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    • Chilled Peanut Noodle Salad

      I was entranced by the description and pictures of this gorgeous chilled Szechuan peanut noodle salad at Passionate Eater. I adore peanut flavoured noodly things, and this versatile salad looked like the perfect thing for easily portable weekday lunches. And it’s delicious – a lovely savoury/sweet peanut flavour, the crunchiness of the grated carrot and other raw vegetables contrasting beautifully with the soft rice noodles. A perfect picnic salad, it’s also quite lovely eaten warm.

      I had plenty of sauce left over, due to a little misreading of the ingredients in which I accidentally doubled the recipe. Woops! But now I have a little container of sauce so that I can easily whip up another bowlful next weekend, with some different vegetables for variety.

      ingredients:

      1/4 cup soy sauce
      1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
      3 tablespoons of honey or 1/4 cup brown sugar
      1 – 1 & 1/4 cup of commercial crunchy peanut butter
      about 500g of noodles       (the original suggested dried wheat noodles – I wasn’t sure what they were, so used clear rice noodles, which worked very well)
      3 tablespoons of sesame oil
      2 cloves of garlic       (the original includes a whole bulb – I am not so brave)
      a mixture of chopped raw vegetables, including several spring onions, 4 grated carrots, thinly sliced red capsicum, chopped cucumber, etc.

      Put the noodles in a saucepan to boil while you are making the sauce. Whisk together the soy sauce, vinegar, honey or sugar and peanut butter in a largish bowl, to allow for plenty of sloshing – I just whisked with a fork until it was nicely combined. It should be fairly thick and creamy. The noodles should be soft now – take them off the stove, and strain.

      Put the noodles in a large bowl, and pour over sesame oil and finely chopped garlic – stir until combined. Mix the sauce through (or as much of the sauce as you like), until it’s all well combined. Add your chopped vegetables, and you can be as crazy as you like here – I used fresh corn, grated carrots, and slivers of red capsicum. Other nice additions would be bean sprouts, snow peas, cucumber, slices of boiled egg – endless possibilities, really.

      Mix the vegetables through well with a pair of tongs, and serve either warm or cold, perhaps with some of the vegetables scattered on top.

    • Deformed Severed Finger Cookies

      Well, these were a bit of a failure. If you take a look at Domestic Goddess (where I found the recipe), you’ll see what I was aiming for. Unfortunately, I decided not to bother with all that waiting around for butter to soften, and used a soft butter spread instead. Whoops. I think this was the reason my fingers didn’t hold their shape and instead spread into flat monster-like fingers, rather than the creepily-realistic versions I was aiming for.

      for the cookies:

      1 cup butter, room temperature (real butter! real butter!)
      1 cup confectioners’ sugar (I wasn’t sure what this was, and used caster sugar instead)
      1/8 cup granulated sugar (I skipped this altogether)
      1 egg
      1 teaspoon vanilla extract
      2 ½ cups plain flour
      ¼ cup rice flour
      1 tsp baking powder
      1 tsp salt
      ½ cup sliced blanched almonds
      1 egg white or a small amount of royal icing

      In a food processor, beat the butter until smooth and creamy. Add the sugars, egg and vanilla and mix well.

      Add the flours, baking powder and salt and beat until completely mixed. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

      Preheat oven to 160C/325 F. Roll about a tablespoon of dough between your hands to form a finger shape for each cookie, leaving a larger rounded section in the middle for the knuckle. As the dough warms up and becomes softer, this becomes more difficult, so perhaps leave half the dough in the fridge while you make fingers out of the other half.

      Place the fingers on a tray about an inch apart. Slightly flatten the front of each finger to create a nailbed, and brush it with a little egg white before pressing an almond slice into each one for the nail. With a small sharp knife, make three cuts in each knuckle for wrinkles.

      Bake for 20 minutes or until fingers are slightly golden, and place on a rack to cool.

      For a more gruesome version, you can attach the nails after the fingers are cooked with red icing, for that “I’ve been digging my way out of my grave” touch.

    • Imam Bayildi

      It’s a pity that I can’t photograph cooked eggplant and make it look pretty, because this is one gorgeous tasting dish. I’ve always wanted to try imam bayildi – that description of the imam fainting when he ate it made it sound pretty fabulous. And so it is, probably because of all the oil – there’s a lot of oil in this dish, but it results in a meltingly delicious eggplant.

      I used a Rick Stein recipe I found in the September 2007 issue of delicious magazine.

      ingredients:

      6 small to medium eggplants (I used two large eggplants, and didn’t change any of the other ingredients, so I ended up with rather a lot of sauce.)
      200ml extra virgin olive oil
      2 onions, thinly sliced
      5 garlic cloves, finely chopped
      1 red chilli, seeds removed, finely chopped (optional)       (I skipped it)
      1/2 tsp mild chilli powder
      4 very ripe tomatoes, skin removed, chopped
      1 heaped tsp harissa       (Again, skipped it)
      2-3 tbs chopped flat-leaf parsley
      1 cup tomato juice
      1 tsp caster sugar
      Juice of one lemon

      Use a potato peeler to peel away roughly 1cm wide strips lengthways along each of the eggplants. I couldn’t find the nice peeler my brother gave me and so was stuck using my crappy $2 peeler, which did an awful job – you can’t see the stripes in the photo because they were so ridiculously large and uneven. Not that it matters, really – the stripes are for presentation purposes, I think.

      Cut a long, not too narrow wedge out of each eggplant, making a fairly deep pocket, taking care not to cut through to the bottom. Sprinkle a little salt into the pockets, and leave the eggplants to drain upside down on a plate for 30 minutes.

      While they’re draining away, heat 1/3 of a cup of the olive oil in a frying pan over a low heat. Add the onions, and fry gently for 10 minutes until they’re soft, but not too browned – you want them to absorb lots of the oil. Add the garlic, chilli (if you’re using one) and chilli powder, and fry for a further 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat, and stir in the chopped tomatoes (I didn’t bother to peel them – what a bothersome task, and I think a little unnecessary), harissa, parsley and seasonings.

      Spoon the filling into the pockets in the eggplants – as I only used two eggplants, I had plenty of the filling left over. Put the eggplants side by side and pocket up in a wide saucepan (I ended up using a big soup pan). Mix the tomato juice, sugar, lemon juice, salt and pepper, and pour it over the eggplants, followed by the remaining oil. Given my two lonely eggplants, I shied away from using much more oil, and only used a splash more. I also surrounded my eggplants with the leftover filling.

      Cover the saucepan and simmer gently for about 40 minutes, or until the eggplants are tender. Let cool, and serve at room temperature, with some couscous perhaps, or rice.

    • Vampire Cupcakes

      I saw these cupcakes at Baking Bites, and couldn’t resist them – the fabulous bleeding vampire bites in the soft white icing. They were rather fiddly (as you might guess from the long list of instructions), especially making a big batch, and the icing takes quite some time. Admittedly, it’s all time spent standing still holding an electric beater, so it’s not overly taxing, but I spent it fretting that the icing wouldn’t solidify, which made it seem rather longer.

      for the cupcakes:

      2 cups cake flour (I actually found a flour specifically for cakes at the supermarket, which I’ve never seen before – not sure how much difference it made over normal flour though)
      1 1/3 cups sugar
      1 tsp baking powder
      1/2 tsp baking soda
      1/2 tsp salt
      1/2 cup butter, room temperature       (about 125g)
      2 large egg whites
      1 cup buttermilk
      1 tsp vanilla extract
      1/4 tsp almond extract       (I skipped this)

      Preheat the oven to 180C/350F (350F is probably more like 175C, I think, but 180C works fine). Pop your paper liners in muffin tins.

      Nicole at Baking Bites says to sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together into the bowl of a food processor, but I’m lazy and didn’t bother. I hate sifting. If you’re following my method, dump those dry ingredients into the food processor (with some sort of plastic paddle-like attachment) and give them a whiz. Add the sugar, and blend again. (Or just mix it all up in a bowl by hand, I suppose).

      Cut the butter into chunks, and drop it into the food processor – mix on low speed until it looks sandy and no large chunks of butter remain (for about 1-2 minutes).

      Put the egg whites, buttermilk (or milk soured with a little light vinegar), vanilla and almond extracts into a bowl, and whisk together. Pour roughly half of the liquid mixture (or about 1 cup) into the food processor, turn it up to medium and beat for about 1 ½ minutes. Reduce the speed to low, and pour in the rest of the liquid, beating for about 30 seconds until it’s all well incorporated.

      Divide evenly into prepared muffin tins – I overfilled some of mine, and have decided that about three quarters full is best, as they will then rise evenly to the top of the muffin case.

      Bake for 16-20 minutes, until cupcakes are light golden and a toothpick inserted into their centers comes out clean. (Mine needed longer, because of said over-filling). The cake should spring back when lightly pressed. Turn cupcakes out onto a wire rack to cool completely. Makes 18 cupcakes. (I actually made a double batch, and ended up with about 20 – but I think if you’re a bit more careful with filling the muffin tin you’d get 18 out of the single recipe. Maybe. Just.)

      for the filling (and adapted for Australia where canned cherry pie filling does not exist):

      1 can cherries in syrup
      1 small jar of thick cherry jam

      Puree a mix in a blender of mostly cherries, a splosh of the syrup, and a few tablespoons of jam. You should get quite a liquid mixture that has a bit of body (how vague!).

      Baking Bites has a nice photo how-to of the assembly method, and I’ll steal her description. “Take a cooled cupcake and, using a small pairing knife, cut a cone of cake (1-inch across by 1-inch deep) out of the top. Trim off the pointy end of the cone, leaving a flat circle of cake. Set aside and repeat this process for all the cupcakes.  Take the cherry filling and spoon about tablespoon or so into each cupcake cavity, filling it almost to the top with filling. Top off with the flat circle of cake you just removed to seal the hole and hold the “blood” filling in place.”

      for the icing:

      1 ½ cups caster sugar
      2 large egg whites, room temperature
      1/3 cup water
      2 tsp golden syrup
      ¼ tsp cream of tartar
      1 tsp vanilla extract

      Whisk sugar, egg whites, water, golden syrup, and cream of tartar in a large metal bowl. Set the bowl over a small saucepan of barely simmering water (so that the bottom of bowl doesn’t touch the water). Using handheld electric beaters, beat on medium speed until mixture resembles soft marshmallow fluff, about 5-7 minutes. (This feels like forever, and you wonder if it’s ever going to thicken. It does.) Increase mixer speed to high and beat until mixture is very smooth and thick, about 3 minutes longer. Remove bowl from over the saucepan. Add vanilla extract and continue beating until marshmallow icing is completely cool, about 5-7 minutes longer. It should be fairly thick, a nice spreadable consistency.

      Ice each cupcake with a layer of the cooled marshmallow icing by swirling it about with a thick knife. Dip a wooden skewer into some leftover filling and poke two fang-holes in the frosting on one side of the cupcake. Dribble a little extra filling from the holes for effect. Repeat until all cupcakes are iced and decorated. I had heaps of icing left over and quite a lot of filling, probably plenty for another batch of cupcakes.

      Awww, cute bite marks!

    • Nigella's Meatballs

      I’m not a big fan of pork, so I was a bit suspicious about these meatballs from a recipe in Nigella Lawson’s How to Eat. However, the husband’s sister had raved about the recipe, and I thought I could probably bear the taste of pork if mixed in with the beef mince. I’m glad I tried them – while I think I’d prefer them made with just beef mince, they are delicious, with a lovely thick sauce, and a gorgeous accompaniment to spaghetti or fettucine.

      For the meatballs:

      250g minced pork
      250g minced beef
      1 egg
      2 tbspns freshly grated parmesan
      1 garlic clove, minced
      1 tsp dried oregano
      3 tbspns semolina or breadcrumbs
      good grind black pepper
      1 tspn salt

      For the sauce:

      1 onion
      2 cloves garlic
      1 tspn dried oregano
      1 tbspn butter
      1 tbspn olive oil
      700g bottle tomato passata
      pinch sugar
      salt and pepper
      100ml full fat milk

      Dump all the meatball ingredients into a large bowl, mix with your hands (not something I enjoyed doing – I’m not crazy about raw meat, especially when it’s minced), and then shape into small balls, using approximately a teaspoonsful of mince (although it’s not necessary to actually measure it). This is a little time consuming, but not fiddly. Place the meatballs on baking sheets or plates that you have either lined with gladwrap or lightly oiled, and put in the fridge as you finish them.

      Nigella recommends blitzing the onion, garlic and oregano in a food processor – I didn’t bother, and just finely chopped it all together. Heat the butter and oil in a deep wide pan, add the onion-garlic mix and cook over a low-medium for about 10 minutes, letting the mixture become soft. Add the bottle of passata and then fill the empty bottle half full with cold water. Add this to the pan with the pinch of sugar, some salt and pepper, and cook for about 10 minutes.

      Stir the milk into the sauce, and then carefully drop the meatballs in one by one. Don’t stir the pan until the meatballs have turned brown to avoid breaking them up. Cook everything for about 20 minutes, with the lid only partially covering it. Add any additional seasoning necessary, then serve over pasta.

    • Pub band

    • Lead guitar

      We went to see a friend play lead guitar for a gig at the pub – a bit of a difficult venue for taking photos (I feel rather self conscious whipping out the SLR and snapping away), but the stage lights provided an interesting atmosphere.

    • Verve Cafe

      I love the atmosphere at Verve Cafe.  Set underground, beneath the Metro Arts building, it’s a dark little venue, frequently noisy, with a bar towards the back, and a congregation of smokers out near the back stairs. I generally go there for weekday lunches (it’s much more crowded in the evening), and always for the pasta, which is divine (and reasonably priced, at around $15 to $18).

      This week my companions both had the carbonara, while I tried something new with the chicken and basil linguine above.  We all started with the herb bread, which is fantastic – four slices of bread with a gorgeously thick mixture of herbs and garlic slathered on top. The linguine was delicious – cheesy, and a lovely mix of flavours. It was a little oily though, with a residue left in the bottom of the plate. The carbonara was pronounced delicious. Next time I’m determined to try one of the pastas that involves alcohol – there are several on the menu with either vodka or brandy in the sauce.

      Verve has a nice selection of cocktails, including my favourite which involves lychee liquor (I adore lychees), but I try to stay away from cocktails during my lunch hour, unless I’m having a particularly bad day. The verdict – Verve is a fabulous place for workday lunches, but not for the claustrophobic.

    • Wombat Pool

    • Chani in b&w