winosandfoodies

Blogger Friends

I'm pretty much a lone food blogger in Auckland so I jumped at the the opportunity to meet a fellow food blogger while on my travels.  Anthony , the  Man That Cooks, and I shared a riverside picnic of goodies from the Boatshed Markets in Cottesloe.  While Anthony was choosing a selection of local sardines, cheese, chicken,bread and stuffed figs;  I was, in true blogger style trotting along behind photographing anything that looked remotely edible.   

We spent a pleasant couple of hours in the Perth sunshine discussing what you would expect food bloggers to  discuss - food and blogging and more.   It was fun and I hope Anthony makes it to Auckland someday so I can share some of our local specialties with him.  And I can't imagine any of his friends saying  "But you can't meet someone you don't know, who you've met on the Internet - they might be a serial killer".

Holiday Snaps

Now I've had time to kiss the husband,  unpack the suitcases ( I came home with a second one full of wine),  write the Donna round up , get back into cooking mode again, catch up reading the blogs I missed while I was sans computer - it's time to share some photos of my time in Western Australia. 

This is my Australia - white sand, blue ocean, dry paddocks, karri forests, the road ahead stretching on forever, Maragaret River wine, sea food salad, wild flowers, dining al fresco under a tree, pink galahs in the backyard tree.   (Click on any picture to enlarge)

Hay Hay It's Donna Day Roundup

This is where I spent much of the past week.  Breakfasts, dinners, glasses of wine(s), reading the morning  paper with a second cup of coffee, talking, thinking, chilling out. Enjoying the company of my cousin Jan Marie and her husband David, the warmth of the sun in the morning and the cool breeze in the afternoon when it was 34 degrees.  You can understand why I thought twice about returning to Auckland.  Where it rained all of last night and today is 17 degrees.   
But of course I had to get back to write my round up of the Donna Hay Self Frosting Cupcakes event. 

I chose this self frosting cupcake recipe for the inaugural Hay Hay It's Donna Day as when I first  saw the cakes  I thought  "ooh I must try that, it sounds so good".  Nik  started the whole thing off and it went from there.  For me that is what cooking is all about.  When you are inspired to try baking something somebody else has  made you are saying I like what you have done .  And we all like to receive those compliments don't we?  Added to that, it is the type of recipe that sometimes doesn't turn out exactly as we planned the first time, and we know we can do better, so we try  again.  Well mine didn't turn out perfect the first time anyway!!  Then we start thinking of variations and how we can improve or alter the original and give it our own personal touch.  Which is how and why the culture of food  grows and evolves. 

Check out  the entries I received.

The Baker Who Cooks  who posted before and after pictures and both looked so good I'd have been happy to eat them before they went into the oven.
Running With Tweezers  experimented with two different toppings - a Mocha Espresso Sauce and Chocolate Peanut Butter.
Noshes Thoughts Reves  very cleverly made her own cashew nut butter topping to swirl on the top.
Taste Everything Once  thought about a dark chocolate version with a pistachio butter topping which sounds fabulous but in the end went with the Nutella.
Tham Jiak needed to half the recipe to fit her mini oven and had a few consistency problems.  The Kaya used in the topping was new to me and I'll be out searching the Asian food stores for my own jar.
Piggy's Cooking Journal  baked one tray with Nutella topping and another where she added Bailey's Irish Cream to the mixture and swirled cream cheese on the top.
Pearl of the Orient  piped and swirled Nusspli, a German version of Nutella, to create a cupcake which was a work of art.
Culinary Obsessed  had her niece and nephew to taste test her Nutella topped swirls and also suggested some other interesting toppings  for the future.
Something So Clever  tried out a White Chocolate Peanut Butter topping and was not happy with the final result but I must say they look very pretty in their silver skirts.
Masak Masak another Donna fan,  told me something I didn't know. Donna Hay originally worked for Marie Claire magazine.  Another experimenter with a tray of Nutella tops and a second of Kaya, all beautifully photographed with her little friends.
The Skinny Epicurean tried out a low fat chocolate sauce for her topping and despite her brother thinking they were marbled cupcakes they tasted pretty good.
Esuriantes   made a batch with Appelstroop which didn't swirl as well but look so good I could almost taste the sticky syrupy mess.  The second batch made with Nuts About Chocolate  looked pretty tasty too.

And Nic at the BLOG  that started it all moved on from cupcakes and produced some lovely looking scones with a Nutella topping. 

Thank you  all for joining in the event.  I hope you had as much fun as I did and will play again. If you would like to host a Hay Hay It's Donna Day let me know and we will plan another one.

And now to choose the prettiest cupcakes for the prize. I wish I could choose everybody as I thought all the  entries were pretty.  But I only have one magazine to give away and I'm going to select Glutton Rabbit at Pearl of the Orient who created beautiful swirls by piping on the topping and using a chopstick to create a pattern.  Until this event she had never heard of Donna Hay. After receiving her first edition she will soon know all about her.

If I missed any entries please let me know. I seem to have misplaced one I received earlier.

And here is the one I missed.  Sorry Tanvi.
From the Pantry  produced these double choc decadent little beauties.

 

Donna's Cupcakes

Here's my Self Frosting Cupcakes.  I'm looking forward to seeing yours.  Check out my original  post for details of our first Hay Hay It's Donna Day.  There's a prize for the prettiest cupcakes.

As I'm away from my computer until the end of November I will be posting the round up on  the weekend of 26th November.

While I'm Away

It's seems to be the season for going away.  The  three  Divas of food blogging are all on their various travels this week.  Now it's my turn.   I will be in Australia, Western Australia to be exact,  until the end of November.  How lucky am I - my Mum lives near Margaret River.   It won't  quite be  Thelma and Louise,  but my Mum and I will be taking a road trip through Pemberton , Denmark , Albany  and Mt Barker .  How many wineries can one visit in a week?

I won't be posting while I'm away so I will leave you with  some photos  taken in 2004 when Bryan and I walked the 800 kilometre Camino de Santiago  across Spain. Beginning in St Jean Pied de Port   at the base of the Pyrenees,we walked for 5 weeks at an average of 20k a day, staying mostly in refugios, with the odd night in a nice hotel and one night in a luxury Paradore  . Five days after arriving in Santiago de Compostella, and after all that walking carrying a back pack,   I was diagnosed with cancer.  Now we are in training again, as we are making plans  to walk from Le Puy  to  St Jean Pied de Port in Spring/Summer 2006, to celebrate my recovery. 

Click on any picture to enlarge.

 

 

WBW _ Small Production Wines

This is the platter of food we were given (that's right no charge) when we visited Vin Alto vineyard in Clevedon a couple of weeks ago.  We hadn't had this point even bought any wines.

When Gastronomie announced the theme for this months Wine Blogging Wednesday I thought it would be all too difficult to find a wine with production of less than 250 cases.  Then I remembered, amongst the bottles we had bought at Vin Alto that day was an Amarone style wine. Maybe it was only made in small quantities.  A quick phone call to Vin Alto and I was right. They  only made 50 cases of the Retico 1999 .

It was ready for drinking so WBW became the excuse for opening it.

 
Eyes:                        Red with brick around the edges
Nose:                        Chocolate
Mouth:                 Soft tannins, a bit too much oak for me, but a nice hint of chocolate.
Verdict:                Not  bad for a New Zealand amarone style.

Vin Alto is open for wine tasting luncheons on the weekend. Check out the current menu. It's worth the drive out to the Clevedon hills as there are now several cellar doors open to the public. Margaret and Enzo at Vin Alto will make you feel like you're a family friend.  Our last visit was only to taste wine but it is such a lovely dining room we are going back for lunch. 

Thanks to Gastronomie  for hosting this months Wine Blogging Wednesday.  Drop by to see the final round up next week.

Oaty Slice

Now the weather is a bit warmer you probably don't feel like porridge for breakfast . What to do with the half a packet of rolled oats? These little biscuits are from a Family Circle recipe where I replaced the fine ground oatmeal with rolled oats.

Ingredients
2 cups rolled oats
1 cup plain flour
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/4 cup caster sugar
180 grams butter

Method
Preheat oven to 200C.
Place oatmeal in bowl, sift flour, bicarb of soda and sugar over. Combine.
Melt butter and add to dry ingredients and mix well.
The easiest way to roll this out is to put a layer of baking paper on the oven tray, add mixture in a ball, cover with a layer of plastic wrap and roll directly onto tray.
Cut into squares, prick over with a fork.
Bake 15 minutes until crisp.
Cool , then remove from tray.

It Feels Like Summer - Strawberry Muffins

I saw these at Noshes Thoughts Reves  on Sunday morning and whipped up a batch for our  breakfast.  And because breakfast isn't breakfast without  Nutella, and Nutella goes so well with strawberries,  I split the tops and added a spoonful before I served them.