peanut butter muffins

Slowly but steadily I'm cooking my way through 'In the Kitchen' and now up to Recipe Number 4. I'd probably get through this book much faster if I cooked more but unknown to most, my dad actually has reign over the kitchen. The one time I cooked something for dinner, dad refused to eat it and since then, the only times I've cooked for the family is when dad's been on trip. Mum and my brother have no issues with my cooking, just that dad is a bit old fashioned and prefers to eat things he cooks and thinks my cooking is a bit too new-age and modern for his liking. Ah well, the day he changes his mind, I'll probably find it rather strange so it's better off that it stays the way it is.

Anyway, the fourth recipe I cooked up on a Sunday night was 'Peanut Butter Muffins'. As you can probably gather, I'm working my way through the back section of the book. At some point, I'll get to the savouries but I really do enjoy my sweets. Anyway, it was just convenient that I had half a jar of Crunchy Peanut Butter at home as well as the rest of the ingredients I needed so these muffins were whipped up in a matter of minutes.

Creaming crunchy peanut butter, butter and sugar. The great thing about this recipe is that it smells so good from start to finish (that's if you like peanut butter).

Once all the ingredients get mixed in, it looks a bit lumpy and unappetising but trust me, it was smelling great and only just got better.

After emptying the batter into 12 muffin cases, I thought the muffins were looking a little lonely and ended up putting some chocolate buttons on half the tray. In hindsight, I should've added a few more - the combo of chocolate and peanut butter was fantastic!

The muffins swelled up in the oven and here they are baked after 15 minutes.

I have to give a thumbs up to C&Cs muffin recipes. Out of the two that I've tried so far, the muffins come out so moist and mouthwateringly delicious. 

For breakfast this morning, I nuked one in the oven for about 15 seconds and it was good to go. The texture of the muffin was still moist although eating it this morning, the peanut butter in it seemed to make the muffin stick to the roof of my mouth a bit more (but isn't that what peanut butter is meant to do?) Anyway, it's a great recipe but I do think it could do with a some choc chips tossed throughout. I know it probably makes for a fattier muffin but it just seemed that the muffin was lacking a bit of texture. It was rich in peanut butter flavour but just needed that extra bite.

Anyway, I've still got bits and pieces from the last few lots of baking - I'm thinking I should probably start halving some of the recipes so I don't have so much left over. Unfortunately, there's only so much I can eat before things need to get tossed out!

ajisen ramen @ liverpool st., world square

I'm almost a month late getting the 2009/2010 Entertainment Book but thanks to A, I got my hands on one this week. And being the eager beaver that I am (and considering I've already lost most of a month), I thought to myself, why not make a start to using it straightaway. It probably took me a good hour or so to pour through this year's selection of restaurants/cafes that are offering specials and discounts and come Thursday night, I was still pouring over it till the last minute, figuring out which place to go. Yes, I'm a bit of a dag and brought the book with me to work (it weighs a tonne) but better to have the entire book with me than not to have it all!

There's a good few additions to this year's Sydney Entertainment Book and the restaurant that I ended up picking for Thursday night was one of the newbies - Ajisen Ramen on Liverpool St., World Square. There's been an Ajisen Ramen in Haymarket for some time but for some reason or other, I never got round to going there and it seems like they've opened up another one quite recently at World Square? Anyway, World Square was probably halfway for J&I to get to from work so it was the most sensible choice (for those interested, the 25% discount is available at both branches).

After dissecting the menu J&I decide it was cheapest to get the 'Couples Set' for $50 (with the voucher, the meal ended up being $37.50). The set included 2 ramens, 2 entrees, 2 drinks and 2 desserts; the awesome thing is that they don't restrict you to certain items on the menu. Here's the Spicy soft shell crab. It's not a huge serving but with all the other food in the set, it's definitely more than enough.

Takoyaki. 

Whilst eating our entrees, I think J was silently praying that his ramen wouldn't come in a heart-shaped bowl (as pictured on the menu). I was laughing so hard when the waitress walked our way and the distinctive heart shaped bowls were in sight. J went visibly pink in the face and with me cackling like a crazy women, the girls at the next table couldn't quite help laughing along. I remember when one of my guy friends were telling me about how embarrassed he was also when he went with another male friend to an Ajisen Ramen overseas - and again, it was the distinctive heart-shaped bowl. Anyway, J gets the 'Volcano Ramen' and I have the 'Tontoro Ramen'. Here's also my Moca Jelly Frappe (hard to describe this one - it's almost like a sweet iced coffee with jelly pieces in it).

Melon Calpico Soda.

Our desserts - What resembles an Ice Kachang with Lychee jelly, Vanilla ice cream with green tea mochi.

Whilst the entrees were great, the ramen was very average. J's 'Volcano Ramen' had quite a big scooping of chilli oil in it and the soup in mine lacked flavour. For a total of $37.50 though, it was an extremely decent meal and both J&I were walking out of the restaurant with a full belly. 

There's plenty else on the menu for those that aren't keen on Ramen. The restaurant isn't all that big to cater for big groups so better for small groups up to 4. It's mostly indoor seating although there's two tables outside for those keen on braving the cold. There's one of those buzzers at the table so service is as you like it. Once you're ready, press the button and you'll have a waitress swing your way.

I'll probably come back to check out the rest of their menu but otherwise, need to get cracking with the rest of this year's Entertainment Book!

Assorted jam drops

At work, I've had D nagging at me for ages asking why I don't bring any of my baked goodies in and just last week, it all came to a head and D refused to make me my cup of tea (actually he did in the end but it wasn't without blackmail!) and well, I figured it was about time to bring something in. It's not that I don't want to but I always feel bad about bringing something to work that was baked/cooked the day before. It just never tastes as good and call me a perfectionist, if I'm baking/cooking food for others, I prefer to serve it straight out of the oven or when it's just hot. Serving something cooked the day before just doesn't seem right.

If you've been reading my posts recently, I've set myself the task of cooking my way through Allan Campion & Michele Curtis' 'In the Kitchen' cookbook. It was only fitting that I picked another recipe out of the book (making it recipe number three). The recipe was actually for raspberry jam drops but in my case, it became 'Assorted jam drops' where I used as many different kinds of jam that we had at home. Ironically, I had every possible jam at home but raspberry jam. 

Starting with the dough which needs about 15 minutes in the fridge to firm up.

Roll the dough into little balls and arrange on a baking tray lined with baking paper.

 The recipe said to use a teaspoon to make pockets in the dough balls. It was much easier using my thumb.

Fill the pockets with jam.

Bake in the oven for about 10 minutes.

On the side - this is the brand of jam I'm loving and I've got a jar of molasses to make the scones I saw on Steph's site.

Once the jam drops have finished baking, take them out of the oven and rest on a cooling rack. If you leave them on the tray, they'll cook from residual heat which is fine if you want super crunchy cookies.

And well, bizarrely enough, a recipe that was meant to make 30 jam drops produced about 60 jam drops for me. Anyway, here's the book that I'm talking about.

In the blurb to the recipe, C&C comment how the quality of the jam will affect how these jam drops turn out. So very true and my further advice, make sure you use your favourite jam. My favourite has to be strawberry and scaringly enough, I gobbled up about 4 of these babies when they came out of the oven. Blackberry jam drops are also good too! Orange marmalade is so-so which is probably why you don't see many of those recipes.

Well, I brought in a boxful to work (that's after testing them in the morning to make sure they still tasted ok). As I suspected, the jam drops had lost their crunch (despite being kept in an airtight container) but to be honest, actually tasted fine. D agreed with me; he very diligently gobbled up most of the box and returned an empty container to me at the end of the day. He did share with the others and told them how I had baked them but I think he was doing everything he could to keep them for himself. I'm glad to see that I have a fan of my baking!

nick's diner - burgers & pancakes @ mac. centre, north ryde

It seems like all I've been eating the past couple of weeks has been burgers and there are the blog posts to prove. Truth be told, I was never a big fan of the burger until recently when I was pointed in the direction of the 'The Counter' in Crows Nest - they serve up an awesome burger and they completely erase the image of burgers that are greasy and soaking in fat. These days burgers are being made with wagyu, the patties can be cooked to your liking, they're juicy, they're wholesome and you can customise your burger with your own ingredients.

So continuing my burger adventures, a couple of weeks ago, J's younger brother pointed out that 'Platinum' at Mac Centre had now become a diner. So from fine dining, it's now become 'Nick's Diner' serving up burgers and pancakes. You can tell that this place has been a hit, people are piling through the doors and there's a great vibe both inside and outside the diner. People eagerly file in for the booth seats - J&I missed out this time but oh well, better luck next time.

The House Burger. Loved the mushroom and roasted peppers! Chips weren't bad.

J's Double Whammy - 2x200g patties and topped with bacon and cheese!

Visual evidence that J's burger was about half the size of his head. He couldn't bite into it and ended up eating most of the burger with knife and fork.

All the patties here are made from wagyu. Unlike the Counter, you can't build your own burger here - there's about an A4 page of burgers which you can choose from. The most impressive burger had to be J's 'Double Whammy' which he barely managed to finish - half a kilo of a burger isn't exactly easy to eat! On top of burgers, there's also pastas and other 'diner' food and nibblies.

As much as I tried to make room for dessert, once I had my burger, it just wouldn't budge! I admired the two girls that sat next to us that managed to eat both a burger each followed by a pancake each afterwards. Anyway, determined to get my booth seat next time and handy to know that this could be a dessert place to go to late at night!

choc chip belgian waffles

Last week, J ever so casually mentioned that he saw a Belgian Waffle maker at Myer and thought I might be interested. Was I interested? You needed to have been around to listen to all the words that came out of my mouth. (Why hadn't you told me earlier? When were you going to tell me? Did the the belgian waffler maker have deep grooves? Could you turn it? Does it make thick waffles?) I think J was glad that he took a photo of it on his phone and could whip it out before I asked any more questions.

So first thing Monday, J headed into Myer and grabbed one of the two Belgian waffle makers that were left - it came with a 10% discount, making it $100 and I am absolutely loving it! I made a batch on the Tuesday that J brought it over and on Saturday, it made a trip over to A's place to feel 11.  It's so easy to use and makes waffles that are ever so tasty!

Here's what I'm talking about.

I asked J to help me out with whipping the egg whites. I asked him to get it to firm peaks and he shows me this - he reckons they look like boobies! Argh...

I decided to make the choc chip waffles that were in the recipe booklet that came with the machine. The batter was made with ingredients most bakers would have at home - self raising flour, eggs, vanilla extract, caster sugar, milk, butter, cocoa and choc chips. 

Total cooking time for one batch of 4 waffles is about 4-4.5 minutes. Basically, pour the batter in, flip it over so both sides are coated with batter, leave on one side for 2 minutes (the machine is programmed so that after 2 minutes, the green light flashes on), flip back over to the other side and cook for another 2-2.5 minutes. There are settings on the machine for a softer or a crisper waffle which gives you a lot more control than most other waffle makers. It took me a couple of tries to work out why the waffles were sticking to the top panel but I found that if you've cooked it enough, the waffles should fall back down quite easily. So if it's sticking to the top, just let it cook for a bit more!

The finished product!

The ones I made on Saturday actually look a bit better as I managed to get a hold of dark chocolate chips. The ones above had chocolate M&Ms in the them which was the only cooking chocolate I had at home and as soon as I mixed them into the batter, the colour of the M&Ms started running. So if you're making waffles, I don't recommend using Chocolate M&Ms.

Anyway, on Saturday, we had the waffles with icecream (just from the tub) and chocolate sauce (again from the recipe book that comes with the machine). Max Brenner and Lindt Cafe be warned, I can cook up a decent waffle at home too! From what I can gather, the choc chip waffles were a hit and it even got three of the boys to get into the kitchen and clean up. That sure did put a smile to my face!

happy birthday mum!

Last weekend, I had family over to celebrate mum's birthday. My aunt took charge and organised for each family to supply a component of the night's meal. As is the tradition in my family, everyone ends up buying enough food to feed everyone else. So a bbq that was meant to be for 15 ended up being a bbq for about 60. It was all good fun though and everyone left home with enough food for the next couple of dinners.

To start the night off, my aunt brought over these Korean puffs that she made. It's a puff/bread crossover and tastes like the fried glutinous rice balls you have at yum cha except without the filling. Apparently you buy it as a batter from the Korean stores and it doesn't take long to cook. I chomped away on quite a few of these whilst waiting for the bbq to start up.

These look like pebbles but they're actually chocolate coated apricots. I wasn't a big fan - they were sweet and unfortunately, I couldn't quite get over the fact that I was eating what looked like a rock.

The highlight of the night had to be this wagyu. Mum bought it for about $40/kg (not your highest grade wagyu) but a bite of this, I don't think I can actually go back to eating any other beef. The texture was so soft and so juicy that it just melts in your mouth. If you can, try have this medium rare/rare - it's the best! Anyway, these were cooked on the big bbq - had two bbqs running on the night.

We're all growing up! It's now our job to start up the BBQ.

Here's a snapshot of half the food.

The other half.

Behind the wagyu, this was my second favourite - tandoori chicken wings! Anyway, did my best to squeeze as many chicken wings onto this as possible. If you've never done bbqs HK style with the forks, chicken is one of the longest items to cook.

Chicken wings - nearly done. We had a good fire that night and it was actually nice to sit around the fire and keep warm.

I find I can't actually eat all that much these days. I don't think I even got to half the food that was on the table! Despite my initial reservations about sitting outside in the cold, a bbq actually ended being a quite nice idea. It was nice and toasty to sit around the fire and at the end of the meal, to toast marshmallows! The best marshmallows for toasting are the No Frills ones from Franklins - they're the biggest (bigger than the non-branded ones from Woolies) and they're actually not as sweet as your branded marshmallows. Haha...I do love toasted marshmallows.

Anyway, Happy Birthday Mum! Thanks for being the great mum that you are!

SWEETNESS again!

When I said I'd be back, I wasn't lying. Sweetness - The Patisserie is one of my new loves and when it came to the weekend and mum said that the rest of the family were coming over, I took it upon myself to supply that night's desserts. More excitingly, my last post had attracted the attention of the lovely Chef Gena (owner of Sweetness) who left me a comment and I was keen to head into the shop and say hello.

So again on a Saturday, I headed over to Epping, found the exact same spot outside the shop to park and met Chef Gena from Sweetness. Fortunately, I had J with me again so I wasn't as nervous walking into the shop and asking for the Chef. The lady who I spoke to first did look surprised when I asked for the chef but not a second had passed, and Chef Gena hears her name and comes over with a bright smile. I can't stress how lovely she is; she's been trying to help me and Ja meet up (which hopefully will happen sometime) and talking to her, she was grateful for the feedback that I'd given her and before you know it, the next minute J&I were both being offered slices of the Chai Loaf that was on sale that day.

We talked about her shop and her cakes, I found out a bit more about Ja, she explained to the two other girls how Ja and I knew each other (which can be a bit of a mouthful) and with her recommendation, I left the store with the following bag of goodies:

This is the Chai Loaf that Ja was recommending. It was moist and full of flavour and even if you're not that big a fan of chai, you'll love it if you try it! There was only a small slice left over on the next day and it tasted as if it had come straight out of the oven - it remained moist and admittedly, I was a little sad to see the last of it go into my mouth. 

I started grabbing at bits and pieces in the shop until Chef Gena pointed me to the sample pack ($16.50). Here you have nougat, toffee, caramel and assorted marshmallows. How pretty everything is!

From the selection on the counter, I got myself another Chocolate Brownie, the Rocky Road (which is very very good! Chef Gena showed us the 2.2kg rocky road block that she'd made as a special order for someone's birthday - J's mouth was watering!), lemon & coconut slice and a ginger & almond slice (which my uncles/aunts though tasted like the filling in the thousand year old egg pastries which I thought was quite bizarre).

To top the day off, Chef Gena sent me home with a free pack of biscuits. She was appreciative of the feedback I gave in my last post and hoped that I would enjoy this new batch. And well, I can definitely say that this batch tasted lovely (they were some same, some different biscuits to the ones I bought last time) and omg, the florentine biscuits taste so good!

All night, I kept telling all my uncles and aunts about Gena and I think people were starting to get sick of me. At some point during the night, mum starts telling me 'You're so silly. You're so happy over a pack of biscuits'. Well, I was and I'm not too shy to admit it!

Thanks Chef Gena!

pablo & rusty's @ oxford st., epping

I've discovered a few great places in Epping recently and over the weekend, I found another place to add to my list. Pablo & Rusty's is just across the road from Epping Station and can be recognised by the bold black & white outer. I've driven past a couple of times, curious about what they had and finally on the weekend (for the purposes of going to Sweetness), J&I decided to pop in to check it out.

Between J&I, I tend to be the one that's keen on trying new places. I think it's a girl thing...every guy I know seems to be reluctant to try any place new and prefer to stick to places they've been to or have at least been recommended. As I zoomed in on Pablo & Rusty's, J was slowly walking behind through the door, continuing to ask me 'Are you sure you want to eat here?' Even as I was about to order, I was still hearing the mumbles of 'We can eat elsewhere if you want'. What can I say...

People were in and out getting their coffees so it was only fitting to order one myself. My usual flat white with a Chicken, cheese, sundried tomato & rocket toasted turkish sandwich. The bread was lightly toasted just as I like it! Coffee was good too!

J goes for a burger and a chocolate milkshake. I still remember the time we went The Meat & Wine Co. for a nice dinner and I had this one order a chocolate milkshake! Anyway, J highly recommends the chocolate milkshake here, just the right thickness and chocolateyness!

I enjoyed my sandwich and J equally enjoyed his burger. As you can probably see, the serving sizes aren't huge but will just get you full. Price wise, we paid about $10 each which I thought was quite reasonable. As for the rest of the menu, there's more sandwiches, breakfasts and your usual cafe items - nothing by way of special but a solid selection done well (which I think is the most important thing). 

The great thing about this place is the abundance of magazines! Shame all the large tables were taken and we were stuck at a two seater that couldn't fit a whole lot once our food got to the table. I could've easily spent the rest of the day there reading away!

homer's cafe @ rowe st., eastwood

More than often now, I find myself at Homer's Cafe catching up with friends late at night, drinking coffee and most of the time, having dessert. Homer's didn't use to open so late but they've changed hands for about a year now and the new owners have extended their hours to cater for a night crowd. They seem to be doing well cause everytime I find myself there, all the tables are filled up and people are piling through the door. Fortunately, there always seem to be a table when I get there but be warned that the tables do fill up fast!

On this particular Friday night, J&I caught up with P&E for a 'wind into the weekend' drink + dessert. It would've been close to 10 at night and the cafe was brimming with people. We managed to grab one of the booths inside the cafe which was great - it was nice and toasty compared to sitting outside. Fact - very rarely do I enjoy sitting outside at cafes. I could spend hours giving reasons why but will probably bore you so I'll just leave it at that. Anyway, it's cold now, more reason to grab a seat indoors!

Something different tonight - a Chai Latte. 

Here's the Nutella Pancakes. The ice cream is inching itself off the plate! Not the best presentation but pancakes here are tasty. They're probably not as thick and fluffy as the ones you get at Pancakes on the Rocks but actually work out better cause it's not so heavy on the stomach and you don't end up feeling quite so guilty.

Took us a couple of shots to get us all in!

As you can probably see in the last pic, decor here leans to dated but it does have it's charm. I love cafe booth seats!! There's probably just as many seats/tables inside as there is outside. Outside seats look onto Rowe Street and Eastwood's water fountain - which when it's working, always seems to be filled up with bath bubbles (another reason for me liking to sit inside). When it rains, the tables get pulled in and stretch to the shopfronts beside the cafe so don't be surprised if you see a random table outside Eastwood's ANZ bank!

The service I've gotten here has been adhoc. Simple fact that some waiters/waitresses are better than others. Price wise it's reasonable, it was about $9 that night for a drink each and half a plate of pancakes each. Somehow or other, I don't get around to trying their other food during the day but they do have quite a menu on offer.

happy birthday chocolate suze!

Friday night; a hoarde of foodbloggers descended upon Wagaya to celebrate Suze's b'day. For those that don't know her, Suze is the author of chocolatesuze.com and also owner of 'The Biscuit Tree'. She has an absolutely infectious personality and the first time I ever met her, I was chugging down chunks of cake icing with her at the Lindt Cafe. We've been friends since then.

For me, Suze has been a huge inspiration to my blog and my previous musings on xanga. If you get a sec, check out her blog where she documents all things food - from her gummy jewellery, her gingerbread men, to the more recent blue chicken risotto - she's one helluva food fanatic!

So 30 foodbloggers, one private room...we somehow managed to squeeze ourselves in. I think Suze said something about the room fitting 20 so you can imagine what it was like. Oh well, all the better for getting to know each other a bit better and beat the winter chill!

I'm not sure who was looking after the food but whoever you were, thumbs up, you did a good job! There's a handful more photos but the following ones were probably my favourite. Here's the sushi roulette - so pretty yet one piece unassumingly holds a chunk of wasabi in it!

Daikon Chips - addictive like chips always are.

Deep fried salmon skin! Probably not all that healthy but oh well!

Just as I was biting my way through this one, Reemski (who was sitting to my left) asks the question of what the chewy thing in it was. The answer came from my right hand side; Leona tells us that it's actually mochi. It sounds bizarre but actually tastes quite nice.

Belle & I finally manage to get Suze over to our end of the table for a photo.

The theme of the night was for everyone to bring a mask. Without Suze needing to ask, each guest also came with a camera and these were whipped out even before the food got to the table. This is probably one of my favourite photos which capture the night.

If you were wondering, all the cameras in the above pic were aimed at these three.

We were seated around one big rectangular table. Unfortunately I didn't get to speak to everyone that was there but I did get to speak to these two quite a bit - thanks for a great time girls!

The b'day girl with her cake!

Thanks for the invite Suze. I had a great time and hope you did too! Great to also meet everyone else, if I haven't been following your blog, I probably will find my way to it within the next week! Great to finally put a face to a name!

vanilla brasserie @ siam paragon, bangkok

Continuing Week 1 of my Thailand trip, J&I found Vanilla Brasserie in Siam Paragon. I previously posted about Cafe Lenotre which we went to on our first night. I might've forgot to mention that I was tossing between Lenotre and the cafe just across from them which was Vanilla Brasserie (literally 5m away).  Anyway, you probably get the gist of it by now that I ate an average of 4 meals a day on my 3 week trip - that equates to over 80 posts that I'm behind on! Well, Vanilla Brasserie is definitely amongst my Top 5 places to eat in Bangkok so if I don't get round to the rest, at least I've put my word in for this place.

Here's the entrance to Siam Paragon; a shopping complex where I managed to grab a few bites and a bit of shopping. If you read about Siam Paragon, it's mostly your high-end shops, they house an international food court and generally a place where you'll spend a bit more money than everywhere else in the rest of Thailand. Relative to Sydney though, I would still consider it cheap!

The inside of Vanilla Brasserie. To the left is the counter where there is an amazing display of cakes and where you put in your order. At the entrance (to the right of this photo), there's a section selling 'Vanilla Brasserie' branded goods. I ended up buying a cup that had Vanilla branding on it - and yes, I lugged that around for the next 3 weeks and managed to get it back to Sydney in one piece. Note to all, I do have a habit of buying the strangest, most impractical things when I go on holiday!

Berry Crumble Cheesecake - a mighty fine combination. If you were to ask me what my favourite cake would be, it would be cheesecake and this place certainly does it well. It's nothing fancy but hits the spot.

Blackforest Cake and my tea that came in a glass which I thought was rather strange. To the side is a shot glass of sugar syrup which I didn't end up touching.

The start of the madness - I lose count as to how many times J did this in a photo!

Whilst we came here for dessert, Vanilla Brasserie actually serves up lunch and dinner. For a good part of the time I was in there, I ogled at the waiters and waitresses that were bringing out meals to the tables around us. The food was my kind of food - fresh, simply plated, decent portions and full of colour. Vanilla Brasserie also offer cooking classes - there's a list of recipes you can choose to learn. From memory, it was quite expensive compared to the other cooking classes that I was looking at so ended up giving this place a miss.

Loved the decor, great atmosphere and the staff were super friendly. It was a great place to wind down after an extremely long day and I hope for those that visit in future, you'll have a lovely experience too!

T42 @ siam centre, bangkok

It's been almost 2 months since I came back from my holiday in Thailand and embarrassingly enough, I'm still somewhere at the start of my trip with my posts! J keeps kindly reminding me and with every intention of making a start to posting the rest of the meals, it's actually quite difficult to remember all the names of the places I ate almost two months ago. Saying that though, strangely enough, I'm not someone to forget what I ate and I do remember a good meal when I've had one. Somehow the taste of a meal always comes back to me and it seems to be a trait that I've caught on from my mum!

So a combination of my googling ability and the delightful foodbloggers out there, I finally found the name of the place I was looking for! So thanks to this website, I can introduce you to a quaint little cafe I ate at in my week in Bangkok. The name of it is T42 short for Tea for Two, one of about 20 restaurants/cafes in Siam Centre in Bangkok.

J&I came here for dinner after our day at the Tiger Temple. We'd seen this place a couple of times (there are banners advertising the place near the lifts, we'd also walked past on our previous night) and I knew from the start that we were going to eat here at some point (it was just one of those places!) Here's the Chicken with glass noodle (could've eaten a couple more bowls of these - it was so tasty!) and spring rolls (also highly recommended).

By the second day I was in Thailand, I was drinking Iced Coffees wherever I went. Here's one at dinner time - I love how strong the coffees are!

Green chicken curry.

A slightly different way of serving up rice!

If I were ever to own a cafe, this place is exactly how I would have it. Click on the link above to see more photos and you'll know what I mean. The decor of the place is simple & clean, the food tasty and at the end of the day, the meal is affordable. It was one of those places you could sit at with your laptop or with a magazine. At the front entrance were freshly baked cakes and pastries (unfortunately my week in Bangkok wasn't long enough for me to come back and try but I most certainly will do next time I'm in Thailand) and I could've easily sat and spent my day there without a care in the world (and most likely, I would've just sat there and ate my way out of the menu cause all the food was so attractive!)

If you're in Bangkok, this place is definitely worth a visit. 

chocolate peanut cookies

In amongst his studies this weekend, J made a point of telling me about the new M&M's ad - the one of Yellow singing 'Back for good'. I've since watched and re-watched it and am absolutely in love with M&Ms! Mind you, I also trawled through Youtube to look at the ads they've done in the past and really, whoever comes up with these ads is a genious - I'm sold! So one thing led to another - here's what I found on a shopping trip to Woolies:

Orange flavoured M&Ms! Orange is wearing an orange peel jacket! Haven't dug into these yet but will soon!

For those that read my last post (Ja, you guessed right!), I decided to make another recipe out of 'In the Kitchen'. It worked out quite well that whilst the muffins were in the oven, I whipped up this batch of cookies. And well, what a coincidence that I had a bag of baking M&Ms at home!

According to the recipe, this dough makes 30 cookies. I'm not sure if it's just me or if I'm doing something wrong but I ended making about 60 cookies. To get 30, the cookies would've had to be massive! It's not the first time though, everytime I make cookies, I somehow manage to create extra dough. 

This dough was great to use. I scooped up these balls with two metal spoons. In the above pics, the dough looks sticky but it slid off the metal spoons just fine.

Squash the cookies slightly with a fork. I'm loving the colour speckled throughout it already!

10 minutes in the oven for one batch (total cooking time of 20 minutes as I managed to get the 4 trays out of the dough). Once baked, take them off the trays (so that they don't cook further from the heat of the tray). Leave on a cooling rack for the cookies to cool and firm up. 

This was one of those recipes that smelt so good from start to finish. I'm not someone that usually eats cookie dough but whilst whipping this dough up, it certainly did cross my mind once or twice to see what it would taste like. Out of the oven, they smelt even better, the rich taste of peanut butter filled up the kitchen for the afternoon. I had about three of these before I told myself to stop.

Anyway, I have enough baked goodies from this weekend to fill me up for the week! And yay, I can start the recipe count now - this is officially Recipe #2.

raspberry & white chocolate muffins

A couple of posts back, I mentioned that there would be a little 'project' in the works and what better time to make a start on it when it's the long weekend! Just to bring everyone up to speed, my project will be to cook my way through Allan Campion & Michele Curtis' 'In the Kitchen'; a collection of 'more than 1000 recipes for every day'. It'll probably take me a little while to get through this book but I figured it would be a great way to put myself back in the kitchen, learn a few new recipes and well, I guess have a bit of fun!

Allan Campion & Michelle Curtis have previously published 'Everyday in the Kitchen' which was a Winner at the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards for Best Easy Recipes. I suppose that was what attracted me to them in the first place. I love simple recipes that I can cook everyday. I'm sure there are others out there like me who own a sizeable collection of cookbooks but really, there's only a handful that you'll use to cook out of on a daily basis. When I went through the ones I had, Campion & Curtis automatically jumped out at me as a good fit for this project.

1st recipe out of the book - Raspberry & white chocolate muffins.

True to its word, this batter gave me 10 muffins and cooked nicely with 20 minutes in the oven.

The taste test - the muffin tops were crunchy, the inside moist and the raspberry and white chocolate flavours were well balanced. I had mum agreeing with me - these muffins were neither sweet nor too bland, they were just perfectly right!

The recipe actually suggests a sprinkling of icing sugar to serve - personally I think it can do without but icing sugar does make everything look pretty! Well, maybe if I was giving them away... There's only 10 in this batch which probably won't last very long :P

Excited as I was to start this project (coupled with J having his exam meaning I was at home for the day), I decided to try a second recipe. Can you guess what else I made in the above pic?

I promise there'll be savoury recipes to follow. Just that I do have a personal preference/attraction to sweets and those recipes always seem to come first. 

donna hay's chocolate brownies

It's been awhile since I've done any baking and is usually the case, it meant rummaging around in the pantry and cupboards trying to see if there was everything I needed for the recipe that I'd decided on. In this case, I'd decided on the brownies in Donna Hay's 'Chocolate' book and the recipe was simple enough - combo of flour, a block of butter, dark chocolate, cocoa powder, a smidgen of baking powder, eggs, brown sugar. Pretty much all these ingredients are staples that I recommend any baker to have at home. 

I followed the recipe by the book and the brownies turned out to be a real treat. The brownie was moist and tasted great for the next couple of days. (15 seconds in the microwave and you get a brownie that tastes like it's just come out of the oven). 

What's a brownie without a sprinkling of icing sugar! I tend to enjoy my cakes with a cup of tea.

Donna Hay's 'Chocolate' is a great little book for those chocolate lovers out there. There's another recipe for chocolate brownies with raspberries which I want to try. I know her recipes aren't always as detailed as they should be but this book of chocolate recipes doesn't pretend to be anything fancy - it's got all your staple recipes in there and so far all the recipes I've tried have turned out pretty good (and I do have high standards for myself when I cook!)

 

Notice how I've cut the brownies into little squares. To be honest, I did get a little disconcerted seeing the amount of butter that went into this batch of brownies - a whole 250g into a tray that was probably about 18x18cm....hmmm....

chorizo & sun-dried tomato pasta

The colder weather has taken me back into the kitchen and I've been flipping through my recipe books bookmarking recipes to try and end up with some many bookmarks that I may as well have not done so to start with! It has given me some ideas though and I'm keen to do a little project and cook my way through a cookbook - and well, not just any cookbook but one of the ones I picked up at last week at Basement books (my latest love) - 'In the Kitchen' by Allan Campion and Michele Curtis. FYI: This book contains more than 1000 recipes and well, I don't really know what's gone in the thought process to decide on this one but somehow it appealed to me. Anyway, let's see if this project comes into fruition.

Upcoming projects aside, I did manage to get into the kitchen last Sunday and cook up a batch of pasta for lunch. The base of the recipe came from Good Food Magazine - it was meant to be a Sizzled Sausage pasta; base ingredients being pasta, sausages, sundried tomato and parsley. That morning I'd been reading NQN's blog where she had cooked a chorizo pasta and that's were I get the second half of my recipe. You see, failing to find sausages at the supermarket and there being no deli in sight, I decided to substitute the sausages with the chorizo. Thanks NQN!

Zafarelli pasta was on special at Franklins! 3 bags for $3. Here's one of the bags. Aside from chorizo, the sundried tomato and parsley was already in my fridge.

This recipe is so easy to cook, it's light on the palate and won't leave you feeling too full. Heat  2 tbsp of the oil from the sundried tomatoes, cook the sliced chorizo until browned on both sides, add the sliced sundried tomatoes, toss in the cooked pasta and chopped parsley (I've taken after Nigella and actually use scissors to cut the parsley in - it's ingenious!) Top with a generous dosing of cracked pepper.

I had these on reasonably small plates and ended up eating about two. J had another two and leftover was just enough for two takeaway boxes of which I had one for lunch on Monday. It still tasted great after reheating it in the microwave.

You'll find that I tend to cook a lot of pasta recipes. Number of reasons - I love eating pasta, it's hard to go wrong with a pasta recipe and thirdly, pasta is great for bringing to work and reheating. I suppose a fourth reason is that pasta is actually quite expensive when you buy it outside. Although occasionally, as a treat, I do like using fresh pasta at home which can get quite expensive (but trust me, tastes so much better!)

Anyway, that afternoon I actually got back into the kitchen and made brownies - post to follow. 

SWEETNESS - The Patisserie @ oxford st., epping

I've been following Ja's blog for awhile now. I've never actually met her in person although she's told me that she's seen me walking down the street near my work (but it happened to be a rainy night and my focus was probably on getting to the station so I didn't see her). Our story goes quite a fair way back and these days, I call her my twin stomach. There's been numerous times now where we've blogged about the same places or the same foods within the week of each other and these are not just your average places, even our bookings for Tetsuya happened within a week of each other. It's quite bizarre!

Anyway, she posted on her blog recently that she was working at SWEETNESS - The Patisserie in Epping and after a handful of messages on facebook, I said I'd visit her on the Saturday that she was working. Unfortunately, her shift got changed to the Sunday at the last minute so didn't actually get to meet the girl that I'm calling my twin stomach. Hopefully I'll get to meet you soon Ja!

You'll find parking just outside the shop. The shop isn't all that big. There's a display in the front window; to the left is a bookshelf housing packaged biscuits, toffees, jellies; in front of you is the counter with an assortment of fresh-baked pastries including muffins, tarts, rocky road, florentines, brownies; and finally to the right is the register, the shelf housing all the packaged marshmallows and a handful of books belonging to the chef (I noticed a few that were also on my bookshelf at home!) The majority of the shop is actually made up of the kitchen which is sparkling clean!

As tempting as it was to take one of everything, I only took home a small selection (all the more reason to head back there again soon). Here is the banana streusel muffin ($3.50), chocolate brownie ($2.50), pack of 12 mini biscuits ($7.50) and finally their famous mini marshmallows 150g ($8.00). Mum did express a gasp of shock when I told her how much the biscuits and marshmallows were. They are tasty though!

I actually had the muffin the next morning (microwaved it for about 20 seconds and then in the mini oven for another 5 minutes - the muffin was warm throughout and the streusal topping resumed it's slight crunchiness!)

I highly recommend both the muffin and the chocolate brownie. Both were great and after eating the brownie, I was inspired to bake my own! Post to follow. The marshmallows are so soft, I'm not sure if you can even get a marshmallow softer than these ones but these ended up a little too sweet for my liking. The biscuits, whilst pretty were very average and I wish I'd spent this money on a handful of florentines that were on the counter (another of my loves!)

Whilst at the register, I spotted a handful of loaves that were in the kitchen. Asked the girl that was serving me and she said they were $10. Spoke to Ja who has highly recommended these so I've got that on the agenda for my next trip!

nero italian restuarant/cafe/bar @ oxford st., epping

It was with a little convincing and foot-stamping that J agreed to head to Epping with me on Saturday. I know it's bad of me cause he's got an exam this weekend but my way of thinking is that regardless what you have on, you still need to eat! And the thing is, it wasn't going to take long to go out and eat and come back and really, I wasn't going to spend TOO long at Sweetness - The Patisserie (which was the main point of me wanting to go to Epping). Ok, maybe that is my bad...

As luck would have it, we found a spot just out side the Patisserie. I ducked in quickly, checked what time they closed (realised that they were open till 5 so we had heaps of time) and well, came back out and asked J the question of what he wanted to eat. I do try and compromise! He didn't really have a preference and all we ended up doing was look across the road and headed into 'Nero - Italian restaurant/cafe/bar'. From outside, it looks more like a cafe than restaurant and so you can imagine our surprise after we walked in and was shown a much larger area at the back and the fact that they had beers on tap!

Photo from where I was sitting. 

Our drinks. I can't remember exactly how much the beer was but J got rather excited that it was tap beer and that it hardly costed anything. I question how much he remembered the afternoon or his studies after that beer got to the table - he was happily chugging away.

Herb bread ($3.00). I'm pretty sure that this was made on bread baked in-house. Tasty!

There's a real mix of items on the menu - your standard cafe items, all day breakfast etc. but being a restaurant also, they have some more traditional Italian meals. There's a huge range of pasta dishes to choose from and the list of pastas is what caught our eye. J's preference is for tomato based sauces so he picked the 'Spaghetti Prawns Arrabbiata' (prawns pan cooked with garlic, chilli and tomato salsa, served with spaghetti in a paella dish). I'm usually a bit skeptical of prawns when I eat them outside but the chef did a good job with this one - there was a decent serving of prawns and they were cooked just right!

On the other hand, I'm a big fan of cream based sauces. I picked a more traditional pasta, the Spaghetti Carbonara (spaghetti with bacon, onion, pepper, egg, cheese and nutmeg in a cream and wine sauce). I happily dug through this dish and was just short of licking the bowl. Probably could've stopped 2/3 of the way through as later that afternoon, I started to feel a little uncomfortable from how full I was. Don't get me wrong - this was no fault of the lovely chef who came to the table to check that our meal was going ok, it was just me eating to quickly and too greedily!

Whilst prices aren't your cheapest, our pastas were $19.90 and $15.90 respectively (note that they do have daily specials which are much cheaper - there's a pasta meal deal including 1x garlic or herb bread, pasta of the day, 1 glass of white or red wine or soft drink) and whilst tempting, trust me, there's plenty of other items on the menu that will tempt you.

In particular, I have to commend the friendliness of staff, especially the chef who came to the table and checked that we were doing ok with our meal. He was honest and discouraged us from ordering too much to start off with and even when our meals came and were licked clean, he says to us 'That was bad wasn't it?' We could only laugh and assure him that the meal was fantastic, no complaints whatsoever! And that is the truth!