EOMEOTE #7 Limerick Edition

OMG, I am so embarrassed that is the worst limerick I have ever read (and I wrote it...)
well we should just ignore that for now.. If you want to read more just like it (but better) then visit the roundup at cook sister.

So what is that weird looking looking thing in the top corner? It is my entry for EOMEOTE of course. I have been hankering for French toast ever since I saw pinkcocoa's awesome second entry for SHF. I couldn't just make French toast though, and I was tossing up if I should make something savoury. Then I remembered that I had some Cows nest Blackberry Jam care of Casey's parents. This is awesome jam, very old scool, it comes from the Cobargo Markets and it is made by hippies from Wild blackberries. It is thick, fruity and puts all other blackberry jam's to shame. mmmmmm

So I figured that if I sliced some nice Italian Bread thinly, spread one side with the Cows Nest Jam and dipped the whole lot in a mixture of egg, a drop of milk, a little orange zest a pinch of sugar and a tiny little bit of salt which has been beaten together. The eggy bread is then fried in alittle butter till the outside is nice and golden, my tongue is hanging out of my mouth, I think my hankering for French toast is building again.. Oh well....

You just have to make this next Sunday for your loved ones, even if you are only thinking of them because of the Jam they cared enough to share with you (thanks M&D). I had this with some of my freshly roasted coffee and it was sooo delicious, see my heart isn't it cute?

chocolate from the long white cloud

My Mother has been looking after her sister in N.Z. and she brought us back some delectable 70% cocoa chocolate with kiwi chunks. Mmmm this is good, not to sweet, and the kiwi adds a nice tartness too offset the bitterness. I was hoping for some more kiwifruit in it, but actually I really dont mind at all.

ShfIMMB re worked or Deconstructed coffee and biscotti

Well after seeing all the coffee jelly's and wishing I had made biscotti with almonds and chocolate I made some of both :)

Guess what? I liked the lemon Mandarin and Pumpkin seed Biscotti better, how weird is that? The Pumpkin seeds worked so well with the citrus flavour, I really recommend trying that combination,

So for the reworked coffee, I made some espresso Jelly with my home roasted coffee (Cause I am NEVER GOING BACK to preground crap), by making enough double shots to equal 500mls, with 50 mls of sugar and I set with 11/2 tbsps of Gelatine ( I wanted a really firm set).

I set the jelly in some funky shaped Ikea molds (not that good an idea, as it was hard to get the Jelly out) and I served it with a cup of frothed hot milk with a biscotti and milk foam on the jelly.
Cool huh? It tasted great as well.

The cool slippery Jelly, melted in my mouth with the warm textured milk, it not only tasted great but the textures well great as well.

*NOTE* I froze the rest of the coffee jelly in the ikea molds, and they came out easily and tased brilliant! yay!

Kiri has a Jumper

Oh, would you look at my gorgeous boy! His Grandmother Marg (Paternal) sent him the cutest little cat jumper, it arrived in the post today. He is so well behaved (sometimes =) ) that he didn't even complain when I put it on. I think this will be perfect for when he comes traveling to stop him getting cold. The colours are so gorgeous on him, the orange sets off his eyes, and he is still wearing it asleep on my lap.

How Cute a Shooting Star

Oooh Doesen't that look good? Well it is the incredibly cute shooting star ice cream which is going to be the start of a new segment here at eatstuff Korean Icecreams...

I love them, it all started with honeydew melon flavoured which are so good. But I will get to them at a later point.

So why are Korean Ice Creams so good? Well the flavours are crazy (always fun), they are very different to the run of the mill Aussie ice creams, and they are cheap! This cute Shooting Star Ice cream $1.20, can you do better for that? I think not. I think I should stop blabbing now and get to the point. The flavour was bubble gum on the outside with those popping things (the blue bubble in the photo) that make your mouth feel like it is exploding, vanilla on the inside with a strawberry centre. It wasn't unbeleviable good, but it was fun! So let go of your inhibitions and go try something different.

Gelatine know how

I have realised that perhaps everyone is not aware of the best way to dissolve gelatine to ensure that it turns out lump and granule free, especially of you do not want to boil the liquid that the gelatine is to set.

Here is the method.

For 1 TBSP of gelatine add 50mls of water, place this into a heat proof bowl. Leave for a few minutes until the gelatine has absorbed the water, it will swell right up. Then either place the bowl into a double boiler, and stir until the gelatine melts. When the Gelatine has melted the liquid will be clear and all traces of the granules will be gone. Then you can easily mix the dissolved gelatine into the rest of the liquid, which should be at room temperature. This amount of gelatine should set atleast 500mls of liquid for a firm set, if you want the mixture to have more wobble add more liquid. ( I used the whole tin of lychees to 1 tbsp of gelatine).

Yay! Lump free gelatine and it takes hardly any time to set either.

hmm, I think I am going to go make some Coffee Jelly!

The round up of SHF and IMBB are ready, so go check out all the other fabulous citrus and Jelled recipes that have been written by fellow bloggers around the world.

Has My Blog Jelled? lychee jelly parfait

Lychee Jelly, Vanilla Ice cream and Chocolate Chilli Tim Tam Parfait

Ooh Jelly.....
This awesome Is My Blog Burning(IMBB) event being hosted by Elise of Simply Recipes

Well for this, my first IMBB event, I decided to go way old skool (older than me :) ) and start off at an easy pace so that I will have room to expand on future IMBB events (or that's what I am telling myself anyway). Actually I should blame Reid, as I have become refixated on Tim Tams after I sent him some =) lol.. Whilst this might be true, we still think that the parfait tasted great, and looked great, what more can you ask for?

Casey loves Lychees and Jelly, I am not a huge fan of artifical colouring and perservatives, so in an effort to rehash two of his favourites, I realised that if you gel a can of lychees you get awesome jelly (without artificail stuff and you don't need to add extra sugar).

So all this parfait involves is using gelatine powder to set a tin of lychees (to manafacturers directions), the best vanilla ice cream you can get your hands on, and about 3 crushed chill chocolate tim tams (if you can avoid eating them straight), layer the ingrediants and serve. Simple.

Crunchie Cirtusy Biscotti

Yay, my second ever foodie event! I am so glad I read Grab your fork last night. Otherwise I would never have realised that Sugar High Friday was today!

This months SHF is being hosted by Alice at My Adventures in the Breadbox. Thanks for the great theme Alice, whilst the citrus season in America might be closing, it is just hitting full swing here in Oz. So I am a very happy food blogger.

Alice has posted her recipe for Mile High Lemon Angel Food Cake it looks great!

I was a very lucky girl, as I had heaps of beautiful Mandarins and Lemons from my mothers garden (thanks mum) as well as a whole pile of fresh salad greens. I had been planning on just scoffing the mandarins, which taste nothing like their pale watery cousins at the fruit shop. I am still unable to buy mandarins from the fruit shop, after being spoilt as a child, I would have mandarin eating contests with mylittle sister. The contest involved seeing if we could put a whole mandarin in your mouth, and you won if you had to chew it the least amount of times to swallow it. Luckily they are/were very small mandarins.

I really wanted to make some mandarin and lemon curd, and put use this as a filling in a sponge. Yum. But, I didnt have all the ingrediants, and I would have to contend with my oven of hotness +2.. hmm not a good choice, I would have been way to sad to see my poor sponge burnt to a crisp. I have been wanting to try my hand at biscotti for ages, and they *should* be much more resilliant than a cake. Well were they good? They are fantastic, they have the most beautiful citrus taste, crunchy and so easy. Perfect.

Mandarin, Lemon and Pumpkin Seed Biscotti
Remove rind (with no pith attached) and thinly slice from citrus to total aprox 1/4 cup (I used 3 small mandarins and 1 lemon)
1/4 cup of juice
1/4 cup of raw castor sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup of raw castor sugar
2 cups of plain flour
1 1/2 cups of nuts ( I used pumpkin seed, although I would have used almonds and dark choclate chips if I had them)

Put Rind, juice and sugar(small amount) in a saucepan, and simmer til the rind becomes transparent.

Beat 2 eggs and sugar til thick, when the rind is finished, slowly beat the syrup and rind into the egg mixture.

Add flour and nuts, stir til mixed. Knead a couple of times to ensure it is together. (the mixture is sticky)

Shape two even sized logs on a baking tray. Clean you hands and with them just damp, smooth the surface of the logs. (I covered the top of mine in demerera sugar for a nice crunch)

Bake in 170C oven for 25 mins til firm. Remove and allow to cool. Slice into 1 cm slices. Bake at 130C for 25 mins til golden on both sides.

To Serve: A fresh coffee, 1 freshly peeled mandarin and a couple of biscotti. Yum!

Rose and Tim Tams

Rose:

Well this is very exciting, Sam from Becks n Posh has posted her fabulous round up of WBW #9 Think Pink, which was my first ever foodie event!

I suggest you go over to becks n posh and check out. You will be able to read all about the fabulous Rose's people are drinking all around the world.


Tim Tams:
Reid from Ono Kine Grinds finally received my present, of Tim Tams 3 ways and sour fish. The sour fish reminded me of the Chinese Preserved Plums he sent me from Hawaii. Thanks Reid I hope you enjoy them.

I just fixed up my previous post drop downs, so if you are a new visitor have a look at some of eat stuff's older posts.

Fish Dinner

Does that not look yummy and fresh? Well I am telling you it was. I still had some Red fish fillets left over fromdinner last night Chuchi that Kiri had not yet devoured, so I thought that I would steam some veggies and bake some fish. I was not expecting it to look that good though. It was really easy, healthy (yes mum) and tasty. This is totally my own recipe too :)

Ingrediants

Crumb topping
1 cup aprox of Fresh bread crumbs (made from a hunk of oldish italian bread)
1 stick of lemon grass
1 fresh thai chilli
3 cloves of garlic
1 handful of fresh parsley
Pepper and salt to taste
1 egg
1 inch of ginger

6 red fish fillets (these are small fillets, replace with any fish fillet you like, adjust for how many people you are cooking for)

Veggies
Mixed vegtables to steam I used brussel sprouts, beans, snow peas, red onion, capsicum. (enough for how many people you are cooking for)
1 tomato (per 2)
1 bunch of spinach
1 clove of garlic
1 lime
i handful of fresh italian parsley chopped
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to aprox 180C (my oven of despair sucks and the thermostat is broken.. so this is the temp I would use if I could)

Pulse bread in processor, remove add herbs and puls til finely chopped, add bread, pulse, add egg, pulse.

Place fish on a piece of baking paper on a baking tray with alittle olive oil on it. Top each piece of fish with the crumb topping and drizzle alittle olive oil on top. leave for 5 minute.

Put fish in oven, bake for 10 mins (my fish fillets were small, take into account the fish you use and how long it willtake to cook) the topping should be set and golden.

Put a pot of water on to steam. when boiling add veggies so that they will all be cooked how you like, I like mine crisp. You might want to stagger when you put them in, I did. Aim to have the veggies ready at the same time as the fish.

Chop tomato, garlic, parsley and spinach, add alittle olive oil and lime juice to dress, when steamed veggies are ready toss with this mixture and divide between plates. Top with fish fillets fresh from the oven, crack some fresh black pepper on top and serve.

How easy is that. 15 minutes and dinner is served!

Note: If you dont have the thai flavours try your own fresh herb mix(eg parsley, basil, thyme), and some grated parmesan :)

Kaeng Chuchi Pla - Thai Seafood Curry

We were both feeling like some fish, so off to the Sydney Fish Markets we went, to look and decide what we wanted to make. We almost got flathead, but decided that we should make a Chuchi Fish and Prawn Curry with some Red Fish Fillets and Yamba Prawns, yummy! Red Fish, are a nice fish that is cheap ($6 kg) that has white flesh, but will hold together in a curry like this. Replace with any other similar fish, or just Prawns etc. Yamba is in the Northern Rivers area of New South Wales and they are known for their Prawns, sadly though(kinda), you can purchase Yamba Prawns cheaper at the Sydney Fish Markets than in Yamba.

To make the Kaeng Chuchi Pla I used my favourite South East Asian Cook book: South East Asian Food by Rosemary Brissenden. This book is a fantastic resource for authentic South East Asian recipes it covers: Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. It not only covers the food, but also the culture associated with the food, which I find really interesting and it is almost 600 pages long! Well anyway I think it rocks. I have included a link to it at Amazon if you are interested, although they do not seem to have the New Edition which is available in Australia (Rosemary is Australian).

I did cheat a little though and used a Maesri brand Chuchi curry paste that I altered a little... If you use a bought curry paste like I did please make sure that it does not have any preservatives etc .... If you would like the paste recipe let me know and I might put it up too.

Ingredients
500g fish fillets
5 large green prawns per person or equivalent (Shrimp in America, but these were large 10 prawns weighed 340g)
1 cup of thick coconut cream ( I used powdered coconut powder)
1 cup of coconut milk ( I used powdered coconut powder)
1 tin of Maseri brand chichi curry paste
1 stick of lemongrass
1 inch chunk of ginger and galangal
2 cloves of garlic
Mixed vegetables eg: beans, mushrooms, carrots, tomatoes, capsicum
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp palm sugar
1 lime
Garnish: 1 finely sliced: red hot Thai chilli, spring onion and coriader leaves and/or Vietnamese Mint

Method
Place the head and shells of Prawns in a pot with a tsp of oil and cook till they turn red. Then cover with water and simmer for 5 minutes. Use this Prawn stock to reconstitue the coconut cream powder (as per packet instructions).

Process lemongrass, ginger, galangal and garlic with the Chuchi curry paste till smooth. (if you don't have a processor either use a mortar and pestle or very finely chop the lemongrass, ginger, galangal and garlic and add at the same time as the paste.

Boil the coconut cream hard, stirring all the time, until the oil starts to bead on top. If you are using tinned coconut cream you might need to add a tsp of peanut oil to help this process. Add the paste mix with the extras added to it and fry until the spices have become fragrant, mixed and thick. Add the coconut milk in parts and stir well after each addition. Season the liquor with the fish sauce and palm sugar to taste, cook until thick and oily. Add vegetables, fish and prawns, bring back to the simmer and gently cook until the fish and prawns are cooked. Serve in bowls on rice vermicilli (or rice) with the chilli, coriander, Vietnamese mint and spring onions sprinkled on top. Enjoy!

Casey kept repeating how awesome this dish was, and that it was the best chuchi he had ever had :). So Please try it, if you have any questions let me know in the comment section and I will help all I can.

Note: It also works well if you fry a whole fish and pour the curry sauce with vegetables on top, esp if it is a Barramundi or Pink Snapper :)

The other Super bowl

Superbowl (seafood)

35 Goulburn St
Sydney NSW 2000
Phone (02) 9281 0928


My Auntie's partner is away, so we thought that we should go out for a super cheap eat spectacular meal. We could not decide were to go, we almost went to Seoul Ria (Korean)(where I have not been yet, but can't wait to go) but they decided the wait was way to long. My Auntie had not been to Superbowl,it was right across the road and we had spent ages wondering around Chinatown and we were hungry.

I don't know if this is true, but we have heard that if you are going to go to Superbowl go to the Goulbourn St Restaurant as the service and food is heaps better than the other restaurant on Dixon St. We are always amazed at the opening hours of this restaurant, it's open till like 3am so keep this in mind if you are ever in the city late and are hungry.

When it came time to decide what to get it was not hard, Pipies in XO sauce, Salty Spicy Squid, Fried noodles with Shredded duck and preserved vegetables and Seafood and Pineapple fried rice. Well I don't have the prices today... But all up it was $48 and it was HEAPS of food as you can see. Sorry for the photo but I was just about to get into trouble for taking them in the restaurant.

The main acknowledged problems with Superbowl are the waiters and the cleanliness. When ever we have been there we have not had a problem though, although the decor definitely leaves something to be desired, it does not quite pull off the cheap sheik of the other cheap restaurants we frequent.

Pippies in XO sauce (in the middle of the photo on the RHS, at the front is the shell bowl) are perfectly cooked, and arrive very quickly, in like 5 minutes. I like my XO sauce HOT, really hot, they don't quite manage this here as it is probably a little westernised as many Chinese restaurants don't believe we can eat HOT food. But I still get it all the time, so it can't be that bad.

Salty Spicy Squid (back of the photo), is fantastic, the squid is tender, perfectly cooked with just the right amount of salt. The "deep fried seaweed" and chilies are perfect accoutrement. I would definately recomment this to anyone who eats here.

Fried Noodles with Shredded Duck and Preserved Vegtables ( Middle LHS of photo) We had not had this dish before, it was good, but a little lacking in flavour compared to what I was expecting, I would get this dish again though.

Seafood and Pineapple Fried Rice ( behind the pippie shells) Casey loves this fried rice, he is a bit of a fried rice fiend. This dish is not actually on the menu, just ask for it anyway seems to be the secret system around here. We only found out this dish from a previous visit to Superbowl with our friends RnR. If you go here, try this rice it is awesome.

This was a great meal, the food was served quickly, was fresh hot and really tasty. I defintely recommend Superbowl (Goulbourn St) for a quick easy and cheap meal. We had so much food that we could not eat it all.




But we did have enough room for our fav chinatown desert Gelato from Y2K Supercafe. I know this must sound weird, Gelato in Chinatown? but the flavour range just can't be beat. I generally alternate between the Rasberry Sorbet and the Matcha Gelato. Today I went Matcha! yay! This is full strenghth, they do not hold back on the Matcha powder, and I am so glad. If you are a fan, go here, it is smooth, rich and very creamy. A single scoop is $3 and a double $4.50, after our meal I could not finish a single scoop though. Y2k also do great desserts that you have to eat there, I will go back for photos soon I promise. If you are in the area and want something different but not as expensive as passionflower go here you wont be dissapointed.

My First Food Blog Event

Well as you can see, this is my first online food blog event. Since Sam from becks'n'posh chose such a cool refreshing and fabulous wine colour for her wine event; how couldI resist? Well obviously I couldn't.

Well I have to admit I did not choose these wines, Casey did. Casey decided to go to the darkside with this wine choice, maybe because of the new star wars movie coming out? But, I just know there are lots of people out there how drink "cheaper" wines so we thought that we would compare 2 of the most easily accessible Rose wines in the Australian marketplace.

Wolf Blass Eaglehawk & Jacob's Creek Shiraz Rose
Both of these wines were purchased from Liquorland at Surry Hills, Sydney and they both cost $10.49. Although the store kept neither of them chilled in the refrigerator. I will review both wines in the order that we tested them.

Wolf Blass Eaglehawk
2004
Rose
This wine is sweet and has a very berry fruity taste, not just strawberry like the Jacob's creek. The main problem was the lack of scent. This wine is not as dry as the Jacobs creek, but it is only a medium in sweetness compared to other Rose's.
Jacobs Creek Shiraz Rose Vintage 2004
Out of the two wines, this was our favourite. It has a nice light strawberry scent, with a dry finish. I would have liked a stronger scent with this wine as well, this wine is towards the drier end of the Rose range.

We liked both wines, the only problem (kind of) is that the Rose drinking season is drawing to a close in Australia. I guess we will be back onto the Shiraz's, what a pity. If you find these wines for less than this, on sale perhaps? You should give them ago for a refreshing partner to a pasta.

Matcha Marshmallow

"wind's green tea" marshmallows

These Matcha Marshmallows were very kindly gifted to me by Karen, a work mate of Casey's.
I was so excited, look how green they are. The marshmallow was nice and soft and the filling was sticky and sweet and sour. They were yummy, but I felt they were more lime flavoured than tea flavoured. So I was alittle dissapointed about the tea flavour, but I would still eat them as Lime flavoured.

kiri, kiri, kiri

I know this post is not really about food, but this blog isalso about a cat eating stuff, and look kiri is eating stuff. Come on, it's in his mouth. Surely that's pretty close to eating stuff... kinda? Well it's definately cute,and contains kiri, and that definately ensures it counts around here.

I made kiri one of his favourite toys a pipecleaner butterfly. He was so cute, he even fetches and plays catch, actually he demands that you play with him, but it's lots of fun and good for all of us.

P.S Come back tomorrow I will have my post for Wine Blogging Wednesday up, So Think Pink! and an extra matcha post!

Bad Service & New Crockery

Well as you probably already know, I went to Andy's Bakery before and I reviewed their Matcha (Powdered Japanese Green Tea) goodness. Well I went there today, and low and behold they had more Matcha goodness, a Matcha roll and cheesecake. Well, if you know me, I love this stuff, so I was stoked. I managed to convince Casey to buy me a roll and a cheesecake. When I asked the girl for the cakes, I very nicely asked for a box, as I wanted to ensure that the cakes would come home in photo worthy condition. I was told that I could not have a box unless I bought four cakes, I was sad :( . Then I had to ask if I could buy one, 50c I was told, I was happy again. But this is where the trouble began, the girl who took my order did not deem me worthy of her cake getting ability and pawned me off to a colleague. We payed for the cakes and left on our merry way home. Much to my dismay, when I arrived back home very excited to photograph my cheesecake, it was not there! I was duped I had a matcha mousse cake instead. I was so upset, I had already reviewed this, and taken photos. So I thought I would call them as I took their business card, I was rather rudely told in not so many words, "Well it's not my fault, how do I know your not lying?" I was rather put off at this bad treatment. I asked if I could come in another day to get a cheesecake. No I could only replace the cheesecake if I came straight back. Where did this girl get off, she was very rude and why would I go all the way back into the city straight away? I have been ill and the only reason I was there at all was because our friends RnR had come down from Cowra for Mother's day. So I am not very happy, this was not a good day to get me off side, this is why I am telling you my friends to be careful! and check your cakes before you leave because their customer service stinks.


Ok, onto the nicer side, was the cake any good? Well it was a green tea roll with red bean filling $1.20 it was great, except for the horrible faux cream on top. Why ruin a perfectly good cake with that crap? Sigh. But do you see my very cute cups and plates? They are courtesy of my very, very kind mother :) They hold 150mls (perfect for a double shot latte) and hold the heat remarkably well, and they are awesome to sip from as they are nice and fine with a nice lip. So expect to see much more of my beautiful pink sakura and bamboo tea cups.

Presents all round

Thanks to a very kind Reid from 'ono kine grindz in Hawaii I received a package earlier this week of 2 packages of li hing mui. I am very lucky to have received my present as the package was opened by AQIS (Australian Quarantine Service), and it had to be sent all the way from Hawaii.

li hing mui are Chinese preserved plums, they are sour, salty sand sweet all at the same time. They remind me of a dried fruit version of a sour gummy lolly. Thanks heaps Reid, keep an eye out for your return package of surprise gifts :)

Andys Coconut Espresso Semi Fredo & LSA mocha macaroons

Wow thats a mouthfull isn't it?

This recipe for Espresso Coconut Semifredo is from my friend Andy @ coffeesnobs he found this recipe on a packet of CSR demerera sugar, I love that stuff. I have wanted to make this recipe for ages, but I decided it wouldn't be worth making it until I had home roasted coffee :) . Whilst I waited, if you don't have freshly roasted coffee, still make it, it's awesome! The only thing's I would change are to add some grated 75% cocoa liquor chocolate and maybe a nice sized splash of booze possibly amaretto? or a coffee or coconut liquor.






Espresso Coconut Ice-cream

Prep Time: 10 Min plus overnight freezing Cooking Time 5 min.
Serves:8

1/4 Cup of espresso ground coffee
1 cup of coconut cream
6 egg yolks
1 cup or CSR Demerara sugar
600ml of thickened cream (whipped)

1. Combine the ground coffee and coconut cream in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir occasionally for 3-4 minutes or until hot, do not boil. Remove from the heat, cool.

2. Combine egg yolks and CSR Demerara sugar in a large heat-resistant bowl. Place over a saucepan of simmering water (ensure bowl does not touch the water) mix with an electric hand-mixer, on low speed, for 5 minutes or until thick and pale

3. Remove from heat, stir in coffee mixture. Cool.

4. Fold in whipped cream and pour mixture into an airtight container, seal and freeze for 10 hours or until firm.

5. Allow to stand in the refrigerator 10 minutes before serving.

So once I had made this, I realised that I had 6 egg whites left. What was I going to do with them? Casey is not a huge fan of pavlova, so I decided to try and make some macaroons as I had been inspired by the chocolate amaret at Christopher's Cake shop and by the macaroons that everyone in american has been discussing of late. I found a recipe but I had to play with it of course. I don't think I have perfected it yet... but I basically subsituted LSA (linseed, sunflower and almond) meal for the straight almond meal. Added 1/2 cup of ground coffee and 1/3 cup of cocoa powder. My egg whites were quite big though. I have an added problem as I have to deal with the oven of despair or the evil Oven of hotness +2 (I think casey played to many role playing games in his former life :P ). The recipe is posted below, unaltered. The additions did work well, I think mine were a little soft due to my mixing it by hand and the crappy oven.

Almond macaroons
3 ¼ cup blanched almonds
2 cups sugar
4 egg whites
½ teaspoon almond extract
Sifted matzoh flour for dusting
¼ cup blanched, toasted almonds

Preheat oven to 350-degrees. Grind the almonds in a food processor. Place the ground almonds in a bowl. Add the sugar and egg whites one-by-one, blending by hand or with the food processor, until a paste is formed (the paste can be manipulated by the hand). Add almond extract. Refrigerate for ten minutes. Dust a large cookie sheet with matzoh flour. Take a piece of the dough, the size of a plum, roll between the palms of your hands to make a ball. Pinch the top to shape like a pear. Place, wide side down, on the cookie sheet. Place half a blanched and toasted almond on top. Bake 20-25 minutes, until the cookies rise and are slightly browned. Cool slightly and separate with a spatula, taking care not to break the cookies

So to make the homage complete I need to assemble, looks good doesn't it? The only thing I would have changed would have been perhaps some rasberries to add a sour note. If you like ice cream but don't have your an ice cream maker like me, try this it's easy and works a treat.

Candy outside my house

Hey everyone,

I thought I might let you in on a secret, but you can't tell anyone ok?
The new film with Heath Ledger and Geoffrey Rush is filming outside my house! and at the local Chicken Express (I have never been there, kind of like a KFC variant, maybe I should do a review...? ) Anyway how cool is that. The movie is called Candy, and they make lots of noise... but it's ok. Maybe I might get a shot and post it here, but NO PROMISES :)

Well I got a photo, it is very dark though, but you can see the trucks!


We also saw Kelly Slater at the airport on the weekend, the paparazzi went right past him, which was very funny and very cool. It would have been a great photo, he was using his laptop propped up on a bin. No I didn't get his autograph, I think everyone needs their privacy, and we got to people watch and he did not even realise.

Oh my, Chocolate Amaret

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