Drying your own herbs

Sick of buying a bunch of herbs only to use two springs then a week later you have to chuck the whole thing out? Now you can buy fresh herbs and keep them! How? Dry your own!

Pick your herb and place them on a paper towel, several bunches at a time.

Zap them in the microwave on high for 15secs. Check then zap again for 15secs. Keep on zapping and checking in 15secs slots until it is dried through. You must make sure every piece is dried or else the non-dried ones will go mouldy and ruin all your work.

Get an old spice jar and store them! Home made dried herbs is tastier and smells fresher than the store bought variety.

Diary of a Domestic Goddess

5.30pm – Arrive home. Managed to avoid eye contact with the giant stick insect on the way in.
5.35pm – Wash face (requirement of a domestic goddess: good skin) and realised the apple tea cake recipe has been left at work.
5.45pm – Unmake bed, remake bed with fresh sheets and pillow cases. Wash sheets. (Domestic goddess loves clean sheets)
5.50pm – Make apple tea cake with only vague memory of the recipe.
6.10pm – Wash dishes.
6.20pm – Prep dinner for Swiss brown mushroom risotto.
6.50pm – Start cooking dinner while checking cake.
7.00pm – Unload sheets and hang. Cake done.


Apple tea cake

7.01pm – No room on the dining table or kitchen. Cake will have to cool on the coffee table.
7.30pm – Still cooking dinner.
7.40pm – Dinner done. Cake cooled.


Swiss brown mushroom risotto

7.45pm – Taste test a piece of cake (quality control is important to a domestic goddess).
7.50pm – Pack dried dishes and wash more dishes.


...all in a day's work ...

94wines

It’s been that long since my last post?! November is proving to be a busy month indeed.

Summer is coming and as the temperature sores, there’s less baking to be done. Christmas decorations are making their appearance in the shops in October. That only means one thing ...nothing like a bottle of wine to start the festivities. If you’re a wine non-drinker/novice like myself and always find the selection of wines in the bottle shop mind boggling, then the team from 94wines might be able to help. By answering a series of questions on the website, they can determine what your WineID is. Every wine (number) has been carefully selected and processed by the company. All the wines come from France, and each number contains its own region and grape variety. My WineID was #2 Smooth, #23 Bold and #51 Luscious.

Aren't these colours festive?

I think I’m more attracted to their contemporary packaging than anything else. You can also personalised the bottle with a text message, photo or even video. Each bottle can be given an unique QR code which can be read by using the camera of a mobile phone.

Moroccan Eggplant with Chicken

I have been distracted of late because one of my good friends asked me to do her table decorations for her wedding next month. Yippee! In my distracted state I’ve been flicking through wedding/home ware blogs trying to come up with ideas. I have assembled some ideas from various blogs and am determined to find more!





So back to food ... Last night I made Moroccan Eggplant with Chicken. It’s a fairly simple recipe (similar to the one from my cooking class at Selah) and in our haste (we were too hungry!) I didn’t manage to take a photo. You can prepare the chicken any way you like: pan fry with a bit of salt and pepper, roasted in the oven or you can even use a store bought roast chicken.

Moroccan Eggplant
Serves 2

Ingredients
I large Eggplant
2 tsp Moroccan spice mix. Or 2 tsp roasted cumin seeds will work just as well.
Squeeze of lemon juice
2 tbsp Flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
¼ Spanish Onion, finely diced
Salt to season

Method
1. Roast the eggplant in the oven until soft.

2. Scoop out flesh and chop roughly. Combine all ingredients in a bowl and serve.

Sunday Lunch (Oct 09)

L-R: Haloumi, Baked Tassie Salmon, Spring Salad of Asparagus, Broad beans, Butter beans & Jamon.

I'm always anxious when I cook salmon, you don't want to under cook (unintentional half cooked fish is not nice) nor do you want to over cook (dry). Not to boast or anything but today I cooked the most perfect salmon. Low oven (160c), for the portions above (3 med size fillets, halved length ways) around 13-15mins, take it out to rest for 5mins. No oil required because salmon is already an oily fish, I always find it too oily for my tastes if I add oil unless I'm pan frying. Seasoned, lemon zest, dill and a squeeze of lemon juice. Some capers to finish the dish would be nice too.

Haloumi is one of my favourite cheese. It's not exactly 'low fat' because you need oil to pay fry it. Pour enough oil to cover the pan then fry on med heat - it should only take a few minutes. I added dried rosemary to serve. Next time I will add a squeeze of lemon juice and smoked paprika.

It's Spring over is Oz, so I blanched some spring veg, sprinkle with salt and balsamic, bit of lemon zest and top it with jamon.

You might recall my excitement for Elderflower. I've finally made the Elderflower syrup I do desired. There were a few recipes on the net but I made up my own. I think it worked fine and the best of all it was pretty simple. Make equal parts water and sugar for the sugar syrup then add lemon rind and juice to taste. Turn the heat off when it comes to a simmer and the sugar has melted, when the liquid has cooled, add Elderflowers, cover and refrigerate for 48hrs.

I added the Elderflower syrup to my manuka honey pannacotta. I'm calling it pannacotta because it was intended to be pannacotta but I added a leaf too much of gelatin, oops! It was still good right?

Manuka honey pannacotta with blueberries and elderflower syrup

Marinated beef with roasted eggplant and salad of cos, radish and broadbeans.

Time to road test the eggplant dip made at the cooking class at Selah. Roasted the eggplants, mushed it up with salt, lemon juice and garlic. It wasn’t bad, I’ve probably put too much garlic though – it would also be nicer if I roasted the garlic. I cheated a bought pre-marinated meat.
Trying to re-create the look of the dish, I made up a salad using baby cos (sliced), radishes and broad beans. I tried to make the plating look less messy as I don’t have a pvc ring .

You can't really see the eggplant in the photo as the cos has managed to spread itself out - haha!

Market Day

Black grape tomato, Rose and Lavender marshmallows, Lindt cooking chocolate, cool spatula, cake decorating stars and elderflowers.

I always get excited about market day thinking about all the yummy fresh produce. I told myself I won’t go crazy on the veg as I always buy too much and stay away from expensive items that I would hardly use like smoked ocean trout or a leg of salt bush lamb.

Walking past the baby salad leaf/micro greens/edible flowers stall, this time I had to buy some edible flowers. I’ve always wanted to use them to decorate cakes or to put in a leafy green salad. To much excitement, I saw elderflowers! All rational thoughts went out of my mind, I need to buy the elderflowers! I love elderflower cordial and have seen the flowers being used in one of those country/farm style cooking shows from the UK. Hurrah, $4 a box! Now, err what do I do with them???

I don’t usually buy cakes/pastries/sweets. I walked past the Sweetest Patisserie stall, there were free samples ..free samples! Who would pass that up? I manoeuvred myself in front of the marshmallow jar. Hmm...lime, hmm..lemon, ohh is that chocolate? They were oh so light, I need to buy a packet! A pretty pink and lavender coloured one caught by eye. I picked it up and the stall holder informed me that packet is Rose and Lavender flavour. “Do you like the flowers flavours?” she asked. I umm-ed and arrr-ed a bit, memories of unpleasant encounters with flower flavours filled my mind (e.g. rose petal jam with lots of rose petals so much that you feel like you’re eating paper). Seeing my hesitation she urged “Try one”. I took the sample piece of rose flavoured marshmallow, popped it into my mouth and hoped for the best. The marshmallow was light and airy, and to my delight the rose flavour was subtle but fragrant. I was sold.

After the markets, I went a bit nuts in the Essential Ingredient.....that's a story for another day.