproof bowl over a pot of boiling water until smooth. (In the original recipe, it instructs you to melt the chocolate cream and butter in a bowl in the microwave for 1 1/2 mins, stirring every 30 seconds)
2. Ad Rice bubbles, coconut & cherries and stir until well combined. chill until firm.
Divide mixture into 2 parts and roll into logs by place chocolate on a sheet of baking paper. Cut into 1cm- thick slices. You can roll some of them into balls to create different shapes.
3. Coat with coconut/icing sugar or coco powder

They make adorable pressies. As shown in picsabove I placed them in a round box

Summer, apricots and salmon

We're in the last days of November and summer is unbashfully making its presence to the normally dreary and unpredictable Melbourne state. I confess, I'm not too particular to summer due to the sweltering heat that my body can't handle; my ease of tanning on right side of my body whilst driving leaving me with abnormal skin colour; people's body odour and the idea of me having to bare more skin that usual. But what I do love about summer are beaches at sunset, longer days, ice-cream, barbeques, Christmas in summer and FRUIT, glorious fruit!

apricots in all it glory..ahhh

Oh if there's any time fruit can taste better and make me a healthier person for including it in the recommended 3 fruit and 2 veg a day regime - it is during summer. I cried happy tears seeing all the mangoes, watermelon, apricots, strawberries, honeydew melons, peaches, nectarines, mangosteens and cherries (i could go on) in the market stalls. I have devoured half a watermelon in 2 days, and believe me kids this melon was huge and I’m talking huge like a 3 month old baby size.

Another thing I love about fruit is that it’s self-sufficient and there is no uneasy task of cooking, boiling, steaming, extracting, deveining, and filleting. In most cases the only effort required for the consumption of fruit is peeling, cutting and eating. Fruit taste best in its true raw form and as a bonus gives you essential vitamins and minerals you body needs.... ok I’ll stop there, as I’m starting to sound like a nutritionist and I far from it.

Last week I managed to bag me some luscious apricots and with that I managed to create a dish using the apricots in a salsa accompanied with avocado, cucumber served with pan-seared salmon cutlets. The apricots added a delightful sweetness to the dish and created interesting textures fusing with butteryness of avocado and crunchiness of cucumber.

INGREDIENTS
Salmon cutlet
Salt and pepper for seasoning
Olive oil

SALSA
1/2 cup of peeled & diced cucumber
1/2 cup of diced avocado
1 sml apricot, peeled and coarsely chopped

DRESSING
tbsp olive oil
squeeze of lemon
tsp apricot nectar

1. Season salmon cutlet with salt and pepper and rub olive oil. Set aside.
2. Combine olive oil, lemon & nectar in a bowl and whisk until infused. Then add the diced cucumber, avocado and apricot to the dressing and set aside.
3. Heat pan on High and let the pan heat up before placing cutlet leave for 2 minutes, (do not fiddle, poke or touch or your salmon while it searing or it will stick to the pan - trust me, I know). Then turn onto the other side for another 2 minutes.
4. Serve salmon with the salsa on top. Drizzle extra olive oil and cracked pepper (optional)

5 minute mushies

My love of food that can be cooked in a flash, stems from my uni days as an impoverished uni student whose staple diet consisted of 2-minute noodles and grilled cheese sandwiches. OK, maybe I lied, as I was not that impoverished, thanks to my parents who provided a roof over my head during those years. However working in jobs and receiving minimal wages sucked when going out to eat with a group of friends and scrapping for money in the corner of your bag to pay the bills...oh and I won't mention the embrassment when it came to splitting the bill - I even think one time someone pulled out a calculator!...I say no more.

I love food and dishes that can be whipped up in minutes and this is one of them. Mushrooms are one of my favs, second to potatoes. Like potatoes, they are versatile, delicious and have an amazing texture unlike any other foods. And quite frankly they are the only fungus on this earth I would eat.


INGREDIENTS
500g swiss brown mushrooms
2 cloves garlic finely chopped
Approx. tbsp of each - oyster sauce, fish sauce & kecap manis
1/2 cup coarsely chopped coriander (cilantro)
white onion sliced in thin wedges
vegetable oil for frying

Slice mushrooms in thick pieces about 1cm. And heat the wok with oil.
Throw in onions and garlic and let it cook off for a minute, then add the mushrooms and stir frequently. The mushrooms will absorb the oil and when it's slight brown add the oyster, fish and kecap manis sauces and stir so mushrooms are well coated.
After a minute or so throw in the coriander and stir for few seconds. Turn off the heat and serve it with some rice.

Make sure you don't overcook the mushrooms it will lose it's texture.

When I don't cook

This is what I do when I'm not blogging or taking pictures of food. I read about food and hence, my absence. The cookbooks above are bloody awesome and highly recommended. Australian chef, Kylie Kwong has some fantastic chinese recipes, I particularly liked her duck dish. And DONNA HAY...Oh she's an inspiration. A food stylist in her own right, she has some of the most lush and prestine shots and her presentation indicates what a true artist she is.

Salvating over the pages, I've come a cross a few golden nuggets for my next cooking ventures including, Ricotta baci, tiramasu, pies and lots of other goodies.... so until next time

Ultimate breakfast feast.....

On some occasions, not most, but some I have magic moments where I think, OMG Kim good one! My magic moment occured Thursday morning after perusing the wide world of web for recipes, mind you not for breakfast but for gyoza's - yes my stomach has no sense of self restraint to eating inappropriate foods during the assigned periods of a day in which certain foods should be consumed. If it were up to me Desert would replace Breakfast, Dinner would be in lunch's frame time and Happy Hour Drinks would be consumed at 5 hour interval throughout the day. Geez! Imagine that.. sorry got a bit side track. Back to the point, oh yes.. during my venture of searching for gyoza recipes I came across this website http://www.opensourcefood.com/ which has now become one of my favourites, as it is online hub, with food-loving people sharing gastronomical recipes and amazing photos. I came across one of the members, Yongfook. He had recipe for Shrimp Gyoza's & Pomegranate Ponzu which I have bookmarked, however intrigued by what this site was, I began to rumage through the rest of his impressive recipes and came across Light English Brunch. The dish was so cute and so simple so I made that morning with the crust and minus the mushrooms and this is how it turned out.

But wait! Where was the magic moment? You may ask. Well, after impressing my self with cooking Yongfook's recipe, I had 2 round pieces of bread left over (cos I made 2; one for myself & my sister - hence the reason for 2 pieces) and I don't like wasting food or anything for that matter, so I made a baked bean stack using the leftover bake beans and buttering the pieces of breading of both side and cooked on a pan on both sides until they turned golden brown. Once cooked I stacked them and using the bake beans as filling in between the two pieces of bread.

Magic Moment #1 recipe - bake beans stack
After taking the photos I realised that this would have been better if I had scrambled eggs around it with 2 strips of streaky bacon....oh drool! Unfortunately I ran out of eggs, had no bacon in my fridge, but I have drool...yes it comes naturally. hehe!

The second magic moment came after, magic moment #1, of course! And still riding on the success of the first recipe using the cut out pieces of bread, I thought to myself...hhmm what about a sweet breakfast! Ah ha, yes magic moment #2 was born by using another 2 pieces of cutout bread, I buttered both side and dipped them in a plate of sugar/cinnamon coating both sides and then once again toasted them in a heated pan until their was caramelised crust. Once again stacking them but in between each layers I dusted each pieces with icing sugar and spread strawberry jam and then finished it of with a dollop of ice cream. Oh god was it good.... They tasted like those Danish mini pancakes, I think we call it potterflies here. Next time I'll try it with fresh strawberries or bananas... oh yum, can't wait.

Magic Moment #2 recipe - Strawberry stack