Australians just don’t do red velvet

So I was asked to make red velvet macarons for a friend’s hen’s night. So yes, play dough penises and drinking games abounded. The problem was, I loaned my piping bag to someone so they could ice cupcakes. Instead, I make red velvet cookies. I found the link here, but I warn you, it’s very spammy so you’ll need to exit out of a lot of ads.

I really don’t get the appeal of adding FOUR tablespoons of synthetic dyes when without the dyes, you would have had a perfectly fine white chocolate cookie, but that’s just me I guess. I now have a bottle of red food dye. Perhaps a non-edible dying project is in order?

They turned out a little fugly (ok, a lot fugly, but I was taking them out of the oven 5 minutes before I had to be there- I was rushed!) but I was told they taste like Subway cookies.

Complement? I think it was intended as such.

Culinary debauchery: Savoury baked brie!

So I have been seeing sinfully delightful things like baked brie on Pinterest lately (damn you, Pinterest!) and decided that one day, I would try that. Then some friends came round for seasonal jollies and I decided that, as part of a cheese plate, I would make a baked brie.

I got waaaay too excited about this and posted on Facebook: I’m baking a mother f***ing brie tonight. Kitchen and cholesterol bad-ass.

Yeah, I was excited. And lame.

But the problem was, I don’t really like sweet things with my cheese. I’m not a quince paste and grapes with my cheese kinda girl (although I don’t mind a slice of apple or pear) and so I thought I’d make this savoury. I studded the brie with cloves of garlic and rosemary sprigs, rolled that bad-boy in a sheet of store bought puff pastry, added pretty pastry leaves and left it in the fridge in cling wrap until I needed to bake it. It turned out great and between my recent dinner party, Ben’s amazing pizza dough that we took to a pizza party and the brie, I think we’ve established ourselves as kicking ass in the kitchen with these group of people.

If you ever want maximum effect for minimal effort, this is your dish.

Enjoy.

Nailed it- Salt Dough Ornaments

So this year I jumped on the Salt Dough trend train that I saw all over Pinterest. It was super easy and although my attempts were a bit clumsy (see zombie gingerbread boy below), I had fun and made a cute decoration to go next to people’s gift tag.

 

YOU WILL NEED:

2 cups white flour

1 cup salt

1 cup water

(optional: food dye, cinnamon, etc.)

Add your ingredients together and knead. I should have done this for longer, because the dough wasn’t as smooth after it had cooked as I would have liked.

Roll out thinly. I used my super duper marble rolling pin that was a gift from Ben a couple of years back, but even a wine bottle with work (and did for me for many years).

The thinner you roll it, the better it works out. Our better ones were the ones that were quite thin.

We stamped patterns into them using a standard ink and stamp set. Holes were made by pressing then end of a drinking straw into the dough. I used all the dough that wasn’t stamped to roll out another layer and make even more ornaments. The second batch I remembered to flour the bench!

We baked them in the oven at 100C for 3 hours. We ended up baking them for closer to 4.5 because some were a bit thick.

TIPS: I sprayed the baking paper on my trays very lightly, but found that my ornaments stuck to the bench and didn’t want to move without stretching, so I had to be very careful. The trade off, however, is if you flour the bench you end up with dusty ornaments. I’d probably spray the bench next time. Also, keep the oven temperature down- you’re drying out the dough, not cooking it! If your oven is too high, your dough with brown and your ornaments won’t be white/off-white.

Everybody has an ornament on their present. Except this little guy, who will be leading the zombie apocalypse:

I’ll be posting one or two more restaurant reviews and using the same stamps that I used for salt dough ornaments to make some gift tags for presents. Gift tags are much safe than dough!

If you’re not online much over the holiday period, I hope they’re everything you want them to be.

Stay safe. Avoid zombies.

Sweet Potato Protein Bites

So I’ve been cooking a lot with eggs lately. It’s starting to wind down a bit, but I have a few recipes that I’ve had fun playing with and will share.

The first is a packed lunchboxer’s delight and super easy.

Ingreedients:

Grated sweet potato (will depend on the size of you muffin trays. I used a medium and a small)

Half as many eggs as you have muffin holes (I have 12 muffin holes, so I used 6 eggs)

Salt and pepper to taste

Do:

1. Spray, grease or line your muffins pans (I spray but they always get stuck)
2. Place a few tablespoons of sweet potato in each muffin hole, aiming to divide evenly
3. Lightly beat the eggs in a separate bowl. Season with salt and pepper (I also added herbs).
4. Divide egg mixture evenly over sweet potato. At this point, you could add a sprinkle of cheese top, but I chose not to.
5. Bake for 30-40 minutes in a medium-high oven, until egg is solid and sweet potato is tender.

Turn out at eat, or save for lunchboxes.

 

It’s a hard knock life.

Lots of people have to work holidays, but they don’t get to have GF raspberry brownie and cold pressed soy coffee from Lift while they do it. So I feel smug.

The coffee is pressed locally by Rouge and is very sweet and strong, so be warned! (The soy option is called the Dalai Lama- gotta love it!). The house-made brownie is not to be shared. Seriously, get your own brownie. This one is mine (saving the last bite in the picture).

Thank you for the chats and coffee recommendation, Johnathan. Now to take advantage of this coffee buzz and finish my work.

 

PS- 100th POST! Thank you to my supporters for the encouragement that makes blogging fun and rewarding!

High Protein Three Cheese Muffins, but you can call them YUM.

So ever since I was at Lift Bakery Café a couple of weekends ago I have been craving savoury muffins. Theirs were great and had me thinking about baking ever since.

With Sir Benjalot out of town helping damsels in distress (his sick Nanna. So sweet) and instant Facebook demands from a super lovely friend who has just had her second bubba minutes after mentioning these muffins, I knew I had to create and share.

I couldn’t find a recipe I liked online, so I made one up. I wanted one that was cheesy and high in protein, but apart from paleo-esque muffins, very few had more than one egg. So here are my muffins, which I will probably work on, but were damn fine and easy to throw together on a Monday night after work. There are no fancy photos because

a) Pfffft! and

b) I had to put these away in a hurry. Or I’d eat them all.

HIGH PROTEIN THREE CHEESE MUFFINS

INGREEDIENTS

1 cup of grated cheddar

¼ cup of grated Parmesan

½ cup of cubes feta

 

1 ½ cups of Self Raising Flour

Salt and Pepper

3ish teaspoons of curry powder

 

4 lightly beaten eggs

½ cup milk

 

DO:

1. Preheat oven to 180 Celcius and grease 12 muffin holes (sounds dirty…)
2. Grate your cheeses and chuck in a bowl.
3. Sift your flour, S and P and curry powder together (or, if you’re lazy like me, plonk in a bowl and stir with a whisk. Best. Trick. Ever).
4. Add the cheeses and mix.
5. In your now empty bowl, crack eggs and lightly beat. Add milk and mix.
6. Add wet ingredients to dry and mix until just combined.
7. Spoon into muffin pans and bake for 20-25 minutes or until skewer comes out clean.
8. Let cool slightly then turn out to cool completely on a rack.

 

Eat while warm or after warming with butter, relish or dark salad greens (I had spinach and curly endive, but rocket would work well too).

Variations and tips:

If you don’t have a rack, let them too UPSIDE DOWN so you don’t get soggy muffin bottoms.

Dried Italian herbs work well instead of curry powder, but the curry powder does not make this taste Indian, it just enhances the cheese taste

Instead of feta, you could experience with other cheeses (blue cheese…? Mmmmmm)

If you want to healthy it up, use one tablespoon of Parmesan and swap the feta for 1 cup of grated vegetables, like sweet potato, carrot, onion or zucchini (well drained).

 

Enjoy (in moderation!)

Seriously, try these and tell me what you think.

Guest Recipe- Vegan(ish) Peach Cobbler

So I love chocolate sweets, yet who can resist seasonal fruit? In Australia, it’s winter, and thus not peach season, but here’s a post that will remind us southerners of summer and can be taken advantage of by my northern hemisphere readers at the end of peach season.

 

This recipe was made by my sister and I; a bit of kitchen cooperation we’d never tried before. Rather than re-type it, I’ll leave it in her charming handwriting (although she’s accidentally written “pears” instead of “peaches” in the recipe.

 

We ate it for breakfast and snacks for the next few days and even savoury-tooth Ben enjoyed it served with the tartness of a good natural yoghurt.

Putting on the topping. Cooperating and shit.

 

And finally: YUM. It’s super easy and as sister-dearest writes, honey can easily be swapped for agave or a similar substitution. It’s gluten free as the crumble has no oats, only nuts. Obviously, if you have a nut allergy, this isn’t the cobbler recipe for you!

 

 

OM NOM.

Blueberry Muffins

So this recipe was originally Strawberry Shortcake Muffins from Dashing Dish. I didn’t have strawberries, so ended up with blueberry muffins.

I love small easy snacks that I can freeze and take to work. I often make up cake, muffins or biscuit dough that I can either pull out of the freezer in the morning and take to work, or defrost a stick of dough and bake up biscuits (cookies) at a moment’s notice for morning teas.

I like these muffins because they were easy, less than 100 calories (about 93 depending on your berry) and not disgustingly unhealthy. You could easily use a sugar replacement if you don’t use sugar, and could very easily use gluten free oats to make this gluten free.

In the reflection, you could almost imagine twice as many noms…

Makes 12

GET:

2.5 cups oats

2 eggs

.5 cup sweetener (I use sugar)

1.5 tsp baking powder

.5 tsp baking soda

1.5 cups berries (+.5 cup optional extra for the tops of muffins)

1 tsp lemon juice

 

DO:

• Preheat oven (400 F) and prep muffin liners (I used foil liners without the paper so they didn’t stick. I use the paper liners to separate raw goodies, like raw brownies).
• Buzz your oats in a food processor until they’re powdery. Add all over ingredients except berries and blend until smooth.
• Stir in berries. Fill muffin trays (I made 12 small muffins).
• Top with extra berries (optional). Bake 20-25 minutes.
• Serve on their own, hot or cold, possibly with yoghurt.

Enjoy!

 

Food Porn

Some beautiful things that have been created over Xmas or at our new place. Please let me know if you’d like any recipes.

All packaged up for the staffroom

Michelle Bridges Pancakes- no recipe available sorry!

Pavlova, the quintessential Australian sweet for my Parisian friend

Cooking with quinoa

Friends of friends MADE this! Best laksa!

Roast red onion and pumpkin salad with feta.

Chocolate fudge with candy canes (Gluten Free)

Already for baking, followed by balsamic vinegar on toasted sourdough

Burrito!

Vegan mac and cheese. YUM!

Michelle Bridges Cheesecake- no recipe available, sorry!

Christmas Biscuits! The Best bulk biscuit (cookie) recipe.

Divine hot chocolate with honey

Fresh, lovely beans

Chocolate fudge with candy cane (GF)

Roasted veg for salads and freezer soup

Low cal pancakes with natural yoghurt, banana and honey.

Yumbo salad

Michelle Bridges Feta and Tomato Omelette- No recipe available sorry.

Ben’s beautiful bread

Mexi bean pot pies topped with polenta and parmesan

The best thing about baking and cooking is the sharing and eating!

Alchemy: Olive oil, water, tahini and honey for a dressing (add lemon juice to complete).

For copyright reasons, I can’t share any Michelle Bridges 12 Week Body Transformation recipes. But they’re pretty to look at!