Birthday Lunch

Although I have been cooking a lot - I just never seemed to have enough hours in the day to share the pictures with you all.

I have been reading a lot of the DELICIOUS magazine - the instagram feed is here

Today we had a menu which had several courses

1. Proscuitto wrapped figs with Balsamic glaze
2. tomato consumme with roasted vine tomatoes and a parmesan crisp
3. spicy prawns with a citrus mayonnaise and lime
4. Soy and maple syrup, ginger and garlic marinated salmon with cucumber, chilli, tomato, capsicum and picked ginger salad
5. Roast pork with pickled Kohlrabi, red cabbage and a delicious mustard and malt sauce
6. Lemon Sorbet
7. Slow cooked beef with potato gratin, parsnip and parsley puree with pickled enoki mushrooms
8. Lemon parfait cake with chocolate and raspberries

Long time no post

It's been ages ... Not that I haven been cooking

We had a huge birthday lunch for my brother - I will post separate pictures later

Yesterday we had a low key cooking day - it included home made olive bread, banana cake with cream cheese frosting, dinner was roast pork with roast apples, sweet potato, potatoes and a kale, apple and pinenut salad - all was delicious !!!

So what's on the menu tonight - lamb cutlets, peas, polenta fingers ( made to look a bit like chips) and a green salad

Thinking a self saucing chocolate pudding if princess is good and I get some time in the kitchen


Enjoy your Sunday

N

Sweet sour prawns

I just surprised myself - always thought these little delicious pockets of pleasure where beyond my culinary abilities

Batter -
1 cup flour
1 cup water
1 egg
Salt and pepper

Sauce
1 capsicum- chopped
1 cucumber - chopped
2 tomatoes - chopped
1 brown onion - chopped
3 cloves of garlic - chopped
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons oyster sauce
1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 tablespoons white vinegar

Optional if you want the sauce thick 1 -2 tablespoons corn flour with water to slightly dilute prior to adding

Prawns
About 350 gr prawns

Directions Prawns
To make the prawns make the batter ( its on to be lumpy) then put prawns in and straight into hot oil - they need to deep Fry

Deep fry till light brown and crispy

Directions sauce
Fry onions and garlic in a little oil
Add capsicum, and cucumber, dry these a little then add tomato and prawns

Add sugar, vinegar, soy, oyster Sauce

Let heat up - add corn flour and water if thickening

Serve with steamed rice

HORSE-RACING CAKE

This weeks cake brief was something horse-racing. I am not really great at figurines nor drawing.. and this was to be a challenge.

Originally I wanted the easy way out and thought I would just buy some pre-made horses either at the $2 shop or maybe even at the cake shop - but I was out of luck - they didn't have them.. not even cheap horses from cowboys and Indians (what happened to those toys we had as kids)

Anyway so the challenge began of drawing and shaping horses including using a very thing fondant sheet (yes pre-made) but a major challenge to draw a horse and cut it out.

Here are the pics.

Lower cake - chocolate sponge with vanilla butter cream

Top cake - vanilla sponge with chocolate butter cream

Princess thought these were donkeys....

the finished cake.. minus one horse

finished cake

Saturday night dinner

I decided to get a little creative

First course

Freshly shucked oysters with lemon and a bloody Mary shot in a salt rimmed glass

Second course
Thinly sliced tuna sashimi with a home-made wasabi mayonnaise, soy, pickled ginger and seaweed crunch

Main

Beef served with beetroot purée, roast potatoes and carrot straw

Dessert
Orange Macarons with a caramelized orange centre

Backpack Cake

When only the best will do for our little princess... we had a full birthday event for her second birthday - call it OVERKILL!!!

Including a Jumping castle, face-painter, Dora themed goodie bags and of course a backpack cake.

Other bits and pieces

Macarons - these are still may favourite thing to make - they are fun, nice and lets face it there is something a bit special about them....

Also there is nothing nicer than tea in a beautiful cup
Thanks to my MIL for the lovely cup for my birthday