food

Homemade bread. Just looking at this picture makes my mouth water.I love how a simple party involving yeast, flour and a sprinkle of salt can result in something so beautiful. I'm still learning my way around the potential of yeast so pulling this gorgeous loaf out of the oven did make my heart flutter just a little.This recipe has been doing the rounds all over the internet. It's not hard to see

Our KitchenAid stand mixer is still my favourite kitchen gadget, but the recently acquired Philips food processor has a very efficient citrus juicer attached. So apart from drinking copious amounts of freshly collected birch sap , we're also drinking lots of freshly squeezed orange juice..

Yesterday I woke up at 7 a.m. and broke down a chicken. My husband and son are recovering from a bout of the sniffles (NOT SWINE FLU, THANKS) so I wanted to make a big batch of chicken soup to fortify their souls. I needed to get it going before my son woke up and demanded my full attention, so I was in the kitchen bright and early, shoving my hands up a chicken, slicing it apart, and starting a big pot of stock. Because I'm a huge weirdo about leaving things on my stove when I'm not home (I even called my mom the first time I used a crock pot to verify that it was REALLY OKAY to leave it plugged it when you leave the house. Duh, that's the whole point.) and because I find myself having to constantly adjust the temperature on my stupid range to keep my stock from bubbling too much, I sat around the house with my son yesterday for like 4 straight hours while I made stock. I drained it and chilled it around lunch time, and made myself a snack. So, everyone knows I'm...

Crisping the crackling on the suckling pigI know. The irony of a post on suckling pig in the midst of a swine flu outbreak is not lost on me.But this pig. It was consumed last week in a world where pork still made people happy. It made us very happy. Oh happy indeed.Ru zhu quang tiBarbecue whole pigletPerhaps not so happy for the piglet. He in his silver-lined red cardboard box, skull flayed in

On our resurrected Scrabble night some 10 days ago (after a 3-month gap since the birth of our daughter), we had this Jamie's dish on the table. Well, almost his dish, as I made several improvements to it, you see :) For the original version, see Jamie's Ministry of Food . I thought it was quite a looker, and would happily make it again. My much-less-tapenade and cherry-tomatoes-instead-of-regular-ones version, that is... Salmon en Croûte ( Lehttainas küpsetatud lõhe- või forellifilee ) Serves 4 500 g puff pastry (I used yeast puff pastry) 600 g trout or salmon filet (skinned, if possible) olive oil sea salt freshly ground black pepper 2 Tbsp tapenade (I used Belazu) a small bunch of fresh basil (just leaves) 10 cherry tomatoes, halved 150 g mozzarella cheese 1 egg, for brushing Carefully remove all pin-bones from the fish filet. (I like to cut off the thin side of the salmon filet and use that for another dish - perhaps soup - on the following day. I think the thick part of ...

Collecting fresh birch sap in our back yard. For a few days now, we've been drinking lots of freshly collected birch sap instead of table water. It's very refreshing, and tastes like a mildly sweetened water. According to folk medicine, birch sap helps to combat 101 illnesses. It's detoxifying, contains C and PP vitamins, carotene, various sugars and malic acid. But most importantly, it tastes good.

If you've been watching the second series of Underbelly: A Tale of Two Cities, you cannot have missed noticing the scenes featuring Robert "Aussie Bob" Trimbole in his favourite restaurant Grotta Capri.I'd first noticed this restaurant when we'd dined at Sushi Tengoku, only a few doors up the road, but for many older Sydneysiders, it's one filled with memories having been a fixture on the dining

My camera parking spotGiven that we were in his 'hood, Billy was recently kind enough to invite us to an Easter barbecue lunch. It was not his usual Table For Two, but rather a table for nine, and a great chance to catch up with mutual friends over good food and tasty sangria.Snapper stuffed with lemon slicesIf there's one thing I admire in any home chef, it's the presence of calm. Billy has

Photo by Krista Kõiv , taken a fortnight ago. It's my birthday, again :) After a few chilly days and frosty mornings, the sun is suddenly really shining and it's lovely and warm outside. K. stayed home late this morning, giving me a chance to enjoy a leisurely breakfast consisting of a cup of coffee and a whole tub of Fage Total Greek yogurt topped with homemade sour cherry jam, while admiring the gorgeous birthday present he gave me. I'm baking a strawberry cake for the party tonight, and then head off for a walk with Nora Adeele, who has doubled her birth weight already (she was 2456 g when born and is now, at 12 weeks, around 5300 g). Our little girl surely has a good appetite :) Right now, there's nothing to complain about - life's beautiful :) Normal food postings resume next week.

I've been in the market for a good pizza dough recipe for ages. Usually, when we decided to do homemade pizzas, we opt for the Trader Joe's pre-made dough, and it works just fine. It's not the best dough in the world, but it's cheap and made from decent ingredients. I even tried the Pastaworks dough one time, just for variety. It was good, but not something I'd go out of my way to get. Plus, I love making stuff from scratch. When my friend Alia had us over for dinner one night, she presented us with a couple of lovely homemade pizzas. She'd made the dough herself, and it was thick, chewy, puffy in all the right places, and very tasty. When it comes to pizza, everyone is really picky, of course. Personally, when I go to a restaurant for pizza, I like the thin, slightly charred, chewy-crispy crust- like the famed Apizza Scholls makes. But, when making pizza at home, I accept the limitations of my small oven and opt for a more bread-like crust. So, wh...

The Entrance Lions Club MarketsMarkets. We'd barely left our holiday apartment at The Entrance when we pulled over to the side of the road upon spotting the local markets. I love scouring second-hand stalls - an irresistible combination of shopping and bargain hunting, not to mention a chance to mosey at other people's eclectic wares and ponder their history.Local ocean honey $4and Trinidad

Jackie's Bowls ShopA week without internet? It's enough to make any twitterer clutch their chest with panic.But you know what? It is possible. Truly.I spent my Easter break up at The Entrance with family and it's amazing how much free time you have if you're forcibly disconnected from online distractions. I made good use of the pool and the sauna after dinner, or found myself curled up on the

I first sampled the Almondy Daim (formerly Dime bar) tart in a branch of Ikea amongst a range of other Swedish produce, and it was an instant hit. The pastry free (and therefore also gluten free) tart is made with layers of layers of ground almonds, a vanilla-ish buttercream, and in this instance a chocolate topping with lots of bits of Daim bar caramel. Despite all the potential sugar overload, it is remarkably non-sickly and exceedingly moreish. The tart comes frozen, but defrosts in around 10 minutes so none of that remembering to put it in the fridge the night before that you get with some other frozen deserts. Price: Can vary depending on retailer, but around the £2.70 mark. I rate it 9/10.

One of the items served at the Nami-Nami 2009 Easter Brunch were courgette/zucchini rolls stuffed with goat's cheese. The recipe is adapted from a French food magazine that we get by subscription, Régal , and it was K. who made these. However, he's authorised me to blog about making these :) They're really quick to make, and the unusual stuffing really works. Zucchini Rolls with Goat's Cheese aka "Makis" au Chèvre ( Suvikõrvitsarullid kitsejuustutäidisega ) Makes about 3 dozens 300 g creamy goat's cheese 4 medium-sized courgettes/zucchinis 6 dried soft figs 50 g hazelnuts, peeled, toasted and coarsely chopped a large handful of fresh mint leaves 2 Tbsp good-quality fruity extra virgin olive oil a good pinch of Maldon sea salt flakes freshly ground black pepper Wash the courgettes/zucchinis. Take a vegetable peeler* and cut thin long strips of the courgette, first along the lenght of one side, when seeds appear, then another side. Put aside. Make a fillin...

Mogul Miss Fontenot 12thBrahman cattle femaleAfter covering the Woolworths Fresh Food Dome and the cake decorating at the Sydney Royal Easter Show, it was time to move onto the animals and the food.But first we needed sustenance.Cheese on a stick with fresh lemonadeChocolatesuze likes her cheese. This was her second cheese on a stick for the day. She would later have one more for a personal Show

Good gracious. Let's hope I never have to complain about my computer here again. ANYWAY, last night, my husband and I tossed together what might be our last soup of the chilly season. The sun is peeking out more and more frequently, and we'll probably be trading our hearty bowls of soup for light salads as the weather gets hot. This simple vegetable soup follows pretty much the same formula as all of our other soups- broth, mirepoix, and a handful of extra veggies and spices. My husband was in the mood for something more like a minestrone, so we tossed in a can of tomatoes and shaved some parmesan on top to finish. We served it with a big plate of cheddar onion biscuits, and stuffed ourselves on broth-soaked bread product. It was great! Springtime Vegetable Soup: 6 cups of vegetable broth (I made mine the same afternoon- in a big pot with carrot, onion, shallot, celery, garlic, and bay leaf- I simmered about 8 or 9 cups of water for about 2 hours. Strained, cooled, and ...

Ahhh the Easter Show. It brings out the kid in all of us doesn't it?A celebration of agriculture and livestock, it's one of the few times in which we all earnestly celebrate our ties to the land.Whilst childhood memories are inevitably tinted with sentimentality, attending as an adult gives you free financial rein to create your own version of an idyllic day out. Deep-fried food included.Queuing

Do you miss me? My laptop is back in the shop. Hopefully the second set of repairs will do the trick, and I will be able to joyfully return to real internet, instead of this craptastic mostly-text version I am forced to use to feed my addiction on my husband's blackberry. Boooo! (I know, I know. First world problems. Poor me.)

Here are couple of photos from our Easter Brunch 2009. We've had friends over for Easter brunch before, but never so many at once. But K's colleagues were keen to greet our little daughter Nora Adeele, and so it happened that last Sunday we had 14 adults and 5 children (incl. our own) over for some food. In Estonia, Easter is all about eggs and curd cheese/farmer's cheese. And I mean real eggs, not the chocolate ones (as far as I remember, all British food magazines were focusing on chocolate at this time of the year. Not here, luckily). So our table was laden with curd cheese and eggs, and we tried to keep the colours spring-like (green and yellow). To start with, we had Mimosas with freshly squeezed orange juice and some Cremant: K. had contributed two dishes to the buffet table, both from a French food magazine Regal that we get by subscription. First bright green Pea Soup Shots, served, appropriately, in small shot glasses: His other dish was also beautifully green: Cou...

My Easter Chick and a tray of beautiful Easter eggs, naturally dyed with yellow onion skins.

Sesame prawn toast, a perennial Chinese takeaway favourite. I have grave reservations about the authenticity of this item; chopped up prawns spread on white bread with a coating of sesame seeds doesn't exactly scream out a taste of Canton but in terms of tastiness it's hard to go wrong with fried bread and seafood. This M&S version is definitely one of the superior examples of what supermarkets offer in this field. The bread is golden and crispy without being greasy and there are proper chunks of chopped up pink prawn meat rather an unidentifiable grey gloop. A thin layer of sesame seeds adds a contrasting texture without their strong flavour becoming overwhelming. These toasts also contain ginger in the prawn mix, which was a little unexpected. I am not a huge ginger fan but they do add a little extra element to a dish that some might find a bit bland otherwise. So, in terms of texture and taste this product is definitely one of the best sesame prawn toasts that I've t...

There's something so satisfying about baking with yeast. The transformation of yeast and flour into something alive and growing is magical indeed, and there's a certain empowering pleasure in transforming a warm and fermenting blob of grey into great big pillows of fluffy bread that looks and smells fantastic.Hot cross buns are always a crowd favourite and homemade versions taste like no other.

El Bulli dining room. All photos by Pille & K of Nami-Nami The surprising thing about El Bulli is that despite of their fame and the number of dishes served each night, they still take great interest in each diner's special wishes. While there is no traditional menu to choose from as such, they do want you to be able to enjoy all 30 dishes. When confirming our booking, they wanted to know about any food allergies or dietary considerations (yes, you can order a vegetarian or even a vegan meal). When we were seated, the waiter told us that the Chef has designed a 30-course meal for us, and that each dish will be explained as it is served. He then informed us that some items might be a bit unusual and off-putting - in our case razor clams and veal marrow - and could be changed for something more preferable. (I must confess I wasn't too keen on the razor clams, so I got an alternative dish. Funny enough, they forgot to mention that sea cucumber was on the menu as well. More abo...