blueberry & coconut muffins

It's been awhile since my last 'In the Kitchen' post but trust me, I haven't given up on this book yet. Recipe #15 was a batch of blueberry & coconut muffins baked in a spare moment on a weekend. I just remember there being an urge to bake and within seconds, I was opening up kitchen drawers, pulling things out and no sooner was the batch of blueberry & coconut muffins in the oven baking, I was flipping through the book, and mixing up my next recipe.

Anyway, let's start off with the blueberry & coconut muffins. Whenever I bake now, it's an opportunity for J to practice his photography - look how focused I look in this pic! Haha!

Muffin batter doesn't take long to whip up. The trick is to keep the batter lumpy - don't overmix.

I've seen others neatly scoop out batter with an ice cream scoop but for me, 2 spoons seem to do the trick.

This batch took about 15 minutes to cook. Generally if your muffins are looking like this (golden brown and crunchy on top), they're ready.

I love muffins when they come out of the oven (they smell great and taste great too). This recipe used coconut cream so had quite a rich texture to it - having the one will probably keep you quite full.

So continuing my praises for 'In the Kitchen', this recipe was a real charm and definitely one that I'll use again. I found that with the coconut cream in the recipe, it was better for these muffins to be kept in the fridge and then reheated in the microwave; this way they just seemed to keep for a bit longer. Strangely enough, the recipe only makes 10 muffins but you could always double up the recipe if you need to. Anyway, I've got so many cookbooks fighting for my attention at the moment, will have to keep this post short and sweet!

jamie oliver's chorizo & tomato omelette

I'm back home and also back with internet! Still not in the best health (I blame going to Macau; the two times I've been, both times I've returned home sick) but well, it's good to be back! Catching up on my favourite blogs, I'm absolutely gutted that I missed Adriano's Macaron B'day. The boy seems to think I'm being silly ('What would you do with 48 macarons?' to which my response was 'Eat them!') On another note, Max Brenner have launched a cookbook and 'I love macarons'; a book which I've had my eye on for the last couple of months is now available for sale on Fishpond! Work is busy, not quite crazy yet and well, this blog of mine has been a little neglected in the usual pattern of things.

This was a recipe I tried out prior to going on holidays. It's from Jamie's 'Jamie Dinners'; one of my favourite cookbooks at the moment. Lots of easy, no-fuss recipes and this particular recipe for a chorizo and tomato omelette, Jamie claims you can knock up in 4 minutes and 58 seconds (it falls under the chapter of '5 minute wonders'). I didn't actually time myself but I wouldn't imagine this recipe taking any more than 5 minutes. It's deadset easy!

Ingredients: Chorizo (sliced thickly), ripe tomato (deseeded and sliced), parsley, eggs, fresh red chilli, sea salt and pepper, spring onion.

Cook the chorizo in the frying pan with a little extra virgin oil.

To the chorizo, add the tomato and parsley. In a small bowl, whisk the egg, chilli and season with salt and pepper. Pour into the pan with the chorizo mix. Using a fork, mix the eggs around in the pan a little and then throw in the spring onion.

Fry the eggs till set.

My omelette ended up looking like a pizza! Anyway, I had my omelette with some buttered toast.

Loved how colourful the omelette turned out and with me improvising with the ingredient proportions, this recipe ended up serving 3. The recipe in Jamie's book serves 1 (and to be honest I didn't think I'd add much more ingredients to his list) so I think the recipes might be a tad larger than your average 'serving size'.

There should be a few more posts of recipes from this book. I'm having a bit of a crush on Jamie at the moment!

shanghai palace @ chatswood

Ever so rarely, my close group of friends go out for Chinese. We seem to always put Chinese at the bottom of our list of places to eat at. The very reason being that most of us come from a Chinese background, eat Chinese at home on a daily basis or already have a Chinese restaurant that we go to with family. But once in a blue moon, one of the boys will suggest a Chinese dinner and well, it actually ends up being a lot of fun. And as much as we all dread ordering the same dishes that we order when we usually eat Chinese, we just go ahead and order them again. After all, we are meant to be eating Chinese.

This was a Friday night dinner with about 10 of us at Shanghai Palace in Chatswood (directly opposite to the Chatswood Chase carpark entrance). Nothing like Peking duck to start off the night!

Steamed fish. (Definitely one of the healthier things to eat at a Chinese restaurant)

My friend A insisted on ordering Prawn toast and we all laughed when we saw this plate come out. To be honest, I'm not sure why I laughed except that I thought it was funny at the time. FYI: There's 3 servings on this plate.

Beef and beans in black pepper sauce.

Deep fried tofu. There was meant to be a filling to this one (or so it said on the menu). In my piece, there was something that looked like prawn but for the most part, it was plain tofu.

Salt & Pepper white bait. When this dish came out, we suddenly all realised that we'd ordered a lot of fried food. I'm usually quite fond of this dish but had to agree, too much fried food for one night.

Shantong Chicken. This dish is one of my favourites and certainly done well here.

It's actually not a bad idea to eat Chinese with friends. You end up being able to taste a whole variety of foods, the chatter seems just that little more animated when you're sitting around a round table and well, it's economical. (well if you order seafood, expect to pay a little more). Shanghai Palace is actually known for its Singapore Crab as well as Crab Congee which I have yet to try. Definitely next time!

Notice any difference in the photos and how they're watermarked? J has decided to contribute the photography to this blog and so you'll be seeing more of him (or his photos anyway in posts moving forward). Hope you like them!

homer's cafe for lunch

Finally a bit of downtime to catch up on some posts. Annoying thing is that I'm trying to type on an EEE PC designed for someone with much smaller fingers and well, it keeps doing funny things on me. The text seems to move by itself or not appear at all, but then appear much later when I'm in the middle of another sentence. Ah well, I can't complain, I'm leaching off someone's internet at the moment and fingers crossed they don't find out!

So trawling through some of the photos from the last month or two, here were some pics taken at Homer's cafe in Eastwood. I've previously blogged about how they're open late for dessert but I probably didn't mention that they're also open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. J&I came here for lunch one weekend and I was quite surprised to find this on the menu:

Green tea latte. The first time I had a was probably in Japan and I'd come home eagerly seeking it out. I found a patisserie in Hunter Connection that had it and well, for awhile Starbucks and Gloria Jeans both had their Green Tea Frappuccinos (they've been sadly missed!) but other than that, no place close seemed to serve it up. Well now I know Homer's does and it's a pretty good one!

There's quite a selection of lunch items on offer. From sandwiches, toasts, to pastas, burgers and steaks. J got the lunch special Burger which I was a bit skeptical of (as I am with anything so named 'lunch special'. It's probably got to do with the fact that I've worked in the food industry and specials don't usually imply anything that spectacular). Anyway, I was proved wrong, J's burger ended up being juicier and tastier than the foccacia I ordered. Thumbs up to the chips here, they know how to cook a good chip!

I'm quite keen to try breakfast and dinner at Homer's. So far, lunch and late night dessert have not disappointed and really, I'm quite attracted to their booth seats inside. Most importantly, they do serve up a green tea latte which is my favourite!

azuma patisserie @ george st., regents place

It hasn't been more than 2 weeks but I've found myself at Azuma Patisserie twice already. For a place that serves none other than cake (plus it's not exactly on the way), I have to say I'm addicted. J's accompanied me both times and whilst he complained about the shop being too hot on the first visit, he's obliging and let's me choose my cake. Here's what we had on our first visit:

This was the one that caught my eye - Orange Chiboust. From what I could taste, it's a frangipane tart topped with creme patisserie, orange slices with a orange mousse/creme brulee sitting on top. The flavours are subtle in the true tradition of Japanese desserts.

Pear & Caramel Mousse Cake. There was a slightly bitter taste to this one which I couldn't work out if it was from the ripeness of the pears or if it was alcohol in the cake.

Mugi cha.

The cakes are no doubt baked fresh on the premises; as we sat in the shop, we watched biscuits and cakes come out of the oven, and the fridge cabinet being replenished with more cakes as they were made ready. A small queue formed out the door as we ate and yes, admittedly it was slightly warm sitting inside the shop (the ovens and stoves all in action) but outdoor seating is available which will be handy for the next time that I'm there.

So glad I found this place!

soba noodles & gyoza

I've been a bit of a hopeless blogger and there aren't even any excuses this time. Mum's back home, work's not that busy, I've just been pure lazy and let the blog posts dwindle. I'm not even all that sure where my time goes and for awhile, I stopped making my daily visits to my favourite blog sites. I guess you'd call that a blogging holiday. Did catch up on some reading though (for those after a feel good fiction read about bread, try Judi Hendrick's 'Bread Alone' and 'The Baker's Apprentice' - I got through those rather quickly), watched Julie/Julia (loved it!) and well, of course, continued eating and chomping away at food in front of me.

Here was one of my makeshift dinners whilst mum was away. Start with a pack of soba noodles (cook as per the instructions on the pack), top with soba sauce, seaweed and toasted sesame seeds.

For a more filling meal, have the noodles with gyoza. I love my gyoza with vinegar dipping sauce.

And to make it a little more fancy, serve with a soft boiled egg! Kudos to Char's blog - you gave me the inspiration.

All up it took me about 20 minutes to get a meal on the table which I thought was pretty good. It probably took me less time to eat it but it was a nice and simple meal which didn't cause too much of a mess. (As much as I was looking forward to trying some more recipes whilst mum was away, it turned out that there just wasn't any time. There was always things to do and the other half of the time, I just wanted to sleep).

Well, no excuses now. I'm back to blogging and hopefully some more adventurous recipes to follow.

banana muffins

As is the usual case when mum is away, the fruit and vegies at home seem to take on a rather poorly appearance. Unfortunately, a lot of it then gets thrown out (trust me, rotten fruit and vegies neither look or smell too good). I try to keep it for as long as possible, usually thinking that I can use it for something or other (that's the handy thing about baking - you'll need that squirt of lemon or citrus rind even when the orange itself is way past its eat by date). My dad isn't a baker and he has a habit of throwing things out as he sees them. Anyway, managed to salvage these two brown specked bananas before they made their way to the bin.

Two squishy brown specked bananas - when they're looking like this, they're great for baking (they give the baked product so much more flavour and smells delicious when it's in the oven).

A recent purchase: 'Baking One Step At A Time'. It's a gorgeous book, lovely photography and recipes are extremely easy to follow.

The recipe for banana muffins was great; it asked for exactly two bananas and two bananas I had! Recipe makes 6.

Mum always used to warn me saying that anything with banana was hard to bake because it wouldn't rise. Well this recipe rises perfectly.

As I thought it would be, the banana muffin was moist and full of flavour. It wasn't too sweet either and made for a lovely afternoon tea on a Sunday. Unfortunately, the boys in the house haven't taken to the muffins so I've been the only one eating them. I reckon if I stuck a few choc chips in it, it might get my brother's attention as he seems to gobble up anything with chocolate. Anyway, there's a recipe for macarons in the book which I'm keen to try. It's been awhile since my last battle with them so wish me luck!