Seaside delights

I know that technically it's only Wednesday, mid-week, and I shouldn't be getting too excited about the weekend which is still two full days away, but for whatever reason it really feels like tomorrow should be Friday which would mean it's practically the weekend. And I can't wait for it. This weekend's going to be busy! In between bouts of helping Tim organise the front yard that has been reduced to a dusty piece of nothing in an attempt to give us a blank canvas to work with, I'm planning a baked ricotta cheesecake and some other tasty treats. I'd really like a weekend at the beach, but oh well.

If you can are looking to get out of Canberra this weekend to enjoy the sun somewhere with water, (let's face it, the Lake BG doesn't count) and if this gorgeous weather holds, try a drive to the South Coast of NSW. Petrol prices have gone down a lot lately, so that's no excuse. If you can, get down as far as Tilba and Cobargo. It's a beautiful stretch of country that they call the Sapphire Coast - with good reason. The water is blue and green and whales travel up and down at various times of the year. Of course, they always surface as I'm blinking, but they do exist I'm told.

Importantly, there's a lot of good food along that drive. Before you get into gourmet territory, you could try a proper bistro lunch at the Narooma Gold Club where they still do roasts and decent portions. The club occupies a piece of land on the edge of a cliff. Below swells the ocean, littered with thousands of lost and un-retrieveable golfballs. The view from the bistro is a million dollar one if I ever saw one. Back in the day when I could eat wheat, I always enjoyed the fisherman's basket. Crisply fried calamari rings, tender pieces of fish, golden chips and other stuff besides. Mmmm... More recently I tried a steak. I was not disappointed.

Further down the coast is Tilba. If you remember the Nescafe ads from a few years ago 'I came to this valley... wound up meeting a man in a shop ... blah blah blah...' that's where it was filmed. It is very picturesque and doesn't seem to change much. Same stores, same red telephone box, same people.  

The cheese factory is still there, at the end of the main road in Central Tilba. You can try a dozen or so different kinds of honey, and some award winning cheeses. I love the trio that you can now buy in the supermarket, and also the smoked cheese. On the way back down the street, try the old fashioned sweet shop. You can find anything in there, not that I've actually looked, but I know I see things in there that I liked as a kid and haven't seen much of since. I opted for some proper mints and some flying saucers which I later realised I can't eat because of the whole wheat thing. Grrrr!

Finally, and one to be savoured, is the hand made fudge at the general store on the corner as you come into Central Tilba. Years ago I got talking to the girl who worked here who told me that it had been made there by the same family for years. I didn't ask this time but it's a good bet it still is. I bought a two-toned confection - chocolate and English toffee I think. I carefully doled out bite-sized pieces for about three days before being unable to control myself and polishing off the lot while Tim was on a bike ride. He he he ...

If you're looking to stay somewhere, try Mumbulla View at Quaama, which is about 10 minutes south of Cobargo. We stayed there a few weeks ago and could not have had a more pleasant and relaxing experience. The place has been completely renovated and the owners are lovely, hospitable people who made the weekend all the better. They even found toys for a friend's toddler. Never seen that in a big hotel before. Whatever you're doing, enjoy and eat well!

Cupcakes for a happy day

This weekend just past was really  busy but lots of fun. After another hectic week (not complaining since mine was all of three working days long) we launched into a weekend of cooking, planning, organising and unfortunately, shopping. I really hate shopping. A lot. 

I'm partial to markets, especially food markets and great delis where I can trawl through shelves and cabinets and refrigerators stocked with luscious things I sometimes take home to try. On Saturday I saw a jar of pate d'foi gras (or however you spell it) in a deli in Woden. Amazing! I've never spotted that in Canberra before, but there you go. Now I'm deliberately not going to make a comment on the the whole foi gras thing being cruel to geese because I have no idea what it entails and I've never indulged. This particular pot could be purchased for the bargain price of $149.95. Ouch! 

Interwoven with random acts of housework, visits, shopping and the like, I managed to get in some cooking. It was a largely unsatisfactory weekend on that score. It's bizarre how things you've either made a hundred times before sometimes just don't work, and then difficult things you've never done turn out as if you're a master. On this occasion, both old and new were disasters. It definitely took a toll on my morale.

Determined to have one success to speak of, I turned to an old standard, guaranteed not to fail, favourite of one and all, young and old, and especially Tim. Cupcakes. Cupcakes are little bits of light, pretty frippery, designed to make a person feel happy. I didn't use any particular recipe of note, just a basic vanilla recipe that I turned into orange and poppyseed by using orange juice and zest, and poppy seeds. But I did feel the need to make them look pretty. 

Earlier in the week I bought a packet of Robert Gordon paper baking cups. I think they're pretty good value at $4.95 for 50. They're good quality too - held their shape and colour well and look really lovely. I made up some pale orange and not too buttery icing, and slathered this on generously. To top it al off, I grabbed some lavender flowers from the garden and as you can see, the purple works really well.

The nicest thing is that they really do cheer people up, which is especially necessary on a Monday morning. 

There's nothing like a Cosmo

There really is nothing like a Cosmo to perk a person up. Just looking at the ruby-coloured liquid with the shiny, jewel-like cherry soaking up the flavour, you can taste the potent nectar before it hits your lips. 

I was trying to explain the attraction of this drink from a woman's point of view to Tim. The colour of a properly made Cosmo is like the colour of a dress you wish you had, or a lipstick you wish they made, or nice lingerie that costs too much to buy. You order a Cosmo, imagining that for just a little while, you'll have something beautiful and sophisticated and it will make you look beautiful and sophisticated, but will also pack a punch and so be totally worth the price, and the calories. I don't recall ever not savouring every single last drop.

Why this mid-week madness? Blame it on being a short-long week. I had a four day weekend, followed by two very busy days at work and another tomorrow before the weekend. There's been a new president elected, a new Melbourne Cup winner, I've achieved things at work and perhaps most importantly, one of the nice guys at work and his wife had a perfect baby boy. All is good and wonderful in my world.

Here's our recipe:

1 1/2 measures/ 6 tsp vodka

1 measure/ 1 1/2 tbsp Cointreau

1 measure/ 1 1/2 tbsp cranberry juice

1/2 measure/ 2 tsp lime juice

Make sure you use decent vodka, cold cranberry to start with and freshly squeezed lime juice (strained) for the best result.

Oh - and as I've been reminded, pour it over ice in a cocktail shaker. Tim likes to more or less massage the cocktail over the ice, but I like it shaken, not stirred. Serve in a martini glass with a cherry. I know I go on about quality ingredients a bit, but it is totally worth investing in decent quality cherries. They're not much more expensive, and they look and taste so much better. Actually, if anyone knows where to find the cocktail cherries with the stalks on in Canberra, please let me know!

Melbourne Cup Day...or whatever...

Here in the ACT, a new public holiday was gazetted by the local government last year, much to the chagrin of cafes and caterers everywhere. It's called 'Family and Community Day' or something of that ilk. The fact that it just so happens to fall on the first Tuesday in November, traditionally Melbourne Cup Day, is merely coincidental...

That aside, what it means is that now you actually have to think about what you're going to have for lunch, rather than wait for the inevitable announcement over the office PA that signals to all that you must now surrender yourself to being herded off by your supervisor to the local club or staff common room for Melbourne Cup lunch/afternoon tea/drinks. These are traditionally disappointing affairs in terms of the food, made only slightly more bearable if you happen to have backed a winner in your own right or gotten lucky with the office sweep. (Or in the case of some people who won't be mentioned, gotten so drunk that you're beyond caring about food, the race or even know why you're huddled with your colleagues around the TV in your boss's office at three in the afternoon).

I have to admit that I'm looking forward to spending this afternoon with friends in their back yard, BBQ on the burn, champagne in hand (the decent stuff), rather than lining up with my colleagues to trawl past the $15 cold buffet that consists almost entirely of pressed chicken and coleslaw, and having to gush about whoever organised  it doing a wonderful job and pretending that the caterers have been generous and done us a good deal, while really feeling ripped off and wondering why we bothered. This little ritual is almost always followed by the act of balancing one's plate while one surrenders one's drinks ticket to a surly bartender who wishes he was at the track rather than dealing with a room full of slightly inebriated desk jockeys, for a glass of $4 a bottle plonk that would otherwise be bound for next month's school leavers heading for their first big binge. 

So really, thank goodness for the public holiday, whatever it's called!

Anyhow, I got thinking about the traditional chicken salad and champagne lunch. Believe it or not, I can't ever recall making chicken salad before. I didn't feel like making one now. So what I did was this instead - rolled chicken thigh fillets served with salad. It's still good. 

Ingredients:

4 chicken thigh fillets (I used organic free range and you can taste the difference)

olive oil

For marinade:

4 tbsp honey

1 generous tbsp Dijon mustard

2 tbsp sesame seeds

For stuffing:

4 tbsp fresh ricotta

2 tbsp polenta

2 tbsp fresh basil, finely chopped

2 tbsp roasted pine nuts, roughly chopped

1 tsp fresh or dried parsley, finely chopped

1 tsp black pepper

1 tsp finely grated lemon zest

Mix up the marinade and set aside. Pat dry the chicken thighs on some paper towel.

Mix all of the stuffing ingredients together. It doesn't look like much but it will be enough because you're not flattening out the chicken at all. Turn the chicken over and put a couple of tablespoons of the mixture, moulding it into a cylinder shape to fit the length of the thigh. Roll the meat over it - no need to secure or anything.

Oil a small baking dish and place the four fillets in, making sure they fit snugly up against each other. This will keep the filling and the flavour in. Brush the marinade over the chicken. Use the whole lot even if it looks very thick. Cover the dish with foil and bake for about an hour on medium heat. At about 45 minutes in, remove from the over, take the foil off and baste the chicken with the juices forming. Put it back into the oven and let it brown up for about 15 minutes. When it comes out, it should have coloured up beautifully and when you open in up, the meat should be moist and full of flavour. 

I served this with a mixed salad of butter lettuce, thinly sliced radish, tomato, baby capers, boiled egg, some small blobs of ricotta, lemon zest, basil leaves and seasoned with salt, pepper, olive oil and lemon juice. It's very fresh and delicious.

Whatever you're doing today, enjoy and here's hoping you back a winner! 

Whatever happened to Mr Pumpkinhead?

He got made into soup and eaten. That's what!

Actually it's pretty funny because now that he's drying out a little bit, he's starting to look like a less evil, very gummy old man with no teeth on the top. Making soup out of his guts seemed like a fitting end for him. I'm not even that into soup, but smelling the beautiful, organic pumpkin smells as Tim carved the old guy up made me crave for pumpkin soup. Totally simple, easy and complete comfort food without being stodgy. Here's how:

Ingredients:

About 6 or so cups of roughly chopped pumpkin

2 red capsicum

1 cup finely sliced leek

1 litre vegetable stock

Juice of 1 lemon

1 clove garlic, roughly chopped

2 tbsp sweet paprika

Olive oil

salt & pepper

2-3 springs fresh rosemary

Sour cream to serve

In a hot oven, roast the peppers until black. Wait till they've cooled a bit and pull off the skin. Roughly chop or pull apart. It's all going to get whizzed up anyway so it doesn't need to be neat.

While the peppers are roasting, take the pumpkin, drizzle with olive 

oil and sprinkle with a little salt & pepper, and toss around until it's all coated. Throw a couple of sprigs of fresh rosemary on top and roast until they're soft and going brown.

In a large pot, soften the leek in a generous splash of olive oil. Don't brown them - just soften. 

Add the capsicum and pumpkin to the pot, taking out the rosemary stalks. The leaves should have fallen off by now. If not, leave them in an remember to remove before you blend it all up. Add the paprika, pour in the stock and cover. Let this simmer slowly on low for about 20 minutes. Then pour in the lemon juice and let it simmer for another 10 minutes. Turn off the heat and let it cool slightly. 

When it's cooled a little, pour it in batches into a food processor or blender and whizz the bejesus out of it. Pour it back into the pot and over a low heat, warm it up a bit. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve with sour cream, crusty bread and a dry white wine. Delish!

Happy Halloween

Having grown up in Australia, Halloween has never been a part of my life, unless you count the Simpson's Halloween specials. I'm not really sure what it's all about and I'm not interested enough to Google it. 

I remember trick or treaters coming to my grandmother's door once when I was a kid. Nobody knew what to do so my grandmother gave them a packet of Arnott's Nice biscuits and sent them on their way. I'm sure it was the score of the night for them. That's about the extent of my direct experience.

Despite my apathy about Halloween, Tim brought home three pumpkins and had lots of fun turning one into Mr Evil Pumpkinhead. He's actually pretty cool looks great all lit up.

Happy Halloween and have a great night!

Pumpkin & Couscous Salad

Here's one of the best salads - pumpkin & couscous. It's fresh, it's summery, it's easy to make, it's good for you and according to Tim, it tastes bloody fantastic. I can't actually eat couscous because of the whole wheat/gluten issue, so I'm taking his word for how good this is. Also, and this is a major bonus, it's one of the few things that keep him going for hours. A challenge at the best of times.

Here's how: Toss a generous cup of diced pumpkin in extra virgin olive oil, a large clove of finely chopped garlic, a tablespoon of coarsely ground black pepper. Whack it in a medium to hot oven until it is browning and cooked, but not so soft that it goes mushy when you mix it into the salad. This doesn't take long. Chop up 1/4 cup of flat leaf parsley and finely slice and chop two tablespoons of red onion. Finely zest half a medium lemon and then juice the whole thing. In a dry pan, brown a generous handful of pine nuts. Don't let them burn! Now for the cous cous - for two large serves, I use 250g couscous, made according to the instructions on the box. Let the couscous cool down before throwing in all of the other ingredients. Gently toss. Salt, pepper and extra lemon juice to taste.

You could try it with rice and it would probably work well too, although I tend to think that the couscous soaks up the flavours differently and adds a different dimension to the other ingredients. It keeps really well for a day or two so it's great for the lunch box. Eat up!