james test

This pudding and I have had a rocky relationship. It wasn't love at first sight, though there was undeniably an attraction there when I first spied the recipe in a weekend newspaper. The first date, only a few weeks later, was definitely a success; I even presented him to my Dad and brother after dinner. Then the seasons shifted, time passed, and I moved to a new city. When winter arrived I tried to dress my recipe up in more sophisticated ramekins, which was a complete disaster . (You know what they say about men and baking recipes - don't try to change them.) Dishes were thrown, things were said - we clearly needed another break from each other. With winter returning again I wanted to find out if this pudding and I could become 'just good friends'. I set about recreating the comfortable environment of our first meeting. Grind, grate, beat, fold: everything seemed to be running smoothly and I started to relax. Then I'd just put the pudding into the oven whe...

Orange, coffee, mint, fruit and nuts: these are the flavours I'm accustomed to pairing with chocolate. But what about beetroot? It seemed like a match made in purgatory when I first heard it. Yet I was impressed by the agreeable earthy flavour once I sunk my teeth into that dark, moist chocolate and beetroot cake about 12 years ago. I was in high school and it had been baked by my friend's older sister - the cake probably contributed some way to my image of her as cool, alternative, and galaxies away from my closeted life. Not being much of a cook at the time, I wasn't curious to try my own hand at it. It's only since I've been blogging that I've started collecting recipes that pair chocolate with beetroot. And here's my first trial of the odd couple at home, a recipe for brownies that recently appeared in Karen Martini's section of the Age 's Sunday Life magazine. I baked them for the occasion of another guest speaker at work, and I was a ...

The soy bombs are back. This time we ate them with salad and satay sauce. Since the tofu balls are quite rich, I elected to toss the salad lightly with the sauce and leave the balls dry. We took this sauce recipe from the weekend Australian magazine quite a few years ago (the date has since disappeared from the cutting). In our first year as vegetarians we frequently teamed it with stir-fried veges, diced faux-chicken from the Asian supermarket, and rice. I think it later fell out of favour after one particularly watery and bland rendition. But as long as you keep the water levels in check (veges often contribute moisture if they cook in the sauce), it's actually quite tasty. Perhaps a few trials are in order to adjust the flavour balance to your personal taste, but all the important ingredients should be there. Satay Sauce 2 tablespoons vege oil half an onion, finely chopped 2 cloves garlic, minced 1 teaspoon fresh ginger, grated 1-2 red chillies, finely chopped 1 tablespoo...

Naturally I was in charge of dessert for our picnic , and I took my inspiration from the Age newspaper that was delivered to our flat that very morning. Inside the vacuous Sunday Life magazine was Karen Martini's free-form apple and peach tart. I was keen on enjoying some stone fruits and the weather was mercifully cool enough to crank up the oven in the early afternoon. But I didn't want the temptation of a pie in our fridge all week so I decided to halve the recipe. This decision caused a minor problem that I didn't anticipate but enjoyed modelling mathematically later. The problem is that volume (the quantity of pastry dough) and area (the size of the rolled-out pastry circle) change at different rates. A half-quantity of pastry, if rolled out to the same thickness as the original, doesn't have half the diameter of the original, it has 70% the diameter of the original. Therefore you don't necessarily want to halve the quantity of fruit. As it happens I bo...

Zucchini #2 was transformed into Ceviz 's lemon zucchini in olive oil , a good side for spanakopita (which included most of the eggs received with the zucchinis). It's a bugger using the oven in this weather but the large batches do well at room temperature, stretched over a few days.

Friday, a week after my wisdom tooth removal, gave the first signs that I should pursue a more toothsome diet. I slowly and carefully ate dinner at the Fitz Curry Cafe, concentrating on the rice and sauce and trying not to look too longingly at the pappadums and naan. Soulfood 's French toast was enjoyed with more gusto on Saturday, though I set the stinging acidic pineapple to the side of my plate and happily tolerated a bit of jaw soreness afterwards. For dinner I was keen to get back into the kitchen and create something a bit gentler, but also something with substance. So I pulled out this recipe for a Middle Eastern tagine, taken from a 2006 copy of the Weekend Australian magazine and written by Nadine Abensur . We made it once before, in Brisbane, to try out our friend Camielle's exotic new tagine . In the absence of a tagine, this recipe is just a easily created with a large saucepan or casserole dish but the result isn't nearly as pretty as the magazine photo...

With Emma and Simon coming over to enjoy our hospitality, I decided to make use of my European inspiration and crank out a Hungarian inspired meal. Having had at least three shots at the potato pancake and mushroom paprikash at Vegetarium , I figured I was experienced enough to have a crack at my own version. Luckily, Cindy had already tracked down a mushroom paprikash recipe , and the weekend papers had a nice-looking potato pancake with pickled beetroot recipe that sounded like the perfect accompaniment. Unfortunately, I think I threw the recipe away by mistake, so the following will be the product of my fading memory. The paprikash was a lot spicier using hot, Hungarian paprika (an interesting spice - not one that leaves a burning on your lips, but one that gets you in the back of the throat), and I think I preferred it without the seitan. The pancakes were a divine accompaniment (as I suspected following my Budapest experiences) and the beets (which I was sceptical about) were ...

This is my adaptation of Healthy Fried Rice, a recipe from delicious magazine. I think I bought a copy in an airport a couple of years ago. Unusually this recipe uses brown rice, which makes it a more nutritious and satisfying meal on its own. Fried Rice (adapted from delicious magazine) serves 4 2 cups brown rice 2 eggs a splash of milk 2+ tablespoons sesame oil 4 shallots, chopped 1 large carrot, chopped into matchsticks 1 capsicum, chopped into strips 2 cups bok choy, chopped 2 tablespoons soy sauce 1/2 cup cashews Cook the brown rice and cool it. If you get the chance, put it in the fridge for a couple of hours before using it, even cook it the night before if you're well prepared. Beat the eggs and milk in a bowl. Heat a bit of the sesame oil in a wok. (If you haven't tried sesame oil before, give it a go, it adds fantastic flavour to Asian dishes.) Pour in the egg mix and swish the pan around to make a large thin disc of egg. When the pan side is cooked, flip it o...

This weekend my Dad and his wife Anne have flown down from Brisbane, and on Saturday they came over to check out our flat for the first time and have some lunch. Michael and I have hit upon a winning combination in spanakopita and ratatouille. They're easy to prepare, although it takes a while, and they're guaranteed to generate lots of leftovers that are equally enjoyable reheated or at room temperature, teamed up again or served separately with other things. Michael chopped and stirred for a couple of hours on Friday night, making a half-batch of this ratatouille recipe . I like to keep cooking this until the veges are disintegrating into each other, but I think they're meant to be a bit separate and discernable, really. Makes a pretty good side for meat pies , and would also be well matched with buttered crusty bread or couscous. I got the spanakopita recipe from the only women's magazine I've ever respected in the morning, Bust . It has a great section in w...

On Sunday night we entertained some fellow Queensland transplants with homemade pizza. Mike and Marissa were fellow maths/ecology students at UQ, also now at the University of Melbourne. Mike’s girlfriend, Jo-Lyn, contributed beer, red wine, sharp conversation and steered us away from too much geek-talk. I started making the pizza bases a few hours before their arrival. My favourite recipe uses dry yeast and requires an hour or two of resting, so you really need an afternoon at home to flit between dough-making and other activities. On weeknights we usually go for wholemeal pita bread instead unless I’m ‘working from home’. This recipe is adapted from one that appeared in the Australian Magazine last year. The base is quite thin and crisp, but using wholemeal flour gives a bit of substance as well as nutritional value. Pizza Dough makes 2 pizzas Ingredients: 1 packet (7g) dry yeast 1 cup warm water 3 cups bread flour salt ¼ cup olive oil extra flour Combine the yeast and water in...

We arranged to have Carol over for dinner on this night, to thank her for her generosity during our first couple of weeks in Melbourne. During our time in her house, we noticed her smallish appetite and addiction to avocado and crackers before dinner. Thus we decided to prepare a few rounds of nibbly food instead of an elaborate main meal. During the day Michael made pesto and dukkah in his prized mortar and pestle. (Dukkah is a Middle Eastern spice mix, best mopped up using toasted Turkish bread dipped in olive oil.) (The recipes are included at the end of the post.) Carol arrived with the un-yuppie contributions of Cheezels and Snack chocolate, and I demolished about two thirds of the Cheezels before I even looked at Michael’s earthy gourmet creations. (Despite the overall tone of this blog, I’m not much of a food snob. My most craved food is probably chips.) Our after-thought of a main course was an encore performance of the marinated tofu, this time with ginger in the marina...