Marbled Blackcurrant and Chocolate Mousse Cake

Not exactly a seasonal recipe, I must admit (it appeared on our Christmas table just over 5 months ago), but I got an email from a reader named Caroline on Monday, requesting the recipe. She'd love to make that for her husband's birthday, you see :) Considering I must translate the recipe anyway, I may just as well blog about it. It's a bit more difficult recipe than most of my other recipes, but IMHO it was totally worth the effort.

Hope your husband likes it, Caroline!

Marbled Blackcurrant and Chocolate Mousse Cake
(Uhke šokolaadi-mustsõstratort)
Adapted from the Finnish Pirkka-site.
18-20 slices

Chocolate sponge cake:
2 large eggs
75 ml caster sugar (5 Tbsp)
75 ml plain flour (5 Tbsp)
2 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
0.5 tsp baking powder

To moisten the sponge cake:
100 ml (2/5th of a cup) undiluted blackcurrant juice or cordial

Blackcurrant Mousse:
3 gelatine leaves
220 g blackcurrants (thawed, if frozen)
75 ml (5 Tbsp) caster sugar
200 ml whipping cream
3 Tbsp undiluted blackcurrant juice or cordial

Chocolate Mousse:
2 gelatine leaves
150 g dark chocolate
200 ml whipping cream
2 Tbsp caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 Tbsp cognac or brandy

To decorate:
chocolate-covered almonds or hazelnuts

Line the base of a Ø 25 cm/10-inch springform tin with a parchment paper. Butter the paper and the sides of the cake tin.

Make chocolate sponge:
Whisk the eggs and sugar until pale and fluffy. Mix the dry ingredients, then sift and gently fold into the egg foam. Spoon the batter into the cake tin and bake in the middle of a pre-heated 175 C/350 F oven for about 15 minutes. Cool in the tin.
Leave the cooled cake in the cake tin and brush the sponge with the blackcurrant juice couple of times, until you've used up all the juice.
Make the mousse layers:
For both mousse layers, put the gelatine leaves in a bowl of cold water and soak for about 10 minutes.
Melt the dark chocolate. Cool.
Blend the blackcurrants and sugar into a pureé.
For both mousse layers, whisk the whipping cream until soft peaks form, then divide equally between the chocolate and the blackcurrant base (fold in 1/3 of the cream first, to soften the chocolate, then fold in rest of the cream).
Season the chocolate mousse with sugar and vanilla extract.
Take the soaked gelatine leaves out of the water and squeeze them gently to dry.
Heat 3 Tbsp of the blackcurrant juice, then stir in three of the lightly squeezed gelatine leaves. Pour the gelatine mixture into the blackcurrant mousse base.
Heat the 3 Tbsp of cognac, add two of the lightly squeezed gelatine leaves. Fold into the chocolate mousse.
Using a large spoon, add a spoonful of chocolate and a spoonful of blackcurrant mousse onto the cake base, creating a marbled/spotty look. Do not stir!
Smooth the top, cover with clingfilm and place in the fridge to set until the next morning.
Transfer carefully onto your cake stand and decorate with chocolate.

Ripples at Sydney Wharf, Pyrmont, Sydney - Chef's Table

"Look! Look! There's fairy floss above our heads!"This is just one moment of glee in a food-filled evening at Ripples Sydney Wharf.We struggle at first to find the restaurant, looking for wharves nine and ten, before realising it's only a mere stroll from the grass of Pyrmont Bay Park, home of the Good Living Growers' Markets. There's a casual al fresco feel to the restaurant, the dining area set

Truffle Festival lunch at Senso Restaurant, Canberra

Head chef and owner, Jan Gundlach, breathes in deeplyTruffles. Is there are food more veiled with gastronomic intrigue and romantic mystique?We headed to Canberra's first Truffle Festival to find out first-hand the allure of the truffle, a road trip that detoured via Berrima for scones, before arriving at Senso. for a four-course truffle lunch.Pumpkin pickles with lemon and pepperSenso. sits on

Kourkouto aka Greek Zucchini Pie

There's a dish that made rounds in foodblogs last summer. The author of the original recipe was a Greek chef Dina Nikolaou. Her recipe was picked up and adapted by Peter of the Kalofagas, and the rest was history. I then spotted it on my dear friend's Alanna's blog, and earlier this year on Farida's blog. I bet there are many more :)

We had this for dinner tonight. I made some changes, leaving out the Kasseri cheese and upping the amount of feta cheese. I also added some dried oregano to the dish, a herb I always associate with my visits to Greece. Overall, this is an excellent supper dish - either with a light salad, as Peter recommends, or with flash-fried chicken strips, as we did. It's delicious both hot and cold, making it ideal for summer brunches and buffets.

Greek Courgette Pie Kourkouto
(Kreeka suvikõrvitsavorm)
Serves 6 to 8



100 ml olive oil
1 kg courgettes/zucchini (4-5 younger ones)
2 large onions
0.5 tsp salt
1 tsp dried oregano
6 large eggs
250 g plain yogurt
150 g plain/all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
200 g feta cheese
a large handful of fresh parsley
salt and freshly ground black pepper

To garnish:
1 slender green courgette
mild paprika powder

Preheat the oven to 180 C / 350 F.
Peel and chop the onions. Cut the courgettes/zucchini into small cubes.
Heat oil in a heavy-bottomed saucepan, add zucchini and onion cubes. Season with salt and oregano and heat over a moderate heat for 15 minutes, until the vegetables are soft, but not mushy.
Meanwhile, whisk eggs with yogurt until combined. Stir in baking powder and flour, then add feta cubes.
Using a slotted spoon, transfer the cooked vegetables into the batter. Add parsley, and stir until combined.
Pour into a well-buttered or lined oven dish, sized 25x35 cm.
Slice the extra zucchini into 5-6 mm rounds, then place nicely on top of the dish. Sprinkle with paprika powder.
Bake in the middle of the preheated oven for about 30 minutes, until cooked through and nicely golden on top.

Truffled scrambled eggs, scones in Berrima and the Capital Country Truffle Festival, Canberra

Black winter truffles from Manjimup, Western AustraliaOld socks and sex.That, according to some, is the most accurate description of the smell of fresh truffles.I'd never tried fresh truffles before which was why the first ever Capital Country Truffle Festival had me snuffling about the web like a truffle-hunting, errr... pig.Truffles have been cultivated around Australia for several years now,

Grilled haloumi cheese salad

I know someone who is always rather (overly) concerned about having a protein component to their meal. This is something I don't tend to worry too much about, but if you are of the same persuasion as my acquaintance then this could be the salad for you. Haloumi cheese is a common feature of most dairy aisles in the supermarket, and is a firm and salty Cypriot cheese made with sheep's milk. You can eat it as it is, but it is hugely improved by cooking. I grill slices of haloumi in a hot, dry pan. When it's golden on one side carefully flip it over and cook the other. The cheese should be lightly crisped on the outside, and soft and melting inside. I really like this served hot as part of a salad with avocado, tomato, whatever green leaves you have to hand and some thinly sliced red onion to cut through the richness.
I'm not really the type of girl who usually considers salad a suitable dinner, but in the summer this haloumi salad with a little bread and olive oil makes a lovely quick meal.

Cost: Pitas brand haloumi cheese around £2.30 (more than enough for two)
I rate it 8/10

exactly what it looks like.

Why yes, I did just have hot dogs fried in bacon fat on toast (fried in bacon fat) for lunch. Thanks for asking.

Sydney Winter Festival, Cook and Phillip Park, Sydney

Sydney. Snow.The two words seem at odds with each other, but for four days last week, locals had the chance to experience a winter wonderland at the inaugural Sydney Winter Festival.For the first time in almost fifty years, an outdoor ice skating rink was erected in Sydney's CBD, set up on the forecourt of St Mary's Cathedral. Ice skating session tickets were offered online prior to the event and

Krispy Kreme Doughnuts

So like Oreo cookies and Hershey's chocolate, Krispy Kreme doughnuts are one of those American items that seem to have acquired cult status due to the fact that they used to be unattainable here and therefore were instantly covetable. However, as is often the way with such things, on actually trying them you wonder what all the fuss is about. Oreos are essentially a sweetened bourbon cream biscuit, and most Hershey's chocolate is verging on the unpleasant.

But I got to try my first Krispy Kreme doughnut yesterday and have to say I was quite impressed. It seems that the company is opening more and more branches across the UK, although most seem to be based in London. The one in Harrods seems to have attracted quite a lot of attention, but for some reason I was unaware that there was also a small kiosk in the Tesco Metro by Liverpool Street Station.
I tried the caramel dreamcake and the chocolate dreamcake (pictured below).

Both these doughnuts had a light, crisp exterior with an inside that was soft but not overly dense. They were filled with either thick caramel or chocolate fudge and iced with chocolate. I would assume that with the amount of sugar these doughnuts must contain, they would be at risk of being sickly sweet but in fact they weren't at all. In fact I think I have to admit that in the case of Krispy Kreme doughnuts they might in fact live up to the hype. Unlike most British glazed doughnuts which seem more akin to a bread roll covered in sugar icing, these were airy and light and very moreish. It's probably really a good thing that my nearest branch is a hundred miles away.

Cost: Depends on the variety but c.£1.20 each on average.
I rate them 8/10.

Merivale Winter Feasts Launch Party, The Establishment, Sydney

Forget any jokes about swine flu. The pig outside the Establishment last Tuesday was more like a call to arms. Or a call to stomachs, as the case may be.We joined the hungry hoardes at the Merivale Winter Feasts launch party, a follow-up to the successful March Into Merivale campaign. Over the three months of winter, Merivale restaurants will be offering $35 lunches and dinners of one, two and

Strawberries in Cointreau-syrup

Sometimes you get tired of eating just strawberries. Not often, of course, just sometimes. If that happens, then there are several ways to dress up those luscious berries. You can macerate them in hibiscus and vanilla syrup (something I've done twice this month already). You can pair them with some young Brie cheese and serve as canapés. You can make the much-loved British summer classic, Eton Mess. You can go all Nigella-esque and serve them with a good balsamic vinegar and some brown sugar. There are plenty of alternatives to just plain red berries. Or you can cook up a simple basic syrup, spike it up with a citrus liqueur and drizzle over the berries. Like I've done here..

Strawberries in Cointreau Syrup
(Maasikad Cointreau-siirupis)
Serves 4 to 6

100 ml water (just under 1/2 cup)
85 g caster sugar (just under 1/2 cup)
4 Tbsp (6 cl) Cointreau orange liqueur
300 g strawberries
little grated orange zest

Mix sugar and water in a small pan and bring to a boil. Simmer for 10 minutes, covered. Remove from the heat and cool for about 15 minutes. Stir in the Cointreau.
Rinse the strawberries, drain thoroughly. Hull the berries and cut into half or quarters, depending on the size. Place in a bowl, drizzle with the syrup and stir gently.
Place in the fridge for 30-60 minutes. (Not longer, as the berries will become unpleasantly soggy).
Serve. (A dollop of whipped cream or softened mascarpone is optional).

burrito night.

So, in keeping with my previous post about weekly dinners, here's our #1 standard dinner. It's cheap, easy as hell, and filling. Duhhhh, burritos! As we get terrifyingly closer to buying our first home (no jinx! no jinx!), this will probably be on the menu like 3 times a week. BEANS AND RICE 4 LYFE, SUCKAS. All my adorable mumbo jumbo about budgeting is going to get thrown out the window when we buy a house, because our rent is basically going to double no matter what- good bye, fancy eggs! We are lucky to have found a really cheap apartment a few years ago and the rent hasn't really gone up with the rest of the neighborhood. BUT, whatever- we're here to talk about food.



First of all- "Burrito night." I know it's dorky, but along with enjoying family meals at the table, I like to keep a sense of order and consistency in my kid's world by referring to dinners like, "Burrito night! Pizza night! Noodle night!" etc. I feel like it will give him something to look forward to when he's a little older and give him a sense of family stability and BLAH BLAH BLAH- I am totally over-thinking this. So, burrito night, it happens every week. We usually time it so that it falls on a night that I babysit, which means that my friends probably think we eat NOTHING BUT BURRITOS, since I always drop their daughter off in the evening with the sendoff, "She had a burrito!" The reason we time it this way is that burrito night basically = opening a bunch of cans and rolling shit up in a tortilla. I'm not gonna lie, this is the laziest night of my week. The only way we could get lazier would be to go to an actual burrito shop, which we occasionally throw up our hands in exhaustion and do, (we're only human!) but why pay 15 bucks for 3 burritos when the basic elements of this meal total up to like 5 dollars?



A recent phone call with my mother revealed that she doesn't know how to make spanish rice from scratch. I can't fault her for this- I didn't know either until I met my husband. I feel like this is one of those things everybody should know how to do, like boil an egg (hey, I learned to do this last year!) or like, wipe their own butt. We make spanish rice from things that we always have around the house. Look, I'm not even going to bother looking up a recipe for this or pretending like I know anything about spanish rice, so spare me your "MY MEXICAN GRANDMA DOES IT LIKE THIS, AND YOU ARE DOING THIS WRONG, BLAH BLAH BLAH." I don't care- this is how we make it, it tastes good in our burritos.



More moments of confession: I am a sloppy-ass cook. I don't really measure anything, I eyeball everything, and if it doesn't come out just right, I eat it anyway. I kind of apply the same logic to cooking that I do when I cut my own hair- YOU JUST HAVE TO BE COOL WITH THE IDEA OF SHAVING YOUR WHOLE HEAD, AND THEN YOU CAN GO AHEAD AND CUT YOUR OWN HAIR. In short, if you screw it up, it's not the end of the world. Deal with it, or start over.



Sorry, I just have a lot of pictures to show off. I used 2 cans of beans last night because I wanted leftovers for lunch today.

ANYWAY MAKE SOME SPANISH RICE:

about a cup of rice
1 can of fire roasted diced tomatoes (these are so good! i know i'm all boo-hoo-no-processed-food but sometimes you need some damn canned tomatoes.)
1 onion
some garlic
handful of chili powder
smaller handful of cumin
bay leaf (i didn't have any yesterday, bummerrrr)
a little water

In a large pan, saute onions and garlic until they begin to soften. Dump in the rice and spices, and toast for a minute or two. Dump in the can of tomatoes, stir it around, and then dump in like a can's worth of water or so. You just want to make sure the rice is covered with liquid, but err on the side of a teeny bit more, because overcooked gummy rice is preferable, in my opinion- to crunchy undercooked rice.

Stir it around and put a bay leaf in, then drop a lid on it. Stir a couple of times to make sure it doesn't stick, and in about 20 minutes or so you have a big ass fluffy pan of spanish rice. You can also use stock instead of water but it's not a huge deal. It does taste better, though. THERE- stop using a box now, mom. You don't need all that sodium in your life. OH YEAH speaking of sodium, make sure you remember to salt your rice. I always forget and then my husband is all, "UGH, PASS THE SALT."



Anyway, oh hey- do you know how to fold a burrito? Sure, you could just do tacos, but there's just something about the meal-in-the-palm-of-your-hand that is a burrito that is so dang satisfying. I worked at some crappy local taco chain when I was a teenager, rolling burritos all day, so I like to think that I'm pretty darn good at it. I tried to do a little photo essay describing my method, but damn if it isn't a pain in the butt to try and photograph yourself ROLLING A BURRITO ONE-HANDED.

Basically, you tuck in the sides first:



And then you grab the end closest to you and fold it over so it touches the other end, and then tuck it under.



Then you just kind of keep pinching the sides in and roll the whole thing up, it's really satisfying, okay? This method works really good with spring rolls, too.

Heat up the tortilla on a cast iron skillet, dump some food inside, (CHEESE. BEANS. RICE.) and roll it up. TA DA. Burrito night.



Sometimes if we're feeling ritzy we'll buy sour cream or avocado, but usually it's just beans, cheese and rice, because come on- what do I look like, a millionaire?

HEY SPEAKING OF MILLIONAIRES- I got an inquiry about joining an ad network owned by General Mills. If I can figure out how to deal with the fancy sign-up website, I will probably throw some ads onto the sidebar there- but if it doesn't pay more than google ads I'll probably just dump it, because in case you noticed the google ads I had up there- I was literally raking in PENNIES A DAY. Like, one or two pennies a day, literally. What a waste of space! That had been there for months and months, and I still didn't have enough racked up for them to cut me a check, because they have a minimum. Whatever! Don't hate on my corporate sponsorship, y'all- I have to pay for my kid's Nike Airs somehow, and this 8 dollar carton of eggs isn't going to pay for itself.

dicking around with my template, please disregard. D:

Simon Johnson sale, Alexandria

I like to spend my Saturday mornings in bed. Under the covers. Blissfully warm and preferably asleep until midday. I call it my weekly banking, a catch-up on all those late nights spent eating. And blogging.Few things will get me out of bed early on a Saturday. Food is one of them. Sales are another.A food sale? Ahhh.... now we're talking.After hearing Pig Flyin wax lyrical about the annual sale

Chole batura

Chole batura is a Punjabi classic, that I absolutely love. The chole (aka chana masala) part refers to the chickpeas and the batura is a type of bread that manages to combine the crisp flakiness of a paratha with the soft chewiness of a naan. Making this entirely from scratch would undoubtedly be quite time-consuming but I've recently discovered that my local Asian grocery store Al-Amin now sells ready-made batura. They come vacuum packed and are made in Southall (which puts my authenticity fears to rest). All you need to do is heat them through in a dry pan, turning frequently, until they become golden and crispy on the outside. Batura are usually shallow or deep fried so can be greasy, but these examples were exceptionally non-oily.
For the chole I used a tin of chickpeas and the Mangal spice mix I've described previously. Impatience meant that I only quickly fried off some onion before adding the chickpeas, spices, and some water, rather than the ginger, tomato, etc, that I'd normally add. You can probably see from the picture that this resulted in a slightly paler chana masala than I'd normally expect, but it still tasted delicious.
There's a gap on the plate above that would normally be filled with a tomato and onion relish, or yoghurt raita, or even some green salad. But have to admit on this occasion I omitted those extras and risked burning my fingertips to scoop up little mounds of chole with the straight from the frying pan-hot batura.

Unfortunately I don't remember what brand the batura were, and they might just have been called Punjabi Baturas. However if they've made it down to Cambridge then I'm sure they'll be in other Asian supermarkets too.

Cost: Approximately £1.60 for four
I rate them 8.5/10

Nami-Nami turns four and celebrates the anniversary with Kama Muffins Recipe

Nami-Nami food blog turned four this week. That's been four great years of reading about and eating and enjoying and writing about delicious food, and four years of meeting numerous inspiring fellow food bloggers from all over the world. Just imagine - had I not come across Melissa's food blog in June 2005, I would not have started my own. And if I hadn't started my own food blog, then I wouldn't have met Johanna (in England & Scotland), Andrew (in England), Jeanne (in England), Ximena (in Spain and in Estonia), Dagmar (Estonia), Anne (in Estonia), Kristina (in Estonia), Alanna (in St Louis, USA), Paz (in New York), Antti (in Finland and in Estonia), Melissa (in Scotland), Keiko (in England), Chloe (in Greece), Nupur (in St Louis, USA), Zarah Maria (in Denmark), Amy (in England), Blake (in New York last summer and in Estonia just last week), Klary and many others in person over these four years. And that would have been a real pity. I mean it..

Thank you all for reading Nami-Nami over the last four years. And the celebratory recipe? Kama muffins with dried cranberries and curd cheese. You cannot get more Estonian than that :)

What's KAMA??? Read more here.

Kama Muffins
(Kamamuffinid kohupiima ja jõhvikatega)
Makes 12



2 large eggs
100 g caster sugar
100 g butter, melted
55 g plain/all purpose flour (100 ml)
50 g kama flour (100 ml)
1 tsp baking powder
50 g dried cranberries (craisins; just under half a cup)
25 g roasted coarsely chopped hazenlnuts (3 Tbsp)
175 g curd cheese or ricotta

Whisk eggs and sugar until thick and pale. Stir in the cooled melted butter.
In a small bowl mix flour, kama and baking powder, then add to the egg mixture together with hazenlnuts, cranberries and ricotta/curd cheese. Stir gently, until ingredients come just together.
Spoon the batter into muffin cups.
Bake in a preheated 200 C/400 F oven for about 15-18 minutes, until the muffins are cooked through.

Wagaya, Haymarket Chinatown, Sydney

Food bloggers ahoy!Pic above just added - thank you Karen for your wide angle lens and the tripod donater (can't remember who?). We took this shot towards the end of the evening when alas, a few people had already gone home.How many food bloggers can you fit into a 25-seater room? We managed to squeeze in 30, a feat achieved when Chocolatesuze celebrated her birthday at Wagaya. Just when we

a week of dinner.

Okay first of all, let's talk about how I had this big idea about how I was gonna post a week's worth of dinners and talk about my budgeting and grocery list and How We Live® and blah blah blah. I tried to remember to take pictures of dinner every night, but then I did a lousy job of keeping track of them. I worked late one night and had leftovers for dinner and forgot to bring my camera- the whole week was kind of a clusterfuck of obligation and I was BUSY! Baby-sitting for friends and family, extra shifts at work, meeting with photography clients, spring cleaning in the apartment- it's Sunday and I'm wrecked. In a good way, though- the kind of wrecked you feel after getting a lot of stuff done.



So I guess what I'm saying is, like everyone else- we are pretty disorganized. But, we try to make time for dinner together every night, because it kind of glues us all together. I'm pretty old fashioned when it comes to stuff like that, I really feel like every family, if they have the ability, should join each other for dinner, and cooking it is half the fun- even when you're stressed out and short on time. Whenever I throw together dinner after a crazy day, and my low blood sugar is making me snap at my family and I get frustrated and burn something, and then something else is undercooked when I got to put everything on plates, and I get super pissed but then it somehow all comes together in the end- it's just so satisfying to sit down and EAT IT.



Of course, all that said- I'm lucky enough to have a husband who cooks. We'd be totally screwed if it was all on me, because come 5:30 p.m., if I am not close to sitting down to a full meal, I turn into a loopy wreck who cannot function. That's just the time of day that my blood sugar plunges and I turn into a cranky, confused, useless lump. I do about half the cooking around here, probably. Maybe a little less.



Anyway, the whole reason for this post is to answer some of the questions I get asked on a regular basis about our dinners and our shopping budget and all that crap. I feel like every time I mention that eating healthy doesn't have to be expensive, someone on the internet finds it necessary to yell at me (isn't that what the internet is for, though?) that I'm being insensitive to whatever lifestyle or cause or the destitute or whatever. All I can do is speak from experience, though- and my experience says that when I was eating lots of junk food, I got fat, miserable, and I was spending way too much money. We forced ourselves to start writing out a meal list every week, set a grocery budget and we stick to it as closely as we can, and I made a few lifestyle changes to lose some weight. Now I feel better and we're on track paying our bills, and that's enough anecdotal, one-sided evidence for me, thanks.



I recently posted on a local community asking if anyone had a good hookup for pastured eggs besides the farmer's market or the few specialty stores that I know of who carry them. There's ONE booth at the farmer's market who has them for 5 bucks, and everywhere else they run about 7 dollars a dozen, which is way, way more than I'm willing to spend, even though I'm happy to throw down a few extra bucks to support local farmers. Someone got on my case about the "morally offensive" idea of Five Dollar Eggs and suggested that I was a huge jerk for being willing to pay that much. When people think about eating healthy, I think they need to consider a few things. Yes, some unhealthy foods ARE cheaper- because you can buy huge portions of them. But you don't need to eat a GIANT BOWL of sugary cereal if you have a reasonable portion of oatmeal with some butter, it's just as filling. You don't need to eat extra portions of your frozen pizza if you take the time (5 minutes?) to make a salad. The reason we can afford to buy 5 dollar eggs every once in awhile (and I do mean "every once in awhile," because they really aren't in our budget) is because of the things we DON'T buy. We don't buy paper towels, we don't buy pre-made, frozen dinners. We don't buy candy, we never buy soda and we don't really buy juice, either. We drink (OMG) water. Consider how much paper towels, soda, and juice cost for a moment. When I was a kid, we had ALL of these things in the house at all times- we always had a backup 12 pack of coke in the garage, waiting to be guzzled. I tried to look up the price of a 12 pack of coke, and then I realized that I have never bought my own 12 pack of coke in my entire life. I think it's like 4 or 5 bucks, right? I think paper towels are like 3 or 4 dollars for a package of 2 or 3. And a big container of juice is at least 3 dollars. So, added all together, just NOT buying those 3 things that a lot of families consider to be staple items means that I have almost 15 dollars to spend on other stuff. That's how I feel okay about paying 5 dollars for eggs every once in awhile.



Now, what we DO buy. Every week we sit down and write a list- first we pick out what we're going to eat each night for dinner. Last week it was hippie chow, pizza, chicken, vegetables, and polenta, pesto noodles (which we stretched over 2 nights), burritos, and then something else that I've already forgotten, haha. Our list this week says:

Sat- salad rolls
Sun- Kennedy School (We had a catered party to go to. Free dinner, woo hoo!)
Mon- Couscous + mezza
Tues- Alice at work- sandwiches?
Wed- Burritos
Thurs- Polenta + veg
Fri- Burger?

The way we make our list is pretty straightforward. We have a lot of standard dishes that we choose from, and we try to keep the stuff that uses the most fresh vegetables towards the beginning of the week, and then whenever we're going to have meat, we put it towards the end of the week so we can buy it fresh that night. That's why "burger?" has a question mark after it- if Friday rolls around and Jason hits the grocery and steaks are on sale, maybe he'll buy steak. Or maybe we'll be more in the mood for fish by then, who knows? Fridays are always kind of a scramble to get food in our bellies because that's when we go shopping. After we have our meals written down, we write down the ingredients we need for all our crap, and then we throw on whatever we're going to have for lunch- sandwich stuff, salad stuff, whatever.

Here is what we consider to be stuff we must ALWAYS BUY, every week, regardless of what is on the list:
Lettuce
Carrot
Celery
Onion
Garlic
roasting vegetables, like zucchini, squash, brussels, etc.
Tomato, usually
Apples
bananas
Grapes if they're on sale
Almonds (I buy a pound of almonds every other week or so, it takes me awhile to go through it, but I carry almonds in my purse with me everywhere I go. It's to keep my blood sugar level.)
can of fire roasted diced tomatoes
can of beans
at least a little bit of pasta
eggs (not 5 dollar eggs, haha)

And this is where I get thrown off when people say that you can't eat healthy when you're poor- usually the produce portion of our weekly grocery bill doesn't exceed 40 dollars. Vegetables are CHEAP, you just need to learn to cook them.



Anyway, I hope this wasn't just annoying information overload, like "OOOooOoOOh, good for YOU. You have your fancy stupid grocery list, WHO CARES?" I get questions about stuff like this a lot, and it seems like people are more interested in the more 'normal' stuff that I eat instead of waiting to see if I bust out something fancy. Over the next few days, I'll be posting recipes for staple items in our kitchen, like our spanish rice recipe, what we do on mezza night, stuff like that. Also I made pizza the other night and I made a little mini-calzone that blew my mind, so I'll probably post those too. And feel free to ask any questions you'd like. PEACE OUT.

Freebie Friday winners: Good Food & Wine Show

The winners of the Grab Your Fork Freebie Friday competition have been decided and confirmed*.Avik has won the major prize with their question: "What was the first dish you taught your children to cook?"Avik has won 1 x double pass to the Good Food & Wine Show Sydney including tickets to the Gordon Ramsay session at 12.30pm on Saturday July 4 2009, worth $95 in total.The Random Sequence Generator

Upside-down pear and macadamia cake

This one's a winner.Every time I've made this upside-down pear and macadamia cake, everybody wants seconds. The cinnamon-spiced pears are a perfect match for the chill that is winter, and the inclusion of almond meal gives the cake a lovely moist friand-style crumb.What I love most about this cake, is it can be made in advance and then reheated to serve. Once up-turned on a plate, I like to place

Creamy Vanilla and Rice Pudding with Rhubarb Compote

For a few weeks now, K's mum has supplied us with large bunches of rhubarb. In addition to several rhubarb cakes and tarts and pies, I've also experimented with different rhubarb desserts. Here's a recipe for a warm rice pudding served with rhubarb compote. It's best served warm, so make it in a weekend morning or as a pudding after a light weekday meal. The recipe is a very slight adaptation from the Australian Fresh Living magazine.

As always, choose the pinkest rhubarb stalks you can find, and don't peel them.

Creamy Vanilla and Rice Pudding with Rhubarb Compote
(Vanilli-riisipuding rabarbriga)
Serves 4



Rice pudding:
100 g short-grain pudding rice (known as 'porridge rice' here in Estonia)
water
500 ml (2 cups) milk
2 Tbsp caster sugar
1 vanilla bean, halved lengthwise

Rhubarb compote:
300 g pink rhubarb (3-4 stalks)
2 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp water

In a medium-sized saucepan, bring water to the boil, add the rice and simmer for 5 minutes. Drain thoroughly in a colander.
Return the drained rice back to the saucepan, add milk, sugar and the vanilla bean. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to low and simmer (without the lid!) for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the rice is soft and creamy.

While the rice porridge is simmering, prepare the rhubarb compote. Cut the rhubarb stalks into 5 cm (2 inches) lengths . Place in a small saucepan, add the sugar and water. Bring to the boil, then reduce heat and simmer on a medium heat for 5-7 minutes, until rhubarb has softened, but not mushy.

Remove the vanilla bean from the rice porridge, gently stir in the rhubarb compote for a striped effect. Serve warm.

More rice pudding recipes here @ Nami-Nami:
Danish Rice and Almond Pudding with Warm Cherry Compote
Pierre Hermé's Chocolate Rice Pudding

Similar recipes from my favourite food blogs:
Sweet Risotto with Rhubarb Compote @ SpittoonExtra
Strawberry Rice Pudding @ La Tartine Gourmande
Vanilla-Almond Rice Pudding @ SmittenKitchen

I haven't participated in any food blog events recently, so it's a pleasure to submit this to the Monthly Mingle # 33: Ravishing Rice, hosted by Nags and started by the lovely Meeta.

The Smokehouse, Surry Hills, Sydney

I do love a good bathroom.Just as they say you can judge the quality of a coat by its buttons, so too is the mandatory bathroom inspection a good indicator of a restaurant's attention to detail.It's a little dim when you first enter the bathroom at The Smokehouse, your hands flailing in the milky shadows searching for the light switch, until you realise, in fact, the lights are already on. By

Tesco chocolate swirl cupcakes

I do like a nice cupcake, so I thought I'd give these ones from the Tesco bakery a go. But having experienced premium cupcakes from the Hummingbird Bakery (about three years ago now, but the memory remains strong) I didn't have terribly high expectations. Which was a good thing really, as these cakes verged on being actively unpleasant.
I thought I was eating a chocolate cupcake, but on closer inspection it turned out that I was actually eating a chocolate-flavoured cake with a chocolate-flavoured frosting. Cunningly, the Tesco cake makers had decided to go for a chocolate flavour that didn't pick up any notes of cocoa, but instead tasted mostly of soap. And not a pleasant soap at that. The topping was slightly better in that it didn't taste of soap, but it didn't seem to taste of anything else either. It had the texture of toothpaste but was completely flavourless. I think I ate about half of one before throwing the rest away, a highly unusual act in itself as I'm not normally one to be voluntarily parted from a chocolate cake.
In conclusion, I would not recommend these unless you have a penchant for eating soap.

Cost: Around the £1.70 mark for four.
I rate them 2/10.

Lowenbrau Keller, The Rocks, Sydney

It's true. I do derive an inordinate amount of pleasure whenever I say the word schlachtplatte.Partly it's because I relish putting on a very bad German accent, trying to generate as much noise as possible on the schlaaaaacht (I did say it was a bad accent). But perhaps the most exciting part about saying schlachtplatte to the waitress is the promise of the meat to come. A feast of meat. A

Macarons by Marcolini

Another box of sweets that K. brought back from Brussels on Wednesday. These were mini macaroons by Pierre Marcolini, a fine Belgian chocolatier that only makes 5 flavours. I loved these - especially the yellowish ones.

Pierre Marcolini
Rue des Minimes 1
Brussels
Belgium

Home-Made Rhubarb Ice Cream Recipe

It's been raining non-stop for the last two days (or is it three now?), and the temperatures have dropped below 10 Celsius. That's quite sad, as the kids have all began their summer vacations and just last weekend the weather was hot, sunny and truly summery. Full of promise. That's when I made this rhubarb ice cream, to keep us cool in the heat. I really loved the creaminess that wasn't cloying, as the acidity of the rhubarb came through. Plus it had a rather nice colour, don't you think?

It's very easy to make, as you only need to whisk the egg yolks, and not turn them into a custard base. You don't even need an ice cream machine to make it, even though it's a lot easier if you have got one. (If you haven't got one, then read the instructions further down on how to make the no-churn version of this.)

Home-Made Rhubarb Ice Cream
(Rabarbrijäätis)
Serves six to eight



300 g young rosy-pink rhubarb stalks
4 Tbsp water
85 g sugar
200 ml whipping cream (35%)
200 ml single/pouring cream (10%)
3 egg yolks
2 tsp icing sugar/confectioner's sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

Cut the rhubarb into thin slices. Place in a small saucepan with water and sugar, bring into a boil and simmer gently for about 10 minutes, until the rhubarb has softened. Cool and blend into a purée. (Look at the pretty colour of the purée below!)
Whisk egg yolks with icing sugar until pale and frothy. Fold in the creams and cooled rhubarb purée.
Place into the fridge for 1-2 hours, to cool the mixture thoroughly.
Then churn in your ice cream machine according to the instructions. If necessary, place in a bowl with a lid into the freezer to harden.



PS! If you haven't got an ice cream machine, then you can still make this ice cream. Use 300-400 ml of whipping cream instead of 200 ml of single and 200 ml of double cream. Whisk until soft peaks form, then fold into the whisked egg yolks together with the rhubarb purée. Place in a container, cover and freeze. (You may stir it couple of times during the next few hours, but it's not necessarily necessary). Take out of the freezer to soften about 20 minutes before serving.

hippie chow.

Oh HEYYYYY food blog, what's up? I almost forgot about you. On our budget, we eat a lot of the same crap, so we don't do anything too fancy on a regular basis. I've mentioned this to a few people, and they seemed interested in the same-shit-different-day approach that we have, so pretty soon I'm going to do a week of our meals, and you can see how we eat on a daily basis. It's boring food but we try to keep it healthy. Until then, dig this hippie chow!



Look, I love to make fun of hippies. I can't help it, there's just something so funny about being like, "Shut up, hippie!" When I see some goofy hippie walking down the street, I say stuff like, "HAHA, HIPPIE!!" to whoever I'm with. If someone I know is doing something to make their lives more "green" or whatever, I'll jab them in the ribs and be all, "HIPPIEEEEE!" It's not that I have anything AGAINST hippies, I just love saying the word, and I also love making fun of people. Not to mention, I'm a huge-ass hippie. I didn't wear a bra for like 10 years (ah, those were the days), I was vegetarian for almost half my life, I even have one of those goofy stickers on my car shaped like the state of Oregon with a green heart in the middle. I shop at the farmer's market, I like eggs from backyard chickens. What's up, HIPPIE!?



So anyway, my husband and I are always making cracks about how hippies can't cook, and how all their food is just junk in a bowl, so whenever we decide to eat a pile of crap in a bowl (FAILURE PILE IN A SADNESS BOWL? I THINK NOT), we call it hippie chow. Hippie chow can be anything- back in the day when my husband was vegan and living in punk houses with tons of hippies punk rockers, hippie chow was toasted TVP with red sauce on whatever carb was laying around, or rice with condiments, or dumpstered vegetables (Yes, I have engaged in dumpster-diving for pleasure. Sorry, Mom. I have a job now.) thrown together in a sauce pan with some spike or something. Hippie chow is whatever the hell you want it to be! In this case, however- as our tastes have refined over the years, our hippie chow was hella delicious.

HIPPIE CHOW FOR GROWN-UPS:

quinoa (I don't know, 2 cups? a cup? If you don't have or don't like quinoa, get brown rice. It's not hippie chow if it doesn't have a whole grain, so no cheating with white rice, haha)
2 medium-large beets
2 large carrots
1 bunch of kale
a few zucchini and yellow squash
a potato or two
garlic & onion
Whatever other vegetables you have lying around- broccoli would be good (IF IT DIDN'T MAKE ME FART SO MUCH), or green beans, or asparagus. Try to think "RAINBOW." Because you're a hippie.

Cook your quinoa- you can just put it in a rice cooker and cook it exactly the same way you would rice. Or like, cook your rice in the rice cooker, if you're not enough of a hippie to want quinoa- but you know what? Quinoa is really good, and supposedly it's really, really good for you. Go out on a limb, hippie.

Chop beets, carrots, and potatoes- then toss them with olive oil & roast them in a pan at about 400ºf until tender. When they're getting close to done, saute garlic & onion in a pan with some butter or oil, until glassy, then add the rest of the vegetables, which presumably you have chopped up already (don't add the kale until the end, or it'll get overcooked. I put it in and then put a lid on it to steam a little, but only for a minute or two, I still like some crunch to my greens). Season with salt & pepper, throw in some fresh herbs if you like (I think Jason added basil) and then, in the immortal words of Patton Oswalt, pile it all in a single bowl. Top with a poached egg, if you're feeling fancy (we totally were), then mix it all together. If you're a real hippie, you'll add ketchup and/or hot sauce, like I did. Ta da! You just slummed it like a hippie. No seriously, though- I love hippies. Please don't send me any butthurt emails. I love the Earth, guys! I love hugs, and rainbows, and kittens, and Nag Champa, I really do! The sad part is that I sound sarcastic, but I'm really serious, just like when I tell people that my favorite movie is Legally Blonde and they don't believe me. Whatever, that shit rules.

Oh hey, you know what's more awesome than hippie chow for dinner? HIPPIE DESSERT.





My husband eternal soul partner came out of the kitchen bearing these little bowls- vanilla ice cream topped with slices of fresh peach, a drizzle of local honey (hippie!) and some warm, freshly toasted almonds.

And, now I can stop making fun of hippies. One love, y'all!

Ispahan, almost

K. was in Brussels for two days and brought me this Macaron Joy from Wittamer pastry shop. The rose cream, raspberries and lychee are all there, but the signature red rose leaf is missing.

Rather delicious, I must admit. I had this with a cup of freshly ground Has Bean's Guatemala COE La Perla y Anexos speciality coffee this morning..

Eating for England and why I like Nigel Slater

Ok, this isn't a food review as such (or in fact at all) but mirrors a book review on the other blog. It is a food book review though, so thought I'd post it here too.

I should probably start out by saying that I really like Nigel Slater, and would ideally like him to be a close friend so that I could pop round to his for lunch and sit in his rustic but functional kitchen, or delightfully untamed but productive garden (c.f. The Kitchen Diaries by Nigel Slater). I would be very happy to sample a seasonal meal or sip on a mimosa, while indulging in some light gossip. However, we have yet to be united in friendship so in the meantime I've been reading a couple of his books.
Read more....

The Light Brigade Bistro, Woollahra

"Hi Helen...I’ve been looking at your fabulous blog ‘Grab Your Fork’ and I wanted to extend an invitation for you and a guest you to experience the award-winning cuisine of Chef James Privett at the Light Brigade’s Bistro..."And that email--by Lisa from the Trish Nicol Agency--is how Suze and I find ourselves at the Light Brigade for her early celebratory birthday dinner.Light fitting in the

Spiced Rhubarb Cake Recipe

I've baked probably about dozen rhubarb cakes and tarts over the last few weeks, and I still haven't had enough. Rhubarb is the first local "fruit" (I know it's actually a vegetable, but it classifies as fruit for the cooking purposes, a bit like quinoa counts as a grain, even if it is not) to arrive on the market stalls, and after a long winter season of mediocre imported fruit flown if from the other side of the world, it feels like a blessing. I'm proud to say that I managed to resist buying the imported pink forced rhubarb stalks that arrived about a fortnight earlier - and the sweeter the home-grown rhubarb tasted (if one can use that word in relation to rhubarb :))

Here's one simple tray bake recipe, made special by generous amounts of cinnamon and cardamom, and the lack of eggs. It's soft, tender and tasty. Choose the pinkest rhubarb you can find, and you're guaranteed one Pretty in Pink cake (note that I never peel my rhubarb stalks. Cannot see the point, unless they're very large and stringy, in which case it's better to avoid them anyway).

Serve with icing sugar or vanilla custard. Keeps fresh for a few days because of the buttermilk content.

Spiced Rhubarb Cake
(Kevadine rabarbri-plaadikook)



500 ml kefir or buttermilk (2 cups)
50 g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
200 g sugar (1 cup)
300 g plain/all-purpose flour (2 cups)
100 ml potato starch/cornflour (just under 1/2 cup)
0.5 Tbsp bicarbonate of soda
0.5 Tbsp freshly ground cardamom
0.5 Tbsp ground cinnamon

Topping:
400 g rhubarb, sliced thickly
7 Tbsp muscovado sugar

Preheat the oven to 200 C/400 F. Line and/or grease a baking tray (ca 25-30 x 34 cm)*.
Combine the kefir/buttermilk and melted butter.
Combine the flour, potato starch, sugar, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon and cardamom. Fold in the buttermilk mixture.
Pour or spoon the batter into the baking tray, scatter rhubarb on top and sprinkle with sugar.
Place immediately into the oven (the baking soda starts reacting with the buttermilk as soon as they come into contact) and bake for 30-40 minutes, until the cake is golden brown on top.

* I cooked mine in a baking tray sized 25x34 cm, but you could easily use a large tray. Reduce the baking time accordingly.

Other rhubarb cake recipes @ Nami-Nami:
Rhubarb Sponge Cake with Almonds
My favourite rhubarb muffins
Rhubarb and coconut tart
Gluten-free Rhubarb Crumble
Creamy Rhubarb Pie

Warm Gingered Carrot Salad with Feta Cheese

Updated and revised, with a new photograph. Originally posted on November 24, 2005

We don't eat meat every day in our household. We're not vegetarians, but meatless days definitely outnumber the meaty ones. Here's a typical dish we would have as an evening meal - a large portion of sauteéd, yet still slightly crunchy carrots, seasoned with mustard seeds and lots of ginger and topped with feta cheese just before serving. Served with some crusty Italian or French bread, and you're set for a wholesome and light meal. It would also work well on a buffet table, as the carrot salad tastes nice when lukewarm.

See other vegetarian carrot recipes @ Nami-Nami:
Oil-marinated carrots with rosemary and orange
Alanna's carrots with African spices, my way
Kalyn's Roasted Carrots and Mushrooms with Thyme and Parsley
Alanna's Cumin Carrot Chips
Estonian grandmother's Carrot Ragout
Warm Moroccan Carrot Salad

Warm Ginger and Carrot Salad with Feta Cheese
(Soe porgandisalat fetaga)
Serves 4 as a side dish or 2 as a main meal



500 grams of organic carrots, thickly sliced
1 onion or 3 shallots, peeled and sliced
1 heaped tsp mustard seeds
2 Tbsp butter
100 ml /almost 1/2 cup/ water
2-3 tsp finely grated fresh ginger
1 tsp sea salt
2-3 Tbsp fresh parsley or basil or chives
100-150 grams crumbled for cubed eta cheese
freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Peel the carrots and slice thickly. Peel and slice the onions finely.
Heat butter on a heavy frying pan over a medium heat, add mustard seeds and fry for a minute, until the mustard seeds start 'popping'.
Add carrots and sauté for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Reduce heat a little, add the onion slices and continue sautéeing for another 5 minutes, until onion starts to turn opaque.
Add the water and cook, until the water has evaporated and the carrots are al dente.
Season with ginger, salt and herbs, cook for another minute and then remove from the heat.
Transfer onto a warmed serving dish, scatter feta cheese on top and season with some freshly ground black pepper.

Yuletide dinner at Restaurant Atelier, Glebe with Australian Pork

Sometimes you need to hit "pause" just to appreciate all the good things in life. You would think the end is nigh, what with economic woes and flu outbreaks, yet if you stop just a minute and breathe, you'll find there are plenty of things to smile about and be grateful.Even the official onset of weather means good things. I'm thinking rich hearty comfort food and cuddly doonas, big steaming mugs