In the words of Game of Thrones, winter is comingggggg.
And with the cold weather, comes the perfect occasion for stews and curries. And that, my friends, speaks to my comfort-carb-lovin’-self. So what better way to kick off the cold weather than to make a seafood curry?
Victor Churchill, to me, is an absolute wonderland of charcuterie and meats. I’ve previously written about my work experience there – culminating in meeting Anthony Bourdain! – and how much in awe I am of head chef Romeo Baudouin’s food philosophy. He taught me that within running a business – that is, keeping an eye on being profitable – there is space for good food and good practices. There is so much that goes into every product that he puts up into those glass cabinets, I still don’t know where he gets all the inspiration. So when Google City Experts invited me to canapés and drinks at Victor Churchill, I absolutely could not say no!
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| Source: JBloom |
There’s a new app in town: Pareup’s plan is to reduce food waste by creating a “mobile marketplace for excess food”. The idea behind it is that food retailers often throw food away at the end of each day, sometimes because of safety standards, but sometimes because they need to preserve their brand: some prepped food aren’t nearly as good the next day, and quality can diminish super quickly when food is stored overnight. But what if they could make a profit from the excess food?
Would you buy it?
Well, it’s not a foreign concept in Australia is it? Many food retailers – like those little Japanese kiosks that sell takeaway boxes of pre-made sushi, or those Asian food court stalls that sell stir fries out of a bain-marie – heavily mark down their prices at the end of the day, in a bid to clear out all the excess food that can’t be sold the next day.
Currently still in its youth, Pareup has paired up with a few bakeries and coffee shops in New York, hoping to minimise food waste. And that, is a cause that I can get behind. Read the Huffington Post Article here.
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| Photo from Dorli Photography |
With Mothers’ Day just around the corner, breakfasts in bed are the meal du jour! But hot food on an unstable surface? Excited kids jumping on the bed? Breakfast in bed can be a disaster waiting to happen. Here are 6 things to avoid when planning that perfect breakfast in bed!
1. Forget to feed everyone else
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| Photo from Stephanie Kilgast |
So you bring in a beautiful breakfast to Mom, on a hand-carved wooden tray for one. It gets placed over her lap, and she thanks everyone. She picks up a fork to begin eating…and everyone is staring at her hungrily awkwardly throughout the rest of the meal. Eating alone is not fun! Why not grab a picnic blanket and lay out breakfast for the whole family to have together?
2. Tall glassware
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| Photo from Susan Lucas Hoffman |
Maybe you want to include a Mimosa to top off the breakfast tray, or maybe you want to garnish with a long stemmed rose in a tall water glass. Either way, tall glassware filled with liquid is your worst enemy when you’re mobile. Tall glassware = high centre of gravity. If you haven’t spilled it already while bringing the tray to Mom, it will spill while she’s having breakfast. Maybe use a low-ball glass instead? There’s also no shame in a covered coffee cup.
3. Biting off more than you can chew
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| Photo from Adrian Milliner |
It’s not nice waking up to a smoke alarm going off. Don’t attempt a recipe for the first time on the morning of, with kids and pets underfoot. Not confident about making a hot meal? Yoghurt and fruit parfaits are absolutely acceptable, and something that anyone can throw together! She’ll appreciate something executed well more than an imminent disaster being created in the kitchen.
4. Give her flaky food
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| Photo from Steven Depolo |
Buttery, flaky croissants may seem like a fantastic idea for breakfast in bed, but when all the little flakes fly out all over the bed, guess who’s the one who needs to clean it up? Besides, she’s the one who’s going to sleep in the crumbs later that night. And icing sugar? Yikes.
5. Serve in cookware
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| Photo from Susy Morris |
Individual ramekins of baked eggs look beautiful, and the frittata that is baked in the cast iron pan may look like something out of a cookbook, but it’s not a good idea to have scalding hot pans and bakeware while having breakfast in bed. See reason #2.
6. Stress out about it
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| Photo from Dimitris Papazimoulis |
At the end of the day, Mom just wants to hang out and enjoy the company of her family. An easy, relaxed morning is so much more enjoyable than presenting a fabulous breakfast with a tense atmosphere.
So chill out, and feed yo’ momma! Or you know, mother of your children. I’m sure she’ll love it.
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| My Mama and me! |
Mothers do so much for us: lovingly and selflessly, and most of the time, thanklessly. And while we all know that Mum shouldn’t just be celebrated on one day of the year, we don’t always appreciate Mum as much as she deserves it. So if you’re wondering what to give the woman who has given you life and an appreciation of good food (and she already has too many mugs), here are some gift ideas that any foodie mum will appreciate.
Fulfil any foodie’s French marketing fantasy by getting her this lovely shopping basket from The Market Basket Co. for all her weekly groceries! Once she slips the soft Moroccan leather handles over her shoulder she can imagine that she’s wandering down cobblestone streets, with all her treasures from the markets. It’s like making every grocery trip a holiday! Extra points if you put a selection of gourmet food in the basket when you give it to her!
Tea Garden in a Box
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Source: Martha Stewart
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Mason Jar Cookie Mix
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| Source: Something Turquoise |
If your mom is a foodie, she probably makes the best cookies in the world. But you know what the problem with making the best cookies in the world is? That it’s not special to you because you know exactly what goes into it! Well why not give mom your special cookies: all the joy of baking, but with some of the mystery left for the joy of eating! Bonus points if you give these to her accompanied with a cellophane bag of the baked cookies for her to eat right now. Get the instructions here.
Flavoured Salts
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| Source: Country Living |
Any foodie worth their salt (heh heh) loves variety, and homemade flavoured salts are a way of combining your creativity with theirs! You’re not only providing inspiration, you’re providing the building blocks of deliciousness. And these are so easy to make, you don’t have to stop at six! Why not include variations like Vanilla salt and Bloody Mary salt? Find the instructions for these flavoured salts from Country Living here.
Hot Chocolate Truffles
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| Source: Your Cup of Cake |
As much as a food mum would enjoy a box of truffles, can you imagine how mind blowing it would be to give her hot chocolate truffles? Made with a similar method to regular truffles, these sweet morsels can be dropped into a mug of warm milk, providing an instant cup of steaming chocolatey goodness for a winter evening. Want to take it to another level? Why not gift these to her with a bottle of Irish cream! You know it would go perfectly with the ‘Best Mum in the World’ mug she got from you 5 years ago. You can find the instructions for these truffles here.
Edible Bouquet
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| Source: Maggie’s Wine |
That bouquet of flowers that you’ve ordered is pretty and nice smelling and all, but I’m sure that foodie mums would rather have something they can eat. But it doesn’t mean that it can’t be pretty! Why not gift her with a bouquet of fresh herbs – I bet you that they smell better than the flowers! Find more inspiration here.
All gifts aside, I’m sure that all your mum wants is to hang out with her favourite people: her family. So make her that cuppa, and just ask her how she’s doing. And don’t forget the rest of the year!
Have a happy Mothers’ Day you guys!
Note: Tammi from InsatiableMunchies was gifted with a shopping basket from The Market Basket Co. and Pursuit Communications.
Only one more week to go to Mothers’ Day!!!! Any celebration for women seem to involve breakfasts in bed – I know my dad and I have tried on and off over the years – and I was inspired by Cinco De Mayo (which is today! Happy Cinco de Mayo guys!) to share this mexican breakfast – Huevos Rancheros.
Winter weather puts me in the mood for noodles. There’s just something insanely comforting about soft silky noodles steeped in soup or a stew, soaking up all that beautiful flavour.
I absolutely fell in love with Tanoonmai’s Bangkok Steamed Noodles when I went the other day, but unfortunately, Chatswood isn’t right next door to me, and sometimes you gotta listen when that craving strikes!
So based on the description from the restaurant – pork and mushroom cooked in a soy based broth – I found this recipe for Moo Palo from Thai Food Master. Incredibly, this recipe works soooo well. I was a little worried at first since the broth didn’t look quite dark enough, but I’m happy to report that the longer it stews, the darker it gets, and the deeper the flavour.
After going on my first official food crawl, I have to admit that I’m hooked. There’s just something really exciting – to me anyway – about the prospect of eating a huge variety of dishes with a large group.
Which is why when Jen of I Ate My Way Through organised a dinner at Naruone for foodies, I leapt at the chance, hoping that this innocent dinner would turn into an epic food crawl.
After all, when you have foodies together in a group, who knows what will happen?
Y’all know that I absolutely LOVE testing and posting up recipes on the blog, but I’m sure it’s not as obvious that each recipe that I put up goes through hours of research, testing, a myriad of different versions, and agonising decisions regarding how it should look.
I usually start with either a craving or ingredients that I have in my kitchen, and then do tons of research to try and find interesting things to create with it. Sometimes I try out a pre-written recipe to start off with, or sometimes I start throwing things together and go from there.
Well, once in a while, a recipe just doesn’t go quite right, or just plum doesn’t work out the way you want it to!
Recently, I had bought a whole bunch of brussels sprouts on special at the green grocers, but had some left over after using them as part of a roast. So what now?
I found this nice looking idea on Gourmet Traveller – a simple salad of shaved brussels sprouts, with toasted walnuts to add depth, parmesan to add flavour, and just lemon juice to dress it. Some versions of this recipe online also had olive oil to add moisture.
So of I went, to shred those tiny cabbage-looking sprouts. I do love a good slaw, in many variations, so I was similarly excited about this particular salad. After all, in my research, there were many who described it as a more delicate cabbage-y flavour.
Well, no matter what I did, this salad was dry, and had a somewhat astringent after-quality to it. Even adding olive oil didn’t do much in terms of lubrication. The brussels sprouts themselves had a light, peppery quality to it, similar to rocket, and that went quite well with the toasted walnuts and parmesan. But I couldn’t quite get around the texture issue. Adding more lemon juice made it super sour and seemed to accentuate the dry texture, and adding more parmesan just made it worse.
In all, it was a promising recipe, but didn’t quite work out.
How about you? Have you had any disappointing recipes that you couldn’t quite figure out?
Who doesn’t love fully loaded potato anything?! Roasted potatoes gives us such a beautiful, comforting, starchy base that it just begs to be loaded up with a myriad of toppings to add to the awesomeness!
Roasted potatoes can take many forms – you can have anything from the classic cut potatoes, the funky smashed chats for maximum crispy surface areas, to the fancy looking but very simple Hasselback potatoes!