Category: Food

It’s that time of year again…

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FOOTY FINALS WEEKEND!!! You may recall that 2 years ago we watched the Grand Final between Geelong and Hawthorn at our friends place. In that post I wrote something along the lines of “St Kilda are unlikely to deliver the goods for us” and last year, I had to eat my words when I posted about the Grand Final between the Saints and Geelong. I don’t know if I ever actually mentioned that St Kilda lost the grand final last year, and it was a little devastating. Being the supporter of a team who has won every grand final they have played in (Brisbane Broncos) this was a little heartbreaking, but we were beaten by a better team on the day and we were able to get over it (eventually).

This year is a different story. St Kilda have again made it to the grand final (woo hoo!) but our opponent is Collingwood – the most hated, yet most supported team in the competition. Collingwood supporters are scary. I went to a Collingwood vs Bulldogs game this year and feared for my life – no one was safe! They abused the opposition players, the referees, the Bulldogs fans, AND their own players! AND THEY WON THAT GAME!!!!

I don’t know how I’ll cope if we lose to them, but worse still, I think there will be rioting in the streets if Collingwood lose. I’ll still be cheering the Saints on like crazy though. We’re watching the game with some friends and friends-of friends, so of course, I wanted to bring some baked goods along. I was busy last night making this recipe (with a slightly different to-die-for frosting) and, as usual, a) it took longer than I thought; b) since I don’t regularly make cupcakes, I overfilled the patties and my first batch ended up looking like mushrooms; c) I realised (again) I need a bigger mixing bowl and d) the decorating was the best part!!

Note Wifey’s “concentration tongue”… (and piping goods!!)


What?? I was obviously concentrating really hard!!!


Oh when the Saints
Go marching in
Oh when the Saints go marching in
Oh how I want to be with St Kilda
When the Saints go marching in.
GO SAINTS!!!


You can’t catch me…

/ Renae / 1 Comment

… I’m the GINGERBREAD MAN!!!

I didn’t think I liked gingerbread bikkies. I don’t really know why to be honest – maybe the bought ones are a bit too gingery for my taste. For this reason, I’ve never ventured into baking Gingerbread Men, but being married to Hubs means I often broaden my culinary horizons. Oh, and I had just bought a Gingerbread Man cookie cutter, so clearly I had to bake some!

What I didn’t realise, was the the cookie cutter I had bought was actually quite large!

And that I much prefer 3-step-recipes (mix, bake, eat). This was more an 8-step recipe – mix, stand in fridge, roll, cut, (and repeat 3 times) bake, cool, decorate, eat – which took just over 2 hours! It did however, also give me another opportunity to use my piping set that was given to me by the lovely Liza and family and any opportunity to use this set is warmly welcomed!

I tried to decorate the first tray a bit manly-like since Hubs would be eating most of them (or so I thought):

I got a bit more creative with the second tray, adding a Charlie Brown zig-zag shirt, a Superman logo (use your imagination dammit!), a muumuu and an “I(heart)U” Gingerbread Man.

We had one with a cup of tea for afternoon tea and I discovered just how much I actually LOVE home-made Gingerbread Men! Which is a shame, cos they really are a lot of effort!

Not as much effort, however, as macaroons, which I will blog about next.

One ingredient Wifey

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I get bursts of inspiration from time to time to bake or cook something a bit different, and often it will start with just 1 ingredient in my cupboard that I “want to use and not waste” so I end up buying a whole lot more ingredients just to get rid of one of them. Or I’ll find something on special at the supermarket and wonder what I could make with it and it will start from there.

Let me give you a few examples.

– I was known at College for cooking ANZAC bikkies. How did this come about? I had leftover rolled oats from making roo burgers.

– I started making my own tomato pasta sauce because one week while I was shopping for clothes on Sydney Rd, I stumbled in to Woolies and they had 2 bunches of basil for $2 and the fruit and vege shop around the corner had 1kg bags of tomatoes for $2. So I phoned Hubs and asked him to look up a recipe for me and I bought all the other ingredients. (Incidentally, $2 for a bag of tomatoes that you have to dice yourself is not worth is when you can buy a can of tomatoes for 79c). And so my pasta-sauce making began (and has continued.)

– We were visiting Hubs’ Aunt and Uncle just before we left Melbourne and 2 of Hubs’ cousins had made Macaroons and mentioned that they were filled with ganache. “Hmmmm” thought Wifey. “I have some leftover ganache from Hubs’ birthday cake. Maybe I should make some too!” So I did! But that’s another story.

– I made Gingerbread Men because I had bought myself a Gingerbread Man cookie cutter. So I actually had to buy all the ingredients for that one!

– Today I made banana muffins because Woolies had “fill a bag for $2” in the fruit and vege section (yes, I’m shopping at Woolies again – I’ll explain later) and there were ripe bananas there so I thought they would make great banana muffins (and I was right – yummmmmmmm)

– I bought 5 of the biggest lemons at the Swap Meet last weekend and I’m trying to decide what to do with them. Any ideas???

Rusky Business

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One of the things I was most looking forward to about having our own place was all the cooking and baking I was going to get to do. And it has been fabulous! I have been baking up a storm of pumpkin choc-chip muffin cookies, ANZAC bikkies, macaroons, and last weekend, rusks. Being married to a man with South African blood in him, rusks were always something that I wanted to learn how to make. So armed with a recipe from his uncle, and assistance from his Ma, I went to work.

On a side note, I had gone to a garage sale that morning and seen one of those huge ugly silver mixing bowls and thought “hmmmm…. might that come in handy? Naaaaaaaah…” As soon as I started mixing the ingredients (which included almost 2kg of dried ingredients) I was kicking myself for not buying it!!

Anyway, back to the baking. I had to mix the dry ingredients together, then the butter, sugar, eggs and buttermilk.

Note to self: need larger mixing bowl so as not to spray buttermilk mixture everywhere while mixing
Next I mixed the dry ingredients with the wet ones, using my hands and making a huge mess. FUN! Again, I had to mix in 2 bowls and then combine the 2 at the end. I lined 3 baking trays but only ended up needing the 2.
Then I pressed the raw mixture into the trays
The recipe says to bake for 50-60 minutes but after an hour I smelt the goodness and checked it out. I really should have swapped them over half-way through, cos one of them was VERY well cooked and the other wasn’t done in the middle so I had to put it back in.
Then you let them cool for an hour or so and cut them up. The next process dries them out to crunchy-goodness.
Pop them in the oven for 4 hours at 100 degrees with the oven door slightly ajar to let the moisture out (thanks Ma)
In the meantime, cook yourself an awesome omelette with your farm-fresh eggs you got for $3 a dozen from a lady at work who has her own chickens. (see the rusks cooking below?? The smell was heavenly.)
And bring them out, nice and dried, and wait impatiently for Hubs to get home and be mega-impressed!
Remember for next time: don’t have the oven open so much, to increase drying-out; use bigger bowls; buy a bigger tin (this one only fit half of them!); let them cool more before cutting them so they don’t all crumble on me; cut them into longer pieces.
I’m hoping these last us at least a couple of months, though, the way Hubs has been going through them I might be making the next batch before too long. The idea is, you make a whole bunch (I probably made about 100) so you don’t have to make them very often. It was lots of fun, but I’m not sure I’ll be lining up to make something like koeksisters any time soon. Not without the expertise of an experienced SA cook at least!! 🙂

Lunch at college

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College is quite a strange beast. You get thrown into a mix of 272 students who are undergrads, post-grads, male, female, Catholic, not Catholic, shy, smart, funny, social, silly, confident etc etc etc. At meal times, there will be certain people who you might sit with regularly, and get to know them quite well. There is generally some segregation between the Junior Common Room (under-grads) and the Senior Common Room (post-grads) but that’s more out of habit than anything sinister.

Towards the end of the semester, and over the mid-year break, the numbers dwindle to about 30 people, and often lunch and dinner will consist of only 2 or 3 full tables. This is one of the best times to be around college. The food is better (last night we had beef osso bucco and mini pavlovas) and you get to sit with people you may never have even said a word to the whole semester. And there are some characters, let me tell you.

The table that Hubs and I sat at today at lunch time was an unlikely mix of people, and I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard. We had an American, 2 Germans, a Pole, Hubs and I, a Fijian, and a Daylesfordian. We started with a joke about 3 philosophers, then covered topics ranging from “the best joke ever” (it wasn’t, but the delivery made up for it), to the Smurfs, to the best action movie about to be released (the name of which escaped the person who told us about it, but it could be this one), to peppermint tea (I had my first today and I’m so hooked), and so much in between.

It will go down as one of the best meals I’ve had at college, and seeing as how we’re leaving in 10 days time, it was a fitting way to wind down the clock.

I should have known

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As I mentioned, it was Hubs’ birthday yesterday (and still currently his “birthday week”) so I had planned to take him out to dinner here. The place had been recommended to us by a couple of people, with the main attraction of “cheap pizzas” ie $4 pizzas from 7-11pm Mon-Thurs. Hubs likes pizza, and we like being cheap, so I thought it would be a great place to go! I was expecting a dodgy little place with mix-matched couches and a casual vibe which would have been perfect, especially since I had my walking shoes on (we had walked the 1.5km from home) and was wearing jeans and a t-shirt. This is not the place that greeted us. Instead, it was this rather trendy, though still relaxed, bar and restaurant that wasn’t really “us”. We stood at the bar for about 5 minutes and looked around for a spare table, of which there were none. After not being served for a while, we had a quick discussion and decided it wasn’t really what we were hoping for, so we left.

We started walking down the street looking for something else, and I asked Hubs what he felt like. Then I mentioned the B word. Burgers. His face lit up and he looked at me in his “I’m so cute I know I can get what I want if I look at you like this and talk to you all sweet-like” way and said:

“Honeeeeeeey. You know what I’d really love? If we went home and you cooked us some roo burgers.”

I should have known.

You see, my Hubsband is a man of simple pleasures. As I’m sure I’ve mentioned, he is easy to please, but difficult to impress. This goes for most aspects of his life, but in particular, with food. Of course I was happy to oblige. So we swung by Coles and picked up some salad stuff, knowing I had the main makings of the burgers at home. And with a few mushrooms on the side, they really hit the spot. I’ve been making roo burgers for over 2 years now, and I think I’ve pretty much perfected them! Not that I like to brag or anything. We devoured the burgers and topped off a great meal with leftover cake and ice cream, while watching the last episode of The Hollowmen, and a ep of Daria.

Hubs’ take on the evening? “Best birthday dinner EVER.”

And who am I to argue?

(Someone’s looking like a tired little bunny…)

Chocolatey goodness

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Last night, I headed out to Blackburn on the east side of town, to my Chocolate Making Workshop. It was SO much fun. It delivered everything it promised, and then some. Our teacher, Sylvia, was fabulous – so knowledgeable and a lot of fun. It really was a jam-packed 4 hours, and I’m SO glad she gave us a booklet at the end with all the info we had learnt. And of course, now I want to be a chocolatier. You know, like Juliette Binoche in Chocolat (hubba hubba). Sorry. Getting side-tracked.

We started out with Sylvia explaining the history of chocolate and the cocoa bean and its composition. Then we learnt about “confectionery” as opposed to chocolate and how chocolate has to contain a certain % of cocoa bean to be classified as chocolate (i.e. Nestle White Melts are actually a confectionery as they contain 0% cocoa bean) so I’ll be keeping my eye out for the “good stuff”. I controlled myself and didn’t purchase any equipment there and then, but you can be sure that I’ll be looking into it once we move to Wang! Here are some photos from the night:

The little chocolate cups we made using oranges and the chocolate leaves (so going to try these again)
These were our little chocolates in the process. We made ones with hazelnut praline, Cointreau liqueur, caramel, lemon lime genache, and another one that I can’t remember! We also filled some truffles which were scrumptious!

This was our little work area, and the other 3 participants with Sylvia (2nd from left) our expert

The attention to detail was lovely!

And oh so very delicious! Hubs had one when I got home and loved it! I really would like to buy some basic equipment and give this a go – just for fun! I’ll add it to my wish list for when we move to Wang. Who knows? You might benefit from it one day!

Thanks for the prezzie guys – it was just brilliant   x x x x x x

I’ve chosen my own adventure!

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As I mentioned previously, my cousins and aunty and uncle gave me a red balloon voucher for my birthday in January, and I’ve finally booked something in! It wasn’t even on the voting list I blogged about! This is what I went with: (Quoted directly from the website)

Chocolate Making Workshop

Chocolate Making Workshop
What is the Experience?
This chocolate-making workshop is all about chocolate-making in a dream setting. You’ll make gorgeous hand-made chocolates in a fully equipped commercial Melbourne kitchen. Under the guidance of a professional chocolatier, you’ll be preparing ganache filling, chocolate curls, and more!
Professional foodies and chocoholics alike will simply love this beginners’ chocolate-making workshop. To begin with, Sylvia, a professional chocolatier, will talk you through the process of turning cocoa beans into a block of chocolate and give you some tasty information on the history of chocolate. Then you’ll be ready to temper the chocolate and turn it into chocolaty delights!

Correct tempering of chocolate is the key to perfectly-made delicacies. During the workshop you will work with only the highest-quality Belgian couverture chocolate, which averages over 64% cocoa. You’ll make ganache filling, choose your own flavouring, and pour into moulds that are the same as those used by the world’s top chocolatiers! You will also get to call on your creative side when making little curls and other decorations for your chocolates.

Throughout the four-hour class you’ll make a variety of chocolates and decorations – all of which you’ll get to take home with you afterwards! Everything is done to the highest professional standard and the atmosphere is all about fun.

One of the best things about this class is the size. With no more than six participants in the group you will all work together and receive all of the attention you need in order to bring out your innermost chocolaty creative flair!

This course is ideal for the chocolate-lover who wants to learn about the intricacies of chocolate appreciation and learn how to make goodies for themselves, or as gifts for others. Any professional cook or patisserie chef who wants to hone their skills in chocolate-making will also benefit greatly from this workshop. Whatever your motivation, you will walk away from this workshop knowing all about the full potential of chocolate and with a box full of chocolaty treats. This is a fun-packed four hours that you won’t forget!

Oh yeah. I’m just a bit excited. The course is in a couple of weeks so I’ll let you know how it goes. I might have to wear my stretchy pants! Tee hee!!