Cooking at the farm

Down a the farm this weekend and having a lovely old time in the kitchen. The kitchen here is enormous (compared to the one at our little beach house anyway) and it soothes my cooking soul somehow to know that there is loads of bench space to measure, cut and store all the ingredients I need. Also, as the oven here is so huge, (comparatively) that everything I want to cook will fit in at once! Cooking is a breeze in the right conditions ;-)

Today I made the 'rhubarb slice' according to Donna's instructions. It worked out a treat - as usual - but actually is not my most favourite slice of all. There is just not enough rhubarb, and far too much sugar in each bite for me! Perhaps those of you who are not big fans of the rhubarb may actually enjoy this slice (I'll be interested in your comments here Christina).

I am also cooking another 'do over' tonight. Not because the first one was in any way a disaster, (although I did pour the beer in at the wrong moment last time) but more because it is just the weather and the audience to appreciate a slow cooked 'braised beef and mushroom' dish!

All good so far ;-)

Edit  ** Worked a treat you'll be pleased to know. Everyone enjoyed the meal! **

It's not easy being green...

 ...so they say!

The 'pea spinach and ham soup'  I made the other day is very green! 


I liked it, H'o'M didn't like it and mum's opinion is yet to be known! 

Is it nearly finished?

Well, I'm starting to lose my enthusiasm for this project. Maybe it's just that I'm fighting off some low grade infection and I haven't been taking my iron tablets for a month (on the dr's orders I hasten to add) but honestly it's all becoming just a bit hard ;-(


I'm not getting any joy from my menu planning or even going to the market... and I usually love that stuff! 


Maybe tomorrow it'll all come together again ;-)

It really was a disaster...

Well it finally happened. I made a completely inedible meal!

Had the stock a-simmering for the 'salmon and tarragon broth' when I tasted said broth...YUK! It was horrible! I still had to add the carrot, zucchini and fennel, but I couldn't see how that would diffuse the hideous taste.

Called H'o'M for his opinion and he agreed with me...YUK!

The broth went straight into the compost bin along with the sliced zucchini and fennel while we nibbled on the carrot strips as a per-dinner snack.

I resorted to that old stand by in our house - pesto pasta. This time I was able to add some salmon along with tomato and parmesan. ;-)

 We did manage to get some sort of dinner.

A weekend of snacks and visitors

I made 'goat's cheese tarts' for lunch one day.... just for the two of us. Sometimes it's good just to create for 'us'. I have been using the Meredith goat cheese in the jar for the all goat cheese recipes I have to prepare because, well, it just tastes so good!
I'm probably supposed to use a non marinated cheese, but as Donna doesn't specify exactly which goat's cheese to use, I think I can get away with it. Maybe just to be on the safe side, we shouldn't tell H'o'M. He might make me do all these recipes again ;-)
I was thinking of baking this one again soon, but perhaps giving the  puff pastry a miss. I wonder if it would taste just as good on sourdough or baguette toast. I'm guessing it would.

'Potato soup with crispy bacon' was on the menu this week too, but oops, I forgot to take a photo of it. The finished product did look just like Donna's, although I can't show you hers either as the recipe/photo is not on her website ;-(
It was a tasty soup, very filling - all those carbs I guess! - and we ate it for every lunch this week. Just to add to the carb overload ate loads of sourdough toast with it!

Had some family from Ballas come to our resort town this weekend. A lovely time was had (I think), but sadly they couldn't stay as long as we would have liked. In the short time they were all with us, we did manage some fun shopping in our little resort town - gifts, books and lollies were in abundance - most especially the lollies - walks along the beach, lots of talking, eating and laughing (however there may have been far too many spider stories for my liking), and of course some cooking!

I had made the 'sweet potato and curry soup' for lunch on Saturday. Not too spicy (although a little too much kick for it to be Sezza's favourite) and very tasty. It wasn't quite as smooth as it should have been as I left  a few too many chunks of sweet potato when I was whizzing it up. I did check honestly, but it wasn't til  the serving that all those chunks came to the fore. I think the judges would have been unimpressed... as a group though, we were less discerning ;-)

Before the Ballas girls arrived on Saturday morning I put together a 'caramel slice'. I cut them into very small pieces because really that's all you need! There were lots of ooohs and aaahs while eating, so I think the slice was a success.

With the help of my sous chef Emmy, I cooked the 'seafood chowder bake' to share for dinner. Yes I finally found some clams - see 'a failed attempt' -  when I managed to drive out to the airport fishmongers.
It is a very easy recipe to put together and Emmy I managed it with no problems at all. What a joy to have a sous chef to work with ;-) That girl really knows her way around a kitchen!

There were a few comments around the table when eating said dish .... best fish I've ever tasted; yummy; creamy; tasty and smooth, to mention just a few.
I wouldn't make it again in it's original form though. For H'o'M and I it requires a little 'recipe renovation', as there is too much cream in it for our taste buds. Not completely sure what I'd do to renovate it actually. Maybe use all milk or perhaps half stock and half milk???

We also made a dessert on Saturday that didn't come from 'the bible' but honestly needs to be mentioned as it was amazing. It was a joint cooking effort with Emmy, Rach and Lestie, while Sezza decided she would just be 'an eater' :-)
After completing all their homework for the weekend, the cooking began. After weighing all the ingredients out Rach manned the food processor, Lestie was juicing up a storm - got rid of numerous lemons - and Emmy was stirring and waiting for things to thicken on the stovetop. Quite a lot going on for our little kitchen!

This cake was chosen (from Lestie's cookbook) because not only did it feature chocolate - always a plus - but it used about 20 of the lemons still sitting outside on the table! Unfortunately we forgot to take a photo of this cake too, but suffice to say it was so rich and so decadent that none of us could finish our portion!
A first for the Ballas girls perhaps?

Sweet Things

There have been a few sweet things baked lately that haven't managed to make it to the blog so now is the time.

H'o'M and I were hosting our parents for dinner last week at our little beach house. Always a treat!
The main course wasn't made from the bible though - to be honest there aren't that many main meals left in the magazine ;-) We decided to cook a fail safe leg 'o' lamb instead. As is our wont, we mixed it up just a little by roasting it on the BBQ, as H'o'M is something of a whizz on his Weber ;-)

For dessert though I made Donna's 'pear and ricotta tarts'. They worked out a treat, as they are so easy. Just the thing for a dinner party really. Easy to prepare and quick to cook.
The general consensus though was that they needed a little more 'zing'. Perhaps I was a little stingy with the honey and cinnamon in the ricotta?!

Last night for dessert at 'the farm' I made the 'maple and date syrup cake'. Mmmmm, possibly the least said about this the better? ;-)

When I took the cake from the oven I let it rest for 10 minutes in the baking tin (as instructed) but when I turned it out onto the cooling rack, it wasn't cooked all the way through. The middle was still runny! Oh no, disaster!!!

I quickly shoved it back into the tin then back into the oven. Sadly I didn't cook it long enough again, so in the end it had to be cooked 3 times! Oops ;-)

Let me just say, I do have several excuses for such bad form ...

• the oven door didn't close properly
• there were too many dishes in the oven at once
• I didn't test it enough before removing from the oven
• the wind was in the wrong quarter
• my tux was at the cleaners
• the dog ate my homework

None of these excuses really work I guess, it was just a bad cake due to plain old cook's error! 

Needless to say after all that resting and re-cooking, the cake was a little tough. We decide it was nothing that some maple syrup and/or cream couldn't fix ;-)

While the oven was hot and I was on a roll, I decided to remake the 'spiced maple biscuits'. I had made these pre-blog and they were very successful. Everyone who tasted them enjoyed them a lot (see 'spiced maple biscuits'). This time though I made them much smaller as I felt last time they were too big to enjoy! Last time the recipe made 12 biscuits, this time I made about 30.

Another plus for the smaller biscuit is that when a smaller biscuit is eaten, one feels there is room for another, and another, and another! Sadly, as I was working on this theory, I've already eaten far too many today ;-)

Having just been to the farm I now have a wonderful supply of lemons, thyme, chard and parsley. I just have to come up with a recipe that uses them all.

Seriously, a lot of lemons ;-)

Ballas

There are a few of the Donna Hay dishes my family in Ballas were keen to help me eat, so a trip there last night called for some serious pre-work in the kitchen!

Firstly, because life is short - I made the sweet things ;-) 'Lemon curd squares',  was first on the agenda. I started it at 7am as it had to be cooked a couple of times and then 2 hours resting time in the fridge post cooking. As I wasn't sure how our day would pan out time wise, I thought it best to get started early.
Can I just tell you how much I love the food processor we have at our little holiday house. It makes short work of so many things. Made the pastry for this dish in a snap.... love it!!!!!!

I was a little concerned at first that the pastry mixture was too crumbly to stick together as a base. It was not moist at all. However, Donna told me in the bible that I shouldn't worry if the pastry looked too crumbly as it would all come together in the baking. So I didn't, and it did ;-)

After all the eggs and extra yolks I used in the 'lemon curd squares', I had several egg whites left over. Now, a few months ago, I made some 'lemon meringue cupcakes' (not from the bible but I'm sure Donna won't mind) for Rachie's 18th birthday party. They were quite the success in Ballas, and with so many lemons from the farm still in the bowl, and spare egg white, what else would I do but make these cupcakes again! Lovely!

Both sweet concoctions were very successful to taste. A tart lemony tang cut through the sweet sugary taste of the 'lemon curd slice', and this time the 'lemon meringue cupcakes' were a much better result. The cupcake itself was really yummy and not as dry as previously.

So on to the savouries....

'Tomato and meatball soup' was the next requested dish.  I mixed up some meatballs with veal and pork mince and loads of basil, then fried them up before simmering them together with some stock, tomatoes onion, pasta and garlic. "No problems then?" I hear you say. Well just two very minor ones.... Firstly, I accidentally picked up penne instead of macaroni from the pantry and before I realized my error, had poured 1/3 of the required pasta into the soup. The remaining 2/3 were macaroni though, so no big deal, but I would certainly lose points for presentation! Two different shaped and different sized pastas???
Secondly, on the way to Ballas the soup actually lost all it's 'soupiness'  and became just 'pasta with meatballs'! Of course adding a little more stock or water just before reheating would solve this thickness problem for sure.
Lochstar tells me the dish tasted yummy though and really, that's the main thing!!

For the final course, 'baked pea risotto with prosciutto' was on the menu. This caused quite a bit of angst really. Initially all was going well - couldn't have been better in fact. I was cooking in a different kitchen - with more equipment than our little beach house - so had a pot big enough for the 600g of arborio rice required (refer to lamb shanks), I had precut all the ingredients so when it came time to cook I was just tossing things in the pot like a pro, while still being part of conversations and imbibing wine!
However, after the required baking time, the risotto was still so full of liquid I thought it was going to be the first great disaster of the challenge....and in public no less! It was really risotto soup, no doubt! There was much frenzied discussion in the kitchen about the best way to solve this obvious 'cock up', but in the end I decided to persevere with Donna's instructions (sometimes ya just gotta have faith, right) and low and behold, after doing just what I was instructed, the stock was all gone, the rice was cooked and the dish was lovely!
A discussion was also held on the prosciutto and when it should be added to said dish and in fact whether raw or cooked prosciutto was the thing! Once again I looked to Donna to answer all queries and as she hadn't stated to cook the prosciutto - I didn't. I also mixed it into the risotto pre serving rather than on individual plates.
Once served and being eaten, there were lots of murmurs through full mouths, of how good the meal tasted and, everyone went back for second servings. Always a good sign.









PS the extra peppermint slice was appreciated here in ballas for sure!

Celebrations

My brother,  'the colonel' was in town for work last night, so the Victorian arm of our family (such as it is) all got together to eat and say hi!  What a perfect opportunity for me to cook a few of Donna's dishes - to cross a few more of the list!

As we were travelling up to the big smoke to eat at the co-tenants 'city pad' I decided not to cook the 'braised beef with cheese croutons' here in the resort town and carry it up to reheat once there, but to cook it completely once I arrived. It only took 1.5 hours to cook, should be a doddle ... right? I'm not sure it was really!
     Firstly we left our resort town a little later than I anticipated. As a result, the dish went in the oven later than I anticipated too
     Secondly I didn't really factor in the two very hungry boyos who were waiting quite patiently to be fed but didn't get anything too substantial until 7:45pm ;-) They ate some nibbles while waiting and were very patient and loving, and it all worked out well really, but still, what a bad aunt!
     Thirdly I continually worried that the meat wouldn't be tender enough after only 1.5 hours. I kept thinking if it had gone in earlier, it could have cooked longer. I should have trusted Donna really, as the meat was sooooo tender and perfect! My nephew S even commented how just picking it up in his fork made the meat fall apart!

A few issues in the making of said dish - naturlich!  Chefs using both the words 'beer' and 'beef' in a recipe should put one in a bolder font perhaps, but definitely do something to differentiate for blind old people like me which word they are currently using!
I read 'beef' instead of 'beer' at one stage and returned the beef to the pan a step too early. Although this didn't ruin the dish per se, I think it did compromise the end result. The 'beer' was supposed to reduce by half before the 'beef'' went in, so I think the gravy at the end would have been thicker and richer if I'd done the steps in the correct order! Oops

As a side dish to complement the braised beef I also made 'garlic and thyme braised cauliflower'. Little did I know when creating this menu that it wasn't only HoM who had 'issues' with cauli. Although everyone had a piece of the cauli to at least taste the dish for me (weren't they sweet), there were few people at the table who actually enjoy the taste of cauliflower, no matter how infused with other flavours it is!

The last dish I made for last night was a 'chocolate peppermint slice'. The end result was a bit dodgy so, according to HoM, I may be up for elimination tonight ;-)
The second layer of the slice - the peppermint icing layer - hadn't set properly when I poured on the chocolate layer or, now I'm thinking about it more, maybe the hot chocolate sauce made the icing runny again. Mmmmm either way, 30 minutes later when I attempted to slice it up for transport to the big smoke, the peppermint layer oozed all over the place!
I chucked it back into a cool place - the freezer this time - and put it straight into the fridge when I got to the co-tenants house. By the time it was needed for dessert, it was perfectly fine for serving!  It's a very rich slice though and a little goes a long long way!

I'm taking the extra peppermint slice to the in-laws in 'Ballas' tomorrow to share. I'm confident they'll love it ;-)

A failed attempt

For the first time in this challenge I've had to cancel an attempt at a recipe as I couldn't find the main ingredients. My seaside town let me down in the seafood stakes. How ironic! ;-)

On the menu for dinner tonight was 'seafood chowder bake' the main ingredient - clearly - needing to be seafood! Well I could easily get fish and prawns and even squid should I have wanted it, but no clams!!! I repeat no clams!

I did have plans to get to the fish mongers, which is about 20 minutes drive from our house, in the expectation that they would have the clams I so sorely needed, but time got away on me today. I did spend the majority of the afternoon having coffee with my mum followed by a walk through the local plant nursery with her, so not really complaining, just saying is all ;-)


Well plan B it is

I already have other pieces of the required seafood, and I'm not letting them 'go to waste', so, seafood stew is on the menu instead! I've made this recipe before and we really enjoyed it, so am confident that the evening can be saved from total ruin ;-)

Phew!

Breakfast Loaf

A breakfast loaf I hear you say? What???? Well here it is...

A sourdough cobb loaf - well it would have been if my little resort town would stretch that far, but a couple of individual sourdough rolls sufficed - filled with layers of bacon, tomato & ricotta then completely stuffed with an egg & milk mixture and baked til cooked and crispy!

What's not to like?

Pizza Night In

Sunday night seems to me to be a night for dinners in front of the TV watching a movie or a favourite show, with a glass of wine in hand! Last night was no exception. It was pizza night.

Donna told me there was still another pizza to be made from her magazine, and so there was!  'Cheats caramelised onion and Gorgonzola pizza' to be exact. Having made the other pizza recipe in the magazine a few weeks ago 'cauliflower, sage and raclette pizza', which required me to make the dough from scratch, I was keen to try the "cheat's" pizza
I think there are 2 reasons why this would be a cheat's pizza;

1. there was no need to make, knead and prove the dough as the pizza is constructed on a Lebanese flat bread
2. the caramelised onion is done quickly - in about 10 minutes - as opposed to a much longer time if doing caramelising properly! 

So I duly made the pizza as ordered, but also made a few others for variety. We had a pumpkin, feta & pine-nut pizza, a mushroom and anchovy pizza, a potato and rosemary pizza and a plain vegetarian pizza which had some of our favourite veges on it; zucchini, capsicum, onion, mushroom, & broccoli. All were made on the aforementioned flat breads, and all worked out well.

Back to the pizza at hand though.

Now I'm no great fan of the cheese actually and blue cheese has to be my least favourite sort, but I was game to try the Gorgonzola, especially as it came on a pizza ;-)
It was strong without being overpowering and I liked the combinations of the sweet caramelised onions with the tang of the Gorgonzola. Also on top was a little greenery in the shape of watercress. Now that stuff has quite the peppery kick! Another new taste for both of us

Perhaps a few issues with this pizza....I should have put less 'stuff' on it, especially the watercress, and it could have been a little crispier, maybe cooked a little longer! 

A good result though, as the empty plate would testify! 

Soups

There have been some tasty soups in the challenge to this stage, but I freely admit I've made all the easy ones so far... minestrone, chicken & corn, tomato & salami, sweet potato & chickpea, carrot & ginger, broccoli, chicken & risoni ... there are some trickier ones left.

Yesterday I made 'honey roasted parsnip soup' which was very very tasty. I love roasted parsnip and I have my brother in law 'The physicist' to thank for reminding HoM, one Christmas in a hilltop town, that he loves it too.

I shared some with mum too so I'll be interested to hear her views on it.

Most of the soup recipes that are left to cook are outside my comfort zone or have ingredients that require a little more planning - like 'thai ginger and mussel', 'duck & ramen noodle' or 'clam chowder'.

None of them seem too hard I might hasten to add, they are just not ones I have made before or even contemplated. One of the reasons for this whole challenge I guess ;-)

On the menu one night this week is 'salmon & tarragon broth'.

Stay tuned!

Do overs

There have been some issues with a few of my recipe attempts during this cooking challenge. Not that they didn't taste good - because they did - but part of the challenge was to create the recipe as it was written ... no additions, substitutions or alterations in any way!

Well that's really hard, and a few times I didn't quite make it!

Therefore - Do over!

The first 'do over' came while cooking 'pasta with pancetta and porcini crumbs'. It was early on in the challenge and once the pancetta had sauted, I removed the majority of the oil before I added the crumb mixture (there seemed to be an awful lot of oil/fat for such a non-oil eating gal) ... end result when crumbs were added ...too dry! The tastes were amazing, but the crumbs and pasta together were just, well, too crumbly. I haven't done this one again - yet. Am saving it for when we have people around as it's just too nice a dish not to share!

The second 'do over' was also a pasta dish actually. This time I read the recipe incorrectly and when it asked for pancetta I used proscuitto. Now you and I both know there is very little difference between the two - both from pig after all ;-), but HoM reminded me very definitely about sticking to the rules of the challenge. So I bought all the ingredients again, this time with proscuitto.

I've not been used to cooking with cured meats too much so wasn't too sure what to do when I got the proscuitto home from the deli - where I might add it took the girl behind the counter approximately 100 years to produce 6 slices for me - and it seemed to be all fat! Of each slice, there seemed to be just miniscule amounts of the pink bacon looking meat, and each slice was really, really thick!!!! Aaaah. I spoke to E about it - she's a much better cook than I - and she advised chopping sections of the fat off before cooking. Which I did, and once fried, I guess all the fat turned crispy and didn't look so scary! I knew it was still there though ;-)

I made said pasta dish for dinner last Friday night when the co-tenants came down for the weekend. We all liked it - children included - and there were requests for a 'little more please'. To be honest though I think I preferred the dish with the pancetta ;-)

Yesterday for lunch I remade one of our favourites... goats curd toasts with wilted kale. It's a very easy recipe to put together and so so tasty! I'm not sure what it is about this dish really that we like so much. The boiled eggs are certainly good, but I think it's a mixture of the marinated goat cheese on sourdough toast sprinkled with lemon zest that has my tastebuds a-singing ;-)

For those of you who are experts in their greenery, you will have noticed that the there is actually no kale on these dishes despite what the title would imply! Well, kale being hard to come by in this little beach side resort, I used 'straight from the vegie patch at the farm' swiss chard instead! Cut me some slack! ;-)

I did remember to take a photo though!

Cauliflower

Some people love it and some people hate it. In our house we've always been squarely in the 'love it' camp.... until recently!

I came back from a holiday late last year, to find HoM had turned his figurative back on cauliflower! He no longer wanted it to be part of our menu - ever!

Imagine his glee then when he discovered there are 10 pages dedicated to cauliflower in my magazine! Tee hee ;-)

Tonight we are having bacon, cauliflower and chili pasta! Mmmmm. The recipe involves roasting the cauli with anchovy fillets which is an interesting twist - and, presumably, so much tastier than just steaming!

Had to stop writing so I could eat said cauli dish, and although I forgot to take a picture for the blog (sorry lil sis) the meal was good! I would never have put those flavours together, but the anchovies and chili flakes gave the meal a real depth of taste.

My only negative would be that the pappadelle pasta was very unwieldy. I tried to do the Donna Hay patented twirl as I was plating up the pasta, but it just wasn't as easy with such wide pasta. Mmmmmm, I guess it's either a case of 'practice makes perfect', or stick to spaghetti!

HoM coped quite well with eating the cauliflower. His bowl was completely empty, so he's clearly ready for another 8 pages of cauliflower recipes ;-)

Lamb shanks

Lamb shanks are not generally our favourite cut of lamb ... we find them too fatty. Slow cooking however is a favourite form of cooking for me - especially in the winter time.

So

the idea of slow cooking outweighed the remembrance of the greasiness involved in a shank (not that there was too much option really as there are 3 lamb shank recipes in the magazine and all have to be cooked!) and I decided to cook the first of the shank recipes tonight.

The biggest problem I'm finding in this challenge is the fact that I'm not in my own kitchen - well actually it's more that I don't have all my equipment really! Tonight I was cooking 4 lamb shanks - with juice - and the biggest casserole dish I had here at the beach house only fit 3, it would have have been even better with only 2 to be honest.

Oh to have had my enormous red Le Crueset casserole dishes tonight!

Well necessity is the mother of invention as they say, so, I did a lot of squishing of lamb and changed the position of each shank every 30 minutes or so and voila...success!

We were both impressed with the taste of the lamb, and it really just fell off the bone! I served the shanks with mashed potato, roast pumpkin, broccoli and green beans!

Ya gotta love slow cooking!

Brulee

I have resisted for years the call of HoM (Husband o Mine) to buy a brulee torch - you know those natty little tools you see in all the kitchen shops and wonder who would ever use?!
HoM often bought them to my attention - especially in such shops in America as 'Williams Sonoma' and 'Sur La Table' - and wondered if I should buy one. My answer always was "the day you make a brulee is the day you can buy a brulee torch".

Well last night I was regretting my strict stance on natty pieces of kitchen ware! I was making a 'maple brulee tart' from my magazine and really could have used one of those tools!

The brulee kinda worked using the grill (broiler), but I know it would have been so much better - and with far less burnt edges - if I had had said brulee torch!

Next stop 'Chef's Essentials' for a brulee torch!

Some recipes

So, I have been in this challenge for the past few weeks and having a ball. I have used ingredients I would not normally use, put together tastes I haven't before and finally learnt how to make polenta! Yay what an achievement!

I'm keeping a list on the fridge of the contents page from the magazine and when I complete a recipe I am highlighting it - in orange, for those of you who like all the details ;-)

There have been some quite memorable dishes so far. I tied and roasted a cut of beef recently while down on the farm with my in laws! Wow what a success!
I have never roasted beef before I always stick with lamb or chicken - so much safer I always think - but there I was in the butcher shop buying the beef fillet and taking it home to tie up with butcher's string! Perhaps next time (and there must be a next time as there are 2 roast beefs in the magazine) I would use more of the said string as I was pushing it a little with the amount I cut off the first time.
I tied that beef successfully though, and roasted it as instructed by Donna...and it was melt in your mouth good! All four of us enjoyed it and although my in laws thought there was a fraction too much pepper - it was a classic pepper roasted beef - they ate it all!

The 'chicken risoni and lemon soup' went down quite nicely too. Chosen by my friend and co tenant E, as a dish she would like to try, I cooked it one weekend at our beach house. All gone very quickly! A lovely lemony tang and I do like a bit of pasta in my soups ;-)

The 'white anchovy toasts' were not a huge hit. Although very easy to make and very tasty when spread on toast as per the recipe, a little goes a long long way and when there's only 2 of us to eat, some dishes last a long time!

There are soooooo many sweet things in my magazine too. The 'ginger crunch slice' was a favourite for my mum - she ate all the ones I gave her, and half the ones at my house too! 'Spiced maple biscuits' were a winner for my mother in law! The maple icing drizzled over the top was so pretty too!

My favourites would have to be the 'goat's curd toast with wilted kale' ... a definite must for my next brunch party, and the 'pasta with pancetta and porcini crumbs'. The taste of the dried porcini mushroom while not overwhelming, added such depth to the pancetta and pasta, the dish was amazing!

So far there have been no real kitchen disasters - it's probably just a matter of time though!

The Challenge

I was inspired watching the movie "Julie/Julia" on a plane recently and decided 'I could do that too'... just not quite so ambitiously perhaps ;-)

So, what book/magazine/chef could I use as a challenge and still be happy to eat the end results - I freely admit my dislike for rich, creamy, fatty foods. I decided my challenge had to contain:

• a mixture of cuisines
• food from different courses
• something I could actually attain
• dishes I would not normally cook
• new ingredients

While I was pondering this decision wavering between many different ideas, the new Donna Hay Winter magazine arrived in the mail!

Hmmmm, this could work! I love Donna Hay recipes; they always work, they are always tasty and while using challenging ingredients and techniques are well within my abilities as a cook!

Done! Decision made - so easy in the end!

This meant the challenge was... 95 recipes in the 13 weeks of winter! I was sure I could do it!

Well it's been a ball so far

I wasn't going to blog about this - in fact I'm already a month into the challenge - but I have been itching to tell friends abroad about what I'm doing - and they have asked too ... so gals, this is it ;-)