The great cook-off

Saturday saw the great cook-off. I decided to cook a 3 course meal for my parents plus a little extra to see them through the week. Well, to see Dad through the week while Mum was away.

Fisrt off we had pumpkin, corn and bacon soup. After a few attempts at this, I've now found the secret is in putting the soup through a blender rather than using a stick blender. It makes the taste much more smoother and let me just say - secret ingredient is a pinch of curry powder!

Next we had pork in cider sauce with prunes and apple and potato mash. It's one I've been working on for a while now and it's beautiful. I finally got the consistency right on the sauce for this batch and the apples gave a nice creaminess to the mash!

The extra for Dad was lasagne. It's one of my signature dishes and thankfully one he loves. This one was a stand out as I've finally learnt the benefit of fresh pasta sheets! And lets face it, who doesn't love a great lasagne!


And finally, for dessert, my first ever cheesecake. My Dad is the cheesecake king so I was under a bit of pressure. This little beauty was a Violet Crumble Cheesecake and lets just say it was bloody beautiful. I think the recipe had too much butter in it but given I was a cheesecake rookie, I didn't feel confident playing with it, but now I will. Now the future is open wide as to what masterful versions I can make!

Back with a bang

I apologise for my break. I wasn't thinking anyone was interested in this until one of my faithfuls yelled "Update your blog" as I left work this afternoon. So, here I am and with 2 dishes to add.

First was the tried and true lemon chicken. This has been a family regular ever since my Dad decided to start cooking Chinese food many years ago. While Dad likes to deep fry his chicken, I take the healthier approach and just shallow fry it.

The secret dear readers is the sauce. Ahh, lemon sauce. Who would have thought that lemon juice, honey, chicken stock and a bit of flour could create such wonderfulness. The trick with lemon sauce - there's never enough so you have to make double! My leftovers are now stored in the freezer for next time.

And to serve.... fried rice of course!

And tonight's fare was pork with rice and veges in Chinese plum sauce. I have discovered Chinese 5 spice and I can just say what a wonderful invention it is. The taste that just a little pinch can add to a meal is truely amazing. Add that to some stock, garlic, ginger, soy and the secret ingredient plum jam, and you have a fabulous sauce. So much so I only ate half of it so I could take the rest to work for lunch tomorrow. A definite new fave!

Please sir, can I have more duck?

Tonight was duck take 2 - tonight's effort was chinese 5 spice duck with buk choy and corn polenta. Once again, totally delish but preferred the duck with mandarin - maybe it was the sweetness.

On the other hand, totally hated the polenta and threw out the packet as a result. Last time I had it it was lovely, but this time - blah, yuck, gone!

Tonight's cooking method was roasting. A bit less time then the frying and this one was probably a little over cooked but still quite moist. Although not sure about the stringy-ness of the meat. I'm thinking I might try the same recipes with chicken!

But overall duck result on the FFF scale - 8 out of 10!

Delicous duck

Tonight's dinner was the totally amazing roasted duck with caramelised onions, buk choy, brown rice and mandarin sauce. All I can say is OH MY GOD and HELLO HEAVEN. I tried to remove the fat before cooking it but failed miserably so just had to man up and eat it. Oh well! As a result I made sure I enjoyed every mouthful and I did!



The secret ingredient was a bit of apricot jam mixed in with the madarin sauce which balanced out the acidity of the mandarin. The recipe called for star anise and I only put in a half, but next time I don't think I will. It made the sauce a little strong with that aniseedy taste and I think the freshness of the mandarin would have been just fine as itself.

Could be a new favourite!

Beef Bourguignon - oui oui!

I have my cooking class tomorrow night which happens to be a french theme. I didn't think we could do a french night without this french classic. Of course this particular dish has been given some famous treatment of late, featuring in the Julie/Julia movie.

I started freaking out at the different recipes I had. All subtley different from each other - with some using stock, some not, some using tomato paste, some not. In the end, I decided to stay as true as I could to the frecnch tradition, even using french wine!

My one issue was after the first hour of cooking, it was tasting too "floury". After consultation with my friend Helen and my father, I added equal portions of stock and wine and to my amazement, it was fabulous!

Very saucy, very rich, and total delicious. As I told my Facebook friends - "It tasted so bloody good I want to marry myself"!

Friday night = Pizza night

Ahh, Friday night. A chance to sit down, celebrate the end of the week with a nice glass of wine, and have a low key dinner. Typically, it's take out night. When the general public head to Pizza Hut or the local Chinese for a totally sub-standard, yet easy meal.

Now, I concede I am no different. By the time Friday comes along, I too long for a nice easy meal. But I'm not one to sacrifice taste for ease and no Pizza Hut or Dominos will contaminate these taste buds!


But, with a little imagination, one can do wonderous things. To some, this looks like a basic, boring and plain pizza base. To me, this screams satay chicken pizza with snow peas, cashews and mango chutney!

Apparantly my cooking is worthy of an audience. I wonder if I could sell tickets??

Hard I hear you say! Too much effort I hear you say! Well lets see - place pizza base in the oven, cook 1 chicken breast, place spinach leaves, tomatoes, chicken, satay sauce and cheese on the pizza. Cook in oven. Add snow peas, cashews and chutney.

Result = EAT, LOVE and release a loud MMMMM!