Moist orange and almond birthday cake

Looking at my blog archives tonight, I noticed that I have only posted 10 (11 including this one) blog posts this month compared to 43 in February, which is totally pathetic. My only excuse is that I have started working full time and I haven't been cooking as much at night or even doing dinner parties. It's no excuse, I know, but still ...

This month is my birthday month. Yeah, I'm a March baby. My birthday was a couple of weeks ago and The Boy treated me very well.

I had a pre-birthday dinner at our favorite pub - HUX @ Nortons, followed by a birthday lunch at our favorite seafood restaurant - Fish at the Rocks, and finally a post-birthday dinner with some friends at home, catered by the incredible Jay Huxley.

It was a lovely ride, of course. I love birthdays and I especially love my birthday. I get all silly and giddy about it being my birthday and The Boy knows how much I love it, so he makes a big fuss.

Each year, as a tradition, which we've done for many, many years now, we both take the day off work for the day of my birthday and we spend the day together. This year was no different, and thanks to a very understanding new boss, I got the day off.

The Boy took me to one of my favorite stores to let me pick out my birthday gift, which he had already decided on but wanted me to be happy with before he picked it up. Then lunch at our favorite seafood restaurant and a lovely night in just hanging out and enjoying each others' company. I even got an extra cuddle on account of it being my birthday.

The dinner which Jay catered was incredible and I'll share the photos from that dinner on another post. I really should have done that sooner but I've been remiss.

The Best Bud brought dessert which also doubled as my birthday cake - which is that lovely orange cake. It's an almond and orange cake and it is the most moist cake I have ever had. It was incredibly delicious too. I'm sorry that I do not have a recipe for this cake, since he bought it from a store, but you can probably find a whole host of recipes online. Plus, if your baking skills are even a little bit better than mine, you'll get pretty good results.

So that's it for a quick post because I wanted to actually mention my birthday during the month of my birthday. :-)


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Dragon udon

Ever since my one lunch disaster of an udon experience, I've been on the lookout for a good udon noodle meal. I've had a hankering and a craving ... it was a big one.

I was not game to go back and try the fast food joint in the building behind where I worked again because well ... the first time was not stellar.

A couple of weeks ago, I had lunch with The Brother and he suggested lunch in a Japanese restaurant in the basement of the building RIGHT NEXT TO where I work. I did not even know it was there. Surprise!!!

Well, it being a genuine Japanese restaurant and all (plus, there were real Japanese people eating there!) I decided to try their udon and it was worth it!!!

Delicious!!!!

This place has become my new favorite lunch place, though it's a little pricier than eating at a food court. I limit it to eating there once or twice a week, usually with a friend, though today, I ate there with The Boy.

I've also set up an account with them as we cater a lot of lunches at the office for large group meetings and The Boss is a fan of sushi. He was most impressed with the sushi and gyoza that I presented him with for lunch just a couple of days ago for the Board meeting. He had said not to order too much because no one really likes sushi other than him. Boy, was he wrong! The food went down very well indeed.

Anyhoooo ... if you're in the neighbourhood, you should give this place a squiz. I definitely recommend it.

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Thank goodness for friends bearing food

I want to apologise for not blogging more often recently. Work has got me rather tired lately and I'm finding that I am getting home much later than anticipated. While I thought I was adjusting to the routine, the routine has changed a little bit on me and I have discovered two things.

(1) I am getting home later than anticipated.

(2) I am not hungry when I get home so all I want to eat is fruit. I have been craving a lot of fruit for dinner. That does not entail much cooking.

Tonight, we were meant to be heading out to HUX @ Nortons for dinner but just before heading out The Boy got a call from the best bud asking us if we would like Thai food. They were heading out to their favorite Thai place and thought they'd pick up the food and bring it back to our place for dinner.

What a fabulous idea!!

Hence that scrumptious display of Thai food in a sea of take away boxes on the dining room table that made up dinner for tonight.

Very yummy all around.

Hooray for best buds and not having to cook because I was too tired.

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Eating out economically

A little while ago, I blogged about how it's so much more economical to eat in rather than eat out. It just costs more because you're paying for the overheads associated with setting up and running an eating establishment. Plus if you are anything like us, or even like many other people around the world these days, you'll be wanting to look for ways to be more economical and still be able to enjoy yourself with a meal out. That said, I've come across something that made me think that there is indeed a way for people to eat out and still not spend a lot of money.

I'm sure many of you would have caught on to the coupon trend that is all over the Internet now, with places like LivingSocial, Groupon, Cudo, etc., offering deals of just about anything, from photography workshops to boot camp training, sailing lessons to makeup workshops.

One thing that pops up over and over again are restaurant and cafe deals. Lots and lots of them.

Most of these deals offer you a coupon for either one or two people, sometimes up to four people and it's usually at least 50% off the set price for the meal.

I understand that the restaurants (and all the other companies participating) do this in order to get the potential customer to visit and then hopefully due to their positive experience there, will return as a regular customer and pay full price for meals and such. However, if you're a bargain hunter, don't mind trying lots of new places to eat, don't have any qualms about customer loyalty and things like that, you can take advantage of these deals to enjoy meals out at very economical prices. For example, check out some of the things that are being offered now:

The variety is amazing, and if you shop around, there's lots of deals from many, many of these coupon sites to choose from. Of course, the deals often only last a day or two, so if you see something you think you are interested in, you need to jump in and commit right away, and then take your time using it. Make sure you keep in mind the expiry day though, because these things do expire.

My own experience has been great, but in the last year, I have only taken advantage of a few of these things and for me, I am always terrible at remembering to redeem them, so I almost always redeem them right before they expire. The things that I find difficult are that I feel like I'm being forced to do something at a specific time and I can't be spontaneous, and remembering to redeem them in time so that they don't expire and I haven't wasted my money.

I've tried two different deals now, both of which are places within walking distance of my home (you can sign up for specific deals based on your preferred location) and both of them places I would never have tried if not for the deal. I've enjoyed both of those experiences.

One was a wine bar that had opened recently. The food was fantastic and (again!) very good deal for the money I paid. Definitely a place I would visit again if I had the hankering for a wine bar experience or if I had friends visiting from out of town and I wanted a cool place to take them too.

Another was a small cafe that caters mainly to the day time office worker crowd. They are open evenings for dinner and in the mornings for breakfast. The food was great and there was lots of it. I ended up bringing home 2/3 of my main meal. Since they serve breakfast and The Boy and I like going out for morning walks in the weekend, we think we will go back to try their breakfast menu. There was a Brazilian breakfast item on the menu that looked very good.

I don't know that we would do many more of these since we do prefer doing our own cooking and eating in, but this is a good way to share an evening with a few friends and discover something new.

Happy eating out and do let me know what you think, if you ever decide to try this.

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Farewell my boys ... with chocolate mousse

This is a rather old post which I write a while ago but never posted. Thought I'd pull it out tonight and post it since .... well, I just really should. :-)

You've heard me talk about my boys for a while now and all the cooking that I do for them. It's rather a regular thing, the Singles and Strays dinner. It started off pretty casual and has grown into a three course dinner where I go a little silly cooking and The Boy gets all excited about matching his wines to the food. The fun thing is that people keep coming back. :-) That's a good sign, I guess.

Well, a recent dinner has left me feeling rather sad and a little bittersweet. The Boy's project has recently wound down / finished / ended - you get my drift, and many of my boys all work with him. After a long day at work, they all troop over to the apartment, kick back and we eat, we drink, we laugh and generally have some wonderful fellowship. I'm very fond of my boys. I find them delightful and I love cooking for them. I'm not sure if the dinners will continue, possibly not in it's current form 'cos the boys are scattering to the four winds. Job in another state, one returning overseas and one thinking of heading overseas to work and one of them thinking about going back to their home country to spend more time with family.

It's going to be our last dinner for a little while because of all that's going on, plus we're going away for a little while. Hopefully, some of the boys will be around when we get back and we can round up a gang for another dinner.

Of course, the dinners are not always with the boys only - regular ring ins also include the best bud and his lovely wife, the girlfriend and a few others.

So for this rather recent dinner, I went with an Italian theme, mostly because I wanted to cook something simple (it never turns out that way) and also there were a few recipes I wanted to try.

I decided to make a soup starter, which I've become rather fond of doing. So starter was Italian Pea and Basil Soup. This was followed by mains of Spicy Chorizo Spaghetti (mixing my cultures here, but those chorizo sausages are dang tasty!), Three Cheese Pasta Bake and a large green leafy salad with a dijon vinaigrette dressing. The dessert was going to be Chocolate Mousse with whipped cream and strawberries.

After I worked out the menu, I started freaking out about there not being enough food because I was cooking for 8 people instead of my usual 6. I then decided to add a pre-starter nibblies dish to accompany drinks before we sat down to dinner. For that, I made the Pepperoni Pizza Puffs.

It turned out to be a lot of food and one of the boys took home a record amount of leftovers. He calls it his "takeaway" and he loves it. We even took a shot of him with his food haul.

The highlight of the evening, I'm told was the chocolate mousse. According to the best bud's lovely wife, it was the best chocolate mousse she has ever had. Then she went on to say that in all the desserts that she's had since arriving in this country, this was the best, which has even topped the chocolate covered peanut butter balls that I made some time ago (another recipe for another day, I promise!). See - that's the thing I love about cooking for other people - the pleasure I give them when they eat the food I cook. I love that they love the food. :-)

Here's the RECIPE for the chocolate mousse - courtesy of Cooking for Blokes. It's super simple, really it is. If I can make it, you can make it.

Ingredients:

• 200g dark chocolate
• 50g butter
• 20mL brandy or other liqueur
• 4 eggs, separated
• 2 tablespoons caster sugar

Instructions:

• Place chocolate, butter and brandy into a stainless steel bowl and melt in a bain marie, stirring gently so the chocolate does not burn or dry out.

• Remove from heat, cool slightly and stir in egg yolks. Cool.
• Whisk egg whites and sugar to form soft peaks. Fold into chocolate mixture gently using whisk. Pour into serving dishes and refrigerate 4 hours or overnight.

This makes 4 generous serves and believe it or not, I did not do anything different. I followed the instructions exactly, which you kinda have to with desserts and all those baking-y sorts of things. Then, I topped the chocolate mousse with whipped cream and strawberries to finish it off. Lots of rich, chocolatey goodness!

Do you have any meals that you've had that have been bittersweet for you? Do you remember the event with fondness and keep with touch with the people? Do you remember what you ate at that meal? 



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Waffles a la The Boy

I'm on a roll with breakfast foods ... okay, this is the last of it ... for a little while anyway. :-)

This Sunday just past, The Boy asked if I wanted to have waffles for breakfast and I said yes. I love when The Boy makes pancakes for the weekend breakfast. We don't do it often, so when we do, it's always a treat.

Since The Boy made the waffles, I have no idea of the recipe. Worse yet, I think is that he has no idea of the recipe. He kinda just wings it. He mixes a bit of pancake mix - I think right now we are using Jiffy Buttermilk Pancake Mix that we got from USA Foods. He added certain amounts of milk (non fat soy for me), canola oil and possible (I don't know) one eggs and whisked it around. Then he eyeballed it to see if the mixture was thick enough and added more pancake mix if it wasn't. Seriously, it was all very hit and miss.

Fortunately, the waffles turned out lovely and tasted great.

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French toast for breakfast

This was last week's Saturday morning breakfast which I never got round to posting on account of my slackness.

I've been working 3 weeks now and just getting into my 4th week. It's still an adjustment and getting used to the routine. I wish there were more hours in the day and more days in the weekend.

When we got up on Saturday, I asked The Boy what he wanted for breakfast and if it was his usual oatmeal. Funnily enough, he said he wanted something different, so I offered to make him French toast, which is a personal favorite.

I never do anything particularly fancy with French toast and I don't follow much of a recipe either because I learned how to make it as a kid watching my nanna and I just make it up as I go.

This time round, I did this:

Ingredients:

• 3 large eggs
• 1/2 cup of non fat soy milk (you can use any type of milk you like)
• 1 tablespoon of aspartame (you can use regular sugar if you prefer)
• Sprinkle of cinnamon sugar
• 4 slices of white bread (you can use other bread but I think white bread tastes the best)
• Spray oil for the pan (canola oil would be better than olive oil in this instance)
• Maple syrup to serve

Instructions:

• Beat up the eggs and mix in the milk to form a light yellow mixture
• Add the tablespoon of aspartame into mixture and sprinkle some cinnamon sugar in as well
• Mix thoroughly
• Heap up a large fry pan on the stove and spray surface evenly with spray oil
• Soak the bread in the egg mixture on both sides until the mixture has absorbed thoroughly into the bread
• Place the egg soaked bread into the fry pan and cook evenly on both sides until golden brown
• Repeat soaking bread and cooking bread until all the bread is cooked
• Sprinkle a little more cinnamon sugar on top of the cooked French Toast (optional)
• Serve with maple syrup

The reason I use non fat soy milk is because I'm lactose intolerant, so you can use whatever type of milk you like. I just can't have cow milk.

As to the aspartame, I know a lot of people object to aspartame saying it's not natural and not healthy, but I'm pre-diabetic, so I try to avoid too much regular sugar as much as possible. We've been experimenting with substituting aspartame for regular sugar in cooking and baking wherever possible. It's true, aspartame is not as sweet as regular sugar, but is also has less calories and it's much better for my blood sugar, so I'm sticking to it. I use the granulated version of the Hermesetas brand aspartame and they have a version for cooking, where it is a 1 to 1 measure between the Hermesetas and regular sugar. As I said, you can use regular sugar, such as brown sugar (which is fabulous for baking) or caster sugar.

I had considered cooking up some crispy bacon to go with the French toast but I thought that I did not have any in the freezer, so we went without. I do love the salty taste of bacon with the sweet taste of maple syrup mixed together.

The French toast turned out very well though The Boy did say that he liked the piece that had more egg soaked into it, so I think next time I'll use a few more eggs and soak the bread in the egg mixture a little longer.

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She is wrong, the food is fabulous

You guys know that I've been raving about Jay's food for a while now (which I talked about here and here) 'cos he catered my NYE party and he's also the head chef at HUX @ Norton's which I've eaten at numerous times.

I am not a fan of pub food because usually the food is cheap in price and the quality of the food is a reflection of the price.

Jay's HUX @ Norton is an exception. Jay, with this Masterchef background and love of food, uses fantastic quality ingredients for his dishes. After all, how many people would use John Dory for their fish and chips?

I have enjoyed every meal that I've eaten there and will continue to go back and for this reason, among others, I am very disappointed in the journalistic integrity of a food critic who reviewed Jay's restaurant.

Elizabeth Meryment, who writes for the Daily Telegraph reviewed Jay's restaurant but her review was colored by her own preconcieved prejudices of what she thought the "right" path towards being a chef and owning a restaurant should be. She (incorrectly) criticised Jay for his different approach to making his dream of being a chef and opening a restaurant come true. There is more than one route to Rome, Ms Meryment!

I think Ms Meryment is wrong and I think she needs to go back and sample the pub food that Jay has on his menu - his fabulous fish and chips, his Angus Porterhouse steak, his wagyu burger and his calamari rings.

Maybe Ms Meryment was having an off day. Maybe it was that time of the month for her and she was taking it out on Jay. Whatever it was, I urge you not to believe a word of her review but go to HUX @ Norton and try the food out for yourself and make up your own mind.

I'm certainly glad that my friend Blake is being objective (though incensed) about his response to Ms Meryment's review and is letting his own many positive experiences at the restaurant be his guide.

I know for a fact, that I certainly will be going back for many meals to come. You should too!

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Roast pork belly

We had a dinner party last night and I tell you what ... a mid-week dinner party when working full time is a killer! I don't recommend it.

Anyway, I served roast pork belly for the main and it turned out soooooo well.

The inside was juicy and tender. The skin crackled beautifully.

Yum!

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When sick, have chook

The Boy is down with a cold / flu right now and he rang me at work today asking for "chook" for tonight's dinner.

"Chook" is a savory rice porridge that I grew up on or what the Hong Kong people called "Congee". There are numerous different varieties of chook from plain rice with salt and pepper to taste to with meat, fish, vegetables, etc.

I make mine with brown rice, chicken stock, a piece of chicken thigh, egg and some frozen mixed vegetables.

It's a really simple dish to make and I don't really follow much of a recipe. Mostly, I just throw things in, boil until the rice is ready and serve, but here's what I did last night:

Ingredients:

• 2/3 cup of brown rice, washed
• 1 piece chicken thigh cut in small bite size pieces
• 1 cup of frozen peas (or mixed frozen vegetables)
• 2 eggs
• Handfull of sliced shallots
• 1 litre chicken stock
• Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

• Bring chicken stock to boil
• Put in rice and chicken thigh pieces and bring to boil again. Simmer for about 20 minutes
• After 20 minutes, when rice is almost done, put in frozen peas and continue to simmer for another 10 minutes
• Crack the two eggs into a small bowl and break the yolk (but do not whisk or mix the eggs) and pour into boiling chook
• Stir / swirl the eggs around so that it creates little while egg ribbons in the liquid
• Add shallots
• Continue to simmer for another 10 minutes
• Check that rice is done (this may take a while as brown rice takes longer to cook that white rice)
• When done, add salt and pepper to taste
• Serve

This is The Boy's go-to dish when he's feeling poorly. He says that it makes him feel warm and comforted and like he's going to get better quickly. It's a favorite in our house whenever one of us is not feeling too well.

I usually prefer mixed (peas, carrots, corn) frozen vegetables rather than just frozen peas, but that was all I had in the freezer last night.

Even if you're not feeling poorly, this is a rather yummy dish to have, especially on a cold day and you want something warm for your tummy.

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Pizza from last night

The thing I like about making pizza at home is that we can put exactly what toppings we like on the pizza and customize it to our taste.

Last night's pizza was exactly that - topped with green capsicum (green bell peppers to the Americans!), onion, mushrooms and pepperoni slices, mozzarella cheese and crushed garlic.

We forgot to put the chili flakes on, which we really enjoy, so ended up putting them on after the fact. It tastes better when it's put while assembling the pizza and the flavor gets baked in.

The Boy did a fabulous job rolling out the dough this time and it was almost exactly round. It certainly filled up the pizza pan well.

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Getting ready to make pizza

We're having pizza for dinner tonight. The fabulous Boy has been very good and gotten the ingredients and cut everything up in preparation for the pizza making. We already had the pizza dough in the freezer, as well as the pizza sauce, so that just have to come out and get defrosted. It's going to be yummy!

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