Phew!

Last week was a bit crazy for me. We moved house; I started supplying cupcakes to my local cafe; and I had an important deadline at work. Amazingly, all three turned out very well. The move was quick and painless, and much helped by the lovely Bear and Pirate, who drugged themselves to the eyeballs and endured dust and cats for the day. A week later we were in, unpacked and celebrating with a housewarming party.

The cupcakes were a great hit. They sold out within the day and I've arranged to supply the cafe with a batch twice a week. In the meantime they will use other caterers for cakes. I'm thrilled because it means I can continue to bake for them but at a manageable level. I'm loving all the piping work and playing around with all things sugar craft.

And the work thing went well too. I've been doing some knowledge management consultancy work with a client we're trying to develop our relationship with. Last week I presented my findings and recommendations, which they loved. They've asked me to present to their global legal board next week, so my Partner is feeling pretty pleased with me right about now, which is always nice.

All in all it's been a big week!

Valentine's day

We've never really subscribed to Valentine's day celebrations. I don't know what changed my mind on that, but I think the idea that we might do something this year cemented around about the time a couple of engineering friends asked if we wanted to have a quick beer after work on Thursday.

So, the menu:

Entree Steamed asparagus with poached egg, truffle oil and shaved parmesan
Main Roasted sweet potato, garlic and goat's cheese individual pies

Rocket, walnut and apple salad
Dessert Cointreau souffle with raspberry sauce

Raspberry sorbet

Friday I'll be going to the gym!

Mmmmm

Last night our neighbours introduced us to the delights of rachlette. Who would have thought cheese, potatoes and pickles would taste so good? These happy discoveries are doing nothing for my vague intentions of having a lower fat diet.

A delightful weekend

Our greatly expanded household braved the M25 on Saturday and ventured down to Hastings and Brighton to see the sights and, more particularly the seafood and wine festival. Despite Vaughn's amazing ability to hear 'turn right' regardless of the instruction, we made it down to Hastings in time for morning tea, or morning scallop in my case and explored the festival, sampling heavily along the way before working it off on the trek up the hill to Hastings Castle. Not surprisingly, given its location (Battle of Hastings, 1066 and all that), it was the first Norman castle in England, though much of it has been lost to the sea and a particular king (no prizes for guessing who) who ordered the wanton destruction of Churches around the country. Still, it was a lovely site and the view was spectacular.

We then ventured over the Brighton via Eastbourne and the South Downs Way, which was as lovely as I'd hoped and sufficiently hilly to make me a little glad I got the flu when I was supposed to ride it. We enjoyed our second trip to Brighton just as much as we enjoyed the first almost a year ago, walking around the town and along the pebbly beach. Everything and everyone seemed so much more relaxed than in London and I find the feeling of the place not dissimilar to some areas of Australia - Brighton has rather a hippy reputation. We arrived home exhausted but really pleased to have gone.

And as if that weren't enough to make my weekend Vaughn and I went to lunch yesterday at the Petersham Nurseries in south west London. It was our first time driving through London (as opposed to heading straight out of London which is very easy from our place). Suffice it to say the drive was not the highlight of the day. The 14 mile drive took very close to 2 hours - drive five metres, stop; drive five metres, stop. But it was all worthwhile when we finally arrived. The setting was absolutely beautiful - lots of mismatching wooden tables and chairs with plants all around, attentive staff, wonderful food and wine and a very pleasant atmosphere. Having sneaked a look at the dessert menu, I opted to go straight for mains so I'd have room for pud. The whole menu looked fantastic, but it was an easy choice for me. I simply had to order the roast pigeon. It came out succulent and rich with lovely crispy skin and lots of herbs. I almost cried it was so good. Vaughn's meal was also excellent - a chicory gratin, slightly tangy with a great consistency. Not suprisingly I preferred the pigeon, but it was a lovely change to have interesting vego choices on the menu and not just the usual mushroom risotto or pasta. For dessert we shared a hazlenut ice cream with roasted figs and a sheeps milk ricotta with honey and walnuts. They were both superb - the ricotta creamy and smooth and the ice cream fresh and full of nuts. I was also pleased to note the consistency was very similar to the ice cream I've been making recently.

Walking through the adjacent meadow afterwards by the river, we chatted with a local farmer, who had hitchhiked around Australia in his youth. It was a lovely end to a perfect weekend.

Avast and ahoy!

It's international talk like a pirate day, me mateys. That's all I've got. The rest is in landlubbers' English. Hee hee.

Yes, I've been very slack with posting. I've got an impressive list of excuses if anyone would care to see them, but mainly I've just been slack.

Exciting and fun things in the last month have included: a trip to the Rhine Valley for a wedding, eating strawberries from our garden, my birthday and birthday party. I think I've been excited about all of these things in roughly equal measure.

We had a wonderful 5 days wandering around the Rhine Valley with good friends, new and old, drinking Riesling and new wine and eating fried potatoes, sausages and sauerkraut. Vaughn's self-inflicted culinary misery continued while the rest of us were in raptures. Alice and Michael's wedding, the reason for our trip, was absolutely beautiful - set in a ruined castle with ivy on the walls and vineyards all around, it was just stunning. As was the bride, who looked like a 1940s film star and was just as cool and collected. I'm sure enough of you remember me turning into Bridezilla for a few days before our wedding (days, I tell you - no arguments!). Well, Alice couldn't have been more different. Not only did she have around a dozen people drifting in and out of her room while she was getting ready, which I consider incredibly noble in itself, she and Michael also encouraged everyone at the wedding to stay around for the next few days - with Michael's parents', who are angelic to say the least - before they headed off on their honeymoon. And stay we did. We drove through little towns which looked just like those in train models, took a cruise on the Rhine and went to the Bakfischfest in a neighbouring town. We also spent countless hours soaking up and ambiance of Marianna and Manfred's home, which we've decided is the perfect grandparents' house and Alice and Michael should get onto populating it with grandchildren.

Back in England, we came home to our first ripe strawberries, which we ate straight from the garden while they were still warm from the sun. They were just delicious. I think we've now finished the first crop and I'm hoping the warm weather comes back so we get a second crop. Also because if the only memory of Summer I've got to get me through Winter is two short weeks of sunshine and 20+ temperatures, I'm gonna cry.

We also had a lovely birthday last weekend, which filled our tiny apartment just about to capacity and diminished our wine supplies, including, I was slightly mortified to notice the next day, my cooking wine - an all in collection of any left over white wine from the last few months. It must have been absolutely awful. Mortification or no, I still chuckle to think about it. I wonder who it was?

I love entertaining and enjoy the preparation at least as much as the party itself. Having slightly under catered last time, foolishly giving up control of these things and suggesting people bring a plate, I cooked enough food this time to fill everyone for the rest of the weekend. I also tried out a new ice cream on our unsuspecting guests - lavender and honey - which seemed to meet with approval and I think will now be a regular on our table. And the food extravaganza continues this weekend with a trip to Hastings' seafood and wine festival, and a belated birthday lunch at the Petersham Nurseries, which I've wanted to go to for ages.

At some stage I will endeavour to put up some photos from my York, West England and Germany trips. But probably not this week when we have 3 house guests. In the meantime if you're curious, Vaughn has posted several on Facebook.

Recent favourites

For those of you who like cooking as much as I do, a couple of our recent favourites.

Paska

Serves 6-8

You'll need a pudding basin and a clean cloth (muslin if you have it, chux if you don't).

1/2 cup chopped crystallised ginger
1/4 cup mixed peel
1/2 cup currants
1/4 cup chopped dried figs
1/4 cup chopped dried pear or apricot
2 tablespoons Amaretto
100 grams butter
1/2 cup sugar
2 egg yolks
1/2 cup toasted slivered almonds
zest of 1 lemon
zest of 1 orange
2 tablespoons lemon juice
750 grams fresh ricotta
1/2 cup sour cream

Line pudding bowl with a damp cloth.

Mix dried fruit with Amaretto and infuse for a couple of hours.

Cream butter and sugar until light, then mix in egg yolks one at a time. Add zest and ricotta and mix well. Transfer to a bowl (assuming you've been using a food processor until now) and stir in soaked fruit, lemon juice and toasted almonds. Fold in sour cream. Transfer to the lined pudding bowl and cover the mixture with the extra cloth. Refrigerate overnight or for at least 8 hours.

Turn out to serve with dried fruit, especially ginger, and Amaretto.

Chocolate cake

5 tablespoons caster sugar
275 grams plain dark chocolate, chopped
175 grams unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
2 teaspoons vanilla essence
5 eggs, separated
40 grams plain flour, sifted
pinch salt
icing sugar for dusting
course white sugar and butter for lining the tin

Preheat oven to 160 C. Butter a 24 cm cake tin and sprinkle with sugar.

Melt butter, chocolate and 2 tablespoons of sugar in a large saucepan over low heat. Remove from the heat and stir in vanilla essence. Leave to cool slightly then whisk in egg yolks, one at a time, followed by the flour.

Beat egg whites until soft peaks form, then add remaining sugar and beat until stiff and glossy. Whisk around 1/3 of the whites into the chocolate mixture, then fold in the rest.

Transfer mixture to the tin, tapping gently to remove air bubbles. Bake for around 40 minutes, or until the centre is slightly springy. Transfer to a cooling rack and sprinkle with icing sugar once the cake is cool.

The cake is essentially chocolate flavoured butter, so it will keep for a while, but I've never known it to last the day. It's lovely with berries.

I'm dreaming of...

cupcakes and ice cream and creme brulee. Really, anything which involves the vanilla pods which just arrived (oh the joys of online shopping). Gorgeous, glossy and oily bourbon vanilla pods from Madagascar. My office is heady with the scent. It's going to be an excellent weekend.

Cravings

Suddenly I have a craving for saffron pashmak and no London supplier. Does anyone know of any Persian food stores in London?

Disappointing

Today in the staff restaurant there were hazlenut creme brulees. Now I'm totally incapable of passing up on a creme brulee, so I broke my new Only Salads For Lunch vow (I'd like to say, until now, two weeks and going strong). And I wish I hadn't. It's terrible. It's not cooked, it has so much ground hazlenut that it is really heavy and gluggy, and just to be pedantic, I don't think it has any cream in it. All round disappointing. But it has inspired me to try making Frangelico creme brulee. With chunks of caramelised hazlenuts on top. Yum.

Going, going...

Lunchtime today saw me pouring over the Time Out guide to eating and drinking in Paris and a very handy little phrase book some friends lent us. Would you believe there is a restaurant with an all-souffle menu? Mmmmm souffle.

Paris, here we come!

Restaurant recommendation

I suffered a small heart break last week when I was told that the restaurant I had my heart set on for our anniversary dinner in Paris didn't cater for vegetarians. (I had to admire their stance. If only I'd made it a couple of years ago!) But I'm pleased to say that I didn't really consider the possibility of going without Vaughn for more than a couple of seconds.

I'm also pleased to say that I think I've found a good alternative, even if it doesn't have the same views. Now we have just four more nights to cater for while we're in Paris, and I'm seeking restaurant recommendations.

This and that

It amazes me the extent to which music affects my emotions. On the way to work this morning, I was listening to Matisyahu and then Norah Jones. Despite the many reasons to be feeling a bit down at the moment, I've been walking along the corridors humming to myself, bursting into chorus in the stairwells if I think no one is there to hear. The music somehow reminds me how lucky I am - a wonderful husband, the best of family and friends, pretty good health (no signs of yellowness recently, and the other day I had six glasses of wine with no nasty repercussions - that's worthy of a toast, I think!), a good job with lots of potential, living in a great city, in a lovely unit. All in all, I'm feeling cheerful.

This weekend we have some good friends coming over to dinner at long last. This is the first weekend this year that both couples were free. I'd like to think my busy social life was the reason, but sadly not. On the menu: sweet potato and goats' cheese pies and my mum's wonderful lemon delicious pudding. I'm also planning to experiment with a chocolate chili cake.

Happy Friday, all!

Food, glorious food! Hot sausage and mustard

I've been doing some longer than usual hours at work this week, trying to finish of the first stage on the intranet project I've been working on, and making sure things are in a fit state to be handed over to the next person. Yes, I'm leaving. Job number five in 12 months starts on the 15th, and I'm really looking forward to it. I'll be working in the corporate department of the last firm I worked for (as a temp) as a Professional Support Officer. It's a big jump toward where I'd like to be, and I feel very privileged to be offered such a position, usually given to lawyers with several years experience.

But what I meant to write about was the various blogs I've been reading during some of these longer than usual hours. It mightn't come as a surprise to any of the Brenans out there, but I think I'm addicted to food blogs. Almost half of my RSS subscriptions are to food blogs, and each morning I arrive to several new mouth-watering recipes. My favourite blog at the moment is Milk and Cookies, written by a Sydneysider and filled with wonderful recipes and pictures. It was one of the many things that inspired me to buy a blender this week. I'm very excited about it, and have been having lovely daydreams about all the nice things I'm going to cook with it. Vaughn, inexplicably, wasn't so excited. Strange as it may seem, he wasn't really very interested in hearing about the specifications of different machines and why it is important to have a range of speeds and a dough hook. Bizarre. I'm sure he'll come round, though, when the cakes start appearing. And meringues. And crepes. And smoothies. And mousse. And...