Christmas M & B style - a recap

So it's been a while huh? Quite a long while to be (non) specific! Thanks for still checking in and reading and cooking though. Hope you all had a lovely Christmas and are enjoying some time off with friends and family. We had our usual family lunch and present exchange on Christmas day. It's mayhem now with all the kids being ages 1 to 11, but of course, where kids and Christmas are paired, it is absolute gorgeously fun mayhem.

To get back on track before the new year, we thought we would have kind of a Christmas recap. For this post I'll share some pictures from our family Christmas lunch. No recipes, just food. Glorious food (that said, if you must have some recipes, please ask and we will see what we can do!). M will also be posting some Christmas treat recipes she prepared over the last few weeks.

Our family are chronic over-caterer's as you will see, a total first-world problem I realise, but it's kind of all part and parcel of celebrating Christmas for us. It's a a time when we are all reflecting on being thankful for what we have and for our loved ones and celebrating the year with them. So with that in mind, I present Christmas Day, Maude and Betty-style!

 

Maude made a delicious chunky guacamole, despite her distaste for avocado and tomato. It was served with corn tortillas that had been shallow fried and dusted with smoked paprika. 

 

Maude also made a delicious and refreshing watermelon fruit punch.

 

There was the usual potato salad, but this time with a spicy hommus twist!

 

Right on-trend, quinoa made the cut for the menu this year. This was a white quinoa and roast vegetable and feta salad with a lemon and mint dressing.

 

Turkey and stuffing. Need I say more?

 

A garden salad with prosciutto, eggs and parmesan. We're a bit of a Caeser salad loving group.

 

A gingerbread house was also constructed by Maude and her cherubs (apologies for the blurry pic!)

 

A chocolate and ginger ice-cream tart made the dessert menu.

 

Donna Hay's trifle cake also made the menu

 

Of course, is any good old Aussie family Christmas day complete without an actual trifle?

 

And last but not least, that gingerbread house again. Poor gingerbread man!

 

Season's Greetings! B x

Lemon, lime and yoghurt cake

I've got a bit of a thing for yoghurt at the moment. Greek-style only please. I start my day with a dollop on top of some muesli and add a drizzle of honey. Sometimes I end my day with a garlic loaded dollop on a lamb wrap, but that's just how I roll with yoghurt.

On this particular day, I was out of butter and craving home made cake with a dollop of said yoghurt on the side. I recalled making other cakes using oil as the fat element and had plenty of olive oil on hand. This recipe was inspired and adapted from one of my favourite blogs to stalk - Smitten Kitchen (www.smittenkitchen.com). And on a side note, if you haven't already, check this site out - Deb has some amazing recipes and drool-worthy photography. I've spent hours on there getting hungry and I believe she has her own book coming out soon (another one to add to the collection hey M?).

Anyway, back to the cake. So I was inspired by Smitten Kitchen's Blood Orange Olive Oil cake. Olive oil, greek yoghurt and basic cakey type ingredients all lend themselves to our various citrus friends. I had on hand one lemon and one lime and a whole lot of yoghurt and oil. Unlike the blood orange cake recipe, I did not add any of the actual fruit segments to the mix as I thought lemon and lime segments may be a little bitter to come across, and the yoghurt and extra virgin olive oil lend their own tang to the taste. I added some vanilla bean paste because as well as caramel, vanilla is another obsession of mine (makes sense - they're close flavour relations right?).

I probably had the oven up too high (I've adjusted the recipe for you all) as you'll see the finished product is a little browner than I'd have liked, but the olive oil and yoghurt stopped this little beauty from drying out. The cake wasn't crumbly but had a delicious almost crunchy edge when freshly baked with a soft texture inside. It definitely satisfied this craving and was lovely with just a sprinkle of icing sugar and a simple dollop of plain yoghurt.

Lemon, lime and yoghurt cake (adapted from Smitten Kitchen's Blood Orange Olive Oil cake)

You will need:

1 cup of plain flour
3/4 cup of self-raising flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup caster sugar
3 eggs
3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil (extra virgin tastes good, but regular should do the trick)
zest and juice of 1 lime
zest and juice of 1 lemon
2/3 cup of plain yoghurt (I recommend greek-style)
1 teaspoon of vanilla bean paste (optional)

1. Pre-heat oven to 170 degrees celsius
2. Grease a cake tin with some olive oil (I used a rather large bundt tin - but you could use a loaf or round or whatever!)
3. In a large bowl, mix the zest and sugar with your hands until combined and really zestily fragrant

4. Mix the juice of the lemon and the lime with the yoghurt in another bowl.

5. Add the 3 eggs, the olive oil and vanilla bean paste to the yoghurt and juice mixture and whisk until combined. 

6. Add your other dry ingredients to the sugar and zest mixture in the other bowl. You will now have a bowl of wet ingredients and a bowl of dry ingredients. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ones and mix until just combined. Don't go crazy on the mixing.

7. Pour your combined mix into the prepared cake tin and pop into the oven for around 40-45 mins. Test with a skewer as usual to see if done.

8. Allow the cake to cool a bit before removing from the tin.

9. Sprinkle icing sugar over the top once cool. Enjoy with a dollop of yoghurt!

 

If you're feeling cheffy or fancy, make yourself a lime syrup and pour this over before serving. I'm not cheffy or fancy (sorry M!) so there is no syrup here!  

Enjoy! B x

Crunchy olive and rosemary polenta fingers with aioli

Polenta has eluded my cooking repertoire for some time now. Just the word sounded foreign and difficult (without the knowledge of how easy it is) and it was never the first thing I turned to as a partner for say, lamb shanks or another comforting meaty dish. Let me say, polenta is really easy to prepare and pairs with many dishes. For this recipe however, the polenta is the star of the show.

Once again Donna Hay's simple styling and photography got to me. I was flipping through her book Seasons and came across these crunchy little beauties. I was in the midst of planning a big elaborate stay-at-home romantic dinner for two, when Mr B announces that instead he's off to the footy.

'Is that ok?', he asks, obviously expecting me to be upset.

'Yeah, just fine.....', I trail off, thinking of the glorious time alone on the couch I would have with a bowl of these with the aioli and maybe a cheesy romantic comedy.

I added a teensy bit of finely chopped rosemary to the mixture before cooling, as when I tasted the olive and polenta mix hot, I thought it was just a wee bit bland for my taste. I also added a large pinch of sea salt. All in all, they were ok. Just ok. I think they needed some cheese as I still found them a little bland once cooked. They went well with the aioli however! (That said - I haven't met many 'fingers' or 'chips' that don't get on well with aioli!).

Crunchy Olive Polenta Fingers with Aioli
(Adapted from Donna Hay's 'Season' book - p244)

Polenta Fingers
3 cups chicken stock (I used Moredough)
50g butter
1 cup instant polenta
1/3 cup chopped Kalamata olives
2/3 cup instant polenta, extra for dusting
1/3 cup rosemary leaves
sea salt

Preheat oven to 200 degrees celsius. Place the stock and butter in a medium saucepan over high heat and bring to the boil.

Reduce the heat to medium and gradually add the polenta. Cook, stirring, for 2 minutes until thickened. 

 

Remove from the heat and stir in the olives. 

As you can I added a small amount of finely chopped rosemary. Here is where I would add some cheese next time also!

Spoon the mixture into a well greased 1.5L capacity ceramic dish (28cm x 16cm - or thereabouts), and allow to cool completely. 

 Turn the polenta out onto a flat surface, lightly dusted with the extra polenta, and cut into pieces.

Place the polenta fingers and rosemary (I forgot the rosemary here!!!) onto a lightly greased baking tray and bake for 25 minutes or until crunchy. I was in a bit of a hurry for some reason and got them out a little bit early. They were crunchy but next time I'd do them for 30 minutes or more I think. 

Sprinkle with sea salt and serve with the aioli.

Aioli
4 egg yolks
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
1 clove garlic crushed
2 tbsp lemon juice

2 cups olive oil

Place the egg yolks, vinegar, garlic and lemon juice in the bowl of a food processor and process until combined.

Gradually pour in the oil in a steady stream (I did mine in batches in this smaller 'whiz' - couldn't be bothered getting my big processor out! Lazy much?) while the motor is running and process until the mayonaise is thick and smooth.

Enjoy lovelies!

Bx

Sydney food highlights and Zumbo macarons

Recently Mr B and I made a quick trip to Sydney. I didn't take many photos of all the glorious food we ate (too busy eating it!), but here are some food highlights:

Ms G.'s - Potts Point http://www.merivale.com/#/msgs/msgs

Coming from the Merivale crowd, you'd expect nothing but the beautiful people. It's also located in a funky renovated terrace smack bang behind the heart of  Kingscross. Be prepared to wait for a table. We amused ourselves with cocktails in the bar upstairs (drank out of bubble tea cups) until they called us for the table. Ms G.'s has been blogged and loved by many but highlights for me, OJ and Brades included:

Mini bahn mi: chicken katsu mini burgers - we could have dropped anchor on them and ate 20 - so good!
Jow's sweet and sour lamb ribs: finger lickn' good! Crispy skin with tender soft lamby goodness
Stoner's Delight: two words - doughnut ice-cream. Yep, tastes just like a doughnut. Awesome.

Bill's - Woollahra http://www.bills.com.au/

It was a solo breakfast for me without Mr B. I found myself in Woollahra with more of the fabulous people, waiting patiently for the Donna Hay General Store to open at 10am. It was a 'quiet' Friday morning service apparently, but with only 3 or so tables free, I saw nothing quiet about this. That said, staff were efficient, friendly and the food was quality as always. I wasn't keen on a big cooked breakfast as I knew where I was going later (Zumbo!) so I opted for the 5 grain porridge with stewed fruit and brown sugar, along with house blended chai tea made on soy milk (the only way!). The serving of porridge was HUGE - it would have fed four people, so I barely scraped the top and ate the fruit. It was lovely and the chai came with a little glass of warmed honey, just the way I like it.

Spice Temple - Sydney http://www.rockpool.com.au/sydney/spice-temple/

Last visit, Mr B and I ate upstairs from the Spice Temple in Neil Perry's other restaurant in the area, the Rockpool Bar and Grill. While going upstairs to Rockpool B & G, I saw a door with a strange video screen on it. This time we decided to find out what was behind the video door. We had an early booking (6pm) as that was all that was left a week out from the day we wanted to eat. We arrived and were seated at the bar until the restaurant floor opened. We had some drinks and some spiced popcorn and then were shown our seats, right by the much talked about portraits of beautiful Asian women. The interior is incredibly dark and sexy at dinner time and we did notice the cool soundtrack, apparently mixed especially by a DJ (no iPod mix 'tapes' here!). The highlights here for us:

The non-alcoholic soda's: Surprisingly these were amazing. I'm still dreaming of the refreshing apple and jasmine soda. Fresh apple juice blended with delicate jasmine tea with a hint of cucumber. I also tried the lavender and mint soda and the lemongrass and rose. All go well with the spicier dishes.
Steamed eggplant with three flavours: this was sweet and salty and a great start to the meal.
Stir fried cumin lamb with steamed bread pockets: The steamed bread pockets were very curious but extremely tasty. They reminded me of a more sturdy dough used for BBQ pork buns, in a rectangular shape with an opening to stuff them full of the tasty lamb stir fry. Thankfully the chef's cut the meat small so you can get more lamb in the pockets!

Hugo's - Manly Wharf  http://www.hugos.com.au/

It wasn't our intention to end up at Hugo's when we decided to go to Manly for the day. The quintessential Manly setting where Hugo's is situated however (water, Manly ferry etc) sold us. We were lucky to get in for Sunday lunch, competing with lots of larger groups of families and friends having a lazy Sunday lunch. We settled on a simple pepperoni pizza and a pear, parmesan and rocket salad (I may have eaten Ben and Jerry's before this meal!). If you do make the trip to Manly, call ahead to Hugo's for a booking, it is totally worth the view, the food and the atmosphere.

Zumbo

Last but not least, let me share these little gleaming Zumbo jewels with you. I decided to buy one of each of the flavours on sale on the day (I visited the Rozelle store). The lady who served me asked "Are these for tonight? Do you want to write the flavours down so you can tell everyone?". I of course agreed, but did not let on that the 'everyone' she thought they were for was just Mr B and I. Yep, we ate the lot. I ate three before I'd driven away from the shop so alas for Mr B, he only got to taste 9 of the flavours.

One word: SENSATIONAL!



Can you tell I took this in the car before eating the three? :-)

The flavours from bottom to top:

Musk
Salted Butter Caramel
Chocolate
Choc-Orange
Pancakes with Maple Syrup (My absolute favourite! So good!)
Peach and Lime
Blackberry
Passionfruit
Banana
Lime and Pineapple
Raspberry and Licorice
Honey, Apricot and Yoghurt

Enjoy!

Bx

Salads for sharing with friends

I rarely read fiction novels at bed time, unless I'm madly trying to catch up on uni readings so my usual bed time reading is a cookbook. 30-Minute Meals has been a favourite bed time read of late, but I haven't made anything out of it yet (all in good time my friends!). Amongst my group of friends, some of us have a bit of an obsession with this cook book, but again I don't think any of us had made anything out of it yet. Until now.

My good friend Rack of Lamb (yes, that is her nick name), actually took the leap and recently made some of Jamie's salads for a gathering of friends she hosted. It was a laid back affair, drinks on the deck, shared finger food, some Singstar and just generally a few laughs.

We had some sourdough and dips, mini-pies and a few other nibblies to kick off the afternoon on Rack of Lamb and Mr Rack of Lamb's deck.

Our lovely host then dropped some 30-Minute Meal goodies on us. First up was smoked salmon with creamed horseradish and cress (p160 of the book). The combination of the smokey fish with the tangy horseradish was perfect. We all tucked in using our fingers to roll up some salmon and swipe it through the sauce. 

Next up was a prosciutto and melon salad (p26 of the book). This had a lemon and balsamic vinegar dressing along with some torn basil. Again we were able to use our fingers to roll a strip of salty prosciutto around the sweet and tangy dressed melon mixture.

The third salad Rack made was not one I would have immediately picked out of any book, but I will now certainly be making myself. This Sweet and Sour Cucumber actually comes from Nigella Lawson's book Nigella Express (p122). It actually went well with the smoked salmon having a strong dill flavour paired with the sweet and sour pickling juice. We used fingers, but you could certainly have made a little meal on a plate with the cucumber, salmon and some of the sourdough bread.

The shared salad feast prepared by Rack of Lamb (well done Rack - it was a beautiful spread!):

Lastly, I couldn't share Rack of Lamb's feast without also sharing these little sweeties. These guys are Rack's 'babies' - Mischa and Lola. Brother and sister Burmese cats. Mostly they slept while we feasted, but when they were awake they hung out with us like little people. You can tell I was very rude and interrupted their sleep from these photos (sorry guys!).

Enjoy!

B xx

Ricardoe's Tomatoes, Port Macquarie and a simple Bill Granger tomato salad

Recently on a road trip to Sydney, Mr B and I stopped in at Ricardoe's Tomatoes (http://www.ricardoes.com/) - just outside of Port Macquarie. By the way Port Macquarie was a beautiful town itself, well worth a stop in overnight (or more!) like we did. Found some lovely little restaurants and with the water as a backdrop, it was a perfect way to spend a stopover on the drive between Brisbane and Sydney.

Anyway, I digress! Ricardoe's grow hydroponic tomatoes and strawberries - with what seems like acres of distinct tall strawberry 'walls' designed for easy picking. So easy that they invite you to do this yourself and well, we didn't mind if we did! You are given some little scissors to assist in the picking and don't damage their plants too much. So off we went and what a haul!! Two big bags full of luscious red strawberries (the strawberries you see on the M and B blog are Ricardoe's!).

I guess it would also seems strange if we visited a farm known for tomatoes and not get anything remotely tomato-ey. We tasted some delicious home made spreads and returned home with their Green Tomato Pickles and Tomato Relish. Both very tasty on sandwiches, roast meats and with cheese. The Green Pickles a little more tangy and less sweet than the Relish.

I also scored two bags of the little gems below - cherry tomatoes just bursting with flavour and just begging for basil and olive oil. So what did I do? Went in search of a zinging salad to make the most of these little babies. Bill Granger came to my rescue with his Tomato Salad with Burrata and Basil Oil - straight from his beautiful book Bill's Basics. It's light, fresh and super easy to make - the stars are the tomatoes though, so use the best you can find.

Bill Granger's Tomato Salad with Burrata and Basil Oil
(from Bill's Basics p98)

2 slices of good bread (I used some olive sourdough from Banneton Bakery, Balaclava St - the Gabba), torn into small pieces
Extra virgin olive oil
1 garlic clove, crushed
300g ripe tomatoes, cut into small wedges (or in the case of the cherry tom's - halved)
basil oil (recipe follows)
125g ball burrata or mozzarella cheese (I used bocconcini)

Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Lay the bread pieces on a baking tray, drizzle with olive oil and scatter with crushed garlic. Season with sea salt and ground pepper and bake for 15 minutes until golden brown.

Arrange tomatoes on a serving platter. Season with sea salt and pepper, drizzle with the basil oil and top with torn burrata (or mozzarella) and the toasted bread. Scatter with basil leaves to serve. (serves 4 or 2 hungry people like Mr and Mrs B!).

Basil Oil
Handful of basil leaves
1/3 cup of extra virgin olive oil

Blanch the basil leaves in boiling water for 10 seconds and then rinse under cold running water. Drain and squeeze as dry as you can. Pulse in a blender or processor with the pil and a pinch of sea salt until well mixed.

Finished salad with bread and torn basil leaves

Enjoy!

Bxx

Well hello there!

Well hello out there! Welcome to Maude and Betty. We're sisters from Brisbane, Australia. We love cooking, food, life and all sorts of things in between. We'll take it in turn to post different things - B loves eating food and M loves cooking food! Having said that, I'm Betty and my first post is about a cake I made from Belinda Jeffrey's Mix and Bake - a baking bible in both my and M's kitchens. Talk about baking porn - this book is amazing. It is a mixture of simple country style baking (think scones, soda bread), to sophisticated cakes like a delicious mocha cake decorated with shards of coffee bean brittle.

The cake I made is the chocolate and coffee crumble cake. Belinda says this cake was a kind of experiment - if only my kitchen experiements all turned out this way. It was delicious and moist - not too coffee-ish for those not liking strong coffee flavour. The only problem was we ate it too warm and it crumbled everywhere (that's our own greedy fault!).

Enjoy!

B xx

Chocolate and coffee crumble cake
(from Belinda Jeffrey's Mix and Bake, p26)

1 1/2 cups water

1 cup raisins

250g unsalted butter, roughly chopped

1 cup castor sugar

1 tsp group cinnamon

3 heaped tsp Dutch-processed cocoa

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp bicarb soda

1/4 cup boiling water

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

2 cups plain flour, sifted

140g good-quality dark chocolate, chopped into small chunks

Coffee Crumble

1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar (I used dark as always - love that dark caramel flavour)

1/2 cup roasted pecans or walnuts (I used pecans - again, as usual - am addicted to pecans)

2 tsp Dutch processed cocoa

1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp instant coffee powder

40g dark chocolate roughly chopped

1. Put the water, raisins, butter, sugar, cinnamon, cocoa and salt into a large saucepan. Sit over high heat and bring mixture to boil, stirring the whole time. When the mixture boils, reduce heat to low and simmer for 5 mins, then remove from heat and leave to cool. Meanwhile, dissolve bicarb of soda in the boiling water and let cool.

2. Preheat oven to 180 degress celsius. Butter and flour a medium sized kugelhopf tin and set aside.

3. While both mixtures are cooling, make the coffee crumble. Combine all the crumble ingredients in the food processor and pulse until the nuts and chocolate are quite finely chopped, then set aside.

4. When the raisin and cocoa mix is cool, stir the vanilla extract and bicarb and water mix into the saucepan. Mix in all flour, except for a couple of teaspoons. Toss the chunks of chocolate in the reserved flour, then stir them into the batter (the coating of flour will help the choco from sinking to the bottom). Spoon under one third of the batter into the tin and smooth out. Sprinkle one-third of the crumble evenly over the top and gently press it down into the batter. Spread another third of the batter over the 1st crumble layer. Sprinkle with remaining crumble mix and press down. Dot the remaining cake mix on top and spreak evenly.

5. Bake for 50-55mins. Cool the cake in the tin or on a rack for 15 mins. Carefully loosen cake and invert onto a rack and leave to cool.

6. Make a ganache or runny chocolate icing of your choice - when the cake is cook, spoon over the cake.

Thanks Belinda Jeffery! x