winosandfoodies

Chopsticks on Bowl

 

Cookbooks

I had a good clear out of my cook books when we moved home to Australia in 2007.  Are any of your favourite books on my shelf?

Weekend Words

 

Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine.  - Anthony J D'Angelo.

Thursdays With Thermomix - Coconut Milk > Rice Pudding

 Today I made coconut milk in the Thermomix.  It is so easy and quick.

Place coconut and water in bowl of Thermomix.

Cook 5 minutes at 100C on speed 4.

Pulverise for 30 seconds on Speed 8

Strain through muslin cloth and squeeze out all the liquid.

I then made a rice pudding in  the Thermomix with the coconut milk.

Place rice and milk in Thermomix bowl.

Cook for 35 minutes at 90C on Reverse + soft speed.

Add sugar, vanilla and lightly beaten eggs through lid and continue to mix for a few seconds to combine.

Serve with fruit in season.

Delicious.

Muffins - My Favourites From Heidi and Nicky

When I fancy a change from my usual Blueberry muffins I have two favourite standbys. These Banana Nutella Muffins from Nicky at Delicious Days are a family favourite.....and from Heidi at 101 Cookbooks - her  Espresso Banana Muffins are delicious.

ESPRESSO BANANA MUFFINS
 

Slightly adapted version of Heidi's Espresso Banana Muffins. The original recipe can be found in  her book Super Natural Cooking

INGREDIENTS

2 cups  flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/4 cups chopped toasted walnuts

1 shot espresso coffee, cooled down

6 tablespoons unsalted butter

3/4 cup sugar

2 eggs

 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup plain yogurt

1 1/2 cups mashed overripe bananas

METHOD

Preheat oven to 375F.

Line muffin pans with paper cases.

Combine flour, baking power, salt, 3/4 cup of the walnuts in a bowl and whisk to combine.

In separate bowl cream the butter until light and fluffy. Beat in the sugar and then the eggs one at a time. Stir in the vanilla, yogurt and espresso.

Gently mix in the dry ingredients. You know if you over mix it will make your muffins tough.

Spoon into prepared pans, sprinkle walnuts over top.

Bake until golden, about 20 - 25 minutes. Cool in tin for 5 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack.

BANANA NUTELLA MUFFINS

 

INGREDIENTS

2 eggs

125 grams soft butter

100 grams sugar

2 large ripe bananas

100 grams Nutella

100 ml milk

1 teaspoon baking soda

250 grams flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

METHOD

Preheat oven to 375F (180C). Line muffin pans with paper cases.

In a large bowl cream butter, sugar and eggs.

Fold in Nutella and mashed bananas.

In a separate bowl combine milk and baking soda and blend well.

In a separate bowl sift flour and baking powder.

Alternately blend part of the egg/butter mixture, then part of the flour mix, part of the milk....until everything is combined. Again do not over mix or you muffins will be tough.

Spoon mixture into muffin cases.

Bake in preheated oven for 20 - 25 minutes. Test with a skewer to see if muffins are cooked.

Cool and then ice or be creative or simply sprinkle with icing sugar.

Tokonoma Cafe and Gallery

Tokonoma Cafe and Gallery  is a 30 minute drive into the countryside from the beaches of the Gold Coast. It's where I go when I am tired of the noise of cars and construction of Main Beach. The air is crisp and clean, life moves a little slower, birds  sing in the trees beside the stream that meanders by Tokonoma....and tourists are rarely seen.

Step inside.

 

You'll be greeted by Margaret and her staff. Margaret spent much of her life in Japan and uses her  fabulous collection of Japanese plates in the cafe.

Take a seat on the deck.

 

I always order the Tokonoma Don

Bryan  always orders the green curry but today he tried the Hibiki Burger.

 

The best green tea cake with a centre of red bean paste I've ever had and made by the wife of the chef.

Served on one of Margaret's beautiful dishes.

Cheesecake for Bryan.

 

Everthing is served on exquisite dishes.

 

Touches of  Margaret's time in Japan abound.

 

Browse the artwork for sale in the gallery

 

Enjoy the tranquility.

 

Enjoy it before the tourists discover this little gem on the Gold Coast.

Thursdays With Thermomix

From raw sugar to icing sugar in 15 seconds.

After all the interest in the Thermomix following my kitchen on Jen's blog I though I'd start posting a Thermomix recipe each Thursday. If you have a Thermomix and a blog join in and I'll post your link here.

Space saving - I only need to keep one lot of sugar in the pantry now as I can make caster sugar and icing sugar from raw sugar.

Previous Thermomix posts - butter.

Summer Salad

SUMMER SALAD

2 Avacado peeled and diced
1 Lebanese cucumber
3 tomatoes
2 tablespoons black olives
1/2 red onion sliced
1/4 preserved lemon, diced

Place prepared salad ingredients into a bowl and toss through with dressing.

DRESSING
olive oil, lemon juice, salt, 1clove crushed garlic

Autumn

It's much too hot here to keep fresh flowers and fruit on display. These are all fake ....fake mulberries, fake blueberries, fake olives. 

My Kitchen

 

Come into my kitchen.......................................

See more pictures of my kitchen over at Use Real Butter.  Over the next few weeks Jen is doing a feature on food bloggers kitchens. I'm up first along with Figs, Lavender and Cheese.  I'm looking forward to seeing  the  kitchens of some of my favourite bloggers.

freebies

A few months back I received an email from a PR company asking if I'd be interested in receiving products for review on my blog. I agreed on the understanding I would be free to express my own opinions.

Today a package arrived from Adelaide. I got  excited thinking it was my copy of Harold McGee I've ordered from my friend  Jude. It wasn't. It was two products from Beerenberg.

Reading the information that came with them I was intrigued with their nifty little gadget which allows you to  go to their website and track the history of your purchase.  By entering the barcode you can find out where and when it was made and by whom, the ingredients and how it was made.

My jar of Strawberry Jam is from  batch 9 made on the on 12th January 2009 by Jeff and Allen.
The Tomato Sauce from batch 9 made on 27th November 2008 by Peter and Jordan.

Over the weekend I tried the products out on the family. Both passed our family taste test. And my family is fussy and know good from ordinary. The tomato sauce has a much more vinegar taste than regular tomato sauce to the point of being more like a chutney. And the jam was a success on some scones from the freezer.

Shandy

Chemotherapy targets cancer cells and destroys them. It also targets other cells in the body and destroys them - good cells.  The mouth is one place it zones in on fairly early in treatment. My tastebuds are pretty much destroyed at the moment. Luckily they do repair once chemo is finished.

The one thing I can't enjoy because of the changes is a glass of wine.  So I turned to beer.  And I added lemonade to it.  In Australia this is known as a shandy.  Like wine not all beers are the same. They vary in taste and texture just like wine. With much tasting and with the help of the bartender at our local bar, Manos I've found Asahi beer makes the best shandy.

If all goes according to plan I will finish chemo at the end of May. I'm halway through the 6 month course.  Sitting in the cupboard we call the cellar,  is my celebration drink for that day - a bottle of Cristal. 

Scones

Sam's clotted cream post had me craving scones this week.  These were made in the Thermomix, using a recipe from their book. They were  much stickier than most doughs I've worked with before. It's probably the reason they didn't rise as high as I'd have liked. They did taste good though.

Scone recipe from Taste.
Scones made with soda water and cream.
Sam's scones.

......and I discovered if you don't have buttermilk in the fridge you can make your own. Just add 1 tablesoon of lemon juice or white vinegar to 1 cup of milk.